Born in 1691 and died about 1760, Phineas Katzenellenbogen was a Rabbi successively at Leipnik, Boskowitz in Moravia, Wallerstein and Markbreit in Bavaria.

Known as "The Holy" named after his great grandfather R. Phineas Halevi Horowitz.

He was the son of Moses Katzenellenbogen of Schwabach. His derashot, Pentateuch comentaries, novellae to Talmus treatises, responsa etc are extant in manuscript at Oxford.

In the town of Tomashow Lubelski there is a story... "a robber who had stolen from the local Synagogue. claimed he had sold the stolen goods to a Jew whose name he did not know, but whom he could recognize if he saw him again. The Judge ordered the people connected to the Synagogue to line up. Amongst them was the saintly R. Phineas, who wrapped in his tallit studied the ancient laws of Torah day and night.

And from heaven it was decreed that the robber would accuse R. Phineas so that he was arrested and brought in chains to the city of Lublin for trial. On the way he escaped and fled from his captors. After several hours he collapsed, exhausted. By then he thought that he had covered a goodly distance, but in the panicked flight had gone around in circles in the darkness of night.

By prophetic power, his deceased father appeared in a dream, saying that of his four sone, Phineas had chosen to suffer martyrdom and he had come to prepare him for this.

And so it was, that Phineas was often seen putting his fingers to a burning candle flame, and on the 19th of the month Iyar 1676, on the Sabbath of th weekly Sedrah Emor, he was burned to death in Lublin".

On the same day, it is recorded in the Council of the Four Lands, that his widow should be looked after and not left alone. Accordingly she remarried to R. Lieb A.B.D. of Glogau.

Source

Bibliography:

• Edelman, Gedullat Sha'ul, p. 1
• Nir le-Dawid, p. 34b
• Walden, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. 64
• The Unbroken Chain by Neil Rosenstein (1990) Volume 1, p 22, G 6.5