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Tolcsva, Hungary |
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Rabbi Moshe David ASHKENAZI, is believed to be the first rabbi of
Tolcsva. He was born in 1774 (in Galicia) and became the chief rabbi of
Tolcsva, serving for forty years from 1803 to 1843. He made his way to
Israel settling in Safed in 1844, as its local Ashkenazi rabbi. He was
one of the founders of the Chasidic settlement in post-earthquake Safed.
His chief work was "Toledot Adam" that contains commentaries on the
Talmud. Another book was "Be'er Sheva" with commentaties on portions of
the Torah.
Rabbi Aharon GRÜNBERG
Rabbi Aharon GRÜNBERG(ER) (1811-1893), followed Rabbi Ashkenazi, but was
later called to the rabbinate in Nagymihály (now, Michalovce,
Slovakia). He was the author of "Da'at Sofer" (The Scribe's Knowledge)
that appears to have been published after his death. On the title
page, a line translates as "He was a devoted shepherd and chief rabbi of
Michalovce, more than 40 years..."
From that we may infer that he served
in Tolcsva possibly less than 10 years after his predecessor left for
Israel. His tombstone in Michalovce spells his name with the extra -ER
at the end, but the inscription attests to his service in Tolcsva,
written in Hebrew letters as, טאלטשווא.
His date of death is noted as 18 Tishri 5653, which would have made his date of death as 9 October 1892, and not 1893 as other sources indicate.
An interesting source of information are prenumeranten.
These are people who paid early subscriptions to Jewish scholarly
texts. So if you had studied in a yeshiva (Jewish seminary) and
knew or recognized the great rabbis and scholars of the day, you would
be interested in acquiring and reading what these erudite people had
written -- mostly in Hebrew but occasionally in Yiddish. Hence,
these pre-subscriptions to help pay for the publication of such
works. On the other hand, the list of names to be found let us see
and know who were scholars of the day, or where they might have been
learning, if they happened to be young men, the "bachurim."
HebrewBooks.org has a wealth of such books that have been digitized and
can be searched for titles or names of authors as well as providing the
opportunity to download the entire books. Generally at the ends of
such books, the author would show his appreciation for the people who
had subscribed and would include their names under the heading of the
town where they lived. To help in identifying which books to even
check for these prenumeranten, you can look in Sefer Prenumeranten, by Berel Kagan (or Cohen) who compiled a wonderful compendium of 8,687 towns in Europe and North Africa. The
book's title in English is "Hebrew Subscription Lists." For each town,
identified by a unique code, you can see all the books that have
prenumeranten for these towns.
This book is also available for searching or downloading on
HebrewBooks.org
by clicking on the link above. (For more information on prenumeranten in
general, JewishGen has an infofile, prenumeranten.)
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While Berel Kagan's book is primarily in Hebrew, it does have an introduction and
explanation at the rear of the book and an alphabetical listing by town
names in English with the corresponding numerical value for the
town. Tolcsva (טאלטשווע) is
referenced with the town "code" of 3351. On page 131 in the book,
several books are listed, and at the end of the list, the rabbis who had
served the town. The highlighted parts has the names of Rabbis: Avraham Yitzchak
GLÜCK |
This is the last one on Berel
KAGAN's list above, Tiferet Yaakov al Hatorah. printed in Munkacs in 1912, and it has the longest list of names with 21. (With
thanks to Yoel HIRSCH for finding a copy that had prenumeranten. The version in HebrewBooks.org is missing the prenumeranten pages.) |
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Names transcribed here are with the spelling as interpreted by this webmaster: Shmuel GLÜCK, Moshe WINCELBERG, Eliayu FRÄNKEL, Eliezer GLÜCK, Nachum Eliyahu PAHMER. | |
He was born in Oroszlany, Hungary, December 1826, to Shamai and
Rachel. He was married to Rozalia Chava Raitsa BANET, daughter of
another famous rabbi, Yehoshua BANET (spellings vary). Four
children were born to them in Tolcsva, and they too, married into other
respected rabbinical families.
Rabbi GLÜCK (d. 23 April 1909) and his wife (d. 13 January 1907) are buried in an
"Ohel" (a special enclosed structure) in the Tolcsva cemetery.
Photos of their stones are found in JewishGen's Jewish On-line Burial
Registry (JOWBR),
that at the time of this writing (June 2017) have several errors.
