Shlomo Ganzfried

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried

Shlomo Ganzfried (or Salomon ben Joseph Ganzfried,

Ungvár, Com.Ung, Royal Hungary – 30 July 1886, in Ungvár, Ung, Royal Hungary) was an Orthodox rabbi and posek best known as the author of the work of Halakha (Jewish law), the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Hebrew: קיצור שולחן ערוך, "The Abbreviated Shulchan Aruch"), by which title he is also known.[1]

Biography

Ganzfried was born in 1804 in

ordination
and marriage. After his marriage he worked briefly as a wine merchant.

In 1830, he abandoned commerce and accepted the position of Rabbi of

dayan, a judge in the religious court. At that time Ungvár's spiritual head, Rabbi Meir Ash, was active in the Orthodox camp, in opposition to the Neologs. Through serving with Ash, Ganzfried realised that in order to remain committed to Orthodoxy, "the average Jew required an underpinning of a knowledge of practical halakha (Jewish law)". It was to this end that Ganzfried composed the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch. This work became very popular, and was frequently reprinted in Hebrew and in Yiddish
. This work often records more stringent positions.

Rabbi Ganzfried remained in the office of Dayan until his death on July 30, 1886.

Works

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch

The

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, first published in 1864, is a summary of the Shulchan Aruch of Joseph Karo
with reference to later commentaries. This work was explicitly written as a popular text, in simple Hebrew, and does not have the same level of detail as the Shulchan Aruch itself.

Other works

References

External links