HOROWITZ, ABRAHAM BEN ISAIAH

HOROWITZ, ABRAHAM BEN ISAIAH (1671–1744), Polish rabbi. Horowitz, born in Leipnik, Moravia, studied under his father, Isaiah b. Shabbetai Sheftel *Horowitz. He assisted his father in his activities and accompanied him at the sessions of the Council of the Four Lands. Horowitz served as dayyan in Posen and in 1699 pleaded before the council in Jaroslav, Poland, against "the leaders of the Posen community" in connection with the community's payment of a promissory note left him by his father. The hardship prevailing in Poland in 1697–1704 as a result of war compelled Horowitz to emigrate. He reached Amsterdam, where he published the prayer book with the commentary Sha'ar ha-Shamayim (1717) of his great-grandfather with additions of his grandfather Shabbetai Sheftel and with his own additions. In the introduction Horowitz notes: "I was driven from one exile to another… the pursuers caught up with me, armies and troops with the sword of war… and I was left penniless." In 1728 he published the novellae of *Yom Tov b. Abraham Ishbili (the Ritba) to various tractates of the Talmud, with the novellae of his own father, and published a new edition (1729) of Emek Berakhah by Abraham b. Shabbetai Sheftel *Horowitz with his father's additions. Subsequently he wandered in Poland and Germany, and died in Frankfurt on the Oder. His son, ze'ev wolf ha-levi (d. 1777), was a member of the famous *AltonaKlaus. Out of humility he refused to accept the office of dayyan there.

bibliography:

Perles, in: mgwj, 14 (1865), 92 n. 23; E. Duckesz, Chachme ahw (1908), Germ. pt. 27, Heb. pt. 77; H.D. Friedberg, Toledot Mishpaḥat Horowitz (1928²), 30; Z. (H.) Horowitz, Toledot Mishpaḥat Horowitz (1936), 30; Halpern, Pinkas, 244.

[Yehoshua Horowitz]