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Rabbi Ephraim Chajes

(born Hunsdorf 1760)

and His Paternal Family

J. Jona Schellekens

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

jona@mail.huji.ac.il

and

Vivian Kahn

Director of Hungarian Research

JewishGen

Rabbi Ephraim Chajes (born Hunsdorf 1760)

and His Paternal Family

In the past, Jews lived in two worlds. They were not only members of local Jewish communities, but they also interacted with government officials and with their non-Jewish neighbors. The implication for Jewish genealogical research is that we must consult both Jewish sources and official records. Research on rabbis in particular, often is limited to Jewish sources alone. Thus, in many cases, we don’t even know what name they used in interaction with their non-Jewish environment.^¹ This is a shortcoming, as official records may complement what we know from Jewish sources. This essay demonstrates what information about a rabbi can be uncovered through official records, using Rabbi Ephraim Chajes, as an example.

This is the third in a series of methodological articles that use a family known in German as Polatschek as an example. The first article highlighted the use of visitor lists from the Leipzig Trade Fair, while the second demonstrated the value of census-type records.^² This article completes the series by showing how Jewish sources can be integrated into genealogical research.

The Hungarian Rabbi Ephraim Chajes (כמוהר"ר אפרים חיות) is known from three books, which he published between 1818/19 and 1828/29. Like many of his colleagues, he claimed descent from a well-known rabbi, Yitschak Chajes, the author of Pnei Yitschak (פני יצחק), which he mentions on the title page of his first book. (See Figure 1). IDIT: Please insert Figure 1 here.

Previous research failed to identify his paternal family. In his books, R. Ephraim uses his Yiddish surname, spelled Chajes in official German records.^³ The surname, however, rarely appears in 18th-century Hungarian records, which were either in Latin or, less often, in German.^⁴ Thanks to the tombstone of his son, we know that the family used a different surname in official records: Polatschek.^⁵ The combination of the two surnames Chajes and Polatschek points to a village called Hunfalu in Hungarian, now in Slovakia and known there as Huncovce, as the place of origin of his family.^⁶ Before World War II, the village belonged to a German language island. Thus, some readers may be more familiar with Hunsdorf, which is the German name of the village.^⁷

To reconstruct R. Chajes’ paternal lineage, it was necessary to establish a methodology for identifying the family within official Hungarian civil records. The revelation of the surname Polatschek on the tombstone of his son does not constitute sufficient evidence for a connection with the Polatscheks of Hunfalu, because they were not the only Polatscheks in Hungary. To determine whether R. Ephraim Chajes or his father came from Hunfalu, we searched for the surname Chajes in the cemetery of Hunfalu. We found four Chajes tombstones and cross-referenced death dates from them with the civil records. The surname Polatschek appears in the civil registration of deaths on the exact dates recorded on the four Chajes tombstones. This consistent correlation enabled the identification of the paternal family of R. Ephraim Chajes.

After a biography based on Jewish sources and a short section on the surnames of Hungarian Jews, we present all known Polatscheks in Hungary, who appear with the surname Chajes. These appear in four different types of sources: on tombstones; in the ledger books of the Jewish community of Hunfalu; in an ethical will from 1811; and in Tolerance Tax lists.^⁸ We will try to show that they all fit into one family tree. Although we have no explicit evidence connecting R. Ephraim Chajes with the Polatscheks of Hunfalu. There is much circumstantial evidence. We believe to have identified him as an 11-year-old boy in the 1771 Jewish Census of Hunfalu.^⁹ After fitting him into the Polatschek family tree, we will try to show that the name Ephraim had a special meaning for his paternal family. Next, we summarize what is known about his father Abraham. Before the conclusion, two sections will review claims of descent from two well-known related rabbis. To help the reader keep track of our arguments, we have included a genealogical chart. (See Figure 2).

Figure 1. R. Ephraim Chajes, Eshel Avraham (Livorno, 1818/19)

A Biography Based on Jewish Sources

Meir Wunder included R. Ephraim Chajes in his encyclopedia of Galician rabbis and scholars.^¹⁰ Wunder reconstructed what is known about his personal life from the introductions to two of his three books.^¹¹ His first book, Eshel Avraham (אשל אברהם), was published in Livorno in 1818/19 and consists of sermons for the weekly Torah portions.^¹² It was named in memory of his father Abraham. In the introduction, R. Chajes mentions his mother Rachel and his wife Perl, who was a daughter of R. Yitschak Kahana Rappaport (פערלי בת מוהר"ר יצחק כהנא ראפאפורט).^¹³ The book includes approbations of rabbis in Livorno, Tunis, Paris, Modena, and Lugo.^¹⁴ The approbation of three rabbis of the Consistoire central in Paris, R. Abraham Vita de Cologna, R. Emmanuel (Menachem) Deutz, and R. Seligman Michel, calls him a resident of the Kingdom of Hungary.^¹⁵ According to a footnote to their approbation, R. Yitschak Chajes, the author of Pnei Yitschak, was the great-great-grandfather of R. Ephraim Chajes.^¹⁶

In the introduction to Eshel Abraham, R. Ephraim Chajes mentions that he spent four years with his parents-in-law.^¹⁷ This was probably before the death of his father-in-law in 1781 in Leipnik (Moravia).^¹⁸ If this is correct, then he must have married Perl in or before 1777. Assuming that he was at least 15 years old at the time of his marriage, we estimate R. Ephraim Chajes to have been born in or before 1762. We will try to refine our estimate below.

Figure 2. Four generations of Chajes in Hungary

For seven years, R. Ephraim Chajes taught many students, but he could not support his family. He, therefore, became a merchant (משא ומתן), leaving him much less time for religious studies. Then disaster struck; he lost his wealth in a fire. Sometime after the fire, his only son was born. One night in 1816/17 he was robbed of all his possessions, and if wondered whether this was a punishment for neglecting religious studies. Consequently, R. Chajes, decided to publish the religious innovations that he had accumulated over the years^¹⁹ and went abroad to seek financial support for the publication of his books. In addition, he visited Tunis in North Africa, to consult its rabbis on kabalistic matters. In the same year as Eshel Avraham, he published Yom Tov Mikra Kodesh (Livorno, 1818/19), which is a Passover Haggadah according to the Ashkenazic and Sephardic rites, with an introduction, a word of thanks to his sponsors, and a commentary on the Haggadah.

His third book, Mikra’ei Kodesh (מקראי קדש), is a book on religious morals that he published in Istanbul in 1828/29. The book is most often cited for its opposition to boys and girls sharing the same classroom.^²⁰ In the introduction to the book, R. Ephraim Chajes mentions leaving his home and son seven years earlier to go to Jerusalem. Three times he reached Trieste in Italy, but failed to reach the Holy Land, because of the Greek revolt against the Ottoman Empire (1821–1832). He returned home and spent six months with his son.^²¹ Two years before publication of his third book, he left his home again and took the overland route to Istanbul. It is not known whether he ever reached Jerusalem.

