The Origin of the name "shnayer"

Shnayer is a very common personal name, popular both among Chassidic and non Chassidic Jews[1].

Where does this unusual name come from? Unlike most Jewish male personal names, shnayer is neither biblical nor of yiddish origin. Its etymology is somewhat controversial with Anthroponomasticists disagreeing as to its exact origin.

Shnayer= Two Lights?

I recently came across an interesting article by Yechiel Gumperz in TARBIZ Vol. XXV which discusses the origin of the name Shanyer among others. Gumperz writes:

. Rabbi Shmuel Vidaslow in his book Beth Shmuel on the Even Haezer section of the Shulchal Aruch explains the name's etymology: "when both the paternal and maternal grandparents of the child is named Meir, he shall be called shnei-or". The Maharashal in his commentary yam shel shelomo on tractate Gittin, Chapter 3, article 26 relates an incident that occurred in his family ”a son was born to his grandfather who wanted to name the child Meir after his own father, however the mother wanted to name the child after her father whose name was Yair so they compromised by naming the child shnei or". However the name Shneir predates all of this and its origins are much older. shnayer is not equivalent to senior as shenei-or contains an aleph whereas the Sephardic sinior (Ladino for Moses) does not[2].

Gumperz does not expand on it but rather adds cryptically: "see Shem Hagedolim on the entry Shnayer b. Yehuda".

Indeed Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai in Shem Hagedolim likewise relates the aforementioned story of the maharshal but adds:

However It seems that the name shnayer is much older because Rabbi Yonah already quotes from his teacher Rabbi Samuel b. Shnayer. And likewise other Rabbi were named shnayer and therefore they named the aforementioned child shnayer because this name already existed in the world and it (also) alluded to the “two great lights” Meir and Uri[3].

Romance Elements in the Yiddish Language

Max Weinreich

(considered one of the foremost experts on the Yiddish language)

in  History of the Yiddish language opines that Yiddish arose via a fusion

of Hebrew, Loez (Western Loez is Judeo-French and Southern Loez is

Judeo-Italian) and German.





According to Weinreich, the Ashkenazic community began in what is now

Lorraine, France(referred to as Loter) and absorbed successive waves of

Jews from other parts of France and Italy.



Weinreich also puts forth a possible explanation as to how the

erroneous (in his opinion) etymology for the name

Shnayer may have come about:

The name Shnayer...is very old in Loter-Ashkenaz. Toward the end of the eleventh century there lived in Loter, apparently in Worms, an eminent Halachist, R. Shneur son of R. Judah son of R. Baruch. Among the victims of 1096 (the "First Crusade") the name Shneur is found four times in Mainz, once in Cologne, once in Worms. Despite its Hebrew orthographic garb, the name is of Loez derivation. Its proto ancestor is Latin SENIOR (the older). The traditionalization of the orthography came apparently in Ashkenaz, where the coterritorial population spoke no Romanic and the Jews no longer understood the original meaning; the /sen/ could have been conceived as a shin with a shva and a nun, and thereafter the name was interpreted by folk etymology as shne+ur (two lights)[4].

George Jochnowitz writes here:

French Jews fled to what is now Germany. Their language may have survived for a generation or more, but there is no record of it. Instead, we have Isolated words: cholnt from an Old French word meaning hot, related to Spanish caliente and modern French chaud; bentshn, 'to bless', perhaps from French but more likely from Provencal benzir or Italian benedicere; leyenen, which we have already mentioned. Then there are given names: Beyle from belle, meaning 'beautiful', which coexists with the names Sheyne and modern Yafa; Yente, probably from Judeo-Italian yentile, standard Italian gentile, meaning 'noble' and a man's name, Shneyer, from French seigneur meaning 'nobleman' or 'lord'. Nowadays people say Shneyer comes from Hebrew shnai or 'two light', but there never was such a Hebrew name before there was Yiddish.

I would also add an additional reason why shnayer can't mean "2 lights", because it would be grammatically incorrect. In Hebrew 2 lights would be "shnei orot", ("or" being the singular noun and "orot" being plural).

