Rabbi Samuel Edels, known as The Macshoy or Maharsha

Esther Feigel Leibowitz was descended from a long line of scholarly Jews and could trace her ancestry back to the 1600's to Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Edels, who was born in 1555 and died in 1631. Known as the Maharsha or the Machshoy, he was a great talmudist, religious thinker and astronomer.

The following is his listing in the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia, 4th Edition, Roth & Wigoder, published by Doubleday & Co., 1970, pg. 587:

Maharsha
Listing in The New Standard Jewish Encyclopeida

Two photos from
Wikipedia.

Grave in Ostroh

More links

Chabad

On another family tree
Loeb Tree

Family Tree
Rabbi Samuel Edels
Rabbi Meshulam Zalman Halevy
Harov Reb Yehuda Leib
Reb Meyer Halevi
Elezer
Avram Yitchok
Elezer
Dov Ber Halevi
Golda Miriam Gottlieb
Esther Feigel Rabinowitz Leibowitz

A small silver wine cup
Rabbi Samuel Edels, Esther Leibowitz's ancestor, had a small silver wine cup that was passed down to the eldest child in each subsequent generation. Until it was handed down to Esther Feigel hundreds of years later. She brought it with her from Jerusalem to the transit camp in Alexandria, Egypt and then to Brooklyn, New York. Esther would use this cup at our Passover celebrations in her Brooklyn apartment and I always took it for granted that it would be there.

A few years before she died in 1988, one day when Esther Leibowitz was her apartment was broken into while she was at work in her office a few blocks away. In addition to other items, this little wine cup was stolen. It was never found. Perhaps it was melted down for silver?.... This was very sad, and I think it was very hard for her to lose this cup that made its way down through the centuries and over oceans. I believe this loss affected her health.

Clarifying the family tree
Communication with Keter Publishing House,
the publishers of Encyclopedia Judaica

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Last modified March 2012.