Here is her death certificate, full size and detail.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Bayla Kaufler death record
Bayla, also called Beili in some records, goes way, way back. She is Feigla's great-grandmother, thus our GGGG grandmother. She was born in 1773, married Izaak Kaufler, had four children including Schulim Kaufler, and she died at age 58 in 1831.
Here is her death certificate, full size and detail.
Here is her death certificate, full size and detail.
Schulim Kaufler and Reisel Bluma Singlust marriage record
This is from June 20, 1825. Separately, there is also a marriage bann (a pre-marriage legal announcement) that I am not posting for now. The marriage record fills a full ledger page, as opposed to birth and death records that are partial pages.
The complete page appears first, followed by a detail section with the names of the bride and groom highlighted.
The complete page appears first, followed by a detail section with the names of the bride and groom highlighted.
Advances on several fronts
Yesterday was another red-letter day for me, so I want to get some updates in here before other news arrives. I have to hurry, because there is lots to do today for Festival Preview.
Okay, first in the morning I got email from Marian Rubin of the Rzeszow Research Group that she has some of our Ringel birth records, including Schija's, and that she is making copies and sending them to me by mail. She warns in advance there is no new information beyond what is in the index data we have already seen. Even so, it will be exciting to have images of those records. I'll wait to discuss them in more detail after Marian's mail arrives.
Next came a delivery from Alibris.com of a book I had ordered, Ethical Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury. I was thrilled to finally read the words written for posterity by Isaac Elchanon Spektor in 1888, but found an even greater treat elsewhere in the book. I will report in the next post.
In the evening, I visited the Mormon Family Research Center again, ready to locate and scan images of the Kaufler family vital records (described here in previous messages—use the label tags at right to find related posts). There are quite a few records to capture, so here I focused on a few "high-value targets."
The following images include the 1825 marriage certificate of Feigla Kaufler's grandparents, Schulim Kaufler and Reisel Bluma Singlust; the 1831 death record for Schulim's mother Bayla (also Beili), who was born the daughter of Abraham in 1773; and Schulim's own death certificate from 1847. All of those mentioned are our direct ancestors.
In each case, I will show the full size image and one or more detail sections of the image. Note that these are second-generation scans. I printed them at the LDS and scanned them at home—next time I will bring a thumb drive with me to the temple and save the scans directly, so the quality will get better when I redo them next time. But these are good enough to post now.
To keep things manageable, I will post the images in separate posts.
Okay, first in the morning I got email from Marian Rubin of the Rzeszow Research Group that she has some of our Ringel birth records, including Schija's, and that she is making copies and sending them to me by mail. She warns in advance there is no new information beyond what is in the index data we have already seen. Even so, it will be exciting to have images of those records. I'll wait to discuss them in more detail after Marian's mail arrives.
Next came a delivery from Alibris.com of a book I had ordered, Ethical Wills: A Modern Jewish Treasury. I was thrilled to finally read the words written for posterity by Isaac Elchanon Spektor in 1888, but found an even greater treat elsewhere in the book. I will report in the next post.
In the evening, I visited the Mormon Family Research Center again, ready to locate and scan images of the Kaufler family vital records (described here in previous messages—use the label tags at right to find related posts). There are quite a few records to capture, so here I focused on a few "high-value targets."
The following images include the 1825 marriage certificate of Feigla Kaufler's grandparents, Schulim Kaufler and Reisel Bluma Singlust; the 1831 death record for Schulim's mother Bayla (also Beili), who was born the daughter of Abraham in 1773; and Schulim's own death certificate from 1847. All of those mentioned are our direct ancestors.
In each case, I will show the full size image and one or more detail sections of the image. Note that these are second-generation scans. I printed them at the LDS and scanned them at home—next time I will bring a thumb drive with me to the temple and save the scans directly, so the quality will get better when I redo them next time. But these are good enough to post now.
To keep things manageable, I will post the images in separate posts.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
My genealogy calling card
I needed something other than my Festival Preview business card for meetings like today and for my upcoming Chicago trip, so I put this together this morning before going to the meeting.
I couldn't find the more recent headshot I have been using, so this one is my old New Media column photo. The research names and towns are meant to make it easier for people to connect me with researchers interested in the same subjects.
I couldn't find the more recent headshot I have been using, so this one is my old New Media column photo. The research names and towns are meant to make it easier for people to connect me with researchers interested in the same subjects.
Sunday afternoon at the SF Bay Area JGS meeting
Today I attended my first SF Bay Area JGS meeting and had a wonderful time putting faces with names of people I have met online, plus meeting new people I will want to follow up with in the future. The guest speaker for today was Schelly Talalay Dardashti, the blogger who runs the Tracing the Tribe blog.
The meeting was held at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay in the lower Fillmore area of San Francisco. The society alternates its meetings among sites in San Francisco, Berkeley in the East Bay and Los Altos on the peninsula.
There were about 25 people attending, and I got a chance to chat with several of them over instant coffee and cookies before the meeting got underway. Jeremy Frankel, the president of the group whom I had met a month ago at the Oakland Mormon research center, greeted me warmly and began to introduce me around.
I was especially pleased to see Dave Howard, with whom I have corresponded a good deal about his Rezekne research. We found that we had as much or more to share in person than by email.
I was wearing a nametag, and as I waited for a chance to introduce myself to Schelly, she read my tag and said, "So here's the famous Dan Ruby." I guess that is a case of one's reputation leading the way, which surprises me since I feel like such a neophyte in this world.
Also in attendance were luminaries in the Jewish Gen world such as Steve Morse, Judy Baston and others. After the meeting, I chatted some with Judy at the Jewish Community Library, just down the hall. She is an leader of both the Litvak and Poland JRI interest groups, and I hope to get to know her more in the future.
Some new people I met who are active locally were Dale Friedman from Berkeley and Kathryn Doyle, who works at the California Genealogical Society and Library in Oakland and lives in my town of Piedmont. In fact, she thought I might have been the husband of the more famous Ruby resident of Piedmont, Eileen Ruby. (Eileen is the mother of Mike Ruby, who works for me part time at Festival Preview, but is otherwise unrelated.) I explained to Kathryn that the other Ruby family are Rubinsteins and we were Rabinowitzes.
Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing several of these people in Chicago next month, and at future meetings of the Bay Area group.
I enjoyed Schelly's presentation, even though a lot of it was pretty elementary. I was surprised that when she asked who in the room was writing a blog, mine was one of just a couple that went up. This in a room of people who have made considerable contributions to online Jewish genealogy, and also are tech-savvy Bay Area residents.
For example, Steve Morse's One Step page is commonly acknowledged as among the most useful online research tools anywhere. But blogging is evidently viewed as more of a young person's medium, and most of these folks make web sites or publish to email lists or moderate bulletin boards — online formats that may be friendlier to the generally older crowd that is interested in genealogy.
Nevertheless, I got some good ideas and leads from Schelly's talk. Her suggestions about the leading genealogical blogs will point me in some useful directions. I was interested to hear the story of how her blog got started as a project of the Jewish Telegraph Agency, and thus its relationship to the wider world of Jewish media.
Schelly came to blogging from a career in publishing, so I wasn't surprised to hear of her sometimes bumpy adjustment to the style and voice of blogging versus newspaper journalism. I have made that same transition. She sees her role as mainly a "just the facts, Ma'am" informational blogger, rather than what she calls a "muser," someone who riffs in a more personal style.
She described her caution about covering possibly controversial subjects and her discomfort in voicing her personal views. While I'm sure such discretion is a useful survival skill in the world of Jewish journalism, I quietly urged Schelly after the meeting to embrace the blogging ethic and let loose with her opinions.
Of course, I have the luxury of writing a blog hardly anybody reads, whereas Tracing the Tribe is the most widely read blog about Jewish genealogy, so that's easy for me to say. In my other life, though, I run a group blog and news aggregation service about music festivals, so I have some expertise about online media. When I next see Schelly, perhaps in Chicago, I'll look forward to exchanging ideas some more.
The meeting was held at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay in the lower Fillmore area of San Francisco. The society alternates its meetings among sites in San Francisco, Berkeley in the East Bay and Los Altos on the peninsula.
There were about 25 people attending, and I got a chance to chat with several of them over instant coffee and cookies before the meeting got underway. Jeremy Frankel, the president of the group whom I had met a month ago at the Oakland Mormon research center, greeted me warmly and began to introduce me around.
I was especially pleased to see Dave Howard, with whom I have corresponded a good deal about his Rezekne research. We found that we had as much or more to share in person than by email.
I was wearing a nametag, and as I waited for a chance to introduce myself to Schelly, she read my tag and said, "So here's the famous Dan Ruby." I guess that is a case of one's reputation leading the way, which surprises me since I feel like such a neophyte in this world.
Also in attendance were luminaries in the Jewish Gen world such as Steve Morse, Judy Baston and others. After the meeting, I chatted some with Judy at the Jewish Community Library, just down the hall. She is an leader of both the Litvak and Poland JRI interest groups, and I hope to get to know her more in the future.
Some new people I met who are active locally were Dale Friedman from Berkeley and Kathryn Doyle, who works at the California Genealogical Society and Library in Oakland and lives in my town of Piedmont. In fact, she thought I might have been the husband of the more famous Ruby resident of Piedmont, Eileen Ruby. (Eileen is the mother of Mike Ruby, who works for me part time at Festival Preview, but is otherwise unrelated.) I explained to Kathryn that the other Ruby family are Rubinsteins and we were Rabinowitzes.
Anyway, I'll look forward to seeing several of these people in Chicago next month, and at future meetings of the Bay Area group.
I enjoyed Schelly's presentation, even though a lot of it was pretty elementary. I was surprised that when she asked who in the room was writing a blog, mine was one of just a couple that went up. This in a room of people who have made considerable contributions to online Jewish genealogy, and also are tech-savvy Bay Area residents.
For example, Steve Morse's One Step page is commonly acknowledged as among the most useful online research tools anywhere. But blogging is evidently viewed as more of a young person's medium, and most of these folks make web sites or publish to email lists or moderate bulletin boards — online formats that may be friendlier to the generally older crowd that is interested in genealogy.
Nevertheless, I got some good ideas and leads from Schelly's talk. Her suggestions about the leading genealogical blogs will point me in some useful directions. I was interested to hear the story of how her blog got started as a project of the Jewish Telegraph Agency, and thus its relationship to the wider world of Jewish media.
Schelly came to blogging from a career in publishing, so I wasn't surprised to hear of her sometimes bumpy adjustment to the style and voice of blogging versus newspaper journalism. I have made that same transition. She sees her role as mainly a "just the facts, Ma'am" informational blogger, rather than what she calls a "muser," someone who riffs in a more personal style.
She described her caution about covering possibly controversial subjects and her discomfort in voicing her personal views. While I'm sure such discretion is a useful survival skill in the world of Jewish journalism, I quietly urged Schelly after the meeting to embrace the blogging ethic and let loose with her opinions.
Of course, I have the luxury of writing a blog hardly anybody reads, whereas Tracing the Tribe is the most widely read blog about Jewish genealogy, so that's easy for me to say. In my other life, though, I run a group blog and news aggregation service about music festivals, so I have some expertise about online media. When I next see Schelly, perhaps in Chicago, I'll look forward to exchanging ideas some more.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
What we learn from Einseidler, Part 3
In part 1, I summarized the Einseidler papers. In part 2, I covered Einseidler's discoveries about the descendants of Moshe Joseph Spektor. Here, I will do the same for the descendants of Jacob David Spektor.
The most surprising thing we learn about Jacob David is that he marries a woman 31 years his junior (to be continued).
The most surprising thing we learn about Jacob David is that he marries a woman 31 years his junior (to be continued).
Monday, July 14, 2008
What we learn from Einseidler, Part 2
But back to Einseidler. What is new and different that we learn from the papers? Most of the new information relates to two brothers of Isaac Elchanan. We know from Shimoff that Isaac had two older and one younger brothers. Of second brother Abraham Aaron, Shimoff writes that he was accomplished in the rabbinate, but he died young before having children. Shimoff tells us Spektor was deeply affected by his brother's death.
According to Einseidler's reading of the literature, the eldest Spektor brother, Moshe Joseph, then married Abraham's widow, in observation of the law of chalitza, in which an unmarried brother of a deceased married brother is obligated to marry the widow (unless he is released from the obligation in a ceremony involving the taking off of the brother's shoe).
