Hezekiah da Silva

In 1691, when Da Silva was in Amsterdam, he received an offer to become the city's Sephardi rabbi, which he refused.

Peri Chadash was published in 1691 and immediately hailed by European Torah scholars as a monumental contribution to the world of halacha.

[1] (A "brazen questioning of the authority of the Shulchan Aruch as the official codification and the final arbiter of Jewish Law.

"[1]) The freedom with which Silva discussed halakhic problems brought the ban of the rabbis of Cairo upon his Pri Chadash.

It was afterward removed by Rabbi Abraham Levi, although the two men - spiritually akin - were personally unacquainted.

Da Silva took a decided interest in the controversy that took place between Moses Hagiz and Judah Vega.

Pri Chadash was supplemented by a second and a third part edited by his son David Da Silva.