From Germany To Italy: Between The Rishonim And Acharonim
By: Nosson Wiggins
The remarkable century-long life of Rabbi Yehudah Mintz
The Mintz family originated from the German Rhineland and played an integral role in the major shift of Ashkenazic Jewry to countries beyond Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries. One member of the family, Rabbi Moshe ben Yitzchak Halevi Mintz (Maharam Mintz), moved from Germany to Posen (Poznan) Poland in 1461 (see The Rishonim, pp. 142-143). Maharam Mintz, a foremost Torah leader, guided Polish Jewry during its infancy and laid the foundations upon which a Torah empire would soon be built.
A second well-known member of the family was Rebbi Yehudah ben Eliezer Halevi Mintz (c. 1405 – 1508), a cousin to Rebbi Moshe Mintz. Born in Mainz, Germany around 1405, Rebbi Yehudah studied under his relative Rebbi Asher Enshkin. Around 1460, Rabbi Yehudah Mintz emigrated to Italy and settled in Padua, where he served as rabbi for forty-seven years. Along with his rabbinic duties, Rabbi Yehudah Mintz founded the Padua yeshiva, which attracted many students, including his son, Rebbi Avraham Mintz, and his son’s son-in-law, Rebbi Meir Katznellenbogen, commonly known as Maharam Padua. (Maharam Padua would eventually succeed Rebbi Yehudah Mintz as rosh yeshiva and rabbi of Padua.)
Rebbi Yehudah Mintz merited a long life. Rabbi Yosef Ya’avetz (Chasid Ya’avetz) reports that he witnessed the elderly sage reciting Birkat Hachama in 1505 at the ripe age of one-hundred!
In 1508, Rabbi Yehudah Mintz died at the age of one-hundred and three. Five days after his death, Don Isaac Abarbanel passed away also and was buried near Rabbi Yehudah Mintz. However, during the Siege of Padua (September, 1509) the Jewish cemetery was ransacked and their graves are no longer identifiable. Tragically, during that siege, most of Rabbi Yehudah’s writings were destroyed, and only sixteen of his responsa have been published.
In one of these surviving responsa, Rabbi Yehudah approves of the custom to dress up on Purim since he witnessed the sons and daughters and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law of his pious teachers doing so without any disproval. Rabbi Yehuda’s responsa, though mostly lost to history, afford interesting information on the history of his era and on Jewish customs in Padua. Today, tourists can visit the great Padua Synagogue, which is located at 9 Via San Martino and Solferino in the historic Jewish ghetto. Though completed in 1548 after the death of Rabbi Yehudah, it was built in the Baroque style and contains a bimah that is reached by a curved flight of eight steps on each side, and features a ceremonial canopy with eight sides supported by four columns and four pilasters. Even after the Jewish ghetto was abolished, the Jewish community’s main institutions: the synagogues, the Rabbinical College, and the school remained in this area. n
Nosson Wiggins (@jewishhistorysheimhagedolim) is the author of two books on the subject of Jewish history, “The Tannaim & Amoraim” and “The Rishonim” (Judaica Press). He researches Jewish History at the Klau Library, HUC-JIR in his hometown of Cincinnati and leads tours of Klau’s Rare Book Room. He is a passionate enthusiast of Jewish history and when he’s not in the hospital working as a nurse, he can be found researching and writing posts for his Substack, “Jewish History—Sheim Hagedolim.”
