CORONEL, NAḤMAN NATHAN

CORONEL, NAḤMAN NATHAN (1810–1890), talmudic scholar, author, and bibliographer. Coronel was born in Amsterdam where he studied at the Etz Haim yeshivah. At the age of 20 he immigrated to Ereẓ Israel and settled first in Jerusalem and later in Safed, where he suffered from the looting of 1834, the earthquake of 1837, and the Druze revolt. He thereupon returned to Jerusalem, where he became active in communal affairs. He was one of the few to support the establishment of the Laemel School, the first modern school in Jerusalem, as well as of the Battei Maḥaseh founded in 1859 to enable Jews from abroad to spend their last years in Jerusalem. He served also as an emissary of Jerusalem in Europe. Coronel became interested in acquiring manuscripts and gained world-wide renown as a bibliographer. While in Vienna in 1872, he exchanged manuscripts with the emperor Francis Joseph, from whom he received a decoration. He sold many manuscripts to various libraries and published others, among them: Beit Natan, comprising variant readings of Berakhot (Vienna, 1854); Ḥamishah Kunteresim (ibid., 1864); Seder Rav Amram Ga'on (Warsaw, 1865; repr. 1956); Teshuvot ha-Ge'onim (Vienna, 1871); Piskei Ḥallah by Solomon b. Abraham *Adret (Jerusalem, 1876); and Alfasi Zuta, on Berakhot, by Menahem Azariah da *Fano (ibid., 1885). His own works comprise Zekher Natan, a compilation of religious laws for travelers (Vienna, 1872) and Ḥakor Davar on the law of ḥallah outside Ereẓ Israel (Vienna, 1871).

bibliography:

N. Sokolow, Sefer Zikkaron… (1889), 186ff.; Ha-Asif (1893), 139 (first pagination); Frumkin-Rivlin, 3 (1929), 271, no. 46; Back, in: Talpioth, 7 (1961), 484ff.; 8 (1962), 215ff., 626ff.

[Itzhak Alfassi]