Auction 75 - Rare and Important Items
The leaves at the end of this pinkas were written in 1879, shortly after the founding of the community. These leaves contain an introduction leaf (in Hebrew) and four leaves comprising 26 community regulations (in Yiddish). The regulations are followed by the signatures of 47 members of the K'hal Sefard community, headed by the signature of the rabbi of the community, R. "Chaim Witriol", and the signature of the community leader, R. "Avraham Tzvi Strauss". Beneath the signatures from 1879, a certificate in German dated 1884 was added, signed by the president of the community, "Adolph Strauss" (the above-mentioned R. Avraham Tzvi Strauss).
The first leaves of the pinkas contain additions (in Yiddish) from various periods (one of them dated 1903), including amendments to the original regulations. With the signatures of the community leaders, headed by R. "Avraham Tzvi Strauss". Further in the pinkas: seven leaves with the names of seven community leaders (one name per leaf, written at the top in large, square letters); new additions to the regulations, dated 1920 (transcript, partly in square script, including the transcribed signature of the rabbi of the community, R. Yosef Shlomo Reinitz, and the names of many members of the community).
The lengthy introduction (from 1879) contains a detailed and noteworthy description (to the best of our knowledge hitherto unpublished) of the famous Congress in 1869, the secession of the Orthodox Jews from the Congress, and the establishment of the Orthodox communities in Hungary, led by "the Tzaddik" R. Yitzchak (Ignác) Reich (first president of the Orthodox Bureau in Budapest), with the license of Emperor Franz Joseph. This introduction also describes the circumstances that impelled a group of Orthodox Jews to break off from the Orthodox community in Mishkoltz and establish K'hal Sefard, after the main community reunited with the Neologs.
The introduction includes sharp condemnation of the Neologs ("members of the Congress community"), as well as of the reuniting of the Orthodox community with them. It first describes the schism of Hungarian Jewry: " And our people were divided… one nation into two nations… since they threw religion behind… and several communities, which originally formed one society, one group… were split up…". It then describes the schism in the Mishkoltz community, how two thirds of the community were affiliated with the Orthodox community, and one third, including the rabbi, defected to the "Congress" (Neolog) community. It documents the ban by Hungarian rabbis on the Neologs, their rabbis, shochtim and synagogues, and how eventually, the Neologs of Mishkoltz yielded and returned to the main Orthodox community. However, this reunion was detrimental to the Orthodox community, since the Neologs introduced leniencies in Torah observance and various reforms. It describes how during Selichot, in Elul 1877, several members of the Neolog community burst into the synagogue accompanied by 18 policemen, disrupted the prayers and caused the imprisonment of several worshippers. In the wake of that incident, the K'hal Sefard community was established, with the license of the Minister of Culture "and with the permission of all the Torah leaders of our times".
This pinkas discloses much information about the establishment of K'hal Sefard in Mishkoltz, some of which is not known from any other source. According to the book Kehillot Hungaria, the Mishkoltz community split in 1870 and the Orthodox established an independent community. The book also states: "In 1875, the factions were reunited as an Orthodox community. A short while later, a group of Jews established a Chassidic community named Kehillah Sefardit, with its own synagogue, Mishnayot society, Women's association and Machzikei HaDat society. Educational institutions in Mishkoltz: a Jewish elementary school, 3 yeshivot and 3 boys' schools, attended by young boys from the entire Borsod county" (Kehillot Hungaria, p. 228). This pinkas indicates that the independent K'hal Sefard community was officially founded after Elul 1877, and its regulations were composed in 1879.
The establishment of separate communities in Hungary and Transylvania began after the famous Congress of 1868-1869, when a national representative organization uniting all the Jewish communities was established at the behest of the government, with the purpose of representing the interests of Hungarian Jewry before the authorities. This body, named National Jewish Bureau, was governed from the outset by the Neologs, and the Orthodox therefore seceded from the founding Congress, and after lobbying by the authorities, were allowed to establish their own independent organization, the Central Bureau of the Autonomous Orthodox Jewish Communities. Thus, in 1870-1872, independent Orthodox communities ("K'hal Yere'im") were founded in many Hungarian and Transylvanian cities, and operated beside the Neolog "Congress" communities. Apart from these, a third faction of communities emerged, who refused to belong to either of the two organizations and interacted with the authorities independently. These communities were called "status quo".
In several places, two Orthodox communities were established – an Ashkenazi community, alongside a Chassidic "Sefard" community. Since one could not receive government license to establish two Orthodox communities in the same city, an original solution was reputedly devised. In various cities in Hungary (Temeshvar and elsewhere), there were old Sephardic communities established by Spanish exiles, who emigrated to Hungary during the Ottoman rule. When an Orthodox or Chassidic group wished to establish an independent community, they called themselves K'hal Sefard, the rabbi was titled Chacham, and they thereby received a government license as Sephardic Jews. Such communities were established during the 1870s in Mishkoltz, Klausenburg, and other cities.
