September 30 1199 – 8 Tishrei 4960
Moses Maimonides wrote to his disciple, Samuel Ibn Tibon, who was also a doctor and the son of the renowned translator, Judah son of Samuel Ibn Tibon, encouraging him to translate Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed from the original Arabic into Hebrew. The Guide was originally aimed at a different audience to Maimonides’ other Jewish works, which he wrote in Hebrew. More controversial and more intellectual, it won him enemies as well as admirers. But clearly, in encouraging its translation, he’d come to the conclusion that the book needed to be available to non-Arabic speaking Jews (in Europe, for example) as well.