Jacob ben Judah Hazzan was a thirteenth century Jewish legal codifier based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. His grandfather was one Jacob he-Aruk (possibly Jacob le Long). In 1287 Jacob wrote Etz Chaim

Etz Chaim

Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Learning is an Orthodox Jewish organization designed to reach out to secular and non-Orthodox Jews in the hopes of bring them into the Baal teshuva Movement . It is under the direction of...

a ritual code in two parts, containing sixty and forty-six sections respectively, dealing with the whole sphere of Halakah, and following in large measure Maimonides

Maimonides

Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

 in the Mishneh Torah

Mishneh Torah

The Mishneh Torah subtitled Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka is a code of Jewish religious law authored by Maimonides , one of history's foremost rabbis...

, though Jacob utilized also the Halakot Gedolot, the Siddur of Amram Gaon

Amram Gaon

Amram Gaon was a famous Gaon or head of the Jewish Talmud Academy of Sura in the 9th century. He was the author of many Responsa, but his chief work was liturgical.He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the synagogue...

, and the works of Moses of Coucy, Alfasi and the tosafists. He quotes, furthermore, Isaac ben Abraham

Isaac ben Abraham

Isaac ben Abraham can refer to:*Isaac, patriarch in the Bible and son of Abraham*Isaac Gorni, late 13th-century Hebrew troubadour from Gascony*Isaac of Troki, 16th-century Karaite Jewish theologian...

, Moses of London

Moses of London

Moses of London, , was a thirteenth century English grammarian, halakhist and Jewish scholar in London. His Darkhe ha-Nikkud veha-Neginah is a treatise on Hebrew punctuation and accentuation....

 and Berechiah de Nicole

Berechiah de Nicole

Berechiah de Nicole also known as Benedict fil Mosse, , was a thirteenth century English Tosafist who lived at Lincoln. He was of the well-known Hagin family, and son of Rabbi Moses ben Yom-Tov of London...

 (Lincoln

Lincoln, Lincolnshire

Lincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....

). Some verses by him are also extant.

The Etz Chaim still exists in a manuscript which formerly belonged to Wagenseil

Johann Christoph Wagenseil

Johann Christoph Wagenseil was a German Christian Hebraist.In 1667 he was made professor of history at Altdorf, and was professor of Oriental languages at the same university from 1674 to 1697, after which he occupied the chair of ecclesiastical law until his death...

 and is now in the Rathsbibliothek at Leipsic. The work is of interest as the chief literary production of an English Jew before the Expulsion

Edict of Expulsion

In 1290, King Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. Lasting for the rest of the Middle Ages, it would be over 350 years until it was formally overturned in 1656...

, and gives an account of the ritual followed by the Jews of England at that date.

Sources

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography: H. Adler, in Papers of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, p. 276, London, 1888;
idem, in Steinschneider Festschrift, pp. 241–242; D. Kaufmann, as above and in J. Q. R. v. 353-374.J.