Israel Bruna

Israel ben Hayyim Bruna was born around 1400.[1] The National Library of Israel catalog records his name in Hebrew as ישראל בן חיים ברונא.[2] Brünn (modern Brno) was his native city and the site of his first rabbinical post.[1] He studied under a distinguished group of Ashkenazi masters: David of Schweidnitz, Jacob Weil, Israel Isserlein, and Zalman Cohen of Nuremberg.[1] Both Weil and Isserlein ordained him and spoke very highly of him, helping to establish his early authority.[3]

His Brünn rabbinate fell during the first half of the fifteenth century.[4] The Jewish community of Brno was expelled in 1454 following the preaching of John of Capistrano, and Jews remained formally excluded from the city until 1848 under the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis.[4] Some accounts connect this expulsion to Bruna's relocation, although another source places him in Regensburg by 1446.[5][1]

Bruna settled in Ratisbon (Regensburg), Bavaria, where he opened a yeshivah and served as rabbi to his followers.[3][1] The Encyclopaedia Judaica places him in Regensburg by 1446.[1] The city's Talmudic school had grown in regional prominence, and a chronicle from 1478 declared that its academy had furnished scholars for all parts of Germany.[6] Regensburg was a religious and cultural center for German Jewry and attracted such luminaries as Israel Bruna during this period.[7]

His arrival was not without friction. A Talmudic scholar named Anshel, also identified as Anshel Segal, already operated a yeshivah in Regensburg and opposed Bruna's establishment of a competing institution.[3] Anshel, described by Heinrich Graetz as a layman rather than an elected rabbi, sought to prevent Bruna from giving discourses, handling divorce matters, or exercising other rabbinical functions.[8] The dispute divided the community into rival factions.[8]

Bruna's teachers Jacob Weil and Israel Isserlein, along with David Sprinz, a rabbi of Nuremberg, supported his right to teach and practice in Regensburg.[8] They argued that a Jew could assume rabbinical functions if he possessed the necessary learning, held authorization from a recognized teacher, and led a pious and moral life.[8] Hostilities nonetheless continued: opponents left lectures when Bruna was about to speak, and some disciples of his rival painted crosses on his synagogue seat and wrote the word "heretic" beside them.[8] After Anshel's death, Bruna was accepted by the entire community and became its acknowledged leader and av bet din.[1]

Following the deaths of Jacob Weil and Israel Isserlein, Bruna was recognized as the halakhic authority of Germany.[1] Rabbis and scholars from various cities and countries sent him questions concerning all areas of Jewish law.[3] His opinions were widely sought on communal and rabbinical matters, and his son later served as a dayyan in Prague.[1]

Historian David Malkiel summarizes Bruna's position on intercessory prayer by comparing angels to courtiers whom petitioners might ask to mediate before their Sovereign as a mark of respect, while retaining the right to address God directly. In this interpretation, addressing angels could express reverence for God as the true Sovereign.[9]

Bruna's prominence made him a target amid the political and religious hostilities directed against the Jews of Regensburg. In 1456, he was imprisoned for thirteen days, apparently to pressure the Jewish community into paying a coronation tax imposed by Emperor Frederick III.[1]

A far more dangerous episode unfolded in 1474. An apostate named Hans Vayol accused Bruna of purchasing and killing a Christian child, a false blood-libel accusation.[1][8] The Church demanded Bruna's death, while Bishop Henry, Duke Louis, and civic allies pressed the campaign against him.[1][8] The Ratisbon council imprisoned Bruna, partly to protect him from mob violence, while clergy demanded his execution.[8]

The affair drew in the wider Regensburg Jewish community. The council placed guards at the four gates of the Jewish quarter, while communal property was confiscated and inventoried.[8] Several Bavarian rabbis convened a synod in Nuremberg and resolved that solvent communities and individuals across Bavaria should contribute funds toward the defense of the accused.[8] Joseph Colon's responsa separately record that all German congregations were considered obligated to contribute to the expenses of Bruna's trial.[10]

The Jewish community secured the intervention of Emperor Frederick III and Ladislaus, king of Bohemia, both of whom ordered Bruna's release without ransom.[1][8] The council delayed, citing fear of the bishop and the local populace. The emperor eventually declared Regensburg under the imperial ban for disobeying his orders and dispatched his chancellor to deprive the city of penal jurisdiction.[8]

In Graetz's account, Vayol was brought before an executioner on the city's stone bridge. He maintained general accusations against Jews but confessed that Bruna was innocent of the child-murder charge; Vayol was then banished, and Bruna was released after swearing that he would not seek revenge.[8] The Encyclopaedia Judaica instead says that Vayol's confession was followed by his execution and that Bruna formally renounced claims to compensation for the injustice done to him.[1] Both accounts present the accusation against Bruna as false.

Bruna's best-known work is his collection of responsa, Teshuvot Mahari Bruna, also cited as She'elot u'teshuvot Mohari miBruna.[11][12] These responsa became one of the main sources quoted in Rabbi Moses Isserles's HaMapah, the gloss on the Shulchan Arukh that described differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardi practice.[11][3] Their incorporation into Isserles's foundational text gave Bruna's rulings an enduring presence in normative Ashkenazi halakhah.

The responsa were collected and published posthumously, although sources disagree on the year of the first Salonika edition. The Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 1788 and reports many printing errors, while the Jewish Encyclopedia gives 1798.[1][5] Both identify a Stettin edition from 1860; the Encyclopaedia Judaica reports that it contained still more errors and notes a third edition published in 1960.[1][5] A separate bibliographic listing gives the title Israel Bruna, Rechtsgutachten, identifies Stettin as the place of publication in 1860, and abbreviates the work as "IB."[13]

Dan Rabinowitz's historical discussion cites Bruna's responsum no. 34 as treating the practice of going bareheaded as a violation of the prohibition against copying non-Jewish custom.[12] Rabinowitz identifies Bruna as the first authority he cites to articulate the ruling in those terms, while noting that the Jewish Encyclopedia instead assigns that priority to R. David ben Levi.[12] Bruna's responsa as a whole are regarded as valuable evidence about the social, communal, and legal landscape of fifteenth-century German Jewry.[1]

Several details of Bruna's biography remain uncertain or contested among the sources. The chronology of his move from Brünn to Regensburg differs between accounts: the Encyclopaedia Judaica places him in Regensburg by 1446, while the Jewish Encyclopedia states that he settled there after the 1454 expulsion from Brünn.[1][5] The sources similarly diverge on his imprisonment history: the Encyclopaedia Judaica describes two distinct imprisonments, in 1456 and 1474, while the Jewish Encyclopedia reports a thirteen-day imprisonment in 1474, says the details are confused, and notes that some accounts describe two incarcerations.[1][5]

The first publication year of Bruna's responsa is also disputed, with 1788 given by the Encyclopaedia Judaica and 1798 by the Jewish Encyclopedia.[1][5] Graetz gives Bruna's life dates as 1400–1480 but uses qualified language for his early movements, saying that he appears to have been exiled from Brünn and traveled by way of Prague before settling in Ratisbon.[8]