ר׳ משה אלשקר

ר׳ משה בן יצחק אלשקר (1466–1542), known as מהר״ם אלשקר, was a Spanish-born halakhist whose career connected the Sephardi communities of Iberia, North Africa, Greece, Egypt and the Land of Israel. Born in Zamora, he studied under ר׳ שמואל ולנסי and belonged to the same learned circle as ר׳ יעקב בן חביב. The expulsion of 1492 sent him across the Mediterranean; his voyage was threatened by shipwreck and piracy before he reached Tunis. There he spent about eighteen years and helped lead the community alongside ר׳ אברהם זכות. Spanish military pressure in North Africa forced another departure in 1510. After stages including Tripoli and Patras, where he founded a yeshiva, he moved to Egypt and by 1522 served as a dayan in Cairo, associated with the court of ר׳ דוד בן זמרא. His extensive responsa circulated across the Ottoman and Italian Jewish worlds and preserve valuable evidence about communal practice and legal geography. Around 1539 he moved to the Land of Israel, lived for a time in Safed and then Jerusalem, where he died. His writings combine practical halakhah, fidelity to the intellectual tradition of ר׳ משה בן מימון and a forceful rebuttal of the theological claims of ר׳ שם טוב אבן שם טוב.