Gerson ben Moses Bak

Progenitor of the family; flourished during the first quarter of the sixteenth century in Venice, Italy.

According to Sixtova, Hebrew Printing in Bohemia and Moravia, p. 61 n. 151, there is a reference there to an inheritance dispute involving Jacob ben Gershon Bak and his brother Samuel before 1553. Responsa of Judah Minz and Rabbi Meir of Padua, No. 56 (1553 Venice).

Avi Robinson Not much help for your naming issue, but here it is: Shimshon Bachmar (שמשון ז”ל בכמר), after three days on his deathbed, made a will giving his proper inheritors 5 ducats (דוקא”ט), ten ducats to poor widows, the ketubah to his wife, and the rest of his estate to his brothers-in-law on his mother’s side, R. Yaakov and R. Shmuel, son of R. Gershon Bak (יעקב ושמואל בני ר’ גרשון בק). The inheritors sought to invalidate the will for two reasons: 1) It mentions the word “קנין” (formal act of acceptance) which implies, incorrectly, that no formal act of acceptance of these conditions was required other than the writing of the document, and 2) One of the witnesses who signed the will was a relative of one of the proper inheritors. Namely, Moshe Ya”tz son of Yitzchok was a second-degree relative (שני שבשני) to the wife of Yosef Ka”p who was one of the inheritors. Regarding 1), Mahari Mintz dealt with the issue of the text of the document at length, and concluded that it was not a problem. Regarding 2), Mahari Mintz considered it a more intricate problem, because only one of the inheritors was a relative by marriage, the rest of the inheritors and the recipients were not. So perhaps the will was valid in its entirety, or perhaps it was valid except for the portion of the would-be-inheritor who was a relative to the witness. He then concludes: Based on what I have heard, there were three components to this gift: 1) Some of the possessions of the giver were already in the possession of the recipients, since they owed him a certain sum (meaning, the decedent held their debt), 2) the decedent left possessions in the hands of Jews, who owed him money; and 3) non-Jews owed the decedent money. Mintz concluded that 1) and 2) should go to the recipients, and 3) most likely were not covered by the will and should go to the proper inheritors. By the way, I’m sure you already know this, but I thought the title of the collection of responsa was interesting. The responsa were written by Mahari Mintz but collected and edited by R. Meir of Padua, who was his student and his grandson-in-law, married to his granddaughter, as is properly documented on Geni.