Tobias Cohn or Tobias Kohn (in Hebrew, Toviyyah ben Moshe ha-Kohen, Tuvia Harofeh - Tuvia the doctor; in Polish, Tobiasz Kohn) (also referred to as Toviyah Kats) (1652-1729) was a Polish-Jewish physician of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was born at Metz in 1652.
Cohn's grandfather was the physician Eleazar Kohn, who emigrated from the Holy Land to Poland, and settled in Kamenetz-Podolsk, where he practised medicine until his death. His father was the Polish rabbi and physician Moses Kohn of Narol, in the district of Bielsk, who moved to Metz in 1648 to escape persecution during the Chmielnicki Uprising and became rabbi there. Tobias and his elder brother returned to Poland after the death of their father in 1673. He received his education at Kraków and the universities of Frankfort-on-the-Oder (at the expense of the great elector of Brandenburg) and Padua, graduating from the latter as doctor of medicine. He practised for some time in Poland, and moved later to Adrianople, where he became physician to five successive Ottoman sultans— Mehmed IV, Suleiman II, Ahmed II, Mustafa II, and Ahmed III, moving with the court to Constantinople. In 1724 he went to Jerusalem, where he lived until his death in 1729.
Cohn was familiar with ten languages - Hebrew, German, Polish, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Latin, Greek, and Arabic. This great linguistic knowledge made it possible for him to write his Ma'aseh Toviyyah (Work of Tobias), published in Venice, Italy in 1707, and reprinted there in 1715, 1728, 1769, and 1850. The work is encyclopedic, and is divided into eight parts: (1) theology; (2) astronomy; (3) medicine; (4) hygiene; (5) syphilitic maladies; (6) botany; (7) cosmography; and (8) an essay on the four elements.
The most important is the third part, which contains an illustration showing a human body and a house side by side and comparing the members of the former to the parts of the latter (see illustration).
In part 2 are found an astrolabe and illustrations of astronomical and mathematical instruments. Inserted between parts 6 and 7 is Turkish-Latin-Spanish dictionary; and prefixed to the work is a poem by Solomon Conegliano.
Cohn's medical knowledge and experiences seem to have been of considerable importance. He gave, from his own observations, the first description of the "plica polonica," as well as many local symptoms and newly discovered medicinal herbs. He also published in three languages a list of remedies.
He criticized the anti-Semitic professors of Frankfort-on-the-Oder as well as his coreligionists who were devoted to Kabbalah and committed to a blind belief in miracles.
Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723–1799) was a German physician and naturalist who is best known for his contribution to ichthyology through his multi-volume catalog of plates illustrating the fishes of the world. Brought up in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish family, he learned German and Latin and studied anatomy before settling in Berlin as a physician. He amassed a large natural history collection, particularly of fish specimens. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century, and wrote many papers on natural history, comparative anatomy, and physiology.
World Agudath Israel, usually known as the Aguda, was established in the early twentieth century as the political arm of Ashkenazi Torah Judaism. It succeeded Agudas Shlumei Emunei Yisroel in 1912. Its base of support was located in Eastern Europe before the Second World War but, due to the revival of the Hasidic movement, it included Orthodox Jews throughout Europe. Prior to World War II and the Holocaust, Agudath Israel operated a number of Jewish educational institutions throughout Europe. After the war, it has continued to operate such institutions in the United States as Agudath Israel of America, and in Israel. Agudath Israel is guided by its Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah in Israel and the USA.
Yaakov ben Yaakov Moshe Lorberbaum of Lissa (1760-1832) was a rabbi and posek. He is most commonly known as the "Ba'al HaChavas Da'as" or "Ba'al HaNesivos" for his most well-known works, or as the "Lissa Rav" for the city in which he was Chief Rabbi.
Narol ) is a town in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in Lubaczów County, Poland. It had a population of 2,109 as of 2009. Narol is situated in the northeast of Podkarpackie region, in an area called Narolszczyzna. The town of Narol regained the rank of 'city' in 1996.
Shabbataiben Meir HaKohen was a noted 17th century talmudist and halakhist. He became known as the Shakh, which is an abbreviation of his most important work, Siftei Kohen on the Shulchan Aruch.
Jacob Joshua Falk 1680 – January 16, 1756) was a Polish and German rabbi and Talmudist, known as the Pnei Yehoshua.
Abraham ben Saul Broda was a Bohemian Talmudist (Talmudforscher).
Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Avigdor (1896–1967) was a Polish-Mexican rabbi, author and Holocaust survivor. Prior to the Holocaust he served as Chief Rabbi of Drohobych - Boryslav in Poland, and after the war, as rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Mexico.
Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus was a Polish rabbi and Talmudist of Woydyslaw in the second half of the 17th century. In his early youth he was a pupil of Rabbi Heshel in Cracow, and on the latter's death he continued his studies under R. Heshel's successor, Rabbi Leib Fischeles, whose daughter he married.
Naphtali Cohen (1649–1718), also known as Naphtali HaKohen Katz, was a Russo-German rabbi and kabalist born in Ostrowo in Ukraine. He belonged to a family of rabbis in Ostrowo, where his father, Isaac Cohen, a great-great-grandson of the Judah Loew ben Bezalel, had fled during the Polish–Cossack–Tatar War.
Joseph ben Meir Teomim was a Galician rabbi born at Lemberg. While still young he succeeded his father in the position of preacher and rabbinical instructor in the yeshivah of Lemberg. Later he went to Berlin, where he stayed several years in the bet ha-midrash of Daniel Itzig. Then he resumed his former position at Lemberg, and in 1782 was appointed rabbi at Frankfurt an der Oder, where he remained until his death. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Frankfurt/Oder.
Solomon ben Joel Dubno was a Volhynian poet, grammarian, Biblical commentator, and Maskil.
Tuvia Bielski was a Belarusian Jewish militant who was leader of the Bielski group, a group of Jewish partisans who set up refugee camps for Jews fleeing the Holocaust during World War II. Their camp was situated in the Naliboki forest, which was part of Poland between World War I and World War II, and which is now in western Belarus.
Rb Dr Pinchas Kohn was the last rabbi of Ansbach, Germany. He was also the executive director of the World Agudath Israel organisation.
Aaron Margalita or Margalitha (c.1663–c.1725) was a Polish Jewish Rabbi who later converted to Christianity.
Abraham Cohen was a Jewish physician, rabbi, religious philosopher and poet on Zante (Zakynthos), an Ionian Island, and an overseas colony of the Venetian Republic.
Alexander Bogen was a Polish-Israeli visual artist, a decorated leader of partisans during World War II, a key player in 20th century Yiddish culture, and one of the trailblazers for art education and Artists' associations in the emerging state of Israel.
Tobias Gutmann Feder was a Galician Maskilic writer, poet, and grammarian.
Lazar Raschkow was a German Jewish physician, writer, and poet.
Tobias Tuvia Lewenstein was Chief Rabbi of Jewish communities in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herman Rosenthal, Frederick T. Haneman (1901–1906). "Cohn, Tobias". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Biographical dictionaries | |
| Other | |
