Katzenellenbogen Family

The following diagram shows the descent from Isaac Katzenellenbogen down to Jonas Reis. The == means a marriage and the >> is the product of that marriage.

Isaac Katzenellenbogen  ==  Julia Malka Luria (daughter of Jechiel Luria of Alsace)  >>  Meir Katzenellenbogen (died 1565)  ==  Hannah (daughter of Halevi Mintz / Minz) >>  Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen (1521 – 1597)  ==  Abigail Jaffe  >>  Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen (1545 – 1617)  ==  Deborah Drucker >> Meir Wahl Katzenellenbogen (died 1631)  ==  Hinde, daughter of Pinchas Halevi Horowitz  >> Baila / Beila Katzenellenbogen == Jonah / Yonah I Frankel-Teomim (1596 – 1669)  >>  Ezekiel Joshua Feivel Teomim| (ca. 1637 – ca. 1726) == Pearl Leib (1640 – 1710)  >>  Chaim Jonah Frankel-Teomim == Sarah Oppenheim >> Magdelene Genendel Frankel-Teomim (1713 – 1778) ==  Simon Isaac Bondi (1711 – 1773) >> Jonas Bondi (1732 – 1765) == Bella / Belle Schifra  >>  Clara / Caroline Bondi (1760-1829)  == Koppel Loeb of Bamberg  >> Moises Loeb / Moritz Reis (1782 – 1855) == Émilie Bickartt (1784 ) >> Jonas Reis (1809 – 1877) == Marian Samuel (1825 – 1900) REIS FAMILY

The Katzenellenbogen family came from the eponymous town in Rhein-Lahn-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate and went to Italy where they became Chief Rabbis of Padua and Venice in the 16th century.

The Town of Katzenellenbogen in Rhein-Lahn-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate

If we start from Mattityahu Treves, who was Chief Rabbi of Paris in the fourteenth century, we come to the Spira (Shapiro), who were originally from Speyer, and then on down to the old Italian Luria family, we eventually come to Jechiel / Jehiel Luria of Alsace, who was Chief Rabbi of Brest, where he died around 1470. His daughter Julia-Malka Luria married Isaac Katzenellenbogen from whom we start this family. Unfortunately, little if anything is known about Isaac so we go straight to his son Meir:

MEIR KATZENELLENBOGEN (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Meir Katzenellenbogen, also known as Meir or Maharam (of) Padua Katzenelnbogen, (1482 – Padua, 12 January 1565), was a German rabbi active in the Jewish community of Padua. A famous Talmudist, he is known for leaving a collection of Responsa. Meir was the son of Isaac and Julia-Malka (Luria) Katzenellenbogen. He married Hannah Mintz, the daughter Avraham HaLevi Mintz and granddaughter of Chief Rabbi Judah Halevi Mintz (from Mainz). Their son, Rabbi Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen (d.1597), was known as the Rabbi of Venice.

Meïr ben Isaac, as he was generally called, was the progenitor of the Katzenellenbogen family. After studying in Prague under the sophist Jacob Polak, he went to Padua and entered the yeshibah / yeshiva of Judah Minz, whose niece he later married. He succeeded his father-in-law, Abraham Minz, as chief rabbi of Padua, a position he held until his death.

Meïr was also nominal rabbi of Venice, where, as appears from his Responsa (nos. 43, 48, etc.), he went several times a year, but had his permanent residence in Padua. Meïr was considered by his contemporaries to be a great authority on Talmudic and rabbinic matters, and many rabbis consulted him, most notably Moses Alashkar, Abdia Sforno, and his kinsman Moses Isserles of Kraków (who referred to him as “rabbi of Venice”).

It can be seen from his response (ninety in number, published on his own, with those of Judas Minz, under the title of She’elot u-Teshubot in Venice 1553), as well as from those of Isserles, where liberality is highlighted in his decisions. Another indication of his inclination toward liberalism was his use in his Responsa (nos. 38, 49, 72) of the civilian names of the months, something not done by other rabbis of his time.

In the sack of Padua in 1509, shortly after his death, almost all of Judah Minz’s writings were destroyed. Joseph ben Abraham Minz, his nephew, discovered sixteen of his Responsa, and these were published in Venice in 1553 for the Hebrew printing houses of Meïr Katzenellenbogen, who printed in the same volume his own responsa and Abraham Minz’s Seder Gittin wa-chalitzah. These responsa were later modified and supplemented with an extended commentary and a preface by Johanan ben Moses Preschel. Judah Minz’s responsa, although scarce in number, gives interesting information about the history of his time and Jewish customs in Padua.

