Runkel, Solomon Zalman

views updated

RUNKEL, SOLOMON ZALMAN

RUNKEL, SOLOMON ZALMAN (d. before 1426), rabbi and kabbalist. Runkel served as rabbi in Mainz and later in Worms. He was the teacher of Jacob *Moellin and the author of Ḥatan Damim (Prague, 1605), a kabbalistic commentary on the Pentateuch based on *gematria and *notarikon.

The work was left unfinished and was completed by Isaac ha-Kohen, the son-in-law of *Judah Loew b. Bezalel (the Maharal) of Prague. Some, however, attribute this work to his great-grandson Solomon Zalman Runkel (d. 1562), who was rabbi in Cracow and the son-in-law of Meir *Katzenellenbogen. It is also doubtful which S.Z. Runkel wrote a responsum mentioned in the responsa of R. Meir Katzenellenbogen. David *Oppenheim had in his library a manuscript of Runkel's Meliẓot be-Riv be'ad Aniyyei Ammenu.

bibliography:

Zunz, Gesch, 105, 194, 283; J.M. Zunz, Ir ha-Ẓedek (1874), 172, 66 (second pagination); I.T. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da'at Kedoshim (1897–98), 83–84 (first pagination); Watstein, in: Sefer ha-Yovel… Naḥum Sokolow (1904), 294–5.

[Abraham David]