אהרן בן יוסף הלוי

Aaron ben Joseph ha-Levi was a Sephardic Jew who was a Talmudist and critic; a direct descendant of Zerahiah Ha-Levi, and probably, like him, a native of Girona, Spain; flourished at the end of the thirteenth century; died before 1303. About the middle of the thirteenth century he studied under Naḥmanides, at Girona, where he also met, as a fellow pupil, Solomon ben Adret, who later came to be his opponent. Aaron especially mentions among his teachers his brother Phinehas, and his nephew Isaac, the son of his brother Benveniste. His life appears to have been spent in Spain. In 1285 he was rabbi in Saragossa, where he was so highly respected that Nissim ben Reuben, in 1350, did not dare to annul a decision given by Aaron to a community in that city, even though he considered it illegal. About 1291 Aaron lived for a short time in Toledo. The assertion of some modern historians that, when advanced in age, he emigrated to Provence, is based on a misunderstanding of Meiri, where the correct reading is instead of, and instead of.