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A NEW JEWISH HOLIDAY: 15 TAMUZ

2013-07-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

A NEW JEWISH HOLIDAY

David A. Holzworth

Dvar Torah, Matot-Massei

July 6, 2013

I predict that a new Jewish Holiday will be celebrated on 15 Tamuz, perhaps within the next 300 years. This holiday will be a feast day, not a day of fasting like 17 Tamuz, the day Nebuchadnezzar breached the Temple Wall. It will be a joyful day, not a sad day like Tisha B’Av, the day that five misfortunes befell our people: (1) Moses and his generation was not allowed to enter the Promised Land; (2) &; (3) destruction of the first and second temples; (4) Bethar was captured; and (5) Jerusalem was ploughed up. No sadness; no regrets; no looking back. The new holiday will celebrate the day when the Israelite people were first welcomed as strangers in a strange new world that accepted and adopted their gift of the Torah. It will be a day of renewal and forward-looking commitment to build a continuing future.

When was that? When will that ever be? And why celebrate on 15^th Tamuz?

To figure it out, let’s play Facebook Jeopardy. This will test your Torah literacy in terms of American history. This is not dangerous. Try it at home. Ten questions in two categories. Talks like Moses. Walks like Moses, and Final Jeopardy -- Most like Moses. I will give you a name. You Like or Don't Like, but you may be asked to tell us why or why not in the form of question.

1. William Brewster/William Bradford

2. Asser Levy

3. Joseph Beuno de Mesquita

4. Gershom Mendez Seixas
5. Moses Seixas

6. John Witherspoon
7. Joseph Smith/Brigham Young
8. Frederick Douglas

9. Martin Luther King

10. The Statue of Liberty/ Kal-el

I am referring, of course, to Superman. His creators, two clever Jewish boys named Siegel and Shuster, turned Nietzsche’s amoral Ubermensch into the ultimate civic minded patriot. Some religious commentators and pop-culture scholars such as Rabbi Simcha Weinstein and British novelist Howard Jacobson argue persuasively that Superman was inspired by the Moses story. For example, Superman's Kryptonian name, "Kal-El", resembles the Hebrew word for "voice of God.” If any further proof were necessary, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels denounced Superman "Superman ist ein Jude!" ("Superman is a Jew!") and summarily banned Siegel and Shuster's popular comic from the newsstands, according to Berlin's Jewish Museum 2010 exhibition "Heroes, Freaks and Superrabbis - the Jewish Color of Comics."

http://www.dw.de/berlin-exhibition-traces-supermans-cultural-roots/a-5546515-1

Part of the answer is encrypted, perhaps entombed, on the Almighty Dollar: What’s going on with that radiant floating eye over the unfinished pyramid on the back of the one dollar bill? What’s it got to do with the 13 tribes of Israel? Is it an embedded chip used by the National Security Agency to track the metadata of your Tzedakah transactions?

Do not reach for your wallet, or at least wait until sunset. You will find engraved the Great Seal of the United States. That floating eye is the Eye of Providence. The unfinished pyramid has 13 steps. On the pyramid base, you will see engraved Roman numerals MDCCLXXVI (1776), the year when 56 of our founding fathers, on behalf of 13 states, declared independence from Great Britain.

The Declaration begins with a statement of egalitarian principles largely derived from Genesis, a long list of grievances against the current king, and concludes with a form of oath or vow evocative of Numbers 30:2: “When a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word: he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth”: Compare that to “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”[i] Much to my puzzlement, the following verses in Numbers 30:3-15 apparently place a lesser obligation on women. I look to Deborah or Carol to clear this up.

In his book, the American Gospel, Jon Meacham reminds us of another vow by another President, four score and six years later. On Monday, September 22, 1862, Lincoln met with his cabinet to explain the timing of the Emancipation Proclamation. According to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, as recorded in his diary for that day, Lincoln said: “When the Rebel Army was at Frederick [Maryland], I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation….I said nothing to anyone, but I made a promise to myself, and hesitating a little) to my Maker. The Rebel Army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise.”

Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles provided a nearly identical account: “He had, he said, made a vow, a covenant, that if God gave us the victory in the approaching battle (which had just been fought) he would consider it his duty to move forward in the cause of emancipation. ….God had decided this question in favor of the slave. He was satisfied he was right – was confirmed and strengthened by the vow and its results; his mind was fixed, his decision made.”

Now back to the Great Seal. You will see a Latin inscription, "ANNUIT COEPTIS," meaning "He (God) favors our undertaking." At the bottom of the seal you will see a semicircular banner, again in Latin, proclaiming "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM" meaning "New Order of the Ages."

The obverse of the seal, on the right side of the bill, you will see an eagle with a radiant cluster of 13 stars arranged in a six pointed star, known then (especially among Masons) as the seal of Solomon. The eagle holds a ribbon in its beak reading, in Latin of course, "E PLURIBUS UNUM", meaning "Out of many, one," a de facto motto of the United States (and the only one until 1956 when officially changed to “In God We Trust”, from the last stanza of the Star Spangled Banner, “And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USGreatSealGrahamLithograph.jpg

In my opinion, all contenders must cede the honorific to that person who appears on the front of the one-dollar bill. How can that be? Wasn’t George Washington a slave holder? Well, truth be told, so was Moses; or, at the very least, Moses wrote laws that provided for the humane treatment of slaves. As it turns out, George Washington also wrote a set of rules for the same purpose. But, but, Washington did not have a stutter; no, but he lacked the skills of an orator, he did not have a teleprompter and he did have those famous wooden teeth. Like Moses, perhaps imitating Moses, he protested (too much I think) that burdens placed upon him exceeded his ability to carry them out. Hence, only unanimous acclamation sufficed to persuade him to take on the military and political roles critical to the success of the Revolution and, more importantly, to establish by example the principles of character and restraint for the American Israel.

Anticipating David Letterman, John Adams the prolific and witty letter writer, in 1807 penned a “top ten talents” that convinced his country first to make Washington commander in chief of the continental army, then president of the Constitutional Convention and finally first President of the United States.

1. “An handsome face;”

2. “A tall stature, like the Hebrew sovereign chosen because he was taller by the Head than the other Jews;”

3. “An elegant form;”

4. “Graceful attitudes and Movements;”

5. “A large and imposing Fortune consisting of a great landed Estate left him by his Father and Brother, besides a large Jointure with his Lady, the Guardianship of the Heirs of the great Custis Estate, and in addition to all this, immense tracts of Land of his own acquisition.”

6. “Washington was a Virginian. This is equivalent to five Talents. Virginian Geese are all Swans.”

7. “Washington was preceeded by favorable anecdotes.”

8. “He possessed the Gift of Silence. This I esteem one of the most precious talents;”

9. “He had great Self Command. It cost him a great deal of exertion sometimes, and a constant Constraint, but to preserve so much equanimity as he did, required a great Capacity;”

10. “Whenever he lost his temper… [he was able] to conceal his Weakness from the World.”

Adams then remarks on the remarkable lack, among these talents, of “Reading, Thinking or Writing,” claiming to be broad minded in not confining the list, as others have, “to the faculties of the mind.”[ii] We should note, at this point, that Adams reveals more about his own shortcomings than those of Washington.

Washington absorbed and practiced more religiously than his more outwardly religious contemporaries the central tenets of nation building embedded in the narrative that begins in Genesis and concludes with II Samuel. Much ink has been spilled over the last 250 years speculating about Washington’s personal religious beliefs. Was he a deist, a Christian, an atheist, an Anglican, an agnostic, the leader of a Masonic cult? So far as I know, no one has argued that he was Jewish. I am not going to be the first. But Washington did give a very Jewish answer to the question of personal religious belief, which can be summed up as follows. “My personal beliefs are none of your business; and your personal beliefs are none of my business. In both cases, we are accountable to each other for our deeds, not our thoughts.” By way of adding an exclamation point, Washington made arrangements for all of his personal correspondence to be burned by his wife immediately after his death.

A very practical man, an astute observer of other men in war, peace and politics, Washington gleaned a great deal from the Bible, which he read daily. He put into practice a sort of Jewish political science in order to forge one nation out of many. Approximately two-dozen discernible faiths, including Judaism, had adherents and places of worship prior to 1776. About a sixth of the inhabitants of the colonies were German-speaking Swiss and Alsatians from the Rhine River region, settling mainly the piedmont of Pennsylvania, Maryland west of Baltimore, the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, North Carolina and parts of Georgia. Another sixth were Scots and Irish, and with no particularly fond memories of life in Great Britain. Most of these immigrants had been landless serfs or peasants. African slaves made up about 15 percent. The rest of the 2.5 million inhabitants were mostly English descendants, but many indentured servants (white slaves) and ex-convicts among them.

The entire colonial Jewish population was approximately 2000. Nevertheless, Haym Solomon served as the Broker to the Office of Finance. Three Jews reached high level commands within the military. Sarna concludes that the Jews played no significant role, but readily acknowledges that the Hebrew Bible did. Roughly half of the population had either participated in an Exodus, or were second generation Americans. http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_detail.aspx?id=40. The one book they all knew, whether reading it or hearing it preached from the pulpit, was the Hebrew Bible in one of its German or English translations. That book served as a lens through which all personal and political events were commonly perceived and interpreted.

Most of these immigrants knew the Geneva Bible, which contained copious anti-monarchical annotations, and was the version most widely read and preached. The pro-monarchy King James Version found less favor, but probably was the version most familiar to Washington. The front plate of the Geneva Bible, which appeared again in Exodus, depicted a radiant Moses leading his people through the Red Sea. That engraving, or at least the Moses motif, appears to have had a major impact on, among other things, the portrayal of Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, the Statute of Liberty and, the inscription on the Liberty Bell “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.” (Leviticus 25:10).

Let’s go back again to that other engraving, the Great Seal on the back of the one-dollar bill. The first Continental Congress appointed a committee of three in July of 1776 to recommend a design for the seal -- Thomas Jefferson (a deist), Benjamin Franklin (an atheist) and John Adams, a rock-ribbed New England Puritan. Franklin proposed an allegorical scene from Exodus, described in his notes as “Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharoah who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity." Motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." Jefferson suggested a depiction of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, but liked Franklin’s motto so much that he made it part of his family crest. [iii]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/FirstCommitteeGreatSealReverseLossingDrawing.jpg/1024px-FirstCommitteeGreatSealReverseLossingDrawing.jpg

Adams favored a painting known as the "Judgment of Hercules" where the young Hercules must choose to travel either on the flowery path of self-indulgence or the rugged, more difficult, uphill path of duty to others and honor to himself. Two of the three ideas did no more than accede to the controlling Moses metaphor, and no one doubted that Washington was Moses, although Washington from time to time seemed to prefer the Joshua role in the unfolding drama. He might also have been flattered by the Hercules symbol, especially the message of self-discipline.

In praise of the living Washington, and more so in eulogizing him, press and pulpit in unison proclaimed, “As the deliverer and political savior of our nation, he has been the same to us, as Moses was to the Children of Israel.”[iv] The theme of this and 34 other major eulogies tied the fate of Washington and Moses to that Providential Eye floating over the unfinished pyramid. In the Biblically inspired language of Frederick Hotchkiss, echoing the sentiment of the initial proposal for the Great Seal, “Moses led the Israelites through the red sea; has not Washington conducted the Americans thro’ seas of blood?” And the comparisons then turn to personal virtues of self-discipline, humility in the face of great burdens and finally the wisdom of their parting words and acts to assure a sound foundation for the new nation.

In his book, On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding, Michael Novak, makes a strong case that “George Washington, in particular grasped the inner dependence of the republican experiment upon the sound habits of its citizenship. … His principle was this [which he stated at the time of the Constitutional convention]: A nation, like a child, forms its character around its earliest transactions. … The people themselves must become an example to the world of reflection and deliberate choice, and the enabling and supportive virtues on which these capacities depend.” [pp. 88-89 and fn. 37.)

Washington reiterated and implemented this principle throughout his career, from his institution of codes of conduct for officers and men under his command, to the operations of his extensive plantations, to this support for the establishment of schools in the first legislation for the organization of the northwest territories following the founding of the republic, and like Moses, in his farewell address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

One final comparison has been overlooked by all of his contemporaries and, as far as I can tell, all Washington historians to date (and they are as numerous as the stars in heaven). What enabled both Moses and Washington to see the promise of the Promised Land? One answer in today’s Parsha and, in sense, all of the Book of Numbers. Both Moses and Washington, literally and literarily, were surveyors of land and enumerators of their people; [v]they both saw vistas and the practical detail necessary to mark off the metes and bounds of those vistas; they both understood that achieving freedom depended to a great extent on the ability of the people to be self-disciplined.

So we read in Numbers 33 a metes and bounds survey of the Promised Land, which had been surveyed earlier by spies. From the age of 15 to 20, Washington worked as a surveyor of the land owned by Fairfax family in the Virginia Piedmont.[vi]The illustrated Geneva and KJV Bibles contain numerous maps of Moses’ wanderings and survey of Israel’s boundaries.

Washington then undertook a commission to scout out, essentially be a diplomatic spy, the French presence at the headwaters of the Ohio and to deliver an ultimatum on behalf of King George II for the French to vacate the region. Washington’s family had a significant personal stake as shareholders in the Ohio company. As a major, then colonel in the Virginia militia, he returned to the area and precipitated the first world war (waged on four continents) known as the French and Indian War. He returned twice more with General Braddock and then General Forbes. Washington and his men were promised land in the form of war bounties for their services. George III and the English Parliament attempted to renege on those promises and to award land bounties only to English regimental commanders in the regular army.

But the Promised Land is also a vision, an idea of how things should be, an aspirational utopia; hence the unfinished pyramid. These ideas go beyond real estate, but are also grounded in real estate and the practical problems of life.

So, Washington is Moses and America is the New Israel. Is this metaphor good for the Jews? Are the Jews good for this metaphor? Should we, today, think and act as though divine providence, that floating eye atop the pyramid on the one-dollar bill, looks out for America, looks out for a New Israel? Can we be a people of two covenants? Should we gladly embrace, 3000 years later, the idea of laboring to finish a pyramid?

The American Israel has been, for the most part, a good home for the Jews. Jonas Phillips, a Jew, wrote the only petition to the Constitutional Convention on the topic of religious freedom. In the petition he said that “the Israelites will think themselves happy to live under a government where all religious societies are on an equal footing.” After the Convention, Benjamin Rush, a signer, declared that “the hand of God was employed in this work, as that God had divided the Red Sea to give a passage to the children of Israel’ or had delivered “the ten commandments on Mount Sinai!” Unlike the Declaration of Independence, though, not even Nature’s God or the Creator gets an honorable mention in the Constitution.

On July 4, 1778, to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution, 17 clergy marched in sets, arm in arm, according to Benjamin Rush, including ‘The Rabbi of the Jews [Jacob Raphael Cohen of Mikve Israel].” Rush concluded that “the union of the states, in its form and adoption, is as much the work of divine providence as any of the miracles recorded in the old and new testaments.” But is the hard work of nation-building really a miracle? Is it Superman or is it the ordinary, but disciplined citizens, who account for the success, such as it is, of the American experiment? Where, when and how do we instill the collective rules and the behavior necessary to make our own Providence, to achieve the promise of the Promised Land?

The first great Chazzan, Gershom Seixas of Sherith Israel, attended Washington’s inauguration in NYC on Thursday April 30, 1789 along with clergy from 14 churches. Gershom Seixas went on to become a regent of Columbia, and a medal was struck in his honor at his death. The following year, Washington received a letter from the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island over the signature of Moses Seixas which read in part: “For all the Blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Antient of Days, the great preserver of Men--beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life: and, when like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”

Washington’s reply: “may the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; -- while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Micah 4. I should also point out that he wrote similar letters to at least 24 other religious groups, including Jewish societies in Savannah, Charleston and Richmond. His other correspondence contains another 54 references to the passage in Micah, part of which appears in our Siddur at 403.

http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/hebrew/facsimile_r2.html

We can safely say that, although the road has not always been smooth, Jews have done pretty well in all aspects of American life. Take as a bellwether indicator the number of Jews in the current US Congress, 12 senators (12%), 22 representatives (4.8%) compared to Jewish population in the U.S. (2.1%).

In the words of Jonathan Sarna in his History of American Judaism, “Picking up where George Washington left off in his letter to the Jews of Newport and echoing Protestant depictions of the country as “God’s New Israel,” [Myer Moses, a leader of Beth Elohim in Charleston] prayed for “Great Jehovah” to “collect together thy long scattered people of Israel, and let their gathering place be in this land of milk and honey.” The idea of “Zion in America” implied that Judaism and Americanism, God and country, the synagogue-community and the larger community all were thoroughly compatible.” 71

All of this makes me think we have something to celebrate. But let’s not rush into it. Give it another 300 years just to make sure something bad doesn’t happen. Oh, I almost forgot. What exactly are we celebrating and why on the 15^th of Tamuz? According to my on-line Hebrew calendar converter, known as HebCal, the 15^th of Tamuz 5536 fell on July 2, 1776, the date that the Declaration of Independence was ratified, signed and sent to the printer. It was published two days later. Let’s all get back to work on the pyramid.

SELECTED SOURCES

Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers, Excursus 66, “Oaths, Vows and Dedications,” at pp. 488-490 (1990/5750 Jewish Publication Society, New York)

Robert P. Hay, “Providence and the American Past”, Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 65. No.2 (June 1969), pp. 79-101. Trustees of Indiana University http://www.jstor.org/stable/27789575

Robert P. Hay, “George Washington: American Moses”, American Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 1969), pp. 780-791. The Johns Hopkins University Press. http://www.jstor.or/stable/2711609

Bruce Feiler, Moses: Biblical Prophet, American Icon, Washington Post, Sunday, October 18, 2009, Op. Ed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101503474.html

Rev. Richard C. Stazesky, George Washington, Genius in Leadership, A Presentation at a meeting on February 22, 200 of the George Washington Club, Ltd., Wilmington, Delaware. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/stazesky.html

Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life, (2010, Penguin Press, New York) ISBN 978-1-59420-266-7.

Jon Meacham, American Gospel; God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation (2006, Random House). ISBN 1-4000-6555-0

Michael Novak, On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding, (2002 Encounter Books) ISBN 1-893554-68-6

Jonathon D. Sarna, American Judaism: A History (2004 Yale University) ISBN 0-300-10976-8

ENDNOTES

[i]Most of the colonies required oaths of loyalty and abjuration along the lines of the Pennsylvania oaths:

"We subscribers, natives and late inhabitants of the Palatine upon the Rhine and places adjacent, having transported ourselves and families into the Province of Pennsylvania, a colony subject to the crown of Great Britain, in hopes and expectation of finding a retreat and a peacable settlement therein, do solemnly promise and engage that we will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his present majesty, King George the Second and his successors, kings of Great Britain, and will be faithful to the proprietor of this province; and that we will demean ourselves peacably to all his said majesty's subjects, and strictly observe and conform to the laws of England and this province, to the utmost of our power and best of our understanding."

Beginning in 1729, the immigrants were required to sign two additional oaths, one of which declared in flowery prose ("…from my heart abhor, detest and renounce as impious and heretical …") apparently that the immigrant was not a Roman Catholic, the other that he was acknowledging George II as the lawful king and denouncing such pretenders to the throne as James III of Scotland, Queen Anne, James VIII, etc.

After the start of the Revolution, an entirely different oath of allegiance was required in which the immigrants had to renounce their allegiance to the king and pledge their allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

We, the subscribers, do swear of affirm that we renounce and refuse all allegiance to George the Third, King of Great Britain, his heirs and successors, and that we will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as a free and independent state, and that we will not, at any time, do, or cause to be done, any matter of thing that will be prejudicial or injurious to the freedom and independence thereof, as declared by Congress, and also, that we will discover and make known, to some justice of the peace of the said State, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which we now know, and hereafter shall know, to be formed against this or any of the United States of America."

Signers of the Oaths of Allegiance. In 1776 the Continental Congress requested each state to take an oath of allegiance from each of its male citizens over 21 years of age in order to determine the strength of the patriot movement and to identify the loyalists. Those who took such an oath, or signed local declarations of independence from England, were guilty of treason under English law and subject to death by hanging.

http://www.dar.org/natsociety/service_right.cfm?TP=Show&ID=97

[ii] http://books.google.com/books?id=84oTAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA170&dq=%22ten+talents%22+George+washington&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GnHRUfDxOsr40gH03oDIBg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22ten%20talents%22%20George%20washington&f=false

Old Family Letters (Press of J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892) contains letters of John Adams, all but the first two addressed to Dr. Benjamin Rush; one letter from Samuel Adams, one from John Quincy Adams, and several from Thomas Jefferson addressed to Dr. Rush; "Letter of credence to the king" and "Letter of credence to the queen" by George Washington as president. Series B contains letters of Dr. Benjamin Rush to his wife written during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, in 1793.

[iii] All three agreed that, regardless of religious belief or disbelief, religion

had a practical function in fostering civic virtue.

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)

Benjamin Franklin

Signer of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence

[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

(Source: Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840), Vol. X, p. 297, April 17, 1787. )

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

(Source: James Madison, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Max Farrand, editor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), Vol. I, pp. 450-452, June 28, 1787.)

[iv] These were the words of the Reverend Thaddeus Fiske of Cambridge, MA on December 29, 1799.

[v] The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the population of the 13 colonies in 1776 was a little more than 2.5 million people, very nearly the same estimate offered by Jacob Milgrom in Excurses 2, “The Census and Its Totals” in Numbers 1:1-46 in the JPS Numbers Commentary at pp. 336-339. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff13.html

[vi] Part of his survey work was incorporated into an early map of Maryland by his co-surveyor Joshua Frye which can be seen in Mapping Maryland: The Willard Hackerman Collection at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore.

[vii] Facebook Jeopardy answers: 1. Brikat ha gomel http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5415/features/the-tish-and-the-thanksgiving-table/ Page 415 Siddur; 2. 1655 first Kosher Butcher in New Amsterdam, insisted on serving guard duty instead of paying fine in order to become a burgher (citizen); 3. 1682 first purchase of burial ground in North America, probably more like Abraham than Moses; 4. First notable Chazzan of Shearith Israel in NYC; first Jewish regent of Columbia; 5. Moses chazzan at Touro Newport RI synagogue; 6. First President of Princeton, Teacher of Hebrew to James Madison, signer of the Declaration of Independence and teacher of law and politics to at least 70 founding fathers; 7. Smith found tablets and the history of the lost tribes in NY, then walked to Missouri; Young led the trek to Deseret in Utah and is the subject of a biography, Brigham Young: American Moses; 8. timed his first escape to coincide with Passover; 9. he had a dream and marched on Washington and other places; 10. radiant visage, torch and tablets; launched by his parents in a space basket with a mission to repair the world.

JACOB HUBER HOOVER: REVOLUTIOARY WAR RECORD

2013-05-28T07:41:00.001-07:00

JACOB HUBER HOOVER: REVOLUTIONARY WAR RECORD

Solid documentary evidence exists for Jacob Huber's (Hoover) service in the Revolutionary War. First, we have the military payroll record which provides the date of August 1778, identification of the German Battalion, Continental Troops and the 4th Vacant Company in the German Regiment commanded by Lieut. Col. Weltner. An almost unreadable, but very helpful, note explains that this particular company was designated at various times as Capt. William Heiser's 4th Vacant. The Capt. Heiser reference catches my attention since Captain Peter Bell took over Heiser's (Heyser's) command in the Maryland Militia when Heiser left for a command in the German Battalion of the Continental Army:

Content Source: The National Archives Publication Number: M881 Publication Title: Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War Publisher: NARA National Archives Catalog ID: 570910 National Archives Catalog Title: Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, compiled 1894 - ca. 1912, documenting the period 1775 - 1784 Record Group: 93 Date: 1775-1785 Short Description: NARA M881. Compiled service records of soldiers who served in the American Army during the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783. Roll: 0138 State: Continental Troops Regiment: German Battalion Record Type: Individual Surname: Hoover Given Name: Jacob

Another military record, pensions and war bounties, establishes the link of Huber to Hoover and also establishes the amount of pension received -- $5543:

STRASBOURG AND ALSACE

2013-05-12T06:07:00.000-07:00

STRASBOURG AND ALSACE

We will begin this trip in Strasbourg, the cultural and political center of a region that was either the starting point or the passage way for most of the Bell ancestors for their migration to the British colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland in the early to mid 1700's. Among the founding generation, and/or the immediately following generation, were several who saw service in the Revolutionary War, either as state militia or as part of the German Regiment under the command of Muhlenberg:

1. Captain Peter Bell (1736-1778) also on the Committee of Observation for the region around Hargerstown, MD;
2. Jacob [Hoover] Huber (1730-1891) from Lancaster and later Woodberry Township in Bedford County, PA, who also probably served as a wagoner under the Command of General Braddock in the French and Indian War;
3. Johann Rinehart Replogle, Sr. (1720-1796) from Woodberry Township, Bedford County. PA, born in Soultz Sous Forets, Alsace.
4. Johann Rinehart Replogle, Jr. (1759-1813) born in Lancaster, PA and died in Woodbury Township, Bedford County, PA.
5. Ludwig Emerick (1754-1822) born in Chester, PA and died in Greencastle, PA, a few miles across the Mason-Dixon line from the from the Bell brothers homestead.

THE REPLOGLE FAMILY CASE FILE

Let's start with the Replogle family case file. As the account appearing at the end of this piece from a Bedford County newspaper shows, the Replogle family settled in an area that had its risks well before the Revolution. The suggestion that one of the Replogles was a paroled Hessian soldier would be consistent with General Washington's policy of releasing captured mercenaries who swore allegiance to the new republic, then served in some capacity in the Continental forces following which they were paid in "bounty land."

However, we have an early Marriage Record from St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, Hanover, York County, PA dated 8 October 1753. The German language register attests to the marriage of Reinhard Reblagek to Barbara Konig. From this and over evidence, we conclude that he was not a Hessian mercenary.

In 1944, the genealogist George H. Liebegott provided some additional information in support of a DAR application after which the lineage was certified by the DAR and Patriot Ancestor numbers were assigned to both senior and junior J.R. Replogles, A095504 and A095505, respectively. Junior was born in 1759 in Lancaster County, PA. Therefore, both Senior and Junior were in Pennsylvania well before the Revolution making it impossible for either of them to be Hessian mercenaries arriving with the British nearly two decades later. Lesson learned: beware of family legends.

We also know from the Archives of Pennsylvania Volume 4, Fifth series Pages 248 and 612 that "Rephogal, Reynard" received "depreciation pay." Another entry occurs in Volume 23, Third series Page 233.

What, you ask, is depreciation pay? Good question. Here is a helpful answer from the Pennsylvania digital archives website:

Revolutionary War Military Abstract Card File - {series #13.50}

Arranged alphabetically by surname of soldier. The abstract card file contains transcriptions of data extracted from original records in the custody of the State Archives concerning Revolutionary War service in the Pennsylvania Militia, Pennsylvania Line, and the Navy. Note that duty after November 1783 is not considered Revolutionary War service. Information provided is name and rank of soldier, whether active or inactive duty, county of residence, battalion in which served, and record from which information was extracted. Also noted are whether soldier was delinquent and fined or whether militia fines were abated.

The entry "Active Duty" indicates that the soldier saw active duty in either the Pennsylvania Militia or the Pennsylvania Line while "Inactive Duty" indicates that the soldier did not necessarily see active duty. Associators were volunteers who comprised the Military Association, a civilian reserve designed to repel any invasion of Pennsylvania until the collapse of the Association in the winter of 1776-1777. The Pennsylvania Militia was organized under an Act of the Assembly of March 17, 1777 that required compulsory enrollment by constables of all able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 53 to repel invaders. The "Flying Camps" were special battalions of Pennsylvania Line troops recruited from the Pennsylvania Associators. Rangers were soldiers who served long periods of enlistment to protect the frontier against Indian incursions. Entries for Depreciation Pay Certificates apply to soldiers who served 1777-1780 when the currency was depreciating and were paid in Continental Bills of Credit that quickly lost value. To compensate for such depreciation, each soldier of the Pennsylvania Line who remained in service in 1781 was awarded a substantial sum in Depreciation Pay Certificates which were both interest bearing and negotiable. In addition, at the end of the war arrears and allowances due were met by issuing to each soldier still in service a number of interest-bearing final settlements called Pierce's Certificates (named after the paymaster who dispensed them).

Some cards show a certificate number that relates to the Militia Loan of 1784-1785. This loan was established to pay individuals for services and goods provided during the Revolutionary War that had not been reimbursed at that time. Note that not all certificate numbers give additional information.

http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp.

Another piece of hard genealogical evidence from the DAR case file helps to further explain one of the Replogle land grants:

Rapeloagle, Reinhart 200 acres Huly 9, 1798 County of Bedford. This 200 acres was in the form of a bonus as per genealogist at Harrisburg. Rinehart Replogle served as a private in Captain Patrick Haineys Company Bedford Co. Penna. Militia as per record in "Soldiers of Blain County" publihed in 1940 by Floyd G. Hoenstie, Holidaysburg, Penna. (Prior to 1846 Blair County was a part of Bedford Co.)

In addition, another reliable and distantly related genealogist, Gauis Brumbaugh, unearthed from Page 51 Assessments of Woodberry Township, Bedofrd Co. Penna. 1789, two entries:

Repelogel, Rinehard         A      H      C      S      D       S     D
                                        476      1        2       16      1       8       0
Repelogel, Rinehard Jr. 100       2       2         9       1       4       7

A=acres; H=horses; C=cows; S=schillings; D=pence

No doubt you have noticed multiple variations in the spellings of the given and the family name. You ask, how do we know these are all the same people? Once again, good question. Basically, we know because we tie the various spellings together by date and place and family relationship. This is a recurring problem in all family lines during this period due to the absence of an accepted orthography and the challenges faced by mostly English language clerks attempting various phonetic translations from German speakers.

So we see in Pennsylvania archives in Series 3, Volume II at page 269 for the County of Bedford, Frankstown Township 1783 a tax assessment to support the troops:

Rienhart Rippliogle.....250 acres...6.6.6 [pounds, shillings, pence]

On the same page, we also see entries for related family lines in the names of George Brumbough, John Midsker [Metzger] and Phillip Knee [Knie].

Also in the Pennsylvania Archives, Series __, Vol.__ at Page 112, we find A CLASS ROLL OF CAPTAIN PATRICK HAINEY'S COMPANY. In 2nd Class we find "Rinehart Reppleogle, Junr." At this point, we come across an Affidavit of the Alderman of Westmoreland County, PA, dated 5 September 1959, in the DAR case file for Rinehart Replogle, Sr. that the applicant:

...received the following records from Mr. George H. Leibegott of Altona, Pa., also from the Historian of the Replogle Family, Attorney Arnold M. Replogle of 3233 Arapahee Road, Pittsburg, Pa.: Dates of birth and death for Rinehart Replogle, Sr. which was taken from (one source) a book by J.M. Ware. They have no record of his entry into this country, but say that he lived for a time in Lancaster Co., Pa. Record show that he lived in Friends Cove, Colerain Twp. Bedford Co. Pa, 1777-78, and in Frankstown Twp., which took in Morriso's Cove, and Woodbury Twp., now Bloomfield Twp., Bedford Co. Pa., wince 1776. They state he is assumed to be buried on the same plot as his son Rinehart Jr., on the then Replogle farm, now the Lee Snyder Farm. There are other graves on the plot, but no markers. The names and dates for his children were compiled from many and various sources which were most authentic. Their children were 14 in number accourding to the History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton Counties, Pa. Pub. 1884, page 341. Wife's name is unknown to either of these men. They state he was born in German, or France.

All of this ends with the understatement: "His name is spelled variously."

The case file now takes us to another generation in another location, as the family moves west to Indiana where great-grandparents Lucinda Metzger and Albert Bell were born and raised. The item of interest is a document dated and notarized 25th April 1910, which states in part:

John Replogle had two brothers that married Metzgers, Viz, Daniel and Adam. John married Margaret Metzger and Daniel married Susanna Metzger. Adam married Louanna Metzger.

We also know from census records that Metzger men married Replogle women and that the families settled on farms in close proximity. Phillip Christian Metzger (1824-1904) was born in Morrison's Cove, Blair County, PA and married Catharine Replogle (1824-1852) in 1846 in Henry County, IN. She died soon after the birth of great grandmother Lucinda Metzger. Catharine was the daughter of Samuel Brown Replogle (1805-1869) and grand daughter of Rinehart Replogle, Jr.

JACOB HUBER Chapter 5: A Fourth Journey and the Kernels of Others’ Journals

2013-05-11T09:04:00.002-07:00

Chapter 5: A Fourth Journey and the Kernels of Others’ Journals

As far as we know, Washington did not keep a journal of his next foray into the Ohio wilderness under the command of General Braddock. Others did. Jacob Huber contributed his hearsay testimony. How did a German-speaking wagoner end up giving a sworn statement to the Governor of Pennsylvania? Oddly enough, we owe Huber’s contribution to Benjamin Franklin who capitalized (literally) on the failure of Washington, Dinwiddie and Governor Horatio Sharpe of Maryland to control the public works aspect of Braddock’s march to the headwaters of the Ohio.

Even before Washington returned to Williamsburg, Governor Dinwiddie had sent reports to neighboring colonies and to London, the sum result of which was the dispatch of General Braddock and two regiments of the Coldstream guards to the colonies for the purpose of establishing a unified command for the prosecution of the war against France and its Indian allies.

Braddock arrived at Hampton Roads, Virginia on 20 February 1755. Despite the fiasco at Great Meadow, Braddock had Captain Robert Orme, a favorite member of his staff, solicit the services of Washington to join Braddock’s command as a brevet captain aide-de-camp. Braddock wanted Washington not for his military experience but rather for his knowledge of the terrain in the Ohio region.[1] Washington elected to go along as a volunteer rather than accept a demotion in rank.[2]

General Braddock, though much maligned by historians, did have a great deal of military training and experience; however, none especially suited to conducting a military campaign in the colonial wilderness of the mid-eighteenth century.[3] Braddock’s orders from London, which he followed unswervingly, called for a long march along the route previously taken by Washington. Taking that route necessarily entailed the construction of a more substantial road suitable for hauling heavy siege artillery by wagon for the reduction of Fort Duquense. The road would be wider and better constructed than the previous attempt and would continue all the way to Fort Duquense:

Passing through the wilderness over the “stoney” ridges of the Allegheny Mountains, this new road crossed over deep ravines of many fast flowing mountain streams, and over upland meadows and swamps in the ancient foreboding forests of North America. The 2,000 soldiers marched 200 miles in a procession strung out at times for more than three miles. It was made up of 29 pieces of artillery, 407 wagons (150 from Pennsylvania thanks to Benjamin Franklin) pulled by 500 horses. There were 400 (pack) horses, a herd of livestock and even a group of 40 to 50 support women (soldier’s wives) of who [six] were officially part of the army and could draw rations (most were sent back to Fort Cumberland). [4]

It beggars the imagination to come up with a contemporary logistical, political and engineering analogy for this effort, especially since there was not, in advance of the undertaking, any adequate funding in place or even agreement among the many colonial authorities to provide manpower, funding or other support for the campaign. All aspects of the effort were decreed by royal and parliamentary fiat from London. The colonials were expected to obey regardless of the fact that London was clueless as to of the terrain as well as the support capabilities on the frontier.

Wagoners, their wagons, their horses and a second civilian army of laborers had to be recruited and organized to support the massive road building effort. All of these logistics fell on the shoulders of General Braddock’s irascible quartermaster Sir John St. Clair. In the words of Robert Orme:

General Braddock apprehended the greatest difficulty in procuring wagons and horse, sufficient to attend him upon his march, as the assembly had not passed an Act for the supplying of them, but Sir John St. Clair assured the General that inconveniency would be easily removed, for, in going for Fort Cumberland, he had been informed of a great number of Dutch settlers, at the foot of the mountain called Blue Ridge, who would undertake to carry by the hundred the provisions and stores, and that he believed he could provide otherwise two hundred wagons and fifteen hundred carrying horses to be at Fort Cumberland by the first of May.[5]

Napoleon famously said, in the next century, "une armée marche à son estomac" -- an army marches on its stomach. In Braddock’s case, the march became a crawl, but even then only possible with an enormous number of wagons and wagoners. Initial attempts to recruit in Virginia failed.[6] Maryland Governor Sharpe suggested to Braddock that some of the army should go through Maryland where, of course, western Maryland farmers (mostly German speaking) would supply horses, wagons and labor. Washington perceived this as a ploy to divert the benefits of road construction to Maryland.[7] St. Clair responded to Sharpe’s initiative and issued orders to haul freight through Maryland at 12 pence per mile.[8] Braddock then began to move part of his army through Maryland, but neither wagons nor a Maryland road had materialized by the time he reached Frederick Maryland on April 20^th. [9]

Pennsylvania also wanted a piece of the largest public works project in the colonies.[10] George Croghan, Indian trader, led a delegation of Pennsylvania commissioners who met with St. Clair in mid-April at Fort Cumberland in Maryland. They proposed that St. Clair build yet another road from Carlisle, Pennsylvania to the Youghiogheny River not too far from Nimacolin. St. Clair flatly rejected the proposal as too little, too late.

Benjamin Franklin joined Sharpe and Braddock in Frederick in the guise of his postmaster roll for the purpose of coordinating relays of reports on Braddock’s march to Philadelphia, Annapolis and Williamsburg, the three colonial capitals involved, as well as dispatches back to London. The meeting went well. By his own account, Franklin had a hidden agenda of repairing relations with Braddock and landing the deal that the Croghan Commission had botched. Franklin apparently used the same pitch that worked (temporarily) for Sharpe and failed (immediately) for Croghan:

I happened to say that I thought it was a pity they had not landed rather in Pennsylvania, as in that country almost every farmer had his own wagon. “then you, sir,” Braddock replied, “who are a man of interest there, can probably procure them for us, and I beg you will undertake it.” Franklin immediately agreed and asked Braddock what terms to offer the Pennsylvania farmers. Braddock said it was up to Franklin, and gave him eight hundred pounds for advance payments.[11]

With typical Franklin initiative, he immediately drafted an advertisement for publication in English and German. The advertisement provides a window into Franklin’s assessment of the public works project as well as an insight into the character and motivations of German-speaking farmers such as Jacob Huber:

Lancaster, April 26, 1755.

Whereas 150 Waggons, with 4 Horses to each Waggon, and 1500 Saddle or Pack-Horses are wanted for the Service of his Majesty’s Forces now about to rendezvous at Wills’s Creek; and his Excellency General Braddock hath been pleased to impower me to contract for the Hire of the same; I hereby give Notice, that I shall attend for that Purpose at Lancaster from this Time till next Wednesday Evening; and at York from next Thursday Morning ’till Friday Evening; where I shall be ready to agree for Waggons and Teams, or single Horses, on the following Terms viz.

1st. That these shall be paid for each Waggon with 4 good Horses and a Driver, Fifteen Shillings per Diem: And for each able Horse with a Pack-Saddle or other Saddle and Furniture, Two Shillings per Diem. And for each able Horse without a Saddle, Eighteen Pence per Diem.

2dly, That the Pay commence from the Time of their joining the Forces at Wills’s Creek (which must be on or before the twentieth of May ensuing) and that a reasonable Allowance be made over and above for the Time necessary for thier travelling to Wills’s Creek and home again after their Discharge.

3dly, Each Waggon and Team, and every Saddle or Pack Horse is to be valued by indifferent Persons, chosen between me and the Owner, and in Case of the Loss of any Waggon, Team or other Horse in the Service, the Price according to such Valuation, is to be allowed and paid.

4thly, Seven Days Pay is to be advanced and paid in hand by me to the Owner of each Waggon and Team, or Horse, at the Time of contracting, if required; and the Remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the Paymaster of the Army, at the Time of their Discharge, or from time to time as it shall be demanded.

5thly, No Drivers of Waggons, or Persons taking care of the hired Horses, are on any Account to be called upon to do the Duty of Soldiers, or be otherwise employ’d than in conducting or taking Care of their Carriages and Horses.

6thly, All Oats, Indian Corn or other Forage, that Waggons or Horses bring to the Camp more than is necessary for the Subsistence of the Horses, is to be taken for the Use of the Army, and a reasonable Price paid for it.

Note. My Son William Franklin, is impowered to enter into like Contracts with any Person in Cumberland County.

B. Franklin.

Now here are set forth terms that mean business, which could not fail to attract the attention of the targeted farmers: a daily rate, travel expenses, seven days advance, insurance of a sort against loss, no risk of being drafted to fight or bear arms and doing business with a man who had a reputation of getting things done. But there was more.

The advertisement had with it a personal letter addressed to the inhabitants of the three counties, most of whom were the same German speaking farmers. The letter emphasizes both the carrot of the hard currency and the stick of the alternative prospect of a marching army commandeering whatever it required with no recompense to the population. The prospective stick did not materialize in either Maryland or Virginia and Franklin’s characterization of St. Clair as a hussar was a pure invention of Franklin’s imagination. Further, Franklin added two sweetners to the deal by allowing a consortium to put together a wagon, horses and driver from several different farms and then adding his personal bond to the deal.[12]

To the Inhabitants of the Counties of Lancaster, York, and Cumberland.

Friends and Countrymen,

Being occasionally at the Camp at Frederic a few Days since, I found the General and Officers of the Army extreamly exasperated, on Account of their not being supply’d with Horses and Carriages, which had been expected from this Province as most able to furnish them; but thro’ the Dissensions between our Governor and Assembly, Money had not been provided nor any Steps taken for that Purpose.

It was proposed to send an armed Force immediately into these Counties, to seize as many of the best Carriages and Horses as should be wanted, and compel as many Persons into the Service as would be necessary to drive and take care of them.

I apprehended that the Progress of a Body of Soldiers thro’ these Counties on such an Occasion, especially considering the Temper they are in, and their Resentment against us, would be attended with many and great Inconveniencies to the Inhabitants; and therefore more willingly undertook the Trouble of trying first what might be done by fair and equitable Means.

The People of these back Counties have lately complained to the Assembly that a sufficient Currency was wanting; you have now an Opportunity of receiving and dividing among you a very considerable Sum; for if the Service of this Expedition should continue (as it’s more than probable it will) for 120 Days, the Hire of these Waggons and Horses will amount to upwards of Thirty thousand Pounds, which will be paid you in Silver and Gold of the King’s Money.

The Service will be light and easy, for the Army will scarce march above 12 Miles per Day, and the Waggons and Baggage Horses, as they carry those Things that are absolutely necessary to the Welfare of the Army, must march with the Army and no faster, and are, for the Army’s sake, always plac’d where they can be most secure, whether on a March or in Camp.

If you are really, as I believe you are, good and loyal Subjects to His Majesty, you may now do a most acceptable Service, and make it easy to yourselves; for three or four of such as cannot separately spare from the Business of their Plantations a Waggon and four Horses and a Driver, may do it together, one furnishing the Waggon, another one or two Horses, and another the Driver, and divide the Pay proportionably between you. But if you do not this Service to your King and Country voluntarily, when such good Pay and reasonable Terms are offered you, your Loyalty will be strongly suspected; the King’s Business must be done; so many brave Troops, come so far for your Defence, must not stand idle, thro’ your backwardness to do what may be reasonably expected from you; Waggons and Horses must be had; violent Measures will probably be used; and you will be to seek for a Recompence where you can find it, and your Case perhaps be little pitied or regarded.

I have no particular Interest in this Affair; as (except the Satisfaction of endeavouring to do Good and prevent Mischief) I shall have only my Labour for my Pains. If this Method of obtaining the Waggons and Horses is not like to succeed, I am oblig’d to send Word to the General in fourteen Days; and I suppose Sir John St. Clair the Hussar, with a Body of Soldiers, will immediately enter the Province, for the Purpose aforesaid, of which I shall be sorry to hear, because I am, very sincerely and truly your Friend and Well-wisher,

B. Franklin.

Endorsed: Benja. Franklin Esqr. Advertisemt abt. Waggons Apr. 26. 1755.[13]

Individual contracts were drafted and signed. Here is one example:

From Harbanus Ashebriner: Contract for a Wagon and Horses

Printed form with MS insertions in Blanks: Yale University Library

[May 2, 1755]

I Harbanus Ashebriner of Parradice Township. in the County of York and Province of Pennsylvania, do hereby agree and promise that I will, on the Terms hereunder mentioned, provide one good Waggon with four able Horses and a Driver, to be at Wills’s Creek in Virginia, with as much Oats, Indian Corn, or other Forage as I can procure and carry thither with the same, on or before the twentieth Day of May Instant, then and there to attend the Orders of General Braddock. And I do acknowledge to have received the Sum of Five Pounds Five Shillings from Benjamin Franklin, in Advance towards the Pay or Hire of the said Waggon Team and Driver and do oblige myself to return to him or his Order, Double the said Sum in Case I fail of performing this Agreement. I Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, being for that purpose duly and fully empowered by his Excellency Edward Braddock Esq; General of all his Majesty’s Forces in North America, do hereby in his Name and Behalf, promise and agree, that the said Harbanus Ashebriner shall receive for the Hire of his said Waggon Team and Driver Fifteen Shillings a Day, Pensilva: Money the Pay to commence the Day of their Arrival at Wills’s Creek; and shall farther receive for travelling thither and home again the Sum of a reasonable Allowance. And in Case of the Loss of the said Waggon or any of the Horses, in the Service the same shall be paid for according to the underwritten Valuation. The Driver shall not be employ’d as a Soldier, nor any Duty required of him but to take Care of his Horses and Waggon. And whatever Indian Corn, or other Forage shall be brought in the Waggon to Wills’s Creek, more than is necessary for the Subsistence of the Horses belonging to the Waggon shall be paid for at a reasonable Price. To this Agreement, the Parties have interchangeably set their Hands, this Second Day of May, 1755.

Witnesses present

Arban Aschenbrenner

John Read

Michael Swoope[?]

B Franklin

Endorsed: Harbanus Ashe[briner] 1 Waggon Advance £5 [5s.] York Co[unt]y[14]

Franklin apparently drafted his advertisement while still at Frederick.[15] Once published, results were immediate as evidenced by the May 2 date on the Aschenbrenner contract. In part, Franklin’s advance of some of his own money and his personal bond on many of the contracts may have been what sealed the deal in Pennsylvania when wagons could not be had in Virginia and Maryland. Franklin arranged the hire of about 150 wagons and 600 packhorses. The losses incurred from wear and tear in addition to Braddock’s defeat gave rise to lawsuits against Franklin, which were settled by the crown for the sum of 30,000 pounds by order of General Shirley in September.

The Franklin plan contrasted favorably with what later happened in Virginia. On May 16^th, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage arrived at Winchester, Virginia, but had to commandeer 42 wagons and teams to haul stores and the heavy artillery destined to meet up with General Braddock at Fort Cumberland in Maryland on May 20th.[16] The same day, 160 wagons arrived at the fort from Philadelphia laden with stores and 11 wagons containing presents for officers from the Pennsylvania assembly accompanied by a delegation of five plump Quakers.[17] Jacob Huber was, most likely, driving one of those wagons.

On May 22, the news of the first successful delivery of stores to General Braddock appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette along with a notice that more wagons were needed:

We hear from the camp at Will’s Creek that his Excellency Generl Braddock, and all his forces were arrived there. … The report we had of some of our waggoners being intercepted by the enemy, is entirely groundless. Forty-one wagons are immediately needed, to carry each a Load of Oats and Indian Corn from Philadelphia to Will’s Creek, for which they are to be padid at their Return Tweleve Pounds each Waggon. Protection and Passes will be given the Waggoners by Authority of the General, to prevent their being detained after Deleivery of their Loads. They are to set out together on Thursday the 29^th Instant. Apply to Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia. Note- Several Neighbors may conveniently join in fitting out a Waggon, as was lately done in the Back Counties. If the Waggons cannot thus be obtained, there must be an impress. – B. Franklin[18]

No record of Jacob Huber’s contract has been found. He also does not appear on the list of wagons hired or the settlement records for the claims made for losses. His contract could have been made in the name of another individual per the suggestion in both of Franklin’s advertisements to combine wagons, horses and drivers from different farms. Nevertheless, the available contemporaneous documentation leaves very little doubt that Jacob Huber, or his consortium, were contacted by Franklin soon after April 26 and were in

The Pennsylvania wagons are next mentioned in an account of Captain Orme concerning the provision of spoiled meat and the failure provide flour as contracted by Colonel Cresap. This incident precipitated the discharge of Cressap as a commissary and a re-organization of the wagon supply chain:

The General, to obviate as much as possible these difficulties, appointed a wagon Master General, and under him wagon masters over every forty wagons; and horse Masters over every hundred horses, and also a drover to every seven horses; the wagon and horse master with the drovers were to go into the woods with their respective divisions, to muster their horses every night and morning, and to make a daily report to the wagon master General, who is to report to the General.[19]

In any event, we now know how Jacob Huber came to be a wagoner supporting Braddock’s March. We will turn to the decision made on the march that allowed his survival and ability to be a hearsay witness to Braddock’s defeat.

[1] Kopperman at 156.

[2] Chernow at 53 citing PWC 1:243 Letter to Robert Orme.

[3] See, e.g., Robert Leckie, A Few Acres of Snow: The Saga of the French and Indian Wars at 278-83 (Edison, NJ 1999) ISBN-13: 978-0-7858-2100-7. Paul E. Kopperman, Braddock at the Monogahela (Pittsburg 1977) ISBN 0-8229-3326-8

[4] Andrew J. Wahll, Braddock Road Chronicles 1755: From the Diaries and the Records of Members of the Braddock Expedition and Others Arranged in a Day by Day Chronology at 3 (Westmister MD 1999) ISBN 978-0-7884-1205-1.

[5] Winthrop Sargent, ed. The History of an Expedition Against Fort Du Quense, in 1755 at page 284 (1855 Philadelphia 1855 Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

[6] Thomas E. Crocker, Braddock’s March: How the Man Sent to Seize a Continent Changed American History at 106-107 (2009 Yardley, PA) ISBN 978-1-59416-096-7.

[7] Ibid. Benefits included not only the infusion of cash into the Maryland economy, but also the long term benefits of a supply and migration route for generations to come. Eventually, parts of the Maryland route were incorporated into the National Road.

[8] Wahll at 110-111 from papers of St. Clair.

[9] Crocker at 115,

[10] Kooperman at 277 notes that it is not possible to calculate the expenditures for roadbuilding much less the total amount infused into the three colonial economies is soldier salaries and provisioning. Nevertheless, he documents colonial allocations of 75000 pounds, an amount that must have been met or exceeded from the king’s treasury.

[11] Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at 219. http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/page02.htm

[12] Crocker 119-120

[13] http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=026a

[14] http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=026a

[15] Wahll at 157.

[16] Crocker at 145; Wahll at 197, 202

[17] Wahll at 202.

[18] Wahll at 208.

[19] Wahkk at 215.

JACOB HUBER Chapter 4: A Third Journey and a Purloined Journal

2013-05-11T08:46:00.002-07:00

Chapter 4: A Third Journey and a Purloined Journal

Now a newly minted Lieutenant Colonel, George Washington departed once again for the Ohio on April 2, 1754 in command of160 untrained and poorly equipped recruits. Once again, his French interpreter Van Braam came with him. This time, the party was much larger and had wagons to bring equipment along. This, in turn, meant that a road had to be cut through the forest suitable for the wagons. On April 20, when he reached the trading post of Colonel Cresap at the mouth of Wills Creek on the Potomac, he got news that the fort being built by the British on the Ohio had been surrendered to the French and renamed Duquense. He also received a report that the French force consisted of 1000 troops and 360 canoes.[1]

Nevertheless, Washington forged ahead with a small force of one hundred troops with a under Colonel Fry scheduled to follow with .[2] Washington sent out letters to the authorities in Pennsylvania and Maryland asking for more troops to join in the fight. Troops were promised and some came from both quarters.

Late in the day on May 24, 1754, Washington received a report that a French force was less than 20 miles away from his position, near the present day Nemacolin Resort named for the Indian trail that Washington followed. The Indian chieftain known as the Half-King (Tanaghrisson) and Washington decided to scout out the French party, which consisted of 34 French and Indians. They made contact in the wee hours of the morning and a short and bloody engagement ensued. All of the French party, except one, were killed or captured. Almost everything about what happened and how the is disputed in the various French and British accounts of the engagement.[3]

For our purposes, it will suffice to note that the officer in charge of the French party, Ensign Coulon de Jumonville, was among those killed, and according to one hearsay account, in a gruesome and barbaric manner:

As this Deponent has heard, one of them [French] fired a Gun upon which Col. Washington gave the Word for all his Men to fire. Several of them being killed, the Rest betook themselves to flight, but our Indians having gone round, the French when they saw them immediately fled back to the English and delivered up their arms desiring Quarter which was accordingly promised them.

Some Time after the Indians came up the Half King took his Tomahawk and split the Head of the French Captain having first asked if he was an Englishman and having been told he was a French Man. He then took out his Brains and washed his Hands with them and then scalped him. All this he [Deponent] has heard and never heard it contradicted but knows nothing of it from his own Knowledge only he has seen the Bones of the Frenchmen who were killed in Number about 13 or 14 and the Head of one stuck upon a Stick for none of them were buried.[4]

Soon after the incident, Washington received reinforcements under the command of Captain James Mackay, a British regular, who asserted superiority of rank to all colonial officers regardless of their nominal rank, including Washington.[5] It is unclear which of the two officers made key decisions following Mackay’s arrival. Most of the historical accounts attribute operational command to Washington, and Washington in his own written account does not contradict that view. Nevertheless, James Mackay’s signature appears over Washington’s on a critical capitulation document that had serious repercussions for Washington personally and diplomatically.

Washington’s command, incredibly, resumed roadwork even though he must have known from his Indian scouts that the superior French force had assembled at Fort Duquense. It finally dawned on him, too late, that he had to retreat. Disregarding the advice of the Half-King, Washington decided take a stand at Great Meadow where he had his men built a defensive stockade around a blockhouse. He named it, appropriately, Fort Necessity.[6] The Half-King, seeing the futility of a stockade defense in an open meadow subject to plunging fire from wooded areas on higher ground, took his men and vanished into the forest.[7] On July 4, 1754, after a one-sided rain-soaked battle, Washington surrendered to de Jumonville’s older step-brother, Coulon de Villiers. He signed articles of capitulation in French, a language in which he had no facility, that described the death of Jumonville as an assassination.

Washington claimed to rely entirely on the good offices of a “translator” who had limited French and equally limited English.[8] Chernow surmises that the written terms were delivered in rain blotched ink and practically indecipherable. With the benefit of a printed copy and accurate translation, there is no mistaking the use of the term “assassination.”

Savoir.

Comme notre intention n'a jamais été de troubler la Paix et la Bonne armonie qui régnoit entre les deux Princes amis, mais seulement de venger L'assasin qui a été fait sur un de nos officier porteur d'une sommation et sur son escorte, comme aussy d'empecher aucun Etablissement sur les terres du Roy mon maitre
A Ces Considerations nous voulons bien accorder grace a tous les Anglois qui sont dans le dit fort aux conditions ci-après. [9]

As our intention had never been to trouble the peace and good harmony which reigns between the two friendly princes, but only to revenge the assassination which has been done on one of our officers, bearer of a summons, upon his party, as also to hinder any establishment on the lands of the dominions of the King, my master. Upon these considerations, we are willing to grant protection of favor, to all the English that are in the said fort, upon conditions hereafter mentioned.

Washington beat a retreat to Wills Creek with his army rapidly decreasing in numbers through desertion. Before he was allowed to leave, the Indians and French rifled through his baggage, found and seized his journal and sent it back to Governor Duquense. He translated the purloined journal and forwarded it to Paris where it was published two years later. Washington denied the accuracy of the translation, but even historians sympathetic to him do not find his defense any stronger, but no less necessary to his reputation, than the ill-conceived location and construction of Fort Necessity. [10] In the words of the Half-King:

[Washington] would by no means take Advice from the Indians…he lay at one Place from one full Moon to the other and made no Fortifications at all, but that little thing upon the Meadow, where he thought the French would come up to him in open Field…[11]

Remarkably, following a relatively brief period of public attacks on his competence, Washington emerged from the disaster with his personal reputation and his military prospects intact. He did resign from his appointment as an adjutant in the Virginia militia, probably because its reorganization would have reduced his rank to that of major. Dinwiddie had conferred on him a battlefield promotion to full colonel after the successful ambush of Jumonville. Even though he resigned his commission, Washington placed an order with his London tailor for materials for military dress of some sort.[12]

[1] Twohig at 40.

[2] Dale Van Every, Forth to the Wilderness: The First American Frontier 1754-1774 (1961 Quill, NY) ISBN 0-688-07522-3 at 67. Fry was delayed at Will’s Creek by a fall from his horse that turned fatal leaving an untested, inexperienced and immature Washington in command.

[3] Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (1988 Norton) ISBN 0-393-30640-2 at 68-70.

[4] Sworn affidavit of John Shaw before South Carolina governor James Glen, 21 August 1754, in Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1754-1765, at 4-5 ed. Willliam L. McDowell, Jr. (1970 Columbia, SC)

[5] Washington’s biographers all agree that Washington deeply resented the assumed superiority of the British regulars and that resentment shaped his life long views of British colonial rule. Chernow at 45 and 59. In fairness, it must be noted that Washington had absolutely no military training even though he seemed to have from the beginning the natural instincts and personality suitable to inspire the confidence of the men who he lead.

[6] http://www.nps.gov/fone/index.htm. Fort Necessity has been completely reconstructed based on careful archaeological excavation, and is now a National Historical Monument.

[7] Pennsylvanna Gazette, 27 June 1754.

[8] Chernow at 48 citing PWC at 1:164-170.

[9] http://www.nps.gov/fone/historyculture/capitulation.htm.

[10] Chernow at 48-49.

[11] Pennsylvania Council Minutes 6:151-52 from the Journal of Conrad Weiser. The Half-King took his small band off to live near the Indian trader Croghan and died in October of the same year.

[12] Chernow at 51.

JACOB HUBER Chapter 3: A Second Journal and a Second Journey

2013-05-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3: A Second Journal and a Second Journey

The young Washington soon thereafter became involved with the Ohio Company and its plans to establish a trading post and fort at the source Forks of the Ohio (Pittsburg). The French countered by taking over the Ohio company site and renaming it Fort Duquense after the governor general of French Canada.

Virginia Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie, also a major investor in the Ohio Company, received instructions from the government in London to erect several forts along the Ohio and to deliver an ultimatum to the French at Fort Duquense. Twenty one year old George Washington offered his services to act as the emissary to deliver the ultimatum.[1] The orders, signed by King George II, clearly stated that, in the event the French did not accede to the ultimatum: “we do hereby strictly charge and command you to drive them off by force of arms.” [2]

Major Washington received his instructions on October 31, 1753, and left for the Ohio headwaters the same day.[3] He led a small party, notably including a German speaking French interpreter who had some French facility but much less English. Washington had no French and no German:

[T]he next [day], I arrived at Fredericksburg [VA], and engaged Mr. Jacob Vanbraam, to be French interpreter; and proceeded with him to Alexeandria, where we provided Necessaries; from thence we went to Winchester, and got Baggage, Horses, etc. and from thence we persued the new Road to Wills-Creek [MD], where we arrived 14^th of November. Here I engaged Mr. Gist to pilot us out, and also hired four other Servitors, Barnaby Currin, and John MaGuire, Indian Traders, Henry Steward, and William Jenkins, and in the Company of those Persons, left the Inhabitants the Day Following.

Washington selected this small band to meet the minimum linguistic and skill requirements for navigating a path through the wilderness and handling encounters with the French, Indian and German speaking inhabitants.

Rain and snow delayed his arrival at the mouth of Turtle Creek on the Monongahela until November 22. His route over an ancient Indian trail would later become the route of Braddock’s Road. He finally arrived at the headwaters of the Ohio (now Pittsburg) a day or so later.

Following his instructions, Washington evaluated the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny into the Ohio as an especially suitable site for a fort. He also made contact with Indian tribes in the area and made them aware of British intentions.

The French commandant had recently died. His replacement required Washington to proceed another forty miles to Fort Le Boeuf, at present day Waterford, PA near Lake Erie,[4] to deliver the ultimatum to a superior officer. While waiting for a reply, Washington spent three days assessing the military capabilities Fort Le Boeuf. At the end of the wait, Captain Jacques Legardeur de St. Pierre promised only to forward the ultimatum to his superior and gave to Washington a sealed response to Governor Dinwiddie. For his part, the Captain had used the three days to bribe Washington’s Indian traveling companions to stay at the fort leaving Washington and the remainder of his travelling companions to find their own way back.[5] They did and arrived in Williamsburg on January 16, 1754.

Dinwiddie gave Washington one day to write a report based on his journal. Dinwiddie then sent it for publication as far north as Massachusetts. Though Washington did not get compensated for his service, he did manage to parlay it into a promotion and a central role in the looming conflict on the frontier.

[1] Alan Axelrod, Blooding at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the Battle that Shaped the Man (Philadelphia 2007) at 83 ISBN-13: 978-0-7624-2769-7

[2] W.W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, and Philander D. Case, eds. The Papers of George Washington: Colonial Series, 10 vols. Charolottesville, VA (1983-95) vol. 1:57. ISBN-10: 0813909120 ISBN-13: 978-0813909127. Online http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN.

[3] George Washington, The Journal of Major George Washington: An Account of His First Official Mission, Made As Emissary from the Governor of Virginia to the Commandant of the French Forces on the Ohio, October 1753-January 1754 (1959 Facsimile Edition, Williamsburg, VA; Henry Holt, NY) LC No. 59-9062. Copy in DAH library.

[4] http://www.fortleboeufhistoricalsociety.org/museums/index.html

[5] See, Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (2010 Penguin Press) ISBN 978-1-59420 at 266-7 for an assessment of lessons learned by the callow George Washington during this trip.

JACOB HUBER Chapter 2: A Journal of a Journey Over the Mountains

2013-05-11T08:22:00.003-07:00

Chapter 2: A Journal of a Journey Over the Mountains

Washington first ventured into the colonial frontier in March 1748, sixteen years of age, as part of a survey crew sent to the Shenandoah Valley. The crew’s mission: to mark off Lord Fairfax’s extensive holdings into leasehold parcels.[1] He kept a travel diary entitled “A Journal of My Journey over the Mountains.”[2] He records in that diary his first encounter with Indians on March 23 (JJM at 13/33) and the Pennsylvania Dutch (German speaking people) on April 4 (JJM at 14/45):

Monday 4^th this morning Mr. Faifax left us with Intent to go down to ye Mouth of ye Branch we did two Lots & was attended by a great Company of People Men Women & Children that attended us through ye Woods as we went showing there Antick tricks I really think they seem to be as Ignorant a Set of People as the Indians they would never speak English but when spoken to they speak Dutch [English language word for the German “Deutch”]

Between these two events, Washington’s party enjoyed the hospitality in Maryland of Colonel Cresap who also figured prominently in Braddock’s campaign in 1755 as well as border wars between Maryland and Pennsylvania. By the time of the Braddock campaign, Washington had a much better opinion of German speaking settlers and by the time of the Revolutionary War, he fully appreciated the loyalty and fighting qualities of ethnic German-American soldiers. As a result of his first foray as a surveyor into the frontier, Washington developed a keen sense of future land values and made his first acquisition of a tract of land in the Shenandoah Valley.

[1] This and other surveys probably provided data for the map of Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, first published in 1751. Two editions of the map appear in Maryland Historical Society, Mapping Maryland: The Willard Hackerman Collection at 24-25 and 38. (Baltimore 1998) ISBN 0-938420-64-X.

[2] Page cites are to un-annotated/annotated versions of the Journal. Un-annotated online: http://archive.org/stream/journalofmajorge00wash#page/32/mode/2up. Annotated online: http://archive.org/stream/journaljourney00washrich.

JACOB HUBER: HEARSAY WITNESS TO BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AT THE MONOGAHELA IN 1754: Chapter 1: Odds and Oddities of Ancestry

2013-05-11T08:15:00.002-07:00

JACOB HUBER: HEARSAY WITNESS TO BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AT THE MONONGAHELA IN 1754

Chapter 1: Odds and Oddities of Ancestry

Why do we tend to trace and place prime importance on ancestors that share our current family name? Do we really believe that familial character traits (if such things even exist) are shaped more by a Holzworth or Bell than by a Metzger or a Hoover (Huber)? Simple genetics and simple arithmetic suffice to tell us that our nature and nurture endowments going back six generations must be more or less equally derived from 64 individuals and 32 sets of parents.

So let’s talk about our sixth grandfather Jacob Huber [Hoover] (1730-1801). We know for certain that he served in the revolutionary war as a private in Captain Heyser’s company at the battle of White Plains in New York[1]. Both Maryland and Pennsylvania Archives include information on this company given that citizens from both colonies were enrolled.

We know about a Jacob Huber, probably our Jacob Huber, by the chance happenstance that this Jacob Huber was a hearsay witness to a particularly bad but critical moment in American history. This is what he heard and then testified to:

"The Examination of Jacob Hovre, a Wagoner, belonging to the Army under the immediate Command of General Braddock, taken under Oath before the Honourable Robert Hunter Morris, Esqr., Governour of the Province of Pennsylvania, at Carlisle, in the County of Cumberland, the 17th July, 1755.

"This Examinant saith that he was in Col. Dunbar's Camp the tenth of July, Instant, and was inform'd that Two Officers who had come from Fort Cumberland, and had proceeded early in the Mourning with a Party of Indians to join General Braddock, returned to the Camp about three Hours after the set out, and a Rumour spread that there was bad News, and that the Officers could not pass to the General by Reason of the Indians. That about nine or ten o'clock the same Day this Examinant saw and spoke with several Waggoners who were come into Col. Dunbar's Camp from General Braddock's, and who inform'd this Examinant that Gen'l Braddock with his advanc'd Party of fifteen Hundred Men had been attacked on the Ninth Instant within five miles of Fort Du Quesne by a great many Frenc and Indians, who surrounded them; That the Action lasted three Hours; That the most part of the English were killed; That General Braddock was wounded and put into a Wagon and afterwards killed by the Indians; That Sr. Peter Hacket and Cap'tn Orme were also killed. And this Examinant further saith that he saw some SoLdiers return into Colon'l Dinbar's Camp, whom he was inform'd had been of General Braddock's advanced Party, some of whom were wounded, some not; also saw Two Officers carried on Sheets, One of whom was said to be Seit John St. Clair, whom the Examinant was inform'dhas received Two Wounds; That about Noon of the same Day Col. Dunbar's Drums beat to Arms, and both before and after that many Soldiers and Waggoners, with other Attendants upon the Camp, took to flight, and amongst others this Examinant; And further saith not. "JACOB HUBER. "Sworn the day and Year above written before "ROB't H MORRIS."[2]

How did our sixth great grandfather happen to be at this place at this time, the momentous moment, which some historians believe led most directly to the American Revolution?[3] To answer this question, we will follow the path taken by a young frontier surveyor and would-be soldier, the scion of a well-connected Virginia family with a significant interest in the Ohio Company, land speculators with enormous financial incentives to secure the Ohio River valley for their heirs and their colony. We will then return to the genealogical data and tie in the fortunes of our humble Pennsylvania Dutch forbearers to the events and fallout of the crushing defeat of General Braddock near Fort Duquense (Pittsburg) on July 9, 1755, and the escape unharmed of his callow twenty something aide-de-camp, the surveyor George Washington.

