Tuesday, January 01, 2013

A Detroit family's conversion to Judaism in 1916

This story is from the Tageblatt (English section) exactly 94 years ago - Jan. 1, 1917.

Kalman Wagner of Brisk came to this country as a child. An orphan, he became a Christian, married, and had five children. One night, he said, his father appeared to him in a dream and told him to return to Judaism. After some resistance from his wife, she agreed, and she and his children were converted. And that is how a whole Detroit family converted to Judaism in December of 1916.


6 comments:

  1. According to michjewishhistory.org/pdfs/vol20-2.pdf, Rabbi Joseph Eisenman was one of four Orthodox Rabbis in Detroit at the time. The original Orthodox shul was Beinei Israel, run according to minhag Polin.

    From ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1917_1918_6_Lists.pdf, Rabbi Eisenman was affiliated with Cong. Beth Tephila and Beth Medrosh Hagodel. Neither document identifies which shul was known as the “Hungarian Synagogue”.

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  2. http://www.bnaimoshe.org/dexterboard.htm

    This was a frum shul in 40's Rabbi Moses Fischer was an accepted Posek

    Midwest

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  3. Very cool, thanks for finding this.

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  4. Rabbi Joseph Eisenman was a musmach of Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector and Rav Leib Tzirelson. He was my wife's great-grandfather.

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  5. http://books.google.com/books?id=HadKAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA404&ots=7H6HrnOdNd&dq=Rabbi%20Joseph%20Eisenman&pg=PA404#v=onepage&q&f=false

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