Figure 3. Tombstone of Itzik ben R. Ephraim Chajes / Polatschek

(Image courtesy of The Heritage Foundation for Preservation

of Jewish Cemeteries – HFPJC/Avoyseinu)

German and Yiddish Surnames

Before ordered to adopt a German surname in 1787, most Hungarian Jews appear in official records without a surname.^²² This does not necessarily imply, however, that they did not have a surname. Some Jews had a Yiddish surname for internal use in the Jewish community.^²³ Not all families with a Yiddish surname, however, adopted that name as their official surname in 1787. One reason was that some families already had a surname that they used in encounters with the authorities. Below we will show that the Chajes family in Hungary already used the surname Polatschek in their interaction with the authorities before 1787.

Poláček is a Czech diminutive form of Polak or Pole. Polatschek is the German spelling of the name. In our previous article, we showed that the first generation of Polatschek in Hunfalu didn’t come from Poland, as the name might suggest, but from Moravia.^²⁴ In the Jewish Census of 1746–1748, the surname only occurs in Hunfalu, suggesting that the Polatscheks there are the oldest family with that surname in Hungary.^²⁵ Chajes (חיות) is not a Hebrew name, but a Yiddish one. Therefore, the modern Hebrew pronunciation of the name, Chayut, meaning vitality, is incorrect.^²⁶ The surname Chajes is a matronymic, which derives from the first name Chaya (חיה).^²⁷ Chaya being a common name, there may have been more than one family called Chajes. The combination of Chajes with Polatschek, however, is likely to be rare, if not unique.

Figure 4. Tombstone of Rivka, the wife of Ephraim Chajes from 1835 in Hunfalu

(Image courtesy of Mikuláš Lipták)

Tombstone of Itzik ben R. Ephraim Chajes Polatschek

Abraham Leib Steiner identified the tombstone of the son of R. Ephraim Chajes. (See Figure 3.)^²⁸ It mentions Itzik ben R. Ephraim Chajes (איציק בן מו"ה אפרים חיות). A few lines above his name appears the surname of his father (אבי ממשפחת חיות), followed in the next line by the surname Polatschek (פאלאטשעק) in much smaller Hebrew letters, which are barely visible. Itzik died on January 31, 1835, in Toponár in the southwestern Hungarian county of Somogy.^²⁹

According to his tombstone, Itzik was descended from Chajes on his father’s side, whereas he was descended from Rappaport on his mother’s side. This proves that he was a son of R. Ephraim Chajes and Perl Rappaport. He appears to have been named after his maternal grandfather R. Yitschak Kahana Rappaport, who died in 1781. The tombstone reveals that his official surname was Polatschek. Moreover, he died in Toponár. Thus, Itzik is probably the Isac Polatsek listed in Toponár in the Property Tax Census of 1828.^³⁰

Tombstone of Rivka the Wife of Ephraim Chajes

We found four tombstones with the surname Chajes in the new cemetery of Hunfalu.^³¹ All four date from the 1830s, like the one in Toponár. The oldest of the four is that of a woman called Ribica Pollatschek, who died on November 29, 1835, in Totfalu at the age of 46 and was buried in nearby Hunfalu on the next day. Thus, she was born approximately in 1789. The first name and date on the tombstone of Rivka, the wife of Ephraim Chajes (רבקה אשת אפרים חיות), match the date of death of Ribica Pollatschek in the vital registration. (See Figure 4.) The combination of the surnames Chajes and Polatschek and the first name Ephraim suggest that we have found a relative of R. Ephraim Chajes. Ephraim Chajes of Hunfalu had an uncle called Abraham. This Abraham is our candidate for being the father of R. Ephraim Chajes.

Tombstone of Tuschene bat Yitschak Chajes

A woman named Tuschene Monasch née Pollatschek died on September 4, 1836, in Hunfalu at the age of 36.^³² Thus, she was born approximately in 1800. The first name and date on the tombstone of Tuschene bat Yitschak Chajes (טושנה בת יצחק חיות) match the date of death of Tuschene Monasch née Pollatschek in the vital registration. (See Figure 5.) Thus, she was the daughter of a man called [Isaac] Polatschek, who was known as Yitschak Chajes in Yiddish. Ephraim, who we mentioned in the previous section, also was the son of an Isaac. The Tolerance Tax lists for the years 1789/90 to 1794/95 and the 1808 Jewish Census only mention one Isaac Polatschek living in Hunfalu. He must have been the father of Tuschene, because she was born in 1800. Thus, Tuschene and Ephraim are very likely to have been siblings. Tuschene is a very rare first name.^³³ Below, we will show that she was named after her paternal grandmother.

Double tombstone of Avraham and Yisrael ben Eliezer Chajes

Abraham Pollatschek died on February 17, 1837, in Hunfalu. Almost three months later, his younger brother Israel died on May 12. The vital registration only mentions the name of the father of Israel: Lasar. The brothers were buried next to each other under a double tombstone. (See Figure 6.) The tombstone calls them brothers and friends (אחים ידידים). Their Hebrew names are Avraham (אברהם בן אליעזר חיות) and Yisrael ben Eliezer Chajes (ישראל בן אליעזר חיות). The dates on the tombstone match those in the death registration. Abraham was 17 years old and Israel was 11 years old. Thus, they were born in circa 1820 and circa 1826, respectively. The 1816/17 and 1825 Jewish Censuses mention only one Lazar Polatschek. He must be their father. Lazar is mentioned next to Ephraim Polatschek, suggesting that they were brothers. Moreover, Lazar had a son called Ignatz.^³⁴ Probably, he was named after his grandfather Isaac Polatschek, Isaac being a common Hebrew name of men called Ignatz, as in the case of Ephraim’s son Isaac.^³⁵

Figure 5. Tombstone of Tuschene bat Yitschak Chajes from 1836 in Hunfalu

(Image courtesy of Mikuláš Lipták)

Tombstone of Chaya Reich bat Asher Chajes Pollatschek

At least one other tombstone mentions both surnames, like the one in Toponár. Unlike the other tombstones, however, it is of a much later date. Chaya Reich bat Asher Chajes Pollatschek (חיה רייך בת אשר חיות פאלאטשעק) died in Gálszécs (Sečovce in Slovakian) on April 19, 1910.^³⁶ The combination of the surnames Chajes and Polatschek suggests that we have found a distant relative of R. Ephraim Chajes. Chaya and her husband appear in the 1869 Hungarian Census, which mentions Jacob Reich (born 1833) and Hanni Reich née Polatsek (born 1831) in Gálszécs. Jakob Reich, 25 years old, and Hani, 24 years old, a daughter of Asher Pollatschek, married in Gálszécs in 1857. We believe to have identified her parental family in the 1854 Jewish Census of Gálszécs, which mentions Ascher Polatsek (born 1805), his wife Sali (born 1815) and their daughter Hani (born 1830), son Ignatz (born 1831), daughter M. (born 1846), daughter Leni (born 1841), and daughter Fani (born 1848).^³⁷ Chaya’s father, Ascher Polatsek, died in 1872 from typhus at the age of 70. We failed to find explicit evidence for Ascher being a son of Isaac Polatschek in Hunfalu. Ascher, however, had a son called Ignatz, like Lazar and Ephraim. (See previous section.) Consequently, we suspect that Ignatz, son of Ascher, was named after a grandfather called Isaac. If this is correct, then Ascher was a son of Yitschak Chajes / Isaac Polatschek and a younger brother of Ephraim, Lazar, and Tuschene.

