Saul choice

Saul Wahl ( Saul Judycz , Saul ben Judah Wahl , Hebrew שאול ואהל; * ~ 1541 in Padua ; † 1617 in Brest-Litovsk ) was a Jewish merchant, court Jew , customs and salt tenant and head of the Jewish community in Brest-Litovsk. Legend has it that he was King of Poland for a day .

Life

Saul Wahl, in official documents Saul Judycz, was born in Padua as the son of the Ashkenazi rabbi Samuel Judah ben Meir Katzenellenbogen (1521–1597). In his youth Wahl went to study in Brest-Litovsk in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , where he later became a wealthy businessman. In 1578 he received the salt lease from King Stephan Báthory for the entire Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in 1580 the lease of the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow . In 1589 King Sigismund III awarded him . the title servus regis (royal servant), combined with the right to wear a gold chain and to carry your own coat of arms .

Wahl was one of the heads (Hebrew Parnas) of the Jewish community of Brest-Litovsk and representatives of the Lithuanian Jews in the Council of the States (Hebrew Wa'ad ha Aratzot ), the representation of Jews in Lithuania-Poland. He campaigned successfully for Jewish interests in Brest-Litovsk. In 1592 he filed a complaint against the city court and ensured that decisions on Jewish matters were made on the basis of Polish land law and not Magdeburg law , which severely disadvantaged Jews. A year later he successfully defended himself against the Brest Starosts and achieved that in legal disputes among Jews only the rabbinical court (Hebrew Beth Din ) was recognized as competent.

Wahl built a teaching house ( Klaus ) and charitable foundations in Brest-Litowsk and had a women's gallery built in the synagogue in memory of his wife. One of his sons, Meir Katzenellenbogen-Wahl, became a rabbi in Brest-Litovsk and one of the founders of the Council of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (in Hebrew Wa'ad medinas Lito ), which split off from the Council of the States in 1623 .

According to legend, which has been handed down in several versions, Wahl was appointed as Polish king for one day during the interregnum after the death of Stefan Batory after the death of Stefan Batory by Prince Nikolaus Christoph Radziwill , who had received help from Wahl's father in Padua, and during this time several for the Jews have made favorable laws.

literature

• Hirsch Edelmann: Patience Scha'ul. London 1854.
• J. Caro: The Interregnum of Poland in 1587. Gotha 1861.
• MA Getzelten: Po Povodu Legendi o Yevereie, Korolie Polskom. In: Razsvyet 1880 (No. 41).
• SA Bershadski: Saul Wahl. In: Vos'chod. 1889.
• Gustav Karpeles : Jewish Literature and Other Essays. Philadelphia 1895.
• Julius Gottlieb:  Choice, Saul. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Volume 12, Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906, pp.  456-457 .
• Simon Dubnow : World History of the Jewish People. 1925 ff., Vol. VI.
• Katzenellenbogen, Saul. In: Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography. Vol. III, Orient Printing House, Chernivtsi 1928.
• Neil Rosenstein: Saul Wahl. The Computer Center for Jewish Genealogy, Elizabeth (NY) 2006.
• Nicolaus Christoph Radziwil: "Hierosolymilana peregrinatio" appeared in 1601 in Polish, then in Latin and then in German in 1603 in Mainz and 1609 in Frankfurt.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Reuven Michael:  Katzenellenbogen . In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 12, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865940-4 , p. 19.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Alexander Carlebach:  Wahl, Saul ben Judah. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 20, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865948-0 , p. 597.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Josef Meisl: Choice, Saul. In: Georg Herlitz (Hrsg.): Jüdisches Lexikon . Vol. IV, 2, Jüdischer Verlag, Berlin 1930, p. 1277 f.
4. ↑ Julius Gottlieb:  Choice, Saul. In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Volume 12, Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906, pp.  456-457 .