BACHRACH, MOSES BEN ISAIAH MENAHEM

BACHRACH, MOSES BEN ISAIAH MENAHEM (also known as Moses Mendels ; 1574–1641), talmudic scholar. Bachrach was av bet din in Szydlow, Wlodzimierz, Cracow, and Frankfurt from before 1605 until after 1614. Apparently he then went to serve in a similar capacity in the district of Cracow since Meir b. Gedaliah *Lublin mentions him in one of his responsa of that period as being there. He carried on a halakhic correspondence with Benjamin Aaron *Slonik in 1619, at which time he was in Vladimir. In 1636 he was succeeded by R. Yom Tov Lipmann *Heller as av bet din in Prague, moving from there to Posen, where he succeeded Simeon Wolf b. David Auerbach as av bet din, and where he remained for the rest of his life. He participated in the sessions of the Council of the Four Lands in Yaroslav (1614) and in Lublin (1639). Jacob *Reischer in his Shevut Ya'akov refers to him as an outstanding talmudic scholar. Moshel ba-Elyonim Attah Yadata, a seliḥah he wrote during an epidemic, is still extant. It is included in the Seliḥot of Posen, Cracow, Prague, Worms, and Alsace. One of his responsa is included in the responsa Ḥinnukh Beit Yehudah of Judah Leib b. Ḥanokh (Amsterdam, 1708, no. 76). His son israel wrote Sefer Marot ha-Ẓedek and an index to the Shelah of Isaiah *Horowitz (Amsterdam, 1682). His daughter, Edel, translated an abridged version of *Josippon into Yiddish (Cracow, 1770).

bibliography:

M. Horovitz, Frankfurter Rabbinen (1969²), 38, 47, 62, 280–1; Dembitzer, in: Oẓar ha-Sifrut, 4 (1892), 230–1; Wettsein, in: Ha-Eshkol, 5 (1905), 253; Halpern, Pinkas, 61, 490; Davidson, Oẓar, 3 (1930), 107 no. 834; D. Avron (ed.), Pinkas ha-Kesherim shel Kehillat Pozna (1966), 72, 120.