("later ones"). Designation for those authorities on and codifiers of Jewish law who, from the late Middle Ages, succeeded the Rishonim or earlier authorities. The dividing line between them is somewhat blurred: one school of thought maintains that the period of the Aḥaronim dates from the appearance of the Shulḥan Arukh (1565). According to other opinions, however, this period began a century earlier, following the deaths of Jacob Mölln and Israel Isserlein, or even in the 11th-12th century (see Tosafot). It is, in any case, the Shulḥan Arukh that has exerted a predominant influence over the Aḥaronim, determining the nature and content of their work as expositors and elucidators of the Halakhah. A few Aḥaronim nevertheless criticized or
even rejected the decisions of
