YAḲḲAR BEN SAMUEL HA-LEVI II.:

By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Schulim Ochser

German scholar and liturgical poet of the second half of the thirteenth ceutury; flourished in Cologneand in Mayence. He was related to Meïr of Rothenburg, in whose responsa he is several times mentioned; and he was a pupil of R. Jehiel of Paris. His marginal glosses to Abot are still preserved in manuscript. He was, besides, the author of the following liturgical poems: a "yoẓer" for a Sabbath festival; an "ofan"; a "zulat," poem to be sung before the recital of the "Shemoneh 'Esreh"; a "Ḳedushshah," to be sung at the repetition of the "Shemoneh 'Esreh"; a zulat, poem beginning with the words "Ezkerah Elohim" and meant for the Sabbath following the 20th of Tammuz, in memory of the martyrs of Pforzheim, 1267; a Ḳedushshah, poem in eleven lines, with continuous rime; a "Ge'ullah" of three cantos, each consisting of two stanzas of five lines; and an elegy on Zion, in which the author's name is twice mentioned. As Yaḳḳar and his father, Samuel ben Abraham, fell victims in the butchery of 1271, the zulat in memory of the Pforzheim martyrs must have been written shortly before his death.

E. C. S. O.