Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi

Eliezer (Lazer) ben Elijah Ashkenazi (1512 – 13 December 1585) (Hebrew: אליעזר בן אליהו אשכנזי) was a Talmudist, rabbi, physician, and many-sided scholar.

While rabbi of Cremona he published there (1576) his work, Yosef Lekah (Increases Learning; compare Proverbs 1:5), dedicated to Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos, which was several times reprinted.

As a Talmudist, such men as Joseph Caro, Moses Isserles, and Solomon Luria considered him of equal authority with themselves; however, when the rabbinical decisions of earlier rabbis ran counter to his own judgment, he never sought a sophistical justification for them, as was then the custom, especially in Poland.

From the standpoint of strict Talmudic interpretation, Ashkenazi's opponents were in the right, since his sentence contravened that of the Tosafists, who for the German-Italian Jews constituted, as it were, a court of last resort.

In a letter to the latter he claimed that, although the decision of the Polish rabbis was based upon the authority of Maimonides, he considered it unsupported by Talmudic literature and therefore deemed it as needlessly discouraging religious instruction.

Here too, despite the great respect shown Ashkenazi in his reply, the rabbi of Kraków responded forcefully at length, vindicating Maimonides' standpoint by erudite and astute references to the Talmud.

[3] Consequently, J. S. del Medigo is quoted as saying that although Ashkenazi lived and taught in Poland in his later years his work was largely unknown to Polish Jews for "his way was hidden from them, and they did not fully understand his views nor his lofty ideas".