In 1550, Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen published a new edition of Moses Maimonides of the original code of Jewish law, the Mishnah Tōrāh. Katzenellenbogen invested much time, effort and money in printing the edition. He and his son also added their own commentary to Maimonides’ text. Since Jews were forbidden to print books in sixteenth-century Italy, Katzenellenbogen was available to have its edition printed by a Christian printer, Alvise Bragadini. Bragadini’s main rival, Marc’Antonio Giustiniani, responded by publishing a cheaper edition, copying the notes of the Maharam Katzenellenbogen with the inclusion of a critical introduction. Katzenellenbogen then asked Rabbi Moses Isserles of Kraków, the highest Ashkenazi authority in European Judaism at the time, to forbid the distribution of Giustiniani’s edition. Isserles was the first to try his hand at the first principles of copyright. In the early days of printing, an author-editor’s claimed request to have an exclusive right to publish a particular book was the first case in print. Moreover, Justiniani, as a non-Jew, was not inherently subject to the intricate rules of Jewish law applicable to commercial relations between Jews.  The controversy with the printer Alvise Bragadin, although unintended, caused a series of disastrous consequences for Jewish culture.

The decree of Pope Julius III of 12 September 1553 ordered the confiscation and burning of all the books of the Talmūd. In Venice on October 18, 1553 the Council of Ten ordered the surrender within ten days to the executors against the blasphemy not only of the Talmūd, but also of “every compendium, summario, over other thing dependent on it”, threatening the defaulters “very serious penalties, such as two years of forced labor in the galleys, or five years of imprisonment with perpetual banishment from the territory of Venice”. The fire was carried out on October 21, 1553. Since the previous year the printing house of Giustinian had ceased activity, for the unforeseen consequences of the dispute with Bragadin so improvidently raised only to make unfair competition, plagiarizing his version of the Talmud commented by the rabbi of Padua Meir Katzenellenbogen, who had commissioned it to Bragadin after having vainly consulted Giustinian himself.

Dai Responsa

Joseph b. Mordecai Gershon says (She’erit Yosef, No. 1) that Meïr, in one of his responses, told him not to rely on his opinion at that time, because he could not verify his decision in the Talmud, all copies of which had been burned. The burning is mentioned by David Gans (Zemah Dawid, p. 56, Warsaw, 1890) and Heilprin (Seder haDorot, i. 245, ed. Maskileison) as occurring in 1553 and 1554 under the pontificate of Julius III, at the instigation of some baptized converted Jews. Meïr also states (Responsa, No. 78), that the Hafṭarah was in Heraklion for Yom Kippur Minḥah, with the exception of the first three verses, read in Greek (comp. Zunz, p “GV”. 413, note). In responsum No. 86 he speaks of the plague that raged in Venice, but without indicating the year. Many of his responsa can be found in the collection of Moses Isserles. Meïr added to the edition of his responsa the Seder Gittin wa-Ḥaliẓah of his father-in-law, and a detailed index. He also edited Maimonides’ Yad, with some commentaries, to which he added notes in his own hand (Venice, 1550; See Isserles).

SAMUEL JUDAH KATZENELLENBOGEN and his wife Abigail Jaffe

Samuel Judah (Shmuel Yehuda) Katzenellenbogen (1521 – 1597) was the son of Meir Katzenellenbogen and Hannah Mintz. It is said that Samuel was distinguished even in his youth for his scholarship and his oratorical gifts. He was associated, both as rabbi and as writer, with his father Isaac, after whose death, in 1565, he was elected rabbi at Venice.

Katzenellenbogen was highly respected by his coreligionists throughout Italy. He is said to have accorded a hospitable reception to the Polish prince Mikołaj Krzysztof “the Orphan” Radziwiłł when the latter visited Padua. When the prince found himself in need of money he appealed to Katzenellenbogen, who lent him the necessary funds for continuing his journey, requesting in return that he deal leniently with the Jews in his country, and protect them against the accusation of ritual murder.

Title page from Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen’s Shneim-Asar Derashot (Venice, 1594)

R. SAUL, WAHL

born at Padua in 1541/45. He was the son of the above Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen and Abigail Jaffe. He died at Brest-Litovsk about 1617. He married Deborah, daughter of David Drucker Rapaport (Parnas in Brest-Litovsk).  Deborah Drucker’s father was David Yehiel Rapaport who was called Yehiel the Madpis of Vienna. (Madpis and Drucker are both translations of the word Printer). He is more commonly referred to after his profession – David Drucker. Saul Wahl and Deborah Drucker’s son was Meir Katzenellenbogen.

