BENVENISTE, ABRAHAM

BENVENISTE, ABRAHAM (1406–1454), "court rabbi" in Castile mentioned in crown documents dating from about 1430. The young king, John II, handed over the government of Castile to two noblemen, who appointed Benveniste, a native of Soria, to restore its shaky fiscal administration. Benveniste acted as tax farmer general of the realm and organized the levy of the taxes and customs duties with the assistance of subordinates, mainly Jews. He also supplied the army with money and grain. In 1432, at the request of the Jewish communities of the Castile, the king appointed Benveniste chief justice and tax superintendent of Castilian Jewry, with the title of Rab de la Corte. The same year he convened the representatives and scholars of the Castilian communities in Valladolid, and framed a number of ordinances designed to strengthen the status of Spanish Jewry, which had been undermined by the recent tragic events. These enactments were directed toward maintaining religious instruction, the fair administration of justice in Jewish courts, equitable tax apportionment, defense against informers, and curbs on extravagance in dress and entertainment. Benveniste was conservative in his approach to religious problems. He opposed the rationalist philosophical trends widespread among Jewish scholars, and strove for the rehabilitation of Jewish communal life through strict observance of the precepts of Judaism. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Graetz, Hist, 4 (1949), 228–9, 280, 341, 351; Baer, Urkunden, 1 pt. 2 (1936), 305–6, 309; Baer, Spain, index; Neuman, Spain, index; Finkelstein, Middle Ages, 103, 349. (Zvi Avneri) BENVENISTE, ABRAHAM BENVENISTE, ABRAHAM (18th century), rabbi and communal leader in Smyrna. Benveniste was a son-in-law of Ḥayyim Ventura and of Abraham Ibn Ezra, both outstanding scholars of Smyrna. His communal activity brought him into contact with the scholars of Italy, and his correspondence with Moses Ḥayyim Morpurgo of Ancona during the years 1746–50 is extant. Morpurgo asked him to supply a list of books recently published in Turkey and to keep him informed of any new publications, while Benveniste on his part sent Morpurgo a list of books which he asked him to acquire for him in Venice. It is possible therefore that Benveniste was in the book trade. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Benayahu, in: Aresheth, 1 (1958), 224–6, 231–9. BENVENISTE, EMILE BENVENISTE, EMILE (1902–1976), French scholar of language theory and comparative grammar. Holding a chair at the College de France from 1937 to his death, Benveniste was extremely influential on French theorists in various domains of linguistics and literary criticism, such as Gerard Genette for narrative discourse and Roland Barthes, Tzetan Todorov, and Michel Riffaterre in the field of poetry theory. Benveniste's linguistics perpetuates the heritage of his master, Antoine Meillet, and that of Ferdinand de Saussure, though his theory of communication notably diverges from Saussure's. Benveniste published profusely, but his most influential essays and theories are collected in the two volumes of his Problèmes de linguistique générale, in the first volume of which key dichotomies are proposed: "je/non-je" (I/non-I), "histoire/discours" (story/discourse). These concepts are central to modern narrative discourse as well as communications theory: they help define the larger dichotomy between objective and subjective utterance. Another crucial dichotomy is to be found in the chapter "Sémiologie de la langue" in the second volume: the dichotomy of "semiotic" (related to the sign) and "semantic" (related to discourse). (Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)