Uri (Ori) Ben Simeon

Scholar of the sixteenth century; born at Biel (); resided at Safed. He made an abstract of a manuscript of 1537, giving a list of all the places said to contain the tombs of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Amoraim, and Tannaim, to which he added descriptive material gathered in the course of his extensive travels, as well as illustrations of various graves. To this work, which appeared in Venice in 1659 (2d ed. 1699) under the title "Yiḥus ha-Abot," was appended a description of a calendar compiled by him in 1575. The entire work was translated into Latin by Hottinger under the title "Cippi Hebraici, Genealogia Patriarcharum" (Heidelberg, 1659; 2d ed. ib. 1662); and E. Carmoly later translated the book into French under the title "Jichus ha-Abot, ou Tombeaux des Patriarches," and published it in his "Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte" ("Halikot Ereẓ Yisrael"), together with a preface and twenty-seven illustrations from the first Venetian edition. The "Yiḥus ha-Abot" was rendered also into Judæo-German by an unknown translator, being published under the same title at Wilna in 1853.

Uri ben Simeon was likewise the author of a calendar ("luaḥ") covering a period of forty years. This work, which first appeared in Venice (1575), was translated into Latin by Jacob Christmann of Heidelberg, in which city it was published in 1594.

Bibliography:

  * Zunz, in The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, pp. 275-276, notes à and b;
  * E. Carmoly, Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte, pp. 419-496, Brussels, 1847;
  * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. cols. 558, 815, 2693-2695;
  * Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, p. 221.



E. C. S. O.