Figure 6. The double tombstone of Avraham and Yisrael ben Eliezer Chajes from 1837 in Hunfalu (Image courtesy of Mikuláš Lipták)

The Ledger Books of the Jewish Community of Hunfalu

Unfortunately, the ledger books of the Jewish community of Hunfalu were lost during World War II. R. Yekutiel Yehuda Greenwald, however, saw them before the war and quoted from them.^³⁸ He opened his book on the history of Hungarian Jews with a chapter on the village of Hunfalu. Rabbis were his major concern, but in the second footnote he mentions

special people whose memory was preserved in the ledger books (פנקס) of the community of Hunfalu: (a) the rabbinical, learned and famous Yitschak Chajes (יצחק חיות), who was head of the Jewish community (ראש הקהל) in Hunsdorf for an extended period of time, a descendant (נכד) of R. Yitschak Chajes [of Skole], author of Zera Yitschak (זרע יצחק) … Yitschak Chajes donated a lot of money for sacred purposes. His sons-in-law were rabbis. His oldest daughter [Jached] was the wife of R. Yisrael Pollner (ישראל פאלנר), … R. Yisrael Pollner died young and his wife [Jached] remarried R. Aharon Spitz (אהרון שפיץ), head of the rabbinical court of Proßnitz [or Prostějov in Moravia] and Trentschin [or Trenčín in Slovakia]. His second daughter [Schendel] was the wife of R. Yechezkel Segal (יחזקאל סג"ל), head of the rabbinical court in Hunsdorf-Trencsén … Yitschak Chajes supported his community with large sums of money and when he died the site next to his grave was sold for four hundred golden Thaler to … Yosef Shmuel Segal, the son of the late R. Moshe (our translation).^³⁹

Thanks to the tombstone of his third daughter Tuschene, which R. Greenwald does not mention because she wasn’t married to a rabbi, we know that Yitschak Chajes must be identical with the man called Isaac Polatschek in the census-type lists of Hunfalu. Isaac was a son of Lazarus who died in 1789. The Jewish Census of 1771 is special because it mentions the year of birth of two married sons of Lazarus Polatschek. His oldest son Abraham was born in 1745, whereas his second son Isaac was born in 1747. Abraham is our candidate for the father of R. Ephraim Chajes. Lazarus also had two unmarried sons, aged 21 and 18. The 1774 Jewish Census mentions “Marcus Polyacsik,” who is living with his parents (apud parentes) Lazarus [and Tuschene]. In the next section, we will show that he was their youngest son.

The Ethical Will of Mordechai Chajes

Rabbi Eliezer Deutsch (אליעזר דייטש) published the ethical will of Ya’akov Mordechai ben Eliezer Chajes (יעקב מרדכי בן אליעזר חיות), father of his paternal grandmother, in 1899/1900 at the end of the fourth part of his book Tevu’ot ha-Sadeh (תבואות השדה).^⁴⁰ The ethical will dates from 1811. The information which Mordechai Chajes provides about himself, and his family enables us to identify him as Marcus Polatschek, the youngest son of Lazarus.

According to the will, Mordechai Chajes came from Hunfalu and was born there in 1752.^⁴¹ He was married to Leah bat Szlawe (לאה בת סלאווה), the mother of all his children. They had a daughter named Tuschene (טושנה). The ethical will mentions an additional woman called Tuschene who was the mother of its author: Mordechai the son of Tuschene (מרדכי הנולד מן טושנה). Thus, Mordechai Chajes named his daughter after his mother. Mordechai and Leah also had a son called Ephraim.

R. Deutsch does not mention the name of his grandmother. Mordechai’s daughter Tuschene, however, probably is his grandmother because in civil registration we found a couple named Joseph and Tuschene Deutsch. We found one daughter of Tuschene Deutsch. In 1842, Szlawe, the daughter of Joseph and Tuschene Deutsch, married Menasche Fischgrund.^⁴² Like Tuschene, Szlawe is a very rare name.^⁴³ The name Szlawe also occurs in the ethical will. It is the name of Mordechai’s mother-in-law. Tuschene Deutsch died in Hunfalu on January 17, 1848, at the age of 52. Thus, she was born around 1796.

His first name Mordechai, which is a common religious name for men called Marcus, his father’s name Eliezer, which is a common religious name for men called Lazarus, his surname Chajes, and his place of birth Hunsdorf match those of Marcus Polatschek, the son of Lazarus.^⁴⁴ In addition, Lazarus had a son who was 18 years old in 1771. This age matches the year of birth (1752) of Mordechai Chajes. Thus, Marcus was the youngest son of Lazarus. Isaac Polatschek, an older brother of Marcus, also had a daughter called Tuschene and a son called Ephraim.

Chojes in Szécsény

Mordechai Chajes does not mention his place of residence. We believe, however, to have identified him in the Tolerance Tax lists of 1794 and 1795 for Szécsény, a Hungarian town on the Slovakian border in the county of Nográd.^⁴⁵ The Tolerance Tax list for 1794 is special, because it mentions the Yiddish surname Chojes (in Latin characters). There are two types of lists in 1794 and 1795. The long lists include all the households, whereas the short ones omit many households. Table 1 shows heads of households with the surname Chojes and Polatschek in the long lists with the names of those listed before and after them. Table 2 shows the same for the short lists. The purpose of the short lists is not clear. One of them, however, mentions that the men on the list were impoverished.

The long Tolerance Tax list for 1794 mentions “Marek Chojes” (No. 91). He also appears in all three short lists as “Marcus Polacsik” (No. 35). The long Tolerance Tax list for 1795, however, calls him “Marek Polak” (No. 120). The five entries must refer to the same person, because all five appear between the same heads of household: Israel Kohen (or Katz) and Moses Levi.^⁴⁶ The 1820/21 Jewish Census mentions “Marcus Polacsek.”

