Nyons

Town in the ancient province of Dauphiné, France. A Jewish community must have existed there before the fourteenth century; for a document in Latin of the year 1322 speaks of the "old Jews" and of "the newly arrived Hebrews." The last-mentioned were Jews who had sought refuge in Nyons when expelled from the Comtat-Venaissin by Pope John XXII. Two of them, David de Hyères and David de Moras, had great influence with the dauphin Humbert II. in 1338 and 1346 (Prudhomme, "Les Juifs en Dauphiné," pp. 18, 25).

Between 1270 and 1343 there lived in Nyons R. Isaac ben Mordecai, called "Maestro Petit," author of the "Azharot," enumerations in verse of the six hundred and thirteen Mosaic laws, which are recited in the congregations of the Comtat at the Feast of Weeks (Shabu'ot). Isaac wrote also commentaries on the Talmud, and corresponded with the most celebrated rabbis of the south of France (Gross, "Gallia Judaica," p. 387). Together with Petit is mentioned another scholar of Nyons, R. Ḥayyim of Vienne, a rabbinical authority (Gross, l.c. p. 194).

Bibliography:

  * Gross and Prudhomme as above.



G. S. K.