מלכיאל אשכנזי

Malkiel Ashkenazi, a Sephardic chacham of the generation after the expulsion from Spain, was the founder and leader of the Jewish community of Chevron — in the words of the Chida, the renewer of the Jewish yishuv in the city. His years of birth and passing are not known, and the name “Ashkenazi” points to European roots. He came from Salonika to Eretz Yisrael and lived first in Tzfat, where Rav Yosef Sambari counts him among the city’s chachamim, and spent a short time in Yerushalayim. In 5300/1540 he purchased a walled compound in Chevron and founded within it the Avraham Avinu shul, which became a center for the study of Kabbalah; the Chida relates that through his work Chevron turned from a Karaite center into a Jewish one. A letter of his survives, calling on the generous of Europe to support the young community.

His word in halachah carried far beyond Chevron. The Shelah brings a minhag in his name concerning malkot on erev Rosh Hashanah; Rav Eliezer ben Archa cites his psak on the heating of a mikveh; he signed in approval on a ruling of Rav Moshe Galanti; and Rav David Conforti writes that teshuvot and piskei halachah of his remained in manuscript. He also brought a number of Ashkenazic minhagim with him, so that Chevron kept certain customs unlike the general Sephardic practice.

He owned a large library — the corrected copy of the Talmud Bavli of Rav Betzalel Ashkenazi was in his hands — and he is cited as the editor of six of the writings of Rav Chaim Vital. Generations later, Rav Eliyahu Mani of Chevron named a son Malkiel after him. Rav Malkiel was buried in the ancient Jewish cemetery of Chevron, and the society that runs the Avraham Avinu shul carries his name to this day.