Part 4: German Names and Shaving Beards

If you look into names which the people have, or at least had, you find all these names like Wolf, Zalman, Lipa, Zissel, Zuskind, Zelig, Zeligman - these are all old German names…Yiddish names, or French forms of those names. The same with surnames. So many people have the name of “Deutch”. This gives you a 100% indication of where they came from. The name “Ashkenazi” is a very common name. Some rarer names such as “Allemand” or a name like “Todesco” - all of these are indications that these people come from Germany. Even if you do not go according to explicit German names like these, you find German roots to other surnames that are so common among Eastern European Jews such as “Ginsburg” (a town in Bavaria), “Auerbach” - which is a common Polish name such as Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach from Yerushalayim, Rav Meir Auerbach of Kalish - how did they get the name “Auerbach”? Auerbach is a little town near Nuremberg. We find the names “Hayberin” or “Halperin” - this is Heilbronn, a town in Wurtenburg, West Germany. We find the name “Wertheimer”, which is very common among Hungarian Jews. Wertheim is also a Franconian town. We find “Katzenellenbogen” - a very very common name…again, this is a town in the Rhineland. An extremely common like “Shapiro” or “Spiro” - this is Speyer. “Frankel” is Franconia (Fränkel or Fraenkel). The name “Epstein”, such as the Aruch HaShulchan and many others…this is a very famous family, they come from Epstein, a town in Southern Germany. A famous name such as “Landau”, this was the Nodeh BeYehuda’s last name, and is a town near Worms. All of these names force us to realize where these people came from.

And yet, it is very natural and people sometimes have differences in culture. After all, minhagim have changed, music has changed, habits have changed, and they developed a certain Polish identity which is different. We find that the Yekkes would call the Polish Jews “Ostjuden”, so we find that they struggled culturally with each other, here and there… sometimes in a joking way, and unfortunately sometimes in a less joking way, but this should not be a part of our life. It should not be so…we are all the same, we are siblings.

Sometimes there were halachic arguments, polemics, as we discussed before. As we said, the Maharshal debated what was right and wrong. We find an interesting expression by one who was very famous among the Hungarian Jews, and this is the Chasam Sofer. He was from Frankfurt. He left Frankfurt at the age of 20, but all the Hungarians believe he is one of theirs, and it is true…because he inspired them, and he caused what Rav Yaakov Pollack did in Poland, he did the same to Hungary. He changed the whole spiritual face of Hungary by creating an enormous yeshiva movement in Hungary. At times, he was troubled by people accusing his “German” people (“yekkes”). In his teshuvos, he stands up for the nusach hatefilah, for the minhagim, etc. Once he was challenged by a Hungarian Rav about the habit of German Jews shaving their beards. To this Hungarian rabbi, that was a terrible, terrible sin, to shave one's beard. Of course we are only talking through doing so by kosher means…not with a razor, but with powder, or scissors, or something. He answered him with such Frankfurter shtoltzkeit, with such pride, as follows: “That you have a lot of mussar to give us German Jews, OK, you are a holy man and saintly man… It is true that some minhagim around the world have gone down and have not been kept properly, and for that, you really deserve a yashar koach for criticizing the really incorrect things. However, this that you challenge and criticize the people who shave their beards, I do not know what you are making such a big fuss about. Our fathers have conducted themselves in this manner, and there was a cause for it. I will tell you what it was. During the Crusades, we were forced to hide our Jewish identity and had problems with parnasah, so this was a must. Those that fled to Poland did not need this because they were more friendly to Jews and did not care if Jews wore a beard or not. But the Jews in Germany, seeing that they had problems, they had no choice but to shave their beard. This that you have expressed yourself against those that shave their beards is such a small minor “sin”, that this is not considered a sin at all, chas v’shalom, chalila v’chas! He who says so will, without a doubt, be required to give an accounting and will be punished! I could have said something against Polish Jews, however, all of you are tzadikim (righteous).” The Chasam Sofer himself says that beards are for people who sit and learn and do not have business, commercial, or parnasah needs.