Heter Mechirah or Imported Vegetables � Which should one Choose?
Language: English, Hebrew
Year of Publication: 2008
The purchase of agricultural produce during the Shemittah year and in the following months is never easy. In Kiryat Arba there has always been at least one shop which sold non Heter Mechirah produce, although on some occasions, especially for Pesach, one had to supplement this by purchasing some things in Jerusalem. It was for the Shemittah of 5761 that �Otzar Ha�aretz� began their operations. Their objective was the use of Jewish produce without utilising the Heter Mechirah.
For the Shemittah of 5768, �Otzar Ha�aretz� greatly expanded its activities. Advertisements were put in various newspapers and other sources asking people to register with them. This involved a registration one-time payment of NIS 50, and 12 monthly payments of NIS 50. For registering, provided it had been done by a certain date, one received their book �Katif Shevi�it� which, if purchased in a shop would cost NIS 50, and in exchange for the 12 monthly payments, one received 12 vouchers for NIS 50 each, to purchase �Otzar Ha�aretz� produce on a monthly basis. In addition, one received vouchers for some benefit each month. Sometimes this �benefit� was for a kilo of oranges free of charge � why they had amongst their produce oranges at a time when oranges were still sixth year produce, no-one seems to know!
At the start of the Shemittah year 5768, there were three large supermarkets in Kiryat Arba. Two of them had departments both for �Otzar Ha�aretz� and for �Heter Mechirah.� The third one just had �Heter Mechirah� produce. However after a few months, this third supermarket was taken over by one of the other two and thus �Otzar Ha�aretz� produce was available also there.
From the literature of �Otzar Ha�aretz� it was not clear whether their produce would include that which was Heter Mechirah and therefore I telephoned them in order to ask. The first answer I got was that when other produce was not available, they would utilise Heter Mechirah. However a few days later they informed me that they would not utilise it, but instead sell imported products. I asked them to send me this latter piece of information in writing but I never received it!
What I later did discover from an article on the Internet on the �Aruiz7� Hebrew site, was that when non Heter Mechirah vegetables are exhausted, �Otzar Ha�aretz � would place two alternatives before the consumer � one would be Heter Mechirah and the other would be imported non-Arab produce. The Bet Din of �Otzar Ha�aretz� would not decide which was preferable but every consumer would have to make the choice. Reading between the lines, it seemed to me that they had been an internal disagreement between the members of �Otzar Ha�aretz� Bet Din on whether or not to utilise Heter Mechirah produce.
I thus decided that I, as a consumer, would research the whole question of Heter Mechirah and then write a paper giving my theoretical choice on this question � although from the very start I had no intention of utilising the Heter Mechirah, whatever my theoretical conclusion might be!
From previous Shemittah years, I have quite a collection of books and booklets on the laws of Shemittah and they came in very useful in writing this paper. Two of these, namely a book by Dayan Isidor Grunfeld of the London Bet Din, and a paper in a Torah journal written by Rabbi Dr. Kalman Kahana, enabled me to learn about the historical background to the problems involving the Shemittah during the last 120 years, and, in addition, this material gave me many primary references.
I also utilised websites on the Internet, including that of �Otzar Ha�aretz,� especially for items concerning �Heter Mechirah�, and this included answers to questions submitted by the public, given by Rabbi Yehudah Amichai of Kiryat Arba who is a member of the �Otzar Ha�aretz� Bet Din and an authority on the subject. In addition, I found a paper in �text form� which had appeared many months earlier in the pamphlet by �Kommemiyut� of Bet El, which is distributed in the Shuls before every Shabbat. Since I have a strong preference for primary material, I contacted �Kommemiyut� and asked them to send me a copy of their pamphlet, which they immediately did. Only at a later date, did I discover that they had put pdf copies of past pamphlets on their Internet site.
A problem that I found when trying to find information in English on �Shemittah� on the Internet was the different ways one could spell it in English letters � for example: Shemittah, Shmittah, Shmitah, Shmita, and so on, and each one would refer one to different sites on the Internet!
From the English Internet sites of �Arutz Sheva� and �ynet�, I saw that there had been a number of interesting developments for this Shemittah year, arising from the fact that some official city Rabbis had refused to grant a �Teudat Hechsher� to those establishments that wanted to utilise the Heter Mechirah.
One of these developments was that a group of �National-Religious� Rabbis from the organization called �Rabbis of Tzohar� started granting their own �supervision certificates� to these establishments, which allowed them to use Heter Mechirah products. Tzohar brings out a weekly pamphlet which is distributed before each Shabbat in the various Synagogues in Israel. I discovered that a pdf of these sheets is placed on their Internet site and from a study of their archives I was able to obtain from these pamphlets, primary source details concerning this alternative Kashrut supervision. (Incidentally, after I had published my paper, I saw a news item that the Chief Rabbinate had threatened to fine the �Rabbis of Tzohar� if they did not stop issuing their own Kashrut certificates, adding that �We can�t allow every Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde to open his own kosher supervision outfit.�) Although their pamphlets did not show a sample copy of their �supervision certificate,� it did appear on the Internet and, after a considerable search, I also found copies in some national daily newspapers.
When studying these Tzohar pamphlets I saw that, ironically, in almost every pamphlet, there were advertisements for holidays in the Diaspora � China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Venice and even the Arab country of Morocco, and many more places � sometimes they appeared on as many as four of its pages and some even occupied an entire page. These advertisements even included a Glatt Kosher Pesach without gebrochts in Rumania or Turkey, amongst other places!
There were also reactions by other organisations who did not receive a Kashrut certificate because they utilised Heter Mechirah produce. Thy accordingly took the Chief Rabbinate to the Supreme Court. The rulings of the Israel Supreme Court have been scanned on to the Internet, and I accordingly downloaded their entire ruling on this subject. It was over 40 pages long and ordered the Chief Rabbinate to allow the use of the Heter Mechirah!
Another ruling for this Shemittah came in a strongly worded proclamation from 15 of the �Gedolei Hador� which was publicized just before the start of this Shemittah year and it strictly forbade utilising the Heter Mechirah. I had seen this proclamation soon after Rosh Hashanah, but for some reason I had not made a photocopy of it at the time, or even recorded where I had seen it, which is quite unusual for me! I spent hours searching for it and finally I discovered a reference to it on the Internet which stated that it had just been publicised on bill boards and in the Charedi press. From the date of this Internet reference, I had an approximate date from where to search. I began by looking at the microfilms of the Hebrew edition of �Hamodia,� but did not find it there. I then searched �Yated Neeman� and soon found it for a certain day on the top of the newspaper�s front page. At a later date I searched the English edition of �Hamodia� but again I could not find it. Why it was not publicized in �Hamodia� I really don�t know. Maybe, because �Hamodia� is more Chassidic and this particular publicised ruling was for some reason not signed by any Chassidic Rebbes, although I am sure that they all reject the Heter Mechirah.
Apart from the opinions of �Charedi� Rabbis who naturally prohibit the use of the Heter Mechirah, I also made a point of bringing the opinions of Rabbis of the �National Religious� stream who either prohibited or wanted to greatly restrict the use of the Heter Mechirah. These included Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Rabbi Moshe Ushpizai (a former Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan), and Rabbi Moshe Levinger.
