Reflections by
Ephraim Kanarfogel
Yeshiva University
A. S. Halkin, “Why was Levi ben Hayyim Hounded?” PAAJR 34 (1966), 65-76
For the first several decades of its existence, the Proceedings featured a great deal of Maimonidean scholarship which was centered largely on texts by Maimonides that were subjected to intense philological and philosophical analysis. In the late 1950’s and through the 1960’s, the authors writing in PAAJR ‘discovered’ the intellectual history of southern and northern Europe. This article, aside from its resonant title, seeks to look at an aspect of a later phase of the so-called Maimonidean controversy and to study a lesser-known figure from that episode, on the basis of primary texts that had also not received much attention to that point. Although the conclusion reached is somewhat speculative, the creativity involved and the bibliographic mastery and reach of the author make for a fascinating and enlightening intellectual journey.