Taubes, Aaron Moses ben Jacob

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TAUBES, AARON MOSES BEN JACOB

TAUBES, AARON MOSES BEN JACOB (1787–1852), Polish and Romanian rabbi. Taubes was a pupil of Jacob *Ornstein of Lemberg. After serving as rabbi of Snyatyn, he was appointed rabbi of Jassy and district in 1841, in which office he exercised considerable influence on Romanian Jewry. The historian Ḥ.N. Dembitzer praises him as the outstanding rabbinical authority of his time to whom the most famous rabbis turned with their problems.

His published works are To'afot Re'em (1855), responsa; Karnei Re'em (1864), novellae and notes on the Talmud and its commentators, published in the standard editions of the Talmud, together with notes by his son Samuel; and Karnei Re'em (1881) on the Pentateuch with additions by his grandson Isaac Eisik (Shor). This work makes considerable use of Kabbalah. Many of Taubes' descendants served as rabbis in Jassy and in other communities in Romania. His sons Samuel Schmelke and Jacob, after serving in other communities, succeeded their father in Jassy.

bibliography:

S. Buber, Anshei Shem (1895), 27; eiv, 18 (1966), 380–1.

[Itzhak Alfassi]