17 Comments

1. 

   Cheskel on July 20, 2009 at 9:32 am

   Was he a Kohen ?

2. 

   sally kirsch (his grandaughter) on December 23, 2009 at 6:09 am

   no he was a yisrael. in fact he is one of the very few rappaports that are NOT cohanim

3. 

   YD Miller on December 23, 2009 at 6:56 pm

   Hi Sally,
   Very intresting, was there a reason why the family carried the name Rappaport, such as were the married into the Cohanim Rappaort Family, etc.?

   Any othher bio infor would be intresting, was he a Maggid-Preacher in the Lithuanian city of Biyalstok or in a comunity here in the US with that name?

4. 

   Moshe Escott on June 28, 2010 at 3:31 pm

   In the Degel Yisroel journal (v2.4 Nisan/Iyar 5688 / April 1928 – p.6 in the article titled “Rabbinishe Nayes” – viewable at http://www.hebrewbooks.org/13154) it says that the Bialystoker shtot maggid, R.M.H. Rappaport, recently came to the USA with his family after being the town maggid of Bialystok for 14 years.

   Rav Rappoport did seem to also have a general connection to the Bialystoker shul in the Lower East Side of New York once he came to the USA. I have seen two instances where he gave hespedim at that shul (one for the Meitsheter Ilui in 1928 as reported in different article in Degel Yisroel and one for my great-grandfather in 1931 as reported in Der Morgen Journal)

   There are a few images of Rav Rappaport in a yizkor book on Bialystok that was published in 1951. The book can be viewed at http://yizkor.nypl.org/index.php?id=2976. See images 85, 261 and 281 which will direct you to pages 79, 255 and 275 of the book.

   According to http://pages.cthome.net/hirsch/bhh.htm, he became a rav in New Haven, CT in 1930.

   On page 64 of a book called Ner l’Yisroel (by noted rabbinic biographer R. Aharon Sorasky, 1997) it says that Efraim Rappaport from Brisk had 4 sons:
   Pinchas; “Alter” also known as the Bialystoker shtot magid (interesting that doesn’t mention his name as Myrim Hillel here); Yaakov Tuvia; Eliyahu

   And three daughters: Devora; Sarah; Chaya Raizel

   Ner l’Yisroel is a biography of the Bialystoker magid’s nephew, Yisroel Dov Rappaport. Both Yisroel Dov and his father Yaakov Tuvia were staunch Slonimer chassidim. R. Yaakov Tuvia was at one point the head shochet in Minsk and was an expert on hilchos shechita and treifos.

   Interestingly enough, the Bialystoker magid’s son, Rav H.Z. Rappaport was a rav in Kingston, NY and authored a sefer on hilchos treifos (as can be seen at http://www.hebrewbooks.org/4141). The sefer is called Ohr l’Yoreh Deah. “Ohr” is after his recently deceased father Myrim (a Yiddish nickname for Meir).

   Also interesting is the mention in the hakdama there that says his father was niftar on 4 Iyar, while the matzeiva above says says 11 Iyar.

   Also see
   http://www.neveh.org/price/pricetrs.html – where R. Schwadron is quoted in “Around the Maggid’s Table” where he cites a story from the Bialystoker maggid.

   Sally – if you can, please contact me at eskolskyinfo@yahoo.com. I would be interested in finding out more about your grandfather since he was one of the rabbanim
   who were maspid my great-grandfather, R. Yaakov Eskolsky at his levaya as I mentioned earlier.

5. 

   Florence Mitchell on August 13, 2010 at 10:20 pm

   Hi – I came across this site when doing a genealogic search. Some of my Rappaport ancestors are mentioned here; my father’s paternal grandfather was the Pinchas Rappaport mentioned here (for what it’s worth, I have his brother’s name as Alter Marem Hillel). Could you tell me more about what “shtot maggid” means, and perhaps some of the other terms (I’m from the secular branch of that family).

6. 

