Shemuʾel b. ʿEli ha-Levi (Gaʾon)

Description / Bio

Assumed office as Gaʾon in Baghdad before October/November 1164 and may have served until 1194. He was still alive in 1197, as there is a writ of appointment bearing his signature from that year. Copies and originals of his letters and responsa have survived in the Firkovich and the Ben Ezra Geniza collections. Petaḥya of Regensburg, who visited Baghdad during his gaonate, reports that he had a learned daughter who taught Bible from her home, through the window, to students who remained outside. Shemuʾel b. ʿEli entered into disputes with Maimonides, who called him “a poor old man, truthfully an ignoramus in every respect” (commentary on Mishna Bekhorot 4:4) whose authority lay solely in the titles he dispensed. Maimonides also disparaged his followers, saying that “each and every individual hangs expectantly on each word pronounced from the yeshiva in anticipation of being honored by a title” (Maimonides, Letters, ed. Baneth, 54–56). He was succeeded by his son-in-law Zekharya b. Berakhʾel (active from ca. 1194). (Information from Marina Rustow, "Ibn al-Dastūr, Samuel ben ʿAlī," Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World Online. Brill, 2010. https://doi-org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0010250.