Mordechai Chajes mentions a son called Ephraim in his ethical will. We believe to have identified him in the long Tolerance Tax list of 1794, which mentions “Ephraim Chojes” (No. 132). He was married with one son. The long list of 1795 calls him “Ephraim Polak” (No. 160). We know that they are one and the same person because they are listed between the same heads of household: Mendel Bach and Feivel Ba(c)k. Moreover, there is no Polak household in Szécsény in 1794 and Ephraim and Marek are the only two men with the surname Polak in 1795 (see Table 1). The short lists do not mention Ephraim.

Table 1. Chojes and Polatschek in the Tolerance Tax lists of 1794 and 1795 in Szécsény

1795

1794

118. Israel Katz

90. Israel Cohen

119. Abraham Polatsik

120. Marek Polak

91. Marek Chojes

121. Mathias Bro

92. Mathias Bro

122. Moses Levi

93. Moses Levi

94. Abraham Polacsik

123. Hirschl Brode

95. Hirschl Brode

–

–

159. Mendel Bach

131. Mendel Bach

160. Ephraim Polak

132. Ephraim Chojes

161. Feivel Bak

133. Feivel Back

Family members are shown in bold type face.

The 1820/21 Jewish Census mentions Ephraim Polacsek in Szécsény with wife and four daughters.^⁴⁷ In 1828, the Property Tax Census lists “Froim Polacsek” there. The Tolerance Tax list of 1829 for the county of Nográd mentions “Floriyan Choiess” without specifying his place of residence. A household register (háznépi lajstrom) from 1841 mentions Efraim Polacsek in Szécsény (No. 205). According to the register, he was 68 years old at the time. Thus, he was born in circa 1772. Efraim was married to Rosalia and had a daughter Maria. The household register from 1845 mentions the widow of Efraim Polacsek in Szécsény (No. 201).

We propose to identify Marek and Ephraim Chojes with Marcus and his son Ephraim Polatschek from Hunfalu. First, Marek and Ephraim Chojes were also known in Szécsény as Polatschek. Second, Marcus and Ephraim Polatschek left Hunfalu before their names appeared in the tax lists of Szécsény. In the 1774 census of Hunfalu, Marcus was still living in the household of his father Lazarus. The 1782 Jewish Census is the first to mention him heading an independent household. Marcus is No. 26 on the Tolerance Tax list of 1786/87. Before him the list mentions Ephraim and Elias, who are Nos. 24 and 25, respectively. Their proximity to him on the list suggests that Ephraim and Elias were his sons.^⁴⁸ In 1787 Marcus and Ephraim paid the Tolerance Tax for the last time in Hunfalu. Both appear in a Tolerance Tax list of emigrants.

Table 2. Polatschek in the three short Tolerance Tax lists of 1794 and 1795 in Szécsény

1795

1794b

1794a

379. Israel Cohen

34. Israel Kohen*

209. Israel Cohen

380. Markus Polatsik

35. Marcus Polacsik*

210. Marcus Polatsik

381. Moses Levi

36. Moses Levi*

211. Moses Levi

382. Hirsch Brode

37. Hirsch Broda*

212. Hirsch Brode

Poor households are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Three (or four) cousins named Ephraim

We propose to identify Abraham Polatschek, the oldest son of Lazarus, with the father of R. Ephraim Chajes. First, the Yiddish surname of the Polatscheks in Hunfalu was Chajes. Second, R. Ephraim Chajes fits perfectly into the family of Abraham Polatschek, because Ephraim was probably born in or before 1762 and Abraham was married by 1760 (see below). Third, Lazarus Polatschek had at least two grandsons named Ephraim, the sons of Isaac and of Marcus.

If this is correct, then R. Ephraim Chajes had two female cousins called Tuschene and at least two male cousins called Ephraim. The two female cousins were named after their paternal grandmother. R. Ephraim Chajes and his two male cousins, however, were not named after their paternal grandfather, because his name was Lazarus. Unfortunately, we don’t know who the three cousins were named after. We do know, however, that the name Ephraim came from the paternal family of R. Ephraim Chajes. More specifically, we have found evidence for the provenance of the name Ephraim in the family of his paternal grandmother Tuschene. The 1808 Jewish Census mentions a man called Ephraim Pinkus in Hunfalu for the first time. He is No. 101 on the list. The widow Ester Pinkus is listed near him (No. 103). Probably, he is her grandson.^⁴⁹ Tuschene had a sister Ester, who was married to Pincus Moses.^⁵⁰ Perhaps, R. Ephraim Chajes and his first cousins and a second cousin were named after an unknown brother of Ester and Tuschene.

There may have been a fourth first cousin called Ephraim Chajes. The 1828 Property Tax Census mentions “Ephraim Polassek” in Alsókubin, today in Slovakia and known there as Dolný Kubín. In German the town is called Unterkubin. Ephraim Pollacsek was born in Alsókubin and died there in 1860 at the age of 70. Thus, he was born around 1790 and was much younger than R. Ephraim Chajes. He cannot be identical with the son of Isaac, because the Property Tax Census mentions his son “Ephrajem Polatzek” in Hunfalu in 1828. Nor is he identical with the son of Marcus, because the 1828 Property Tax Census lists his son “Froim Polacsek” in Szécsény. This leaves the possibility that the Ephraim in Alsókubin was a son of Level or Löbel Polatschek.

The 1771 Jewish Census mentions two sons of Lazarus, without mentioning their name, because they were still single. Marcus is identical to the 18-year-old son. We propose to identify the other son without a name, who was 21 years old in 1771, with Level. The census of 1774 mentions “Level Polacsek,” who is married with one son. In the 1782 census, “Löbel Laezar alias Polyacsek” is married with one son and one daughter. His patronymic Laezar indicates that he must be identical with the 21-year-old son of Lazarus, who is mentioned in 1771. The Tolerance Tax lists of 1786/87 and 1787/88 mention “Löbel Polatschek.” A list from 1787/92 mentions Lebel Polatchek as having paid tax in 1788, but the 1788/89 list does not mention him any longer. We suspect that he moved to Alsókubin.

Figure 7. Signature of Ephraim Chajes (Image courtesy of auction house “Jerusalem of Gold”)

A man named Ephraim Chajes signed his name on the title page of his copy of the edition of the Shulchan Aruch, which was published in Vienna in 1809/10. (See Figure 7.) It is not clear, however, if the signature belongs to R. Ephraim Chajes or to one of his first cousins.

Abraham Polacsek Sr. or Jr.?

We propose identifying the father of R. Ephraim Chajes with Abraham, the oldest son of Lazarus Polatschek in Hunfalu. There was, however, another Abraham in the family. The two Abrahams appear to have been business partners. Šariš County court records mention three fiscal cases involving Abraham Polacsek senior from Nagymihály (Michalovce in eastern Slovakia) and junior from Hunfalu in 1769, 1770, and 1771.^⁵¹ The first name Ephraim, however, supports the identification of Abraham Jr. as the father of R. Ephraim Chajes. If R. Ephraim Chajes was named after someone in the family of his paternal grandmother Tuschene, then Abraham Polacsek Jr. must have been the father of R. Ephraim Chajes, because Abraham Sr. was not a grandson of Tuschene.