Whilst I had been studying at London University (1960-66), Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who was then Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defence Forces, had came on a visit to Israel, but I cannot remember which year. He addressed the Jewish University Students at Hillel House in London. From what I can recollect of his talk, it included the question of defending the country on Shabbat, and the subject of Shemittah also arose. He maintained that the Heter Mechirah of Rabbi Kook no longer applied today, adding that he himself does not eat anything which is Heter Mechirah. In the question period after the lecture, someone asked him how if Israel had been sold for the Shemittah year, one may override Shabbat by defending it?! He began by laughingly saying �if it had really been sold!� and went on to give an answer to the questioner on the basis of it being sold.
Rabbi Ze�ev Vitman�s book, which deals with suggestions on how to observe Shemittah in the State of Israel, gave a reference to a newspaper article in �Hatzofe� by Rabbi Goren that after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Heter Mechirah no longer had any validity. At that time, the Chief Rabbinate had answered Rabbi Goren�s article with counter arguments, and in turn, Rabbi Goren had published an answer to the Chief Rabbinate. I found all these articles on microfilms of �Hatzofe� in the Jewish National Library and made photocopies of them,
Before he reestablished Jewish settlement in Hebron, Rabbi Levinger had been the Rabbi of Kibbutz Lavie, a Kibbutz of the Kibbutz Hadati movement, which is situated near Tiberius and was established in 1949. Today one of their main �industries� is a hotel which is very successful indeed and they are continually adding new wings. I myself stayed there for a few days with my family in November 2006. This hotel is glatt kosher and as a result, I am informed that the kibbutz dining room is likewise glatt kosher, and they thus observe Shemittah without utilising the Heter Mechirah.
In 1964, Rabbi Levinger had published an article in the Kibbutz Hadati magazine �Amudim� in which he came out for reducing the use of Heter Mechirah, since those who used it barely followed the instructions of the Chief Rabbinate regarding Shemittah and what is more, the population at large did not take the sale of the land seriously!
I had also found on the Internet that an Av Bet Din in New Jersey had written a very strong criticism on an article written by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner which advocated in no uncertain terms that one should use Heter Mechirah products. He even described Rabbi Aviner�s article as �demagoguery�. I managed to track down the source of Rabbi Aviner�s article which was in the Ateret Kohanim journal, and this was available in the library of �Yeshivat Nir Kiryat Arba.� Today this is an excellent Torah library. In fact I was in charge of purchasing books for this library in the late 1960s at the period of �Mitnachalei Hevron� and these books formed a good nucleus for today�s library there, and until this day, these books have the rubber stamp �Yeshivat Mitnachalei Hevron� in them.
In addition to the tens of thousands of books they have there today, they have the disc of �Otzar HaHochoma� which contains over 25,000 Jewish religious books which can be viewed in their entirety and can also be downloaded. During my research I utilized this disc to download some references I required. In addition, today on the Internet there is a site called �Hebrew Books org� with the full texts of 11,000 Jewish religious books. I gave the librarian of the Yeshivat Nir library the address of this site, but there is no Internet connection in this library.
Although the various Rabbinic rulings and proclamations for and against the first Heter Mechirah given in 1888-89 have been reproduced in many contemporary works, I prefer to search out the original material, or failing that, as close to the original material as possible. Much of this appeared in the Hebrew newspapers of that period, which were published in Eretz Israel or in Eastern Europe. They have now been scanned by the Jewish National Library and can be found on the Internet. If one knows the dates that specific items were published by these newspapers, it is easy to find them. Rabbi Kahana and Dayan Grunfeld had given references for many of these items in these newspapers and I accordingly found the material I required and downloaded it.
There were some questions I could not find the answers for in libraries or on the Internet. For example: In his own house did Rabbi Avraham Kook personally eat Heter Mechirah produce? How much of the vegetables sold as Heter Mechirah are in fact Arab produce? I first tried to put these questions on to Wikipedia Reference Desk � but I received no answers. I then asked Rabbi Yehudah Amichai. He answered me that no-one knows what Rabbi Kook did in his own house, and that produce sold as Heter Mechirah does include Arab produce � indeed most of the cucumbers reaching the Jewish market have been grown by Arabs.
I decided that it was important in my paper to show how one could in a practical manner dispense with the Heter Mechirah. I found a paper on the Internet brought out by �Machon Lev� which discussed the financial side of this question and put forward suggestions for alternatives to the Heter Mechirah.
Some of the primary material for this paper was from books published about a hundred years ago and these I found in the Jewish National Library and had the relevant material photocopied.
Having assembled all the material, I was able to write up my paper. It included a historical survey of the Heter Mechirah in the period of about one hundred years ago, the current 5768 Shemittah, whether the Heter Mechirah given in the past was still valid today, a discussion of whether the Heter Mechirah is ideologically acceptable, whether it is a genuine sale and whether it could be abolished, of where to shop during the Shemittah period, and finally my personal answer of what produce to choose when no non-Heter Mechirah vegetables were available. My answer was - imported vegetables.
I wrote up this paper in both Hebrew and in English. The texts are virtually identical and all the 92 footnotes in each edition correspond with each other. Copies were give to the various libraries which had provided me with material and to various other organisations and individuals.
As with all research, after one publishes a paper, one finds further material. This paper is not an exception! On reading the introduction to Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach�s �Ma�adnei Eretz�, I saw two pieces of information that I would have incorporated in my paper had I known about them earlier. One was that Rabbi Kook said that if people put pressure on people who did not want to use the Heter Mechirah, he would withdraw his Heter Mechirah. The second was that Rabbi Diskin could not decide whether to permit or forbid Rabbi Naftali Herz� proposal to sell the fruit trees for the Shemittah period.
I gave a copy of my paper to the library of Yeshivat �Nir� Kiryat Arba. It was then obviously seen by the editors of that Yeshiva�s journal �Alonei Mamrei�, since they then approached me to publish it in this journal. I told them that they could download it from my site on the Internet but because one reads Hebrew from right to left, they might have to make some corrections. They added that they would publish it together with observations from various people. They hoped that one of them would be Rabbi Yehudah Amihai, who lives in Kiryat Arba and is the Director of �Machon Torah V�ha�aretz, but he did not give his observations.
They also told me that they would make �cosmetic changes� to my paper and then show me a copy for my agreement. This they did and they handed me a copy on the same day as I was going away on a week�s holiday. I informed that I would be away but they said that there was no urgency for me to go over it. However, I took it with me on holiday, read over it numerous times and wrote in my various corrections.
I noticed that they had made a number of subtle additions in order to give the impression that it was only �charedi� Jews who did not accept the Heter Mechirah and that this was in contradistinction to the �dati leumi� Jews who utilised it. They had also moved some of my sentences from the body of the paper to just the footnotes. One of these sentences was one of the most important sentences in my paper!
I deleted these �subtle additions� of theirs and restored my sentences from the footnotes to the body of the paper itself. After I returned from my holiday, I asked them to send me their version of my paper by e-mail in order that I could put in my corrections and return them the corrected version, which I did.
About a month later the journal came out with my paper which occupied 15 pages. I saw to my annoyance that they had returned this important sentence to the footnotes and had on one occasion restored the word �charedim� which I had deleted. Otherwise, they had in general, nor altered my corrections.
In addition, the editors had written two articles with criticisms on my paper. One was a general article of length 9 pages written by both editors. The second was written by just one of the editors on the early history of Heter Mechirah, an article of length 22 pages.
I told the editors that I intended to answer their criticisms, to which they readily agreed. I first very carefully read over their two articles and drafted my reply. I answered the various points made in their general article. Amongst my various points, I noted that the very same �dati leumi� groups who utilized the Heter Mechirah, which they said they did in order to protect the livelihood of the Jewish farmer in Israel, included week after week in the pamphlets which they brought out for Shabbat, pages of advertisements of holidays abroad � China, Thailand, Italy, Turkey, America and even the Arab countries of Morocco and Tunisia! I asked what about the livelihood of the Jewish hoteliers and Jewish travel guides in Israel?!
