Kargau, Mendel

German Talmudist; born 1772 at Prostibor, Bohemia; died 1842 at Fürth. He was a disciple of Ezekiel Landau in Prague and of Phinehas Horwitz in Frankfort-on-the-Main. He lived for some years in Paris, where he was in business as a merchant; the rest of his life he passed in Fürth, where by his lectures he greatly promoted the study of the Talmud. His work "Giddule Ṭohorah," edited after his death by Jonah Rosenbaum and Anschel Stern (later chief rabbi of Hamburg), treats of the laws relating to the ritual bath ("miḳweh"). In 1840 he celebrated in a Hebrew poem the return of Sir Moses Monteflore from Damascus.