[1] Revolutionary War record, Maryland Archives, Vol 18, pg 263-264, roll of Capt. Heysers Co., date 10/23/1776. Among the privates on the muster roll appears the name of Jacob Hoover; pg. 218. Jacob Hoover, German regiment, discharged, 10/12/1779 in PA, archives 5th series, Vol. 3, pg. 793-794. Capt. William Heysers Co. Pvt Jacob J. Hoover went to Bedford Co., and died there. (Ref S.A.R. Register pg 405.) Copies of verified original source documentation of the service and his lineage is on file at the DAR library under Patriot No. A057844. The documentation includes family bible records, wills, muster rolls, tombstone images, among other things.

[2] Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania: From the Organization to the Termination of the Proprietary Government. Vol. VI, Containing the Proceedings of Council from April 2d, 1754, to January 29th, 1756, both days included. Harrisburg 1851 at pages 483-484. E-book free download at www.books.google.com. PDF copy on file in DAH Library. Depositions of Mathew Laird and Michael Hoover (relationship to Jacob Huber not yet determined), at pages 482-483, are substantially the same as the deposition of Jacob Huber. 2. The three depositions are cited in Francis Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe: The French and Indian War, ISBN: 1-4209-3106-7 at page 107. Digireads, (Stilwell, KN 2008) and in Francis Parkman, "Parkman: France and England in North America” Vol. 2, ISBN 0-940450-11-9 Library of America (Penguin Putnam Inc. 1883).

[3] The first identification of our Jacob Huber to the Jacob Huber of the deposition appears in Hulda Hoover McLean, Genealogy of the Herbert Hoover Family at 36 (Imprint Stanford University, Hoover Institute 1967; copy at DAR Library, DC). “Jacob Huber served under Gen. Braddock against the French and Indians in 1775 [sic]…” No source document is cited. Confusion in the relationships, if any, in the various Huber families results from German naming patterns in which a few common first names such as Jacob and Johannes (John) have a high frequency, especially among the children of siblings. For more on the difficulties of positive identification and professional quality genealogical research on the Huber/Hoover lines see, Kris Hocker, "My Hoover Research,"

at http://www.krishocker.com/hoover-research. (accessed 5 May 2013).

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 5 At the Gate: Mr. Deeds Goes to Court

2013-03-25T08:54:00.002-07:00

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 5

At the Gate: Mr. Deeds Goes to Court

1Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by; unto whom he said, Ho, such a one! turn aside, sit down here. And he turned aside, and sat down. 2And he took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, Sit ye down here. And they sat down. 3And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech's: 4And I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it.5Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. 6And the kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance: redeem thou my right tothyself; for I cannot redeem it.

7Now this was the manner in former time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour: and this was a testimony in Israel. 8Therefore the kinsman said unto Boaz, Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe. 9And Boaz said unto the elders, and unto all the people, Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlon's, of the hand of Naomi. 10Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day. 11 And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem: 12And let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the seed which the LORD shall give thee of this young woman.

13So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son. 14And the women said unto Naomi, Blessed be the LORD, which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel. 15And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.

16And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. 17And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

18Now these are the generations of Pharez: Pharez begat Hezron,19And Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, 20And Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon,22And Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, 22And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.

Chagall must not have been much interested in this closing scene of the Ruth story for he did not paint it. It does, however, tie up all loose ends very neatly with climactic acts of hesed: 1. Boaz redeems the land of that was Elimelech's, and all that was Chilion's and Mahlons; 2. Boaz has purchased to be his wife Ruth the Moabitess to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance; 3. Ruth bears a son that Naomi takes to nurse; 4. Naomi raises him up to be the grandfather of King David. Blessings ensue from the Israeli women's chorus to each of these acts and they also attest to these acts of hesed and marriage being witnesses thereto.

Thematically, the scene revolves around the legal concept of milah manchah geulah -- that is redemption of the land and maybe something else -- which appears a record breaking 14 times within 8 verses. The objects of redeeming land, and in addition the redemption of family and its name, are achieved through some shrewd courtroom maneuvers by Boaz, the city gates being the courtroom equivalent. For this purpose, Boaz convenes a minyan of city elders and discussions proceed in the presence of the Israeli women's chorus of spectators. The action verbs shift from lying down on the threshing floor to sitting down at the gates.

The redemption key word appears in a chiastic distribution in two groups of seven. The first set appears in verses 1, 3 and 4, with 1 occurrence each in verses 1 and 3 and an astounding 5 occurrences in verse 4. This first set focuses on redemption of land. The second set consists of an equally astounding 5 appearances in verse 6, and 1 occurrence each in verses 7 and 8. The second set moves on to the redemption of Ruth the Moabitess for the purpose of producing an heir and restoring the family name to the land. Etshalom characterizes these two acts of hesed as first and second degree geulah, the second being the greater and more difficult act. The goel balks and folds when the price of poker goes up. The minyan joins with the people of the city and the Israeli women's chorus to witness and bless the deal, Boaz, Naomi and Ruth.

Ironically and fittingly, the goel remains nameless, and it is only in this segment that we learn that Ruth's husband was Malhon. He suffers the fate of the ploni almoni (such a one) reference in his chance passing by when Boaz hails him to sit down, the expression probably meaning something along the lines of a wondrous mute.

So why did the goel back down? Within the literary structure of the story, there can be no explanation other than that Ruth is a Moabitess. This wondrously mute would be goel could not get past her ethnic identity to perceive that Ruth was a woman of valor. Ruth Rabbah 7:10 sees it somewhat differently: "The first ones [husbands of Ruth and Orpah] died because they married her, shall I take her as a wife?" Perhaps implied is a sentence of "death by Moabite.”

We now need to take a close at the closing blessings, and count them. First, the blessing of Naomi as translated in the JPS Tanakh: "May [YHWH] make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel! Prosper in Ephrathah and perpetuate your name in Bethlehem! And may your house be like the house of Perez whom Tamar bore to Judah -- through offspring which the [YHWH] will give you by this young woman." The storyteller leaves no doubt as to the patriarchal aspects of the Ruth story with the Rachel and Leah references, but also drives home (again) that the story is upsetting the received norm excluding Moabites and bringing (redeeming) those back into the fold that desire to come back into the fold. Eskenazi and Frymer-Kensy see this historical revisionism as a trickster tale, in the same genre as the Tamar and Judah story that it explicitly references. "As Ruth's acts of generosity [hesed] toward Naomi reverse the inhospitable behavior that first led to the exclusion of Moabites ... so too the actions of Boaz 'reverse' the story of Judah, who acted so precipitously and dishonorably when he unexpectedly encountered a woman." JPS Biblical Commentary: Ruth at 85, fn 12.

If this is a trickster tale, who is the trickster? Naomi? Ruth? Boaz? All three of them? Who has been tricked? And what has been the consequence of the trickery? Is it a Shakespearean comedy in which all is well that ends well, no matter what fools these mortals be when under the spell of fairy queens and kings? Let's turn now to a more nearly contemporary trickster tale, also a comedy about re-marriage and redemption, that plays with many of the same themes prominent in the story of Ruth.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, written and directed by Frank Capra, stars Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds and Jean Arthur as Babe Bennett. As in Ruth, the names mean something. The film opens with an abrupt prologue, a car plunging off a road over a cliff, killing the driver and its sole occupant. Cut to a newsroom (the chorus in this genre), and reporters seek to learn who will be the heir to the deceased driver's fortune, a matter of some interest in the Great Depression backdrop.

A law firm locates the heir, Longfellow Deeds, in a country village. Much confusion ensues as town and country do not seem to communicate well with one another. Deeds drowns out the words of the lawyers by inserting a new mouthpiece in his tuba, and plays. He pauses long enough to ask the mouthpiece lawyers why his uncle left him all his money since Deeds doesn't need it.

Back in New York, other relatives of the deceased are upset that they have been cut out of the will. In another newspaper office, the editor offers reporter Babe Bennett a month's paid vacation if she can get the scoop on the heir. She practices a one-handed rope-knotting trick while the negotiations are taking place. No doubt in my mind that Capra is setting up Gary Cooper, the Montana cowboy turned actor, to be roped, thrown and branded. Rawhide!

We next find Deeds in his new mansion being fitted for a suit. Will the suit suit him? The senior Cedar of Cedar, Cedar and Cedar offers to represent him for no fee if Deeds gives him a power of attorney. Deeds says that is not natural and wants to examine their books. In the next scene, Deeds is elected to head the board of the opera company, a position previously held by his uncle. The board expects him to make up the year's deficit because the ticket sales do not pay for the production. Deeds does not think this is natural either, and suggests that they are putting on the wrong kind of show.

At Deeds' second fitting, a press agent hired by Cedar to keep tabs on Deeds offers to get women for him. Deeds declines, remarking that Cobb speaks of women as though they were cattle. The Coen brothers might have floated the image of a red heifer at this point.

Later that night, Babe lies in wait for Deeds outside his mansion along with two photographers. She crosses the street ahead of Deeds' path slowly and unsteadily. He follows; she faints; he lifts her up; he revives her; she says she had just walked too far looking for a job.

Deeds insists on taking her someplace to eat, which turns out to be Tullio's where you "Eat with the Literati." Deeds watches intently and happily as Babe eats. He says, "You were a woman in distress, weren't you?" After a brush up with writers eating at a near by round table (the Algonquin club), one of them takes Deeds and Babe (under the alias Mary) out for a night of revelry.

Next morning the papers have Babe's story about "Cinderella Man" and making much of his feeding donuts to a horse. We next learn that Deeds and his fellow raconteur were returned to the mansion after two policemen had discovered them in their shorts yelling "Back to Nature."

Deeds goes out again with Babe (Mary) the next night for an open upper deck bus tour. Of all places, they stop in front of Grant's Tomb where Deeds rhapsodizes about Grant's dreams, Lee's heartbreak and Lincoln's vision of a great new and reconciled nation. We next find them sitting on a park bench where Deeds inexactly quotes Thoreau: "They built grand palaces but they forgot to build the noble men to live in them." [We interrupt the story at this point to note that the Art Scroll Chumash also references Thoreau, without attribution, in its commentary on Ruth, specifically that "all men lead quiet lives of desperation."] They do a duet with Deeds imitating a tuba and Babe improvising drumsticks.

Back in her apartment with her room-mate and confidant Mable, Babe is filled with remorse over her subterfuge. [Note: Was the role of heroine-confidant in Shakespearean plays inspired by the Book of Ruth?] Deeds calls. He is working on a poem. He writes greeting card sentiments, which he sells; hence, in part, the Longfellow in him. He confides that he writes because he finds words hard to say. Mable says Babe is crucifying him. Babe says its been done before. "He's got goodness in him Mabel."

The newspaper chorus comes on screen with a flurry of front page items on the escapades of Cinderella man, culminating in the announcement of a grand soiree for the benefit of the opera company at the Deeds mansion. After throwing out the opera people, Deeds arrives unannounced at the girls' apartment. Deeds and Mary go for a walk. He tells her about his imaginary girlfriend from his childhood. "I hoped she would turn out to be real." He gives his poem, a proposal, to Babe to read when they get back to the apartment. She comes to the words "I'm speechless in your presence," and is moved to tears. He says she doesn't need to say anything now. Then he exits onto the street, stumbles over a pile of trash cans and flees the scene. Is this a Boaz style physical comedy, a startled or unsettled act?

Babe sees her editor, she quits and tells him Deeds has proposed and that she will see him that evening and tell the truth. Before she can do that, Cobb confronts Deeds with Babe's true identity. Deeds is stunned, Cobb calls the paper and puts Babe on the phone. Deeds, brokenhearted, wants to return home and give up the estate. There is a commotion downstairs with a crazed man, out of work and starving. He pulls out a pistol, but collapses in grief. Deeds has an epiphany. A long silent scene follows with the man eating the lunch prepared for Mary, with Deeds watching intently.

The newspaper chorus chimes in with another flurry of headlines "Deeds to Give Fortune Away." We then see Deeds at a desk with a long line of farmer applicants responding to Deeds free offer of 10 acres, a cow and seed, an oblique reference to the civil war reconstruction plan of 10 acres and a mule for freed slaves. Deeds is getting weary and hungry as the processing goes on. One of the farmers offers him half of his sandwich. A light goes on and Deeds orders lunch for everyone. The police come in with a warrant for Deeds' arrest on the grounds of insanity. Cobbs calls Cedar and discovers that Cedar arranged for the warrant on behalf of the other relatives.

Deeds is confined at the county hospital. Cobbs won't let Babe see him. Deeds refuses to talk to anyone, including the audience for about twenty five minutes of footage in the courtroom during which Deeds refuses to defend himself. All of his foibles are recounted and held out as incontrovertible evidence of his insanity. He finally finds his voice when Babe admits on the stand that she loves him, begs him to speak in his own defense and is joined by the raucous demands of the farmers in the courtroom not to abandon them.

So what light does this Hollywood comedy shine on the story of Ruth? The low hanging fruit are the obvious themes of hesed, and acts of hesed begetting further acts of hesed. More complex is the interaction of words, silences and deeds. Most interesting of all are those acts of generosity that require the extra effort of going against accepted norms to accomplish a worthy goal and the intellectual dexterity needed to do so in a way that changes the norm so that the society itself accepts and bears witness to the new norm. Deeds and Boaz accomplish and have ratified their objectives in the courtroom, with equally deft quasi-legal maneuvering. The rhetorical flourishes are entertaining, but the real interest and substance goes to the structure of the process rather than the Boaz's tricks over the technicalities of levirate marriage, or the cleverness of exposing idiosyncratic behaviors in one's accusers.

Both stories raise the fundamental and important question of whether it takes a person or persons of valor and their super-rogatory acts to move a society of exclusion to one of inclusion, whether it be foreigners, immigrants, ethnic groups or strangers among us. Stanley Cavell, in Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life, describes an Emersonian concept of moral perfectionism that might equally well be applied to the underlying principles of the holiness code embedded in Leviticus 19.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 4 On the Threshing Floor: It Happened One Night

2013-03-25T08:51:00.001-07:00

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 4

On the Threshing Floor: It Happened One Night
The storyteller begins to tease and tantalize us in earnest. Naomi, continuing to advise Ruth as she would her own daughter, proposes some bold conduct:

1Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee? 2And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? Behold, he winnoweth barley to night in the threshing floor. 3Wash thyself therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor: but make not thyself known unto the man, until he shall have done eating and drinking. 4 And it shall be, when he lieth down, that thou shalt mark the place where he shall lie, and thou shalt go in, and uncover his feet, and lay thee down; and he will tell thee what thou shalt do. 5And she said unto her, All that thou sayest unto me I will do.

This sounds like Naomi is telling Ruth the Moabitess to reenact one of Lot’s evenings in the cave with his daughters. First, dress to the nines; second, ply Boaz with food and drink; third, lie down next to him; fourth, uncover his feet (sometimes a euphemism for genitals, but like Freud’s cigar, it could just be feet); fifth, let Boaz be Boaz and follow his lead. Pretty shocking stuff, and the sage Rashi, among others, was at pains to say that, in this instance, the plain meaning was not what was meant at all.

Marc Chagall Ruth Lying at Boaz's Feet

I think the scene can be played either way, but makes a better (more coherent) story if the encounter is electric, but chaste along the lines of two Hollywood remarriage comedies directed by Frank Capra, both of which play with themes of hesed and famine. These are: It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert; and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town starring Gary Cooper and Jean Ashton. It is hard to say whether Capra consciously adopted themes from Ruth, but his treatment of close encounters of this kind may illustrate what Rashi is saying. Let’s go back to the Ruth story first, and then look at it through the lens of Capra’s camera.

6And she went down unto the floor, and did according to all that her mother in law bade her. 7And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. 8And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.

Did she do all that her mother-in-law bade her? Rashi disagrees. According to Rashi, Ruth must have waited for her ablutions until she arrived at the threshing floor and after arrived after everyone else, including Boaz. Otherwise, he reasons, she would have appeared as a common prostitute, completely out of place, and noticeably so to everyone else present. Rashi insists that everything by Ruth must be seen as having the purest, chaste and modest of intentions, including that she must have been modest even in the way she stooped to glean. Perhaps Rashi had in mind the story of Judah and Tamar, another case in which a kinsmen needed to be prompted to take action for a damsel in distress.

In this respect, Ruth is both modern and Shakespearean in depicting the subtle psychological interplay between men and women when courting, among other things; in this respect, modern movies (e.g. Shakespeare In Love) and Shakespeare’s plays (e.g. As You Like It) are biblical in depicting the subtle psychological interplay between men and women in courting, among other things. The superior social intellect of the women in these encounters have led to the Harold Bloom hypothesis that much of the biblical stories that feature women, particularly the parts attributed to the J source, were written by a woman in Solomon’s court. Of course, the “evidence” for the Bloom hypothesis would require both Shakespeare and Capra to be women.

I leave it to the close reader and/or attentive audience to decides whether either Rashi or Bloom have a case to make. I think the encounter on the threshing room floor is best treated as a gently teasing scene, but necessarily chaste to be comic, not unlike the bus and motel bedroom scenes in It Happened One Night. Clark Gable, as Peter Warne, a bit inebriated and just fired newspaper reporter is at a bus station, having spent close to his last cash on a ticket to return to New York. Also there is Claudett Colbert, as Ellie Andrews, a spoiled runaway bride and heiress who is already headline news. To avoid recognition she talks a woman into buying a ticket for her. Peter boards the bus first, and finds a seat at the rear, but encumbered with a pile of newspapers. While Peter argues with the driver to get the papers removed, Ellie slides past and takes the whole rear seat, where Peter finds her. She declines to give it up, so Peter decides the seat is big enough for two. In the next shot the following morning, we see Ellie nestled against Peter and his sweater wrapped around her shoulders. She stirs awake, suddenly realizes the peculiarity of the situation and later says, "I hope you don't misunderstand what happened last night." Of course, we know, though Ellie does not, that nothing along the lines of what Ellie may be imaging has happened. We, the listeners around the campfire/hearth and in the theater, are confidants and confederates with the storyteller, director and cameraman, and also Peter Warne in our perspective on this part of the action.[1]

We get three encores, with variations of the scene at subsequent campsites, auto parks (motels) during their picaresque return to New York. On the bus next day, they begin by sitting in separate seats apart from one another. The traveling salesman sitting next to her makes a pass. Peters warns him off claiming Ellie to be his wife. Peter then begins to take charge of budgeting at this time of their mutual scarcity, but also with the backdrop of the depression and real hunger in the land. This passenger later sees a newspaper, recognizes Ellie and immediately sees an opportunity to collect a reward. Peter scares him off, not exactly with the legerdemain of Leverite marriage obligations. Given their collective shortage of cash, Peter rents a single room as Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Ellie is suspicious (perhaps also hopeful) that his intentions may be more personal than just getting her story as a re-entry to his reporting career. To show his good faith, he strings up a blanket between the two single beds, which he characterizes as "not as thick as the Walls of Jericho but a lot safer." In a scene that caused sales of undershirts nationwide to plummet, Peter causes Ellie to retreat to her side of the blanket by taking off his shirt (no undershirt) and then turning off the lights, but thereby raising the temperature of the scene. We see the invisible form of Ellie in a darkened room moving against her side of the blanket as she is undressing. In the stillness of the dark, they have their first serious and intimate conversation. The absence of sex supercharges the intimacy of the scene.

In the same way, the absence of sex supercharges the intimacy of the scene on the threshing room floor. We know, even though Boaz may not (at least immediately), that nothing unchaste happened before he was startled.[2] The storyteller invites us to enjoy with him the comic aspects of the situation. Boaz awakes at midnight, a biblically portentous time of the day, as we are reminded by the opening phrase of verse 8, "vayhi bahatzi halaylah." The only other occurrence of the phrase in the Tanakh is at Exodus 12:29: "And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, when smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses." No coincidence, I think, that this seminal act of redemption follows upon precise instructions of preparation from YHWH to Moses to Israel, "And the children of Israel went away, and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they." Exodus 12:28

Marc Chagall Boaz wakes to see Ruth at his feet

We are also invited to focus on the way in which Boaz was startled, vayeherad, a relatively rare word. We see the word used exactly in this form in the scene after Jacob steals Esau's blessing. Genesis 27:33 "And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, 'Who? where is he that hath taken venison and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and have blessed him? yea and he shall be blessed."

Now, why is it that this particular blessing resulting from the theft of a birthright deserves such focal attention in Ruth? The answer, it seems to me, emerges from the Jonathan/David relationship. By means more indirect and ambiguous, David, the younger "brother" of Jonathan succeeds to all that would be Jonathan's birthright. Further, though wrongfully deprived, Esau eventually forgives Jacob since he has separately been blessed and has enough, though forgiveness comes only after Jacob came prepared to give a great deal back to Esau.

The Ruth storyteller continues to evoke the Jacob/Esau blessing scene, but with a twist. Nothing like the unexpected entry of a woman into a man's personal space to get his attention:

9And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. 10And he said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. 11And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman.

The commentators have various explanations for what Ruth proposes here. The range from a modest proposal to join in Boaz' household as the equivalent of an adopted daughter or ward, to a concubine to marriage as a primary wife. The commentators agree that all three arrangements would be proper (setting aside for the moment Ruth's Moabite origin). Rashi does not think Ruth is proposing that either option two or three is to be consummated with a roll in the hay in the wee hours of the morning.

Whatever it is that Ruth proposes, she clearly takes charge in a way that Naomi did not instruct or anticipate. She does not wait for Boaz to catch her drift. Like other strong, intelligent and valorous Israeli women (Tamar, Rachel, Hannah, Jael), she took steps to make this happen. Her words harken back to her first encounter with Boaz in the field when he said "YHWH recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of YHWH God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust." I have here modified the KJV translation to bring into sharper focus the elements of Ruth's conversion to Judaism, as well as the magnitude of the blessing Boaz then conferred on Ruth. Essentially, Ruth is saying to him I heard the words, now let's see the deeds.

Boaz gets it. He is both surprised and delighted by the proposal. He repeats verbatim, Ruth's response to Naomi kol asher tomeri eyeseh lakh [all that you say I will do for you]. Some of the commentators believe that he is delighted, because he finally realizes that Ruth wants a conjugal relationship with him, even though he in his propriety thought only to care for Ruth as he would for a ward or daughter. I think another reading (or additional layer of understanding) may be that he also grasps Ruth's farsighted goal of providing both for herself and for Naomi, a goal that is not reached if only Ruth comes under his mantle. What strikes him is Ruth's devotion to Naomi, a love that surpasses that for men? We will look at this aspect of hesed again in the more ambiguous relationship of Jonathan and David. With all the escalating acts of hesed, not once have we heard a declaration of love by either Ruth or Boaz for the other. In fact, only one woman in the Tanakh has ever been said to be in love with a man: "And Michal Saul's daughter loved David: and they told Saul and the thing pleased him." I Samuel 18:20. That did not turn out so well.

One further comment on the threshing floor. Threshing typically takes place at a high place, where the wind aids in separating the wheat from the chaff. Metaphorically, in Ruth, the threshing floor is an appropriate venue to determine whether her conduct qualifies her to "return" to Israel, to be redeemed by Boaz. Hence, David later negotiates for the purchase of such a site near Jerusalem.[3] On such sites also are built altars, most notably the first Temple. Often the sites are located near the city gates. The threshing floor further serves as a metaphor for prosperity and fecundity. Eskenazi and Frymer-Kensy at 50.

The story of Boaz and Ruth is, like all romantic comedies, propelled by sexual tension and, like the best romantic comedies, develops into a match of character and intellect producing an abundance of good things, not the least of which is the line that leads to David. We have the Israeli women's chorus, the equivalent function of the newspaper in the modern remarriage comedies, confirm Ruth's bone fides. In this tender tennis match, Ruth has now returned volley to Boaz, who will control the final resolution:

12And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. 13Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth: lie down until the morning.

This sets-up the last chapter at the city gates where Ruth's Moabite origin lurks in the background, having not be mentioned even once before, during or after the threshing floor encounter.

14And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could know another. And he said, Let it not be known that a woman came into the floor. 15Also he said, Bring the vail that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and she went into the city. 16And when she came to her mother in law, she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her. 17And she said, These six measures of barley gave he me; for he said to me, Go not empty unto thy mother in law. 18Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.

We get two slightly different accounts of what happened before Ruth left the threshing floor and returned to Naomi. In the confidential storyteller's account, Boaz pours six measures of barley into Ruth's veil. Freudians might see it as a metaphor for a seminal event. Are the six measures representative of six days labor gleaning the field? In Ruth's account to Naomi, the six measures are so that Ruth will not go empty (barren?) back to Naomi, echoing Naomi's emptiness on returning to Bethlehem, which she left when full. Since Ruth has the equivalent of six days gleaning, Naomi tells her to sit still, rest, and leave it to Boaz. Six days of fecundity may reflect the Genesis event, followed by a fallow Sabbath, a day of rest. The opening advice of the chapter is recapitulated. As we now will see, this time Ruth does all that Naomi tells her to do.

[1] I have relied heavily on Stanley Cavell for his remarkable ability to provide very compact scene and action summaries for these and other biblically themed films in Cities of Words.

[2] Marc Chagall appears to read the scene contra-Rashi, but it is also possible to view the Chagall depictions as erotic dreamscapes.

[3] Compare the negotiation by David with Abraham’s purchase of a burial site. Genesis 23.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 3

2013-03-25T08:40:00.001-07:00

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH: PART 3

In the Field: She Came, He Saw, She Conquered

Marc Chagall 1960 Ruth Gleaning in the Field

A lot of coming, going and gleaning takes place in this action packed chapter. The root word “glean” appears twelve times. Why is it so important? Again, the storyteller weaves in the holiness code, this time Leviticus 19:9 (also Leviticus 23:22 and Deuteronomy 24:19-22):

9And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. 10And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God."

Again, this involves an act of hesed, since both the poor and the stranger are unlikely to be in the position of reciprocating the generosity.

1And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.

Marc Chagall: Ruth Meets Boaz

Introducing Boaz. The name means strength. It is also the name given to the main pillar in the temple. We learn that he is a man of distinction (ish hayil), and a kinsman of Elimelech (name meaning God is my King).

2And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go my daughter. 3And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech.

In case we forgot, Ruth is a Moabitess. In a delightful turn of phrase, Eskanazi and Frymer-Kensky describe what is about to unfold as a combination of chutzpah and hesed. JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth at xv. Ruth now takes the initiative to get out on her own, to do what those in need did. She proposes to glean in the field after whomever may allow her to do so.

The field was a dangerous place for single women, especially a young single woman, as we no doubt recall from the stories of Dinah and Tamar. So why does Naomi simply say, breaking her silence to Ruth, “Go my daughter.”? Does she trust the people of Bethlehem to know the holiness code and to observe the holiness code, especially because Shavuot is nigh? Is this the kind of advice mother's should give to daughters?

4And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless thee. 5Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? 6And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: 7And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house.

Enter Boaz. His first words are a blessing to his reapers and their chorus back to him is a blessing in return. This is the second of the six blessings that punctuate the tale at key points: 2:4, 2:12, 2:19-20; 4:11-12; 4:14). We will count our blessings after the same fashion that we counted the early returns. Thus continues the escalation of good feelings and good deeds.

Marc Chagall: Ruth Meets Boaz

But we digress. Someone caught Boaz’ eye. “Whose damsel is this?” Lest we forgot, and Boaz not notice, “It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab.” And with that introduction, Ruth prays that Boaz allow her to glean and gather, which she then does with only a brief break from morning till her next encounter with Boaz at the end of the day.

8Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens: 9Let thine eyes be on the field that they do reap, and go thou after them: have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? and when thou art athirst, go unto the vessels, and drink of that which the young men have drawn.

Boaz, like Naomi before him, addresses Ruth now as “my daughter”. This should puzzle and tease us a bit. First, the expression makes it clear that Boaz is a contemporary of Naomi and old enough that Ruth could be the same age as his daughter. But then again, she is a Moabitess and that digs up the relationship between Lot and his daughters. Where is this going? What are we to make of Boaz's suggestion to his "daughter" that she drink from the vessels that the young men have drawn?

Boaz then does something quite generous that goes beyond the mitzvot of allowing Ruth to glean in his field. He has charged the young men not to touch her and then – wait a minute! Boaz tells her that, when she is thirsty, get a drink of that which the young men have drawn. Déjà vu all over again! This is a sly and subtle variation on the patriarchal betrothal type-scene, as Robert Alter pointed out in The Art of Biblical Narrative.

The generosity extended by Boaz also resonates with other patriarchal acts of hesed, the most notable for present purposes being the greeting of food and drink that Abraham and Sarah gave to the three angels of YHWH. I would like to read the story as Abraham and Sarah being the synecdoche for all of Israel, the bride of YHWH. Genesis 18:1-15. Except for the passing mention of a little water to wash their feet, however, the scene is missing any connection to a meeting at the well, which typically plays a central role in signifying a betrothal. Following that encounter with they angels, they are promised a son. Also, following that encounter we have something adequate, but less generous, hospitality provided by Lot to two of the remaining messengers. And we know Lot’s fate, even though he did offer to let the good citizens of Sodom and Gemorrah rape his daughters if they left the angels alone.

Next we have a servant of Abraham going back Haran to find a bride for Isaac. The test, of course, for a suitable mate involves a meeting at a well and multiple acts of hesed:

10And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. 11 And he made his camels to kneel down without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. 12And he said, O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. 13Behold, I stand here by the well of water; and the daughters of the men of the city come out to draw water: 14And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master.

15And it came to pass, before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder. 16And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. 17And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. 18And she said, Drink, my lord: and she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. 19And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking. 20And she hasted, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all his camels. 21And the man wondering at her held his peace, to wit whether the LORD had made his journey prosperous or not.

So what did Rebekah do after being presented with a gold nose ring and two gold bracelets? The girl ran and told her mother the news. Genesis 24:28. A further variation on the theme occurs with Jacob and Rachel. Genesis 29:9. This time Jacob rolls a stone from the mouth of a well, waters the flock, kisses Rachel, weeps aloud and then, of course, Rachel ran and told her father Laban the news. Another variation occurs with Moses and the seven daughters of Jethro. Exodus 2:16-22.

The betrothal type-scene at the well should also be compared and contrasted with the bloody bride price of foreskins in the rape of Dinah and the proposed marriage of David to Merab, Saul’s eldest daughter. Is water turned into blood as we pass from the patriarchs to the monarchy?

The next verses of Ruth reinforce the connection to the patriarchs:

10Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, “Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? “11And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.

Here the storyteller plays on the similar sounding words “nakar”, meaning take notice, the first person singular “anoki” and “nokriyah” meaning foreigner. Boaz likens her journey to that of Abraham and also Rebecca and Rachel by recounting that she left her father and mother, the land of her nativity and came to a people that she knewest not heretofore. Genesis 12:1 And Abraham later journeyed to Egypt when there was a famine in the land, as did his son Isaac. Genesis12:10 and 26:1 Boaz's observation ties Ruth to the patriarchs and reveals that he fully appreciates the circumstances that brought her to his field.

And then he punctuates the summary with a blessing that evokes the wings of the seraphim atop the ark of the covenant, foreshadowing (prolepsis) a coming scene on the threshing floor:

12The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

To which Ruth responds and thereby elicits even more generosity in the form

of food and drink and gleaning well beyond the required amount.

13Then she said, Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid, though I be not like unto one of thine handmaidens.

14And Boaz said unto her, At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar. And she sat beside the reapers: and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left. 15And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men, saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not: 16And let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.

17So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned: and it was about an ephah of barley.

The scene now returns to Bethlehem and Naomi and a review of the day’s events. Naomi is pleased to see that Ruth did very well in the field, and punctuates the point by an anonymous blessing of the unknown man who took knowledge of her. Curiously, the storyteller now refers to Ruth as Naomi’s daughter-in-law. Does this signify that Boaz has taken over the parental role by his actions in the field and his reference to her as daughter?

18And she took it up, and went into the city: and her mother in law saw what she had gleaned: and she brought forth, and gave to her that she had reserved after she was sufficed. 19And her mother in law said unto her, Where hast thou gleaned to day? and where wroughtest thou? blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee.

Ruth then reveals his name, and Naomi confers another blessing and, in her turn, reveals to Ruth that Boaz is a close kinsman.

19And she shewed her mother in law with whom she had wrought, and said, The man's name with whom I wrought to day is Boaz. 20And Naomi said unto her daughter in law, Blessed be* he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.

But we need to be reminded that Ruth is a Moabitess, and perhaps for that reason Naomi offers some pointed advice that runs counter to a direction Ruth reportedly received from Boaz, namely to keep fast by his young men.

21And Ruth the Moabitess said, He said unto me also, Thou shalt keep fast by my young men, until they have ended all my harvest. 22And Naomi said unto Ruth her daughter in law, It is good, my daughter, that thou go out with his maidens, that they meet thee not in any other field. 23So she kept fast by the maidens of Boaz to glean unto the end of barley harvest and of wheat harvest; and dwelt with her mother in law.

Even though the narrator refers to Ruth as a daughter-in-law, Namoi addresses Ruth as her daughter, and tells her to go out with the maidens, that they meet her not in any other field. Is this a shrewd piece of advice by the perceptive Naomi designed to keep Ruth unattached from the younger men so that she may remain available to the older, ish hayil Boaz?

