Kallir, Eleazar ben Eleazar
KALLIR, ELEAZAR BEN ELEAZAR
KALLIR, ELEAZAR BEN ELEAZAR (1728–1801), rabbi. Kallir's father died before his birth, and he was therefore given his father's name. In 1759 he was appointed rabbi of Zabludow, and from there proceeded to Berlin where he lectured in the college of the wealthy Moses b. Isaac Levy. He was appointed rabbi of Rechnitz and head of its large yeshivah in 1768, and in 1781 rabbi of Kolin near Prague. Kallir was highly regarded by his contemporaries. *Azulai says, "he has the reputation of being sharpwitted and erudite," while Baruch Jeiteles states that "after the death of Ezekiel *Landau, he was the sole remaining authority in the country." His first work, Or Ḥadash, on the Pentateuch, was an appendix to the Kotnot Or of his grandfather, Meir *Eisenstadt, which he published under the title Me'orei Esh (Fuerth, 1766). Under the same title he subsequently published commentaries on tractate Pesaḥim (Frankfurt on the Oder, 1771, and often republished) and on Kiddushin (Vienna, 1799); he also wrote Ḥavvot Yaʾir he-Ḥadash (Prague, 1792), sermons and eulogies; Ḥeker Halakhah (Vienna, 1838), responsa. His books met with a wide acceptance and are quoted by his contemporaries. Other works remain in manuscript. His son Alexander Susskind was a well-known philanthropist.
bibliography:
J.J. (L.) Greenwald (Grunwald), Lifnei Shetei Me'ot Shanah, O Toledot ha-Rav Eleazar Kallir u-Zemanno (1952).
[Itzhak Alfassi]