Just thought it was interesting. It was reproduced in Ketav Zot Zicharon (Jerusalem 1976).This was included among a couple of pages of photographs of the daughters and grand-daughters of the Chasam Sofer. Unfortunately I didn't make very good copies of them I mean, look at this:
I'm sure some people ill wish to look at a copy so they can analyze each and every hair covering. In any case, the aforementioned daughter was probably one of the righteous women who kicked the Chasam Sofer out of his study so they could clean for Pesach, as he noted in a responsum #136 (היותי חוץ לחדר לימודי כי גרשוני נשים צדקניות המכבדים לי"ט של פסח ע"כ לא יכולתי להאריך ככל הצורך). Although it is undated, it is addressed to R. Joseph Joel Deutsch in Tarnopol, where he served as dayan beginning in 1832.
"I'm sure some people ill wish to look at a copy"
ReplyDelete"will"
(No need to post this.)
They look like Hungarians to me, but how did they allow pictures? חדש אסור מן התורה
ReplyDelete:-)
I actually know a granddaughter of R' Avraham Sofer. :-)
ReplyDeleteI am a Grandson of Rabbi Avraham Schrieber (1897–1982), (he had no middle name). He was not the Author of Ketav Zot Zicharon, and in fact, strongly disliked it as he found it to be very inaccurate. He did work in JTS, but it his family were not disappointed in him as he only taught as a part time Gemara lecturer and refused to teach in the Rabbinical school for ideological reasons and so he rejected the offer made to him. He also refused to let them publish his works, such as the Meiri which he reassembled from many old manuscripts in libraries all over Europe, which in 1981 he was awarded the israel prize for. The real Author of Ketav Zot Zicharon is Benyamin Shrieber who was a cousin of my Grandfather who ran a Kohser restaurant in Vienna and then in New York, and was not widely considered to be an expert on the family history of the Sofers. This Blog is inaccurate and should be revised or deleted.
ReplyDeleteHah! That's a funny expression from the Chasam Sofer. You can imagine him smiling as he wrote "gershuni". Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteIn a later edition of this book KZZ the pictures of the females were removedas by now the world had become more frumer and the Oberlander Yididshkeit had been swallowed up either by Satmar or by the yeshiva world.
ReplyDeleteThe yated recenlty publsihed some interesting memoirs by and about this lady. By the way her husband was a simple amn not a rav or even close to it. Just goes to show you can be an erliche yid without knowing kol Hatorah kulo .
Question to the previous blogger so who was he teaching Gemora to in JTS the Kindergarten? So he taught the pre-rabbinic students , or did he in fact teach at Erlau but listed at JTS ? So he was part time a lit bit pregnant ? ? By the way take a look at any catalog of JTS rabbinical school in those days and this desc. of the Chasam Sofer is listed on the faculty together (min haminyan as they say in Israel) with some other Orthodox men like Rabbis Dimitrovky halivni, Abramson and others. I know not what he did there but he was there and was listed as a faculty member. Why ???None of this takes away from the esteemed rabbi Schreiber , but let's not change history especially very recent history.
I am not arguing whether what he did was respectable for an Orthodox Rabbi, i'm simply telling you that the blog claims that the 'family wasn't so proud seeing as he taught at JTS' which is untrue, regardless, there is no reason for Rabbi Avraham Schrieber to be mentioned as Ketav Zot Zicharon was not written by him! http://yufind.library.yale.edu/yufind/Record/1006519 - and i think that is a reasonable proof for it.
DeleteTo make it clear, I am the blogger. To make it further clear, I obviously didn't mean his own immediate family. It seems to me that he was more 'modern' or Wissenschaftlich, or whatever you would like to call it, then the typically ultra-Orthodox wings of the family of Chasam Sofer descendents, and that is naturally who I meant. I surely did not assume that his wife, children, etc. were not proud of him. I am sure they were, and for good reason.
DeleteFinally, I am convinced that he did not write it - I simply made a mistake. Given that, there is no reason for him to be mentioned in the post at all, and as I indicated, I removed his name.
