Joel ben Uri Heilprin
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Joel ben Uri Heilprin (Hebrew: יואל בן אורי היילפרין; 1690–1757), also known as Ba'al Shem II (Hebrew: בעל שם השני), was a Galician Jewish thaumaturge in Satanow and Zamość.[1]
Possessed of a fair knowledge of medicine and physics, he claimed to effect cures and perform miracles by means of the Kabbalah and the Holy Name. In 1720 he published anonymously a work entitled Toledot Adam, describing various remedies attributed to prominent Kabbalists.[2] The preface of the work constitutes a continuous panegyric of Heilprin and his miracles.[3] Heilprin had many pupils, who, on the death of their master, "formed a band of charlatans who shamelessly exploited the credulity of their contemporaries."[4]
