Vilna Gaon Family Tree update

Elul 5769
August 2009

I am in the process of updating my database of descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his siblings, published in my book

"Eliyahu's Branches - the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family"
(Avotaynu 1997)

In the light of additional material received from many families and with resource to new archival records which were not available when my book was published, I am re-assessing the data

I Invite those, whose families appear in my book, to send updates of children born since the book’s publication twelve years ago, and any corrections. I would also like to hear from all families who hold a tradition of a relationship with the Gaon

Please send family trees in a gedcom file if possible

Chaim Freedman
Petah Tikvah
Israel
chaimjan@zahav.net.il

בס"ד
אלול תשס"ט

עץ המשפחה לצאצאי הגאון מוילנא ומשפחתו

הגנאלוג חיים פרידמן (פתח תקוה), כתב לפני 12 שנה ספר בשם

“ענפי אליהו צאצאי הגאון החסיד ר' אליהו מוילנא זצוק"ל ובני משפחתו”

הספר נדפס באנגלית ושמו הוא

“Eliyahu’s Branches, The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family” ספר נדפס על ידי הוצאת 'אבותינו' בניו ג'רזי, 1997

הספר כולל את כל הענפים הידועים מהמשפחות הנ"ל, שהתפשטו על פני ארצות תבל. והוא אחד הספרים המקיפים ביותר שנעשו בגנאלוגיה היהודית

בימים אלו, עובד חיים פרידמן, על עריכת מאגר נתונים מעודכן

אי לכך, הוא מזמין את כל אלו שהינם מצאצאי הגאון מוילנא ומשפחתו, שאינם מופיעים בספר, או שמופיעים בספר, אך בצורה לא מעודכנת, שחסרים פרטים וכדומה, או כל מי שיודע על אישים מצאצאי הגאון מוילנא, ליצור קשר אתו במייל

chaimjan@zahav.net.il

Hosias (Yehoshua Heshel) Lemky

Hosias Lemky was born in 1853 in Windau (Ventspils) Courland (Latvia).
He died in 1942 in Berlin, Germany.






He was a son of Leib (Lewin) and Rasche Lemky of Windau (Ventspils).
See separate article on the Lemky family.



Lemky family census, Windau, 1850.





Windau (Ventspils), Latvia.


According to his grandson, Hosias Lemky was a Cantor at the Adass Jisroel Synagogue in Berlin. He was not a rabbi, but was very religious and scholarly. He also functioned as gabbai taking care of many of the administrative functions of the community and caring for the synagogue appertances such as the silver Torah crowns.



The Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary was attached to the Adass Jisroel Synagogue, Artillerie Strasse, Berlin and Hosias also carried out administrative tasks at the seminary.




Hosias disapproved of his son Simon's plans to emigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Hosias was a member of the ultra-orthodox organisation Agudat Yisrael, one faction of which believed that Jews should stay in Germany to ensure the continuation of the community.

Simon was imprisoned in Oranienberg Concentration Camp on Krystalnacht in 1938. Friends managed to have him released and he got to Eretz Yisrael.

Hosias was very wealthy and had 230,000 Reichsmarks in the bank. Even though conditions for the Jews were very bad after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hosias refused to save himself by leaving the country.


Officials of the synagogue including Lemky.

Before the Second World War Hosias and his wife lived at Berlin-Charlottenburg, Marburger Str.5. During the Nazi period they had to move to Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Joachimsthaler Str. 13.They lived in one room and as most of the Jews of Berlin were deported to the extermination camps in the East, the Lemkys had to fend for themselves. Soon no one came to help the elderly couple and they had very little food.

In March 1942 Hosias died in the Jewish Hospital from illness and malnutrition.




Testimony Page at Yad Vashem.

Six months later the Nazis came for his wife and deported her to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechosovakia where she refused to eat non-Kosher food and died a month later.

Information from "Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin, Centrum Judaicum" August 28, 2003:




"We found a Hosias Lemky, born Nov. 3rd 1853 in Windau (Latvia) who worked at the Israelitsche Synagogengemeinde Adass Jisroel as "Vorbeiter und Kantor". He died March 24 1942 in Berlin. His wife Helene (Lenne) Lemky nee Graumann, born July 22nd 1855 Kamin (West Prussia) was deported to Theresienstdt on Sept 14th 1942 where she died a month later. Their address was Berlin-Charlottenburg, Marburger Str. 5. She had to move later, so her last address before deportation was Berlin-Wilmersdof, Joachimsthalter Str. 13. Probably their son Simon Lemky, last address in Berlin: Marburger Str. 5 went to Palestine."



"Adass Jisroel Die Judische Geneinde in Berlin (1869-1942)" by Mario Offenberg:



“Helene Lemky, nee Graumann, born 22-7-1855 in Kamen
Lastly living in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Joachimtaler Strasse 13,
with the Family Friedmann. On 8 September 1942 she had received
in the Artillerie Strasse 31 from the Court official in Berlin-Schoenberg the
orders from the Gestapo and she was six days later on 14 September 1942
deported to Theresienstadt as an 87 year old, with the so called "Second
Large Old People Transport" (1000 persons).
Her son Simon was then in Palestine.

Her husband Hosias Lemky, born 3 Nov 1853 in Windau, was second Cantor in
Adass Jisroel (responsible for the Weekday services in the Synagogue in
the Artillerie Strasse 31), he died on 24 march 1942 in the Jewish
Hospital in Wedding, Iranische Strasse. The address of the couple until the
death of Hosias was Marburger Strasse 5.
According to the burial card Hosias Lemky did not die the 24th, but already
the 23rd of March 1942 and was buried on 26-3-42 at the Cemetery of Adass
Jisroel in Berlin-Weissensee, Part D, Row 1a, grave number 14."

Memoirs of Siegried Wollheim (in the above book):

"First Chazan Keiles was besides his official work also a sought after "Mohel"
and on many weekdays he saved us from the Tahanun prayer (which
is not said at a "Brit Milah"). Very loved was also Mr. Lemke, especially
when here cited with a resounding voice from the Torah before "Minchah" .
The Esra had brought the Adass much closer to me, especially in the
Artilleriestrasse. Every second day Yom Tov I went in the afternoon to
the Esra-events from Charlottenburg to the Artileristrasse, first to
minchah, and I often remember the last Kaddish, the prayer of sorrow,
of the second Chazan, Mr.Lemky, on the last holiday in the melody of
the High Holidays, when he thundered out the prayer with his bass-voice."

Hosias Lemky lived in an apartment within the synagogue. A neighbouring apartment was occupied by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Auerbach who taught at the Rabbinical Seminary. He settled in Petah Tikvah, Israel. His son, Shmuel Auerbach recalled Hosias Lemky with affection. In particular he recalled that Hosias took groups of youth from the community for hikes in the forest and used to lead them singing his favourite tunes.

Hosias had the following children:

Simon (died 1948 in Petah Tikvah, Israel).
Julius (1874-1934), lived in the USA.
David Paul Gunther (1977-1942) lived in Hamburg, Germany.
Leopold (1880-1935), ,lived in Berlin, Germany.

Hosias Lemky was a brother of Frederika (Freda), wife of Tzvi-Benyamin Kvint of Letskava, Lithuania, parents of Yoel-Yehudah (Julius) Quint (1863-1938) father of Khaya-Reeva (Annie) Freedman (1885-1967), father of Yaakov-Reuven (John Ronald) Freedman (1910-1999), father of Chaim Freedman, author this blog.

Dimantshtein Family

The Dimantshtein family originated in Polotsk, Belarus and moved to various towns in Latvia: Rekekne (Rezhitza), Daugavpils (Dinaburg/Dvinsk), Riga, Karsava (Korsovka), Ludza (Lutzin). The family were Leviim.

The family were Chabad Chassidim in Latvia. They were quite prosperous trading in flax, timber and fish. One branch of the family set up a fishery in Aberdeen, Scotland. Some changed the name to Diamond.The earliest generation which has been traced in archival records was Zev Wulf Halevy Dimantshtein, born about 1770 In Polotsk and died before 1839. His children were Greinen, Eliyahu and Moshe.

Eliyahu was born about 1800 and died before 1885. His children were David, Avraham, Shmuel and Zev-Wulf.

Documents in Latvian archives including the 1889 list of Jews who lived in the rural areas of Lutzin district: David Dimantshtein, born in 1823 in Polotsk, moved to Korsovka in 1872 from Rezhitza. He must have moved at an earlier date from Polotsk to Rezhitza. He is described in this list as a merchant. According to family tradition he and his wife operated an inn on the outskirts of Korsovka. The circumstances which led to his burial in Lutzin rather than Korsovka are not known. The birthdates and birthplaces of his children are estimated. Information about some of his family taken from a family drawn up in England in 1948 by Norman Nygate.


Tombstone of David, son of Eliyahu Halevy Dimantshtein, Ludza 1901.
(Photographed by Aleksanders Feigmanis, Riga).


Vulf, (son of Elyash) was born in 1839 Polotsk, and moved to Korsovka in 1878.Vulf 's children: Abram, Elye, Treina, Dveira, Liba, Itka, Musya. All born between 1869-1885.

David’s wife was Keila-Tsirel. Her parentage is not known but Genetic testing revealed matches with several families such that she may have been related to families in the Vitebsk region such as Popkovitch, Leviyan (Gamerov), and others. Keila Tsirel was a short woman who had very definite views about bringing up her family. She wanted her daughter Rivka to know how to milk a cow so she had the maid Marfa teach Rivka. David and Keila-Tsirel were wealthy farmers and publicans, operating an inn on the outskirts of Korsovka. Once an inspector paid a visit to the inn and while sampling the food found an insect in a bun. Anxious to save her parents from prosecution, Rivka ate the bun quickly claiming that the insect was only a raisin.

The family developed widespread trading enterprises supplying the markets in the capital Riga with timber and flax for which trade they held a license. They also marketed herring on a large scale caught in the lakes near Lutzin. These business enterprises took several sons to live in Riga, in particular Tsvi-Hersh and from there expanded the trade to England in the late 1870’s which led to several members of the family settling there from 1880.

David and Keila-Tsirel's children were:

1) Zissa (c.1844-1932) married Pesakh Gordin and lived in Berzpils.

2) Yehudah Leib c.1848 - 1917 Korsovka.

3) Tsvi Hersh 1850 -1930 Riga.

4) Rivka (Rashka/Rebecca) 1851 or 1856-1834 married Mordekhai Zev Vulf (Max) Bull 1853-1931 London (see separate article).

5) Reuven c.1852, died 1934 London.

6) Zev Vulf 1856-1920 Korsovka.

7) Getzel c.1857-1890 Korsovka.

8) Moshe (Marks) 1860 - 1942 London.

9) Yeshaya c.1860 - 1933 London.

10) Zalman (Solomon) 1865 -1937 New York.

11) Meir, b.1865 never married, Riga.

12) Barukh . Identity unclear. According to Patricia Levitsky's history of the family, Barukh was a brother of her grandmother Rivka Bull. But Llyoyd Nygate's family tree does not include Barukh. He may have been a brother-in-law to Rivka's husband Max Bull, the husband of his sister.

1) Zissa and Pesakh Gordin lived in Berzpils and lost many of their family in the Holocaust. Their son Yaakov-Zev-Wulf settled in Korsovka where he was killed by the Nazis together with his children Raisa, Zalman and Mikhail. The surviving children Liuba Kalinkov, Gitta Tsiplevitch and Pesakh-Eliyahu settled in Israel. Zissa’s sons Mendel and Dan also perished in Berzpils. Mendel’s son Aba Gordin survived and lived in Korsovka. He possessed a Sefer Torah and took upon himself to organize religious servives for the small community that survived the Holocaust

2) Yehudah-Leib’s son Moshe-Eliyahu operated the family trade from Riga, settling in Lodon in the 1920’s where he opened a wooden barrel factory importing timber from Riga. He married his cousin Sonya, daughter of his uncle Getzel Dimantshtein.

3) Tzvi- Hersh left his hometown Korsovka and moved to Riga to engage in business. He became wealthy and started the Dimantshtein export business to England of herring, timber and flax. With the expansion of this business a number of his relatives immigrated to England. Tzvi’ son Bernard travelled to Aberdeen, Scotland to conduct his father's business and opened a fish processing plant and a factory to produce barrels from the timber his father exported from Riga. The barrels were sent back to Riga, filled with herring, and exported back to Scotland. Bernard changed his surname to Diamond.

4) Rivka – see separate article “Mordekhai-Zev (Max) Bull”.

Mordekhai-Zev and Rivka Bull, 50th Wedding Anniversary, London 1922.

5) Reuven
According to Maurice Bull's memoirs Reuven was very tall, over six feet, and had a large spade beard. He was a very excitable man who once reacted violently to an anti-Semitic remark made in the street. He was a furrier and settled in England in 1897.

Reuven’s son Yehudah-Leib was killed in the Arab riots of 1929 while working in the Diskin orphanage in Jerusalem.

Details of his death appear in “Yizkor Am Yisrael et Kedushei Tarpat” (Berzin and Weiss, Jerusalem 1930).
Literal translation from Hebrew:

“Yehudah-Leib Dimantshtein of blessed memory was born in 1880 in Russia to his father Reb Reuven Halevy. Yehudah-Leib was educated on the knees of Torah and Chabad Chassidism. However, when he was still young, at the age of seventeen, and desirous of expanding and completing his knowledge of religious learning, his studies were stopped. Because of his bad material situation his father was obliged to emigrate with his family to London. Here Yehudah-Leib bore the yoke together with his father of supporting the family. He worked initially at simple physical labour, afterwards learnt a trade and lived by it for many years. At the same time he `strove in the dust at the feet of the wise’, learnt with the Gaon Moshe-Avigdor Chaikin. In his spare time he also laboured for the community, involved in the needs of various societies and institutions. All those years since arriving in London his mind was occupied with his aspiration to settle in Eretz Yisrael. But the obstacles he encountered were too great for him.

At last Yehudah-Leib overcame all the obstacles and emigrated to Eretz Yisrael in 1922. Upon arriving in the country Yehudah-Leib managed to find work in Jerusalem. He was one of the happy of the world, the sparks of his soul reached a single perfection. He lived by the labour of his hands in Jerusalem, approaching starvation from his meager bread, praying daily with the community of Chabad, set aside hours for Torah.

But his work did not leave him much time. Long periods of want arrived. In the years of depression in the country, 1926-1927, economic deprivation reached the house of Yehudah-Leib, reached its limits. Lacking everything, his father in his letters demanded that he return to London and they would make a living together. “Your son should not go down together with you [to the grave] “ was Yehudah-Leib’s answer. In the end he went to work at the Diskin Orphanage. He carried out his work faithfully and diligently. While he was attending the orphans of the institution he was obliged to add to them his son, aged four, who was orphaned from his mother who died at the beginning of 5689 [1929] in a car accident.

On Friday 17th of Av, during an attack by Arabs on the Rabbi Diskin Orphanage in the suburb Givat Shaul, Yehudah-Leib was severely wounded. Four days he lay struggling with the suffering of death. He passed away on Monday 20th Av.”

Yehudah-Leib’s first wife died in London and he remarried in Jerusalem Minna Moseieff of an old Hebron family related to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Their only son Avraham was born in 1925. In 1977 attempts were made to trace this son and an elderly official of the Diskin Orphanage related that there was tension between Yehudah-Leib and Minna. She demanded a divorce which Yehudah-Leib refused. During a visit to Jerusalem by the Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef-Yitskhak Shneerson, attempts were made to persuade Yehudah-Leib to give the divorce. The Rebbe summoned him to the Amdursky Hotel and commanded him to grant the divorce. But Yehudah-Leib refused. The situation reached a tragic end with the death of Minna in a car accident on the 17th of Shevat 5689 [1929]. Both Minna and Yehudah-Leib are buried in the Chabad section of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. The orphan son, Avraham grew up and lived with his family in Beersheva under the Hebrew form of his surname “Yahalomi”.

6) Zev Wulf (also known as Velvel), born 1856, died 1920 in Korsovka.
Operated a farm on the outskirts of Korsovka, perhaps the property which belonged to his father David. This was located near the Jewish cemetery near “Naudas Kalns” the infamous site of the massacre of the Jews in 1941.

Children:
Eda - U.S.A.
Shmuel (1882-1943 Siberia),

Getzel (died in Russian exile)

Avraham (killed in Korsovka in 1941)

Eliyahu (died in Kokand in 1942),
Pessia,
David , Haifa
Yekhezkel or Khatzkel, Kfar Blum.
Gershon (killed in the Holocaust)
Seeka (killed while serving in the Latvian army).

Zev Wulf’s son Shmuel
Escaped with his wife across the Latvian/Russian border when the Germans invaded Latvia. Perished from the rigours of life in exile in Siberia.

Family of Shmuel Dimantshetin, Korsovka c. 1934

Shmuel’s son Eizik survived the Riga Ghetto and was deported to Stuthoff concentration camp.

Eizik Dimantshtein, Israel 1987.

The few survivors were evacuated to Sweden and liberated en route when the war ended May 8, 1945. Eizik lived for several years in Sweden and then immigrated to Israel where he worked as an engineer. He provided considerable material about his family. The following are excerpts (translated from Hebrew and Yiddish) of an interview in 1987 by Chaim Freedman, published in "The Pen and The Blade".

“My grandfather Velvel was married first to Gitta and then to Minna by whom he had four sons. We are Leviim and Chassidim. In our township there were two or three synagogues for the Chassidim and two or three for the Misnagdim. My grandfather and grandmother lived not far from the cemetery and all the time one had to pass their house.
In our township on Simkhat Torah the Chassidim would open the large oven and take out the Tsimmes and walk from house to house. It was a jolly time. That was the way with the Chassidim. The Misnagdim did not act that way. In our town was a secondary school where you could matriculate. Then I served for two and a half years in the Latvian army. Due to the anti-bourgeois feeling in Korsovka after the Soviet takeover in 1940 I went to Riga to work. There my sisters and brother were studying at the university. On the first day of the occupation Zhenia and Gitta were rounded up with large numbers of women, herded to the central prison and killed. Volinka was taken with men to the forest and killed. I was saved since the place where I was living was not included in the roundup.

I was actually in Riga when the war started as were two uncles Getzel and Eliyahu, sisters Zhenia, Gitta and brother Volinka (Zev-Wulf). In Korsovka remained my father Shmuel and Avraham. My father was engaged in the forest trade, timber, produce and flax. He would buy from the peasants and ship to Riga. They called it a “Handler In Vald’. Flax was a rich and honorable trade in Latvia. One needed a government license.

My parents lived in Korsovka with my sister Rivka and they fled as soon as the war started. Those who remained in Korsovka were rounded up and killed. I think Avraham was one of those killed. My father died in Kokand in 1943 of typhus. My mother with Rivka returned to Riga after the war.

I worked in the Riga Ghetto in a factory. When I asked a gentile Latvian from Korsovka about the fate of the Jews there he told me “All the Jews in Korsovka were shot like dogs.” I heard afterwards that they rounded them up in a side street, took all of them, once they had prepared pits in the forest, it was not far from where grandfather had lived, called Naudas Kalns, the “Hill of Silver” and killed them all.

In Riga there were 40,000 Jews, In the Ghetto there were 30,000 until they killed 25,000. 5,000 remained in the “Small Ghetto” and I was amongst them. We worked in the railway freight station. Wagons would arrive. I was supposed to be specialist as I was one of the 600 Jews who were called craftsmen and so they looked after us. We worked there until the Russians approached Riga and then the Germans evacuated us. They came at night and put us in a store and told everyone to undress. In the middle sat one at a table and they called us by the numbers which everyone bore and he had to present himself, that is to run naked with hands in the air and to turn around. Then he would say right or left. They wanted to take the healthiest men who had no blemish on their bodies. That was why we had to turn around. To the right was life; to the left was the world to come.

So they evacuated us to Stutthof near Danzig. They acted relatively better to us because we were specialists and went to work where the railway passed by. Then I saw the crematorium. A German walked with a piece of white chalk in his pocket. In the summer there was no work. They walked around the yards, the German looking around. Whoever didn’t walk well he drew an “X” with chalk on their back. These were sent to the crematorium. We worked for about a half or three quarters of a year. Then the Russians once again approached and they evacuated us. Then I saw the destruction that they had wrought. Mountains and mountains of bodies. That was then the evacuation. Again the Russians approached Danzig and bombed Stutthof and the Germans didn’t want to leave us. I was sick with typhus. That was on the 25th of April. We felt that at any moment the whole business would be over. As is known the war ended May 8th. I had a temperature of 41°. I was in the clinic. There was an epidemic. To my good fortune and that of another Jew (his name was Shmuel and he settled in Australia) we were the first to catch typhus. To my good fortune, what do I mean? They took us to the clinic. Later the Goyim also got sick and then they didn’t take Jews any more to the clinic. All the Jews who had typhus were put in a barrack and it was burned down. I remember that I was on the third floor. Some officers wanted to run away. One said “We are leaving them here.”
We thought “Thank G-d”. I had no more strength. But in the morning came an announcement: they are taking us with them.

We were a few kilometers from the Baltic Sea. There was no port and ships could not approach. People who were sick and could not manage the four kilometers were told: “Don’t worry – stay here and we will take you.” I, after four years in concentration camps, knew about their favours. I went down with difficulty and walked. Those who remained were all shot. Between 27-29th April we embarked on a motor less ship which was towed. What is meant by “embarked” ?. The ship was 100-150 metres from the shore. They placed a narrow bridge of boards. Sick people had to make it. They fell and they killed them. I succeeded; I had been as strong as an ox. I got inside. There we sailed until May 8th. They wanted to take us because if we weren’t with them they would be sent to the front. They wanted to take us to a Baltic port, but everywhere were either the English or the Americans. Until May 8th we sailed on the sea and then the war ended. It is possible to write thousands of pages on the Hell which was there. If there is a Hell then it is a Paradise compared to the Hell which was there. They put in four times the number of people for whom there was space. One on top of the other. Whoever had strength lay on those who hadn’t. At night shouts of Hell were heard from the people who were dying. In the morning the SS came and lowered a rope from above for those who had died to be tied and hauled up top. They slit their stomachs with a knife so that the bodies wouldn’t be washed up, and threw them overboard. On May 8th the German team shouted: “the war is over and you can come out” and they fled.

On the 12th of May we reached port in Sweden. There were journalists who photographed us. The wounds will never heal. Twenty to twenty five years came the dreams at night. One cannot forget.”

Zev’s son Eliyahu’s daughter Luba Teitelbaum (Netanya, Israel) described the Nazi invasion of Riga in July 1941. When the Germans invaded the Russians left quickly. Her husband had worked for them and so was given a pass for his family. The Germans occupied half of Riga while the other side of the river Dvina was still held by the Russians so that those who had influence could escape. Liuba and her family travelled by Gorky and then to Kokand in Uzkekistan. Her parents also got passes and joined them. Her younger brother Shmuel was in hospital in the German part of the city and he was killed. Her sister Zelda’s little boy was in kindergarten in the occupied zone. He was trapped and killed there. In Korsovka relations with the Latvians had been reasonable. But as soon as the Germans invaded the Latvians started a pogrom. The daughter of the rabbi had escaped on foot, but having forgotten something returned and was killed in the street. One German resident Pankiewitz had married a Jewish girl. He saved his wife and her family in a secret chamber he had built in his house. He hid other Jews there including, it is thought, Marita the daughter of Getzel Dimantshtein. But she left and was presumed to be killed. Liuba’s father Eliyahu died of illness and deprivation in Kokand in 1942. Her mother and sisters returned to Riga after the war where her mother died in 1947. Liuba and Zelda settled in Israel. Her uncle Getzel died of disease in the Russian exile together with his son Pavel. Her uncle Avraham before the war travelled to London but returned to Korsovka where he was killed. Likewise her half-uncle Gershon was killed. Her half-uncle Seeka was killed serving in the Latvian army.

Liuba also recalled stories of the period before the Revolution. There were three incidents in Korsovka. On one occasion Russian soldiers from one of the warring sides burst into her uncle Shmuel Dimantshtein’s house. Liuba nd Eizik were terrified and sneaked through the crowd in the living room to the kitchen where they escaped to Christian neighbours. Shmuel’s house was looted and many valuables stolen. On another occasion her father Eliyahu and family took shelter with Christian neighbours who disguised them in peasant clothes. Russian marauders came and demanded to be told which shops in town had liquor and tobacco. They didn’t recognize Eliyahu as a Jew and asked him “Are there any Zhids ?” He replied that there weren’t. Liuba recalls seeing a Jew shot in the street. In 1920 Eliyahu and Getzel and their families moved to Riga. After the Second World War Liuba returned to Korsovka for a visit. She found most Jewish houses destroyed except for those of her father and her uncle Shmuel. Also the Jewish cemetery was intact.

The Jewish cemetery of Korsovka was photographed for Chaim Freedman by researcher Aleksandrs Feigmanis of Riga. About 300 photographs are held by Chaim Freedman.



Likewise the Lutzin cemetery was photographed and the data can be seen on the Ludza/Karsava Internet site http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Ludza/

Ludza cemetery photograph by Zeeva Levy (Israel)

7) Getzel ‘s son Shmuel (Sam Diamond) settled in London were he was in business. He married his cousin Devorah (Dora) daughter of his uncle Reuven Dimantshtein.

8) Moshe (Marks)
Held a government contract to supply black bearskin hats to the British army during the Boel War. He was a wealthy furrier who lived in large house in Hackney Downs. According to the 1891 London Census, he immigrated to London about 1880, thereby being the first of the Dimantshtein family to leave Latvia.

9) Shaya
Arrived in England about 1900. made a living as a tallyman (draper). He was a member of the Jewish Socialist Bund in Russia and an ardent Zionist in England. He wrote a ballad in memory of the victims of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903. Shaya was an active Shadkhan (matchmaker) in London. On one occasion he believed that his grandniece Betty Sagon was possessed of a Dybuk (evil spirit) so he carried out a Kabbalistic ceremony of excorsism. Shaya had a tenor voice and acted as a Khazan on the festivals. He played the violin at family celebrations. At one family wedding (possibly Dora Bull's) he danced the Russian Kazatchka and died of a heart attack at the age of seventy three. After his death his widow went to South Africa to join their only daughter.

Other Dimantshteins included the Shokhet Khaim Dimantshtein and his son Nakhum who perished in the Holocaust in Rezekne. Shneur-Zalman Dimantshtein was a butcher in Korsovka, Several of his children survived the Holocaust by fleeing to Rostov. A grandson David settled in Israel in 1972. The Soviet Komissar Shimon Dimantshtein was born in Sebezh but it is not know if he was related.


Dimantshteins in London 1905; possibly Reuven and Shaya.

Mordekhai Zev (Max) Bull

The origins of the Bull family are unclear. The earliest records in Latvia show them in the town Lewenhoff (now Livani) in the Dvinsk/Denaburg (now Daugavpils) district. There was a Bull family living in Nikolsburg, Moravia in the 17th century with later generations living in Amsterdam, Holland. It is known that a ship bearing Jews from Holland, who were on their way to settle in Lithuania, sunk off the Baltic coast in 1692. This may account for the movement of Dutch Jews to Lithuania and Latvia, including perhaps ancestors of the Bull family.

The earliest Bull recorded in Lewenhoff was Ruven Bull, born about 1760. His son Zev-Wulf Bull was the father of Nakhum-Dov

The 1858 Revision List in Dvinsk records him as Nokhem Wulfovitch Bull aged 36. In his household appear his brothers Efraim (drafted 1849), Wulf aged 30 (name must be an error as he could not have borne the same name as his father), and Aba aged 20 (with his wife Lea aged 22), his wife Rokhlya aged 37, his daughter Hanna.

The 1875 Family List of Dvinsk records him as Nakhman Wulfovitch Bull. He also appears in 1872 in the Hebrew newspaper Hamagid as a donor in a list of Jews living in the `Alt Plan' part of Dvinsk as `Ber Bull'. In the same list appears `Yehuda Leib Bull' who may have been his brother.

Nakhum-Dov was the father of of Mordekhai-Zev-Wulf Bull.

According to the 1889 list of Jews who settled in rural areas of Ludza district, Mordekhai was born in Levenhoff, moved to Dinaburg (Dvinsk, Daugavpils), then moved to Korsovka (Karsava) in 1881.







Mordekhai Zev's age as recorded in Latvian records conflicts with the 1901 London census and the age on his tombstone which states that he was aged eighty three at his death in 1931. That would mean he was born in 1848 whereas the Latvian records indicate he was born in 1854.

Mordekhai-Zev Bull, London 1922.

Mordekhai-Zev was a Chabad Chassid who combined the spiritualism of the Lubavich tradition with a strong Litvak leaning to study. His grandson Rabbi Arthur-Saul Super described him as “a Chassid with the heart of a Litvak”. He was one of the first Chabad Chassidim to settle in London at the beginning of the twentieth century. There he was associated with another Chabadnik, Rabbi Moshe-Avigdor Chaiken in many communal endeavors.

The Bulls were soundly established in London, both communally and economically. Their home in 73 Evering Road, Stoke Newington was renowned as a centre of scholarship and the leaders of the ultra-orthodox community frequently visited to study with Mordekhai-Zev. Grandpa Bull as he was known to the family played the role of the strict patriarch. He was an imposing figure, immaculately dressed in a frock coat and high black Yarmulka (skullcap). He and his wife Rivka brought up their family in the joyous tradition of Lubavich, while insisting on devotion to study by his sons. His tombstone refers to him as “Mimetzuyanei Chasidei Chabad” (one of the excellent Chabad Chassidim).

But he lived very much in the modern world and engaged in the fur trade with his sons as "M. Bull and Sons, furriers” in Kingsford Road, London.

Mordekhai’s wife was Rivka (Rebecca), was born in 1852 to David Halevy and Keila-Tsirel Dimantshtein from Korsovka. See separate article about the Dimantshtein family.

Rivka Bull (nee Dimantshtein), London 1922.

Rivka Bull was a matriarchal figure, She was very active in communal affairs, as recorded on her tombstone. She was a founder of the Stepney Jewish Hospital and supported many charities in England and in Eretz Yisrael. Whilst being very religious she had many modern practices: she often rebelled against wearing a Sheitel, wore lipstick and smoked a pipe! Rumour had it that she wanted to be an opera singer since she had a beautiful voice. Her parents were horrified at the suggestion and quickly arranged the match with the Talmudic student Mordekhai-Zev Bull. Relations between them were strained throughout their marriage. But they hosted their many children and grandchildren on many joyous occasions such as their Golden Wedding in 1922 and often sixty relatives sat down to Seder on Pesach.

Rebecca and Max Bull, Golden Wedding 1922, London, with Golden Chanukiah presented by their family.

The Bulls had ten children:

Yehudah-Leib (Leon) (1873-1955) who was the first of the family to settle in London about 1894.

Haska (Sarah) (1876-1975) who married Elias Germain and lived in New York.

Avraham (Ephraim) (1877-1974).

Mendel (Emanuel) (c.1881-1871).

Leah (Lena) (1881-1945) who married Rabbi Yitskhak-Yaakov Super and lived in Melbourne, Australia (see separate article).

Chaya (Annie) (1883-1972) who married David Gold.

Elka ( Alice) (1884-1969 who married David Felkov .

Eliezer (Laurie) (1889-1974).

Devorah (Dora) ( 1892-1985) who married Maurice Sagon.

Moshe (Maurice) (1895-1980).

Leon and Emanuel Bull, London

Sarah And Elias Germain, New York.

Leon and Betsy Bull, London.

Lena (nee Bull) and Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super, Evercreech, England c. 1914.

Immigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1914.

Mordekhai-Zev Bull, died on the 10th Kislev 5692 (19th November 1931).

He was buried in the Montague Road Federation Cemetery, Edmonton, London

"Here is interred

The venerable, honourable,outstanding

in Torah and wonderful in Chassidut,

Naked in the Fear of Heaven one of the excellent of Chabad Chassidim

The R(abbi) Mordekhai-Zev

son of Nakhum Dov of blessed memory Bull.

Passed away at a good old age

in the 83rd year of his life,

Thursday 10th of the month of Kislev

5692

May his soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life"

His grandson Arthur Saul Super (later Rabbi) wrote to his parents in Melbourne:

“He died like a grand old Jewish gentleman, full of years and honour. An hour before he died he discussed where certain words we were using appeared in the Bible. The funeral was a wonderful tribute to the man and his influence. He was taken to the Montague Road Shool where the Talmud Torah pupils were all drawn up as a guard of honour. Rabbi Abraham Witkind from a town in Latvia delivered a Hesped. During the week of Shiva the Gedolei Dor paid him honour, including Dayan Milman, the Trische Rebbe, Rabbi Kirsner, Rabbi Witkind, Rabbi Jacob Rabinovich”.

An obituary published in the Jewish Chronicle stated:

“North London Jewry has sustained a severe loss by the death of Mr. Marks Bull on Friday last. The deceased was a man of great learning and charm, and his life was one of unflinching loyalty to Orthodox Judaism. A number of institutions, particularly the Dalston Talmud Torah, owe much to his active support. He was one of the founders of the Old Castle Street Synagogue and retained his membership to the end. He enjoyed the intimate friedship of the late Dayan A. Chaikin with whom he was associated in many a worthy endeavour.”

A classroom was donated by the family to the Talmud Torah in Amhurst Road and Dayan Dr. A. Feldman spoke at the dedication.

Rivka Bull died on the 11th of Cheshvan, 5695, 20th of October 1934.

Her tombstone at the Federation Cemetery, Montague Road, next to her husband reads:

“Many wrought valiantly and you rose higher than them all. In many institutions of Torah and Prayer, charity and care, you acquired for yourself a name and a memorial in the country and outside it. This is the pious, intellectual, and generous of spirit and heart, doer of good deeds for the maintenance of Yeshivot, Talmud Torahs, synagogues and Study Houses, institutions of charity and care overseas and in the Holy land”.

Bull Family Reunion, England, 1985

ישוב ארץ הקודש - פעילות הגאן מוילנה

ישוב ארץ הקודש – פעילות הגאון מוילנה

The settlement of the Land of Israel - activity of the Vilna Gaon

(חיים פרידמן – ניסן תשס"ט, פרשת שמיני, בית כנסת מקור חיים, מנין נחלת זאב, פתח תקוה)

"באתי לבקש מאתכם שלא תצטערו כלל וכלל, כמה שהבטיחה לי אמי תחיה, וגם מה תדאגו. הנה אנשים נוסעים על כמה שנים בשביל ממון, מניחים נשותיהן וגם נע ונד בחוסר כל. ואני ת"ל נוסע לארץ הקדושה שהכל מצפים לראותה, חמדת כל ישראל וחמדת השם יתברך ברוך הוא"

כך פותח הגר"א זצ"ל באגרת ששלח לאשתו ואמו כאשר היה בדרך לארץ ישראל.
איננו יודעים את תאריך הנסיעה המדויק אך משארים שהיתה בין השנים 1770-1782.

הגר"א ממשיך את האגרת בפניה מרגשת ומלאת תקווה לעתיד איחוד המשפחה בארץ:

"אהובתי אמי, ידעתי שאינך צריכה למוסר שלי, כי ידעתי כי צנועה את. אף על פי כן יקראו לפניך האגרת הזאת, כי הם דברי אלוקים חיים. ומבקש אני מאד ממך בבקשה שטוחה שלא תצטער בשבילי כאשר הבטחת לי. ואם ירצה ה', אם אזכה להיות בירושלים ק"ק אצל שער השמים, אבקש בעדך כאשר הבטחתי לך. ואם נזכה, נראה יחדיו כולנו, אם ירצה בעל הרחמים"

איגרת זו , שנודע גם בשם "עלים לתרופה", הודפסה לראשונה בשנת תקצ"ו, ואולי גם קודם לכך.

