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Benjamin Wolf Eleazar

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Polish-Hungarian rabbi; born in Wodzislaw, government of Kielce, Poland, 1775; died at Verbo, Hungary, March 6, 1851. His father, Eleazar Löw, instructed him in Talmudic literature, and at an early age he became rabbi of a Polish congregation. In 1812, following his father to Austria, he became rabbi of Kolin, Bohemia. In 1826 he was called as rabbi to Gross-Tapolcsany, Hungary, and in 1836 to Verbo, where he spent the remainder of his life. His only work is "Sha'are Torah," a treatise on the principles of Talmudic law which shows the author's methodical mind and vast knowledge of Talmudic literature. Three parts of the work appeared in print (Vienna, 1821 and 1850; Satoralja-Ujhely, 1872), while the fourth part is still in manuscript. Wolf Löw was twice married; his first wife, from whom he obtained a divorce, was the daughter of Ephraim Zalman Margolioth of Brody; the second was the daughter of Isaac Landau, rabbi of Auschwitz. Löw's son Jeremiah, rabbi in Satoralja-Ujhely, was the recognized leader of the Orthodox party in Hungary and its spokesman in an audience which its deputation obtained with the emperor in order to protest against the establishment of a rabbinical seminary ("Allg. Zeit. des Jud." 1864, p. 292). He was nevertheless opposed to the secession of the Orthodox from the whole body of Judaism and therefore refused to take part in a congress planned by the Orthodox(ib. 1870, p. 786). Upon his death in 1872 he was succeeded by his son Eleazar, who was later called to the rabbinate of Unghvar, of which he is still (1904) the incumbent. Other grandsons of Wolf Löw are Abraham and Benjamin Singer, joint authors of "Ha-Madrik," a pedagogic anthology of the Talmud. Moses Löb Bloch was Wolf Löw's nephew and pupil.