Family
Heller founded a long line of rabbis. He was the son of R' Nathan, who was the son of Rabbi Moses Franklin. Heller was married to Rachel, the daughter of a wealthy Prague merchant, Aaron Moses Ashkenazi (Munk). Through Rachel, he was related to the Horowitz family. On his mother's side, he was related to the Günzburg family; on his father side, to the Frankel family of Vienna. Yom-Tov and Rachel had four sons and at least six daughters. The sons, whom he mentions in his works, were: Moses of Prague, Samuel of Nemirow, Abraham of Lublin, and Leb of Brest-Litovsk. The daughters of whom we know were: Nechle, Nisel, Doberish, Esther, Rebecca, and Reizel.
Probably his most famous descendants was Aryeh Leib Heller (b.1745), known as the K'tzos (after his greatest work, K'tzos Hachoshen). And his brother Yehuda Heller Kahana (b. 1738), known as the Kuntras Ha'Sfeikos often appearing with the K'tzos Hachoshen. The current Toldos Aharon Rebbe is a descendent too and the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, Rabbi Azrael Chaikin.
Among Heller's lesser known descendants are Yisroel Ya'akov Yoikel Halevi Gottesman (d. 1992) and his children and grandchildren. They are all currently residing in the United States.
In commemoration of his imprisonment and his release from prison, Heller established two special days of remembrance for his family and descendants. He established the 5th of Tammuz, the day on which his troubles began, as an annual fast-day, and the 1st of Adar as a day of celebration on the anniversary of his nomination to the rabbinate of Kraków. The reading of the Megillah that Heller wrote, called Megillat Eivah (Scroll of Hostility), that tells the story of his imprisonment and release, became a tradition for the descendants of Rabbi Heller. To this day, they celebrate the story of his life in a special Purim celebration.
In 1984 on the 330th anniversary "Yahrzeit" of Rabbi Heller death the story of rabbi Heller Megillat Eivah and a detailed family tree was published in English by Rabbi C.U.Lipschitz and Dr. Neil Rosenstein under the title, "The Feast and The Fast" by Maznaim Publishing Corporation New York and Jerusalem. The book contains 40 pages of charts detailing the family tree and the hundreds of families descended from Rabbi Heller.
Read more about this topic: Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller
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