Descent from Rashi: Too Many Missing Links

by J. Jona Schellekens, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Received prior to publication from Jona Schellekens)
Published in Avotanyu 2004

 Descent from Rashi has always fascinated me, but until I saw the article by the late Dr. Jacobi in Avotaynu I had never questioned it. Instead of convincing me, his article actually made me aware of the many loopholes in genealogies going back to Rashi. I have come to realize that on one side of the argument are sceptical historians and on the other genealogists who are too eager to show their descent from Rashi. I now tend to believe that no one has ever convincingly shown descent from Rishonim or rabbis living in the High Middle Ages. I am looking forward to someone proving me to be wrong.

Most, if not all, families who claim descent from Rashi do so through the Treves family. Unfortunately, the tradition in the Treves family does not tell us how they are descended from Rashi. Several genealogists pretend to have found the missing links between Treves and Rashi. How good are these (sometimes conflicting) reconstructions? And how good are the genealogies of families who claim descent from Rashi through Treves? I will try to show that they leave much to be desired, to say the least. I will concentrate on two links: (1) between the Luria’s and Treves; and (2) between the Treves and Rashi.  I will quote extensively from secondary sources. The language of these sources is rarely English. Whenever the original text is not in English, I will offer a translation. To help the reader I have added explanations in rectangular parentheses in the quoted texts.

Many claim descent from Rashi through Yochanan Luria. His mother, Miriam, was a daughter of Shlomo Spira. “Shlomo Spira was perhaps not one of the most eminent sages of the period, but he was the head of one of the most distinguished families of rabbis until the modern period: the Luria family. The continuous genealogical tradition of the family goes straight back to him, and from him its pedigree skips to Rashi. The tradition is brought by Joseph of Rossheim in the name of Yochanan Luria, a rabbi in the Elzas at the turn of the fifteenth century:  ... I Rabbi Yochanan Luria son of ... Rabbi Aharon son of Rabbi Nethanel son of Rabbi Yehuda son of Rabbi Shimshon from Erfurt [and] son of the Rabbi’s wife Miriam daughter of ... Rabbi Shlomo Spira and sister of Rabbi Peretz from Konstanz. And the study of the Torah never stopped from the ancestors of Rabbi Shlomo Spira until Rashi ...’’ (Yuval 1988, p. 249; for another version see Jacobi 1990, p. 20). Shlomo Spira is first mentioned in 1397, when he received a permit to settle in Landau. He is called “Salman, the teacher of children at Speyer.” A privilege dating from 1433 mentions: “Salman [Spira] and his sons-in-law Aaron [Luria, the father of Yochanan,] and Smohel” (Yuval 1988, pp. 245 and 252, see also Jacobi 1990, p. 25).

Yochanan Luria claims descent from Rashi through his ancestor Shlomo Spira. This leads us to the first problem in genealogies relating the Spira’s to Rashi: Who are Shlomo Spira’s parents? According to Jacobi (1990, p. 25): “Data on R. Schlomo I Speyer’s [=Shlomo Spira] parents is meager. His father, probably the first of the family to emerge from anonymity, should probably be identified as R. Schmuel Speyer-Shapiro ...” However, Jacobi does not provide any evidence. He continues: “Who then was his mother, the wife of R. Schmuel I Speyer (Spira)? Due to Dr. Juval’s research (Ch D 244 ff), we now have at least her given name. In the Landau Privilege of 1427, which she obtained for her son and his wife and children ..., her name is clearly stated to have been Vergentlin, ... Vergentlin is the vernacular equivalent for the Hebrew name Channa ... But was she, indeed, born a Treves as generally assumed on the strength of “family tradition” to the effect that she was a daughter of R. Matityahu V Treves ... Recently, Dr. Juval (Ch B 252) felt unable to disregard that tradition, though doing so with all due caution.” According to Yuval (1988, p. 253) there is no evidence for Shmuel Spira being the father of Shlomo Spira, neither is there any evidence for Vergentlin being a daughter of a Treves. “A sage by the name of Shmuel Spira is indeed mentioned here and there in the literature of the period. But I could not find any proven base for the tradition, that he was the father of Shlomo Spira. Also, the kinship with the Treves family looks suspicious. Perhaps there is an attempt here to link up the unknown ancestry of Shlomo with Rashi through the Treves family. This family considered itself to be descended from Rashi, as the result of a wrong interpretation of the name Treves as Troyes (the town of Rashi). In fact, Treves is [derived from] the ancient [Roman] name of Trier [which is Augusta Treverorum]. In any case, Shlomo Spira and Yochanan Treves were in touch with each other, and Joseph Colon mentions both together ...”

