The Rabbinate of Poznań in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

It is only fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sources that help build an image of the functioning of the rabbinate in Jewish religious communities of medieval Poland. Latin Christian sources dating to the period mention individuals described as doctor scholae , senior scholae , or episcopus Iudaeorum (standing for the rabbi or the major senior). However, mentions referring to such persons usually only deal with their lending activities. Still, we can learn more about the rabbis active in Poznan in the middle of the fifteenth century thanks to the correspondence ( responsa ) of Israel Isserlein, Israel Bruna, and Moses Minz, all of whom were scholars active in the Empire.