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 was the get of Cleves, there was the get of Galuna.

The get of Cleves involved the whole planet, all the tzaddikim in Europe [wrote their opinion on it].

So, the Nodah be’Yehuda said that the get of Cleves[1] wasn’t a get. He was against it, because she [the bride] was his cousin, so he possulled (disqualified) the get. This was the get of Galuna, there was a difference of almost ten years [between the get of Cleves and the get of Galuna.]

After this, there was the get of Cleves.

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As you are hopefully starting to realise, you can’t just ‘read’ the Rav and immediately get what is being said.

There is so much going on here, even with the most simple sentence. I’ve been working on this for three days straight already, full-time, and while we’re getting quite a few ‘break throughs’, it is not straightforward at all.

So, let’s see where this takes us, and what ‘hints’ we can decode from this next bit of the Rav’s words.

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In the post called the Get of London, I started taking a look at YITZHAK HALEVI HOROWITZ HAMBURGER’s family tree – and truth be told, I got overwhelmed from the huge mess over there.

We figured out that his dad was the YAAKOV YOKEL of GALUNA who the Rav said gave the grandpa of the Rothschilds his blessing to get rich, and that was about it.

This time around, I decided to start with the Hebrew sources, which are ALWAYS more accurate and more complete, to see what would shake out that way.

I started HERE, on the Hebrew Wiki page for YITZHAK HALEVI HOROWITZ, and I started scanning for anything to do with a get, or divorce. Whaddya know? I found it.

Read on.

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In the beginning, the NODAH BE YEHUDAH, YEHEZKEL LANDAU, and YITZHAK HAMBURGER were apparently good friends.

According to the Hebrew Wiki, they became good friends from their time learning together in the Brody Kloiz, and they were also mishpocha.

R MENACHEM MANES HOROWITZ, the brother of YITZHAK HAMBURGER married the NODA BE YEHUDA’s sister. Of course, there is no peep of that on Geni, or anywhere else.

Then later on, the NODA BE YEHUDA’s son, ‘JACOBKE’, married R YITZHAK’s daughter REICHE(L). (They also got divorced….)

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Then, around the year 5512, R YITZHAK HOROWITZ and the other rabbis of the Brody Kloiz gave permission to R YEHOSHUA HESHIL HOROWITZ, the son of MENACHEM MANES HOROWITZ, to divorce his wife.

Her name was WITTUSH, the daughter of R TZVI HIRSCH of Opotchno and Hildesheim, and she didn’t want to get to divorced. But YITZHAK HAMBURGER HOROWITZ gave his nephew permission to ditch her anyway.

(The more I am looking into what was going on 200 years ago with all these very learned ‘rabbis’, the more I’m getting the impression that they were using their Torah learning and position to basically act like mafia bosses, doing whatever the heck they wanted, with a kosher stamp.)

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So, WITTUSH didn’t want the divorce, which meant the get was ‘thrown in her lap’ by an intermediary while Wittush was walking publically in the street, against her will.

And her ex-husband, JOSHUA HESHEL HOROWITZ remarried.

This get was arranged by the son of the PNEI YEHOSHUA (and brother of the Bad Baal Shem of London….), who was called ARYEH LEIB of SKOLA.

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Now, it turns out that in this little incestuous world of our leading rabbis, the NODA BE YEHUDAH also happened to be the cousin of WITTUSH’s father, R TZVI HIRSCH of Optochno and Hildesheim.

Let’s remember what the Rav said:

So, the Nodah be’Yehuda said that the get of Cleves[2] wasn’t a get. He was against it, because she [the bride] was his cousin, so he possulled (disqualified) the get. This was the get of Galuna, there was a difference of almost ten years [between the get of Cleves and the get of Galuna.]

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Fourteen years later, the NODA BE YEHUDA decides to invalidate the get, because he says it was done by an intermediary – the guy who threw the get at Wittush in the street, against her will – which invalidated it.

The NODA BE YEHUDA puts JOSHUA HESHEL HOROWITZ in cherem for breaking the rule of Rabbenu Gershom not to have more than one wife at a time, and says he’s still halachically married to WITTUSH, wife number one.

