Hebron: City of Sabbateans – Part 2
Welcome back to part 2, of what is becoming a very interesting series on the Sabbatean rabbis – and funders – of Hebron.
Let’s begin by reminding ourselves where we got up to, and what we are researching. The Rav made some comments last week, like this:
Four cities: Hevron – there, there was the Rav Mani. HaRav Mani was the Chief Rabbi of Hevron, there, there were all the rabbonim.
There was there the ‘Chessed L’Avraham’, and there was there the ‘Sdei Chemed’ – he’s buried in Hevron still today.
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Today, we’re going to ‘deep dive’ on the Sdei Chemed, R’ Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini.
But before we get to him, let’s square off what we learnt about the ‘CHESSED L’AVRAHAM’.
CHESSED L’AVRAHAM 1 is R AVRAHAM AZULAI, great-granddad of the CHIDA, a big kabbalist – and the person who got permission in a ‘dream’ to basically open R CHAIM VITAL’s grave, to take his kabbalistic manuscripts out.
We have no way of knowing if that ‘permission’ was actually ever given, or whether it came from the side of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
What we do know is that R CHAIM VITAL left explicit instructions that his mss on the kabbalah should be buried with him….
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R CHAIM VITAL’s son, SHMUEL, also became a Sabbatean.
And SHMUEL VITAL’s student, YAAKOV TZEMACH, helped R AVRAHAM AZULAI, the ‘CHESSED L’AVRAHAM’ to open R VITAL’s tomb and dis-intere his manuscripts.
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Then, there is another CHESSED L’AVRAHAM – namely, the yeshiva set up in Hevron by another big supporter and funder of the false messiach SHABTAI TZVI, called ABRAHAM PEREIRA of Amsterdam.
There are many mysteries hanging out with the PEREIRA family, who seem to share a great deal in common with the OPPENHEIM clan of corrupted court Jews.
For the purposes of this series of posts, we’ll stick to the ‘known facts’, such as they are, that this ‘CHESSED L’AVRAHAM’ PEREIRA is a known Sabbatean, and his yeshiva in Hevron is run by hard-core Sabbateans, who continue to believe in their false messiah long after he a) converts to Islam and b) dies, including: MEIR HIYYA ROFE.
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Maybe it’s a just a CO-IN-CID-ENCE, but both these ‘CHESSED L’AVRAHAMs’ seem to be tightly linked to some very dodgy stuff, spiritually.
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One more point to pick up from Eliaou Attlan’s book on Hevron, before we move on to the SDE CHEMED, and how he fits into this whole, hot mess, going on in Hevron.
On pg 109, Attlan writes this:
“Born in Jerusalem in 1724, the Chida is the best personal illustration of the meeting of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions.
Via his father [the grandson of R AVRAHAM AZULAI], he descends from a large and prestigious family of rabbis originally from Castille, installed in Eretz Yisrael for 5 generations….
Via his mother, R YOSEF DAVID AZULAI (the CHIDA) descends from an illustrious and learned family of Germans.
SARAH BIALER was the daughter of YOSEF BIALER, who came from Germany in 1700 with his master, R YEHUDA HA CHASSID.
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YEHUDA HACHASSID was a known Sabbatean, who led an aliya to Eretz Yisrael (partly funded by SAMSON WERTHEIMER, SHMUEL OPPENHEIMER’s SIL and Sabbatean court Jew).
That aliya occurred because many Sabbateans expected the ‘second coming of Shabtai’ in 1700, in Eretz Yisrael.
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Now, it’s possible that the CHIDA’s German ancestors weren’t Sabbateans, and just tagging along for the ride.
But it’s also very possible that they were Sabbateans.
Last point for now, SARAH BIALER, the CHIDA’s mum, seems to descend from yet another ‘YEHOSHUA FALK’, this time, Rabbi Yehoshua Falk HaCohen – Katz, (1555-1614) author of the “Sefer Meirat Einayim”.
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I don’t know what that means about the CHIDA himself.
I’m just pointing out the connections his ancestors had with known Sabbateans – repeatedly, on both sides of his family tree.
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OK, so now, who is the ‘SDEI CHEMED’ (1834-1904)?
HERE is the Hebrew Wiki page for him, and this is some of what we learn from it:
Hezekiah was born in Jerusalem to Rabbi Eliyahu Raphael Medini, the son of an old family in Jerusalem and Kalu Vida….
Due to his financial difficulties, he emigrated to Kushta [Constantinople]] to live with his wealthy relatives. His relatives did not help him as he thought, and his livelihood was not found.
