JOSEPH ISSACHAR BAER BEN ELHANAN

JOSEPH ISSACHAR BAER BEN ELHANAN (also called Baer Frankfurter; c. 1642–1705), author of rabbinical and kabbalistic works. The son of the kabbalist Elhanan b. Ẓevi, Joseph Issachar Baer served in his youth as rabbi in Moravia but then withdrew to Frydek in order to devote all his time to the study of Torah. In 1677 he was living in Eibenschitz (now Ivancice). Around 1680 he was rabbi of Frankfurt on the Oder, and from 1687 to 1694 district rabbi of Kremsier (Kromeriz), where   he signed with David Oppenheim the resolutions prepared by the synod there in 1694. In 1696 he left Kremsier to travel to Palestine but during his journey made lengthy stays in Nikolsburg, in Vienna (where he enjoyed the hospitality of samson wertheimer ), and in Venice (1700–01). Baer's published works are Arba Ḥarashim (Frankfurt on the Oder, 1681), an anthology of kabbalistic homilies in four parts, and Sheloshah Sarigim (Venice, 1701), homilies on the haftarot . His Mei Be'er, Matteh Oz, and Peraḥ Levanon remain in manuscript. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Buber, Kiryah Nisgavah (1903), 49; Baumgarten, in: Gedenkbuch… David Kaufmann (1900), 506ff.; B. Wachstein, Die Inschriften des alten Judenfriedhofes in Wien, 1 (1912), 281–3; H. Gold, Die Juden und Judengemeinden Maehrens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1923), 292. (Joseph Maier)