Katz name derivation

Oh boy, I have a lot to catch up on here. I visited the Mormon Family Research Center in Oakland, where I met Jeremy Frankel, the president of the SF Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society. More on that, and what I learned about ordering LDS records, in an upcoming post.

Also, I connected online with Dave Howard, who is the leading researching about the Jewish community in Rezekne. His FamRoots.org and HorwitzFam.org sites are a treasure trove of information. I will be posting highlights and links to the most relevant stuff in an upcoming post.

For now, I thought I would post this excerpt from Alexander Beider's Dictionary of Jewish Surnames From the Russian Empire. Howard has a few small parts of the work available to view on his Horwitz site. Here is a section dealing with the surname Katz.



Since it is hard to read, I will summarize. Katz originates from the name Kohen, which means priest in Hebrew, possibly the same as Goan. Kats or Katz is an acronym for Kohen Tsadek (Kohen of righteousness). The name was common throughout the Russian Empire. Of course, our great-grandmother was Bette Katz, the wife of Julius Wolgemuth of Koenigsberg.

By the way, Beider has another volume on Jewish surnames in Galicia, which are likely to contain informative entries for Ringel and Kaufler. The books are published by Avotainu and are very expensive. I will be looking for where I can find them in a library.

Cannold loose ends

From various U.S. census records from 1880 through 1930, I now have a better picture of the Cannold family. Most of this is only marginally of interest to us, since the only Cannolds that had any relation to us were Lester, who was married and divorced from our great aunt Meta, and their two children, Thad, who committed suicide in 1946, and Harrison, who appears to have lived until at least 1965 and could have had children. Should that be the case, those children would be our second cousins.

Lester was the second of five children of Samuel and Sarah Cannold, who were both born in Poland but met and married in New York. By 1910, Lester is 23 and working as a public school teacher. Three years later, he marries Meta Rabinowitz and they start a family.

We know the outlines of the sad story after that. Lester rises in his career as a administrator in the Newark school system, but emotional problems begin to have an impact. By the time of the 1930 census, he and Meta have divorced. In 1942, we have him registering for the WWII draft from his mailing address at a Connecticut sanitarium.

On his registration card, he lists his sister Harriet Klein as "Name of person who will always know your address." And his home is given at an address on Seabreeze Ave. in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

So to tie up loose ends I went back and looked at Lester's siblings. At some point the family had moved from Manhattan to Coney Island, the same address Lester would later use. Of the daughters, one stayed single and continued to live with her mother, and two others married. One of those was Harriet Klein, who did not appear to have children. The other was Pearl Gerst, who had two or three children.

So that's all on the Cannolds, a family we are related to only by marriage but one with some tragic twists that seem to echo events in our family. Only Harrison and Thaddeus Cannold are of direct interest to us, so the hunt for Harrison goes on.

Revisiting Cannold 1930 census record

In an earlier post I wondered about Harrison Cannold birth date and decided to take a new look at the 1930 census record I had previously found for our great aunt Meta Cannold nee Rabinowitz.

First, it was hard to locate the record on Ancestry.com because they have the name listed as Connold, not Cannold. But I persisted and found the right census document. On the age question, it shows that Harrison was 14 and Thaddeus 13 in April 1930. So on the earlier question, if living, Harrison would be 92 plus or minus.

There are some other interesting facts from the census record, which I will list here:

The family consisted of Meta (head of household) and her two sons. They lived in an apartment building at 236 Renner Ave. in Newark NJ. At the time 43 years old, Meta is indicated as having been married at age 26 but her "Marriage Condition" is listed a "D" for divorced. Under "Occupation" she is listed as "Teacher," and under "Industry" it says "Public School." Both boys are noted as having been born in New Jersey to parents born in New York. Meta is shown as born in New York to parents born in Russia.

Ruby family tree is posted on Geni

I signed up with a new genealogy social networking site called Geni and have uploaded a recent version of my Ruby Family GEDCOM file, which now includes 325 names of our ancestors and living relatives.

Geni appears to be a really cool system with loads of great features for displaying information about the family as well as connecting with living family members. To get it rolling, I invited immediate family members and so far Walter, Joanne and Twyla have now signed up. I hope they will be active users by updating their profiles and adding new information to the tree.

If that happens, then let's start inviting various cousins to join in and see what kind of network we can create. If you want to get started on your own, go to www.geni.com and create a free account. Then do a search for any family member you can think of. Once you find the person, you should also be able to find yourself in the Ruby family tree. Link your account to that listing and you will become part of our social network.

Or here's a simpler solution: Write to me at druby@sprynet.com and I will sent you an email invitation to join.

To give you an idea how the program works, here is a sample screen shot:

Harrison Cannold's letter to the editor

Well, here's good news, a letter to the editor of the New York Times written by Harrison Cannold in November 1965. This is our first sighting of Harrison after WWII, and it opens up likely avenues for learning more about his life and possible descendents. It is even remotely possible that he is still living. I don't have his birth date handy, but will look for it on the 1920 or 1930 census record that we have.

That Harrison was interested in the political situation in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, is not surprising for a member of our politically attuned family. Here is the clipping:

Thad Cannold's obituary

Still following up the Cannold family, I decided to look in the NY Times article archive. Here are the two items I turned up for Thaddeus Cannold--his February 1939 graduation notice and his December 1946 obit notice.

A childhood friend checks in

Okay, so it has already been an amazing day, learning of 10 new direct ancestors and three times that many new relatives. Also, I didn't mention the general reading I did on the history of the Jewish community of Rzeszow, and the cursory reading on the same subject in Krakow. (This was to help gather resources for Walter's upcoming trip, in which by chance he will have two days in Krakow.)

So it was an amazing day and then an email arrives in my inbox from my long-lost childhood buddy Derek Jeffers. Now, I have been Googling Derek on and off for 15 years, or I should say I was Alta Vista-ing or Lycos-ing him. Remember those search engines from the pre-Google days?

Derek left very few tracks. The best lead I had found was an article about a French auto workers' strike from the early 1980s. That sounded like Derek, who had gone on from our youthful activism to become a committed Socialist. I had thought that since I hadn't found his biline in the Socialist Worker Party newspaper, that maybe he had fallen out with that group and taken another direction.

The idea of him as a strike leader in Paris was certainly romantic. If so, surely he was an international provocateur, riding closed trains across the continent. Such had Derek devolved into a mythic idea in my mind that I nearly jumped out of my seat when I saw the message arrive in my inbox.

Yes, it turns out he has been living in Paris for 30-plus years and he actually is an auto worker, though he mentioned the Peugeot plant is currently shut down waiting for parts from Portugal. He filled me in about his three children and wife Esther, an economics professor. They are coming next month to San Diego, where Derek's father had owned a condo before recently passing away.

(Digression: When I would sleep over at Derek's house when we were 11 and 12 years old, his dad would always start the day with a bang by playing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" at top volume on the living room stereo.)

Since they are French, they will have six weeks for the vacation, which means there is every likelihood that I will be able to meet up with my old buddy during his sojourn in California. Plus, he mentions that Esther has an upcoming sabbatical in New York, so there will be more meetings after that.

Earlier today, I expressed my delight at hearing from him but begged off from a lengthy reply because I was getting ready to take off on a festival trip. Well, neither Twyla or I were ready to leave at a reasonable hour this evening, so we decided to go in the morning instead.

Thus, I was able to spend the last few hours updating this blog. Perhaps Derek will check it again before I get back. If so, he can enjoy this post until I have a chance to write to him directly.

One last thing and I am off to bed. Unlike Derek, I'm fairly easy to find on the Internet, though you have to avoid the red herrings like the legislator in Fargo and the sportswriter in San Jose. Walter the prolific author is even more discoverable. Now, with this blog, both of us are popping up even more.

I find it interesting that this blog lands high up on the first Google results page for searches on terms like "rabbi spektor" and "ruby family." After this item posts and Google spiders have taken note, we'll also show up among the first hits on "Derek Jeffers."

Adding our two cents

After absorbing the news about the four new generations of Kauflers, I felt I should communicate what we knew about Feigla's descendants to the Hirschberg knowledge base. So I found Dan Hirschberg's email address at University of California at Irvine, where he is a mathematician.

I sent him details of Feigla's marraige to Schija, their child Hermann, his wife Elly, their child Helga, her husband Stanley, and their three children, us. He wrote back within 15 minutes, having already added all the info to his listing.

Here is the updated family tree, where you will now see much of that information in place. Note that he does not include people born after 1945. Also note that a few of the dates I gave him were off the top of my head and still need to be corrected. I will do that when I contact Hirschberg again next week, also with information on Hermann's siblings Rosa and Bette.