NOTES:

[1]. particularly Chabad where boys are often named after the founder of the movement, Rabbi Shnayer Zalman of Liadi[photo left]) and the Lithuanian "yeshiva world" ,particularly Lakewood, where boys are often named after Rabbi Shnayer Kotler[photo right]).

[2]. See Gumperz, Yehiel. Keriat Shemot B’yisrael in TARBIZ Vol. XXV April 1956, p. 346

[3]. See Shem Hagedolim p. 128 and Kuntres Achron ibid.

[4]. Weinreich Max, History of the Yiddish Language. p. 399

SERIES Sephard in Ashkenaz and Ashkenaz in Sephard. Calahora, a remarkable Sephardic family in Poland

What is the connection between a city in Spain, two Jewish martyrs, a moralist Rabbi, and a Socialist activist?

My upcoming paper explores the history and genealogy of Sephardic Jews who settled in Eastern Europe. It is a subject that I find fascinating and I believe is woefully understudied.

In the course of my research I stumbled across a remarkable family -about whom I will cite here only several tidbits- namely the Kalahora/Calahora family of Poland.

Dr. Solomon Kalahora, Personal Physician to the Polish Monarch Sygmund August(1520-1572) and his successor King Stephen Bathory (1533-1586), was a Sephardic Jew (in some sources a converso) who settled in Cracow, Poland in the 16th century[1]. Though the Kalahoras (The name would later undergo many variations and changes including: Kolhari, Kolchor, Kolchory, Kalifari, Calaforra, Kalvari, Landsberg Posner, Zweigenbaul, Rabowsky, Olschwitz and Milsky) had come to Poland from Italy, the family name was based on the name of the Spanish town of Calahorra from where the family originated.

Of the Patriarch Solomon’s six children, Moses continued the family branch in Cracow, and Israel Samuel (1560-1640), the Rabbi of Lenchista founded the Poznan branch. One of Israel Samuel’s sons was Matityahu Calahora(pictured, third from top), who according to the contemporary Polish historian, Kochowski was a “well-known physician with an extensive practice in Christian and even clerical circles”. Matityahu’s life came to a violent end when he became embroiled in a religious dispute with a Dominican friar named Havlin. The Russian- Jewish historian Simon Dubnow describes the event, disturbing in its sheer brutality:

The priest invited Calahora to a disputation in the cloister, but the Jew declined, promising to expound his views in writing. A few days later the priest found on his chair in the church a statement written in German and containing a violent arraignment of the cult of the Immaculate Virgin. It is not impossible that the statement was composed and placed in the church by an adherent of the "Reformation or the Arian heresy" both of which were then the object of persecution in Poland. However, the Dominican decided that Calahora was the author, and brought the charge of blasphemy against him. The Court of the Royal Castle cross-examined the defendant under torture, without being able to obtain a confession. Wit- nesses testified that Calahora was not even able to write German. Being a native of Italy, he used the Italian language in his conversations with the Dominican. In spite of all this evidence, the unfortunate Calahora was sentenced to be burned at the stake. The alarmed Jewish community raised a protest, and the case was accordingly transferred to the highest court in Piotrkov. The accused was sent in chains to Piotrkov, together with the plaintiff and the witnesses. But the arch-Catholic tribunal confirmed the verdict of the lower court, ordering that the sentence be executed in the following barbarous sequence: first the lips of the " blasphemer " to be cut off ; next his hand that had held the fateful statement to be burned; then the tongue, which had spoken against the Christian religion, to be excised ; finally the body to be burned at the stake, and the ashes of the victim to be loaded into a cannon and discharged into the air. This cannibal ceremonial was faithfully carried out on December 13, 1663, on the market place of Piotrkov. For two centuries the Jews of Cracow followed the custom of reciting, on the fourteenth of Kislev, in the old synagogue of that city, a memorial prayer for the soul of the martyr Calahora. [2]

Matityahu’s son Michael and his two grandsons were also notable physicians in Poland. Matityahu's brother, Solomon Calahora married the daughter of the Posen physician, Judah de Lima (another Sephardic family that settled in Poland, of whom we shall talk more later).

