The family story told in Bertha Paull Friedman’s memoir provided intriguing clues regarding how we in the Polonsky family are descended from two very important Chassidic rabbis.70 Further, it tells us that both of these rabbis were disciples of the Baal Shem Tov, one of them being the Shpoler Zeida.
This oral history, if true, gives our family a great advantage in tracing our ancestry, because family trees, some dating back to the Middle Ages, exist for many of the prominent rabbinical lineages and dynasties of Eastern Europe and Russia, and there are several wellknown books which chronicle them. Read More…