ר׳ דוד אלטשולר

ר׳ דוד אלטשולר (1687–1769), called the בעל המצודות, was an eighteenth-century rabbi and biblical commentator associated with Jaworów and Prague. He conceived a clear, accessible commentary on the Prophets and Writings that would gather the peshat explanations of earlier exegetes, especially ר׳ דוד קמחי, for readers unable to consult a large scholarly library. He served as rabbi in Jaworów and later in Prague. During his lifetime he completed or published portions on Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. His son ר׳ יחיאל הלל אלטשולר completed the wider project, edited and circulated it across Europe, and divided its material into two complementary commentaries: מצודת דוד, explaining the sense and flow of each verse, and מצודת ציון, defining individual words and expressions. This collaborative transmission explains conflicting summaries that attribute the final division either to father or son. Printed alongside the biblical text in innumerable editions, the מצודות became among the most widely read early-modern commentaries on נביאים and כתובים. No authenticated portrait is known.