ר' ישראל ברונא

Israel Bruna, Rabbi Yisrael of Bruna (ר’ ישראל ברונא), known as Mahari Bruna, was a rishon and one of the leading poskim of Ashkenaz in the fifteenth century, living from about 1400 to 1480. He is among the main Ashkenazi authorities whom Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Rema, quotes in the Shulchan Aruch.

His father was Rabbi Chaim. He learned under the great rabbis of his generation, Rabbi Yisrael Isserlin, author of Terumat HaDeshen, and Rabbi Yaakov Weil, the Mahariv, who gave him semicha and spoke of him with high praise as a brilliant student. A third teacher, Rabbi Zalman Katz, the Maharzach, author of Sefer HaYeriah on hilchot gittin and a close friend of the Maharil was also noted as his teacher.

He served as rabbi of Brno in Moravia, the city called Bruna in rabbinic writing, and answered teshuvot from there; hence his name. When the Jews were expelled from the city in 1454 he moved to Regensburg in Bavaria and opened a yeshiva. Regensburg then held outstanding talmidei chachamim, the Maharam Mintz among them, and the dayanim of his beit din corresponded with the gedolei hador. His appointment there was contested: Rabbi Anshel, who already ran a yeshiva in the city, and his supporters wanted to keep Mahari Bruna from serving and to give the post to Rabbi Anshel, although the Mahariv and the author of Terumat HaDeshen had ruled in Mahari Bruna’s favor. In the end the community accepted him as its rabbi.

His later years were hard. In 1454, during a dispute over taxes on the Jewish community between Emperor Friedrich III and the Duke of Landsberg, the emperor had him imprisoned to press him to take his side; he was freed after thirteen days. In 1474 an apikores (apostate) named Hans Vayol accused him of a blood libel and he was arrested again. The community appealed to Friedrich III and to Ladislaus, king of Bohemia, and they obtained his release.

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