Bloch, Moses
BLOCH, MOSES
BLOCH, MOSES (1815–1909), rabbi and author. Bloch, who was born in Ronsperg, Bohemia, served as rabbi in several cities of Bohemia and Moravia. In 1877 he was appointed together with David *Kaufmann and Wilhelm *Bacher to the academic staff of the newly founded rabbinical seminary in Budapest. Bloch was professor of Talmud and Codes and also the rector of the seminary, in which capacities he served for 30 years. His main work was Sha'arei Torat ha-Takkanot (in 7 volumes, 1879–1906) which traces, on the basis of talmudic sources, the development of *takkanot from Moses to the end of the talmudic period. In a sequel to this work, Sha'arei ha-Ma'alot (1908), Bloch gives a detailed exposition of the various states and degrees of holiness, ritual and family purity as defined in the Mishnah and Talmud. Bloch published important monographs, in German and Hungarian, on biblical and talmudic law, in the yearbooks of the Budapest Seminary. He published the Prague 1608 edition of the responsa of *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, together with notes and indexes (in 1885; 18963), and also some hitherto unpublished responsa of R. Meir for the Mekize Nirdamim (1891).
bibliography:
Sefer ha-Yovel… Moshe Aryeh Bloch (1905), ix–xxiv; Jahresbericht der Landes-Rabbinerschule in Budapest, 31 (1908), 3–4; 32 (1909), iii–x.
[Moshe Nahum Zobel]