Dr. David Glasner responds

photo from Cluj yizkor book

Dr. David Glasner, ben Rav Yudah Tzvi, ben Rav Akiva, ben Rav Moshe Shmuel (dor revii from the "Dor Revii,") writes:

Hirshel

A couple of people emailed me about your very interesting post regarding my great-grandfather and my grandfather. It seems to have provoked quite a discussion from all sides of the spectrum. I was thinking of commenting directly on the blog, but as a nogeia l'davar, I am reluctant to join the fray even though I have previously participated in some on line discussions. Instead I will just share with you some mainly factual observations by way of background. I think that it is correct that the K[lausenberger] Rebbe had good relations with my grandfather R. Akiva, although obviously there was an inherent tension in the relationship because my grandfather viewed the existence of a separate community as an affront to his father (which it clearly was) and as a halakhic violation, and his objective (never fulfilled) was to bring the kehilas ha-sefardim back into the community (which is probably why he did not speak out publicly in favor of Zionism) something which he later regretted and reproached himself for. I think that it is reasonable to assume that the K Rebbe had a very different attitude towards Zionism from that of R. Joelish. So whatever the origin of the kehilas ha-sefardim in K and the role of R. Joelish in establishing it, the K Rebbe did not necessarily buy into the Satmarer ideology. A K chosid once told me that he heard a shmuse that the K Rebbe gave in Kiryat Sanz in which he discussed the gemara in the beginning of Sanhedrin about the punishment le'osid lo'vo that will be meted out to the gentiles. The Rebbe asked, but many gentiles never had anything to do with the Jewish people, so why will they be punished? The Rebbe answered that they will be punished for voting against the state of Israel in the UN.

The Satmarer's hatred was ignited by the outspoken Zionism of the Dor Revi'i, but after the DR left K, the Satmarer had no problem transferring that hatred onto my grandfather who inherited the rabbonus from his father, even though my grandfather did not speak out openly in favor of Zionism and even though many very Haredi and anti-Zionist rabbonim who had opposed the Dor Revi'i were friendly with my grandfather. The story in the family, which is also found in Rabbi Miller's book about Hungarian Haredi Jewry, Olomo shel Abba, is that either in the K ghetto or in Bergen-Belsen my grandfather approached the Satmarer to try to reconcile with him, and the Satmarer simply refused to speak to him. So although I have great respect for the K Rebbe, I have none for the Satmarer. A famous story about about the Tzaddik of Nasoyd (which can be found in Olomo shel Abba and in the biography of the Satmarer) was that on Erev Yom Kippur after Kol Nidre, the Tzaddik got up to speak and delivered the following message to his kehillah. "You know, they say that he (it was obvious whom he was speaking about) is a poshe yisroel because he became Zionist. But they are wrong! He became a Zionist because he was a poshe yisroel." The comment of the Satmarer about this statement (recorded in his biography) was that not all Zionists were poshei yisroel before becoming Zionists, there were indeed also those who became poshei yisroel only after they become Zionists. The inclination of the Tzaddik of Nasoyd and of the Satmarer to brand others as poshei yiroel reminds me of the Talmudic saying "kol ha-posseil be-mumo posseil." By the way the chapter in the biography of the Satmarer that is devoted to the Dor Revi'i and Rabbi Kook is called "milchemes ha-shem neged amolek."

Here are two quick comments about some of the discussion. One of the anonymous commenters accused the Dor Revi'i of writing with chutzpah about R. M. Panet of Dezh. I believe that he was referring to a passage on p. 44 of the kuntres Halakhah Le-Moshe that was republished a few years ago with several other of his kuntresim under the title Ohr Bahir. I am familiar with that passage and I detect not a single bit of chutzpah. Indeed, the whole point of the discussion is to show that as a young man he had questioned a leniency of R' M. Panet, but he writes that when he became older and wiser he understood that R' M. Panet had been correct to be lenient. The DR was personally very close with RMP. He writes at the end of the hakdamah to Dor Revi'i, "when I became bar mitzvah, the holy gaon R. M. Panet of Dezh, sent me a congratulatory letter as if I were a colleague, against the wishes of my father." The custom of the Dor Revi'i was to wear a shtreimel at home on Shabbos and Yom Tov and the shtreimel was given to him by none other than RMP. According to a number of sources the neolog community in K was started
because the DR was viewed as being too inclined towards chassidus. He even exchanged very warm teshuvot with the Yeitiv Lev.

In his book ha-kera shelo nit'ahah about Hungarian Orthodoxy, Jacob Katz, who knew just about all there was to know about the history of Jews in Hungary, refers several times to R. Shlomo Tzvi Schick without identifying him as a status quo rabbi. Had he been status quo, I am sure that Katz would have so identified him. Katz writes with great sympathy about the status quo communities and their rabbis, especially the gaon atzum R. Meir Perles. But there is no doubt that R. Schick was bit of a left-winger by Hungarian standards. According to Sagi and Zohar in their recent book on conversion, both R. Schick and RMSG cooperated in publishing similar works justifying the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse of intermarried Jews. Sagi and Zohar mistakenly assert that there was a family connection between RMSG. They were misled by the fact that the Maharam Schick had a son-in-law named Moshe Shmuel Glasner. But the Maharam Schick was certainly not the father in law of RMSG. The son-in-law of the Maharam Schick is identified in the introduction to the shut Maharam Schick as being from Nicholsburg, so the Maharam Schick's son-in-law was clearly someone else with the same name. I have no other information about the other Moshe Shmuel Glasner.

David Glasner