April Fools! Tracing the History of Dreidel Among Neo-Traditionalists and Neo-Hebraists

These explanations [for playing with the sevivon] are far from reality. Why do no sources dating from the Maccabean period, and only in the last few hundred years, mention playing sevivon? If “Hakhamim” decreed it, or it was the custom in ancient times, of if “Beis Din shel Hashmonaim” established it, why is it not mentioned for all these generations?

Yitzhak Tesler, “Ha-Dreidel (Sevivon) be-Chanukah: Mekoroseha, Ta’amyah, u-Minhagyah,” Or Yisrael, 14 (1999), 50.

I have seen a toy in London called a Teetotum. It is exactly like a Hanucah Trendel with English letters instead of Hebrew on it. But why it is called by its peculiar name, no one can tell me. Of course, the name comes from the letter T, which is inscribed on one of the four sides of the toy; thus T Totum or T takes all. This reminds me of the noted Latin epigram addressed by the boy to the twirling Teetotum Te, totum, amo, amo, te, Teetotum.

Leopold Dukes to Leopold Löw, September 1864.

Only two mitzvot of Chanukah are mentioned in Rabbinic sources: lighting candles and reciting the full Hallel. Over the centuries, many other practices came to be associated with Chanukah. Some are unique to specific geographic regions, while others saw universal adoption. One that is lesser-known today is the custom of Venetian Jews to travel on gondolas, rowing through the city, and greeting each house with a blessing and “a merry Hebrew” carol. Or the custom in Avignon, France, recorded in 1779, that women were permitted in the men’s section of the synagogue during the eight days of Chanukah.[1] Many Jews accept these as the evolution of Jewish practice without requiring any sacred reasons; others are unwilling to do so. These neo-traditionalists locate the practices within the rubric of Jewish ritual and even claim historical legitimacy when there is none. The dreidel is an example of this phenomenon.

The dreidel toy is not Jewish in origin. Instead, dreidel is the ancient game of teetotum that remained popular until at least the twentieth century. Teetotum, at its most basic, is a four-sided dice with a stick in the middle. While some versions use dots or numbers to denote players’ actions, letters are the most commonplace. The letters vary based upon the vernacular, with the name teetotum from the Latin version of T (totum-all), and the remaining letter instructions, A (aufer-take), N (nihil-nothing), D (depone-put down). Even the Hebrew letters are merely a transliteration of the German version: G (ganz-all), H (halb-half), N (nischt-nothing), and S (schict-put).

Figure 1 Detail: Pieter Bruegel, Children’s Games, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Teetotum is documented in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum displays Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525/30-1569) masterpiece, “Children’s Games” (1560). Another of his works in the museum is the “Tower of Babel,” which is the subject of a forthcoming post. Children’s Games depicts over two hundred children playing eighty different games. Bruegel’s encyclopedic pictorial catalog of games is unique in the annals of art. A small child is at the bottom left corner, her arms raised, holding a teetotum. (See here for a detailed view and here for Amy Orrock’s excellent article, “Homo ludens: Pieter Bruegel’s Children’s Games and the Humanist Educators,” discussing the purpose and interpretation of the painting within Erasmus’s views on the benefits of play.) Teetotum also appears in the list of games of Bruegel’s near contemporary French author François Rabelais’s (d. 1553) satirical work, Gargantua. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies it as “a favorite Victorian toy.” It appears in well-known English literature such as Lewis Carol’s Through the Looking Glass, where the White Queen (then a white sheep) asks Alice, “Are you a child, or a teetotum.” Other examples are Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, Edgar Allen Poe’s The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as “finfoefom” (based on Joyce’s unique lettering system).[2]

Despite the widespread awareness of teetotum in Europe from at least the 1500s, the earliest Jewish sources connecting it with Chanukah date to the nineteenth century. Other Chanukah games boast much earlier recognition. For example, R Yosef Yuspa Nördlinger Hahn (1570-1637) mentions chess, tic-tac-toe, cards, and possibly backgammon.[3] Likewise, a 1638 herem banned cards and dice on Chanukah, although chess was excepted.[4] In subsequent Jewish literature, card playing has the most mentions, but that is due to their moral and ethical concerns rather than approval. None of these mention dreidel or any similar game.

