Fathers of Jewish Genealogy
Names like
Azulai, Dembitzer, Kaufmann, Wettstein, Wachstein, Horowitz,
Friedberg, and Gelber are not household words. Yet, these men and many others made
great contributions to Jewish genealogy. Some were historians, some
librarians, and some rabbis; some wrote in Hebrew, some in German,
some in Polish.
He was known by the acronym of his name, CHIDA. Born in
Jerusalem, he showed great scholastic ability, became a rabbi at a young
age, and taught at a Jerusalem Yeshiva. He traveled in several European
countries and served as rabbi of the Jewish community of Egypt. He later
settled in Livorno, Italy, and supported himself from the sale of his own
and antique books. Azulai was the author of 126 original
works (82 of them unpublished). His works included commentaries on the
Bible and Talmud, sermons, ethical treatises, responsa, law, and Kabbalah.
Of interest to us is his Shem Ha-Gedolim (Fame of the Great
Rabbis), originally a four-volume Hebrew bio-bibliography. It listed
authors and works in alphabetical order dating from the period of the Geonim
(9th century C.E.) up to his own time. It had biographical information on
more than 1,300 authors and bibliographic data on more than 1,200
writings. In 1852, Isaac Benjacob rearranged this work into two parts, an
alphabetic listing of all authors and a separate sorted listing of all the
works. This arrangement enables the reader to find information offered by
Azulai for a specific author or work under a single entry. This
book is helpful to the genealogist when trying to find the author of a
given book, or vice versa. Since rabbinic genealogy is based primarily on
books, this work is of great value to the researcher. More about
Rabbi
Chaim Joseph David Azulai.
Born in Krakow, he was a Talmudist and historian. He did
historical research and critical work in the field of Talmudic and
rabbinic literature, and wrote about its leading personalities. Of interest
to us is Klilat Yoffi (The Perfection of Beauty) (Krakow, Vol. I,
1888, Vol. II, 1893), biographies of rabbis of Lvov (Lviv), Krakow, and others in
Poland and Lithuania. His pupil, Wettstein, wrote Dembitzer's biography, Toledot
Maharchan (Krakow, 1893). ("Maharchan" is an acronym of Moreinu
Ha-Rav Chaim Nathan - Our Teacher Rabbi Chaim
Nathan). The biographies of rabbis in Klilat Yoffi are considered
primary sources, and therein lies their value.
Born in Moravia, from age 15 he attended the rabbinical seminary in
Breslau (now Wroclaw), and also studied at the university there. He
taught Jewish history, religious philosophy, and homiletics at the
rabbinical seminary in Budapest. He was a scholar of unusually wide
and thorough knowledge, and produced some 30 books and over 500 essays
and book reviews. His historical and genealogical monographs include Die
Letzte Vertreibung der Juden aus Wien und Niederoesterrich
(The Last Expulsion of the Jews from Vienna and Lower Austria)
(Vienna, 1889), and works on the history of Jews in Austrian and
Hungarian capitals. In association with M. Braun, Kaufmann for a
number of years published the Monatschrift fuer Geschichte und
Wissenschaft des Judentums (Monthly Journal of the History and
Science of Judaism). This was a learned Jewish monthly publication in
Germany from 1851 to 1939. It became the world's leading journal. Its articles
covered a whole range of scholarship, from religion to history to
genealogy. It is still a source of genealogical data, especially about
German-Jewish individuals and families. Kaufmann's rich library is
now owned by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His manuscript
collection included one of the most important texts of the Mishnah and
several hundred fragments from the Cairo Genizah. There is more
information about him in Gedenkbuch zur Erinnerung an David
Kaufmann (Memorial Book of David Kaufmann) by Braun and Rosenthal,
eds., Breslau, 1900.
Born in Krakow, he was a pupil of Rabbi Chaim Nathan Dembitzer, and
got from him his interest in antiquities and Jewish historical and
genealogical records. He had a bookstore in Krakow, and did his
research and studies during the lull between customers. He studied the
history of the Jews in Poland, especially in Krakow, using material
from responsa, from archives, and from minute books of communities and
societies. His monographs served as valuable sources for historians of
Polish Jews like Balaban (see Roots-Key, Fall, 1994), Schorr,
and others. His studies are distinguished by careful scholarship and
avoidance of unfounded conjectures.
