Lewysohn, Abraham

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LEWYSOHN, ABRAHAM

LEWYSOHN, ABRAHAM (1805–1860), Polish rabbi and scholar. Lewysohn, a native of Schwerzenz (Swarzec), Poznania, served as rabbi in Peiskretscham (Pyskowice), Silesia. He belonged to the pioneering generation of modern Jewish scholars, and his Mekorei Minhagim (1846), a study of the origin of religious customs in rabbinic literature, was a considerable contribution to scholarship. A shortened version with the same title was plagiarized by J. Finkelstein in 1874. He wrote numerous biographies of tannaim and amoraim, in both Hebrew and German, and also talmudic novellae, grammatical studies, poetry, and Hebrew and German sermons.