Meisels, David Dov

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MEISELS, DAVID DOV

MEISELS, DAVID DOV (1814–1876), Polish rabbi. Meisels was the son of Aryeh Judah Jacob who served as av bet din of Piotrkow and Kilatow. He was known in his youth as a prodigy (illui). He was appointed av bet din of Dobra at the age of 18 and later served in the same capacity at Nasielsk. From 1851 until his death he was rabbi of Lask. He was regarded as one of the outstanding talmudists of his generation and gained the deep respect of the ḥasidic rabbi of Gur, Isaac Meir, author of the Ḥiddushei ha-Rim. Meisels' important works, published by his sons, are Ahavat David, on the laws of invalid witnesses (1884); Ḥiddushei ha-Radad, novellae on tractate Pesaḥim (1891); She'elot u-Teshuvot ha-Radad, responsa on Oraḥ Ḥayyim and Even ha-Ezer (1903); and Binyan David, on the Book of Lamentations (1913). Of his sons, jacob, author of the Toledot Ya'akov, succeeded his father as rabbi of Lask; phinehas elijah served as rabbi of Rakov and ze'ev wolf was a distinguished Ḥasid at Tarnow.

bibliography:

P. Zelig, Ir Lask va-Ḥakhameha (1926), 71–75.

[Arthur Cygielman]

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