*Italicized words in the KJV reflect certain markings in the Torah scrolls that indicate emphasis, in keeping with the view that Ruth should be read aloud in voice, or better yet, acted in order to explore various nuances of message and character.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH PART 2: ON THE ROAD

2013-03-25T08:28:00.002-07:00

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH

PART 2: ON THE ROAD

Marc Chagall 1960 Ruth Naomi and Orpah

1Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem-judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. 2And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem-judah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. 3And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons. 4And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years. 5And Mahlon and Chilion died also both of them; and the woman was left of her two sons and her husband.

These six verses, like the opening tableau in Charles Dickens’, A Tale of Two Cities, compactly set us on our journey to discover how the worst of times leads to the best of times. Setting the stage for our four scene play (short film), the storyteller around the fire or a narrator’s voice (or scrolling words in the opening frame à la Star Wars) places us “in the days when the judges ruled”, prior to the founding of the monarchy described in the books of Samuel. The biblical convention that brackets a story with reference to time, often with a genealogy, pairs this opening with end of the story where we learn that Ruth is the great grandmother of David. It frequently happens, as it has in this case, that the genealogy does not fit squarely with an astronomically precise calendar. Such concerns are a distraction to be ignored since the convention is a literary device, not an historical one.

We learn in the same breath that there was a famine in the land, a recurring theme in the Tanakh that, as in this case, causes a migration. Such thematic repetition invites recollection of past and future famines and related journeys. The story of Ruth evokes the famine driven migrations to Egypt during the time of Abram and Sarai and again in the time of Isaac and Rebekah (identical use of the phrase “a famine in the land” Genesis 12:10 and 26:1 respectively). Thus, Elimelech and Naomi literarily follow in the footsteps of the patriarchs, as does Ruth on the return journey. In the time of the Judges, such a famine would be seen as a punishment, but not so explicitly in the time of the patriarchs. Though Ruth is set in the time of the Judges, no generalized punishment is connected to either of the two famines, though Naomi does express personal remorse and responsibility for what befalls her family.

The storyteller grabs our attention in the next line by the ironic twist of fate that sends a certain (unidentified) man on a sojourn out of Bethlehem (literally: house of bread) in a time of famine to Moab, the land of Israel’s most despised enemy. The audience (reader) is expected to know that Moab (meaning my son is my father’s) came about following an incestuous couple of nights between Lot and his two daughters after the escape from Sodom and Gomorrah told in Genesis 19: 30-37:

30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: 32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 34And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. 35And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 36Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day. 38And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

The storyteller uses his craft on the Moabite origin story to foreshadow the plot line in Ruth that will involve an old man and his two young daughters (in-law), a concern about preserving his name and seed and where wine imbibed will also drive the plot to make it happen one night in a high place. Much of the surprise and delight in telling this tale stems from the storyteller's playful teasing of the audience/reader through artful misdirection.

Will Ruth’s lot be the same as Lot’s two unidentified virgin daughters? Remember that he first offered them up to the men of Sodom, both young and old, to divert their interest from getting to know (biblically) two angels who were his guests. Genesis 19:5-8. We also should recall that these two virgin daughters were already betrothed to two prospective (also unnamed) sons-in-law. When Lot urged them to flee the impending doom, they thought he jested, and so they perished. The commentators note that Lot and daughters escaped the ruin of Sodom and Gomorrah because of his hesed in the form of great hospitality to the two angels. This largess contrasts with the accusation against Moab in Deuteronomy 23:5 of refusing to provide water and food to Israelites escaping from Egypt (contradicted in Deuteronomy 2: 26-29), repeated in Nehemiah 13:1-3, leading to the prohibition against marriage and prohibiting ten generations of Moabites from being admitted into the congregation of the Israelites. Keep in mind also the sounds of “Zoar” from whence Lot went to his cave in the mountains and “Boaz”, the first meaning “little” the other being a name for the main pillar in a temple connoting great strength.

Back to the story of Ruth, we next learn the name of the certain man was Elimelek (God is my king), and the name of his wife Naomi (pleasant, amiable), both positive sounding. In contrast, his two sons bear the names of Mahlon (sickly) and Chilion (frail), both extremely negative and quite unlikely to be names chosen by loving parents. The sons’ names tie into the entry to Moab where Elimelek dies and the sons follow suit after marrying two women of Moab, Oprah (cries on the neck) and Ruth (derivation uncertain, but possibly meaning something that can be watered and also perhaps sharing some phonetic and scribal similarity to the word for "run") neither woman having borne children after ten years in Moab. The seed of Elimelek thereby was not preserved. The passage of ten years without child is a biblical period generally indicating a barren woman and/or marriage. In Ruth's case, it may signify an empty womb waiting to be watered.

In these first five verses, “Moab” has been mentioned 3 times, and will get two more in verse six. In my mind’s ear, the storyteller emphasizes the word each time and maybe winks, nods or makes some other gesture to focus his listener’s attention on the resonant backdrop to the twice-told tale. We get two more Moab references in the last verse of the chapter (total count now seven=millah manchah [key word]) bracketing the theme of "returning" (root word “shuv”) to which the story now turns:

6 Then she arose with her daughters in law, that she might return from the country of Moab: for she had heard in the country of Moab how that the LORD had visited his people in giving them bread. 7 Wherefore she went forth out of the place where she was, and her two daughters in law with her; and they went on the way to return unto the land of Judah. 8 And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house: the LORD deal kindly with you, as ye have dealt with the dead, and with me. 9 The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Then she kissed them; and they lifted up their voice, and wept. 9 And they said unto her, Surely we will return with thee unto thy people. 11 And Naomi said, Turn again, my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12 Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband. If I should say, I have hope, if I should have an husband also to night, and should also bear sons; 13 Would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having husbands? nay, my daughters; for it grieveth me much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD is gone out against me.

Note that the key root word has occurred six times. Pay close attention to the geographical object of return in each usage:

1. Naomi returns from Moab. Her daughters-in-law go with her.

2. Naomi with her daughter-in-laws together return to Judah.

3. Naomi then tells her daughter-in-laws both to return each to her mother’s house.

4. They reply that they will return with Naomi to her people.

5. Naomi tells them, now as daughters, to turn back.

6. Naomi repeats the turn back, again addressing them as daughters.

In the first usage of return, it refers only to Naomi and makes grammatical and logical sense in that Naomi is indeed going back from Moab to Judah. In the second usage, the term return applies grammatically to all three, but logically can only apply Naomi, since neither Roth nor Oprah have ever been to Judah. In the third usage, return applies grammatically and logically only to Ruth and Naomi who are instructed to turn again back their mother’s houses in Moab from whence they came to this point of [no?] return. In the fourth usage return applies grammatically, but not logically, to all three women. In the fifth and sixth usages the term applies grammatically and logically only to the Moabite women. What is the storyteller is up to with this shifting use and play on the key word? How do we make sense of the shift in relational characterization from daughter-in-law to daughter? We must defer a possible explanation until we analyze the next six usages of return after unpacking the rest of the text in these six verses.

Ironically, Naomi arises with her daughters-in-law to return to Bethlehem (literally the house of bread) for the same reason that she left, namely famine. Naomi initially goes (takes) along her daughters-in-law possibly as an act of kindness. She comes to a point on the way when she reaches the realization, as reflected in the dialogue, that she may not be doing them the kindness she may have intended. They are, after all, Moabite women. In urging each to return to her mother’s house, she confers on them a pair of blessings that also includes the central theme of the story. She first calls on the Lord to deal kindly (hesed) with them as they have dealt with her and her dead husband and sons. The blessing unmistakably invokes Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD"; and Leviticus 19:34: "But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God." In Hebrew, the word translated in the KJV as “neighbour” is more akin to kinsman or clan. As explained in the rabbinical tradition, the greatest act of hesed (lovingkindness) is often associated with respect and caring for the dead, because it is a completely selfless act that obviously cannot be reciprocated by the beneficiary. The second blessing calls for each of them to find rest in the house of her husband. Is the husband here referenced the husband of her mother or the house of the deceased husband of each woman? Following the second blessing there is much kissing and weeping, making for an emotionally charged scene that makes for an interesting comparison with a similar scene between David and Jonathan. I Samuel 20. But more of that at another time.

We next come to the second and third instances of Naomi telling the daughters to turn back to Moab for practical reasons, namely that Naomi has no prospect for finding a husband to support all three of them and also too old to have more sons for them to marry, even if they could wait around long enough for these sons to become marriageable. This passage in Ruth, in the Rabbinic tradition, accounts for the duty of every Rabbi to discourage a proselyte from converting to the Jewish faith, refusing the proselyte at least three times, perhaps as a test of seriousness. It also focuses the listener/reader’s attention on a central point of controversy not only at the time Ruth was composed, but also throughout the history of Judaism, even unto the current generation.

This argument had its genesis after the exodus as Israel itself returned to its

homeland. “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.” Numbers 25: 1. When Israel returned again to its homeland after the Babylonian exile (circa 500 BCE), a sort of restatement of law second (the scroll, probably Deuteronomy, discovered in the rebuilt temple) provided further injunctions against the inclusion of foreigners, specifically Moabites, in the congregation of Israel. “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; they daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” Deuteronomy 7:4. Is the listener/reader of Ruth to understand that what happened to Naomi’s sons, at least in Naomi's mind, was punishment for their intermarriage with Moabite women??

The passage then explains: “The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” From this the rabbis understand that a people few in number cannot maintain their identity and special relationship with the covenant if their numbers and purpose are diluted. As we will see, the conditions of redemption (return to the tribes of Israel) will also be a substantive theme in Ruth.
Deuteronomy 23: 3-7 formulates the exclusionary rule in no uncertain terms: “3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever; 4 Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of the Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam …to curse thee.” Note that this passage follows the exclusion of bastards, and also follows a chapter dealing with what happens when a man finds a damsel in the field, something no doubt on the mind of Boaz in an encounter that we will soon address.

So in the post-exilic community, we find the priest and scribe Ezra (some scholars believe that he wrote Deuteronomy substantially in the form that has come down to us) strongly opposing intermarriage. Ezra 9-10. On the same page is Nehemiah, the Jewish governor of Judah and a contemporary of Ezra. Nehemiah 13:1-3 and 23-30. Moabites are not the only foreigners to be excluded. He also points specifically to one of Ruth’s descendants, King Solomon, as Exhibit No. 1 for the prosecution on the catastrophic effects of marrying foreign women.

In the face of such powerful advocates, however did it happen that the Book of Ruth got composed much less make into to the Hebrew Bible? A strong case can be made that it won the writing competition and thereby won the hearts and minds of the people over the “better” judgment of the priests and prophets. But even rhetorical/literary excellence probably would not have prevailed absent some countervailing support. Look to Isaiah 56:3-7 where eunuchs and strangers “that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant… even them I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in the house of prayer…”

With this in mind, let’s return ourselves to the story. We come now to the first words spoken by Ruth alone and also come quickly to the point where Ruth takes over the action initiated by Naomi. In the Hebrew bible, first words uttered carry great import.

14 And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her.
15And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. 16And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. 18When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.

The near poetry of these lines is almost captured by the KJV translation, but

the Hebrew is even more intense, compact and powerful.
Is it either surprising or ironic that Ruth’s words, one woman to another, have been invoked innumerable times over the centuries as wedding vows? What are we to think of this homo-social relationship as well as the homo-social relationship of Jonathan and David (a love so wonderful passing the love of women II Samuel 1:26), as the prime narrative explications of the fundamental tenet of Judaism: loving thy kinsman as thyself and, when taken to its height, the altruistic concept of hesed (lovingkindness) exemplified by beneficial acts for which no reward is expected, and in the case of the dead, no reciprocation is possible. Ruth clave unto Naomi, going where she goes, lodging where she lodges (meaning the equivalent of a camping tent in Biblical Hebrew), her people becoming Ruth’s people and – the climax – Naomi’s god her god. Not even death will separate them since Ruth will be buried where Naomi is buried. The final seal is a vow by Ruth invoking YHWH. We will see a striking parallel to this dialogue in another one between Jonathan and David in I Samuel 18-20. The intensification of the relationship in five steps at the end silences Naomi, a silence that speaks so clearly and steadfastly that nothing is left to be said.
In this and other passages, we must keep in mind three of the major metaphors for YHWH’s relationship with Israel – husband, shepherd and king.

19So they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and they said, Is this Naomi? 20And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against the Almighty and me hath afflicted me? 22So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley harvest.

This concluding verse nicely circles back to the beginning by returning

Naomi to Bethlehem. The Israelite chorus asks “Is this Naomi?” Naomi responds by making a pun on her name and changing it to Mara, that is from pleasantness to bitterness, because she left full (sons and husband) and came back empty. Shaddai (translated as Almighty) bears responsibility for her affliction, an unusual ancient (possibly Canaanite) name with the uniquely Israelite name of YHWH. Some scholars believe that Shaddai represents, at least in Canaan, the feminine aspect of the divine, one etymology deriving the word from a root that could be roughly translated as twin peaks or, in the words of French trappers on the frontier of western Wyoming, the Grand Tetons. The most frequent use of the name occurs in the story of Job, were El Shaddai meets out incomprehensible punishment as a test.

Before getting off the road, we need to summarize, count and note the distribution of the remaining returns. Shuv appears 12 times -- six before the turning point (point of no return?) when Oprah leaves and Ruth cleaves to Naomi and six after. I think Etshalom rightly perceives this bracketing as a literary structural equivalent of a kind of tug of war of emotions and considerations. The first six appear in verses 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12. Kissing, cleaving and leaving happen in verse 14. The last six returns appear in verses 15 (twice), 16, 21 and 22 (twice). Six times the return is to Bethlehem: verses 6, 7, 10, 21 and 22 (twice). Six times the return is to Moab: verses 8, 11, 12, 15 (twice) and 16. Four times shuv refers to Naomi who always returns to Bethlehem: verse 6, 7, 21, 22. Four times shuv refers to both kalot: verses 8, 10, 11 and 12. Four times shuv refers to only one of the kalot: verse 15, 16, 17 and 22.

However, this elaborate literary structure does nothing to explain the overarching puzzle of Ruth "returning" in some sense to Bethlehem. It seems to me that the story of Ruth is the bookend to the story of Lot's daughters. Ruth, by acts of hesed and loyalty to Naomi, her people and her god, is returning to the twelve tribes of Israel as the personification of all Moabites, foreigners and strangers. This view gets support from the eschatology in which the wolf lies down with the lamb and Moabite comes back. The way back, of course, is by way of a Sinai event, a wedding of YHWH and Israel by way of the Torah. As Deborah Fox insightfully observed, the precipitating event of the eschatology is the anointing of a messiah in the person of King David, Ruth's great grandson.
And now we are ready to meet the good people of Bethlehem.

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH PART 1: A DESTINATION WEDDING TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION

2013-03-25T08:19:00.001-07:00

LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF RUTH

PART 1: A DESTINATION WEDDING TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION

He Qi: Ruth and Naomi 2001

The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) uses marriage as a central metaphor for the relationship between Hashem (YHWH) and Israel (human kind).[1] In this fashion, Israel is variously characterized as a bride, an adulteress and frequently unfaithful in other ways, forgetting it’s sacred covenant (kettubah?) with God. In the Tanakh, especially in Vereshit (Genesis) many scenes of boy meets girl, betrothal and marriage are recounted—Adam and Eve; Avraham and Sarah; Yitzak and Rivka; Jacob, Rachel and Leah; Moses and Zipporah; Judah and Tamar. In each of these scenes, specific characters drive the plot through variations on the theme of meeting at a well, but also tell the listener/reader something about that other larger covenant. Much is to be learned from the way water is dispensed to a stranger.

Megillat Ruth, it seems to me, marks the end of the line in the recounting of encounters leading to marriage, a literary bridge between the tribal time of the Judges and the ascendance of the Kings. Remarkably, none of the significant characters after the time of Ruth meet their mate at an oasis.[2]

The reading of Ruth that follows focuses first and foremost on the betrothal to marriage metaphor and its intersection and illumination of what I understand to be the crux of Judaism.

In the Talmud, a story is told of Shammai and Hillel, two of the great rabbinic sages of Judaism, who were also contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth:

On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, “Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.' Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder's cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, 'What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.'

Shabbat 31a. Rabbi Akiva, the major second century sage, also characterized love your neighbor as the major principle of the Torah (JT Nedarim 9:4).

Matthew, Mark and Luke tell of a like exchange between Jesus and someone else, in the guise of a scribe, a Sadducee and a lawyer respectively. Mark 12:28-34, Matt. 22:34-40, Luke 10:25-28. All three accounts quote Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your strength and all your mind and then add Leviticus 19:18 “and love your neighbor as yourself.” In response to a follow-up question by the lawyer – “And who is my neighbor?” -- Luke’s version then segues into the parable of the good Samaritan. The story reflects badly on a priest and a Levite who both pass by a stranger who had been beaten and robbed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The gentile Samaritan stops, gives aid, carries the stranger on his donkey to an inn and pays for his further sustenance and care. Jesus asks his lawyer interlocutor: Which of the three loves his neighbor?

In a footnote to Shabbat 15a it is said that Hillel commenced his Patriarchate a hundred years before the destruction of the Temple, and he was followed by Simeon, Gamaliel and Simeon, his direct descendants, the four spreading over that century. V, Halevi, Doroth, I, 3, pp. 706. From this and the similarity of the teachings of Hillel and Jesus, some have speculated that one was the teacher of the other. More likely, the writers of the gospels (for the most part learned Jewish boys) recognized a good story and adapted it to their ends. What can be said with some confidence is that both stories focus on the crux of Judaism, which resides in the “holiness code” that makes up Leviticus 19.

But how then can it be said that the shema is derived from love your neighbor? Do we here go back to the beginning and unwrap the making of Adam and Eve in the image of God, the implication being that something of the divine can also be found in the human and deserves, therefore, reciprocal recognition and respect?

The formulation of Hillel, as many have noted, is negative – a “thou shalt not” in contradistinction to the “positive” commandment formulation of Leviticus directly quoted in the Jesus story. One consideration that Hillel may have had in mind: “shalt nots” may be easier for a novice to grasp than the “shalls.” But is there a difference in meaning/import in the way the proposition is stated? Is “shall not” a category of conduct that is a subset of “shall”? Is one de minimus and the other de maximus? One merely secular and the other holy? One profane, the other sacred? One good enough and the other moral perfection?

“Whenever love depends on some selfish end, when the end passes away, the love passes away; but if it does not depend on some selfish end, it will never pass away. Which love depended on a selfish end? This was the love of Ammon and Tamar. And which did not depend on a selfish end? This was the love of David and Jonathan. (Avot 5:15)" David, of course, being the descendant of Ruth, and the hesed of Ruth leading to the birth of David.

The Big Picture

Before diving into a close reading of Ruth, it is helpful to get a bird’s eye view of the story. This bird’s eye view is mostly about the writer’s craft (and craftiness). Some of this shows up in the King James Version and the Revised Standard translation, but much that helps to drive the action only becomes apparent with some clues that are only clearly evident in Hebrew, and can be made somewhat more evident to an English language ear with phonetic transliteration.

Ruth consists of four chapters that were not demarcated in the original Hebrew scrolls. Those divisions are bequeathed to us by the second century translators of the Hebrew bible into Greek and Latin. Nevertheless, the divisions follow exactly certain linguistic dividers (envelops) that typically appear in biblical narratives, so have become the same divisions used in the modern Tanakh.[3] I think of the four divisions as four acts or scenes, depending on whether I visualize Ruth as a play or as a short film. I call the four scenes: On the Road; In the Field; On the Threshing Floor; and At the Gates.

Why think of Ruth as a play or a short film? In my view, Ruth was written to be heard, possibly acted in some sense and may have been a reduction to written form of a story initially part of an oral tradition.[4] What is the evidence for my view? First, Ruth has the highest ratio of dialogue verses to narrative verses (55/85) of any equivalent story in the Tanakh.[5] Second, the story unfolds making use of various story-telling devices that make it easy to follow, but also exact attention from the listener by taking unusual turns and setting up a problem to be solved. Third, the story makes use of key words specific to each of the sections, e.g. return (shuv) On the Road and glean ( ), In the Field. Fourth, the writer/teller plays with words (paronomasia) so often and so cleverly that one cannot help being drawn closer to hear better. Fifth, the story consists of binary oppositions such as famine/plenty; escape/return; barren/fruitful; reward/punishment; tradition/novation; and life/death that resonate with all literature that preceded and followed Ruth, in literary time.[6] Sixth, each character’s name means something, a device very familiar in English literature (e.g. The Importance of Being Earnest), but used in a way that seems to flatten the character to serve solely as narrative device.

Elements of the Ruth story, both grand and trivial, show up in the Western literary canon, most notably perhaps in John Keats Ode to a Nightingale, but no less evident, though unnamed, in classic Hollywood films such as It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Frank Capra films of the Great Depression, a time of drought and dislocation. Imitation (adaptation) being the sincerest form of flattery, the films speak volumes about the character, dialogue and plot lines in Ruth.

Typically, a Hebrew commentary on Ruth begins with the question: why do we read Ruth on Shavu’ot, the giving of the commandments at Sinai? Three answers are generally accepted, the first two more so than the third:[7]

1. The story takes place during the annual barley then wheat harvest which ends in the harvest festival (Hag haKatzir), the answer first found in the Mahzor in accordance with the traditions of the school of Rashi.

2. Ruth embodies the archetype of the convert and Shavu’ot (=Mattan Torah) represents the “mass conversion” of Am Ysra’ek (see BT Keritut 9a, MT Issurei Bi’ah 13:1-4) and also the Mahzor Vitri.[8]

3. In the Midrashic collection Ruth Zuta (1:1): “What does Ruth have to do with Shavu’ot, the season of the giving of Torah? To teach you that the Torah was given through afflictions and poverty.”

The JPS Bible Commentary on Ruth (at xxvi) offers a few others, which can be viewed as variations on the same theme:

1. Both the Torah, which was given on Shavu’ot, and Ruth are all about hesed citing Lekach Tov (11^th commentary compiled by R. Toviah ben Eliezer);

2. At Sinai, Israel took upon itself obedience to the Torah; Ruth likewise takes this obligation upon herself;

3. According to one tradition, David was born and died on Shavu’ot; Ruth ends with the lineage of David;

4. Reading Ruth teaches us that actions, not mere study, are the essence of righteous living or goodness.

In my view, the most compelling rationale for reading Ruth on Shavu’ot is its succinct and engaging recapitulation of the destination wedding at Sinai, idealistically pointing toward a grand reconciliation and redemption of the land in a future time through acts of lovingkindness.

[1] The other major metaphors are, of course, “king” and “shepherd” which would seem to signify a different kind of relationship, less reciprocal and far less familial than the marriage metaphor. These metaphors work their literary magic in the same way whether the relationship is viewed specifically as with Israel or universalized to all human kind,

[2] Another sort of watering hole, a bar called “The Oasis”, served as a primary meet and greet venue just across the creek from the Stanford University campus.

[3] The early Christian translators also place Ruth between Judges and 1^st Samuel in accordance with the temporal slot stated in the beginning of Ruth and the epilogue genealogy leading to David. In the Tanakh, Ruth appears in the writings along with the other Megillot, traditionally associated with specific religious festivals. Perhaps the traditional Hebrew placement indicates a lesser status for Ruth than that reserved for the Torah and those histories immediately following the Torah.

[4] These comments on the storyteller devices are derived primarily from Jack Sasson’s essay on Ruth that appeared in The Literary Guide to the Bible, edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode. Sasson does not conclude, however, that the use of these devices necessarily imply a pre-existing oral tradition for the story.

[5] The possible exception would be Job since that story consists of lengthy indictments by the various speakers, almost entirely in poetic style apart from the very beginning and the very end.

[6] Ruth was probably reduced to writing sometime after the composition of 1^st and 2d Samuel and 1^st and 2^nd Kings, after the return from the Babylonian exile, and at a time when the Jerusalem leadership was attempting to enforce rules against inter-faith marriages to discourage conversions to Judaism. In their JPS Bible Commentary (at p. xvi), one of the principal sources for this essay, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky conclude that “the preponderance of the evidence points to a date in the postexilic/Persian period around the fifth century B.C.E.” The evidence for this conclusion consists of the nature of the language in Ruth (Aramaisms), the socio-legal institutions and practices reflected in the scroll , the relationship to other biblical traditions, the socio-political matrix, especially attitudes toward Moabites in Ruth and in Israeli history and the role of King David, whose birth concludes the book, although an earlier or later date cannot be ruled out entirely. Id. at xvii. I am persuaded by the view of Yair Zakovitch that the book of Ruth is a deliberate polemic against the policies of Ezra-Nehemiah, Ruth: Introduction and Commentary, for reasons that will be obvious from the textual analysis that follows.

[7] Many of the Talmudic references in this piece are derived from “A World of Kindness: An Analysis of Megallit Ruth” by Yitzchak Etshalom, Educational Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Institute of the Yeshiva of Los Angeles. He In turn credits Rav Elhanan Samet of the Herzog Teacher’s College in Alon Sh’vut.

[8] BT stands for Babylonian Talmud; MT stands for the Mishneh Torah, a codification of Jewish law by Maimonides also known as the Rambam.

THE LAST JEWS OF EASTERN HUNGARY

2013-01-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

A good friend and long time business associate brought to my attention an interesting project underway to document the small surviving Jewish communities in Eastern Hungary. My friend's family story and relationship to the person heading up the project is quite interesting in itself. Please take a moment to look at this project and, if the spirit moves you, join in making a contribution toward its realization.

From: SEDOLTD
To: SEDOLTD
Sent: Sun, Jan 13, 2013 11:10 pm
Subject: (no subject)

Please take a few minutes and read the content of the web page below…

It is a very interesting project about what is left in a small section of a country years after the Holocaust. Even if you do not get involved, you might want to follow it as it evolves.

I grew up in the same region of Hungary where Ari decided to document the remnants of a once vibrant Jewish population, prior to the Holocaust.

I was a child during the Holocaust. As a child, I remember the horror of my friends and their families being rounded up by the Nazis, carted off on horse drawn wagons and German military trucks, never to be seen again.

Jeno Abraham, my father’s business partner and a family friend, was Jewish. I remember when he and his family were captured and forcibly removed from their home by the Nazis.

Later on, Mr. Abraham was among a contingent of slave laborers hauled through our village by the German troops. During a small window of opportunity, my father managed to lure him and one of his friends away in order to hide and protect them. If the two men would had been discovered hiding on our property, the penalty for such an act of humanity would have been the extermination of my entire family by firing squad. Both men ultimately survived in our old abandoned cellar for a month, until the Russian troops arrived and liberated them. Unfortunately, Mr. Abraham’s entire family perished in one of the Nazi concentration camps.

Ari is a member of our family, married to my nephew’s daughter and they live in Canada.

Thanks and best wishes,

Joe

PS: if you happen to be on any of the “social web sites”, you might want to post Ari’s web page.

http://www.indiegogo.com/ari

Hi,

My name is Ari Tapiero, I am a photographer in Ottawa, Canada; my heart and soul is in documentary work, specifically portraits. I work with large format film cameras, 4x5 and 8x10, to get the look and detail I need.
I've been a photographer for 15 years; I've had a few exhibits, notably a solo show in Montreal, where I also produced a book to accompany the exhibit. I've also photographed a coffee-table book about the city of Ottawa.
I've been working on The Last Jews of Eastern Hungary for six months now, and I hope to return to Hungary this summer to continue work, as well as expand upon it.

Why It Matters
There are sizable, stable and growing Jewish populations in much of western Europe; but what about the east, where the Holocaust claimed the majority of its victims? What happened to the survivors and their descendants in Hungary, Ukraine, or Romania?
I got a small glimpse when I was in Miskolc, Hungary in 2010. My wife is from the town, and our daughter was born there in the summer of 2010. I found an aging, withered, but still-defiant tiny Jewish community. They had heard the war stories of their parents, and still feared for their children's future, so they did not continue in their religious traditions. Their children, grown fearful of religious reprisals, have largely gone overseas or married out-of-the-faith, and are thus unable or unwilling to make a Jewish community for themselves and their own children. The resulting sense of finality hangs heavily over this community, as their congregation slowly dies off.
There are other places like this one in eastern Hungary, Ukraine and Romania, and I feel it important to document their existence as a kind of living museum; most of these communities will have disappeared in the next 20-30 years. The small-town eastern European Jewish community, once the backbone of a continent, is on the verge of natural extinction; eventually, only memories and recorded materials will tell us that they existed at all.

It is of vital importance to me to be able to give a sense of what people are (and were) like and how they live as individuals and as a community, in order to preserve that memory for future generations. In essence, this is what being a photographer means to me, and it is both a great responsibility and a great honour.

I have completed an exploratory version of the project, you can see it here: http://www.aritapiero.com/the-last-jews-of-miskolc.html

DOWNTON ABBEY: CURZON AND CAMERON

2013-01-14T05:45:00.001-08:00

This piece was first posted in 2007. An update is in order with the advent of Downton Abbey and the loose connection of the Leiter family to the characters in the series. Julian Fellowes, the writer-creator and executive producer of the series, acknowledged that the American heiress Lady Grantham payed by Elizabeth McGovern and her mother played by Shirley MacLaine were of a type characteristic of Victorian society as recounted in To Marry an English Lord: Victorian and Edwardian Experience by Gail MacColl, Carol Wallace. The book contains copious references to Mary Victoria Leiter. The permanent residence of Levy Z. Leiter in a Washington, DC cemetery has also recently been the subject of a local interest piece in the Washington Post's Answerman column by John Kelly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/is-that-a-greenhouse-no-its-a-tomb/2013/01/12/5fd2256e-5b3c-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html

John Kelly's piece, and its focus on residence after death, prompted some further research and a necessary correction to note that Mary Victoria Leiter's final abode is a Gothic Chapel, not a replica of the Taj Mahal. There is an exquisite Taj Mahal model at Kedleston, probably related to George Curzon's efforts to restore it while Viceroy of India, but perhaps also because of his beloved wife's fascination with it.

****

I might have named this piece the "Princess and the Pauper" or "Country Mouse, City Mouse" after one or the other of two memorable yarns from the Ginn Reader of my elementary school days. As you will soon see, these two remarkable women of the late 18th and early 19th century have almost diametrically opposite, but equally dramatic, arcs to their lives and careers.

Evelyn Cameron, the daughter of a wealthy upper middle class English merchant, married an impoverished Scot ornithologist and set out to raise polo ponies in eastern Montana. When that enterprise failed, catastrophically, she turned to photography and the hard work of wresting productive crops from the Badlands of Montana to make ends meet and to care for her hapless husband. She left an astonishing legacy of photographs and a painstakingly detailed account of her life in diaries spanning three decades in Montana, a worthy life well-lived as beautifully recounted in Donna Lucey's book, Photographing Montana: 1898-1924 The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron and also in the PBS Documentary largely based on the book. Evelyn appears atop one of her favorite horses in a photo of her own composition. In other self-portraits, she appears with an eagle perched on her arm and her perched on a natural arch high above a ravine carved from the desolate landscape.

Mary Victoria Leiter, the daughter of a fabulously wealthy department store and real estate magnate from Chicago, was reared by her socially ambitious mother to be a stunning debutante in the highest social and political circles of Washington, DC and London. She did, in fact catch the eye of the rising George Curzon, soon to be Lord Kedleston and then soon after that Viceroy Curzon of India with Mary Victoria as his Vicereine. Levy Leiter, her father, sealed the terms of the highly successful marriage by transferring enough wealth to unencumber the heavily debt ridden Kedleston estate. She appears in the picture in the famous "peacock gown" that she designed especially for the coronation of her husband and herself. The Indian peacock, pictured below, inspired the costume and materials of which it was made.

By this time you should be wondering why these two women should be crowded into the same space, apart from the whims and whimsy of the writer. The answer: they serve as book-ends to a genealogical tale of time and circumstance. Mary Leiter, like all of the Bell relatives who are following this saga, descends from Johann Friederich Vogeler and his wife Anna Maria (possibly Julianna), who arrived in Maryland around 1750, received communion as an Evangelical Lutheran at the same time and from the same pastor (Schwerdtfeger) as Peter and Anthony Bell, most likely in the first organized congregation near what is now known as the Leitersberg District in Washington County, Maryland. In 1769, Johann Friedrich Vogeler signed the constitutional articles of St. John's Lutheran Church in Hagerstown, Maryland though probably not may the Johann Friederich Vogeler who signed the 1747 constitution, written by Reverend Muhlenberger, for the Monocacy congregation near present day Frederick Maryland, where Schwerdtfeger also served for a time as the pastor.

The Vogelers had three daughters. Two married Leiters and the other, Elizabeth, married Peter Bell. The Bells bought land on the Mason-Dixon line where the stone house started by Peter and finished by his oldest son Frederick still stands on a farm still known as Bell's Choice. Peter also became a successful merchant leading up to the Revolutionary War, when he served on the Committee for Observation for the Elizabeth Hundred, then as Captain of a company of Maryland militia in the Pennsylvania Campaign and may have spent the winter of 1777-78 in Valley Forge before succumbing to the rigors of the campaign. His family buried him, and he rests still, where the west wing of the current configuration of St. John's Lutheran Church stands in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Many of the Leiters belonged to the same churches, were educated in the same schools and were buried in the same cemeteries as the Bells. Their names appear as witnesses on each others' wills and deeds. The following generations of the Leiters, like the Bells, moved west. Levi Leiter did not do well in school and had no inclination toward farming. He struck out on his own and ended up in Chicago. It turned out that he had a knack and a nose for the dry goods business and also a sense for the real estate market.

He co-founded the Field and Leiter dry goods business which developed into the Marshall Field retail empire. He had a falling out with Field and then devoted his attention to acquiring (and insuring) a lot of Chicago real estate. The famous Chicago fire had little effect on his fortune. The Leiter family moved to Washington, DC in 1881 and entered the exclusive circle of official society there. They lived for several years in the former home of James G. Blaine near DuPont Circle, about two blocks from where I have practiced law for the last quarter century or so. That residence not being substantial enough to reflect their social status, the Leiters then built a massive mansion immediately on the socially exclusive DuPont Circle, since replaced by a 200 room hotel.