בחוברת שכתב הרב קלמן רעדיש מלייקווד בשנת תשס"ג יש ביאור מפורט על אגרת זו. החוברת כוללת גם פרוש על האגרת מאת הרב יחזקאל סרנא זצ"ל.

מדבריו של הגר"א ניתן ללמוד על השקפתו לגבי ארץ ישראל כבסיס מרכזי ביהדות:

"גילוי של תורה הוא בארץ, כמו שאמר,ו אוירא דארץ ישראל מחכים, וגם הנבואה אינה שורה אלא בארץ ישראל"
("אדרת אליהו" על ספר דברים )

"עיקר התורה הוא בארץ ישראל"
(ביאור לשיר השירים)

"אור התורה הוא בארץ ישראל"
(ביאור לתיקוני זוהר)

"עיקר קיום המצוות תלוי בארץ"
(אדרת אליהו" על פרשת עקב)

הגר"א מסביר ששאיפותו של משה רבינו לראות את הארץ נבעה משום שהשתוקק לדעת את כל עייניה:

"שהוא עניין גדול כמו ידיעת התורה, שגבולה וכל ענייניה הן ענייני תורה"
(ביאור על הזוהר)

כך גם שאיפתו של הגר"א לראות את הארץ.

תלמידי הגר"א שהגיעו ארצה תיקנו חלק ממנהגיו כגון:

* לברך את ברכת הכהנים מידי יום, ולא רק בחגים בכפי שנהוג בחו"ל.
* לחדש לימוד סדר "זרעים" משום חשיבותו לקיום מצוות התלויות בארץ.

נושא רחב מדי לא ניתן לרדת לעומקו ולהקיפו במעמד זה. כדי להרחיב הלימוד בנושא ניתן לעיין בספרו של הרב דוב אליאך "הגאון" (תשס"ב) על בשלושת כרכיו גדושי מידע על הגר"א.

אגרת הגר"א הוא מסמך חשוב מכמה היבטים.

א. האגרת הוא ייחודי בין כתבי הגר"א שכן הוא כותב בה על נושאים אישיים ורגשיים, עובדה חריגה שאינה תואמת את אופי המוכר של הגר"א.

ב. יש באגרת הנחיות לחינוך ילדים ולהתנהגות מוסרית של בני המשפחה. הגר"א פונה לאשתו, אמו, ילדיו וחתנו ומבקש שישמרו על יחסים תקינים ביניהם.

ג. כסופיו האישיים של הגר"א לארץ הקודש גברו על דאגתו לבני משפחתו, אותם השאיר בחו"ל, הגר"א היה איתן בדעתו להגשים את געגועיו לראות את ארץ הקודש ולהתפלל בה.

ד. ניתן להשתמש בפרטים משפחתיים הכלולים באגרת, כדי לקבוע נתונים היסטוריים שאינם ברורים במקורות אחרים. מכיוון שהגר"א פונה לאמו ולאשתו, ניתן לקבוע את תחום התאריכים בהם נערך נסיון הנסיעה ביחס לשנות פטירה של אמו ואשתו.

מונחים בהם מתייחס הגר"א לתוכן וסדר הלימוד של בניו מעיד על כך שהם היו קטנים ורק הגיעו לגיל בו לומדים רק חומש. התייחסות זו לסדרי הלימוד של ילדיו היתה אחד הכלים לקביעת תאריכי הלידה של בני הגר"א, דבר שאושר לאחר מכן במפקדים של המאה ה-18 של הקהילה היהודית בווילנה.

למרות נחישותו של הגר"א, הוא לא הצליח להגשים את חלומו. הוא לא הגיע ארצה ונאלץ לחזור לווילנה. הסיבות לכך אינן ידועות עד היום, למרות עיון היסטורי בכל כתבי הגר"א, אלה שיצאו לאור בדפוס ואלה שנשארו בכתבי יד.

בנו השלישי של הגר"א, הרב אברהם מווילנה התייחס לתעלומה זו בהקדמה לביאור הגר"א על" שולחן ערוך אורך חיים" (שקלוב תקס"ג). הוא שאל את אביו פעמים רבות איך קרה שלא הגיע לארץ ישראל, אך לא קיבל תשובת פרט לנאמר ע"י הגר"א:

"אין לי רשות מן השמים".

מחקר רחב ומקיף על השפעתו של הגר"א על ישוב הארץ נערך ע"י דר' אריה מורגנשטרן, לשעבר ממכון דינור באוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים, ופורסם בכמה מספריו. דר' מורגנשטרן גם נתן הרצאה בנושא בקהילתנו.

בספרו "גאולה דרך הטבע" מורגנשטרן מתאר היבטים שטרם נגלו על עליות תלמידי הגר"א, אותם הוא מצא במסמכים בארץ ובאוספים יהודיים בחוץ לארץ.

על מנת להתגבר על מכשולים הלכתיים לעליה ארצה מסביר מורגנשטרן:

"בכח סמכותו הכריזמטית ביטל הגר"א את תקיפותן של "שלוש השבעות" האוסרות על פעילות אנושית בתהליך הגאולה:

א.שלא לעלות בחומה.

ב.שלא לדחוק את הקץ.

ג.שלא למרוד באומות העולם.
(בבלי כתובות קי"א ע"א)"

מאידך, ניתן לראות קשר עם פרשתנו ביחס לניסיון של נדב ואביהו להתערב בסדר הקבוע של עבודת המשכן.

עליית תלמידי הגר"א תוכננה על מנת להתכונן לקראת שנת ת"ר (1840), אחד המועדים שנחשבו כמתאים לביאת המשיח.

אך, משלא הגיע המשיח, חל מפנה משמעותי מעוד בחומר הלימוד בישיבות הליטאיות, בעיקר הפסיקו לימוד הקבלה בסדר הלימוד הקבוע.

בארץ נוסדה תנועת נטוראי קרתא, כחוג מופנם ומבודד שראה בכל לקיחת חלק מעשי בחידוש הישוב, כסטייה הלכתית.

גישה זאת נולדה, לפי דעתו של מורגנשטרן, מאכזבה ודיכאון של כישלון מבצע העליות של תלמידי הגר"א, מבצע שלפי השקפת חוגים אלה נועד להיות מאיץ לביאת המשיח.

בהיסטוריה של הציונות המודרנית יש התעלמות במידה רבה מחשיבותה של עליית תלמידי הגר"א.

על כך מתייחס דר' מורגנשטרן בהקדמתו לספרי "ענפי אליהו":

"חשוב לציין כי ערכה וחשיבותה של פעילות האקטיבית של תלמידי הגר"א אינה מצטמצמת בכך שהיא ערערה בשעתה את דפוסי התפיסה המסורתית את נושא גאולת עם-ישראל.

לטווח הרחוק השפיעה פעילותם בכך שחוללה שינוי מעשי ביחס כלפי ארץ ישראל הן מצד החברה היהודית המסורתית והן מצד אומות העולם.

האמת ניתנת להיאמר – לולי התשתית הטריאטורית בארץ ישראל, שהתבססה בזכות תלמידי הגר"א בראשית המאה הי"ט, ולולי התשתית היישובית שהתפתחה בארץ ישראל, בעיקר בירושלים, לא היה לפליטי הפרעות ברוסיה של שנת 1882 מקום מפלט אחר. הוא הדין גם לגבי התנועה הציונית, שנוסדה מאוחר יותר".

אני, תושבי פתח תקוה, חייבים לזכור את עלית תלמיד הגר"א מכוון שהמושבה פתח תקוה הוקמה על יד צאצאי תלמידי תלמידי הגר"א, "יוצאי החומות" מירושלים, בשנת 1878, לפני הקמת המושבות האחרות ע"י החלוצים של העליה הראשונה. עדות לכך ניתן לראות עד היום כאשר אנחנו מקבלים את השבת לפי שעות ירושלים.

צאצאי תלמידי הגר"א, וביניהם בעיקר משפחת ריבלין, מציינים בשנה הנוכחית מאתיים שנה לעלית הקבוצה הראשונה בשיירה שנחתה בארץ ב-ח' אלול בשנת תקס"ט (1809).

בשיירה היו 70 נפש ואת תאור הנסיעה הדרמתית ניתן לקרוא בספרו של ריבלין "חזון ציון – משקלוב לירושלים" (ירושלים תש"ו).

בהפטרה של פרשתנו אנו רואים את האכזבה של דוד המלך שלו זכה להגשים את חלומו לבנות את בית המקדש:

"כי ימלאו ימיך ושכבת את אבותך, והקימותי את זרעך אחריך אשר יצא ממעיך, והכינותו את ממלכתך, הוא יבנה בית לשמי...." (שמואל ב' פרק י': יב' יג')

אנו עברנו את החג הפסח, החג בו נולד הגר"א בשנת ת"פ (1720) וראיתי מן הראוי להביא מעט מהשפעתו עלינו כאשר זכינו אנו להגשים את חלומו של הגר"א בישוב הארץ.

Pruning the Super Family Tree

Pruning the Super Family Tree.

September, 2008
Chaim Freedman

(Click on documents and photos to enlarge)

When I began to research the history of the Super family in the mid-1970’s to trace the family tree, the contemporary generations of the family living in Australia and England were the only members of the family known to me. Whilst I knew that there were many relatives in South Africa and some in Canada, there had been no contact with them for many years. Indeed, even when contact was re-established, the diverse branches of the family were not aware of the exact relationships between them.

In the mid 1980’s Norman Super, living in Melbourne and originally from South Africa, sent me a family tree compiled by elderly relatives in South Africa whilst attending a family celebration, probably in the early 1970's. This clarified many connections and as each new source came to light, the family tree began to take shape. The various branches were assumed to belong to a common trunk, with a common ancestor named Shmuel. At the time archival records in the Former Soviet Union were not available to confirm this theoretical tree, based on oral history. With the fall of that State valuable and relevant material pertaining to the family was discovered in Latvia.

Shmuel

The above is a condensed version of the tree.

This tree shows five siblings as the children of Shmuel Super. One of the siblings is indicated by a blank space above the name of “Samuel m Daphnie”. These were supposed to be the parents of Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super of Melbourne. “Daphnie” was not his mother’s name; it was Khaya Minna. Apparently the elders of the family in South Africa who put together this tree did not know the name of this presumed sibling of the ancestors of their respective branches of the family.

Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super, Evercreech, England c.1912

The earliest name known to the Australian Supers was Shmuel, the father of Rabbi Yitskhak-Yaakov. He and his wife Khaya-Minna lived in the small town of Korsovka now called Karsava, in Latvia. The region was until the Russian Revolution of 1917 part of the Russian Empire in the eastern part of Vitebsk Gubernia (government) known as Latgale (or Lettland). Since Yitskhak Yaakov had left his parents' home in Korsovka at the age of twenty-one and settled in England, he had little opportunity to hear from his father information about his family's origins, nor did he get to know his many relatives who lived in the neighbouring town Lutzin, where in fact he had been born. Such was also the case for his brother Yosef who also settled in England at an early age.

Khaya-Minna, Fruma and Shmuel Super c.1905, Korsovka, Latvia.

In a letter (in Hebrew) written in 1960 Yitskhak-Yaakov Super answers his son Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super, then living in South Africa, who asks him about the relationships among the family Arthur met in South Africa. Yitskhak Yaakov explains that he left his home town as a young teenager in order to study and then worked as a Shokhet in a number of towns until he left Latvia aged twenty-one:

“It is nearly fifty-nine years since I left Korsovka and how can I remember the Supers, but you can tell them that all the family who you met or who you will meet are not only relatives, but are flesh and blood to us. About Mr. Benjamin who is close to seventy three years old, if his name in Hebrew is Benyamin son of Reb Shmuel Sholem, he would be our second cousin.”

At the time of my original research I did not know who this person was and so made no use of this information until 2003 when I received photographs of many of the tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Korsovka, including that of Shmuel-Sholem.

One earlier generation of the Australian and English branch was available, derived from the Korsovka tombstone inscription of Shmuel Super, Yitskhak-Yaakov’s father. A photograph of the grave was sent to Australia by Shmuel's son Khatzkel (his full name was Yekhezkel and he also appears in the picture) taken after the death of Shmuel in Korsovka in 1928. Since Hebrew names appearing on a tombstone also include the father's name, it was established that Shmuel's father was called Yosef-Yehoash. The name Yehoash is very rarely used, although its Biblical origin stems from the righteous King of Judah, Yehoash who repaired and rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Arthur-Saul Super (Avraham-Shaul) told me of an oral tradition that there was an earlier ancestor, Rabbi Tuviah (Teviah) Super who he had heard had lived in Lutzin in the early nineteenth century. He had also been told that his ancestors had been Soferim (scribes) for many generations. This was in fact the origin of their surname, Super being a Russian corruption of the term Sofer, or it's Aramaic version Safra, being the usual designation of the official town scribe: `Safra Demata'.

Yet another item of oral history told to Arthur by relatives in South Africa was that an ancestor had written a Sefer Torah, which he had presented to the Baron Ginzburg who was in fact his cousin!

These sparse oral traditions formed the basis for extrapolating theoretical lines of descent. Firstly a record was found of one Teviah Super who held the position of Gabbai of the Great Synagogue in Lutzin. He was listed as one of the notables of Lutzin in “Yahadut Latvia” (Israel 1953), “Tevi Super, Gabbai of the Great Synagogue”.

This reference did not indicate when “Tevi” lived. However Magistrate records from 1897 found by Latvian researcher Aleksanders Feigmanis refer to a dispute involving Teviah Super Gabbai of the Alt Shule Mankov”. So the above reference to “Tevi Super” did not refer to an early ancestor of the entire Super family, mentioned by Rabbi Arthur Super according to family oral history in South Africa.

A connection with Tuviah/Tevi was thought to have been discovered in a book that had belonged to Yitskhak-Yaakov Super, thought to have been passed from earlier generations. This book was presented to me by my mother-in-law Edna Berliner (daughter of Yitskhak-Yaakov), but the significance of the inscriptions inside the front and rear covers eluded me for many years.

On the inside front cover is a faded inscription in Hebrew that is barely decipherable as a person's name written in Hebrew. Also in Latin characters appears the surname `Lichtenstein'. I thought that it was possible that there was a relationship with the rabbinic Lichtenstein family that flourished for several generations in Latvia.

On the inside back cover is an inscription in Yiddish and Hebrew:
"I was born on the 29th of Sivan in the year 5561”, the Hebrew year corresponding to 1801.

Above this inscription appear two words in very faded Russian script. The pages were photocopied and thereby it was possible to adjust the intensity of light and magnification so as to highlight the inscriptions. Whilst not all the letters were discernable, the missing one could be interpolated. The Russian script was a name: “Toviah Davidovich”

I thought that this was the Tuviah Super referred to by Arthur Super. Not only had his birth date been established, 1801, but his Russian patronymic provided the name of his father: David.

Based on this information, which in hindsight was tenuous, given that the book may not have belonged to the Super family at all, but had simply passed into their hands, I theorized that the sequence of the generations could be put together. Since Shmuel was born about 1850, his father Yosef-Yehoash would have been born about 1825. Since “Toviah Davidovich” was born in 1801, I thought he must have been the father of Yosef-Yehoash. This should then make David the common ancestor of the various siblings shown on Norman Super’s tree.

I then sought earlier ancestors. Once again family tradition gave clues in this direction: Firstly the origin of the surname having been derived from the function of a number of ancestors as Soferim (scribes); secondly the supposed relationship with the family of the Baron Ginzburg.

A history of the Ginzburg family (Toldot Mishpakhat Ginzburg, David Maggid, St.Petersburg 1899) traces many families either descended from or related to the Ginzburgs. Study of the relatives of the first Baron Ginzburg, namely Baron Yosef Ginzburg (1812-1878) reveals the family of his paternal grandmother Tybel She was a daughter of Rabbi Uri Sofer of Vilna (according to the 1784 Vilna census Tybel /Touba was Uri’s wife), who held the position of official scribe to that community, bearing the title ‘Safra Demata'. Such a functionary was skilled in handwriting Torah scrolls, Mezuzot, wedding and divorce certificates, and any other official documents required by the Jewish civil governing body, the Kahal. Rabbi Uri Sofer's father Rabbi Yaakov-Gavriel also held this position, as had his father Rabbi Tuviah Sofer and several earlier generations.


There is a recurrence in the above family of the names Uri, Tuviah and David.

Tuviah and David struck a bell in relation to the inscription “Toviah Davidovich”. Tuviah was also prevalent amongst the Super family of Lutzin. Bearing in mind that Baron Yosef Ginzburg and Yosef-Yehoash Super were, according to their birth dates, of the contemporary generation, and since they were reputed to be cousins (according to that oral tradition telling of the presentation of a Sefer Torah to the Baron), I thought that the familial link was through Rabbi Uri Sofer of Vilna. The common occupation as scribes in both families also correlates between them. Whilst specific records establishing this link were not found, an extensive study of the Ginzburg family tends to preclude any other explanation for the cousin relationship, if it was true. Bearing in mind the dates of each successive generation, appeared that the Super-Sofer-Ginzburg connection was that David Super (whose name was derived from the patronymic “Davidovich”) was a son of Uri Sofer of Vilna. This would have made the Baron Yosef Ginzburg and Yosef-Yehoash Super second cousins. Other sources that include information about the family of Soferim in Vilna are “Kiriah Neemanah” (Finn, Vilna 1860); “Ir Vilna” (Steinshneider, Vilna 1900) and Toldot Hakehilah Haivrit Bevilna (Klausner, Vilna 1935). The information in each of this is more or less consistent. However, in 2003 I acquired copies of the census taken in Vilna in 1765 and in 1784 and discovered that each of these books includes errors in the identities of some of the “Sofer” family.

When the political changes in the former Soviet Union led to the dissolution of that Union, archives were opened to the public and much material about Jewish families was found. A Jewish researcher living in Riga, Aleksanders Feigmanis, was commissioned by a descendant of the Super family, Robert Heyman, to trace records of the family. Feigmanis found a treasure of documents, in particular the “Revizsky Skaza” (Revision Lists, meaning census) for the years 1874 and 1897 for the town of Lutzin and the list from 1897 for Korsovka. The 1874 list from Korsovka appears to have been lost. Many family groups including several hundred members of the Super family appeared, allowing the compilation of the family tree.

The following is the census entry for “Super Yankel Shmuilov” and his family, including his Falkov grandchildren. This person was the “Yanchiel Havies” who appeared on Norman Super’s chart.


His tombstone in Korsovka confirms his full name and father’s name:


Here is interred
Our father the ………….
An honourable man
The dear, our teacher and Rabbi
Reb Yaakov Yehoash
Son of Reb Shmuel
Super

The nickname “Havis” or “Heibish” was a derivative of the Hebrew name “Yehoash”. Since the grandfather of Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super was found from his tombstone to be Yosef-Yehoash, it became apparent that Yaakov-Yehoash and Yosef-Yehoash could not have been brothers as they bore the same name. Jerusalem genealogist the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr shared his expertise in Jewish name derivatives thereby making a valuable contribute to the unraveling of the mysteries of the Super family tree. (See a joint article we wrote in “Search” Volume 8, #4, 1988). Likewise “Guta” and “Tevia” who appeared as brothers in the above tree also bore variations of the same Hebrew name “Tuviah” and therefore could not have been brothers. “Tuviah” is derived from the Hebrew for “good” so a Yiddish derivation was “Guta” or “Guttman” and Teviah is another derivative. As there were a number of Supers in Lutzin who bore the Hebrew name Tuviah, they were each known by variations or nicknames.

The 1874 and 1897 census from Lutzin showed that Guta or Guttman Super was a brother of Yankel-Heibish, sons of Shmuel, while Tevia was a son of Leib Super, another of Shmuel’s sons.

These family groups stemmed from four Supers who lived in Lutzin in the early nineteenth century: Shmuel, Yitskhak, Kivka and Leib Super. Three of these were found by Feigmanis in Magistrate records of Lutzin in the year 1837:

“February 3, 1837 citizens of Lutzin who trade in alcoholic drinks deposed the plaint to the city council of Lyutzin, where they complained of the abuses in taxation of the tax official Glinka. Among the names of the alcohol tradesmen mentioned were Shmuila Super, Leiba Super and Itzik Super”[1]

A list from 1863 of merchants in the towns of Vitebsk Province includes in Lutzin “Leibe Super”, without a patronymic.


Unfortunately this record does not include the patronymic of these three Supers. On the tree compiled in South Africa and sent to me by Norman Super, it was shown that Shmuel was the primogenitor of all the branches. No record has been found of a “Toviah Davidovich” Super in any documents. Not has his supposed son Yosef-Yehoash been located in the records of Lutzin or Korsovka, although his son “Shmuel Yoselov” (son of Yosef) appears in the 1897 Korsovka census:

click to enlarge

Feigmanis’ translation of the original Russian census in Korsovka in 1897.

Yitskhak-Yaakov Super does not appear among the children of Shmuel, either because he was away from home studying, or because he was liable for military service as the second born son.

My original assumption was that Tuviah (supposed father of Yosef-Yehoash) was another brother to Shmuel, Yitskhak (Itzik) and Leib, and that since Tuviah’s patronymic was “David” then David was the primogenitor of the family. Furthermore I proposed that the theoretic connection between the Supers of Lutzin and the Sofers of Vilna was that “David” was a son of Uri. This theoretical relationship seemed further strengthened since both Shmuel and Leib had sons called Tuviah, a named repeated in the Vilna family of Soferim.

It must be stated that at the time of the extraction of the Latvian archival material, no evidence was found for the existence of either Tuviah or David. Nor was there documentation that David was a son of Uri Sofer of Vilna. Yet it seemed to me reasonable that the relationships were as above.

In 2003 I acquired the census of the Jewish community in Vilna for the years 1765 and 1784 from David and Sonia Hoffman, founders of the Jewish Family History Foundation. In the 1784 census I identified Uri Sofer as “Uryasz Gabrylowicz” living with his wife Touba (not Leah as claimed by Ginzburg family sources) and a servant Chasia. At that time they had no children.

A mathematical calculation shows clearly that if Uri did subsequently have a son David, even if it was in the period immediately following the census in 1784, such a theoretical David could not have fathered sons Shmuel, Yitskhak and Leib, born in the 1790’s or the ubiquitous Tuviah born in 1801. Whilst the dates of birth of all of the four Supers “branch heads” has not been found, they were all dead by the time of the 1874 Lutzin census, Shmuel’s wife Elka was still alive in 1874 aged eighty. Assuming that Shmuel was at least as old as his wife, he was probably born not later than 1794, when his supposed father David could have been no more than ten years old!

Had the Vilna and Lutzin census been available at the time of writing in 1992 of my book “The Pen and the Blade, Super family”, David as a son of Uri, could not have been proposed as the family patriarch.

The problem of locating Yosef-Yehoash Super, so as to establish the identity of his father, is complicated by the fact that he apparently did not lived in Lutzin at the time of the 1874 census, although his son Shmuel was born there in 1855. Family tradition conveyed by Rabbi Arthur Saul Super and by his cousin Arthur Super (London) relates that their great-grandfather managed an estate for a local Latvian nobleman. If the location of that estate could be established, records of Yosef-Yehoash might be found. It is possible that he lived in Korsovka until his death that had to be before 1884 when his grandson and namesake Yosef, the son of Shmuel was born. Since the 1874 census of Korsovka is missing, this cannot be verified.

Not only has Yosef-Yehoash not appeared in documentation, aside from his name on his son Shmuel’s tombstone, no theoretical siblings bearing the relevant patronymic indicating their father was called Tuviah, have been found. At this stage it appears that the book containing the signature “Toviah Davidovich” was a red herring and that the these names may have nothing to do with the Super family, although there may have been such a relative.

From the available evidence is seems that Yosef-Yehoash was a son of Yitskhak Super, one of the three alcohol traders mentioned in the 1837 litigation in Lutzin. My reason is based on the naming patterns. My wife’s grandfather Rabbi Yitskhak-Yaakov Super was given the name Yaakov after his maternal great-grandfather Yaakov Dobrin. It seems likely that the name Yitskhak was given to him after his paternal great-grandfather Yitskhak Super.

In 2003 I ordered further research from Aleksanders Feigmanis in Latvia. He traveled to Karsava (Korsovka) and took about three hundred photographs of the now accessible tombstones in the Jewish cemetery. There are large areas covered in weeds that may hide other family tombstones.


One of the tombstones, that of Yankel Heibish Super, is shown above. The Ohel (mausoleum) of Shmuel, the son of Yosef-Yehoash Super still stands but the tablet inscribed with the name has been removed, perhaps by the locals in this village where there are no longer any Jews or perhaps during the Nazi invasion in 1941 when nearly all the Jews were killed. Fortunately most of the cemetery survived.

Korsovka, 2003 Korsovka, 1929 with Khatzkel Super
Photographed by Feigmanis

One of the tombstones correlates with Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super’s reference to relatives in the letter above:



The man Shmuel Sholem
Son of Reb Moshe Simkha Super
Died 10th Tevet, 5688 [1927]

These names appear in various Latvian census records: “Shmuel son of Moshe” Super, born 1846 (lived in Korsovka) appears in a list of people living in 1889 in the rural areas of Lutzin district. This lists states that Shmuel Moshev (son of Moshe) came from Lutzin to Korsovka in 1877. His father Moshe son of Yitskhak born 1829 in Lutzin, moved to Korsovka in 1876. Shmuel’s son Benyamin Yitskhak, born 1873, appears in the 1897 census in Korsovka. It appears that “Mr. Benjamin Super” referred to in Rabbi Super’s letter to his son Arthur, as “Benyamin son of Shmuel-Sholem” was the son of Shmuel-Sholem whose tombstone appears above. Since Rabbi Super states that the relationship was of second cousins, it can be established that Benyamin Super’s grandfather Moshe-Simkha was a brother of Rabbi Yitskhak-Yaakov’s grandfather Yosef-Yehoash Super. This supports my theory that Rabbi Yitskhak-Yaakov’s great-grandfather was Yitskhak Super, one of the four family heads mentioned above.

A key source for the early nineteenth century relationships of the Supers is the census recorded in 1816. This is held by the Belarus State Historical Archive in Minsk. This anomaly is due to the political border changes whereby Lutzin was located in Vitebsk Province under Tsarist government, which province is now part of Belarus. Therefore some records for Lutzin (now Ludza) are held in Riga and some in Minsk.

The following are the key entries. See also attached chart and full family tree.

1816 census:
Fond 2640-1-617-55-55
Family number 28.

Shmuel Gevushevich* Super aged 31 in 1811; 35 in 1816.
Shmuel Gevushevich’s sons:
Itsik aged 9 in 1811; 13 in 1816.
Mark aged 2 in 1811; died in 1813.
Leib newborn in 1811; aged 3 in 1816.
Shmuel’s son-in-law Yankel Kufman Sholomovich, absent in 1811, 18 in 1816.
Shmuel Gevushevich’s wife Brokha aged 35 in 1816.
Itsik Shmuelovich’s wife Fruma aged 17 in 1816.
Yankel Kufman’s wife Paika aged 18 in 1816.

*Shmuel’s patronymic Gevushevich is the Russification of the Yiddish name Heibish, equivalent to the Hebrew name Yehoash.

1834 census
Fond 2640-1-617-155-156
Family number 58

Shmuel Gevushevich Super aged 35 in 1816, 53 in 1834.
From Shmuel Gevushevich’s first wife, sons:
1. Itsik aged 13 in 1816; separated to family number 59 in 1834 list.
2. Mordkha not written in 1816, moved to family number 259 in 1826.
3. Leib aged 4 in 1816; 20 in 1834.

From Shmuel’s second wife [Elka] from latter sources sons:
Yankel newborn in 1834; 3 in 1834.
Shmuel’s son-in-law Kifka Sholomovich 18 in 1816, moved to family number 259 in 1824.

Family number 59:
Itsik Shmuelovich Super previously family number 58.
Aged 31 in 1834.
Itsik’s son Mordukh newborn in 1816; 14 in 1834.
Itsik’s second son Livsha [should be Moshe] Simkha aged 5 in 1834.
Itsik’s wife Fruma aged 32 in 1834.
Mordukh’s wife Touba aged 16 in 1834.

Since Shmuel’s son Tuviah (Gutta) and Itsik’s son Yosef-Yehoash do not appear in the 1834 census, they must have been born after this date.

From the above it can be seen that the head of the family in 1816 was Shmuel Super, born 1781. His father’s name was “Gevush” or Heibish/Yehoash, born probably about 1760.
Shmuel was married twice and the configuration of his sons therefore differs from the original family tree compiled by Norman Super.

click to enlarge

Given that two of Shmuel Super’s grandsons were named Tuviah, it would seem that they were named after an earlier ancestor who bore that name. The Riga archive holds lists of Jews living in Lutzin in the 1780’s and 1790’s. Feigmanis has provided his transcription of these lists, containing about 500 people, the entire Jewish population of Lutzin at the time. Since these lists precede the adoption of surnames that took place in the early nineteenth century, they can only be interpreted by the presence of personal names in an otherwise known family configuration.

The eighteenth century Lutzin list does include two families descended from someone name Toviah:


Movsha Tobiashevich aged 49 in 1786. (Amongst his sons were Itzik and Leib).
Khaim Tobiashevich aged 49 in 1794.
Since Movsha was born in 1739, his father “Tobiash” (Tuviah) may have been born about 1710 and could have been an ancestor of the Lutzin Super family.

As a result of the above re-examination of the Super family tree, the first chapter of my book “The Pen and the Blade - Super family” (Petah Tikvah, Israel 1992), entitled “Tracing the Family Tree” pages 2-31 should be deleted. The detailed family tree pages 116-184 has been considerably updated and is available in a separate file.

[1] Latvian State Historical Archive, Riga. Reference 755-1-370-142. Extracted by Aleksanders Feigmanis, Riga, Latvia, 1997

Family Heirloom - Tefilin

My Tefilin

Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, September 2008.

They aren’t particularly beautiful, now that they have had to be retired. Simple black cases, like tired old wood. Actually they’re parchment, petrified like wood after 165 years of constant, loving dedication. What simple beauty is encased in these old relics.

Heirlooms?

I would call them heirlooms, though they lack the monetary value usually thought to go with that term. But their value to me is greater than diamonds. Their value lies in not what they are, but whose they were.

I received the Tefilin in 1960 when I reached Barmitzvah age. My mother gave them to me telling me that I should treasure them as they belonged to her father, my grandfather Shlomo Zalman Komesaroff (Komisaruk, 1886-1958). Not only that, but they belonged to his grandfather before him, Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk (1830-1897), a revered figure in family lore.



Perhaps they were even older.

My grandfather died when I was eleven and his grandfather died when grandfather was eleven. In fact Rabbi Pinkhas’s grandfather, Rabbi Dov Ber Komisaruk (1776-1843) died when Pinkhas was thirteen and maybe the Tefilin originated that far back. What is certain is that they came from Lithuania when the Komisaruk family migrated from the town of Raseiniai to settle on the Jewish agricultural colony Grafskoy (now Proletarsky), Yekaterinoslav Guberniya, Ukraine in 1847.

As I think back over the history of my ancestors, the events they were involved in, the trials and tribulations and the joyous occasions, I imagine that the Tefilin were silent witnesses to those events. I imagine how they were lovingly packed with Pinkhas’s belonging when the family set off in 1847 in a small group of eleven families, some in wagons and some walking for the arduous journey that took months until they reached the Ukraine.

I imagine how Pinkhas took the Tefilin with him when he was conscripted into the Russian army during the Crimean War and took care of the needs of Jewish troops by slaughtering animals to provide for kosher food, he was a Shokhet, and by performing funerals for the Jewish casualties.

I imagine how Pinkhas took his Tefilin with him when he jumped onto his horse whenever he heard of a pogrom in 1880’s and rode off to help and comfort the victims.

I imagine how Pinkhas wore the Tefilin when he attended Morning Prayer with the families of babies for who he performed circumcision, he was a Mohel.

I imagine Pinkhas teaching his grandson Shlomo Zalman how to put on Tefilin in preparation for his Barmitzvah, an occasion Pinkhas was not to live long enough to attend.

Some of my fondest memories of my grandfather are intimately bound up with religious occasions: sitting in the synagogue next to him or on his knee as he showed me the place in the Siddur. Listening as he made Kiddush on Shabbat or conducted the Seder on Pesach. After his death and my attainment of Barmitzvah, I was proud to wear the Tefilin which carried with them so many memories, both personal and historical.

Just as my grandfather brought them from Russian to Australia in 1913, so I brought them from Australia to Israel when we made Aliyah in 1977. I wore them daily for about forty years. From time to time they were inspected by a Sofer to make sure that the inscription on the parchment had not been damaged. Winding the straps around the boxes after use gradually took its toll on the shape of the Tefilin as they became warped.

Finally about the year 2000, they became unusable. I was inconsolable; I had to buy new tefilin. They would never be the same.

My Heirloom is now a museum piece. The Tefilin sit in a show case in our living room on a small bag embroidered specially for them by my grandmother, along with my grandfather’s white Kippah that he wore on festivals, They look lonely and tired, but still proud after so much that they have witnessed.

Genetic testing as an aid for genealogical research – personal experience of Chaim Freedman

Lecture given by Chaim Freedman to the Jewish Family Research Association, Petah Tikvah, Israel, May 2008.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and are based on a genealogical approach. The author claims no scientific expertise in Genetics.

In October 2006 I received the results of my genetic testing from Family Tree DNA. I had ordered a test of twelve markers on the Y chromosome, my paternal ancestry. (For technical explanations see Family Tree DNA site http://www.familytreedna.com/ ).

Initially I matched exactly with seven families who had tested with FTDNA. Over the course of the following year four more families tested and matched at the 12 marker level.

The families corresponded and exchanged information about their known ancestry in the male line with respect to the dates of their earliest known ancestors and their place of origin.

Subsequently most of the families updated their test to 25 markers and then 37 markers in order to establish more accurately possible common ancestry.

While 11 families matched my markers exactly on 12 markers, only 4 matched exactly on 25 markers while the other families differed on one or more markers. None of the families matched me exactly on 37 markers, but showed a variation of non-matching markers such that the probability of a common ancestor within a reasonable genealogical time frame lessened as a greater numbers of markers were tested.

The following is a list of the families, the date of birth of their earliest known ancestor and their place of origin.

(In the interests of privacy only the initial of the family surname is shown).

C; 1830; Dombroveni, Ukraine (Romania).
F; 1840; Rumania
H; 1850; Slavuta and Starakonstntinovka, Ukraine.
K; 1858; Starakonstantinovka, Ukraine.
L; 1875; Odessa, Ukraine.
Le; no response
Lo; Jugoslavia.
S; 1735; Orinin, Ukraine.
Sa; 1825; Alsace.
Si; 1825, Zinkov, Ukraine.
Z; 1860; Miastovka and Dombroveny, Ukraine.

Freedman; 1780, Zakroczym, Poland.