What is known about the link between the Treves and Rashi? Brüll (1874, p. 89-90) starts his genealogy of the Treves family with Yochanan ‘the German’. His son Joseph ben Yochanan was rabbi in Marseille in the 1340s. In those days Marseille was not yet part of France. After Jews were allowed to return to France in the 1360s, the family moved to Paris. Brüll does not mention any ancestors of Yochanan. Choneh (1942, p. 171) raises the possibility that this Yochanan ‘Ashkenazi’ was the son of Abraham ben Mattityahu from Treves or Troyes. The source for this Abraham ben Mattityahu is the Sefer Haneyar: “There was an event in the house of Abraham from Troyes during which he received from his father Rabbi Mattityahu, who [died in the 1380s and] is a grandson [or, more likely, a descendant] of Rabbi Mattityahu the Great from Germany, ...” (quoted from Choneh 1942, p. 173). Jacobi (1990, p. 26) excepts Choneh’s reconstruction. However, historians identify this Abraham with someone else. Brüll (1874, p. 99) mentions that the Sefer Haneyar was written in 1392 for Joseph ben Mattityahu, a brother of Rabbi Yochanan ben Mattityahu (died 1429) and a great-grandson of Yochanan ‘Ashkenazi’, but does not mention the event in the house of Abraham of Troyes. Gross (1897, p. 242) adds an important detail: the name appears in a glosse or note added to the manuscript. Thus, the event in the house of Abraham was recorded after 1392. This “glosse could well have as its author Joseph ben Matatia, for whom the manuscript was copied towards 1392 ..., and this Joseph, brother of Yohanan ben Matatia, rabbi of Paris, is most probably identical with Joseph of Treves who was rabbi in Dijon. Thus, it would not be at all strange that he knew about the event which happened at the house of his relative Abraham. We can go even further. If this Abraham, as seems probable, belongs to a branch of the Treves family, it is very likely that he lived at Troyes, like Yohanan of Treves.” Thus, Gross thinks that Joseph ben Matityahu knew Abraham of Troyes personally. Therefore, if Choneh’s identification is correct, then Joseph would have known his great-great-grandfather! Perhaps Abraham is another brother of Rabbi Joseph ben Mattityahu. Indeed, Brüll (1874, p. 242) mentions that Joseph ben Mattityahu had a brother by the name of Abraham. He is mentioned explicitly in an ordinance by king Charles V (1364-80) of France (Brüll 1874, p. 99).

Thus, there is no evidence for Vergentlin being the daughter of a Treves. Nor is there any evidence for Abraham of Troyes being a thirteenth-century rabbi and the father of the first known Treves. To use Jacobi’s words, we are dealing with ‘strangely concocted’ family links. This does not mean of course that the tradition about the descent of the Treves, Spira or Luria from Rashi is necessarily wrong. It just means that there are too many missing links in the genealogy connecting Rashi with these families. In other words, we are left with a tradition and no genealogy. But can we trust this tradition?

To answer this question we need to know whether anyone could have profited from claiming descent from Rashi. This would indeed seem to be the case. “One of the main episodes in the history of the rabbinate in the Middle Ages is the dispute in France between the rabbi of Paris, Yochanan ben Mattityahu Treves, and the rabbi of Savoye, Yeshayah Astruc ben Abba-Mari. The dispute between the two broke out in 1386/87” (Yuval 1988, p. 322). R. Yeshayah Astruc was supported by German authorities, while R. Yochanan Treves was supported by the leading Spanish authorities, such as R. Isaac ben Sheshet. Interestingly, one of the arguments used by Yochanan against Yeshayah was his superior ancestry, as is evident from a letter to R. Isaac ben Sheshet: “And so were all my ancestors from generation to generation ... enduring pillars from father to son” (Brüll 1874, p. 90; Jacobi 1990, p. 18). Neither R. Yochanan nor R. Isaac mentions Rashi explicitly. Perhaps it was during this dispute, that someone made the wrong connection between the family name Treves and Rashi’s home town of Troyes? Thus, before we except the tradition of descent from Rashi as historical it must be shown that it predates the dispute.

 References: 

Brüll, N. 1874. “Das Geslecht der Treves”. Jahrbücher für Jüdische Geschichte und Literatur 1: 87-122.

Chone, Chaim. 1942. “From the Race of Rashi”. Sinai 10: 270-76 (Hebrew).

Gross, Henri. 1897. Gallia Judaica: Dictionnaire Geographique de la France d’Après les Sources Rabbiniques. Paris: Libraire Léopold Cerf.

Jacobi, Paul J. 1990. “The Historicity of the Rashi Descent”. Avotaynu 6: 17-28.

Yuval, Israel Jacob. 1988. Scholars in their Time: The Religious Leadership of German Jewry in the Late Middle Ages. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press (Hebrew).