Person · 5363–5433 AM · 1603 CE — 1673 CE
Rabbi Chaim Benveniste—the Knesset haGedolah רבי חיים בנבנשתי
the digest of the age—and the fall of the age: he believed Shabbetai Tzvi
Constantinople-born, rabbi of Tire from 1644 and of Izmir from 1658. The order of his fall matters, and we keep it exact: first a court with his participation declared Tzvi a fraud; then, as the city went mad in December 1665, Benveniste crossed to the "messiah's" side, and by Tzvi's will was made sole chief rabbi of Izmir—his opponent deposed. When Tzvi took the turban, Benveniste repented.
History has kept for him both the digest and the disgrace—and in that he is precious: by him one sees that the madness of 1666 took more than the simple. His responsa are called Ba'ei Chayei; his brother Yehoshua was likewise a noted jurist.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Knesset haGedolah — the digest of halakhah after the Shulchan Aruch
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Tire, Izmir and the order of the events of the winter of 1665
Basis: Talmud and midrash.