JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Bibliography: G. Aronson, in: J.S. Hertz (ed.), Doyres
Bundistn, 1 (1956), 137–54; LNYL, 4 (1961), 249–52; Sotsialisticheskiy
Vestnik, 17:14, 15 (1937), 1–4.
[Moshe Mishkinsky]
EISENSTADT, MEIR (“MaHaRaM ESH” – Morenu Ha-Rav
Meir Esh [short for Eisenstadt]; c. 1670–1744), Polish rabbinical
authority. After serving as rabbi in Szydlowiec in Poland,
he settled in Worms, where Samson *Wertheimer appointed
him head of the yeshivah. On the occupation of Worms by the
French in 1701, he went to Prossnitz, Moravia, and there he
was appointed rabbi. Among his disciples was Jonathan *Eybeschuetz,
whom he brought up after the death of the latter’s
father. In 1714, with Wertheimer’s support, Meir was appointed
rabbi of *Eisenstadt and its “seven communities,” which by
then had recovered from the expulsion of 1670 and from the
havoc wrought by the Kurucz uprising (1704). Students from
far and near flocked to the yeshivah which he had established.
He fashioned the character of the community, which became
distinguished for its piety, so that men of wealth and influence
in nearby Vienna sought “right of residence” in Eisenstadt. In
1723 Meir was obliged to leave the community for a short time
because of “informers and calumniators.” Upon his return he
instituted a special prayer to be recited every Monday and
Thursday, against “those who bring harm to Israel by their
tongues and tear down the foundations of the community.”
Meir issued a ban against card playing (except on Hanukkah
and Purim). His works include Panim Me’irot, responsa and
novellae on the Talmud (Amsterdam, 1715). His responsa, containing
questions addressed to him by Akiva *Eger, *Moses
Harif of Pressburg, and even rabbis of Italy and Turkey, testify
to his wide authority. Other works are Kotnot Or, a homiletic
commentary on the Pentateuch and the Five Scrolls, published
together with Or Ḥadash, the commentary of his grandson
Eliezer Kallire, under the general title of Me’orei Esh (1766),
and Or ha-Ganuz (1766), novellae on Ketubbot and on the
rules concerning yein nesekh in the Yoreh De’ah.
Bibliography: I.T. Eisenstadt and S. Wiener, Da’at Kedoshim,
1 (1898), 190f.; Pollák, in: Sefer ha-Yovel… M.A. Bloch
(1905), 47–58 (Heb. sect.); P.Z. Schwartz, Shem ha-Gedolim me-
Ereẓ Hagar, 2 (1914), 153f., no. 14; 3 (1915), s.v. Panim Me’irot; B. Wachstein,
Grab inschriften des alten Judenfriedhofes in Eisenstadt (1922),
47–93.
[Aharon Fuerst]
EISENSTADT, MENAHEM ẒEVI (d. 1966), Polish rabbi.
Born in Warsaw, Eisenstadt studied in Brisk, Lithuania, under
R. Ḥayyim Soloveitchik and his son, R. Isaac Ze’ev. For a
while he served as a member of the Cracow City Council. At
the beginning of World War II, Eisenstadt moved to Vilna,
where he directed the exiled Yeshivat Ḥakhmei Lublin. In 1941
he immigrated to Ereẓ Israel and lived in Tel Aviv. In 1947 he
moved to the United States. In New York, he began the publication
of an edition of Nahmanides’ biblical commentary,
based on early manuscripts and early editions. His work was
not completed, however, and only the commentary to Gene-
eisenstadt, samuel noah
sis appeared (2 vols. 1959–62). He died in New York, and was
buried in Jerusalem.
Bibliography: (A.S.) B. Sofer-Schreiber, Ketov Zot Zikkaron
(1957), 258; N. Ben-Menahem, Be-Sha’arei Sefer (1967), 11; Beth
Yaakov, 7 (1966), 7, 38.
[Naphtali Ben-Menahem]
EISENSTADT, MOSES ELEAZAR (1869–1943), rabbi, educator,
and author in Russia and France. Born in Nesvizh, Belorussia,
he studied at the yeshivah of *Volozhin, and from 1889
at the university and Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums
in Berlin. He wrote his doctoral thesis on “Bible Criticism
in Talmudic Literature” in 1898. From 1899 to 1910 Eisenstadt
officiated as *Kazyonny Ravvin (government-appointed
rabbi) of Rostov, and from 1911 to 1923 held the same position
in St. Petersburg. He subsequently immigrated to France, and
in 1926 was appointed rabbi of the Ohel Ya’akov community of
the Russian Jews in Paris. He also lectured in modern Hebrew
literature at the rabbinical seminary. When the Nazis occupied
Paris, he left for New York, and in 1942 was appointed rabbi
of the Merkaz Beit Yisrael community of Russian Jews there.
From an early age, he published articles, reviews, and stories
in the Jewish press in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and German.
His books include Be-Shuvi el Ereẓ Moladeti (“On My Return
to My Fatherland,” 1893), and Me-Ḥayyei Benei Lita (“From
the Lives of the Inhabitants of Lithuania,” 1893). In 1918, he
was a member of the editorial board of the Jewish historical
journal He-Avar, published in Petrograd.
Bibliography: LNYL, 1 (1956), 66–67; Kressel, Leksikon, 1
(1965), 84.
EISENSTADT, SAMUEL NOAH (1923– ), Israel sociologist.
Born in Warsaw, and educated at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem and at the London School of Economics, Eisenstadt
joined the faculty of the Hebrew University in 1948 and
became chairman of the department of sociology in 1951.
Eisenstadt’s contributions have been chiefly in the fields of
political and historical sociology, with special attention to
the analysis of social structure and of bureaucracy. In 1973
Eisenstadt was awarded the Israel Prize for social sciences.
His book The Political Systems of Empires (1963) analyzed the
social structures of the major empires throughout world history;
this work has been hailed as the most significant contribution
to political sociology after that of Max Weber. Among
his other works in this field are Political Sociology (1955), The
Absorption of Immigrants (1954), and From Generation to
Generation: Age Groups and Social Structure (1956). The latter
are comparative studies based chiefly on materials referring
to problems arising from mass immigration, and the integration
of the many different cultures which are found in
Israel. Eisenstadt brought the analysis of developmental and
general social problems into the framework of sociological
analysis and comparative institutional study through his Essays
on Comparative Institutions (1965) and his Comparative
Social Problems (1964). He also published “Bureaucracy, Bu-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 271