ר׳ אליעזר בן אליהו אשכנזי

ר׳ אליעזר בן אליהו אשכנזי (1512–1585) was a remarkably mobile rabbi, physician and independent biblical exegete. Born into an Ashkenazi family at an uncertain location, he studied in Salonika under ר׳ יוסף טאיטאצאק. From 1538 to 1560 he served as a rabbi in Egypt, probably at Fustat, before political circumstances drove him to Famagusta in Cyprus. His subsequent career carried him through Venice, Prague, Crimea, Cremona, Poznań, Gniezno and Kraków. In Prague his signature headed the regulations of the communal burial society; in Italy and Poland he repeatedly entered vigorous intellectual and halakhic controversy. His rationalist מעשי ה׳ interprets the narrative sections of the Torah and the Passover Haggadah using philosophy, medicine and close textual reasoning. יוסף לקח, his commentary on Esther, was dedicated to ר׳ יוסף נשיא and printed at Cremona. His outlook resisted both scholastic pilpul and uncritical mystical explanation, bringing him into disagreement with figures including the מהר״ל. He completed מעשי ה׳ at Gniezno in 1580 and died in Kraków on 13 December 1585, where his grave survives in the Remuh Cemetery.