Benjamin Aron Slonik 1550 – 1619 Benjamin Aron Slonik (c.
1550–c. 1619) was a Polish rabbi of the early modern period
whose independent style of textual and halakhic analysis
produced important works of responsa and other Jewish legalistic
and moralistic tracts. Of particular note are Slonik’s attitudes
toward certain women-related issues that placed him in a class
of his own within the prevailing Ashkenazic rabbinic culture.
Probably born in Grodno in the region of Lithuania, Slonik in
his youth was under the tutelage of the great Nathan Nata ben
Solomon Spiro (c. 1585–1633). He later studied with the Polish
rabbinic luminaries Solomon ben Jehiel Luria (1510?–1574), Moses
ben Israel Isserles (1525 or 1530–1572), and Solomon b. Leibesh
of Lublin. Slonik, who rapidly earned a reputation as a very
learned Torah scholar and teacher, served the Jewish communities
in Silesia and Podhajce (Podgaytsy) as rabbi. Benjamin Slonik’s
responsa are compiled chronologically in Masat Binyamin (1633),
first published in Craco