Ahimaaz ben Paltiel

Ahimaaz ben Paltiel (; 1017–1060) was a Byzantine Jewish Graeco-Italian liturgical poet (payyetan) and author of a family chronicle. Very little is known about his life. He came from a family some of whose members are well known in Jewish literature as scholars and poets; for example, Shefatya ben Amitai, Hananiel ben Amittai, and his nephew Amittai ben Shephatiah. Ahimaaz had two sons, Paltiel and Samuel. The family tree of this clan is given by Ahimaaz in his Chronicle. In a list of twenty-two selihah (elegiac) poets (Italy, fifteenth century?), Ahimaaz ben Paltiel is mentioned as the author of two poems, and a Mahzor of the Roman rite attributes to him a selihah for the Fast of Esther. which, though intended merely to glorify his immediate ancestors, gives much important information regarding the history of the early Jewish settlements in such towns as Oria, Bari, Otranto, Gaeta, Benevento, Capua, Amalfi, in southern Italy, and Pavia in northern Italy. Written about one hundred years before Abraham ibn Daud, it covers a period (850–1054) about which little is known; the only information hitherto having been obtained from a few inscriptions and from notices in the works of Shabbetai Donolo, who also was a native of Oria. Only one manuscript of the Chronicle is known to exist; it is in the library of the cathedral at Toledo, Spain. It bears the title Sefer Yuhasin (Book of Genealogies) and is written in rhymed prose in the style of al-Hamadani's maqama, brought into prominence fifty years before Ahimaaz, and which Hariri perfected fifty years after him: the same style that in Hebrew literature was affected by Judah al-Harizi and Immanuel of Rome.