Rabbi Shlomo David Sprince
שלומה דוב ב"ר גדליהו הכהן
Chief Rabbi, Riga, LatviaDate of Death:
Sat. May 25, 1929 -
Iyar 15 5689
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Directions to Kever: Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries in West Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts maintains computerized records and will provide a detailed location map upon request. Location: Section: Shara Tfilo, large Ohel
Biographical Notes:
Source: Chachmei New England
Bio Information:
The Rav who passed away in his 90s was a moreh dasrah across two continents for over 70 years and wrote many seforim.
Credit: David Weider, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Credit: Reuben (Bobby) Hyde
Credit: Reuben (Bobby) Hyde
Credit: Reuben (Bobby) Hyde
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This monster of a monument is actually an ohel.
Here is a sefer of his:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=233&st=&pgnum=1
It has very nice haskomos, and a very lengthy hakdamah.
This is the grandfather of Rabbi Sprince’s wife:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=6621&pgnum=1
Listed in the “Boston Register and Business Directory” of 1922 as the rabbi of Khal Linas Hatzedek 77 Chelsea East Boston/
http://www.archive.org/stream/bostonregisterbu1922bost#page/35/mode/1up/search/rabbi
The sefer linked above by Curious named Leshad Hashemen was printed while Rav Sprince was still in Europe in 1879.
Here is his Sefer Kerem Shlomo printed in Boston after he immigrated to America.:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/38092
The copy in the link has a written dedication by his Son Yoseph Sprince from 1929 just a few months after his father passed away.
Here are two of the Rav’s handwrittings and some more information (in Yiddis):
http://www.ivelt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=538292#p538292
My great-grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Dov beir Gedalya ha-Kohen Sprintz was born in 1846 in Mezhirichi (Ukraine) and studied in Krynki (Poland) and Volozhin (Minsk Prov.). He was ordained by R. Barukh Mordecai Lipschitz of Novogrudok (Belarus) and Siedlce (Poland), R. Reuben Levin of Nesvizh (Minsk Prov.), and R. Hayyim Zalman of Mir (Belarus).
He served with several congregations in Poland (which included parts of Belarus at the time) possibly in the Pinsk area. (My grandfather told my father he grew up in Pinsk.) In 1889, the Rabbi took a position with a congregation in Montmartre (a district of Paris), France, and became close friends with Zadoc Kahn, the Grand Rabbi of France, and became associated with the incipient Zionist movement.
Rabbi Sprintz and his wife, Freida, arrived in New York City (Ellis Island) on March 29, 1898, and lived briefly in Brooklyn, New York. Shortly thereafter, he became Rabbi at B’nai Israel, an Orthodox congregation in Paterson, New Jersey.
In 1899, he had relocated to Portland, Maine and accepted the rabbinical post at Sharith Israel, after hearing Portland described as the “Jerusalem of America”. He was described as the Chief Rabbi of Portland.
He moved on to Montreal, Canada in 1901 and served with several congregations:
• Austro-Hungarian (Associate Rabbi 1901-2, Chief Rabbi 1903-4)
• B’nai Jacob (Associate 1902, Chief 1903-5)
• Chevra Shaas (Associate 1903-5)
• Temple Solomon Ahavash Achim (Associate (1906-8)
I have incomplete records from 1909 until his death on May 25 or 27, 1929. It appears that he lived in Boston during this period. In 1912, the Rabbi published a book, Kerem Shlomo. The cover shows his address as 129 Chelsea Street, East Boston. A municipal record shows him as Rabbi of Khal Linas Hatzedek (Linas Azedik), 77 Chelsea Street, in 1922. A local historical document states that Linas Azedik was founded around 1915. Given the nearby street address, it can be guessed that the Rabbi was involved with its founding.
However Rabbi Sprintz was buried in the Shara Tfilo section of the Baker Street Jewish Cemetery which means he was probably affiliated with that congregation at some point. There is sketchy information regarding Shara Tfilio. It might have been in Roxbury during the 1920s. The name might also relate to his original congregation in Portland, Sharith Israel which later merged into Shaary Tphiloh around 1904.
Joseph Sprince, Please cotact me. I wish to ask you somthing regardin Leshad HaShamen.
hello.I am named after my grandfather
Abraham Reuben Hyde. He founded the Hyde Shoe Co. Cambridge mass. He was born in riga Latvia. as his wife . He arrived in 1888 I hear Boston, Mass ship from Hamburg. His cousin David Goldstein met him! So A R became A R Goldstein. till 1906+/-. They were coblers in Somerville. and walked or trolley to West End.Grandpa founded Anshei Sfard Somerville, Beth Israel 432 Columbia
st. Beth El Cemetery, He is buried not far from the Rav His sister Esther Mirium Glazer, too. Now the grandfather’s last name is not known? A Morris Chojet is on the board of Beth Israel in 1900-1910-1915 more or less. I have looked for relatives.
Why is this note: As Chelsea and Cambridge are neighbors maybe my grandpa is mentioned with Rabbi Sprince. The synagogues are the same.l It keeps saying that rABBI sPRINCE WAQS
cHIEF rABBI OF rIGA. tHEY HAD TO KNOW EACH OTHER.
Please add conversation in any component of their lives. thank you.
Hi. Mr amselle.
Ut was great pleadure conversing while i was in springfield.
I wrote a whole letter june 20 2018. No response.glad we found rabbi robinson
At beth jacob.now i will call city hall to get death crrt.
All good thibgs
Comment is that my grandpa abraham reuben, sister miriam esyher, husband josrph meyer were born in Riga. If relatived R Shlo.o Dov HaCihen Sprince are reading. I wish to speak posibly of Beth Istarl and. Khal Libas as Riga Latvians and shuls.
