Today we remember Joel Sirkes, known as BaCH, son of Samuel Jaffe (SEGAL), who lived between 1564-1640, the rabbi of Krakow (1618-1640). Joel Sirkes was an outstanding Talmudist, an expert on halacha, a rabbi of the Jewish community in Kraków’s Kazimierz and rector of the Krakow yeshiva. Sirkes was known as Bach, a nickname which derived from the acronym formed from the title of his most famous work, Beit-Hadash (Krakow, 1639), which is a commentary on Jacob ben Asher’s code of Talmudic law, Arba Turim. As a student and then a rabbi, he was associated with many cities of the Republic of Poland, such as: Poznań, Brześć, Prużany, Łuków, Luboml, Międzyboże, Bełz, Szydłów, Brześć Litewski, only to finally settle down in Krakow. He participated in conventions of…