Isserles, Moses ben Israel

Isserles, Moses ben Israel

▪ Jewish scholar
acronym  Rema  
born c. 1525, Kraków, Pol.
died May 1, 1572, Kraków

      Polish-Jewish rabbi and codifier who, by adding notes on Ashkenazic (Ashkenazi) customs to the great legal digest Shulḥan ʿarukh of the Sephardic codifier Joseph Karo, made it an authoritative guide for Orthodox Jews down to the present day.

      A precocious scholar, Isserles became the head of the great yeshiva (institution of Jewish learning) in Kraków while he was still a young man. Until his time, most of the great codifications of Jewish law had been written by Sephardim (Sephardi), i.e., Jews of Spanish and Portuguese descent. Therefore many eastern European customs (minhagim) had been ignored, making the Sephardic codes increasingly unacceptable to the Ashkenazim, the Jews of German-Polish descent. When Joseph Karo published Shulḥan ʿarukh (1565; “The Well-Laid Table”), its Sephardic bias provoked Isserles to write a commentary entitled Mappa (“The Tablecloth”), first published in Kraków in 1571 as notes to an edition of Shulḥan ʿarukh. This commentary, which extensively utilized Ashkenazic customs, made the Shulḥan ʿarukh acceptable all over the Jewish world. A man of unusual intellectual breadth, Isserles was greatly interested in philosophy, history, and astronomy, as well as in Kabbalistic studies. He considered philosophy and the Kabbala, the influential body of Jewish mystical writings, to be different expressions of the same religious truth.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • ISSERLES, MOSES BEN ISRAEL — (1525 or 1530–1572), Polish rabbi and codifier, one of the great halakhic authorities. His full family name, Isserel Lazarus was shortened to Isserles, but he is usually referred to as the Rema (acronym of Rabbi Moses Isserles). Isserles was born …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Moses Isserles — is commonly known as the Rema (Hebrew: רמ א‎). He should not be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as the Ramah (Hebrew: רמ ה‎). Moses Isserles Moses Isserles (Artist s rendering) …   Wikipedia

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  • Moses Isserles — Moses ben Israel Isserles (* um 1525 in Krakau; † 1572 ebenda) war ein polnischer Rabbiner des 16. Jahrhunderts. Er wird oft mit dem Akronym Rema (hebr. הרמ”א ha Rəma; poln. Remu) bezeichnet, den Anfangsbuchstaben von Rabbi Moses Isserles. Sein… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • ZACUTO, MOSES BEN MORDECAI — (c. 1620–1697), kabbalist and poet. Zacuto, who was born into a Portuguese Marrano family in Amsterdam, studied Jewish subjects under saul levi morteira (an elegy on the latter s death by Zacuto was published by D. Kaufmann in REJ, 37 (1898),… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Moïse Isserlès —  Rem a (hébreu : רמ א) redirige ici. Pour le Rema h (hébreu : רמ ה), voir Meïr Aboulafia …   Wikipédia en Français

  • ISRAEL ISSERL BEN ISAAC SEGAL — (end 17th–early 18th century), rabbi (probably in Poland) descended from the family of Moses b. Israel isserles . His work Asefat Ḥakhamim (Offenbach, 1722) – the printing of which he personally supervised – is a collection of sermons arranged… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

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  • Israel Isserlein — Israel ben Patachia Isserlein (auch: Isserlin; * 1390 in Regensburg; † 1460 in Wiener Neustadt) war der bedeutendste deutsche Rabbiner des 15. Jahrhunderts. Nach den Städten, in denen er gelebt hat, wird er auch Israel Marburg und Israel Neustadt …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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