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Jacob Emden
Jacob Emden, also known as Ya'avetz (June 4, 1697 April 19, 1776), was a leading German rabbi and talmudist who championed Orthodox Judaism in the face of the growing influence of the Sabbatean movement. He was acclaimed in all circles for his extensive knowledge. Emden was the son of the hakham Tzvi Ashkenazi, and a descendant of Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chełm. He lived most his life in Altona (now a part of Hamburg, Germany), where he held no official rabbinic position and earned a living by printing books. His son was Meshullam Solomon, rabbi of the Hambro Synagogue in London who claimed authority as Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1765 to 1780. The acronym Ya'avetz (also written Yaavetz) stands for the words Yaakov (Emden) ben Tzvi (his father's name) (Hebrew: יעקב (עמדין) בן צבי - יעב"ץ). Seven of his 31 works were published posthumously. Biography Jacob Emden (born Ashkenazi) was the 5th of his father's 15 children. Until the age of seventee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Ben Hayyim Jabez
Joseph ben Hayyim Jabez (also "Yaavetz") (1438-1539) was a Jews of Spain, Spanish-Jewish theologian. He lived for a time in Portugal, where he associated with Joseph Hayyun, who inspired him with that taste for kabbalah, mysticism which he subsequently displayed in his writings. When the Jews were Expulsion of Jews from Spain, banished from Spain Jabez settled at Mantua, Italy. There he met his compatriot, the kabbalist Judah Hayyat, whom he induced to write the commentary ''Minḥat Yehudah'' on the kabbalistic work ''Ma'areket Elahut.'' Jabez was an opponent of philosophy. For him the truth of the Jewish religion is demonstrated by the miracles recorded in the Bible. He criticizes the thirteen articles of faith of Maimonides, the six of Hasdai Crescas, and the three of Joseph Albo, Albo. According to him, only the following three, alluded to in the verse "I am that I am" (Book of Exodus, Ex. iii. 14), are the fundamental principles of Judaism: # That God is one # That He gover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naphtali Cohen
Naphtali Cohen (1649–1718), also known as Naphtali HaKohen Katz, was a Russo-German rabbi and kabalist born in Ostrowo in Ukraine. He belonged to a family of rabbis in Ostrowo, where his father, Isaac Cohen, a great-great-grandson of the Judah Loew ben Bezalel, had fled during the Polish–Cossack–Tatar War. Biography In 1663 Cohen fell into the hands of the Tatars, who kept him in servitude for several years. Escaping, he returned to Ostrowo, and was chosen to succeed his father as rabbi. In 1690 he was called to Posen, where he officiated as chief rabbi until 1704. There he devoted himself to the Kabbalah, and collected a large library of cabalistic literature. In 1704 he was called to Frankfurt am Main. On the occasion of a fire which, breaking out in his house on January 14, 1711, spread to and consumed the entire Jewish quarter, it was charged that, relying on the efficacy of his cabalistic charms, he had prevented the extinction of the fire by the ordinary means. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen
Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen ben Abraham (born in Lithuania about 1670; died at Altona, 9 July 1749) was a Polish-German rabbi. At first rabbi at Kėdainiai (Keidani), Katzenellenbogen was called to Altona in 1714. This call he owed to the efforts of Issachar Kohen, an influential member of the Altona congregation; and Katzenellenbogen in return secured the election of Kohen's son-in-law to the rabbinate of Keidani. Jacob Emden, who reports this story in his ''Megillat Sefer'' (pp. 121–140), seems, however, to have been prejudiced against Katzenellenbogen, whom he describes as a man of very low moral character, an ignoramus, and a poor preacher. Ezekiel ben Abraham Katzenellenbogen's descendants for four generations occupied rabbinates in various Polish communities. His epitaph is found in Blogg's ''Sefer ha-Ḥayyim'' (p. 337; Hanover, 1862). He wrote: ''Keneset Yeḥezḳel,'' ''responsa,'' Altona, 1732; ''Tefillot le-Yarẓait,'' prayers and rituals for Jahrzeit, ib. 1727; ''Ạ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish And Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the immediate generations following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, from Spain in 1492 and Expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Portugal, from Portugal in 1497. Although the 1492 and 1497 expulsions of unconverted Jews from Spain and Portugal were separate events from the Spanish Inquisition, Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (which were established over a decade earlier in 1478), they were ultimately linked, as the Inquisition eventually also led to the fleeing out of Iberia of many descendants of Jewish converts to Catholicism in subsequent generations. Despite the fact that the original Edicts of Expulsion did not apply to Jewish-origin New Christian ''conversos'' —as these were now legally Chris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moses Hagiz
Moses Hagiz (1671 – c. 1750) (Hebrew: משה חגיז) was a Talmudic scholar, rabbi and writer born in Jerusalem during the time of the Old Yishuv. He was also one of the most prominent and influential Jewish leaders in 17th-century Amsterdam. During Hagiz's lifetime, there was an overall decline in rabbinic authority which was the result of migration and assimilation, and Hagiz devoted his career to restoring rabbinic authority. His most prominent talent was as a polemicist, and he campaigned ceaselessly against Jewish heresy in an attempt to unify the rabbinate. Biography Moses' father, Jacob Hagiz, died while Moses was still a child. The latter was therefore educated by his maternal grandfather, Moses Galante (the Younger), who had succeeded his son-in-law. With the death of Moses Galante (1689) support from Livorno was withdrawn, and Hagiz found himself in very straitened circumstances. He went to Safed to collect a claim which his mother had against the congregation, but suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
