מהר"י מינץ

Maharyi Mintz, Rabbi Yehudah ben Eliezer HaLevi Mintz (מהר״י מינץ), was a rosh yeshiva and posek from Ashkenaz who served as rav of Padua in Italy in the fifteenth century, at the passage from the rishonim to the acharonim. He lived from about 1405 to 1508.

He was born in Ashkenaz shortly after 1400 CE. His family name is a changed form of the name of the city of Mainz (Magentza). He was a close talmid of Rabbi Asher Enschkin and took his place as rosh yeshiva. His cousin was Rabbi Moshe Mintz, the Maharam Mintz, with whom he exchanged letters on questions of halacha.

He settled in Italy and was rav of Padua for forty-seven years. There he founded a large yeshiva that drew talmidim from Italy and beyond; among them was Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, the Maharam Padua, who later married his granddaughter. He joined Rabbi Yaakov Margaliot in the cherem against Rabbi Yaakov Pollak over a mi’un (the refusal by which a girl married off as a minor ends the marriage) that Rabbi Pollak had carried out.

Rabbi Yitzchak Yaavetz saw him say Birkat HaChamah (the blessing over the sun, said once in twenty-eight years) in 5265 (1505), when he was about a hundred. He was niftar in Padua in 5269 (1508). Five days later Rabbi Yitzchak Abarbanel passed away and was buried beside him. All his writings were burned by non-Jews except for sixteen teshuvot, which were printed as Shut Mahari Mintz at the end of Shut Maharam Padua.

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