Friday, October 28, 2022

Re: יש לך תוטלדות הג"ר ראובן חיים קליין ומשפחתו?

לגבי הזוו"ר של בעל השנות חיים, אני שמעתי מר' בנציון קליין שליט"א (נין של בעל השנות חיים) שגר ברמת השרון (לפנים מפריס) שלו נולדו לו בנים מהזוו"ר, ואחרי עשר שנים בעל השנות חיים גירש אותה והתחתן עם מרים גרינבערגער וממנו נולדו לו כל בניו. אך מהקונטרס הזה של הרב שפירא נראה שרק מקצת מבניו נולדו לו מהזוו"ר, ולא כל בניו. איני יודע להכריע ביניהם, ואין לו שום מידע על הזוו"ר של בעל השנות חיים.
שאלות טובות. לגבי משפחת גרינבערגער, איני יודע כל כך הרבה פרטים אודותם, אבל אני מכיר חוקר אחר ושמו נתן רוזנשיין, המייל שלו: nrosen@total.net. מה שכן ידוע לי שאחותו של מרים גרינבערגער נקראת זיסל אקרמן, ואחד מצאצאיה הוא הרב חיים אקרמן שליט"א רב וראש ישיבה פה בביתר עילית.
איך אתה קשור למשפחת קליין? איפה את גר?
כנזכר לעיל, יש עוד מידע שאפשר למצוא באתר geni.com ואם אתה תתן לי הפטרים שלך, אני יכול להכניס אותך לאילן היוחסין הרחבי.
כל טוב,
ראובן חיים קליין
ביתר עילית

Kol Tuv,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

Author of: God versus Gods Lashon HaKodesh

ORCiD LinkedIN | Google Scholar | Amazon


‪On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 11:15 PM ‫זלמן ליב ווייס‬‎ <weisszalmen@gmail.com> wrote:‬
יישר כח!

ידוע לכם עוד על משפחת גרינבערגער, חותנו של ר' ראובן חיים?

ומה ידוע לכם אודות זוגתו הראשונה?

On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 6:55 AM RC Klein <anakin9000@yahoo.com> wrote:
מצו"ב קונטרס בנושא מהרב שפירא שליט"א. יש לי עוד חומר אצלי וגם באתר geni.com. מה בדיוק אתה מחפש?
כל טוב,
ראובן חיים קליין
ביתר עילית



‪On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 11:59 PM ‫זלמן ליב ווייס‬‎ <weisszalmen@gmail.com> wrote:‬
יישר כח

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

The RCK Letters (Episode 2)

With the recent passing of Aunt Miriam Mermelstein (wife of my grandfather's half-brother Armin/Shmuel Aharon Mermelstein), I decided to do some more work on the archives of my grandfather's letters that I was recently given. I spent a large part of today scanning some of the correspondence at my neighbor's office. As I mentioned in previous updates, most of the letters are written in Hungarian or German/Yiddish (in Hebrew or Latin characters). Some letters are written in English or Hebrew. Many of the rough letters are actually rough drafts that he wrote before writing the actual letter. I didn't have a chance to scan everything yet, but most of what I scanned were the postcards. There's still a whole bunch of long-form letters that I still haven't scanned (they are a bit trickier to scan, so I left them for last). Also, some of the scans didn't come out so good, so I left them out for now.
I uploaded these scans letters to Google Drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZZdx2bEQ7u4-xfa07mvwM03LabEO7JHj?usp=sharing and you can access them in PDF Format. I decided to divide them into two folders, one folder for items that are dated and one for undated items. I could have divided them in other ways (like by sender/recipient or by language), but for now I felt this would be the best way to do it.
Most of the correspondence is between RCK and his brother-in-law Armin, but there's also correspondence with RCK's sister Aunt Faige (Steg) and other half-brother Bob (Dov) Mermelstein. There's also letters between the siblings that do not involve RCK.
Today's episode focuses on two wedding invitations found in RCK's archives that happened in Israel during his stay:

