Samuel ben Israel de Uçeda was a Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 commentator and preacher. Born at Safed

Safed

Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...

 in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, his name, Uçeda, originally was derived from the town of that name in the archbishopric of Toledo. He was a pupil of Isaac Luria

Isaac Luria

Isaac Luria , also called Yitzhak Ben Shlomo Ashkenazi acronym "The Ari" "Ari-Hakadosh", or "Arizal", meaning "The Lion", was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Palestine...

 and Hayyim Vital, with whom he studied Cabala

Cabala

Cabala may refer to one of several systems of Mysticism:* Kabbalah, the religious mystical system of Judaism...

, and became rabbi and preacher in Safed and, later, in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

.

Samuel was the author of the following works: "Iggeret Shemu'el," commentary and supercommentary on the Book of Ruth

Book of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...

 (published in 1557; together with the text and the commentary of Rashi

Rashi

Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...

, Kuru Chesme, 1597; Amsterdam, 1712; Zolkiev, 1800); "Leḥem Dim'ah," commentary on Lamentations

Book of Lamentations

The Book of Lamentations ) is a poetic book of the Hebrew Bible composed by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. It mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in the 6th Century BCE....

, with the text and the commentary of Rashi (Venice, 1600; Amsterdam, 1710, 1715); "Midrash Shemu'el " (Venice, 1579, 1585, 1597; Cracow, 1594; Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1713). The last-named work was his chief one, and consisted of a detailed commentary on the Pirkei Avot, with reference to the commentaries (at that time in manuscript) of Jonah Gerondi, Meïr Abulafia

Meir Abulafia

Meir ben Todros HaLevi Abulafia , also known as the Ramah , was a major Sephardic Talmudist and Halachic authority in medieval Spain...

, Samuel ben Meïr, Menahem Me'iri

Menachem Meiri

Rabbi Menachem Meiri was a famous Catalan rabbi, Talmudist and Maimonidean.-Early life:Menachem Meiri was born in 1249 in Perpignan, which then formed part of the County of Barcelona...

, Samuel ibn Sid, Joseph ibn Nahmias, Baruch ibn Melek, Joseph ibn Susan, Moses Almosnino

Moses Almosnino

Moses ben Baruch Almosnino was a distinguished rabbi; born at Thessaloniki about 1515, and died in Constantinople about 1580....

, and others, most of which have since been printed.

Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

• Conforte, Ḳore ha-Dorot, pp. 42a, 48a;
• Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. 172;
• De Rossi-Hamberger, Hist. Wörterb. p. 254;
• Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. p. 2494;
• Fürst, Bibl. Jud. iii. 44.W. B. M. K.