One of Solomon's sons was Joseph (1601-1696), also known as Joseph Darshan (literally, preacher) of Poznan who authored a popular work on ethical and moral obligations, Yesod Yosef , published in Frankfurt, in 1679 (pictured first from top). Joseph's son, Arye Leib Kalifari, a preacher in Posen was the founder of the Landsberg and Posner families. Arye Leib became the second member of this family to be martyred when he was arrested and tortured by the Catholic authorities in 1735 in the course of a blood libel. Heinrich Graetz describes the event in his History of the Jews:

Adalbert Yablonowitz, a son of a prominent citzizen disappeared from his home and his mutilated body was found in a village near Posen. The Christian population of Posen....at once charged the Jews with the crime. The majority of the Jews of Posen-fearing violence- fled for their lives. The preacher, Aryeh Leib; the communal representative Jacob ben Pinhas and 2 parnasim Isaac and Hertz were seized and thrown in prison. The preacher and the representative were tortured and died in prison (Arye Leib rebuffed an offer to spare his life if he converted--J.D.) . The trial of the parnasim and 5 other prominent Jews dragged on for nearly 4 years when a foreign community, Vienna, it seems, procured an able advocate who succeeded in proving the innocence of the acccused and the latter were released in 1740. [3]

Aryeh Leib's great-grandson, Solomon Posner (1780-1863) was the author of a family chronicle, Toar Penei Shlomo.

Stanislaw Posner(pictured, fourth from top), pseudonym: Henryk Bezmaski(1868-1930) was a grandson of the aforementioned Solomon Posner and a Polish socialist activist, senator, lawyer and publicist. He also authored Poland as an Independent Economic Unit. See more about him here.

Notes:

[1]. Calahora was only one of a number of Jewish physicians who settled in Poland at that time. Other notable personages include: Samuel de Lima, Samuel bar Meshulam, Shlomo Ashkenazy, the brothers Levi-Lieberman Fortis Ostila, and Moses Montalto.

[2]. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland by Semen Markovich Dubnow

[3]. Popular History of the Jews by Heinrich Graetz. p. 284

Who is the Sephardi and who is the Ashkenazi?

Inspired by the very enthusiastic response to this post, I decided to try this again.
This is not just a simple trivia question but rather an interesting story (I should say two very interesting stories) lies therein.

I originally thought that Rabbi Kaplan- scion of an old Sephardic family (see excerpt later) completely assmilated into the Ashkenazic (chiefly Lithuanian Yeshiva) mileu in which he was raised most of his life. Rabbi Yaakov Shaul Elyashar -on the other hand (bottom photo) was of  (partial) Ashkenazic parentage; his mother remarried a Sephardic Rabbi -after his father died- who had a major influence on the young Yaakov Shaul (then all of 7). He was raised among the Sephardim eventually being appointed Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic community (Rishon Leziyyon). However, it appears that the Elyashars are of Turkish Sephardic ancestry, the only apparent Ashkenazic connection is the latter's grandmother (father's mother) was the daughter of a Rabbi Yeruham from Vilna.

Actually I have come across conflicting information on R. Elyashar. One search turned up this:


רבי יעקב שאול ב"ר אליעזר ירוחם
אלישר. נקרא בפי כל 'יש"א ברכה' (ר"ת משמו). כיהן כרב ראשי וכראשל"צ בירושלם משנת תרנ"ג עד שנתבש"ם בתרס"ו. נכד המקובל ר' ירוחם מווילנא ונין לר' יעקב אשכנזי מווילנא. נולד בצפת ביום כ"ג סיון תקע"ז.
בהיותו בן שבע נתיתם מאביו ואח"ז אמו נישאה לרבי מרדכי נבון (בעל "נחפה בכסף") ויהי לו לאב ולרב. ומאז נתגדל בין חכמי הספרדים ויהי כאחד מבני עדתם, עד כי נמנה לרבם הראשי.

Short synopsis:

Rabbi Yaakov Elyashar - who was later to become the Rishon Leziyyon was descended of Rabbi Yerucham of Vilna , who in turn was descended of R' Yaakov Ashkenazi of Vilna. He (Yisa Bracha) was orphaned at the age of Seven when his father died. His mother then remarried to the Chacham Mordechai Navon who became his stepfather and mentor. From that point on he was raised among the sephardim and 'he became like one of them' untill he was appointed their Chief Rabbi (Rishon Leziyyon).


