In mid-seventeenth century, the Jewish-Ottoman historian David Conforti (1618–1680) had no hesitation describing R. Joseph Karo as the contemporary leader of the entire Jewish people: “The head of that generation, the great rabbi, the master of all Israel [the Jewish people—R.W], our master and rabbi Joseph Karo son of Joseph, son of Ephraim, whose forefathers originate from the Sephardi Diaspora, [and from] a family of Sages.” Some two generations previously, a historian of Karo's time, Gedalya ibn Yichya (c. 1526–1587), mentioned him as merely one among several distinguished rabbis in Safed, referring to him solely as “R. Joseph Karo, a great erudite in the Torah, who left many disciples. He composed the Beit Yosef and Shulchan ‘Arukh and Kesef Mishneh [a commentary on Maimonides's code of law—R.W.]. He died in Safed in the year 1575.” The difference between these two historiographical tracts, composed within a relatively short span of time, demonstrates how famous R. Karo became during his lifetime and shortly after his death. More than any of his other works, Beit Yosef and Shulchan ‘Arukh were the main reasons for R. Karo's fame. He was born in Spain shortly before the mass expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and spent his juvenile years in Rumelia, the western part of the Ottoman Empire, where he started to compose Beit Yosef. Moved by pietistic and mystical motivations, he immigrated to the Holy Land, where he finished this magnum opus and initiated its publication. The four different sections of Beit Yosef were printed in various Italian printing presses between 1550 and 1559. In Safed, the Galilean city that would play a crucial part in his adult and old-age life, he later composed a short version of this work, entitled Shulchan ʽArukh. It was this abridged and more accessible version which gained him immediate fame and popularity in vast areas of the Jewish Ecumene, both among scholars and the public at large. These comprehensive juridical tracts will form the focus of my book.