The original R. Zalman Leib Teitelbaum's rabbinic contract from 1841 ("בתוך הדרשה קיינען ניכט מקלל צו זיין או מבזה צו זיין הן בכלל והן בפרט")

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Here is a translation of the 1841 rabbinical contract given by the community of Ujhely, Hungary to Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, (1808-1883), also known as the Yetev Lev and the grandfather of the Satmar Rav, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. Apparently offered this seat at the time more out of respect for his grandfather then his own qualities (he was a young men then) this contract contains some interesting clauses (see, e.g, 4, 9 and 12).

From the article Rabbones Briefe by Rabbi Julius Rapoport in the April 11, 1914 issue of The Advocate: America's Jewish Journal (link). The article also included a translation of Rabbi Akiva Eger's rabbonus briefe from Posen, dated 100 years earlier.

At the end of this post is the original Hebrew, as well as its source and some discussion of it. Note how loose Rapoport felt he was entitled to play with this translation, renumbering, etc.


























































The Hebrew below is from the periodical Hatzophe, as indicated above. However, I thought it might be nice to point out something. The citation is a incomplete and also makes a mistake. First of all, unless you happen to know what Hatzophe is you might well run into some trouble. The full title of this periodical was Hatzofeh Le-hokhmat Yisrael, and it was published in Budapest. However, in its first four issues it was called Hatzofeh Me-eretz Hagar. In any case, the author of the English translation somehow forgot to mention, oh, an article title. A page number. Who wrote it. Actually, he did write the name of the author, its right there at the end: Dr. Israel Goldberger, who was in fact "preacher" in Ujhely for a time. The problem is if you look in issue III from 1912 there is no such article. However, in #2 from 1911, there is the article Shtei Kitvei Rabbanut by Yisrael Goldberger, on pp. 132-138. This may seem like a small error, but of course it is just lucky that there were only a few years to look through, given that the Jewish Advocate piece was written in 1914. It is not fun to search through 50 years of a periodical's archive all because of a careless mistake, whoever made it.