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Contents

From the Pen of the Editor, Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

President’s Message, Winter 2010, Michael Goldstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Big Expectations; the Lyon’s Foreigners’ Files collection, Manuela Wyler . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Frankel Family 28: Family Research and Family Gathering, Liora Cohen . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

The Mystery of the Second Joseph Chelouche, Evyatar Chelouche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

‘‘A Laurel upon his Grave’’: A Short Description of the Life and Works of

Chacham Isack Aboab da Fonseca, Lydia Hagoort and Ben Noach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

Missing Persons Bureau: Searching for Relatives in Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii

News from Israeli Archives, Museums and Libraries

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People, Hadassah Assouline . . . . xxiv

The Meir Padoa Collection of Jewish Family Trees from Italy, Horia Haim Ghiuzeli . . xxvi

First Book of Circumcisions in Tel Aviv Rambam Library, Beit Ariella, Avishai Elbaum . . . . xxix

Reports

Report on The Israel Genealogical Society; Fifth Annual Seminar, Hagit Matras . . xxxi

International Conference on Digitization of Cultural Heritage, Rosemary Eshel . . . xxxiii

Announcements

Dictionary of Jewish Bulgarian Surnames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxiii

From the Director of the Oded Yarkoni, Archives for the History of Petach Tikva xxxiv

MyHeritage.com – Beit Hatfusot Family Tree Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxiv

Ask the Experts

Banai Lynne Feldstein: Mormon Microfilms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxv

Book Review

Sephardic Genealogy; Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their Worlds,

Second Edition by Jeffrey S. Malka, Mathilde A. Tagger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxvi

Abstracts of Articles from Foreign Journals

Meriam Haringman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxviiiEsther Ramon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxix

Mathilde A. Tagger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xl

March 2010 - Adar 5770 Vol. 24, No. 1

The Israel Genealogical SocietyP.O.Box 4270 Jerusalem 91041

E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.isragen.org.il

The Israel Genealogical Society is a non-profit organization founded in 1983

Registration No. 58-010-240-8

Michael Goldstein – President [[email protected]], Dr. Lea Gedalia – Secretary[[email protected]], Chana Furman – Treasurer, Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen – Editor of SharsheretHadorot [[email protected]], Rose Feldman – Webmaster [[email protected]]

BRANCHES & SIGS (SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS)

The The Israel Genealogical Society is a non-profit organization with branches in Jerusalem,Tel Aviv, Netanya, the Negev, Haifa and Kiryat Tivon.

Haifa & Northern Israel Branch: Meetings every third Thursday of the month at 19:15, Beit Horim‘‘Pisgat Ahuza’’, 6 Sinai St. Haifa. Buses: all lines to Ahuza.Hanna Steinblatt [[email protected]]

Jerusalem Branch: Meetings every third Wednesday of the month at 19:30, Beit Frankfurter, DerechBeit Lechem 80 (ask for the bus stop near Yehuda St.) Buses: 7 (from Central Bus Station), 30, 74Garri Regev – President [[email protected]], Barbara Siegal – English Section Coordinator[[email protected]]

Negev Branch:Meetings every first Monday of the month at 20:00, Kehilat Magen Avraham, Ad-Adcorner Marganit St., OmerDr. Martha Lev-Zion – President [[email protected]], Shirley D. Rosen – Secretary

Netanya Branch: Meetings every third Monday of the month at 20:00, AACI, 28 Shmuel Hanatziv St.NetanyaGideon Levitas – President [[email protected]], Joe Gilad – Treasurer

‘‘Shorashim Bagalil’’ Kiryat Tivon Branch: Meetings every fourth Sunday of the month at 20:00,Merkaz Hantzacha, Hamigdal St., Kiryat TivonShaul Hollander – President [[email protected]], Yael Hollander – Secretary,Shulamit Etzion – Treasurer

Tel Aviv Branch: Meetings every second Sunday of the month at 19:00 starting March 2009,Beit Hatanach, 16 Rothschild Blvd. Tel AvivBillie Stein – President [[email protected]], Eyal Hollander – Secretary, Israel Vizen – Treasurer