In [?], he was called to be the chief rabbi in the Crimean city of Kerso-Bazaar in Russia for the Crimean community – an ancient Jewish community in Crimea and speakers of Crimean and the local Ashkenazi community.
He was well known in the area and also revered by local Christians and Muslims.
It was there that he began his encyclopedic work, ” Sh-a-dei Hamad.”
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Yeah, so the title of his famous book was not ‘SDEI Chemed’, but actually one-of-Hashem’s-ineffable-names Chemed.
And one of the names that halacha states it is forbidden to erase.
A lot of people were very unhappy about this, so the name was changed to the ‘mispronounced’ SDEI Chemed, instead.
R MEDINI apparently gets around this by publishing his own psak justifying the title he’s chosen as acceptable.
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Wiki continues that R MEDINI loses his vision for quite a while… But then is ‘miraculously’ cured and can see again.
And also, that after he dies in Hebron, the Arabs dig up his grave, apparently because they want to rebury him in the Muslim cemetery of Hevron.
(Just park these snippets for now. When we get to the post discussing R ELIYAHU MANI, next, we’ll find that exactly the same things described above also happen to him….)
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And here’s another snippet:
In 1899, he decided to resign his post and leave Crimea, after thirty-three years in his rabbinate, because he wanted to be buried in the Land of Israel.
He initially lived in Jerusalem for two years, then moved to Hebron.
When he arrived in the city, he opened a yeshiva at Beit Romano, where he finished writing the great Talmudic encyclopedia “Shadi Hamad”.
After the death of Rabbi Chaim Rahamim Yosef Franco, Rabbi of Hebron, in the year of 1901, he was appointed rabbi of the city and served in the post until the day of his death [in 1904].
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Elsewhere, we’re told that R MEDINI was appointed the Chief Rabbi of Crimea aged ‘33’.
That number keeps cropping up in this story, for masonic-number watchers out there.
Also, R RAHAMIM YOSEF FRANCO is also an interesting person in his own right, and apparently gets an audience with the Austrian Emperor, Franz-Josef, in Vienna.
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Snippet continues:
After concerns arose about the future of the Romano house, he arranged to sell the house to Rabbi Shalom Dober Schneerson of Lubavitch, who bought the entire area and established the Yeshiva of Torat Emet.
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And there’s more tight links between R MEDINI and CHABAD, like this (machine translated from Hebrew):
His series of books, “Shadi Hamad,”was published in Warsaw between the years of his death, thirteen parts of his life and five after his death.
He then sold the property to Rabbi Yosef Zvi. [5]
The rights were then sold to Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneerson of Lubavitch and his son-in-law Rabbi Menachem of Adal Schneerson Rebbe of Lubavitch who also re-edited the books and published them in his publishing house Kehat Press.
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CHABAD are just lurrrrving R MEDINI!
Let’s pick up a few more clues over in the Crimea – where a thriving community of Karaites lived for many hundreds of years.
Apparently, this was not the community R MEDINI was the Chief Rabbi of. Instead, he was the head of the strange KRYMCHAK community.
That probably deserves a whole post to itself, but I’m trying to keep this focussed on Hevron, so read THIS about KRYMCHAKs, if you are interested.
Snippet:
Krymchaks are often perceived as “the Crimean Jews” because they practice Orthodox Judaism. However, Krymchak prayer rituals differ from the traditions of other branches of Judaism.
They developed separately from neighbouring communities and, at the same time, interacted with them, so that different communities influenced and adopted customs from one another.
Doron Hondo, a Krymchak rabbi from Simferopol, claims the Krymchak Jewish tradition is over 1,000 years old.
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Now, there’s a strange story about R MEDINI apparently outlawing the study of Hebrew, and of the Tanach, while in Crimea.
You can read more about that on the On the Mainline blog, in a post entitled:
Snippet 1: (Reproduced from a newspaper article that appeared in 1892, in the HaMelitz ‘haskalah’ periodical of maskil Yehuda Leib Gordon):
“I asked him [i.e. The Sde Chemed] several questions….amongst these questions I also referred to the little talk I had had with his student about the Old Testament and Hebrew.
He too [i.e. The Sde Chemed] turned up his nose and answered:
“As far as I can see, you are one of this rising generation who cast off these old traditions and are infected by heresy. Is it not known to you what the Talmud expressly says, “Keep your children from thinking”, Rashi, adding ‘Study not the Old Testament too much.”
