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Connecting to the Great Rabbinic Families Through Y-DNA

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Connecting to the Great Rabbinic Families Through Y-DNA Connecting to the Great Rabbinic Families Through Y-DNA: A Case Study of the Polonsky Rabbinical Lineage by Jeffrey Mark Paull or a number of reasons, including high rates of inter- who their ancestors were. F marriage with other rabbinic families, adoption of fixed Because of the endogamous nature of the Ashkenazi surnames well before governmental authorities required the Jewish population, many, if not most Ashkenazi Jews de- majority of European Jewry to do so, and frequently well- scend from a prominent rabbi or rabbinical lineage, al- documented lineages, rabbinic lineages hold a special place though they may not be aware of it. Endogamy among in Jewish genealogy. Researchers who find a rabbi in their Ashkenazi Jews was internally mandated through religious family typically can trace much further back in time than and cultural tenets that endorsed marrying other Jews, and can most European Jewish families. Often, however, con- was often externally imposed through laws that prohibited temporary family members are unaware of their rabbinic marriage to non-Jews.2 ancestry. Culturally, the practice of shidduch, or arranging mar- When a paper trail for a rabbinic genealogy exists back riages between family members of equal yichus or distin- before the mass adoption of Jewish surnames, DNA testing guished birth, was common among Ashkenazi Jews for can be useful both to confirm relationships and to help iden- centuries. To have yichus was to be descended from illus- tify other living members of the extended family, many of trious ancestors who were famous rabbis or community whom have different family surnames and do not know of leaders.3 Many rabbinical dynasties made it a priority to the rabbinic relationship. Y-DNA testing of members of the ensure that their children married into other prominent and Polonsky rabbinic family demonstrates this process. often closely related rabbinical lineages, resulting in fre- The present study focuses on a family of Jewish descent quent consanguineous marriage among cousins of these that immigrated to America from the Ukraine during the lineages, resulting in the creation of a highly endogamous early part of the 20th century. It presents the genealogical population.4 and genetic data that characterizes the Polonsky rabbinical This high degree of interrelatedness is one reason why lineage by which its descendants may be identified. The increasing numbers of Ashkenazi Jews are turning to ge- Polonsky rabbinical lineage descends from a nexus of great netic testing as a way of recovering part of their lost heri- Talmudic scholars, Jewish community leaders and rabbinic tage by locating “DNA cousins” and identifying their com- dynasties that formed the bedrock of Judaism throughout mon ancestors. As they do, it is becoming increasingly clear Europe and Russia. that characterizing the unique DNA markers of the great Ashkenazi rabbis and rabbinical lineages will play a critical Introduction role in the ultimate success of such endeavors. Studies such Major challenges and difficulties abound in the study of as the “WIRTH” project5 and the Wertheimer-Wertheim Jewish genealogy. These challenges and difficulties are autosomal DNA study6 have demonstrated the intrinsic well known to Jewish genealogists: frequent expulsions and value of and need for characterizing rabbinic DNA in an migrations, the dearth of civil and Jewish community rec- effort to bridge the gap between genetic data and the miss- ords, the lack of Jewish surnames, and the widespread de- ing paper trail for Ashkenazi Jews. struction of the repositories of Jewish learning and culture, Hence, studies such as this, which provide the genealogy including synagogues, yeshivas and cemeteries. of a renowned rabbinical lineage of Ashkenazi descent, As a result, for many people of Ashkenazi Jewish de- combined with the genetic data that describe the unique scent, no genealogical records of their ancestors can be DNA markers or characteristics of that lineage, have con- found beyond a certain point. Against this reality, however, siderable value for both present and future Jewish genea- are a limited number of great rabbinical families whose logical studies. Such studies provide the unique autosomal lines of descent were studied and preserved over the centu- or Y-DNA markers—the generic fingerprint of a specific ries. These families include some who rose to prominence rabbinical lineage, the gold standard by which individual through the great distinction of one or two individuals, and DNA test results can be compared to determine if a given others who produced a succession of illustrious rabbinical individual may be a descendant of a particular rabbi or rab- scholars or community leaders.1 binical lineage. A wealth of genealogical information exists in the Jew- ish literature for individuals who can establish descent from Background one or more of the great rabbinic families. Rabbinic sources The three million Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated to can provide priceless information regarding their descent to America from Russia between 1881 and 1920 wanted to Jews who might otherwise have no means of discovering break with their past and make a new life for themselves AVOTAYNU Volume XXIX, Number 3, Fall 2013 17 The many rabbinical connections of the Polonsky lineage lineage Polonsky the of connections rabbinical many The Figure1. 