Talk:Baal Shem Tov family tree

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I am a descendant of the R. Israel ben Eliezer. He is my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and YES I CAN PROVE IT! My mother's mother's father's mother's mother is on this! http://www.tovste.info/Personalities/Besht_Descendants.pdf. Sarah is my great-great-great-grandmother, so, could I possibly add on his later descendants on to this?

Nachas on your family relationship with the Besht! This page isn't about describing every single person who is a descendant. It is not meant to be a complete family tree. It is merely designed to document the key members who have Wiki pages devoted to them. That way you can see what the family relationships are without taking up valuable space in the articles about them.--Klezmer (talk) 02:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sheina Rachel - Correction

The Baal Shem Tov's son, R. Tsvi Hirsh of Pinsk, is shown having one daughter, Sheina Rachel, who married R. Moshe Zev Auerbach. This is the indeed the standard version, but it is an erroneous invention of hasty genealogists.

Until relatively recently (unfortunately I have no precise dates), there were only two sources that refered to R. Hirsh's daughter(s): Zikaron Tov (by Y. Landau), which mentions R. Naftali Tsvi of Tiberias as the son of Sheina Rachel, but her husband is not named, and another source, I do not remember which, gives the name of R. Tsvi of Pinsk's son-in-law as R. Moshe Zev Auerbach. So, it was decided (I presume by Y. Alfasi in HaHasidut) that R. Moshe Zev Auerbach was Sheina Rachel's husband and R. Naftali Tzvi's father. Vunder, in Elef Margaliot, further complicates the matter, as he is aware of the true identity of Sheina Rachel's husband, R. Yaakov Maneles. His source is probably Birkat Aharon by Hoyzman. He concludes, therefore, that R. Yaakov was her second husband whom she married after the death of her first husband in 1839. According to the inscription on R. Yaakov's tombstone, as copied in said Birkat Aharon, however, he died in Kislev 5594, that is 1833 or 1834. Some sources (as cited in Heikhal HaBesht ed. 23) further complicate the matter in various ways.

A clearer understanding of R. Tsvi of Pinsk's family history from various sources that were previously in manuscript form. These were collected and published by the bi-monthly Kovets Bet Aharon VeYisrael in issue fifty-something (pardon me).

The correct version, in short, is this: R. Tsvi Hirsh had two daughters. From his first wife, unnamed, he had Sheina Rachel, while he still lived in Mezhibuzh. He then married Beila, daughter of R. Shmuel Chosid (i. e. the pious - as he was a Mitnaged) of Pinsk. From this marriage he had his daighter Sara Reizel (otherwise Sara Reizia). It is not mentioned from which marriages his sons were born. His elder daughter married R. Yaakov, known as Reb Yankele Maneles, of Karlin. The younger married R. Moshe Zev Auerbach. Both couples emigrated to the Holy Land; R. Yaakov and Sheina Rachel in the early 1830's. R. Yaakov had one son, R. Naftali Tsvi of Tiberias, who emigrated with his father and his wife Sara Sosha, a descendant of R. Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev. He was the leader of the Hasidic community of Tiberias. He also traveled to Europe to collect funds for the Volhynian Kollel.

R. Naftali Tsvi of Safed or Tiberias, son of R. Moshe Zev Auerbach, does not exist and all references to him prove to refer rather to his cousin of the same name. R. Tsvi of Skvira (father-in-law of R. Yitzchak Twerski founder of the Skvira dynasty), son of R. Aharon brother of Sheina Rachel and Sara Reizel, is erroneously refered to as Naftali Tsvi or even 'of Tiberias'.

Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 21:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I am mistaken about the name of R. Tsvi Hirsh of Pinsk's second wife.

Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As it happens, I was not mistaken about the name. Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 17:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changes

In case there is anyone else that looks at this page, here is an explanation of what I am doing.

In my previous post on this page, I complained about the lack of accurate sources about the Baal Shem Tov and his family. Much of what has been written is based on forgeries (the infamous Kherson genizah and the like), and confabulations (my above post is an example) by so-called historians. But what can I do? To contradict printed lies is the deadly sin of OR! I first started correcting this page from a printed source as I could find: Heichal HaBesht #23. It is a somewhat haphazard collection of reliable and unreliable sources. Now, however, I found a relatively new book (Even Yisrael (Hebrew), by Rabbi Y. Y. F. Hager, Jerusalem, 2000) which discusses the descendants (up to his grandchildren, occasionally more) of the Baal Shem Tov's son (and tangentially certain points in his own history) at length and in depth. Additionally, there is "Vayityaldu", a genealogical column in the Hebrew edition of Hamodia, by N. A. Vekshtein/N. Pele, articles 30-38 (unfortunately I do not have the dates of the issues), a reasonably thorough discussion of the first few generations of the Baal Shem Tov's descendants. I will try to source all my changes soon, but first the errors must be removed.

Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 16:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Baal Shem Tov descendants - listified

The above category was deleted; per that discussion the contents have been listified here.

Timrollpickering (talk) 21:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alleged claims of descent from the Baal Shem Tov requires WP:RS

Please see: Centralized discussion at Talk:Timeline of LGBT Jewish history#Descended from Baal Shem Tov? Proof please!. Thank you,IZAK (talk) 19:39, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]