Aaron Samuel Kaidanover
Aaron Samuel ben Israel Kaidanover was a Polish-Lithuanian rabbi. Among his teachers were Jacob Hoeschel and his son Joshua Hoeschel.
Biography
Kaidanover was born in 1614, in Vilna, according to Deutsch and Mannheimer, but according to Tamar in Koidanovo, near Minsk, from whence his surname was taken. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, Kaidanover fled to Vilna, where he became a member of the bet din. In 1656, as a result of the Russian-Swedish War and Sweden's invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, he was forced to flee once again, taking refuge in Kurów. While living in Kurów, he survived the 1655 massacre of Lublin. His home was pillaged by Cossacks, his possessions stolen, his valuable library and manuscripts, along with his own writings, among them, and his two young daughters were murdered. He wrote in 1669 recollecting the traumatic event that he was left with a broken leg in the road, dirtied and bloodied, starving and thirsty, and naked and barefoot in only an undershirt.He arrived in Moravia an impoverished fugitive. He was elected rabbi successively of Langenlois in Lower Austria, Nikolsburg, Glogau, Fürth, and Frankfurt am Main, and then returned to Poland in 1671 to become the rabbi of Kraków, a position he held until his death on 1 December 1676, while attending the Vaad HaGalil of Kraków that took place in Chmielnik.
Kaidanover's son Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover, was a rabbi at Frankfurt and author of Kav ha-Yashar. He printed many of his father's works.
Works
He wrote:Birkat ha-Zebaḥ, annotations to the Talmudical tractates of Kodashim, with a preface in which he narrated the remarkable events of his life.Birkat Shemuel, derashot on the Pentateuch, partly kabbalistic, with additions by his son Zebi Hirsch Kaidanover, its editor Emunat Shemuel, sixty responsa on matrimonial cases, edited by his son Tiferet Shemuel, novellæ to various Talmudic tractates, also edited by his son. The annotations to Hoshen Mishpat contained in the last-named work were printed in Ture Zahav.''Jewish Encyclopedia'' bibliography
- Azulai. Shem ha-Gedolim. Warsaw. Vol. i: 124b
- Benjacob, . Otzar ha-Sefarim, Thesaurus Librorum Hebræorum. . Vilnius. pp. 41, 87, 88, 659
- Emden, Jacob. Megillat Sefer. Warsaw. p. 5
- Fürst, Julius. Bibliotheca Judaica, Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Vol. I, p.201; Vol. II, p.200
- Grätz, Heinrich. Gesch. Vol. X, p. 81;
- Horovitz, Márkus. Frankfurter Rabbinen. . Frankfurt am Main. Vol. ii: pp. 49–53, 99
- Kaufmann, David Vertreibung der Juden aus Wien. . Vienna. p. 62, note 6
- Michael, Heimann Joseph. Or ha-Ḥayyim. Frankfort-on-the-Main. No. 317
- Steinschneider, Moritz,. Catalogus librorum hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana. Berlin. cols. 772, 886.