יעקב אבן צור

Rav Yaakov ben Reuven ibn Tzur (27 Iyar 5433/1673–2 Tevet 5513/1753), known in English sources as Jacob ibn Zur or Jacob Abensur and by the acronym Yaavetz, was av beit din and mara d’atra of Fez and among the greatest chachamim of Morocco in the eighteenth century. Born in Meknes, he learned Torah as a child from his father, Rav Reuven, and showed an early gift for copying rare manuscripts: the Minchat Yehudah, the derashot of Rav Yehudah ben Attar, was printed from a copy he made at fifteen. He married Clara, daughter of the dayan Rav Yehudah Uziel. His home knew heavy sorrow: of sixteen sons born to him, fifteen were niftar in his lifetime, and only Rav Refael Oved survived him.

At twenty he was appointed sofer of the beit din of Fez, and from that experience came his Et Sofer, the forms of the various shtarot with the dinim attached to them. Eleven years later he was made a dayan beside Rav Yehudah ben Attar and Rav Shmuel HaTzarfati, learning in those years from Rav Yehudah ben Attar, Rav Vidal HaTzarfati and Rav Menachem Serero. On Rav Yehudah ben Attar’s passing he succeeded him as av beit din and rav of Fez, with Rav Shmuel ben Elbaz serving at his side, and was recognized as the leading posek among the rabbanim of Morocco; the she’eilot sent to him he gathered into his responsa, Mishpat U’Tzedakah B’Yaakov. As head of the kehillah he enacted many takkanot, among them a progressive levy under which the wealthy paid more and the poor less.

After some thirty-one years on the beit din of Fez he moved to the rabbanut of Meknes — a tradition attributes the move to a money dispute with the parnasim — and served there about eleven years beside Rav Moshe Berdugo and Rav Moshe Adhan. When famine struck Meknes he left with his fellow rabbanim for Tetouan, where the local av beit din, Rav Yaakov ibn Malka, received him with honor and gave him the right to sign first on every psak din; there he founded a beit knesset and stayed some years before returning in old age to Fez. His poetry spread through all Morocco, and the stanzas he added to “El Chai Yiftach Otzrot Shamayim,” said in Tikkun HaGeshem, were accepted by the whole Moroccan community.

In his last years he gave semichah to five talmidim — his son Rav Refael Oved ibn Tzur, Rav Shaul ibn Danan, Rav Eliyahu HaTzarfati, Rav Moshe ibn Zimra and Rav Matityah Serero — who came to be called the Beit Din shel Chamesh, the Court of Five. Beside his responsa and Et Sofer he left Leshon Limudim, his letters; Et LeChol Chefetz, his shirim, tefillot, kinot and piyutim; Vayikra Yaavetz, derushim; and glosses on the Etz Chaim in manuscript. He was niftar and buried in Fez, where his grave in the Jewish cemetery is visited by Jews traveling through Morocco.