In this case, Moshe kept his shoe and married the unnamed widow and they later had a daughter Shifra. From here, things get a bit surprising as Shifra marries a man named Aryeh Spector. This could be an example of a husband assuming the wife's name, if she had an honored name they wanted to carry on, or it could be coincidences of two unrelated Spektors finding each other, or it could be some kind of intermarriage.
In any case, Shifra and Aryeh have at least two children, Chaim Shmuel and Meir (born in 1884). Meir goes to Palestine in 1910, marries Esther and has three children, Jacob, Emanuel and Rachel. Rachel later marries David Belkin.
His older brother, Chaim Shmuel, also appears to marry another Spektor, Frieda daughter of Shlomo. The same possibilities apply here as above, though in this case Einseidler indicates that Chaim and Frieda are indeed cousins.
These possible Spektor-Specktor marriages would be one way for the family to expand to support claims of other Spektors to a relationship with the rabbi. We'll have to look more closely at the origins of Aryeh Spektor and Frieda Spektor to determine what other Spektors can claim a relation by marriage to the family of Isaac Elchanan's older brother.
Whatever turns out there, we know from the Pioneers book that Chaim and Frieda have another son Aryeh in 1909 in Halle, Germany, his grandfather having evidently previously passed away. Aryeh also goes to Palestine in 1933, and has two children Chaim Samuel (named for his predeceased father) and Simcha.
If all that is right, then we have five descendants of Moshe Joseph Spektor living in Palestine in the pre-war years. If we are next able to track Jacob, Emanuel, Rachel, Chaim Samuel and Simcha Spektor, we will be closer to identifying living descendants from that line.
Okay, on to part 3 for the information on brother Jacob David Spektor.
According to Einseidler's reading of the literature, the eldest Spektor brother, Moshe Joseph, then married Abraham's widow, in observation of the law of chalitza, in which an unmarried brother of a deceased married brother is obligated to marry the widow (unless he is released from the obligation in a ceremony involving the taking off of the brother's shoe).
In this case, Moshe kept his shoe and married the unnamed widow and they later had a daughter Shifra. From here, things get a bit surprising as Shifra marries a man named Aryeh Spector. This could be an example of a husband assuming the wife's name, if she had an honored name they wanted to carry on, or it could be coincidences of two unrelated Spektors finding each other, or it could be some kind of intermarriage.
In any case, Shifra and Aryeh have at least two children, Chaim Shmuel and Meir (born in 1884). Meir goes to Palestine in 1910, marries Esther and has three children, Jacob, Emanuel and Rachel. Rachel later marries David Belkin.
His older brother, Chaim Shmuel, also appears to marry another Spektor, Frieda daughter of Shlomo. The same possibilities apply here as above, though in this case Einseidler indicates that Chaim and Frieda are indeed cousins.
These possible Spektor-Specktor marriages would be one way for the family to expand to support claims of other Spektors to a relationship with the rabbi. We'll have to look more closely at the origins of Aryeh Spektor and Frieda Spektor to determine what other Spektors can claim a relation by marriage to the family of Isaac Elchanan's older brother.
Whatever turns out there, we know from the Pioneers book that Chaim and Frieda have another son Aryeh in 1909 in Halle, Germany, his grandfather having evidently previously passed away. Aryeh also goes to Palestine in 1933, and has two children Chaim Samuel (named for his predeceased father) and Simcha.
If all that is right, then we have five descendants of Moshe Joseph Spektor living in Palestine in the pre-war years. If we are next able to track Jacob, Emanuel, Rachel, Chaim Samuel and Simcha Spektor, we will be closer to identifying living descendants from that line.
Okay, on to part 3 for the information on brother Jacob David Spektor.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
What we learn from Einseidler, Part 1
While Morris keeps feeding me more information, I am trying to catch up with his earlier fax transmittal of the David Einsiedler papers. These include not just the three installments of the researcher's handwritten reports but also copies from nine source documents that are cited in the research.
I've now had a chance to process the information and will do my best to sift out what is new to us. Einsiedler draws on mostly published information. The most well known are the Shimoff biography and Lifshitz's Toldot Yitshak. But there are four or five different biographical encyclopedias that have listings for members of the Spektor/Rabinowitz family. Several are comprehensive works of important rabbis in history. There is one for Lithuanian rabbis only, and another for the rabbis of Novogrodok. David Tidhar's encyclopedia of pioneers of Israel is especially helpful, with three substantial biographies of Spektor descendants in Israel.
There is one problem. They are all in Hebrew. I have been able to identify which document is which using Einsiedler's list as an index. With a number of the documents, I have been able to see where words like Spektor and Rabinowitz appear. I was actually pretty pleased with myself that I was able to call on my inferior Hebrew skills to sort through the papers.
As far as I know Morris does not have translations for the documents. If not, we should think about economical strategies to get that done. There are probably about 40 pages that we would want to have translated. I just found a Bay Area Hebrew translator listed on Craigslist. She charges $39 a page. I hope we can do better than that.
There is one source that is of greatest interest to me — the page from the Novogrodok book with entries for Isaac Elchanan Spektor and his successor Baruch Mordecai Lifshitz. (I don't know the relation, if any, between that Rabbi Lifshitz and Spektor's later secretary and biographer Jacob Halevi Lifshitz.) Anyway, the Spektor entry on that page also mentions Zvi Hirsch Rabinowitz. Zvi was born the year Spektor took up the rabbinical post in Novogrodok.
Perhaps we can find a way to get this one page translated as a way to get the ball rolling on the whole set.
In addition to the Einseidler collection, there is another important Hebrew document in our collection, Shmuel Elchanan's compilation of his family information that he sent to Morris Spektor in 1996. While I am unable to decipher most of it, it appears that it is the source of all of the detail information for the descendants of Benyamin Spektor that is in Morris' Spektor descendant chart. Surely I will want to get a full translation, but for now I will assume that the key information in it has been reflected in that chart.
Actually, as a further reality check, I have an annotated version of the Morris descendant chart that was marked up by Shmuel Elchanan. This mainly corrects spellings in the English translation of names and places that Morris must have rendered from the original Hebrew.
Since there is a lot to write about the Einseidler papers, I will continue in the next post.
