Person
Rabbi Avraham Ankawa רבי אברהם אנקאווא
the Moroccan judge who gathered the takkanot of the exiles into one book
Moroccan halakha lived in two layers: the custom of the old settlers, and the takkanot of the megorashim—the enactments of the exiles of Spain, adopted at Fez after 1492. The second layer decided cases, but lay in manuscripts, and every court gathered it anew.
Ankawa closed that work. The Kerem Chemer is a corpus: takkanot, responsa, his own clarifications. He also gathered the Kol Tekasa and printed books—printing in the Maghreb was a rare craft, and part of the Moroccan heritage reached us because he managed to set it in type.
The years we give as a window: the sources differ, and none gives an exact date of birth.
Places
Related
Rabbi Refael Berdugo, the Malach RefaelOr ha-Chaim—Rabbi Chaim ibn AttarYaakov Abuhatzeira—Abir YaakovRav Yosef MessasRav Refael Baruch Toledano
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Kerem Chemer, the corpus of takkanot and responsa — the takkanot of the exiles of Fez by which the communities judged
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Marrakesh and Meknes; the printing of the Maghreb; the years differ
Basis: Talmud and midrash.