David Kalonymus Of Naples

Italian scholar; lived in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In "Kerem Ḥemed" (iii. 173) there is published a letter written in 1286 by Jesse b. Hezekiah, the Exilarch of Damascus, anathematizing those who calumniated Maimonides. David Kalonymus, intending to give greater publicity to the anathema, transcribed three or four copies of it. He was particularly induced to do so, he said, by the fear that during the persecutions which the Jews suffered at that time in Portugal and western Castile, the original might be lost. At the end of the letter is found: "Written at Naples the first of Ab, 5266" (= July 21, 1506). Steinschneider ("Cat. Bodl." col. 1575) thinks it possible that David was the son of Ḥayyim Kalonymus, and the father of Kalo Kalonymus (see Zunz, "Z. G." 10, 232).

L. G.M. Sel.