
Shem Tov Gaguine
Shem Tov Gaguine (5 September 1884, Jerusalem – 30 July 1953, Manchester) was a British Sephardic Rabbi and scion of a famous Moroccan Rabbinical dynasty which emigrated to Palestine from Spain at the time of the Inquisition. He was the great-grandson of R' Ḥaim Gaguin, the first Ḥakham Bashi of the Holy Land during the Ottoman Empire, and the son and nephew respectively of Rabbis Isaac and Abraham Gaguin. He was the great-great grandson of the famous scholar and kabbalist, Sar Shalom Sharabi.
He studied at the "Doresh Zion" College, Jerusalem and was a pupil of R. Jacob Alfiya. At an early age, he contributed articles to the Palestinian Hebrew Press ("Hahhabbezeleth" et al.) on aspects of Jewish traditional observances, as well as on biblical and philological matters. He was awarded rabbinical diplomas by numerous authorities, including R. Ḥaim Berlin and Chief Rabbis Jacob Meir, C.B.E. and Avraham Kook, C.B.E. of Palestine. In 1911, Rabbi Gaguine was appointed to serve in the office of dayyanut in Cairo. In 1919, he was invited to serve In Manchester, being appointed Av Beit Din 1n 1920. In 1927 he was appointed Rosh Yeshivah of Judith Montefiore College in Ramsgate. His major contribution to Jewish scholarship was Keter Shem Tov, an encyclopaedic treatise which examines and compares the rites, ceremonies and liturgy of the eastern and western Sephardim and Ashkenazim, paying particular attention to the customs of Spanish and Portuguese Jews. (via Wikipedia)
חשמונאים Ḥashmonaim (Hasmoneans) | Kohanim | Macabees | Maimonides | Moshe ben Maimon | Western Sepharadim | 20th century C.E. | 57th century A.M.
📄 עשרה בטבת | Asarah b’Tevet and the Tragic Side of Ḥanukkah, by Rabbi Shem Tov Gaguine (1934)
Contributed by Shem Tov Gaguine | Abe Katz (translation) | ❧
Why is the military victory of the Maccabees not referred to in the Mishna or Gemara but is mentioned only in later writings and in the prayer of Al Ha’Nissim? . . .