Zechariah Mendel ben Aryeh Leib

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ZECHARIAH MENDEL BEN ARYEH LEIB

ZECHARIAH MENDEL BEN ARYEH LEIB (d. after 1707), rabbi and author. He was born in Cracow, where his father was rabbi of the community. On his father's death in 1671 Samuel *Koidonover was appointed to succeed him, while Zechariah Mendel was appointed rabbi of the main synagogue. Some time after 1674 he was appointed rabbi of Tvrobin and from 1691 to 1700, he was rabbi of Belz. Zechariah was an active member of the *Council of Four Lands; his signature appears on takkanot of the council issued during the years 1688–1700.

He was the author of Ba'er Heitev on the Shulḥan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah (in Sh. Ar., Amsterdam, 1754) and Ḥoshen Mishpat (in Sh. Ar., ibid., 1762), a digest of the halakhic comments on the Shulhan Arukh, similar to the commentaries of the same name by Judah b. Simeon *Ashkenazi or Tiktin on Oraḥ Ḥayyim, Yoreh De'ah, and Even ha-Ezer, by Isaiah b. Abraham on Oraḥ Ḥayyim, and by Moses b. Simeon *Frankfurter on Ḥoshen Mishpat. Later editions of the Shulḥan Arukh generally contain Zechariah Mendel's Ba'er Heitev to Yoreh De'ah and Ḥoshen Mishpat and that of Ashkenazi to Oraḥ Ḥayyim and Even ha-Ezer. Zechariah's son joseph was av bet din in Bychawa, Jaslo, and Lublin.

bibliography:

Ḥ.N. Dembitzer, Kelilat Yofi, 1 (1888), 79b; S. Horowitz, Kitvei ha-Ge'onim (1928), 58f.; Ch. Tchernowitz, Toledot ha-Posekim, 3 (1947), 306ff.; Halpern, Pinkas, 210, 213f., 220, 251, 254.

[Abraham David]