Asher ben Yehiel (the Rosh)

In 1303 he moved from Germany to Toledo and was startled by the judicial autonomy of Castile's communities, where capital cases were judged.

Asher ben Yehiel (the 'Rosh'), a tosafist scholar, emigrated in 1303 from his native Germany to Toledo, in the Christian kingdom of Castile. There his son Jacob ben Asher (died 1340) wrote a new comprehensive code of Jewish law, the Arba'ah Turim, the product of an encounter between Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture: it followed Maimonides and the father's rulings, carried Ashkenazi rabbinic learning to Spain and adopted a fresh thematic, four-part layout that became the model for later codes, the most influential being Joseph Caro's (annotated by Moses Isserles) in the sixteenth century.1 Spain also drew Jewish immigrants from beyond the Pyrenees, with Asher ben Yehiel, who relocated from Germany to Toledo, arguably the most famous case. Arriving in Castile, he was startled by the legal autonomy Jewish communities seemed to enjoy: nowhere else he knew were capital cases judged by Jews, except there. He accepted the custom for them but never agreed with them on taking life.2