Rabbi Abraham (ben David) Katzenellenbogen, ABD Slutsk and then Brest-Litovsk

Unbroken Chain p. 585 G9.1

• Disputations of Rabbi Avraham Katzenellenbogen, ABD Brest.

Abraham ben David Katzenellenbogen:

Polish rabbi; born about the beginning of the eighteenth century; died after 1787*. His father was the son of Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, rabbi of Keidani, Lithuania, and later of the Three Communities (Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbeck). In 1726, when Abraham was in Wilna, living under the roof of his father-in-law, Joseph Etkes, he met there the child Elijah b. Solomon, who later became the famous gaon. Abraham took young Elijah home with him to Keidani to his father's house, and kept him there several months.

In 1746 Abraham was rabbi of Slutsk, and at the synod held at Mir, in 1752, signed, as rabbi of Slutsk, the proposition to excommunicate R. Jonathan Eybeschütz. He became rabbi of Brest-Litovsk about 1760, and his name occurs in the approbations to various works, the latest being dated 1787.

He had seven sons, one of whom, Joseph, succeeded him as rabbi of Brest-Litovsk and was in turn succeeded by his son Aryeh Löb Katzenellenbogen. A "hesped" or sermon preached on the occasion of Abraham's death is contained in Eliezer ha-Levi's "Reaḥ ha-Sadeh" (Shklov, 1795). Source Bibliography: • Feinstein, 'Ir Tehiliah, pp. 30, 170, 204, Warsaw, 1886; • Lewin, 'Aliyyot Eliyahu, ed. Stettin, p. 55; • Eisenstadt-Wiener, Da'at Ḳedoshim, pp. 14-15.

• The 3rd edition of Neil Rosenstein's Unbroken Chain, Volume 3, page 339 indicates the following:

He wrote numerous approbations which suggest he became the ABD of Brest-Litovsk about 1760 and held the position there for forty-four years until his death in 1804.