Shabbatai HaKohen

Shabbatai[a] ben Meir HaKohen (Hebrew: שבתי בן מאיר הכהן; 1621–1662) was a noted 17th century talmudist and halakhist.

Shabbatai HaKohen was born either in Amstibovo or in Vilna, Lithuania in 1621 and died at Holleschau, Holešov, Moravia, on the 1st of Adar, 1662.

In 1655, during fighting between Polish forces and the invading Swedish army in the Northern War, Shabbatai HaKohen fled Vilna with the entire Jewish community.

Nevertheless, Sifsei/Siftei/Sifte Kohen, Shakh's commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, was considered by a majority of Talmudists as of the highest authority, and they applied his decisions to actual cases as the final word of the Law.

In 1648 the communities of the Polish Kingdom were devastated by Chmielnicki, Shabbatai HaKohen portrayed the persecutions of the Jews in his Megillah Afah.

The nobles Cossacks with whom the wicked mob had again made an alliance chased all the Jews from the city into the fields and vineyards where the villains surrounded them in a circle, stripped them to their skin and ordered them to lie on the ground.

The villains spoke to the Jews with friendly and consoling words: 'Why do you want to be killed, strangled and slaughtered like an offering to your God Who poured out His anger upon you without mercy?