Mordechai ben Hillel מרדכי בן הלל

The Mordechai is built as a companion to Alfasi's code: where the Rif gives the upshot of the Babylonian Talmud, the Mordechai adds how the same passage is decided in Ashkenaz and France, and cites the opinions by name.

Its value is double. Practical — it shows Ashkenazi custom where the Spanish codes do not know it. And documentary: it quotes dozens of authors whose books have not reached us at all, and it is only through these quotations that they are known.

In printed editions of the Talmud his text stands not on the Gemara page itself, beside Rashi and Tosafot, but at the end of the tractate — directly after the Rif, as a separate block, usually together with the Piskei HaRosh. This is worth knowing, because "the Mordechai is printed alongside the Rif" is often taken to mean "in the margins of the page."

He died in 1298 with his wife and children in the Rintfleisch massacres that swept the Franconian communities. His code survived and entered the foundations of Ashkenazi law.