Judah ben Kalonymus ben Moses of Mainz (died 1200) was a

Jewish German The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

scholar,

halakhic ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is based on biblical commandments (''mitzv ...

authority, and kabbalist. In his early years, he studied in

Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...

under

Shemariah ben Mordecai Shemariah ben Mordecai was a German rabbi and tosafist of the first half of the 12th century, who was a pupil of the tosafist Isaac ben Asher. He was considered an especially eminent authority on religious rites ('' ba'al ma'asim''), and seems to ...

who taught him mysticism. During the

Third Crusade The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt led by King Philip II of France, King Richard I of England and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. F ...

, Judah helped his community to prepare for the Anti-Semitic attacks to follow. Among his pupils were his son

Eleazar of Worms Eleazar of Worms (אלעזר מוורמייזא - also מגרמייזא of Garmiza or Garmisa) (c. 1176–1238), or Eleazar ben Judah ben Kalonymus, also sometimes known today as Eleazar Rokeach ("Eleazar the Perfumer" אלעזר רקח) from t ...

, Joel ben Isaac ha-Levi and

Baruch ben Samuel Baruch ben Samuel (died April 25, 1221), also called Baruch of Mainz to distinguish him from Baruch ben Isaac, was a Talmudist and prolific '' payyeṭan'', who flourished in Mainz at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Writings He was a pu ...

References

Rabbis from Mainz 1200 deaths Year of birth unknown 12th-century German rabbis Kabbalists 12th-century German writers {{Germany-rabbi-stub