Although I praised the second article as an excellently researched one, I pointed out it was totally irrelevant to my paper. I stated that it was only of historical interest what certain Rabbis had ruled a hundred or so years ago. What was of importance was how these very same Rabbis would rule today. I brought numerous proofs to show that today they would forbid the Heter Mechirah.
After writing my reply, I sent it to the editors by e-mail and then confirmed that they had received it. As at the end of 2008, a further volume of this Yeshivah�s journal had not yet been published.
Was Theodor Herzl�s Wife Jewish?
Language: English
Year of Publication: 2008
It was a number of years ago, whilst reading at least one of the later biographies of Herzl, that I read that these biographers had questioned the Jewishness of Herzl�s wife. I decided that this was an interesting subject for further research and that I would investigate this matter.
In his biography of Herzl, Avner Falk quoted from four official Austrian documents on the marriages of Herzl and of his sister-in-law. I decided that the first place to search for these documents would be the Herzl papers in the Central Zionist Archives (CZA) in Jerusalem. At the end of October 2007, I went there and spoke to Gitta Bar Tikva who was in charge of these papers but she informed me that they were being digitalised at that period and it was therefore impossible to retrieve the files. She hoped that in about three month�s time this work would be completed. She however looked at the catalogue on the computer and found that they had two of these documents and she gave me the file numbers of them.
In January 2008 I returned but the person doing the digitalisation had gone on maternity leave and so the work had not progressed. However Gitta managed to dig out these two files from the archives for me to examine. In one of them I found one of these documents and it was beautifully clear. In the other file, there was a very poor quality and barely readable photograph � not photocopy � of the second document. Gitta then made photocopies of these two documents for me.
My next attempt to track down these documents was in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP). I looked up their website and saw that the extensive papers from the archives of the Jewish community in Vienna had been transferred to the CAHJP. They also had on the Internet a detailed catalogue in German of these papers and I tried with my almost non-existent German to identify the call-numbers of the documents I wanted, but as I discovered later many of my identifications were incorrect due to my non-knowledge of German!
The CAHJP is now situated at the High Tech village which is at the far end of the campus of the Hebrew University in Givat Ram Jerusalem. I had never realised how vast this campus was. It takes over quarter of an hour on foot to go from one end to the other! I went to these archives, and filled up a registration form. Then together with their staff member, who needless to say, is fluent in German, went over the catalogue to determine which files might be relevant to my research. I put in my orders but since the files were not stored there, they had to be ordered and I was told to return a few days later.
When I returned, the files were awaiting me. On studying them I saw that they were not relevant. In the one case where a file might have been relevant, they had sent the wrong file by mistake and I had a return again after they had re-ordered it. When I examined it � a ledger whose contents is a whole collection of wedding tax payments - I saw that it marginally helped my research and I photocopied the appropriate pages. However none of the documents quoted by Falk in his biography were there and I learned that they were to be found in Vienna.
I therefore decided to contact Falk, who I discovered lived in Jerusalem, and ask him whether he had photocopies of these documents. He suggested that I come to his apartment in North Talpiot and look at his �Herzl file.� As I usually do when I travel to a location I don�t know, I take along a detailed map of the area. Aided by this I soon found Falk�s apartment. He put the Herzl file in front of me, and to the background of classical music which was already playing when I arrived there, I went through his file. In this file I found three of the four documents referred to in his biography. I also found various items of correspondence with people mainly in Austria, which I thought might be helpful for my research. Falk very obliging made photocopies of all these papers I required. One of the documents � the page from the marriage register containing Herzl�s marriage � was a photograph which was not very clear, but better than the photograph at the CZA. Falk spent some time trying to get the clearest photocopy of it.
When I was carefully analysing this material when writing up my paper, I saw that it would be useful to also have the letters Falk had written to Vienna in addition to their replies which were in his Herzl file. These had not been in his file and I assumed were stored in his computer. At the end of April 2008, I sent him an e-mail with a detailed list of the letters I required, but he replied, �I am sorry, but I have not kept any of my letters to these organizations.�
Another of Herzl�s biographers who had discussed Herzl�s marriage was Desmond Stewart. Whilst Stewart was researching this biography during the early 1970s, he had been in extensive correspondence with Mark Braham. In May 1973, which was during the course of this correspondence, Braham moved from London to Australia. About twenty years ago, I was writing my book on the various proposals to transfer Arabs, the first of which having been made by Herzl. In his biography of Herzl, Stewart had written about Herzl�s transfer proposals. At that period, I was in contact with Braham and he then sent me copies of the correspondence between him and Stewart which was relevant to this transfer proposal of Herzl�s. Braham had deposited all this correspondence with the University of Sydney Judaica Archives and he went specially there for me to make these photocopies.
I thought that it was likely that there would also be correspondence on the subject of Herzl�s marriage and the religion of his wife. I looked up Braham�s telephone number on the Internet and in mid-January 2008 telephoned him. He informed me that unfortunately he had just got up from Shiva after terrible traffic fatalities in his immediate family and he also mentioned that his was already in his mid 80s. I therefore did not ask him if he could make me photocopies of the relevant correspondence, as he had done twenty years earlier.
Instead I looked up the catalogue of the �Archive of Australian Judaica� at the University of Sydney, and succeeded in identifying the exact file containing the potential correspondence I required. I then sent an e-mail to the archivist requesting photocopies of �the section of the Braham-Stewart correspondence dealing with Herzl�s marriage.� The archivist there was extremely helpful, went through the extensive correspondence in this file, extracted the relevant letters, photocopied them and sent them to me by post, without any charge. On going through them, I found that a page from one of the letters, (which I could see from the rest of the letter was very relevant) was missing. I contacted the archivist and this page was scanned and sent to me by e-mail.
Stewart, in his biography had referred to an article in the London �Jewish Chronicle� by Gerald Abrahams in which he stated that Herzl�s descendants were non-Jewish, but Abrahams had not stated a source for this statement. Gerald Abrahams had lived in Liverpool, where I had also lived in the 1970s, and I accordingly knew him. I also know that there are archives in the Liverpool Central Library � I myself have sent material to them. I therefore looked up their catalogue on the Internet and saw that they had a small archive of Gerald Abrahams� papers. They also stated that their staff will perform research taking less than quarter of an hour free of charge. Above this time there was a charge scale. I sent them an e-mail asking them to verify if in Abrahams� file there was a source for this information on the religion of Herzl�s descendants, pointing out that it would take less than quarter of an hour to do so, and also mentioning that in the past I had photocopied for them at my expense my book on my reminiscences at the Jewish school in Liverpool - a total of 261 pages. They asked one of their researchers to look in Abrahams� papers for me which he did. It appears that first he did not understand my request but with the exchange of a few e-mails between us, I got the information I had requested, although it was negative.
From the above mentioned biographies of Herzl, I learned that Rabbi Dr. Moritz Gudemann, the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, had first agreed to a request to conduct Herzl�s wedding, but later withdrew the request for �family reasons.� These biographers had taken this information from a second hand source who had believed that the original memoirs of this Rabbi had been destroyed during the Second World War.
