HOROWITZ, ISAAC HA-LEVI BEN JACOB JOKEL

HOROWITZ, ISAAC HA-LEVI BEN JACOB JOKEL (1715–1767), German rabbi. In his youth he was known as a scholar and later married the daughter of R. Jacob Babad, the av bet din at Brody, who supported him in his home for several years. He was rabbi successively at Gorochov (1749), at Glogau, succeeding his father there on the latter's death, and at Brody (from 1754) where he was much beloved and where many stories circulated about his communal activities and his great wisdom. On the death of Jonathan *Eybeschuetz he was a candidate for the position of chief rabbi of the three communities of Hamburg, Altona, and Wandsbeck. Elected with the sanction of Jacob *Emden, he arrived at Hamburg in 1765, and served as chief rabbi for two stormy years. There he succeeded in calming the passions engendered by the Emden-Eybeschuetz dispute, but in confirming Eybeschuetz' decrees he aroused the hostility of Jacob Emden. In 1766 he was a central figure in the controversy concerning the *Cleves get, declaring it to be valid in opposition to the Frankfurt rabbis who had invalidated it. Emden sided with Horowitz, which finally led to their reconciliation, and subsequently Emden wrote to him in terms of great esteem.

[Itzhak Alfassi]

Horowitz' responsa on the laws in Orah Hayyim were published in his Matamei Yiẓḥak (1904–05) Part 1, the second part of which contains his commentary on the Keretiu-Feleti of Jonathan Eybeschuetz. The Matamei Yizhak ve-Lehem Maẓẓah (1911) contains talmudic novellae by him and his son, Mordecai Ẓevi. His novellae are also included in the Berakhah Meshulleshet (1935) published by S. Ehrlich. Other of his responsa are scattered throughout the works of his contemporaries. Of his sons, Mordecai Ẓevi was av bet din of Horochow, Samuel av bet din of Amsterdam, and Eliezer avbet din of Zalozhtsy and the father of Aryeh Leib *Horowitz of Stanislav. Another grandson, Naphtali Ẓevi, was the founder of the ḥasidic dynasty of Ropczyce.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]

bibliography:

E. Duckesz, Iwoh Le-Moschaw (1903), 53–59 (Heb. pt.); I. Horowitz, Matamei Yizhak (1904), 12–16 (introduction by E. Schoenfeld); Z.(H.) Horowitz, in: S. Ehrlich (ed.), Berakhah Meshulleshet (1935), 101–24; J.A. Kamelhar, Dor De'ah (1935²), 44–47; N.M. Gelber, Arim ve-Immahot be-Yisrael, 6 (1955), 57f., 101, 108; M. Horovitz, Frankfurter Rabbinen (1969²), 205f.