Abraham Khalfon

Khalfon authored Hayyei Avraham (Hebrew: חיי אברהם, "Life of Abraham"), a commentary on the mitzvot in the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim and Yoreh Deah) based on the Talmud, Zohar, and commentaries on the Zohar. While he wrote this work in 1780,[1] it was printed posthumously in 1826 by his son Rahamim.[4] It was reprinted in 1844, 1857, and 1861.[4]

Khalfon's responsa, Leket HaKatzir (Hebrew: לקט הקציר, "Gathering the Harvest"), was printed for the first time in Israel in 1992.[1]

Khalfon produced a history of the Jews of Tripoli from ancient times until his own day, culling government archives, rabbinical court documents, and genizah records.[1][2][5] His Hebrew-language work, called by others Seder HaDorot (Hebrew: סדר הדורות, "Book of Generations"), was an important source for Abraham Hayyim Adadi's historical writings about Tripoli minhagim (customs) in the mid-nineteenth century.[6][7] Tripoli historian Mordechai Ha-Cohen (1856–1929) liberally quotes from Khalfon's work in his chronicle of Jewish and Muslim life in nineteenth-century Tripoli.[2][8] Nahum Slouschz also quotes Khalfon in his 1927 history of the Jews of North Africa, such as Khalfon's description of the origins of the Tripoli Jewish community:

"Among the older people I found a tradition, handed down to them by their ancestors, that at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, one of the generals of Titus, Phanagorus, King of the Arabs, led a number of captive Jews into the mountains, two days distant from Tripoli, and there handed them over to the Arabs. From these mountains they came to Tripoli".[9][10]

Although a copy of Khalfon's manuscript was kept in the rabbinical court of Tripoli, it was not brought to Israel with the Libyan Jewish emigration after 1948 and was lost.[6]

Other works by Khalfon include a summary of ancient regulations and a collection of piyyutim.[11] In 1800 Khalfon traveled to Tunis and recorded the piyyutim of the great paytanim of that country, including Rabbi Faraji Shawat and Rabbi Eliyahu Sedbon.[1]

Khalfon composed both piyyutim (liturgical poems) and kinnot (elegies), most of which are still in manuscript form. His elegy for his murdered son, David, and his piyyut, Mi Kamokha (Hebrew: מי כמוך, "Who is like You"), both stemmed from the reign of terror perpetrated by Ali Burghul against the Jews of Tripoli from July 30, 1793, to January 20, 1795.[12] Before that time, Tripoli's Jews had been benignly ruled by Ali Pasha of the Karamanli dynasty for some three decades. However, a fratricidal war between two sons of Ali Pasha and an attempt by the victorious son, Yusuf Karamanli, to seize the throne plunged the city into chaos. Ali Burghul, an Algerian corsair, took advantage of the situation and usurped control.[13][14] Ali Burghul imposed heavy taxes and engaged in many acts of robbery and blackmail against the population, and gave his soldiers free rein to terrorize the residents, particularly Jews.[15][16] Khalfon's son David, who had joined a plot to overthrow Ali Burghul, was burned at the stake along with other Jewish conspirators.[1][17][18]

On January 20, 1795, Ali Burghul was ousted by Yusuf Karamanli with the aid of the bey of Tunis.[19] To celebrate their rescue from a modern-day Haman, the Tripoli Jewish community established a Second Purim called Purim Burghul on 29 Tevet.[lower-alpha 1][14][16][20] Khalfon's piyyut describing Ali Burghul's rise and fall became part of the annual liturgy in Tripoli on the Shabbat before 29 Tevet.[1][15]