DAVID OF ARLES, MAESTRO:
By: Louis Ginzberg, S. Kahn
Rabbi of Avignon in the sixteenth century. He figured prominently in a casuistic question which agitated the rabbis of Provence, Italy, and Palestine.
The two brothers Isaac and Jacob Gard, learned rabbis of Lisle (Comtat-Venaissin), led astray by a misprint in the rabbinical code "Eben ha-'Ezer," had sanctioned a marriage which was really forbidden. The rabbis of Avignon, led by David and his son-in-law Boniaquet (or Bonisac) de la Roque, supported by Isaac ben Immanuel de Lattes of Bologna and his friend Abraham, son of Aaron of Rome, strongly protested against the decision. All endeavors proving fruitless, and being weary of disputation, the protestants finally appealed to the supreme authority of Joseph Caro, who, together with his rabbinical college, upheld Maestro David and his friends, and pronounced on two occasions (1560 and 1562) a decree of excommunication against Isaac Gard, his brother Jacob having died in the mean time.
- Gross, in Monatsschrift, 1880, pp. 525-527;
- idem, Gallia Judaica, pp. 14, 271;
- compare Rev. Et. Juives, x. 80.
