Issar Judah ben Nehemiah of Brisk
ISSAR JUDAH BEN NEHEMIAH OF BRISK
ISSAR JUDAH BEN NEHEMIAH OF BRISK (d. 1876), Lithuanian rabbi. He lived in Szydlowiec, Brest-Litovsk (Brisk), where he was head of the bet din, and Siedlce. He immigrated to Ereẓ Israel toward the end of his life and died there. He was the author of Ezrat Yehudah (1862), responsa and novellae; and Neḥamat Yehudah (1866), comprising two parts – Igra de-Shemata, essays on halakhic novellae, and Igra de-Pirka, pilpulistic homilies and novellae which aimed at resolving difficulties in Maimonides' code. Some of the responsa in Ezrat Yehudah deal with the problem of *agunot that arose in consequence of the great fire which swept Brest-Litovsk in 1847. He was in correspondence with Joseph Saul *Nathanson (Ezrat Yehudah, 59a–b). In his introduction he mentions other works which have not been published.
bibliography:
A.L. Feinstein, Ir Tehillah (1885), 34, 221; L. Ovchinskii, Naḥalat Avot, 1 (1894), 22 no. 107.
[Josef Horovitz]