Thread by @hasidicus

This well-known image was taken in the Holy Land over 100 years ago. According to postcards it appeared on, it shows an elderly man “examining his great-grandson in a Bible Lesson.”

But who are they?

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The image was used on the cover of “Hasidism: A New History.”

The book says it shows “A Hasid of the Chabad dynasty and his great-grandson in Hebron, 1910–1921.”

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So who is the patriarch in the image?

R. Mordechai Dov Ber Slonim (1840–1919), seen here in another photo, was the son of Menucha Rochel Slonim, who was the granddaughter of the Baal HaTanya (and, incidentally, my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother).

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The portrait was taken by Russian-born Shlomo Narinsky, who immigrated to Jerusalem in 1906 and opened a photography studio.

On that day, he snapped several photos of the Slonim family: A family portrait, a photo of RMDBS himself, and the one of him and his great-grandson.

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The famous family portrait shows four generations of the Slonim family (L-R):
Yaakov Yosef Moshe, Eliezer Dan, Mordechai Dov Ber, Menachem Mendel Shmuel, Schneur Zalman, and Levi Yitzchak.

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The youngest boy in the photograph, Levi Yitzchak, was the one pictured with his great-grandfather.

He later became a rabbi in South Africa and had two children, Chaya and Meir. Below, Meir visits the Hebron Heritage Museum in 2016.

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Interestingly, the National Library of Israel misidentifies the boy as the older brother, Eliezer Dan, and includes a worksheet relating to his life in the image page at web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/engl…

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Eliezer Dan is known for standing up to the murderous Arab mob in Chevron in 1929.

He was butchered along with his wife and eldest son; the younger one, 1-year-old Shlomo, miraculously survived with just a scar on his forehead, and died in 2014.

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Here are the three Slonim family images, one more time.

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And to own a beautiful piece of this history, check out the awesome artwork by @IlanBlock:

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