Ḥushiel b. Elḥanan

Description / Bio

Ḥushiʾel ben Elḥanan (d. between c. 1020 and 1031/32) was a rabbinic scholar who was born outside the Islamic world—by scholarly consensus in Bari, in southern Italy—and settled in Qayrawān and became a founding figure of rabbinic study there. Avraham ibn Dāwūd’s Sefer ha-Qabbala names him as one of four scholars captured at sea c. 960 by Ibn Rumāḥiṣ, the Umayyad admiral of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III, and later ransomed. The others were Moshe ben Ḥanokh, Shemarya ben Elḥanan, and an unnamed fourth. Historians have questioned this account because of an autograph Hebrew letter (PGPID 17077) from Ḥushiʾel to Shemarya, then head of the Rabbanite community in Fusṭāṭ, in which Ḥushiʾel describes leaving his homeland voluntarily and says nothing about captivity. The letter probably dates to c. 1000–1011, late enough that doesn't rule out his having been captured earlier. His origin in Bari is confirmed independently by a letter of c. 1030 from Ismāʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tāhartī, which mentions a relative of his from Bari. According to the letter to Shemarya b. Elḥanan, Ḥushiʾel came to Qayrawān to wait for his son, and the local community persuaded him to stay. The son is probably Ḥananʾel b. Ḥushiʾel. Hayye bar Sherira, gaʾon of the Pumbedita yeshiva in Baghdad, gave Ḥushiʾel the title resh be rabbanan and praised his learning in a letter. Shemuʾel ha-Nagid ibn Naghrīla wrote a poem in his honor. One of his responsa survives. His students included Nissim ben Yaʿaqov ibn Shāhīn, Natan ben Avraham, later av bet din of the Jerusalem yeshiva, and his son Ḥananʾel, who succeeded him as resh be rabbanan. Information from Michael G. Weschler, "Ḥushiel ben Elḥanan," in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World