AZUBIB

AZUBIB, Algerian rabbinical family prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries. JOSEPH BEN NEHORAI AZUBIB was in Alexandria in 1665. The following year he wrote to Moses Tardiola, an emissary from Jerusalem in Tripoli, informing him of the appearance of Shabbetai Ẓevi and giving him important information about nathan of Gaza. SAADIAH BEN NEHORAI (late 17th–early 18th centuries), younger brother of Joseph, was the head of the Algerian community during a period of exceptional economic hardship and stern decrees on the part of the local authorities, among them an order for the destruction of all the city's synagogues (1706). Only the intervention of "leading courtiers" brought about the repeal of this decree. Saadiah was author of Tokhaḥat Musar (Leghorn, 1871), a commentary on Proverbs, and of Limmudei Adonai, an unpublished commentary on Psalms (Mss. Ginsburg, no. 26, Moscow). His novellae on the Talmud are referred to by Judah Ayyash in Leḥem Yehudah (1745). Saadiah was among those who banned the books of Nehemiah Ḥayon , the follower of Shabbetai Ẓevi. A copy of the ban, with his name at the head of the Algerian signatories, is published in the Milḥamah la-Adonai of Moses Ḥagiz (Amsterdam, 1714, 51b). NEHORAI BEN SAADIAH (d. c. 1785), nephew of the brothers, compiled a short commentary on an anthology of piyyutim according to the Algerian rite (Leghorn, 1793), and Purim Tammuz shel Algir (1775), thanksgiving prayers to commemorate the departure of the Spanish Army from Algiers. JOSEPH BEN NEHORAI (1740?–1794), disciple of his father, and of Judah Ayyash. He was appointed assistant to his father in the rabbinate and their names appear together with those of other Algerian rabbis on commendations to the Matteh Yehudah (1783) of Judah Ayyash and the Zera Ya'akov (1784) of Jacob b. Na'im. Joseph succeeded his father in 1784. A most erudite scholar and an influential   speaker, he had many disciples. He published Yamim Aḥadim (Leghorn, 1794), sermons on Sabbaths and festivals, and his talmudic novellae are quoted by Abraham Bushʿara in Berit Avraham (1791). He died at Blida. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: I. Bloch, Inscriptions tumulaires (1881), 66–68, 83–85; Davidson, Oẓar, 4 (1933), 452; Scholem, Shabbetai Ẓevi, 1 (1957), 163, n. 1,230, n. 1,263; idem, in: Zion, 6 (1940/41), 85–87; 19 (1953/54), 16, n. 53; Hirschberg, Afikah, 2 (1965), 53, 187.