The Jewish Census of 1771 for Nagymihály mentions “Abraham Polyacsik” with wife, three sons, aged 7, 3, and 2, two daughters, aged 10 and 4, and two servants. He “lived in the Kingdom [of Hungary] from the year” 1738.^⁵² In the Jewish Census of 1771 for Hunfalu, the Latin word nativitatis was added if the year was not the year of immigration, but the year of birth, as in the case of Abraham Jr. This is not the case for Nagymihály, however, making it appear as if all heads of households were immigrants. Of course, this is highly unlikely. We suspect that the year of birth was entered for those who were born in Hungary without adding the word nativitatis. In any case, Abraham Sr. is unlikely to have been born abroad, because the Jewish Census already mentions the Polatscheks in Hungary in 1728. Therefore, 1738 must be his year of birth. If this is correct, then Abraham Sr. was seven years older than Abraham Jr. Probably, Abraham Polacsek Sr. was a first cousin of Abraham Jr. and a son of Levko or Mark.

According to the Jewish Census of 1771 for Hunfalu, Abraham Polatschek Jr. had two sons, aged 11 and 6. Abraham was born in 1745. Thus, he married in or not long before 1760. Above, we estimated that R. Ephraim Chajes was born in or before 1762. If this is correct, then he must be identical with the oldest son of Abraham mentioned in 1771, who was born in circa 1760.

According to the 1771 Jewish Census, Abraham Jr. was a small merchant (minoribus mercibus), like his younger brother Isaac. His father Lazarus, on the other hand, was a big merchant, travelling to the Leipzig Trade Fair at least six times, after taking over the business of his father-in-law, who is mentioned three times in Leipzig. According to the Jewish Census of 1774, Abraham had two sons and one daughter. In 1782 he had one son below the age of 7, two sons between the ages of 7 and 14, one son above the age of 14, and two daughters below the age of 7. If he was already married, then Ephraim cannot be identical with the son above the age of 14. This son must be his five-year younger brother, who was born in about 1765. In 1787, Abraham paid the Tolerance Tax for the last time in Hunfalu and appears in the list of emigrants. Ephraim, however, probably had already left Hunfalu for Leipnik in Moravia in or before 1777, after marrying Perl.

We believe to have found Abraham Jr. elsewhere in Hungary. The Tolerance Tax lists of 1794 and 1795 mention Abraham Polacsik/Polatsik in Szécsény. He was married with three sons, six daughters, and two servants. We propose to identify him with Abraham Polatschek Jr., who appears on the list of emigrants from Hunfalu in 1787, because his younger brother Marcus, who also appears on the list of emigrants in 1787, is known to have lived in Szécsény, as we have shown above. Moreover, in 1795 Abraham (No. 119) is listed immediately before Marcus (No. 120), suggesting that they lived in the same house (see Table 1).

On the title page of his first book, R. Ephraim Chajes refers to his father as the late Abraham Chajes (אברהם חיות ז"להה) and at the end of the introduction, he refers to his mother Rachel as “my late righteous mother” (אמי הצדקנית נצב"ה). Thus, both his parents had died before the publication of his first book in 1818/19.

Abraham Polacsek Jr. was a grandson of Abraham, who came from Moravia and is first mentioned in Hungary in 1728.^⁵³ Probably, Abraham Polacsek Sr. also was a grandson of Abraham. Abraham Sr. and Jr. were born in 1738 and 1745, respectively. They appear to have been named after their paternal grandfather. According to the 1754 Jewish Census, however, their grandfather Abraham was still alive. This appears to violate an old Ashkenazi custom of not naming children after their grandparents while they are still alive. It should be noted, however, that this is not a specifically Jewish custom. Jews shared this custom with their Christian neighbors.^⁵⁴ Christian theologians disapproved of the custom, because it assumed that the soul of deceased persons was reborn in grandchildren who were named after them, instead of going to heaven.^⁵⁵ By the 18th century, many German Christians had abandoned the custom.^⁵⁶ Perhaps, some Jews were influenced by this trend and also ignored this old German custom.

Descent from R. Yitschak Chajes of Skole?

In 1818, R. Yechezkel Segal (יחזקאל סג"ל), son-in-law of Yitschak Chajes, was appointed head of the rabbinical court (אב בית דין) in Hunfalu.^⁵⁷ The Jewish Censuses of 1820/21, 1825, and 1829 call him R. Ezechiel Nikolauer, after his birthplace Liptó Szent Miklós. The next census of 1830/31, which mentions his successor R. Salamon Perlstein, does not mention him anymore. He died in Trencsén (Slovakia) in 1838 at the age of 70. His widow appears to have returned to Hunfalu, because “Schendel Nicolau” wife of the rabbi, died there in 1847 at age 65. Thus, she was born in circa. 1782.

The grandchildren of R. Ezechiel Nikolauer (circa 1768–1838) financed the publication of his book Torat Yechezkel (תורת יחזקאל) posthumously in 1898/99. His grandson-in-law, R. Philipp Schlesinger (כלב המכונה פיבל שלעזעגער), wrote an introduction to the book.^⁵⁸ He mentions that Schendel (שינדל), wife of R. Nikolauer, was a daughter of Yitschak Fried (פריעד). Even though Schendel was born in circa 1782, we failed to find an Isaac Fried in the Tolerance Tax lists of Hunfalu from the 1780s or the 1790s. Neither did we find the tombstone of a Chajes in Hungary, who was known as Fried in official records․ In any case, contemporary sources, such as the tombstone of Schendel’s younger sister Tuschene, are to be preferred over the memory of descendants. Thus, we believe the surname Fried to be a mistake made by an informant of R. Philipp Schlesinger. Probably, however, this is not the only mistake.

R. Schlesinger claims that Schendel was a descendant of R. Yitschak Chajes of Skole, who died in Galicia circa 1726 and was a great-grandson of R. Yitschak Chajes of Prague.^⁵⁹ Note, however, that R. Ephraim Chajes does not mention R. Yitschak Chajes of Skole. Moreover, in our previous article we have shown that Schendel’s family migrated to Hungary in or before 1728 from Moravia rather than from Galicia.^⁶⁰ Perhaps an informant of R. Schlesinger confused R. Yitschak Chajes of Skole with his great-grandfather R. Yitschak Chajes.

Descent from R. Yitschak Chajes of Prague?

In his first book, R. Ephraim Chajes claimed that his father Avraham was a great-grandson of R. Yitschak Chajes, who was born in the Polish city of Poznań in 1537/38. In 1583/84 he was appointed head of the rabbinical court in Prague for three and a half years. Afterwards he served as a rabbi in Moravia, where he died circa 1615.^⁶¹ In 1591, a son of the rabbi added a eulogy in memory of his brother to their father’s book Pnei Yitschak. Thanks to this eulogy, we know how the name was pronounced (חייז).