Major breakthrough: Kaufler family tree

Yay! This is the first time one of our names has matched someone else's family tree. After my nice find of Schija Ringel's family in Rzeszow, I thought I would see what more I could dig up on the Kauflers of Krakow.

As noted from a few days ago, I had already found the birth record for Feigla Kaufler. This time I did an ordinary Google search on kaufler, and, lo and behold, I hit the mother lode. A gentleman named Dan Hirschberg has done a tremendous service by compiling extensive family trees for 600 Jewish families from Krakow, including the Kauflers.

According to Hirschberg's research, the family name goes back to a Nachman Kaufler, born 1755. Yes, 1755. That is as far back as we have traced any branch of our family. Nachman's son Izaak (born between 1771 and 1775) married Beili (1773-1831, daughter of Abraham, last name unknown) and they had a son Schulim (1798-1847). Schulim married Reisel Bluma Singlust (born 1805-1877) and they parented Abraham Mojzesa Kaufler (b. 1829).

Hang in a little longer. Abraham married Chaja Ester Grunberg (b. 1825) and the second of their three children was our great grandmother Feigla.

Here is Hirschberg's full listing of Kauflers:


Izaak KAUFLER 1771-75 (Nachman b.1755) {census family 503}
m:Beili 1773 - 1831 #148 (Abraham)
|o Chane Zlate KAUFLER 1783-93
|x Schulim KAUFLER 1798-99 - 1847 #638
| m:Reisel Bluma SINGLUST 1805-06 - Mar 23, 1877 #130
| ! married Jun 20, 1825 #27
| !o Dressel KAUFLER 1826 #116 - 1826 #62
| !o Taube Reila KAUFLER 1827 #154 - 1830 #14
| !x Abraham Mojzesz KAUFLER 1829 #357
| ! m:Chaja Ester GRUNBERG 1825 #31
| ! | bann 1892 #10
| ! |o Rifka KAUFLER Sep 27, 1852 #492
| ! | M:Wolf Leib BIRKNER 1843 #418
| ! | married Jul 11, 1888 #81
| ! | FAMILY LISTING
| ! |o Feigla KAUFLER Mar 29, 1854 #188
| ! |x Jakob Kopel KAUFLER
| ! | m:Chawe Bluma EHRLICH
| ! | bann 1892 #1
| !o Bayla KAUFLER 1832 #239
| !x Aron Hirsch KAUFLER 1834 #347 - 1835 #132
| !x Markus Jakob KAUFLER 1836 #435
| !x Lipman Tobiasz KAUFLER 1839 #79
| !o Haja KAUFLER 1841 #292
| ! M:Juda HOCHBERG
| ! |x Moses Hirsch HOCHBERG 1873 #451 - after 1929
| ! | m:Ruchel SPINGARN 1872 #483
| ! | bann 1915 #199
| ! |o Sara Rifka HOCHBERG Nov 3, 1875 #793 - Dec 15, 1877 #538
| ! |x Dawid HOCHBERG Aug 9, 1879 #609 - Aug 1, 1881 #393
| !x Dawid KAUFLER Dec 26, 1843 (1844 #27) - 1847 #543
| !o Sara KAUFLER Dec 23, 1846 #555 - 1847 #62
|o Sussel KAUFLER 1803
| M:Akiwa BERGER 1794-96 - 1831 #360
| married May 1, 1820 #15
| FAMILY LISTING
|x Isser KAUFLER Jun 17, 1804 - 1847 #227
| m:Gela Rebeka KOLBERG 1813 #139 - Apr 13, 1888 #111
| ! married 1829 #57
| !x Markus Hersch KAUFLER 1830 #378
| !o Bayla KAUFLER 1832 #238 - 1839 #87
| !x Abraham Mozes KAUFLER 1835 #225
| ! m:Fraydel RAUCHINGER 1842 #173
| ! | married 1906 #109
| ! |o Szeindel KAUFLER
| ! | M:Dawid SINGER
| ! | !x son SINGER Apr 29, 1887 #225 - Apr 29, 1887 #166
| ! | !o Gela SINGER May 27, 1888 #327 - Jun 2, 1888 #185
| ! | !o Gusta SINGER Aug 9, 1889 #534
| ! |x Isser Hirsch KAUFLER 1871 #759
| ! |o Beile Hendel KAUFLER Apr 16, 1876 #374 - May 5, 1877 #193
| ! |o Rachel KAUFLER Sep 19, 1878 #621
| ! | M:Izaak KAUFLER Jul 9, 1879 #473
| ! | bann 1908 #187, married Aug 9, 1908
| ! | FAMILY LISTING
| ! |x Szachna KAUFLER Oct 10, 1881 #702 - Jan 19, 1884 #34
| ! |x Izaak KAUFLER Sep 30, 1890 Krakow
| ! | m:Chana LANDAU Feb 7, 1891 Krakow
| ! | married Aug 3, 1915 Marienbad
| !o daughter KAUFLER 1837 #555 - 1837 #352
| !o Chaja KAUFLER 1839 #237
| !o daughter KAUFLER 1842 #122 - 1842 #70
| !x Moyzesz KAUFLER 1842 #181 - 1842 #89
| !x Aron KAUFLER 1843 #244
| ! m:Jachet LIEBFELD 1841 #241
| ! | married 1897 #174
| ! |o Reisel KAUFLER Aug 31, 1869 Krakow
| ! | M:Salomon KLEIN
| ! | !o Gela KLEIN Jun 18, 1894
| ! |o Breindel KAUFLER Dec 1, 1871 #753 - 1924
| ! | M:Pawel/Saul GISSER
| ! | ! bann 1914 #216, married Sep 15, 1914
| ! | !x Gustaw GISSER Aug 10, 1902 #601
| ! | !x Maks GISSER Nov 29, 1904 Krakow
| ! | !x Aleksander GISSER Jul 24, 1908 #592
| ! |x Motel KAUFLER Aug 8, 1874 #466
| ! |o Hinda Rachel KAUFLER Nov 9, 1875 #666
| ! | M:Abraham FINDER
| ! | bann 1902 #251
| ! |x Mojzesz KAUFLER Feb 1, 1878 #61 - Sep 26, 1878 #398
| ! |x Izaak KAUFLER Jul 9, 1879 #473
| ! | m:Rachel KAUFLER Sep 19, 1878 #621
| ! | ! bann 1908 #187, married Aug 9, 1908
| ! | !o Stefania KAUFLER Sep 10, 1908 #661
| ! | !o Roza KAUFLER Mar 31, 1911 #178
| ! | !x Marcel Arnold KAUFLER Oct 13, 1913 Krakow - after 1944
| ! | ! m:Chaja MANASIEWICZ
| ! | ! married Nov 26, 1949
| ! | !x Salo KAUFLER Oct 3, 1917 #398 - after 1944
| ! |x Szaja KAUFLER Jun 12, 1881 #339 - Nov 25, 1881 #576
| ! |o Gitel KAUFLER Apr 7, 1883 #218
| ! | M:Izak ZIMERSPITZ Feb 23, 1879 #278
| ! | bann 1908 #162
| ! |x Alter KAUFLER Oct 15, 1885 #608
| m:Ruchel KOHL
| !o Regina KAUFLER Apr 29, 1914
| ! M:Rubin TRAUM
| ! married Feb 14, 1948
| !x Litman KAUFLER Apr 18, 1846 #174

Schija Ringel's birth record

Rzeszow 1835,41-1866 Births
Lwow Wojewodztwa / Rzeszow Province
Located at 50°03’ 22°00’
Last updated February 2001
Surname Givenname Year Type Akt Page Sex Father Mother Mothersurn Date Witness House Town Died Comments
RINGEL Jermias 1845 B 2 22 Hirsch Beile unknown illegible
RINGEL Golde 1849 B 18 40 Hirsch Beile unknown 2
RINGEL Schija 1856 B 9 80 Mos. Rose blank 299
RINGEL Juda 1859 B 10 105 M Moses Rose Lea REICHMAN 16-Feb-1859 299
RINGEL Hirsch Löb 1860 B 11 119 Abraham Witte KLEPEL 48
RINGEL Jakob Schia 1861 B 5 140 Moses Lea REICHMAN 299
RINGEL Reisel 1864 B 2 193 Hersch Rose REICHMAN 441
RINGEL Basze Sure 1866-1876 B 383 1870 55 F Moses RINGEL Roise REICHMAN


I know it is hard to read because the columns don't align, but of the various Ringels here, Hermann Ringel's father Schija is shown in this index of the LDS microfilm records to have been born in 1856. His parents were Moses Ringel and Rose Lea Ringel (nee Reichman) and he had siblings Juda, Jakob, Reisel and Basze Sure.

