Re: Warshawsky

[Trudi Goodman <goobietheg...>]

  That, and amongst certain Chassid communities a birthdate was assigned to 
the nearest holiday or festival. Thus, my grandfather when he came to this 
country had 2 birthdates, the one given him closest to his birthday which 
was Shimini Azeret(sp?) and the one he took: my Mother's birthdate. By some 
religious communities birthdates were considered a very "goyish"/worldly 
concept.
       TCG


>From: Ari Davidow <ari (at) ivritype(dot)com>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: Warshawsky
>Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 14:20:59 -0400
>
> >>From: Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan (at) staff(dot)chuh(dot)org>
> >>
> >>I forgot to add this question:  Can anyone give me a definitive 
>birthdate
> >>for him?  Different sources have variously 1840, 1845 and 1848.
> >>Lorele
> >>
> >    Tayere Lorele:
> >Because amongst the Ultra Orthodox of the 19th century and earlier in
> >centain parts of E. Europe, birthdates and years are not kept track of
> >standardly. I understand that he was from Galicia, which kept changing
> >Empire Status. That's why there is no standard dates for him( I did a
> >project on him in College...I'll see if I can find my notes.) He was 
>known
> >also as Mark S. Warshafsky.
> >       Trudi
>
>I am confused. To the best of my knowledge, the designation
>"ultra-orthodox" is very much a recent coinage, and of little
>use in understanding why someone's birthdate 150 years ago
>would be vague. There has never been a Jewish proscription,
>to the best of my knowledge, against recording a birthdate.
>
>Are you referring to the fact that the Jewish community, in general,
>tended to fudge birth dates because of the Russian draft? (Jews
>were drafted for 25 (?--or some such large number--I'm at work and
>memory is fuzzy) years, specifically to remove youth from the Jewish
>community--see Marx & Margolis or other popular histories w/regard to
>the time and anti-Jewish measures) years, and the community had a strong
>incentive to make people, to the best of its ability, always appear too
>old or too young to be drafted.
>
>Names, in the sense of "first name, last name" were not used within the
>Jewish community until enforced externally, so record-keeping in that
>regard, esp. w/regard to tying a specific person to a specific birthdate,
>would also have been funky.
>
>It's just not a religious issue (not in the ritual sense, at any rate;
>very much so in the sense that if all Jews get drafted and are forcibly
>assimilated into Russian society, other Jewish religious questions become
>moot) as different from an overall community issue--it applied as well
>to Hasidic Jews, as to Mitnagdim, as to proponents of the Enlightenment
>in all of their flavors.
>
>ari
>
>ari
>
>
>

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