VENTURA:
Family of rabbis and scholars prominent in Italy and Greece in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
Eliezer ben Samuel Ventura:Italian scholar of the sixteenth century; born at Da Porta, province of Perugia; died in 1534 at Ferrara, where he had officiated as rabbi. One of his manuscripts has been preserved in the collection of Marco Mortara (see "Mosè," vi. 134).
Elijah ben Abraham Ventura:Scholar of the eighteenth century; probably flourished in the Levant. He was the author of a work in three parts, entitled: (1) "Kokeba di-Shebiṭ," novellæ on various Talmudic sayings; (2)"Ḳonṭres," novellæ on the works of Elijah Mizraḥi; and (3) "She'elot u-Teshubot," responsa. The entire work appeared at Salonica in 1799.
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 952;
- Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, p. 237.
Scholar of the seventeenth century; rabbi of Pesaro. He wrote a responsum which is published in the "Shelom ha-Bayit" of Menahem Cazes, and another which has been printed in Solomon Graziano's novellæ (ii. 123) on the Shulḥan 'Aruk.
Isaac ben Moses Ventura:Talmudist of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; rabbi at Ancona and Pesaro. One of his responsa is extant in Terni's "Sefat Emet" (p. 24), and another in Nethaneel Segre's "'Ezer Ya'aḳob" (No. 2).
Isaac Raphael Ventura:Rabbi of Pesaro in the seventeenth century. According to Mortara ("Indice," s.v.), he was a descendant of a family bearing the name ; and he is mentioned in Graziano's novellæ (ii. 141) on the Shulḥan 'Aruk.
Jehiel Ventura:Rabbi of Romagna in the sixteenth century. He was related to MaHaRaM of Padua, who mentions him in his collection of responsa (ii., §§ 62, 83) as one of the foremost halakists of his time.
- Nepi-Ghirondi, Toledot Gedole Yisrael, p. 219, No. 258.
Liturgical poet of the first half of the seventeenth century; probably a resident of Ancona. He was the author of liturgical and elegiac poems, which Ghirondi of Padua possessed in manuscript (Zunz, "Literaturgesch." p. 440).
Moses ben Joseph Ventura (called also Ventura of Tivoli and Ventura of Jerusalem):Rabbi of Silistria, Bulgaria, in the latter half of the sixteenth century. He was educated at Jerusalem, but later settled in Silistria. Ventura was the author of "Yemin Mosheh" (Mantua, 1624; 2d ed., Amsterdam, 1718; 3d ed., The Hague, 1777), a commentary on the Shulḥan 'Aruk, Yoreh De'ah; and Aaron Alfandari, in his commentary entitled "Yad Aharon," ascribes to him the "Haggahot we-Hassagot 'al Bet Yosef," a commentary, as yet unpublished, on the four parts of the "Bet Yosef."
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 2008;
- Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, p. 224;
- Fürst, Bibl. Jud. iii. 433.
Scholar and rabbi of Spalato during the eighteenth century; one of the most prominent pupils of David Pardo. He was the author of the "Nehar Shalom" (Amsterdam, 1775), novellæ and notes on the Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim.
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col, 2248;
- Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, ii. 90.