ROSELLO (RUSCELLI), MORDECAI RAPHAEL BEN JACOB:
Scholar and liturgical poet of the first half of the sixteenth century; born in Barcelona, where his family occupied a prominent position. In the course of his travels he reached Naples, and when in 1541 the Jews were expelled from that city, he went to Avignon. He subsequently stayed for some years in Rome, where in 1549 he finished a work, still extant in manuscript, entitled "Sha'are Ḥayyim," treating of the Ten Sefirot. In 1550 he was at Ferrara. He wrote an elegy ("ḳinah") on the martyrdom of the priest Eleazar in the days of the Maccabees; the elegy has been included in the ritual of Carpentras.
Bibliography:
- Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, ii. 102;
- Zunz, Nachtrag zur Literaturgesch. p. 49.