I've now had a chance to process the information and will do my best to sift out what is new to us. Einsiedler draws on mostly published information. The most well known are the Shimoff biography and Lifshitz's Toldot Yitshak. But there are four or five different biographical encyclopedias that have listings for members of the Spektor/Rabinowitz family. Several are comprehensive works of important rabbis in history. There is one for Lithuanian rabbis only, and another for the rabbis of Novogrodok. David Tidhar's encyclopedia of pioneers of Israel is especially helpful, with three substantial biographies of Spektor descendants in Israel.
There is one problem. They are all in Hebrew. I have been able to identify which document is which using Einsiedler's list as an index. With a number of the documents, I have been able to see where words like Spektor and Rabinowitz appear. I was actually pretty pleased with myself that I was able to call on my inferior Hebrew skills to sort through the papers.
As far as I know Morris does not have translations for the documents. If not, we should think about economical strategies to get that done. There are probably about 40 pages that we would want to have translated. I just found a Bay Area Hebrew translator listed on Craigslist. She charges $39 a page. I hope we can do better than that.
There is one source that is of greatest interest to me — the page from the Novogrodok book with entries for Isaac Elchanan Spektor and his successor Baruch Mordecai Lifshitz. (I don't know the relation, if any, between that Rabbi Lifshitz and Spektor's later secretary and biographer Jacob Halevi Lifshitz.) Anyway, the Spektor entry on that page also mentions Zvi Hirsch Rabinowitz. Zvi was born the year Spektor took up the rabbinical post in Novogrodok.
Perhaps we can find a way to get this one page translated as a way to get the ball rolling on the whole set.
In addition to the Einseidler collection, there is another important Hebrew document in our collection, Shmuel Elchanan's compilation of his family information that he sent to Morris Spektor in 1996. While I am unable to decipher most of it, it appears that it is the source of all of the detail information for the descendants of Benyamin Spektor that is in Morris' Spektor descendant chart. Surely I will want to get a full translation, but for now I will assume that the key information in it has been reflected in that chart.
Actually, as a further reality check, I have an annotated version of the Morris descendant chart that was marked up by Shmuel Elchanan. This mainly corrects spellings in the English translation of names and places that Morris must have rendered from the original Hebrew.
Since there is a lot to write about the Einseidler papers, I will continue in the next post.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Big surprise: Joseph Rabinowitz had a brother
Morris Spector and I spoke on the phone again today after he had sent me another important document — six pages of information about the SPEKTOR/RABINOWITZ/ELCHANAN family faxed from Shmuel Elchanan to Morris Spector in 1996. It is in Hebrew, mostly typed but some hand written, so it gets added to the stack of papers that need Hebrew translation — the top of the stack since Shmuel's family knowledge is more complete and reliable than anyone's.
Morris is excited because news of our Rabinowitz family has revived a research project that he thought he had taken as far as he could a decade ago. What he didn't understand at the time was the importance of some of the Spektor descendants using the Rabinowitz name. Even savvy David Einseidler doesn't know what to make of it when he writes "Again that name!" after noting Zvi Hirsch and Joseph are both named Rabinowitz instead of Spektor. (I have not yet introduced the Einseidler research, but this is one of the few places the LA genealogy researcher misses the mark. I'll have more on this in the near future.
We don't really have an explanation for why some Spektor children and grandchildren became Rabinoviches. Walter says that Shmuel told him it was an accident of the census — that a census taker wrote Rabinovich when told that the children playing outside were sons of the rabbi. By the way Zvi Hirsch and Joseph are close to the same age, even though they are a generation apart, so they might likely be the sons playing outside. I am going to check and see what census was being taken in Grodno guberniya in the late 1850s.
Anyway, in our conversation you could almost hear the wheels turning in Morris' head as he tried to place several pieces of dimly remembered Rabinowitz information that he has encountered over recent years. One is that he thinks he was contacted by another Rabinowitz other than us with questions about a connection to Rabbi Spektor. Since he didn't know of Joseph's family at the time, he didn't give the claim credence, but now it is likely that the other Rabinowitz would be family of ours. If this is a descendant of one of Walter Ruby's siblings, then we'll have found a new American second cousin. If it is an Israeli Rabinowitz, then we'll have another third or fourth cousin to visit on an upcoming trip.
That assumes that Morris is right and he did receive such a message, and also that he is able to find it. He said he would look for it.
The other Rabinowitz thing bothering Morris was something about Tel Aviv cemetery records. I didn't pay too much attention to that when he mentioned it, but a short while later, he followed up with an email containing a most startling revelation. He found a 1929 burial record for Eliyahu Isser Rabinovich, who was born in Kovno in 1859. His father was Rav Chaim Aryeh.
In the comments field of the record is written: "From the family of Rabbi Elchanan Spector of Kovno and Rabbi Yosef of Slutzk. Merchant. Came to Israel in 1923." Here is the link to the relevant page in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry.
So here we have the first indication that Joseph Rabinowitz had a younger brother. There is only one Rav Chaim Aryeh married to the daughter of the Rabbi of Slutsk, so now it could be that there would have been three Rabinowitz boys playing in the yard.
Now it may well be that Eliyahu's existence is covered in Shmuel Elchanan's Hebrew document. I hope so. He has already told us about another sibling Bluma Rabinowitz who was a school teacher in Kovno. That he did not also tell Walter about Eliyahu may suggest that he does not know about him.
Eliyahu's burial record doesn't mention anything about a wife or children. Hopefully with more searching we will be able to learn more about his life and even turn up living descendants, another possible batch of Israeli third cousins.
Much to digest here, but one thing I am thinking is that of all the Spektors and Rabinowitzes who left Kovno before the Holocaust, almost all went to Israel. Only Joseph Rabinowitz that we know of came to America. We would like to learn how and why it was decided by Joseph and his grandfather Isaac Elchanan that he and wife Lena should set sail in 1875 for a new life in New York.
Morris is excited because news of our Rabinowitz family has revived a research project that he thought he had taken as far as he could a decade ago. What he didn't understand at the time was the importance of some of the Spektor descendants using the Rabinowitz name. Even savvy David Einseidler doesn't know what to make of it when he writes "Again that name!" after noting Zvi Hirsch and Joseph are both named Rabinowitz instead of Spektor. (I have not yet introduced the Einseidler research, but this is one of the few places the LA genealogy researcher misses the mark. I'll have more on this in the near future.
