Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils

Who is Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils?

Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils was a French rabbi, Talmudist, Bible commentator, and payyeṭan. Of his life nothing is known but that he came from Narbonne, and was rabbi of Limoges in the province of Anjou.

The activity of Bonfils was many-sided. A number of his decisions which earned the high esteem of his contemporaries and of posterity are to be found in the "Mordecai." These passages are enumerated in Kohn's Mordecai ben Hillel, p. 137; in Maḥzor Vitry, and in many other codices and compendiums. Among his numerous legal decisions one deserving mention is that pronouncing money won in play an illegal possession, and compelling the winner to return it. Another important decision ordered a lighter tax on the Jewish farmer than on the merchant, for the reason that agriculture was less profitable than trade. Little is known of the collections of his responsa mentioned in Moses Alashkar's Responsa, or of his collection of the responsa of the Geonim. His Bible commentaries, mentioned by some of the old writers, have also disappeared.