As for myself, from the day that I was elected Chacham over my congregation, more than 30 years ago, it has always been my strongest desire to clear away such deadly snares (his exact expression), and from this I will not turn aside till the day of my death.”
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On the Mainline doesn’t know what to make of all this, especially as points out that:
Medini quotes Haskalah sources in his Sde Chemed, was personally friendly with maskilim, etc.
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What we can take away from all this is that R MEDINI is clearly an interesting person, for a lot of different reasons.
On the Hebron website HERE, we pick up a few more clues:
The SDE CHEMED spends some time in Baghdad, between leaving Jerusalem and going to Constantinople.
One of his main rabbi / mentor in Baghdad is: Rabbi Haim Nissim Abulafia.
He returns to Jerusalem in 1899, stays there two years, then moves to Hevron.
Snippet:
Shortly after his arrival, Hebron’s two chief rabbis, Rabbi Eliyahu Mani and Rabbi Yosef Franco, passed away. At first, Rabbi Medini declined to become the new chief rabbi of Hebron, but he eventually agreed, serving as a community leader until his passing in 1904.
Together with the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, Shimon Menashe Chaikin, he would pray every night in front of the Tomb of Machpela. He established educational funds and learning centers in Hebron such as the “Chen V’Chesed” free-loan society.
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If the name SHIMON MENASHE CHAIKIN sounds familiar, that’s because we met him in the second post on CHARIDEE, CORRUPTION and ERETZ YISRAEL.
Snippet:
Shmuel Menashe Chaikin (1777-1893) was a prominent disciple of the “Mitteler Rebbe” and the Tzemach Tzedek of Chabad. He moved from Slutsk to the Holy Land in the 1810s, and served as the Chabad rabbi in Hebron for over 70 years, until his passing at the age of 116.
At the time he signed this letter, he was 113 years old.
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SHMUEL MENASHE CHAIKIN apparently also had a different surname…. Namely, ZEITLIN.
How all this fits together, I still don’t know.
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Tov, let’s back to the French book by Attlan, to see what else we can learn about what CHABAD are doing in Hevron at this time.
According to the Rebbe RAYATZ’s ‘memoir’ ‘Beit HaRav’ – which could win some serious prizes for creative fiction – the first Chabad chassidim come to Hevron in 1816, under one SHIMON SHMERLING.
They are said to be trying to escape all the nasty arguments between the chassids and the ‘mitnagedim’ going on in Tiberious at this time.
Kind of strange, when the main ‘argument’ seems to between the Chabad Rebbes, and the other chassidic rebbes, with nary a ‘mitnaged’ to be found….
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Here is the GENI page for ‘SHIMON SHMERLING’ – he appears to be the son of ‘MOSHE OF SHKLOV’.
It’s at least possible that this ‘MOSHE of SHKLOV’ is MOSHE ZEITLIN of SHKLOV – son of YEHOSHUA ZEITLIN, and father of two ‘privates’ and one SHNEUR ZALMAN….
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What I can tell you for sure, is that SHIMON SHMERLING gets straight in ‘fundraising’ for EY, and seems to have pioneered the way of doing this that was later adopted by the KKL.
This snippet is machine translated from his WIKI Hebrew page:
At the time of his mission, R. Shimon used a special method for collecting the funds, similar to today’s practice of issuing certificates such as the “Minister of Chesed” or the “altar stone” so that the benefactor received the desired title.
R. Shimon used to travel around the Jewish colonies abroad and declare that whoever wanted to buy four amot nachala in Hebron would donate a substantial sum.
His method was successful, and it reached its climax when the middle Adm. recommended that Chabad’s followers buy an estate in Hebron and promised that whoever bought D’amot in Hebron would be saved from the crushing of the tomb[2]
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According to the Rebbe RAYATZ, there is a second group of Chabadnikim who come to Hevron also in 1823, headed by (SHMUEL] MENASHE CHAIKIN, and including the legendary MENUCHA RACHEL SHNEURI / SLONIM, daughter of the MITTELER REBBE of Chabad.
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According to Attlan, beginning 1830 a Muslim sheikh from the nearby village of Dura starts demanding danger money from the Jewish community, and especially, from the European Chabad community that he figures are richer than their Sephardi counterparts in Hebron.
He gets his way, and his part of the haluka payment made to Hevron is written out to ‘The BLACK RABBI’, (i.e. Sheikh Abdel Rahaman).
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From 1830 on, the Sephardim and Ashkenazim (i.e. Chabad) communities of Hevron decide to present a united front, financially.