YITZHAK HAMBURGER doubled-down on his opinion that the get was valid, and no transgression of Rabbenu Gershom had taken place. And long story short, things got pretty nasty between these two ‘Torah giants’.

A little later, PINCHAS HOROWITZ, and the KETZOT HAHOSHEN come out in support of YITZHAK HAMBURGER’s halachic position on the get, and even YAAKOV EMDEN mentions the NODA BE YEHUDA’s stance unfavorably in his writings.[3]

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Someone else most of us have never heard about, but who also popped up in the Get of Cleves story, by the name of R YOSEF STEINHARDT eventually makes peace between the warring ABD of Prague, and the ABD of Hamburg.

But even so, no-one is really clear about how this matter ended, tachlis. There’s a suggestion that YEHOSHUA HESHEL HOROWITZ gave his ex WITTUSH another get, this time, that she was happy to accept. And that then, she remarried.

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As usual, all this is totally covered up on Geni – by KLH, working for who, exactly? – and also in the works of others including Neil Rosenstein.

This choice snippet comes from the geni page for Witush Horowitz, the unwillling divorcee:

According to “The Unbroken Chain”, by Neil Rosenstein (Volume 6, Chapter 16, page 29), Witush was the daughter of R. Joseph HaLevi Landau, ABD Klimintow. The book also explains that some sources have mistakenly stated that she was the daughter of R. Zvi Hirsch, ABD Hildesham. The following reference is provided for further information: “See the journal Kovetz Beit Aharon VeYisrael, #57, 7, published the Stoliner Chassidim (Jerusalem, 1995)”.

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This isn’t the first time I’ve spotted deliberate misinformation in ‘The Unbroken Chain’.

Let’s try to figure out what are they trying to hide, here?

The fact that this yucky divorce happened in the first place?

The big machloket between the NODA BE YEHUDA and YITZHAK HAMBURGER? Something else?

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OK, so at this post, I spent a day at this stage putting together the NODA B’ YEHUDA’s family tree. It was a day well spent – and we’ll keep the wider part of that particular story for a separate post.

But here’s the genealogical stuff that is specifically relevant to the ‘GET of GALUNA’.

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First, here is how R ZVI HIRSCH MARGALIYOT, ABD OPOCZNO AND HILDESHEIM, the father of the unwilling divorcee, WITTUSH HOROWITZ, is the cousin of the NODA BE YEHUDA – exactly as the Rav said.

The father of the NODAH BE YEHUDA is R YEHUDA HALEVI (SEGAL) LANDAU, Parnas of the Council of the 4 Lands.

His sister is RECHEL, who marries R’ AVIGDOR MARGALIYOT ABD CHENCHIN. Their son is R ZVI HIRSCH MARGALIYOT, ABD OPOCZNO AND HILDESHEIM, which makes him the cousin of the NODA BE YEHUDAH.

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It turns out that ZVI HIRSCH MARGALIYOT, ABD OPOCZNO and HILDESHEIM is also the maternal g-grandson of someone called:

R’ Joel Heilprin, Baal Shem Tov of Zamosc, the elder

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Remember, ‘Baal Shem’ denotes people who were using Ineffable names and kabbalah ‘magic’ to cure people, make gold coins appear under trees, tame demons, etc…

Only the Baal Shem TOV – the BESHT – was able to pull this off in holiness and kedusha. The rest of the ‘Baal Shems’ – like Falk, Eybshitz, and many others – were literally doing kabbalah ‘black magic’, and there seems to be a huge overlap between the ‘Baal Shems’, and the Sabbateans, with all their fallen, twisted ‘kabbalah’.

Read a little more about him at the Jewish Encyclopaedia site, HERE.

(BTW, this family tree of JOEL HEILPRIN links us straight into the heart of the Frankist network, including JACOB (ESKELES) FRANK, and descendants of the SHACH / SHABTA TZVI).

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You can see more about the family tree of ZVI HIRSCH MARGALIYOT on the Hebrew Books site HERE:[4]

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Next, I want to show you how the Geni gatekeepers are routinely distorting the family trees around all these ‘scandals’ and Sabbateans (and also, xtian converts with big yichus….)

