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History of the Jews in Russia, Poland, and Lithuania in the 16th and 17th centuries based on halakhic sources by Benzion ben Abraham Zevi Katz. There is a dedication to Joshua ben Aaron Zeitlin who died in 1888, an introduction and then the text, which begins in the mid-sixteenth century. Katz did considerable research in the history of Polish and Russian Jewry, in light of halakhic and responsa literature, thye results bing published in this work. There is an index at the end of the book.
Benzion ben Abraham Zevi Katz (1875–1958) was a Hebrew journalist and writer. Born in Daugi (Vilna district), Katz began to contribute to Ha-Zefirah at an early age. At the invitation of Baron David Guenzburg, he went to St. Petersburg in order to engage in talmudic research, the results of which he later published in the journal Ha-Shilo'ah. Katz's contributions to the Hebrew press inspired him to publish his own periodicals, and in 1903 in St. Petersburg he founded a newspaper and a quarterly, both under the name Ha-Zeman; a monthly, bearing the same name, was also published by him in Vilna (1905–06). At the end of 1916 Katz began to publish a Hebrew weekly Ha-Am in Moscow, which became a daily on the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution. The newspaper was critical of the Communist Revolution and was closed down in 1918. In 1920 he left Russia and after a short stay in Kovno, moved to Berlin, residing there until he settled in Erez Israel in 1931. He was a regular contributor to Haaretz and Ha-Boker, and for a few years, also resumed publication of an independent daily, Ha-Zeman. Toward the end of his life Katz published chapters of his memoirs, afterward collected in Zikhronot (1963). In 1953 he founded He-Avar, a journal devoted to Russian Jewish history. The results of his historical researches appear in his books Perushim, Zedukim, Kanna'im, Nozerim ("Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Christians," 1948) and Rabbanut, Hasidut, Haskalah ("Rabbinism, Hasidism, Enlightenment," 1956–59).
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