Actually, there is a mystery here in that Reisel Ringel appears to have the same mother but different father from the other three. First I thought Moses might have died and she remarried before having her third child, but then Moses is back as the father of the fourth child. Something to figure out.

I learned that I can obtain copies of these and any LDS records where we have the index listings by visiting an LDS family history center, such as the one nearby here in the Oakland hills. I have meant to visit there for some time, but now I have a concrete reason to go.

Rabinowitch death records

An email update about Washington DC death records from the Tracing the Tribe blog this morning got me looking at the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry for the first time. I couldn't find Harrison Cannold, my first search, but then I tried Rabinowitz in New York, and hit a small mother lode.

Below are the burial records for Joseph and Lena Rabinowitch (note the spelling), their son Julius and his wife Annie (nee Cohen), and their son Abner Robbins and his wife Judith.

The Joseph record does not include any information on his parentage, but I am confident that a visit to his gravesite in Plot 10R 5 at Mt. Carmel Cemetery Queens, NY, will confirm that he was the son of Chaim, and possibly reveal other interesting information. The burial dates indicate that Joseph and Lena lived to age 85 and 86, respectively, and that they both outlived their son Walter, who we know died by suicide in 1939.

The information on Julius, Annie, Abner and Judith gives us another likely avenue for identifying new living close relatives. Our other best possibility for living descendants of Joseph and Lena is Harrison Cannold. We don't know yet what became of him after the war or if he married or had any children.

Here are the various death records I discovered today:

Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
RABINOWITCH, Lena 18-Jun-1944
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
10R 5 Mt. Carmel Cemetery Queens, NY / USA


Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
RABINOWITCH, Joseph 18-Feb-1940
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
10R 4 Mt. Carmel Cemetery Queens, NY / USA

Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
RABINOWITZ, Julius
(LINCOFF / ROBBINS / COHEN) Bronx, NY 08-Nov-1940 64
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
Annie COHEN Joseph Lena LINCOFF beloved husband and dear father/father of Abner J. ROBBINS Montefiore Cemetery Queens, NY / USA


Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
RABINOWITZ, Annie
(COHEN / BERGER / ROBBINS / CO / EN) Manhattan, NY 01-Jan-1942 60
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
Julius Solomon H. COHEN Rebecca BERGER our beloved mother/mother of Abner J. ROBBINS Montefiore Cemetery Queens, NY / USA


Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
ROBBINS, Abner J.
(RABINOWITZ / COHEN) 13-Aug-1958 53
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
Judith? Julius RABINOWITZ Annie COHEN Montefiore Cemetery Queens, NY / USA

Name
(Other Surnames) Place of BirthPlace of Death Date of BirthDate of Death Hebrew NameHebrew Date AgeBurial Date
ROBBINS, Judith 03-May-1965 47
No Image Available
Plot Spouse FatherMother Comments Cemetery NameCity / Country
Abner? Montefiore Cemetery Queens, NY / USA

Lester Cannold registered for WWII draft

Lester Cannold was 55 and residing in a Connecticut sanitarium in 1942, but he still had to register for the draft in WW2. Here is his draft registration record. Click to enlarge.

Cannold family confirmed

Searching NY vital records for Rabinowitz events at http://www.italiangen.org/ ...

Meta Rabinowitz married Lester Cannold June 29, 1913 in Queens NY.

Cannold was my best guess of Meta's married name based on the 1930 census handwriting, so this is a definite match. Lester was the unhappy schools superintendent. Meta was Walter Ruby's sister.

Then I did an Ancestry.com search on Meta's son's Thaddeus and Harrison Cannold (Stan's first cousins) and found both their U.S. Army enlistment records. The data follows. Check out their occupations.

Name: Harrison S Cannold
Birth Year: 1915
Race: White, citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: New Jersey
State: District of Columbia
County or City: District of Columbia

Enlistment Date: 21 Jan 1943
Enlistment State: Virginia
Enlistment City: Fort Myer
Branch: Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Branch Code: Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
Grade Code: Private
Term of Enlistment: Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
Component: Selectees (Enlisted Men)
Source: Civil Life

Education: 2 years of college
Civil Occupation: Bandsman, Oboe or Parts Clerk, Automobile
Marital Status: Single, without dependents
Height: 64
Weight: 132


Name: Thaddeus Cannold
Birth Year: 1916
Race: White, citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: New Jersey
State: Pennsylvania
County or City: Philadelphia

Enlistment Date: 25 Sep 1941
Enlistment State: New York
Enlistment City: New York City
Branch: Air Corps
Branch Code: Air Corps
Grade: Private
Grade Code: Private
Component: Regular Army (including Officers, Nurses, Warrant Officers, and Enlisted Men)
Source: Civil Life

Education: 4 years of college
Civil Occupation: Actor (Motion picture actor. ) or Director, Motion Picture (Motion picture director.) or Entertainer
Marital Status: Single, without dependents
Height: 69
Weight: 140

Feigla Kaufler's birth record

Krakow Births 1798-1855,71-89
Krakow Wojewodztwa / Krakow Province

Surname Givenname Year Type Akt Film Indexfilm Date House
KAUFLER Feigla 1854 B 188 718917


The right name, location and year. Photocopies can be obtained from a collection in Israel, and I sent in an order.

Abe Ratner was from Minsk

In the 1920 census form for the Ratner family, the enumerator first wrote down Minsk and then crossed it out and wrote Russia for Abe's birthplace. Similarly, Rose is noted as born in Rostof, which is also crossed out and replaced. I'm not going to put up the image, since the quality is very bad and will not be legible at blog size and resolution. If you want to check for yourself, look up the 1920 census in Ward 5 of Albany NY.

So then I did a quick look for the name Bloch in the JewishGen Belarus database. What pops up are lots of people named Blokh in the Minsk guberniya. On a first pass, I didn't find a Abram Blokh born in May 1869, but I think it is pretty likely we now have the original home region for another of our eight great-grandparents.

To recap:

Selma Ratner's parents came from Rostov by way of Rezshita in Latvia (Rose) and the Minsk area of Belarus (Abe).

Walter Rabinowitz's parents came from Lithuania probably Kovno (Joseph) and unknown but probably also Kovno guberniya (Lena).

Hermann Ringel's parents came from the Rzezow area of Poland (Schija) and Krakow (Feigel).

Elly Wohlgemuth's parents Julius and Bette resided in Koenigsberg but we don't yet know where they were born.

Family attends Twyla's Barnard graduation

Also late, but congratulations are in order for the latest member of the family to pass through the gates of academe and step into the so-called real world. Twyla completed her undergraduate degree from Barnard College at Columbia University, the same institution (Columbia) where her grandfather Stanley was an undergrad and graduate student.

We had a big turnout of Rubys and Eilertsens to celebrate the occasion in New York City. Among Ruby kin, Danny, Joanne, Walter and Tanya, Gene, Janis Brenner and her husband Mitchell Bogart, and Sandy Brenner were on hand for some or all of the festivities. On the Eilertsen side, Kate and Allen, Ed, Judy, and Susie went all out to make the experience special, including at the several special celebratory meals. I was so sad that Stan and Helga could not be there that I broke up trying to say that in a toast at the first celebration dinner.

The graduation ceremony was plenty interesting, with featured speeches by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, David Remnick, Anna Quindlen, Judith Shapiro, and others. Billie Jean King was among those who received the Barnard Medal. Twyla walked with the Anthropology department as she was recognized for her double major in Anthropology and English.

At a couple of departmental receptions, Kate and I had the opportunity to meet two of the professors who advised Twyla's senior project—Ross Hamilton of the English department and Brian Larkin, the chairman of the Anthropology department. Both had lovely things to say about our graduate. Her thesis, "Made Visible: Scientific Constructivism Through the Lens of Hooke's Micrographia, received a 'A' grade from the two professors.

Graduation morning, there was a screwup because I failed to get word to Sandy on where we would meet. She came anyway—solo on the train with Mel in the hospital recovering from a knee operation—but we never managed to find each other. Janis was getting ready to leave for Asia that morning, and the last thing she needed was my frantic call looking for her mother. She ended up missing her flight while Mitchell worked the phones trying to track her down.

Turns out Sandy was there for the graduation ceremony and post reception. Then, not finding any of us, she sensibly went home, where she discovered everyone had been looking for her. My apologies for my part in the screwup. Thankfully, everything worked out okay and Joanne took the next day to visit with Sandy and help get Mel home from the hospital.

Translation reveals Hermann's parents were unmarried

I should have posted this in March, but better late than never.

The German translator came through and we now have more information about Hermann's parents, including something unexpected. Here are the highlights:

Hermann Ringel's birth record shows he was born November 5, 1885 in Berlin, that his parents were Schija Ringel and Feigel Kaufler. Kaufler was Ringel's unmarried Jewish housekeeper. A notation on the birth record from two and a half years later indicates that Schija and Feigel married on July 2, 1888.