786 326 0351.
My grandpa and great aunt parents are in Woburn Montifiori . ..I think. I will be there
Nov 7 2018 I Y’H.
Kol Tuv.
Gt Yr.
Rabbi Shlomo Dov Beir ha-Kohen Sprince (1839-1929) was my 3x great-uncle and as the authoritative Latvian Jewish Encyclopaedia states:
“Born on 1 Adar 5599 (15 February 1839) in Miedzyrzec. He studied for two years in Volozhin.
Son-in-law of R. Avraham, rabbi of Krenik.
In 5629 he was accepted as rabbi in Sidra, district of Grodno, where he served in the rabbinate for three years. Afterward he was accepted as rabbi in Suprāsl (Suprasl) near Białystok, then as rabbi in Wizna,1) and in 5640 he was appointed rabbi in Tarlo (Tarla), district of Lublin. He afterward served as rabbinic decisor here in Riga in the Moscow suburb, and then as Av Beit Din in Šėta, district of Kovna.
In 5649 he served as rabbi in a suburb of Paris, and in the month of Nisan 5658 (March 1898) he emigrated to the United States, where he served as rabbi in various places and also served as rabbi and Av Beit Din in Montreal, Canada, and in Boston.
He passed away on 15 Iyyar 5689 (25 May 1929) and was brought to rest in Boston.”
I might add that he shielded my great-grandfather, Max Sprintz, from the Tsarist authorities while he was the Chief Rabbi of Riga (1892-1898). Max Sprintz (1869-1942) was a Cantonist deserter who spent four and a half years in the Tsar’s artillery based in Svislach, Belarus (June 1883- April 1888), and he married Rose Rabinowitz – whose forebears were related to the Katzenellenbogen, Shor, Luria and Shapiro rabbinic families – in Riga in 1896 – while still, of course, an outlaw! Between 1888 and 1892 Rabbi Nieman hid Max Sprintz from the Tsar’s secret police (a readers might know, a deserting Cantonist could be sent to the Siberian salt mines where life expectancy was low). Indeed, I owe to Rabbi Sprince my very existence: he introduced Rose Rabinowitz to Max Sprintz!
Rabbi Sprince’s father, Gedalyah ha-Kohen Sprintz (1805-c1865-68), was the son of Jacob/Yakov/Jankiel Serpinski, who c 1797/1800 worked in Serpiki just outside Krynki, and Rabbi Gedalyah ha-Kohen Sprintz married into a family who were natives of Pinsk, Belarus, as early as the 1690s. Moreover, there is some evidence that they settled in Karlin c. 1690. Gedalyah ha-Kohen Sprintz took his surname from his wife, Shprints (b1810 fl 1865), who was the daughter of the meshchane master glazier Kopel Shprints (1781-1834) and Raisa (1776-late 1830s) and the granddaughter of Shrints (c1750-1809), a widow of Berko Jankielwicz (1745/50-bef 1795); Widow Shprints’ name (derived from the Mome Loshen rendering of “Esperanza” (Hope)) explains the derivation of the matrynomic Sprintz. Rabbi Sprince’s forename Shlomo derives from Berko’s grandfather, Shlomo ha-Kohen (b. c1690s/1700). Jacob Serpinski’s lineage stretches back to one timber merchant, Aharon ha-Kohen, recorded as “Aaron the Jew” in Krynki records as early as 1667. The family had fled from Grodno during the latter-end of the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648-1657).
My maternal grandfather Isaac Sprince (1914-1997) changed his surname from Sprintz to Sprince around 1929/1930, evidenced from old signed postcard photograph portraits; doubtless this was in memory of his great-uncle, a remarkable scholar, and someone who while based in Montmartre (1889-1892) befriended the Dreyfusard (supporters of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus who was wrongly sent to Devil’s Island) Zadoc Kahn, the Grand Rabbi of France!
Finally, a last note (to this already lengthy piece): Reuben Hyde mentioned something that, I feel, will interest those descended or related to Rabbi Sprince. Mr Hyde’s grandfather, Abraham Reuben Hyde, “arrived in 1888 I hear Boston, Mass ship from Hamburg. His cousin David Goldstein met him! So A R became A R Goldstein. till 1906+/-. They were coblers [sic] in Somerville. and walked or [took the] trolley to West End.” On the “Boston, Mass ship from Hamburg” was Rabbi Sprince’s niece, Augusta (later called Mary) Sprintz (1861-1954) – my great grandfather Max’s eldest sister and this couldn’t have been what the Americans call “happenstance”! My great great aunt Augusta had in 1882 already married Moshe Zacuto-Epstein, who would later operate a grocery store in 1429-1432 Hastings Street, Detroit. Taking a train from Svislach (or more likely Bialystock) to Hamburg and then travelling via Dieppe and then across the Atlantic for a young married woman in her twenties took nerve and guts! Another relative, Zeyndel Sprynca (1910-1982), my grandfather’s cousin and a grandson of Rabbi Gedalya ha-Kohen Sprintz, took part in the Bialystock Ghetto uprising in 1944 and was a partisan fighting in the northern Polish forests; he was recorded as a Holocaust survivor by Yad Vashem.
Just as a final note, Abraham Milchiker married the sister of Rabbi Sprince (b. c1843) and he was not just a Cantonist but also one of the few who refused to be baptised: he was one of only nine Cantonist officers (he was a Lieutenant) to serve in the army (in his case, the artillery). Not surprisingly given the Jacob Serpinsky lineage and its timber merchant activities of his in-laws stretching back to their roots in mid/late 17th century Krynki, he was placed in charge of the Tsar’s hunting lodge.