Rapaport, Salomo Jehuda Low

Rapaport, Salomo Jehuda Low a noted Jewish scholar, was born at Lemberg, in Austrian Galicia, in 1790. He first attracted attention among his coreligionists by notes to a Talmudical work of his father-inlaw, and subsequently rose to the highest rank among the Hebrew writers of the age by critico-biographical sketches of Saadia Gaon, Rabbi Nathan, Hai Gaon, the poet Eleazar Kalir, etc., in the Bikkure ha-Ittim (Vienna, 1828-31); by contributions to the Kerem Chemed (Vienna and Prague, 1833-43); and by numerous other dissertations in Hebrew and German, inserted in various other publications. He translated into Hebrew verse Racine's Esther, entitled שארית יהודה(Vienna, 1827). He also published, under the title of ֵמַלַּין סֵ עֵרֶך, a linguistic and archeological lexicon, of which only one part has as yet appeared (Prague, 1852). His poetical contributions in the Bikkcure may be identified by the cipher שיר. Having officiated for some time as rabbi at Tarnopol, he was elected, in 1840, to fill a similar office at Prague, where he died, Oct. 16, 1867. Besides his numerous essays, which are to be found in the different reviews and periodicals, he published, in 1861, a criticism on Frankel's Darke ha-Mishna, entitled Dibre Shalom ve-Emneth. See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 3:131 sq.; Etheridge, Introduction to Hebrew Literature, p. 482; Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 11:485 sq.; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenth. u.s. Secten, 3:343 sq.; Stern, Gesch. d. Judenthums, p. 218 sq.; Dessauer, Gesch. d. Israceliten, p. 533 sq.; Geiger, Jud. Zeitschrift (1867), p. 241 sq.; id. Nachgqelassene Schriften (Berlin, 1875), ii, 262; Zunz, Die Monatstage des Kalendenjahres (Eng. transl. by the Rev. B. Pick, in the Jewish Messenger, N. Y., 1874-75); Cassel, Leitf.jden zur jud. Gesch. u. Literatur (1872), 1). 114; Delitzsch, Zvr Gesch. d. judischen Poesie, p. 102, 118, 155; Kurlander, S. L. Rapaport: eine biographische Skizze (Pesth, 1868). (B. P.)