HOROWITZ, ẒEVI HIRSCH BEN ḤAYYIM ARYEH LEIBUSH HA-LEVI

HOROWITZ, ẒEVI HIRSCH BEN ḤAYYIM ARYEH LEIBUSH HA-LEVI (1872–1945), rabbi and scholar. Horowitz was born in Cracow, where his father was a rabbi. His father's responsa Ḥayyei Aryeh (1890) also includes the son's novellae (no. 36). At the outbreak of World War i Horowitz and his family fled to Moravia. He settled in Bruenn where he served as rabbi and av bet din of the Maḥazikei ha-Dat community, founded by Galician refugees. In 1916 he moved to Scheveningen, Holland, where he took part in communal activities and established a yeshivah. When in 1919 the Orthodox community Shomerei ha-Dat was founded in Dresden, Horowitz was appointed its rabbi, and in 1920 was also appointed chief rabbi of Dresden. In consequence of the Nazi persecution he moved to Antwerp in 1939. After the German invasion of Belgium in the spring of 1940 he went to Nice, where he lived until his death. His two sons and two of his brothers perished in the Holocaust.

His later works and publications included Kitvei ha-Ge'onim (1928), containing many letters of Jewish scholars with details on their genealogies. These letters were discovered by him after prolonged search in Scheveningen. He also wrote Le-Korot ha-Kehillot be-Polanyah (1969). This book, comprising material left by him in manuscript, was arranged and prepared for publication after the Holocaust and contains studies of 11 well-known Polish towns, including Apta, Belz, Bolichov, Glogau, Goroditz, Duklah, and Vishnitza. These two works are a mine of information on the history of the rabbinate and its literature in Europe during the last centuries as well as on the biographies of many rabbis and their families. Among his other works is a pamphlet, Kitvei Yeshanim, containing nine letters written by Saul b. Ẓevi Hirsch *Berlin to his brother-inlaw Jacob Moses Lowenstamm of Amsterdam during the period that Berlin was compelled to leave Germany on account of the storm raised by his Besamim Rosh. This pamphlet together with his notes was published in Ha-Ẓofeh le-Ḥokhmat Yisrael, 14 (Budapest, 1930, p. 3–24). Horowitz's research into the arrangement of the editing of the Jerusalem Talmud, together with his work on Toledot Mishpaḥat Horowitz, was added for the first time to the Tov Ayin (1935), on the tractate Yevamot of the Jerusalem Talmud, by his brother Eleazar Moses Horowitz. Among the manuscripts he left is Zikhron Ẓevi ha-Levi, containing his responsa and sermons.

bibliography:

Sefer Cracow (1959), 108n. 82–85; Preschel, in: I. Lewin (ed.), Elleh Ezkerah, 5 (1963), 148–56; idem, Le-Korot ha-Kehillot be-Polanyah (1969), introduction.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]