The lack of historicity and mesorah was no barrier for 19^th-century rabbis, nearly all Hassdic, from asserting Jewish relevance and stating that it is among the customs that qualify as minhag Yisrael Torah. R. Tzvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov is perhaps the most well-known example. In his Bnei Yissaschar, he contrasts the operation of the dreidel with the other Jewish play toy, the Purim gragger. The dreidel is activated from the top, symbolic of the heavenly source of the Chanukah miracle. The gragger is turned from the bottom because the catalysts of the miracle were Mordechai and Ester.

Others explain the symbolism of the dreidel’s letters, נ, ג, ה, ש. According to one explanation, these allude to the two rabbinically sanctioned mitzvot that we have on Chanukah, נרות שמונה (candles all eight nights) and הלל גמר (the complete Hallel). Others note the gematria (numerical value) of the letters, which correspond to the same gematria as משיח (the Messiah). Others still link the letters with גשנה the city Yosef secured for his family in Egypt that appears in the weekly Torah reading that coincides with Chanukah.[5]

None of these, however, locate the dreidel within the Chanukah story, and for that, we need to wait until the early twentieth century. According to this modern origin story, after the Greeks prohibited Torah study, Jewish teachers and students continued to do so surreptitiously in caves. When the authorities discovered these groups, they quickly switched from studying to playing dreidel.

The first appearance of this account appears in a collection of customs published in 1917 in Saint Louis. R. Avraham Eliezer Hirshovitz (1859-1924), originally from Kovno (today Kaunas), Lithuania, and in 1908 emigrated to the United States and was the preacher of Shaary Torah and taught children in Pittsburg, PA.[6] In 1892, he published the first edition of his book on Jewish customs, Minhagei Yeshurun, in Vilna. It includes three haskamos (approbations). The only discussion regarding Chanukah is the source of the name. Seven years later, he published an expanded second edition in Vilna, with 280 customs and now eight additional approbations (he omitted one from the first edition), most notably one from R Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor. R Spektor caveats that he only had time to read a few lines but that “it is a nice work.” Another approbation is from the maskil, Kalman Schulman.[7] We are unaware of any other religious book that bears his approbation. Hirshovitz provides that he obtained “many other approbations and letters of support” that he did not include. Neither of these editions discusses dreidel.

In 1899, Hirshovitz published a further expanded version in Yiddish in Vilna. By then, he had emigrated to the United States. He discusses game playing on Chanukah for the first time, although only cards. He explains that some play cards as it is like war, evoking the military victory over the Greeks. Nonetheless, he disapproves of playing cards, noting that cards are non-Jewish (he does not mention any halakhic reasons or the numerous Jewish sources that explicitly prohibit cards and other forms of gambling on Chanukah).

Finally, in the first American edition, published in Saint Louis in 1918, now with approximately 500 customs, Hirshovitz addresses the custom of playing dreidel. He does not mention any of the Hassidic explanations. Instead, he tells the story of the dreidel and how it was used to hoodwink the Greeks.[8] Despite the complete lack of evidence and the absurdity of the Greeks falling for such a simplistic and completely unrealistic ruse, Hirshovitz’s narrative quickly entered the Jewish collective consciousness. For example, in the collection of customs, Pardes Eliezer devotes an entire chapter to dreidel and explains “that despite the fact dreidel doesn’t appear in the sifrei ha-achronim it does not prove it is a recent custom.” Rather, “kama hokerim” (many scholars) describe it as “an ancient custom, dating to the Hasmonic period,” and then uses Hirshovitz’s story. Or, in the book Minhag Yisrael Torah, Hirshovitz’s narrative is “the simple” explanation.[9] Today, if one does a cursory search on the internet, there are articles from the Aish.com website regarding dreidel entitled “A Serious Game,” or on Chabad.org that describes Hirshovitz’s rationale as “the Classic” and “common” reason, and many others.