We don't really have an explanation for why some Spektor children and grandchildren became Rabinoviches. Walter says that Shmuel told him it was an accident of the census — that a census taker wrote Rabinovich when told that the children playing outside were sons of the rabbi. By the way Zvi Hirsch and Joseph are close to the same age, even though they are a generation apart, so they might likely be the sons playing outside. I am going to check and see what census was being taken in Grodno guberniya in the late 1850s.
Anyway, in our conversation you could almost hear the wheels turning in Morris' head as he tried to place several pieces of dimly remembered Rabinowitz information that he has encountered over recent years. One is that he thinks he was contacted by another Rabinowitz other than us with questions about a connection to Rabbi Spektor. Since he didn't know of Joseph's family at the time, he didn't give the claim credence, but now it is likely that the other Rabinowitz would be family of ours. If this is a descendant of one of Walter Ruby's siblings, then we'll have found a new American second cousin. If it is an Israeli Rabinowitz, then we'll have another third or fourth cousin to visit on an upcoming trip.
That assumes that Morris is right and he did receive such a message, and also that he is able to find it. He said he would look for it.
The other Rabinowitz thing bothering Morris was something about Tel Aviv cemetery records. I didn't pay too much attention to that when he mentioned it, but a short while later, he followed up with an email containing a most startling revelation. He found a 1929 burial record for Eliyahu Isser Rabinovich, who was born in Kovno in 1859. His father was Rav Chaim Aryeh.
In the comments field of the record is written: "From the family of Rabbi Elchanan Spector of Kovno and Rabbi Yosef of Slutzk. Merchant. Came to Israel in 1923." Here is the link to the relevant page in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry.
So here we have the first indication that Joseph Rabinowitz had a younger brother. There is only one Rav Chaim Aryeh married to the daughter of the Rabbi of Slutsk, so now it could be that there would have been three Rabinowitz boys playing in the yard.
Now it may well be that Eliyahu's existence is covered in Shmuel Elchanan's Hebrew document. I hope so. He has already told us about another sibling Bluma Rabinowitz who was a school teacher in Kovno. That he did not also tell Walter about Eliyahu may suggest that he does not know about him.
Eliyahu's burial record doesn't mention anything about a wife or children. Hopefully with more searching we will be able to learn more about his life and even turn up living descendants, another possible batch of Israeli third cousins.
Much to digest here, but one thing I am thinking is that of all the Spektors and Rabinowitzes who left Kovno before the Holocaust, almost all went to Israel. Only Joseph Rabinowitz that we know of came to America. We would like to learn how and why it was decided by Joseph and his grandfather Isaac Elchanan that he and wife Lena should set sail in 1875 for a new life in New York.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Feigla birth record deciphered
It was a big day today. I will save the most exciting news for the next post. First I want to report on a further exchange I had with Dan Hirschberg, the Krakow historian whose work led us to a trove of information about the family of our great grandmother Feigla Kaufler.
After Achikam Finkel used Geni recently to update information on the family of our mother's first cousin Zeev Sharon, I thought I should pass that information along to Hirschberg. He tracks all the descendants of Krakow Jewish families until 1945. So I wrote to him with the information that Feigla's daughter Rose Ringle's husband was named David Shatner. Also, that the surname of Rose's son Ze'ev's wife Penina was Dorfman.
Dan wastes no time. Within minutes, he replied that his Kaufler family page has been updated with the new information.
So then I took a chance and asked him in another email if he would take a look at Feigla birth record and tell me the types of information it would contain. This time his reply took a couple of hours to come back, but with more help than I had expected. He gave me the following translation from the Polish of the important information contained in the record. Here it is:
So this gives us several new things — an occupation and exact address of her father, a time of day for Feigla's birth, age confirmations for her father and mother, and alternate name spellings for Feigla and her mother. Nothing very surprising but nice to know. Thanks again to Dan Hirschberg.
After Achikam Finkel used Geni recently to update information on the family of our mother's first cousin Zeev Sharon, I thought I should pass that information along to Hirschberg. He tracks all the descendants of Krakow Jewish families until 1945. So I wrote to him with the information that Feigla's daughter Rose Ringle's husband was named David Shatner. Also, that the surname of Rose's son Ze'ev's wife Penina was Dorfman.
Dan wastes no time. Within minutes, he replied that his Kaufler family page has been updated with the new information.
So then I took a chance and asked him in another email if he would take a look at Feigla birth record and tell me the types of information it would contain. This time his reply took a couple of hours to come back, but with more help than I had expected. He gave me the following translation from the Polish of the important information contained in the record. Here it is:
The date of the document: Apr 23, 1854
Reporting witness (also is the father): Abraham Mojzesz KAUFLER, age 25
is a dayworker or laborer,
residing in district 9, house number 189
Birth of daughter at: Mar 29, 1854 (3:00 am?/pm?)
Mother: Hai Ester GRUNBERG, age 24
Name of daughter: Faigla
So this gives us several new things — an occupation and exact address of her father, a time of day for Feigla's birth, age confirmations for her father and mother, and alternate name spellings for Feigla and her mother. Nothing very surprising but nice to know. Thanks again to Dan Hirschberg.
Playing catchup with the Spektor files
Thanks to Morris Spector and also to Jeff Spector of Colorado Springs, I now have my hands on the famous first chapter of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Spektor — Life and Letters by Rabbi Dr. Ephraim Shimoff published in 1959 by Yeshiva University.
Also in hand are a dozen pages of hand-written research results prepared in 1990 by David Einsiedler of Los Angeles, who was engaged by Morris Spector to research the family of Isaac Elchanan Spektor. There are also various Hebrew source documents that Einsiedler provides, which will further document the Israeli descendants of R. Spektor's brother Jacov David Spektor.
These documents are rich with new information — or I should say information that is new to me and my attempts to synthesize all available sources to document the immediate family members and descendants of R. Spektor. On first read, I see several brand new pieces of information and several other things that will help us interpret facts we already know.
To do that will require line-by-line reading of the new materials that is likely to take me a few days to accomplish. The Hebrew translations will take longer (any volunteers?).