You’ll recall above, that we’re told that ‘WITTUSH’ is the daughter of R. Joseph HaLevi Landau, ABD Klimintow.

He’s meant to be the brother of the NODA BE YEHUDAH, which would make ‘WITTUSH’ his niece, and not the daughter of his cousin. I highly doubt ‘Joseph Landau’ existed, at least, with that particular name, in the way we are being told. Here’s his family tree on Geni:

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It looks to me like Joseph Landau was one and the same as R JOSEPH YITZHAK LANDAU, another brother of the NODA BE YEHUDA.

Here is his family tree on Geni, under the sole name ‘YITZHAK LANDAU’:

Notice, how all the mothers are routinely and bizarrely scrubbed off – because this information is extent, they were big rabbis, with big yichus, from famous families – and everything was written down in the synagogue and community records.

That’s how they ‘split identities’ on Geni, to try and keep people from making all these connections between the different groups fighting each other – who were basically all close mishpocha.

And often, Sabbateans / Frankists / Xtian converts – or some other flavor of ‘scandalous’.

Now that I’ve done a deep-dive on this family tree, I am starting to have a better idea of why this was done to this particular branch of the family tree.

This is the nexus that connects a whole bunch of the interesting people I’ve been writing about here, including all those Russian Jews marrying Scottish xtians working for the Tzar, the ‘VILNA GAON’, the funding mechanism out of Vilna for the Holy Land, the maskilim in Uman… There’s a lot going on here, b’kitzur.

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Back to the GET of GALUNA, and WITTUSH MARGALIYOT.

In her first marriage to JOSHUA HESHEL HOROWITZ, before the ‘GET of GALUNA’, she has two children.

One of them is called DAVID HALEVI ISH HOROWITZ (d. 1830) – and he marries ETHEL (1780-1868), the daughter of the MACHANE EPHRAIM, the brother of BARUCH of MEDHZIBOZH and also a maternal uncle of REBBE NACHMAN.

They have five kids, and one of their daughters, RIVKA REIZEL HOROWITZ marries ‘ARYE LEIB WERTHEIM, the ADMOR of BENDERY’ (1772-1885) – and the brother of MOSHE TZVI of SAVRAN[5] (aka: ISRAEL of RUZHIN), the leading persecutor of R’ NATAN STERNHARTZ.

It’s a small world.

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Meanwhile, WITTUSH apparently does remarry, to R ZVI HIRSH MIRELS of LONDON (1745-1814), author of the Mispar Zvoom, and son of R ARON MIRELS of LONDON, BIL of the CHACHAM TZVI.

There are for sure a whole bunch more connections to be made with all this and the dodgy things going on both in London, and in ‘chassidut’ at this same time, but suffice to say there were good reasons in both the chassidic and non-chassidic camps to try and muddy the waters of what ever happened to Wittush, the unwilling divorcee of Joshua Heschel Horowitz?

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Apparently, when WITTUSH’s tomb was ‘redone’, as they so like to do, they got the name of her father wrong.

This snippet is Google translated from the original Hebrew, HERE:

It should be noted that her father’s name is Zvi Hirsch of Margaliot Av Beit Din Opatashni and Hildesheim, and not Yitzhak Zvi as mistakenly written by the one who renewed the tombstone in Warsaw.

Yah, it was just a mistake. Honest.

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Now, was R YITZHAK HOROWITZ in the ‘secret Sabbatean’ camp?

It’s hard to know. When he took over Altona (Hamburg), the town was full of JONATHAN EYBSHITZ’s supporters (= Sabbateans).

YAAKOV EMDEN wanted to place a ban on all these Sabbateans, and to have them kicked out of Altona / Hamburg. YITZHAK HOROWITZ overturned EMDEN’s ban, and also announced that henceforth, ISRAEL EYBSHITZ, the grandson of JONATHAN, was to be addressed with the honorific title of ‘Moreinu’.