Not all were so taken with Hirshovitz’s work. R Shmuel Kraus published a highly critical article in Kiryat Sefer in 1933 that highlights numerous methodological issues with Hirshovitz’s work.[10] While Kraus notes the book was sloppily published with omissions and other defects, he reserves the bulk of his article is devoted to Hirshovitz’s hallucinatory customs and corresponding sources. While the article does not discuss the dreidel, it criticizes Hirshovitz for identifying sources for the “custom” to trick people on April 1, the word “daven” that is identified as either Aramaic or from the English word Dawn and provides a reason why in Europe a Bar Mitzvah boys give a “derasha,” but in the United States a “speech.” Hirshovitz sometimes tries to adopt a more substantive and historically defensible explanation, even citing an article from JQR regarding the Magen David.[11]

While Hirshovitz’s explanation is unsupportable, one hypothesis is worth mentioning. Israel Abrams, in an article that initially appeared in The American Hebrew and republished in his collection Festival Studies, posits that Teetotum:

It is a very ancient game, known to the Greeks and Romans. But why was it specially favoured on Hanucah? No answer has ever been given to this natural question. It may be that the Teetotum was regarded as a very innocent form of gambling, if that be not altogether too harsh a word to use. Many pious people never played cards or any other game of chance, but they may have felt that so simple a game as this was lawful enough. But I can now supplement this with a new suggestion. Teetotum is still in parts of Ireland the indoor recreation of the peasantry at Christmas tide. Now it is well known that such games seldom change their seasons. I should wonder if the Teetotum was a favourite toy elsewhere at Christmas. If so, the Jews may have transferred it to Hanucah. For they never invented their own games, except those of intellectual species such as Hanucah Ketowes [riddles]. The Ketowes even gave rise to a folk proverb: “Zechus Owes, Kein Ketowes,” i.e., I suppose merit of the fathers is not the solution of life’s riddle. Indeed, the moral of Hanucah, is after all, that Judaism must rely on present effort of the children as well as on the past merits of their sires, if it is to remain in any true sense a “Feast of Light.”[12]

The Case of the Origin Story of the Creation of the Word Sevivon

Another mythical story associated with dreidel occurs with the origin of the modern Hebrew word for the toy, sevivon. The most well-known history is found in the autobiography of Eliezer Ben Yehuda’s son, Itamar ben Avi (1882-1943), Im Shahar Atzmotenu, published in 1961. Rochel Berlov, in her article “Me Hidush ha-milah ‘Sevivon’?”, however, demonstrated that the term long predated Itamar. (See also Ester Goldenberg’s article).  David Yeshayahu Silberbusch coined it and first appeared in Hayyim Zelig Slonimski’s journal Ha-Tzefirah on December 24, 1897 (See Zerachyah Lict’s comprehensive article regarding Slonimski’s challenge to the miracle of the oil and Marc Shapiro’s subsequent discussion). A week and a half later, Silberbusch used the word as the title of a satirical article, and it subsequently regularly appeared in the newspaper. In 1923, Levin Kipnis published his now famous song, sevivon, sov, sov, sov. Itamar wrote his autobiography when he was fifty, and it was published posthumously. He tells the story of how

one day, when he and his family were preparing to go on a trip outside the city, outside the wall, I suddenly jumped towards my parents: Mother! Mother! I found a sevivon for Chanukah. My mother hugged and kissed me with admiration. “How beautiful is the word you created, my son!” This is how the word sevivon was created and became standard for decades among all Jewish children. I, the writer of these memories and the one who created it when I was a child, among countless other words that are now incorporated into our language, but [not everyone] recognizes who created them.

Despite this story, the word does not appear in any newspapers his father, Eliezer Ben Yehudah, edited. Moreover, Ben Yehudah did not include it in his monumental dictionary of modern Hebrew. Nonetheless, Itamar’s story was retold countless times in children’s books and treatments of Itamar (and some still think the issue remains unsettled). Zohar Shavit’s assessment of Itamar’s book, which can be equally applied to Hirshovitz’s dreidel origin story, aptly sums up the willingness to accept such tall tales:

Above all, he understood the importance of creating an interesting and fascinating story, apparently even at the expense of historical credibility… It is quite clear that in some of his personal stories, Ben-Avi prefers the interesting story over fidelity to the facts.

