Jacob Reischer

Jacob Reischer was born in Prague, although his surname indicates that his family originated from Rzeszów, Poland. A child prodigy, he published his first work, Minḥat Ya‘akov (The Offering of Jacob, 1689), before the age of twenty. Reischer, who married the daughter of Benjamin Wolf Spira, chief rabbi of Bohemia, and was the brother-in-law of David Oppenheim, served as head of the rabbinic courts and yeshivot in Ansbach, Worms, and later Metz. As he was recognized as a halakhic authority, questions were sent to him from throughout the Jewish diaspora, and he attracted students from many European communities. His responsa were published in a three-volume work, Shevut Ya‘akov (The Captivity of Jacob). Among his many rulings is the innovative decision that courts could force husbands who beat their wives to divorce them. His other works include commentaries on the laws of Passover and on ‘En Ya‘akov, a popular anthology of stories, parables, and other nonlegal texts drawn from the Talmud.