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At the same time…. The Sabbateans were powerful and wealthy, and they were either buying off, or threatening, anyone who stood up to them, or stood in their way.

While we’re on the subject, you can read the NODA BE YEHUDAH’s letter ‘exonerating’ EYBSHITZ in English translation HERE.

If you read it properly, you’ll see for yourself that the NODA BE YEHUDAH’s phrasing and references show he clearly believed EYBSHITZ was a Sabbatean, as charged.

A few years ago, Sid Leiman wrote about a letter the NODA BE YEHUDAH sent to the monarchy where he clearly expresses his opinion, in no uncertain terms, that EYBSHITZ is a Sabbatean. Read more about that HERE.

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UPDATE: I put the link to the wrong article above, here is the correct link:

https://leimanlibrary.com/texts_of_publications/48.%20When%20a%20Rabbi%20is%20Accused%20of%20Heresy%20-%20R.%20Ezekiel%20Landau.pdf

You can also read the Hebrew version of the NODA BE’YEHUDAH’s ‘reconciliation’ letter HERE, where the nuances are perhaps more obvious.

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So, to try to sum all this up, it’s very possible that YITZHAK HAMBURGER either was a ‘secret Sabbatean’ himself, or at the very least, had been bought off or threatened by them, to stay in line, overturn Emden’s attempts to ban them from participating in the Hamburg Jewish community, and to start ‘honoring’ Eybshitz’s Sabbatean grandchildren.

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As usual, this is still only the tip of the iceberg.

I have a few more really important posts to write now, that have spun-off from all this, that will start to tie things together more, for all of us.

Until then.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Hebrew transcriber puts the words (Galuna] in brackets here.

[2] The Hebrew transcriber puts the words (Galuna] in brackets here.

[3] Yaakov Emden was a strange advocate for being able to have two wives again. Perhaps, this unpleasant affair is part of what encouraged his line of thinking.

[4] This is a machine translation of what this ‘yichus brief’ says:

1. Branch of the renowned community leader and patron Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Segal Abigdor, who served as the Rabbi of Sint (Szentes), (who was) the son-in-law of the famous Rabbi (known as Rabbi) of Apta [who was the grandfather of the Nodah B’Yehudah]. His mother was Mrs. Vitsha (named after Mrs. Vitsha) Landau of Apta.

1. Son of the wealthy and famous Rabbi Yechezkel Segal Landau of Apta.

1. Son of Rabbi Benjamin (Wolf) Segal Landau.

1. From the family lineage of the author of the Agur (and some say he was a direct descendant of the author of the Agur). And his wife was the modest Rebbetzin Mrs. Rachel.

See also the family lineage confirmation for the Landau family as mentioned above in the “Pathshegen” letter of attestation that was copied at the end of the book “She’erit Natan” by Rabbi Abigdor, the Chief Rabbi of Lentshna (Łęczna), son of Rabbi Joseph of Ostrówiec, for the book “Tavnit Ot Yosef.”

1. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch (according to the ledger of the Apta community) page 104.

In the biographical section about Rabbi Yehoshua Horowitz of blessed memory in the appendix to the book “Da’at Kedoshim” page 17 note 1, and so it is written in the family records at the beginning of “Kerem Yehoshua” by a descendant of Rabbi Y. Hamburger of blessed memory (Lvov 1899).

1. (In the family records and in “Kerem Yehoshua,” there appears to be an error).

1. As written in the ancient family records that was printed at the beginning of “Oirah Shachar” and in the sources mentioned above (and in the family records at the beginning of “Kerem Yehoshua”), and at the beginning of “Net’a L’Banon” (Przemyśl 1882), and this is the accepted version. Rabbi Natan Nota Segal Landau, Rabbi of Oshpitzin (Oświęcim), and so it appears in the title page of the book “Kur Habechina” (Breslau 1837) by Rabbi Yosef Shmuel Segal Landau of Kampna.

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[5] See this post, where we start to set out that MOSHE TZVI of SAVRAN = ISRAEL of RUZHIN, who was forced to flee Russia to Moldova, where he adopted a totally new identity, after being arrested by the Tzar’s police for having informers killed.