ר׳ יעקב בן מאיר מנורדהאוזן

ר׳ יעקב בן מאיר מנורדהאוזן was an early-fourteenth-century Ashkenazic scholar and head of the yeshiva at Nordhausen in Thuringia. Later rabbinic scholarship probably identifies him as the compiler of the brief פסקי תוספות printed alongside many tractates of the Babylonian Talmud, although the attribution is not certain and another scholar of the same name has sometimes been proposed. He is traditionally counted among the younger students of ר׳ מאיר בן ברוך מרוטנבורג and is named as a teacher of ר׳ שלום מנוישטאדט. His biography is inseparable from the Black Death persecutions. In 1349 Jews across German lands were falsely accused of poisoning wells. Nordhausen’s community was destroyed after territorial authorities encouraged its burning. Jewish martyrological tradition describes ר׳ יעקב, his son ר׳ מאיר, his students and community preparing themselves in prayer and entering the fire together. German civic histories and Jewish memorial sources agree that the community was annihilated and identify its rabbi among the victims, while details of the final scene come from a later Jewish narrative. Because his earlier itinerary is poorly documented, the map keeps him at Nordhausen apart from an approximate study association.