person · P0243
The Rema רבי משה איסרליש (רמ"א)
Rav of Krakow and codifier of Ashkenaz: his HaMapah ("the tablecloth") spread Ashkenazic practice over Karo's Shulchan Aruch ("the set table"), and the two printed together made one code for all Israel — Sefarad in the text, Ashkenaz in the glosses. No reception edge is drawn: his teacher, R' Shalom Shachna of Lublin (his father-in-law), is not yet in the atlas.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- רבי משה איסרליש (רמ"א)
- Also known as
- Moshe Isserles
- Era
- acharonim
II. When
- Traditional
- c. 5290–5332 AM
- Academic
- c. 1530–1572 CE (birth year given between 1520 and 1530)
- Lifespan (traditional)
- ≈42 years
- Precision
- approximate
III. Where
- Places
- Krakow
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| He studied in Lublin under R' Shalom Shachna, whose academy formed the leadership of Polish Jewry; that reception is recorded as a claim pending the teacher's own entity (through Shachna the line runs to R' Yaakov Pollak and the beginnings of Polish pilpul).
Gap by atlas coverage; future pass should add Shachna and Pollak. |
tradition reconstruction | ★★★☆☆ | |
| His glosses (haghot) ride directly on the Shulchan Aruch's text — the printed page itself, where Karo's ruling is followed by the Rema's "hagah," is the visible artifact of the two traditions fusing into one code. | rabbinic | ★★★★★ | |
| Moshe Isserles was born in Krakow, probably between about 1520 and 1530, to Yisrael Isserles, a wealthy merchant, talmudist, and leader of the Krakow Jewish community.
Reference works disagree over the exact birth year.
|
external reconstruction | ★★★★☆ | |
| He studied at Shalom Shachna's yeshiva in Lublin, then returned to Krakow around 1550, established a large yeshiva, and used his own wealth to support its students.
The tradition that he married Shalom Shachna's daughter has been questioned by modern scholarship.
|
external | ★★★★☆ | |
| In approximately 1553 he became one of the three dayyanim who constituted Krakow's rabbinate and served as rabbi and head of the local yeshiva.
Descriptions of him as sole chief rabbi at every stage of his career may overstate the collegial structure of the Krakow rabbinate.
|
external | ★★★★☆ | |
| During the Krakow plague of 1556, Isserles moved temporarily to Szydlowiec, where he composed Mechir Yayin.
The work itself connects its composition with his displacement during the epidemic.
|
external | ★★★★★ | |
| Isserles died in Krakow in 1572 and was buried in the Remuh Cemetery beside the synagogue founded by his father for him. His sixteenth- century tombstone survives and remains a pilgrimage site.
The cemetery and tombstone are extant physical evidence; miraculous accounts of the stone's survival are later folklore.
|
external archaeology | ★★★★★ |