Until I report back on my analysis of the new papers, here is a glimpse at a section of page 24 from Shimoff in which he mentions our great grandfather Joseph Rabinowitz.
Also in hand are a dozen pages of hand-written research results prepared in 1990 by David Einsiedler of Los Angeles, who was engaged by Morris Spector to research the family of Isaac Elchanan Spektor. There are also various Hebrew source documents that Einsiedler provides, which will further document the Israeli descendants of R. Spektor's brother Jacov David Spektor.
These documents are rich with new information — or I should say information that is new to me and my attempts to synthesize all available sources to document the immediate family members and descendants of R. Spektor. On first read, I see several brand new pieces of information and several other things that will help us interpret facts we already know.
To do that will require line-by-line reading of the new materials that is likely to take me a few days to accomplish. The Hebrew translations will take longer (any volunteers?).
Until I report back on my analysis of the new papers, here is a glimpse at a section of page 24 from Shimoff in which he mentions our great grandfather Joseph Rabinowitz.
Moshe Spector's barbershop
Our new friend Morris Spector from Hamden CT has quite a range of talents — professionally he is a graphic designer, he is an accomplished genealogist (read his account of his roots journey in Poland), and he has a devilish sense of humor.
Here he combines those skills by giving Isaac Elchanan Spektor a Photoshopped haircut and beard trim, and then dispensing a Spektor-like Halachic responsa on the question of whether Photoshopping of facial hair is permissible under Jewish law.
The bottom line: "Since Moshe Spector didn't use a razor it is definitely permitted."
COMICUS RESPONSUM AD NAUSEUM
by Moshe DeFoliant Spector
She'elot u-Teshuvot
Here is my response to the Photoshop trimming dilemna. Actually, I was removing the beard to see what he looked like sans beard. However, the neat look made him look younger so I stopped with the airbrush. But . . .
Here is my opinion.
My understanding is the prohibition against shaving was something to do with the Egyptians who practiced the clean Savalas image. Also, another reason was you wouldn't risk cutting yourself. To overcome this, there are some of the orthodox community who use some type of powder to defoliate the punim.
Here is the "official" opinion.
"Ye shall not round the comers of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the comers of thy beard" (Leviticus 19:27) is understood by the talmudic rabbis not to mean that it is wrong for a man to be cleanshaven, but only that facial hair must not be removed with a razor. The standard code of Jewish law, the [16th-century work by Rabbi Yosef Karo,] Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh De'ah, 181:10) rules that it is permitted to remove all facial hair with scissors even when this is done as closely as if with a razor. On the basis of this, many Orthodox Jews shave with an electric razor on the grounds that technically this machine, with its two blades, is not to be treated as a razor.
The reason for the prohibition of shaving is not stated in the Bible, but [the 11th-century Spanish/North African sage] Maimonides understands it as a protest against idolatry, conjecturing that the heathen priests shaved their beards. Others have seen it as a means of distinguishing between males and females. Neither of these reasons would explain why the distinction is made between shaving with a razor and by other means, but this distinction still holds as a matter of law, although some later authorities do invoke both reasons not as a matter of law but of piety.
Consequently, it has been the practice among many Jews to wear a beard and sidelocks (pe'ot). The Talmud describes the beard as an "adornment of the face" and implies that a beardless man cannot be said to be handsome.
In the kabbalah [mysticism], the beard is said to represent on earth the "beard of the Holy Ancient One" on high, that is, the stage in the unfolding of the sefirot [divine emanations] at which the divine grace, symbolized by the strands of the beard, begins to flow throughout all creation. In kabbalistic circles the beard becomes a sacred object and some kabbalists would not even remove a single hair from their beard. The statement that, according to the kabbalah, there is no need to wear a beard outside the Holy Land, is unwarranted. Hasidism follows the kabbalah and all Hasidim wear long beards and sidelocks.
Most westernized Jews do not wear beards, including many Orthodox rabbis, who shave with an electric razor but sometimes sport a small goatee beard as a bow in the direction of the tradition. Yet it can be observed that the wearing of a full beard is coming increasingly into fashion among the Orthodox. Reform Jews do not consider the prohibition on shaving with a razor still to be binding.
So all that stuff is what Rabbi's argue about. However, I'm certain if I were to ask R. YES for a ruling, he would say: "After careful consideration and a lot of beard stroking here is my ruling."
"So Photoshop or Barbershop. That is the question. Since Moshe Spector didn't use a razor it is definitely permitted. That's my carved in stone haluchic ruling. Furthermore, I order you to lay this meshugas to rest and keep your eye on the ball. The suspense in unbearable. Anyone for DNA?"
Here he combines those skills by giving Isaac Elchanan Spektor a Photoshopped haircut and beard trim, and then dispensing a Spektor-like Halachic responsa on the question of whether Photoshopping of facial hair is permissible under Jewish law.
The bottom line: "Since Moshe Spector didn't use a razor it is definitely permitted."
COMICUS RESPONSUM AD NAUSEUM
by Moshe DeFoliant Spector
She'elot u-Teshuvot
Here is my response to the Photoshop trimming dilemna. Actually, I was removing the beard to see what he looked like sans beard. However, the neat look made him look younger so I stopped with the airbrush. But . . .
Here is my opinion.
My understanding is the prohibition against shaving was something to do with the Egyptians who practiced the clean Savalas image. Also, another reason was you wouldn't risk cutting yourself. To overcome this, there are some of the orthodox community who use some type of powder to defoliate the punim.
Here is the "official" opinion.
"Ye shall not round the comers of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the comers of thy beard" (Leviticus 19:27) is understood by the talmudic rabbis not to mean that it is wrong for a man to be cleanshaven, but only that facial hair must not be removed with a razor. The standard code of Jewish law, the [16th-century work by Rabbi Yosef Karo,] Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh De'ah, 181:10) rules that it is permitted to remove all facial hair with scissors even when this is done as closely as if with a razor. On the basis of this, many Orthodox Jews shave with an electric razor on the grounds that technically this machine, with its two blades, is not to be treated as a razor.
The reason for the prohibition of shaving is not stated in the Bible, but [the 11th-century Spanish/North African sage] Maimonides understands it as a protest against idolatry, conjecturing that the heathen priests shaved their beards. Others have seen it as a means of distinguishing between males and females. Neither of these reasons would explain why the distinction is made between shaving with a razor and by other means, but this distinction still holds as a matter of law, although some later authorities do invoke both reasons not as a matter of law but of piety.
