Elijah Menahem ben Moses
ELIJAH MENAHEM BEN MOSES
ELIJAH MENAHEM BEN MOSES (c. 1220–1284), English rabbi, physician, and financier. Elijah Menahem was the son of R. *Moses of London. From 1253, when he is first mentioned in the records, he was one of the most active English financiers. Many nobles, and even members of the royal family, were among his clients. Recent research has disclosed that he was one of the greatest and most prominent of the pre-exilic rabbis of England. Apart from various responsa, he wrote a commentary on the Mishnah (at least on the order Zera'im) which was frequently utilized by Yom Tov Lipmann *Heller (in his Tosafot Yom Tov) and also a commentary on the Passover
Haggadah. Elijah also achieved some reputation as a physician, on one occasion being called upon to attend the count of Flanders. One of his brothers was Hagin (Ḥayyim) of Lincoln, archpresbyter of the Jews of England from 1257 to 1280; another was the scholar Berechiah of Lincoln.
bibliography:
M.Y.L. Sacks, Peirushei Rabbenu Eliyahu mi-Londres u-Fesakav (1956), 10–42 (introd.); idem, in: ks, 20 (1943/44), 229f.; Roth, in: jhset, 15 (1946), 29–62; Urbach, Tosafot, 401–4; idem, in: Essays… I. Brodie, 2 (1966), 1–12 (Heb.); Epstein, in: Madda'ei ha-Yahadut, 1 (1926), 51–71; Wilhelm, in: Tarbiz, 22 (1951), 45–52.
[Cecil Roth]