R. Phinehas Levi Horowitz was a Rabbi and Talmudic author; born in Poland about 1731; died in Frankfort-on-the-Main July 1, 1805. The descendant of a long line of rabbinical ancestors and the son of Rabbi Ẓebi Hirsch Horowitz of Czortkow, he received a thorough Talmudic education, chiefly from his older brother, Schmelke. He married at an early age the daughter of the wealthy Joel Heilpern, who provided for him and permitted him to occupy himself exclusively with his studies. Adverse circumstances then forced him to accept a rabbinical position, and he became rabbi of Witkowo, from which place he was called later on to Lachovice. A decision rendered in a complicated divorce case attracted attention to him, and in 1771 he was elected rabbi of Frankfort-on-the-Main. Although a cabalist, he joined the agitation against Nathan Adler, who held separate services in his house according to the cabalistic ritual. When Mendelssohn's Pentateuch appeared, R. Horowitz denounced it in unmeasured terms, admonishing his hearers to shun the work as unclean, and approving the action of those persons who had publicly burned it in Wilna (1782). Following the same principle, he opposed the establishment of a secular school (1794). Toward the end of his life he became blind, and his son, Hirsch Horowitz, acted as his substitute.

R. Horowitz's chief work is "Hafla'ah," novellæ on the tractate Ketubot, with an appendix, "Konṭres Aharon," or "Shebet Ahim," Offenbach, 1786. The second part, containing novellæ on the tractate Kiddushin, also with an appendix, appeared under the title "Sefer ha-Miknah," ib. 1800. Other-works are: "Netibot la-Shabet," glosses on sections 1-24 of the Shulhan 'Aruk, Eben ha-'Ezer, Lemberg, 1837; "Gib'at Pinehas," a collection of eighty-four responsa, ib. 1837; and "Panim Yafot," a cabalistic commentary on the Pentateuch, printed with the Pentateuch, Ostrog, 1824 (separate ed. 1851, n.p.).

R. Horowitz was one of the last pilpulists in Germany, and he therefore represents the most highly developed stage of rabbinical dialectics. It was in keeping with these views that he opposed secular education and even the slightest change of the traditional form of public worship (see his denunciation of a choir in the synagogue, in "Gib'at Pinehas," No. 45). The progress of modern civilization toward the end of the eighteenth centurymade him partly change his views, and in 1803 he indorsed Wolf Heidenheim's translation of the Mahzor.

R. Schmelke Horowitz was a rabbi and cabalist; born in Poland 1726; died at Nikolsburg April 28, 1778; son of Hirsch Horowitz, rabbi of Czortkow, and brother of Phinehas Horowitz of Frankfort-on-the-Main. A disciple of R. Bär of Meseritz, he was a devotee of the Cabala; and this brought him the reputation of a saint, to which he owed his call to Nikolsburg in 1773, after he had been rabbi of Ryczywol (Ritschenwalde) in Poland. In 1775 he was appointed chief rabbi of the province of Moravia. Horowitz's fame as a saint increased; and his arrival was supposed to have broken a long spell of drought. In Nikolsburg he established for those observing the Ḥasidic rite a synagogue ("Chasidimschul") which existed to the end of the nineteenth century. His cabalistic homilies on the Pentateuch were published under the title "Dibre Shemu'el" (Lemberg, c. 1870).

קונטרס "זיו הפנים", תולדות ר' פינחס הורוויץ, הוא מאת ר' צבי יחזקאל מיכלזאהן (כאמור בהסכמתו כאן). הקונטרס לא נדפס כאן. במקביל נדפסה מהדורה בה נזכר בשער כ"מאסף ומסדר" ר' משה יחיאל עפשטיין מאוז'רוב, שבמהדורה הנוכחית הוא נזכר בשער כמסייע לעורך ר' פינחס פינקעלשטיין. גוף הספר זהה בשתי המהדורות, פרט לכך שבמהדורתו של הרב מאוז'רוב נדפסה הקדמתו ונשמטו ההסכמות והקדמת ר' פינחס פינקעלשטיין. במהדורת הרב מאוז'רוב נזכר בשער דפוס וואגמייסטער, ווארשא. כנראה סודר הספר בפיעטרקוב בדפוס פאלמאן ונדפס בווארשא בדפוס וואגמייסטער.

הסכמות: ר' ישראל [טאוב] מזוואלין, מאדזיץ, ג מקץ תרע"ג; ר' צבי יחזקאל מיכלזאהן, פלונסק, כד טבת תרע"ד; ר' יעקב חיים זעליג גאלדשלאג מלוברונץ, ווארשא, ערב ראש חודש שבט תרע"ד.