Rabbi Tzemach Tzarfati (1624-1717), whose birthplace is unknown, was a dayan and chief rabbi of Tunis in the early eighteenth century. He founded a great spiritual centre there and, with his colleague Rabbi Avraham HaKohen, trained many students who came to absorb his wisdom.

Until their time, Talmud in Tunis was studied with Rashi but without Tosafot; they introduced the study of Tosafot and passed on to their students a love of the various commentators, especially the novellae of the Maharshal. He thus played a major role in the revival of Jewish learning in Tunisia in the seventeenth century. His rulings and commentaries were never published in a volume of their own, but his students and their successors quote them extensively.

Every eve of Shabbat and festivals he walked past the shops urging the merchants to close so as to welcome Shabbat in peace. He combined astonishing wisdom with purity and holiness, and his nobility was such that even non-Jews held him in esteem. His students Rabbi Avraham Taieb and Rabbi Yitzchak Lumbroso succeeded him as chief rabbis of the two communities of Tunis, the Twansa and the Granas, and Rabbi Masoud Raphael Elfassy was also among his disciples. One of the oldest prayer houses in the Hara of Tunis bears his name.

At the end of his life he went up to the Holy Land and died in Jerusalem in 1717.