DAVID BEN JOSHUA

DAVID BEN JOSHUA (d. 1647), head and emissary of the karaite community in Jerusalem. Originally from Egypt, David settled in Jerusalem in the early 17th century, where he helped to consolidate the Karaite community, later becoming its parnas. The anti-Jewish measures instituted by the harsh ruler Ibn Faruk in 1625–26 also affected the Karaite community. David was sent to Karaite congregations in Turkey and Crimea and succeeded in obtaining substantial assistance from them. At the end of that summer the situation of the community in Jerusalem deteriorated when new taxes were imposed. To pay them David was forced to borrow money and was imprisoned by his Arab creditors. When he was released, he resumed his missions to the Karaite communities in Crimea, Lithuania, and Poland, bearing a letter of recommendation also from the Rabbanites of Jerusalem. This stated that if speedy aid was not forthcoming there, the Arab creditors would seize the Karaite quarter and the entire community. David reached Luck (Lutsk), where he died in the fall of 1647. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mann, Texts, 2 (1935), index S.V. David b. Yeshu'a; Yaari, Sheluḥei, 172–4. (Avraham Yaari) DAVID BEN JOSHUA MAIMUNI DAVID BEN JOSHUA MAIMUNI (14th–15th centuries), nagid of Egyptian Jewry. David was the last of maimonides ' descendants to occupy the position of nagid. He was a bibliophile who acquired a large library, and he encouraged the literary activity of others. It was under R. David's inspiration that R. Joseph Bonfils wrote his supercommentary Ẓafenat Paʿne'aḥ ("Revealer of Secrets") to the commentary of R. abraham ibn ezra on the Torah. R. David wrote an essay in Arabic on the weights and measures of the Bible. For reasons so far unknown R. David was compelled to leave for Syria in the 1370s, writing a farewell letter to the Egyptian communities, which is still extant. He lived in aleppo , Syria, in 1375 and 1379, and also probably for some time in damascus . During his absence from Egypt, the position of nagid was occupied by R. Amram, who is mentioned in 1377 and 1380. At the beginning of the 15th century, R. David returned to Egypt and resumed office as nagid, as is learned from a document of 1409. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ashtor, Toledot, 1 (1944), 300–02; 2 (1951), 26–30; A.H. Freimann, in: Minḥah li-Yhudah … (Zlotnick) (1950), 175–8. (Eliyahu Ashtor)