IBN JAMIL, ISAAC NISSIM

IBN JAMIL, ISAAC NISSIM (17th century), rabbinical scholar of Ereẓ Israel. Born in safed , Ibn Jamil lived for a considerable time in jerusalem . He was one of the signatories in 1657 to the letter of appointment of the Jerusalem emissary, Baruch Gad, who had traveled to iraq and persia to search for the Benei Moshe and who claimed to have met there a member of the lost Ten Tribes. The rabbis of Jerusalem made a copy of the letter which they sent to Nathan Shapira, an emissary of Jerusalem. In 1664 he moved to Hebron, where he remained until his death. His grandson, Ḥayyim Abulafia , published his writings from a manuscript in his possession. Ibn Jamil was the author of Be'er la-Ḥai (Smyrna, 1729), homilies, appended to Yashresh Ya'akov by Ḥayyim Abulafia; and Ḥayyim va-Ḥesed (ibid., 1736), homilies published together with the Ḥanan Elohim of Ḥayyim Abulafia. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ḥ.J.D. Azulai, Ma'gal Tov ha-Shalem, ed. by A. Freimann (1921–34), 92; Frumkin-Rivlin, 2 (1928), 33 no. 13, 37 n.1; Rosanes, Togarmah, 4 (1935), 307; 5 (1938), 299; Yaari, in: Sinai, 6 (1940), 171 n. 15; idem, in: Aresheth, 1 (1958), 125 no. 17, 131 no. 39. (Simon Marcus)