We identified the paternal grandfather of Ephraim’s father in our previous article.^⁶² In 1728, Abraham is listed in the Jewish Census in Hungary for the first time. R. Yitschak Chajes was born circa 1538. Thus, Abraham Polyacsek cannot have been a grandson of R. Yitschak Chajes. Of course, it is possible that R. Ephraim Chajes (or his informant) skipped a few generations. Yet it is also possible that we are dealing with a false claim of descent. A common misconception among those without formal genealogical training is that individuals sharing the same surname are related. The surname as well as the first name of his uncle Yitschak Chajes are identical to those of two well-known rabbis. Thus, we cannot exclude the possibility that R. Ephraim Chajes, or someone else, based his claim for descent from R. Yitschak Chajes on the identical name of his uncle.

Conclusion

The rare combination of the surnames Chajes and Polatschek points to the village of Hunfalu as the origin of the paternal family of R. Ephraim Chajes. In the Jewish Census of 1746–1748, the surname Polatschek, or a variation thereof, only occurs there in the Kingdom of Hungary. His first name, Ephraim, points to a specific branch of the family, the children of Lazarus and Tuschene. Lazarus had at least two grandchildren called Ephraim Chajes, both of whom were born in Hunfalu. Probably, they were named after a relative of their paternal grandmother Tuschene, because her sister Ester Pinkus also appears to have had a grandson named Ephraim.

Based on official Hungarian sources, we may now add a few details to the biography of R. Ephraim Chajes, especially about his background. He was born in Hunfalu in about 1760. He came from a wealthy family. His uncle, Yitschak Chajes, was head of the Jewish community for many years. His paternal grandfather, Eliezer Chajes / Lazarus Polatschek, was a wealthy merchant. Together with his brother-in-law, Pincus Moses, Lazarus had taken over the business of his father-in-law Samuel Moses. Before 1763, Samuel Moses and his sons-in-law were the only visitors from Hunsdorf to the Leipzig Trade Fair.

To gain prestige, the Polatscheks must have been eager to have rabbis in their family. Thus, two of Yitschak’s daughters married rabbis. As the oldest grandson of Eliezer, Ephraim may have been destined to become a rabbi. He must have been a good student, because in or shortly before 1777, he married Perl Rappaport, the daughter of the rabbi of Leipnik, and went to live there with his in-laws for four years. We don’t know where he lived after he left Leipnik. Before he left for Istanbul in 1826/27, however, he may have been living in Toponár, because in the introduction to his third book he mentions leaving his son’s house, who was living there according to the 1828 Hungarian Property Tax Census.^⁶³ we lost track of R. Ephraim Chajes after the publication of his third book in 1828/29 in Istanbul, when was more than 68 years old.

