DIMITROVSKY, CHAIM ZALMAN

DIMITROVSKY, CHAIM ZALMAN (1920– ), talmudist and historian. Born in Ereẓ Israel, Dimitrovsky was ordained in 1944. From 1951 he taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In his historical writings, which deal mainly with the Jewish communities of Palestine and Italy in the 16th century, Dimitrovsky made use of halakhic works and unpublished documents in order to supplement and correct the accounts of historians and chroniclers. His analysis of a responsum and glosses concerning the legality of the renewal of semikhah (ordination) by the rabbis of Safed enabled him to reconstruct the facts of that controversy. Especially noteworthy historical contributions are his articles on the dispute between Joseph Caro and Moses Trani (in Sefunot, 6 (1962), 71–123) and on "Yeshivat Rabbi Ya'akov Berab" (ibid., 7 (1963), 41–102). Dimitrovsky's writings in halakhah are devoted essentially to R. solomon b. abraham adret . He published Adret's novellae to the tractates Megillah and Rosh ha-Shanah, Ḥiddushei Solomon ben Adret … (1956 and 1961, respectively), and prepared an edition of his responsa. (Shamma Friedman) Dimitrovsky published (1980) Seridei Bavli consisting of 550 pages of a copy of the Babylonian Talmud printed in Spain between 1482 and 1497 based on an otherwise unknown version of the Talmud.