Avigdor Kara

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Tomb in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague

Avigdor Kara (also: Abigdor ben Isaac Ḳara , Hebrew אביגדר בן יצחק קרא; * probably before 1389 in Regensburg ; † April 25, 1439 in Prague ) was a rabbi , Talmudist and Kabbalist .

Life

Avigdor Kara was the son of Rabbi Jizchak Kara. He and his father moved from Regensburg to Prague, where Avigdor probably had to witness the murder of his father in a pogrom in 1389 as a child. He is said to have been used several times by King Wenceslaus IV for religious disputes. Later he was a member of the Prague Rabbinical Court ( Beth Din ). Avigdor Kara was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, and his tombstone is the oldest preserved in this cemetery. Because of its poor state of preservation, the stone was brought to the Jewish Museum in the Maisel Synagogue , while a copy was placed in the cemetery. The inscription says that Kara understood the lovely song, taught many and some individuals the knowledge of the Torah and was well versed in science, in all the books of wisdom and the books of scripture.

Avigdor Kara was a Kabbalist. Some handwritten fragments of him have survived , including the kabbalistic responses Ewen sapir (The stone sapphire ), which contain allegorical interpretations of the Pentateuch, and the kabbalistic script Kodesch hillulim . But best-known are his poems, which were included in the liturgy, such as the Elegy Selicha , which was the subject of the pogrom of 1389 and which is still read today on Yom Kippur in the Old New Synagogue . It says, among other things:

"Many were slain, who knows your number,
Young men and girls, old and young.
I don't have to call them to your mind, Lord of all souls,
You will judge everyone, you will examine everyone.
They also destroyed the cemetery, the place of eternal freedom,
where the bones of my great ancestors rest.
They dug up these treasures of mine
full of anger they smashed the tombs,
to humiliate my pride
How much longer, O Lord; is it still not enough ?! "

The figure of Avigdor Kara was poetically processed by the Czech writer Alois Jirásek in his trilogy Mezi proudy (Between the Streams).

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kara, Avigdor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ḳara, Abigdor ben Isaac
BRIEF DESCRIPTION rabbi
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: before 1389
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Regensburg
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1439
Place of death Prague