Endnotes

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Notes

1. ¹ For a recent example, see Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Liverpool University Press, 2024). For an exception, see the discussion on the origin of the surname of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Rosanes (1733-1804) in Johannes Czakai, Nochems neue Namen. Die Juden Galiziens und der Bukowina und die Einführung deutscher Vor- und Familiennamen 1772 – 1820 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2021), 423–440. ↩
2. ² Jona Schellekens and Vivian Kahn, “Visitors at the Leipzig Trade Fair as a genealogical source: The example of Hungarian Jews from Huncovce 1740–1763,” Avotaynu Online 2020(5); and “Using census records for 18th-century Jewish family history: The example of Polatschek in Hunfalu (Slovakia)”, Avotaynu XXVII (2021), No. 2, 44–52. ↩
3. ³ Max Freudenthal, Leipziger Messgäste: Die Jüdischen Besucher der Leipziger Messen in den Jahren 1675 bis 1764 (Frankfurt: Kauffmann, 1928), 179, mentions Josef and Lazarus Chajes from Prague in 1702 and 1721, respectively. ↩
4. ⁴ In this article, Hungary refers to the Kingdom of Hungary before 1918, which included Slovakia. ↩
5. ⁵ The spelling of the surname varies: Polyacsek (1735), Polyaczek (1745), Polatschek (1786/87), Pollatsek (1808), Pollacsek (1820/21). ↩
6. ⁶ Before 1918, Slovakia was part of Hungary. Therefore, we have used Hungarian names. ↩
7. ⁷ The Yiddish name of the village, Unsdorf, lives on in the name of a neighborhood of Jerusalem. ↩
8. ⁸ In 1749, Queen Maria Theresa levied a tolerance tax (Taxa Tolerantialis) on Jews for the privilege of living in Hungary. She was the first to impose this levy on all Hungarian Jews. For the Tolerance Tax, see Béla Bernstein, “Die Toleranztaxe der Juden in Ungarn” in Marcus Brann and Ferdinand Rosenthal (eds.), Gedenkbuch zur Erinnerung an David Kaufmann (Breslau, 1900), 599–628. Even children (“pueri vel infantes”) had to pay the tax. ↩
9. ⁹ At irregular intervals, the Hapsburg rulers of Hungary ordered a census of Jews (Conscriptio Judaeorum) be conducted for taxation purposes. The earliest one dates from 1725–28 and the last one dates from 1848. See Henry Wellish, “18th-century Jewish Censuses in Hungary,” Avotaynu XVIII (2002), No. 2, 8–10. For the Jewish Censuses in the first half of the eighteenth century, we consulted Monumenta Hungariae Judaica Vol. VII: Conscriptiones Judaeorum Hungariae 1725–1748 (Budapest, 1963), and Vol. XVII: 1431–1770 (Budapest, 1977), https://kisebbsegkutato.tk.elte.hu/adatbazis/magyar-zsido-okleveltar. For later censuses and household registers, we consulted JewishGen. ↩
10. ¹⁰ Meir Wunder, Meorei Galicia: Encyclopedia of Galician Rabbis and Scholars, Vol. II (Jerusalem: Institute for Commemoration of Galician Jewry, 1981), column 1033-1034. ↩
11. ¹¹ Two additional books were never published, one of which survives in manuscript form at the Rae and Joseph Gann Library, Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA. ↩
12. ¹² His third book was published in Istanbul, which he reached on his way to the Holy Land. So perhaps, his visit to Tunis explains the publication of the first two books in the port city of Livorno, from which he may have embarked. ↩
13. ¹³ Chajes, Eshel Avraham: פערלי … בת מוהר"ר יצחק כהנא ראפאפורט … שהי’ אב"ד דק"ק לייפניק נכד … מהור"ר ברוך כהנא ראפאפורט … אב"ד דק"ק פירדא. He mentions that his mother Rachel is a descendant (נין) of the author of שו"ת צמח דוד. ↩
14. ¹⁴ After the approbations, he mentions his sponsors. We were able to identify one family that supported him: Rignano (רינייאנו) in Livorno. ↩
15. ¹⁵ R. Simcha Assaf (שמחה אסף), Sources on the History of Jewish Education (מקורות לתולדות החינוך בישראל), Vol. 4 (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1943), 151, thought that R. Ephraim Chajes came from Galicia. ↩
16. ¹⁶ מוהר"ר יצחק חיות זצ"ל אבי אבי אביו למוהר"ר אברהם זצ"ל אבי הרב המחבר מוהר"ר אפרים חיות. ↩
17. ¹⁷ The introduction does not mention his parents-in-law explicitly: כי אבותי ז"להה הטריפני ארבע שנים אחר חתונתי לחם חוקי, מזון ומחיה ובגדי רקמה וכל סיפוקי. Wunder, however, understood the four years of support after his marriage to refer to support from his parents-in-law, as was customary. ↩
18. ¹⁸ Carsten Wilke, Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbiner, Teil 1: Die Rabbiner der Emanzipationszeit in den deutschen, böhmishcchen und großpolnischen Ländern 1781–1871 (München: K.G. Saur, 2004), 1448. ↩
19. ¹⁹ אולי החטא גרם שלא למדתי … החדושים שחנני ה’ מנעורי עד היום הזה. … וגמרתי לחברם להדפיסם ולהפיצם בישראל. ↩
20. ²⁰ Assaf, Sources, 152. R. Ephraim Chajes notes that it was not customary in France, Italy, and Poland for boys and girls to share the same classroom. The publication of the book in Istanbul suggests that this may have been customary somewhere in the Ottoman Empire. So much is also suggested by the abridged Ladino translation, which was published there a year earlier in 1827/28. About a third of the book concerns homosexual relations, which the author claimed to be widespread in the Ottoman Empire. See Noam Sienna, A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969 (Philadelphia: Print-O-Craft Press, 2019), 136–137. ↩
21. ²¹ וחזרתי לביתי והייתי משתעש’ עם בני הי"ו ששה חדשים . ↩
22. ²² For the adoption of surnames in the Habsburg Empire, see Czakai, Nochems neue Namen; and “Between legibility, emancipation, and markers of “otherness”: The Habsburg Empire and the names of Jews,” PaRDeS 29 (2023), 81–89. DOI https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-65024. For a comparison with the adoption of surnames in Russia, see Eugene M. Avrutin, Jews and the Imperial State. Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2010). ↩
23. ²³ For a Hungarian example, see Jona Schellekens, “The first rabbis of Carei in official Hungarian sources,” Alei Zikaron 43 (2018), 72–74 [in Hebrew]. For the Jewish sources on the first rabbis of Carei, see R. Yekutiel Yehuda Greenwald (יקותיאל יהודה גרינוואלד), Sources on Jewish History (מקורות לקורות ישראל: לקורות הקהלות-ישראל במדינות סלובקיה, אונגריה, טרנסילבניה ויוגוסלביה) (Berehovo, 1934), 92. ↩
24. ²⁴ Schellekens and Kahn, “Using census records for 18th-century Jewish family history.” ↩
25. ²⁵ Monumenta Hungariae Judaica Vol. VII, 691–850, and Vol. XVII, 265–269. Of course, it is possible that there were additional Polatscheks in Hungary, whose surname was omitted from the Jewish Census. ↩
26. ²⁶ M. Steinschneider, Catalogus Librarum Hebraeorum (Berlin: Friedlander, 1852-1860), column 903, incorrectly calls the author of אשל אברהם “Ephraim Chajut (Chajjut) b. Abraham b. Isak”. ↩
27. ²⁷ Alexander Beider, Jewish Surnames in Prague (15th-18th Centuries) (Teaneck: Avotaynu, 1994), 26–27. We would like to thank Madeleine Isenberg for drawing our attention to Beider’s book. The suffix -ות instead of genitive -s is not unusual for Prague in ca. 1600. See Erika Timm, Matronymika im aschkenasischen Kulturbereich: Ein Beitrag zur Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte der europäischen Juden (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1999), 30 and 33. ↩
28. ²⁸ Abraham Leib Steiner, “The Jewish cemetery of Toponár,” Alei Zikaron 30 (2017), 24–30 [in Hebrew]: פ"נ אדם חשוב במדות, ועסקן במצות יקרות, ומקורו במשפחות רמות, שני המאורות, מצד אביו ממשפחת חיות [ובאותיות קטנות:] פאלאטשעק ומצד אמו ממשפחת ראפאפורט הידועים בכל הדורות, ה"ה הנעלה ה’ איציק במו"ה אפרים חיות, נפטר ביום ש"ק ר"ח שבט תקצ"ה ל’ ת.נ.צ.ב. ↩
29. ²⁹ Today, the village of Toponár is part of the town of Kaposvár. ↩
30. ³⁰ The 1828 Hungarian Property Tax Census is a census of individuals owning taxable property. The census listed the individuals and their taxable holdings. The Census included both Jews and non-Jews. ↩
