Thursday, July 01, 2010

Chassidic rebbe bashing from 1845.

Here's some nasty and crudely written bits of gossip about Chassidic rebbes in Galicia, such as R. Meir'l of Premishlan (Przemyśl) and Harry Maryles's ancestor R. Shimon Maryles of Jaroslaw. It was originally printed in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, and translated into English where it appeared in the July 1, 1845 issue of the missionary journal Voice of Israel. This is only a footnote. Interested readers can read the complete piece here.


12 comments:

  1. Premishlan is a different town in East Galicia, nowadays it is in the Ukraine. Przemysl is called "Pshemishel" in Yiddish.

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  2. I didn't know my illustrious ancester stammered to the point of unintelligibilty. That makes his popularity even more amazing!

    I wonder how accurate this article from 1845 is.

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  3. Perhaps your readers would be interested in knowing a bit about the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, its founder and editor Ludwig Philippson, and what they stood for. In the proper context this article would make much more sense.

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  4. Do you think this attitude was markedly different from the prevalent attitude toward Chassidic rebbes among German Orthodox Jews in 1845?

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  5. This may have been the prevalent attitude towards chassidic rebbes, not only among orthodox Jews, but among all Jews, period. And while possibly this footnote overdoes it, it is naive to think that there were no charlatans among the rebbes of that time. There are still charlatans (="mekubalim") today who go around to cities giving brochas. In simpler times, like the 1840s, they would have been rebbes.

    DF

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  6. Przemyśl is not Premishlan, as the commenter above noted, but nor does the article make mention of Przemyśl! Mr. OML, you need glasses!
    :-)

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  7. you should be ashamed of yourself for posting this, then again after seing how great people are belittled in thier times i have new found kavod for our gedolim. gedolim were belittled then and now. thank you for the great inspiration

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  8. Rev hersh from rymonev was a Cohen, then how could he tell her to divorce her husband and marry him? But the gist of the story is true. She was a widow. She needed chalitze. He proposed the shidech to her. But what about chalitze. The chilies was a child. He said no problem. He prayed that he die and he died. His mother came complaining. No proble. He prayed and she became pregnant again. All his children from his first wife died. He had 2 children with this wife. A son and a girl. After he died she remarried the ruzhiner. The Jansens rebbe was against the shiddech with the ruzhiner because she was already twice widowed. See oitzar hasipurim by zvi moskowitz. And also there are other sources.

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  9. There are errors in my previous post. The kamarna rebbe reb eisikel was against the shidech of the rymonover widow to the ruzhiner.
    The sources are easy to find. The chulitz was a child.

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  10. Mr. Anonymous 4:21

    A Cohen may not marry a chalutza either. Time to go back to learning instead of wasting time on this blog. (Comment applies to me also).

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  11. She was not a chalutza, the brother died, and never gave chalutza.

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