Akiva ben Menaḥem ha-Kohen of Ofen (died 1496) was a Jewish scholar who lived in Hungary and

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

in the second half of the fifteenth century. He is the first rabbi in

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

whose name is recorded. Epigraphs of members of the family in Prague refer to him as "

Nasi Nasi may refer to: Food Dishes Nasi Goreng is an Indonesian and Malay word for ''cooked rice'', featured in many Southeast Asian dishes *Nasi goreng, a popular rice dish often simply called ''nasi'' *Other Southeast Asian ''nasi'' dishes: **Nasi ...

" and "head of the entire

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

Biography

His learning, wealth, and benevolence secured for him the title "

" (Prince), and an influential position at the court of King Matthew of Hungary about 1480. This promotion excited the envy of the nobles to such a degree that they slandered him to the king, and he was compelled to leave the country. He settled at Prague and there established a large Talmudic college, at which he himself lectured. Here, too, jealous enemies persecuted him, and even attempted his life. In grateful memorial of three fortunate escapes, he presented three of the

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

s of Prague with costly curtains for the Torah ark. Akiva, who was a kohen, had twelve sons and thirteen daughters: twelve of the latter he gave in marriage to kohens. He was proud of the fact that with his sons and sons-in-law, aggregating, with himself, twenty-five, he could fulfil literally the commandment of the

priestly benediction The Priestly Blessing or priestly benediction, ( he, ברכת כהנים; translit. ''birkat kohanim''), also known in rabbinic literature as raising of the hands (Hebrew ''nesiat kapayim'') or rising to the platform (Hebrew ''aliyah ledukhan'') ...

. His daughter Yocheved, who married Shabbethai ben

Isaiah Hurwitz Isaiah or Yeshayahu ben Avraham Ha-Levi Horowitz ( he, ישעיה בן אברהם הלוי הורוויץ), (c. 1555 – March 24, 1630), also known as the ''Shelah HaKaddosh'' ( "the holy ''Shelah''") after the title of his best-known work, was ...

, became the ancestress of a family renowned for its learned men; and his son Gerson Katz was the progenitor of a noteworthy family of printers of that name.

References

{{authority control 1496 deaths Rabbis from Budapest People from the Kingdom of Bohemia People from the Kingdom of Hungary