Hirsch Descendants, Lesser Known. Part 1.

Among my summer reading was the Dr. Moller bio; see my post (here). 

We know, and it is well documented in the book, that Dr. Moller is a descendant of Rav Hirsch zt’l.

Some of the Klugmanns (all of them?) are also descendants.

Finally, there is a Hirsch family in Brooklyn and now Lakewood, with the names Hirsch and Eisenberg, who are direct descendants.  (In my extended career as a Yeshivah Bochur, I dated one.)

One of the Brooklyn Hirschs was Naftoli Hirsch, who served on the board of the Jewish Observer. Another member of this family was canonized in a mildly famous story by Rabbi Pesach Krohn.https://aish.com/48906762/

Perhaps, as a community, we have missed out on knowing the “broader family,” and, in truth, some of these families have been separated from our mesorah for several generations already.

It has been suggested that the Breuer and Hirsch families have grown apart over time (besides reasons of geography) because the appointment of Rabbi Shlomo Breuer as a successor to Rav Hirsch in 1888 displaced the Hirsch children from the Frankfurt rabbinate. After the war, these families did not really reconnect in any meaningful way.

In any case, a few months ago, a friend directed my attention to the fact that a Hirsch descendant is buried right here on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. The descendant is none other than Rabbi Yeshaya Levy z’l of the age-old Congregation Ohab Zedek on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Levy was only an associate Rabbi there. The main Rabbi was R’ Phillip Klein z’l, who was married to a daughter of R’ Mendel Hirsch z’l, the son of RSRH, who was once favored for the Frankfurt Rabbinate. 

Some material about them is found in the comments section of Kevarim.com

Rev. Isaiah Levy of the First Hungarian Congregation died at the age of 51, six years after arriving in America. A grandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, famous champion of Orthodoxy in Germany, he was born in London and received his education in Germany. During the war he was a chaplain in the Austrian army. 

His brother, Isaac Levy, was a noted dentist in London, who translated Rav Hirsch’s commentary into English. Isaac’s son wrote an interesting memoir which tells much more about the family. There’s No Place Like Jerusalem by Samson Raphael Levy. Rav Shaye Levy was a rav who stood up for what was right and was not a crowd pleaser. He disapproved of the placing of the Amud for the chazan, so when he davened from the amud, he placed a shtender where he thought it belonged. He insisted that his community should have cholov yisrael milk and encouraged one of his children to open a grocery store on the West Side of Manhattan, specifically to provide cholov yisrael products. He was afraid that the long chazonishe davening would cause people to eat before making kiddush, so he made a minyan for shacharis in his home (which continued for many years under the leadership of his son Ellis). His encouragement of kvias ittim LeTorah is found in several published speeches.

More information about Rev Phillip Hillel Klein can be found in the comments on this page:   https://kevarim.com/rav-hillel-ha-kohen-klien/

Stone of the Rebbetzin Julie Klein, daughter of Mendel Hirsch z’l/ The inscription mentions in bold how she passed away just two days after her husband!

4 thoughts on “Hirsch Descendants, Lesser Known. Part 1.

  1. ER's avatar ER

    Thank you for this post. I believe several of Rabbi Klein’s descendants are friendly now with the Breuer family. I don’t know but I tend to doubt that any uncomfortable feelings that existed the 1890s still remain among Rav Hirsch’s descendants today.

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