I decided to investigate whether in fact these memoirs were still extant and from the Internet learned that the handwritten original memoirs of Rabbi Gudemann, and also a typewritten copy were in the Leo Baeck Institute Archives in New York. I telephoned them and asked whether there was a copy in Israel. They answered in the negative but said there was a copy in Berlin! They added that one could order it on microfilm. The Jewish National Library has a policy to obtain anything of Jewish interest and so I sent them in September 2007 an e-mail suggesting they purchase this microfilm, adding the necessary details for purchase. They immediately did this and a few months later this microfilm arrived. They had some internal discussions on where to place it in the Library, but finally it reached the Microfilm Department.
This microfilm includes some musical scores (I don�t know details about them!), the handwritten original of these memoirs and two copies of the typewritten copy. I assume they included it twice, because one of the copies (the one which appeared last!) was difficult to read.
I went through the typewritten copy to try and find what Rabbi Gudemann had said about Herzl�s marriage. Since my German is almost non-existent, I looked for keywords such as Herzl in close proximity to Trauung (which means marriage). When I eventually found them, I reasonably assumed that I had found the correct place and ordered a photocopy of that page. I also looked for the equivalent place in the handwritten original, (I always believe in going to a primary source), and soon found it and at a later date ordered a photocopy.
I felt that it was important for the readers of my paper to understand the background, namely the standard of Jewish religious observance of the Vienna community at the period of Herzl�s marriage, especially with regard to marriages and conversion to Judaism. For this, I searched for books and scholarly papers on this subject and I found a number of such items. One of them spoke of the marriage of the neurologist Dr. Moritz Benedikt which had been conducted in a Vienna Temple by a Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Adolf Jellinek, where the bride was a �Reform convert.� However no source was given for this piece of information. Towards the end of October 2007, I decided to contact the author of this book, a University Professor, and ask him. The answer I received was that he was abroad on Sabbatical but he would be in Israel at the end of November. At the end of November 2007 I managed to speak to him and when I asked for the source of the information he answered that he had written the book nearly 20 years earlier and was therefore unable to assist me.
I therefore decided to try and find out more information about this Benedikt marriage and to do this I asked a question on the Wikipedia Reference Desk. I received an answer quoting from Benedikt�s autobiography in German with another person obligingly translating the passage into English. I should mention here that in the course of the research for this paper I came across a number of passages in German which I needed translated. Also here, I submitted them to the Wikipedia Reference Desk and in every case I received an English translation within just a few hours.
There was a further problem which I sometimes encountered with the German. From the 16th century until 1940, it was sometimes written in a different script, known as Fraktur, which if one does not know is very difficult to read. Some of the material I used in this research was written in this script. I therefore downloaded the German alphabet in the Fraktur script together with the conventional style alphabet in order to assist me read any material written in this script.
As I have already stated, I could not obtain all the marriage registrations I required from the various archives in Jerusalem. I therefore wrote at the beginning of February 2008 to the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (Jewish Religious Community) in Vienna who have the vital records of the Jewish community for about the last two hundred years, requesting copies of various marriage registrations. They first sent them to me by post but added that if I desired, they could send better quality copies by e-mail. I accordingly requested them and a few days later they arrived. I was able to transfer them to a �Word file� and was then able to improve their quality. A few months later, I requested from them the marriage registrations of other members of Herzl�s wife�s family, which they speedily sent me by e-mail. In appreciation, I sent them a donation.
In February 2000, the Archivist of this above organisation, had written on the Internet that he was searching for information about Herzl�s wife. In March 2008 I wrote to him and asked whether he had assembled further information and if so the sources of such information. He replied giving me a considerable amount of information on the genealogy of Herzl�s wife�s family together with the sources of this information. I also obtained information on the deaths and burials of the family members of Herzl�s wife from the website of the Jewish burials in Vienna up to 1945. This website has 153,000 records of burials in the various Jewish cemeteries in Vienna.
In October 2007, I read an article on the Internet written by a Jerry Klinger, President of the �Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation� that �the Rabbis [in Bordeaux] did not want the Herzl children in their cemetery.� Klinger had not given a source for this information. I myself could understand their reluctance to bury Hans � he had committed suicide, but why also Pauline? I thus wondered whether it might be that they Rabbis questioned the Jewishness of Herzl�s children. I therefore made a search on the Internet for the telephone numbers in Rockville Maryland, (the area of Klinger�s Society), for the name �Klinger.� I found a J. Klinger and on telephoning the number found that it was the correct one! Klinger could not recollect the source for his information � he had written his article a number of years earlier. Despite an exchange of e-mails and a further telephone call in the spring of 2008, nothing further emerged on this question. I could not therefore derive any conclusions from his article which were relevant to my paper and so did not even refer to it.
Having assembled a large amount of information on the subject of Herzl�s marriage, I was able to write up a paper. My conclusion was that one could not come to a definite conclusion as to whether Herzl�s wife was or was not Jewish, although there were several indications indicating she might have been non-Jewish.
Assistance to prepare this paper had come from almost every continent in the world, even as far away as Australia. There was therefore a fairly long list of acknowledgments at the end of the paper. All those appearing in this list received in appreciation a copy of the paper. It was also put on my site on the Internet.
One of those who received such a copy was Wolf�Erich Eckstein, the archivist at the Jewish centre in Vienna. Following his receipt of a copy of my paper there was an exchange of e-mails between us. Because of the important points raised in them, I shall now reproduce their texts.
On 8 July 2008 Eckstein wrote:
Thank for your paper.
There are some mistakes:
On page 5 you wrote �In all countries there is a civil registration of marriages. ��
That�s not right for Austria until 1938 � civil registration of birth and death started in January 1939, of marriages in August 1938.
The last sentence �� a marriage registered � by the Jewish Community of Vienna � would not prove that there had been a Jewish religious marriage ceremony.�
Sorry, but this is wrong except marriages between a Jewish and a non-Jewish (konfessionlos) partner � these marriages were registered civil and reported to the Jewish Community, but these marriages were marked as �Magistrats-Trauungen�.
On page 8 you wrote, that Steward or his researcher found no religious inscription on tombstone of Franziska Kollinsky nee Goldstein � of course she has!
Last error:
You wrote about Herzl�s marriage �� no Rabbi conducted the ceremony. � signature of the registrar � it was Jellinek.
You are right � it was Dr. Adolf Jellinek, chief Rabbi of Vienna for many years.
There is no reason to say that one of the Naschauers or Kollinskys were non-Jewish.
I answered this e-mail on the following day:
Thank you for reading my paper and giving your comments.
As promised, here are my answers to your comments:
� The ONLY religious document in a Jewish marriage is the Kesuba. The marriage register kept by a community, which contains the names of the bride and bridegroom, details concerning them and their parents, a variety of dates ALL GIVEN ACCORDING TO THE CIVIL CALENDAR (and none in the Jewish calendar!) is a register required by the CIVIL authorities.
� We can see from the marriage of Dr. Moritz Benedikt that Jellinek would conduct marriages when one of the partners had had a �Reform conversion.� Such a marriage is in fact a marriage between a Jew and a non-Jew, even if the civil authorities considered the �Reform convert� as a Jew. For this reason Benedikt�s marriage did not come into the category of �Magistrats-Trauungen� and therefore his entry is not marked as �Magistrats-Trauungen� in the Community Marriage Register. It seems very possible that this was not an isolated case. Thus a registration in the Vienna Community Marriage Register, even if not marked �Magistrats-Trauungen,� does not prove that a Halachically accepted Jewish marriage took place.
� As I indicated in my paper, I do not have in my possession a photograph of Franziska Kollinsky�s tombstone and could therefore only base my comments on what Desmond Stewart, the author of a biography on Herzl, had written.
� There are several problems regarding Herzl�s marriage registration. Here are the main ones: In the entries directly above and below Herzl�s entries, the name of the Rabbi conducting the marriage ceremony was clearly stated. In the case of Herzl, the space for the Rabbi WAS LEFT BLANK! Why?! And why did Herzl�s marriage take place in Reichenau and not in a Temple in Vienna as would be expected for members of the Naschauer and Herzl families? There were similar problems with the marriages of Julie�s sisters, especially Helene.
� I clearly stated in my paper that there is no concrete evidence on whether Julie Naschauer was or was not Jewish. It has been suggested by Mark Braham, an author of a book on Herzl, that a member of the female line of the Kollinsky family had had a �Reform conversion� and if this fact is correct, Jellinek would have still been prepared to conduct a marriage ceremony and Herzl�s entry in the Vienna Community Marriage Register would thus not include the words �Magistrats-Trauungen.�
On the same day, Eckstein replied:
As far as I know in 1867 until 1938 there was no �reform convert� in Vienna � conversions to Judaism in general were controlled and proved by a Rabbi.
In your letter you wrote: �In the entries directly above and below Herzl�s entries, the name of the Rabbi � was clearly stated��
You are right, but the reason why is, that these marriages were conducted by Rabbis not connected to the Tempelgasse Synagogue, i.e. Jacob Fleissig in Untere Viaduktgasse, Dr. Placzek in Bruenn, Dr. A. Schmiedl in F�nfhaus. A page before you would see other marriages signed by Dr. Guedemann in the same manner like Dr. Jellinek did at Herzl�s marriage.
Sorry, there was a mistake (misread) when the extract of marriage record of Helene Naschauer was issued 1990: The rabbi wasn�t Dr. Guren but Dr. Guedemann.
That very same day I replied to Eckstein:
Thank you for your e-mail.
In it you wrote:
�As far as I know in 1867 until 1938 there was no �reform convert� in Vienna � conversions to Judaism in general were controlled and proved by a Rabbi.�
Let us look at this statement for the period from the mid-1860s until the early 1890s, the period when Jellinek was the Chief Rabbi of Vienna.
� Jellinek was in fact a Reform rabbi. He did not require converts to Judaism to immerse in the Mikva. This in itself would completely invalidate any conversion. He dispensed with the Halitzah ceremony. His marriage ceremonies in his Temple considerably deviated from the traditional ceremony. He was personally not particular in observing the Jewish dietary laws and other Jewish ritual observances. One could hardly expect him to require his converts to be more observant than he was, and acceptance of ALL the commandments incumbent on a Jew is a prerequisite for conversion.
� In 1868 Jellinek performed the marriage of Dr. Moritz Benedikt with a �reform convert� in a Vienna Temple.
� What do you mean by the expression �controlled and proved by a Rabbi�? Who was this Rabbi during this period and did he have the right to disqualify conversions performed by Chief Rabbi Jellinek?
� What about people who had been converted by Reform rabbis in Germany or by Neolog rabbis in Budapest and came to Vienna to get married in one of the Temples? Were their conversions also scrutinised?
I never received a reply from Eckstein to this e-mail of mine.
A further question which can be asked is why if Jellinek or Gudemann conducted a marriage, they didn�t sign their name as the Rabbi conducting the wedding but only signed the certificate in their position as the registrar. On the face of it, this seems rather sloppy! However, maybe some of the marriages were not in accordance with the Halachah and therefore it was more diplomatic to always leave this space blank.
Another person I sent a copy of my book to was Jerry Klinger, President of the �Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation�. On 13 July 2008, he sent me an e-mail:
Thank you very much for your excellent article "Was Theodor Herzl's Wife Jewish?" It is by far the best I have seen on the subject.
Though I doubt it will be received well but you might want to add it to the archives at the Herzl Museum, Motti Friedman is the director. When I brought the subject up with him he bristled at the suggestion that there was any question and Julia being Jewish. He strongly argued that the children, and hence Stephen Norman, Jewishness was investigated by the Chief Rabbi of Vienna. The Chief Rabbi's ruling was that Julia was Jewish and the children were Jewish. He dismissed any argument to the contrary.
I immediately sent a copy to Motti Friedman and duly notified Jerry of this. I have received no comments whatsoever from Motti Friedman.
An Unusual Case History of Adoption and Conversion with Particular Reference to Jewish Law
Language: English
Year of Publication: 2008
When I was the Director of Jewish Studies at the Jewish High School in Liverpool, England, during the 1970s, one of my pupils was Ian R. I recollect one Chanukah, when he was either in one of the higher classes of the school, or had just left the school, that he and his friends put on a Chanukah performance for the pupils of the school. One of the items was a song which (I think) they composed, beginning �On the First day of Chanukah �� which was based on the song �On the First day of Christmas �� Whereas this song for Christmas has verses for all the 12 days of Christmas, Chanukah only has 8 days? So what did these singers do? For the ninth day they sang �On the first day after Chanukah�� and so on! As I recollect, I think I later mentioned to Ian that there is a reference to twelve days in connection with Chanukah, since the leining for Chanukah is the portion dealing with the twelve nesi�im (princes) who brought gifts at the dedication of the Alter in the Tabernacle, on twelve consecutive days.
At the period when Ian graduated from the school, I had written a booklet entitled �How to Answer Anti-Israel Propaganda� which was designed for Jewish university students to help them counter anti-Israel motions which were then rife on the various University campuses in England. I gave a copy to Ian, who was then at Hull University and was President of the Jewish Society. He carefully went over it and suggested various small changes and also changing the tile to �Israel�s Case for Survival.� However, just a few months later I returned to Israel and thus nothing further came of this matter.
Whilst I was at the school, I had heard that Ian had been adopted and converted by the London Beth Din. That was all I knew and at that time it appears that he himself knew little more than that.
It was in 1995, that a long article appeared in the �Jerusalem Post� about Ian. This article described that he had meanwhile discovered that his biological father was a Kuwaiti Arab and that Ian had unsuccessfully applied to the English Courts to try and get his adoption revoked.
In the summer of 2007, I started thinking about investigating Ian�s case history and in March 2008, began serious work on this subject. Ian had stated in this article of 1995 that he intended to take his case to the House of Lords and if that failed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and I wanted to know if he had done so.
I accordingly asked a question on the Wikipedia Reference Desk � Humanities on 8 March 2008. After summarising in a few lines what I knew about the case, I asked �Does any user know if this case came to these Courts [House of Lords and the Court in Strasbourg], or that there were any other developments in this matter?� I received a reply informing me that this case had gone to the Court of Appeal in July 1995 and it gave me a direct link to the verbatim court judgment. I accordingly looked it up this judgment and ran off a copy.
I also at that period looked up on the archives of the London �Jewish Chronicle� which appear on the Internet, any articles on Ian�s case and on Jewish adoption in general in Britain. To accomplish this I utilized �keywords� such as Ian�s names, �adoption� and �Beth Din�, for the appropriate year range, and found about 25 potential articles in this newspaper. In June 2008, I went to the Jewish National Library in Givat Ram, Jerusalem, and looked up these references one by one on the microfilms of the �Jewish Chronicle�. I made a note of those which were relevant and had photocopies made from them.