Feigel's death certificate from November 28, 1921 (three years before her granddaughter Helga's birth), describes her as 67 years old, a shopkeeper, born in Krakow and residing at the same address in Lothringstrasse as her son Hermann.

Hermann's death record from June 25, 1938 is pretty spare, and does not appear to tell us anything new.

Rezekne Family List turns up trove of Tulbowitz kin

Walt, I just looked again at the 1900 U.S. census record for Solomon and Sophie (and Edward) Tulbowitz, and noticed a couple of interesting things. First, the census includes information for "Mother of how many children" and "Number of those children still living." In Sophie's record, the responses are 5 and 3. Second, Solomon and Sophie are both listed as having been married 34 years.

That's a lot of years. Since they were 52 and 49, respectively, at the time of the census, they would have been 18 and 15 at the time of their marriage. I don't remember what we know of exactly when and why they left Rezhitsa. Can you remind me?

On the number of children, I have Rose, Gavriel, Edward and Yitzhak (who died young). That's four, not five. I'm not sure where my information is from, but I have both Gavriel and Edward with a birthday in September 1876. Were they twins? Also, little Yitzhak (Isai) is 3 years, 5 months at the time of his death in August 1879, which does not compute. There are some mysteries there.

Twyla got me started on this today trying to talk up a trip to the Baltics in September. Intriguing idea. She'll have been in Finland with Kate, so maybe I would meet her in Riga and try to take in a circle from Rezhitsa to Kovno to Königsberg.

Anyway, that's what got me looking up Rezekne information today and I surprised myself with what I turned up. I'm not sure why I hadn't found the Tulbowitz stuff before. I guess because I hadn't searched the Latvian SIG. By the way, the info that came from Maxim on Tulbowitz in the all Russia census is also in Jewish Gen, but I have a hard time matching those names with the ones from the Rezekne Family List that I sent earlier.

My working theory is that our ancestor Sholom Ahron Tulbowitz' father Gavriel had a brother Leiba. The two brothers had sizable families that accounted for most but not necessarily all the Tulbowitz population of Rezhitsa.

On Gavriel's side, there were four sons (information is less available about daughters)-- Peisach, Salman, Eliasch (the eldest) and Abram. Peisach married Sara (not Sora?) and had Sholom Ahron, apparently an only child or at least only son. (From there, in our direct lineage, Sholom Ahron married Schifra Ita, also known as Sophie and later Bubbie, and they had Rose Ratner nee Tulbowitz as the first of their five children.)

Piesach's three brothers produced a total of five other sons and at least five grandchildren. Thanks to the Rezekne Family List, I have complete birth dates and spouse names for all of them. Same for Leiba's three sons and their offspring. One reason that branch is interesting is that two of the names Manzik (or possibly Manzin) Tulbowitz (son of Mowscha son of Leiba) and his wife Beila are also on another list of people in Riga with travel documents in 1900.

So that establishes that other Tulbowitz relatives of ours made the journey to America, and presumably accounts for the number of Tulbowitz sightings in places like Bayonne NJ and Wilmington DE. Not all came to the U.S.--a Sergio Tulbowitz is a musician and Marcelo Tulbowitz a professor, both in Montevideo.

The Jewish history of Rezekne is pretty well documented and memorialized, and there is an archivist who seems to be the major expert. He also does videos about Jewish historical subjects. Here is the catalog.

The younger generation moved to Rostov, but the elder Tulbowitzes stayed in Latvia

More 120 year old news about the Tulbowitz clan from the Minsk archives sent to me today by archivist extrordinaire Maxim Mill:

Hello Walter,
I have looked at the 1886 list of Vitebsk guberniya business owners (it has preserved only partially) and found following record:
"Peisach son of Gavriel Tulbowitz 68 years old listed with Rezhitza Jewish Community small retailer."
It means that Solomon's father continue living in Rezhitza after his son moved to Rostov.
Exact dates of birth of Tulbowitz family members we will not be able to determine, only their year (that's how records used to be taken)
The earliest Rezhitsa records I've seen in the archive are in the bad condition and go as far back as 1806.


I can imagine the reproachful letters from Peisach and Sora to Shalom-Aron and Sophie:
It was bad enough when you got the meshuganah idea to abandon us to move to far-off Rostov--to go live among the Cossacks. Nu, that came out really well, didn't it? But now in our declining years, you decide to move to the end of the world...to America. Pure madness! But maybe you can take us along with you? No, you dont need to be weighed down by alterkakas (old folks)...But it breaks our hearts we will probably never see you again...But still, you are right, get the kinderlach out of Russia before the next pogrom...May God protect you on your long journey...

Something like that. Sunrise, sunset and all the rest...

Big News! Proof that Tulbowitz family of Rostov originated in Rezhitsa, Latvia

Please read the back and forth between myself and geneology investigator Maxim Mill who has been looking into the roots of the Tulbowitz family who were identified to Tanya and I during our trip to Rostov as "Rezhitsa meshanye (small merchants from Rezhitsa).

On 12/24/07, Belarus wrote:
Dear Walter,

I have checked Rechitsa and Rezhitsa beginning and mid of 19th century records.
In Rechitsa there is not even close to Tulbowitz last name was found.
In 1811 Rezhitsa revision list just one family with this last name was found, in 1850 lists 2 Tulbowitz families were found.
Minsk historical archive only has Rezhitsa records prior to 1858 year. The latest records are being kept in Riga (Latvia) historical archive.

Regards,
Maxim

Walter Ruby wrote:
Maxim,

First, many thanks for your efforts and for clarifying that there are records of Tulbowitzes from Rezhitsa, but not in Rechitsa. We are very excited to hear that you located some Tulbowitzes in Rezhitsa at exactly the right point in history (the first half of the 19th Century). First, can you explain to us exactly where Rezhitsa is today? Is it in Russia or Belarus? I understand it is near Vitebsk, but I have been unsuccessful in finding it on the map. What is the population today and what would have the approximate population been in 1850? Was it a mainly Jewish town in those days? Did it have any distinctive features? I see on the Internet that there is also a Rezhitsa (now called Rezekne) in Latvia. Could our Tulbowitzes have been from there as opposed to the Rezhitsa near Vitebsk?

We are obviously most interested in the first names of people in the Tulbowitz families from Rezhitsa that you found both from 1811 and 1850. As I believe I informed you previously, we know that Solomon Tulbowitz (1845-1918) (my great-great grandfather) and his wife Sophie (1846-1928) moved to Rostov-on-Don and are listed in records there from the 1870's as "Rezhitskee Meshanye". We know from their gravestone in Albany, N.Y. that Solomon's father was named Pesach and Sophie's father was named Meir. Do any of these names appear in your records? Do any other first names appear?

We understand from everything we have learned that the family name Tulbowitz was quite unusual. Do you have any idea of the origins of the name? Given that Solomon and Sophie are identified in the Rostov records as having been from Rezhitsa and given that you have found two Tulbowitz families from there in 1850, is it a safe deduction that we are descended from one of those families?

Please give my warm regards to Yuri Dorn and tell him I will be in touch with him shortly. Again all the members of the Ruby family all very much thank you for your efforts on our behalf.

Best Wishes and S'Novim Godum,


Walter Ruby


On 12/26/07, Belarus wrote:

Hello Walter,

Current name of Rezhitsa is Rezekne, which is in Latvia, not in Belarus. This town was renamed twice: in 1915 and in 1946. Today it's population is close to 38,000 residents.
In 1808 Rezhitsa's population was 754, from them 536 residents were Jewish. This place had only one street. In 1852 overall population was 3,615, from them Jewish population was 2,303.
Prior to 1939 there were 6 active synagogues, 2 Jewish schools, and 1 Talmud Tora.
In 1939 population was 10,795, from them 6,478 were Jews.

In 1850 Rezhitsa census there is a record:
Tulbowitch Peisach son of Gavriel, 32 years old
His wife Sora, daughter of Meir, 28 years old
Their son Sholom-Aharon, 5 years old

I only made this note, because I thought that it might be the perfect match.
I have forwarded your regards to Yuri, now he asked me to send you his.

Best regards,
Maxim


From: Walter Ruby < walterruby@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 26, 2007 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: Belarus research
To: Belarus


Maxim, Thats it--you are right. Its the perfect match. Shlomo was also Shalom-Aron; forgot to mention it in last e-mail. Is there any way of knowing when Shalom-Aron and wife Sophie moved to Rostov? Could their parents possibly have accompanied them? Also, how far back can we take the family? Do we have birth dates of Peisach and his father Gavriel or other family members? Anything on professions, military service, etc? We are enormously grateful for this information...