Notes:

[1] Recorded in Israel Abrahams, “Hanucah in Olden Times,” in Festival Studies Being Thoughts on the Jewish Year (Philadelphia, 1906), 146, 152.

[2] Joseph Shipley, The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 411; John P. Anderson, Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah (Universal Publishers, 2008), 211-12.

[3] Yosef Kosman, Noheg ka-Tzon Yosef, (Tel Aviv, 1979), 188 n.12; Herman Pollack, Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands (1648-1806): Studies in Aspects of Daily Life (MIT Press, 1971) 181, 330n184.

[4] Minhagei DK”K Vermisia, Yitzhak Zimmer, ed., vol. 1 (Mefal Toras Hakhmei Ashkenaz, 1988), 238-39.

[5] See R. Yitzhak Tesler, “Ha-Dreidel (Sevivon) be-Chanukah: Mekoroseha, Ta’amyah, u-Minhagyah,” Or Yisrael, 14 (1999), 50-60 (collecting these and other sources).

[6] For biographical and complete bibliographical information, including a discussion of variant versions, see Yosef Goldman, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (Brooklyn, 2006) n583&622 (see here and here for our review of this work).

[7] For biographical information, see Hillel Noah Steinschneider, Ir Vilna, vol. 2, Mordechai Zalkin, ed. (Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2002), 182-83.

[8] Avraham Hirshovitz, Otzar Kol Minhagei Yeshurun (St. Louis, 1918), 57. Hirshovitz cites “HaRav Ziv” as his source. But otherwise, it provides no information regarding this person. Two authors from that period use “Ziv,” Yehoshua ben Aba Ziv, who wrote a book of songs and a fictional work in Yiddish on the life of a Yeshiva student. The book of songs, Asifas Shirim: Al Mo’adei ha-Shana (Vilna, 1875), 13-15, includes a song for Chanukah but does not mention dreidel. The other possibility is Nehemiah Shmuel Libowitz, who used the pseudonym “Ziv.” Libowitz was a contemporary of Hirshovitz in America, and although we have not discovered any evidence, it’s possible they met in the United States. That may account for Hirshovitz’s inclusion of the dreidel story in his U.S. edition. Nonetheless, none of Libovitz’s published works include Hirshovitz’s Dreidel story, which includes the book Herod and Agrippa, which touches upon the Hashmonim.

[9] Kollel Damesek Eliezer, Pardes Eliezer, Hanukah, vol. 2 (Machon Damesek Eliezer, Brooklyn, 2004), 650-51; Yosef Lewy, Minhag Yisrael Torah, vol. 3 (Brooklyn, 1997), 216. Gavriel Zinner  however, in his extensive discussion of Chanukah customs and dreidel in his Neta Gavriel, does not mention Hirshovitz’s reason.

[10] Shmuel Kraus, “A.Y. Hirshovitz, Otzar kol Minhagei Yeshurun,” in Kiryat Sefer 11,3 (1934), 311-12.

[11] See Hirshovitz, Otzar Kol Minhagei Yeshurun, 4 (April fools), 28 (speech versus derasha), 88 (JQR).

[12] Abrahams, “Hanucah,” 154-55.

The Twice Told Tale of R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz and the Porger[1]

Moshe Haberman

Moshe Haberman currently lives in Los Angeles and is a businessman. Originally from New York, he learned in Brisk and publishes the Torah journal Chitzei Giborim.

Introduction

The only Halachic sefer[2] published in the lifetime of R’ Yonasan Eybeshuts was the ספר כרתי ופלתי which is a פירוש on Shuchan Aruch Yoreh Deah, dealing with issues of treifos, basar b’chalav, taaruvos, etc. The sefer was published in 1763, a year before his death in 1764 in Altona, which at that time was in the dominion of the King of Denmark.

