SCHOR, ALEXANDER SENDER BEN EPHRAIM ZALMAN

SCHOR, ALEXANDER SENDER BEN EPHRAIM ZALMAN (d. 1737), talmudist. Schor, who was probably born in Lvov, married the daughter of Mordecai b. Leibush of Zolkiew, president of the *Council of Four Lands. For a time Schor was rabbi of Hovnov, Belz district, but in 1704 he resigned, not wishing to bear the responsibility of the rabbinate, and went to live in Zolkiew, where he remained for the rest of his life, earning his living as a distiller. In 1733 Schor published Simlah Ḥadashah, a digest of the laws of ritual slaughter – sheḥitah and terefot – with an extensive commentary entitled Tevu'ot Shor. An appendix named Bekhor Shor contains novellae on both the halakhah and aggadah to tractate Ḥullin and other tractates. The Tevu'ot Shor attained great popularity. It has been republished at least 17 times and came to be regarded as the authoritative work on the subject. Schor generally assumes a stringent interpretation of the relevant laws. In practice, a knowledge of Tevu'ot Shor was regarded as a prerequisite for a shoḥet before he was granted a kabbalah, a permit to practice sheḥitah. The name of the book became almost a concept: of an expert in the laws of sheḥitah it was said that "he is an expert in the Tevu'ot Shor."

Commentaries were written on it, the most important being Levushei Serad of D.S. Eybeschuetz (Moghilev, 1812) and the Tikkunei ha-Zevaḥ of Isaiah Borochowitz (1883).

bibliography:

Ḥ.D. Friedberg, Toledot Mishpaḥat Schor (1901), 15–19; S. Buber, Kiryah Nisgavah (1903), 13–14; Ch. Tchernowitz, Toledot ha-Posekim, 3 (1947), 258–60.

[Itzhak Alfassi]