Best,

Walter Ruby

Walter Ruby to Dan, joanne, eruby
show details 8:36 pm (41 minutes ago)

Dan, Jo, Gene--check out message from Maxim below!!!! Pretty amazing stuff....


Amazing stuff indeed! We now know the town in Latvia from which the our great-great grandfather Shalom-Aron Tulbowitz and his wife Sophie set out for distant Rostov, probably in the late 1860's or early 1870's. We dont know if Peisach Tulbowitz or any of the older generation went with them as well, though we found no mention of them in the Rostoc records, as we did of Shalom-Aron, Sophie and two of their children, Gavriel (b. 1878), no doubt named for his great-grandfather, Gavriel, now our farthest back ancestor (great-great-great-great grandfather) and Isai (d 1879, aged 3). Why did young Shalom-Aron and Sophie move to Rostov...One would assume for the far greater economic opportunities; as we know Rostov was a booming port town and thus a good place to open a tavern. Byut why did they go so far and not to Riga, Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg? Well, the last two were clearly closed to Jews in 1870, and I am guessing that was true of Riga and Kiev as well, though need to confirm that, Odessa was likely open but nearly as far away as Rostov...I suspect Maxim and Yuri Dorn, the chief Jewish geneologist in Belarus, will be able to help us with some of this conjecture.

So here are Shalom-Aron and Sophie moving to Rostov full of hopes and ambitions around 187o and then pulling up stakes and follwoing their daughter daughter Raizl (Rose) and her new husband Abraham Bloch to America 20 years later. Why? Here we have some pretty strong conjecture that having had Rose kidnapped as a small girl and having to pay ransom to get her back and then having the province being placed in the hands of the Cossack military brigade in 1887 by order of the Czar, was more than the Tulbowitzs wanted to put up with--especially if you factor in a small pogrom in Rostov in 1883 begun after a drunken peasant refused to pay his bill to a Jewish innkeeper (if it wasnt the Tulbowitzes, it must have been someone they knew). So Sophie leaves Russia for America together with newlywed Rose and Abe in 1890 and then Shalom-Aron follows with another other child Eduard 3-4 years later--once Abe, Rose and Sophie--have moved up to Albany. (there was supposed to be another child of Shalom-Aron and Sophie alive in 1900 but we dont have a record of him/her? Could it have been Gavriel, born in 1878 in Rostov?

Anyway, what a life for Shalom-Aron and Sophie moving from one side of the Russian Empire to the other early in adulthood and then 20 years later pulling up stakes again and following their children to the Goldenye Medina, all the time searching for a place that they and their children could live in peace and security and have some prospects of economic success as well. We know they had already achieved a good bit of that in Rostov with the tavern, and Rose grew up as a modern girl who loved Russian culture and loved Rostov. It must have been a bitter pill when they deduced that all of that effort had been in vain and there simply was no safe future for Jews in Russia. As an old lady, Rose always told Sandy Brenner that Rostov was the most beautiful city in the world...Its strange for me too having made three trips to the city and having come to relate to Rostov as one of our ancestral lodestones to find out that the family was only there about 20 years (considerably less than I have lived in New York) and that the Tulbowitzes were really Litvaks whose hometown was only a couple of hundred miles away from the origins of the Spektor-Rabinowites in eastern Belarus and later Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. Lena Lincoff's--our great-grandmother on the other side of Dad's family--and Walter Ruby's mother presumably is descended from the town of Likuva in northern Lithuania, maybe 100 miles from Rezhitsa (Rezekne) in Latvia. And, of course, as we know, the roots of our mother Helga's family is nearby East Prussia and likely before that, the Minsk area of Belarus. So what we have is a whole lot of Litvaks from all the sides...

Wow a lot to assimilate but an enormous sense of exaltation to have taken the two families, Spektor-Rabinowitzes and Tulbowitzes, back several generations before what Stan was able to tell us about them before he died. We have brought to light much that had seemed completely obscured in the mists of time. A collective pat on the back to all of us and also to my partner, Tatyana, without whose formidable translation skills and acting as a wonderful resource to help me understand many of the cultural and historical facets of this, we would never have made the great progress we have...Next up, The Rubys: The Book.

New info on Chaim Rabinowitz's wife and daughter

Email from Walter on Sept. 20:

I had a nice discussion this morning with our relative in Rehovot, Shmuel Elchanan. He noted that his father submitted testimony to Yad Vashem in 1955 as to the existence of a daughter of Chaim Rabinowitz (our great-great grandfather), the son of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor. Her name was Bluma Rabinovich the daughter of Chaim and Feiga Rabinovch and she lived from 1871-1944 in Kovno (Kaunas), having been killed by the Nazis either in the Kovno Ghetto or in a death camp. Shmuel, who himself lived in the Kovno Ghetto, remembers her very well, as a school teacher who never married. He remembers that she was a very kind woman. So Bluma was either the sister or half-sister of Joseph Rabinowitz, our great-grandfather who emigrated to New York. I need to check to see if we have a record as to whether Feiga was Joseph's mother as well.

Shmuel mentioned a book entitled Ethical Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury, published in New York in 1983 by Shocken Books that includes the will of Rabbi Spektor, in which he asks that his rabbical post be given to his second son Tzvi Hirsch Rabinowitz, as well as a letter that Shmuel's own mother wrote in the Kovno Ghetto in June 1944, which was somehow miraculously acquired by his family in Palestine.

Shmuel told me that when he and his family arrived in Haifa aboard a ship in November 1945 as olim (new immigrants) they were greeted at the pier by Aharon Spektor, either the son or grandson of the brother of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor, who immigrated to Palestine during the mid-19th century. That brother whose name I have in my notes at home, became a pharmacist in Jerusalem. Aharon Spektor was known as the mukhtar (an Arabic term that might be translated as unofficial mayor) of Carmel, the Jewish community atop Mt. Carmel, which is now part of Haifa. As such he was sanctioned by the British authorities to carry a revolver, which he had with him when he mmet Shmuel and his family at the dock.

Walter's Jewish Week article is published

Bravo! Walter's 3,000-word article Some Things Are Illuminated plus sidebar in today's Jewish Week ties together the strands of the Ruby family story in the context of others interested in taking roots trips. In laying out the narrative arc of the story, it reads like the introduction to a book-length treatment.

correction re Drs. Aybalit and Doolittle

In correction of my mention of Dr. Aybalit and Dr. Doolittle below, according to Wikpedia, Aybalit was based on Doolittle and not the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Aybolit

more photos from Vilnius

1st picture--Walter with Faina Bramtsovskaya, a 85 year old survivor of the Vilna Ghetto who escaped to the forest to join the Jewish partisans in fighting the Nazis.

2nd--a long abadoned pre-war factory that still retains fading Yiddish letters.

3rd--Beautiful lakeside Trakkai Castle from which Grand Dukes of Lithuania resisted the Teutonic Knighs in the 14th and 15th Centuries.

4th--Walter with a Hall of Fame lineup with the great Litvak rabbis. Rabbi Spektor is on the opposite panel in the middle.

some photos from Vilnius

Vilnius--one of the most hauntingly beautfil cities I have ever seen, but somehow our photos mostly missed the mark. A few of the more interesting ones:

1. The Vilnius Cathedral--originally a pagan temple stood here, as Lithuania didnt become Christianized until 1381, the last pagan country in Europe. Its pretty Catholic these days.

2. The new, playful post-Soviet Lithuania. Those workers are really dummies, not people.

3. Our guide, Regina Kopilevich, in front of the door of Vilnius University, which dates back to 16th Century.

4. In the Jewish Quarter

5. Walter and Tanya with a statue of C. Szabard, a Vilna Jew who was the prototype for Dr. Ibalit, upon whom Dr. Doolite was based.

photos from Kaunas (part 2)

images of Kaunas, grim and lovely--life is complicated, eh?

picture 1--grave pried open by robbers looking for gold in the old (and practically abandoned)Green Hills Jewish cemetery in Kaunas. Shmuel Elchanan found and repaired here the graves of Rabbi Spektor's wife Sarah Raizel and his youngest son Binyamin Rabinowitz. It is almost certain that the grave of Chaim Rabinowitz, the rabbi's oldest son our great-great grandfather and his daughter Rachel are here in this neglected and much vandalized cemetery as well, but we were unable to find them. The masoleum of Rabbi Spektor and Tzvi Hirsch Rabbinowitz was originally here but destroyed in the early 1980's when the Soviet authorities decided to level the cemetery for new development (that never happened but many graves were destroyed). Their bodies were dug up and moved to the new Jewish cemetery.

