ABRAHAM BEN DANIEL:

By: Meyer Kayserling

Poet and rabbi; born at Modena in 1511. For several years he was a tutor at Viadana, Modena, Rivarolo, Arezzo, and Forli, and finally he became rabbi at Ferrara. From 1536 to 1552, despite unceasing bodily ailments, he composed over a thousand poetical prayers in various meters and forms, six of them being in the Aramaic language. Several of the poems were written for friends, or suggested by public events, papal oppressions, or prevalent sickness; and one of them is in honor of his cousin Hadassah, whom he married in 1539. A manuscript collection of his prayers in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, bears the title "Sefer ha-Yashar" (The Book of the Righteous).

M. K.