Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The end of "schulkloppen" (the traditional daily knocking on doors to announce time for synagogue).

Gotthard Deutsch (1859-1921) writes about his childhood in Nikolsburg; the following is in 1866:



Elsewhere Deutsch describes how it came about this this old custom was abolished:

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9 comments:

  1. Simon6:14 PM, August 24, 2010

    This custom was still practised in the Nahlaot neighbourhood of Jerusalem within living memory, at least during Elul for Selihot. Just last week I heard some people reminiscing about it.

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  2. S.6:37 PM, August 24, 2010

    STILL practiced, or lately reintroduced? There's a difference.

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  3. Simon6:31 AM, August 25, 2010

    I really don't know, but bear in mind that Nahlaot didn't exist before the second half of the 19th century anyway.

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  4. S.10:13 AM, August 25, 2010

    I see that it was begun in the 1860s. If it was practiced then, it could well have been a continuous custom rather than a revival, although in my uneducated guess, doing it in Elul only is suggestive of revival, unless that was the vestige.

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  5. Shimon S11:37 PM, August 25, 2010

    There are some interesting stories about Rav Hirsch and his reform attempts in the same Nikolsburg.

    Hirschler, Gertrude. "Rabbi and Statesman: Samson Raphael Hirsch, Landesrabbiner of Moravia (1847-51)." Review of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews 1 (1987): 121-49.

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  6. Mar Gavriel12:07 AM, August 26, 2010

    I have often been woken up by a Schulklopper in Nachlaot, around משיכיר time. No, not in Elul. And it was only three years ago. I used to get really angry at him.

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  7. JXG3:30 AM, August 26, 2010

    Mar, EVERYONE used to get really angry at him. Mrs. XG and I contrived somehow to keep him from learning where we lived.

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  8. S.9:59 AM, August 26, 2010

    When I was in yeshiva we were woken by a וועקער (#$@% that he was).

    Still, it's not a Schulklopper.

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  9. Dan Klein5:36 PM, August 26, 2010

    At a certain yeshiva in upstate New York, one of the rebbeim used to come through the dorm and yank the sheets off students who were sleeping at davening time. I've been told that one student put this practice to a stop by going to bed stark naked.

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