For some forty years Wettstein was considered a top researcher of
Judaica, and he contributed to a number of publications like Otzar
ha-Sofrut (Treasure of Literature), ha-Eshkol, ha-Maggid,
ha-Mitzpeh, ha-Kol, and others. His
studies of interest to genealogists are all in Hebrew:
- Kadmaniyot mi-Pinkasaot Yeshanim (Antiquities from
Old Records) (Krakow, 1892)
- Dvarim Atikim mi-Pinkasei ha Kahal be-Krakow (Old
Matters in the Records of the Krakow Community) (Krakow, 1901)
- Mi-Pinkasei ha-Kahal be-Krakow (From the Records
of the Krakow Community) (Breslau, 1901)
- Le-Toledot Gedolei Israel (Stories about Great
Jews) (Warsaw, 1904)
- Le-Toledot Israel ve-Chachmeyah be-Polin (Stories
about the Jews and Jewish Scholars in Poland) (Krakow, 1903 and
1913)
- Toledot Anshei Shem be-Krakow (Stories about
Famous Krakow People) (Krakow, 1909)
- Le-Korot ha-Yehudim be-Polin uve-Yichud be-Krakow mi-Shnat
1906 ad Shnat 1587 (History of the Jews in Poland and
Particularly in Krakow from 1096 to 1587) (Krakow, 1918)
Dr. Wachstein was a historian, bibliographer, and genealogist. Born
in Galicia, he was educated at the Vienna rabbinical seminary and at
the University of Vienna. He became the librarian of the Vienna Jewish
Community, and made the library the richest in Europe. His two-volume
masterwork, Die Inschriften des Alten Judenfriedhofs in Wien
(The Inscriptions of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Vienna) (Vienna,
1912-1917), is a scholarly study of the gravestones of the Viennese
Jewish community dating from 1540 to 1783. In 1922, he published Die
Grabschriften des Alten Judenfriedhofs in Eisenstadt (The
Gravestone Inscriptions of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Eisenstadt). He
wrote a number of monographs on Moravian communities. Among his
genealogies of Jewish personalities was that of Karl Marx, which
revealed his rabbinic descent and caused much excitement.
The authentic gravestone inscriptions and the frequent genealogical
notes make his works very useful in confirming identities or death
dates -- particularly in cases of conflicting data.
Horowitz
was a rabbi, scholar, and outstanding genealogist. He was a lineal
descendant of the founder of the dynasty, Isaiah Ish Horowitz ("The
Man from Horovice") (d. 1517), an exile from Spain,
descendant of great luminaries Zerachiah Halevi Gerondi (12th century)
and Shem Tov Halevi of Provence (11th century). He was born in Krakow,
where his father was a rabbi. During World War I, he was a rabbi of
the refugees from Galicia in Brno, Czechia. After the war he went to
Holland, where he obtained an archive of the Horowitz family. In 1920
he was appointed Chief Rabbi of Dresden, Germany. Due to Nazi
persecution, he moved in 1939, with his great library, to Antwerp.
After the Nazi invasion of Belgium he moved to Nice, France, where he
remained until his death. In the Holocaust, he lost two sons and a
daughter, with her whole family. Only two sons and a daughter
survived. They now live in the U.S. Horowitz contributed many
articles and entries to the (German) Encyclopaedia Judaica,
to Monatschrift fuer die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des
Judentums (Monthly Journal of the History and Science of
Judaism), to Eshkol, Sinai, and other
publications. His most valuable work was originally titled Le-Korot
ha-Kehillot be-Polanyah (History of the Communities in
Poland), later expanded and renamed Le-Toledot ha-Kehillot
be-Polin (Jerusalem, 1978). It contains studies of one hundred
eleven Polish, Galician, and Ukrainian towns, lists of their rabbis,
and some history and genealogy. The town chapters vary in length from
half a page to 82 pages (Apt / Opatow). (A list of Galician towns was
published in Gesher Galicia, Spring, 1994.) Another
publication, Kitvei ha-Geonim (Letters of Rabbis)
(Piotrkow, 1928), contains many letters of Jewish scholars and notes
-- in Rashi script -- giving details of their genealogies. These two
works are a treasury of information about rabbis of Eastern Europe in
the last centuries, their biographies, and their families. Toledot
Mishpachat Horowitz -- Dorot ha-Rishonim (History of the
Horowitz Family -- the Early Generations) was published together with Sefer
Tov Ayn (Krakow, 1935) by his brother, Rabbi Eleazar Moses
Horowitz. It is the clearest authoritative source for the history and genealogy
of the Ish Horowitz rabbinic dynasty. The author starts with the original
Isaiah Halevi of Horovice and Prague, and cites the family tradition
of descent from Rabbi Isaac Halevi of Barcelona, Spain, going back to
Rabbi Shem Tov Halevi. The book covers the period of the 16th, 17th,
and much of the 18th centuries.
