Etoile

Town in the ancient province of Dauphineá, France. It must not be confounded with Estella (Latin, Stella), Spain. In the fourteenth century there were living in Dijon Jews who had originally come from "Estoile" (Simmonet, "Juifs et Lombards," in the "Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Dijon," 1865, p. 186); and in the sixteenth century Jews from "Estelle" went to Carpentras ("R. E. J." xii. 160, 200, 204).

Among the scholars of Etoile may be mentioned: Abba Mari ben Joseph and his son Judah, who, at Moras in 1333, copied a portion of the "Halakot" of Alfasi (Gross, "Gallia Judaica," p. 52); Meiuml Kokabi ("star"), author of a commentary on the Pentateuch (1313); Samuel Kokabi, commentator on a work on the calendar, written about 1402 (ib. p. 53); David ben Samuel of Estelle, member of the rabbinical college of Avignon in 1305 (doubtless identical with the celebrated scholar David ben Samuel Kokabi, the author of "Migdal Dawid" and "Ḳiryat Sefer"; comp. "R. E. J." ix. 214, 230); Jacob ben Moses of Bagnols, author of an important work on ethics and casuistics, written about 1357-61 (ib. ix. 51).

Bibliography:

  * Gross and Simmonet, as above.



G. S. K.