BRACH, SAUL

BRACH, SAUL (1865–1940), rabbi in Slovakia. He served as rabbi in the Hungarian communities of Nagykaroly and Dunaszerdahely, and, finally, in Košice, Czechoslovakia. His Avot al Banim (1926) is prefaced by a violent attack on the Zionist movement (the Mizrachi and Agudat Israel included). Here he states that believers in the law of Moses "should keep their distance from Zionists and Mizrachist homes and avoid eating and drinking with them as they would with gentiles. Further, they ought to be excluded from the community" (p. 27). Although he fully appreciated the Hebrew language, he opposed its secular use (p. 23). In his opinion the Balfour Declaration was "in the interest of the gentile world, its purpose being to rid the nations of the world of the Jews." He was the author of many works, among them: (1) Mishmeret Elazar 1897 and subsequent parts, on the festivals and "the excellence of the Holy Land"; (2) Libba Ba'ei (1911), novellae on talmudic themes; (3) Sha'ol Sha'al (1911), on Yoreh De'ah; (4) Le-Olam ha-Ba (1938), on Avot; and a series of works on the festivals and the month of Elul. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.B. Sofer-Schreiber, Ketov Zot Zikkaron, (New York, 1957), 280. (Naphtali Ben-Menahem)