Rabbi Yehuda Assad—the Mahari Assad רבי יהודה אסאד — מהר״י אסאד
rabbi of Szerdahely; head of the Hungarian rabbis after the Chatam Sofer
He was born in 1794 at Aszód near Pest, by which he is named, and studied at Nikolsburg under Rabbi Mordechai Banet. He lost his father early and lived in want, earning his bread by teaching. He was rabbi at Nyitra and from 1853 at Szerdahely, where he kept a yeshiva.
After the death of the Chatam Sofer in 1839 he became the one to whom Hungary turned: his answers went out across the whole country, and they are gathered in the Yehuda Yaaleh—two volumes printed after his death. At the assembly of Hungarian rabbis in 1866, a few months before he died, he was the eldest and the first of those who stood against the innovations; the Ktav Sofer, son of the Chatam Sofer, honoured him as his senior.
He died on 23 Sivan 5626 (1866) at Szerdahely. The style of his Torah commentary, Divrei Mahari, is plain and direct—as was his life.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- The Yehuda Yaaleh—responsa — the answers to all Hungary
- The resolutions of the rabbinical assembly of 1866 — the seniority at the assembly
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Aszód, Nikolsburg, Szerdahely from 1853, 23 Sivan 5626
Basis: documents and evidence.