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So, some of the recent comments here got me thinking about the Cantonist Decrees in Russia. I have barely looked into this subject before, although Rebbe Nachman spoke a great deal about these decrees, which were first mooted by Tsar Alexander I in 1803. Alexander I is a very interesting character. He was complicit in […]
This is a mind-blowing post… A few months ago, I was going through old missionary papers from 200 years ago, and I found a curious story introducing the readers to the ‘chassidim’. It included a fantastic story of how the Baal Shem Tov’s father, R’ Eliezer, became the Minister of War for a far away […]
OK, let’s get into the third installment of ‘real Jewish history’, based on Rav Berland’s recent shiur on the Get of Cleves, etc. (Read the first parts HERE and HERE.) In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at this couple of paragraphs of the Rav: There was R’ Abish of Frankfurt, there […]
Finally, I had a bit of time to return to a ‘real Jewish history’ post. This one is a corker. A few months ago, we started tying together how the RAFFLOVICH family seemed to be in the middle of a network that connected Frankists (aka outwardly ‘xtian’ Jews who were the next generation of believers […]
As usual, I can’t keep up with the Rav’s hints. But as usual, I’m still trying to de-code them, as best I can. In one of the more recent excerpts from his talk to Chut Shel Chessed, the Rav said this (read the longer excerpt HERE): So, what did the Kedushat Yom Tov say, […]
Those aren’t my words…. they are the description of R Chaim of Sanz. In this post, we’re going to continue investigating the ‘dispute’ that erupted between R CHAIM HALBERSTAM of Sanz and the extended ‘rebbes-with-palaces’ family of ISRAEL of RUZHIN, aka MOSHE TZVI WERTHEIMER of SAVRAN. Before we do that, I just wanted to tell […]
So, how did this next chapter of the saga of the EREV RAB-BAIM begin? The story begins with a book called: The Jewish World of Yesterday (1860-1938), which one of my readers dropped in, as he had a hunch I might find something interesting there. Did I ever. On page 70, I found this picture: […]
Let’s return to some solid ‘real history’ sources. You may not know this about me, but I read like a demento, and I have been going through a ton of source material trying to figure out what is really going on with ‘real Jewish history’. Most of the clues I find are hidden in books […]
Did you ever wonder how ‘Boyan chassidut’ got pole position in Meron on L’ag B’omer? In this post, we finally going to figure that, as we continue to swim through the murk. Why are we continuing to swim through the murk, to find out what was really going on? Because behind all the ‘politics’ and […]
If you’ve recovered from PART I, it’s time to dive into ‘PART II’ of what was really going on around the money being raised for the settlement of Eretz Yisrael. (Read Part I HERE). At least part of the reason figuring this stuff out is so important is because THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE […]