Rabbi Ephraim Fishel

The most influential family in Kraków’s Jewish community from the 1470s to the mid-sixteenth century. Members of the Fiszel family served as creditors to King Casimir the Jagiellonian and his sons Jan Olbracht, Aleksander, and Sigismund I. The family’s origins are disputed; it is possible that they came from Prague, elsewhere in Bohemia, or Germany.

Efrayim Fiszel and his three sons, Ya‘akov, Mosheh, and Yosef, first appear in sources from Kraków in the 1460s. Around 1477, Mosheh and Ya‘akov quarreled with the elders of the Kraków Jewish community, and though the gubernatorial court sentenced them to exile, the conflict was ultimately averted by the vice-voivod in his capacity as judge of the Jews (iudex iudaeorum). From that time on, their position was secure, and after Ya‘akov’s death, Mosheh became head of the family.

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Dubious that Rabbi Ephraim Fishel is the son of R' Asher Katz Sapiro: the Ephraim Fischel line is not Kohenite-- should be severed (29 DEC 2023)