Tobiah Ben Eliezer

Tobiah ben Eliezer (Hebrew: טוביה בר אליעזר) was a Talmudist and poet of the 11th century, author of the Leḳaḥ Ṭov or Pesiḳta Zuṭarta, a midrashic commentary on the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot. Zunz (G. V. pp. 293 et seq.) inferred from Tobiah's reference to his father as "the great" and from his mention of the massacre in Mainz in 1096, that he was a native of Mainz and a son of Eliezer ben Isaac ha-Gadol, who is thought by David Conforte (Ḳore ha-Dorot, p. 8b) to have been one of Rashi's teachers. But as in the course of his work Tobiah often attacks the Karaites and, besides, manifests a thorough knowledge of Muslim customs, Samuel Judah Löb Rapoport, in his biography of Eleazer Kalir, note 33 (in Bikkure ha-'Ittim, x. 122-123), concluded that toward the end of his life Tobiah settled in Palestine.