ELIEZER BEN ISAAC HA-GADOL ("The Great"):
German rabbi of the eleventh century. He was a pupil of his cousin R. Simon ha-Gadol of Mayence and of R. Gershom Me'or ha-Golah. David Conforte, relying on the statement in the tosefta to Shab. 54b, says that Eliezer ha-Gadol was the teacher of Rashi ("Ḳore ha-Dorot," p. 8a); but Rashi himself, in citing Eliezer (Pes. 76b), does not say so. In Rashi's quotation he is sometimes called Eliezer ha-Gadol and sometimes Eliezer Gaon, which induced Azulai ("Shem ha-Gedolim," p. 12a) to consider them as two separate persons. According to Menahem di Lonsano ("Shete Yadot," p. 122a), Eliezer ha-Gadol was the author of the well-known "Orḥot Ḥayyim" or "Ẓawwa'at R. Eliezer ha-Gadol," generally attributed to Eliezer b. Hyrcanus. As to the authorship of the seliḥah "Elohai Basser 'Ammeka," recited in the service of Yom Kippur Ḳaṭon and attributed to Eliezer by Michael ("Or ha-Ḥayyim," pp. 205-207), see Landshuth, "'Ammude ha-'Abodah," p. 20.
- Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i. 12a, ii., s.v.
; - Zunz, Z. G. pp. 47 et seq.;
- Jellinek, B. H. iii. 27, 28 of the Preface;
- Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 124;
- Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. cols. 957-958;
- Fürst, Bibl. Jud. i. 233.
