R. Moses Sitrug and those Ashkenazim
This post is written with prayers for the health of עזיזה בת חווייכא who was born in Djerba.
Marc Shapiro in his recent post Thoughts on Confrontation & Sundry Matters Part I mentions R. Moses Sitrug of Djerba.
Hazan’s testimony about Jews who would go to the Church to listen the music, even if they stood outside the sanctuary has also been very troubling for many. The whole question of the propriety of entering a church deserves its own post. In years past no Jew would enter a Church unless he was forced to, or in order to avoid enmity. R. Moses Sitrug, Yashiv Moshe, vol. 1, no. 235, discusses the latter case and he advises removing one’s head covering before entering the church. If not, one will be forced to do so in the church, and this would appear as if one was worshipping with the Christians.
There is a responsum of R. Sitrug that I recall reading and my intention was to write something about that responsum, but not having written the citation down (a.k.a. big mistake) I quickly went through his responsa looking for it. I was unable to find it, realizing that he might not even have been the author. All was not lost, because I found a common theme in a number of his responsa which I found interesting. He has a number of responsa which discuss the rejection of Ashkenazi humrot in the realm of kosher slaughtering, many discussing the question of lesions on the lung of a slaughtered animal, סירכא (see here). In one such example he used the phrase “אל תשגיח בדברי רבני אשכנז” (“Don’t pay attention to the Ashkenazi rabbis”) since they weren’t knowledgeable about the subject and therefore took the stricter position. (Ibid., vol. 1, no. 192) In another case he says “דע כי אין אנחנו הולכים אחרי רבני אשכנז המחמירים בהרבה דברים רק הולכים אחרי הרבנים הספרדים המפורסמים” (“Know that in many cases we don’t follow the Ashkenazi rabbis who are strict rather we follow the well-known Sephardic rabbis.”) (Ibid., vol. 1, no. 3) In one responsum (Ibid., vol. 1, no. 34) he says that they usually follow the rulings of R. Joseph Karo, but when his opinion isn’t clear they follow that of the Peri Hadash “אשר כל דבריו סלת נקיה חוץ מן המעט שכמעט שחלקו עליו כל האחרונים” (“whose words are like fine flour except for the few [cases] in which almost all of the later authorities disagree with him”). These responsa seem to reflect the introduction into Djerba and North Africa of certain Ashkenazi works which included teachings that were at odds with the accepted halakhah and custom. (See ibid., vol. 1, nos. 3, 34, 41, 54, 187, 192)