The Man Behind the Legends: The Life of Judah Loew

This chapter provides a biography of Judah Loew. Whether Loew spent his childhood in Posnań or in Prague cannot be determined. It is only with 1553 that there is any certainty where he was and what he was doing. According to the contemporary chronicler, David Ganz, Loew served as rabbi of Nikolsburg and Chief Rabbi of Moravia between 1553 and 1573. It was in Moravia that Loew's abilities as a community leader became manifest. Indeed, his organizational abilities and the force of his personality and scholarship made a profound and lasting impact upon Moravian Jewry. In 1573, Judah Loew left his position as Chief Rabbi of Moravia to assume residence at Prague as a private citizen. The threats of expulsion, plagues, and massacres which had characterized Jewish life in Bohemia were all in the past by 1573. Thus, Judah Loew came to Prague during the short-lived “Golden Age” of Prague Jewry. The years in Prague between 1588 and 1592 were eventful ones for Loew. In 1592, an event occurred which secured for him a singular place in Jewish legend if not in Jewish history; namely, his aforementioned audience with the quixotic Hapsburg king, Rudolf II.