Brill, Azriel

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BRILL, AZRIEL

BRILL, AZRIEL (1778–1853), rabbi and scholar born in Zay-Ugróc, Hungary. He studied under Ezekiel *Landau, Moses *Muenz, and Mordecai *Banet. In 1814 he was appointed teacher of Hebrew, mathematics, and geography at the Jewish school in Pest, and in 1827 he became a member of the rabbinate of that city. Brill was the author of Ein ha-Areẓ (Buda, 1821), an outline of the geography and history of Hungary in Hebrew; and Hadrat Kodesh (1828), a vocalized text of the Mishnah orders Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yoma, with a German translation and commentary, and the liturgy for the High Holy Days. Azriel's brothers adopted the name Schossberger; one of them, Eliezer, was the ancestor of the barons Schossberger of Tornya. His son, samuel loew brill (1814–1897), was appointed in 1850 a member of the bet din in Pest, which he headed from 1872. His glosses on the Talmud were published by L. Blau (in Magyar zsidó Szemle, 1896, and in mgwj, 1897).

bibliography:

V. Bacher, in: Magyar Zsidó Szemle, 9 (1892), 708; A. Loewinger, ibid., 16 (1899), 272–8; L. Blau, ibid., 19 (1902), 40–81, 128–36 (on Samuel Loew).

[Alexander Scheiber]