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Parents and Children [26] Kvitlakh1 Addressed to an Unknown Rabbi in Vil’na (1839)2 LVIA, f. 1250, op. 1, d. 36, ll. 1–3. “Petition of Yekhile son of Zara and Zlata to an Unnamed Rabbi (1839)” From the depths of my heart, I submit this petition to our rabbi (long may he live!) so that he pray to God that He renew our bodies , souls, and lives with well-being, children, and abundant sustenance, that I be favored with a son in old age. For is anything impossible for God? May the patron of parents bring good for our nurturance in the coming year. You have shown me a genuine love in life and [. . .]3 [even] now are not distant from us. [I ask] that you pray to the Almighty for our well-being, that my heart will be inspired by the love of God. May my prayer be true and sincere. [. . .] As a priest intercedes in prayer, so may you turn your face on us with your pure heart. Knowing your concern for us and the entire Jewish people, I draw to a close. “Petition of Nokhim Son of Feiga and Sara Daughter of Reizele to an Unnamed Rabbi (n.d.)” dear rabbi, I ask you on Yom Kippur to pray to God that He send down a living, healthy infant to me through my wife this coming year. Long have I lamented this but could find no help. So now, at this time of goodwill, I ask you to secure God’s love for me, so that I may be counted among the people of Israel and given a living baby. May He send down blessings on my work and affairs, on both my body and soul. May He preserve me from malevolence at the time of prayer, and may He destine me for a happy and full life. notes 1. [Kvitlakh are short notes requesting advice, blessings, or cures.] 2. [The file included sixteen letters confiscated by the censor; the governor of Vil’na, believing them to contain harmful material, sent them to the Jewish assistant of the Belorussian educational district chief for translation into Russian.] 3. [This line in the microfilm copy was blurred; the Lithuanian State Archive no longer has the original.] [168]   family life [27] Metrical Book Registration of Births by the State Rabbi (1906) GASO, f. 11, op. 4, d. 1593, l. 1.1 “Petition of Townspeople Sherko and Mera Zysman to the Ekaterinburg District Court” Our son was born 17 May 1894 in the Nizhnii Tagil factory [settlement] from our legal marriage (in 1876). According to the precepts of our religion, the ritual of circumcision was performed; however, this boy was not registered in the metrical books—partly because of our distraction, but mainly because the rabbi’s residence (to which one must travel to register a baby) is located at a great distance from Tagil (in the city of Perm). Encumbered by a large family, we were in no position to travel and hence were deprived of the possibility of observing all the formalities required by the law. We were limited to entering him only in the family register [posemeinyi spisok , in Russian], from which he would then be registered in our passport. Now, when the time has come to educate the boy, when he has displayed an aptitude for primary education at the public school and is yearning for the city school, the question about the future fate of this boy naturally arises for us parents. We would like to provide an education for him, but for this it is necessary to have either a metrical registration of birth or some substitute document. In light of this and the additional attachment , we humbly ask the District Court to recognize Pinkhus as our legitimate son, who was born on 17 May 1894: (1) a copy of the family register of 20 November 1906, from which it is clearly evident that we the undersigned are a legal couple [and] that we really have a son Pinkhus, born in 1894; (2) a notarized copy of the passport, issued to us by the elder of the Dubrovensk townspeople on 18 November of this year, in which Pinkhus is also listed in the record; and (3) the certificate of the Gorets rabbi of 9 November 1906, number 176, which shows that the metrical books in the town of Gorky, in which our marriage was recorded, were destroyed in a fire on 12 May...

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