This is where I hope we can exchange important information and thoughts regarding minhag, Jewish thought and German Jewish history. These are all topics that I enjoy and have had some exposure to.
There are some excellent sites in the Frum blogosphere that handle these subjects with very capable academic authorship. I don’t have much to offer over them. I do have, though, a following of devotees that are looking for information and thought provoking topics presented in a space that shall remain safe from the broader community of bloggers and trolls – where respectful dialogue will be encouraged and the tone will be kept positive.
I especially do not open the blog to “Rabbonim Bashing”. For reasons I think are obvious, but also because I want this to be a welcoming safe place to spend time and not wind up in cyber mud. (My thoughts on cyber-lashon hara here.)
Towards this ideal, I hope to avoid the real hot-button issues. We will leave those to the big guys. (We will talk about TIDE though, that is not supposed to be a “hot-button” issue….)
There are places online to find discussion of Minhag as well as Hirschian thought. This blog will have a unique angle born out of the members and friends of the Kehilla itself.
There will be no set order of rules regarding how words are transliterated, which words are capitalized, and when I will assume the reader knows Hebrew well and when I don’t. Spelling and grammar will be predictably off too. Accuracy and attention to details will be weak. But the content will be interesting…at least to a select few. Thanks for reading.
Hello, there, I write to you from Israel. I was just wondering when your Rabbonim and Chazonim stopped wearing canonicals, as Rav Hirsch and the other German Rabbis did? And why?
Great question. I intend to contact 2 Frankfurt mispalelim this week to inquire. The chazan clearly was wearing them as the well known picture of Chazan Pesachovitz shows.
The inclusion of these garments was Hirsch’s idea, and he received criticism from his detractors to the right. In fact it has been pointed out that the davening in the non-austrit shul (Borenplatz) was more traditional and original than the IRG!
Best,
Please see reply below from Rabbi Kenneth Aumann whose father ,amush, is a yelid Frankfurt.
“It just so happens that Dr. Judith Bleich, (wife of Rabbi J. David Bleich) just wrote a very interesting article in the latest issue of Tradition Magazine on the subject, and she deals with Frankfurt. You would no doubt enjoy reading it. In it she mentions that Rav Horowitz refused to wear the canonicals. My father recalls the same thing – I didn’t ask him just now, but I remember him telling me this some years ago.”