HEILPRIN, JOEL BEN URI (also known as Ba'al Shem II.):
Galician thaumaturge; lived at Satanow in the first half of the eighteenth century. Possessed of a fair knowledge of medicine and physics, he pretended to effect cures and perform miracles by means of the Cabala and the Holy Name. In 1720 he published anonymously a work entitled "Toledot Adam," describing various remedies attributed to prominent cabalists. The preface of the work constitutes a continuous panegyric of Heil-prin and his miracles. Heilprin had many pupils, who, on the death of their master, formed a band of charlatans who shamelessly exploited the credulity of their contemporaries.
Bibliography:
- K. P. Moritz, Salomon Maimon's Lebensgesch. i. 217;
- Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 433;
- Zedner, Cat. Hebr. Books Brit. Mus.
