Meir of Rothenburg

“ That yearn to tread thy courts, that sore desire
Thy sanctuary;
That, panting for thy land's sweet dust, are grieved,
And sorrow in their souls,
And by the flames of wasting fire bereaved,
Mourn for thy scrolls;
That grope in shadow of unbroken night,
Waiting the day to see
Which o'er them yet shall cast a radiance bright,
And over thee?
Ask of the welfare of the man of woe,
With breaking heart, in vain
Lamenting ever for thine overthrow,
And for thy pain ”

“ In 1286 he was imprisoned as a hostage for the Jewish emigrants, and in 1293 he died in prison, though a ransom had been offered for his release. He had refused it, fearing to create a precedent for the extortion of money from the Jews by their imprisonment and ransom, The following Kinnah, in which he mourns the burning of the Law at Paris, is read on the Ninth of Ab, and has the form of the "Zion" poems for that day, of which Jehudah Halevi's Ode to Zion (p. 37) is the chief. ”