In the Wikipedia http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%97%D7%AA_%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8 entry for the Elyashar family- however:

ר' חיים יוסף אליישר - נשא לאשה את ביתו של ר' יעקב וילנא. ייתכן ומכאן הטעות בקשר למוצא המשפחה

Translation: Reb Chaim Yosef Elyashar (the paternal Grandfather of the Yisa Bracha) married the daughter of Rav Yaakov Vilna. It is possible that from this originates the erroneous belief as the (Ashkenazic) origin of this family

So in summation, it appears that the Yisa Bracha was indeed descended from Rav Yaakov Vilna but only through the maternal line and the origins of the Elyashar (or Elisar) family lie in Sepharad.





 So in conclusion, both Rabbis Elyashar and Kaplan are of mixed Sephardi-Ashkenazi parentage (Ashkefardi?).

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan mentions his Sephardic ancestry in the introduction to his Passover Haggadah:

He writes:

A number of people have inquired about the parenthesized "Carmona" after my name. This was the original family name of my paternal grandfather, Rabbi Yosef Kaplan (Carmona). The name denotes the place from which out family originated, a city in southern Spain, not far from Seville. Upon arriving in the United States around the turn of the century my grandfather changed his name to the more Ashkenazic sounding Kaplan for business reasons. (Incidentally, "kaplan" means tiger in Turkish.) Although I was educated in Ashkenazic yeshivoth such as Torah Vodaath and Mir, I have maintained a strong link with my Sephardic background. The MaAm Lo'ez project merely brings it full cycle.

Ashkenazic families of Sephardic descent and a word about bigotry

Not long ago, I came across this story:

Talmud Torah school rejects four-year-old due to Sephardi grandfather. Principal says child has ‘stain’ in genealogy

Leaving aside the obvious chillul hashem such stories generate (just do a google search and see for yourself how many anti-Semitic websites picked up this story and relished it with gusto), it also struck me how ridiculous the terminology (the princpal is using) is. I am willing to bet that a cursory glance at that individual's family tree would uncover more than a few such stains.

At the risk of causing hardship to many Ashkenazi children, I am about to release a bombshell (tongue in cheek). As someone who has long had an interest in Jewish genealogy I have discovered that many of the most prominent Ashkenazi Haredi families in have numerous such 'stains' in their genealogy. The following is a very partial list:

* The Skulen Hassidic dynasty founded by Bessarabian Rabbi Eliezer Zusia Portugal, and later transplanted to Brooklyn, NY. This family is descended of Jews expelled from Portugal in the 15th century who relocated to Roumania, hence the surname. In fact R' Eliezer was known to often sign his name with the appellation מיוצאי פורטוגל ( literally 'of the exodus from the kingdom of Portugal')

*The Vizhnitz Chassidic dynasty (The Hager family also of Roumania) also has a tradition of Sephardic descent. According to family lore the name derives from the fact the family fled Spain to Holland (the Hague).

*The Epstein-Halevi family of Lithuania is descended from the Sephardic Benvensite family members of which settled in Ebstein, Germany before moving further east into Lithuania [1]. The Horowitz-Halevi family (members of which include the Bostoner Rebbe of Boston and Jerusalem)also claims descent from this family. See here and here

* Rebbe Chai Yitzchok Twersky, Grand Rabbi of the Chassidic Rachmastrivka sect based in Brooklyn, NY and Israel is descended from the Colorful Sephardic Rabbi and scholar Chayyim Yosef David Azulai (known as the Chida) on his maternal side.

It is interesting to note that R' Azulai himself was Ashkenazic on his maternal side (his mother was the daughter of Yosef Ben Pinchas Biala who came to the holy land with the mystic Rabbi Yehuda Chasid in 1700 -not to be confused with the medieval Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ha-chasid) and even understood Yiddish.

Several other prominent Haredi Rabbis are also descended from R' Azulai including Rabbi Baruch Mendelbaum Admor of Turav-Stolin, Rabbi Eliezer Brizel, and the brothers Rabbi Avraham and Mendel Atik (See the family tree below). Interestingly, there was plenty of intermarriage between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in the old Yishuv. This is no longer the case.






