BASAN, ABRAHAM HEZEKIAH B. JACOB:

By: Richard Gottheil, Louis Ginzberg

Corrector of the press and author; lived in the second half of the eighteenth century at Amsterdam and Hamburg. He was at first corrector at Amsterdam, where he also wrote eulogiums and poems on some works printed there. Especially noteworthy are his poems in Raphael ben Gabriel Norzi's "Se'ah Solet" (Amsterdam, 1757), and in Mordecai b. Isaac Tama's "Maskiyot Kesef" (ib. 1765), which show the author's command of language. Basan left Amsterdam and went to Hamburg, where he became ḥakam of the Portuguese-Spanish community, probably succeeding his father, Jacob b. Abraham Hezekiah. He is the author of "Sermones Funèbres" (Amsterdam, 1753), funeral sermons in Spanish on David Israel Athias and Solomon Curiel. According to Ghirondi, he wrote also "Yashresh Ya'aẓob" (Jacob Takes Root), Nuremberg, 1778, on the text of the prayer-books. Ghirondi assumes that the name "Jacob Babagi," on the title-page of the book, is a pseudonym, adopted to protect the author from opposition aroused by his textual corrections. The fact that Nuremberg is given as the place of printing, while the book really was printed in Altona, may be taken to support Ghirondi's assertion.

G. L. G.