The Jewish Pale of Settlement in Russia, 1835-1917

from "The Jews of Russia, Their History in maps and photographs"

Martin Gilbert, 1976

Click to enlarge

Podolia, Volynia, Bessarabia, Ukraine - origins of the getetically matching families

Click to enlarge

It is possible for each of the matching families to calculate the number of generations, and thereby years, to the Most Recent Common Ancestor by using that facility on each family’s home pages. Next to each name (in the 37 marker section) is an icon which leads to this facility. It gives a chart showing the percentage probability to our MRCA. BUT we should carry out the second stage of this calculation, which is also provided, by entering the number of generations we know that we are not related. For example, my earliest known ancestor Yaakov Frydman was born about 1780. He was not the ancestor of any of this group. I am fifth generation after him. So I add a factor of five to the calculation. This pushes any MRCA further back. It is up to each of us to then decide what % probability we choose to consider significant for a relationship between us. I adjusted the calculation of the distance to our Most Recent Common Ancestor to 75% probability taking into account that we have no known common ancestor within 5 generations.

Family Tree DNA provides a statistical guide for Most Recent Common Ancestor for 12 identical markers:
7 generations, 50% probability
23 generations, 90% probability
29 generations, 95% probability.

For instance, my closest match is with Z and Si with a genetic difference of 2. That alone does not tell me how far back we may relate. Going to the FTDNA site and entering the above factors for each of Z and Si, I find that at a level of 75% probability our MRCA was 11 generations ago, or about 275 years. If I had not factored in the known non-relationship of 5 generations, I would have reached an incorrect level of relationship of about 9 generations or 225 years.We should also consider geographic proximity (which cannot be factored in mathematically) . For instance H and K both originate in the Slavuta area, Z and C have relatives in the same town Dombroven. This despite the level of DNA match.

In my opinion, based on our experience whereby the more markers we test, the further away from each other we move, for those who have not tested 37 markers the calculations are not worth doing.

Although my family lived in Zakroczym near Warsaw my DNA matches come from Volynia and Podolia.

My great-grandfather Jacob- Bendyt Frydman was born in 1852 in Zakroczym just northwest of Warsaw. His father Zyndel Frydman died there in 1855 and on his death record is written "parentage and birthplace not recorded" although he is called "Zyndel Jakubowicz".

One explanation for the missing information on Zyndel Frydman's death record, may be that he was abducted to serve in the army at an early age,from somewhere in the region of my DNA matches came from (Volynia/Podolia) . I am only surmising his military service, but since he was born in 1808 and had his apparently only son (plus two daughters) not until 1852, the military service may account for his absence. Of course we all know how Jewish young boys were kidnapped at a young age and served for 25 years in the army.

A Russian army fortress, Modlin, was constructed in 1823 near Zakroczym. The scenario I see is that Zyndel Frydman may have been released there about 1852 (when he was nearly aged 25), married a girl from a Zakroczym family (Chanah Gro) and settled there. Since he was kidnapped young, he may not have known anything about his origins, hence the lack of such information on his death.

It is interesting that over the last year since the original matching families have been in contact only three additional people has been discovered, even with a minimal twelve marker match. We await the details of these additional families.

The progress of our updating from 12 markers to 37 markers has demonstrated that it is not worth making assumptions about any possible relationships until at least 37 markers are tested. As we tested more markers, our original supposed exact match on 12 markers moved further and further away, such that none of us now match within a reasonable genealogical time period. But we can be encouraged that our data is within the FTDNA system and can only hope that their testing sample grows significantly.

Significance of ethnicity.

The above group of matching Jewish families are classified by their markers in one or other of the subgroups of I Haplogroup. According to the scientific research papers this haplogroup is not typically Jewish.

I sought a theoretical explanation for this phenomenon.

The statistical distribution of this haplogroup is predominantly Scandinavia, North Germany, France, Britain. A very small number of the recorded/tested families were Jewish.

Yet the common geographic origin of the matching Jewish families may be explained by the introduction of a non-Jewish primogenitor-father in the Ukraine. Given the marital ban on marriages between Jews and Christians, and the Church ban on Christians converting to Judaism, and given that the matching families above are all Jewish in the male line, it could be assumed that the non-Jewish Ukrainian primogenitor raped the female primogenitor during a pogrom in the Ukraine.

Events which may have provided the circumstances for rape:

Crusades in Germany and France 11th century – about 900 years/ 36 generations, which is much earlier than the probability for 12 exactly matching markers.

Pogrom in Kiev 1113 – unlikely source as above.

Black death massacres in Germany late 14th century. May have introduced haplogroup I close to its geographic origin.

Cossack massacres (Khemelnitsky) in the Ukraine 1648-1655. If the son of a Jewish woman raped by a Cossack was born about 1650, given an average family size of 12 children, of whom about 30% died in childhood, and if the survivors were 50% males, then the natural increase per generation was a factor of 4. The child of the rape union may have had 4 sons, 16 grandsons, 64 great-grandsons, 256 great-great-grandsons, and 1024 great-great-great-grandsons.

Ukraine - region of Cossack massacres 1648-1655

Click to enlarge

Given the large number of these hypothetical descendants of the Cossack/Jewish union, one should expect to find many more matches than the eleven families. The reason for such a small number of matches may be due to the small number of families who underwent DNA testing. A search for matches on the Ysearch site http://www.ysearch.org/ yields only a small number of families with the haplogroup I, few of which are Jewish. No Ukrainians appear in this list.
Conversly, no non-Jewish matches were found for the Jewish group. This may indicate that for some reason the group is unique.

It may be concluded that the sample size is too small or that Ukrainians were not tested, such that the above conclusion as to how the matching families are of I haplogroup may lack sufficient evidence.

Until a large sample of Ukrainians have been tested and only if they exhibit significantly I haplogroup, the Cossack rape cause cannot be judged.

Swedish War with Russia and Poland 1655-1658 although evidence (Dubnov) shows that the Swedes were not antagonistic towards the Jews, isolated incidents of rape may have occurred. This could explain the introduction of haplogroup I to a small group of families, perhaps a generation later than that proposed for a Cossack source. Furthermore, being of Scandinavian origin, such a source is in keeping with one of the most prevalent regions of haplogroup I origin.

Source: Simon Dubnov, “The Jews In Russia and Poland”, Philadelphia 1916
Dubnov describes the cruel treatment of the Jews in 1648 by the Cossacks in Podolia and Volynia in such places as Nemirov, Tulchin, Ostropol, Zaslav, Ostrog, Constantinov, Narol, Kreenetz, Bar and many others. The second wave of pogroms in 1655 moved further north into Belarus and Lithuania and Poland.

“The most terrible cruelty, however, was shown towards the Jews. They were destined to utter annihilation. The Cossacks, in conjunction with the local Russian inhabitants, fell upon the Jews and massacred them; the women and girls were violated. The young Jewish women were frequently allowed to live, the Cossacks and the peasants forcing them into baptism and taking them as wives.

After the cessation of the pogroms “Those of them who, at the point of death, had embraced the Greek Orthodox faith, were permitted by King John Casimir to return to their old creed. The Jewish women who had been forcibly baptized fled in large numbers from their Cossack husbands and returned to their families. The losses during the decade 1648-1658 varies between 100,000 and 500,000.”

Further records of the social effect of the pogroms is found in writings of Rabbi Avraham Horowitz, Natan Hannover and the will of Rabbi Sheftel Horowitz “Yesh Nokhlin, 5461/1701: “In all the places where killings were carried out hundreds of small youths, were annihilated, and small babies who were converted were taken by force by the Jews from the Gentiles, and for each was written an amulet from which family he was, by investigation. These amulets were hung on their necks. There was a great mixture and what the wise men of that generation could correct they did, and that which was not possible, remained in the mixture, and it is feared that in the course of years people will cast doubts on their holiness. Therefore it is worthwhile that everyone who was at that time should make a “Seder Yukhsin” (family tree) for his seed and his seed’s seed as a sign and safekeeping”

Reservations about the significance of testing to date:

Of a database of about 134,000 tests done by FTDNA, only 54,000 have been transfered to YSearch . Of these about 4,200 are I haplogroup. Of these only about 170 were tested in Eastern Europe, where most of our families originate. (Figures for YSearch taken in early 2008).Theories as to the significance of ethnic origins of I haplogroup, are, in my opinion, premature.
The significance of Haplogroup to ethnic origins is very controversial.I personally am not impressed with much of what has been published regarding the meaning of Haplogroups to Jewish origins since I do not believe that the samples of Jews are large enough. For instance a sample of about 1400 Jews was taken for a particular experiment. The scope and makeup of the sample was restricted to people from synagogues in the USA.

I feel that there are 5.5 million Jews living in Israel from whom a sample of several hundred thousand could be taken. The problem is the cost. I invested about $500 for my and my wife's tests. I don't think many people are prepared to do that.

There are many opinions there which you can all study and come to your own conclusions. Some have vested interests, religious, political, etc.

Female ancestry

My wife and I tested for our maternal genetic matches. The results, based on Mitochondrial DNA are far less accurate than paternal Y chromosome testing and do not give a clear statistical estimate of the number of generations to a common ancestor. Neverthless, geographic proximaty of matching families does indicate some relationship.

My tests resulted in 132 matches at Low Resolution and only five at High Resolution. Of these five one refused to share their results but two share with me geographic origins in Lithuania.

My wife received 53 Low Resolution matches and 5 High Resolution. Some of her matches originated, like her female ancestry in the Vitebsk area of Belarus.

Scientific papers and Internet sites:

See “Frequently Asked Questions” provided by Family Tree DNA http://www.familytreedna.com/faq.html

Behar, Doron. Skorecki, Karl and others, Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome variation in Ashkenazi Jewish and host non-Jewish European population Human Genetics (2004) 114: 354-365.
http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/Behar_contrasting.pdf

In the later paper haplogroup diversity of Ashkenazi Jews from various regions was compared with non-Jews. 55 Ukrainian Jews appear in the sample, yet no Ukrainian non-Jews were included.

Behar, Doron. Skorecki, Karl and others “Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries. American Journal of Human Genetics 73:768-779, 2003.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/Behar-AJHG-03.pdf

Nordtvelt, Ken Population Varities within Y-Haplogroup I and their extended Modal Haplogroups.
http://www.northwestanalysis.net/

Coffman-Levy, Ellen “A Mosaic of People: the Jewish Story and a Reassessment of the DNA Evidence” Journal of Genetic Genealogy 1:12-13, 2005.
http://www.jogg.info/11/coffman.htm
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_mystery_of_ashkenazic_origins/

http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/43026_doron.pdf
http://forums.familytreedna.com/showthread.php?t=2864
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/links3.shtml
http://www.isogg.org/tree/index.html
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_mystery_of_ashkenazic_origins/

A useful layman’s source for the understanding of Jewish genetic testing is “Jacob’s Legacy, A Genetic View of Jewish History”, David B. Goldstein, Yale University Press, 2008.

A Google search for Jewish Genetics will yield a vast number of sources.

Shmuel Gorr

Elul 21, 5768; September 21, 2008 marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of pioneer genealogist the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr of blessed memory. Two obituaries were published in "Search" Volume 8, Number 3, 1988, one by Chaim Freedman and the other by Charles Bernstein.




Please click on each image below for ease of reading.

Edna Berliner

Obituary by her son-in-law Chaim Freedman



On the 6th of Av 5768, August 6th 2008, Edna Berliner passed away in Melbourne one week short of her 92nd birthday.

Edna Berliner was born August 15th, 1916 in Carlton, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Jacob and Lena Super. She had six brothers. In 1941 she married the late Reverend Phillip (Pinchas) Berliner, London born graduate of English and Eastern European Yeshivot who narrowly escaped the Holocaust and arrived in Australia in 1940. Edna was educated at St.Kilda Park State School and Melbourne Girls High School. Her Jewish education she received at Sunday school and basked in the rich tradition and love of Yiddishkeit of her parents.

Widowed at the age of 43 Edna was faced with the awesome task of bringing up three daughters, Muriel Kleerekoper (Sydney, deceased), Lena Pose (Melbourne) and Jane Freedman (Israel). Edna contributed ably to her father and husband’s communal activities. In her youth she acted as secretary to the late Rabbi Dr. Joseph Abrahams who spent his last years living with the Supers and treated Edna lovingly as if she was his daughter. She was active in the National Council of Jewish Women and the women’s auxiliary of South Caulfield Shule where she attended after nearly a half century living in Crimea Street, St.Kilda and attending St.Kilda Shule with which her father and husband were associated.

Edna was a wealth of information about communal history, particularly Carlton, and loved to talk about old times, people, Shule and Beth Din intrigues. She was interviewed by historians for material for their books.

Edna had a wide circle of friends who appreciated her keen sense of humour, warm hospitality, home wisdom and common sense.

In particular she staunchly maintained her love and allegiance to her father’s and husband’s Yiddishkeit. She read voraciously and diligently reviewed Parshat Hashavuah each week in preparation for Shabbat. She attended Shule every Shabbat until her health no longer permitted. Such was her inspiration in this respect that kind members of the congregation came to her home to blow Shofar, to bring her Lulav and Etrog and invited her to eat in their Sukkah. Deprived of the male role in the home after the death of her husband and father, she took on the task of making Kiddush, Zemirot, Benching and Havdalah, ever a staunch advocate for women’s equality in Judaism. Her habit of being ready for Shabbat and Chagim several days in advance was a source of good humour for her family.

Edna’s life was fraught by many illnesses that she coped with in courage and determination. She was like a cat with nine lives twice over and considered every day that she was spared as a blessing. In her latter years she was handicapped in her mobility but was determined to retain her independence and continue to live in her own home in dignity. Her last years were spent at Montefiore Homes.

She was scrupulous in account keeping and one of her typical sayings was “I hate owing money”. She loved shopping and would tell the shopkeepers “I’m looking for my daughter”. Despite her incapacity she diligently carried out her exercises and persisted to walk up her drive to collect the mail until she was no longer able and accepted the help of her neighbors with whom she maintained warm relationships.

She was a determined lady and typical was the occasion when visiting Israel and unable to find other transport to the Kibbutz where her daughter and son-in-law were staying, joined them hitchhiking, even when it involved clambering into the back of a van. On the Kibbutz she insisted in pulling her weight and spent the time of her visit there working in the communal kitchen and exchanging opinions with the ladies in a variety of languages. She traveled to Israel five times by herself and was daring enough one trip to book a tour and get her hair cut in Athens.

The highlight of one of those trips was her reunion in Israel with her brother the late Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super, whom she had not seen for 51 years.

Edna always maintained contact with her many longstanding friends and made phone calls to enquire about their health and the wellbeing of their families.

She was very much part of Australian culture being the first of her parents’ children to be born in Melbourne. So she liked her little flutter on the Melbourne Cup. She was a fun loving parent who read and composed stories to her children when they were young and was not above playing “skippy” with them on a Shabbat afternoon. She liked a dip in the sea and took the children to St.Kilda beach on a Friday morning. In summer she would arise at 5 AM, get Shabbat prepared and thus have the whole day to take her daughters out. She was modest and would say, “I can always learn from my daughters”. She liked a good joke even if it was a bit risqué and had an infectious rollicking laugh.

Edna loved the movies and music. She had a number of favourite songs such as “Danny Boy”, “Roses Whisper” and “Esah Einei”, although her singing voice was ever a source of amusement for her family.

She used to jokingly say that she would come to Israel to help her daughter do the mending. She hated wastefulness and would save pencil ends, envelopes, jars and plastic bags. She loved her garden and had “Green fingers”. Her garden was a riot of colour and fragrance, winter and summer. Even when she had to walk with a frame she was determined to potter amongst her plants.

Always interested in current affairs at one time she worked voluntarily for a radio station collecting news items. Similarly she combed the newspapers and sent clippings to her family in Israel.

Edna was a proud grandmother and great-grandmother and called her extended family her “treasure”. She loved to entertain and cook them their favourite dishes. Her greatest pleasure she derived from being surrounded by her loving family. In particular her grandchildren and great-grandchildren after whose welfare she constantly enquired, despite them being spread over four continents.

She was loved and respected by her sons in law whom she treated as if they were her own sons.

Edna is survived by two daughters, six grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren.

Long will she be remembered – a true Eshet Chayil.

Eulogy at the funeral of Edna Berliner

Written and delivered by her granddaughter Deborah (Pose) Lazerow.

Edna Berliner was born August 15th, 1916 in Faraday St Carlton, the daughter of Rabbi Isaac Jacob and Lena Super. She had six brothers and was proud of saying that she was the first of the Aussie batch. Edna was educated at St.Kilda Park State School and Melbourne Girls High School and had classes at Government house. Her Jewish education she received at Sunday school and she basked in the rich tradition and love of Yiddishkeit of her parents.

In her youth she acted as secretary to the late Rabbi Dr. Joseph Abrahams who spent his last years living with the Supers and treated Edna as if she was his daughter. She was active in the National Council of Jewish Women and the women’s auxiliary of South Caulfield Shule.

In 1941 she married the late Reverend Phillip (Pinchas) Berliner, who arrived in Australia from London in 1940 and later became chazzan at St Kilda Shule, community shochet and bar mitzvah teacher.

Widowed at the age of 43 Edna was faced with the awesome task of bringing up three daughters, the late Muriel Kleerekoper, Lena Pose and Jane Freedman.

Throughout her life she staunchly maintained her love and allegiance to her Judaism. She read voraciously and diligently reviewed Parshat Hashavuah each week in preparation for Shabbat. She attended Shule every Shabbat until her health no longer permitted and continued to pray at home throughout her days. Such was her inspiration in this respect that members of the Shule congregation came to her home to blow Shofar, to bring her Lulav and Etrog and invited her to eat in their Sukkah.

Deprived of the male role in the home after the death of her husband and father, she took on the task of making Kiddush, Zemirot, Benching and Havdalah, ever a staunch advocate for women’s equality in Judaism. Her habit of being ready for Shabbat and Chagim several days in advance was a source of good humour for her family and continued to be the top of her mind even in her last days.

Edna’s life was fraught by many illnesses that she coped with in courage and determination. She was like a cat with nine lives and considered every day that she was spared as a blessing. In her latter years she was limited in her mobility but was determined to retain her independence and continue to live in her own home in dignity until her late 80’s. Edna had a green thumb and one of the saddest things for her to give up besides her independence and loving neighbors when she moved to the Montifiore was her beloved pot plants.

Despite her growing frailty she diligently carried out her exercises and persisted to walk up her drive to collect the mail until she was no longer able and accepted the help of her neighbors with whom she maintained warm relationships

She was a determined lady and typical was the occasion when visiting Israel and unable to find other transport to the Kibbutz where her daughter and son-in-law were staying, joined them hitchhiking, even when it involved clambering into the back of a van. She traveled to Israel five times by herself and was daring enough one trip to book a tour and get her hair cut in Athens. The highlight of one of those trips was her reunion in Israel with her brother the late Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super, whom she had not seen for 51 years.

Edna always maintained contact with her many longstanding friends and made phone calls to enquire about their health and the wellbeing of their families, children and grandchildren.

Edna loved the movies and music. She had a number of favourite songs such as “Danny Boy” and “Roses Whisper” although her singing voice was ever a source of amusement for her family.

She used to jokingly say that she would come to Israel to help her daughter do the mending. An early environmentalist, she hated wastefulness and would save pencil ends, envelopes, jars and plastic bags. Always interested in current affairs at one time she worked voluntarily for a radio station collecting news items. Similarly she combed the newspapers and sent clippings to her family in Israel and her granddaughters when they traveled.

Edna was a proud grandmother and great-grandmother and was fondly known as Super Nanny.

Roses whisper good night neath the silvery light asleep in the dew while the dawn peepeth through. These words, sung out of tune and full of love, were the words that Nana used to sing us to sleep as kids. It was also the words that we whispered to her last night as she slipped into her final sleep.

It’s poignant that nana sang about roses because she herself was like a rose.
Like a rose, Nana was held aloft by a strong stem. Her will and her faith gave her a strength that was hard to equate with such a frail elderly woman.

Nana’s personal motto was PMA – positive mental attitude. She strongly believed in the power of the mind to influence everything and kept her mind active by clipping newspaper stories for her loved ones overseas. To keep her mind positive, she always chose to surround herself with positive imagery. No matter the occasion, she always chose to wear happy colours, pretty beads and bright red lipstick and she always asked the same of the women that she loved. She was fond of saying that a woman is never dressed without her lipstick so for you nana, we are properly dressed today.

Her positivity was infectious. It was impossible to visit her without cheering up and the nurses and staff that cared for her , particularly those at Montifiore who showed such affection and professionalism always loved to pay her a visit. She never complained about physical discomfort, after all there was nothing that a bit of dencorub and a panamax couldn’t fix and nothing that avocado cream couldn’t make beautiful.

Nana was testament to the power of faith. A deeply religious woman, her life was steered and steeled by Judaism. This was epitomized by the fact that she held on to say shema and sing tehillim on her last night with, Rabbi Sufrin, who she called “her boyfriend” and who proved to be an amazing support to her and all our family over that past few years.

While she was still living at home, to visit Nana on a Friday afternoon was inspirational. Her table would be set immaculately with white table cloth and polished silverware. The kitchen would contain one setting of entree, soup decorated with parsley, main course, her famous coleslaw (when she remembered to put it on the table) and of course desert followed by biscuits to go with her tea. Her bedroom would be set up with her shabbes outfit, including her brightest jewellery, lipstick and shabbes shoes. She even kept a special pair of shabbes slippers to wear after dinner, which she often chose to eat alone to avoid breaking Shabbat by travelling to her family.

Nana had the self-respect to spoil herself for Shabbat and Yom Tov but her greatest love was spoiling others. Even at Montifiore she kept her not so secret stash of chocolates, wafers and suck lollies to share with all her visitors.

Like any flourishing rose bush, Nana had strong roots that she was proud of. While she was modest in her own right, she was always delighted to tell us about the achievements of her scholarly brothers, her elegant mother and her father who was a member of the Beth Din in Australia. Nana’s stories were filled with words about the rabbonim that the family would entertain in Crimea Street and the grand social gatherings that she attended with her accomplished brothers.

Like a the leaves on a rose, Nana has sprouted bountiful offspring and I know she was fulfilled to attend marriages of 3 daughters, dance at the weddings of three granddaughters, send messages to the weddings of two grandsons and to receive an invitation to the wedding next week of her great granddaughter, Mirel. Nana waited almost 90 years to give her debut speech in public and I’m sure many of you will remember the touch words that she delivered at both Karyn and my weddings. Into her later years, Nana could still remember all the important family dates and would be the first to call for birthdays, Hebrew birthdays, half birthdays and anniversaries.

Like the thorns of a rose bush, Nana had the surprisingly sharp barrier of self protection. A feminist before her time, her feistiness when her rights and comforts were at stake was renowned, even at Montifiore. But even with this assertiveness, her guiding principle was respect for everyone so she would demand a cup of HOT tea with a smile. She fought death on a number of occasions and only went when she was ready to go.

Although a rose is held aloft by strong stem, roots and leaves it is the perfumed flower that everyone admires and so it is with Nana. Nana’s Hebrew name was Yenta, and rather than the gossiping yenta of folk law, Nana adhered to her namesake in being a gentle woman with the softness of rose petals. Nana kissed and hugged with the softest of arms and cheeks. Last week mum celebrated her birthday and Nana still found the energy to give her 61 gentle birthday smacks, with one to grow on.

Our rose wilted 10 days short of her 92nd birthday but her perfume remains in all of us and we are truly blessed to have known this Eshet Chail.

Death In Venice - seeking the Katzenellenbogen tombstones

Death In Venice - seeking the Katzenellenbogen tombstones

(Chaim Freedman, July 2008.)

Having recently discovered my descent from the Katzenellenbogen family, I decided to trace the graves of members of the early generations while I was in Italy (May 2008).






http://chfreedman.blogspot.com/search/label/Ancestry%20of%20the%20Vilna%20Gaon%20-%20Descent%20from%20King%20David


My wife and I were staying in Venice for a week in a conveniently located Pension in the Ghetto Nuovo, the oldest part of the Ghetto which was founded in 1516. We visited the adjacent Jewish museum and I asked one of the curators, Daniela, whether she knew of Katzenellenbogens who might be buried in the ancient Jewish cemetery of Venice located on the Lido Island. Daniela looked up several books which were in the museum library and which included lists of the burials in the Lido cemetery. There were no Katzenellenbogens, neither listed under that surname, nor were any of the deceased who were listed without surname, of suitable personal names.

I was aware that the two Katzenellenbogens who had held the official position of Rabbi of Venice were buried in Padua, but it was not clear where the wife of one of them was buried and so I suspected that she might be buried in Venice. It turned out that I was wrong.

The earliest member of the family to be known by the surname Katzenellenbogen was Rabbi Meir the son of Yitskhak. His family apparently came from the small village overlooking the Rhine called Katzenellenbogen. Meir’s father Yitskhak moved to Padua in Italy, a rich centre of Jewish and secular scholarship. Yitskhak wife was believed by many rabbinic genealogists to have been a daughter of Yekhiel Luria (died 1470), whose family held a tradition of descent from Rashi (1040-1105), himself a reputed descendant of King David.

Meir Katzenellenbogen was born in Germany in 1482 and was known by an acrostic of his name as the “Maharam Padua”. His wife Khanah was a daughter of Rabbi Avraham Mintz, a son of Rabbi Yehudah ben Eliezer Halevy Mintz (c.1405-1508). The Mintz family came from Maintz, Germany and Rabbi Yehudah established the Yeshiva in Padua which was attended by prominent scholars. On his death his son Rabbi Avraham succeeded as Head of the Yeshivah and Rabbi of Padua. On Avraham’s death in about 1535[1] his son-in-law Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen became rabbi both of Padua and Venice. He lived in Padua and only visited Venice periodically.

On the death of the Maharam Padua in 1565, his son Rabbi Shmuel-Yehudah became Rabbi of Venice where he resided. His wife’s name was Avigayil (her father’s name is not known) and she died in 1594 in Venice, followed by Rabbi Shmuel-Yehudah in 1597, also in Venice. However Rabbi Shmuel-Yehudah was taken to Padua for burial next to his father and mother.

According to Rosenstein[2] “Over the centuries, the tombstone of the Maharam began to crumble being made of soft stone, and its inscription was becoming illegible, so that in 1966, four hundred years after his death, the community of Padua replaced the tombstone with a new one in the original site. The old stone now stands in the new cemetery of Padua. This was witnessed by the present writer on a visit to Padua in 1968.” *

During my vacation in Italy I was anxious to visit the Katzenellenbogen graves, both out of sentiment for my ancient ancestors (I am an 18th generation descendant of the Maharam Padua through the Vilna Gaon) but also to ascertain the burial place of Avigayil and perhaps her father’s name which I expected to appear on the inscription on her tombstone.

Padua has several old cemeteries and I consulted the Jewishgen’s International Cemetery project http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/ to determine which housed the Katzenellenbogen tombstones. This indicated that there were two ancient cemeteries. So I consulted a site for Jewish Padua

http://www.kosherdelight.com/ItalyVenetoPaduaSynagogue.htm

which stated that “The Jewish cemeteries in the city make a separate itinerary: there are seven in all, and some can be visited by arrangement with the community offices.The first cemetery is at San Leonardo and dates from before 1348. Among the tombs is that of the famous Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen (1482-1565) with its carving of a cat (Katze in German).”

I posted on the Jewishgen forum a request for information about the accessibility of the cemetery. I received several replies including one from Israeli genealogist Schelly Talalay-Dardashti http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com/ who referred me to an expert on Italian Jewry, Nardo Bonomi who lives in Florence and is the coordinator of the site
http://www.italian-family-history.com/jewish/genealogy.html . He very kindly phoned the Jewish Community Centre in Padua and made enquiries for me. Likewise I was informed by Elieser Rosenfield of Jerusalem that he had visited the cemetery and he gave me the contact details of the person who guided him, an official of the Padua Jewish Community Raffaele D'Angeli.

I emailed the latter and we set a date for my visit as the cemetery is not readily open to the public other than by prior arrangement.

Meanwhile in Venice we arranged to visit the cemetery on the Lido in the hope of perhaps finding the grave of Avigayil Katzenellenbogen. There was only one weekly tour available, led by Daniela of the Jewish museum. However this was cancelled due to heavy rain.

So on the day before we were due to leave Italy we set off by train on a short thirty minute journey to Padua. We met Rafi as arranged outside the Plaza Hotel. A twenty minute walk through the old cobbled streets of Padua led us to the locked gate set in the high brick wall surrounding the cemetery. Rafi unlocked the gate to let us in and took us the back row of the cemetery. The grounds are well looked after and there is an ongoing project to restore and identify the tombstones.






The Katzenellenbogen tombstones stand in a row against the rear wall of the cemetery. According to Rafi this was their original site. It was a very moving moment to be confronted by the tombstones of my ancestors of 450 years ago.





There are five stones from left to right:

Rabbi Shmuel Yehudah, 1521-1597 son of Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen.


Rabbi Meir the “Maharam Padua”, 1482-1565.


Khanah, died 1564, the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Halevy Mintz
and wife of Meir Katzenellenbogen.


The bottom fragment of a tombstone, most of the inscription being illegible.


Avigayil, the wife of Shmuel Yehudah, died 1594.


This last stone cleared up the mystery as to where Avigayil was buried. Like her husband who also died in Venice, her body must have been taken to Padua for burial. Her father’s name does not appear on her tombstone, so that remains a mystery. Had I read Edelman’s book “Gedulat Shaul”[3] thoroughly I would have noted that his copies of the inscriptions of the Katzenellenbogen tombstones in Padua included Avigyail. Apparently Pinkhas Katzenellenbogen, the author of “Yesh Mankhilin” (1758) had no access to the Padua cemetery as not only does he omit the tombstone incriptions, but he confuses the names of the wives[4] . The manuscript of Yesh Mankhilin was published in 1986 and the editor likewise appears to have been unaware of the inscriptions published by Edelman in “Gedulat Shaul” (1854).

Set on the wall over the fragmented stone is an architrave bearing the figure of a cat. This also appears at the top of the other stones and indicates the source of the surname from the town Katzenellenbogen “cat’s elbow”.



As to the fragmented stone between Khanah and Avigayil, I believe it can be identified from the wording on Khanah’s tombstone which states that she was buried to the right of her father, Avraham Mintz. That indeed is the location in relation to the fragmented stone.

A personal note: our daughter’s name is Avigayil Khanah, like the two female Katzenellenbogens, a coincidence I only realized when standing by the tombstones.

I was interested in seeing the tombstone of Rabbi Yehudah Mintz, the grandfather of the Maharam’s wife, but Rafi informed me that he had been buried in another cemetery next to Rabbi Yitskhak Abarbanel and the stone had been destroyed. This is confirmed in “Elef Margaliot”[5] which states that the stone was destroyed during a war a year after the burial, in 1509.

The Hebrew inscriptions on the tombstones match those cited by Endelman[6] (see copies above) and the English translation can be found in Rosenstein[7], with the exception of that of Avigayil.

* It appears to me that the stone which was restored was that of Shmuel Yehudah and not of his father the Maharam. Shmuel-Yehudah’s stone is white with a clearly etched inscription. The adjacent stones of his relatives are of uniform condition and apparent age. I have asked Rafi for clarification.

I am also awaiting the arrival of Rosenstein’s new book on Shaul Wahl, a son of Shmuel Yehudah Katzenelenbogen to ascertain whether he has included an updated reference to the tombstones.


Sources:
“Yesh Mankhilin”, Pinkhas Katzenellenbogen, manuscript from 1758 , published Jerusalem 1986.
“Gedulat Shaul”, Tzvi Hersh Edelman, London 1854.
“The Unbroken Chain”, Neil Rosenstein, CIS Publishers, New Jersey, U.S.A. 1990.
“Elef Margaliot”, Meir Wunder, Jerusalem, 1993.
“Saul Wahl : Polish King for a Night, Or, Lithuanian Knight for a Lifetime”, Neil Rosenstein, 2006.
“The Venetian Ghetto”, Sullam and Calimani, Milan 2005
“The Ghetto On the Lagoon:, Unberto Fortis, Venice 1995.
“Ancestry of the Gaon of Vilna – Descent from King David”, Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, Israel, September 2005, published in "Avotaynu" Volume XXI, Number 3, Fall 2005.

Links:
Chaim Freedman’s blog http://chfreedman.blogspot.com/

Photos of trip to Italy:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chaimjan/Italy2008

Information about the Katzenellenbogen family.
Wikepedia links have been used for convenience of access, but the information is not necessarily accurate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meir_Padua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Judah_Katzenellenbogen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_Minz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Minz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenellenbogen,_Germany

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Venice.html
http://www.archipelago.org/vol2-3/lido.htm
http://www.museoebraico.it/english/home.asp
http://www.museoebraico.it/english/ghetto.html
http://www.italian-family-history.com/jewish/genealogy.html
http://www.kosherdelight.com/ItalyVenetoPaduaSynagogue.htm
http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/

[1] “ Elef Margaliot”, Meir Wunder, Jerusalem 1993, p.186
[2] “The Unbroken Chain”, Neil Rosenstein, 1990, Volume I page 3.
[3] “Gedulat Shaul”, Tzvi Hirsh Edelman, London 1854, introduction pp.xii,-xiv
[4] “ Yesh Mankhilin”, Pinkhas Katzenellenbogen, manuscript from 1758 , published Jerusalem 1986, page 59.
[5] “ Elef Margaliot”, Meir Wunder, Jerusalem 1993, p.190.
[6] “ Gedulat Shaul”, Tzvi Hirsh Edelman, London 1854, introduction pp.xii,-xiv
[7] “The Unbroken Chain”, Neil Rosenstein, 1990, Volume I, pp2-4.

Leopold Quint: The mystery of his fate.

My late grandmother Annie Freedman (born 1885 Pikeliai, Lithunia; died 1967Melbourne, Australia) told me that her younger brother Leib/Leopold Kvint returned to Lithuania from England in order to marry. I have a photo of him and his wife taken in Kursenai in 1928.




My grandmother told me that her brother moved to Riga and was killed on the first day of the German occupation of the city. She believed that Leopold's wife and children were killed subsequently. She did not recall the name of her brother's wife or children.

For over 40 years I have been seeking evidence as to my great-uncle's fate.

Recently I received a prompt reply from The International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germanyinforming me that they had no record of him.




An on-line database "Victims of Political Terror in the USSR" http://www.lists.memo.ru/index11.htm includes




"Leopold Yudelevich Kvint, born 1888 in Lithuania, Jewish, without specialoccupation, lived in Orlov, convicted 15.01.1944 by a special committee ofthe NKVD under law 58.10 and sentenced to 5 years deprivation of freedom. Rehabilitated 07.04.1961. Source: Kniga Pamyati (Memorial Book) of Kirov Oblast."

As my great-grandfather's name was Yoel-Yehudah (Yudel), my greatuncle was aged 16 according to a Hamburg Passenger list from 1903 en-route to London(therefore born about 1887), and was born in Lithuania, then I believe that the above was indeed my long-looked-for great-uncle Leib or Leopold Kvint.







What I do not understand is why my grandmother thought he had perished in1941, how he survived, what he was doing between 1941 and his arrest in1944, why he was arrested in Orlov, was he alive when he was "rehabilitated", and what then became of him (if he survived his imprisonment) !

I have studied various sources for the period, but fail to understand why he and many other Jews were arrested in 1944 by the NKVD, that is after theGermans had been defeated in the USSR.