picture 2
The ruined house in the center of Kaunas where Rabbi Spektor once lived. His youngest son, Binyamin Rabinowitz lived here until 1906, when he was murdered by the husband of the family's washerwoman. Shmuel Elchanan lived here with his family as a youth until they were arrested by the Nazis in 1941 and taken to concentration camps.

picute 3--an upscale street scene in downtown Kaunas only a few blocks from Rabbi Spektor's ruined house.

picture 4 Walter Ruby, Asia Gutterman and Tatyana Rapaport

picture 5-- another vista over Kaunas

a few photos from Lithuania (Part 1)

As you all know by now, I got mugged and had my camera grabbed in Kaunas while visiting sites connected with the life of Rabbi Spektor. While the culprit was caught and the camera returned, the memory chip was lost so all precious photos from Ukraine, Rostov, Moscow and Belarus were lost as well. Fortunately, my wonderful guides in Kaunas and Vilnius, Asia Gutterman and Regina Kopilevich lend me cameras so I was able to bring home some meaningful photos from those places. Here are a few of them.

picture 1--the ohel (masoleum)dedicated to Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor and his sopn Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Rabinowitz at the new Jewish cemetery in Kaunas.

picture 2 inscrption on the ohel rwsing in part--Blessed to the great Gaon and his son--Isaac Elchanan Spektor and Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Rabinowitz

picture 3--messages to the Kaunas Gaon, Rabbi Spektor placed there by visitors, many asking for his blessing or help in various endeavors

picture 4--panorama of Old Kaunas

A Few Things Are Illuminated...

This is the first draft of a piece I expect will show up soon in the New York Jewish media--probably in shortened form. I thought I'll put the full version up here first.

A FEW THINGS ARE ILLUMINATED: A WILD AND CRAZY ROOTS TRIP TO THE OLD COUNTRY

By Walter Ruby

“Searching for family roots is like snorting crack cocaine. The rush it gives will hook you for the rest of your life.”

If someone had said something like that to me after the deaths of my parents, Helga and Stanley Ruby, three years ago, when I began working on a modest family history project together with my siblings Dan and Joanne, I would have found the analogy ridiculous and more than a little sacrilegious. Yet my fascination with our ongoing search for generations of lost ancestors has grown exponentially since then. By the time a fellow family history enthusiast, Eli Wohlgemuth, of Montreal, made that remark to me in jest several weeks ago in Vilnius, Lithuania, where we met by serendipity and quickly discovered unexpected overlaps in our respective family trees, I understood exactly what he was talking about.

Somewhere between the time, early in my search, when I found New York City death records proving that my colorful grandfather and namesake, Walter Ruby (1893-1939), a self-made liquor magnate remembered in our family for having invented the rum and coke, actually committed suicide instead of dying of a heart attack as our family had always believed; and my setting out last month with my fiancé Tanya on a two week jaunt through Russia, Belarus and Lithuania in search of archival records of ancestors who wisely abandoned these places for America well over a century ago, I too had become an impassioned ‘Jewish roots’ junkie.

What, I have been asked, can be so fulfilling about researching family history that one would choose to devote considerable money and valuable vacation time to shlepping across the former Soviet Union on steamy, overcrowded trains? Actually, there is quite a lot. There is the excitement of sleuthing around in the distant past; experiencing an electric connection with history. There is a deeply satisfying sense of accomplishment in recovering and placing on our family history Internet site, www.rubyfamily.blogspot.com, the names of family members my siblings and I have recovered who would otherwise have been forever forgotten. Yet the greatest rush of pure excitement comes in uncovering unexpected pieces of information which connect the dots (or branches on the family tree), while providing startling insights into the psychological makeup of family members who died many decades before my birth.

One such ‘Alex Haley’ moment came for me shortly before leaving on my trip, as I sat in the Gottesman Library perusing an obscure 1961 biography of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor (1817-1896), known as the Gaon of Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania), and widely considered the most prominent rabbi in the Russian Empire in the late 19th Century. Spektor, for whom the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at YU is named, was both a brilliant decisior of halacha and a politically astute community leader who negotiated with high officials of the Czarist regime on behalf of beleaguered Russian Jewry amidst government-sponsored pogroms during the 1880’s even as he simultaneously sent coded messages to Jewish leaders in Western Europe; asking them to orchestrate international pressure to get the Czar to cease and desist.

As a child, I often heard from my father that we were descended from a mysterious figure he called ‘the Kovno Rav’. Yet as my siblings and I put the family history together, we realized we did not understood exactly how Spektor was related to my great-grandfather, Joseph Rabinowitz (Walter Ruby’s father), who emigrated to New York in 1875. Suddenly, in the book on Rabbi Spektor, written by a New York rabbi named Efraim Shimoff, I found a short passage explaining that after the death of Spektor’s oldest son, Rabbi Chaim Rabinovich (1834-1874), the Gaon of Kovno “took care of his grandson, Joseph Rabinowitz, studying with him until he became proficient in Talmud and Jewish Codes.” Eureka! Not only did that passage establish that Joseph Rabinowitz (the Americanized version of Rabinovich), was the grandson of Spektor, it also made me the Kovno Gaon’s great-great-great grandson.
The text also provided context to a conflict my father had often spoken about between the deeply pious Rabinowitz and his youngest son, Walter Ruby, a headstrong self-made businessman who not only shortened his family name from Rabinowitz to Ruby, but also took pleasure in eating lobster and celebrating Christmas. Walter Ruby used to say that his father, who spent his days learning Talmud while his wife, Lena, struggled to run a corner grocery store in East Harlem and raise nine children, was good for only one thing; getting Lena pregnant every year. Now I understood that Joseph must have been powerfully impacted by the experience of studying with his tzaddik-like grandfather just before his emigration, and therefore devoted his life to an Old World tradition of lifelong Judaic learning that his Americanized son found a betrayal of his father’s core responsibility to adequately support his family.

A similar moment of revelation awaited me in Rostov-On-Don, a raucous river town in southern Russia where in the 1870’s and 1880’s, Shalom-Aron and Sophie Tulbowitz, my great-great grandparents on the other side of my father’s family, are said to have run a tavern. In Rostov, Yevgeni Gimodudinov, a first-rate archivist employed by the city’s revitalized Jewish community, unearthed two documents in the handwriting of Rostov’s main rabbi 130 years ago, recording the birth of a son Gavriel to the Tulbowitzes in 1878 and the death of their three year old son Isaac the following year. The document referred to the family as mecshane (a social rank that can be translated as ‘townspeople’) of Rechitsa, a small town in what is today southeastern Belarus, about 500 miles from Rostov.

Not only did that attribution solve the mystery as to where the family had lived before moving to Rostov, it also offered a plausible motive for their decision to leave for America in the early 1890’s. Gimodudinov informed us that in 1887, the Russian government announced the creation of a new military province of the Don, to be under the control of the virulently anti-Semitic Don Cossacks. At first, it appeared likely that all Jews would be forced to leave Rostov as a result of this edict, but in 1891, the government, leery of destroying Rostov’s economic vitality, announced that Jews registered as residents of Rostov would be allowed to stay. Yet while we know the Tulbowitzes had been in the city for at least 15 years, they were likely still listed as being residents of Rechitsa. Also, according to family lore, the Tulbowitzes’ daughter Rose (1874-1949) was kidnapped by Cossacks as a small child and had to be ransomed. So it seems probable that the new ascendancy of the Cossacks would have led the Tulbowitzes to regretfully to pull up roots; with the entire family moving to Albany, New York.

I now knew that both sides of my father’s family hailed from Belarus, as Rabbi Spektor was born and grew to prominence in tiny shtetlach that are today located near the border of Belarus and Poland—once the very heart of the Pale of Settlement. Tanya and I spent a day travelling through those towns and villages, a penultimate Chagall dreamscape with goats, cows and storks on roofs. Only the Jews, massacred by the Nazis almost to a person, were missing. In overgrown Jewish cemeteries in small market towns like Rabbi Spektor’s birthplace of Ros’, only a few forlorn stones stuck out of the rich black earth amidst the high grass and thorn bushes, as a disappearing testament to a lost civilization.

As soon as we arrived in Vilnius (Vilna), a ravishingly beautiful city similarly haunted with still-vivid memories of the killing of nearly all of the 100,000 Jews who lived here in the early 1940’s, our guide, Regina Koplevich, informed us that a visitor named Eli Wohlgemuth wanted to meet me. It turned out that his great-great grandfather, Rabbi Yishai Wolgemuth of Memel, (then the easternmost city in the German Empire and today the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda) had been a good friend of my great-great-great grandfather, Rabbi Spektor of Kovno. That was extraordinary enough, but I was more excited because the maiden name of my grandmother on my mother’s side, Elli Ringel, a German Jew raised in the East Prussian city of Konigsberg (today the Russian city of Kaliningrad), a short distance from Memel, also happened to be Wolgemuth. After we compared notes, Eli, a world-class expert on the extended Wohlgemuth clan, expressed the belief that my great-grandfather, Julius Wolgemuth, who was in the moving business in East Prussia, was likely closely related to his Rabbi Wohlgemuth. Eli also told me that all of the East Prussian Wohlgemuths were descended from family members who left central Belarus for the German Baltic Coast during in the first two decades of the 19th Century.

