Jacob Pollak

Who was Jacob Pollak?

Rabbi Jacob Pollak was the founder of the Polish method of halakhic and Talmudic study known as the Pilpul; born about 1460; died at Lublin in 1541. He was a pupil of Jacob Margolioth of Nuremberg, with whose son Isaac he officiated in the rabbinate of Prague about 1490; but he first became known during the latter part of the activity of Judah Minz, who opposed him in 1492 regarding a question of divorce. Pollak's widowed mother-in-law, a wealthy and prominent woman, who was even received at the Bohemian court, had married her second daughter, who was still a minor, to the Talmudist David Zehner. Regretting this step, she wished to have the marriage annulled; but the husband refused to permit a divorce, and the mother, on Pollak's advice, sought to have the union dissolved by means of the declaration of refusal on the part of the wife, permitted by Talmudic law. Menahem of Merseburg, a recognized authority, had decided half a century previously, however, that a formal letter of divorce was indispensable in such a case, although his opinion was not sustained by the Oriental rabbis.