The first invitation is for the wedding of Yosef Meir Glicksburg and Hinda Ayala Frankel, which occurred in Tel Aviv on January 11, 1955. The chosson Yosef Meir Glicksburg was the son of Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Glicksburg (d. 1974), who was the Chief Rabbi of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The chosson was born in 1933, making him about 22 years old when he got married. Since 1967, Rav Yosef Meir Glicksburg has been the Chief Rabbi of the Givatayim, a city near Tel Aviv. There's even a page about him on the Hebrew Wikipedia. But what does this fellow have to do with RCK? The answer is actually the Kallah, Dr. Ayala Gliksberg (who also has a page on the Hebrew Wiki), she was RCK's second cousin! RCK's grandfather Binyamin Eliezer Klein and her grandfather Yerucham Klein were brothers (sons of the Shenos Chaim). Yerucham Klein had a daughter named Miriam (probably named after the Shenos Chaim's wife) who married one Naftali Frankel from Košice, and they in turn were the parents of Hinda Ayala Frankel. (As you might know, I'm obsessed with onomastics, but I will just point out that Hinda is the Yiddish version of Ayala which refers to an animal that its quick on its hind legs). By the way, Naftali Frankel and Miriam Klein had another daughter named Esther Freidy, who married the famous Rav Mordechai Breuer (1921-2007), a great-grandson of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, who was one of the leading experts in Tanach and especially the Aleppo Codex. (He also developed a sort of Kabbalistic approach to dealing with Biblical Criticism, but we're getting off topic.) Going back to Rav Yosef Meir Glicksburg, he and his wife are mechutanim with Rav Moshe Finkel (one of the Rosh Yeshivas in the Mir until his passing in 2001 and author of בני חיל, he was the son of Rav Chaim Zev Finkel, also known as Chazap Finkel), because their daughter Tzipa Tziorah Glicksburg married Rav Aharon Finkel.

The second invitation is for the wedding of Uncle Bob (Dov) and his wife Chava (whom I believe is still alive?). It happened in Tel Aviv on June 25, 1956. Notice on the invitation that instead of listing the Chosson's parents, it mentions the Chosson's brother Mordechai Mermelstein.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please email me!

Gut Moyed,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

Author of: God versus Gods Lashon HaKodesh

ORCiD LinkedIN | Google Scholar | Amazon

Re: My condolences

By the way, in the summer I met with one Benzion Klein, who is 97 years old and lives in Ramat HaSharon. He is a cousin of my grandfather from the Klein side and grew up in Munkatch. He remembers my grandfather and your father (whom he called Shmeel) from before the war and he said that they were the most friendly members of the family. I tried to explain to Benzion that my grandfather and Shmeel were only half brothers and had different last names, but he didn't care or maybe understand what I was saying. The way he knew it, they were brothers.
R' Benzion also mentioned that he remembers my grandfather visiting him in Paris in the 1950's and I've since found documentation of his visit in those archives.
Does your brother Moishe have a cell phone number? Does he get text messages?

Gut Moyed,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

Author of: God versus Gods Lashon HaKodesh

ORCiD LinkedIN | Google Scholar | Amazon



On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 10:09 PM Steven Mermelstein <shloime1@yahoo.com> wrote:
Thank you,
looking forward to seeing letters.
Moshe does not have email.
I'll try to remember to tell him you were thinking of him.

On Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 01:46:50 PM EDT, RC Klein <yeshivish@gmail.com> wrote:


I heard about your mother's petirah right before Yom Kippur and I wasn't able to call you before. But I wanted to say המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך אבלי שאר ציון וירושלים.
Does your brother have email? I'd like to send a message to him as well...
By the way, I was recently given a whole cache of letters from my grandfather's personal archives and many of them were written to your father. In the near future, I hope to scan these letters and type them up and make them available online.

Kol Tuv,

Reuven Chaim Klein

Beitar Illit, Israel

Author of: God versus Gods Lashon HaKodesh

ORCiD LinkedIN | Google Scholar | Amazon