AVILA, SAMUEL BEN MOSES BEN ISAAC DE:
Rabbi and preacher at Mequenez, Morocco, and later at Salé, Morocco, born in the first-named place in 1687 or 1688. He published, under the title of "Ozen Shemuel," a collection of sermons: Five on "Repentance," preached on the Sabbath preceding the Day of Atonement; ten on "The Sabbaths of the Lord," preached on the Sabbath preceding Passover and the other festivals; and sixteen funeral orations on some of his contemporaries, Joseph b. Bahatit (1705), Ephraim ibn Laba, (1705), Samuel Ẓarfati (1713), Isaac b. Amara (1713), and others. The book was approved by Judah ibn 'Attar, Abraham ibn Danon, and Jacob ibn Zur, and prefaced and published at Amsterdam, 1715, by Hananiah ibn Sikri. Samuel also published a work entitled "Keter Torah" (The Crown of the Law), pleading for the relief of scholars from taxation, and containing older regulations on the same subject as well as ethical rules. Appended to it are notes on Rashi, and Tosafot on the treatise Nazir, Amsterdam, 1725.
- Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, i. 73;
- Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, pp. 34, 252;
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. No. 7011;
- Nacht, Mekor Ḥayyim, 3, 4, 5.
