Yonah Gerondi

'Jonah son of Abraham the Gironan'; died 1264),[1] also known as Jonah of Girona and Rabbeinu Yonah (רבינו יונה), was a Catalan rabbi and moralist, cousin of Nahmanides.

He was the most prominent pupil of Solomon ben Abraham of Montpellier, the leader of the opponents of Maimonides' philosophical works, and was one of the signers of the ban proclaimed in 1233 against The Guide for the Perplexed and the Sefer ha-Madda.

According to his pupil, Hillel ben Samuel, Gerondi was the instigator of the public burning of Maimonides' writings by order of the authorities at Paris in 1233, and the indignation which this aroused among all classes of Jews was mainly directed against him.

As an act of repentance he vowed to travel to Israel and prostrate himself on Maimonides' grave and implore his pardon in the presence of ten men for seven consecutive days.

Gerondi wrote novellæ on the Talmud, which are often mentioned in the responsa and decisions of his pupil Solomon Aderet and of other great rabbis, and some of which are incorporated in the Shiṭṭah Mekubbeẓet of R. Bezalel Ashkenazi.

[7] His commentary on Pirkei Avot was first published by Simḥah Dolitzki of Byelostok (Berlin and Altona, 1848) and was translated into English for the first time by Rabbi David Sedley of TorahLab.

The fame of Gerondi chiefly rests on his moral and ascetic works, which, it is surmised, he wrote to atone for his earlier attacks on Maimonides and to emphasize his repentance.

[9] For an estimate of Gerondi's ethical works and his partial indebtedness to the Sefer Hasidim see Zur Geschichte der Jüdisch-Ethischen Literatur des Mittelalters.