31. ³¹ The oldest tombstone in the new cemetery dates from 1833. Greenwald, Sources, 3, writes that the old cemetery was destroyed in a catastrophic flood in late August 1813. This was the largest natural disaster ever recorded in the area (P. Hronček, B. Hrončeková Gregorová, T. Hrdý, and L. Balážovičová, “Reconstruction of the historic flood of 1813 on rivers in the mountains of the Western Carpathians (Slovakia), Hydrological Sciences Journal 69 (2024), 2356–2371). Only a few tombstones survived the flood. Greenwald, Sources, 3–4, mentions three specifically, among which the tombstone of David ben Shmuel, who died on May 3, 1795. He may be identical with David Samuel, a son of Samuel Moses and a brother of Tuschene, the paternal grandmother of R. Ephraim Chajes, as we will try to show below. According to the 1771 Jewish Census, David Samuel was born in 1740. ↩
32. ³² In 1833 a four-year old boy called Isack Monasch died in Hunfalu. He may have been her son. If this is correct, then Isack was named after his maternal grandfather. Probably Tuschene was married to David Monasch, who is mentioned in Hunfalu in 1820/1 and in 1829. If this is correct, then she also had a daughter called Leni. On September 10, 1856 Leni Monasch, aged 22 and daughter of David and Theresa, married Joseph Rosz, aged 24 and son of Michael and Caroline. Thus, Leni was born ca. 1834. ↩
33. ³³ We only found two women with that name in the Hungarian civil registration of deaths. They were first cousins. According to Alexander Beider, “Onomastic analysis of the origins of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe,” Jews and Slavs 24 (2014), 58–116, Tuschana is an old Slavic name. ↩
34. ³⁴ Ignatz Majer Pollatsek, the son of Laser, 20 years old and born in Hunfalu, married Szarel Sophia Rosenfeld on Jan. 22, 1845. She was a daughter of Simon, 19 years old and born in Ofalu. ↩
35. ³⁵ The 1869 Hungarian census calls Ephraim’s son “Ignatz Polatsek”. He was born in 1820. ↩
36. ³⁶ We would like to thank Madeleine Isenberg for drawing our attention to her tombstone. The vital registration calls her Hani Reich, daughter of József Polacsek and Zali Deutsch, wife of Jakab Reich, who died on April 19, 1910 in Gálszécs at the age of 76. ↩
37. ³⁷ Maybe the daughter M., born in 1846, is identical with Hana, the daughter of Usser Polacsek and Szura, who was born in Gálszécs in 1846. ↩
38. ³⁸ Greenwald, Sources, 1–2. ↩
39. ³⁹ Yosef Shmuel Segal, the son of the late Rabbi Moshe maybe the sacred Hebrew name of Samuel Bilnitzer, who is first mentioned in the 1774 census as the son of Moses. ↩
40. ⁴⁰ The late R. Moshe A. Z. Künstlicher drew our attention to the last will of Marcus Polatschek. ↩
41. ⁴¹ There are two dates in the ethical will. The introduction mentions the 25th of Iyyar, 5571 (= May 19, 1811) and his upcoming 59th birthday on 13 Av. Thus, he was born on July 7, 1752. At the end appears an additional date, the 24th of Sivan, 5579 (= June 17, 1819). However, this must be a mistake, because June 17, 1819 was a Thursday, whereas the will mentions a Monday. ↩
42. ⁴² Szlawe was 28 years old and was born in Hunfalu. Probably, the couple also had a son. In 1849, Marcus, the son of Joseph Deutsch, married Maria Pincus, a daughter of Isak. In the marriage record of her son, Tuschene is not mentioned by name. However, the name of her son, Marcus, suggests that she was Tuschene, the daughter of Mordechai Chajes. ↩
43. ⁴³ Szlawe is another old Slavic name. See Beider, “Onomastic analysis.” ↩
44. ⁴⁴ According to the 1771 census of Hunfalu, Lazarus Polatschek still had two single sons living with him, 21 and 18 years old, implying that they were born in ca. 1750 and in ca. 1753. The census does not mention their first names. Marcus must be the younger of the two, because it is very close to the year of birth in the ethical will. Thus, the birth year of Marcus in our previous article is incorrect and should be 1752. ↩
45. ⁴⁵ The 1781 and 1782 Tolerance Tax lists mention a man called Marcus Pol(y)acsek in Szécsény. He cannot be identical with Marcus the son of Lazar from Hunfalu, because in the 1780s the latter was still living in Hunsdorf. Perhaps, he was an uncle. We know that Abraham and Marcus had an uncle called Marcus. This uncle either died or left Hunfalu between the 1746 and 1768 census. See Schellekens and Kahn, “Using census records.” ↩
46. ⁴⁶ Many census-type listings follow a geographical order, reflecting the route taken by enumerators. ↩
47. ⁴⁷ The Jewish Census of 1820/21 also mentions Bernath Polacsek. His religious name was Baruch. He may be identical with the younger brother of Ephraim of that name, mentioned in the ethical will of his father Morechai Chajes. For Baruch’s descendants, see Benyomin Hillel Berger, “Rabbi David Pollatschek,” Alei Zikaron 50 (2018), 22–37 [in Hebrew]. ↩
48. ⁴⁸ Elias does not appear in the ethical will. However, he may have died before 1811. ↩
49. ⁴⁹ The eighteenth-century Tolerance Tax lists mention a man called Samuel Pinkus. Samuel died in 1834 at the age of 82. Thus, he was born in ca. 1752. He was probably named after his maternal grandfather Samuel Moses. In 1782, the Jewish Census lists Samuel Pinkus between [his cousins] Abraham and Markus Polyacsek. It is not clear, however, whether Ephraim Pinkus was a son of Samuel. He may have been a son of Hirschel Pinkus, who also appears in the eighteenth-century Tolerance Tax lists. ↩
50. ⁵⁰ According to the 1771 Jewish Census, Pinches Moijses was born in 1726. ↩
51. ⁵¹ State Archives in Prešov, Šariš County, Court documents (1254–1852), Partial inventory (Prešov, 2022–23) [in Slovakian], 288, 392, and 393. The inventory also mentions [Abraham’s father] Lazar Pol(y)acsek, merchant from Hunfalu, six times in the period 1756–1786, and [his brother] Izak Polatsek, merchant from Hunfalu, once in 1776. In addition, the inventory mentions Pinkas Moyses as guardian of the Jewish orphans in 1775. ↩
52. ⁵² In Regno habitat ab Anno. See LDS film # 1529697, image 412. ↩
53. ⁵³ According to the 1771 Jewish Census, however, his son Lazarus Polyacseck was in Hungary since 1740. Perhaps, his family moved from Hozelecz to Hunfalu in that year. In any case, this change of residence within Hungary took place between the 1735 and the 1745 Jewish Census. ↩
54. ⁵⁴ Edgar R. Samuel, “New light on the selection of Jewish children’s names,” Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England) 23 (1969–1970), 76–81. ↩
55. ⁵⁵ Michael Mitterauer, Traditionen der Namengebung: Namenkunde als interdisziplinäres Forschungsgebiet (Wien, Köln en Weimar: Verlag Böhlau, 2011), 82. ↩
56. ⁵⁶ Michael Mitterauer, Traditionen der Namengebung, 38–39. ↩
57. ⁵⁷ Greenwald, Sources, 14–15. ↩
58. ⁵⁸ R. Fülöp Schlesinger’s wife, Marie (מרים) Lowy (1833–1895), was a sister of Fani (חיה פיגלא) Lov (died 1899), the wife of R. Fülöp Singer (פסח זינגער), who wrote a short introduction to the book of his grandfather-in-law. The two sisters were daughters of R. József Samuel Lowy (אהרון יוסף שמואל סג"ל) and granddaughters of R. Ezechiel Nikolauer. ↩
59. ⁵⁹ Introduction to R. Yechezkel Segal, Torat Yechezkel (Pecs, 1899), 3: “When he [Yechezkel] returned to his home town … he married Schendel, the daughter of … Yitschak Fried from Unsdorf [=Hunfalu] … who was the descendant (נכד) of Yitschak Chajes, the head of the rabbinic court in Skole, Poland. ↩
60. ⁶⁰ Schellekens and Kahn, “Using census records for 18th-century Jewish family history.” ↩
61. ⁶¹ Wunder, Meorei Galicia, column 1033. ↩
62. ⁶² Schellekens and Kahn, “Using census records for 18th-century Jewish family history.” ↩
63. ⁶³ Actually, he mentions leaving “the house of my father and my son” (בית אבי ובני), raising the possibility, that his father Abraham also lived in Toponár. ↩