18 AVOTAYNU Volume XXIX, Number 3, Fall 2013 and their families in America.7 In making the transition, emerged the great Biblical and Talmudic commentator they broke with the past so completely that they left behind Rashi (1040–1105).14 Rashi’s family and disciples estab- a large part of their rich cultural heritage. Particularly dur- lished centers of learning in many towns in Western Europe ing the first several decades of the 20th century, Russian- and later, in the 14th century, in Eastern Europe. Thus a Jewish immigrants were intent on assimilating into Ameri- vast interrelated dynasty of rabbinic families spread across can culture. They abandoned many of their religious cus- Europe, establishing a framework for future genealogical toms and traditions and rarely spoke with their American- research.15 born children of the world that they left behind. As a result, Notable among this interrelated dynasty of rabbinic much of their oral history was lost, and with it, their ances- families is the Shapiro rabbinical lineage, which traces its tral and rabbinic links to the past.8 descent from Rashi through the Treves rabbinical lineage, Such was the case for the Polonsky family. Menakhem and which produced a long line of distinguished rabbis over Nahum Polonsky, with his wife and four of their children, the centuries. The Polonsky rabbinical lineage was formed left Cherkasy, Russia, and settled in Brooklyn, New York, when the descendant of a distinguished Galician line of in 1914. Upon his arrival, Menakhem Nahum Americanized rabbis from Brody married into the Shapiro rabbinical line- his name to Nathan Polonsky and reunited with his other age in the late 18th century.16 four children who had previously immigrated to the U.S. The progenitor of the Polonsky line was Rabbi Shmuel Among their descendants, little was known about their life Polonsky (1761–1811). Shmuel was the grandson of Rabbi before America. Other than whisperings of the family being Menakhem Mendel Levush.17 Menakhem married the somehow descended from one of the disciples of the Baal daughter of Rabbi S. Gellis and adopted his father-in-law’s Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Jewry, there was no fam- surname to become Moses Gellis.18 How Shmuel acquired ily tree or paper trail to document their ancestors. the Polonsky surname is unclear but it may be through his That is where things stood for nearly 80 years until the connection with the Polonne community19 while he was author found a photograph of his great-grandfather Na- serving as the rabbi of the nearby town of Koniow. than’s gravestone and had the Hebrew inscription trans- Shmuel Polonsky married Sarah Rachel Sheindel lated. The inscription revealed that Nathan Polonsky was Shapira, the daughter of the eminent Rabbi Pinchas Shapira the descendant of two of the most influential early leaders of Koretz.20 Their marriage produced a distinguished line of of the Hasidic movement—the Shpoler Zeida (grandfather rabbis in Kiev gubernia. Shmuel’s position as chief rabbi of Shpola) (1725–1811), and Rabbi Pinchas Shapira of Ko- and head of the rabbinical court of Ekaterinopol was passed retz (1726–1791). down through the Polonsky family from father-to-son for Fascinated by this finding, he embarked on a compre- five generations, spanning over a century, from 1793 to hensive genealogical research project to uncover the ancient 1900. lineage of the Polonsky family. This research culminated in Following the practice of shidduch, each of the descen- the publication of A Noble Heritage: The History and Leg- dants in the Polonsky rabbinical lineage married women of acy of the Polonsky and Paull Family in America. It tells impressive yichus who linked Polonsky descendants to the story of how the Polonsky family’s lost heritage, em- many of Europe’s esteemed rabbinical lineages, including bracing many of Europe’s most eminent and influential Kalonymos, Treves, Shapiro, Luria, Katzenellenbogen, rabbis, dating back to the great 11th-century scholar and Wahl, Yaffe, Twersky, Wertheim, Gellis/Levush and Zeida. biblical commentator Rashi, was rediscovered.9 While re- The family was connected through marriage to still other searching and writing A Noble Heritage, the author also distinguished rabbinical families, including the Halperin initiated a number of genealogical research projects that lineage of Brezhany and Zvenigorodka, the Hager Hasidic involved studying the autosomal and Y-DNA characteris- dynasty of Vishnitz and the Friedman lineage of Ruzhin tics of descendants of several family ancestral lines, includ- and Czortkow. ing the Gelles-Polonsky,10 Wertheimer-Wertheim11 and This vast, highly interrelated network of distinguished Zeida12 rabbinical lineages.
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