August 17 1300 – 1 Elul 5060
Rabbi David Maimuni, leader (naggid) of the Egyptian Jewish community, son of Rabbi Abraham and grandson of Maimonides, passed away. Though Rabbi Maimuni had succeeded his father and grandfather as naggid, his authority was questioned twice, initially because of his youth, and once again in his old age, and he was forced to resign for a number of years. In 1285, enemies denounced him to the governor of Egypt and he fled to Acre, where he joined the struggle to defend his grandfather’s Guide to the Perplexed from French kabbalist Solomon Petit’s ban. Rabbi Abraham Zacuto, the famous Spanish Jewish doctor, astronomer and philosopher, recounted in Sefer Yuḥasin that Maimuni issued a ban against his slanderers, and that many of them died. Returning to Egypt five years later, Maimuni was reinstated for the second time by the community. He’s buried near his grandfather in Tiberias.