SIMEON BEN JOSEPH OF LUNEL:
Talmudist of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. His Provençal name was En Duran. He was a native of Perpignan, and lived successively at Montpellier, at Lunel, and, after the banishment of the Jews in 1306, at Aix. He is known chiefly for the active part he took in the Abba Mari controversy as a partizan of Abba.
Excepting three letters (Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 280), no writing of Simeon's is known. The first of these letters, entitled "Ḥoshen ha-Mishpaṭ," was addressed to Me'iri of Perpignan, who was invited by Abba Mari to sign the excommunication launched against the students of philosophy, but declined to do so. Abba Mari, dissatisfied, commissioned his lieutenant Simeon to answer him and expound the grievances of the orthodox against the students of philosophy. This letter was published by D. Kaufmann, with a German translation, in "Zunz Jubelschrift" (Berlin, 1884). The second letter is addressed to Solomon ben Adret, asking him to declare that the excommunication against the students of philosophy does not apply to the "Moreh Nebukim," as his adversaries asserted. The third letter is addressed to one of his relativesat Perpignan. It was written after the banishment of the Jews of France, and Simeon bewails in it the fate of the Jewish communities of Lunel, Béziers, and Narbonne.
- Minhat Ḳena'ot, Nos. 23, 90;
- Renan, Les Rabbins Français, pp. 695 et seq.;
- Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 288.
