Moses Almosnino

Rabbi Moses Almosnino, a 16th-century scholar born to a distinguished family of Spanish origin, was educated in general and Jewish studies and served as rabbi of two congregations in Salonica, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Fluent in several languages, Almosnino joined a 1565 delegation to Constantinople to obtain confirmation of Jewish rights from the sultan. While there, he composed an important historical and descriptive work on the city and its people. Almosnino’s legal opinions are preserved primarily through quotations, but many works on Bible, Talmud, philosophy, and other areas survive.