Judah Loew ben Bezalel

Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Ladislav Šaloun's statue of Loew at the New City Hall of Prague in the Czech Republic.
Personal details
Born	between 1512 and 1526? Poznań, Poland
Died	17 September 1609 Prague, Bohemia
Buried	Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague

Judah Loew ben Bezalel, alt. Löw, Loewe, Löwe, or Levai, (between 1512 and 1526? – 17 September 1609) widely known to scholars of Judaism as the Maharal of Prague, or simply The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of "Moreinu Ha-Rav Loew," ("Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew") was an important Talmudic scholar, Jewish mystic, and philosopher who, for most of his life, served as a leading rabbi in the cities of Mikulov in Moravia and Prague in Bohemia.

Within the world of Torah and Talmudic scholarship, Loew is known for his works on Jewish philosophy and Jewish mysticism and his work Gur Aryeh al HaTorah, a supercommentary on Rashi's Torah commentary. He is also the subject of a 19th-century legend that he created The Golem of Prague, an animate being fashioned from clay.

Rabbi Loew is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague in Josefov, where his grave and intact tombstone can still be visited. His descendants' surnames include Braude, Loewy, Loeb, Lowy, Oppenheimer, Pfaelzer, Lowenstein and Keim.

The Maharal was probably born in Poznań, Poland,—though Perels lists the birth town mistakenly as Worms in the Holy Roman Empire—to Rabbi Bezalel (Loew), whose family originated from the Rhenish town of Worms. His birth year is uncertain, with different sources listing 1512, 1520 and 1526. His uncle Jakob ben Chajim was Reichsrabbiner ("Rabbi of the Empire") of the Holy Roman Empire, his brother Chaim of Friedberg a famous rabbinical scholar. There is no documented evidence of his having received formal religious education, leading scholars to conclude that he was an extremely gifted autodidact.