YOMTOV BEN ISAAC OF JOIGNY

(d. 1190)

Liturgical poet, of Spanish origin. He settled in York in c. 1180. He wrote commentaries on the Bible and engaged in anti-Christian polemics. He composed an elegy on the Blois martyrs of 1171 and the hymnOmnam Kenfor the eve of the Day of Atonement. According to tradition, he inspired the heroic mass suicide of the Jews of York in 1190.