[Avodah] Upsherin (was The Strange History of Lag B'Omer)

[Rich, Joel]

Professor Sperber [Minhagei Yisrael 8: 13-30] takes Hamberger's
discussion much further documenting how this comes from many completely
outside ancient sources. R. Yechiel Goldhaber (author of the Minhagei
ha-Kehillos) told me that he just saw a manuscript of a letter of R.
Akiva Yosef Schlesinger who writes very sharply that this whole custom
is taken form outside sources."

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The weight of anecdotal evidence imho points towards us having
acculturated some stuff into our playbook over the years. How and why
that was allowed to work is an interesting question which we haven't
resolved. Another interesting question to me is given changing recording
technology, will this happen in the future as well (e.g. will one day
someone prove that wearing Dockers (or name your favorite group's mode
of dress) was really Jewish custom)
KT
Joel Rich
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