Details of the period are to be found on "Gulag during World War II" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag and details of the Penal Code of theRSFSR at http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/uk58-e.html#58-1a give the following information:


"Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25,1927 to arrest those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.Sentences were long, up to 25 years, and frequently extended indefinitely without trial or consultation. Inmates under Article 58 were known as"politichesky" as opposed to common criminals, "ugolovnik". Upon release, the prisoner would typically be sent into an exile within Russia without the right to settle closer than 100 km from large cities.Section 10 of Article 58 made "propaganda and agitation against the Soviet Union" a triable offence, whilst section 12 allowed for onlookers to be prosecuted for not reporting instances of section 10. In effect, Article 58was carte blanche for the secret police to arrest and imprison anyone deemed suspicious, making for its use as a political weapon. A person could be framed: The latter would arrange an "anti-Soviet" incident in the person's presence and then try the person for it. If the person pleaded innocence, not having reported the incident would also make them liable to imprisonment. During and after World War II, Article 58 was used to imprison many returned Soviet prisoners of war on the grounds that their capture and detainment by the Axis Powers during the war was proof that they did not fight to thedeath and were therefore anti-Soviet."


The fate of Leopold Quint remains a mystery.

Yoel of Brisk

Research to establish identity of Yoel of Brisk (Brest)

Chaim Freedman, February, 2008

Enquiry from Nancy Holden (December 2007):

Can you recommend a way to find out more about Joel of Brest who married oneof Yom Tov Lipman Heller's daughters?





“Yahrzeit letter which surfaced in South Africa, Israel and Canada...the originator gives the first mention of the manuscript "Chemdat Yamim" by Eliezer son of Jacov of Slonim, published 1807. And the Dedication page of the manuscript itself. Three editions of this manuscript have been located, one at the British Museum Library, another at the Widener Library at Harvard University and all five of his works at Yeshiva University in New York (four unpublished).


My ancestor, Eliezer Kaler of Amstibava (Mscibow), Belarus, (born 1749) wasmarried to Friedel (born 1759) the daughter of a Moses (lineage unknown) andMiriam (name according to 1784 GDL for Mscibow). Miriam was the daughter of Moses of Copenhagen and the daughter of SolomonZalman (her name unknown). The other daughter of Solomon Zalman was Estherwho was to married Ezekiel Katzenellenpogen (author of "Kenesset Yezekiel".Chief Rabbi of Hamburg, ABD of Altona,Hamburg and Wandsbeck) as listed inRosenstein's "These are the Generations") and Solomon Zalman was the son ofJoel of Brest-Litovsk.The father of Moses of Copenhagen was "Rosh Josef" who was married toDevora, daughter of Moses of Vilna. And he "Rosh Josef" (Josef ben JacobJoshua of Pinchow) was a grandson (most likely great grandson) document says"necad" of Jacob Polak of Krakow (died 1552).These documents say Joel of Brest was descended from Yom Tov. One translatorsays Solomon Zalman was known as "the great traveler" but I have not seenthat anywhere else.Another translator translates from the Dedication paragraph of "ChemdatYamin" "an uncle of Friedel, Jacob son of Benjamin of Grodno, supportedEliezer and Friedel while Eliezer wrote his manuscript "Sha'ar HaDerushimChemdat Yamim."


Sources extracted by Chaim Freedman:

Note contradictions between the sources.

“The Feast and the Fast”
Chaim Uri Lipshitz and Neil Rosenstein (1984)

Chart 1.
Yom Tov Lipman Heller 1579-1654,
Daughter who was the wife of Joel of Brest.

Chart 2.
Joel of Brest d.1709, son of “son/dau Joel Sirkes Bach”

father of:

1) Solomon Zalman of Brest
Father of Esther married Ezekiel Katzenellenpogen b. 1668A.B.D. Altona-Hamburg-Wandsbeck.

2) Jehiel Michal
Father of Zvi Hirsch A.B.D. Charkov
Father of Jehiel Michal Michelson, A.B.D. Minsk and first Rabbi of Kaluszyn
Father of Solomon
Father of Mordecai Mottel Michelson 1800-1872
Father of Abraham Haim d.1857
Father of Zvi Ezekiel Michelson 1853-1942
[I have omitted others who are not relevant]

Rosenstein erred in the sequence of the generations: Abraham Haim’s father was Yaakov Yekhiel Mikhel son of Mordecai Mottel as stated in Zvi Ezekiel Michelson’s books.
Rosenstein also erred in stating that Zvi Hersh was ABD Charkov, it was Tsherkov, Nor was his father Jehiel Michal ABD of Minsk, but of Novominsk.

“The Unbroken Chain”
N. Rosenstein page 841

G.12.1 Chava married R. Michael Klausner (note 60 E.J.Michelson etc) …. His ancestry appeared in Ma’amar Mordechai” …… [see below]

Rosenstein erred in ascribing a surname Klausner – he was referred to as “Kolshiner” since that was the town where he lived. His descendants took the surname Michelson.

“Shem Hagedolim Hekhadash”
Azulai 1874
#38 Yoel son of Moshe Gad, author of “Khidushei Halakhot” Altona 1836.
Grandson of the Taz and the Bakh.


“Toldot Anshei Shem”
Efrati 1875
Page 21 family of the Tosfot Yomtov does not include any daughter married to Yoel of Brisk.


“Ir Tehilah”
Arye Leib Feinstein, Warsaw 1885
p.33: Zalmen son of Yoel, father-in-law of the author of Knesset Yekhezkel.
p.103: The Aluf Yoel Segal of Brisk. [none of the sources refer to Yoel of Brisk as a Levi, indicated here by “Segal”, so this Yoel Segal of Brisk must be another person.

“Dagan Shamayim”
Tzvi Yekhezkel Michelson, Piotrykov 1901

Son of Avraham Khaim
Son of Yaakov Yekhiel
Son of Motel of Kolshin
Son of Shlomo
Son of Mikhel
Of the stock of the Bakh and the Tosfot Yomtov.

“Beit Meshulum”
Tzvi Yekhezkel Michelson, Piotrykov 1905
Page 73, Will of Mordekhai Mottel Michelson.

Mordekhai Mottel “Kolushiner”
Tombstone includes “ of the family of the Tosfot Yomtov”.
Son of Shlomo “Yospes” after his mother Yospe.
Son of Yekhiel Mikhel, brother-in-law of Mottel of Praga)
Son of Tzvi Hirsh of Tshorkov
Grandson of Yekhiel Mikhel (his sister was the wife of Yekhezkel Katzenellenbogen …)
Son of Shlomo Zalmen
Son of Yoel of Brisk
son of a son of Yoel Sirkes
[continues with the ancestry of Sirkes via Jaffe]

The wife of Yoel of Brisk was the modest Mrs Khana, daughter of Yomtov Lipman Halevy Helir etc.

“Ma’amar Mordekhai”
Mordekhai Mottel Michelson, edited by Tzvi Yekhezkel Michelson, Piotrykov 1907.

Mordekhai Mottel of Kolshin
Son of Shlomo
Son of Yekhiel Mikhel ABD Novominsk, Shenitza, Kolshin.
Son of Tzvi Hirsh ABD Tsherkov
Grandson of Yekhiel Mikhel (his sister was the wife of the author of “Knesset Yekhezkel, ABD A.H.V.)
Son of Shlomo Zalmen
Son of Yoel of Brisk
Son of a son of Yoel Sirkes ABD Krakow, author of the “Bakh”

The wife of Yoel of Brisk was a daughter of Yomtov Lipman Halevu Helir ABD Krakow, author of “Tosfot Yomtov”.

There is much information in the introduction of this book about this family but nothing further about Yoel of Brisk.

Note that he is designated “son of a son of Yoel Sirkes” while Rosenstein has son of a “son/dau”. It seems this point is not clear, particularly as references to the family of Sirkes do not show such a son of a son.

“Beit Yekhezkel”
Tzvi Yekhezkel Michelson, Piotrykov 1924

Son of Avraham Khaim
Son of Yaakov Yekhiel
Son of Mottel
Son of Shlomo
Son of Yekhiel
Son of Tzvi Hirsh
Grandson of Yekhiel Mikhel (his sister was the wife of the “Knesset Yekhezkel”
Son of Shlomo Zalmen
Son of Yoel of Bikhov
Son-in-law of Shmuel of Brisk who lived in Nemirov
Son of the “Tosfot Yomtov”.

Yoel of Bikhov was a son of Arye Yehudah Leib ABD Krakow, author of Shaagat Arye and Kol Shakhal.
Son of Naftali Hertz ABD Pinczow
Son of Yoel Sirkes the “Bakh”.

Note that the above differs considerable from the above genealogies by the same author, Michelson


“R. Joel Sirkes”
E.J. Schochet, 1971
No mention of Yoel of Brisk among the family of Sirkes.


“Megilat Yukhsin Mishpakhat Heller”
Yekhiel Horowitz-Heller, Tel Aviv 1978
Does not mention Joel of Brisk.


“Sefer Meginei Zahav”
Prague 1720.
Comments on the Taz.
Yoel ABD Szebrezin, edited by his grandson Yoel son of Moshe Gad son of the author Yoel.

The author Yoel of Szebrezin was a grandson of the Taz.

The Taz, David Halevy, was a son-in-law of the Bakh, Yoel Sirkes.


Conclusion:

It would appear that Yoel of Brisk, Yoel of Bykhov and Yoel of Szebrezin were three separate individuals, although related via the Bakh and the Taz.

Further research is required to clarify these identities.

Reverend Phillip Berliner

Pinkhas (Phillip Berliner)

(Written by his son-in-law Chaim Freedman in “The Pen and the Blade, Super Family” 1992).

Pinkhas (Phillip) Berliner was born in London, England in 1916, the youngest son of immigrants from Lodz, Poland. He attended Yeshivah Etz Chaim in London where he learned under the prominent Lithuanian leaders of English ultra-orthodoxy at the time, Rabbis Eliya Lopian and Eliyahu-Eliezer Dessler. He was such an excellent student that his teachers selected him to join a group which went to study at the recently established Gateshead Yeshiva in 1931 under Rabbi N.D.Landinsky.

In the mid 1930’s a proposal was made by the rabbis of Etz Chaim and Gateshead to further the higher religious education of English Yeshiva students at prominent eastern European Yeshivot. Pinkhas Berliner was selected to join a group of about ten students who went to Mir Yeshiva in Poland (now Belarus) and to Telz (Telsiai) Yeshivah in Poland. The group included Rabbi Nakhum-Zev (Velvel) Dessler, Josh Chinn, Rabbi Shlomo Davis, Rabbi Koppul Rosen, Rabbi Chaim Gutnik, Montie Moore, Rabbi Shmuel Bloch, Rabbi Dovber Silver and others who became leading orthodox rabbis and scholars, mainly in the United states. Details are to be found at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rkimble/Mirweb/YeshivaStudents.html .

Pinkhas Berliner studied in Mir under the renowned Rosh Yeshivah Rabbi Eliezer-Yehudah Finkel and the Mashgiakh Rabbi Yekhezkel Levinstein. On the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the foreign students fled Poland, by order of the Rosh Yeshivah, the day before the Germans invaded Poland. For several months the group wandered backwards and forwards through Latvia and Estonia since they had inadequate papers. During this period of extreme physical deprivation and exposure. Pinkhas’s health suffered irreparably. Eventually visas were obtained through a Jewish member of the Latvian parliament, Rabbi Mordekhai Dubin, and the group settled in Lithuania at Telz Yeshivah under the soon to be martyred Rabbi Avraham-Yitskhak Bloch.

After nine months in Telz, in February 1940 Pinkhas rejoined Mir Yeshiva which had been relocated in Keidan, Lithuania. There he was finalizing his studies to qualify for Semikhah (rabbinical ordination) when the Soviet Army invaded the Baltic States. The Yeshivot were constantly harassed by the Communist regime and as the Germany army hovered in nearby Poland, the future looked ominous.

The British Government finally arranged a means of evacuating British and other foreign nationals. Travelling on visas issued by the famous Japanese consul in Kovno (Kaunas) Sugiharo, the group was sent eastwards via the Trans Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. From there they went to Hong Kong but were unable to continue to America due to hostilities at sea. Instead the group travelled to Brisbane, Australia. After several months of futile attempts to establish a Yeshivah in Melbourne, most of the group made their way to America and were amongst the founders of Mir, Telz and Lakewood Yeshivot. Some returned to England after the war.

Those remaining in Australia were Rabbi Dovber Silver, Rabbi Chaim Gutnik and Pinkhas (now Phillip) Berliner. Although he had a visa for America and had been accepted to Yeshiva Mesifta Torah Vadaat in New York, Phillip remained in Australia. He taught briefly in Sydney until he went to Melbourne in 1941 to marry Edna, daughter of Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov and Lena Super. They had three daughters Mirel-Shulamit (Muriel) Kleerekoper, Leah-Nekhama (Lena) Pose and Sheindel (Jane) Freedman.

In order to support his family Phillip learnt Shekhitah and joined his father-in-law at this arduous vocation. He also taught religious classes for the United Jewish Education Board and was assistant Chazan at the St.Kilda Hebrew Congregation. In 1946 he was granted the title “Reverend” by Rabbi Jacob Danglow in recognition of his services to the congregation.

Phillip Berliner was widely respected throughout the community. He approached his vocation with a deep sense of dedication and his sincere enthusiasm for Judaism inspired his students, in particular a small group that studied with him. One of these, Professor Louis Waller wrote to Phillip’s daughter Jane Freedman:

“Your father was a generous teacher in terms of time and energy. He drilled us rigorously in formal Hebrew grammar, introducing me to the patterns and paradigms which became ingrained. Though he was not a scientific linguist, he was very knowledgeable and very determined that our foundations in structure would be well laid. He invited Max Jotkovitz, Sonja Black and me to your home in Crimea Street on Saturday afternoons in the latter part of 1948 and 1949 for revision of the set books and lightening like parsing, declension and conjunction. Your mother would give us tea and cake to sustain us, and your grandfather viewed us with a bemused but benevolent eye. In addition to the biblical set books, grammar and history, we also studied a tractate of Mishnah, Baba Batra.”

Berliner’s work as a Shokhet was very taxing, both from the long work hours and the nature of the work. As recalled by Waller: “I asked your father about his work as a Shochet. He showed me his Khalef (blade) which he carried in a case in his breast pocket. I have an impression, but not a strong one, that he found his work in the slaughter house not only physically but also mentally very demanding.”

Reverend Berliner had regular duties to perform for the St.Kilda synagogue. Aside from services, in particular reading the Torah and teaching, he had to attend weddings, funerals and other occasions in the life of the congregants. In this way he built up a wide circle of people who held him in respect for his mild manner and friendly disposition. Professor Waller, in a memorial to Rabbi Danglow (St.Kilda Hebrew Congregation Chronicle, March 1981), mentions Berliner both as his teacher and paints a picture of the Bimah at the St.Kilda synagogue whilst Rabbi Danglow conducted the Neilah service:

“It is Neilah. On the Almemar stand Reverend Kowadlo and Mr. Berliner – as always. Each is enveloped in white Kittel and woolen Tallit. But both are at the back of the Almemor, in their respective corners. At the desk stands the Rabbi. He is davening Neilah.”

Berliner’s communal duties were not without considerable aggravation, as was common among the Melbourne synagogues, internal politics often claimed innocent victims, in this case Phillip Berliner. His health was never the best, he suffered severely from asthma, and the machinations of several members of the Board of his synagogue wounded him deeply.

On Shabbat, 20th Kheshavn 5720, November 21, 1959 Phillip Berliner died suddenly following a severe asthma attack. The entire community was shocked that this man, beloved by so many, had been struck down in his prime at the age at the age of forty-three.

Phillip’s widow Edna was faced with the awesome task of bringing up their three daughters.




Phillip Berliner C.V. (click to enlarge)






















Novoyelna summer camp about 1938





Reference from Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, Rosh Yeshiva of Mir













Reference from Rabbi Avraham Yitskhak Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva Telz.
















Visa from Japanese Consul Sugihara, Kovno 1940




Phillip Berliner married in 1941 Edna, the daughter of Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super of Melbourne. Berliner served the Melbourne community as Shokhel, Chazan and teacher until his premature death in 1959.








An archive of his papers is to be donated to the Jewish Museum in Melbourne.

Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super

Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov (Isaac Jacob) Super


(Written by his granddaughter Jane Berliner’s husband Chaim Freedman on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth in 1981. Published in the Australian Jewish News, August 7, 1981)

Rabbi Yitskhak Yaakov Super served the Melbourne Jewish community for half a century of its religious life. Many passed through his hands from Brit Milah through Cheder to Barmitzvah and benefitted from his meticulous and relenting supervision of Kashrut.

Son of Shmuel (son of Yosef-Yehoash) Super and Khaya-Minna (daughter of Avraham) Dobrin, Yitskhak-Yaakov was born in 1881 in Lutzin (Ludza) Latvia, a community known as “Jerusalem of Latvia”. The Super family were merchants, scribes, and butchers. He grew up in Karsava (Korsovka). Rabbi Super was educated at local Yeshivot in Rezekne (Rezhitza), Daugavpils (Dvinsk) and Vilnius (Vilna) and then received certification as a Shokhet at the young age of seventeen. He served in that capacity in several small towns in Latvia including Rofe, Sloboad and Lipne.

In 1901 he was obliged to flee from the threat of military conscription which, in Tsarist Russia, was the scene of violent anti-Semitic persecution of Jewish recruits. He arrived in London in 1899 where his services were eagerly sought by the United Synagogue which appointed him as minister to several congregations including Yarmouth and Croydon.

In 1906 Rabbi Super married Lena (Leah) a daughter of Reb Mordekhai Zev (Marks) Bull, one of the first Chabad Chassidim in England. The Bull family was from Karsava (Korsovka), Daugavpils (Dvinsk) and originally from Livani (Lewwnhoff). See separate article.

In 1911 he gave up ministerial duty to serve the London United Shechitah Board in the village of Evercreech, Somerset.

In 1914 Super was sought out by Rabbi Jacob Danglow who had been sent on a mission by the Melbourne community to find a Chief Shokhet for the Melbourne United Shechitah Board. The candidate recommended by Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz was Yitskhak Yaakov Super.

Arriving in Melbourne on August 17th, 1914, Super immediately acquainted himself with the then inadequate Kashrut facilities. The early years were not without conflict and turmoil as he strove to provide strict control over the standard of meat. Many anecdotes are related of his zeal in raiding butcher shops which he suspected of evading the regulations.

Yitskhak Yaakov Super is remembered by numerous families for his services as Mohel which often took him to provincial communities. Likewise he served as a Hebrew teacher and his soundly based European learning enabled him to raise the standard of Jewish knowledge which he imparted to a generation of Australian children. He was also responsible for the training of Shochtim interstate and in New Zealand. At the Chief Rabbi’s request he wrote a report on the state of Kashrut in New Zealand.

In 1929 he was appointed a member of the Melbourne Beth Din under Rabbi Israel Brodie (later Chief Rabbi of the British Empire). Super continued to serve as one of the Dayanim (judges) of the Beth Din for the duration of his life under Rabbis H. Freedman, H. Stransky, and I. Rapaport. He participated in the conferences of the Australian Rabbinical Council and submitted a paper on Kashrut.

He was often vocal through the Jewish press when he felt the need to raise his voice to condemn lapses in religious observance. He was an active and enthusiastic supporter of the Zionist cause and visited the State of Israel in 1956.

In 1944 Super completed thirty years of service to the community and British Chief Rabbi J. Hertz conferred upon him Semikhah (rabbinical ordination) in recognition of his learning and contribution to the community.

In 1949 Rabbi Super retired from active service and was presented with a testimonial by the community. But his drive to serve Kashrut would not let him rest and he soon came out of retirement to accept the appointment in 1950 of Mashgiakh Rashi (Chief Supervisor) for the Kashrus Commission of Victoria, a body he fought for many years to have established, even to the extent of personal financial support.

This position gave him ultimate authority over the State’s kosher meat supply, Matzah production and all catering establishments carrying the Kashrut Commission license. In this capacity he often resorted to seeking the support of Chief Rabbi Brodie in England on contentious issues.

In his later years Rabbi Super was associated closely with the St.Kilda Hebrew Congregation. At his nearby home in Crimea Street he and his wife Lena Super (until her untimely death in 1945) held open house to the congregation. Hardly a Shabbat passed when he did not bring home a guest for Kiddush. There he held a regular Shiur on a Shabbat afternoon.

Super continued to function as a Shokhet until his last days, despite failing health, assisted by his son-in-law Rev. Phillip Berliner, husband of his daughter Edna.

He passed away on June 28, 1961 (Tamuz 14th 5721).

Rabbi Isaac Jacob and Lena Super were the parents of seven children:

Susaman-David (Cecil), Nakhum (Newton) Melbourne solicitor, Rabbi Dr. Arthur Saul Super of South Africa and Israel, Adolf (died a small child), Shlomo-Meir (Montie), Edna-Yenta (Edna) married to the Reverend Pinkhas (Phillip) Berliner, and Zalman-Ber (Albert).

Below are some documements reflecting his life including an article published in the Ausralian Jewish News marking the 100th anniversary of his birth.


Click to enlarge



An archive of Super's personal and communal papers is to be donated to the Jewish Museum in Melbourne.



Rabbi Super and family, Evercreech, England 1914



Rabbi Super's parents Shmuel and Khaya Minna Super with his sister Fruma, Korsovka (now Karsava) Latvia, about 1905





Mohel certificate Chief rabbi Adler 1910


Semikha (rabbinical) ordination by Chief Rabbi Hertz 1944.



Congratulations to Rabbi Super's son Newton on his father's ordination, from Sir Isaac Isaacs, later Governor General of Austalia.



Appointment to Melbourne Beit Din 1931



L-R: Rabbis J.L. Gurewicz, J. Danglow, I.J. Super, I. Brodie
Inspection of Melbourne abbatoirs 1930's


















Super Family tree showing selected relationships

Kremer - the Vilna Gaon had no surname

Kremer – the Vilna Gaon had no Surname

October 2007.

(Portrait courtesy of Yeshayahu Winograd, Jerusalem)

Despite a common misconception, the Gaon had no surname and "Kremer" or “Kramer” was a nickname applied to his ancestor Rabbi Moshe "Kremer" of Vilna because he had a stall in the market.

The term "Kremer" means a shopkeeper.
None of the primary sources or documents contemporaneous with the Gaon and the generation after him include a surname, although several biographies in modern times have erroneously used it.

There are many, many Kremers/Kramers who have nothing to do with the Gaon.
However the name was adopted by the descendants of one of the Gaon’s brothers Rabbi Moshe of Podzelva. They lived mainly in Dokshitz, Belarus, and in Israel.

Another family descended is from a female connection to the Gaon, a daughter of his grandson Rabbi Tuviah Yurbarsky and wife of Rabbi Yitskhak Kremer of Volkovisk (there are descendants in the USA).

Unless a family has a specific tradition of descent from the Gaon, the surname Kremer alone is probably not sufficient evidence of a relationship with the Gaon.

Tribal Affiliation

“Tribal” affiliation – Kohanim, Levi’im and Yisraelim

Chaim Freedman, March 27, 2006.

Postings to Jewishgen over the years show that there is misunderstanding about the divison of Jews according to tribal affiliation as Kohanim, Levi’im or Yisraelim.

Jews were once divided into twelve tribes according to the sons of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Due to the visicitudes of Jewish history, knowledge of tribal affiliation for most Jews has been forgotten over time. Over the last 2,000 or so years, most Jews are considered to belong to one amorphous tribe called Yisrael (Israel), plural Yisraelim. The only Jews who retained knowledge of their tribal descent were the Kohanim (priests) and Levi’im (Levites). While both descend from the patriarch Jacob’s son Levi, the Kohanim descend specifically from Levi’s great-grandson Aharon (Aaron), the founder of the Priesthood. The Levi’im descend from Levi’s other descendants. Some think that Leviim descend from Aharon’s brother Moshe (Moses), but although he was a Levi, there are no known descendants beyond his two sons.

For genealogists, knowledge of tribal affiliation is useful as it may help distinguish theoretical relatives from each other. Practically speaking, if two supposed relatives believe they share male descent from a common ancestor, should one of the relatives be a Kohen or Levi and the other not, then it can be said with reasonable certainty that they do not descend from a common male ancestor.

In the technical Halakhic sense no person can be a Kohen unless his father was a Kohen. No person can be a Levi unless his father was a Levi. Some postings to Jewishgen have suggested that a woman who is the daughter of a Kohen may pass that status to her sons. That is not the case. The son inherits his status from his father. Only one aspect of the mother’s tribal affiliation effects the son. The firstborn son of the daughter of a Kohen or Levi is exemp from the ceremony of Pidyon Haben (redemption of the firstborn).

Members of the ancient family of Rapaport were Kohanim. Similarly old rabbinical families such as Horowitz, Landau and Epstein were Leviim. Yet there are families which bear these names and are not Kohanim or Leviim.

It should be noted that the surnames Cohen or Levi do not necessarily indicate tribal affiliation.

There are several explanations for the situation where a supposedly Kohanic family name is carried by non-Kohanim.

i) Certain families, unrelated to the above "old" lines of these families, adopted the same surnames randomly when legislation required Jews to adopt surnames.

ii) There was an actual relationship between the Kohanic and non-Kohanic families which arose when a son-in-law adopted the surname of his wife's family. Even if these sons-in-law were not Kohanim or Leviim, in this particular situation, their subsequent descendants are in fact descended from the old families, although through a female line.

Care should also be taken when a woman marries twice, once to a Kohen or Levi and has children by him who are therefore Kohanim or Levi’im respectively, then secondly to a Yisrael. Children of the second marriage are Yisraelim. Descendants of half brothers may become confused as to their tribal affiliation, particularly if it is not known from which husband they descend.

It should be noted that Israeli civil registration does not include Kohen, Levi or Yisrael status. That appears on religious documents such as Ketubah (marriage certificate), synagogue membership lists, and tombstones.

A word of caution: families which became assimilated may have forgotten their tribal status, such that the absence of such, even on religious certification or tombstones, in modern times, does not necessarily negate the possibility of Kohen or Levi ancestry in the male line.Once one could depend on such information being recorded on tombstones. Indeed the absence or presence of Kohen or Levi designation on a tombstone often helped genealogists to clarify relationships. Now, unfortunately, some families have forgotten this aspect of their ancient descent and have failed to record it on their tombstones.

This situation highlights the need for Jews to preserve knowledge of their families' Kohanic or Levitical descent, so that it not be forgotten with the passage of time.

Rabbi Dr. Joseph Abrahams, Melbourne. Article

Biography of Rabbi Dr. Joseph Abrahams (1855-1938)

Av Beit Din and Chief Minister of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation from 1883-1919.

Lecture by Chaim (Keith) Freedman to the Australian Jewish Historical Society, Melbourne 1977 and published in the society's journal in 1979, Volume VIII Part 7.


Rabbi Abrahams, in his retirement, lived with the family of Rabbi Isaac Jacob Super, the grandfather of Freedman's wife. An archive of Abraham's personal and communal papers is to be donated to the Jewish Museum in Melbourne.


Semikha (rabbinic ordination) from Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, Rabbinical Seminary Berlin 1882

Abrahams' father Rabbi Barnett Abrahams was the first Principal of Jews College London.

The following is his Semikha (rabbinical ordination) granted by Rabbi Jacob Oettingen, Berlin 1858.

My Grandparents, Zalman and Chana Reizel Kaye (Komesaroff)

My Grandparents:

Zalman (1886-1958) and Chanah Raizel (1887-1955)
Kaye (Komesaroff)



Born Ukraine, immigrated to Melbourne, Australia 1913.


Written by Chaim (Keith) Freedman in 1960, aged 13.
Edited 2003
Most of the photos were taken between 1950 and 1955.







“Rozalia” 72 Princess street, Kew, Melbourne, Australia

Although I didn’t know my grandparents for very long before they died, my memories of them are still very vivid. The main picture of my grandmother (whom I called Nanna) that seems to remain fixed in my mind, is that of her in the place she loved best: in the kitchen at 72 Princess Street Kew. She always seemed to be cooking the favourite dishes of one or other of her children or grandchildren. My favourite dish was `Piroshkes’, a Russian potato pastry. I can see Nanna standing at the head of the kitchen table, sleeves rolled up , flour in her hair, pounding and twisting a large lump of dough with her muscular arms. I can almost taste the mixture of potatoes and onions from which I used to sneak a nibble, although I didn’t really have to do this secretly as Nanna never really minded. Anyone who came through that famous kitchen, with its inviting smells, was tempted to open the refrigerator or peek into saucepans to see what was cooking.

Keith and Neville in garden in front entrance to house.

Nanna was never lonely in her kitchen as it was always a hive of activity. People continually walked in and out, and although Nanna sometimes grumbled about the interruptions, I don’t think she was ever happier than when someone was there to watch eagerly as she worked.

I remember my grandfather (whom I called Pappa) coming home from work. He would come through the back door, almost hidden behind a pile of parcels. He rarely came home empty handed, but would bring home all sorts of things including cakes, fish, drinks or anything that he had seen during the day which he thought his family might like.

Pappa always appeared very tall to me and I would eagerly await the time when his large figure came through the door. He used to call me `Keithi’ or more often Chaim Kopel, my Hebrew name. I remember how he used to ruffle my curly hair and I would follow him outside to help him unload the car. I think I was more of a hindrance than a help , but Pappa never let me know this. He would load me up with parcels and I would stagger across the back lawn into the back porch and finally deposit my load in the little storeroom at the back of the house.

Keith and Pappa in front of rose bed in back garden.

This room was a source of mystery to me. It contained all sorts of suitcases, boxes and parcels of varying shape and size and always seemed to be dark and dusty. I used to often wonder what treasures these cases contained.

This storeroom also contained pickling and fruit preserving apparatus. Each year, at the appropriate seasons, Nanna and Pappa would each set to work, Pappa to pickle cucumbers and Nanna to preserve fruit which came from the numerous trees in the back yard. I can see Pappa on the back porch, sleeves rolled up. Wearing one of Nanna’s aprons, surrounded by basins containing cucumbers and a number of earthenware crocks. No one ever really knew his recipe for pickling cucumbers and many, including my father, have tried in vain to copy it.

I used to love watching both Nanna and Pappa at work and I would run in and out from the back porch and the kitchen where Nanna was up to her neck in fruit and large bottles. Eventually I think I tried even their great patience and would be sent outside to play.

Nanna making preserves in the kitchen.

The backyard was huge. On the left side was the gravel drive which led up to the big double wooden garage. This garage was full of `junk’: boxes, tools and goodness knows what else were piled around the walls and rested on top of a sort of loft formed by the rafters in the roof.

Neville and Keith playing cricket in from of garage.

At the side of the garage was a narrow woodshed. This was a source of terror for me, and I rarely entered is as it seemed to be teeming with thousands of insects. It was always full of various types of wood from thick logs to broken up fruit boxes. I can remember standing and watching, awe-inspired, as the gardener Mr. Wheatley swung the huge axe to split heavy logs. I remember how occasionally, when he wasn’t looking, I would pick up the axe and try my hand at chopping wood. However, after nearly losing my legs a few times, I gave this practice up.

Back garden – Tessie, John, Keith, Nanna and Pappa

The wood was used to feed the `Wonderheat’ fire in the breakfast room. I used to enjoy sitting on the floor watching, enraptured as the flames danced before me and I used to see all sorts of pictures, and imagine myself involved in many adventures, in the bright yellow flames of that fire.

Departure for Queensland – Nanna, Tessie, Keith, Pappa, Neville.

I can remember my grandparents’ house far more clearly than our own for we seemed to spend most of out time there. It was an enormous house, over thirty five squares[1] in area.



Plan of Rozalia drawn by Neville Freedman

The house was almost hidden from Princess Street by a thick hedge. On the left was the long gravel drive which led to the garage at the back. The garden was full of bushes, trees and colourful flowers. A short path led to the wide veranda which stretched right across the front of the house and a third of the way up each side. To the right the veranda led to a part of the house which had been divided off and let to an old lady, Mrs. Oakey.

Keith, Nanna, John, Pappa, Tessie – around the swing in the back garden

To the left the veranda ran alongside the drive to a French window which lifted upwards to open into the drawing room. In about the middle of the front of the house was the large, wooden paneled front door, surrounded on each side by a fine opaque glass panel. This door opened onto a short passage from which Nanna’s and Pappa’s bedroom led off. This was a large room containing a big double bed; a wardrobe facing it; a low ottoman under the bay window; and a dressing table with a marble top on the wall opposite the window.

Diana (Dina Burgess), Nanna and Pappa

On the opposite side of the passage was the spare room[2]. There against the passage wall was the cot which I spent countless nights in. I remember lying in that cot staring up at the high ceiling, from the middle of which hung a light supported by a white chain. Around the start of the chain was a circular pattern in relief on the roof, as there was in each room around the light sockets. I used to spend long periods after waking in the morning staring up at this ornamentation on the ceiling which never failed to hold my interest.

The end of the passage was marked by two curtains which were gathered at the wall. Here the passage widened out and became the lounge. This was a long gallery with various chairs and couches lining the walls. At the far end was the radiogram. This was a very old fashioned type which just looked like any cupboard from the outside. The gramophone was towards the top and under it were about a half a dozen drawers containing countless records ranging from Enrico Caruso and cantor Joseph Rosenblatt to `The House That Jack Built’ and other children’s records.

Lounge without gramophone – note rocking horse

On entering the lounge from the passage there was an opening on the right wall. Here, in an alcove, was a linen cupboard and other storage cupboards. I remember standing there while Nanna got out the fresh bed linen and towels and helping her carry them to the bedrooms.

Leading off this alcove were two doors: one which connected with the tenant’s flat and was always bolted; and the other which opened into the bathroom. The bathroom contained a bath; separate shower recess which has Nanna’s initials `A.R.’ in the terrazzo[3]; and basin. The toilet led off from the bathroom and was enclosed on two sides by walls which were frosted glass from halfway up.

Opposite the alcove, on the other side of the lounge, a door opened into the drawing room. This was the most beautiful room imaginable. The walls were painted blue; around the room were numerous richly upholstered chairs and on one wall an immense black floral couch. It was so big that when I sat on it I almost disappeared as I sank into the soft upholstery.

Drawing room (before mirror installed)

In the middle of the wall against the drive was a bay window which had a high semicircular couch around it. On the wall opposite this was the crystal cabinet which contained all sorts of fascinating articles. Under this was a green inkpot in the shape of a beetle and a bronze alligator nutcracker, both of which I used to enjoy lying on the carpet and playing with.

Against the front wall of the drawing room was an upright piano. Although I had no idea how to play it properly, I loved to spend hours sitting at it, banging away pretending I was a famous concert pianist, and composing all sorts of marvelous musical pieces; at least I thought they were marvelous. I can remember one particular day, not long before Nanna died, I was sitting at that piano playing, when my mother came in and told me to stop as I was disturbing Nanna who was sick in bed. I hadn’t been stopped for more than a few minutes when Nanna called out. She wanted to know why I had stopped. Before Mummy could finish explaining the reason to her, Nanna insisted that I resume playing. She said: “It doesn’t disturb me; as long as he is happy.”

At the other end of the room, on the wall opposite the piano, was a marble fireplace and a mirror over the mantelpiece. The mirror had two blue side panels to match the blue walls[4]. In the center of the room was a high round table. In the center of this was an article which aroused my curiosity. It was a spherical green glass ball. I often wondered how the myriads of tiny bubbles happened to get into the middle of it[5].

At the far end of the drawing room a door led into a small hall which connected with the lounge, dining room, and breakfast room. There was also a door which led to the pantry; another of my favourite nooks. In this room shelves lined the three walls right up to the high ceiling and were always filled to the point of overflowing with all sorts of food. I used to love coming into the pantry with Nanna to fetch some particular food; sometimes climbing up on a chair or ladder to bring something down from a high shelf which Nanna could not reach.

