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Yechiel ben Joseph of Paris (Jehiel of Paris) was a major Talmudic scholar and Tosafist from northern France, father-in-law of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil. He was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, and succeeded him in 1225 as head of the Yeshiva of Paris, which then boasted some 300 students; his best known student was Meir of Rothenburg. He is the author of many Tosafot.
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Yechiel of Paris is best known as the main defender of Judaism in the 1240 Disputation of Paris held at the court of Louis IX, where he argued against the convert Nicholas Donin. This was the first formal Christian-Jewish disputation held in medieval Christendom. In defence of accusations of slanderous quotes in the Talmud against the founder of Christianity, Yechiel argued that the references to Yeshu in fact refer to different individuals. Yechiel deliniates them as Jesus himself, executed for sorcery (b.Sotah 47a), another "Yeshu haNotzri", also from Nazareth (b.Sanhedrin 107b), and a third "Yeshu" of the boiling excrement in b.Gittin 47a.[1] Berger (1998) writes "Whatever one thinks of the sincerity of the multiple Jesus theory, R. Yehiel found a way to neutralize some dangerous rabbinic statements, and yet the essential Ashkenazic evaluation of Jesus remains even in the text of this disputation." Yechiel's argument was followed by Nachmanides at the Disputation of Barcelona 1263, but not by Profiat Duran at the Disputation of Tortosa 1413-1414.[2]
Although the disputants successfully defended Judaism, a decree was passed, to publicly burn all available manuscripts of the Talmud - and on Friday, June 17, 1244, twenty-four carriageloads of written works were set alight.
In 1260, Yechiel arrived and settled in Acre, Palestine, then ruled by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, along with his son and a large group of followers.[3][4] There he established the Talmudic academy Midrash haGadol d'Paris.[5] He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268, and is buried near Haifa, at Mount Carmel.