I had also found in a brief article on Ian which appeared in the �Jerusalem Post� in October 1991, a reference to an article which had appeared in the �Manchester Jewish Telegraph�. I accordingly ordered the microfilm of the �Jewish Telegraph� from this library and began searching the various October 1991 editions of this newspaper for this article. But no luck! I then extended my search progressively backwards and until I reached August of that year, when I finally found it, and had a photocopy made of it.
In these newspaper articles was also a reference to the fact that a BBC television documentary had been made on Ian�s life, but no further details were given. From the Internet I found a possible lead to something which had appeared in �The Times� of London in May 1994. I looked up the microfilm of this paper and indeed it was a reference to this documentary. It gave the name of the programme, a brief summary of its contents, the series it appeared in, and the date and time of its television showing. From my further research I was able to find out details of the production company. On 13 June 2008 I sent an e-mail to this company, who was based in London, asking if a DVD of this documentary could be purchased and if so how much it cost and the procedure for its purchase. On receiving this information from the company, I recommended to the purchasing department of the Jewish National Library that they purchase a copy. I gave them the technical details of the documentary, and pointed out that it had both Jewish and Israeli interest. I also gave them a detailed summary of Ian�s life. However, due to budgetary cutbacks, and the fact that they felt the programme wasn�t Jewish enough, they were unable to purchase it.
At about that period of time, I was also investigating material on adoption in accordance with Jewish Law. The London Beth Din had in 1959 set up an Adoption Department and one of its Dayanim, Rabbi Meyer Steinberg had published a book which was a long responsum on various aspects of this subject. In addition, an English translation of part of this book had appeared. These books are to be found in the Jewish National Library and I carefully went through them and photocopied the many relevant pages. I also found other relevant material on this subject on the Internet.
However, I still had several questions of which I did not know the answers. I therefore wrote to the London Beth Din pointing out that I was doing �some historical research which includes the part played by the London Beth Din on the conversion of an adopted non-Jewish baby� and I had a few questions on this subject. These questions which I �intended to be of a general nature only� included how would the Beth Din know that an adoption of a baby by a Jewish couple in the North of England whose mother was non-Jewish ever took place? The other questions were whether the Beth Din would tell a minor convert aged about eleven that he could renounce his conversion immediately he reached the age of Barmitzvah, and would the three people required to be present at a �hatafat dam brit� be Dayanim from the London Beth Din? The Registrar of the London Beth Din answered that because of confidentiality he cannot answer for a specific case but he was able to give me answers of a general nature for the last two questions.
In addition to the actual adoption procedure, there are Jewish religious problems arising from adoption, such as yichud (the prohibition of two people of the opposite sex being together in an isolated area) and the obligations of adoptive parents towards their adopted children. I also carefully researched them.
Ian�s adoption took place in England. Needless to say, it had to be accordance with English law. Furthermore, his case to revoke his adoption was brought before the English Courts. To investigate these aspects of the case, I went to the Law Library on Mount Scopus. Following a terrorist attack on this campus a number of years ago, for a period of time, only members of the University were allowed to enter the campus. Soon after, this was relaxed and non-member of the University could apply on the spot for a pass to enter the building on that particular day. This had been the procedure on my last visit to this campus a few years earlier. However today it is easier and it is sufficient just to show one�s Israeli Identity Card on entering.
I made my way to this Law Library and found copies in the various different Law Reports of Ian�s unsuccessful appeal to the Appeal Court, and I photocopied one of them. Unlike the Jewish National Library where one can insert one�s visa card into the photocopying machine, do one�s photocopying and be automatically charged, at Mount Scopus one has to buy a card for 100 photocopies. The photocopies are however considerably cheaper than at the Jewish National Library, but on the other hand, one is limited to paper of size A4.
I could not find the verbatim verdict of Ian�s case in the lower court. This was only summarized in the Report of the Appeal Court verdict. It would seem that it has not been published. The case however seems to have been of sufficient importance since it occupies more than a whole page in �The All England Law Reports Annual Review� for 1995. This Review describes it as a �distressing case�.
I also photocopied the appropriate sections from the Adoption Act, the Children Act, etc. and looked at �Halsbury�s Laws of England� for any material that might be relevant. In Halsbury there was a reference to a publication by the British Ministry of Health on �Adoption Issues�. From the University Library catalogue, I saw that this publication was in a different library in that building. The only library (other than the Law Library) which I knew of at the time in that building was the main library. I went there but they told me that it was in the Social Work and Education Library in that building. This was the first time I knew of the existence of such a library there! I began to search for it and if one is not acquainted with all the nooks and crannies of that building, it is a nightmare for find anything. I finally found that library but this book was on loan. I went again a few weeks later to this library, but it was on loan to someone else. It seems it is a very popular book.
I in fact only wanted a photocopy of one small item in this publication and so I sent an e-mail to the Ministry of Health in England asking to send me by e-mail a photocopy of that page. They referred me to a different Government Department - (there had been changes in the Ministries in Britain since this publication had come out). This latter Department replied that there were copyright restrictions, but since the extract I wanted was less than 250 words they could send it to me. They enclosed a scan of this page but it arrived as gibberish. I accordingly informed them of this and they replied giving me a verbatim copy of this paragraph.
At one stage of his life, Ian went to Israel but because of his dark skin, he was often mistaken as an Arab. He was told to return to England and was informed that he would be considered a persona non grata in Israel. I found this to be very strange in light of the Israeli �Law of Return�. I accordingly photocopied this law and also the debates in the Knesset prior to the passing of this law and they are briefly discussed in my paper together with the Jewish law aspects of a Jew living in Israel.
The Matron of the Nursing Home, where Ian�s biological mother had taken him for adoption, had written a certificate for the adoptive parents on the details of Ian�s circumcision. However there were a number of problems in the wording of the certificate and these are discussed in my paper. One of them concerned the doctor who performed this circumcision. In the �Jewish Year Book� published annually in London, is a page giving the names of the mohelim registered with the �Initiation Society� in England. In the Year Book for 1959 and in the few years before and after that year, the name of this doctor does not appear. I therefore tried to send an e-mail to the In Initiation Society, but for some reason it could not be delivered and so I sent them a letter on 15 June 2008 asking if they had information about this doctor. Their medical officer sent me an e-mail saying that �he was certainly not a member of the Initiation Society� and that they could �find no record� of a mohel with that name �who was active in the 1950/60s.� Soon after, I also received a letter from the secretary of this Society with a similar message. I then sent an e-mail to the British Medical Association with a similar request, but received no reply.
I had read in an article that in the United States it was illegal to do adoption on the basis of the religion of the adopted child. However, in the book �and Hannah wept�, I had read precisely the opposite. I first submitted a question on this point to Wikipedia Reference Desk - Humanities but didn�t receive a clear answer. I therefore sent an e-mail to Vicki Krausz of the �Jewish Children�s Adoption Network� with this query. She replied, �Actually, it is not illegal to take into account a child�s religion. It is illegal to refuse to place a child in a family of a different race or ethnicity while waiting for someone of the same ethnicity.�
Having assembled all my information on this subject, I wrote up my paper, dividing the life of Ian to various eras, which included his birth, his circumcision, his adoption, his conversion to the Jewish faith, his teenage years, his search for his biological parents, his period in Israel, his meetings with his biological parents and his appeal to the English courts to nullify his adoption. I had found the various newspaper articles on Ian invaluable in assisting me to fill in the details on the various eras of his life.
Although his full name had been published in many newspapers and on the television documentary, I still decided that I would not mention it in my article, but just designate him by the letter B. I did likewise for his adopted parents who received the designation R, the doctor who performed the circumcision as F and the matron of the nursing home as W.