My grandmother, Elli Ringel (1900-1981), who fled the Nazis from Berlin to America with my mother, Helga, was a charming woman with a wry sense of humor, but one of her less edifying qualities was a German Jewish aversion to Ostjuden, (i.e. Russian Jews). This was a prejudice about which she remained outspoken all her life, although she deigned to make an exception when my mother married my Russian-descended father. Yet, here was an exquisite irony; if Eli from Montreal was correct, the snobby ‘more German than the Germans’ East Prussian Wolgemuths were really Ostjuden themselves! All of my life I have blamed my myriad neuroses on the conflict bubbling inside myself between my Prussian and Russian sides; between the repressed and authority-fearing side of my personality and the exuberant, romantic and rebellious side on the other. Now it appeared that I might have saved myself thousands of dollars in therapy costs, since the uber-yekke Wohlgemuths turned out to be nothing more than self-hating Ostjuden.

The last strange thing to happen on the trip was that I somehow managed to get mugged in the center of Kaunas while viewing buildings associated with the life of Rabbi Spektor. It was an event so rare in Lithuania’s normally somnolent second city that it made Page 5 of the country’s main daily newspaper. As our guide showed us a building that once housed an orphanage named in the great rabbi’s honor, a middle aged man collared me, wrestled my camera from my neck and ran off. I gave chase and some local youths, hearing my cries, caught the robber and held him until the police arrived. They handed me back the camera, but somehow the memory chip had disappeared, and with it, all of the photos of our trip. Then two cops showed up and removed a loaded pistol from the assailant’s jacket. Apparently he had shouted “I will shoot” in Lithuanian when he accosted me, but since I hadn’t understood him, I foolishly gave chase.

Given that I was the first American in memory to be mugged in Lithuania on a Jewish roots trip, some local people semi-seriously suggested it might have been a supernatural occurrence. Perhaps the ghost of Rabbi Spektor was displeased that his descendant travelled by bus from Vilnius to Kaunas on a Shabbat with the intention of snapping photos of the ohel (mausoleum) he shares with his son, Tzvi Hirsch Rabinovich, in the Kaunas Jewish cemetery. Perhaps he therefore arranged for a mugger to steal my camera as a kind of warning to change my non-observant ways, but mercifully, arranged things so that my life would be spared.

I don’t buy that theory because I learned from my readings about Rabbi Spektor that he was a kindly man with a relatively tolerant approach to those who had slipped away from tradition. So perhaps my attacker was simply was one of those dybbuks who were said to have haunted these parts a few centuries ago. Or perhaps he was just a timely reminder that there is plenty of tohu v vohu (chaos) in the natural order of things, and no rational explanation suffices for an inexplicable happening.

Whatever. Despite the mugging, I returned home from my sojourn among my ancestors with a deep sense of fulfillment. I hadn’t found answers to some of the questions I had come with, but I learned other things that added incomparably to my understanding of those who came before me. The whole thing may indeed be a kind of narcotic, but as someone who has sampled less edifying substances in my lifetime, I can testify that roots research is the most uplifting addiction I’ve yet succumbed to.

photos of graves of Solomon and Sophie Tulbowitz

Here are photos of the grave of our great-great grandparents Solomon (Shalom-Aharon) and Sophie Tulbowitz, which I took at the Beth Abraham Jacob Cemetery in Albany last month. Solomon Tulbowitz lived from 1845-1918 and Sophie from 1846-1928. We are not yet sure where they were born. According to documents Tanya and I found last month in Rostov, which I will shortly post here as well, which record the birth and circumcision of a son, Gavriel in 1878, and the death of a three and a half year old son Isai in 1879, the couple was described as "meshanene (townspeople) from Rechitsa, a town in southeast Belarus. So given that the bulk of Rostov's Jewish population growth came in the 1860's and 1870's as the trading and manufacturing town on the southern reaches of the Don, just above the Azov and Black seas, making it "the Chicago of Russia", my guess is that the couple was lured there in search of prosperity, which is also why they would be still registered as belonging to Rechitsa. According to Ruby family lore, they ran a tavern there and their oldest daughter Rose (1874-1949)was kidnapped by Cossacks as a small child. The Tulbowitzes could not have been thrilled by an ukaz (degree) by the Czarist government in 1888 that henceforth Rostov (which was formerly part of the Pale and attached to a province centered in Ekaterinaslav (today Dnieperpetrovsk) in Ukraine, would be part of a new Don military province. When the law came down, it looked like the Jews would be forced to leave en masse but by 1891, clearly fearful of destroying Rostov's economic vitality, the regime ruled that all Jews registered as Rostov residents could stay. We know that the Tulbowitzes were still registered as being from Rechitsa as of 1879. Were they able to change that in the ensuing decade? If not, their anonamlous status would go a long way to explaining their pull-out from the city to America--first newly married Rose, her husband Abraham Bloch and mother in law Sophie Tulbowitz in 1890 and Solomon and the rest of the family three or four years later. We know they were gone by 1895-96, as no Tulbowitzes show up in the all-Russia census taken in those years. Certainly, given Rose's traumatic experience as a small child, and a small pogrom in 1883, which took place at a tavern when a drunken Russian refused to pay the Jewish owners, they couldnt have been confident that Cossack control of Rostov made the place a safe bet for the long run.

The 1900 U.S. census shows Solomon, Sophie and son Edward (born 1876 and probably the twin of Isai) living in Albany near Rose, Abe and their own growing family, with Solomon and Edward working as tailors. Did all the rest of their children die in childhood? What about Gavriel? We know from Sandy Brenner, who heard from her mother Lillian Ratner Klein, that matriarch Sophie in her later years was known as the "scoial worker" because she was concerned about everyone's welfare and got involved in trying to solve the problems of others. Thats not a lot, but its something and we;ll keep digging. Love to you, Shalom-Aharon and Sophie Tulbowitz, from across the centuries.

Wohlgemuths and Spektors

Ugh! Down with the flu and/or severe jetlag, so am taking it easy today. Let me use this opportunity to clarify some of what Tanya and I learned, starting with the Wolgemuth-Spektor connection. In fact, Eli Wohlgemuth of Montreal did NOT claim that the two families were related. Rather, he said that his great-great grandfather, Rabbi Yishai Wohlgamuth (the name, by the way, means 'good natured' in German) (1809-1898), the chief rabbi of Memel from 1836-1881, was a good friend of our great-great-great grandfather, Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan Spektor, the rabbi or Gaon of Kovno (Kaunus). We already know that Spektor turned for help to Jews in Memel (just across the German (East Prussian) border from Russian-controlled Lithuania in getting the message about the danger to Russian Jewry when pogroms started in 1881 to influential Jews in Western Europe. It seems likely Rabbi Wohlgemuth played some role in that as well.

In any case, the desire to say hello to someone whose great-great-great grandfather was a friend of his great-great grandfather was the reason Eli Wohlgemuth informed our guide in Vilnius, Regina Koplevich, that he wanted to meet me; it was only after I expressed surprise at the common name of Wolgemuth that we made an effort to try to see how Julius and Betty Wolgemuth of Koenigsburg might have been related to Rabbi Wohlgemuth of Memel. We didnt establish the connection in the short time we had together, but as he seems to be the world's expert on the family and is anxious to work with us, we should be able to figure it out. Eli says that Wohlgemuth is a relatively common name in Germany with non-Jewish Wohlgemuths as well as Jewish ones, but the fact that they came from so close to each other means our Wolhgemuths were probably related to his. He pointed out that the East Prussian Wohlgemuths had moved to that area from from the area of Minsk, Belarus around the period 1805-1815; if that is true of our Wohlgemuths as well, they not only lived close to the Ostjuden geographically, but they gthemselves were descended from Ostjuden. Eli said the East Prussian Jewish community was split between those who essentially stayed Ostjuden (i.e. deeply devout and Old World) like the members of Yishai's congregation and those who assimilated into Germans to the maximum degree possible and observed a Reform-like form of Judaism with such innovations that were anathema to the Ostjuden as organs in the synagogue. It is clear our Wohlgemuths, at least by Julius' generation, belonged to the second group. He was interested to know the name of Julius father, who, according to Helga, owned the largest clothing store in Konigsburg, but I dont believe we have that yet.