In his preface to כרתי ופלתי, R’ Yonasan explains that he had already written other seforim, including Urim Vtumin, B’nei Ahuva, and Ya’aros Dvash. However due to the difficult situation he found himself in over the controversies regarding Kameos ascribed to him, that were allegedly Sabbatean in nature, he felt it was impolitic to publish his works earlier in his lifetime. He also shied away from getting the approbations customary upon the publication of a work, and כרתי ופלתי was published without any haskamos.

Despite the seriousness of the Sabbatean allegations, there is no doubt that he was considered to be a genius in Torah, and his influence over his many students was immense. His works are widely used by later generations of Halachic decisors; in many halachic issues, his views are considered normative.

In סוף סימן ס’ה, which is focused on the issur of Gid Hanasheh, the “displaced” nerve that is not allowed to be eaten, he discusses a story illustrative of how difficult the removal of the nerve can be, ie. Porging. There was someone considered to be a Talmud Chochom and expert in porging that claimed that the nerve that the general practice to remove was in actuality the wrong one, and he was being taken seriously in the German communities. When he came to Prague, he met with R’ Yonasan, who was the acknowledged Posek in this field, and (as R’ Yonasan relates the story) he was told by R’ Yonasan that he was wrong, the nerve that this expert was referencing was only found in male animals and not in female animals. R’ Yonasan showed him in the Semag[3] that Gid Hanashe applies to males and females. Apparently this expert accepted this authority and stopped his agitation.

The problem with this is that there is no such סמ”ג. The סמ”ג does not mention anything about males or females in his section on Gid Hanashe at all.

Worse, due to the fact that the סמ”ג is a sefer that counts and expounds on the 613 Mitzvos, many understood the structure of the סמ”ג to be similar to other Sifrei Hamtizvos (such as the Chinuch) where there is a listing of who the Mitzva applies to. Therefore, it was understood that what R’ Yonasan was actually saying was that since the Mitzva applies to male and female people, it should also apply to male and female animals.

This is a strange logic to say the least. It almost seems that he made a mistake where he fundamentally does not understand the issues.

This was the conclusion of R’ Yechezkel Feivel in his sefer, Toldos Adam[4] that R’ Yonason Eybeshutz just made a mistake and that mistakes just sometimes happen, and he goes on to discuss a number of mistakes that he found in Rabbinic literature.

In his article on this subject, R’ Shnayer Leiman[5] lists a number of Maskilim that used the list of mistakes that are mentioned in Toldos Adam to undermine the authority of the rabbinical leadership, stating surprise how one that studies these texts day and night could possibly make such a grave error, one that a child should be able to spot.

Many other authorities discuss this issue. Some take the approach that an emendation is needed, and that the reference is meant to be to a different sefer with a similar acronym such as Semak[6] or possibly Behag.[7]

Most prominently among these rabbinic authorities, the Chasam Sofer[8] grapples with this issue. He also seems to understand the issue as described, that the סמ”ג does make mention of males and females, however referring to male and female people. He also contemplates the possibility that since the proof that R’ Yonason provided was not correct, maybe we should be careful and not eat the other nerve as well.

Based on this question the Chasam Sofer states that as a general rule men and women are included in any מצות לא תעשה as there is no reason to exclude them, however when there is a reason to exclude women, there would need to be some kind of extra לימוד to include them. Therefore if the nerve is particular to the male animal then that would serve as a reason to exclude women, and there would need to be a לימוד to include them, which we do not have.

I believe that the proper understanding of the Chasam Sofer requires one to look at the source of the reasoning behind why the Gid Hanashe is proscribed in the first place. Yaakov was fighting with the angel of Esav, his brother, and his nerve was displaced due to a blow from that angel. The Torah then states, therefore B’nei Yisroel do not eat the Gid Hanashe (עַל־כֵּ֡ן לֹֽא־יֹאכְל֨וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־גִּ֣יד הַנָּשֶׁ֗ה אֲשֶׁר֙ עַל־כַּ֣ף הַיָּרֵ֔ךְ עַ֖ד הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה כִּ֤י נָגַע֙ בְּכַף־יֶ֣רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֔ב בְּגִ֖יד הַנָּשֶֽׁה). If this nerve was only in males (animals and people), it would make sense that women would be excluded, as the whole reasoning has nothing to do with them.

