Rabbi Jacob Pollak was the founder of the Polish method of halakic and Talmudic study known as the Pilpul

Pilpul

Pilpul refers to a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakhic rulings or to reconcile any apparent contradictions presented from various readings of different texts.Pilpul has entered English as a...

; born about 1460; died at Lublin

Lublin

Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...

 in 1541. He was a pupil of Jacob Margolioth of Nuremberg, with whose son Isaac he officiated in the rabbinate of Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 about 1490; but he first became known during the latter part of the activity of Judah Minz (d. 1508), who opposed him in 1492 regarding a question of divorce.