*The first Rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi was descended from a Portugese Jew named R' Baruch Portugeli. Among the Chabad Chassidim in Russia were also many Sephardic Jews who settled in the region including the Chen family, the Don-Yichye (also Charlap, Sahr) family (more on this prestigious family some other time). It is noteworthy that anti-Sephardic racism is almost unheard of in Chabad.


This should all be superfluous since almost all Ashkenazim have some Sephardic ancestry[2] (after all Avraham Avinu was an Iraqi..) . The Kabbalists -that the Chassidim admire and follow-are almost all Sephardim. The Arizal himself was an Ashkefardi (a term I coined to denote someone who is half-Sephardic and half-Ashkenazic). There is plenty more to say on this subject but I'll leave it for now.


Notes:

[1]. See מקור ברוך חלק א by Rabbi Baruch Halevi Epstein where he mentions this tradition. There are numerous other Lithuanian families who were once Sephardim including the Wein family, Carmel family (Eliashiv(?) and many others. See Shlomo Katzav hasfardim asher belita for a listing of all the Sephardic families who settled in Lithuania.

[2]. One personage who shows up in many Ashkenazic family trees is Rabbi Akiva Katz of Uban (old Budapest) who had 12 sons and 12 daughters and who was descended from Rabbi Akiva Kohen Tzedek of Salonika, A Sephardic Jew.

For my previous posts mentioning some prominent Ashkenazim of Sephardic descent and conversely, that of Sephardim of Ashkenazic descent see here here here and here.

Are Sephardim 'black' and Ashkenazim 'white'?

Marc Shapiro writes here:

I read about the outrage taking place in Emanuel, where in the local Beit Yaakov Sephardi students are being segregated from Ashkenazim to the extent that the two are not even permitted to play together. The Shas party has referred to this as nothing less than Apartheid, which it surely is.What’s next? Mehadrin buses where the Sephardim sit in the back? Of course, when this happens the justification given will once again be that Ashkenazim are on a higher spiritual level and that’s why they can’t sit with Sephardim, not that they are racist, chas ve-shalom.I mention this because R. Mazuz has made a comment that is relevant in this regard. Speaking to Ashkenazim who like to imagine the tannaim as “white”, he has called attention to Negaim 2:1, where R. Yishmael states that Jews are neither black nor white, but in between. In other words, the tannaim looked like Sephardim.

One of the commenters then noted:

Is that necessarily so ? Ashkenazic Jews are not generally white either like certain European non-Jews are and there are some Sepharadim that are quite light - so to say that Sepharadim are dark and Ashkenazim are light is not totally correct.

I was reminded about something the late Menachem Begin wrote in his memoir The Revolt.

(Context: Begin is discussing a unique group within the Etzel Jewish undeground -which he commanded -called the 'shock troops'. The unit's mission was to spy on the Arab population and thus was composed mostly of Jews from Arab countries who-because of their dark features and familiarity with the language- could easily blend in).

Begin writes:

but it is not only the people from Arab countries that are dark skinned. There are many Ashkenazi Jews from Europe who are no less dark- and are sometimes darker- than the purest Sephardi (Here Begin commits the common error of conflating Sephardi and Mizrachi JW). The only two members of the unit I knew personally came from Lodz in Poland [1].

The difference in appearance between Sephardim and Ashkenazim however is already noted by 14th century Spanish Rabbi, Menachem Ben Aaron Ibn Zerach:

It is well known that the appearance of people in Germany is different from that of the people of Spain and that of the Ethiopian is different again by reason of the climate, the varying strength of the sun which affects the air, and consequently the plants and fruits vary. Those partaking of them change accordingly. Hence the difference in Language and appearance. This is known to every wise man [2].

It is also interesting to note that in a medieval disputation between a Christian friar and a Jewish Rabbi the question was posed why Jews are dark skinned and not 'fair and attractive' like the gentiles (who were presumably white(?). The Rabbi in question replied that this is because Jewish women refrain from marital relations during their menstruation cycle [3].

See also here how 17th century Sephardim in the new world dealt with contentions that they were anything less than white.


And who doesn't appreciate some good old fasioned trivia.

Guess who is the Sephardi and who is the Ashkenazi in these photos. The aforementioned commenter's point is well taken indeed.




