BLUM, AMRAM BEN ISAAC JACOB

BLUM, AMRAM BEN ISAAC JACOB (1834–1907), Hungarian rabbi. He served as rabbi of the important communities of Samson, Almas, Mád, Huszt, and Berettyoujfalu, where he died. He studied under his father, who was head of the bet din in Nagykaroly, and later in the seminaries of Nagykaroly, and of Abraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, rabbi of Pressburg. His sons relate that throughout his life he longed to stand at the threshold of the gates of Zion and Jerusalem. He decided to do so once he had married off his sons and daughters. However, he was never able to fulfill this desire. His work Beit She'arim (Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 1909; Yoreh De'ah, 1941) is well-known in rabbinic circles and still of importance as a basic work of halakhah. The author formulated his own particular method of research, a method which went to the heart of each problem and explained it with clear reasoning. Blum founded a yeshivah which attracted many students. Blum had five sons and four sons-in-law, almost all of whom were noted scholars and served as rabbis of various communities in Hungary and Transylvania. Prominent among his sons were isaac jacob (1858–1938) who succeeded his father; ben-zion (1885–1945), rabbi of Szarvas, who published his father's book on the Passover Haggadah – Arvei Pesahim (1927); judah Ẓevi (1867–1917), who served as rabbi of Tapoly-Hanusfalva; and moses nahum, who held the position of dayyan of Nagyvarad. He met his death in Auschwitz in 1944. Moses Nahum arranged the publication of the second volume of his father's Beit She'arim.

bibliography:

N. Ben-Menahem, Mi-Sifrut Yisra'el be-Ungaryah (1958), 306–9, 314–7; A.J. Schwartz, in: M. Stein, Even ha-Me'ir (1909), 83; P.Z. Schwartz, Shem ha-Gedolim me-Ereẓ Hagar, 2 (1914), 25a–b; S. Schwartz, Toledot Ge'onei Hagar (1911), 15b–20a; Magyar Zsidó Lexikon (1929), 130.

[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]