BENVENISTE NANSI DE RAGUSA'S WILL AND ITS HALAKHIC IILLEGITIMATION BY R. SAMUEL DE MEDINA

This article deals with the appeal which took place to assess the validity of the will of the Jew Benveniste Nansi, a confessed murderer a co-religionist of the Sephardi community of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), who was sentenced to death and executed by the local Christian authorities. In this unique trial for murder among Jews in that small community, the will had been drawn up in the presence of a gentile scribe and the executioner, a circumstance that could make the will invalid from the point of view of halakhah. The appeal, which was judged by one of the illustrious Sephardi authorities of Thessaloniki, R. Samuel de Medina, demonstrates the application of the Hispano-Jewish method of Talmudic speculation and jurisprudence that he learned in the rabbinical schools of two of the eminent teachers expelled from Spain. It also casts light on his personal reasons for judging the will invalid, due to the negative image he had of both the Republic of Ragusa and its juridical and legal institutions.