Poki, Jehuda, Ben-elieser

Poki, Jehuda, Ben-Elieser

(Tshelebi ben-Isaak Puli), a Jewish writer of some note, who belonged to the sect of the Karaites, was born and educated at Constantinople in the first half of the 16th century. He made extensive travels through Palestine, Egypt. Irak, and Persia in order to become acquainted with the Karaite literature. But having no knowledge of the Arabic, he was unable to make use of a large portion of Karaite literature, as he himself confessed in the preface of a work of his. In the year 1571 he was at Kahira, where he found many writings of the Karaites in the house of the Nasi, or head of the Karaites, where he also resided, and was told that all congregations were in possession of such collections, which, however, were very often burned or plundered. He was told that the year before (1570) three hundred very valuable and interesting works of the Karaites had been taken from the synagogue at Kahira and destroyed. At Kahira, Poki finished his work שער יהודה about 1573, and died in 1575 in his native place. The above- named work, which was published by his son and brother at Constantinople in 1581, treats in a very elaborate way on the laws of incest, the preface of which has been reprinted by Wolf in his Bibl. Nebr. 3, 294 sq. See Furst, Gesch. des Kariaerthums, from 900 to 1575 (Leips. 1865), 2, 322 sq.; id. Bibl. Jud. 3, 108 sq.; De Rossi, Dizionario storico degli Autori Ebrei, p. 266 (Germ. transl. by Hamberger); Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 3, 293 sq. (B. P.)