Mary Victoria Leiter came out as a debutante in DC. To prepare the way, she learned and, by all accounts, perfected the necessary social skills: dancing, singing, music and art. These she acquired at home from tutors and learned French from her French governess. Mother Leiter arranged for a Columbia University professor to teach her history, arithmetic and chemistry. The Leiters traveled and lived abroad to cultivate her powers of observation and breadth of mental vision at an early age. In the vernacular of the times and class, her poise and finish made her charming to those with mature and brilliant intellect. Her younger sisters did not "finish" quite so well, but Mary's accomplishments, in the end, was a rising tide that lifted all boats.

Mary stood a striking six feet tall with a perfect hourglass figure. She had large grey eyes set in an oval face, glossy chestnut-brown hair drawn back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and delicate hands and feet. She debuted in DC in the winter of 1888. Most accounts hailed her as an equal in beauty and breeding, and frequently the peer in manner and intellect, of daughters of better known and longer established families in eastern U.S. society. She had the good fortune to have, as her closest friend, Frances Folsom Cleveland, six years her senior and the wife of the much older President Grover Cleveland. She caught the eye of George Curzon while he lived in Washington, as he did hers, and she pursued him relentlessly until they married. Her private letters make no bones about her ambitions.

The U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Thomas F. Bayard, introduced Mary to London Society in 1894. Following a very favorable audience with Queen Victoria, she and her sisters had little difficulty igniting the interest of all available and eligible suitors, with the exception of the elusive Curzon, who seemed more deeply engrossed in politics and his scholarly studies. Had it not been for the desperate economic straits of the Kedleston estate, the marriage might not have come about. But her uncommon persistence paid dividends eventually.

Mary Leiter and George Curzon married on 22 April 1895 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington D.C. Bishop Talbot, with the assistance of the Rev. Dr. Mackay Smith, the pastor of the church joined their prodigious talents, apparently because so important event required very heavy clerical lifting.

She played an important role in the reelection of her husband to Parliament that autumn. Many thought that his success had much to do with winning smiles, striking appearance, beauty and the irresistible charm of his wife than to his own speeches. Over the next decade, three daughters were born to them, but she failed (as did he) to produce the male heir so important to the aristocracy at that time.

Queen Victoria made Curzon Viceroy of India and elevated him to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston in the summer of 1898 at age 39. On December 30 of the same year, they arrived in Bombay, India amid royal salutes and great excitement.

In 1902, Lord Curzon organized the Delhi Durbar to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII, "the grandest pageant in history", which created a tremendous sensation. At the state ball Mary wore an extravagant coronation gown, known as the peacock dress, stitched of gold cloth embroidered with peacock feathers with an emerald in each eye and many precious and semi-precious stones sewn into the fabric. The skirt was trimmed with white roses and the bodice with lace. She glittered with diamonds, pearls and precious stones: a huge diamond necklace and a large broach of diamonds and pearls. She wore a tiara crown with a pearl tipping each of it's high diamond points.

Lord and Lady Curzon were loudly criticized for the huge expense of this extravagant event and their own personal lifestyle, but their defenders pointed out that no money went out of the country. It all came out of the pockets of the rich and was paid into the hands of the poor. What the government and the native princes and nobles expended in their splendid displays was paid to working people who needed it, and by throwing this large amount into circulation the entire country was benefited. Imelda Marcos made a similar argument to deflect her own extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the Philippine population.

No surprise that Lady Curzon was an invaluable commercial agent for the manufacturers of the higher class of fabrics and art objects in India. She made many of them fashionable in Calcutta and other Indian cities and in London, Paris and the capitals of Europe. She placed orders for her friends and strangers. She assisted the silk weavers, embroiderers and other artists to adapt their designs, patterns and fabrics to the requirements of modern fashions. She wore Indian fabrics. She kept several of the best artists in India busy with orders and soon saw the results of her efforts revive skilled arts that were almost forgotten.

She did, however, take her vice-regal duties seriously. Lady Curzon learned Urdu from the Mohyal patriarch Bakhshi Ram Dass Chhibber. She also helped found and fund a large medical complex, the Lady Curzon Hospital in Bangalore, now known as Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital. Progressive medical reforms were initiated by English women in India under the leadership of the Marchioness of Dufferin and Lady Curzon by supplying women doctors and hospitals for women. A Lady Curzon Hospital still operates in Bangalore. William Elroy Curtiss dedicated his book "Modern India": "To Lady Curzon, An ideal American woman."

After no so long a time in India, the tropical climate, a prolonged near fatal infection following a miscarriage and fertility related surgery eroded her health. She took convalescent trips to England, but failed to improve. When they returned to England after Curzon's resignation in August 1905, her health continued to fail rapidly. She died July 18, 1906 at home in Westminster, London, 36 years old.

Legend has it that Lady Curzon, after seeing the Taj Mahal on a moonlit night, exclaimed in her bewilderment that she was ready to embrace an immediate death if someone promised to erect such a memorial on her grave. Curzon did so at Kedleston. [NOTE: It is unclear whether the alabaster model of the Taj Mahal at Kedleston was created for this purpose or for the restoration work that he attempted while Viceroy of India.] He had the reputation, because of his demeanor and condescending attitude, of insufferable arrogance captured and immortalized by the doggerel of his Oxford classmates:

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person,
My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.

Nevertheless, this privileged, pampered and brilliant son of the Victorian aristocracy fell deeply in love with the finished daughter of a failed farmer turned peddler and land speculator.

Having buried Mary Victoria with her Taj Mahal, let's turn to her contemporary Evelyn Cameron, 40th on the Missoulian Newspaper (as in Missoula, Montana) list of the 100 most influential people in Montana history. Her biographer, Donna M. Lucey, summarized her life, borrowing from Evelyn's own aspirations confessed to her diary and the words of a contemporary:

"In her remote frontier world Evelyn became a respected, almost mythic figure. Yet she saw nothing unusual or noteworthy in her life. Until she died she remained very much the twenty-five-year-old pioneer woman who wrote wistfully in her diary, 'I wish I could lead a life worthy to look back upon. I am far out of the path now.' Her neighbors thought otherwise. Among her papers there is the typescript of an article by an English writer, Marguerite Remington Charter, who had visited Evelyn on a trip through Montana. Charter wrote that 'From the moment we got into Billings, Mont., we were never one whit surprised when whoever we might happen to be talking with would say: 'Oh, be sure to go to the Eve Ranch and see Mrs. Cameron, she is one of the wonders of Montana.' "

What made her one of the wonders of Montana, the big sky treasure state that boasts the most spectacular glaciers in the lower 48, the thermal wonders of Yellowstone, the moonscape wind scraped Badlands and the isolated valley where the river runs through it? As Lucey pieces together the tale from her diary and her photographs, this British woman of privilege who could have followed a path not unlike the career of Mary Victoria Leiter, fell in love with Montana and went native in her own reserved and independent way.

Evelyn Jephson Flower, born Aug. 26, 1868, on a rambling British country estate south of London, first came to Montana in 1889 on her honeymoon, a hunting trip with her newlywed husband Ewen Cameron. They met and mingled with a British expatriate community of romantic adventurers, some of whom thought they would strike it rich on the open range as cattle barons or breeders of horses, then return in their wealth and glory to their homes in England.

Her husband Ewen, a naturalist and something of a scholar, found much to observe and describe among the prairie bird species. He wrote several pieces over the years for the ornithological journal The Auk. With uncanny skill and nerve, Evelyn photographed many of these birds, including nesting eagles, in their natural habitats and without a telescopic lens. They returned to Montana within a year of the honeymoon trip with plans to take up ranching, horse raising and bird watching. Given his temperament and fragile health, Ewen succeeded with his birds and left everything else to Evelyn.

After two attempts at other ranches, one a catastrophic failure to breed and break polo ponies for the British market, they eventually settled in 1893 on a ranch they christened the Eve Ranch, for Evelyn, six miles south of Terry. To help make ends meet, Evelyn took in boarders, sold vegetables that she raised, and cooked for roundup crews. And, with a mail-order 5x7 Graflex, she taught herself photography. She began taking photographs of her neighbors and the wildlife near the ranch. She photographed cowboys, sheepherders, farm wives, homesteaders and the tough sheep-shearing crews who worked near Terry's railroad tracks. These people were the subjects of her photography, and she generally arranged them within the backdrop of the vast and empty spaces, as though she were using them for accents in a giant sized and barren English garden. The people, except for her British friends and her self-conscious self-portraits, generally feel remote from the viewer on the other side of the lens.

She did, however, fully adopt and thrive on the hard-scrabble work ethic necessary to survival on the edge off the Badlands. Her weathered looks eventually made her indistinguishable in appearance (if not in speech and learning) from her subjects. "Manual labor is about all I care about," she once wrote. "I like to break colts, brand calves, cut down trees, ride and work in the garden." Ewen and her sometime boarders did little in this vein, much to her annoyance and aggravation.

Lucey portrays her, and Evelyn no doubt saw herself, as distinctly self-sufficient and at odds with conventional Victorian attitudes toward the role of women. She did, for example, refuse to ride side-saddle and introduced the split skirt which apparently caused some commotion among the citizens of Miles City. She also prided herself on her swimming ability, venturing to cross the Yellowstone in current when many of the cowboys and others feared to do so.
My sense is that Evelyn's self-sufficiency was widely admired among the XIT cowboys and the German-Russian farming community, two groups with which she shared her attitudes and work ethic.

There may have been some division of labor among the men and women in the farming community; they did, after all, average about 10 children per family, and none, so far as I know were birthed by men. Most woman, on the other hand, could and did handle a plow team, cut a cord of wood, plant and harvest a very large garden and ride a horse (though few, I expect, had ever seen a side saddle). The families worked, for the most part, on implicit and explicit assumptions of a partnership between equals, a practical necessity for scratching out a living in dry land farming.

It is tempting, but wrong, to dwell too much on facile contrasts between these two fin de siecle Victorian women, viewing Leiter as the last vestige of the bird in the gilded cage and Cameron as the pioneer, literally and figuratively, of the modern woman. Both received the benefits, albeit for different ends, of a classic liberal arts education, and both had the mental faculties to benefit greatly from it and both were highly successful in adapting it to their unique circumstances.
In the next few stories we will see how Victorian aspirations and pioneer character merged in the woman from whom the Guelffs, Bells, Siegles and Holzworths descended. I wager the reader will see shadows of Cameron's character as well as a Leiter side in all of them.DOWNTON ABBEY

CAPTAIN PETER BELL: DOCUMENTARY SOURCES

2012-10-02T08:22:00.002-07:00

The beginning of this piece, Primary and Secondary Sources, was first published in March 2008. Since then, two professional genealogists have been hired to locate the origin of the Bell line somewhere in the Palatinate, but with no results. Separately, I have pursued the quest for Bell ancestors through a fairly tedious examination of village registries in the area near Strasbourg in present day France. No results yet. The second part, Documentary Sources, has been widely reproduced in various genealogies. Hopefully, the publication of all this material in one place will help put to rest replicating errors in Peter and Anthony Bell research.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES

Good genealogy depends on good sources. In the cut and paste Internet age, bad genealogy reproduces faster than computer viruses. For that reason, accept no substitute for primary records personally examined. To illustrate the point, consider the following list of citations for Captain Peter Bell (1734-1778) followed by a critique of the quality and accuracy of the source:

1. Marriage Name: Peter Bell Year: 1765 Place: Annapolis, Maryland Source Publication Code: 321 Primary Immigrant: Bell, Peter Annotation: Marriage, birth and death notices taken from Maryland newspapers. Names 139 persons who must have arrived as ship passengers. Source Bibliography: BARNES, ROBERT W. Gleanings from Maryland Newspapers 1727-1775. Lutherville, Md.: Bettie Carothers, 1976. 72p. Page: 5

In the form appearing above, the citation came from a popular genealogical search engine. The compilation authored by Robert Barnes was also available in the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Library, a few blocks from my office at the symbolically apt address of 1776 D St. NW. The book does not identify the newspaper from which the information was "gleaned" or explain how the author deduced the date of marriage, the place or that Peter Bell "must have arrived as a ship passenger." You are thinking, no doubt, "Well, how else did he get here? Swim the Atlantic? Walk the Siberian land bridge?" Not likely, I suppose, but I want to know exactly what Robert Barnes found in what issue of what paper that warranted the assignment of a marriage date and the conclusion that he arrived through Annapolis.

2. The following is excerpted from History of Leitersburg District, Washington County. MD, Herbert C. Bell (1898) 3rd Ed. 1985, Caslon Press, Waynesboro, PA 17268, pp193-95:

Captain Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany and emigrated to America in early manhood. Definite information regarding his personal history begins with the year 1767, when he purchased from Peter Shiess a tract of 248 acres, part of the larger original survey called All That's Left, to which he gave the name of Bell's Choice. Its location in the northern part of the District adjacent to Mason and Dixon's Line and the Hagerstown and Waynesboro turnpike; the present owners are Daniel S. Wolfinger and Joseph M. Bell.

Although a secondary source, the beginning gets immediate attention and respect. It's a cautious start, alerting the reader that Peter Bell was "probably a native of Germany" and then transitioning to "definite information regarding his personal history." From other parts of the book we know that that author is a direct descendant and also that he reads German and that German was the language of the church and schools that the children of Peter Bell attended, all pretty good grounds for surmising that Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany as it came to be by the time the book was written. The definite information arises from a land record which the author had researched up to the time of writing. Confidence in the author increases when the land record is easily located in the Maryland Archives and when the stone house described is viewed and photographed at the location adjacent to the Mason-Dixon line.

Near the turnpike on the Wolfinger farm there are several springs and here at the first settlement of the District there was a marsh, south of which on the slope of a hill near the line that separated his land from his brother Anthony's Peter Bell erected the improvements that constituted his residence. The main road from Hagerstown to Nicholson Gap passed through his land and the travel over this thoroughfare doubtless gave him advantages not enjoyed by his more isolated neighbors.

About the year 1775 he removed to Hagerstown, where he owned the lot at the corner of Franklin and Potomac streets now the location of the market house in that city. It is probable that he engaged in merchandising here, as the settlement of his estate shows that 225 persons were indebted to him in sums ranging from 1s. 3d. to 65 pounds.

Once again a primary source, the land record, is invoked followed immediately by another primary record, the estate inventory, both of which are located in the Maryland archives.

On the 25th of November, 1776, he was elected a member of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, and during his connection with this body he served as a member of a subcommittee of seven appointed for the purpose of "licensing suits." It appears that the judicial functions of the Committee were intrusted to this sub-committee. On the 30th of December, 1776, the Committee ordered the militia of the county to march to the assistance of General Washington. Some who had served in the Flying Camp claimed exemption from this order, and it is entered in the minutes of the Committee under date of January 4, 1777, that "On motion of Captain Bell it is resolved that the Flying Camp are by no means exempt from marching with the militia." The following entry occurs in the minutes for January, 6, 1777: "On motion, Resolved, That Matthias Need serve as a committeeman in the room of Captain Bell, who hath resigned." His resignation is not difficult to explain.

In a letter from Colonel John Stull to the Maryland Council of Safety, January 11, 1777, he says: "The militia of my battalion have marched almost generally. * * * There are some of the former commissioned officers who have gone in the German battalion whose places are vacated in the militia; others have been elected to serve in their room, viz., Captain Peter Bell in the room of Captain William Heyser," etc. He requested the Council to forward commissions for these officers to Philadelphia. The following entry occurs in the minutes of the Counsil of Safety under the date of January 15, 1777: "Commissions issued to Peter Bell, appointed captain, Jacob Ott, first lieutenant, Michael Ott, second lieutenant, and William Conrad, ensign, of a company of militia in Washington County."

Their commissions were duly forwarded to Philadelphia, and Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of the State, writing from that city on the 29th of January informed the Counsil of the arrival of Stull's battalion. There can be little doubt that it proceeded to New Jersey, then the scene of Washington's operations. [The facts regarding Captain Peter Bell's military record have been obtained from the minutes of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, now in the custody of the Maryland Historical Society, and from the published Archives of Maryland, Journal and Correspondence of the Counsil of Safety, 1777, p. 42, etc.]

Once again, Herbert Bell has accurately quoted from source documents.

No roster of Captain Bell's company is known to be in existence. The names of the commissioned officers have been given; John Eyerly was the drummer, and many years after the war with Private Black, Schultz, and Lock he visited Peter Bell, Jr., the Captain's second son. Eyerly was then living at Green Spring near Bath, W. Va. Frederick Bell, the Captain's oldest son, used to relate that he rode in front of his father on his horse when the militia marched from Hagerstown. It was called out to serve until the 15th of March, but probably continued in the field beyond that date.

Since the writing of the History of the Leitersburg District, several muster rolls have come to light and are now held at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore Maryland.

Captain Bell did not long survive the hardships of the campaign. He died at Hagerstown in the spring of 1778, probably in February, as his will is dated January 21st and was admitted to probate on the 2d of March. The inventory of his personal property was the first to be entered upon the official records of Washington County.

All true and corroborated by the source documents cited.

Peter Bell married Elizabeth Leiter, a member of the family that has given its name to Leitersburg District. Their children were Juliana, who married Francis Bittle; Frederick; Elizabeth, who married Peter Krauth; Margaret, who married Barnhart Lowman; Peter, and Daniel. Bittle and Krauth removed to the Shenandoah valley in Virginia; Lowman located at Middlebrook, Augusta County, Va., in 1880, and there he was engaged in business as a tanner until his death in 1846. He has numerous descendants in Shelby County, Mo. Peter and Elizabeth Bell were members of St. John's Lutheran Church at Hagerstown, and here the baptisms of several of their children are recorded. He was buried in the graveyard adjacent to the old church building; his grave is unmarked and its exact location cannot be determined, but it is supposed to be under the west wall of the present church edifice.

The first line of this paragraph has led many amateur and professional genealogists into error by identifying Peter Bell's wife as the daughter of Jacob Leiter. No primary document supports that conclusion. Jacob Leiter does not refer to a daughter by the name of Elizabeth in his will. Johann Friederich Vogeler, on the other hand, names all of the children of Peter and Elizabeth Bell as his grandchildren and beneficiaries in his will.

DOCUMENTARY SOURCES

1. Marriage
Name:    Peter Bell
Year:    1765
Place:    Annapolis, Maryland
Source Publication Code:    321
Primary Immigrant:    Bell, Peter
Annotation:    Marriage, birth and death notices taken from Maryland newspapers. Names 139 persons who must have arrived as ship passengers.
Source Bibliography:    BARNES, ROBERT W. Gleanings from Maryland Newspapers 1727-1775. Lutherville, Md.: Bettie Carothers, 1976. 72p.
Page:    5

2. The following is excerpted from History of Leitersburg District, Washington County. MD, Herbert C. Bell (1898) 3rd Ed. 1985, Caslon Press, Waynesboro, PA 17268, pp193-95:

Captain Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany and emigrated to America in early manhood. Definite information regarding his personal history begins with the year 1767, when he purchased from Peter Shiess a tract of 248 acres, part of the larger original survey called All That's Left, to which he gave the name of Bell's Choice. Its location in the northern part of the District adjacent to Mason and Dixon's Line and the Hagerstown and Waynesboro turnpike; the present owners are Daniel S. Wolfinger and Joseph M. Bell. Near the turnpike on the Wolfinger farm there are several springs and here at the first settlement of the District there was a marsh, south of which on the slope of a hill near the line that separated his land from his brother Anthony's Peter Bell erected the improvements that constituted his residence. The main road from Hagerstown to Nicholson Gap passed through his land and the travel over this thoroughfare doubtless gave him advantages not enjoyed by his more isolated neighbors. About the year 1775 he removed to Hagerstown, where he owned the lot at the corner of Franklin and Potomac streets now the location of the market house in that city. It is probable that he engaged in merchandising here, as the settlement of his estate shows that 225 persons were indebted to him in sums ranging from 1s. 3d. to 65 pounds.
On the 25th of November, 1776, he was elected a member of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, and during his connection with this body he served as a member of a subcommittee of seven appointed for the purpose of "licensing suits." It appears that the judicial functions of the Committee were intrusted to this sub-committee. On the 30th of December, 1776, the Committee ordered the militia of the county to march to the assistance of General Washington. Some who had served in the Flying Camp claimed exemption from this order, and it is entered in the minutes of the Committee under date of January 4, 1777, that "On motion of Captain Bell it is resolved that the Flying Camp are by no means exempt from marching with the militia." The following entry occurs in the minutes for January, 6, 1777: "On motion, Resolved, That Matthias Need serve as a committeeman in the room of Captain Bell, who hath resigned." His resignation is not difficult to explain. In a letter from Colonel John Stull t0 the Maryland Council of Safety, January 11, 1777, he says: "The militia of my battalion have marched almost generally. * * * There are some of the former commissioned officers who have gone in the German battalion whose places are vacated in the militia; others have been elected to serve in their room, viz., Captain Peter Bell in the room of Captain William Heyser," etc. He requested the Council to forward commissions for these officers to Philadelphia. The following entry occurs in the minutes of the Counsil of Safety under the date of January 15, 1777: "Commissions issued to Peter Bell, appointed captain, Jacob Ott, first lieutenant, Michael Ott, second lieutenant, and William Conrad, ensign, of a company of militia in Washington County." Their commissions were duly forwarded to Philadelphia, and Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of the State, writing from that city on the 29th of January informed the Counsil of the arrival of Stull's battalion. There can be little doubt that it proceeded to New Jersey, the the scene of Washington's operations. [The facts regarding Captain Peter Bell's military record have been obtained from the minutes of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, now in the custody of the Maryland Historical Society, and from the published Archives of Maryland, Journal and Correspondence of the Counsil of Safety, 1777, p. 42, etc.]
No roster of Captain Bell's company is known to be in existence [Contra, see note 11 below]. The names of the commissioned officers have been given; John Eyerly was the drummer, and many years after the war with Private Black, Schultz, and Lock he visited Peter Bell, Jr., the Captain's second son. Eyerly was then living at Green Spring near Bath, W. Va. Frederick Bell, the Captain's oldest son, used to relate that he rode in front of his father on his horse when the militia marched from Hagerstown. It was called out to serve until the 15th of March, but probably continued in the field beyond that date. Captain Bell did not long survive the hardships of the campaign. He died at Hagerstown in the spring of 1778, probably in February, as his will is dated January 21st and was admitted to probate on the 2d of March. The inventory of his personal property was the first to be entered upon the official records of Washington County.
Peter Bell married Elizabeth Leiter, a member of the family that has given its name to Leitersburg District. Their children were Juliana, who married Francis Bittle; Frederick; Elizabeth, who married Peter Krauth; Maragaret, who married Barnhart Lowman; Peter, and Daniel. Bittle and Krauth removed to the Shenandoah valley in Virginia; Lowman located at Middlebrook, Augusta County, Va., in 1880, and there he was engaged in business as a tanner until his death in 1846. He has numerous descendants in Shelby County, Mo. Peter and Elizabeth Bell were members of St. John's Lutheran Church at Hagerstown, and here the baptisms of several of their children are recorded. He was buried in the graveyard adjacent to the old church building; his grave is unmarked and its exact location cannot be determined, but it is supposed to be under the west wall of the present church edifice.

3. Archives of Maryland, Volume XVI. "Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, January 1, 1777" and "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, March 20, 1777- March 28, 1778." www.mdarchives.state. Hardcopy at DAR Library, 1776 D St., Washington, DC

p. 42: Gentn Washington County January 11th 1777.
The militia of my Battalion have marched almost generally.
Colo Smith's Battalion are now ready, there are some of the
former Commissioned officers who have gone in the German
Battalion whose places are vacated in the Militia, others have
been elected to serve in their room, viz. Capt. Peter Beall in
the room of Capt. Wm Heyser, Jacob Ott, 1st Lieut. Michael Ott
2nd Lieut. and William Conrad, Ensign: likewise the following
Gentlemen were advanced in Capt. Fackler's company, viz.
Leonard Shryock to 2nd Lieut. in the room of Adam Smith and
Michael Tomer, Ensign.
It is earnestly requested that Commissions may be made
out for the foregoing Gentlemen, each respectively and sent
by the Bearer Melcher Belsheever, who will meet the Bat-
talion at Philadelphia. The men are spirited in the defence
of Liberty, and hope no delay will be made in forwarding
their Commissions, otherwise I doubt confusion may arise in
their companies as they are agreeably elected, and have
pledged my honour to be assistive in procuring their respec-
tive Commissions, and send an express for that purpose. I
hope my request will be comply'd with, and am,
Gentlemen,
Your most obedt & Humbl Servt
The Honble Council of Safety John Stull.
of Md at Annapolis

4. Archives of Maryland, Volume XVI. "Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, January 1, 1777" and "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, March 20, 1777- March 28, 1778." www.mdarchives.state. Hardcopy at DAR Library, 1776 D St., Washington, DC

p. 50: C. S. J.

Wednesday, January 15, 1777.
Council met. Present as on yesterday.

Commissions issued to Peter Beall appointed Captain,
Jacob Ott, first Lieutenant, Michael Ott, second Lieutenant,
and William Conrod, Ensign of a Company of Militia in
Washington County.
Also to Leonard Shryock, second Lieut. and Michael
Tamer, Ensign of a Company in said County.
Also to James Smith first Lieutenant of Captain William
Brown's Company of Matrosses.
Copy of Letter No 106 was sent to Col. Stull, and Copy of
No 107 to Plummer Williams.
Ordered That the Western Shore Treasurer pay to Mrs
Sands (of John) three Pounds five Shillings.
That the said Treasurer pay to Oliver Whiddon four
Pounds ten Shillings.
Whereas the odious Practice of forestalling and Ingrossing
is more particularly at this Time prejudicial to the State by
enhancing the Price of Provisions, so that neither the Army,
on which the Fate of America depends, nor Individuals can
be supplied on reasonable Terms, and the honorable Congress
having recommended to the executive Powers of this and the
neighbouring States to limit the Price of Provisions, It is there-
fore earnestly recommended to all Committees of Observa-
tion, and other well disposed Persons, Inhabitants of this
State, to enquire after and take notice of such as are guilty of
the Offences aforesaid, and return their names, together with
the names of the Witnesses who can prove the Charge, to the
Council of Safety, or to the Justices of the several County
Courts, that such Delinquents may be proceeded against
according to Law.
Adjourned till next Day 10 O'Clock.

5. Colonial Maryland Naturalizations, Jeffrey Wyan and Florence L. Wyand, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, (Baltimore), p. 49:

253. September 12, 1764           September 4, 1764 DD- 6,281
Bell, Anthonius                               of Frederick County, German
Cammerer, Ludwig                       German, Communion only
Giesert, Frederick                         of Frederick County, German
Huber, Adam                                  of Frederick County, German
Kohler, Geroge                              of Frederick County, German
Mong, Nicklas                                of Frederick County, German
Ritter, Jacob                                   of Frederick County, German
Stephan, Andreas                          of Frederick County, German
Vogler, John Frederick                  of Frederick County, German
Lutheran, Frederick County
Schwordfeger wit Conrad Hogmire, Ludetig Funk, Dewald Scheffer

6. Colonial Maryland Naturalizations, Jeffrey Wyan and Florence L. Wyand, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, (Baltimore), p. 57:

299. September 11, 1765                  August 28, 1765    DD- 9,3
Bell, Peter                                    of Frederick County, German,                                                                communion only
Huber, Adam                                        of Frederick County, German
Huber, Peter                                         of Frederick County, German
Stephan, Leonard                                of Frederick County, German
   Lutheran, Frederick County
   Schwordfeger wit Caspar Wagoner, Berhard, Lickhard

7. Colonial Maryland Naturalizations, Jeffrey Wyan and Florence L. Wyand, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, (Baltimore), p. 60:
317. September 13, 1765                 August 28, 1765 DD 9,17
Bell, Peter                                             of Frederick County, German
Keeler, George                                    of Frederick County, German
Wacker, Jacob                                     of Frederick County, German
    Lutheran, Schwordfeger wit Ludetig Funk, Johan Stefan Bell

7A. History of Frederick County Maryland, T.J.C. Williams and Folger McKinsey (1910 reprinted in 2005 Clearfield Pub.) Vol. I at 8:

Among the curiosities of the Colonial times was the purchase of a pastor by a Lutheran congregation at York, Pa. This pastor subsequently came to the Lutheran church in Frederick, having been sent by the Pennsylvania Synod. He was the Reverend Samuel Swerdfeger. Schwerdfeger was raised an orphan in Neustadt, in Bavaria and was a graduate of the University of Erlangen. He studied law and theology. Being very poor he was desirous to go to the New World and fell into the hands of "emigrant runners" who shipped him as a redemptioner to Baltimore. He arrived there in the spring of 1753 and was offered for sale for a term of years to pay his passage. He was advertised as "a studious theologian." The Lutheran congregation at York, being at the time in a contest against their old pastor, the Rev. Mr. Schaum, hearing of this bargain, concluded to buy Mr. Schwerdfeger as their pastor, which they did.

7B. Journals of Muhlenberg.   The three volumes contain 29 separate entries that mention Rev. Schwerdfeger:
Vol. I, 450, October 1760: Pastor Handschue then read a letter from a young preacher named Schwerdtfeger in which he rebuked us sharply for not having invited him [to a meeting the night before with Pastor Caspar Stover]. He was married to the daughter of a well-meaning elder in the Lancaster congregation who was present. He came into this country without a call and willfully had himself ordained by a couple of men like himself. This astonished and grieved the provost.
In this fashion the present conference ended in love, peace, and unity. It was closed with prayer and thanksgiving.
Vol. I, 529-530, Friday June 25, 1762: Visited by Mr. Schwertfeger [preacher in Canestoga], who arrived today. He was quartered at Mr. Berge's. In the afternoon I bade welcome to Mr. Gerock and his wife, of Elisabeth Furnace [where Pastor Kurz has a congregation], who arrived for the conference. After four o'clock I rode out to the provost's with Mssrs. Gerock and Schwertfeger, but the provost had meanwhile been at my house and arrived afterwards. We asked Mr. Schwertfeger whether he was willing to undergo an examination [for we could not otherwise receive him into our ministerial fellowship]. Answer: Yes. Thereupon I requested the provost and Mr. Gerock to examine him tomorrow morning [and give their opinion of it in the public meeting]. I left Mr. Gerock at the provost's and rode with Mr. Schwertfeger to his quarters. ****
Saturday, June 26, 1762: ....(4) Mr. Gerock read a report of Mr. Schwertfeger's examination on Saturday [in Wicaco. Result: Good]. (5) The Reverend Ministerium [the entire Ministerium of the Swedish and German nations] was asked by the president if Mr. Schwertfeger was to be received as a member. Answer: Yes, without exception.
Vol. I, 634, Monday, May 30, 1763: In the meantime Mr. Hartwich also came and asked whether some men from Friedrichstown had not been with me, Answer: No. He said that the congregation must be supplied.   He asked whether I had appointed anybody to go there. Answer: I had left the matter in Mr. Gerock's hands, who had recommended Mr. Schwertfeger to the place. I asked whether he himself wanted to go there. Answer: No, but he nevertheless wanted the place filled.
Vol. II, 271, Saturday, September 21, 1765. In the afternoon I conducted preparatory service, preaching on the first chapter of Isaiah, and then conducted confession. In the evening I received a vist from Mr. Schw [erdfeger], the Lutheran preacher in Friedrichstown, Maryland, who is to be naturalized this coming week. I asked him whether he would not preach for me tomorrow afternoon, God willing. In the evening I meditated as much as my physical and mental powers would permit.

7C. Pastors and People: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field, 171-1793, Charles H. Glatfelter, Vol. I, Pastors and Congregations (The Pennsylvania German Society, 1980 Breinigsville, PA), pp. 130-131:

John Samuel Swerdtfeger, Luthern. Born June 4, 1734 at (8801) Burgberheim, Bavaria. Son of a pharmacist. Matriculated as a student of theology at Erlangen, April 17, 1751. Left after a short time, possibly for financial reasons and possibly because he was advised to change his career plans. May have been counseled to become a scrivener. Went to England, where to obtain passage to America he apparently became an indentured servant. Arrived in Baltimore in 1753.
There is evidence that some members of the York congregation, dissatisfied with with Helrich Schaum, bought Schwerdtfeger's release from the terms of his indenture and brought him -- a nineteen year old -- to York as their pastor. Whether or not this account is true, he served in the York area (1753-1758). Preached to part of the York congregation (1753-1754) and at Canadochly and Kreutz Creek (1755-1758).
Served on the Earltown parish, including Bergstrasse (1758-1763), Earl township (1758-1763), and Muddy Creek (1759-1763). About 1759 married Anna Dorothea Schwab (born 1735), whose baptism is recorded in the Earltown register. They had nine children, one of whom married Guenther Wiegandt.
In 1760 wrote to the reconvened ministerium, complaining that he had not been invited to attend. *** [See Muhlenberg cite above]
Was pastor of the Frederick parish, including Beard's and Loudon congregations, from 1763 to 1768. During these years returned to Philadelphia to be naturalized there during the September-OCtober 1765 session of the Supreme Court, (NFP, p. 99) Resigned somewhat abruptly in 1768 and went back to Europe. Upon his return to America in 1769, found it all but impossible to obtain a parish. Tried to reinstate himself in Frederick, whose members clearly did not want him back. Several other vacant congregations were likewise uninterested in him. The ministerium in 1770 recommended a charge on the Berks-Lehigh county border. He lived in Lynn township, Lehigh county, for several years, but was soon without a position. In 1773, according to Muhlenberg's journal, the ministerium took up "the necessary provision for Pastor Shwerttfeger, who has no position, has a wife and five children, and lacks the wherewithal for a living." (MJ 2:547)
In the following year, Schwerdfeger found his :wherewithal" in New York. Served Albany (1774-1784) and Hosek, or Feilstown, (1777-1788). During the revolution he espoused the British cause, although moiderately enough so that he was allowed by his congregation to continue preaching. In 1786 he was one of the founding members of the New York Synod.
In 1790 accepted a call from a congregation made up of loyalists who had established the town of Williamsburgh in what became Dundas county, Ontario. Later that year he dedicated what has been called the first Protestant church in Canada. Two years later, became pastor of a second congregation, at Matilda. During the 1780's and 1790's he tried to improve his still poor financial situation by claiming land grants from the British government on the strength of his stand as a loyalist during the revolution.
Died in 1803 at Williamsburgh and was buried there.
Sources: Information received from the Landeskirliches Archiv, Nuernberg; Arhibald F. Bennet, A Guide to Genealogical Research (Salt Lake City, 1951), PP 116-126; Beale M. Schmucher, "The Lutheran Church in York, Pa."; Lutheran Quarterly (18 (1888): 493-494; MJ; DH; James Croil, Dundas: or a Sketch of Canadian History (Belleville, Ontario, 1972), pp. 250-252, 313, reprint of an 1861 edition: Ontario Historical Society Publications 26:317-318 and 31:33.

