FREUDEMANN, SIMḤAH

FREUDEMANN, SIMḤAH (Ephraim ben Gershon ha-Kohen ; c. 1622–1669), talmudist and author. Born in Belgrade, Freudemann studied under Judah Lerma ii, the Sephardi rabbi of the Belgrade community, whom, despite his Ashkenazi descent, he succeeded as rabbi. In 1660 he was appointed rabbi of Ofen (Buda) in Hungary, but a dispute soon arose in the town on the grounds of his having relatives in the community, a disqualifying factor for the appointment of a rabbi under the terms of a ban included in the takkanot of the dayyan Aryeh Shraga Feivish of Vienna. In consequence, he left Ofen after a few months and returned to Belgrade where he remained until his death.

In 1647 he published Lerma's responsa, Peletat Beit Yehudah (Venice). Ten years later, there appeared in Venice his most important work, Sefer Shemot (referred to also as Shemot ha-Gittin), based on unpublished material of earlier Ashkenazi and Sephardi authorities, giving the correct Hebrew spelling of Jewish personal names of Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, and German origin, as well as the orthography of rivers and place-names for use in drawing up Jewish bills of divorce and other public documents in which accuracy was essential.

bibliography:

S. Bechler, A zsidók története Budapesten (1901), 140–7; Conforte, Kore, 51b; J.J. (L.) Greenwald (Grunwald), Pe'erei Hakhmei Medinatenu (1910), 19; idem, Ha-Yehudim be-Ungarya (1913), 19f.; Arim ve-Immahot be-Yisrael, 2 (1948), 126; P.Z. Schwartz, Shem ha-Gedolim me-Ereẓ Hagar, 2 (1913), 42a, no. 94; Zipser, in: Ben-Chananja, 2 (1859), 172f.

[Samuel Rosenblatt]