DANIEL BEN PERAḤYAH HA-KOHEN

DANIEL BEN PERAḤYAH HA-KOHEN (d. 1575), head of yeshivah and author. His family, which originated in Rome, claimed descent from josephus . From Rome his father moved to Salonika where, until his death in 1548, he was head of the yeshivah of the Italian community, being succeeded in that position by Daniel, who also served as a dayyan. In addition to his talmudic learning, Daniel studied philosophy, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. A fire that broke out at Salonika in 1545 destroyed all his books, as well as most of his writings, of which only his commentary on She'erit Yosef by Joseph b. Shem Tov Ḥai on intercalation has been published (Salonika, 1568). To this work he appended material by himself on a variety of subjects, and also a work on intercalation by abraham zacuto with his own commentary. With the rabbis of Salonika he was a signatory in 1573 to the ban against the physician Daud, the opponent of Don Joseph nasi . He was an intimate friend of moses almosnino . On his death he was eulogized by the poet Saadiah longo . He had no sons and was succeeded by his brother Samuel. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Molho, Essai d'une monographie sur la famille Perahia à Thessaloniki (1938), 14–20; Molho and Amarijlio, in: Sefunot, 2 (1958), 32–33, 35–36; I.S. Emmanuel, Maẓẓevot Saloniki, 1 (1963), 148–9. (Abraham David) DANIEL BEN SAADIAH HA-BAVLI DANIEL BEN SAADIAH HA-BAVLI (known as Daniel ibn al-Amshata; fl. c. 1200), Babylonian talmudist. Daniel was head of the "third yeshivah" in Baghdad when benjamin of Tudela was there c. 1170. In 1193 he was appointed "segan ha-yeshivah" ("vice president of the academy"), under zechariah b. berachel . Some time later, after the death of his teacher samuel b. ali ha-Levi (1193–94), he moved to Damascus. There he served as a preacher, his sermons making a profound impression. Judah Al-Ḥarizi , who heard him there in 1220, praised him (Taḥkemoni, 46). Like Samuel b. Ali ha-Levi, he waged a bitter campaign against Maimonides' philosophical views. Forty-seven of his criticisms of Mishneh Torah and 13 of Sefer ha-Mitzvot, which he sent to Maimonides' son Abraham from Damascus in 1213, were published, together with Abraham's answers, in Birkat Avraham (1859), and with the Arabic original in Ma'aseh Nissim (1867). Much of his criticism of Maimonides' Sefer ha-Mitzvot is included in Naḥmanides' criticism of the same book. Daniel also wrote a commentary on Ecclesiastes, in which he again violently criticized Maimonides' views, though not mentioning him by name. When Abraham was urged by several rabbis to excommunicate Daniel, he refused to do so, both because of Daniel's distinction and because of his own lack of objectivity in the matter. The Maimonists finally prevailed upon the exilarch david b. samuel of Mosul to place Daniel under the ban. Eventually Daniel recanted his views. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abraham b. Moses b. Maimon, Milḥamot ha-Shem, ed. by R. Margaliot (1953); Graetz-Rabbinowitz, 5 (1897), 40ff; Poznański, in REJ, 33 (1896), 308–11; idem, Babylonische Geonim im nachgaonaeischen Zeitalter (1914), 120–1; Mann, Texts, 1 (1931), 401–11; D.J. Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean Controversy (1965), index. (Abraham David)