The first rabbi of the "Sefard" community in Mishkoltz was Rabbi Witriol. His first name is not recorded in historical documents, and only in one source was he documented as "R. Moshe Witriol" (A. Fuchs, Yeshivot Hungaria BiGedulatan UveChurbanan, II, p. 127). In this pinkas, however, he signed his name "Chaim Witriol" (see picture 71b).
In 1885, R. Yosef Shlomo Reinitz was appointed rabbi of the "Sefard" community in Mishkoltz, and he held this position until his passing in 1925 (see: Shmuel BeRama, Jerusalem 1985, pp. 294-295). The synagogue of K'hal Sefard was located on Kölcsey Street (Kedoshei Mishkoltz VehaSevivah, p. 13). In 1926, R. Chaim Mordechai Yaakov Gottlieb, author of Yagel Yaakov, was appointed rabbi of the community (the foreword to the new edition of Yagel Yaakov, Brooklyn 2014, contains some information about the history of K'hal Sefard in Mishkoltz).
[18] leaves (including approx. 22 written pages). 41 cm. Fair-good condition. Many stains. Dampstains. Marginal wear and tears, not affecting text. Final leaf blank and pasted to the preceding leaf. New leather binding.
Collection of documents from Berditchev (Berdychiv), from the years 1893-1901, documenting the societies, organizations and institutions which operated in Berditchev during those years, with signatures of the gabbaim.
• 12 handwritten documents from 1893-1901, written by R. Ze'ev (Wolf) son of R. Koppel Kaminka of Berditchev. The documents are similar to each other (with minor variations), and confirm the transfer of funds from R. Ze'ev to four societies in the Berditchev community: "Talmud Torah", "Bikur Cholim", "Hachnassat Orchim" and "Yetomim VeAlmanot". The documents are signed by the gabbaim of the societies, and some also bear stamps of the societies. Some of the documents were written on the official stationery of R. Ze'ev Kaminka.
The money donated to these societies came from dividends of two funds, one in the sum of 100 rubles which R. Ze'ev Kaminka dedicated to these four societies, and the other from the estate of his brother-in-law R. Chaim Gad son of R. Ze'ev Feinsilver (d. Moscow, 29th Nissan 1885), in the amount of 400 rubles.
The document dated 1st Nissan 1898 records an additional donation, for "Beit Osef HaYetomim". The document dated 1900 records an additional donation, for "Moshav Zekenim (the new and precious institution, yet small in quantity but great in quality, to the glory of the city)".
• Five printed receipts, filled-in by hand (in Russian), for donations received from R. Ze'ev Kaminka in 1898. Two for donations made out to the Talmud Torah, two for Yetomim VeAlmanot and one for Bikur Cholim. Two receipts are stamped (in Russian) by "Talmud Torah".
• Handwritten leaf, transcript of an official document, listing the names and details of the members of the Kaminka family, 1885. Russian.
18 documents. Size varies, overall good-fair condition.
Mentioning the Name Berditchev as a Segulah for the Sweetening of Judgements
Several Chassidic leaders have been quoted stating that mention of the name Berditchev alone serves as a segulah. R. Naftali of Ropshitz reputedly said that mentioning the name Berditchev is "a segulah for being judged favorably and sweetening judgements". The first rebbe of Sadigura was likewise quoted affirming that "even just mentioning the name Berditchev is a segulah for sweetening judgements". Some explain that the Tzaddik sanctifies the city with his noble attributes, to the extent the city itself is named after the Tzaddik, since a part of his soul is left behind in the city for eternity (see material enclosed with item 72).
The Assaraf family of Fez was one of the most prominent Moroccan-Jewish families, due to their wealth, their ties with the government and the influence they yielded. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the family supplied food and other items, such as fabric and tools, to Berber tribes who were isolated from the large Moroccan cities. The transactions executed by the family members were authorized by the Sharia (Islamic law) courts, in accordance with the law at that time.
The present impressive collection comprises authorizations, documents and certificates, of transactions made by three generations of the Assaraf family, beginning in the mid-19th century and up to the 1920s. These documents were preserved in the family archive.
These documents and certificates were written for the most part by the Sharia court in Fez, and are written entirely in Arabic, with the calligraphic signatures of the judges in the Islamic court. The documents provide many facts, and include sale and purchase contracts of property in the mellah (Jewish quarter) of Fez, with data regarding the Jewish residents of the city, alongside much information on the mercantile activities of the Assaraf family, shedding light on the economic state of the city, the relations between the Jews and the Muslims in Fez, and more.
