KOERNER, MOSES BEN ELIEZER PHOEBUS

KOERNER, MOSES BEN ELIEZER PHOEBUS (1766–1836), rabbi and author. He was rabbi at Rendsburg (Schleswig), Shklov, and Grodno. In his later years he traveled extensively in Europe soliciting aid for the publication of his works. Koerner subsequently settled in Breslau where he died. His published works are: Torat Moshe (Nowy Dwor, 1786), containing homilies on obscure passages in Bible and Midrash, and also novellae, partly by Ẓevi Hirsch b. Abraham, of Posen; Zera Kodesh (Berlin, 1798), a commentary on the sifra with homiletic discourses; Ke-Or Nogah (Breslau, 1816), an attempt to synthesize Kabbalah and Jewish philosophy, the zohar and Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed; Iggeret Rishfei Keshet (Hanover, 1831), an account of his wanderings and tribulations, including a rebuttal of his detractors; Megillat Eivah (Breslau, 1837), the autobiography of his ancestor yom tov lipmann heller , with Koerner's notes and a German translation by Miro; and Birkat Moshe (Berlin, 1834). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Zeitlin, Bibliotheca, 183f.; Lewin, in: MGWJ, 76 (1932), 2 n.3. (Jacob Hirsch Haberman)