Friedberg was a
scholar and bibliographer. Born in Krakow, he moved in 1900 to Frankfort,
then to Antwerp. When the Nazis occupied Belgium, he lost his valuable
library and papers. In 1946 he moved to Tel Aviv. Beginning
in 1896, he published a number of biographies and family histories in
Hebrew. Among them were:
- Marganit Shapira (The
Shapiro Daisy)
- Toledot Mishpacha Schor (History of
the Schor Family)
- Toledot Mishpacha Horowitz (History
of the Horowitz Family)
- B'nai Landau le-Mishpachotam (The
Landau Families)
He also published a study of the old Jewish cemetery of Krakow, Luchot
Zikaron (Memorial Stones). He published several histories of
Hebrew printing in Krakow, Lublin, and other cities in Poland, Italy,
Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and central and western Europe. His greatest
achievement was his bibliographic lexicon, Bet Eked Sefarim
(The Library), listing Hebrew books published before 1950.
Nathan Gelber was born in Lvov
to father Nachman, an ardent Zionist and active in the Haskalah
(Enlightenment). On his mother's side, he was a descendant of Rabbi
Chaim Kohen Rapaport, A.B.D. Lvov in the 18th century, and of the
rabbinic family Levin. He studied philosophy and history at the
universities of Vienna and Berlin, and got a degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. He was active in the Zionist organization, took part in
Zionist congresses, and edited In Warsaw, a Jewish
daily. He wrote a number of books and articles on subjects of Judaica
in Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and German periodicals. He participated
in compiling the German Juedisches Lexicon, the Encyclopaedia
Judaica (the German one), a Zionist lexicon in Yiddish and
Polish, and the Hebrew Encyclopedia Shel Galuyot
(Encyclopedia of the Diaspora). A number of yizkor books include his articles
on the history of the Jews in communities of Galicia, Poland, Austria,
and Bukovina. A jubilee book Sefer Yovel Le-Nathan Michael Gelber,
by Israel Klausner, Raphael Mahler, and Dov Sadan, eds., dedicated to
him in 1963, lists nearly 500 of his articles, besides his entries in
several encyclopedias. Also of interest to us is a volume on Brody in
the series Arim Ve-Immahot Be-Yisrael (Jewish
"Mother-Cities"). In addition, there is an article in Jahrbuch
der Juedish-Literarischen Gesellschaft (The Annual Review of
the Jewish Literary Society) (Frankfurt am Main, No. XIII-1920),
entitled Aus dem Pinax der alten Judenfriedhofes in Brody
(1699-1831) (From the Register of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Brody).
In it he listed 181 (plus 5 earlier) entries, and included an index of
names. The series Encyclopedia Shel Galuyot, Vol. 4,
includes his Toledot Yehudei Lvov (History of the Jewish
of Lvov).
David Einsiedler has devoted his retirement
years to rabbinic genealogical research and is a member of the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Los Angeles. He is a native of pre-war Poland
and lives in Reseda, California. This article was originally published
as a series in several editions of Roots-Key:
Journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles (JGSLA),
1994-1995, and is reprinted with kind permission.
Editor's note: Several resources mentioned are included in the Rav-SIG
Bibliography. More about important rabbinical genealogists:
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