GERSHOM BEN SOLOMON

GERSHOM BEN SOLOMON (13^th century), Provençal scholar of Béziers. No biographical details are known about him. He compiled a halakhic work, Shalman, giving the halakhic rulings of the Talmud according to the order of the halakhot of Isaac Alfasi, and approximating the order of Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah. In some sources Gershom's work is erroneously called Shulḥan and is not to be confused with the Sefer Shulḥan in the Paris National Library (Zotenberg, no. 415; see Benjacob, 583 no. 687, and Lubetzky, bibl.). Gershom's book was completed by his son samuel ben gershom who also participated in the composition of the earlier portion. Lubetzky corrected the name Meshullam b. Gershom to Samuel b. Gershom in Bet ha-Beḥirah (Introduction to Avot). The book and its author are referred to in Mikhtam by David b. Levi of Narbonne (ed. by A. Sofer (1959), 223), the commentary of Manoah b. Jacob of Narbonne on Maimonides' Yad (Constantinople, 1718, 11b, et al.), Kol Bo and Orḥot Ḥayyim (see index), Avudarham (ed. by C.L. Ehrenreich (1927), 29), and in Sefer Ba'alei Asufot (still in manuscript; see Lubetzky). Samuel was the teacher of *Judah b. Jacob, the author of the last-named work.

bibliography:

Isaac de Lattes, Sha'arei Ẓiyyon, ed. by S. Buber (1885), 44; Michael, Or, no. 687; Gross, Gal Jud, 99f.; Meshullam b. Moses of Beziers, Sefer ha-Hashlamah, ed. by J. Lubetzky, 1 (1885), introd. xv; Benedikt, in: Sinai, 29 (1951), 191–3; idem, in: ks, 27 (1951), 143 and n. 60; Sussman, in: Koveẓ al Yad, n.s. 6, pt. 2 (1966), 283, 285.

[Shlomoh Zalman Havlin]