Issachar Baer ben Solomon Zalman

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ISSACHAR BAER BEN SOLOMON ZALMAN

ISSACHAR BAER BEN SOLOMON ZALMAN (Klazki; d. 1807), Lithuanian talmudist. The brother of *Elijah b. Solomon Zalman the "Gaon of Vilna," he was also known as Issachar Baer Ashers, in accordance with the custom then prevailing, since his father-in-law was Asher Ginsberg. Issachar Baer wrote a commentary to the Pentateuch entitled Ẓuf Devash (unpublished), which is primarily a literal commentary but also includes elucidations of talmudic passages and a commentary on the Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah. He was also interested in secular learning and in a letter to the Amsterdam rabbi, Saul, dated 1775 (see Horowitz, in bibl.), he asked him to send him the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, as well as some kabbalistic works.

bibliography:

S.J. Fuenn, Kiryah Ne'emanah (1915), 205f.; I.T. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da'at Kedoshim (1897–98), 208 (first pagin.); D. Maggid, Toledot Mishpehot Ginzburg (1899), 60, 69, 104, 226; Z. (H.) Horowitz, Kitvei ha-Ge'onim (1928), 5–8.

[Samuel Abba Horodezky]