מאיר אייזנשטאט

Rav Meir ben Yitzchak Eisenstadt (c. 5430/1670–27 Sivan 5504/1744), known as the Panim Me’irot after his responsa and as the Maharam Ash, was a posek consulted by rabbanim from Turkey, Germany, and Italy. Born in Poznań and a descendant of the sister of the Shach, he learned in his youth under Rav Avraham Avli Gombiner, the Magen Avraham, and under Rav David Oppenheim. He served as a dayan in Posen and as rav of Szydłowiec, and at thirty, in 5460/1700, was appointed rosh yeshiva of Worms.

When Worms was taken by the French he moved to Prossnitz in Moravia, where he raised the young Rav Yonatan Eybeschutz, orphaned of his parents, as a father and a rebbi. From 5477/1717 he was rav of Eisenstadt and its Seven Communities — taking the name of the town as his own — and there he built a great yeshiva whose talmidim came from near and far. A false accusation forced him from the city for some two years, until one of the witnesses confessed that he had no part in the matter, and he returned.

Beside the responsa Panim Me’irot he wrote Or HaGanuz, chiddushim on Ketubot, and Kotnot Or, a commentary on the Torah and the five Megillot, printed together with the Or Chadash of his grandson Rav Elazar Kalir under the title Meorei Esh. He was niftar in Eisenstadt and buried in the old cemetery there; a street in the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborhood of Yerushalayim carries the name of his sefer.