KRISTIANPOLLER

KRISTIANPOLLER , family of Polish rabbis. The first of the family to adopt this name was meir ben Ẓevi hirsh (1740–1815) after he became rabbi of Kristianpol in East Galicia. He studied under his father, who was rabbi of Bialy-Kamien near Brody and later av bet din in Lemberg, and subsequently under Samuel ha-Levi *Horowitz of Nikolsburg. The author of Yad ha-Meʾir (Warsaw, 1874), novellae on various talmudic tractates, he engaged in halakhic correspondence with the rabbis of his time and R. Ezekiel Landau praised him highly. Ephraim Zalman *Margolioth wrote a lengthy eulogy on him at the end of his work Beit Efrayim. He was also eulogized by R. Ẓevi Hirsch *Horowitz of Frankfurt in his Laḥmei Todah. He served as rabbi of Brody from 1785 until his death. His son jehiel michael (d. 1863) acted as rabbi of Brody in 1831, but his appointment was not officially recognized by the Austrian government until 1846 because he did not possess the required educational standard. Jehiel Michael was admired in his community, but his relatively liberal rabbinical policy made him the object of sharp attacks from many quarters, especially from R. Solomon *Kluger. On his death Jehiel Michael was succeeded as rabbi of Brody by his son meir (1816–1886). Meir's grandson, alexander (1884–1942), was rabbi of Linz, Austria, and later, 1932–38, professor at the Israelitisch-theologische Lehranstalt, Vienna. He was the editor of Traumund Traumdeutung im Talmud (Monumenta Talmudica 4, 2 (1922) and Die hebraeische Publizistik in Wien (1930). He was deported to the Minsk ghetto in 1942 and died there.

bibliography:

S. Buber, Anshei Shem (1895), 197:492; N.M. Gelber, in: Arim ve-Immahot be-Yisrael, 6 (1955), 165, 167, 301 and index.

[Itzhak Alfassi]