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Gershom ben-Jehuda

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(commonly called Rabbenu Gershom, or the Ancient, also Maor hag- Golah, i.e., "the light of the Exile") was born in France about the year 960, and died in 1028. He is the reputed founder of the Franco-German rabbinical school, in which the studies of the Babylonian college were earnestly revived. He is the founder of monogamy among the Jews, and wrote a commentary on the Talmud, and some hymns and a penitential prayer, which are extant in the Machsor, or Festival Ritual of the Jews. See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 1:328; De' Rossi, Dizionario Storico (Germ. transl.) page 114; Grutz, Gesch. der Juden, 5:364 sq.; Braunschweiger, Geschichte der Judenin den Romanischen Staaten, page 32 sq.; Jost, Gesch. d. Juden. u. s. Sekten, 2:388; Etheridge, Introduction to Hebrew Literature, page 283 sq.; Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, page 69; Zunz, Literatur gesch. d. synagogaulen Poesie, page 238; Synagogale Poesie, pages 171-174; Delitzsch, Zur Gesch. der jud. Poesie, pages 51, 156; Frankel, Monatsschrift (1854), page 230 sq. (B.P.)