MAẒLIAḤ, JUDAH B. ABRAHAM PADOVA:
(Redirected from PADUA or PADOVA FAMILY.)Italian Talmudist, cabalist, and poet; rabbi of Modena, where he died Aug. 10, 1728. He was the author of two works: "Tokaḥat Megullah" and "'Oẓerot Sheleg" (the latter cabalistic in nature); and of the following poems: 
Teḥinah; 
, an acrostic containing the words 
("the name of seventy-two letters"); and 
, an epigram on human mortality, an epitaph in the cemetery at Pinale. Only a few of his many responsa have been printed.
Judah had two sons: Manasseh Joshua of Modena, brother-in-law of Isaiah Bassani (c. 1750), some of whose responsa have been preserved; and Menahem Azariah, rabbi of Florence (c. 1775), an authority in the Law and a prolific preacher, who also wrote various poems, many of which were liturgical. The genealogy of the family is traced to Abraham b. Samuel of Padua, who married in 1530.
- Senior Sachs,
, Nos. 12a, 20-32, 47; - Zunz, Literaturgesch. pp. 447, 552;
- Landshuth, 'Ammude ha-'Abodah, pp. 192 et seq.;
- Nepi-Ghirondi, Toledot Gedole Yisrael, pp. 163, 172, 239.