Thank you but again, its not really rue, assuming when you say the Ultra Orthodox right wings of the family you mean the new Erlau Haasidic 'dynasty'
DeleteMy Grandfather held quite a good relationship with Rabbi Yochanan Sofer, his nephew, and now the Erlau Rebbe. By the way, even if that die of the family were not proud of R'Avraham Schreiber, which is not the case, it would not be for leaving the ideas of the Chatam Sofer and Rabbi Akiva Eiger, as they were both opposed to the haasidut movement that was adopted by R'Yochanan Sofer. If anything the disappointment may have been the other way around.
But the family was also opposed to rabbinic seminaries, as all Hungarian Orthodox rabbis were. Hard to see why what was bad in Budapest was okay in New York (even putting aside the idealogical question of whether or not 1960s Conservative Judaism was the same or even 'worse' than the Hungarian Historical variety). I'm not surprised he had cordial or good relations with his family.
DeleteIn any case, I removed it, and I don't want to belabor the point. I stand corrected where the corrections need to be made, and I'm glad that you are here to speak up for your distinguished grandfather, who certainly is deserving of a positive memorial rather than something flippant.
I'm going to remove the reference to the JTS Sofer, since as another already pointed out to me, I was simply mistaken, and he did not compile this book.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you'll have to do more than just assert that somehow the extended Chasam Sofer family was mysteriously fine with him teaching at JTS. I don't know why he refused to let them publish his Meiri, but the possibilities range, and that the refuasl was due to some sort of frumkeit issue seems remote indeed. If would be more to his credit were his reasons other than frumkeit since he was employed by the institution, whatever it was he did there. Of course this does not mean that he was not Orthodox or whatever someone might want to say.
Please understand that I personally have no problem with his association there, so no disrespect was intended toward your grandfather. But I apologize if it caused any anguish.
He wanted better sales in the frum world?
DeleteMy father remembers him coming around the YU beit midrash selling them.
By the way, did he work on the Encyclopedia Talmudit? His granddaughter told me he did, but he's not among the biographies in the penultimate volume.
Rabbi Abraham Sofer's father actually was the one who encouraged his son to publish The Meiri's Beit ha-Behirah. See his introduction to Bet ha-Behirah Al Masekhet Sanhedrin, ed. Abraham Sofer (Frankfurt-am-Main: Hermon, 1929). I thank Prof. Gregg Stern -- author of Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Interpretation and Controversy in Medieval Languedoc (London: Routledge, 2009) -- for discussing this source with me.
ReplyDeletei am also a (sixth generation) descendant of the chatam sofer, and can verify that all descendants have a copy of the book (though mine is of the first edition. the second has newer pix, but i dont recall no women. gotta verify after pesach.)
ReplyDeletewhen my parents married, my father went to the pressburger rav, who was hesitant to be mesader kiddushin, till my father told the rav my mother is a grandadaughter of "serel" (daughter of the ktav sofer, and the last person merited to be buried, shortly after purim 1944 in mako jewish cemetery, before the shavuot that every hungarian has yarzeit on.)
as soon as the pressburger heard that she is related, he imnmediately said he will be mesader kiddushin.
yes, the pictures are probably very difficult to copy / scan.
sorry, but it isn't " Ketav Zot Zicharon", but rather "KetOv Zot Zikkaron" as in "bassefer, vesim be-oznei yehoshua"
ReplyDeleteI find it notable that this is an example of Simcha being used as girl's name in the Ashkenazi world - my contemporary experience was that it is one of those names (Yonah being the other that comes to mind) that Sefardim have adopted as a girl's name and Ashkenazim as a boy's name. Does anyone have further insight into this?
ReplyDeleteWait, is this the same book:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zbermanbooks.com/Page.asp?ID=913866aaca735b055c48328a6c1074c7d146d2af85ba1e45c7fcf415dfe230e1&ProductID=137066
This in probably not the best place to publish this little bit of bibliographilia, but I don't know a better one.
ReplyDeleteThe shaar-blatt of the sefer 'Kushyot Atzumot' of R. Akiva Eiger published from manuscript, states that it was never before published, but I discovered that at least on Sanhedrin it was published in the Meiri volume on that masechta published by the aforementioned R. Sofer (I didn't check all the volumes to see if there are more).