Kahana, Jacob ben Abraham
KAHANA, JACOB BEN ABRAHAM
KAHANA, JACOB BEN ABRAHAM (d. 1826), rabbinical scholar in Vilna. His father was rabbi at Brestowitz in the province of Grodno. Supported by his father-in-law, Issachar Baer, the brother of *Elijah of Vilna and one of the prominent rabbis of that town, he devoted himself to study. On the death of his father-in-law, he was appointed by the communal leaders of Vilna as trustee of the local charities. He is the author of a commentary in three parts on tractate Eruvin: on the tractate in the Babylonian Talmud, the Tosefta, and the Jerusalem Talmud respectively. Each section has a different title but the whole work was given the general title Ge'on Ya'akov. It was published, together with Joseph Padua's two-page pamphlet Zikhron Yosef (1863), by Raphael Nathan Neta *Rabbinovicz, who wrote a lengthy introduction containing a biography of the author. Kahana occupied no rabbinical position, but was held in the highest esteem.
bibliography:
R.N.N. Rabbinovicz, in: J. Kahana, Ge'on Ya'akov (1863), introd.; S.J. Fuenn, Kiryah Ne'emanah (19152), 239f.; L. Ginzberg, Perushim ve-Ḥiddushim ba-Yerushalmi, 1 (1941), 1x (Eng. introd.), 128f. (Heb. introd.).
[Itzhak Alfassi]