Farissol, Jacob ben Ḥayyim
FARISSOL, JACOB BEN ḤAYYIM
FARISSOL, JACOB BEN ḤAYYIM (Comprat [Comprado], Vidal Farissol ; b. 1405?), Provençal Hebrew poet and philosophical commentator. At the age of 17 Farissol wrote Beit Ya'akov (Ms.), a commentary to Judah Halevi's Kuzari, based on the lectures of his teacher Solomon b. Menahem Frat Maimon; this commentary is in many ways similar to those of his fellow students, Solomon b. Judah (Solomon Vivas) and Nethanel Caspi. His commentary, like those of his fellow students, is important for the understanding and establishing of the Hebrew text of the Kuzari. In the summer of 1453 Farissol was in Avignon and is apparently identical with the poet Jacob who, in a piyyut (Mi Kamokha) for Hoshana Rabba, tells of a thwarted Jewish persecution on Sept. 15, 1443. He also is the author of a liturgical poem (Tamid) for the eve of the Day of Atonement.
bibliography:
Zunz, Lit Poesie, 525; Literaturblatt des Orients, 10 (1849), 343; hb, 7 (1864), 27; 16 (1876), 127, no. 2; Steinschneider, Katalog … Berlin, 2 pt. 1 (1878), 110–5, no. 124, 141 (specimen of text); idem, Polemische und apologetische Literatur… (1877), 351; Gross, Gal Jud, 6–7; zhb, 13 (1909), 30.
[Jefim (Hayyim) Schirmann]