Joshua Boaz ben Simon Baruch

Joshua Boaz ben Simon Baruch (d.1557) was a prominent Talmudist who lived at Sabionetta, and later at Savigliano. He was a descendant of an old Judæo-Spanish family, and probably settled in Italy after the banishment of the Jews from Spain.

When he was twenty-three years old, he began to publish useful works on the Talmud, in which he displayed vast erudition. These works are:

• Massoret ha-Shas or Massoret ha-Talmud (The Masorah of the Talmud), an index of the parallel passages of the Talmud and the halakic Midrashim
• En Mishpaṭ, Ner Miẓwah (The Eye of the Law, the Light of the Precept), an index of the Talmudical Halakot quoted in Maimonides' Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah and in the Turim of Jacob ben Asher
• Torah Or (The Torah Is Light), an index of the Biblical passages mentioned in the Talmud. These three works were first published, together with the Talmud, at Venice, 1546-1551
• Ḳiẓẓur Mordekai we-Simanaw, a compendium of Mordecai ben Hillel's halakic work arranged according to the order of the Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah. The same work was also published (Sabionetta, 1554) under the title Ḥiḳḳur Dine Mordekai;
• Shilṭe ha-Gibborim (Shields of Heroes), a selection of critical notes on Alfasi's compendium of the Talmud, and on the Mordekai. This work bears also the title Sefer ha-Maḥloḳet.

• Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. iii. 571-573;
• Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, ii. 141, 142;
• Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1554;
• Fürst, Bibl. Jud. i. 92;
• Mortara Indice Alfabetico, p. 6;
• Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 672;
• Rabbinovicz, Ma'amar 'al Hadfasat ha-Talmud, pp. 43-45.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)