Individual Details

Itzhak Tirkel

(Bet 1560 and 1575 - Jun 1596)

This person was murdered by Muslims on his way to Turkey on a business trip (May 1596) more than 400 years ago.

The source for this outstanding information is found in a Hebrew book named Mas`at Benyamin written in Krakow, 1602
(it was reprinted in 1775, 1832 and lastly in Vilna, 1924, see ibid. page 88).
The book includes Q & A, regarding matters of Halakha (Jewish Law).
The relevant question there is about waiving a marriage covenant of a widow (hatarat agunot).

The story is about three married Jewish men, Yitzhak Tirkel ( elsewhere mentioned as Tirkil ), Mendel Ben Papos and Faivush.

The first witness, Moshe Bar Yehudah testified before The Rabbinical Court that Mendel Ben Papos and Yitzhak Tirkel from Lwow left the town of Yas, in the year (1596) to go to the land of the Yishmaelim. He accompanied them. A short while later heard that they were killed.

The second witness, Aharon bhk"r Jacob testified that on a Thursday, about two weeks before Shavuot (May 1596) the above three named adults together with three youth left the town Yas in Volyhi (Volhynia) on their way to the land of the Yishmaelim (Turkey?). A few days later, foreigners arrived to this town (Yas) and said, "you Jews should know that those Yishmaelim who left Yas met us and requested to inform you that six Jews who left with us were in a hurry due to the Sabbath. We followed them and found them dead in the valley."

The third witness, Mendil Keisar Halevi testified that on that Thursday, a few Jews left Yas with a group of Yishmaelim on their way to the land of Yishmael. He didn't say how many Jews were there, but he knew one of them, his name Yitzhak Tirkel from Lwow. A few days later Yishmaeli came to the town and told that these Jews had been found dead. The foreigners who apparently were tortured confessed at execution that they had in fact murdered those Jews.

The fourth witness, Mr. Ozer testified that when he left Yas on his way to the land of Yishmael, twenty three foreigners with white kafias addressed him, telling him how six Jews (three adults and three boys) were killed. One of them they knew by his name, Isaac Tekler from Lwow, who spoke many languages. Also (they told the whitness) he had a wife in Lwow, out of town; and those white kafias foreigners said that the Jews refused to wait for them in the town, Yas, due to the Sabbath. So they walked (alone) out of town. Then we followed them and found them killed in the valley.

Events

BirthBet 1560 and 1575
DeathJun 1596near Yas, Romania
ResidenceLwow (Lemberg), Galicia, Austria-Hungary