MORDECAI B. ISAAC OF CARPENTRAS:

French Talmudist; flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Mordecai lived in Carpentras (department of Vaucluse) at the time of the religious struggles (1303-6), and corresponded with Abba Mari of Lunel, who speaks of him very highly. Zunz and Neubauer identify him with Mordecai b. Isaac Ezobi; this, however, can not be correct, because the latter lived between 1303 and 1306 in Carcassonne, and not in Carpentras. Gross identifies him with Mordecai b. Isaac Ḳimḥi, father of Isaac Ḳimḥi, called "Mestre Petit de Nyons." He is designated by Isaac de Lattes as "Gaon," and in "Ḳore ha-Dorot" he is styled "Ornament of Judaism." He is often quoted in the manuscript responsa collection of Solomon ben Adret's ("R. E. J." xii. 81-90) under the name "Mordecai b. Isaac."

Bibliography:
  • Zunz, Z. G. p. 478;
  • Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Français, Index;
  • Gross, Gallia Judaica, pp. 386, 607.
S. S. A. Pe.
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