ר׳ דוד בן שלמה אבן זמרא

ר׳ דוד בן שלמה אבן זמרא (1479–1573), universally known by the acronym רדב״ז, was a leading Sephardi halakhist, communal head and kabbalist. Born in Spain shortly before the 1492 expulsion, he reached Safed as a youth and studied in the developing Sephardi scholarly community. In early adulthood he travelled to Fez and then Egypt. Following the Ottoman conquest in 1517, he succeeded ר׳ יצחק שולאל as head of Egyptian Jewry and led Cairo’s rabbinical court and yeshiva for roughly four decades. Financial independence and wide communal standing enabled him to answer questions from across the Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds; more than three thousand responsa are attributed to him. Among his prominent students were ר׳ בצלאל אשכנזי and ר׳ יצחק לוריא. In 1553 he relinquished his Egyptian office and returned to the Land of Israel, residing first in Jerusalem and ultimately in Safed. His writings span responsa, commentary on ר׳ משה בן מימון’s משנה תורה, legal methodology and kabbalah. Important works were printed only decades or centuries after his death, so publication places are not mapped as travels. He died in Safed in 1573. The record deliberately distinguishes him from the twentieth-century Ridvaz, ר׳ יעקב דוד וילובסקי.