Rabbi Yechiel of Paris רבי יחיאל מפריז
he defended the Talmud at the trial of the Talmud
Rabbi Yechiel ben Yosef headed the academy of Paris, the largest in France. In 1240 the convert Nicholas Donin laid before the Pope a list of charges against the Talmud, and Louis IX arranged a public disputation. Rabbi Yechiel defended the book before the queen mother and the bishops: he answered on the merits, distinguishing what was said of the pagans of antiquity from what was said of Christians, and pointed out that without the Talmud Jews could not keep the commandments at all.
The trial ended in a verdict against the book. In 1242 some twenty-four cartloads of Talmud manuscripts were burned in the centre of Paris—the Maharam of Rothenburg, then in Paris, wrote on it the lament Shaali Serufah, which is read on the Ninth of Av.
About 1260 Rabbi Yechiel went up to the Land of Israel with students and, by some testimonies, sought to renew the service in Jerusalem.
The sources give no exact years of life; the window of activity is set by generation, following Aharon Hyman and the lists of Seder haDorot.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Shaali Serufah of the Maharam of Rothenburg — the lament on the burning of the Talmud in 1242
Documents of the period
- Vikkuach of Rabbeinu Yechiel of Paris — the record of the disputation of 1240
Scholarship
- 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.