Herszenfeld, Herszko

Correspondence with translator of birth registration:

From: "Louise Goldstein"
To: "Jonathan"
Subject: Response to VM64791 - Translation - Polish - Herszenfeld - Terespol, Poland
Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 13:31:53 -0600

The original question or request:
Herszko Herszenfeld Birth. Trying to sort out all the Herszko's in the family, therefore I'm interested in all names (including witnesses), dates, times, locations, occupations and so on.

Your response on 5/9/2018 7:46 PM:
M: Hinda, 28
F: Aron H., butcher, 30, local
W: Leyzer Herszenz[ok?], worker, 42; Berek Cynamon, sexton, 54
Child: b. 6 May 1829

from Louise Goldstein:
Thank you, Jonathan, I really appreciate all the translating you've done for me. I wonder if Aron is really the mohel and not the father? The Polish State Archives listed the father as Aron. What do you think?
Louise

Thu 5/10/2018 11:07 PM
Butchers indeed were often enough engaged in the function of mohel, as were members of many other trades. The thing is, Aron is NOT called butcher in either document here. In BOTH, he is "mohel." The two words in Polish are similar. In the first document, I could tell that the word did not make "butcher," but it was the nearest to what I was able to read, so I called it that. The second document helped me to see that in both cases he was called "mohel." If others, for example archive workers, read it as "butcher" in the two documents that I reviewed, then they made a mistake.

Thu 5/10/2018 10:59 PM
He is a mohel but is noted here as child's father. From the way you asked the question, I could not determine which view you had taken.

Fri 5/11/2018 1:41 PM
Don't want to add to any possible confusion in this matter, but I would like to be fair and complete in my opinions and also very careful about giving unconditional, 100% sounding answers. The word used in the documents MAY be used to designate a mohel, whereas the related and very similar "regular" word for butcher was used, as far as I can tell, specifically to designate a butcher. After doing additional research, I have concluded that the former word, the one from your documents, may also be used for a butcher or butcher/mohel. It is sometimes difficult for us to know the exact usage of words in remote times in which we did not live, so that is always a possible limitation. In short, I take back what I said in the previous letter. If there is strong evidence that Aron was a butcher, I would believe it. With the little information available to me, I cannot determine whether he was a butcher, butcher/mohel, or mohel.