This logic was disputed by R’ Shlomo Kluger[9] for a couple of reasons. One, he doesn’t believe that the type of logic is appropriate to apply to R’ Yonason, who would have explained his thought process more clearly, and second, the logic of the Chasam Sofer should also apply to Shabbos, for example, as it is a Mitzvas Aseh with a set time, which as a general rule women are excluded from, women should not be included in the negative prohibitions of Shabbos without a limud, based on the principle explained by the Chasam Sofer. Especially as in the prohibition regarding Shabbos it also says “speak to the Bnei Yisroel” why would we not exclude the women?

In 1930 in a publication from Chicago known as Hapardes[10], there was an article written by R’ Shlomo Michoel Neches of Los Angeles. He writes that in his possession (אצלי) he has a first print of the כרתי ופלתי, and R’ Yonasan, the author, emends the סמ”ג to סה”נ and then writes Seder Hilchos Nikkur. It is not entirely clear which Sefer this refers to, as there is no sefer of that exact name.

This answer was picked up by the Pardes Yosef[11], and it appeared to be the final word on the matter. As a matter of clarity, this answer rings true as to what the author’s original intent was, for the following reasons;

1. This “expert” that came to Prague appeared to be satisfied with the answer given to him by R’ Yonason. It is doubtful that someone that went through all that trouble would accept a source that is non-existent, or logic that appears to be dubious.

2. It is clear that R’ Yonasan himself was not the one that prepared the text for printing. It was a student named R’ Ahron Katz[12] .I have in my possession a 1763 Altona edition, and there are many annotations that would point out where there is a good question or a good answer. Here is an example:

It is highly unlikely that R’ Yonasan himself would write in his own sefer “good answer”.

Rabbi Neches was born in Jerusalem and came to Los Angeles in 1910. He was the Rabbi of the famous Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights (now listed on the national register of historic places) and was the founder of what is now Sharei Tfilah, a shul in the Hancock park area of Los Angeles. He was a collector of seforim and he published articles in Torah journals.

When I moved to Los Angeles it became a mission of mine to track down this volume of the כרתי ופלתי with emendations in R’ Yonasan’s own hand. I spoke with those that had attempted to find this sefer and had been unsuccessful. Apparently Rabbi Neches’s collection was auctioned off after his death and parts of it were donated to the Jewish Federation. No records of this volume were found.

I was able to track down one of the old librarians of the Federation and she told me that most of what they had went to AJU, but she did remember there were boxes of notebooks and other items that were never cataloged. I went to the AJU library and indeed they had boxes that appeared to be never opened. I spent an afternoon going through everything they had, and alas, no כרתי ופלתי.

However, I did find a handwritten catalog of the seforim that Rabbi Neches had in his collection, it was hard to tell if there were more pages due to the degraded condition, however there was no Kreiti Upleiti listed. Not only that but I started to notice that there were no first prints or older seforim on the list. It appeared to be that he was primarily collecting seforim that were printed contemporaneously.

This got me thinking, what if he never had it in his collection? Maybe he saw it in someone else’s collection? There weren’t too many seforim collectors in Los Angeles in the 1920’s but maybe someone had it in his possession as a family heirloom. I decided to look at the academic libraries in California and see if they had a 1763 edition of the Kreiti Uplaiti. With the help of R’ Yaakov Yitzchak Miller, we found it in the Theodore E. Cummings Collection in UCLA[13].

Just as advertised, the Shaar Blat showed the signature of R’ Yonasan Eybushutz, and the emendation was there in siman 65. However, something was wrong. The signature was from R’ Yonasan Halevy Eybeshutz of Leshitz. The author of כרתי ופלתי wasn’t a Levi, nor was he from Leshitz.

This volume wasn’t the personal property of the author of כרתי ופלתי, who fixed an unintentional error, it was the property of an entirely different person, albeit with the same name, that lived 150 years later.

