Case (Casa), Joseph ben Abraham

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CASE (Casa), JOSEPH BEN ABRAHAM

CASE (Casa), JOSEPH BEN ABRAHAM (d. before 1612), Polish rabbi. It is surmised by some that Joseph lived for a time in Italy, the name Case being very similar to the Italian family name *Cases. He is also known by the surname Shapiro. Case apparently served as rabbi of Lemberg when Joshua *Falk was head of the yeshivah there, and he seems also to have been rabbi of Posen, where he died shortly before his son, Solomon Zalman. Although he left no literary works, he was regarded as an outstanding authority. In the responsa of Meir of Lublin (no. 88), he is mentioned as one of "the four greatest halakhic teachers in the whole of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia," and he is referred to as "the gaon Rabbi Joseph, av bet din of Lemberg and the whole region of Podolia. Some identify him with a Joseph mentioned in the responsa Masat Binyamin (1633) of Benjamin *Slonik (no. 22).

bibliography:

Perles, in: mgwj, 16 (1867), 223; Landau, in: Ha-Asif, 2 (1885), 399; J. Kohen-Zedek, Shem u-She'erit (1895), 36 (addendum to: Oẓar ha-Sifrut, 5 (1896)); S. Buber, Anshei Shem (1895), 89, no. 215, 203, no. 508; Bloch, in: Ha-Eshkol, 1 (1898), 151–4.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]

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