Biography
Born in Metz in 960, Gershom was a student of Judah ben Meir ha-Kohen (Sir Léontin), who was one of the greatest authorities of his time. Having lost his first wife, Gershom married a widow named Bonna and settled at Mainz (Mayence), where he devoted himself to teaching the Talmud. During his lifetime Mainz became a center of Torah and Jewish scholarship for many Jewish communities in Europe that had formerly been connected with the Babylonian yeshivas. He was the spiritual guide of the fledgling Ashkenazic Jewish communities and was very influential in molding them at a time when their population was dwindling.
Students came from all over Europe to enroll in his yeshiva, and later dispersed among various communities in Germany and beyond which helped spread Jewish learning. He had many pupils from different countries, among whom should be mentioned Eleazar ben Isaac (ha-Gadol ="the Great"), nephew of Simeon ha-Gadol; and Jacob ben Yakar, teacher of Rashi. The fame of his learning eclipsed even that of the heads of the academies of Sura (city) and Pumbedita.
His life conformed to his teachings. He had a son, who forsook his religion at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Mainz in 1012. When his son converted to become a Christian R. Gershom grieved and observed the strictures of mourning for 14 days, double the required time for an actual death. However, he did apparently rule leniently regarding those who had submitted to baptism to escape persecution, and who afterward returned to the Jewish fold. He strictly prohibited reproaching them with infidelity, and even gave those among them who had been slandered an opportunity to publicly pronounce the benediction in the synagogues.
Read more about this topic: Gershom Ben Judah
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)