Toledoth Jacob, Biography of Rabbi Koppel Charif, by Dr. C. Duschinsky, London, 1918.

The author, Charles Duschinsky, was originally Rabbi Jacob Koppel Duschinsky, Rav of Kostel, Moravia from 1904 to 1907, after which he settled in London.  He is usually known for his book “The Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue”, which had its first edition in 1921, however he published other books and historical monographs for scholarly journals.  In spite of his books in English and his scholarship and writing for journals such as the Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, his origins are not English at all.  He was born in Námestovo, now in northern Slovakia on 11th September 1877.  Both his parents came from famous orthodox rabbinical families. 

He was named after his great-grandfather, Rabbi Yaakov Koppel Altenkunstadt Reich, who was known as Rabbi Koppel Charif and is the subject of this book.  Rabbi Koppel Charif was the Head of the Rabbinical Court (Av Beis Din) of Vrbove (now in Slovakia).

Charles Duschinsky’s father was Rabbi Dov Ber Duschinsky (1837-1921), who was an important follower of the Ksav Sofer.  He was the Av Beis Din of Nameszto.  From the age of 16 Dov Ber Duschinsky studied with Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Binyomin Schreiber (the Ksav Sofer) at the Pressburg Yeshiva, for six years.  He married the grand-daughter of Rabbi Koppel Charif.

Charles Duschinsky had a comprehensive education, both religious and secular.  This included both the Talmud Torah at Pressburg and the Pressburg Yeshiva, as well as a doctorate in Jurisprudence and Social Economics at the university of Claudiopolis. 

His sister-in-law’s brother, Kalman Goitein, had immigrated to England and suggested that he immigrate too, where he would find a suitable wife.

Charles (as he was now known) Duschinsky did not find a rabbinical position in England, possible because he came from a different background to the very English United Synagogue.  He engaged in business, and became known as a historian and author.  He died in London on July 13 (Tammuz 22) 1944.

This book, “Toledoth Jacob” was actually written in 1917, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his father’s appointment to the Rabbinate of Namestvo.  It is in Hebrew, and published in 1918 by the well-known London Hebrew bookseller, Raphael Mazin and Co.

Charles Duschinsky’s great grandfather, the subject of his biography, Rabbi Koppel Charif, was one of the leading Orthodox Rabbis of Hungary in the first half of the nineteenth century. A peer of the famed Moses Sofer of Pressburg [Bratislava], Koppel Charif presided over what was one of the largest and most prestigious yeshivas in Hungary.

Rabbi Koppel Charif was born in the city of Altenkunshtadt in Bavaria, state of in 1766.   In 1784 he went to study under Yechezkel Landau of Prague, author of Noda bi Yehuda, where he lived for four years.  He was Rabbi of Verbau for 45 years.