[All Lists] [By Thread] [By Date] [Previous] [Next]
From: R. Kovacs
Subject: What counts as proof?
Date: 22 Kislev 5782
Nu, my zeyde told me about a case in Munkács before the war.
There was a man, Reb Fishel Grunwald, who wished to marry. He had grown up in the community. Everyone knew his family. His father was a tailor who had worked in the same shop for thirty years. His mother lit candles every Friday in the window that faced the street. My grandfather remembered playing with Fishel as a child.
But he had no papers. Nothing. There had been a fire, my zeyde said, or maybe the papers were in a town that no longer existed under that name. I am not certain of the details.
The rav said: we have three hundred witnesses who have known this family for generations. What paper would prove more than this? He used an expression in Yiddish that my grandfather translated roughly as: "The community is the document."
Reb Fishel married. The whole town came. No one asked for documents.
Twenty years later, his daughter wished to marry a boy from Pressburg. Good family, fine match. The Pressburg rav asked for documentation of the daughter's Jewish status.
Community knowledge from Munkács meant nothing to him. He had never been to Munkács. He did not know the families. He required attestation from a recognized authority: names, signatures, something he could file.
In the end, three rabbis from Munkács signed a letter. My zeyde said the Pressburg rav accepted their signatures, though he would not have accepted their kashrut. Different standards for different purposes.
—Shlomo Dov Kovacs
Thread: