Israel of Krems
ISRAEL OF KREMS
ISRAEL OF KREMS (fl. mid-14th century), talmudist. He studied together with Abraham *Klausner under Moses of Znaim (Moravia). There is no basis for Graetz's assertion that he is identical to Israel b. Isaac of Nuremberg whom the Elector Rupert appointed in 1407 as hochmeister of all the rabbis in Germany. Israel *Isserlein, his great-grandson, relates that his ancestor wrote "glosses to the Asheri." Most scholars therefore assume that Israel is the author of Haggahot Asheri printed as notes to Asher b. Jehiel's commentary on the Talmud (Vilna edition), although Steinschneider doubts this. Haggahot Asheri is for the most part compiled from the works of 13th- and early 14th-century rabbis who lived in Germany – among these works are Mordecai b. Hillel's Mordekhai, Haggahot Maimoniyyot, Isaac of Corbeil's Sefer Mitzvot Katan, and Alexander Suesslin Kohen's Aguddah – the author usually giving his sources. Some of the glosses are his own, and some refer to the text of the Talmud proper rather than to the commentary of Asher. These glosses are often the sole source for quotations from certain rishonim, including, for example, many of the halakhic decisions of *Hezekiah b. Jacob of Magdeburg, and statements of the tosafist, *Isaac of Dampierre.
bibliography:
Graetz, Gesch, 8 (19004), 102–4; Freimann, in: jjlg, 12 (1918), 304f.; S. Krauss, Die Wiener Geserah vom Jahre 1421 (1920), 48, 81; Urbach, Tosafot, 208, 366, 442.
[Yedidya A. Dinari]