[Avodah] Are Upsherin and Bonfires Taken from the Gentiles?

[Zev Sero]

Yitzchok Levine wrote:

> From contemporary documents we learn the Muslims (and a few Jews)
> cut the hair of children as well as lit a bonfires on the yohrtzeit
> (28 of Iyyar) of non other than the aforementioned Shmu'el haNavi.

The Bartenura's letter doesn't seem to make it out as a minority
custom, or as a goyishe one.   Could the Arabs not have learned it
from the Jews, perhaps in the 70 years or so between the Bartinura's
day and the Radbaz's?


> However, in the 1560s the Arab authorities forbade Jews to go there.

There is a teshuva of the Radbaz to a father who had vowed to take his
son to Shmuel Hanavi for a haircut, and was now unable to do so.  IIRC
the Radbaz doesn't say anything negative about the custom, but merely
deals with what to do about the neder.


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Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
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