My paper was finished towards the end of August 2008, and I sent copies to various libraries and to those who had supplied me with information. I also put a copy on my website.
Michael Rothbard had been one of Ian�s teachers in Liverpool and I therefore sent Michael a copy of the paper. He telephoned me to thank me but he said that he could not remember who Ian was.
The Chinese Etrog
Language: English
Year of Publication: 2008
I believe the first time that I knew of the existence of the Chinese etrog was around 1994 when I read the book by Rabbi Yecheskel Leitner on the Mirrer Yeshiva during the Second World War. A sizeable section of this book is devoted to the Yeshiva�s five years in Shanghai. There is whole chapter on the question of their locating etrogim in China and how an expedition of two Jewish refugees with a Chinese guide resulted in them returning to Shanghai with the Chinese etrog, an etrog which had a number of fingers protruding from it. There were three differences of opinion on its possible permissibility for the mitzvah but Rabbi Leitner did not elaborate on the sources for these differences of opinion.
I, therefore at that time, entered into correspondence with Rabbi Leitner on this question. I then had no idea where I could locate him and so I sent my first letter to the publisher of his book with a request to forward it, which they duly did. In his subsequent replies to me, he quoted some purely general reference from the Shulchan Aruch and its various commentaries. He wrote nothing specifically on the discussions of the Mirrer Yeshiva on the question of the Chinese etrog, adding he didn�t think that any �additional material was published then on it nor deposited in the various libraries of the Mirrer Yeshivah.�
I would often ask people whether there was any archival material in the Mirrer Yeshiva from the period Shanghai but never received a positive answer. One of the people who at been amongst the Mirrer group in Shanghai, although only as a boy, lived for a time in Kiryat Arba. I asked him about this etrog and he told me that he didn�t even know that there had even been a discussion on this etrog.
Over fifteen years ago, an excellent book with numerous colour photographs to illustrate the laws of the Arba�at Haminim was published. Included was a photograph of an etrog which the author stated was the etrog with fingers. Now that I have studied many photographs of this Chinese etrog, I am sure that the photograph in this book is not of this etrog. However this book does give the source for a responsum on this subject. Using the Bar-Ilan Responsa Project, I was able to print out this responsum.
However for a number of years I did no further research on this etrog and only during the second half of the year 2008 did I decide to continue to research this subject.
I should first mention that about fifteen years ago I wrote a high school pupil�s workbook on the identification of the Arba�at Haminim, which of course included the etrog. In it I included simple botanical facts on the classification of flora, which included the citrus fruits. A few years later I brought out a workbook, for younger pupils on the laws of Sukkot - mainly on the Sukkah and the Arba�at Haminim - this time with many drawings, and it also included some botanical facts on the etrog, but in even simpler language than my earlier workbook, and I also wrote briefly about this Chinese etrog. I thus began my research in 2008 with at least a little knowledge of the botanical facts regarding the etrog in general, and in particular of the Chinese etrog.
Today, the starting point for much research is the Internet. One of the first things I found on it was a photograph of this etrog followed by a long paragraph in a foreign language � I didn�t even recognise the language - and therefore could have no idea whether it was even relevant to my research! I downloaded this foreign language paragraph and put it on Wikipedia Reference Desk � Language section, asking if a user could translate it into English. One user replied that the language was Hungarian but he was unable to translate it.
I continued searching on the Internet for material on this etrog and found a large number of photographs of it and also much material on its botanical properties, its uses, its commercial aspects and so on. Normally, to conserve ink on my printer, I print out material on �fast draft� and �black print cartridge only�. However in this case, since it was important for me to have fairly good colour photographs of this etrog, I printed out these photographs on the �normal� setting and in colour.
I also found on the Internet entire chapters from a botanical scholarly book on citrus fruits which I downloaded.
To do effective research, one requires a comprehensive bibliography. A librarian at the Kiryat Arba Municipal Library had just been informed from an organisation located at a kibbutz in the Galilee that they would prepare a bibliography free of charge on any subject. This librarian submitted my request for material on the �Chinese etrog� and soon after received a shortish list of such bibliography. One of the items was in a journal located at the University Library on Mount Scopus and on an occasion when I was there, I photocopied it. It dealt with a historical study of the acceptance and non-acceptance of different subspecies of various etrogim, but the Chinese etrog was not mentioned in this paper,
I considered it important to study the history of the Jewish community in China throughout the ages to see whether or not they used this Chinese etrog. From the Internet I downloaded a long list of books, learned papers and newspaper articles on the history of the Jews of China which were in English or Hebrew. I then carefully went through this list marking the items I considered could possibly be relevant. From the Jewish National Library catalogue appearing on the Internet, I could see that most of them were available there. I noted down their �call numbers� in order to save time when I visited that library.
I began by studying those dealing with the Jews of Kaifeng who had a history spanning over at least seven hundred years. My particular interest was how they observed the Festival of Sukkot and in particular I searched for any mention of the mitzvah of the Arba�at Haminim. I began by studying contemporary books and papers which had been written on the history of the Jews of China and then tried to go back to the original sources.
Although the Jews of Kaifeng were almost completely isolated from world Jewry for a number of centuries, there is a surprising amount of primary material on them. These include steles (stone pillars) from the Middle Ages which were originally erected in the courtyard of the Kaifeng synagogue and which contain long inscriptions; manuscripts of many of the prayers which were recited throughout the course of the year in Kaifeng; and reports by Jesuit missionaries who visited this community, mainly during the early part of the 18th century.
The inscriptions on these steles have been translated from the original Chinese into English and are reproduced in full, together with many footnotes in Bishop William White�s magnificent work entitled �Chinese Jews�. I photocopied the entire translation of the inscriptions and then marked the passages relevant to this research.
The various letters and other notes written by the Jesuit Missionary Father Jean Domenge have been translated and reproduced in a book by Dehergne and Leslie which gives them both in English and in French. In describing the Synagogue, Domenge notes that there was a place in the Synagogue courtyard where they built the Sukkah. In one of his letters he writes that he was there during Sukkot of 1722. A Chinese professor at a Chinese University, whose specialty is the history of the Jews of China, wrote that Domenge wrote that he saw a Sukkah hut there in 1722. Although this is very likely, I could not find such a statement in the writings of Domenge. I therefore sent an e-mail to this professor asking him for �a primary reference for his [Domenge] seeing the sukkah hut.� but I never received a reply.
In the mid-19th century, missionaries succeeded in buying the various manuscripts including those containing the prayers recited throughout the year by the Jews of Kaifeng. Almost all these manuscripts finally ended up at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Microfilms of them have been made and these can be found at the microfilm department of the Jewish National Library. A list of these manuscripts giving details of the occasions during the year when these prayers are recited can be found in newspapers, books and learned articles on the Jews of China. About five or six of these manuscripts are listed as including prayers for Sukkot
I went to this microfilm department and with the help of their staff managed to locate these particular microfilms. In fact, each of them is a very short microfilm and I am rather surprised they did not put them together on one long roll. I studied these microfilms and found that in fact only two of them were relevant to prayers said on Sukkot. One of them included the entire Hallel but no reference to Arba�at Haminim. The other one which included a list of prayers recited on Sukkot included the word �lulav� but nothing more! I should mention that as far as Sukkot is concerned, these manuscripts have only fragments of the prayers for that Festival. Unfortunately there is no complete machzor for the Sukkot services extant.
