ABRAHAM SON OF SAMUEL THE PIOUS:

By: Louis Ginzberg

An eminent Talmudic scholar and elegist, the brother of Judah the Pious (of the Ḳalonymus family); was born at Speyer about the second half of the twelfth century. He attained a very old age, for Rabbi Eliezer ben Nathan (RABN) of Mayence, whose death occurred before 1170, considered him a rabbinical authority of the first order, and Isaac of Vienna, the author of "Or Zaru'a," who flourished about 1250, knew him personally. Abraham was the author of several elegies on the sufferings of the Jews during the first (1096) and the second (1147) Crusades, as also of a few seliḥot or penitential poems. He was also active as an apologist for Judaism, as is shown in the "Niẓẓaḥon."

L. G.