הרב מאיר קצנלנבוגן

Rav Meir ben Yitzchak Katzenellenbogen (c. 5233/1473–10 Shevat 5325/1565), the Maharam Padua, was among the greatest Ashkenazi poskim of the sixteenth century. Born in the German town of Katzenelnbogen, whose name his family carried ever after, to a mother of the Luria family, he learned in Prague under Rav Yaakov Pollak, master of the derech hachilukim, together with Rav Shalom Shachna of Lublin. From Prague he went to Padua in Italy, to the yeshiva of Rav Yehudah Mintz, and married Chanah, Rav Yehudah’s granddaughter, daughter of Rav Avraham Mintz.

In 5285/1525 he was appointed rav of the Ashkenazi kehillah of Padua, succeeding his father-in-law, and stood at the head of its yeshiva for forty years, drawing talmidim from afar; he served as well at the head of the rabbanim of the Venice district, and the Rema — whose mother was his cousin — addresses him as av beit din of the medinah of Venice. The chachamim of the generation turned to him from every side, Rav Moshe Alashkar and Rav Ovadiah Sforno among those who wrote to him, and ninety of his teshuvot were printed in his lifetime, together with those of Rav Yehudah Mintz, in Venice in 5313/1553.

He edited and brought to press the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah with haghot and chiddushim of his own, printed at the press of the Venetian nobleman Bragadin, for Jews were then forbidden to own presses. A rival Christian printer, Giustiniani, copied the edition and undersold it; the Rema ruled the pirated printing hasagat gevul and forbade buying it. Out of the quarrel between the printers, meshumadim informed against the Talmud itself, and Pope Julius III decreed it burned — in a teshuvah from those days the Maharam writes that his ruling should not be relied upon, for he could not check it against a gemara: all the copies had gone up in flame.

He also left haghot on the Tur, additions to his father-in-law’s Seder Gittin vaChalitzah, perushim on the Yalkut Shimoni, and selichot. He was niftar in Padua on 10 Shevat 5325/1565; his son was Rav Shmuel Yehudah Katzenellenbogen, his grandson Rav Shaul Wahl, and the Katzenellenbogen family of Ashkenaz and Poland counts him as its father.