Wednesday, March 18, 2015

New picture of the Chofetz Chaim revealed

7 comments:

  1. I don't understand why this is being made an issue of now in 2015. The picture of the Chofetz Chaim has long been available. Even Feldheim published pictures of the Chofetz Chaim in the biography of the Brisker Rav (http://www.feldheim.com/harav-mibrisk-hebrew-only.html). In my own experience growing up in a "chareidi" Yeshiva, we all knew that the "famous" picture of the Chofetz Chaim most likely was not him. I don't know why they have continued to use that picture, but to say the *real* picture of the Chofetz Chaim has not been available, etc., is surprising. There might be other issues at play, but this seems to be much ado about nothing.

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  2. In fact, after veiwing the new clip, anyone of artistic leaning can tell that while the famous picture is not an exact likeness there is no doubt that there is a similarity. He is a big baal dimyon.

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  3. First of all, the picture you are showing does in fact look like the famous picture,from the side. Secondly, why do you think everybody who saw the video clip immediately recognized him? It's because of the famous picture which you claim is not him!!

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  4. I happen to be a professional artist and when I was in yeshiva I remember speaking to someone who had gone to Rebbetzin Zachs (the Chofetz Chaim's daughter) who, at the time, lived in Mattersdorf, and asked her if the famous picture was her father or not. She said (in Yiddish) "It's a shaina yid, but it's not my father." I accepted that as the final word on the matter. But after seeing this new video I question it. It does indeed look like the famous picture and maybe she just didn't think that the painting's facial features made it an exact likeness, as she remembered him. Put a Greek-fisherman's cap on the famous picture and I think it will be very close to this video.

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  5. The picture was too well known in the 1960's when there were many people alive who had seen the CC for me to believe it isn't him

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    Replies
    1. But the opposition to the picture is also long standing; again, including his daughter.

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    2. Other then his daughter there was no real opposition. Plus I've seen Seforim from the CC put out by his son in law (her husband) that had the famous picture

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