TEDESCHI (Tedesco), MOSES ISAAC BEN SAMUEL

TEDESCHI (Tedesco ), MOSES ISAAC BEN SAMUEL (1821–1898), translator, and teacher. Tedeschi was born in Trieste. He engaged in teaching most of his life except for a short period (1861) when he served as a rabbi of Spoleto. During his 34 years as a teacher he compiled his Ho'il Moshe, consisting of expositions of most of the books of the Bible (published between 1870 and 1892). This commentary was based both upon traditional commentaries and the modern commentaries from the era of *Mendelssohn to Samuel David *Luzzatto (with whom he was on friendly terms). In his introduction Tedeschi points to the difference of approach in the various commentaries which were written at different times of his life "but there is no absolute contradiction between them and they can be regarded as one corpus."

He also published Musar Melakhim (1878), ethical sermons based upon the tractate, Avot; Zekher Rav (1878), of Benjamin *Mussafia with an Italian translation and a dictionary called Mafte'aḥ ha-Shorashim; Oẓar Nirdefei Leshon Ivri ("Hebrew synonyms," 1879); Simḥat ha-Regel (1886), sermons for the festivals and notes on the Targum of Proverbs, includes his autobiography (pp. 51–61); and Ru'ah Yisrael (1894), a translation from Italian to Hebrew of a collection of studies by Mordecai (Marco) *Mortara, rabbi in Mantua.

bibliography:

Sefer Zikkaron le-Soferei Yisrael (1889), 6f.; Zeitlin, Bibliotheca, 394f.; Kressel, Leksikon, 1 (1965), 163.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]