Eleazar of Worms

The Jewish Encyclopedia states that on the night of 22 Kislev, 1196, he was engaged in his commentary on Genesis (Eleazar relates that he had reached the parashah Vayeshev), when two Crusaders entered his house and killed his wife Dulca (Dolce), his two daughters Belet (Belette) and Hannah, and wounded him and his son Jacob who did not escape.

His wife had conducted a business in parchment scrolls in order to support the family and enable him to devote all his time to study.

On the one hand, he was a Talmudist of vast erudition, a liturgist gifted with a clear and easy style, and an astronomer, and was well versed in the sciences open to the Jews of Germany at that time.

The haggadic anthropomorphism which he had combated in his earlier works (Ha-Roḳeaḥ, Sha'are ha-Sod weha-Yiḥud) occupied later the foremost place in his mystical writings.

Zunz enumerates fifty-five liturgical poems and dirges composed by Eleazar and occurring in the Ashkenazic maḥzorim, ḳinot, and seliḥot.