Grandkids: Moura with Melanie (?), Pappa with Wendy (?), Nanna, Neville, Tessie with Keith. On Pappa’s right – Jennifer.

The door next to the pantry led into the dining room, a very long room with a big extending table down the centre and a large black leather couch at one end. There was also a sideboard, and several desks and armchairs. I can remember often sitting at the table while Pappa and Daddy were engaged in business bookwork. I used to collect the many different rubber stamps and would imagine myself a big business executive as I stamped away on the business letter-heads. Around the dining room walls and on various cupboards were many photographs of relatives who I never knew: my great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, old photos taken many years ago in Russia.

The happiest time of the year was always Yomtov, when all the family gathered at Princess Street. We would get up early in the morning and go to Shule (the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in Toorak Road). There Pappa sat in the middle of the male members of his family: my uncles Myer and Bill on his right and myself, Daddy and Neville on his left, Neville and I often exchanging seats to sit next to Pappa[6]. But on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when the Shule was crowded, I had to sit on Pappa’s and Daddy’s knee, being swapped from one to the other. When we stood up at different times during the service, I would stand up on the seat behind Daddy and Pappa, holding on to their shoulders and often looking up to the balcony on the right to where Nanna and Mummy sat. I was never bored in Shule, even though I could not follow the service properly. But I tried to, often asking Neville, Daddy or Pappa to show me the place. Sometimes Pappa brought one of his old books that he had brought from Russia (one had belonged to his grandfather). This was a big book which had a Yiddish commentary, and at times during the service he would turn around to discuss various explanations of prayers with two old men[7] who sat behind us, and they would hold lengthy discussions, reminiscing about the old days in Europe.

Even during the sermon I was rarely bored, especially when Rabbi Goldman gave the sermon, because he never failed to include quaint stories and parables.

Keith, Nanna and Pappa – front of house in the drive

After the service we would all go back to Princess Street where Nanna prepared lunch for us. I can remember many of these occasions, sitting at the table in the breakfast room. Pappa would make Kiddush and then Nanna would bring on the meal, after which Pappa `benched’[8], all of us joining in at the parts that were sung. Pappa’s favourite part was the last sentence נער הייתי .. “once I was young, now I am old” and he seemed to have a faraway nostalgic look in his eye as he sang this. After a while I was able to sing עשה שלום..” off by heart and gave an impromptu concert at lunch one day.

Neville’s Barmitzvah

Of all the Yom Tovim my favourite was Pesach. In fact Pesach was the highlight of the year for me. Preparations commenced a week before Pesach when Mummy spring cleaned Tanner Avenue[9] and made all her preparations and then went to help Nanna at Princess street. The cleaning of Princess street was an enormous task, but Nanna was not satisfied till every corner had been cleaned. Then came Erev Pesach. I would wake up early in the morning eager to get to work to help Nanna and Mummy in the task of bringing the Pesach dishes out from the cupboards where they had been stored since the previous Pesach and then putting the Khometzdiker dishes back into those cupboards. When all this had taken place the entire house had an atmosphere of cleanliness about, and all was ready for Nanna and Mummy to commence cooking for the Seders which were to take place that night and the following night.


I spent the day running from room to room watching the various activities and helping whenever I could. In the afternoon the preparations reached fever pitch: Nanna and Mummy rushed around anxious to have everything ready in time. Soon Daddy and Pappa would arrive home from work and Neville from school. The time had come for the preparation of the ritual items necessary for the Seder. The horseradish had to be grated; this was usually done by Daddy or Neville. The egg, the salt water, the onion, the chicken’s neck and other items for the Seder plate had to be prepared. But most important of all was the making of the Kharoset. This task belonged solely to Pappa. He alone knew the recipe which imparted the flavour which never varied from year to year[10]. He would sit down at the table with all the ingredients: apples, almonds, walnuts, cinnamon, wine, and would spend hours chopping all them up into as fine pieces as he possibly could. Finally when he had finished and the Kharoset appeared to be the right colour and texture, one of us would be given the honour of sampling it.

By late afternoon all the preparations were nearing completion and Mummy, Daddy, Neville and I would return home to wash and dress ready for the Seder. Then we would return to Princess Street and pick up Pappa to go to Shule. Mummy remained to help Nanna add the finishing touches.

When the male members of the family returned home there was an air of serenity and holiness about the house. The hustle and bustle that had existed all day had subsided. Nanna had miraculously found time to prepare herself and was dressed ready for the Seder. In the dining room the table was set up, the old brass candlesticks which were over 100 years old and had been in the family for five generations before Nanna, were lit in the middle of the table. In everyone’s place was a Haggadah. The table had extra leaves added to it to make room for all the family. Soon my uncles, aunts and cousins arrived and all was ready for the commencement of the Seder. The climax of the day had arrived. Everyone seated themselves at the table, Nanna and Pappa at one end on the big sofa which had been draped in sheets and numerous cushions. Pappa was wearing a big white Yarmulka[11] and slippers. Then when everyone’s cup was filled with wine, Pappa commenced the Kiddush.


Pappa making Kiddush in the dining room, with Nanna, Tessie and Moura, c.1950.

Throughout the Seder I followed in my own Haggadah. No one could possibly lose interest in a Seder conducted by Pappa. Everything he did he explained, telling us the reasons behind the ritual, often accompanied by amusing anecdotes. Every now and then Pappa would say a short prayer, `Hineni’ which did not appear in anyone’s Haggadah but which Pappa believed was essential. This was always a mystery to us but we never questioned Pappa as his word on such matters was sacred.


Neville, Tessie and Keith - next to the garage


**********************************************************************************

I retain additional memories of my grandparents which I did not include in my original memoir.

When we attended Shule together, it was understood that I would go up to the balcony where the women sat to visit my mother and Nanna. This was quite acceptable as I was only a little boy. It was a very special experience for me and I looked forward to it. I climbed the many wide marble stairs for three flights and quietly pushed aside the curtains which hung on the inside of the double doors to the gallery. The gallery was tiered and I found descending the steps of the rows quite precarious. Nanna and my mother sat in the second row on the right about three or four seats in. I sat either next to them or between them, I don’t recall exactly.

I was “shown off’ to their nearest neighbours, such as Mrs.Goldman, the wife of the much beloved Rabbi Goldman, who with her daughter Nina, sat in front of Nanna. The children’s services were held in the Minor Synagogue and Rabbis Goldman and Rapoport alternated in taken these services. I only went when Rabbi Goldman led the service as he had such an understanding rapport with the children. It was only years later that I developed a respect and friendship for Rabbi Rapoport and was invited to his home on several occasions for lunch after Shule. On one of these occasions another visitor was the British Chief rabbi Sir Israel Brodie, who had been rabbi of Toorak Shule until he returned to England in 1937. My grandparents were particularly close to Rabbi Brodie and I recall attending a function at the Melbourne Town Hall to welcome Rabbi Brodie on one of his return visits to Melbourne as Chief Rabbi.

My grandfather was a staunch supporter of Rabbi Goldman when controversy broke out between him and the Board of management. Pappa was a member of an ad hoc committee which included Nanna’s brothers Uncle Pinnie and Uncle Louis who sought to protect Rabbi Goldman’s interests. But the rabbi was obliged to leave the Shule and died not long after on Kol Nidrei night in Adelaide. When Jane and I were traveling in England in 1973 we visited Mrs. Goldman and Nina who had returned to live there.

I sat for a while upstairs until the appropriate point in the service when I was told to return to the men. Also attending that Shule was my grandmother’s sister who we called by various names which I always found hard to pronounce and only as an adult realized what the differences were. Her Hebrew name was Tsipora, pronounced in the Litvak fashion as “Tsipeyre”. Her Russian name was Cecilia, pronounced “Tsetsilya”. Her nieces and nephews used the shorter form Tsilya confined with the Russian for aunt “Tyotya” so she was “Tyotya Tsilya” – a real mouthful ! She sat towards the back of the womens’ section with her daughter Tybel Nathan, who always wore severe masculine clothes. She was unmarried.

Occasionally we would visit with Tsetsilya at her flat. I think it was somewhere like Armadale. It was rather old fashioned even in those days in the early 1950’s. We were entertained in the dark dining room, overshadowed by two portraits hanging on the wall over the sideboard: Lenin and Trotsky. Tybel was a staunch Communist, a Trotskyite; I don’t know whether Aunt Tsetsilya was also. Despite this they always came to Shule on Yom Tovim. I have vague memories of being very bored during these visits and would sit on the floor tracing the carved pattern in the dining chairs. After the great Breigus which broke out after Nanna died, we had no further contact with Tsetsilya, although we still used to see her at Shule with Tybel.

Although I described the drawing room at Rozalia I did not mention the many family gatherings that took place there. These usually included quite a crowd of people, in particular Nanna’s brothers Uncle Pinnie and Aunty Sarah with Uncle Louis and Aunty Fanny. I was quite fond of them all and they gave a lot of attention to the children present. Both Uncle Pinnie and Uncle Louis were great story tellers and I remember sitting on the floor at their knees listing to their yarns. Some of Uncle Pinnie’s stories were about his service in the Australian army during the First World War. Funny, but I don’t recall visiting them at their homes. Like Aunty Tsetsilya, after the Breigus we had no further contact with the great-uncles, although we used to meet Uncle Louis of all places in the men’s toilet at Toorak Shule and we exchanged polite greetings. But publicly, in the Shule foyer, we all ignored each other, and even if we came face to face with Tsetsilya, an occurrence we tried to avoid, no signs of recognition were made. It was all very sad and uncomfortable for a youngster like me to understand.

I don’t recall Pappa’s side of the family during Nanna and Pappa’s lifetime. Our close friendship with Pappa’s youngest brother Uncle Willie and Aunty Margaret and their children seemed to start after Pappa died. I do recall that Uncle Willie and his brother Uncle Pinkhas came to our house in South Caulfield to visit Pappa several times when he was ill, and they came there to sit Shiva for him. I think it was only for one day as he died during Khol Hamoed Pesakh which cancelled most of the Shiva. I recall that the rabbis told my mother she did not have to sit Shivah because of this but she insisted on having a Sheloshim Service at the Minor Synagogue.

When Nanna became seriously ill my mother insisted that she be cared for at home and would not hear of hospitalizing her. As her condition deteriorated, private nurses were required day and night. I was spoiled by the nurses and thought it all a game. I used to help by taking things to Nanna who was bedridden. I still bear the trauma of the only time Pappa lost his temper with me. I had gone to collect an empty bed tray after Nanna had finished eating in her room. I held the tray by both hands and skipped up the long lounge in the direction of the kitchen. As I skipped I bounced the tray on alternate knees. Then suddenly I noticed a strange jigsaw like pattern on the surface of the tray. It had a glass inlay which had shattered. I shamefacedly took it to the kitchen but met Pappa enroute in the breakfast room. He saw what had happened and began screaming at me – the Komesaroff temper was notorious. He certainly did not hit me, but I crouched on the floor and hid behind an armchair. It was ages until I came out and I spent the time tracing the pattern in the carpet. I don’t recall how it ended, but Pappa and I soon patched things up.

I related above how Pappa used to love shopping for all sorts of goodies, particular food. I recall certain items such as the soft drink “Creamy Soda” which was no longer available when I was older. There was also a selection of small goods “pressed meat” we called them, and I slyly used to tear off small pieces, particularly of tongue, when no one was looking. Strange that in later years and until this day I cannot stand tongue in any form.

Sometimes I went with Pappa to the Village Bell in Elwood where most of the Jewish shops provided our Kosher food needs. The women clamoured around the counter of the Greek fishmonger “George”. When Pappa visited the Kosher butcher he was apparently not satisfied to buy the merchandise on display in the shop and I would accompany him behind scenes, I suppose to select his particular prime cuts. I was terrified by the group of apron and headscarf clad women sitting on the floor out the back of the shop plucking the feathers out of the chicken carcasses.

We often went for Sunday drives with Nanna and Pappa. The favourite places of interest were up “in the hills”, that is the Dandenong ranges outside of Melbourne. There were holiday resorts surrounded by beautiful “Gum tree” (Eucalyptus) forests. It was a special treat to but “fresh laid” eggs and honey from the farmers in the mountains. In later years I recall going with Uncle Willie to visit his farm in the country (I don’t recall where) and seeing the egg packing and stamping process.

To be continued. September 2007



[1] A `square’ was a measurement of house size equal to 10 x 10 feet.
[2] The spare room had been my mother’s room before she was married.
[3] The initials `A.R.’ stood for Anna Roza, her Russian name, rather than her Yiddish name Chanah Raizel.
[4] This mirror was reinstalled at my parents’ new home in South Caulfield, but the blue panels were changed to orange.
[5] The glass ball is preserved by my cousin Diana Burgess.
[6] After Pappa died my father retained his seat.
[7] Mr. Seegan and Mr. Bennet.
[8] Grace After Meals.
[9] Where we lived.
[10] After Pappa died, the task became Neville’s and later mine.
[11] After Pappa died, my father used that Yarmulka and now I have it.

"Eliyahu's Branches" - Review by Arthur Kurzweil

“Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family”

Review by Arthur Kurzweil
Published in Avotaynu.

Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and
His Family by Chaim Freedman. Avotaynu, 1997. 704 pp.

It is not since Neil Rosenstein's extraordinary ground-breaking work, The Unbroken Chain, that I have had such enjoyment reading a book in our field of Jewish genealogy. “Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family” by Chaim Freedman, which traces the family tree of Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, is as fascinating as a detective novel, intricate as a scientific thesis, and uplifting as the most beautiful poetry.

A great sage once said that the Jewish People, as a single entity, is not an animal but a plant. The implications of this metaphor are frightening, or at best paradoxical, for as every botanist knows, it is when a plant is cut back that it is stimulated to grow. I have heard a stirring presentation on this notion from a revered rabbi who aptly points out that when we look at Jewish history, the pattern becomes clear. A few examples will suffice: right after the incredibly traumatic expulsion from Spain, we see the most creative period in Jewish theological history, that of the mystics of Safed; after the massacres in the Ukraine, we see the great revival movement known as Hasidism; after the Holocaust, we see the birth and growth of the State of Israel.

This troubling metaphor passes through my mind as I reflect on Eliyahu's Branches. It does not take much imagination to actually feel that it is not a book, but a living, growing part of that glorious tree called the Jewish People. As I leaf through this inspiring book, I feel like I am looking at one of those scientific documentary films that use special photography to show us how flowers grow and bloom. The petals appear and unfold right before our eyes.

We, in Jewish genealogy, often quote a well-known passage found in the Talmud: If you save one life, you save a whole world; if you kill one life, you kill a whole world. Of course, every family tree, from the most modest to the most elaborate, illustrates this notion: How many of us have been struck by the realization that if a certain two people never met, married and had children, we-and dozens, if not hundreds of others would not be here? This is the striking message of this outstanding, deeply moving new book; every life is sacred; every life has the potential to create an entire world.

Chaim Freedman has been researching the descendants of the illustrious Gaon of Vilna for more than 30 years. And, while the careful critic will observe that Freedman makes some leaps of faith in this methodology, resulting in some doubtful branches and descendants, one must surely be in awe of his monumental efforts. The introductory material in this book, where the author explains some of his methods and some of the many difficulties involved in such a mammoth search, will delight any family historian. Freedman invites us to think about his search strategies and some of the stumbling blocks that he had to encounter. Of great importance is Freedman's discussion about the pitfalls and problems facing the genealogist who must depend upon sometimes dubious oral testimony. (In all of my travels, including public speaking about Jewish genealogy before more than 800 Jewish groups nationwide, the one individual who is claimed as an ancestor more than any other is the Vilna Gaon.)

The vast majority of this book is the genealogy itself. Freedman has painstakingly tracked down about 20,000 descendants of the Vilna Gaon, providing the reader with capsule biographies of many of them. These brief biographies alone communicate the exceptional creativity bursting forth from the lives of the descendants of this illustrious sage. But, this massive volume offers more: There is a wonderful essay on the importance of genealogy as reflected in Jewish thought through the ages; biographical material on the Vilna Gaon himself; a listing of every town mentioned in the book (along with the current name of the location); a useful glossary; a rich bibliography of sources; and, of course, a name index.

Every Jewish genealogist should have this book on his or her shelf. Even if the contents do not help you specifically with your research, the volume will serve as an inspiration, not only to show what can be done in our field if one has the will, but, also, as a monument to an eternal people, who despite the trials and tragedies of history, persevere.

The Gaon of Vilna - Verifying Oral Tradition

THE GAON OF VILNA - VERIFYING ORAL TRADITIONS

Based on "Eliyahu's Branches - The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family",
Chaim Freedman "Avotaynu 1997.

Published as an article in Avotaynu, Volume XIII, #3, Autumn, 1997

Chaim Freedman – lecture to the Israel Genealogy Society, Jerusalem, February 2000.

The Legend

Tracing the family tree of the Gaon of Vilna, has long posed a challenge to genealogists due to the many difficulties encountered in validating the claims of families which hold an oral tradition of descent from the Gaon. Many families of Lithuanian origin preserve a tradition of descent from the Gaon, but the exact nature of many of their claims defies clear definition. Indeed, the apparent uncertainty of such claims has engendered amongst scholars and the general public an attitude of scepticism as to their authenticity, and an aura of legend has surrounded this perplexing puzzle.


THE HISTORY OF RESEARCH OF THE FAMILY OF THE GAON OF VILNA

A number of attempts have been made in the past to research the family of the Gaon of Vilna. The most comprehensive published genealogy is "Sefer Hayakhas Lemishpakhat Rivlin Umishpakhat HaGaon miVilna " (the Genealogy of the Rivlin Family and the Family of the Gaon of Vilna) written by the late Eliezer Rivlin in Jerusalem in 1935. He recorded many branches of the Gaon's family that were known at the time. But Rivlin's work encompasses only 300 descendants of the Gaon . It should be noted that at the time when Rivlin conducted his research (prior to the Second World War) communication technology was limited, and the difficulty of exchange of information over closed borders limited the scope of the material Rivlin was able to collect.

Number of descendants

A mathematical extrapolation over the eight to ten generations that are descended from the Gaon can be shown to yield about 140,000 - 150,000 theoretical descendants. Even allowing for factors such as cousin marriages and considerable decimation during the Holocaust, the Gaon's family tree should potentially encompass a considerable number of families of Lithuanian origin.

Personal involvement

This author has been interested in the genealogy of the Gaon since his childhood when he heard his grandparents telling stories about their ancestors, including the Gaon of Vilna. The subject of the Gaon gained new momentum during a discussion which took place in Jerusalem between genealogist the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr and Benyamin Rivlin, son of Eliezer Rivlin, the author of the above-mentioned original genealogy of the Gaon. Rivlin suggested to Gorr that he propose to Chaim Freedman that Freedman take upon himself the project of updating the Gaon's genealogy. This major research project was instigated in mid-1987. Its objective was to collate all available material about the Gaon's family and to publish an updated genealogy. The importance of pursuing this project was that it would provide the last opportunity to preserve oral traditions and link them to related archival material before the passage of time further eroded the genealogical memory base of oral traditions which were the key to research.

Comparison of parallel traditions

Cross-reference by the author of seemingly independent family histories resulted in the discovery of long-standing missing links. Families which held traditions that, when considered individually failed to provide a basis for establishing their descent from the Gaon, yet when collated by the author, displayed a common denominator which led to the establishment of their relationship.

Collection of material

Freedman's research involved the recording, analyzing and assessing of material provided by families claiming a relationship with the Gaon, as well as a comprehensive survey of library resources in Israel including community histories, newspapers, journals, rabbinic texts, biographies, manuscripts and published family histories.

Additional material was provided from resource centres outside Israel by Freedman's genealogical colleagues. Notable New York genealogist, Alex Friedlander was of particular and constant help. He researched vital statistic records obtained from Polish and Lithuanian archives.

The material collected by Freedman constitutes a valuable database for those interested in the Gaon's family.

FAMILY CATEGORIES

The nature of the material researched by this author in preparing a book on the family of the Gaon of Vilna necessitated the establishment by the author of three categories of families:

1) Families which claim a relationship with the Gaon of Vilna that is definitely established by reliable sources and records.

2) Families which hold an oral tradition of a relationship with the Gaon that, when critically analysed in the light of sources and records, is, in the opinion of the author, highly likely to be valid, beyond any reasonable doubt.

3) Families which hold an oral tradition of a relationship with the Gaon, but are unable to provide sufficient evidence for the author to verify their claims from the sources available to him. Such families have been further divided into two groups:

a) Families for which sufficient evidence exists for the author to decide to record the available information, for the purpose of preserving it in case further evidence is discovered in the future. Should such evidence be discovered, the inclusion of these families will facilitate a renewal of research, which may lead to the authentification of the families' relationship with the Gaon.

b)Families which have provided information that, after analysis and research by the author, enabled him to come to the conclusion that, in his opinion, these families are most probably not related to the Gaon.

ORAL TRADITION AND DOCUMENTED SOURCES

Modern aids

The place of oral tradition in genealogical research is the subject of academic dispute. Modern genealogist have at their disposal many sources which were unavailable to their predecesors several decades ago. Modern computer and communication technology facilitate access to a wide range of depositories of sources. Documents preserved by archives throughout the world are becoming more readily accessible, particularly those documents which are held in libraries and archives in the former Soviet Union and neighbouring countries.

Past reliance on oral family history

Genealogists in the past have relied mainly on records kept by family members. These were supplemented by research in libraries and archives where communal and personal documentation may have been found. In the case of families of rabbinic descent, the religious literature provided considerable information about the familial relationships of the authors.

Vital Statistic records versus oral tradition

Given the rapid advances in modern Jewish genealogical research, much of it based on newly uncovered vital statistic records (birth, marriage and death registrations), there is a tendency amongst researchers to play down the importance and validity of oral tradition.This author contends that oral tradition still has, and always will have a valuable place in Jewish genealogical research. A person usually is told by his parents, grandparents or other relatives about his family history.This is the first indication that a person receives about his family history and is derived from oral tradition. Documents may or may not be available to support this information, but in their absence it is the natural tendency of a person to initially accept what he has been told. If he is sufficiently interested, he may engage in research in order to validate the oral traditions and to expand the information which he may desire to preserve for the benefit of future generations.

Limitations of Oral History

It cannot be denied that the indiscriminate use of oral tradition by genealogists has its pitfalls. It may be embellished in order to aggrandise past generations. Distasteful information may be suppressed. When oral information is repeated it may not be recalled accurately, or it may be distorted due to insufficient attention paid when the information was conveyed. These distortions and inaccuracies may be perpetuated when the information is passed on to subsequent generations. In extreme cases information may even have been fabricated.

In assessing the validity of oral tradition it is important to analyse the terms in which it was conveyed. In particular it is important to know whether the information was conveyed spontaneously without any leading questions which may have put into the mind of the person being questioned ideas which were not part of the original information. However, with respect to certain factors, it is valid to ask leading questions. For instance, a parent or grandparent may not recall the name of an ancestor when asked for the name directly. Yet, if the question is rephrased in terms of after whom the parent was named, he may then recall that he was told that he was named after a certain greatgrandparent. Such oral information may then lead to a new line of research.

Preservation of traditions for future research

The greater the number of generations removed from a particular ancestor being sought, the more likelihood there is of discrepancy in oral tradition. If one is told that one's grandfather claimed that his grandfather was a fourth generation descendant of the Gaon then there are thirty-two possible lines of descent from the Gaon. There may be additional information, such as place of residence or dates of birth which may reduce the possibilities. But the number of ancestral lines which need to be researched is still very large. If the link is not discovered in the current generation and the story is passed on to yet another generation, members of that generation have to cope with a bigger puzzle in which the number of possibilities soars to sixty-four. This simple calculation further justifies the author's decision to record all reasonable oral traditions in his book on the family of the Gaon of Vilna, in order to assist the coming generations should they try to uncover the `missing link'.

Oral tradition and documented sources complement each other in pursuing lines of research.A competent genealogist takes into account all the above factors in considering the validity of oral tradition, uses the available documented sources, and comes to a conclusion which is valid beyond a reasonable doubt.

Attitude to oral tradition in Judaism

Since this book deals with one of the most prominent personalities of Jewish scholarship, it is fitting that a principle established in traditional Jewish law be used to support the case for the use of oral tradition. Jewish law defines the forms of evidence required in solving a dispute brought before a Beth Din. Considerable material exists in the Talmud and in its commentaries about the need for conclusive evidence being presented to prove cases brought to litigation.

The late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr of Jerusalem, a prominent genealogist, used to expound the Talmudic principle ( (זבחים פרק י"ד, משנה ד'that the assertion: "I have not seen it", that is no evidence (to the contrary). He explained that simply because documented evidence may not have been discovered does not mean that the evidence does not exist, or that the point claimed to be valid must be disregarded. This was one of Rabbi Gorr's favourite quotations whenever the value of oral tradition was denigrated.

In his book on the family of the Gaon of Vilna the author exhaustively sought documented evidence to establish the genealogy of the families included. Oral tradition has been objectively considered. In many cases the author has consulted genealogical colleagues and taken into consideration their opinions.The conclusions presented are those of the author based on his expertise and experience in Jewish genealogical research.

RESEARCH DIFFICULTIES

The paradox - only 200 years

The difficulties that have been encountered over the years in tracing the descendants of the Gaon are surprising, considering that only 200 years have elapsed since his death in 1797. Only about eight generations have been born since that time . At the time Freedman started his research in the early 1960's, there were people alive who had heard stories about their descent from the Gaon from their grandparents (born in the 1830's) who were grandchildren of the Gaon's grandchildren (born in the 1780's). Such a chain of oral tradition was not so extended as to preclude the preservation of far more oral traditions than were in fact discovered.

There are several reasons for the difficulties encountered in researching the Gaon's family.


1) Lack of official records

Official records of births marriages and deaths were kept by a law instituted in the Russian Empire only in the early 19th century, except for communal lists which were compiled several times during the 18th century. Since all of the Gaon's children and most of his grandchildren were born prior to this date, there were few official records which could confirm their identity. It was not until the commemorative activities which took place in Vilna in 1997 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Gaon’s death that the census of 1765 was revealed. Study of the family unit of the Gaon made it possible to confirm the relative age of the Gaon’s sons as proposed in my book. Later the census lists for 1784 and 1795 added to the overall picture.

2) בטול תורה

It is a characteristic of Lithuanian families to play down their Yichus (pedigree). One example of this phenomenon was encountered when Freedman contacted an elderly rabbi living in Jerusalem. He was reluctant to discuss the issue, but grudgingly related what his mother had heard from her mother about their descent from the Gaon. But he soon cut the conversation short retorting: "What does it matter. Such research is Bitul Torah". He was expressing the sentiment of which the Gaon himself was a renowned proponent. One is obligated to spend as much time as possible in the study of the religious texts. The only time which can be justifiably used for other purposes is that needed to earn a mimimal livelhood. Even time required to attend to family affairs is begrudged. There are several stories related about the Gaon's disinterest in his children's everyday activities, despite his love for them. In the light of this attitude it is no wonder that orthodox Lithuanian families spent little time telling their children about their family history. Thus, much information was forgotten with the passage of time.

One oral tradition conveyed to this author related that an elderly relative in Vilna had possessed a book in which the Gaon himself had recorded his genealogy. Bearing in mind the Gaon's personality and relationship with his family, this story was obviously fictitious, or at best, an embellishment of some other book in the family's possession.

3) Wars

Wars and pogroms which plagued Europe over the last 200 years destroyed many records. Jewish cemeteries have been severely damaged or obliterated in many towns in which the Jewish population was decimated by the Holocaust. The loss of six million Jews during the Holocaust severed what might have been a continuation of the passage of oral traditions.

4) Migration

Mass emigration of Jews from the age old cradles of their family origins in Europe to the `New World' in North and South America, England, Australia, South Africa and Israel severed the natural contact between the generations. A new generation grew up, cut off from contact with its grandparents. Immigrant parents were all too anxious to forget about the Diaspora and its often sad and harsh history. It is no wonder that genealogical information was not passed on.

Information useful to genealogists is often found in old Hebrew prayer books, bibles or other religious texts. It was the custom in traditional families to record names of relatives and their dates of death in such books and pass them on to the ensuing generations. When young couples emigrated, these books usually remained with their parents, since they were still in use. Only if the parents or grandparents had already died at the time of their family's emigration might such books be taken with the emigrants, if they valued them.

Photographs are also useful in establishing genealogical details. But people often are negligent in not writing the names of the subject of the photograph on the back. When these photographs are passed on to the next generation, the identity of the relatives depicted is often unknown.

Sometimes, such photographs can lead to completely erroneous conclusions. This author was presented with an album of photographs collected by an elderly relative. Some were inscribed on the back, and others were identified by elderly relatives still alive. One photograph was the subject of much conjecture until the author examined the Russian inscription. It was a photograph of the famous Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, obviously not a relative at all !

5) Modesty

Because the Gaon of Vilna was such a prominent figure in Jewish scholarship, descent from him was considered to be particularly worthy of honour. Some people may have been embarrassed to publicise stories told by their parents about their descent lest they be thought to be boasting. Descent from the Gaon also carried with it a responsibility to live up to his standards of behaviour, particularly in religious matters. Perhaps people who no longer were religiously observant considered descent from the Gaon an onerous burden.Yet, ironically, many non-observant people take great pride in their descent from the Gaon and preserve the oral traditions conveyed to them.


6) The title “Gaon"

The term `Gaon' was quite sparingly used during the time of the Gaon of Vilna. Over the ensuing generations it has been rather liberally ascribed to rabbinic scholars as a term of honour. This may result in a person being told that he was descended from `the Gaon' yet the term may refer to another rabbi who was known by that title.

The families Elion and Jodaikin held a tradition of descent from the "Gaon Eliyahu" and believed therefore that their ancestor was the Gaon of Vilna. Two factors led to the confusion. The families were in fact descended from a famous rabbi who was often referred to as a "Gaon". He was Rabbi Eliyahu Luntz (or Rabbinowitz) of Krozhe. Furthermore, this Eliyahu was a brother-in-law of the Gaon of Vilna whose second wife was Luntz's sister. The coicidence of these two factors led the above families to believe that they were descended from Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna.

An extreme example of confusion between rabbinic personalities arose when the author was informed by a certain family of it's descent from the Gaon of Vilna. Unable to discover the link, the author's problem was solved when his contact apologised profusely. The ancestor was actually Rabbi Shneour Zalmen of Liadi, ironically the Gaon's rival !

7) Forgotten daughters

Genealogies of rabbinic families often omitted sons or sons-in-law who were not scholars. Similarly, daughters were often not recorded in such families. The Gaon's son Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Serhei, Lithuania is recorded in Rivlin's work as the father of only two daughters. This author has discovered that Yehudah Leib had at least six daughters.

8) עין הרע

Certain families, known to be descended from the Gaon, simply refuse to publish their family tree, for a number of personal reasons. This is regrettable, since their non-inclusion in this present book may lead to the impression, in the future, that such people are really not descended from the Gaon. A prominent rabbinic family in Israel is known to have about 500 living descendants, yet the family refuses to record their names.

9) Surname changes

Siblings born to a mutual father often used different surnames to each other and to that borne by their parents. This practice was prevalent in the Tsarist Empire, and was a ploy used to confuse the military authorities. The notoriously anti-Semitic practices of the Tsarist army resulted in male Jews using this surname change as a means of evading conscription. Such variation of surnames within the one family leads to confusion in genealogical research.

For example, one of the Gaon's daughters, Khiena, the wife of Rabbi Moshe of Pinsk, bore eight sons who used the surname Chinitz, one whose surname is unclear, but whose descendants used the name Lipshitz and Neches. Certain families claim that one of Khiena's sons used the surname Penchuk and yet another, Landau.
Each of these claims had to be carefully analysed by the author, and some remain unverified.

10) Inaccurate translations

Some historians and genealogists who are not fluent in Hebrew have used, as the basis of their research, sources translated from Hebrew to English. These second-hand sources are prone to errors. Similarly, members of families which claim descent from the Gaon of Vilna, have been assisted in their research by incompetent translators, who are not familiar with the genealogical nuances of sources.

One researcher went to the trouble of having Rivlin's work translated into English. This led to confusion between a descendant of the Gaon's brother who lived in the town of Eiragola, Lithuania, or Ragoler to the Jews, with a certain person who live in a place called Raguva. The researcher conveniently merged the two personalities and added to his family tree hundreds of people who had no place on it.

THE WIVES, SIBLINGS AND STUDENTS OF THE GAON OF VILNA

Wives

The Gaon was married twice. The first wife was Khana, daughter of Yehudah Leib of Keidan. After Khana's death in 1782, the Gaon remarried a widow Gittel, daughter of Rabbi Meir Luntz (born 1709) of Krozhe, Lithuania. The fact that the Gaon was married twice has caused considerable confusion. There are families that held a tradition of descent from the Gaon's second wife, Gittel. Since the sources on her family clearly establish that Gittel bore no children to the Gaon, then families descended from Gittel are descended from her first husband, and not from the Gaon.

A major error made by a certain researcher arose from the Gaon's second marriage. Knowing that the Gaon was a brother-in-law to Rabbi Yekhezkel Luntz of Shavli, the researcher assumed that the connection was through Luntz's wife Malka. The researcher drew up a family tree of the Gaon's family and included all of the descendants of Yekhezkel Luntz as descendants of the Gaon's hypothetical sister, Malka. If the researcher had been conversant with Hebrew sources, he would have been able to read a book written by a grandson of Luntz, the contents of which make it clear that there was no such descent. The Gaon was a brother-in-law of Luntz, not through a hypothetical sister, but due to the fact that Luntz's sister Gittel was the Gaon's second wife.

Brothers and relatives

Certain families have believed that they were descended from the Gaon. After investigation however, it becomes clear that they were descended either from the brothers of the Gaon, or from one of his students. Terminology used to refer to relationships is misleading. "‏Of the family of the Gaon of Vilna‏" may mean actual descent, but more often the term refers to the descendants of the Gaon's siblings, or even may refer to more further removed connections by marriage without an actual blood relationship.

A prominent family that settled in Jerusalem 140 years ago maintained steadfastly it was descended from a daughter of the Gaon. This author failed to identify the relevant daughter, despite considerable research by members of the family. Recently new material came to light. A letter written about 1855 by a Lithuanian rabbi records a match arranged between his son and a daughter of the above family in Jerusalem. Of immense genealogical value was a statement by the writer of the letter giving details of the descent of the bridegroom from a sister of the Gaon. At last the puzzle had been solved.

Erroneous families

One of the Gaon's ancestors, Rabbi Moshe Kremer, who was chief rabbi of Vilna in the seventeenth century, was known as "Kremer", meaning shopkeeper, since his wife operated a stall in the market. The appelation "Kremer" was not a surname. Indeed most Jews in the Russian Empire only acquired surnames at the beginning of the nineteeth century. Yet many families bearing the name Kramer or Kremer erroneously believe that they are descended from the Gaon of Vilna. (Some are descended from a brother of the Gaon whose descendants did adopt the name Kremer).

Likewise a widely ramified Galician family believe that they are descended from the Gaon, simply because they bear the surname Wilner.





DOUBTFUL ORAL TRADITIONS


An important means of disproving certain oral traditions is often a simple arithmetic calculation.

Members of a certain Kossowsky family, whilst probably genuinely descended from the Gaon, instilled doubt in the mind of the author when they claimed that an ancestor recalled sitting on the knee of the Gaon, who, it was claimed, was her grandfather. Since the Gaon died in 1797, and since the ancestor was born in 1826, this incident could not possibly have occurred. On rechecking the source of the story, it was found that the incident occurred a generation earlier, which brought the event within a feasible time frame.

