R. Baruch b. Israel Benjamin (17th cent.), received his early education from his father, then proceeded to the yeshiva of R. Isaac Gaon, where Kabbalah was included in the curriculum. He was a signatory to the regulation of 1646, which exempted rabbinic scholars from taxation (A. Ankawa, in Kerem Hemed 2 (1871), 22b). In 1657 he, together with other Jerusalem kabbalists, endorsed the certificate which declared that Baruch Gad, the Jerusalem messenger to the East, had visited the Ten Lost Tribes. Some of his responsa were published in Mishpetei Zedek (1945, nos. 66, 95, 98, 100, 131, 133) of his friend, Samuel Garmison. While serving as dayyan in Jerusalem he wrote a work on divorces (Jerusalem Ms. Heb. 8°199). Toward the end of his life he traveled to Egypt, possibly as an emissary, and he died there.

R. Israel Benjamin (c. 1570–1649), posek and kabbalist, who was among the greatest of Egyptian and Jerusalem scholars of his century. According to David Conforte he was also called "Israel Eliakim." Benjamin was a disciple of R. Eleazar Monzalavi and his friend Samuel b. Sid, and corresponded with R. Jacob Castro of Egypt (Oholei Ya'akov, 1738, no. 58). According to Conforte a collection of more than a hundred legal decisions and a book of scriptural exegesis by Benjamin was in the possession of his son R. Baruch Benjamin in Jerusalem. The Hidah also saw a manuscript of his responsa. R. Abraham Azulai quotes new rulings by Benjamin in his annotations. He was a disciple of the kabbalist R. Joseph ibn Tabul in Egypt. In the manuscript Ozerot Hayyim by R. Hayyim Vital (Ms. Jerusalem 8°370) there are annotations by Benjamin, as well as statements of R. Ibn Tabul that the latter heard from the Ari z’l. Benjamin taught Kabbalah in Egypt and Jerusalem. His disciples include R. Meir Anaschehon and R. Meir Poppers. They had Benjamin's annotations to other writings of Ari z’l, as well as a mahzor based on the Kabbalah; these are found in Beit Mo'ed in the manuscripts of R. Solomon b. Benjamin ha-Levi. R. Hayyim Vital's Sefer ha-Gilgulim contains glosses by Benjamin. An immigrant from Carpi who went to Jerusalem in 1625 found manuscripts of the Ari z’l in the possession of Benjamin. He served in Jerusalem as dayyan and was one of the prominent scholars in the town. In 1623 he signed an agreement not to cause division in the community and in 1625 he signed an agreement to exempt the scholars from taxes. In that year the Jews of Jerusalem suffered from the oppressive rules of Ibn Farruk, and Benjamin signed a circular entitled Hurvot Yerushalayim which was handed to emissaries who were sent to the Diaspora with the aim of collecting money for the reconstruction of the community. His signature is also found in a letter to Fez in 1630. In 1646 he was the head of the Jerusalem rabbis. In 1649 he signed first on the endorsement (haskamah) of Joseph Caro's Maggid Meisharim (vol. 2, Venice 1649).

בשער: שי"ז. קולופון: והיתה השלמתו... יז חשון שנת ופרשת בתם לבבי ובנקיון כף עשיתי זאת [שי"ח]. דף 12-2: "ושנסתי את מתני אני... חייא מאיר בכהר"ר דוד ... ועשיתי מכל תשובה שורש אחד", מן ההוצאה הראשונה."ואנחנו המדפיסים... העתקנו השרשים והענפים על סדר הלכות הרמב"ם". דף [12,א] שיר ושבח... להמחבר. פותח: אחפש בנרות למלא שחוק פי לשוני רננה שפתי תהילה. עיין: אוצר השירה והפיוט, א, עמ' 120, מס' 2543. עם שירו של ר' חייא מאיר.