Rabbi Moses Capsali רבי משה קפסאלי
first among the rabbis of the Ottoman Empire; led the Constantinople community before and after the conquest
A native of Crete, of a rabbinic family; he studied with his father, then in Italy and Germany. He is rabbi at Constantinople already about 1445—that is, under the Byzantines, eight years before the city fell. After the conquest of 1453 he stayed and became the first man of the capital's Jewish community, and through it of the whole empire.
It is often written of him that Mehmed II appointed him hakham bashi and seated him in the imperial council alongside the patriarch and the mufti. The Encyclopaedia Judaica says plainly that this is untrue: there was no such office then. He had authority, and much of it, but it rested on his person and not on a post.
Few of his acts are known, and all are about one thing—how to hold different people together. He adjudicated the dispute over whether Karaites might be taught Talmud. He worked at settling the Spanish exiles who came after 1492 among the long-established. When he was accused of a wrong ruling he convened the scholars of the city and argued the case before them, rather than waving it away by authority.
He lived strictly, almost as an ascetic. The year of his death differs in the reference works: 1495, 1498 or 1500.
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Sources
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Capsali, Moses ben Elijah" — Crete, the rabbinate from 1445, the Karaite and exile matters; and that the story of the sultan's appointment is untrue
- Reference literature: years of life — the years of birth and death by the agreed count of the reference literature; where the source says «about», it is marked as such
Basis: documents and evidence.