He left Italy to study in Poland with his kinsman Rabbi Shlomo Luria when he was still young. In Poland Saul attained some importance in Polish – Lithuanian affairs of State. He became known by the name of “Wahl” (“the Italian”) and his numerous progeny contracted marriages with the leading Jewish families of the time.

Through the patronage of Prince Radziwill, whose family was the most powerful in Lithuania, Saul gained the ear of kings and magnates, who called him Wahl, and in 1587, during the long interregnum leading up to the election of the Swedish Prince Sigismund Vasa to the Polish throne, he is believed to have carried out royal functions as Rex pro tempore when an impasse was reached in the electoral process.

There is a substantial Jewish literature on his life and times and on his pedigree but very little in the official state papers. They do indicate that the newly elected King Zygmunt III favoured him and that he continued to flourish under his rule. Among the many legends that have survived, one suggested that the King had an affair with Saul’s daughter Hannele. She was married off to an elderly kinsman, Ephraim Zalman Shor. Saul Wahl’s ancestry and his importance in the history of sixteenth-century Poland–Lithuania are matched by the distinction of his progeny, who included scores of rabbis and, in more recent times, the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, his grandson, the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Karl Marx, Martin Buber, Isaiah Berlin, Yehudi Menuhin, Sigmund Freud, Helena Rubenstein, David Man, and many others.

Two centuries later, in 1842, when the Brest Synagogue was destroyed by a decree of the Czar to make room for a fort, a plaque was discovered with the following inscription: Sir Saul, son of Chief Rabbi Judah of Padua built this synagogue for women in honor of his pious and virtuous wife Deborah, daughter of David Drucker, in the month of Tevet in the year …… her home and house …………. The gaps indicate that parts were destroyed. The plaque was placed in the new synagogue built afterwards in another part of the city.

MEIR MOSHE WAHL KATZENELLENBOGEN (1565 – 1630)

Also known as Meir Shauls, was a Polish rabbi. He was the son of Saul Wahl and Deborah Drucker and grandson of Samuel Judah. His first wife was Hinde / Hinda, (ca. 1570 – 1617), daughter of R. Phineas halevi Horowitz. His second wife was Beila, who died in Lublin. Moritz Reis is descended from the marriage of Meir with Hinde Horowitz.

At the beginning of his career, he was elected A.B.D. of Tiktin where he was mentioned in the Memorial Book of the Departed. He was one of the Rabbis who helped establish the Council of the Land of Lithuania which was similar to the Council of the Four Lands as the controlling body for the Jews of Lithuania, in 1623. At this time there was a court composed of the heads of the three communities of Brest, Grodno, and Pinsk. The leadership of this council was for a long time occupied by the A.B.D. of Brest and thus Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen became its head when he became Rabbi of Brest. Because of his highly esteemed position among his people, the first and subsequent meetings were held at Brest. The records of this council from its beginning in 1623 until 1764 are extant and were published in 1925 in Berlin by S. Dubnow.

In 1627 it is recorded that Meir had an ailment of his hand so that a certain Issachar Ber signed for him, and in 1628 Meir could only manage to sign “Meir” himself. In the records of his time he is mentioned by the Tosfot Yomtov in his Megillat Eiva, published Breslau 1837, and the “BaCH,” (R. Joel Sirkes), wrote him a Responsum in his book Bayit Chadash.

The daughter of Meir Moshe Wahl and Hinde / Hinda (Horowitz) Katzenellenbogen was Beile Wahl Katzenellenbogen (ca. 1610 – ca. 1669) who married Rabbi Yona Frankel Teomim ca. 1596 – 1669) .

To continue the descent of Moritz Reis from the Katzenellenbogen family please refer to the Frankel-Teomim Family

There are quite a few well known descendants of Meir Katzenellenbogen such as:

The Gravestones of the Katzenellenbogen family in Padua.

Avigail / Abigail / Ogla Jaffe / Abigail Ogla Yaffe Isserlein. Birthdate: after circa 1520 at Italy. Death: April 30, 1594 at Padua, Italy. Place of Burial: Padua. Immediate Family: Wife of Rabbi Samuel Jodah / Shmuel Yehuda Katzenellenbogen (above). She was the mother of Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen (1 day King). She was a direct ancestor of Moritz Reis.