7D. Records of Pastoral Acts at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, New Holland, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1730-1799, Translated and Edited by Glenn P. Schwalm, M.D., and Frederick S. Weiser (Breinigsville, Pennsylvannia, The Pennsylvania German Society 1977)

Writing placed in the cornerstone of the Evangelical Lutheran God's House in Earlstown dated 21 Apr 1763 bearing the signature of Johann Samuel Schwerdtfeger, V.D.M., Johann Siegfried Gerock, Min Evang. and Johann Nicholas Kurtz, V.D.M.

8. To Maryland from Overseas: A Complete Digest of the Jacobite Loyalists Sold into White Slavery in Maryland and the British Continental Background of approximately 1400 Maryland Settlers from 1634 to the Early Federal Period with Source Documentation, Henry Wright Newman (Published by the Author Annapolis 1982), p. 21:

Peter Bell, a native of Germany and member of the Lutheran Church of Frederick Co., subscribed to the Oath of Abjuration on Sept. 13, 1765, and became a subject of the King of England. Ref. Provincial Court Judgement, Liber DD No. 9 Folio 20

9. Revolutionary Patriots of Washington Co., MD 1776-1783, Henry C. Peder, Jr. (1998) Family Line Publications, p. 20:

BEALL, Peter. Served on the Committee of Observation for the Elizabeth Town District (now the Hagerstown area of Washington County) in December, 1776 [Ref: Q-340]. Captain, Militia, 2nd Company, 1st Battalion, January 15, 1777] Ref: C-42, C-50, M-240, which also listed the name as "Peter Bell"] Took the Oath of Allegiance before the Hon Rentch March 7, 1778 [Ref: O-52, J-15, which listed the name as "Peter Beala"]

10. Revolutionary Patriots of Washington Co., MD 1776-1783, Henry C. Peder, Jr. (1998) Family Line Publications, p. 23-24:

BELL, Peter. Rendered patriotic service by providing "rashons" for the use of the military in July, 1775, as recorded by the Committee of Observation at Elizabeth Town on November 4, 1775 [Ref: Q-150]. Rendered patriotic service in Hagerstown by providing Sundries to Capt. John Nelson Company, continental service, Maryland line, April 1776 [Ref: Q-162]. ****One Peter Bell died intestate before July 14, 1792 (date of balance entry in Washington County), leaving a widow (no name given in this account) and equal shares to J. Uliana (Juliana?), Frederick, Elizabeth, Margaret, Peter, and Daniel Bell [Ref: J-31]. One Peter Bell was born in Germany circa 1744, married Elizabeth Leiter, served as captain of Maryland during the Revolution, and died on May 15, 1778 [Ref: Y-I:219]. [DAH Note: Much of this entry is wrong. Peter Bell's will appears in the Washington County Register. However, the original manuscript is not in the Maryland Hall of Archives. Peter Bell's Wife was Eisableth Fogler, not Elizabeth Leiter.]

A= Revolutionary War Military Collection, Manuscript MS.1146 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, Manuscript Division)

B=Archives of Maryland, Volume XII. "Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, July 7, 1776 - December 31, 1776" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1893)

C=Archives of Maryland, Volume XVI. "Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, January 1, 1777-March 20, 1777" and "Journal of Correspondence of the State Council, March 20 1777-March 28, 1778" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1897)

D=Archives of Maryland, Volume XVIII. "Muster Rolls and other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, 1775-1783" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1900)

E= Archives of Maryland, Volume XXI. "Journal of Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, April 1, 1778-October 26, 1779" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1901)

F=Archives of Maryland, Volume LXIII. "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland, 1779-1780" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1924)

G=Archives of Maryland, Volume XLV. "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland, 1780-1781" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1927)

H=Archives of Mayland, Volume XLVII. "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland, 1781: (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1930)

I= Archives of Maryland, Volume XLVIII. "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council of Maryland, 1781-1784" (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1931)

J=Clark, Raymond B Jr. Washington County, Maryland Records: Oaths of Allegiance, 1778, and Balance Books (Distributions) on Estates, 1778-1801 (St. Michaels, MD: Maryland and Delaware Genealogy, 1989).

K=Revolutionary War Military Collection, Manuscript MS.1814 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, Manuscript Division)

l=Carothers, Bettie. 9000 Men Who Took the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity in the State of Maryland During the Revolution (Lutherville, Maryland: Privately Compiled by the Author, 1978)

M=Clements, S. Eugene and Wright, F. Edward. The Maryland Militia in he Revolutionary War (Silver Spring, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1987)

N=Newman, Harry Wright. Maryland Revolutionary Records (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980 reprint)

O=Hodges, Margaret Roberts. Unpublished Revolutionary Records of Maryland, Volume 3, Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity taken in Washington County in 1778 (compiled by the author circa 1939).

P=Papenfuse, Edward C., et. al An Inventory of Maryland State Papers, Volume I, "The Era of the American Revolution, 1775-1789" (Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1977)

Q=Proceedings of the Committee of Observation for Elisabeth Town District [Washington County]," Maryland Historical Magazine, Volume 12 (1917) and Volume 13 (1918)

R=Maryland Pension Rolls of 1835: Report from the Secretary of War in Relation to the Pension Establishment of the United States (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1968 reprint)

S=Scharf, J. Thomas. History of Western Maryland, Volume II (Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968 reprint)

T=Burns, Annie Walker. Maryland Soldiers of the Revolutionary, 1812 and Indian Wars ho Drew Pensions While Residing in Kentucky (Washington, DC: Privately Compiled by the Author, 1939)

U=National Genealogical Quarterly (as cited)

V=White, Virgil D. Genealogical Abstracts of Revolutionary War Pension Files (Waynesboro, Tennessee: The National Historical Publishing Company, 1990, 4 volumes)

W=Williams, Thomas J.C. A History of Washington County,Maryland (Baltimore: Regional Publishing Company, 1968 reprint)

X="Some Little Known Data Regarding Maryland Signers of the Oath of Fidelity," by Richard B. Miller, Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin, Volume 27, No. 1, pp. 101-124 (Winter, 1986)

Y=Calender of Maryland State Papers, The Red Books, No. 4, Part 1 and Part 2 (Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission, 1950)

Z=Wright, F. Edward. Marriages and Deaths from the Newspapers of Allegany and Washington Counties, Maryland 1820-1830 (Silver Spring, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1987)

AA=Brumbaugh, Gaius M. Maryland Records: Colonial, Revolutionary, County and Church, Volume II (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1985 reprint)

BB=Directory of Maryland State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution and Their Revolutionary Ancestors, 1892-1965 (Published by Maryland Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1966)

CC=Maryland Society, Sons of the American Revolution, Approved and Documented Applications Identified by Maryland Society membership number (original records in he Langsdale Library at the University of Baltimore)

DD=Brown, Helen W. Marriages and Deaths, 1830-1837, Washington County, Maryland, Recorded in The Republican Banner (College Park, Maryland: Privately Compiled by the author, 1962)

EE-Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin (as cited)

FF=Saffell, W.T.R. Records of the Revolutionary War (Baltimore:Genealogical Publishing Company, 1969 reprint)

GG=Retzer, Henry J. The German Regiment of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the Continental Army, 1776-1781 (Westminster, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1991)

HH=Red Books (Original Records at the Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Maryland, Accession No. mdHR4590)

II=The Minutes and Proceedings of Washington County Court Held in Elizabeth Town, 1776-1810 (Typescript by Gerald J. Sword in 1965, copied from the original books that were stored in the basement in the old part of the Washington County Court House in Hagerstown)

JJ=More, Dale W., ed. Washington County, Maryland, Cemetery Records. Recorded by Samuel Webster Piper between 1935-1936 and typed and presented by the Conococheague Chapter, NSDAR, o f Hagerstown in 1942 (Westminster, Maryland, Family Line Publications 1992-1994), 7 volumes

KK= Papenfuse, Edward C., et al. A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635-1789 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 2 volumes

LL=Wright, F. Edward. Western Maryland Abstracts, 1786-1810 (Silver Spring , Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1985-1987), 3 volumes

MM=Russell, Donna Valley, ed. Western Maryland Genealogy (New Market, Maryland: Cactoctin Press, Inc.)

NN=Annals of the Swiss and German Pioneers of Pennsylvania (1917), H.F. Eshleman

11. The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War, S. Eugene Clements and F. Edward Wright LOC 87-81636 (1987) Family Line Publications
Copy in Reference Section Maryland Hall of Records 305 Rowe Street, Annapolis, MD

p. 51 Peter Beall, Capt.     15-01-77 WA       AM-16-50

Ref AM = Archives of Maryland 72 vols. Maryland Historical Society, 1883-1973

p. 240 Muster Roll for First Battn. Capt. Bells Compy. No. 2

A List of Capt. Peter Bells Compy. as now Classd.
Capt. Peter Beall; 1 Liet. Jacob Ott; 2 do. Michael Ott; Ensign William Conrod; 1 Sergeant Frederick Roser; 2. do John Stonecyfer; 3. do Martin Fifer; 4. do Peter Sailer; 1 Corporal Simon Househalter; 2. do Peter Hout. 3. do John Conn; 4. do Jacob Fisher Junr
1st Class: Adam Dile; Nathaniel Morgan; Jonas Emerick; William Bishop; Martin Funk; Peter Smith; Peter Hess; Francis Cryley
2d Class: Rudolf Pligh(?); Dewalt Celhoffer; Jost. Wyant; William Muffet (Mussett?); Henry Wykell; Thomas Leveings(?); Peter Hoak; Peter Croft
3d Class: Abraham Bower; John Oster; Phillip Hornish; Martin Harry; Jacob Craver; Andrew Miller; Peter Hefley; Frederick Croft
4th Class: Jacob Harry; Micahel Fesler; Jonathan Harry; Jonathan Hayer [DAH: probably Hager]; Balzer Gull; George Arnold; John Sailer; Henry Mull
5th Class: Peter Woltz; Jospeh Kline; Henry Bowert; Phillip Reefnaugh; Martin Stake; Harmon Criley; Isaac Cnady; John Funk
6th Class: Melchar Bellhover; Francis Wagoner; David Harry; Jacob Nicholl; Thomas Rinehart; John Snyder; Phillip Oster; John Howard
7th Class: Jcaob Rozer; William Scott; Henry Tootwiler; John Rage; Earnst Ditz; Adam Ott; John Parks; Phillip Creeybam(?)
8th Class: Joseph Hindman; Thomas SHoeman; John Onsell; George Dill; George Rinehart; Jacob Wirey; John Wise. [Militia Lists of Daus. of Founders and Patriots, held by Md. Hist. Soc.]

12.   Provincial Court Judgements, 53 Judge,emts DD9 1765
         Original examined by DAH on 19 Oct 2006, Maryland Hall of Records, 305 Rowe Street, Annapolis , MD Photocopy on file.

p. 17 George Keeler, Peter Bell and Jacob Wacker of Frederick County German Protestants come into Court here between the hours of nine twelve of the Clock in the Forenoon of the thirteenth Day of September One in the pursuance of an Act of Parliament made and [???] in the Thirteenth Year of his late Majesty King George the Second Instituted "An Act for the Naturalizing such foreign Protestant and such others therein mentioned as are Settlers or shall Settle in any of his Majesty's Colonies in America" pray to have the Several Oaths appointed by the said Act Administered to them they having produced the following Certificate of their having received the Sacrament //to wit// These is to certify all Mon where these presents shall concern that George Keeler, Peter Bell and Jacob Wacker Natives of Germany but now residents in Frederick County in the Province of Maryland did in the 20th day of August in the Year of our Lord [p.18] Lord

13. "The Morning Herald", newspaper December 17, 1963.

Shown above is the old stone dwelling on the east side of the Leitersburg Waynesboro road, near the Mason-Dixon line, known popularly as the Captain Peter Bell house. Now owned by Mrs. Don Wolfinger, or Waynesboro, the house is believed to be well over 175 years old, though there is no datestone to definitely set the year of its erection. [See, History of Leitersburg District at p. 196: "In 1812 [George Frederick Bell ] erected the substantial stone house near the turnpike , one of the most attractive residences in the District, and here he reared a numerous family, for whom the various operations connected with a large farm at that period furnished ample employment."]
As in the case of so many of the older structures in our county, existing historical records are too scant to give an accurate picture of this house's beginnings. The Capt. Peter Bell known to have built it is presumably the son of the Peter Bell who, in 1749, leased a tract of land on Conococheague Manor (the vast acreage retained by Lord Baltimore for himself, portions of which were leased to selected tenants for agreed numbers of years). History does reveal, however, that this Peter Bell was 76 years old when le leased the Conococheague Manor tract, which would have made him old enough at the time to be Capt. Bell's father - even though no family records exist today to prove the lineage. [HLD at page 193 has Peter Bell emigrating to America in young manhood. In 1749 he would have been 13 years old. Anthony Bell's wife, Maria Schneeberger, arrived at Philadelphia aboard the Queen of Denmark in 1751. Anthony Bell "learned his trade in Wiesbaden according to HLD at page 213. These facts make it very unlikely that Capt. Bell's father was the Peter Bell of Conococheague Manor.]
Captain Peter Bell (though not a captain at the time), in 1767 purchased a 248 farm, in what is now known as the Leitersburg District, which he named "Bell's Choice." The farm was a portion of Peter Sheiss' original survey of "All That's Left," and it is interesting to note that in the same year Peter's brother, Anthony, bought 105 acres of this same tract from Peter Sheiss. Shortly afterward Peter Bell married Elizabeth Leiter [see Friederick Fogler will] , of his own neighborhood, and Anthony married Maria Snowberger, who had recently come to this country from Switzerland.
In view of the fact that he bought his farm in 1767, and since it is doubtful that there were any buildings on it at the time, it can be reasonably assumed that Peter was buying the land. It is known that lived on the farm until he moved to Hagerstown a number of years later, in 1775. In this city, he had a residence on the site of the present City Hall. (The property was sold to the city in 1821, more than forty years after Captain Bell's death, by two of his sons. Shortly afterward, the former City Hall and Market-house were erected on he site.)
At the start of the Revolutionary War, Bell was appointed to the important Committee of Observation for Washington County, in 1776. On the following January 15, he was commissioned a Captain, immediately prior to the local militia departure for New Jersey. According to family history, [no corroborating source] Capt. Bell was with General Washington at Valley Forge. In fact, after-effects of the severe campaign of 1777 are believed to have brought about the untimely death of Capt. Peter Bell in February of the following year. His will was dated January 21, 1778, made out apparently when he recognized the imminence of death, and was probated on March 2, just a little more than five weeks later, at the Washington County Court House -- where it may be seen today.
Both Capt. Bell and his wife, Elizabeth, were members of St. John's Lutheran Church in this city. They had six children, several of whom were even to outdo their parents in bringing recognition to the Bell name, as history has shown. A son Peter Jr., and his sons in turn, John and Samuel, were to become famed as potters, in Winchester, Waynesboro and Strasburg, Virginia, respectively. Capt. Bell's other two sons, Frederick and Daniel, also became well known in trades -- the former as a cabinetmaker later retiring as a farmer on Bell's Choice) and the latter as a hat maker. [HLD at page 196: It does not appear that [Frederick Bell] ever followed this occupation [cabinet maker], for, having married soon after attaining his majority, he returned to the farm where he had passed his early childhood and there he resided until his death.]
The Capt. Peter Bell house is a 2 1/2 story, limestone structure, with a wing of the same height extending to the rear at the northwest corner. The east side of the wing, where it forms an "L" with the main house, has both upstairs and downstairs galleries, with the stone work on the upper porch being plastered over (rather characteristically) with smooth mortar.
As in many early county homes, the portion of the building which appears structurally to be an addition, or wing added to the main house, is actually the older, as can be seen particularly in the interior of this house. The main part of the Bell house was so ingeniously incorporated with the original wing, however, that no line of demarcation can be found between the earlier and later stonework. The wing boasts a large exterior chimney and the characteristic early type door and window frames. The main house is faced on the south with large, smoothly finished stones.
The interior of the wing, downstairs, consists of one large, rectangular room, which once contained an immense fireplace, now concealed. Access to the wing from the main house is through an unusually deep door frame, further evidence that the partition was formerly an exterior wall. The early wood trim in the wing is unchanged, with the simple molding on door frames and over arched cupboards being especially noteworthy. The main house has been obviously remodeled extensively in the past century, since all woodwork is of comparatively recent design and workmanship.
A small frame structure, embracing a one-room stone building of very early date, will stands near the house. While a spring is no longer in evidence, the present owner, Mrs. Wolfinger, says that old deeds refer to the building as "the spring house." Of special interest is the heavy, paneled door on this structure.

14. Frederick County Land Record Abstracts, Liber N 189-191:

Lawrence O'Neal recorded land commission and depositions, June 25, 1770. To Daniel Heughs, William Beard, Henry Snavely and Samuel Hughes, wheras Lawrence O'Neal is seized of a parcel called Great Rock, did on 16 August in 19th year of our dominion enter his petition before Thomas Prather and his associates to perpetuate the memory of the bounds of the tract...Petition granted. The boundary a large white oak being destroyed there is set up a stone at the same place. Signed William Beard, Daniel Hughs. Peter Bell deposed regarding location where stone was placed. Anothony Bell, sworn and deposed same. Peter Sheas sayeth as above and no more.

15. Frederick County Maryland Land Records, Liber K Abstracts, 1765-1768. p. 99: 1269-1271. Peter Bell Recorded 29 May 1767, made 2 May between Peter Sheas of FC, for L70 sells tract of land called All That is Left, beginning at part called Bell's Choice, containing 248 acrea. Signed Peter Sheas by mark before Jas Smith, Jos Smith. Receipt. Ack. and Elizabeth wife of Peter Sheas released dower. AF paid.

16.5. Patriots Oath of Fidelity: The Worshipful Andrew Rentch
1.Bell, Anthony
2.Benedict, Bowman
3.Beala, Peter

Copy of Original obtained from the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore Maryland.

THE FIRST TIME I MARRIED MY SECOND WIFE: VA'ETCHANAN

2012-08-05T04:39:00.001-07:00

The First Time I Married My Second Wife: Va'Etchanan (I plead; I implore)
[Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11]
This d’var Torah honors my father-in-law Willie Mazer, who at the age of 92 never forgets or misses a trick when playing cards or fails to do the daily Sudoku puzzle. I am pleading with him to do a “nona-peat” of his Bar Mitzvah on Miketz around his 93^rd birthday on December 24^th. Please plead with me. I also tip my kippah to that other son of Baltimore, Michael Phelps, for his double-triple at the Olympics. He is, however, a long way from competing with Willie in the mikvah.

Let’s begin. The first time I married my second wife, she vowed to be a good citizen. That surprised me. Where did that come from? Girl Scouts? And what about being the good wife? By the second time I married my second wife on March 18 (chai), 2012, but for the first time under the laws of Moses, I think I had it figured out, a bit less than 14 years after we first met. Was it just good luck that her Hebrew name is Rachael? Or maybe I was rolling sevens?

Maybe today’s parsha has the key to this puzzle. For the second time this year, we remember the seminal rock concert and wedding event joining forever, for better and for worse, Israel and God. The wedding singers were that lapidary group known as Shema and the Ten Statements; we remember it, like Woodstock and our own weddings, because we were there, right? Let me share with you what I remember, see if you remember the same things and then consider what Moses reminds us that we remembered.

Marc Chagall's Creation

To narrow it down, let’s look at statement four, more specifically at the two rationales for number four. Remember in Exodus at Sinai that we had only one thing to remember? But, now at the edge of the Promised Land we suddenly remember two miraculous acts of creation, one of the physical world and one of the political world in the form of Israel. On July 4^th of this year, those two worlds collided again with the 226^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the announcement of the discovery of the Higg’s Boson, the so-called God Particle that sparked the Big Bang.

That recent collision of the political and physical worlds may also have had something to do with what was left out of the Ten Statements – the 603 mitzvoth that did not make the top ten chart. Keep these lucky numbers in mind: from the Rambam’s positive mitzvoth: 11, 17, 18. Remember what they are?

We did, of course, as you remember, get all of the 603 – including the three lucky numbers -- by way of hearsay; Moses heard them and then said it to us. We learned them at Sinai and then re-learned them just before entering the Promised Land. Some scholars argue that today’s text was crafted as part of a third act of creation, an act by humans blessed by God when the exiles returned from Babylon to begin building the second Temple and, at the same time, reestablish Israel, without a king but with an abridged torah. The third act was sparked by the discovery of the document that we are discussing today, a sort of declaration of independence and a short form version of the constitutional Torah that goes with it.

Let’s get to the big question: What comes from the big idea that a single creative force gives order to the physical and political realms of our human existence? How does that singularity make us – individually and collectively -- a junior partner in the continuing creative process of our ethical traditions and the discovery of the processes governing the physical world?

Marc Chagall: Moses receiving the Ten Statements

Marc Chagall: Moses Receiving the Ten Statements at Sinai
The connection of one of the Hebrew creation stories to the Declaration of Independence cannot be mistaken: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These truths are derived from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” John Locke, in his first Treatise of Government, started with Genesis, even making a rather modern sounding argument for equal rights of women based on a close reading of the Hebrew text. Locke, as you remember, was high up on the required reading list for the drafters of the Declaration.

Diagram of the Collision that revealed the Higg's Boson

It is equally obvious that modern science, especially particle and astrophysics, is driven by a monotheistic world-view. Hence, the search for a unified field theory and the assumption that time and creation trace back to a single event that may hinge on a single particle. In the absence of Higg’s Boson, all particles behave like light photons darting around without any mass. Enter the boson and particles begin to spin, thereby nothing becoming something by gaining weight.

CERN Collider where the "God Particle" was discovered.

Curiously, the scientific account of creation follows this sequence: a universe that is void and without form, then light, then Higg’s spark, and then everything else. Bottom line: this and other science does not happen without intelligible order in the physical world. Pretty obvious now, but not so much several thousand years ago.

The great Jewish sage, Albert Einstein, famously said, “God does not play with dice.” He said this as a rejection of quantum mechanics, without which the God Particle would never have been discovered. What Einstein should have known: God might play with a dreidel. Play along with me for a minute and think of a dreidel as a metaphor both for the Higg’s boson and also for the Torah which imparts the “spin” to make us all good citizens of Israel, Israel being a kind of aspirational Utopia (a city of words) and also an existing political state. The spin keeps the dreidel upright; the Torah keeps the good citizens of Israel upright.

Outside of Israel, the letters on the four sides of the driedel are: נ (Nun), ג (Gimmel), ה (Hay) and ש (Shin), which stand for the Hebrew phrase "Nes Gadol Haya Sham." -- "A great miracle happened there [in Israel]." The miracle, as you may recall, was the oil that kept the light burning in the Temple. The Torah also lights our way.

After the State of Israel was founded in 1948 the Hebrew letters were changed for dreidels used in Israel. They became: נ (Nun), ג (Gimmel), ה (Hay) and פ (Pey), which stand for the Hebrew phrase "Nes Gadol Haya Po." -- "A great miracle happened here."

But the letters also have Yiddish equivalents, two of which stand for something and nothing.

Nun stands for "nichts," which means "nothing" in Yiddish. If the dreidel lands with a nun facing up the spinner gets nothing.

Gimmel stands for "ganz," which is Yiddish for "everything." If the dreidel lands with the gimmel facing up the spinner gets everything in the pot. Why not also think of the dreidel as a symbol for two acts of creation?

How did we get from Va’ Etchanah to July 4, 2012? The twin remembrances for Shabbat celebrate the same fundamental concepts of law and order for the ethical and the physical worlds and remind us of the same principles of inquiry and reasoning that lead to an ethical life and good citizenship as well as scientific discovery. For the most part, the concept of an ordered and good creation means that magic and mysticism fade from significance in both universes. For that reason and by the process of reasoning, mainstream rabbinic Judaism has cultivated a culture of questioning and learning that builds from one generation to the next.

It did take awhile before this uniquely Jewish view of the world and way of living in that world came to have a significant influence on science and ethics outside of its own culture. To see how it spread and what it came to mean for ethics brings us back to lucky numbers 11, 17 and 18.

11: To teach the wisdom of Torah and to study it, or, as it is called, “Talmud Torah.” This implies learning how to learn as well as learning and following the principles of the Torah.

17: To have every king (ruler) who reigns over us write a Torah scroll for himself and not depart from it. This implies that all men are equal and subject to the Torah, a government of laws and not of men.

18: To have—everyone among us – a Torah scroll of one’s own, and writing it oneself is extremely commendable and preferred. This implies the duty of each citizen of Israel to know and follow Torah.

Each mitzvah derives from the Kriat Shema: learning the Torah and teaching the Torah, one generation to the next and all Jews being subject equally to the Torah regardless of their station. They embody an active and creative stance toward the ethical world in contrast to the passive and contemplative characteristics of other philosophies and religions. The ideal is a nation of priests, meaning a learned citizenship. In practice, pursuit of the ideal over the ages created a Jewish culture with the highest rate of literacy, and also achievements in many walks of life far out of proportion to their numbers, but this only after the Jewish emancipation in Europe.

During the period from the destruction of the second temple (70 C.E.) until the turn of the seventeenth century, the unique world view of Judaism was repressed and marginalized. Through a culture of learning and literacy the Hebrew world view endured, was preserved in Torah and Talmud. Eventually that world view resurfaced 16 centuries later as Europe emerged from the middle ages.

What happened then that brought light back to light? It began in 1450 with the printing of the Gutenberg Bible. In 1534, the Luther Bible in German went to press. In 1611, the King James Bible followed in English. Suffice it to say, the word of the Torah was getting around, and became widely accessible to scholars and then lay people other than Jews. By the 18^th Century, most literate families had a bible in their home, often the only book.
Natural law, a concept of law based primarily on the Judaic world view, emerged in the 17^th Century, most notably in the writings of Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, John Locke in the First Treatise, and then Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and in our day John Rawls. The social contract theorists, drawing heavily on covenental concepts, provided the intellectual underpinnings for the Declaration of Independence, less explicitly the Constitution and more explicitly the social consciousness that sparked the Civil War and, in the last century, the civil rights movement and the universal declaration of human rights.

We begin the celebration of Shabbat by lighting two candles. At the end of Shabbat, we light a braided candle (two candles in one). The rabbinical tradition explains that we light one candle to remember the creation and one to remind us to observe Shabbat.

We also, customarily, light two candles at a Jewish wedding. I asked a rabbi in Baltimore if the same rationale applied. “No,” he said, “We have two in case one blows out. The custom started in Eastern Europe where many weddings took place at night and in drafty places.” We need richer symbolism for this custom.

It seems to me that Torah, tradition and custom do not preclude us from seeing another layer of meaning in the candles we light to remember and keep the Sabbath, to celebrate two acts of creation, to celebrate our weddings and do our best to understand the powerful works of creation embedded in our physical and moral universe. We also need to educate future Einsteins on the powerful symbolism of the driedel.

I am delighted with the surprising vows from our first wedding, and more delighted with the reaffirmation of those vows in our second wedding. As the caterer advised us before the second wedding: “You want to get it right because you only get married twice for the first time once.” And so it was also for the marriage of Israel and God the first, second and third times.

SELECTED SOURCES

1. Creation: The Impact of an Idea, edited and compiled by Daniel O’Conner and Francis Oakley (Scribner 1969). Download PDF at http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CHcQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contra-mundum.org%2Fbooks%2FCreation.pdf&ei=SlQeUPvSAcjb6wHI44HgDQ&usg=AFQjCNFZvuBZoHR4G_bp8qy60i6cmDvWoQ&sig2=kW4fo5QLjSFyH_IKLLOSwg

2. New York Times Op-ed Page July 4, 2012

a. “Was the Declaration of Independence Christian?” Michael L. Myerson Professor of Law University of Baltimore Maryland

b. “The Spark that Caused the Big Bang” Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics CUNY

3. First Treatise of Government: The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and his followers, are Detected and Overthrown [The "Divine Right of Kings"], John Locke http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/

4. A Very Short Introduction to Nothing, Frank Close Professor of Physics Oxford University, Oxford University Press (2009)

5. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke

6. “Type Scenes and the Uses of Convention,” Robert Alter in Critical Inquiry, Vol. 5., No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp. 355-368, The University of Chicago Press http://www.justor.org/stable/1343017

7. “How Convention Helps Us Read: The Case of the Bible’s Annunciation Type-Scene,” Robert Alter in Prooftexts, Vol. 3, No. 2 (May 1983), pp. 115-130, Indiana University Press http://www.justor.org/stable20689065

8. The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter, W.W. Norton & Company (2004)

9. The JPS Torah Commentary:

a. Genesis, Nahum M. Sarna (1989)

b. Exodus, Nahum M. Sarna (1996)

c. Deuteronomy, Jeffrey (1996)

10. The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement: The Compendium of a Culture, a People, and Their Stunning Performance, Steven L. Pease, Decaulion (2009)

11. Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life, Stanley Cavell, The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press (2004).

12. Rachel Calof's Story: Jewish Homesteader on the Northern Plains, Indiana University Press (1995)

© David A. Holzworth Delivered at Congregation Bnai Tzedek August 4, 2012

ALL THAT'S LEFT

2012-05-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

In 1767, Peter and Anthony appear in the land records as purchasers of 248 and 105 acres, respectively, immediately adjacent to the Mason-Dixon Line, a few miles north of present day Hagerstown, Maryland. "Frederick County Maryland Land Records, Liber K Abstracts, 1765-1768. p. 99: 1269-1271. Peter Bell Recorded 29 May 1767, made 2 May between Peter Sheas of FC, for L70 sells tract of land called All That is Left, beginning at part called Bell's Choice, containing 248 acrea. Signed Peter Sheas by mark before Jas Smith, Jos Smith. Receipt. Ack. and Elizabeth wife of Peter Sheas released dower. AF paid." This single land record, coming about four years after Anthony and Peter became citizens of Maryland, tells us quite a bit about the Bell brothers when placed in the context of the historical events swirling about them.

We know from later census documents that Anthony was born in 1734 and Peter in 1736, which makes them 33 and 31 at the time of purchase. Anthony's wife, Maria Schneeberger, was 19 and Peter's wife, Elizabeth Vogeler, was 26. Although marriage records have yet to be found, we know from later church records that both families had their first child that year.

The title of the tract, "All That's Left", signified exactly what it says; no other good farmland land in that vicinity remained available for purchase. Peter Schiess (Sheas), a German born land speculator, sold the last piece of a large tract that he owned to the Bell's.

The Bell brothers paid cash for the land, somewhat unusual for recently arrived immigrants. They also acquired premium land, good for farming and located on one of the main routes for migration into the Shenandoah Valley of the increasing numbers of German-speaking imigrants arriving from Europe through the Port of Philadelphia.

The Bells' purchase also coincides with the conclusion of the French and Indian War and the completion of the Mason-Dixon survey. The French and Indian war started in 1754, probably the same year that the Bell brothers arrived in Maryland. Then Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, as second in commend to Colonel Joshua Fry, led a force through western Maryland to a bloody encounter with a French force near Fort Duquesne in Ohio. Many of the troops in the expedition were recruited from the German settlers already in the region. Colonel Fry died after first encounter, falling from his horse. Washington assumed command, built Fort Necessity in anticipation of an attack from a larger force sent by the French from Duquesne. The French attacked and defeated Washington on July 3, 1754, but release him under terms of surrender after which he returned to report the defeat to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia.

News of Washington's defeat swept through region. On July 17, 1754, the Maryland assembly appropriated 6000 pounds to raise a defense force. In November of 1754, Governor Sharpe of Maryland assumed command of a force consisting of 1000 North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland troops, the last of these coming from the predominantly German settlers in the western part of the colony, generally known by the name of Conococheague after the stream that flowed through it.

In February 1755, General Braddock arrived from England and took command of the British forces, which he assembled at Frederick Maryland. His command, including Colonel Washington, set out for Duquesne on May 30. Maryland troops then moved into position inthe western part of the colony to protect the settlers. By June of 1755, Indian attacks on the German settlers, encouraged by scalp bounties offered by the French, started and became increasingly frequent, after the disastrous defeat of Braddock at Monogohela. Washington wrote: "The whole settlement of Conocochieg is fled and there now remains only two families from thence to Federicktown... That the Maryland settlements are all abandoned is certainly a fact as I have had the account transmitted to me by several hands and confirmed yesterday by Henry Brinker, who left Monocacy the day before, and who also affirms that three hundred and fifty wagons had passed that place to avoid the enemy, within the space of three days."

