Joseph (Joslein) Ben Moses

Bavarian Talmudist; born at Höchstädt about 1420; died after 1488. A few details of Joseph's life are known through his "Leḳeṭ Yosher," of which only one copy is extant in manuscript (Munich MSS., Nos. 404, 405). Having studied for five years under Israel Isserlein, Joseph traveled to the Rhine provinces, but returned to his teacher, whose decisions, at the request of his fellow students, he committed to manuscript, subject to Isserlein's corrections. In 1463, three years after Isserlein's death, Joseph began to arrange the material for publication, continuing the task at Cremona (1474) and finishing it in 1488. It is arranged in the order of the four Ṭurim. The work, besides its halakic value, is historically interesting, containing as it does many passages bearing on the lives of Isserlein and his students and illustrating the manners and customs of rabbinical academies in that period. Judah incorporated in the "Leḳeṭ Yosher" the decisions of a pupil of Shalom of Austria, for which he was praised by Isserlein; he included also some of the collectanea of Judah Obernik.

Bibliography:

  * Berliner, in Monatsschrift, xviii. 131, 132;
  * Steinschneider, Cat. Munich, Nos. 404-405.



S. S. M. Sel.