Berechiah Berak ben Isaac Eisik Shapira
prominent preacher in Kraków (d. after 1665)
Berechiah Berak ben Isaac Eisik Shapira (died 1664) was a Galician preacher who was educated by Nathan Shapira, rabbi of Kraków, and was appointed preacher of that city, where he spent most of his life. He ultimately left for Jerusalem, but died en route at Constantinople.
His sermons on the Pentateuch, the Megillot, and the Passover Haggadah were collected and published in two volumes under the title, Zerah Berak. The first was published in 1646 at Kraków. Appended to it was Aṭeret Ẓebi, by Ẓebi Hirsch ben Shalom Mebo, the brother-in-law of Berechiah and son-in-law of Yom Tov Lipmann Heller. The second volume was published, together with a second edition of the first one, in 1662, and itself went into a second edition, Amsterdam, 1730.
Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography
Michael, Heimann Joseph, (1891) Or ha-Ḥayyim, Frankfort-on-the-Main (in Hebrew), No. 646.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906).
“Berechiah Berak ben Isaac Eisik Shapira” enters the record as prominent preacher in Kraków (d. after 1665). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Berechiah, Berak and Isaac can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4891196. VIAF identifies the subject as 27013724. The Library of Congress control number is nr2004011831. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1664, 1646, 1662 and 1730.
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