Eliezer ben Yoel HaLevi of Bonn (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

acronym Ra'avyah; 1140–1225To be more precise, it is only known that he died after 1220.) was a Rabbinic scholar in Germany. He had a significant influence on

Asher ben Jehiel Asher ben Jehiel ( he, אשר בן יחיאל, or Asher ben Yechiel, sometimes Asheri) (1250 or 1259 – 1327) was an eminent rabbi and Talmudist best known for his abstract of Talmudic law. He is often referred to as Rabbenu Asher, “our Rabb ...

(the ROSH). As a Rishon, he was prominent amongst the

Tosafists Tosafists were rabbis of France and Germany, who lived from the 12th to the mid-15th centuries, in the period of Rishonim. The Tosafists composed critical and explanatory glosses (questions, notes, interpretations, rulings and sources) on the Ta ...

of the middle-ages, and was a signatory to the

Takkanot Shum The ( he, תקנות שו"ם), or Enactments of SHU"M were a set of decrees formulated and agreed upon over a period of decades by the leaders of three of the central cities of Medieval Rhineland Jewry: Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The initials of th ...

. In the course of his long life he wandered from place to place:

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

Worms Worms may refer to: *Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs Places *Worms, Germany Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg ...

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, Regensburg, and throughout France and Lombardy. His maternal grandfather was

Eliezer ben Nathan Eliezer ben Nathan () of Mainz (1090–1170), or Ra'avan (), was a halakist and liturgical poet. As an early Rishon, he was a contemporary of the Rashbam and Rabbeinu Tam, and one of the earliest of the Tosafists. He was the son-in-law of Rabbi ...

(Ra'avan). Eliezer studied under his father Joel haLevi of Bonn, as well as under Judah HeHasid and Judah ben Kalonymus of Mainz. His brother died a martyr's death in 1216. Eliezer's mourning for him was so great that his vision was impaired and he was compelled to dictate his novellae to his students. His major work, ''Sefer Avi HaEzri'' (My Father is my Help), which is more commonly known by its author's acronym as ''Sefer Ra'avyah'' (also spelled ''Sefer Rabiah''), is a compendium of articles that he developed into a book. It contains halakhot and legal decisions.

Notes

References

Further reading