Part Two – Death | 720 one of the greatest Italian rabbis and halachists of his time . 3 For, we are , ) 565 told that in 999, a certain Jew visited Padua and found that on the tombstone of Maharam mi - Padua and his son, R . Shmuel Yehudah, engraved the image of a cat ! When he approached the local rabbi and enquired of him the reason for this odd image, the reply was that the name Katzenellenbogen means literally the “elbow of a cat . ” This tale came to the knowledge of R . Menahem Klein ( called Ha - Katan ) , who wrote in a responsum ( Mishneh Halachot Vol . no . 24 ) , that the tombstone should not be touched, since this must have 3, been the family emblem from days of yore . R . Menasheh calls our attention to the passage in BTBaba Batra 6 b, according which in Talmudic times Rabbis would sign their name in the form of an image . There we read that Rav drew a fish as his signature, 4 R . Hanina the branch of a date - palm, Rabbah See on him, Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol . 0, Jerus...
אל הספר