The Kantorovitch family of Jerusalem, whose claims to descent from the Gaon are most likely valid for other reasons, recorded certain events which cannot have occured in the way they were stated. It was claimed that the Gaon's youngest son Avraham wrote a letter to a grandson, Yaakov Koppel Kantorovitch, congratulating Kantorovitch on the completion of his studies and on obtaining Semikha (rabbinic ordination). Since Avraham died in 1808 at the age of 44, it is not likely that he had grandson of a suitable age to have obtained Semikha during his lifetime.


It is claimed that the Gaon's daughter Khiena had a son "Haskell Landau" whose daughter married a Remigolsky. This author's research identified the relevant Remigolsky. Yet details of Remigolsky's son in a rabbinic encyclopedia, whilst recording his emminent rabbinic ancestors, fail to record descent from the Gaon of Vilna. This omission renders the family tradition highly suspect.

A common source of confusion in oral traditions is the assumption that if one's cousin is descended from the Gaon of Vilna, so must one also be. This author attended a family reunion at which various sides of his family were represented. He had to repeatedly correct the impression held by one side of his family that they were descendants of the Gaon, like the majority of their cousins attending the reunion.

VALID ORAL TRADITIONS

It has been this author's fortunate experience that he was able to verify many valid oral traditions of descent from the Gaon of Vilna. One example was discovered in Australia where a family which had settled there in 1854, still maintained an oral tradition of decent from the Gaon. Much effort was expended in researching this family which resulted in the discovery of a photograph of the tombstone of the original member of the family who settled in Australia. Although the tombstone was no longer standing, a photograph preserved by the Australian Jewish Historical Society revealed that the person in question was actually a grandson of the Gaon. Details of the inscription correlated with oral traditions held by another family living in England. Thus, this author was able to solve the links of several families, hitherto unknown to each other, yet each holding the same tradition.

Many were such success stories and the author continues to hope that other missing links, recorded in his forthcoming book, will one day be resolved.

Berliner Saga - exploding the myths

The Berliner Saga

Chaim Freedman
Petah Tikvah, Israel
April 1999.


Did you know that grandfather Emanuel Berliner was one of 20 siblings ? !!

Did you know that when he was born his father was aged 74 ?

Did you know that the Berliner family were not descended from a long line of rabbis, but the family profession was “Quack” ? !!

These are some of the extraordinary and intriguing discoveries uncovered by recent research of Polish Vital Statistic records.

For many years there were few documented sources about the family of Emanuel Berliner (1870-1948) of London, England. Little was known about his Polish ancestors or the early years of his life in Poland. Certain circumstantial evidence lead to the belief that Emanuel was a member of a rabbinical Berliner family that was resident in the nineteenth century in Piotrykov and Lodz.

A researcher in the United States, Morris Wirth of Baltimore, conducted considerable research of a number of inter-related families including the above rabbinical Berliner family. Information was exchanged mutually between us as we both had sources which were inaccessible to the other party. As more and more Polish records were discovered, it became clear that Emanuel Berliner’s ancestry did not stem from the rabbinical family and a fortuitous discovery of one document held the key to his true family connections. Morris Wirth continued to expend considerable energy, time and skill until all the available records were extracted.

Background of Oral Family History

In 1974 during a visit in London Janey and I visited Auntie Annie Stein and met Uncle Rubie Berliner. We asked them what they knew about their parents’ Polish background. They knew very little since their parents rarely talked about their past in Poland. Their father Emanuel Berliner was actually named “Mynyl”. Although the Hebrew inscription on his tombstone in London bears the name “Imanuel”, a legal document bears the name “Mynyl (Miller) Berliner”.

Emanuel was reputed to have come from the town of Tomaszow Mazowiecka where his father, Rubin was a “barber-dentist”. This occupation was explained by Rubie as a function of a paramedical who attended Jews whereas the gentile Polish doctors were reluctant to do so. Rubin pulled teeth and gave haircuts. He was comparatively affluent, which enabled Emanuel to acquire a good education in his childhood. However Rubin died when Emanuel was young and after a few years his mother was unable to support him. She sent him to Lodz to work for a wealthy Jewish family where he minded the children. In Lodz he met and married Sheindel (Jane) Szymkowicz, the daughter of Tsvi Leib Szymkowicz, who was reputed to be wealthy, as he “owned a market”. What became of Emanuel’s mother, or even her name was not known. Questioned as to whether either of their parents had siblings, Annie and Rubie said that they never heard mention of siblings and they had the impression that their parents were only children.

Theoretical ancestry

Emanuel Berliner actually bore a rare personal name “Mynyl”. This Yiddish name is apparently a diminutive derivative of the Hebrew name Imanuel, although some omnasts believe it is an extension of the name “Man” derived from “Menakhem”. A prominent rabbinical family, descended from Rabbi Tsvi Hersh Berlin the Chief Rabbi of Berlin settled in Piotrykov, Poland in the late eighteenth century. Because the rare name Manele, a variant form of Mynyl, appeared several times in that family, it was considered that Emanuel (Mynyl) Berliner inherited his name from the Piotrykov family. It was proposed that the most likely relationship was that Emanuel’s father Rubin was a son of Manele Berliner, a son of Rabbi Yaakov Shaul Berliner of Piotrykov (1800-1880). For this to have been valid, Emanuel’s birthdate had to be after the date of death of Manele Berliner, a fact that had yet to be established.

Morris Wirth surveyed all the vital statistic records for Piotrykov from 1826 until the 1880’s. He was able to establish the identities of Manele’s children, who did not include Rubin. This in itself may not have been conclusive as experience with these records often demonstrates that records are either missing or even falsified. However the conclusive proof came with the discovery of children born to Manele after 1870, Emanuel’s birthdate calculated from his tombstone. There was one weak hope that the relationship might still be valid if Emanuel’s age was incorrect. Later discoveries established his true ancestry, so reluctantly, Emanuel and his descendants lost their illustrious rabbinical ancestry.

Rozprza instead of Tomaszow.

Fortunately for family of Emanuel, Morris Wirth had relations in Lodz and Tomaszow and so he was able to search the records of these towns for either Emanuel or Rubin. Surprisingly there were virtually no Berliners in Tomaszow, claimed by Annie and Rubie as their father’s hometown. One record held the clue. A marriage took place in 1880 in Tomaszow between Haja Berliner and Jakob Tarlowicz. The marriage record states that Haja, aged 19, was the daughter of Rubin Berliner, deceased and Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn of the town of Rozprza.

The fact that the bride’s father was named Rubin and that he was deceased by 1880, when Emanuel was ten years old, seemed to resemble the scenario described by Annie and Rubie. But where was Rozprza and, if the Berliners lived there, what was the connection with Tomaszow ?

Rozprza

Rozprza is a small town located in the general area of the towns Piotrykov, Lodz and Tomaszow. Again Morris Wirth was researching his family in Rozprza and so agreed to look for the Berliners. Initialy he found a marriage in 1859 between Rubin Berliner of Rozprza and Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn of Tomaszow. This identified the parents of the bride of the 1880 marriage in Tomaszow. Rubin’s age was recorded as 50, making his birthdate about 1809. It should be noted that ages were notoriously inaccurate, as will be shown in Rubin’s case. Rubin’s occupation was stated as “Feldszer”, This was a medical orderly who usually acquired his limited skills in the army, or from another Feldszer, and carried out basic medical treatment for the village Jews. This fact correlated to the oral history related about Emanuel Berliner’s father.

Another record found in Rozprza was an earlier marriage in 1851 of Aron Pincus Berliner aged 18. That made his birthdate about 1833. This marriage record stated the parents as Rubin Berliner and Rywki Soldan. Could this be the same Rubin Berliner who appeared in the 1859 marriage ? But why did he marry another woman ? Unless the identities could be established there might have been two Rubin Berliners. If so, which was the father of Emanuel (Mynyl) Berliner of London ?

Morris Wirth set about tracing all the Berliners recorded in Rozprza. Among the children of Rubin Berliner and Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn was “Mynyl” born in 1870, exactly the birth year commensurate with Emanuel’s tombstone.

The Rozprza Berliners - Highlights

The family tree and some of their activities quickly took shape as many records were extracted.

Rubin Berliner was married twice. His first wife, Rywki Soldan, died February 2, 1859. By May 5th of the same year Rubin married his second wife, Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn. The bride’s age was stated as 20 and the groom as 50 ! In fact the astonishing age difference was even greater. Rubin had falsified his age, as seen from the death record of his first wife three months earlier. There her age was recorded as 63, and although Rubin’s age is not stated he would hardly have been thirteen years younger. In fact the birth records of Rubun’s children bear ages commensurate with a birth year which varies between 1789 and 1802. The most reasonable date seems to be 1796, making Rubin 63 at the time of his second marriage.

Why would a 20 year old girl marry a 63 widower ? Maybe he was very rich and she was very beautiful.

Emanuel Berliner was far from an only child. He was one of 20 siblings, 14 of whom survived childhood.

Rubin Berliner and Rywki Soldan had 12 children:

Zossia (Zysli), 1825. Married Jakob Jozef Horowitz.
Rajzla, c.1828. Married Dawid Cymberknop.
Laja, 1829-1830
Alexander Michal (Hil Alexander/Yekhiel Michal), 1832
Perla, c.1833. Married Naftal Rajnglas.
Aron Pincus, 1834
Lewek, 1836
Mosiek Szaia, 1838-1839
Jetta (Itla), 1840-1843
Samuel (Simel), 1842-1843.
Apolenia (!!!), 1844
Jochwet, 1845. Married Hersz Lewkowicz (*).

*Hersz and Jochwet Lewkowicz’s family also live in England and the Rozprza records establish their relationship.

Rubin Berliner and Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn had 7 children:

Haja Sura, 1860. Married Hersz Tarlowicz of Tomaszow.
Laja Alte, 1861
Nechuma, 1863. Married Ojzer Wajsberg.
Jzrael Dawid, 1865-1873
Haim Szlama, 1867-1873
Mynyl [Emanuel], 1870-1948 London.
Yakow Itzik, 1872

Rubin also had several brothers including Mordka (Mordechai) and Jozef, a sister Haja, who married Jozef Braniec, and a half-brother and sister, Abram and Hawa. These had many children.

In 1873 tragedy struck the family of Rubin and Ruchla Mirla. On the 16th of May their six year old son Haim Szlama died. On the 4th of September their nine year old son Jzrael Dawid also died. Nine days later, on the 13th of September, the father Rubin died. The cause of death stated on the death record was Cholera. It is probable that that was the cause of the deaths of his two sons. Rubin’s age at death is stated to be 84. However two years earlier, on his son Mynyl’s birth record, his age is given as 74, making his birth year 1796.

The Rozpra records include some of the subsequent generation of Emanuel’s half-brothers’ and sisters’ children. It remains to be seen what became of this large family. Some may have settled in the USA and elsewhere. Many probably perished in the Holocaust.

Earlier Berliners

Rubin Berliner was the eldest son of Zyskind Berliner, born about 1760 and died in Rozprza in 1828. Zyskind’s first wife and Rubin’s mother was Zysel Temerman (although her surname is subject to clarification). She was dead by 1825. Zyskind’s second wife was Hany (Anna), by whom he had two children. Zyskind died two days before the birth of his youngest daughter Hawa and her eldest half-brother Rubin acted in his father’s place in registering the birth. Hany subsequently remarried.

Both Zyskind and Rubin were occupied as “Feldszer”, A son of Rubin also followed what must have been a family occupation. The Feldszer was akin to the English term “Quack” !!

Female ancestral relationships

The Berliner family’s connection with the town of Tomaszow arose from the fact that Rubin’s second wife (Emanuel’s mother) Ruchla Mirla Zylbersztajn was born there in 1840. She was the daughter of Izrael Zylbersztajn and Tauby Kantorowicz. They were married in 1838 in Tomaszow but came from other towns. Izrael was born in 1815 in Ujazd, a son of Leyzer and Hany Zylbersztajn. Tauby was born in 1817 in Opoczno, a daughter of Nusyn and Itty Kantorowicz.

The marriage record of Ruchla Mirla in Rozprza in 1859 establishes the identity of her parents. Their marriage record in Tomaszow in 1838 establishes their ages and parentage. Further research should reveal the identities of Zylbersztajn and Kantorowicz relations.

That is a summary of the saga of the Berliner family. An incredible amount of documented information was discovered, which, although removing the theoretical rabbinic relations, provides a fascinating picture of the actual family.

Ancestry of the Vilna Gaon - Descent from King David

Ancestry of the Gaon of Vilna – Descent from King David

Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, Israel, September 2005
Published in "Avotaynu" Volume XXI, Number 3, Fall 2005

Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalmen, the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797)[1] is descended from several prominent rabbinical scholars of Vilna: Rabbi Moshe Rivkas (1596-1671) and Rabbi Moshe Kremer (died 1688). The ancestry of these rabbis was known by the Gaon’s biographers for only a few generations, no earlier than the mid sixteenth century. To date relationships with other prominent rabbinical families was unknown. This was a rare situation considering that most ancient [or other suitable word] rabbinical families were interrelated and could trace their ancestry for centuries.

Throughout the course of the Bible the narrative revolves around the sequence of the generations, from the patriarchs, the division of the Children Of Israel into the Twelve Tribes, the Exodus from Egypt, the pioneers in the establishment of the Jewish nation in Eretz Yisrael, the Prophets, the Royal House of David until the destruction of Jerusalem and the Exile into the Diaspora

During the pre-Exilic period the Jews preserved records of their genealogical connection to the nation. This continuity was lost to a great extent due to the disruption of the Exile to Babylon and the Diaspora in Europe. Many families painstakingly preserved their traditions of descent even in the post-Exilic period. Some of these families settled in the Rhineland and France in the ninth and tenth centuries. A prominent family which claimed Davidic descent was that of great Biblical and Talmudic commentator Rashi (1040-1105). Traditions of descent from famous rabbis and in particular from Rashi have long intrigued genealogists. The subject was discussed at length in several issues of Avotaynu some years ago[2]. Rashi’s family and disciples established centers of learning and laid the foundations of the communities which became the hub of Jewish life in many towns in Western Europe. Later, in the fourteenth century, their descendants moved to Eastern Europe. Thus a vast interrelated dynasty of rabbinic families spread across Europe.

Since most of the prominent rabbinical families are inter-related due to Shidukhim (matchmaking), there was a core of medieval rabbinical families who were descended from Rashi. Some examples are Treves, Shapira, Luria, Katzenellenbogen, Jaffe, Heilprin, Landau, Lipshitz, Margolis, Rapaport, Heller, Weil, Isserles, Shorr, Klausner, Horowitz, Katz, Teomim, Epstein, Gunzburg, to name but a few. These families comprise the root from which most other rabbinical families stemmed. A specific family may descend from a number of marital ties between rabbinical families, which ultimately connect back to Katzenellenbogen, Luria etc, and through them to Rashi and King David.

Details of these families can be studied on the Davidic Dynasty site http://www.davidicdynasty.org/

A new study of the ancestry of the Vilna Gaon by this author revealed previously unknown sources which when correlated show that the Vilna Gaon is in fact descended from many of the above families and is descended from King David.

An extensive study of the ancestry of the Gaon of Vilna was written by the late Benyamin Rivlin and published in Sefer Hagra [3].

The Gaon's parents were Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen (died 1758) and Treina. His mother came from the town of Seltz (today, Selets) near Grodno. His father came from a prominent Vilna family. The known male line of the Gaon's ancestry commences with Rabbi David Ashkenazi (died 1645), who was a Rosh Yeshiva in Lemberg, Poland. According to Professor Louis Ginzberg[4], David Ashkenazi may have been identical with Rabbi David, son of Mordekhai Ashkenazi, mentioned in Klilat Yofi[5]. David's son, Rabbi Moshe Kremer (died 1688), held the position of Av Beit Din (chief rabbi) of Vilna. Moshe Kremer's son, Rabbi Eliyahu (died 1710), was known as “Khassid” due to his piety.

Eliyahu Khassid had three sons: Rabbi Yissakhar Ber (or Yissakhar Dov), Rabbi Tzvi Hersh (died 1765) and Rabbi Moshe (died 1765). Tzvi Hersh was the ancestor of several prominent families, includ­ing Rivlin and Eliash, who held influential posi­tions in the Vilna community[6]. Yissakhar Ber was the father of Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen, who was the father of five sons and a daughter. The eldest son was Rabbi Eliyahu, the Gaon of Vilna (1720–1797).

The Gaon's great-grandfather Eliyahu Khassid married into another prominent rabbinic family. His wife was a daughter of Rabbi Petakhiah, son of Rabbi Moshe Rivkas (died 1671). Rabbi Moshe Rivkas came to Vilna from Prague in the early seventeenth century. During the Cossack massacres in 1655, Rivkas fled to Amsterdam, where he completed his commentary on the Shulkhan Arukh called Be-er Hagolah[7].

The earliest known ancestor of Moshe Rivkas was Yosef Hakhaver of Ofen (later Budapest), one of the members of the Jewish communi­ty of Vienna who was exiled to Prague in 1559[8]. Yosef's son, Rabbi Petakhiah (died 1598), was sofer (scribe) of the Prague community, as was his son, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Hersh. Naftali Tzvi Hersh Sofer (died Prague 1601) was the father of Rabbi Moshe Rivkas.

Maternal Ancestors

Little is known about the Gaon's female ancestors. There are two versions as to the identity of Naf­tali Tzvi Hersh Sofer's wife. Shapira[9] refers to Naftali as Tzvi Hersh Fasi and records his wife's name as Rivka, a daughter of Natan Mandel, son of Meir of Krakow.

But Tzvi Hersh Fasi lived in Krakow, whereas the father of Moshe Rivkas, Naftali Tzvi Hersh lived in Prague where he held the position as Sofer (scribe) of the Kahal. Tzvi Hersh Fasi held a position as Parnes Umanhig (a community leader) in Krakow. Kahana[10] lists the children of Tzvi Hersh Fasi but the name of Moshe Rivkas is not included. Naftali Tzvi Hersh Sofer died in Prague in 1601, whereas Tzvi Hersh Fasi is recorded in the Pinkas Hakahal (a community register book) in 1632. Therefore it can be seen that Shapira has confused two individuals. A possible explanation for the confusion may be due to the fact that Fasi’s son Leib was the father-in-law (by his first marriage) of Rabbi Gershon Ashkenazi of Nikolsberg and Vienna (1615-1693, author of Avodat Hagershuni) who referred to Moshe Rivkas as his “Mekhutan” (meaning that their children were married) in Gershon’s approbation to Rivkas’ Be’er Hagolah[11]

Moshe Rivkas' Descent from King David

Details of the ancestry of Moshe Rivkas can be established from the correlation of several sources. Eliezer Rivlin in the introduction to Sefer Hayakhas6 conveys a tradition of the family’s descent from King David:

“Sefer Hayakhas” Eliezer Rivlin (Jerusalem 1935)


Translation
According to ancient family traditions these ancestors of the family were descended from the dynasty of the House of David and the elders of the family used to relate that they saw the ancient writings in which the names of the dynasty were detailed until the House of David. Various legends also spread between the various branches of the family about the origin of their ancestors from the Spanish Exile which was in Amsterdam, and so on and so on. But if we rely on certain scientific documents we are unable to give details of he names above the Holy Rabbi Yosef Khaver, the ancestor of Rivkas on the Rivkas side, and above Rabbi David Ashkenazi father of Kremer on the Kremer side.

Although Rivlin dismisses these oral traditions because they are not based on “certain scientific documents”, he was apparently unaware of sources which, when considered together, support the oral tradition of descent from King David.

One of these sources appears in a rare comment in Saarat Eliyahu[12] , a eulogy of the Vilna Gaon written by his youngest son Avraham. It was not the habit of the Gaon to mention in his many writings members of his family. Nor was it the custom of his sons. To date few such comments have been discovered:

“Saarat Eliyhau” Avraham son of the Gaon, Grodno 1876

Translation
…….Samalion (which is the name of an angel as explained by our ancestors the Arukh and the Baalei Hatosafot)……..

Two lines of ancestry are noted, one from the author of the Arukh, Rabbi Natan of Rome (1035-1106). A gap of 700 years between the Gaon and Natan makes it difficult to establish the nature of the descent. A family which also claims descent from Natan is that of Rabbi Yomtov Lipman Heller (1574-1654), author of Tosfot Yomtov. Research of the Heller family might establish a connection with the Vilna Gaon’s ancestors[13].

Of greater importance is that part of the comment by Avraham (son of the Gaon) which refers to “our grandfathers the Baalei Hatosafot”. The term “grandfathers” is a figurative term meaning “ancestors”.

The Baalei Hatosafot were the Talmudic commentators who functioned after Rashi (1040-1105). Initially these were his sons-in-law, grandsons and their families. Then each of these relatives of Rashi had their students and the group as a whole were known as Baalei Hatosafot, meaning the authors of the additional commentaries to those of Rashi and his predecessors.

Avraham’s comment referring to his ancestors as Baalei Hatosafot may theoretically include any of the Talmudic scholars regarded as members of this group, and not necessarily the family of Rashi. But given Rivlin’s note about the tradition of descent from King David, and given that Rashi and his family were descended from King David, the intersection of the two factors indicates that it is likely that Avraham’s comment points to the Gaon’s descent from those of the Baalei Hatosafot, who were members of Rashi’s family. Further evidence will add weight to this contention.

It might be claimed that the term “zikneynu”, “our grandfathers/ancestors” could mean “our elders” and not necessarily ancestors. But that identical term “zikneynu” is used by he Gaon’s sons in their introduction to his commentary on Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Khaim[14] .

Introduction by the Gaon’s sons to his commentary on “Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Khaim” (Shklov 1803)

Translation
And our ancestor the Rabbi the Gaon our Teacher the Rabbi Reb M. who authored Be’er Hagolah.

There the term “zikneynu” is applied to Rabbi Moshe Rivkas, the Gaon’s great-great-great-grandfather. In those instances where scholars of previous generations are referred to, the term usually used is “khazal” meaning “our wise men of blessed memory”, or “razal” meaning “our rabbis of blessed memory”. In Saarat Eliyahu10 Avraham uses the term “razal” for other scholars and only in this one instance uses “zikneynu” to refer to his ancestors Natan of Rome and the Baalei Hatosafot.

It might be asked how Avraham knew of his ancestry. It seems unlikely that his father The Vilna Gaon would have taken time away from his studies to tell his sons stories about their ancestors. Such is the impression given by descriptions of the Gaon’s character with respect to his total dedication to study, begrudging any diversion for secular purposes, to the extent that he rarely enquired of his family’s welfare. Yet there is evidence that the Gaon did tell his sons about their ancestry as described by Avraham in Saarat Eliyahu:

“Saarat Eliyhau” Avraham son of the Gaon, Grodno 1876

Translation
……… How have we forgotten our holy ancestors. The rabbi the Gaon of our strength our Rabbi Moshe of blessed memory, Av Beit Din of community may it thrive, who saved us from several slanders and blood libels through his wonderful deeds. And from evil officials, as told us our lord our teacher and Rabbi my father the Gaon … who knew in his youth elders who told him, and the son of the above Gaon Reb M. of blessed memory, the rabbi the Khassid Rabbi Eliyahu of blessed memory after whose name our lord our father our teacher the rabbi of blessed memory was called. His great piety and separation, and the thunder of his brave righteousness ….

Here is clear evidence that the Gaon heard in his youth from the elders of Vilna information about his ancestors. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the Gaon was the source for Avraham’s information about his descent from Natan of Rome and the Baalei Hatosafot.

A possible relationship between Moshe Rivkas and the Katzenellenbogen family was mentioned in Eliyahu’s Branches, the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family[15]. At the time of writing of that book, evidence to explain the claim was not available and so the author wrote “This claim is unsubstantiated”. New evidence makes that statement no longer appropriate.

Benyamin Rivlin, the son of Eliezer Rivlin, the author of Sefer Hayakhas6, wrote a small biography of his ancestor Rabbi Moshe Rivkas, Reb Moshe Rivkas[16]:

“R’ Moshe Rivkes – Benyamin Rivlin (Jerusalem 1971)

Translation
About Reb Naftali Hirsh Sofer of the Holy Community of Prague, son of Reb Petakhiah, related his son Reb Moshe Rivkas, in the above introduction [to his book Be’er Hagolah] that “he drew water and served before the rabbi the Gaon our teacher the Rabbi Reb Falk Katz of blessed memory in the Holy Community of Lvov, after his marriage, in the year 5356 and 5357 [1596 and 1597], and there edited the Shulkhan Arukh and wrote at the side some matters from the Shulkhan Arukh of the above rabbi the Gaon of blessed memory.
His wife was Mrs. Telza – of the root of the Gaon Reb Shaul Wahl, and apparently he was “His Honor Hirsh the son of the master the honorable Petakhiah Sofer, tender in years, Sofer son of Sofer, who passed away in Elul 5361 [1601] in Prague.

Although Benyamin Rivlin does not refer to his father’s comment about Davidic descent, if, as he states, Moshe Rivkas mother was “of the trunk of Shaul Wahl” then Moshe Rivkas was thereby descended from King David since Shaul Wahl’s family, Katzenellenbogen was descended through the Luria and Mintz families from Rashi, and thereby from King David.

This reference to Telza, Moshe Rivkas’ mother, appeared prior to Benyamin Rivlin’s comment in 1971, in 1900 in Bentzion Eizenstadt’s Dor Rabanav Vesofraf[17] where he quotes Tzvi Hersh Edelman as stating that Telza was “a granddaughter of Shaul Wahl”. Edelman wrote in 1845 Gedulat Shaul[18] a history of Shaul Wahl’s family based on a 1755 manuscript Yesh Mankhilin[19] held in the Bodlean library in Oxford. Yesh Mankhilin includes many details of the Katzenellenbogen family, yet does not refer to Telza. Nor does Edelman’s Gedulat Shaul refer to Telza. That book was planned to appear in four volumes, only one of which is extant. Possibly Eizenstadt took his source from an unpublished manuscript by Edelman. Benyamin Rivlin makes a similar statement without quoting his source, describing Telza as “of the trunk of Shaul Wahl” whereas Eizenstadt narrows down the relationship to “a granddaughter of Shaul Wahl”.

Prior to publishing his Reb Moshe Rivkas in 1971, in 1954 Benyamin Rivlin wrote a chapter in Sefer Hagra1 providing biographical details of the Gaon’s ancestors Rabbi Moshe Kremer and Rabbi Moshe Rivkas. He includes several sources in which Moshe Rivkas refers to his relatives:

Relatives of Rabbi Moshe Rivkas – Sefer Hagra, Benyamin Rivlin

Translation
a. The author of the book Or Yekarot and Leviat Khen (Zolkva, 5516 [1716] ) is descended from Reb Moshe Rivkas and writes that he is from the family Khefetz from the Holy Community of Vilna, and so writes the author of Maamar Efsharut Hativit (Amsterdam 5522 [1762] `from the family Khefetz’[20].
b. not relevant
c. According to Rabbi Moshe in Be’er Hagolah his relatives were the Rabbi Reb Yeshaya Horowitz, the author of Shnei Lukhot Habrit (43) and the Rabbi Mordekhai Krasnik of the holy community of Zeil (44.
d. The Rabbi the Gaon our teacher the Rabbi Reb Gershon Ashkenazi Av Beit Din of Nikolsberg and Vienna, who was among the approbants to the book of Reb Moshe, writes of him that he was his Mekhutan[21].
(43). Be’er Hagolah, Orakh Khaim 645, 7, 30 and see there Khoshen Mishpat 67, 68.
(44). Ibid, Orakh Khaim 586. 1. 5.


The following are Rabbi Moshe Rivkas’ comments about his relatives in his book Be’er Hagolah:
Shulkhan Arukh, Be’er Hagolah Orakh Khaim Khoshen Mishpat



Yeshaya Horowitz “Shelah” Mordekhai Krasnik Yeshaya Horowitz “Shelah”

Translation
(Wrote my relative the Rabbi, Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz in his book Shnei Lukhot Habrit …
(Questioned my relative the rabbi Reb Mordekhai Krasnik P of the Holy Community K [an abbreviation which may mean Parnes of the Holy Community of Krakow] ….
……. and my relative the Rabbi author of Shnei Lukhot Habrit……

Mordekhai Krasnik of Zeil was a Dayan (rabbinical judge) in Krakow in 1643 and then rabbi in Luntshitz[22]. His relationship with Rivkas requires further research.

Rivkas’ reference to “my relative Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz”, taken independently of other relationships quoted above, might not establish the nature of the Rivkas/Horowitz relationship. But taking into account Rivkas’ Katzenellenbogen relationship, his link to Yeshaya Horowitz can be seen as follows:

Moshe Rivkas was born in 1596.

Shaul Wahl was born in 1545. His son Meir was born no earlier than 1565, since his namesake great-grandfather Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen the “Maharam Padua” died in 1565.

The period between the birth date of Shaul Wahl and Moshe Rivkas was fifty-one years which had to include two generations for Telza to have been a granddaughter of Shaul Wahl.

From a study of the various children and grandchildren of Shaul Wahl, it seems that Moshe Rivkas’ mother Telza was a daughter of Shaul Wahl’s son Meir Katzenellenbogen and was born about 1580 when her father was aged about fifteen.

Telza was about sixteen years of age when she gave birth to Moshe Rivkas in 1596.

No other scenario is feasible as the other children of Shaul Wahl were too young to have been the parent of Telza, given that her son Moshe Rivkas was born in 1596.

The Horowitz relationship stated by Moshe Rivkas confirms the above explanation of the Katzenellenbogen relationship since Meir Katzenellenbogen’s wife Hinda was a daughter of Pinkhas Horowitz, a second-cousin to Rabbi Yeshaya Horowitz, thus explaining why Moshe Rivkas refers to Horowitz as shear besari, “my flesh relative”.

Rabbi Pinkhas Horowitz[23] of Prague was a son of Yisrael Horowitz, son of Aharon Meshulam Zalmen Horowitz, son of Yeshaya Halevy Horowitz of Prague. The latter Yeshaya had another son Shabtai Sheftel, father of Avraham, father of Yeshaya (1570-1626), author of Shnei Lukhot Habrit, and known by the abbreviation of that book as the Sheloh. The Sheloh possibly born in Prague, served as rabbi in several communities before taking up the position as rabbi of Prague in 1614. He left that position in 1621 to settle in Eretz Yisrael where he died in Tiberias in 1626.

From the logistics of the Sheloh’s biography it can be seen that his relative Moshe Rivkas, from the age of eighteen, could have been personally acquainted with the Sheloh when he lived in Prague. Hence Rivkas’ comment in Be’er Hagolah that he was related to the Sheloh.

The relations of Meir Katzenellenbogen appear in Yesh Mankhilin:

Yesh Mankhilin – editor’s introduction

Translation
The Gaon Reb Meir Katzenellenbogen was a son of the Sar [officer/lord] our Rabbi Shaul Wahl of blessed memory. He was a son-in-law of Reb Pinkhas Horowitz, because he took his daughter Hinda to be his wife………

Yesh Mankhilin – Pinkhas Katzenellenbogen

Translation
And my father’s father’s father the Rabbi Our Teacher the Rabbi Reb Meir Shaul’s of blessed memory [Av Beit Din of the Holy Community of Brisk], his wife the Rabbanit Mrs. Hinda may her soul be in Eden, daughter of the famous, Our Teacher the Rabbi Pinkhas Segal Horowitz from Krakow, brother-in-law of the Remo of blessed memory.
And his father was the famous [Shaul] Wahl] [the Sar] and his wife Mrs. Devorah, may her soul be in Eden, daughter of Reb David.

Rivkas’ comment about his Horowitz relative confirms that his mother Telza was a daughter of Meir Katzenellenbogen since Meir’s wife was a Horowitz.

Other relatives of Moshe Rivkas bore the surname (or appellation) Wahl or Wahls. Whether this indicated a relationship with Shaul Wahl requires further research.

An additional source for the ancestry of Moshe Rivkas through the Katzenellenbogen and Horowitz families appears in Shnot Eliyahu[24] the Vilna Gaon’s commentary on the Order Zeraim of the Mishnah, edited by his son-in-law Rabbi Moshe of Pinsk. A reference to Moshe’s ancestor Rabbi Shmuel of Antipol, Karlin and Pinsk, as being a blood relative of the Gaon appears there.

The author of Sefer Yukhsin[25] mentions that the nature of the relationship was not known to him:

Sefer Yukhsin, Rozenkrantz



Translation
The Gaon Reb Eliyahu of Vilna, of blessed and righteous memory, was descended from one family with my grandfather [ancestor] the Gaon Reb Shmuel of blessed memory Av Beit Din of the Holy Community of Karlin and his brothers, which is found in Shnot Eliyahu on Zeraim where it is mentioned there about my grandfather the Gaon R”Sh who was his relative. But I have not found out at the moment in a clear tradition, the head of which paternal house in the dynasty of our family.

Our Rabbi Maharsha of blessed memory was the father-in-law of the Gaon, the sharp, the saint Reb Moshe son of the Gaon Reb Yitskhak of blessed memory, and the above Reb Yitskhak was a son-in-law of Reb Simkha Bunem Av Beit Din of the Holy Community of Krakow, son-in-law of the Gaon Head of all the Diaspora, the saint Reb Moshe author of the Mapah, and the above Reb Moshe son of Yitskhak was Av Beit Din of the Holy Community of Lublin and he was the author of the book Mahadura Batra of the Maharsha, and his son-in-law was the Gaon Reb Avraham Feigas of blessed memory. The son of Reb Avraham was the Gaon Rabbi Reb Yosef Khassid Koidanover, the son of Reb Yosef was the Rabbi the Gaon the saint Reb Kalman, Av Beit Din of the Holy Community of Pinsk. The son of Reb Kalman was the Rabbi the Gaon the saint Reb Leib of blessed memory, …………The Rabbi the Gaon the saint Reb Leib had three sons, 1. the Rabbi the Gaon the saint Reb Shmuel of blessed memory Av Beit Din of Antipole, Karlin and Pinsk.

The Horowitz descent of the Gaon, established from Moshe Rivkas’ comment in Be’er Hagolah solves Rozenkranz’s problem. He shows that Shmuel of Pinsk was descended from Rabbi Moshe Isserles, the Remo. Isserles’ sister Beila was the wife of Pinkhas Horowitz. Thus the Gaon and Shmuel of Karlin shared ancestry from the Isserles family.

The Vilna Gaon and Shmuel of Karlin relationship, the manner of which was hitherto unknown, correlates and confirms the other seemingly isolated sources, which taken together, establish the Davidic descent of the Vilna Gaon.

The comment of Avraham, (son of the Vilna Gaon) in Saarat Eliyahu, about descent from the author of the Arukh, Rabbi Natan of Rome, requires further research. But it should be noted that one family which also claimed descent from Natan was that of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Heller (1579-1654), author of Tosefot Yom Tov. Heller’s wife Rekhel was a granddaughter of Pinkhas Horowitz’s sister and thus related to Moshe Rivkas. Heller also functioned as rabbi in Prague during a period when Rivkas could have been acquainted with him. Natan of Rome was a member of the Anav family. Members of the Anav family also lived in Prague. One of Moshe Rivkas’ female ancestors may have been an Anav, thus accounting for Avraham’s comment about his descent from Natan of Rome.

Most sources[26] claim that Natan Heller was descended from Natan of Rome through his father. One source[27] states that it was though his mother.

