Israel, Jacob

Russian rabbi and author; flourished 1623-78. He is said to have been born in Temesvar, and to have been rabbi in Belzyce and Lublin; Fürst says in Slutsk also. He was a contemporary of Samuel (Aaron) Keidanover, and perished during the Chmielnicki persecutions (1648). The Bodleian manuscript No. 889 (Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." p. 212) contains some of his homilies on the Pentateuch, entitled "Tif'eret, Yisrael." His more important work was the "Yalḳut Ḥadash," first printed at Lublin in 1648, then at Prague, 1657, Amsterdam, 1659, and with appendix "Tosafot Shikḥat Leḳeṭ" at Wilmersdorf, 1673. In later editions it is sometimes called "Yalḳut Yisraeli," after its author. The book was printed as an anonymous work. It contains a collection of midrashim arranged in alphabetical order, drawn not only from early midrashic works, but also from such cabalistic works as the Zohar, "Tiḳḳune Zohar," "Yonat Elem," "Galya Razaya," etc.

Bibliography:

  * Heilprin, Seder ha-Dorot, iii. 54;
  * Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, ii., s.v. ;
  * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1163;
  * idem, Hebr. Bibl. ii. 43;
  * Roest, Cat. Rosenthal. Bibl. Hebrew part, p. 134;
  * Fürst, Bibl. Jud. ii. 154;
  * Neubauer, in Ha-Maggid, 1870, No. 49, p. 397.



S. G.