The Maryland Gazette gave grizzly accounts of the depredations: "On our march toToonaloways, about five miles this side of Stoddert's Fort, we found John Meyer's house in flames, and nine or ten head of large cattle killed. About three miles and a half farther up the road we found a man killed and scalped, with one arm cut off and several arrows sticking in him; we could not bury him, having no tools with us for that purpose." Report from Conococheague, March 11, 1756.

Begun in December 1763 and completed in December 1767, the survey finally resolved a thirty year dispute between the Calverts, proprietors of the Maryland colony, and the Penns, proprietors of the Pennsylvania colony.
How did they come by the money for the purchase? How did they know where to go and what to buy? Many of the arrivals from the Rhine Valley, collectively described by the English as Palatines, brought little more than the clothes they wore and the skills they had learned. The region suffered the scourges of war, famine and religious strife for most of the 17th and early part of the 18th century. Naturally, the vast amounts of inexpensive unsettled land, promises of religious toleration and freedom from the ravages of war and also military conscription attracted many immigrants, a large number of which had to sell themselves as indentured servants for a period of seven years to pay for their passage to America.

Some immigrants came as part of organized religious groups, and these immigrants generally had some capital assets resulting from inheritance and acquired wealth. In the case of Anthony Bell, Swiss emigration records for his wife, Maria Schneeberger, show that she had the proceeds of a land right that she brought with her. In addition, the reference to a trade learned in Hesse suggests that Anthony, at least, had marketable skills in addition to whatever he produced as a farmer. As to Peter Bell, a hint contained in a Philadelphia newspaper advertisement, if it was placed by the same Peter Bell, suggests that he may have been a trading merchant early upon their arrival, if not also before they left Europe. Peter and Anthony may also have brought with them the proceeds of an inheritance; they also might have been employed as part of the Mason-Dixon surveying crew.

We know for certain from the inventory of Peter Bell's estate, that he became a prosperous and successful merchant before marching off to fight with General Washington in the Philadelphia Campaign in the summer of 1777. Herbert C. Bell notes: "The main road from Hagerstown to Nicholson Gap passed through his land and the travel over this thoroughfare doubtless gave him advantages not enjoyed by his more isolated neighbors." And he also notes: "About the year 1775 he removed to Hagerstown, where he owned the lot at the corner of Franklin and Potomac streets now the location of the market house in that city. It is probable that he engaged in merchandising here, as the settlement of his estate shows that 225 persons were indebted to him in sums ranging from 1s. 3d. to 65 pounds."

From surviving records, we can tell that Peter Bell was a leader within his small community and that he became involved early on in the events leading to the Revolutionary War. As early as 1775, Peter Bell provided rations to a company of militia forming int he county. "Rendered patriotic service by providing "rashons" for the use of the military in July, 1775, as recorded by the Committee of Observation at Elizabeth Town on November 4, 1775 [Ref: Q-150]. Rendered patriotic service in Hagerstown by providing Sundries to Capt. John Nelson Company, continental service, Maryland line, April 1776 [Ref: Q-162]" Herbert C. Bell writes: "On the 25th of November, 1776, he was elected a member of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, and during his connection with this body he served as a member of a subcommittee of seven appointed for the purpose of 'licensing suits.' It appears that the judicial functions of the Committee were intrusted to this sub-committee. On the 30th of December, 1776, the Committee ordered the militia of the county to march to the assistance of General Washington. Some who had served in the Flying Camp claimed exemption from this order, and it is entered in the minutes of the Committee under date of January 4, 1777, that 'On motion of Captain Bell it is resolved that the Flying Camp are by no means exempt from marching with the militia.' "

Peter Bell went on to become a Captain of that militia, and in his turn, he marched to war. The following entry occurs in the minutes of the Counsil of Safety under the date of January 15, 1777: "Gentn Washington County January 11th 1777. "The militia of my Battalion have marched almost generally. Colo Smith's Battalion are now ready, there are some of the former Commissioned officers who have gone in the German Battalion whose places are vacated in the Militia, others have been elected to serve in their room, viz. Capt. Peter Beall in the room of Capt. Wm Heyser, Jacob Ott, 1st Lieut. Michael Ott 2nd Lieut. and William Conrad, Ensign: likewise the followingGentlemen were advanced in Capt. Fackler's company, viz.Leonard Shryock to 2nd Lieut. in the room of Adam Smith andMichael Tomer, Ensign. It is earnestly requested that Commissions may be made out for the foregoing Gentlemen, each respectively and sent by the Bearer Melcher Belsheever, who will meet the Battalion at Philadelphia. The men are spirited in the defenceof Liberty, and hope no delay will be made in forwarding their Commissions, otherwise I doubt confusion may arise in their companies as they are agreeably elected, and have pledged my honour to be assistive in procuring their respective Commissions, and send an express for that purpose. I hope my request will be comply'd with, and am, Gentlemen, Your most obedt & Humbl Servt The Honble Council of Safety John Stull. of Md at Annapolis.

According to Herbert C. Bell "Their commissions were duly forwarded to Philadelphia, and Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of the State, writing from that city on the 29th of January informed the Counsil of the arrival of Stull's battalion. There can be little doubt that it proceeded to New Jersey, the the scene of Washington's operations." The records of the Council corroborate H.C. Bell's account: "Wednesday, January 15, 1777. Council met. Present as on yesterday. Commissions issued to Peter Beall appointed Captain, Jacob Ott, first Lieutenant, Michael Ott, second Lieutenant, and William Conrod, Ensign of a Company of Militia in Washington County. Also to Leonard Shryock, second Lieut. and Michael Tamer, Ensign of a Company in said County."

Although Captain Bell's militia had been called up to serve only until March 15, 1977, Herbert C. Bell beleives that the company must have stayed with Washington's army for a longer period. If so, Captain Bell may have seen service in connection with the Philadelphia Campaign and the Battles of Brandywine, Paoli and Germantown before the army went into winter quarters at the end fo the year in Valley Forge.

At the time that Herbert Bell wrote in 1898, he did not have available to him any of the muster rolls for Peter Bell's company. Since then, however, at least two muster rolls have come to light from the archives of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Since the militia formed from the residents of the area and each company elected its own Captain, the list tells us who lived nearby and also that Peter Bell was trusted by these men to take them into battle:

A List of Capt. Peter Bells Compy. as now Classd.Capt.

Peter Beall; 1 Liet. Jacob Ott; 2 do. Michael Ott; Ensign William Conrod; 1 Sergeant Frederick Roser; 2. do John Stonecyfer; 3. do Martin Fifer; 4. do Peter Sailer; 1 Corporal Simon Househalter; 2. do Peter Hout. 3. do John Conn; 4. do Jacob Fisher Junr

1st Class: Adam Dile; Nathaniel Morgan; Jonas Emerick; William Bishop; Martin Funk; Peter Smith; Peter Hess; Francis Cryley
2d Class: Rudolf Pligh(?); Dewalt Celhoffer; Jost. Wyant; William Muffet (Mussett?); Henry Wykell; Thomas Leveings(?); Peter Hoak; Peter Croft
3d Class: Abraham Bower; John Oster; Phillip Hornish; Martin Harry; Jacob Craver; Andrew Miller; Peter Hefley; Frederick Croft
4th Class: Jacob Harry; Micahel Fesler; Jonathan Harry; Jonathan Hayer [DAH: probably Hager]; Balzer Gull; George Arnold; John Sailer; Henry Mull
5th Class: Peter Woltz; Jospeh Kline; Henry Bowert; Phillip Reefnaugh; Martin Stake; Harmon Criley; Isaac Cnady; John Funk
6th Class: Melchar Bellhover; Francis Wagoner; David Harry; Jacob Nicholl; Thomas Rinehart; John Snyder; Phillip Oster; John Howard
7th Class: Jcaob Rozer; William Scott; Henry Tootwiler; John Rage; Earnst Ditz; Adam Ott; John Parks; Phillip Creeybam(?)8th Class: Joseph Hindman; Thomas SHoeman; John Onsell; George Dill; George Rinehart; Jacob Wirey; John Wise.
[Militia Lists of Daus. of Founders and Patriots, held by Md. Hist. Soc.]

Anthony Bell, his children, and the children of Peter Bell, Frederick Bell in particular, played important roles in the founding and organization of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Leitersberg and the rebuilding of Beard's church near Smithsburg. Many of their later descendants became ordain Lutheran ministers. Three of the stain glass windows in St. Paul's bear the names of Frederick Bell and his son George Bell.
Anthony Bell's father-in-law, Hanns Schneeberger (German for Snow Hill) , had deeply held religious beliefs of a different sort. He founded a religious community at Snowhill, Pennsylvania. Marie apparently parted with that particular sect when she married Anthony. Colonial Pennsylvania and Maryland, in the 1700's and even later, could fairly be characterized as a religious stew of Mennonites, Seventh Day Baptists, Quakers, Reformed (Swiss), Lutherans, Catholics, Methodists, Moravians, Dunkards, Amish, Anglicans, etc. Thge natural religious fervor reached an even higher pitch during the years immediately preceding the Revolutionary War when a religious awakaening swept the colonies. Unlike their counterparts in the European homeland, however, these diverse religious and ethnic groups not only tolerated each other, they also cooperated to the extent that some church structures served, on a time-share basis, the faiths of Reformed and Lutheran. Frederick Bell, for example, helped fund the building of a neighboring Mennonite church, though he was not a member of that congregation.

Further evidence, were any needed, of their faith comes from the words of their wills.

IN SEARCH OF PETER BELL: THE SCOT HYPOTHESIS

2012-05-17T04:14:00.004-07:00

IN SEARCH OF PETER BELL: THE SCOT HYPOTHESIS

A comment was recently posted on the piece Obama and the Bells:

Mark said...

I've noticed that you're a descendant of captain Peter Bell and was wondering if you could give me your take on what I've heard. I heard a few years ago that the brothers Peter and Anthony Bell were actually from Scotland and were only residing in Germany just before coming to Maryland. I haven't been able to verify this but it could be plausible if they were part of the thousands that left Scotland after "the '45". This was the last of the Jacobite rebellions and the one in which the movement was utterly crushed at the battle of Culloden, resulting in the exodus of tens of thousands out of Scotland and northern England. Most ended up in Europe and a lot ended up in Germany. A huge portion of these people had military experience and that could explain why Peter Bell became a captain in the revolution so quickly. I always thought it unusual that two not-so-young unmarried brothers would just pick up and leave Germany for

America

. Also the Bells have a very long history in Scotland. I hope to find some evidence of the history of these two brothers some day but am becoming very discouraged.

June 20, 2009 1:13 PM

As far as I have been able to tell, the first statement of what I call the “Scot hypothesis” was advanced by Colonel Fielder M.M. Beall in Colonial Families of the United States Descended from the Immigrants: Bell, Beal, Bale, Beale, Beall (1927). The putative genealogical basis for this claim involved, among other things, the undocumented assumptions that: (1) the father of Anthony and Peter Bell was also named Anthony; (2) they also had brothers Daniel and Joseph; (3) belonged to a family that had settled in Old Sommerset before 1700. Fielder Beall’s work in this and many other areas has been severely criticized by professional genealogists for the obvious reasons.

Setting aside the faulty work of Fielder Beall, I think that the Scot hypothesis suffers from several major difficulties:

Religion: Peter and Anthony Bell are associated in every aspect of their documented history with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. They took communion as a condition of naturalization in that church. Peter Bell married the daughter of Johann Friederich Vogeler, one of the constitutional founders of St. John’s Evangelical Church in Hagerstown, under which Peter Bell was buried. (The signature of a Johann Friederich Vogeler also appears earlier in 1747 as a founder of the Monocacy Evangelical Lutheran Church near Frederick, Maryland. Anthony Bell and Peter’s oldest son Frederick were prominent contributors and officials within the Evangelical Lutheran Church founded in part from their contributions in Leitersburg. Frederick Bell also contributed to the establishment and maintenance of other Evangelical Lutheran Churches and even other dissident protestant sects, such as the Mennonites. It seems unlikely (though not impossible) to me that soldiers formerly fighting for a Catholic king would be so deeply immersed in the establishment of an evangelical protestant sect.

Language: The language of church, school and partly the business community of the Bell brothers and their descendants continued to be German until the mid-1800’s. The signatures of Anthony Bell, Johann Friederich Vogeler and Frederick Bell all follow German orthography. I have not yet found an exemplar for the signature of Peter Bell. We know that Frederick Bell had, for the time, a rather extensive library and subscribed to a German language bible.

Marriages: Anthony took to wife Maria Schneeberger (Snowhill), the German speaking Swiss daughter of Hans Schneeberger, described in Swiss records as a religious fanatic. As noted above, Peter was married to a Vogeler daughter, the other two Vogeler daughters being wed to Leiters, whose father had converted from the Mennonite sect to Evangelical Lutheran. In the next several generations, the offspring, male and female, made marriages within the German speaking community whose ancestors trace back to the Rhineland Palatinate and to the German speaking regions of Switzerland. As far as I have been able to research the other lines, very few marriages occur among the Scot, Irish or English population in the second, third and fourth generations. I would expect a different distribution if the Bell line originated in Scotland, Ireland or England.

Military Experience: Keeping in mind that captains of militia were elected and the ability to outfit and recruit followers often trumped military training, we should not feel compelled to find such a background in either of the Bell brothers. However, if such training existed, it might have come from a closer and more relevant conflict, the French and Indian War which ended almost exactly when the Bell Brothers first appear in colonial records. We know that the Swiss born British mercenary, Colonel Henry Bouquet, recruited his countrymen both at home and after arrival, and then trained and marched the assembled army through the western parts of Maryland before engaging for the decisive battles in Pennsylvania. Another notable colonel, George Washington, was also involved in this action and came to have a fairly high estimation of the German speaking soldiers in the command, which carried over to the Revolutionary War. Another tantalizing possibility stems from the existence of a Bell family line descending from the 1709 Palatine migration to the Mohawk Valley. Part of that group was also involved in the Canadian expedition. Some of the 1709 families eventually ended up among the Monocacy congregation near Frederick, Maryland, and were among the signers on the constitution of that church. Incidentally, several of those Mohawk Valley families will also involved in the Pennsylvania-Maryland border skirmishes that preceded the establishment of the Mason-Dixon line, also on the northern boundary of the Bell brothers original homesteads.

Family History: None of the documents contemporary to the Bell brothers hint at any non-Germanic origin or strong association with Scotland or

Ireland

. The muster rolls for Peter Bell’s and Anthony Bell’s companies are almost devoid of any names that are not clearly traceable to the Palatinate. Subsequent family history prior to 1900 by descendants points to Alsace, as does the best overall (though sometimes mistaken) account by Herbert Bell in The History of the Leitersburg District.

Bell Pottery and Housing: Shenandoah red ware, a variation of which at least three of the Bells in the second generation significantly advanced, had its origin in the Palatinate. It seems doubtful to me, but not impossible, that Scot soldiers of fortune or exiles might have picked up the knack and become sufficiently skillful to advance and pass on the technology to the succeeding generations. More likely, given the similarity to pottery glazing techniques associated with the Strasbourg area, the craft was learned there at some level, and came with the Bell brothers to Maryland. As to the original home of Peter Bell, which still stands on Bell’s Choice just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it embodies the classical German stone construction found in the Rhineland and throughout Maryland German settlements. The house was, according to Herbert Bell, begun by Peter and completed by oldest son Frederick.

The Schottie Emigration to Prussia: One possible connection to Scotland may exist, but no direct evidence, to the best of my knowledge, has been found. In the late 1600's, several Scot families of landless peddler-merchants arrived in Prussia from Scotland. Immanuel Kant may have been descended from one of these families. Peter Bell and perhaps his brother Anton may have been itinerant merchants prior to their arrival in western Maryland. Both had accumulated enough capital by some unknown means to make outright purchases of significant tracts of good farmland. Peter Bell established a trading house at the central market square in Hagerstown. Peter Bell's ability to work with the Revolutionary War Committee of Observation and to be elected a captain in the militia suggest that he had little difificulty in working and communicating with the English and Scots who controlled most of the public affairs in western Maryland.

ASKING FOR HER FATHER'S BLESSING

2012-05-17T04:03:00.000-07:00

ASKING FOR HER FATHER’S BLESSING Dec 24, 2009

My father-in-law, Willie, celebrates his birthday on December 24^th. Probably, that was the date of his birth in Ukraine in 1919. In any event, the ship manifest from his family’s arrival in Baltimore 10 months later corroborates the month, if not the exact date. We planned to see him in Baltimore on his 90^th birthday. So, how to break the news? How would he react?

As in the meeting with the rabbi, my wife once again offered copious precautionary advice, mostly focused on the appropriate answers to the inevitable questions of “Why?” and “Why now?” I listened carefully, but did not commit to a script. I said only that I would wait until that time in the course of the visit when he would predictably say “What else?” after we had gone through a list of things mundane and not so mundane.

After lunch, a game of cards, a recounting of his social calendar (he needs a social secretary) and the usual checklist of things working and not in his apartment, he said, “What else?” My wife and I sat across the table and my father-in-law at the head. Our eyes locked, we smiled and then I turned and said, “What else? Well, remember about ten years ago when we knocked on your door and we said to you and Sophie, ‘We have come to announce a simcha involving a chuppah.’ Well, this time we have come to announce a beth din involving a mikvah.”

On that prior occasion, I had spent the better part of the trip from DC to Baltimore wrapping my vocal cords around the unfamiliar sounds of simcha (literally “happiness”) and chuppah (literally a “canopy” or “covering”). Simcha as a Hebrew and Yiddish noun, means “festive occasion.” Any celebration is a happy occasion, especially a wedding, or engagement. The chuppah in a Jewish wedding ceremony is a covering stretched over four poles which symbolizes the home of the couple to be wed and under which the wedding ceremony is performed. To me, at the time, the words sounded more like a Mexican fast food dish with salsa.

Willie’s eyes welled up immediately on hearing beth din, a Jewish religious court consisting of a rabbi and two observant men which, among other things, presides over a conversion. A mikvah, is a ritual bath designed for one of its purposes to be used for the ritual immersion in Judaism in connection with a conversion. Without doubt, the Christian ritual of baptism can be traced to the mikvah. He glanced at me, and said wryly, “I assume that someone is thinking about a conversion.”

He seemed so relaxed and unsurprised that Sarah and I suspected that either the rabbi or his assistant had somehow tipped him off. This seemed more likely since the rabbi’s assistant, a close and longtime friend of Willie, had been over for a visit earlier the same day. But our suspicions were misplaced, evident by Willie’s reaction when he found out that she and the rabbi had been part of our little conspiracy.

Then Sarah said to Willie, “Any questions?” To which Willie said, “I suppose the obvious one, ‘Why?’”

Sarah had that look she always gets when she knows that I am operating without a script over which she has editorial approval. Returning to the theme of the simcha and the chuppah, I said that we had been talking about our ten year anniversary and the possibility of renewing our wedding vows. That conversation and other things over the last several months had started me thinking about our life together, past, present and future. “But a lot of the decision had to do with my respect and admiration for you, Willie, and my desire to have you be part of the studies leading to conversion. Assuming, of course, that are you willing to play that role.”

At this point he surprised us both. “I had been thinking about this for a long time. I was wondering whether we could all be together. I used to cry about it; I really did. I was so worried that Sarah would be without you in the cemetery and we would not all be together.” Though our eyes were welled up with tears, we all then burst out laughing. So it was about the real estate after all!

GRANDMA GROTE IN GLENDIVE DAWSON MONTANA

2012-05-17T03:54:00.000-07:00

HowWeGotHere.com

2012-03-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: This piece first appeared in a wedding program. A few minor corrections have been made based on genealogical research subsequent to the initial publication. On March 18, 2012, Sarah and David will be "married again for the first time", but under different "code names" and subject to a different "codex"! An abridged version of the original along with a bridge to somewhere will be posted soon after. Stay tuned.

July 16, 2000

HowWeGotHere.Com

We celebrate today – and every day after – our marriage and the marriages of our parents. After all, our story begins with them.

We suppose it is possible to find in both lineages a Sarah and an Abraham. We know there is a David. As it turns out, unexpectedly, there is a Sarah, too.

Our story does not begin with the begats, but with “Sophie and Willie” and “Doris and Dick,” our much-loved and honored parents. They are with us today – and every day after – in example and spirit.

On April 16, 1941, Sophie met Willie, on a blind date that featured a movie and a soda at the A&W Drive-in. He wooed her with a letter composed entirely of the titles to the popular songs of the times. They married, 57 years ago, in Baltimore. Their families came, both of them, from small villages in Russia and Ukraine via Ellis Island in the Roaring 20’s.

On July 4, 1934, Doris met Dick after seeing him on his favorite horse, Chief, in the parade through the six-block-long Main Street of Glendive, Montana. They sparked and courted at barn dances and such until she reached the legal age of eighteen, when they bought a ring for the enormous sum of $15 and eloped. They celebrated their 56^th wedding anniversary before Dick died in 1993.

Dick’s family came to America in 1886 via the same Ellis Island route that Willie’s and Sophie’s families later traveled.

Albert Bell, age 16, left a small Indiana farm in 1863 to enlist in the Union Army. Discharged two years later in Arkansas, he moved to Missouri, married and raised a family. One son went north on a cattle drive to Glendive, Montana and became the first sheriff of McCone County. His brother Dudley followed after, met and married Elizabeth Guelff and fathered four children, the last being Doris, born one month after Dudley died in the 1919 Spanish Influenza epidemic while hauling a horse drawn wagon of wheat to the rail head.

Past as prelude, fast forward to the end of the end of the century – the end of the millennium! At 56K, on May 28, 1999, David received a cyber text from a correspondent code-named “Sarah” (you know, “You’ve Got Mail!”). Intrigued, it was love at first byte. Ten days of energetic e-mail followed, including an inadvertent collateral mailing from Sarah’s confidant, Phyllis, whose computer apparently “replied to all” with the prescient and characteristically direct advice, “Why don’t you marry him?”

On June 6, 1999, (a date newly made familiar by another Hanks’ film), they met in Philadelphia and dined at La Famiglia, lingering long after all other had left. Their correspondence was never the same, nor was much of anything else. He read to her for Dante’s Inferno, Canto V; she read to him from Why Sinatra Matters. They discovered a common passion for words, word games and literature, so a library proximately located to Baltimore’s Scrabble Alley and Roslyn’s high school haunts, seemed a fitting place to marry.

At year’s end, they went to Salt Lake City where Roslyn met Doris and a representative sample of the Holzworth clan. It was love at first sight. Back east, David was feted and vetted by that Washington cabal that can only be described as Friends of Roslyn (you know who you are), and apparently survived the process.

On March 1, Y2K, overcoming numerous objections to the form of the question, David tendered to Roslyn a certain “holder” ring purchased for $15 in 1937. It fit perfectly; she accepted.

Next day, they paid a surprise visit to Sophie and Willie. En route, David scanned a special wedding edition of the broadsheet, “Washington Jewish Week,” and asked such trenchant questions as, “What’s a chuppa?” – which he pronounced as though it were a close phonetic cousin of a Mexican entrée. Fifty minutes later in Baltimore, after much laughter and coaching, and aided by the post-nasal drip of spring allergies, he managed a passable utterance: “We have come to announce a simcha involving a chuppa.”

So … here we are to celebrate a simcha involving a chuppa, the marriages of our much-loved and honored parents, and the treasured friendships of all who are with us.

THE PATH TO CONVERSION

2011-09-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

The process was lengthy and had many facets, some of which are the subject of short essays that I have written over the last several years and published on this website. In chronological order, these are the events that, in retrospect and distilled through the lens of time, now seem most relevant to where I am now.

I am the youngest of a family of six children, five of whom survived to adulthood. Fourteen years separate the births of my brother and me with three sisters and a still-born in between. We were raised as Methodists by an active church-going and loving mother and a father who was deeply spiritual but never attended church except for weddings and funerals. His “church” was the Masonic orders.

On both sides, going back to the 17^th century, the family comes from religious German-speaking ancestors originating in the Alsace and Wuertemburg regions of Europe. On the maternal side, the family arrived in Maryland in the mid 1700’s as part of devout Lutheran immigrants seeking refuge from the wars and turmoil of Europe. They were founders of several of the earliest Lutheran congregations in Maryland around Hagerstown.

On the paternal side, the family was part of a pietist Lutheran sect that emigrated to the Odessa, South Russia region near the Black Sea in the late 1700’s and first decade of the 1800’s where they established ethnic colonies and prospered until the rise of Slavic nationalism in the 1880’s. They were excommunicated from the Lutheran Church, which they viewed as insufficiently pious, because they held their own services in their homes, believed that the world would end in the early 1800’s and, among other reasons, emigrated to Russia to be near Israel at the end of days. They came to the Dakotas, a region similar to the Russian steppes, starting in the 1880’s. They continued their ethnic religious communities through the third decade of the 20^th Century.

Religion, and questioning the role of religion, have always been a central part of my life. During my confirmation class, taught in part by the wife of the pastor, I noted the different stances among the four gospel stories and opted for a particular reading of Mark that essentially eliminated any special attribution of divinity to Jesus. The message of Jesus in Mark, as I then understood it, called on all people as the children of God to recognize their own small spark of divinity and behave accordingly to each other. This did not go over particularly well. But for the kindly intervention of the pastor, I might never have been confirmed. In retrospect, I think it safe to say that the good reverend appreciated and favored both the curious and the rebellious child.

In Helena, Montana there were very few Jewish families. The only Jew I was aware of happened to be a good friend of my father, but I had no idea what it meant to be a Jew, except that the Jews were the people in the Bible stories. Of course, I was partial to the childhood version of the story of David, which focused almost exclusively on slingshots and bringing down evil giants, neatly summarized in a song my Aunt Lucille sang to me every time I saw her.

When I came to the east coast to go to college, things changed. Most people I met assumed that I was Jewish, which generally translated into a positive impression of being more intelligent and informed than I am. Most of my close friends at college were Jewish, though generally more secular than religious. I ended up majoring in philosophy and, within the major, focusing on ethics, value theory and justice. I continued to explore the relationship between the sacred and the secular aspects of normative issues in courses on biblical hermeneutics, zen discipline and the history of ideas. This led to a graduate school fellowship, initially designed for aspiring theologians but re-designed for those interested in teaching at liberal arts colleges. My Shakespeare professor, a secular Jew, was the first to bring the Danforth to my attention, though all of my professors seemed to think that it was a perfect fit for me. I started a doctoral program, but quickly realized that I was not especially interested in a totally academic life.

This trend toward increasing influence in my life by secular Jews continued in law school, where my closest advisers and mentors were all secular Jews. When I began the practice of law itself in Washington, DC most of my close friends and professional colleagues were Jews, for the first time including more observant Jews.

I began to re-examine my religious life, or more accurately the lack of it, in 1993 when my father died. I knew then, very clearly, that something was missing. But I could not reconnect with the church of my childhood.

Judaism entered my life in a much more significant way in 1998 and 1999 when I went through a divorce and then met my wife, Sarah, and her very observant, warm and welcoming modern orthodox parents. And then after that, I met legions of Sarah’s friends and relatives, equally warm and welcoming. In some ways it felt very much like the family I grew up in, and in all ways interesting and embracing. I was not ready, at that time, to explore deeply a commitment to Judaism, but I very quickly became deeply committed to my new family. Our wedding was performed by a reform rabbi, and I became familiar with some of the rituals and symbols of the form of a Jewish wedding. My mother and all of my siblings came to Baltimore, and the two families found much in common. We were all delighted by the confusion of many guests who mistakenly assumed that my brother, with his long grey beard, avuncular nature and portly demeanor was the rabbi who would preside at the wedding.

Leading up to the wedding and afterwards I read two books in the “Dummies” genre. One was on Catholicism since my son had decided that his identity came from his Irish Catholic mother and his Peruvian Catholic nanny and her children, who were his best friends. He went through a tutorial and was baptized, confirmed and took confession on an Easter Sunday. A long time client and close friend from Chile, a prominent member of Opus Dei, became his godfather, and his nanny his godmother. The other was on Judaism, and was recommended to me by Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg as good starting point.

Sarah and I lost our mothers within a year of one another. Sarah’s mother died first and unexpectedly. Sitting shiva and coping afterwards with the loss for ourselves and my father-in-law drew us much closer together. He had never so much as boiled a pot of water in his life and now was faced with the daunting task of maintaining a kosher kitchen. All of the formidable resources of the Beth T’filoh congregation, and many of his life time friends from the ultra orthodox and modern orthodox community, converged at once to resolve this and other problems of grieving and adjustment.

Sarah immediately stepped into her mother’s role at the beginning of every Shabbat, conducted by telephone. We talked with my father-in-law at least three times during the day, sometimes more frequently. We made many more trips to Baltimore for the day and often overnight. In all ways at all times she honored her father and the memory of her mother. In our travels throughout Europe and Japan, we never failed to find a synagogue, a Jewish quarter and, especially, a haggadah for my father-in-law’s collection. Watching and listening to them light the candles and say the prayers made me more mindful of something very important missing from my own life. On one Super Bowl Sunday at half time, I began to do “telephone church” with my mother. We started with Genesis reading alternate passages from parts that I selected and then talking about them. Because of the stroke and her failing health, my mother had significant short term memory problems, but no trouble at all with long term memory, passages from the Bible or songs. On that Sunday and subsequent Sundays, she repeatedly (and suspiciously) asked, “Why are you doing this?” I evaded an answer for about two months, and then told her about the beginning of Shabbat. Her response, without any sense of irony: “I love Sarah. I knew she would make a good Christian out of you.”

My father-in-law turned 91 on December 24, 2010. Sarah and I celebrated our tenth anniversary in July. This year her birthday coincided with Shavuot. The time had come.

100 OR SO CONVERSION REVIEW QUESTIONS

2011-09-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

In the Conservative Tradition, approximately a year of study and classes typically precedes the actual conversion ceremony consisting of an appearance before a beit din (a panel of three rabbis), a ritual bath in a mikvah (somewhat akin to a baptism), blessings and the giving of a Hebrew name. What follows is a list of short answer questions that are typically covered in the conversion classes.

I. Bible

1. Who was the first Jew?

I am inclined to go with Abraham, though I doubt that the term “Jew” or all that it may imply today had much currency in his time.

2. What is the Hebrew name for the Bible?

Tanakh

3. What are the three main divisions of the Hebrew Bible?

Torah, Neviim (Prophets) and Kutvim (Writings or Stories) hence the acronym TaNaKh.

4. What are the names of the five books of Moses in order in Hebrew and English.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteromony

Beresheet,Sh’mot, Vayikra, Bemidar, Devarim,

5. By what other Hebrew name are the five books of Moses known?

Torah

6. Who were the Patriarchs?

Abraham, Jacob and Isaac

7. Who were the Matriarchs?

Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel

8. Who was the leader of the people after Moses?

Joshua

9. List the first three Jewish kings in order.

Saul, David and Solomon

10. What is a prophet and when did prophets live? Name at least two important prophets.

A prophet is one who feels compelled to speak truth to power and the people to remind them to follow the ways commanded of them by the covenant, a kind of spokesman for God and a moral gadfly. The four major prophets are Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The minor prophets are Amos, Hosea, Joel, Habakuk and Jonah.

11. What were the main themes of the Prophets?

12. What are Kohen, Levi and Yisrael? What responsibilities did they have and what privileges do they have today?

Kohen from the tribe of Levi were the priests of the tabernacle and the temple and, by hereditary right, continued in that role until the destruction of the second temple. They continue to have a role at Yom Kippur and receive the first aliyah to the Torah.

Levi are the remaining members of the tribe, assisted the priests and receive the second Aliyah to the Torah.

Yisrael was the other eleven tribes (Rueben Simon, Judah, Issachar, Dan, Naftali, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin and Gad) responsible for the remaining aliyah.

II. The Synagogue and Prayer

13. What is the Aron HaKodesh?

Symbolic of the Ark of the Covenant, the Aron HaKodesh is the receptacle of the Torah in the synagogue.

14. What is the Ner Tamid?

The Ner Tamid, an eternal light, hangs above the Aron HaKodesh. It symbolizes the everlasting presence of God.

15. What are a Siddur and a Mahzor?

A Siddur is a book of prayer containing the liturgy of Judaism for Shabbat and for the weekday services. A Mahzor is a prayer book for the holidays.

16. What is a Sidrah (Parasha)?

A reading from the Torah.

17. What is a Haftarah?

A reading from a passage of the Tanakh that corresponds in some symbolic or other way with the Torah reading.

18. Identify three major Jewish symbols found in most any synagogue sanctuary.

The Ark, the Torah scrolls, the bema and the menorah.

19. What is an aliyah? Who may receive one, and when?

In synagogue, a call to the bema to participate in the Torah service. In life, a journey to the land of Israel. Traditionally, an observant Jew.

20. What is a minyan and for what prayers is it required?

A group of ten adults (formerly males only).

21. What is the importance of the Sh’ma? During which services is it recited each day?

A succinct expression of the core of Judaism, covenantal monotheism. It is recited twice in the morning service (Shacharit), once in the evening service (Ma’ariv) and in the evening before retiring.

22. What are Shacharit, Mincha and Ma’ariv?

Shacharit is the moring service, Mincha the afternoon and Ma’ariv the evening.

23. What is the Amidah prayer?

The Amidah (sh’mona esrei – 18 though it has 19 blessings) is the central portion of every service.

24. What extra service is recited after the Torah reading on Shabbat and Yom Tov?

Musaf

25. How often and when is the Torah read each week?

In services on Shabbat morning, Shabbat Minca and Monday and Thursday Shacharit.

26. What is a tallit and when is it worn?

A prayer shawl worn when praying

27. What are tefillin and when are they used?

Phylacteries consisting of leather straps and a leather box (containing verses from Exodus 3:16 and Deuteronomy 11:18 in addition to the Shema. mitzvot).