Consequently, it has been the practice among many Jews to wear a beard and sidelocks (pe'ot). The Talmud describes the beard as an "adornment of the face" and implies that a beardless man cannot be said to be handsome.
In the kabbalah [mysticism], the beard is said to represent on earth the "beard of the Holy Ancient One" on high, that is, the stage in the unfolding of the sefirot [divine emanations] at which the divine grace, symbolized by the strands of the beard, begins to flow throughout all creation. In kabbalistic circles the beard becomes a sacred object and some kabbalists would not even remove a single hair from their beard. The statement that, according to the kabbalah, there is no need to wear a beard outside the Holy Land, is unwarranted. Hasidism follows the kabbalah and all Hasidim wear long beards and sidelocks.
Most westernized Jews do not wear beards, including many Orthodox rabbis, who shave with an electric razor but sometimes sport a small goatee beard as a bow in the direction of the tradition. Yet it can be observed that the wearing of a full beard is coming increasingly into fashion among the Orthodox. Reform Jews do not consider the prohibition on shaving with a razor still to be binding.
So all that stuff is what Rabbi's argue about. However, I'm certain if I were to ask R. YES for a ruling, he would say: "After careful consideration and a lot of beard stroking here is my ruling."
"So Photoshop or Barbershop. That is the question. Since Moshe Spector didn't use a razor it is definitely permitted. That's my carved in stone haluchic ruling. Furthermore, I order you to lay this meshugas to rest and keep your eye on the ball. The suspense in unbearable. Anyone for DNA?"
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Ahikam Finkel expands our tree
Woo hoo for second cousin Ahikam Finkel, who accepted Joanne's invitation to our family tree on Geni and has input family information for our Sharon relatives in Israel. This fills in some important details on our Ringel side and adds wonderful new details about our Israeli cousins.
Rosa Ringel's husband, the father of Ze'ev Sharon, was David Shatner, also the brother-in-law of our grandparents Hermann and Elly. That name might help me in future research about our family in Berlin.
We also get previously unknown details about Ze'ev's wife Penina. She was born Penina Dorfman Feb. 15, 1919 in Poland. Her parents were Izik Dorfman and Sara Bahat.
Ahikam is the son of Raya Finkel, the daughter of Ze'ev and Penina. He is 33 years old, married to Gali and has a daughter Neta.
To view our tree on Geni, contact me for an invitation to join our family group.
Rosa Ringel's husband, the father of Ze'ev Sharon, was David Shatner, also the brother-in-law of our grandparents Hermann and Elly. That name might help me in future research about our family in Berlin.
We also get previously unknown details about Ze'ev's wife Penina. She was born Penina Dorfman Feb. 15, 1919 in Poland. Her parents were Izik Dorfman and Sara Bahat.
Ahikam is the son of Raya Finkel, the daughter of Ze'ev and Penina. He is 33 years old, married to Gali and has a daughter Neta.
To view our tree on Geni, contact me for an invitation to join our family group.
New Spektor family information
These images are courtesy of Morris Spector, who I found through an old post on the JewishGen discussion board. They are a rare photo of Rabbi Spektor and an image of his and his son Zvi Hirsch Rabinowitz's gravestones in Kaunas.
Morris also sent his extensively researched family tree for the Spektor family, reproduced below. Notice that our great grandfather Joseph Rabinowitz is listed but without any descendant information.
I am in the process of going through his information to see what can be added to our tree. I will also be sending Morris (and also Jeffrey Spector, another Spector historian he knows of) our full data about Joseph's family.
Descendants of Elchonan Spektor
1 Elchonan Spektor b: Abt. 1761
.. +Rachel
....... 2 Israel Isser Spektor b: Abt. 1789
........... +Rachel b: Abt. 1789
................ 3 Yitzhak Elchonan Spektor b: 1817 in Rossi (Rus), Grodno Gub., Russia d: 06 Mar 1896 in Kovno, Poland
.................... +Sarah Reisel Yezerszki d: 1882
.......................... 4 Rachel Spektor b: in Isabelin, Poland d: 09 Jul 1876
.............................. +Zvi Hersz (Chiam) Sultzovsky
................................... 5 Zlota Sultzovsky
.......................... 4 Zvi Hersz (Rabinowicz) Spektor b: in Nishvez, Poland d: 1910
.............................. +Hena Saltz d: Abt. 1893
.......................... *2nd Wife of Zvi Hersz (Rabinowicz) Spektor:
.............................. +Hannah Rottner b: in Grodno, Poland
.......................... 4 Chiam Aryeh Spektor b: 1831 in Isabelin, Poland d: 02 May 1874 in Kovno, Poland
.............................. +Unknown b: in Slutsk
................................... 5 Joseph (Rabinowicz) Spektor
.......................... 4 Benjamin Spektor b: 1852 in Nowogrodek, Russia d: 1896
.............................. +Devorah Baer d: 1929 in Kovno, Poland
................................... 5 Meshulem Fishel Spektor d: 1940 in Kovno
................................... 5 Yisroel Isser Spektor Rabinowicz d: 1933 in Kovno, Poland
....................................... +Fruma Frankel b: in Verbalis, Lithuania d: 1944 in Stutthof Concentration Camp, Gdansk, Danzig
............................................. 6 Yitzhak Elchonan b: Jan 1900 in Kovno, Poland d: 1992 in Tel Aviv, Israel
................................................. +Shulamit Rozenbloom b: 1901 d: Mar 1996 in Haifa, Israel
...................................................... 7 Amos Elchonan b: 02 Jul 1925 in Berlin, Germany
.......................................................... +Sarah Davdobni
...................................................... 7 Benjamin Elchonan b: 30 Aug 1926 in Berlin, Germany d: 18 Jul 1948 in Bet Afa, Israel
...................................................... 7 Shmuel Elchonan b: 12 Feb 1930 in Kovno, Poland
.......................................................... +Tzeporah Gromet
................................................................ 8 Benjamin Elchonan b: 12 May 1958
................................................................ 8 Ofra Elechonan b: 25 Jan 1961 in Rechovat, Israel
............................................. 6 Shlomo b: 1901 in Kovno, Poland d: 1992 in Israel
................................................. +Lena Rappaport b: Abt. 1902 in Kovno, Poland d: Abt. 1989 in Israel
...................................................... 7 Gabriel Isser Elchonan b: Abt. 1940
.......................................................... +Marina Stolbova b: Abt. 1942 in Moscow, Russia
................................................................ 8 Maxim b: Abt. 1977
.................................................................... +Irina
...................................................... *2nd Wife of Gabriel Isser Elchonan:
.......................................................... +Polina Lubetsky b: Abt. 1945 in Vilnus, Lithuania
................................................................ 8 Anat Isser Elchonan b: Abt. 1977 in Jerusalem, Israel
................................................................ 8 Yael Elchonan b: Abt. 1980 in Jerusalem, Israel
............................................. 6 Miriam (Mira) b: 1904 d: 1943 in Stutthof Concentration Camp, Gdansk, Danzig
...................................................... 7 Israel Isser b: 1933 d: 1943 in Kovno
............................................. 6 Bella b: 1909 d: 1941 in Stutthof Concentration Camp, Gdansk, Danzig
................................................. +Selig Volvisky d: 1941 in Kovno, Poland (killed by partisans)
...................................................... 7 Daniel Volvisky d: 1941 in Staathof Concentration Camp, Germany
................................... 5 Yetyl Spektor d: in Kharkov, Russia
....................................... +Yacov Kahanov b: in Lubny, Ukraine
................................... 5 Blooma Spektor d: in Tel Aviv, Israel
....................................... +Louie Solomonson b: in Riga, Latvia
................................... 5 Moshe Spektor
....................................... +??Perling
................................... 5 Eliash David Spektor
................................... 5 Gershon Spektor
....................................... +Ita Fridlander
............................................. 6 Henritte Spektor
................................................. +Yacov Kahanov
................ *2nd Wife of Yitzhak Elchonan Spektor:
.................... +Hannah Meizlsz
................ 3 Moshe Joseph Spektor b: Abt. 1814
.......................... 4 Aryeh Spektor
.......................... 4 Meir Spektor
.............................. +Esther
................................... 5 Jacob Spektor
................................... 5 Emanuel Spektor
................................... 5 Rachel Spektor
.......................... 4 Shifra Spektor
.............................. +Aryeh Spektor
................................... 5 Chiam Shmuel Spektor
................................... 5 Simcha Spektor
................ 3 Abraham Aaron Spektor b: Abt. 1816
................ 3 Jacob David Spektor b: 1827
.................... +Sheindel Klein b: 1858
.......................... 4 Abraham Aaron Spektor
................................... 5 Jacob David Spektor b: 1904
................................... 5 Shoshona Spektor
....................................... +Sholom Yoval
................................... 5 Rachel Spektor b: 1886
....................................... +Israel Kahn
................................... 5 Tzpora Spektor
....................................... +Yacov Mendelson
................................... 5 Leah
....................................... +Munie Meridor
Friday, July 04, 2008
Meet Rezekne expert Dave Howard
In my researches into the Tulbowitz family, I came across the well-documented work by Dave Howard, a descendant of the Gurwitz family of Rezekne who has done a great deal to discover and publish information on our ancestral town. The photo shows Dave on one of the residential streets in the old Jewish part of Rezekne.
We've been in touch several times in the last few weeks, with the result that he plans to include our Tulbowitz information in the JewishGen ShtetLink for Rezekne that he is currently compiling. Until that is ready, here is Dave's Rezekne page on his FamRoots.org site. Much of what we will see when we visit Latvia next year is already available for view on these pages. Thanks, Dave.
First LDS document arrives
I'm very far behind in blogging. A lot has happened that I will try to fill in while I begin to catch up. One angle is that I have begun to order facsimile documents of existing vital records where available. The first of these has arrived: It is the Polish language document from 1854 that records the birth in Krakow of Feigla Kaufler, the mother of our grandfather Hermann Ringel.
I'll do my best to display the document in the confines of this blog. Here is a view of an entire ledger page that includes three birth records. Feigla's is the second entry, number 188.
Most of the text is indecipherable (to me, and so far), but this close up highlights some of the interesting parts.
Here are the four detail sections. The first is the name of Feigla's father Abraham Mojzesa Kaugler. Then her mother's maiden name, Chaya Esther Grunberg. Then her given name, Feigla.
Finally, I have included the Hebrew transcription that appears at the bottom of the record, beneath the official signature. Any of our Hebrew speakers want to take a crack at translating that?
Our next step is to get a full translation and I have begun to investigate Polish document translation services. I plan to send in a scan and ask for an estimate. I hope it is not too much because it is very likely that I'll soon have similar birth records for all of Feigla's siblings and other family members. These are all on order from the LDS research center in Salt Lake City, and should be available to me soon at the Oakland branch.
I'll do my best to display the document in the confines of this blog. Here is a view of an entire ledger page that includes three birth records. Feigla's is the second entry, number 188.
Most of the text is indecipherable (to me, and so far), but this close up highlights some of the interesting parts.
Here are the four detail sections. The first is the name of Feigla's father Abraham Mojzesa Kaugler. Then her mother's maiden name, Chaya Esther Grunberg. Then her given name, Feigla.
Finally, I have included the Hebrew transcription that appears at the bottom of the record, beneath the official signature. Any of our Hebrew speakers want to take a crack at translating that?
Our next step is to get a full translation and I have begun to investigate Polish document translation services. I plan to send in a scan and ask for an estimate. I hope it is not too much because it is very likely that I'll soon have similar birth records for all of Feigla's siblings and other family members. These are all on order from the LDS research center in Salt Lake City, and should be available to me soon at the Oakland branch.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Abraham Ratner & Sons in Albany business directory
Walt, you should get a kick out of this because of the other entries under Bottlers—Carbonated Beverages, including Albany Coco-Cola Bottling Works and Orange Crush Bottling Co. This is interesting in light of the family story that Abe turned down the opportunity to become a Coca Cola franchise.
Rabinovich surname
Here's an excerpt from Beilen on the surname Rabinovich, which he treats as a special case of rabbinical surname. If you can't make it out in the image, go here for a full size version.
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.
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.
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