Kalir, Eleasar Ha

Kalir, Eleasar Ha one of the oldest Jewish poets of Italy, generally regarded as the founder of the synagogual poetry of the non-Sephardite Jews in Europe, flourished about the beginning of the 8th century. Of his personal history nothing further is known. He wrote some one hundred and fifty different sacred poems, many of which were inserted in the liturgies of the Babylonian, Italian, German, and French Jews. He was a disciple of Jannai, and was greatly admired by his contemporaries. See Gratz, Gesch. d.-Juden, 5:181 sq.; Sachs, Religiose Poesie d. Juden in Spanien, p. 180 sq.; Zunz, Synagogale Poesie d. Mittelalters, p. 128 sq. SEE LITURGY, JEWISH; SEE MACHSOR, SEE SYNAGOGUAL POETRY.