Notes
[1] Freedman, Chaim. Eliyahu’s Branches, the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family. Avotaynu, Teaneck, New Jersey U.S.A. 1997.
[2] Avotaynu, Spring 1989, Spring 1990, Winter 1994, articles by Neil Rosenstein and Paul Jacobi.
[3] Fishman-Maimon, Yehuda Leib. Sefer Hagra. Jerusalem, 1954.
[4] Ginzberg, Louis. Students Scholars and Saints. New York, 1958.
[5] Dembitzer. Klilat Yofi. Krakow, 1888.
[6] Klausner, Yisrael. Toldot Hakehilah Haivrit Bevilna. Vilna, 1935.
[7] Rivkas, Moshe. Beer Hagolah . Amsterdam 1661-1664.
[8] Rivlin, Eliezer. Sefer Hayakhas Lemishpakhat Rivlin Vehagaon Mivilna. Jerusalem 1935.
[9] Shapira, Yaakov Leib. Mishpakhot Atikot Beyisrael. Tel Aviv 1981.
[10] Kahana, S.Z. Anaf Etz Avot. Krakow 1903.
[11] See reference below.
[12] Avraham son of Eliyahu (the Gaon). Saarat Eliyahu. Grodno 1876.
[13] Heller’s wife was a great grand-daughter of Yisrael Horowitz, who it will be seen later, was an ancestor of Moshe Rivkas.
[14] Eliyahu the Gaon of Vilna. Commentary on Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Khaim. Shklov 1803. Introduction by the Gaon’s sons Yehudah Leib and Avraham.
[15] Freedman, Chaim. Eliyahu’s Branches, the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family. Avotaynu, Teaneck, New Jersey 1997.
[16] Rivlin, Benyamin. Reb Moshe Rivkas. Jerusalem 1971.
[17] Eizenstadt, Bentzion. Dor rabanav Vesofrav. Vilna 1900.
[18] Edelman, Tzvi Hersh. Gedulat Shaul . London 1845.
[19] Katzenellenbogen, Pinkhas. Yesh Mankhilin. Boskowitz, Moravia 1755; edited by Feld, Yaakov Dov, Jerusalem 1986.
[20] Khefetz family in Prague: Hock, Mishpekhot K”K Prague. Prague 1892.
Koppelman, Lieben. Gal Ed. Prague 1856. Khefetz family in Vilna, see Rivlin.
[21] The exact relationship requires research.
[22] Friedman, Natan Tzvi. Otsar Harabanim. Bnei Brak, Israel 1975.
[23] Muneles, Otto. Ketovot Beveit Ha’almin Hayehudi Ha’atik Beprag. Jerusalem 1988.
Friedberg. B. Toldot Mishpakhat Horowitz. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1911.
[24] Moshe of Pinsk. Shnot Eliyahu. Lemberg 1799, Warsaw 1860.
[25] Rozenkranz, A. Sefer Yukhsin. Warsaw 1885.
[26] Wunder, Meir. Elef Margaliot . Jerusalem 1993
[27] Horowitz-Heller, Yekhiel. Megilat Yukhsin. Tel Aviv 1978.

The Maharal of Prague's Descent from King David

The Maharal of Prague’s Descent from King David

Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, March 2006.

Published in "Avotaynu" Volume XXII Number 1, Spring 2006

Rabbi Yehudah Leib[i] the son of Betzalel (circa 1522-1609), known as the “Maharal of Prague”, was one of the world’s most famous rabbis. Revered during his lifetime and by many until this day, the Maharal wrote many scholastic works. Several families claim descent from him, a fact of special importance to them since the Maharal also is widely believed to descend from King David.

Rabbi Meir Perels of Prague created a genealogy of the Maharal’s family, Megilat Hayukhsin[ii], in 1727 (some say 1717). The book was not published until 1853 and since then genealogists generally have accepted Perels’ claims, many incorporating Perels’ findings into their own works.

An exception to the believers in Perels’ claim was Prague historian Otto Muneles who discovered (in the early 1950s) that Perels’ claim was invalid since it was based on an erroneous copying of the date of death on the tombstone in Prague of the Maharal’s supposed great-great-grandfather Yehudah Leib (Liwai) the Elder. Perels recorded the date in Hebrew as the Hebrew year corresponding to 1439/1440.

Muneles’ examination of that tombstone shows that the date corresponds to 1539. Since the Maharal, also named Yehudah Leib, bore the same name as Yehudah Leib the Elder, and since the Maharal was born about 1522, he could not have borne the same name as a living ancestor. Soon thereafter, critical rabbinic genealogist, Rabbi Shlomo Englard of Bnei Brak, Israel, examined Muneles’ claims and, by studying sources described below, determined that Muneles’ claims were valid.

If the basis for the claim to Davidic descent of the Maharal is the text of the tombstone of Yehudah Leib the Elder (called in Hebrew Hazaken) then this would indicate that the Maharal may not be descended from King David at all. The consequences of such a finding would seem to sever all the descendants of the Maharal from their assumed Davidic descent. Such a circumstance would be particular serious for many famous rabbinic families whose ancestors wrote in many rabbinic works and genealogies of their Davidic descent, based on Perels’ work.

I have studied Muneles’ and Englard’s analyses of the situation and find them valid in negating the basis of Perels’ claim. On the other hand, my study of a number of rabbinic genealogies, written independently of Perels’ book, show that the Maharal indeed was descended from King David, but through a different line from that claimed by Perels. The descendants of the Maharal may breathe a sigh of relief; their illustrious ancestry has been salvaged.

An Alternative Line from the Maharal to King David

Prior to publication of Perels’ work a tradition existed that the Maharal was a descendant of Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi (died 217 C.E.), of the House of Hillel, who was of Davidic descent. These genealogies list the Maharal's father Betzalel and Chaim of Worms, and do not include Yehudah-Leib (Liwai) of Prague. The genealogies also do not trace the ancestry through the much-disputed line back to Hai Gaon and thence to the Exilarchs and King Solomon. Rather they state descent from Yehudah Hanassi, without listing the intervening generations.

The problem of the ancestry of the Maharal of Prague was debated on Jewishgen in 2002 when Daniel Polakovic, of the Jewish Museum in Prague posted the following:

“There was a great discussion on this forum about the reliability of Perles's book "Megillat Yuhasin" on the roots of the MaHaRaL of Prague. One of the problematic points was a gravestone of "his relative" Yehuda Loeb the Elder. Since I work in the Jewish museum of Prague, I've had access to the archives of the Prague Hevra Kadisha from the 17th-20th century. Among these documents are the transcriptions of the gravestones of the old Jewish Cemetery of Prague. I've done this repeatedly and so far about 12,000 gravestones have been copied.Naturally, the gravestone of Rabbi Yehuda Loeb "the Elder" mentioned by Perles was found, and it still stands up to present time. The inscription is almost identical with Perles's version except for the dating (not 1440 but 1540) and the last line of the gravestone which was romantically improved for this purpose (a passage about the descendant of Davidic royal dynasty). I assume that these lines in Perles's book aren't his alone, but only the addition from the beginning of the 19th century (probably of Polish origin), because this book was not edited for the first time until 1864.
The photo of the above mentioned gravestone is available for inspection at http://www.geocities.com/danpolak/liva2.jpg It originated from the 1950s, at that time a full setof pictures of gravestones from this cemetery were taken”

Figure 1. Tombstone of Rabbi Yehudah Leib (Liwai) the Elder in the ancient cemetery in Prague.

The year is partially obscured by vegetation so Polakovic excavated the base of the tombstone to reveal the essential line where the date can be seen clearly:

The date on the bottom line is "shin" (the Hebrew year 5300) which corresponds to1539/40, The inscription is identical with that copied by Muneles in his book in 1955[iii].

Some Important Facts:

The Maharal died in 1609 at the age of 97 or 87 [iv]. Thus he was born about 1512 or 1522.
He was born in Posen, not Prague. His father Betzalel and grandfather Chaim lived in Worms as did his uncle Yaakov. Neither his father nor grandfather is buried in Prague.

Someone named Yehudah Leib the Elder died in Prague in 1539. His tombstone includes the inscription "descended from Yishai", which was the name of King David’s father.

Perels wrote a genealogy of the Maharal in 1727, that is, 118 years after the Maharal’s death. The book was published in Zolkiew, Poland, but not until 1853 (and then in Warsaw in 1864).

Perels wrote that Chaim, the grandfather of the Maharal, Khaim was a grandson of the above Yehudah Leib the Elder who was buried in Prague, and that, therefore, the descent of the Maharal's family from King David was proven by the inscription on Yehudah Leib the Elder’s tombstone.


Figure 2. Megilat Yukhsin by Meir Perels.

Translation:

There was one man who was called Reb Chaim Worms. And he lived in the Holy Community of Virmeiza[v]. And the man was Kosher and a famous righteous one. And the head of his line of descent was his father’s father. He was called by his name Reb Yehuda Livai the Elder[vi] and on the stone tablet of his tombstone is engraved this language. Our teacher the Rabbi Reb Yehuda Livai and this is to Yehudah. To Torah and certification. Wise of the secrets. Uprooter of mountains and cedars. Proficient in Shas[vii] of the Talmud. And there was nobody to be found in the entire world in sharpness and proficiency and memory. And he is of the trunk of the pedigreed Geonim[viii] whose lineage is from David the son of Yishai. And the rest of the titles which are written about him I did not want to copy. And he was called to the dwelling above in the year five thousand and two hundred[ix] of the Creation. And to this day the above tombstone is in the Holy Community of Prague in the House of Life[x]. And his grandson Reb Chaim had three very important sons Reb Betzalel and Reb Yaakov and Reb Helman.

The date given by Perels is incorrect. Muneles and Polakovic found that the date of death on the Yehudah Leib’s tombstone was in the month of Kheshvan in the year "shin" (5300) not "resh" (5200) as claimed by Perels. That is 1539 not 1440.

Muneles copied the inscription as he saw it before he published his book in 1955[xi].

Figure 3. Transcription by Muneles of the tombstone in Prague of Rabbi Yehudah Leib the Elder

Translation:
Our Teacher the Rabbi Reb Liva
A lion’s whelp of Yehudah: In Torah and certification: He was engaged in them all his days: Charity he gave to the poor of his nation: And he was of the trunk of the Geonim: His deeds were fitting: Wise of the secrets: He was proficient in the six orders[xii]: He departed at a ripe old age” ….. about him …. Will drop ….. Yishai….Cheshvan Shin[xiii] according to the lower detail[xiv]. May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Muneles claims that Perels’ book raises many doubts, because of the date discrepancy with the existing stone and because its location is in an area that did not belong to the cemetery in 1439/40. Further evidence arises from David Gans’ book Tzemakh David (1543) in which Gans writes that he saw the tombstone of Avigdor Kara. Since Kara’s tombstone is located next to that of Yehuda Liva and since Gans took a particular interest in the Maharal of Prague, one might expect Gans to comment on the adjacent tombstone of Yehuda Liva if he believed that Liva was an ancestor of the Maharal.

Shlomo Englard, an authority on critical rabbinic genealogical evaluation, also questioned the authenticity of Perels’ claims[xv]
Translation of Englard’s article:
“In all the genealogies which are in our hands the Maharal of Prague is descended from his grandfather[xvi] Our Teacher the Rabbi Reb Livai the Elder of Prague, who was of the trunk of the Geonim whose lineage was from David the son of Yishai. There are those who added (on their own authority) that his lineage goes back to Reb Hai Gaon the son of Sherira Gaon, whose lineage goes back to the kingdom of the House of David. Great doubt should be cast upon this.”

Englard quotes the claim of Perels, noting that it was not published until 1853.

“In these lines Rabbi Perels connects the lineage of the Maharal of Prague to Yehuda Livai the Elder and upwards in holiness to King David of blessed memory. Thenceforth all the genealogies copied [Perels].”

Englard further states that the tombstone referred to by Perels still stands in the ancient cemetery of Prague, and the inscription is quoted in Gal Ed[xvii] and in Muneles’ book on the inscriptions in the Prague cemetery[xviii], with certain variations from Perels’ transcription. Botyhbooks quote the year “Shin” [1539] and not “resh” [1439/1440] as claimed by Perels, the critical discrepancy. Muneles points out that the section of the cemetery where the tombstone stands was not part of that cemetery in the year 1440. Englard draws the conclusion that the Maharal, whose name was Yehudah Leib (or Liva) was aged either 97 or 87 when he died in 1609, and therefore born well before Yehudah Leib the Elder died. Since they bore the same personal name, and since Ashkenazi Jewish naming practice forbids the naming of a child after a living ancestor, then the Maharal could not have been descended from Yehudah Leib the Elder.

Englard debates Muneles’ claims as to the reason Perels erred in the year 1439, doubting that it was done deliberately in order to connect the Maharal’s family with Prague and with King David. Perels was a noted scholar and official of the community, and he would not have dared to perpetrate such a forgery, since it could be checked at any time by anyone who visited the cemetery. Englard surmises that Perels either erred in his transcription or received a copy from some other person. Englard further propounds that Perels heard of a tradition that the Maharal was descended from someone called Yehudah Leib who lived a considerable time earlier and presumed that this forebear was the so called Yehudah Leib the Elder. A further discrepancy in Perels’ transcription is that the tombstone recorded descent from David the son of Yishai. Examination of the tombstone will see reference to “Geonim”[xix] and then an area of the tombstone which is damaged and mostly illegible, with only the word “Yishai” discernable”. But perhaps the words preceding “Yishai” were discernable in Perels’ time.

However close examination of the photograph after Polakovoc's excavation shows that the word is not "Yishai" at all, put the end of the word "Khamishi", the Hebrew for the fifth day, namely Thursday. This is followed by the date 25th of Kheshvan.

Englard continues with his critique of the Maharal claim to Davidic descent by drawing attention to later works that incorrectly claimed that all the generations prior to Yehudah Leib the Elder were known back to Hai Gaon. Prominent among these works is Weinstok’s Mekor Niftakh Lebeit David[xx] [A source opening to the House of David] and Shapira’s “Mishpekhot Atikot Beyisarel [Ancient Families in Israel][xxi]. All modern genealogists have accepted these incorrect claims which Englard suggests may have been fabricated by some unknown writer. The names linking Hai Gaon with Yehudah Liva the Elder first appeared in Kol Beramah (Jerusalem 1911).

In another article [Tsfunot #11) Englard quotes from Beit Aharon (Berlin 1829) the genealogy of Rabbi Mirels of Shwerin which says: “On his mother’s side the Gaon Reb Leib (of Krakow) was a grandson of the Gaon Maharal of Prague who was of the family of Rashi and Rabbi Yokhanan the Sandlar.

Figure 4. Extract from an article by Englard.

This source shows that even prior to the publication of Perels’ genealogy in 1853, traditions existed of the Maharal’s descent from the House of David, not through Yehudah Leib the Elder or Hai Gaon, but through Rashi (1040-1105) and his ancestor Yokhanan the Sandlar (died 140 C.E.). Yokhanan was a descendant of House of Hillel as was Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi, who Beilinsohn and others also claimed was the Maharal’s ancestor.

Proof of the date of death of Yehuda Leib the Elder already appeared in Gal Ed[xxii] by Lieben published in Prague in 1856. A chronological list of tombstones does not include a Liwa or (Yehudah Leib) in the year “resh” (1439/40)

Figure 5. Gal Ed, Lieben, Prague, 1856, chronological list of tombstones.

However there is a “R. Lowe” listed who died in the year “Shin” (1539).

Biographical notes about the Maharal of Prague (#8 on page 2 of Gal Ed) refer to: “Jehuda son of Betzalel son of Chaim”. No mention is made of Chaim’s parentage or ancestry , as he might have been expected to do if he knew any earlier names, such as Yehudah Leib the Elder.

Figure 6. Gal Ed, Lieben, Prague, 1856. Biographical notes about the Maharal of Prague.

The Maharal held the position of Landesrabbiner of all Moravia from 1553. Therefore, even if his date of birth (c.1522) might be claimed to be wrong, such that he might have been born after the alleged death of Yehudah Leib Hazaken in 1539, the Maharal would then have been aged 13, and would have been too young to hold such a position.

Brief details of “Lowe” are given #53 on page 37 of Gal Ed

Figure 7. Gal Ed, Lieben, Prague, 1856. Biographical notes about Rabbi Yehudah Leib (Lowe) the Elder.

No connection is claimed with the Maharal, and that part of Lowe’s tombstone claimed to indicate Davidic descent, is not mentioned. But he Lowe is described as “learned and descended from famous rabbis”.

Perhaps the family of the Maharal had a tradition they were descended from King David, and this tradition existed before Moshe Perels wrote his genealogy of the Maharal in 1727. The family did not know the details of the generations prior to the Maharal's grandfather Chaim of Worms. It is possible that it was known that the Maharal was named after an ancestor called Yehudah Leib. When Perels wrote his genealogy of the Maharal, he sought ancestors in the Prague cemetery and assumed that Yehudah Leib the Elder was an ancestor of the Maharal.

Possibilities for Perel’s error

Perhaps Perels saw the tombstone during a visit to the cemetery, but did not copy the exact details of the inscription. Later he may have sent somebody to copy the tombstone and that person erred in the date. Possibly the lowest line of the tombstone where the date appears was partially covered in mud thus obscuring part of the letter shin (1539), and what remained visible of the letter was misread as resh (1439), thus allowing, according to Perels, the possibility that Yehudah Leib the Elder was an ancestor of Yehudah Leib the Maharal, which could not be so had Perels read the date as shin (1539).

Evidence of a tradition of Davidic descent can be found in several sources that apparently were unaware of Perels’ incorrect claim.

The earliest of these sources dates from 1851:

Figure 8. Megilat Yukhsin , Beilinsohn, Moshe Eliezer, Odessa 1851[xxiii]

Translation:
Yehuda Liva son of Reb Betzalel, called by the scholars Maharal of Prague and his lineage is until the holy Tanna Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi of blessed memory.

This lineage is repeated in a source from 1863

Figure 9. Megilat Yukhsin , Beilinsohn, Moshe Eliezer, Odessa 1863 [xxiv]
Translation:
the authorized Gaon and head of all the children of the Exile, the G-dly man, Marana Yehuda Liva son of Reb Betzalel son of Reb Chaim, known by the scholars, and his lineage is until the holy Tanna Reb Yehuda Hanassi of blessed memory as explained in the book Marot Hatzovot[xxv], and Arkhei Hakinuim[xxvi] – and until King David, peace be unto him.

Figure 10. Zikhron Lemoshe Moshe Rashkes, Odessa 1873.

Translation of last few lines:
Tzvi Saba son of Yosef Yoshke, Av Beit Din of Lublin, grandson of the great eagle, the absolute Gaon, head of the Exile, marana[xxvii] Liva son of Betzalel, of blessed and holy memory, known by the name Maharal from Prague. And his lineage is from the holy Tanna Reb Yehudah Hanassi as explained in the books Arkhei Hakinuim, Marot Tzovot.

Rashkes’ terminology seems almost identical to that used by his relative Beilinsohn in his 1851 and 1863 genealogies. Notable by his absence is the so-called Yehudah-Leib (Livai) the Elder. It seems, therefore that neither Beilinsohn nor Rashkes were aware of Perels’ book published in 1853 and 1864. Yet they were aware, independently, of a tradition of descent of the Maharal from King David through Yehudah Hanassi, the editor of the Mishnah.

In the genealogies he published after 1893, however, Beilinsohn changed his story and introduced Yehuda Leib the Elder as the grandfather of Chaim of Worms. He gives Yehuda Leib’s date of death as the year resh (1439)

For example:

Figure 11. Megilat Yukhsin of the Aleksandrov Family , Beilinsohn, Moshe Eliezer, Odessa 1893

Translation of last few lines:
Yosef Yoshke, Av Beit Din of Lublin, descendant of the great eagle the authoritative Gaon, the G-dly head of all the exile, Marana ve rabana Yehuda Liva son of Betzalel, Av Beit Din of all the kingdom of Moravia and Prague ……..known as the Maharal from Prague of blessed memory, son of the Rabbi Khaim of Vermeisa of blessed memory, grandson of the Gaon, nobleman of the Torah, Marana Yehuda Livai of Vermeisa, of blessed memory, died in Prague in the year Resh, and his lineage goes back to the holy Tanna rabeinu Yehuda Hanassi who is descended from the house of our lord David the King…

Note that although Beilinsohn accepts Perels’ incorrect version, Beilinsohn still maintains that descent from King David was through Yehudah Hanassi and not Hai Gaon, the erroneous (or fraudulent) genealogy given by Weinstok.

Requirement for Further research

Further research that might clarify the descent of the Maharal should include books written by close relatives of the Maharal to ascertain whether they referred to their ancestry from King David. Books researched so far by this author include many of the Maharal’s books as well as two books written by his brother Chaim Igeret Hatiyul (published in Lemberg in 1864) and Sefer Hakhaim. None of these works refer to the ancestry of the authors. Nor does the extensive inscription on the tombstone of the Maharal in the Prague cemetery.

Conclusion

Perels’ error in the date of death of Yehudah Leib the Elder does not necessarily eliminate the possibility that the Maharal descended from King David, in some way other than through the so-called Yehudah Leib the Elder. Many indicators point to a tradition of descent from Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi, of the House of Hillel, who descended from King David’s son Shefatiah, and not through Hai Gaon who was descended from King Solomon. Unfortunately the names of the Maharal’s ancestors between his grandfather Chaim of Worms and Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi are not recorded in any known source.

References

1. Rabbi Shlomo Englard of Bnei Brak, Israel. A descendant of prominent rabbinical families, Rabbi Englard has devoted his scholarly research to the task of verifying traditional lines of descent of the famous rabbinical families. To this purpose he has reanalyzed the sources quoted by the authors of rabbinical genealogies as the basis for the lines of descent presented by them. Englard has checked these claims through independent research of additional sources. Painstaking comparison and analysis of rare texts, rabbinical compositions, recorded tombstone inscriptions have led Englard to conclude that the some of classical “ authorities” erred in confusing the identities of rabbis of the same name; used invalid dates of birth and death, which are incompatible with calculated historical time frames, and presented material which conflicts with facts presented in other verifiable sources.

Englard has published the results of his research in a number of articles in the journal Tsfunot. See the article about by Neil Rosenstein “Englard’s Articles on Questions in Rabbinic Genealogy”, Avotaynu, Volume XII, Number 1, Spring 1996.

2. Beilinsohn, Moshe Eliezer, author of Megilat Yukhsin, Shelomei Emunei Yisrael
a series of booklets published in Odessa from 1851 until the early 1900’s providing very detailed genealogical material for mainly Belarus rabbinical families. Since the author included all the members of a family known to him, this is a valuable source not only for rabbis, but also for their non-rabbinic descendants.

Principle families include Heilprin, Luria, Beilinson, Katz, Maharal of Prague, Raskin, Gunzburg, Mirkin, Rozenberg, Reichenstein, Dubnov, Tumarkin, Vilda, Kisin, Alexandrov, Margolis, Simchovitch, Ettinger, Brauda, Sirkin, Frumkin, Kazarnovsky, Freides, Zeitlin.

3. Muneles, Otto author of Ketovot Mibeit Ha'almin Hayehudi Ha'atic Beprag (Inscriptions in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague), Jerusalem 1988.
Muneles, who lived in Prague wrote his book in Czech, Hebrew and German versions. The Czech version was published in 1955. The Hebrew version was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia to Israel in 1966, shortly before Muneles died. But it remained unpublished until 1988.

Notes
[i] Yehudah Leib is one of the many extant variant spellings of his name. Other authors refer to him as Liwai, Liva, Loew, Loeb.
[ii] Megilat Yukhsin, Perels, Meir, written 1727 , or 1717 in Prague, and first published in 1853 in Zolkiev and again by Noakh Chaim Levin in Warsaw in 1864.
[iii] Muneles, Otto, Jerusalem 1988 Ketovot Mibeit Ha'almin Hayehudi Ha'atic Beprag (Inscriptions in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague).
[iv] Shem Vesheerit Katz, Krakow, 1895, page 9. Dor Yesharim. Katz, Berdichev, 1898, page 28.
[v] Virmeisa is a variant form of the town Worms in the Rhineland, Germany.
[vi] In Hebrew “Hazaken”.
[vii] Shas - acrostic for the six orders of the Mishnah
[viii] Geonim – Talmudic sages.
[ix] Resh = 1439/1440, depending on the month. From Muneles transcript of the tombstone and its photograph, it is known that the month was Cheshvan. Therefore the year “resh” corresponded to 1439.
[x] Cemetery.
[xi] Muneles, Otto, Jerusalem 1988 Ketovot Mibeit Ha'almin Hayehudi Ha'atic Beprag (Inscriptions in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague).
[xii] Six orders of the Mishnah..
[xiii] Five thousand two hundred = 1539.
[xiv] Abbreviation commonly found on tombstones whereby the letter “Hei” , five thousand is left of the date.
[xv] Tsfunot #12" reprinted in England's collection of his articles, Bnei Brak 2004.
[xvi] General term for `ancestor’ and not necessarily `grandfather’.
[xvii] Gal Ed, Lieben, Koppelmann, Prague 1856.
[xviii] Muneles, Otto, Jerusalem 1988 Ketovot Mibeit Ha'almin Hayehudi Ha'atic Beprag (Inscriptions in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Prague).
[xix] Geonim – Talmudic sages.
[xx] Makor Niftakh Lebeit David. Weinstok, Moshe Yair. Israel 1969.
[xxi] Mishpakhot Atikot Beyisreal [Ancient Families in Israel]. Shapira, Yaakov Leib, Israel 1981.
[xxii] Gal Ed Lieben, Koppelmann, Prague 1856
[xxiii] Manuscript provided by Rabbi Shlomo Englard.
[xxiv] Printed version of the same genealogy, held by the great-grandfather of the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr.
[xxv] Marot Hatzovot, Moshe Zeev Wolf of Tiktin and Bialystok, Grodno 1810.
[xxvi] Arkhei Hakinuim, Yekhiel Heilprin, author of Seder Hadorot. 1769.
[xxvii] Marana – a term of honor.

The Chacham Tzvi - was he descended from King David ?

The Chacham Tzvi – was he descended from King David ?

Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, Israel, January 2006.

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Ashkenzy, 1660-1718, known as the “Chacham Tzvi”, was the son of Rabbi Yaakov Ashkenazy, a son of Rabbi Benyamin Zev Zak of Vilna.

Yaakov Ashkenazy was married to Nechamah, the daughter of Rabbi Efraim Hakohen of Vilna, the author of “Shaarei Efraim”.

Several books claim that the wife of Benyamin Zak was a daughter of Rabbi Yaakov of Lublin, the father of Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel, known as “Reb Heshel of Krakow”.

If this was so, then the Chacham Tzvi would be descended from Rashi and thence from King David through Yaakov of Lublin’s relationships with various families of Rashi Descent.

Rabbi Shlomo Englard (Bnei Brak, Israel), an authority on Rabbinic genealogy, specialising in identifying errors in printed genealogies, disputes the claim that the Chacham Tzvi’s
paternal grandfather was a daughter of Yaakov of Lublin. Englard presents convincing and decisive arguments to support his claim.

Another claim which might have provided the Chacham Tzvi with Davidic descent is that his maternal grandfather, Efraim Hakohen was descended from Efraim Fishel a son-in-law of Rabbi Shlomo Luria the “Maharshal” who was descended from Rashi. Englard denies this relationship.

The wife of the Chacham Tzvi, Sarah, was a daughter of Rabbi Meshullum Zalmen Mirels Neumark. An erroneous claim by several genealogists was that a female ancestor of Meshullum Zalmen’s was a daughter of Rabbi Efraim Zalmen Schorr, whose wife was a Katzenellenbogen and thereby of Rashi and Davidic descent. Englard brings evidence to disprove this claim.

One source, “Elef Margaliot” by Rabbi Meir Wunder includes a genealogical table of the Mirels-Neumark-Teomim-Frankel family indicating descent from Rashi. However no evidence of this claim is presented.

Englard published his arguments in “Tzfunot” #13 and in a collection of his articles published by Tzfunot Yuchsin Institute, Summer 2004.

I have checked Englards sources and researched over twenty books which include details of the personalities referred to above. My conclusions agree with Englard and I can see no way by which the Chacham Tzvi or his wife were descendants of Rashi and King David. Furthuremore I have seen no such claim by his descendants in the books which they wrote, for example the Chacham Tzvi’s son Rabbi Yaakov Emden (the “Yavetz”).

Of course, it is highly likely that all Ashkenazy Jews are descended from Rashi, as well as all Jews living in Germany and France at Rashi’s time. This is based on mathematical calculations of probability.

The descendants of the Chacham Tzvi might be consoled by what the Baal Shem Tov is claimed to have said about the family: that they are one of the three families who are “clean” generation after generation. (“Binyan Ariel” P. Mayers, Haag, Holland, published in Jerusalem in 2005).

Komisaruk Family - first 8 generations

Komisaruk Family – first eight generations

Prepared by Chaim Freedman, Petah Tikvah, March 2007

1) Yosef (Josel) (Halevy) pre-surname, b. c.1695 in probably Lithuania,[1] d. before 1765 in probably Rassein, Lithuania.

Yosef (Josel) is the earliest known ancestor of the Komisaruk family in a direct male line of descent. His name was discovered in the 1765 census of the city Rassein (currently Raseiniai), Lithuania where it appears as the patronymic of his son Meir.At that time Jews did not bear surnames but Yosef was identifiable through the overlap of details on subsequent census lists until the family adopted the surname Komisaruk in the early nineteenth century. The first documented record of the surname is the 1816 Revision List (census) for the town Rassein, where Yosef's grandson's name appears as David Komisaruk.

Yosef was a Levite, a descendant of the ancient Biblical tribe of Levi, son of the Patriarch Yaakov (Jacob). This tribe was not assigned a specific district of residence in ancient Eretz Yisrael, but was dispersed throughout all the tribes as it was the duty of the Levites to carry out special religious and communal functions, in particular, to assist the Kohanim (Priests) in the rites of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.Knowledge of one's Levitical descent was passed down orally from father to son through the generations, was inscribed on tombstones, and written in official documents such as marriage certificates. The most frequent use was when a person was called up to the Torah reading in the synagogue. In the case of Yosef's son Meir, he would have been summoned to the Torah reading by the name " Meir ben Yosef Halevy". Thus the identity of Levitical families was well known in the community, despite about one hundred generations which separated them from their Biblical ancestors. Civil secular records in Polish, Russian or Ukrainian usually did not include reference to Levitical status.

The early eighteenth records of the ancestry of the Komisaruk family are written in Polish as Lithuania was then under Polish control until annexed by Russia in 1795. Thereafter records are in Russian,

The geographic origins of the ancestors of the Komisaruk family prior to Yosef has yet to be researched which is likely to be very difficult if not impossible due to the absence of surnames.

According to the memoirs of Norman Mendelson " I don't know how many years the family lived in Lithuania but it is presumed that we, after dispersal, finished up in Spain and, then, when the inquisition started, we travelled to Lithuania. From our branch in Lithuania we could boast a few famous rabbis - in my family we're noted for our rabbis". It remains to be seen whether there was an oral tradition of Spanish origins or whether this was a generalisation.

2) Meir (Major/ Mejer) (Halevy) pre-surname, b. c.1720 in probably Lithuania.[2]


Meir's name appears as the patronymic of his son "Dawid Meyerowicz" in the 1784 Census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in that section relating to the village Girtagola (currently Girkalnis), District of Rassein, Vilna Province. It was customary in Lithuania/Poland or Russia and those territories under its influence, to refer to people by their first name together with that of their father. Surnames were adopted in the Russian empire after legislation in 1804. Since Meir lived and probably died prior to that date, he bore no surname, yet he can be identified in documents by connection with his son David who apparently was the first member of the family to adopt the surname "Komisaruk".

Meir's date and place of death have yet to be established. He can be identified in the 1765 census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as "Major Joselowicz", the only person in the district of Rassein whose personal name coincided with the patronymic of his son David Meirowicz and indeed he had a son David who appears in the 1765 census, together with his wife Khana, which was also the name registered for David's wife in the 1784 census. At that time Meir was living in Rassein city. At some subsequent date his son David moved to the village of Girtagola, as recorded in the 1784 census.

According to the 1765 census Meir had children other than David, but their subsequent surnames, which apparently differed from that adopted by David, have yet to be established by comparison between the 1784 and 1816 censuses.

Biographical information has not been discovered yet in archival resources in Lithuania, but may be sought in the Lithuanian Historical Archive in Vilna (Vilnius). Oral family tradition claims descent of the Komisaruk family from a line of rabbis and communal leaders. Meir's family appears as the third family of 180 who are recorded in the entire Rassein district. Those families recorded at or near the begining of the list were usually influential in the community.

He married Beyla pre-surname.

Beyla: Identified by name as the wife of "Major Joselowicz" in the 1765 census. A great-grandaughter was named after her as seen in the 1816 census in Rassein city.


3) David Komisaruk,[3] b. c.1747 in Rassein, Lithuania.

His name was discovered from the patronymic used with his sons' names in various Rassein records, the earliest being the 1816 Revision List for Rassein city. There is no relevant "David father of Leib, Berel and Velvel" on the 1784 Rassein city census. But, although this list preceeds the adoption of surnames, it is possible to identify this exact family configuration in the 1784 census in Girtagola village. When David died has yet to be discovered; he does not appear in the 1816 list for either Rassein or Girtagola.

He married Khana ?.[4]

Khana: Her name appears in both the 1765 and 1784 censuses as the wife of David. Therefore Khana and David were married before 1765 but had no children at the time of the 1765 census. Their eldest son Leib Komisaruk was born in 1773, so it is reasonable to assume that there were earlier children who perhaps died or there were daughters who were married before 1784.


4) Dov Ber (Berel) Komisaruk, b. 1776 in Girtegola, Lithuania,[5] d. 1843 in Rassein, Lithuania.[6]

Oral tradition held that Berel came from a prominent family of scholars and communal leaders in Kovno. Lithuanian records prove that the family came from the city Rassein which was located in Kovno Gubernia (province).When the Jews were compelled to adopt a surname in 1804 Berel and his brothers or their father registered their surname as "Komisaruk". Later generations used various forms of this name: Komisaruk, Komesaroff, Komisar, Comisaroff, Comisarow. A full explanation of the reason for these variations and the historic basis for the family's activities in Rassein can be found in "Our Fathers' Harvest" (Chaim Freedman, Israel 1982, supplement 1990.)

Berel Komisaruk and his family appear to have held a license to farm taxes which the local Jewish community was obliged to pay to the Russian government. In their case the particular tax was that due to the supply corp of the army, the Komisariat. This was probably the origin of this surname.

Tradition claims some relationship with the famous Soloveitchik family of Kovno. Other than their common Levitic descent, this has not been established. The Soloveitchik family was amongst the founders of the Kovno community in the early 18th century.

The 1816 Revision List for Rassein city includes two family groups with heads of family Leib, son of David Komisaruk and Velvel, son of David Komisaruk. Under the family group of Leib, who was missing in 1816, appears his brother Berel, son of David Komisaruk. Since Berel's son Zalmen appears under his father's family group, and it is noted that he "came from over the border in 1812" this seems to indicate that the family moved around between Rassein, nearby Girtagola, as indicated by the 1784 census, and perhaps other places. Berel was not registered in his own right as a family head, probably due to his recent arrival in Rassein.

The Komisaruks appear in two different sections of the 1816 census. Velvel appears under the main category of "Meshchani" - burghers or city citizens, whereas Leib and Berel appear under the small category "Rukidelniki" which is a currently obsolete term indiacting "craftsmen". While tradition tells of the family's activities as tax farmers and rabbis, it appears that some of them engaged also in some type of craft.

