CAPSALI, ELIJAH

(1483-1555)

   Cretan rabbi and historian. He was head of the Jewish community in Crete. His Seder Eliyahu Zuta contains a survey of the history of the Jewry in the Ottoman empire down to his day, as well as an account of Spanish Jewish history. His Divrei ha-Yamim le-Malkhut Venezia depicts the conditions of the Jews in Venice and the Venetian dominions. It is a central source for the social, cultural and political history of north Italian Jewry in the early 16th century.