Kabbalah, liturgical poetry and Torah commentary
His book Tzioni joins the Zohar and the Sefer HaBahir with the words of the Rishonim, such as Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Ibn Ezra and the Ramban, in a commentary on the Torah “in the way of truth”, with rhymes at the head and end of its chapters and poems at its opening and close. The Chida praised it in Shem HaGedolim, and great Acharonim such as the Shelah and the Magen Avraham quoted it.
A kabbalist and liturgical poet, one of the sages of Ashkenaz, born in Speyer, who travelled in his youth to Jerusalem and studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Yitzchak of Bilstein. He is the first man known to have chosen to call himself “Tzioni”, after his studies in Jerusalem. He wrote the book Tzioni on the Torah, which was printed in Cremona in 1559, and Tzefunei Tzioni, and composed dozens of poems.
The archive doesn’t yet record Rabbi Menachem Tzioni’s teachers, so the road to Sinai can’t be drawn yet.