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               Are You a Descendant of King David?A Look at Rabbinic Sources
               
              by David Einsiedler
              
             An important source is Sefer Toledot Ve-Niflaot Maharal (The Book of History and Wonders of the
        MaHaRaL)
        (Bilgoray, 1911), by Meir Perles. Right on the title page it proclaims
        Judah Lowe, the MaHaRaL of Prague, as the descendant of both Rashi and
        the other Davidic line. It goes into much detail to describe the family,
        the stories, and the genealogy of the related families. Some derivative
        families are:  Cohen (Katz), Bachrach, Margulies,
        Karo, and Edels. Avot
        Atarah Le-Banim (Parents are the Crown of the Children) (Warsaw,
        1927) has a great number of derivative families. It begins with a
        detailed history of Saul Wahl, moves back to each ancestor up to Rashi,
        mentions the few known ancestors of Rashi, on to Hillel, to Shephatiah,
        son of David, as far back as Judah (head of the tribe). The primary
        families are Wahl, Katzenellenbogen, Luria, Treves,
  Spiro, and Shapiro.
        One part has a list of ancestors from the  Lifshutz family all the way to
        King David, followed by a number of related branches. Some of the
        derivative families: Ginzburg, Schor, Teomim, Shereshevski,
  Morgenstern, Posner, Berliner, Levinsohn, Alter,
  Weinberg, Bernstein, Falman, and Rotenberg. Sefer Linchitz (The
        yizkor book of Leczyca) by I. J.  Frenkel (Tel Aviv, 1953) has a chapter
        starting with King David and going down to the  Karo family in Leczyca
        and related families Auerbach, Horowitz, and  Landau (of Ciechanov).
        Derivative families: Goldman, Oknovski, Fuchs, Friedensohn,
  Kalb, Birnbaum, Widslawski, Sonnabend, and Malavski. Shem
        Ve-She'erit (Name and Remainder) (Krakow, 1895), and Dor Yesharim
        (Generation of the Righteous) (Berdychev, 1898), both by Joseph Kohen-Tzedek, contain the theme of descent of the
   Lurias from Rashi as
        discussed before. It may be of interest to note that some of the  Treves
        changed the name to Dreyfus. Maalot
        Ha-Yuchsin (Degrees of Genealogy), by Ephraim Z.  Margolioth
        (Lemberg, 1900), is an early, oft-quoted source. The author states his
        descent from a number of famous rabbis and from Rashi and Johanan
        Ha-Sandler on the title page. He cites the fragmentary list of Rashi's
        ancestors, then leaps to the Lurias, Landaus, and himself. He mentions
        families Schor, Heschel, Margulies, Itinga, and
  Horowitz. This work has
        been criticized as containing errors; for instance, "the brother of
        MaHaRaShaL (Solomon Luria) Abraham, son of Jehiel, son of Moses (?), son
        of Isaac (?), son of Jusinius of Posen (?)..." Actually, Solomon 
        Luria was the son of Jehiel, son of Abraham, son of Jehiel, son of
        Aaron. Sefer Nitey Ne'emanah
        (Seedlings of Fidelity, subtitled A Shoot Out of the Stock of Jesse), by
        Mordechai  Rubinstein (Jerusalem, 1910), also cites descent from King
        David on the title page. His genealogy includes most
        previously-mentioned family names plus Teomim, Halberstam,
  Frenkel, Ish-Zvi, and Klausner. Shem
        Ha-Gedolim (Fame of the Great Ones), by Chaim Joseph David  Azulai
        (Livorno, 1774), is an early biographical encyclopedia of rabbis and
        their works. The entry "Solomon  Luria" starts "of descent
        of Rashi, who descended from the Tanna Johanan Ha-Sandler, the fourth
        generation of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder." Shem
        Ha-Machriah (The Book of the Arbitrator), by Isaiah  de Trani
        (1180-1250) (Livorno, 1779), has a genealogy of a later publisher, Noah
        Samuel  Lifshitz (Lublin, 1897) which ends with the Lurias, Rashi, and
        King David. Anaf Etz Avot (A
        Branch of the Family Tree), by Samuel Kahan (Krakow, 1903), has a
        partial genealogy of a number of rabbinic families and ends with an
        entry stating the descent of Solomon  Shapiro ABD Heilbron from Rashi and
        from King David.
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