The Secular Poetry of El'azar ben Ya'aqov ha-Bavli: Baghdad, Thirteenth Century on the basis of manuscript Firkovicz Heb. IIA, 210.1

by Wout Jac Van Bekkum

The collection of Elazar's poetry is impressive and contains more than four hundred compositions with a striking preponderance of panegyrics, laments, homonymic poems, and epigrams. Elazar was strongly involved in promoting the Baghdadi-Jewish elite, dignified people who held high office in the city, either as government officials or as leaders of the Jewish community. This critical edition of a manuscript offers much literary and historical information about Baghdadi Jewry in the days before and during the Mongol invasion of 1258.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006