'Aruk_, his marginal notes to which, the _Beër ha-Golah_, have ever
since been printed with the text. In addition to rabbis, Lithuania and
other provinces furnished teachers for the young, melammedim, who
exerted considerable influence upon the people among whom they lived.
Their opinions, we are told, were highly valued in the choice of
rabbis.[25]

It must not be supposed that supremacy in the Talmud was secured at the
cost of secular knowledge, or what was then regarded as such. Their
familiarity with other branches of study was not inferior to that of the
Jews in better-known lands. Not a few of the prominent men united piety
with philosophy, and thorough knowledge of the Talmud with mastery of
one or more of the sciences of the time. Data on this phase of the
subject might have been much more abundant, had not the storm of
persecution suddenly swept over the communities, destroying them and
their records. What we still possess indicates what may have been lost.
The Ukraine was famous for its scholars. Among them was Jehiel Michael
of Nemirov, reputed to have been "versed in all the sciences of the
world."[26] Several of them were poets and grammarians. Poems of a
liturgical character are still extant in which they bemoan their plight
or assert their faith hopefully. Such were the poems of Ephraim of
Khelm, Joseph of Kobrin, Solomon of Zamoscz, and Shabbataï Kohen. The
last, eminent as a Talmudist, the author of commentaries on the _Shulhan
'Aruk_ approved by the leading rabbis of his generation, is also known
as a very trustworthy historian. His _Megillah 'Afah_, written in
classic Hebrew, is a valuable source of information on the critical
period in which he lived. He won the esteem of the Polish nobility by
his secular attainments. To judge from his correspondence, he must have
been on intimate terms with Vidrich of Leipsic.[27] Of the grammarians,
Jacob Zaslaver wrote on the Massorah, and Shabbataï Sofer was the author