   Cheskel on August 15, 2010 at 3:07 am

   Translation of “shtot maggid” would be “city preacher”,
   but that is far off of the definition.

7. 

   levi rapoport on April 10, 2011 at 12:48 pm

   i am his great-great-great nephew

8. 

   Khiyyavrom Sheikowitz on October 5, 2012 at 7:06 pm

   A few notes. Could kever name be Morris, with the engraver confused by samekh/final mem. Regardless, Meir and fem. Mir’l are very common among Slonimer and Slonimer-Bialystocker. Also, the name Katz/Kass/Kassovsky by Leviim – possibly analogous to this use of Rappaport. My GGGF, the rav of the Slonimer q’hil’e in Bialystock, was a “Kassovsky” – and a Layvy. Some of his children came to the US before 1900. Kol tov.

9. 

   Moshe Escott on October 24, 2012 at 8:41 am

   1) No mistake on kever. Back then מארים was a fairly common nickname for מאיר. We have that name in my own family.

   2) I just noticed the following page which contains a bio on the Bialystoker maggid and links to a sound recording of him giving a speech at a wedding or sheva brachos in the mid-late 1940s:
   http://digital.library.yu.edu/bialystoker-maggid

10. 

    YD Miller on October 24, 2012 at 1:02 pm

    Thanks Moshe for the speech link, it is great!

11. 

    Moshe Escott on July 5, 2013 at 11:53 am

    I was just alerted to this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/370848212155
    where the שער of ספר מחזה עינים has a stamp of its owner Rav Rappaport.
    I have saved an image of just the stamp over here:
    http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?q=pictures+of+rabbanim&psc=G&filter=1#5897156489532081010

    The text of the stamp isn’t so clear but it reads:
    מארים הלל
    דמתקרי אלטר בר’ אפרים
    ראפאפארט
    מגיד דמתא ביאליסטאק

    So this is another piece of evidence that the rav’s given name was Marim Hillel and that his nickname was Alter.

    BTW – a different (digitized) copy of that sefer is here:
    http://www.hebrewbooks.org/33282

12. 

    Moshe Escott on July 9, 2013 at 11:39 am

    Sorry – the correct link for the image is:
    https://plus.google.com/photos/108906786730490821956/albums/5723088551114609553/5897156489532081010?banner=pwa&pid=5897156489532081010&oid=108906786730490821956

13. 

    Moshe Escott on January 22, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    See the following for a picture of the Bialystoker Magid while attending a ground breaking for the Kletzk yeshiva in 1927:
    http://www.kletsk.org/YizkorBookPhotos/images/2.jpg

    According to the following, Rabbi Rappaport is marked as yud-daled (14) within the picture – 3 seats to the left of Rav Aharon Kotler (alef):
    http://www.kletsk.org/YizkorBookPhotos/Plate2.i.html

14. 

    Rabbiu Yaakov Tuvia Rapoport on May 13, 2015 at 2:20 pm

    Hi Florence.
    My fathers Paternal grandfather was R’Yaakov Tuvia Rapoport, brother to , Pinchas, Eliyahu and Alter M Hllel Rapoport.

    I wouyld like to speak to you.
    Plz contact me at yrapopor@syr.edu

15. 

    YD Miller on August 14, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    Moshe,

    The Kletzk photo, in a sharp version:
    http://forum.otzar.org/viewtopic.php?p=480022#p480022

16. 

    Moshe Escott on August 15, 2018 at 9:21 am

    YD, thanks!

    If you look closely, they are actually two different photos of the same scene and with two different numbering systems of the same style of letters.

    The black & white photo is just about as sharp as the sepia tone photo but is more cropped on the sides and has less of the original photo. It looks like B&W was published in the Kletzk yizkor book and the sepia tone was published somewhere else.

17. 

    Moshe Escott on August 15, 2018 at 9:22 am

    I have combined the two photos for comparison at the following link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nDd8orbCuvHetM4V6