Eleazar ben Halfon Ha-Kohen

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ELEAZAR BEN HALFON HA-KOHEN

ELEAZAR BEN HALFON HA-KOHEN (12th–13th century), Hebrew poet. Eleazar lived apparently in an Oriental country. About 15 poems from his divan survived in the Cairo *Genizah, where his name usually appears as "Eleazar" or "Eleazar ha-Kohen," but in one, as "Eleazar ben Ḥalfon ha-Kohen." One of the poems is a panegyric to *Maimonides composed apparently during the latter's lifetime. Eleazar, who seems to have been among the best of the Oriental Hebrew paytanim, adopted the Sephardi style of piyyut in its fullest detail. Many of his piyyutim were attributed by copyists to thegreat poets of the Spanish era, and it is possible perhaps that some of the poems of his time, signed "Eleazar ha-Kohen," should be ascribed to him.

bibliography:

A. Scheiber, in: Sinai, 35 (1954), 183–6; idem, in: Sefer Ḥayyim Schirman (1970), 393–4; Ḥ. Schirmann, Shirim Ḥadashim min ha-Genizah (1965), 106–16.

[Abraham David]

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