Tuviah ben Eliezer

Not much is known about the life of Tuviah ben Eliezer, who was active in Kastoria, Greece. Tuviah composed a long Hebrew commentary, titled Good Teaching (Lekaḥ tov), on the Torah and the five Scrolls. He dedicated his work to the Jewish martyrs of the Crusader attacks of 1096 in Mainz, Germany; some scholars suggest that he was born there. He held positions of leadership and apparently participated in a Greek-Jewish messianic movement that may have been influenced by Crusader interest in Palestine. Tuviah might be said to represent a Byzantine school of rabbinic interpretation. Alongside polemics against Karaites, he cites grammatical and literal readings of the Torah, together with aggadic traditions.