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198 Ashkeuazi, Joseph Ashkenazi, Meir

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

learned Jew he is mentioned with Mordecai Meisl, a Jew of Prague of princely wealth " Ich inucht so wol lernen

Oder mucht

als

Rabbi Josef Ashkenas,

The epithet "Divine Tanna," conferred upon Ashkenazi by his contemporaries and by men of later times, clearly indicates the main point in which his strength lay. Next to Elijah b. Solomon of Wilna, Ashkenazi is probably the most careful student of the Mishnah, itself the spiritual product of the " Divine Tannaim." Even Isaac Luria, the creator of the new Cabala, did not disdain to receive instruction from him upon the Mishnah. When Teblin of Jerusalem, a pupil of Ashkenazi, went to Europe he imparted to the well-known Mishnah commentator Yom-Tob Lipman Heller many of his teacher's explanations of the Mishnah. Some insight into Ashkenazi 's mental activity is

gained from his brief and fragmentary glosses to the Mishnah, as published in Solomon Adeni's work, "Meleket yhelomoh," in which Ashkenazi's emendations are considered. In these glosses Ashkenazi displays great critical ability. He treats the text in a wholly unprejudiced and purely scientific manner, and, disregarding tradition, deletes unsparingly "whenever, in his opinion, such elision is justified by the import of the text, and in similar manner separates compound words into their component parts. In his opinion the vocalization and the accentuation of words are not side issues, but worthy of the special attention that he bestowed upon them. Ashkenazi's observations are of especial value, being

-

based upon a manuscript Mishnah in his possession, dating from about 700. He is said to have written critical comments also on the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. Bibliography: Azulai. Shem ha-GedoUm, ed. Benjacob, i. 39; Kaufmann, in Mnnatsschrift, xlil. 38-46; Sambari, In Neubauer's Medieval Jewish Chronicles, 1. 151 Shibhe ha;

A.ri ed. Leghorn, 44b, from which lived and taught in Egypt too. %

it

appears that Ashkenazi

L. G.

ASHKENAZI, JOSEPH BEN, OF PADUA. See Schalit, Joseph.

ASHKENAZI, JOSEPH EDELS ian

commentator and



Palestin-

cabalist; lived at the beginning

of the nineteenth century at Jerusalem and Padua died at Safed. He was sent as European agent (" meshullah ") from Palestine to collect money for the Palestinian poor. On his travels he remained at Padua, Italy, for a certain time, where he became the teacher of Mordecai Samuel Ghirondi. According to this source, Ashkenazi was a prolific commentator of Biblical and Talmudical subjects, but published nothing beyond a small commentary on the " Sefer Yezirah," to which he appended many of his observations on Bible and Talmud.

Bibliography



Nepi-Gbirondi, Toledot

QedoU

Yisracl,

p. 212.

M. B.

L. G.

ASHKENAZI, JOSEPH EEVI Talmudist and rabbi

B. ISAAC HAborn in Germany about 1550; died at Frankfort-on-the-Main 1628. His first teacher 'was the Frankfort rabbi Eliezer Treves, after whose death (about 1567) he completed his Talmudic studies under Hayyim b. Bezalel,



b. Hayyim of Worms, Joshua Moses b. mon Luria, and David Blum of Sulzberg. From Bonn, where Ashkenazi held his first

Jacob

went

Metz (about

Soloposi-

Here the prohibition against the residence of Jews, which had been in force for two hundred years, had been removed, and a community of 120 persons had recently been formed. The subsequent growth of this community was in no slight degree due to the activity and devotion of Ashkenazi, its first rabbi. By 1618 it had increased threefold and in that year, through the efforts of Ashkenazi, a synagogue was erected. He also bent his energies toward obtaining a Jewish cemetery, in connection with which he founded a " hebra kaddisha " which was also a studytion as rabbi, he

also reich sein als Meislein was."

198

to

1595).



circle.

Ashkenazi is specially known through his dispute with one of the first rabbinical authorities of the time, Meir b. Gedaliah of Lublin. AshkeHis Dis- nazi was a type of the rigorism charac-

pute with, Meir b.

teristic of the

German

rabbis.

On

a

Ashkenazi gave the Gedaliah. decision that geese whose entrails had not been examined after slaughter must be accounted "trefah" (forbidden), because such an examination, though unknown to the Talmud, was customary in Germany and Poland. This decision was disputed by the rabbi of Worms, Moses b. Gad Reuben, and was finall}'' submitted to Meir certain occasion

of Lublin. The Polish rabbis, holding themselves the superiors of their German colleagues, considered

Ashkenazi's opinion extreme; and Meir of Lublin that he should avow his error openly. Though Ashkenazi was by nature mild and yielding, he could not prevail upon himself to act coninsisted

his teachers. The dispute general; and the scholars of Posen, Cracow, Brest-Litovsk in short, all the Talmudists of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia were drawn into the conflict. Since Ashkenazi abided by his opinion, in spite of the decision of so many prominent rabbis, and thus unintentionally created the wide-spread impression that the latter had yielded, Meir sent a very abusive letter concerning Ashkenazi to the community at Worms. He denounced Ashkenazi as impertinent, presumptuous, and ignorant, and requested the Jews of Worms to remove him from his position, adding that he himself could have had him removed through the Council op Fotjk Lands were it not beneath

trary to the

custom of

now became

—

—

him to have dealings with such a man.

AshkeAshkenazi's answer (only recently pubnazi's Rare lished) shows his true magnanimity. MagHe does not indulge in one word of pernanimity. sonal reproach against the man who had so grievously insulted him, but contents himself with merely defending his own standpoint. The dispute lasted from about 1610 to 1618, and ended with Mei'r's death. source of satisfaction to Ashkenazi was the decision of Isaiah Horowitz, author of the " Shelah " and a pupil of Meir, who declared himself against his own teacher, and ordered the omission from the collection of Mei'r's responsa of the passages insulting Ashkenazi. The Venice edition (1618), "in which these passages are

A