Jonathan Eybeschutz

Yonatan (Jonathan) Eybeschutz was a German rabbi, Talmudist, posek, kabbalist and homilist, writing prolifically in all of these fields. He was a child prodigy and his personality created a great impression upon people from early on. He spent many years as a rosh yeshiva and dayyan in Prague, but he was never appointed as chief rabbi of a city due to suspicions that he was secretly a Sabbatean. While he stridently denied the allegations, the suspicions continued, espoused especially by Rabbi Yaakov Emden, who deciphered cryptic names in amulets prepared by Rabbi Yonatan as being Sabbatean in nature, and believed to have found connections between his writings and those of an acquaintance. A contemporary rabbinical tribunal exonerated him of the allegations, and his works are widely studied to this day. In 1750, he was elected rabbi of the "Three Communities:" Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek. He was a preacher of great force and eloquence, and his collected homilies are amongst the most widely read today.