Musafia, Benjamin Dionyse Ben-immanuel

Musafia, Benjamin Dionyse Ben-Immanuel a Jewish savant, celebrated also as a physician, was born about 1619. He practiced medicine with great repute at Hamburg and Gliickstadt. As an author he is noted for his treatise on Potable Gold (מֵי זָהָב). He also made additions to the Hebrew Lexicon of Nathan benJechiel (q.v.) under the title of מוּסִŠ הָעָיוּך. Besides, he compiled a dictionary entitled וֶכֶר רִב, giving the Hebrew words in seven poems for all the days of the week (Amst. 1635; Wilna, 1863). He also wrote the disputes between R. Jacob Sasportas and himself, entitled עֵדוּת בּיִעִקֹב, the Testimony in Jacob (Amst. 1672). He commented on the Jerusalem Talmud, and studied a subject that was still more obscure and intricate, since he tried to explain the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, a treatise which he dedicated to king Christian IV of Denmark, under the title מֵי הִיִּם (Epistola Regia de maris reciprocatione [Amst. 1642]). See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 2:408 sq.; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 10:24, 26, 202, 227, 243, 244; Jost, Gesch. d. Juden. u.s. Sekten, 3:170; Kayserling, Gesch. d. Juden in Portugal, page 298; Lindo, Hist. of the Jews in Spain, etc., page 368; Basnage, Hist. of the Jews (Taylor's transl.), page 741; De Barrios, Vida de Ishac Uziel, page 48; Cassel, Leitfaden fur Jud. Geschichte u. Literatur, page 102; Steinschneider, Bibliog. Handbuch, page 98; Delitzsch, Zur Gesch. d. Jid. Poesie (Leips. 1836), page 76; Etheridge, Introd. to Heb. Literature, page 389. (B.P.)