THE PATERNITY OF AN INFERTILE MALE

He went to another place where he found a Jewish bride and fathered two sons, who in turn were declared mamzerim. When the community found that he had married, he was put under a severe ban and even imprisoned.

Eventually, Rabbi Abraham ben Haim Palache, the Chief Rabbi of [smir, was brought into the picture. He issued a verdict which received the endorsement of the foremost rabbis of that day, including the future Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem , Yaakov Shaul Elyashar , and Rabbi Shalom Moshe Hai Gagin, also of the Holy City. The three rabbis wrote separate responsa revealing each sage's perspective of the symptomatic and halakhic aspects of the case.”

At first sight it appeared to Palache that in a case like this, one could not say: Rov habe'ilot ahar ha-baal--"Most acts of sexual intercourse are attributed to the husband."'® He tried to resolve the following two questions: Was Abraham Nahum indeed a born eunuch(seris hamah)? If so, was he cured? The following halakhic process was used to deal with these problems:

1) A village woman had seen him naked at the age of four and described his genital organs to the villagers, claiming that the child's penis was the size of a"pifion," a pine seed or pinion in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish ).'” Since that event, he was held to be a born eunuch. He had never been checked by an expert, so it would be impossible to determine whether Abraham had actually been a eunuch. Therefore, his status as a seris hamah was doubtful.

2) R. Palache quoted Rabbi Eliezer 's mishnaic minority ruling that a born eunuch may be healed in contrast with a castrated man for whom there is no cure.'® Here is a second doubt- the man under study may have been healed. The investigating bet din interviewed the late Abraham Nahum's second wife, Estrella, who testified that her husband had had normal sexual relations, including ejaculation of semen. Moreover, she was a virgin when she married Nahum and, according to her testimony, she was deflowered by her husband.