They send shadarim to fundraise for the city of Hebron together, and not just for the Sephardi or Ashkenazi (i.e. Chabad) community.
This next snippet is very interesting (from page 142 of Attlan’s book):
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The Chabad emissaries get as far as Bombay, in order to receive important sums of money from the prestigious Sassoon family, surnamed ‘the Rothschilds of the Orient’….
At the beginning of the [18]60s, R SHIMON MENASHE CHAIKIN is given the title of ‘Av Beit Din’ and Parnass, until 1892. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of the local Chabad yeshiva….
The [Chabad] Rebbe of that time, the Tzemach Tzedek, called SHIMON MENASHE CHAIKIN ‘my Tzaddik’.
He is succeeded at the head of the chassidim of Hebron by R DOV BAER EFRATI, despite the opposition of the Rebbe.
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I don’t know which ‘Rebbe’ Attlan is referring to, here – but I have a hunch it’s connected to the internal Chabad ‘war’ over the charity funds and Eretz Yisrael that saw Kopust Chabad split from Lubavitch Chabad.
Chabad internecine warfare was going on pretty much the whole of the 1800s…. And onwards. Even to our day.
Nevertheless, R DOV BAER EFRATI is still a g-great-grandson of the ALTER REBBE (of course…) like this:
ALTER REBBE > MITTELER REBBE > MENUCHA RACHEL SLONIM of HEVRON > ROZA MINA EFRAT m BARUCH MORDECHAI SLONIM > R DOV BER EFRAT.
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Attlan then says that DOV BAER EFRATI retires to Jerusalem, and is succeeded by R SHLOMO YEHUDA LEV ELIOZOROV, the disciple of R CHAIKIN, and Rav MANI.
Guess what?
SHLOMO YEHUDA LEV ELIOZOROV is also a descendent of the ALTER REBBE, like this:
ALTER REBBE > MITTELER REBBE > MENUCHA RACHEL SLONIM of HEVRON > SHTERNE RIZA m SHALOM KAZARNOVSKY > ELIEZER SHIMON KAZARNOVSKY > R SHLOMO YEHUDA LEIB ELIEZEROV of HEBRON.
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Attlan than says that one R SHNEUR ZALMAN ben MENACHEM MENDEL is designated by Hevron to go and fundraise in the East in 1852 – where he hits it off big time with DAVID SASsOON of Bombay, who then builds two synagogues in Hebron.
Attlan then totally misses out anything to do with R MEDINI and BEIT ROMANO, when saying that the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe buys BEIT ROMANO from CHAIM ROMANO in 1912 – who is a ‘rich Turkish agent’ who decided to move to Hebron ‘33 years earlier’.
There is that number again.
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SHNEUR ZALMAN ben MENACHEM MENDEL is none other than the brother of CHAIM TZVI SHNEERSON, agent of the British who was a very early proponent of a ‘Jewish National State’ who we wrote about HERE.
CHAIM TZVI got run out of Tiberius in disgrace accused of stealing charity monies he’d raised for the yishuv for himself…. And believing himself to be Moshiach ben David, whilst also suspected of converting to xtianity.
He’s the great-grandson of MOSHE SHNEURI, the Alter Rebbe’s son who definitely DID convert to xtianity and become a missionary for the Russian Tzar.
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Point is, his brother SHNEUR ZALMAN is also hanging out with the SASSOON family of (drug baron) philanthropists.
And that connects us back to THIS very interesting post, about the BEILIS blood libel.
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Here’s the problem I’ve got:
When I try to track down when R CHAIM HEZKIAYHU MEDINI begins, and where Chabad ends…. I’m finding it very hard to disentangle who did what, when. Even though one is meant to be ‘Ashkenazi’ while the other is meant to be ‘Sephardi’, when it comes to the interesting people, these distinctions don’t actually count for much.
One of the clearest indications you are dealing with interesting people is when you find lots of high level intermarriage between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, many decades and centuries before that was actually a thing, for the rest of us.
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So, there are conflicting accounts about who started up the MAGEN AVOT Yeshiva in BEIT ROMANO – Chabad, or R MEDINI.
(I just decided to do a specific post on Chabad in Hevron, so I can keep this more focussed…. So we’ll keep the Chabad-flavored weird stuff – and there is plenty of it – for another time.)
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I could also write a ton more about the KRYMCHAKs of Crimea – and their strange connections with Khazars and Karaites.
But that will do for now.
In the next post, we’re going to finally get to RAV MANI of HEVRON – and there is plenty more weird stuff to discover over there, too.
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