This information, that Rabbi Neches provided was wrong, and therefore the issue of R’ Yonason’s mistake was back in play, was made public a few years back[14], and it would appear that we are back to square one, that this apparent mistake has other potential answers, including that of the Chasam Sofer.

Is it possible that Rabbi Neches simply made a mistake? It did not appear likely to me as it is pretty clear what it says, and he would know that R’ Yonasan, the author, was not a Levi.

Furthermore, in the private collection of Dr. Steven Weiss, there is a sefer, Shaar Yonason written by R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz of Leshits, that was acquired from the collection of Rabbi Neches, and it has the distinctive binding that Rabbi Neches would put on his seforim, so Rabbi Neches clearly knew of that there was another R’ Yonasan Halevi Eybesutz of Leshitz.(See Appendix B)

Rabbi Neches was right.

Rabbi Neches did not make a mistake. Incredibly, this particular volume that was owned by Rabbi Yonasan Halevi Eybeshutz of Leshitz, was also owned by Rabbi Yonason Eybeshutz, the author of כרתי ופלתי.

The odds would appear to be stacked against this, however if you look at the Shaar Blatt of the volume, reproduced here you can see two distinct handwritings, both say “Yonason Eybeshutz”, one appear to be more elongated and cursive and the other more rounded and of an older type, where each letter was not formed in one continuous stream.

Towards the top middle you can see under the first signature reproduced here

And on the left side center you can see a very different autograph, reproduced here

I was able to obtain with the kind assistance of R’ Shnayer Leiman images of signatures that have been verified to be R’ Yonasan Eybeshutz (see Appendix A), and if you put them together, the conclusion is inescapable.

From a receipt for money received that is verified to be R’ Yonason Eybeshutz, the author. (Appendix A)

From the Shaar Blatt of the כרתי ופלתי in UCLA.

This is clear evidence that this volume was the personal copy of the author himself.

Now let’s turn to the emendation, reproduced here

The letters are the rounder letters that are consistent with the author’s writing than the angular writing of the other R’ Yonason Eybeshutz.

It turns out that my thought process in tracking down this volume was actually wrong. The Cummings collection in UCLA was not donated by a local collector, it was actually purchased in 1963 from Israel, from the defunct publishing firm of Bamberger and Wahrman.[15] Mrs. Cummings merely footed the bill for the acquisition in honor of her husband.[16] I corresponded with Arnold Band, who was in charge of the acquisition, and he confirmed that it only made it to Los Angeles in 1963, and he had personal knowledge that the Kreiti Upleiti was part of the acquired collection. As Rabbi Neches moved to Los Angeles in 1910 and his article was published in 1931, he must have been working off of memory or notes that he took from when he saw it in Israel.

The only issue with that is the language Rabbi Neches used in the article, which that it was in his possession (אצלי), which it clearly wasn’t.

Sefer Hilchos Nikkur

There are a number of candidates for this sefer. Although there are no seforim with this exact title, Leiman[17] makes a persuasive case that the reference is to a 1577 volume printed in Cracow with the title הלכות הניקור , with the section title of סדר הניקור . With the conflation of the two titles, this is probably what R’ Yonason is referring to. The annotations were made by Rabbi Zvi Bochtner, who states that he consulted with Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Rema, on his conclusions.[18]

This is a sefer that is unusual in that it is highly focused on one area of halacha, annotated by someone that wrote no other sefer and is not a well-known Rav, yet has authority. This sefer would be familiar to those that were in the practical business of porging, however would be unknown to the general learned public. The Rema’s endorsement, of course as the Posek of the German communities would be accepted by the expert as dispositive.

Conclusion

Despite the many twists and turns of this tale, it appears that R’ Yonason Eybeshutz did not make a mistake. The person that prepared the manuscript for printing made an understandable error due to the very unique nature of this particular sefer, and misunderstood which sefer the author was referencing, and subsequently the author himself fixed the issue. Rabbi Neches also did not make a mistake, although some confusion still exists how he actually saw this volume. To use the phrase that Rabbi Neches wrote in his article regarding his discovery of the emendation in R’ Yonason’s own hand, it is a mitzva to publicize this fact.

Appendix A

Appendix B