III. The Home

28. What is a Shochet and what are the characteristics of Kosher animals, fish, birds?

A Shochet is a ritual slaughterer. Kosher animals must have split hoof and chew their cud. Kosher fish must have fins and scales. Kosher birds must be domesticated and not be birds of prey.

29. Why do Jews observe dietary laws (kashrut/kosher)?

1) To identify as a Jew (to me, a symbolically important reminder of making the core beliefs of Judaism the nutrients of the soul, i.e. the food of life);

2) To teach respect for life (also, to me, to emphasis the connectivity of all life and the special responsibility of humans for all other life);

3) It is a mitzvah (to me, training in self-discipline necessary to the exercise of free will).

30. What is a mezuzah; what does it contain and where is it placed?

A mezuzah is, in a sense, a reader’s digest version of the Torah placed in a miniature Aron HaKodesh. The Mezuzah is a parchment scroll with the writing on it. The box is just a box and can be made of almost anything. It's primary purpose is to protect the Mezuzah that is inside it. A Mezuzah must be handwritten. If it is printed, copied, photographed, or produced by any means other than writing, then it is invalid and may not be used. (Many such reproductions are used anyway.) A Mezuzah must contain in Hebrew, in a special alphabet, the following two chapters: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and Deuteronomy 11:13-21. The essence of the mitzvah of Mezuzah is the first verse written on the Mezuzah, which is the Shema. The mezuzah and its container are affixed to the right side of an entryway on the post as one enters, tilted at 45 degrees. I like to think of the mezuzah as a battery charger – you touch it, say the shema and enter the house thinking of it as a kind of sanctuary.

IV. Sabbath & Holy Days

31. What is the blessing recited over the Sabbath candles? When should these candles be lit?

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam asher kisshanu b’mitvotav, l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat. 18 minutes before sundown.

32. Why are there two challot on the Sabbath table?

Mana did not fall from heaven on Shabbat during the Exodus. In remembrance, but also because Shabbat is a day of rest, two challot are blessed before Shabbat begins since none can be prepared during Shabbat.

33. What is the kiddush and when is it recited?

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam borei p’ri ha-gafen. A blessing performed also at the beginning of Shabbat and also at the end of Shabbat services using wine, and sais before the blessing of the challot.

34. What is the Motzie?

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz. A blessing performed at the beginning of Shabbat and also at the end of Shabbat services using challot.

35. What is the Sh’hechiyanu blessing?

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam shehechiyanu v’keyamanu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh. It is a blessing used to celebrate special occasions (such as a conversion or the placement of a mezuzah) and is also often said at the beginning of holidays.

36. What is Havdallah? What objects are used in the ceremony?

Havdallah is the ceremony ending Shabbat. A braided candle, spices and wine are used to involve all of our senses.

37. What is the difference between the Jewish and the civil calendar?

Jewish calendar is primarily lunar (based on the cycle of the moon) while the civil calendar is strictly solar (based on the annual cycle of the earth around the sun). Consequently, the Jewish calendar has 356 days which is adjusted in seven leap years in a 19 year cycle by adding the month of Adar between the 1^st and 3^rd months of the year.

38. List the major Holy Days in order according to the following headings:

Holy Day Hebrew Date Commemorates Length

Rosh haShanna 1 Tishri New year 2 days

Yom Kippur 10 Tishri Day of Atonement 1 day

Sukkot 15-20 Tishri Wandering in Desert 7(8) days

And Harvest

Sh’mini Atzeret 22 Tishri Concluding 1 day

Festival Day

Simchat Torah 23 Tishri Torah Cycle 1 day

Hanukkah 25 Kislev Temple Reded.l 8 days

Macabees 165 BCE

Purim 12 Adar Persian Jew

Salvation 1 day

Pesach 14 Nisan Exodus 7(8) days

Yom ha Shoah 27 Nisan Holocaust Memorial Day 1 day

Lag b’Omer 5 lyar Israel Independence Day 1 day

Shavuot 6-7 Sivan 10 Commandments Sinai 1(2) days

Tisha b’Av 9 Av Temple destructions 1 day

586 BCE 70 CE

39. What are the “Yamim ha Noraim”?

High Holy Days

40. What does the blowing of the Shofar represent and what does the Shofar symbolize?

In the conversion class, we were told that the Shofar symbolizes redemption, Mt. Sinai and the Messianic age. I found the following “top ten” list on the internet:

R. Saadia Gaon's Top Ten List of Shofar Symbolism (adapted from Isaac Klein's Jewish Religious Practices):

1. The Shofar is like the trumpet which announces the coronation of a king. On Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the universe, we accept God's Rulership- our prayers and shofar blasts are like the coronation ceremony in which Israel crowns God as Sovereign.
2. Rosh Hashana is the first of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (Ten Days of Repentence), and the Shofar calls us to examine our deeds and return to God, who will always accept us if we are sincere.
3. The Shofar reminds us of the Shofar which blew when the Torah was given at Sinai; thus we are reminded to study and cherish the Torah.
4. The Shofar reminds us of the voice of the prophets, whose voices rang out like a Shofar blast in calling the people to do justice and mercy and follow Holy ways.
5. The Shofar sounds like crying, which reminds us of the destruction of the ancient Temple, and thus calls upon us to work for and pray for redemption.
6. The Shofar, since it is a ram's horn, reminds us of the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac, when God provided a ram to be sacrificed instead. Thus we are called upon to be as faithful to God as Abraham, and be inspired by his example of sacrifice and love of God.
7. The Shofar calls us to be humble- its mighty blast reminds us of the mightiness of God and the fact that God is everywhere at all times.
8. On the Day of Judgment, a Shofar will be blown to announce God's Rulership- our Shofar blasts remind us to prepare for God's examination of our deeds.
9. The Shofar foreshadows the jubilant Jewish return to freedom and peace when we all end up in Jerusalem in the time of Messiah- it reminds us to have hope and faith in God's saving power.
10. The Shofar will be blown in Messianic times to announce the redemption of the whole world, when all nations will recognize that God is One. (cf. the Alenu prayer.)

Moral Alarm Clock

The Rambam (Maimonides) describes the Shofar as a Moral Alarm Clock: (freely translated) "Wake up, wake up, you sleepers, wake up from your sleep! Sleepers, wake up from your napping and examine your deeds, return in teshuvah, and remember your Creator! Those of you who forget the truth in your playing around with the latest frivolousness, spending all year in vanity and meaningless things, which neither profits nor saves you, you, look to your souls, improve your ways and works. Abandon the path which is bad and get rid of all your vain goals."

Other Associations:

1. A kosher Shofar must be bent, to symbolize the humble spirit of someone doing Teshuvah.

2. The notes themselves symbolize doing Teshuvah: the Tekiah, the long note, symbolizes someone who thinks they are whole and good. The Shevarim, the three notes, is the person who realizes their own brokeness (Shevarim means "broken") and who then cries out to God, which sounds like the Teruah, the little sobbing notes. Finally, after we cry out to God, we become truly whole, we have grown, symbolized by the Tekiah Gedolah, the extra long single note, at the end.

3. Shofar is associated with the New Moon, symbolizing the possibility of renewal and perpetual growth in life.

4. A Shofar is NOT made from a cow's horn, because it would remind us and God of the Golden Calf, Israel's hour of idolatry. Who wants to be reminded of that?

41. How many days are there between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? What are they called?

Ten days called penitence or Ten Days of Repentance or Days of Awe.

42. What should Jews do during the Ten Days of Repentance?

Primarily, the days are to be used for serious introspection, prayer and reconciliation with persons one has wronged. Another tradition is to do works of tzdekah.

43. What is Kol Nidre?

Kol Nidre is the first service of Yom Kippur.

44. Name the last concluding service of Yom Kippur.

Neilah.

45. What do we mean when we say Jews “confess” their sins and what kind of “sins” are we talking about?

We mean by “confession” collective responsibility for sins of man against God. This is done through recitation in acrostic order of many “stiff necked” offenses. For these we ask forgiveness from God. Sins or wrongs to another person are “confessed” to the wronged person directly, since only the one wronged can forgive and thereby allow individuals to expiate the wrong.

46. What is “Teshuvah?”

Teshuvah literally means "return". It is the word used to describe the concept of repentance in Judaism. Only by atoning for our sins can we restore balance to our relationship with God and with our fellow human beings.

There are several stages of teshuvah, including the sinner recognizing his wrongs, being truly remorseful and doing everything in his power to undo any damage that he has done. If a specific person has been wronged the offender must ask that person for forgiveness. The final stage of teshuvah is resolving to never commit such a sin again. According to Jewish tradition, by the third request the person who was wronged is required to grant forgiveness if the offender is truly remorseful and is taking steps to prevent similar wrongs from happening again.

Because teshuvah requires the sinner to ask forgiveness of the person offended it has been a murderer cannot be forgiven for his or her crime. In order to do so they would have to ask the person they killed for forgiveness. There are two other offenses that come close to being unpardonable: defrauding the public and ruining a person's good name. In both cases it is nearly impossible to track down every person who was affected by the offense, for instance, every person affected by a monetary crime (think Bernard Madoff) or every Congressperson whose district was “targeted” by Sarah Palin.

47. What is a Sukkah?

The sukkah is a structure, usually a temporary one constructed in connection with the holiday of Sukkot, that symbolizes the booths in which the Israelites dwelled during their journey through the desert. On Passover we eat matzah because our ancestors ate matzah when they left Egypt, and on Sukkot we reside in booths to commemorate those who lived in them for forty years. This explanation follows from Lev 23:42-43, the source of the commandment:

You shall live in sukkot seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in sukkot, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I the Lord your God.

This is the easiest of the mitzvot for the man from Montana to understand and perform, but the most difficult one for his bride from Baltimore to appreciate and accommodate. The Four Seasons is not a suitable substitute whereas the four seasons are best suited for a sukkah.

48. What is a Lulav?

49. What is an Etrog?

The yellow citron or Citrus medica used by Jews on the week-long holiday of Sukkot

50. What is Yizkor and how often is it recited?

Yizkor is a memorial prayer which is recited on Yom Kippur, Sh’mini Atzeret, the last day of Pesach, and the second day of Shavuot.

51. What does Hanukkah commemorate and why is it not mentioned in the Bible?

Hanukkah commemorates the re-dedication of the Temple by the Macabees because it happened in 165 CE after the Bible was completed.

52. The Book of Esther is one of 5 writings (megillot) in the Bible. On which holiday is it read?

Purim

53. What is a Seder? Name some of the rituals of the Seder, giving the reasons for their use.

A seder is a pesach dinner. The word seder means “order.” The ritual associated with symbolic elements of the meal are roasted egg representing the festival sacrifice; roasted bone representing the Paschal sacrifice; green, representing the spring; maror, representing bitterness; and charoset, representing mortar. These foods and tastes are meant to evoke the conditions of slavery and escape associated with the exodus.

The pesach seder consists of 15 parts

Kaddesh

Recite a blessing over wine in honor of the holiday.

Urechatz

Wash the hands without saying a blessing.

Karpas

Dip a vegetable (usually parsley) in salt water, say a blessing and eat it.

Yachatz

One of the three matzahs on the table is broken. Part is returned to the pile, the other part is set aside.

Maggid

A retelling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt and the first Pesach. This begins with the youngest person asking The Four Questions, a set of questions about the proceedings designed to encourage participation in the seder.

Rachtzah

A second washing of the hands, this time with a blessing, in preparation for eating the matzah.

Motzi and Matzah

Recite two blessings over the matzah, break it, and give a piece to everyone to eat.

Maror

A blessing is recited over a bitter vegetable (usually horseradish) and it is eaten.

Korekh

A bitter vegetable (usually romaine lettuce) and charoset (a sweet apple-wine-nut mixture) are placed on a piece of matzah and eaten together.

Shulchan Orekh

A festive meal is eaten.

Tzafun

The piece of matzah that was set aside is located and/or ransomed back, and eaten as the last part of the meal, a sort of dessert.

Barekh

Grace after meals.

Hallel

Psalms of praise.

Nirtzah

A statement that the seder is complete, with a wish that next year the seder might be observed in Jerusalem.

54. What is the Haggadah?

A Haggadah is a book that “tells the story” of the Exodus and is used at the seder.

55. What is chametz and how does a Jew rid his house of it?

Chametz is anything ferments or leavens. We finish our chametz prior to pesach, clean the house of it, change our dishes, and symbolically sell whatever remains. Quite frankly, chametz is almost impossible to rid of, but the effort is really what the exercise is all about.

56. How many weeks come between Pesach and Shavuot? What is the period called? Why?

Seven weeks separate pesach and shevuot, called the omer (counting) period. It is basically a countdown (countup) starting with the exodus from Egypt (and slavery) to the giving of the Torah (true freedom and servitude to God) at Sinai.

57. What historical event is linked to the holiday of Shavuot?

The giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai.

58. What is Tisha B’av? What does it commemorate?

Tish b’Av commemorates the first and second destructions of the Temple in 584 BCE and 70 CE and the expulsion of Spain in 1492.

V. The Lifetime of the Jew

59. When is a Brit Milah performed and who is supposed to perform it?

A Brit Milah is performed on a Jewish boy eight days after birth and by a mohel.

60. Explain the ceremonies of Brit Milah and Pidyon Haben. For whom do Jews usually name children?

The ceremony of Brit Milah is performed on the 8^th day after birth. In Judaism, unlike the U.S. federal courts, the day of birth is counted, so the eighth day after a birth during daylight on a Monday is the next Monday. The mitzvah to circumcise is given at Gen. 17:10-14 and Lev. 12:3. The ritual serves to provide an outward sign of the covenant between the Jew and God. The father must see to the circumcision of his son, but if he fails, then the son must attend to the matter when he is of an age to understand. Circumcision is undoubtedly the most universally observed of the mitzvoth.

Pidyon Haben is the ritual of the redemption of the first born son. A firstborn son must be redeemed after he reaches 31 days of age. Ordinarily, the ritual is performed on the 31st day (the day of birth being the first day). The ritual cannot be performed on Shabbat because it involves the exchange of money. The child is redeemed by paying a small sum (five silver shekels in biblical times; today, usually five silver dollars) to a kohen preferably a pious one familiar with the procedure) and performing a brief ritual. This procedure is commanded at Num. 18:15-16.

The ritual of Pidyon Haben applies to only to the firstborn male child if it is born by natural childbirth. Thus, if a female is the firstborn, no child in the family is subject to the ritual. If the first child is born by Cesarean section, the ritual does not apply to that child (nor, according to most sources, to any child born after that child). If the first conception ends in miscarriage after more than 40 days' term, it does not apply to any subsequent child. It does not apply to members of the tribe of Levi, or children born to a daughter of a member of the tribe of Levi.

61. What is a chuppah?

A chuppah is a marriage canopy. Traditionally, the chuppah was understood to represent the groom’s home to which the bride was brought in the wedding ceremony. Hence, the groom goes to and waits in the chuppah for the later arrival of the bride in the wedding ceremony. The original chuppah may have been the groom’s tallit spread over the heads of the bride and groom. Today, the chuppah is a canopy supported by four poles and open on all sides. The open sides are said to represent the tent of Abraham, open for hospitality to welcome guests.

62. What is a ketubah?

A ketubah is a wedding contract, basically meant to protect the rights of the bride.

63. Why do we break a glass at the end of a Jewish wedding ceremony?

We break a glass to remind us of the destruction of the two temples.

64. What is the function of a Mezuzah? Where is it placed?

The function of a Mezuzah is to remind us of the mitzvoth and ethical monotheism. On the right doorpost to the entry of the home and all entries in the home to rooms other than closets, wash rooms and bathrooms.

65. When should a Jewish funeral take place?

As soon as possible after death.

66. What is shiva?

Shiva is a seven day period of morning immediately after the death of a close relative.

67. What is a yahrzeit?

A yahrzeit is the anniversary of the death of a close relative.

68. What does the mourner’s Kaddish say?

The mourner’s kaddish is a prayer in praise of God, his creation and his care for the living and for Israel.

69. What do we mean by calling Jews the “chosen people”?

We mean “chosen” in the sense of being selected by God to receive the mitzvoth and bring them (teach them) to all of humanity. This is a great obligation, and sometimes a great burden. Being selected does not imply any superiority over the rest of mankind. On the contrary, being chosen implies servitude to God and, I would argue, a humility and servitude toward the rest of mankind for the purpose of bring the Torah to humanity by word and deed.

70. Is Judaism a race, nationality or religion?

Judaism, defined as a set of mitzvot, ritual practices and observances, is unequivocally a religion. Jews, some of whom do not subscribe to any of those defined activities, may belong to a race for legal purposes (Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615 (1987) or a nation (Israel).

71. What is the Jewish view concerning Jesus?

Jesus was a human being who probably lived and taught an ethical version of Judaism, and may have been an observant Jew himself. Certainly, the followers of Jesus discounted the necessity for rigorous ritual observance, especially those who were attempting to proselytize a messianic message to non-Jews.

72. What do Jews believe about the Messiah?

Jesus is not the Messiah, nor has the Messiah come.

73. Why does Judaism oppose intermarriage?

Intermarriage is proscribed in Deuteronomy 7:3-4 because the children of an interfaith marriage would be lost to Judaism. This does not, of course, explain why such a marriage would be proscribed when no children are likely to result from the marriage or where both parents are firmly committed to raise observant Jewish children. As a practical matter, though, intermarriage appears to have a high correlation with the decline in the observant Jewish population.

74. What does the word tzedakah mean and how is it practiced?

75. Tzedakah is the Hebrew word for giving aid, assistance and money to the poor and needy or to other worthy causes. The word "tzedakah" is derived from the Hebrew Tzadei-Dalet-Qof, meaning righteousness, justice or fairness. In Judaism, giving to the poor is not viewed as a generous, magnanimous act; it is simply an act of justice and righteousness, the performance of a duty, giving the poor their due.

Some sages have said that tzedakah is the highest of all commandments, equal to all of them combined, and that a person who does not perform tzedakah is equivalent to an idol worshipper. Tzedakah is one of the three acts that gain us forgiveness from our sins. The High Holiday liturgy repeatedly states that God has inscribed a judgment against all who have sinned, but teshuvah (repentance), tefilah (prayer) and tzedakah can alleviate the decree.

According to Jewish law, we are required to give one-tenth of our income to the poor, net after payment of taxes. Taxes themselves do not fulfill our obligation to give tzedakah, even though a significant portion of tax revenues in America and many other countries are used to provide for the poor and needy. Those who are dependent on public assistance or living on the edge of subsistence may give less, but must still give to the extent they are able; however, no person should give so much that he would become a public burden.

The obligation to perform tzedakah can be fulfilled by giving money to the poor, to health care institutions, to synagogues or to educational institutions. It can also be fulfilled by supporting children beyond the age when legally required to, or supporting your parents in their old age. The obligation includes giving to both Jews and gentiles. Jews do not just "take care of our own."

We have an obligation to avoid becoming in need of tzedakah. A person should take any work that is available, even if he thinks it is beneath his dignity, to avoid becoming a public charge.

However, if a person is truly in need and has no way to obtain money on his own he should not feel embarrassed to accept tzedakah. No person should feel too proud to take money from others. In fact, it is considered a transgression to refuse tzedakah. One source says that to make yourself suffer by refusing to accept tzedakah is equivalent to shedding your own blood.

76. What does the word mitzvah mean?

The word "mitzvah" means "commandment." In its strictest sense, it refers only to commandments instituted in the Torah; however, the word is commonly used in a more generic sense to include all of the laws, practices and customs of halakhah, and is often used in an even more loose way to refer to any good deed.

Although there is not 100% agreement on the precise list of the 613 (there are some slight discrepancies in the way some lists divide related or overlapping mitzvot), there is complete agreement that there are 613 mitzvot -- the numeric value of the word Torah (Tav = 400, Vav = 6, Resh = 200, Heh = 5), plus 2 for the two mitzvot whose existence precedes the Torah: I am the Lord, your God and You shall have no other gods before Me. These 613 mitzvot can be broken down into 248 positive mitzvot (one for each bone and organ of the male body) and 365 negative mitzvot (one for each day of the solar year).

One accepted list of the 613 mitzvot is Maimonides’ list in his Mishneh Torah. In the introduction to the first book of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides lists all of the positive mitzvot and all of the negative mitzvot, then proceeds to divide them up into subject matter categories.

I was somewhat relieved, after a cursory review of the Maimonides’ list, that many applied only to the Kohanim or Nazirites, could not be performed out of Israel, are impossible to either perform or avoid after the destruction of the Second Temple or have otherwise lapsed by decree. I am in the process of ascertaining the active list and identifying those which I am able to perform.

77. What is a major difference between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism?

Grossly simplified, the orthodox practice adheres to the strict observance of the laws as written in the Torah as the unalterable requirements of God; the reform practice distinguishes between ethical and ritual, the ethical being eternal and requiring observance, but the ritual being temporal and therefore, in some sense, optional; the conservative practice observing and respecting tradition as having great sanctity and alterable if done carefully from within the halakhic system.

VI. Jewish History

78. When was the first Temple destroyed? By whom?

586 BCE by the Babylonians

79. When was the second Temple destroyed? By whom?

70 CE by the Romans

80. Who was Hillel?

Hillel was a great sage who lived in the 1^st Century BCE. According to Telushkin’s recent book, especially to be admired for temperament as a teacher and as role model as well as for his great learning.

81. Who was Akiba?

Akiba was a great sage later in the first century, noted for his humility, who helped to establish order among the laws of the Mishna.

82. Who was Bar Kochba?

Bar Kochba led the last rebellion against Rome, 132-135

83. What is the Talmud? Name both parts.

The Talmud (“instruction”), often called the oral Torah), has two components: the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), the first written compendium; and the Gemara (c. 500 CE). The Talmud explicates and expands upon the Torah, often filling in gaps in the chronology or the teaching contained in the Torah, for example many of the laws and practices of kashrut.

84. What and where was the Golden Age of Spain? When did it end?

The so-called Golden Age of Spain refers to the period of Muslim rule on the Iberian peninsula (roughly 9^th to 11^th centuries CE) during which Jews (according to Graetz) received more tolerant treatment than they did from Christians. This view is now disputed, though what happened during the Spanish Inquisition leading to the final expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 clearly exceeded the level and intensity of cruelty under Muslim rule.

85. What was the Spanish Inquisition?

The Inquisition was the attempt of the Catholic Church to detect and rid Spain of Jews who had falsely claimed to convert (converses) to Catholicism. It led to the expulsion on Tish b’Av (according to tradition) of all the remaining Jews in 1492.

86. Who was Moses Maimonides? What did he write?

Moses Maimonides and his family fled from Spain in the 12^th Century, and eventually settled in Cairo, Egypt, where Maimonides became the physician to the Caliph’s harem. For a time, his scholarly work , including the Mishna Torah, was supported by the family trade, run by his brother, in valuable jewels. Much like St. Thomas Acquinas, Maimonides’ writings were heavily influenced by Greek, and specifically, Aristotelean thought. The Greek influence as well as his attempt to systematize the Talmud led to difficulties with other prominent Jewish leaders of the time. Eventually, however, the writings of Maimonides, including his many response, were afforded a great deal of respect and deference.

87. Where do the Ashkenazim come from?

The Askenazim come from most recently central and eastern Europe, but originated in the area along the Rhine river from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north of present day Germany.

88. Where do the Sephardim come from?

Sephardim are usually described either as the descendants of the Jews expelled from the Iberian peninsula or those Jews who follow the liturgy of the Jews that were expelled from the Iberian peninsula.

89. What is a Ghetto? Where did the term originate?

A ghetto is, like the Venetian island from which the name is derived, a place where Jews were forced to live.

90. Who was Rashi?

Some say Rashi was a Talmudic scholar who spoke the definitive commentary of the Talmud and the Tanakh. What is written is, supposedly, the notes of his students. I am skeptical that there is such a thing as a definitive commentary. The original printed Bible text by Daniel Bomberg in 1517 included Rashi's commentary. There are now more than 200 commentaries on his commentary. He lived in France in the 12^th Century and survived the First Crusade.

91. What is the Shulchan Aruch?

The Shulchan Aruch is the code of Jewish law. The title means “a set table.”

92. Who was Shabbatai Zevi?

Shabbatai Zevi was a false messiah who assembled a large following, did much mischief and was forced by the Sultan to convert to Islam. Singer’s The Satan of Goray provides an imaginative account of the effect of the false messiah on a rural Polish village.

93. How did the Emancipation affect Jews?

This is a very complex question. To a certain extent Emancipation lead, almost inexorably, to assimilation of a great many Jews. Initially, emancipation also fostered a blooming of Jewish intellectual achievement that greatly benefitted Jews and the communities in which they resided. At the same time, the structures that kept Jews as an identifiable people and religion began to erode, and the civil as well as religious powers of the rabbinical community diminished. Eventually, emancipation and the achievements of the Jews made them a visible target for the virulent anti-semitism of the early twentieth century culminating in the Holocaust, and then establishment of Israel.

94. What was the Kishinev Pogrom?

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica:

The name of Kishinev became known to the world at large as a result of two pogroms. The first, iniciated and organized by the local and central authorities, took place during Easter on April 6 - 7, 1903. Agents of the Ministry of the Interior and high Russian officials of the Bessarabian administration were involved in its preparation, evidently with the backing of the minister of the interior, V. Plehve. The pogrom was preceded by a poisonous anti-Jewish campaign led by P. Krushevan, director of the Bessarabian newspaper Bessarabets, who incited the population through a constant stream of vicious articles. One of the authors of the most virulent articles was the local police chief, Levendall. In such a heated atmosphere any incident could have dire consequences, and when the body of a Christian child was found, and a young Christian woman patient committed suicide in the Jewish hospital, the mob became violent. A blood libel, circulated by the Bessarabtes, spread like wildfire. (It was later proved that the child was murdered by his relatives and that the suicide of the young woman was in no way connected with the Jews.) According to official statistics, 49 Jews lost their lives and more than 500 were injured, some of them seriously; 700 houses were looted and destroyed and 600 businesses and shops were looted. The material loss amounted to 2500000 gold rubles, and about 2000 families were left homeless. Both Russians and Romanians joined in the riots. Russians were sent in from other towns and the students of the theological seminaries and the secondary schools and colleges played a leading role. The garrison of 5000 soldiers stationed in the city, which could easily have held back the mob, took no action. Public outcry throughout the world was aroused by the incident and protest meetings were organized in London, Paris, and New York. A letter of protest written in the United States was handed over to president Theodore Roosevelt to be delivered to the czar, who refused to accept it. Under the pressure of public opinion, some of the perpatrators of the pogrom were brought to justice but they were awarded very lenient sentences.

L.N. Tolstoy expressed his sympathy for the victims, condemning the czarist authorities as responsible for the pogrom. The Russian writer Vladimir Korolenko described the pogrom in his story, "House No. 13" as did H.N. Bialik in his poem, "Be-Ir ha-Haregah" ("In the Town of death").

On October 19 - 20, 1905, riots broke out once more. They began as a protest demonstration by the "patriots" against the czar's declaration of August 19, 1905 and deteriorated into an attack on the Jewish quarter in which 19 Jews were killed, 56 were injured, and houses and shops were looted and destroyed: damages amounted to 3.000.000 rubles. On this occasion, some of the Jewish youth organized itself into self-defence units. The two pogroms had a profound effect on the Jews of Kishinev. Between 1902 and 1905 their numbers dropped from around 60000 to 53243, many emigrating to the United States and the Americas, while many more left after the second attack.

The economic development of town was brought to a standstill

95. What is Hassidism?

Hassidism began in 18^th Century Poland. According to Wikipedia:

Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew חסידות -Chasidut in Sephardi Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" (literally "loving kindness",, is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith. It was founded in 18th Century Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov as a reaction against overly legalistic Judaism. His example began the characteristic veneration of leadership in Hasidism as embodiments and intercessors of Divinity for the followers. Opposite to this, Hasidic teachings cherished the sincerity and concealed holiness of the unlettered common folk, and their equality with the scholarly elite. The emphasis on the Divine presence in everything gave new value to prayer and deeds of kindness, alongside Rabbinic supremacy of study, and replaced historical mystical (kabbalistic) and ethical (musar) asceticism and admonishment with optimism, encouragement and fervour. It sought to add to required standards of ritual observance, while relaxing others where inspiration predominated. Its communal gatherings celebrated soulful song and storytelling as forms of mystical devotion.

Hasidism comprises part of contemporary Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, alongside the previous Talmudic Lithuanian-Yeshiva approach and the Oriental Sephardi tradition. Its charismatic mysticism has inspired non-Orthodox Neo-Hasidic thinkers and influenced wider modern Jewish denominations, while its scholarly thought has interested contemporary academic study. Each Hasidic dynasty follows its own principles; thus Hasidic Judaism is not one movement, but a collection of separate individual groups with some commonality. There are approximately 30 larger Hasidic groups, and several hundred minor groups. Though there is no one version of Hasidism, individual Hasidic groups often share with each other underlying philosophy, worship practices, dress and songs.

96. What does Zionism mean? Why did it begin?

Zionism is a movement of the late 19^th Century, born in part as a reaction to the Dreyfus Affair, to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Oddly enough, the first homeland proposed by the British was to be in central Africa.

97. Who was Theodore Herzl?

Herzl was a journalist until his coverage of the Dreyfus Affair impressed on his mind the importance of a homeland to the survival of the Jews. This then became the obsessive driving force of the rest of his life.

98. When was the modern State of Israel established?

May 14, 1948

What is Yom Ha’atzmaut?

99. How many states did the U.N. Partition Plan try to establish?

Two

100. Why did the Partition Plan fail?

The Arab community refused to accept two separate states and immediately attacked the Jews.

101. What is a kibbutz?

A kibbutz was a communal agricultural settlement based on radical egalitarian premises. Many of the early leaders of Israel came from the kibbutzim. However, the unit of social organization is not nearly so vital as it was in the beginning days of the State of Israel.

102. What is the Knesset?

The Israeli Parliamnet consisting of

103. What is Yom Hashoah?

104. he full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is "Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah"--literally the "Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism." It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan--a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers).

The date was selected by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) on April 12, 1951. The full name became formal in a law that was enacted by the Knesset on August 19, 1953.

105. How many Jews are there in the world today?

Rough numbers: US 6 million Israel: 5 million Former USSR: 1.5 million Rest of the world: 1 million

According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics there were 13,421,000 Jews worldwide in 2010.

EDEN VALLEY: A RETURN TO PARADISE?

2011-09-22T07:34:00.000-07:00

In late July 2004, I negotiated with my bride of only four years to undertake a genealogical expedition with me to re-trace some of the steps taken by the Grein/Guelff party in their move westward, eventually to homesteads in Dawson County, Montana. In exchange for being a game companion in my roots quest across some of the flattest and hottest landscape in North America, I agreed to take up residence in what turned out to be a Swiss Chalet in the Black Hills of North Dakota at one end of the journey and celebrate, on the return journey, by seeing one of the last Twins games to be played in the old Metro Dome. The Mall of the Americas might have been part of the deal as well, but for some reason that never materialized.

It has been said as a sort of axiomatic principle of genealogy that immigrants tend to settle in places that remind them of home in the old country. Hence, Scots from the highlands end up in the Appalachians, Swiss and German farmers populated the Piedmont, and the Luxembourgers, being from a self-described sub-aquatic environment, chose the marshlands of Minnesota. They almost did not survive them, but thank God they did and then moved on.

Those ten thousand lakes are populated by ten billion very large and hungry mosquitoes. Hence the pressing question: Is Minnesota's State Bird still the Mosquito?

Fortunately, we spent the first day of our visit to Stern County in the excellent Historical Museum in St. Cloud to look through some records in the secure (no mosquitoes allowed) air conditioned library. Not until the second day did we, map in hand, venture south to Eden Valley.

If you zoom in on the map and look at the lower left corner at Section 31, you will see the original homestead of Michael Guelff immediately to the north of the tracks for the St. Paul, Joseph and Sault St. Marie Railway. Also on this map in the southwest corner of Section 21 you will find a small triangular piece marked P. Grein, Michael's father-in-law Pierre Grein. A little bit further up the road to the northwest you will find St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Section 15, the cemetery next to it being the permanent residence of Pierre Grein and his wife Elisabeth Schwinden.

Immediately to the west of the prior map, you will see another parcel helpfully highlighted in yellow, identifying a second parcel belonging to Michael Guelff, also strategically placed alongside the railway tracks. This second parcel hosted the Guelff Saloon, a likely haven from the Minnesota state bird and conveniently located next to the railway station. Please note for future reference the sequence of small lakes, especially Eden Lake, due north of the saloon, like a necklace of helipads for the ever present mosquitoes.

We now look at the map of a township north of Eden Valley, Maine Prairie. Again, the properties of John Grein in Section 1, Mary Grein in Section 3 and Scheeler & Grein in Section 17 complete the picture of the family homesteading in close proximity to one another.

Many sad things happened to the Guelff family during their stay in Eden Valley until Michael Guelff's drowning death in 1905. Several of the approximately 14 children died before him, including the eldest son almost exactly a year before his own death. They are buried head-to-toe with a single marker memorializing the dates on opposite sides of the slab. The other childhood deaths are recorded in parish and cemetery records across the tracks in another county.

The family lost little time selling the Guelff Saloon near the railroad station and the other homestead properties. Two of the children, Michael and Elizabeth, accelerated their confirmations. Along with their close friends and neighbors, the Russ family, they packed up and moved to a much drier and barren place on the border of eastern Montana and the western Dakotas. Another saloon and dry goods shop was established in Beach, once again near a railroad station. More acreage was homesteaded. The widow re-married, and life went on.