Although the Jewish community of Kaifeng virtually came to an end by the middle of the 19th century, this was by no means the end of the Jews in China. It was at that period that Jews arrived first from Baghdad and at a later date from Eastern Europe, and they established a Jewish community in Shanghai. During the Second World War, the entire Mirrer Yehiva and others fleeing from Hitler, arrived in Shanghai. Although there are many books on the Jews of Shanghai, there is very little written (with the exception in a book on the Mirrer Yeshiva) on what they did to keep the mitzvah of the Arba�at Haminim.
There have also been some brief mentions in various newspaper and magazine articles on this subject. One of them is in the newspaper �The Scribe� which is published by the Exilarch�s Foundation in London. This newspaper had been scanned onto the Internet and can be downloaded. Another journal is �Nehardea� which is published in English in Israel by the �Babylonian Jewish Heritage Center.� The text can be found on the Internet and the actual journal is at the Jewish National Library. A further paper mentioning the Arba�at Haminim in Shanghai is �The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.� The text of this article can be found on the Internet. However the Jewish National Library only receives odd copies of this paper and, of course, the edition I wanted was not one of them, and so I had to make do with just the text from the Internet.
In the course of my research I found a paper by Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky on traditions for various etrogim. I had come across Rabbi Zivotofsky�s name before in connection with traditions for the kashrut of various species of living creatures. Rabbi Zivotofsky together with Dr. Ari Greenspan have spent over twenty years interviewing old retired shochtim from North Africa and Yemen asking them whether they slaughtered this or that bird. They would periodically organise a day�s lectures on unusual subjects connected with kashrut. This would be followed by a dinner in which these exotic species of animals and birds would form the menu. When this dinner was held in Israel, the last course was kosher locusts. However when then held it in New York under the supervision of the OU, they were not permitted to serve locusts and had to make do with just chocolate locusts!
I sent an e-mail to Rabbi Zivotofsky asking him what material there is on the Chinese etrog. He replied by informing me of a short article in the journal �Techumin� which had appeared a few years earlier. Actually I had already found this paper in Techumin some weeks earlier.
In the course of my paper, I discussed, using the Shulchan Aruch and the various books which have recently been published on the Arba�at Haminim, the various laws concerning the etrog and how these laws related to the Chinese etrog. One of the points was that, in general, etrogim have seeds, but the Chinese etrogim does not. This problem had previously been raised in connection with the Moroccan etrog and a long book had been written (which can be downloaded from the Internet) to prove that this lack of seeds was not important. This book included letters in English from Professors of Horticulture to explain horticulturally why sometimes an etrog is seedless. I quoted from one of these letters and argued that the same explanation could be given for the Chinese etrog.
About a hundred years after the Rambam, there lived a Rabbi Tanchum Hayerushalmi who wrote a type of dictionary in Judaeo-Arabic on the words used by the Rambam in his Mishneh Torah. In it he explains the word �t�yom� used by the Rambam as this Chinese etrog. Would the Rambam who spent his life in the Middle East have seen such an etrog? About 55 years ago, I was awarded a book entitled �A Treasury of Jewish Folklore,� as a prize, for the �Best Essay� on the subject of Chanukah. Amongst the many hundreds of items in this book was one how someone had seen in the Rambam�s house an edible plant which looked like a human hand. This incident had been taken from the �Maasseh-Buch�. I found the German edition of this book, originally published about three hundred years ago, in the Scholem collection at the Jewish National Library and also an English translation, also at that Library. I suggested in my paper that possibly this plant in the Rambam�s house which looked like a human hand was a Chinese etrog.
An interesting point which I found from the botanical books and articles was the Latin name for this Chinese etrog. Some authors referred to it as Citrus medica var sarcodactylus whilst others referred to it as Citrus medica var sarcodactylis. This point intrigued me and I submitted a question on it to Wikipedia reference Desk �Science I received the answer �They appear to be used interchangeably in the scientific literature, though a perusal of Google Scholar seems to suggest that Chinese scientists tend to use sarcolactylis while Western scientists tend to prefer sarcodactylus. Which is correct is likely a matter of opinion��
I decided that I would write the title of this paper �The Chinese Etrog� also in Chinese. Om the Internet are sites where one can translate from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English. I fed in the words �The Chinese Citron� and got the translation which consisted of four Chinese characters. To check the accuracy, I then fed in these four Chinese characters and received an English translation �Chinese citron.� As a further check I fed in the word �citron� and received the latter two of these four Chinese characters.
I also found a colour photograph of a Chinese etrog whose fingers had already opened to be placed on the cover page of my paper.
Having assembled all my information on the Jewish, the botanical and the historical aspects of this Chinese etrog, I was able to write up my paper. In it I included a botanical description of the Chinese etrog and its tree, how the various halachot on the etrog in general apply to the Chinese etrog, whether there had been a tradition in China throughout the generations to use this etrog, and the religious discussions on its acceptability. I clearly pointed out that the purpose of the paper was not to give a Halachic ruling on this etrog. This is for the Rabbinical authorities to decide.
My paper was ready in mid September 2008 and I immediately sent a copy of it to those who had supplied with information and I also put a copy on my website.
One of those to whom I had sent a copy was Rabbi Dr. Zivotofsky. He acknowledged receipt by e-mail on 23 September 2008 and wrote �It looks fascinating and I look forward to reading it.� A couple of days later he sent me a further e-mail: �I read your booklet. Very impressive research and quite interesting. Yasher koach. On page 6 you speculate that Chinese Esrogim should be able to be grown in Israel. You are correct. I have seen such plants. It seems to be no problem.�
At that period an article on the Jews of Shanghai written by Aharon Granevich-Granot, who had just visited that city, appeared in the English edition of Mishpacha. In it he wrote that he had been escorted around Shanghai by Rabbi Isaac Abraham, who was from the Abraham family who had planted the etrog tree in Shanghai. I learned that he is the Registrar of the Sephardi Beth Din in London and I sent him a copy of my paper.
After the Tishri Chagim, someone who had seen my paper told me that there had been an article on the Chinese etrog in the newspaper �Makor Rishon� a few days before Sukkot (the edition of 10 October 2008). I tracked down this paper in the Jewish National Library. It was an article by Rabbi Zivotofsky and Rabbi Greenspan on the different kinds of etrogim but only the last few paragraphs were devoted to the Chinese etrog.
A few weeks later I happened to come across an article in the American �Jewish Observer� by the same authors as the �Makor Rishon� article entitled �The Story behind the Esrog.� It included a section on the Chinese etrog and stated �Among modern poskim, the two poskim of the OU [Orthodox Union (of America)], Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and Rabbi Herschel Schachter, have both written teshuvos against the use of this strange esrog for the mitzvah.�
I searched for these two teshuvos but was not successful. I therefore sent an e-mail to Rabbi Zivotofsky asking him to �please let me know where these two teshuvos may be found.� He replied �They appeared in a source book prepared for a conference we had in NY [New York] in Feb 2006. I have scanned them and attached them along with the cover of this source book.� The subject of this Conference was �The Pareve Mesorahs� and according to the programme, which I then found on the Internet, there were papers on subjects which included fish, matzot, etrogim, tchelet, and the shofar. The page number on the page of the source book which I received was 219, so it must have been a very large source book!
[It was in the first weeks of 2009, (well after the publication of this paper of mine) that I learned from the Internet that there was a three volume set of books in Hebrew on the history of the Mirrer Yeshiva. I managed to borrow these books from a library and found in them several pages on this Chinese etrog. It was very similar to the description in Leitner�s book, but it did add a few details.]