Joshua Höschel Ben Saul

Polish rabbi; died in Wilna at an advanced age Sept. 9, 1749. He was named after his grandfather, R. Höschel of Lublin, Brest-Litovsk, and Cracow (d. 1663), and is referred to in a document dated 1745 as being very old. He became rabbi of Wilna in 1712 and held that position until his death. He is mentioned with great reverence by contemporaneous writers; and there are approbations by him in "Geon Ẓebi" by Ẓebi Horwitz (Prague, 1736) and in the Jerusalem Talmud with the commentary "Ḳorban ha-'Edah" by his brother-in-law David of Dessau (Dessau, 1743; Shklov, 1812). A letter written from Padua (1729) to R. Höschel by the physician Jekuthiel of Wilna, who studied in Italy, describing the writer's enthusiasm for Moses Ḥayyim Luzzatto, is published in Jacob Emden's "Torat ha-Ḳena'ot" (Amsterdam, 1752). The letter on cabalistic questions, presumably written to the subject of this article by Benjamin Cohen Vitali of Reggio in 1691, was probably really addressed to the cabalist Joshua Höschel ben Joseph Ẓoref of Wilna, who died at Cracow in 1720.

Bibliography:

  * Fuenn, Ḳiryah Ne'emanah, pp. 109, 114, 269, Wilna, 1860;
  * idem, Keneset Yisrael, p. 300, Warsaw, 1886;
  * Monatsschrift, xli. 700-708; xlii. 328, note.



S. S. P. Wi.