Although there was some indication in oral traditions that Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk's father's name was "Zev or Velvel", all official records list his name as "Berel". His full Hebrew and Yiddish names were most probably "Dov Ber."

Rabbi Dov Ber and Ester Komisaruk were the common ancestors of three families: Komisaruk (Komesaroff), Zhmood and Grinblat, although the Grinblat family have yet to be identified in Lithuanian archival records.

Records where the name of Berel Komisaruk appears:

1784. Census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rassein district, Girtagola village: appears as the second son of "Dawid Mejorowicz".

1816. Revision List of the town of Rassein, Rassein district: Appears under the Head of Household, "Leib, David son Komisaruk", his elder brother.

1846. List of people who did not, or were not expected to pay their taxes. The reason given in Berel's case was that he "died in 1843". The recording of his name "Berel Davidovitch Komisaruk" in this list facillitated bridging between earlier documents bearing that name and later ones referring to his son Zalmen as "Zalmen Berelovitch".

1847/8.Lists of Rassein Jews who applied and were approved to become farmers in Novorussia (south-east Ukraine) where Berel appears as the patronymic of his son "Zalmen Berelovitch Komisaruk".

1848. List of tax payers in Rassein where Berel appears as the patronymic of his son "Zalmen Berelovitch Komisaruk".

The memoirs of Norman Menelson include information conveyed to him by his grandmother Beila Reeva Komesaroff: "We came from Lithuania. From our branch in Lithuania we could boast a few famous rabbis. Rabbi Ber was our noted man. He was such a great rabbi that people came from all over to hear his opinion and evaluation on questions".

Further evidence of the Komisaruk family's involvement in religious and scholastic life in the Rassein community can be found in the records of the allocation of funds collected from the Jews in the Box Tax: In an article written by Anatoly Chayesh (Jewish historian living in St.Petersburg) on the subject of the collection and application of the "Box Tax" in the Russian Tsarist Empire, ("Box Tax Paperwork Records as a Source of Information About the Life of Jewish Communities and Their Personal Structure" - translated from Russian and published in the Litvak Special Interest Group Online Journal) appear details of a number of community projects in Rassein which were allocated funds by the governmental tax authorities. The first of these was for a "praying school", that is a "Beit Midrash":

"On the 25th of August in the year 1850, item 12580, on the yard of the property of the Jew Komisaruk, called Khayei Adam"

From this information we can learn that the Komisaruk family operated a "Beit Midrash" (a place of learning and prayer) on it own property. This may explain why in the records of the 1848 Box Tax there are two entries for the payment by Berel Komisaruk's son Zalmen, one larger payment probably for his house and another smaller payment probably for the property of the Beit Midrash. The name given to the Beit Midrash "Khayei Adam" was the name of a book written by Rabbi Avraham Danzig, the father of Berel Komisaruk's brother-in-law Yitskhak Danzig of Vilna. The use of this name was very common in many European communities as it indicated that that book in particular was studied by the scholars in those Batei Midrash. Although the above grant from the Box Tax is dated from 1850, when Berel Komisaruk was already dead and when his son Zalmen had already moved to the Ukraine, the Beit Midrash may have been in operation for some years previously, and continued to be managed in 1850 by those Komisaruks who remained in Rassein, namely Zalmen's son Yankel, and his cousin Sender Komisaruk.

He married Ester Vilner, b. 1777 in Serhei, Lithuania,[7] (daughter of Yehudah Leib Vilner and Wife of Serhei) d. c.1860.

Ester: The personal names of the parents of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Komisaruk were not recorded clearly in family tradition. However, given the prevalence of the name Ester amongst her descendants, together with the fact that her mother was the daughter of Ester Jaffe, it seemed likely that this was the name of Shlomo Zalmen's mother.This was confirmed by the 1816 Revision List for Rassein city which recorded her name as "Estera, aged 39". Women were recorded in the 1816 list without their patronymic.

Ester's identity as the daughter of Rabbi Yehuda Leib of Serhei was established as follows. Oral tradition conveyed by several of the branches of the descendants of Berel Komisaruk claimed descent from the Gaon of Vilna. An independent source is the memoirs of Marcus Joseph Weinkle who was personally acquainted with Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk (lived 1830-1897). Weinkle records in his memoirs that Rabbi Pinkhas claimed descent from the Gaon: "Feigel married Wolf Komisaruk, a Rabbi's brother, descended, as it is said, from the great Jewish scholar, the Gaon of Vilna."

The exact nature of the link between the two families was established by an inscription in an old book passed down through the generations of the Komisaruk family. This was a copy of "Khokhmat Adam" dating from the early 19th century. Next to the name of the author, Rabbi Avraham Danzig, was a faded handwritten inscription in Hebrew "Av Dodi" meaning "the father of my uncle". Other family inscriptions establish that the book was brought from Lithuania by Ester's son, Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk, when he settled in the Ukraine in about 1847/8.

The father of one's uncle could either be one's grandfather, in which case he would have been referred to as such, or the father of one's aunt's husband. Since Avraham Danzig's son Yitskhak was married to Gittel, a daughter of Yehuda Leib of Serhei, the second son of the Gaon of Vilna, it can be established that this was the link between the family of the Gaon and the Komisaruk family. Given that the Danzigs were not Leviim and that the Komisaruks were, and following research of the other children of Avraham Danzig, Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk's mother Ester had to be a sister of Gittel Danzig, and thereby, a grand-daughter of the Gaon of Vilna.

Some material about the relationship was sought in the archive of Benyamin Rivlin (Jerusalem) which includes a file of material on the family of the Gaon of Vilna. This material includes copies of lists prepared by Rabbi Eliyahu Landau (a great-great grandson of the Gaon) who was the major source for that section pertaining to the Gaon in Eliezer Rivlin's genealogy "Sefer Hayakhas". The names and number of the daughters of Yehuda Leib of Serhei is ambiguous. Landau wrote several versions of his lists, which state that Yehuda Leib had four daughters and not two as recorded in "Sefer Hayakhas". One version indicated a son-in-law Velvel, which might have supported an early tradition in the Komisaruk family for that name. No one list included all the daughters of Yehudah Leib and at least six were identified in "Eliyahu's Branches."

Discovery in Ukrainian and Lithuanian archives of documentation firmly establishes the names of Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk's parents as Berel and Ester. The name Ester passed down tin the family to two of Ester Komisaruk's grand-daughters: Ester Luban, daughter of Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk, and Ester Pogorelsky, daughter of Pinkhas's brother Velvel Komisaruk, both of Grafskoy, Ekaterinoslav (Ukraine).

5) Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk,[8] b. 1798 in Girtegola, Lithuania,[9] d. 1853 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia.[10]

Like his ancestors, Shlomo-Zalmen was both a scholar and active in communal activities. The written sources refer to him as Rabbi, as related orally by his descendants as well as an inscription in the book "Khokhmat Adam" where his son refers to him as "My father, my teacher,our teacher the Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen of blessed and righteous memory". He was presumably named after his mother's uncle Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen of Vilna, the Gaon's eldest son.

Shlomo Zalmen's movements during his early years are difficult to trace from the available records. He is recorded in the 1816 census of Rassein city as the then only child of Berel and Ester Komisaruk. A note is appended to his name "came from over the border in 1812". He probably spent his youth in his father's town Girtegola, then moved to Rassein in 1812 when he married Yokhved, a daughter of Rabbi Menakhem-Mendel of Girtegola and Rassein. Where he was immediately prior to 1812 that might qualify as being "over the border" remains to be seen. One can theorise that at the age of Barmitzvah (13) he was sent to learn with his scholarly maternal grandfather Rabbi Yehudah Leib in Serhei ( son of the Gaon of Vilna) which was in the Province of Suwalki. This practice was repeated in later generations where members of the Komisaruk family were sent to study in other towns.

In Rassein Shlomo Zalmen was apparently involved in the Polish revolt of 1831 since Rassein was one of the main garrisons of the Russian army. Shlomo-Zalmen was said to have held the official position of "Commissioner of Supply" to the army. He so excelled himself in the collection of supplies for the army that he was awarded a gold medal. Research in the Historical Archive of Lithuania in Vilna (Vilnius) are being carried out to trace some record of these activities.


Shlomo Zalmen appears in a list of property owners in Rassein in 1846 who housed Kheders. There were three entries for "Zelman Komiseruk" (sic) for three Melamdim whose Cheders he housed. This may mean that he owned three properties or that he had a large house which had the space to house three Cheders.

In 1847 Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen joined a group of eleven families from Rassein which applied to take up the offer of Tsar Nicholas the First to settle on the land in the south-eastern Ukraine. The object of this offer was to develop the recently acquired region of Novorussiya (New Russia), as well as relieving the overcrowding of Jewish urban settlement. To entice the Jews to take up the offer, they were exempted from military service. This fascinating episode in Jewish history is covered in detail in "Our Fathers' Harvest" (Chaim Freedman). "Zalmen son of Berel Komisaruk" appears in a list of farmer applicants in 1847 and in another list from 1848 of those families approved to settle in Novorussia. Zalmen also appears in a list of tax payers in Rassein in 1848, so he must have settled his debts before leaving the city. In the list of Box tax payers Zalmem's name appears twice with different payments of tax. This probably indicates that he owned two taxable properties n which tax was stated as "house 1.16 rouble" and "0.15 rouble".

Initially Shlomo-Zalmen was the sole Rabbi ministering to 2,500 settlers on the first six Jewish agricultural colonies established in Yekaterinoslav Government. The Rassein settlers were allocated to the seventh colony Grafskoy which was established between 1847 and 1848. Since Shlomo-Zalmen died in 1853 he barely managed to establish his family in Grafskoy. His great-grandson Khaim-Velvel (William) Komesaroff of Melbourne claimed to recall Shlomo-Zalmen's tombstone in Grafskoy. The cause of death was probably one of the cholera or scurvy epidemics rampant at the time, which extracted a heavy toll from the vulnerable pioneer settlers.

The order of Shlomo-Zalmen's children by oral tradition was thought to be: Pinkhas, Leibl, Velvel and the fourth son whose name was not recalled. The 1858 Revision List in Grafskoy gives the order as: Leibl, Pinkhas and Velvel. The fourth son, Yaakov or Yankel was not recorded as he remained in Lithuania, as indicated by the 1858 Rassein Revision List. The 1847 and 1848 farmer lists give the order as in the Grafskoy list. The identity and position of Yankel as the second-born son is established by his age in the 1858 Rassein Revision List.

Despite his untimely death and the absence of written records of his scholarship, Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen's heritage was proudly recalled by his descendants.

He married Yokhved Fridgut, b. 1798 in Rassein, Lithuania,[11] (daughter of Menakhem Mendel Fridgut) d. c.1880 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia.

Yokhved: Her father is recorded amongst the scholars of Rassein:


"In the days of the Gaon, our teacher Rabbi Dov-Ber (Rabinowitz), Av Din, there lived in our city the great Rabbi, the saint, the Kabbalist, our teacher the Rabbi Menakhem-Mendel of blessed memory of Rassein, who was Shokhet and examiner (of meat) of the Holy Community of Girtegola, region of Rassein. Twenty years before his death he left the labour of Shekhita and settled in our city to study in the Great Beit Hamidrash. He passed away in the year 5596 (1836) and his honoured resting place is in the old cemetery."

Rassein was a centre for mystic study because a noted Kabbalist, Rabbi Shmuel Hekhassid, conducted a study circle there until his death in 1826. So it is likely that Rabbi Menakhem-Mendel, who is referred to as a Kabbalist, studied with him for a period of ten years.

Yokhved is recalled by her family as having been instrumental in the decision to leave Lithuania when the opportunity arose to settle in the Ukraine. This was due to her concern that her sons be saved from the government agents who kidnapped Jewish boys and handed them over for military service.

There is a conflict between the above biography claiming Yokhved's father was Menakhem Mendel, and the 1858 Revision List from Grafskoy which shows her patronymic as "Leib". The configuration of personal names Mendel and Pinkhas in the Komisaruk family correlates with the Fridgut family of Rassein. This has yet to be documented.

The earliest documentation of Yokhved is the 1816 Revision List for Rassein city which gives her age as eighteen. The 1858 Grafskoy Revision list also confirms her year of birth as 1798, the same date of birth as her husband Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen Komisaruk. Yokhved probably died in the 1880's when several descendants were named after her.





6) Pinkhas Komisaruk, b. 1830/32 in Rassein, Lithuania,[12] d. 1897 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia.[13]

The fact that Pinkhas was born in Rassein was established by the discovery of a history of Rassein (see sources) where Pinkhas appears in the category of notables who were born in Rassein but lived elsewhere. This source also identifies his maternal grandfather and his father Shlomo Zalmen. Indeed had it not been for the discovery of this book, the family's connection with Rassein might never have been known and the family's earlier history never uncovered, as oral travdition told of the family's origin as Kovno (Kaunas). This referred to the province of Kovno in which the city Rassein was located.

A brief biography appears in the history of Rassein:

"The rabbi, the great luminary, our teacher the Rabbi PINKHAS KOMISAR from the city of Rassein, who was Av Din and Shokhet in Grafskoy, a Jewish colony in the Government of Yekaterinoslav, died in the year 5657, (1897) 27th Adar, aged 67. Son of our outstanding teacher Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen from the city of Rassein who died in the year 1848. Reb Shlomo Zalmen was the son-in-law of the great Rabbi, the Kabbalist, our teacher Rabbi Menakhem Mendel from Rassein who was Shokhet in the Holy Community Girtegola and afterwards left the labour of Shekhita and sat learning in our city in the Great Beit Midrash 20 years until his last day and died in 5596 (1836). His honourable resting place is in the old cemetery."

There are several errors in this information. Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen did not die in 1848 but in 1853 in Grafskoy. The error may have been made by the author of "Ir Rassein" who found no further reference to Shlomo Zalmen in Rassein after 1848, by which time he had emigrated from the city.

The identity of Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen's father-in-law Menakhem Mendel clashes with the patronymic applied to Zalmen's wife Yokhved in the 1858 Grafskoy Revision List.

Rabbi Pinkhas obtained his rabbinic learning initially in Lithuania and from his father. He was also trained as a Shokhet. Following the death of his father, the religious leadership of the colonies was thrust upon him at a young age. Despite the promised exemption from military services, when the Crimean War broke out in 1854 Rabbi Pinkhas, being the eldest son, was conscripted. He served in the supply corps and thereby was able to care for the dietary needs of the Jewish troops by obtaining live cattle for Shekhita. Even in the confusion of battle Rabbi Pinkhas sought out Jewish troops for prayer and dedicated himself to comfort the wounded and bury the dead.

Upon his release from the army Rabbi Pinkhas took up farming his share of the family allotment together with his brothers. Each held 40 desyatins.He toiled in the fields by day and studied and taught by night. Only when his sons were old enough to take over was he free to act as full time Rabbi.

Whilst following the Lithuanian system of interpretation of religious law, Rabbi Pinkhas always took into account the needs of his people, seeking to ease any economic burden on poor families.

During the pogroms of the 1880's Rabbi Pinkhas was renowned for his selfless dedication to helping the suffering. Whenever news arrived of a pogrom he rode off to tend the wounded and conduct funerals for the victims. During his army service he had learnt the rudiments of medical care and acted as a "Feldsher" (medical orderly) since qualified doctors rarely were available to tend the Jews. During one Yom Kippur he interrupted services in the synagogue in order to give medical aid to a sick woman.

Having lost his wife in childbirth he remarried twice since tradition required the Rabbi of a community to be married. Rabbi Pinkhas met an untimely death contracting pneumonia after falling into his well whilst trying to draw water to feed the animals. This was indicative of his concern for others since, although no longer involved in farming, he decided to save the family the trouble of rising early in the cold winter and took upon himself the task.

His funeral was long remembered by people who came from the colony regions. Thousands attended, including sixteen Rabbis from the district who had come to pay homage to this renowned scholar and devoted leader. Stories of Rabbi Pinkhas' activities were related by the following generations and this author remembers listening to his grandparents relate the tales of their beloved grandfather.

Rabbi Pinkhas' obituary appeared in the Hebrew newspaper Hamelitz:


"GRAFSKOY: (a Jewish colony in the Government of Yekaterinoslav). - the 27th day of Adar Rishon was for us a day of mourning and grief because on it departed to his eternal life in the sixty seventh year of his life, the great Rabbi, Av Din of this place, our Rabbi Pinkhas Komisarov who officiated to the glory of our colony in the position of rabbi and Shokhet and examiner more than thirty years. Great honour was shown him upon his death, all the Rabbis of the surrounding colonies gathered and came to pay him their respects and to eulogise him according to the law. He was great in Torah and Fear of Heaven, and in peace and honesty led his brethren the farmers. Peace be to his dust and may his soul be bound up in the bond of everlasting life. Kalman Bruser."

(The author of this obituary, Kalmen Bruser, was a son of David Moshe Bruser whose family also originated in Rassein and settled in Grafskoy.)

Whilst Rabbi Pinkhas left no written record of his scholarship, several books which belonged to him were saved from destruction during the revolution, and these bear his signature. A treasured memento of him is in daily use by this author: his Tefilin which were inherited by his grandson Shlomo Zalmen Komesaroff (Kaye) of Melbourne and in turn by this author.

Pinkhas's grandson Mordekhai (Mottel/Mark), a son of Rabbi Zalmen Komisaruk of Vasilkovka, mentions his grandfather in his memoirs:

"The first of our ancestors who I remember was my father's father, the grandfather Pinkhas, by him there were three other brothers, of whom I only knew the great-uncle Velvel. Other brothers, that means my great-uncles with the names Yaakov and Zalmen, I did not see. One of them was in Kovno, and the grandfather Pinkhas and the great-uncle Velvel lived in a Jewish colony in Yekaterinoslav Government, Mariupol district. The colony was called Grafskoye, or No. 7 (all 17 colonies which were situated in Yekaterinoslav Government had a number). The grandfather Pinkhas was a Shokhet and a Rabbi, and his sons, that means my uncles, father's brothers, worked the earth like peasants and the great-uncle Velvel with his sons Berel and Meir also initially worked the land, only later did Berel opened a small store, and Meir was living by the work of the land.

When I was 6 years old I remember that they brought to grandfather Pinkhas a painted tree with branches, the tree began with the great-grandfather who was called Mendel. From there it went to his sons Pinkhas, Velvel, Yaakov and Zalmen. Only in my memory remains only the grandfather Pinkhas with his four sons Shlomo Zalmen (this was my father) with his brothers Mendel, Simkha and Meir. What I am writing about is only the roots which came out from the grandfather Pinkhas with his brother Velvel. (On the tree were only male people)."

There are several errors, namely that Pinkhas's father was not Mendel, but Zalmen and Pinkhas had another brother who lived in Grafskoy, Leibl.

" We came to colony Grafskoy, there did the grandfather Pinkhas live, the grandfather Pinkhas I remember that he always used to go around with a black scarf tied to his cheek, I don't know the reason. He was an angry Jew. The parents went away to the village Vasilkovka, Pavlograd district, and I remained living in the colony learning from the Gemorah melamed. I used to “eat kest” by uncle Simkha, and the brother by the uncle Mendel. The grandfather Pinkhas used every Shabbat to hear us, and never was he satisfied. He used to say it was a waste of the fees paid for our lessons. Later I wanted to travel home and I remember that uncle Mendel harnessed his horse and a droshky and on Sukkot we came home"

Mottel's impressions of his grandfather Pinkhas are in sharp contrast to others of his cousins, particularly Mendel's son Zalmen and Meir's daughter Khana-Reizel (later married and lived in Melbourne, Australia. They spoke of their grandfather Pinkhas with great affection. Mottel's attitude was perhaps a forerunner of his later revolt against traditional Shtetl education to the exclusion of any secular study. Indeed he was representative of many of his generation who yearned to be part of the open secular Russian society, restricted as it was in many ways to Jews.

Rokhel Luban (daughter of Avrom Hillel and Dina Namakshtansky) wrote about her maternal grandfather in her memoirs:

"Grandfather Rabbi Pinkhas didn't live very long. It was a cold winter. Grandfather did not want to wake the children so they could give food and water to the horses and cows. He got up and dressed warmly. In the barn he gave them all food. But they wanted to drink. He took the bucket with a rope out to the well to draw water. It was very slippery; it was a heavy frost and in the evening when they had drawn water from the well, some spilt out. As it was a very cold night, it froze and became very slippery. It was impossible to stand properly as Grandfather lowered the bucket and filled it with water. When he pulled up the bucket, it pulled him over into the well.

He began shouting for help. They couldn't find a rope. Everyone was so confused that they couldn't think clearly. In the same house with Grandfather lived Grandfather's brother (# Velvel) and he had a shop for farmers' supplies. But there was no rope. Grandfather called from the well:" You stand in the middle of the ocean and you ask for a drop of water."
When they pulled him out of the well they quickly brought a doctor. But he was too chilled and they could not save him. Seventeen rabbis from the surroundings came to the funeral. All the children from the places where they lived, together with many householders, came to pay their respects for the father.

For my mother it was the worst. When she was born and lost her mother, Grandfather used to sit all night with the Gemorrah in his hand (# studying), swinging the cradle. My mother knew how to `Pasken' all the `Sheylahs' (# make decisions of religious law)."

He married (1) Khaya-Sarah Levin, b. 1834 in Salant, Lithuania,[14] (daughter of Meir (Markus) Levin and Rakhel ?) d. 1873 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia.[15]

Khaya-Sarah: Khaya Sarah's patronymic recorded in the 1858 Grafskoy Revision List, was Meir. Meir must have died by 1858 since in that year a grandson was born and named after him, Meir son of Pinkhas.

There were relatives of the Levin family living in the same district as the Komisaruks. In the memoirs of Mottel (Mark), son of Rabbi Zalmen Komisaruk of Vasilkovka, he mentions that he presented himself to the military conscription office in 1887 accompanied by his first Zalmen Komisaruk (son of Menakhem Mendel) and a son of Meir Levin. Records of donations to Eretz Yisrael (published as "Shemesh Tsedakah") record one Simkhah son of Tsvi Hersh Levin of Mariupol on several occasions in the 1890's and early twentieth century. One of Pinkhas Komisaruk's sons was also named Simkha, which may further indicate a relationship between the two families. Furthermore Rokhel Luban stated that her grandmother was "Khaya Levin from Mariupol".

The 1858 Revision List from Nechaevka records Levins who came from Salant, Lithuania in 1846.
The tax records from Salant Lithuania record these Levins who settled in the Ekaterinoslav colonies in 1846.

It would seem that Marcus, son of Simkha Levin who left Salant in 1846 and settled in the Yekaterinoslav colonies, was Meir the father of Khaya-Sarah Levin/Komisaruk.

Khaya-Sarah Komisaruk died in childbirth when her daughter Dinah was born.

Oral family history records very little about Khaya-Sarah except for mention of her in the memoirs of her granddaughter Rokhel Namakshtansky (Berchansky/Luban). After the Russian Revolution disease was rampant and Rokhel fell ill with typhus. She had a dream:

"I see in the corner by my sister's bed standing my grandmother Khaya, Mama's mother whom she never knew since she died when she had my mother. She stands dressed in her white clothes (shroud), alone, a little one. She says ` You my child must live. You are a mother with a little child' And she took and tied the cord and said `You musr carry on. I want you to stay on this earth'. I trembled and threw off the blanket. I made an undertakimg that even if in the morning my temperature was forty two I would not die. And so it was; it was the crisis of my life."

The comment "a little one" may be an indication of the hereditary trait among many of Khaya-Sarah's descendants who were short in height, particularly her daughter Dina, Rokhel's mother. Her memory was perpetuated by the naming of the first child of most of her children "Khaya" or "Khaim".

He married (2) Second-Wife ?, divorced.

Second-Wife: Was married to Rabbi Pinkhas after the loss of his first wife in childbirth. This was arranged since tradition obliged a Rabbi to be married. The second wife resented the step-children and was caught trying to poison her husband. They were divorced and her name is not recalled.

He married (3) Bassie ?.

Bassie: A widow with a son from a previous marriage. Devoted to her husband and willingly took upon herself the upbringing of his six orphans together with their one child in common. Using a Halakhic ruse to avoid his eldest son being conscripted in place of Bassie's retarded son, Pinkhas invoked a 'Tnai Get', a provisional divorce, should this happen. However this backfired, and he had to honour the divorce. The couple lived separately, but Bassie still cared for the children.


7 -1) Meir Komesaroff, (son of Pinkhas Komisaruk and Khaya-Sarah Levin) b. 1858 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia,[16] d. 1907 in Andreyevka, Tav. Ukraine.[17]

Left Grafskoy due to insufficient land for four brothers and settled in his wife's village Andreyevka. Made a living as a butcher together with his wife's brothers (his cousins) of the Zhmood family. Travelled around the villages buying and selling cattle and meat. Very religious yet tolerant of Christian neighbours, even befriended priests. Died of grief shortly after his beloved wife's untimely death. Recalled as a gentle and kindly man.

He married Tybel Zhmood, b. c.1866 in Andreyevka, Tav. Ukraine,48 (daughter of Koppel Zhmuydya (Zhmood) and Deverah Yovel) d. 1907 in Andreyevka, Tav. Ukraine.[18]

Tybel: Died of complications of childbirth ten days after giving birth to her daughter Khayalah. Recalled as a pious and loving mother to her large family who were left orphaned.

8) Khana-Reizel (Anna Roza) Komesaroff, b. 1887 in Andreyevka, Tav. Ukraine, d. 26 May 1955 in Melbourne, Vic. Australia, buried in Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia.

Secular education Gymnasium Mariupol and Berdyansk (taught by B.Mosensohn, Zionist leader). Adored by her family and highly respected by all who came into contact with her, she was the eternal peacemaker, keeping the family together. The epitome of the Jewish homemaker, she kept open house for her family and friends. Exhibited a personal wisdom and love of Jewish tradition. Always available to give advice and help the needy. After Khana Reizel's untimely death,her family held fond memories of a kind and gentle lady.

She married Shlomo-Zalmen (Komesaroff) Kaye, in 1907 in Grafskoy, Yek.Russia, b. 25 January 1886 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia, (son of Menakhem Mendel Komisaruk and Beila-Reeva Pogorelske) d. 8 April 1958 in Melbourne, Vic. Australia, buried in Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia. See below


7 -2) Menakhem Mendel Komisaruk,[19] (son of Pinkhas Komisaruk and Khaya-Sarah Levin) b. 1864 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia,[20] d. 1919 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia.[21]

Farmed a half share (20 desyatins) of his father's land in Grafskoy. Worked very hard by day and then spent long hours at night studying. Skilled with his hands, he built his own house next to that of his father. Was adept at houskeeping. Limped due to an accident. A strict father who carried out his religious duties with dedication and expected the same of his children. Proud to own part of Russian soil, a rare achievement for a Jew.Died of throat cancer; his grave was marked by a simple fence post due to wartime hardship.

He married Beila-Reeva Pogorelske, b. 1865 in Kobilnye, Yek. Russia,[22] (daughter of Zev Pogorelske and Khaya Sarah Gordon) d. 1935 in Melbourne, Vic. Australia.

Beila-Reeva: Brought up on the Jewish colony Kobilnye (Sladkovodnaya) where her father was a butcher. Orphaned from her father at age eleven, her mother moved to the small town Tsarakonstantinovka. A very pious woman, dedicated to her family. Endured the hardships of the Civil War and the loss of her husband until the family escaped from Russia in 1922. Settled in Melbourne. Recalled by her grandchildren as being always occupied with needlework or studying the religious books used especially by women.


8) Shlomo-Zalmen (Komesaroff) Kaye, b. 25 January 1886 in Grafskoy, Yek. Russia, d. 8 April 1958 in Melbourne, Vic. Australia, buried in Fawkner Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia.

Received a traditional education in Cheder, as well as benefiting from the spiritual influence of his grandfather Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk, the Rabbi of Grafskoy. Excelled at his studies and so was sent at age ten to his uncle Rabbi Zalmen Komisaruk, the Rabbi of Vasilkovka where he intensified his studies for a year.

Due to overcrowding in his parent's home, Zalmen was sent in 1897 to live with his aunt Ester Luban who had lost all but one of her children. There he experienced the Chassidic practices of his uncle Rabbi Khaim Moshe Luban, in contrast to the Lithuanian influence of his home. Zalmen was very attached to the family, particular his cousin Alter with whom he grew up. He lived with the Lubans in Mikhailovka and Melitopol until his marriage in 1907. He worked for a prominent Jewish retailer, Rosenshein in Melitopol. In 1905 Zalmen was sent by the firm to Harbin, Manchuria to investigate misappropriation by army officers of supplies sent by the firm to support the troops during the Russo-Japanese War. He was present in Melitopol when the firm was attacked by revolutionists in the 1905 Revolution.

After his marriage to his beloved cousin Khana Reizel, Zalmen established a wholesale leather business in Berdyansk with a partner Avraham Lamdansky. He was obliged, together with his wife, to care for her orphaned siblings after the early death of her parents. Due to the threat of imminent conscription into the Russian army, an experience which exposed Jews to violent anti Semitism, Zalmen and his family emigrated to Australia in 1913.

After the initial difficulties of a new immigrant in a strange land, Zalmen established a chain of retail drapery shops in a number of country towns as well as in Melbourne. Operated the Klinker Knitting Mills in partnership with the Ellinson family, then opened a retail drapery business 'The Major Distributors'.

Zalmen was active in the Jewish community: supporter and Life Governor of Mount Scopus College, involved in Zionist organisations, synagogues. He preserved the orthodox traditions of his forebears and regularly attended Carlton Synagogue, East Melbourne Synagogue of which he was Vice-President, and then the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. He encouraged his children and grandchildren to accompany him to synagogue. Jewish festivals and family occasions were often celebrated by large gatherings of the family at Zalmen and Khana Reizel's home.

Zalmen and Khana Reizel were highly respected in the Jewish community. Their home was open for many communal functions and hosted overseas emissaries. They were considered by their siblings as heads of their family since they were each the eldest. Zalmen assisted his brother Yaakov Leib Mendelson in the difficult struggle to bring their mother and siblings out of Russia after the Revolution.

Zalmen's devotion to his wife was so profound that after her untimely death he could not reconcile himself to his loss, a common phenomenon in the Komesaroff family. He went to live with his daughter Tessie, but soon suffered a stroke and was ill for two years until his sad demise.

When Zalmen Komesaroff's son Myer anglicised his surname after qualifying as a doctor,Zalmen did not wish for the family to have different surnames, so he and his sons Peter and William also changed their names to Kaye.

Date of death on tombstone is 19th Nisan. It should be 18th Nisan.

He married Khana-Reizel (Anna Roza) Komesaroff, see above
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[1] Birthdate extrapolated from succeeding generations. 1765 Census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Province of Vilna, City of Rassein.
[2] Rassein District Census 1784: Girtegola list, Dawid Meirowicz, father of three sons Leiba, Berel and Welwel. 1765 census, Rassein City: "Major Joselowicz".
[3] Rassein District Census 1784: Girtegola list, Dawid Meirowicz, father of three sons Leiba, Berel and Welwel.
[4] Rassein District Census 1784: Girtegola list, Dawid Meirowicz, father of three sons Leiba, Berel and Welwel. Wife Channa.
[5] Census of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1784, Rassein district, Girtegola village list: "Dawid Meirowicz, wife Khana, sons Leib, Berel and Velvel".
[6] Rassein town list of non-tax payers in 1846 states Berel Komisaruk died in 1843.
[7] Birthdate estimated on the basis of her children's and siblings' estimated birthdates.
[8] Rassein City Box Tax 1848 - appears on this list despite the fact that the family migrated to the colonies in 1846. Maybe he left property in Rassein, with his son Yankel, who paid it in 1848.
[9] Freedman, Menakhem Mendel (Neville) of Melbourne - family trees drawn up by him according to his grandmother Khana Reizel Komesaroff. Birthdate according to 1858 census,.
[10] Markovitch, Moshe. "Lekorot Hair Rassein Urabbaneha". Warsaw 1913.pp11,29 gives death date as 1848. This conflicts with the 1858 census in Grafkoy which records his date of death as 1853.
[11] Markovitch, Moshe. "Lekorot Hair Rassein Urabbaneha". Warsaw 1913. pp.11.29 Birthdate according to 1816 & 1858 census. The 1858 census records her father as Leib.
[12] Markovitch, Moshe. "Lekorot Hair Rassein Urabbaneha". Warsaw 1913.p.29,b.1830 According to the 1858 census in Grafskoy, he was born in 1832.According to his obituary in Hamelitz he was born in 1830. 1848 farmer list - age 18.
[13] "Hamelitz" - Hebrew newspaper - 1897, issue of 20th Adar Sheni; actual date of death: 26th Adar Rishon. William Komesaroff (Melbourne) recalls the tombstone in a place of honour in the front row of the Grafskoy cemetery.
[14] Zeligman, Yisrael."Megilat Yukhsin".Latvia c.1939 Birthdate according to 1858 census in Grafskoy.
[15] List of Yahrtseits - compiled by Rokhel Luban and held by her daughter Clara Berchansky, Petah Tikvah, Israel.
[16] No photograph exits of Meir and Tybel Komesaroff since Meir objected to being photographed for religious reasons. Birthdate and sibling order according to 1858 census in Grafskoy.
[17] Freedman, Tessie. Melbourne, Australia. as conveyed by her parents.
[18] Kogan, Khaya-Sarah - extensive correspondence with Chaim Freedman.
[19] Photograph of wooden gravemarker (proper tombstone unobtainable during the Civil War) given by Khaim-Velvel (William) Komesaroff of Melbourne to the author together with other such photos sent from Grafskoy to Australia.
[20] Freedman, Tessie - Melbourne, Australia - conveyed her parents' recollections of her grandfather. as did Khaim-Velvel (William) Komesaroff who, being the youngest son, was very attached to his parents.
[21] Photograph - held by author - taken with family group next to the section of the colony's tree plantation owned by Menakhem Mendel. The photograph was taken on the day his son Shlomo Zalmen left for Australia in 1913.
[22] Komesaroff, Khaim Velvel (William) of Melbourne, Australia Recollections of his early life in Russia, conveyed verbally to the author.

Tessie Freedman (Komisaruk) ancestry to 10 generations

John Freedman ancestry

Jane Freedman ancestry

Chaim Freedman great-great-great-grandparents

Descent of Rashi

Rashi Family

Treves Family

Shapira Family

Luria Family

Katzenellenbogen Family

Quint and Lemky Families

Zmood Family

Super Family

Komisaruk Ancestry

Komisaruk Ancestry

1. Yosef Halevy pre-surname c.1695

2. Meir c.1720 m: Beyla

3. David Komisaruk c.1747 m: Khana

4. Rabbi Dov-Ber (Berel) 1776-1843
m: Ester grand-daughter of
Vilna Gaon (1720-1797)


Discovered in 18th/19th century records
--------------------------------------------------------
Known from Oral History


5. Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen 1798-1853 m: Yokhved

6. Rabbi Pinkhas 1830/32 -1897 m: Khaya-Sarah Levin

7. Menakhem-Mendel 1864-1919 m: Beila-Reeva Pogorelsky

8. Shlomo-Zalmen Komesaroff 1886-1958 m:Khana-Reizel Komisaruk.

9. Tybel (Tessie) 1909-1996 m: Yaakov-Reuven (John) Freedman 1910-1999

10. Khaim Koppel (Keith)b 1947 m: Sheindel (Jane) Berliner

11. Avigayil-Khana b 1980