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169 only in the shadow of the tabernacle. Accordingly they join the monastic order after they have been married and have become fathers of children (Halevy, " Travels in Abyssinia," p. 230). According to Flad (" Abyssinische Juden," pp. 32 et seg.), the order founded by Abba Zebra (Halevy, "Abba Sura") This would indicate consists altogether of eunuchs. non-Jewish influence, of which the Falashas show

many

Ascetics

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

169

traces.

Lazarus, Ethics of Judaism, §8 246-256 Dukes, Zur Kenntniss der Neuhebrliigchen Poesie, 1842, pp. 8 et seg.; Goldziher, De V Ascetisme, in Revue de VHist aire des Religions, 1898, pp. 314 et seg.; NOldeke, Sufi, in Z. D.

Bibliography

M. O.

xlvlii. 45-47.

ABRAHAM



German

rabbi and au-

thor; bornatPosen; officiated as rabbi of Zell toward the end of the eighteenth century. He descended from a learned family which traced its. pedigree to

His father, Joseph, was rabbi of and one of his relatives was the scholarly Asch wrote " Mareh Esh " (The ApIsaiah Berlin. pearance of Fire), published posthumously by his It contains critical notes son, Moses Jacob, in 1803. on the texts of various Talmudic treatises. Probably Asch is not identical with Abraham Asch, author of "Torah Kullah" (The Whole Law), Berlin, 1796, who agitated against the custom of hasty burials.

Mei'r of Lublin.

Dessau



Bibliography



Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 666.

P. B.

L. G.

ASCHAFFENBURG

chili ("Or Ne'elam"), who signs as rabbi of the district of Aschaffenburg. Teachers. In 1723 he left Aschaffenburg, in order to accept the position of chief rabbi In 1769 a convention, presided over of Mayence. by the chief rabbi, D. M. Scheuer, was held, which devoted its attention almost exclusively to the methods of improving religious instruction. Seligmann Sulzbach is mentioned as teacher in the Talmud Torah, in 1779 he was a son-in-law of Mei'r Barby, rabbi at Pressburg, in whose work, "Hiddushe Meharam Barby," he is quoted. His successor, in 1784, was Israel Isserl, who calls himself " Rabbi of Eibenschutz." In 1786 Hillel Wolf Sondheimer, who had been assistant rabbi at Ftirth, was elected rabbi of Aschaffenburg but officially he was called " teacher " (Sclmllehrer). In 1803, when Aschaffenburg was separated from Mayence, Sondheimer was, made chief rabbi of Aschaffenburg. He officiated in that capacity up to 1832, and died on March 3 of His successor, that year, aged eighty-three years. Gabriel Neuburger, was elected April 13, but was, only considered as a deputy, in which capacity he Later he resided as a private officiated up to 1845. member of the congregation in Aschaffenburg, where he died in 1888. He was succeeded by district rabbi Abraham Adler, who officiated until his death in

Rabbis

and



Adler was succeeded by Simon Bamberger, formerly been rabbi in Fischach. Bamburger was at first appointed deputy, but in 1888, 1880.

Important town on the Jews in Aschafright bank of the Main in Bavaria. fenburg are first mentioned in the thirteenth century, when reference is made to a Rabbi Abraham

In the reports of the persecution of Aschaffenburg. which the Jews had to suffer in the year 1349, at the time of the Black Death, Aschaffenburg and its Records exist neighboring towns are mentioned. of Jewish inhabitants in the following towns of the diocese of Mayence, called later the principality of Aschaffenburg: Buchen, Killsheim, Babenhausen, Steinheim, Seligenstadt (1292), Miltenberg (where- a large cemetery existed as early as 1336), Amorbach,

and Walldurn. In documents of 1344-45 mention is made of the synagogue of Aschaffenburg. A scholar of Aschaffenburg, R. Mei'r, is quoted in the fifteenth century by Joseph Kolon ("Responsa," No. 1). In the sixteenth century mention is made of a Rabbi Simon ben Isaac ha-Levi, author of "Debek Tob" and " Massoret ha-Mikra " and in the seventeenth century of R. Mei'r Grotwohl. During the seventeenth century, Aschaffenburg had a Jewish congregation of considerable size, as is evident from various doc;

In 1698, with the consent of the princebut in the beelector, a new synagogue was built ginning of the eighteenth century the congregation had dwindled down to twenty members. From this time onward the religious leaders of the community can be enumerated. In 1719 the various congregations that had the right to use the cemetery of Aschaffenburg founded These congrea charitable and burial society. gations were: Goldbach-Hosbach, Grossostheim, uments.



Kleinwallstadt,

wallstadt, Niedernberg, and Hausen. In the records of the burial society there are some regulations by Isaac Seckel Ethausen, author of lift



K.

ASCH,

Aschenburg-

Mommlingen, Hofstetten,

Gross-

who had

was made district rabbi. He died Dec. 9, 1897. The synagogue, erected in 1698, had to be demolished in 1887, when a new one was built. The congregation maintains a school for religious instruction, and has a separate cemetery besides the one used by the smaller congregations of the district. In the last century the community possessed a Jewish hospital.

There are several Jewish

charitable,

which have an income derived from The congregalegacies there is also a social club. tion, the members of which are mainly merchants, numbers 130 families. associations,

Bibliography: lifter

die

Salomon Bamberger, Historisehe Beriehte

Juden der Stadt und

tums Aschaffenburg,

D

.

des Ehemaligen FilrstenStrasburg, 1900. S. Ba.

ASCHE, TOBIAH BEN EZEKIEL

(known

also as Tobiah. Sch.loch.ow ; that is, of Schlochow, near Stolpe, Germany): German Talmudist; rabbi of Zempelburg at the beginning of the nineteenth century. His '"Et Barzel" (Iron Pen) is an ex-

planation of halakic legal themes, and was published posthumously (Berlin, 1832) by his son Gershon, rabbi of Prenzlau. To his father's work Gershon appended his own "Nikrat ha-Zur" (Cleft in the Rock), also of halakic character, and the funeral oration delivered by him at Tobiah's grave. Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 748; Fiirst, Bibliotheea Judaica, iii. 276; L. Levin, in Zeitschnft der Histor. Gesellsch. fttr die Provinz Posen, 1900, xv. 94.

Bibliography:

P B

L. G.

-

ASCHENBURG, SIMON LEVI:

B.

-

ISAAC HA-

Talmudic scholar; lived at Frankfort-on-