The documents and certificates were accordion-folded for safekeeping, and a brief summary of the content of the document is noted on the outside in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic (Hebrew characters, Western script).
Historian Jessica Marglin based her doctorate thesis on the present collection (J.M. Marglin, In the courts of the nations: Jews, Muslims, and legal pluralism in nineteenth-century Morocco, Princeton University, 2013; later published as a book: J.M. Marglin, Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco, Yale University Press, 2016). See also a review of documents in this collection in an article by Prof. Yehoshua Frenkel, Commercial and Judicial Documents from the Assaraf Archives in Fez: A New Historical Source for the Jewish History in Fez at the End of the XIXth and the Beginning of the XXth Centuries, Miqqedem Umiyyam IX, pp. 77-92.
Approx. 1900 paper documents. Size varies. Overall good condition.
Montefiore writes: "I hope it may be agreeable to you to convene a meeting of the Holy Land Committee… some measures must be taken conducive to the improvement of the Jaffa Estate. I understand the land is becoming more and more valuable and I deeply regret that so many months have elapsed without our hearing the least information respecting the progress made in the cultivation of the land".
The estate which Montefiore discusses in this letter is presumably the orchard he purchased in Jaffa in 1855. The orchard, known as Montefiore Orchard (or Montefiore Garden) is considered to be the first Jewish orchard in Eretz Israel. Over the years, the orchard knew better and worse times, encountered various difficulties and changes in the management. Many of Montefiore's colleagues, including R. Nathan Marcus Adler, attempted to arrange the sale or lease of the orchard, claiming it was unprofitable. Nevertheless, Montefiore refused to give up ownership of the orchard, which was important to him for reasons beyond profit.
Montefiore, who headed the Sephardic community of London, had a long-standing friendship with R. Nathan Marcus Adler (1803-1890), the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. The cordial relationship between them, which was accompanied by extensive correspondence, led to cooperation in a variety of community projects, including raising funds for the Jewish Yishuv in Eretz Israel. R. Adler, who by the power of his position as Chief Rabbi headed the United Synagogue, an organization that united all the orthodox communities of Britain, gathered the funds raised by the synagogues and sent them to Eretz Israel through Montefiore's representatives.
[1] leaf folded in half (three pages handwritten by Montefiore). Approx. 17.5 cm. Good condition. Folding marks and creases. A few stains. Several tears to folding marks.
Moses Montefiore would usually dictate his letters to his secretary, and sign his name at the end. Letters entirely handwritten by Montefiore are rare.
The collection recounts the story of the survival of Sala Helzel through the Holocaust years. Sala was born in 1923 in the Polish village of Rzepiennik, and following the fall of Poland in 1940, she was deported with her family to the Krakow Ghetto. She somehow managed to escape the Ghetto in 1942, and acquire official papers, certified with the inked stamps of the German authorities. These papers testified to the veracity of her fabricated identity, namely a Polish woman born in Krakow by the name of Ludwika Halska. With the help of these documents, she lived in Warsaw and worked as an X-ray lab technician until 1943. That year, she was drafted into a company of Polish forced-labor workers, and deported to Austria where she apparently worked as a cleaning woman in hospitals in the vicinity of Feldkirch. In 1945, she was liberated by Free French forces. It appears she subsequently immigrated to the United States, and from there to Israel.
Papers and documents issued to Helzel under her assumed identity as Ludwika Halska, including: • Kennkarte – an official identity document issued in territories occupied by Nazi Germany (document is gray, the color reserved for Poles). 1942. • An identity card for "Nichtdeutsche Verwaltungsdienst Angehörige" (Non-German Public Servants), giving her position as "laborantin" (lab technician). Warsaw, 1943. • An order issued by the Generalgouvernement (German occupation authorities governing Poland) in Krakow, Labor Division, to appear for deportation to Austrian territory for forced labor. • Cloth badge worn by Polish forced-labor workers ("Zivilarbeiter"), with the letter "P" in the middle. • Residence permit for the Austrian town of Kufstein (apartment shared with three flatmates), with detailed quota allotment of foodstuffs: sugar, potatoes, jam, eggs, fresh milk, and soap. 1943. • Additional items.
Papers and documents issued to Helzel after the war, including: • Identity document issued by the Austrian Republic, with Sala's photo. 1946. • Form, issued by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), filled-in, with personal details pertaining to Sala’s life during the war. 1946. • UNRRA Certificate of Temporary Residence Pending Repatriation, in transit camp (probably Displaced Persons' Camp) in Kleinmünchen (Linz), 1946. • Temporary identity certificate issued by the Polish (government's) Mission of Repatriation in Austria, 1946. • Additional items.
About 25 items. Size and condition vary. Overall good condition.