In time, we hope more than the seven photos that appear in JOWBR will
be added and corrections made as well. His matzeva (tombstone)
attests to two well-known books, "Be'er Yitzchak" and his "Responsa Yad Yitzchak,"
as well as other articles. He also arranged the book of his
distinguished grandfather, Rabbi Mordechai BANET, called Responsa of Parshat Mordechai.
For those who can read Hebrew, even if these scholarly works are
difficult, title pages provide valuable genealogical information.
For instance, extracting from the title page of Be'er Yitzchak, that
happens to actually have some information NOT in Hebrew as well, you can
discern the following information:
Part of title page of the book |
...Avraham Yitzchak GLÜCK... ---ooooo---
Published by his grandson and student, Eliezer son of the rabbi, Mordechai GLÜCK, of blessed memory, the only son of the author. Below this, the name of the printer, Rabbi Binyamin FRIEDMAN, son of Yosef FRIEDMAN (of Nyíregyháza), here, in Tolcsva, in 5670 (1910), and again within the decorative band at the bottom, a repetition in German, Published by B. FRIEDMAN,
====Tolcsva, Hungary, 1910 ====
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| The Red Circle indicates the "ohel" inside of which are the graves of rabbinical family members. |
Photographed by Larry KOHN in 2001, the three matzevot (tombstones) inside the ohel. |
Photographed by Larry BRIGGS, June 2017, L to R: The once Chief Rabbi of Tolcsva, Rabbi (Elias) Nachum Eliyahu (d. 1918), son of Rabbi Avraham PAHMER. He was married to a granddaughter of the rabbi to his right; Chief Rabbi of Tolcsva, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak GLÜCK (d. 1909) and his wife, Sara Chava Raitza (d. 1907), (on the far right)daughter of Rabbi Yeshaya BANET (sometimes spelled BANETH, BENET, or even BENEDIKT). |
To
read more about the interconnections and familial relationships among
members of noted rabbinical families, the multi-decade work of Dr. Neil
ROSENSTEIN, namely "The Unbroken Chain," is a marvelous resource. Check on Avotaynu for availability.
Rabbi Samuel (Shmuel) GOTTLIEB
(Thanks to Max Preston for most of this information.)
Succeeding Rabbi GLÜCK, Shmuel or Samuel Gottlieb served as the Chief Rabbi of Tolcsva but later became Chief Rabbi in Papa in 1927. More information about his years in Papa can be found by clicking on his, that is reproduced here from the same source. He was born 17 January 1876, in Buj, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, Hungary, to Aron and Irma GOTTLIEB.
He married a daughter of Jozsef Shlomo REINITZ, a Rabbi in Miskolc (referenced in the Miskolc Memorial Book), who was the son of Nathan Feitel REINITZ, a Rabbi in Güssing, Gyöngyös, and then Mád (referenced in Pinkas Hungaria -- Hungarian Memorial Book).
According to
the Papa Yizkor book, Rabbi GOTTLIEB died in 1931. However, Max Preston
has noted his date of death as 9 November 1928.
Some of this information was found in Yad Vashem archives that indicated his date of death as 22 Mar 1945, in the FLOSSENBERG Camp, Germany.
William BROCK traveled with three friends to Tolcsva in 2010 and created
a blog of their time there. Of religious note is the plaque he
found on a building, that indicates this was once a Jewish school
endowed by Ephraim "Fischl" ROSENVALD. Appropriately, the school was called Beit (House of) Ephraim.
The photos below show where the plaque was placed on the exterior wall
of the school, and a closeup for those who can read the Hebrew or
Hungarian inscriptions. From JewishGen, I found that Mr. ROSENVALD
who died 4 August 1871, at the age of 78 years, was the son of Bernat
(Dov, in Hebrew) and Leah ROSENVALD. His parents had been long-time
residents of Tolcsva.
His father, also known as Berko ROSENVALD, as a Hungarian name,
also appeared in the Hungarian National
Archives/Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Megyei Levétár, 1806 list of Jews in
Tokaj District since 1795, and in the 1811 Tax List.
According to a census taken in September 1851 (LDS film #642959, Vol. 1, p. 16, record numbers 519 and 520), Fischel was born 26 November 1794, his wife Leah was born 12 June 1800. They lived in house No. 306.
While confusing, Fischel's wife was also named Leni (Leah, like his mother). She died 6 April 1873.
 Plaque's placement on wall of former school |
 Enlargement of plaque with inscriptions/dedication words in Hebrew and Hungarian |
Compiled by Madeleine Isenberg
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