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>> Please do not say "hundreds of years." This is a (mistaken) custom that<BR>>> is less than 200 years old.<BR> <BR>>Really? Less than 200 years? When is it first mentioned?<BR>
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I have joined this discussion late, so this might already have been raised, but I recently heard R. Herschel Schacter say in an audio shiur that the minhag of everything saying kaddish together was introduced by R. Akiva Eiger during a cholera epidemic, when there were so many mourners. RHS then said that German and Polish rabbanim argued about whether to continue the new custom - the former said no and the latter said yes. If RHS is correct, R. Mandel would be correct that the custom is no more than 200 years old.<BR>
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Kol tuv,<BR>
Dov Kaiser<BR><BR> </body>
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