Eva Bacharach (c. 1580–1651) was a

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and

rabbinical Rabbinic Judaism (), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, Rabbanite Judaism, or Talmudic Judaism, is rooted in the many forms of Judaism that coexisted and together formed Second Temple Judaism in the land of Israel, giving birth to classical rabb ...

scholar. She was born in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, the daughter of Isaac ben Simson ha-Kohen, and through her mother, Vögele, granddaughter of the well-known rabbi of Prague,

Judah Loew ben Bezalel Judah Loew ben Bezalel (; 1512 – 17 September 1609), also known as Rabbi Loew ( Löw, Loewe, Löwe or Levai), the Maharal of Prague (), or simply the Maharal (the Hebrew language, Hebrew Hebrew abbreviations, acronym of "''Moreinu ha-Rav Loew'' ...

. Her brothers, Ḥayyim and Naphtali, were also noted rabbis. As a daughter of such a distinguished rabbinical family, she acquired a wide knowledge of Hebrew and rabbinical literature, and could often assist rabbis in solving textual difficulties. Such erudition was quite uncommon among Jewish women of that time, and the Memorbuch of

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makes special mention of it. In 1600 she married Abraham Samuel Bacharach, with whom she subsequently went to Worms, to where he was called as rabbi. After his death on May 26, 1615, she returned with her son

Samson SAMSON (Software for Adaptive Modeling and Simulation Of Nanosystems) is a computer software platform for molecular design being developed bOneAngstromand previously by the NANO-D group at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science an ...

and her three daughters to Prague, in order to devote herself to the education of her children. Eva refused an offer of marriage from

Isaiah Horowitz Isaiah or Yeshayahu ben Avraham Ha-Levi Horowitz () (c. 1555 – March 24, 1630), also known as the ''Shelah HaKaddosh'' ( "the holy ''Shelah''") after the title of his best-known work, was a prominent rabbi and mystic. Biography Isaiah Horo ...

, then rabbi of Prague, who was about to emigrate to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, although she longed to be in the

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. When her three daughters were married, she followed her son Samson to Worms, whither he had been called to take the position of his father; and soon afterward, in 1651, she left for Palestine. On the journey, Eva Bacharach died in

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, where she was buried with great honor. Her grandson,

Yair Bacharach Rabbi Yair Chayim Bacharach (1638, Lipník nad Bečvou, Moravia — 1702; Hebrew: יאיר חיים בכרך, also known by his work Chavos Yair or Chavot Yair) was a German rabbi and major 17th century posek, who lived first in Koblenz and t ...

, called his work in memory of her ''Havvot Yair'', which, in the usual German pronunciation, might be understood as "Eva's Yair".

References

Its bibliography: * Kaufmann, David, '' R. Jair Chajjim Bacharach (1638-1702) und seine ahnen'', 1894, pp. 3, 23, 24, 27, 28 *Eisenstadt-Weiner, ''Da'at Ḳedoshim'', pp. 215-217 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bacharach, Eva 1580s births 1651 deaths Czech Jews 16th-century Jews 16th-century writers from Bohemia 17th-century Jews 16th-century women from Bohemia 17th-century women from Bohemia 17th-century writers from Bohemia People from Prague