BABAD

BABAD, a family of rabbis. The founder of the family was Isaac of Cracow, son of Issachar Berish, a parnas of the Council of Four Lands, and grandson of Heschel, av bet din of Cracow. He served as rabbi of Brzezany and then of Brody, where he died in 1704. His children added the word Babad (an acronym of Benei Av Bet Din, "children of the av bet din") to their signatures, and it eventually became their surname. Among members of the family were the following: JOSHUA HESCHEL B. ISAAC BABAD (1754–1838). Joshua Heschel b. Isaac Babad grandson of the communal leader, Jacob Jekel Babad of Brody, who served as rabbi of Budzanow and, from 1801, of Tarnopol. He was one of the opponents, in 1813, of the teaching system in the school founded by joseph perl , where secular studies were also taught. After a short stay in Lublin (1828), he was compelled to leave the city because of his dispute with the Mitnaggedim there, and he returned to Tarnapol, where he died. Joshua's responsa on the four parts of the Shulḥan Arukh, Sefer Yehoshu'a (Zolkiew, 1829), was considered a basic halakhic work, upon which contemporary rabbis relied for their rulings. MENACHEM MUNISH B. JOSHUA HESCHEL BABAD (1865–1938). Menachem Munish b. Joshua Heschel Babad a well-known personality in Galician Jewry and a halakhic authority of note. He was born in Brody where he was educated by his father and afterward by his father-in-law. He succeeded his father as av bet din of Strzyzow in 1892, and in 1894, after the death of his father-in-law, he accepted a call to serve as rabbi of Jaworow, a post which he occupied until 1911. The rest of his life was spent in Tarnopol. Menahem participated in rabbinical conferences of 1925 and 1927 in Cracow and Lvov. His method of study, resembling that of the Lithuanian yeshivot, was characterized by a logical analysis of the words of the sages, a comprehensive review of every aspect of the subject under discussion, and a summation of all the relevant views. His many responsa were collected in Ḥavaẓẓelet ha-Sharon (1931–38), covering all four parts of the Shulḥan Arukh. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: I.J. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da'at Kedoshim (1898), 104, 128 (first pagination); Cohen-Zedek, in: Dor Yesharim, 30 – supplement to: Ha-Goren, 1 (1898); S.B. Nissenbaum, Le-Korot ha-Yehudim be-Lublin (1899), 96–97; Z. Horowitz, Kitvei ha-Ge'onim (1928), 35, 39; A. Polisiuk, Tehillah le-David (1937); Halpern, Pinkas,   index; Friedmann, in: YIVO Bleter, 31–32 (1948), 170 n91; EG, 3 (1955), 262–6. (Josef Horovitz)