We ended up not going to Memel or Konigsburg--we were simply too exhausted on our last day and went instead to a jewel-like place called Trakkai near Vilnius with a castle in the middle of a lake. So, Dan, the Memel-Konigsburg trip is there for you to undertake. What is clear is that the Wohlgemuths lived on one side of the divding line between Central European Jewry and Eastern European Jewry and the Spektors on the other side, but they were only about 200 miles apart and there was a good bit of going back and forth. But both families had roots in Belarus, slightly to the east, as, it turns out, did the Tubavitzs of Rostov as well. I'll stop now and file soon on the rest of new knowledge we attained in Lithuania, Belarus and Rostov.

Walter

Wolgemuth-Spektor connection?

One more quickie and then I have to get back to work. While we're waiting for Walter's trip report, I'll pass on this tidbit he shared with me by phone from Vilnius. While researching Rabbi Spektor in Kaunus, he learned of yet another person who claimed to be a descendant. That in itself is not surprising, but the kicker is that this gentleman's last name is Wolgemuth, which is also the maiden surname of our grandmother Elly on Helga's side of the family.

Now, Wolgemuth (with its various alternate spellings) is a fairly common name in those parts, but it does present an intriguing possibility. Our Wolgemuths came from Konigsberg in East Prussia, which is now Kaliningrad, a disconnected enclave of Russia. As I have pointed out to Walter in the past, Konigsberg and Rzeszow, where Elly's husband Herman Ringel's family originated, are not far removed from Grodno in Belarus, where the Spektor/Rabinowitz family was from.

Further, Kaliningrad is a short distance from the Lithuanian coastal city of Memel, which was an early outpost of Jewry in the region, and to which I had tentatively traced the history of our Wolgemuths. So that raises the interesting possibility that our Wolgemuths and our Spektors were actually related and that we modern-day Rubys are the result of some kind of extended family inbreeding (which could explain some things ).

The other thing interesting about it is the light it sheds on the disdain of many German Jews, including Elly Wolgemuth Ringel, for so-called ostjuden, supposedly less-cultured Jews from places like Poland and Russia. It seems that Elly's own family was separated from ostjuden-ness by a hair's-breadth accident of geography.

Elhanan relatives in Israel

As long as I am catching up, here's information from a newly discovered distant relative who turned up in Walter's researches. He is Shmuel Elhanan, and is a descendant of Binyamin Rubinowitz, the fourth child of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor. That makes him our fourth cousin. He lives in Rehovot, Israel, with his wife Zippora.

Walter discovered him while preparing for his trip to Lithuania, when he was told that another Spektor descendent had made a similar trip some years ago. Following are two emails that Shmuel sent in response to Walter's inquiries.

Dear Walter Ruby shalom,

It was most interesting and touching to receive your mail. As you are asking for quick reply i am doing so and might be a bit short.
Our home address is:
5 Goldberg street
Rehovot, 76283 Israel
Phone: 972-89471139

We live in Rehovot since 1958, when we came there with our son Binyamin, two weeks old, as my wife came to the Machon as a Postdoc. My two brothers were sent to Palestine in 1940, from Kovno, at the age of 13 and 14, to their grand parents (mother's parents). They both changed their family name to Elhanan in 1944 when they thought that we perished (that is a separate story). My parents did not change their family name Rabinovitz.
Onfortunately my brother Binyamin fell in our Independence War on July 18th 1948. My eldest brother Amos passed away in 1965 from leukemia, at the age of 65, leaving after him a widow and two children. My two brothers were born in Berlin in 1925 and 1926 where my parents met and married. They moved to Kovno, after my father finished his studies as DrPhil. in Chemistry with Prof. Fritz Haber.

We are descendens of Binyamin the youngest son of Rabi Itzhak-Elhanan Spector, the Gaon of Kovno, who was murdered at the family home on Gardino street in Kovno in 1906. I am fifth generation of the Gaon who is my Great, Great Grandfather.

Our family was imprisoned in the Ghetto of Kovno, from 1941 to 1944, then we were deported to the Camps in Germany. My mother was separated frm us to the KL Sttuthof and was released by the Red Army on March 10 1945. My father and I were imprisoned in Kaufering Camp One, which belonged to KL Dachau.We were releasedby the Japanese unit of the US Army on May 2nd 1945 in Waakirchen bei Hauserdorfl in Bavaria near Bad Tolz.
Fortunately we met in July with my brother Amos, a soldier of the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group from Palestine, and with our mother, at the boarder in Italy. On 8th of November 1945 we reached Palestine as legal new comers.

We will be happy to hear from you and to tell you moreand we invite to be our guests in Rehovot.

Best regards

Shmuel and Zippora

Best regards to your family and to Regina in Vilnius.

And the followup email:

Dear Walter shalom,

In reply to your questions, and following our phone conversation tonight I am sending bellow the following answers:



1. Binyamin the youngest son of the Gaon was killed by a robber, who was the son of the laundress who worked with the family, and therefore was let into the house. He is buried with his wife, who died in 1929, in the cemetery on the "Green Hill" in Kaunas.



2. To the best of my knowledge, and stories told at home, the reason for the family name change was the following: At a population census the Russians who performed it have asked who are the children playing in the yard. They were told that they are the children of the Rabbi and therefore registered them as Rabinovitz (children of the Rabbi in Russian). So the reason for the name change is not mobilization to the Russian Army.



3. My brothers changed their family name after the name of our father. But their excuse to our Grandfather, who told them that the Ashkenazi community, does not name after people that are alive, was that they named themselves after the great, great grandfather the Gaon of Kovno.





4. My wife works at the Department of Biochemistry, and did not know your father.



5. I did receive the e-mail of your brother Dan, and in our case our son is a fifth generation cousin of your children.



I would like to add to our phone conversation the following in writing: Rabbi Itzhak-Elhanan Spector with his son Rabbi Zvi-Hirsh Rabinovitz are buried in the active cemetery in the suburb Aleksotas (across the Niemunas river). They were transferred to Aleksotas in 1984. The wife of the Gaon, and his son Binyamin with his wife Dvora remained buried on the Green hill (see 1. above). I have repaired the gravestones of Binyamin, his wife Dvora and my grandfather Israel-Isser Rabinovitz during my first visit to Lithuania .



The name of the guide who guided us during our visit to Kovno is:

Chaimas Bergmanas

P. Luksio gatve 37/22

LT 49391, Kaunas, Lithuania (Lietuva)

Mobile : 370-37-779948

Home: 370-68-177166



Best regards

Shmuel Elhanan

Aborted visit to NY Public Library

I keep meaning to spend time researching microfilm of New York newspapers from the 1920s for more details on Walter Ruby's exploits during prohibition. As you may recall, we have NY Times articles about his 1922 indictment and the later dismissal of those charges, as well as an intriguing mention of him as a boxing manager.

I've been to New York twice now in recent months and both times was frustrated in my efforts. In April, the library was closed for a Jewish holiday the day I was there. Last week, I was very busy during my two days in the city and managed to get to the library just 45 minutes before closing. Most of that time was consumed learning how to retrieve microfilm and how to operate the machine.

So I had precious little time to get to the actual work. I did manage to find one relevant article, from the August 15, 1926 edition of the New York Herald Tribune, reporting on the dismissal of the Catrow case. There was no new information in it, but it reinforced my determination to read more newspapers, especially the tabloids, from that date and several others when Walter Ruby made news.

I'm not sure when I'll next be in New York, but when I am I will schedule a whole day for microfilm research.

Josh Funt checks in

Our first cousin once removed, Josh Funt, the oldest son of Wendy Felenstein, checked in from Sarasota FL by email after having discovered this blog, probably after learning of it from his aunt Marsha. Here is the text of his email, along with a great photo of his family.

It's wonderful to hear from you, Josh. Needless to say, we're excited to learn the location of Grammy's Walter Ruby scrapbook, and hope to be able to post scans of some of the photos and clippings here. -- Danny

This is Josh, Wendy Felenstein's son. I was the recipient of a number of items when my mother died that are directly related to this blog. I have an old scrapbook that has clippings of Walter Ruby's accomplishments, and I also have a number of items from Selma.

These things are unique and I treasure them. There are a number of pictures of Walter Ruby from the days of Errol Flynn and Clark Gable. He has that studio type portrait and it looks so like the old 8X10s from that era. I also have a number of clippings showing the invention of Rum and Coke as well as some of his manufactured inventions revolving around the spirits business.

I love what you did with the family history and it is very cool to learn about the old history of our family.

I have saved this blog as a favorite and I plan to revisit it often. I keep in touch with Marsha and Robert, but I am not really in touch with anyone else on Joan's side of the family.

I would be happy to scan and send you some of the items I have. Let me know if you are interested.

All the best to you all.

Josh