MINZ, ABRAHAM BEN JUDAH HA-LEVI

MINZ, ABRAHAM BEN JUDAH HA-LEVI (d. 1525), Italian scholar and rabbi. Some time before 1509, acting on behalf of his father, Judah b. Eliezer ha-Levi *Minz of Padua, he insulted the famous rabbi, Jacob Margolis of Regensburg. Both father and son subsequently made public apology. In January 1509, after his father's death, Abraham was appointed to succeed him, but in July of the same year a decree of expulsion was issued against him by the Venetian authorities for having presented a gift in the name of the Padua community to the chief of the conquering imperial German army during the sack of Padua. The decree was apparently revoked some time thereafter, as Minz is known to have visited Padua about ten years later. After leaving Padua, Abraham spent 15 months in Ferrara, being supported there by the wealthy parnas, Norsa, whom he later sided with in the notorious *Finzi-Norsa controversy, at the height of which Jacob *Pollak, a partisan of Abraham Raphael Finzi, and Minz excommunicated each other. Abraham subsequently became rabbi in Mantua. His son-in-law, Meir *Katzenellenbogen, occupied the Padua rabbinate.

Abraham was the author of a number of responsa, which are printed together with those of his uncle by marriage, R. Liwa of Ferrara (Venice, 1511). He was the author, too, of Seder Gittin va-Ḥaliẓah, printed together with the responsa of his father and his son-in-law (Venice, 1553). He died in Padua.

bibliography:

A. Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore (1944), 107–54 (= Abhandlungen… Chajes (1933), 149–93); I.T. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da'at Kedoshim (1897/98), 5–38, 88 (third pagination).

[Shlomo Eidelberg]