Notes:

[1]. Begin, Menachem. The Revolt. Nash Publishing Company, 1977. Page 77-78

[2]. ספר צידה לדרך ,ל"ו and cited in Zimmel H.Z. Sephardim and Ashkenazim . Oxford, 1958. page 2.

[3]. see Nizzahon Yashan, # 238 (p. 159 of the Hebrew and 224 of the English), cf.Yehudim mul ha-Tzelav, ed. by Yom Tov Assis

SERIES Sephard in Ashkenaz and Ashkenaz in Sephard. Sephardic Jews of Ashkenazic descent Part 1

אילן יוחסין משפחת הצרפתי-צרפתי



In a variation of the theme you are all familiar with by now, namely that of Ashkenazic Jews (Particularly in Eastern Europe) of Sephardic descent, I now want to take a moment and discuss an opposite phenomenon. I briefly mentioned in a previous post the sage Rabbenu Asher (known as the Rosh) who was born in Western Germany and moved to Toledo, Spain where he died in 1328. His two sons were known scholars in their own right but little is known about their descendants after that.

More than two centuries before the Rosh, one of the most famous Ashkenazic sages Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (known as Rashi) established his Talmudic academy at Troyes, Champagne in northern France. One of Rashi's daughters Yocheved married the Tosafist sage Meir ben Shmuel, their children were Shmuel (the Rashbam) (1085-1174), Yaakov (Rabbeinu Tam) (c. 1100- c. 1171), and Yitzchak (the Rivam).

In 1306 the French King Phillip the Fair signed an edict of expulsion against all the Jews living in France. We subsequently find the desecendants of the aforementioned Rabbi Yaakov a.k.a. Rabeinu Tam in the Castille region of Spain where they took on the surname Ha-Sarfaty (Hebrew for "the French one"). After the expulsion from Spain in 1492 we come across the figure of Rabbi Vidal Ha-sarfaty I who ministered to the expelled Jews and served as the Rabbi of Fez, Morrocco, a haven for many of the expellees.

There were several subsequent generations of Rabbis of the Sarfaty family (the prefix 'ha' was dropped during the French occupation) with the first name 'Vidal'.

The last of this Rabbinic line was Rabbi Vidal Sarfaty V (1862-1921) {pictured} who was the first to be called with the title "Chief rabbi of Fez". As Rabbi and Jewish communal leader, he used his influence to ease the conditions of Morrocan Jewry who were subjected to unfair treatment by the authorities.


From a letter dated January 30, 1911 by Avram Elmaleh, Head of the Fez boys' school, to the President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Paris, we learn of the degrading conditions imposed upon the rabbinical leaders of the Moroccan Jewish community, in connection with “community business” (i.e., such as payment of the jizya), even into the second decade of the 20th century:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter No. 1283 of 30 January, enclosing a letter from Rabbi Vidal Sarfaty. The rabbi asks you to intervene with Si Mohamed el Mokri, the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, at present in Paris, for the abolition of the degrading custom imposed on Jews, not to enter Dar el Maghzen (the royal palace in Fez) except barefoot. Unfortunately, the facts given in Rabbi Vidal's letter are correct. Jews must take off their shoes at the gate of Dar-Maghzen. Quite apart from the humiliation involved in this measure, it is an intolerable suffering for our co-religionists to be obliged to stand many hours barefoot on the earth of the Palace courtyard, which is either cold and damp or white-hot from the summer sun. Rabbi Vidal. a regular visitor to the Dar-Maghzen in connection with community business or on behalf of individuals, has often returned ill from a rather too long sojourn in front of the offices. It is my opinion that it would be impossible to obtain an order from the Sultan to allow Jews to enter the Palace with their shoes on. It is a concession which his pride would not permit, and one quite contrary to the Muslim conception of the relative positions of the Jews and themselves.

Rabbi Vidal is also remembered for his custom of riding a white horse into town every Friday afternoon to bid the townsmen shabbat shalom (apparently this custom was instituted only after the French occupation; during the Muslim period, Jews were forbidden to ride horses).


To see the entire genealogical chart of the Sarfaty family click on the photo top left. More information on the family can be found here