COMPTROLLR’S COMMITTEE

Avraham Sfadia, Roy Cotton

SIGS (SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS) AND THEIR COORDINATORS

Germany and Austria – Esther Ramon [[email protected]], Hungary – Menashe Davidovicz,[[email protected]]Latvia – Dr. Martha Lev-Zion [[email protected]], Lithuania – Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen

[[email protected]], Sephardim of the Mediterranean Basin – Mathilde Tagger

[[email protected]]

Sharsheret Hadorot JournalFounder Editor: Esther Ramon Editor: Dr. Rose Lerer CohenEditorial Board: Sidney Corcos, Merriam Haringman, Dr. Martha Lev-Zion, Uri Nissel,Rabbi Hank Skirball, Dr. Israel Zak, Dr. Hagit Mattras

Submission for Publication: We welcome submission on all aspects of Jewish genealogy. All articlesshould be submitted by e-mail using Word format. Please include all visual material: photographs,maps and illustrations, e-mail address and brief biography (100 words).Submissions: Via email attachment to: [email protected] or [email protected] or by CDby regular mail POB 4270, Jerusalem, 91041The Editorial Board reserves the right to translate from English to Hebrew and vice versa and tomake any editorial changes deemed necessary.The Editorial Board assumes no responsibility for factual errors in the articles published.Annual Membership: Israel 220 shekels, Overseas: US $45. Payment by checks in Shekels or USDollars to: The Israel Genealogical Society, POB 4270 Jerusalem 91041. Membership includesentrance to all branch meetings, and SIGS, subscription to Sharsheret Hadorot Journal and libraryloan privileges.Queries: Please enclose an international postal coupon for replies.

# Copyright: The Israel Genealogical Society, All rights reserved, 2010. ISSN: 0792-5751

From the Pen of the Editor

Dr. Rose Lerer Cohen

The articles in this edition of Sharsheret Hadorot cover a wide range of topics. Manuela Wyler,

in her article, introduces the reader to the Lyon Foreigner’s File Collection. Liora Cohen and

Evyatar Chelouche, share their family research with us. Lydia Hagoort and Ben Noach

enlighten us with the biography and works of the Chacham Isak Aboab.

The regular features of Sharsheret Hadorot include Ask the Experts, where we learn about the

Mormon Microfilms from Banai Lynne Feldstein; a book review and abstracts from foreign

journals. I sincerely hope that The Sharsheret Hadorot Missing Persons is assisting readers in

reuniting families.

News from Israeli Archives has been extended to Museums and Libraries. In this edition we

have an opportunity gain insight into the holdings of The Central Archive of the History of the

Jewish People, and learn about The Meir Padoa Collection at Beit Hatfutsot and the exhibition

of the first Book of Circumcisions in Tel Aviv at the Beit Ariela Library.

There are reports of the fifth Israel Genealogical Society annual seminar and the International

Conference on Digitization of Cultural Heritage. The announcements introduce us to the

dynamic world of genealogy.

A special thank you to Meriam Haringman for translating and Batya Guttman for volunteering

to proof read parts of journal.

As editor, I would like to apologize for the incorrect translation in Hebrew of the words:

‘‘National Socialism’’, in the last edition of Sharsheret Hadorot.

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President’s Message, Winter 2010

Michael Goldstein

I am delighted to once again greet ourmembers and Sharsheret Hadorot readers.We ended 2009 on a very high note with the5th annual one-day seminar on ‘‘PreservingMemory: Family and Community.’’ ThisYom Iyun took place at the expanded andrenovated Bet Hatfusoth where participantsenjoyed an excellent program. The seminarwas co-sponsored by JFRA (Jewish FamilyResearch Association), in cooperation withBet Hatfusoth.

2010 sees the milestone merging of the IGSand JFRA, bringing Israel’s two majorgenealogy societies together to fortify thiscountry’s organized genealogy realm. Withthis merger, we now have nine branches, but

more important, a strong cadre of membersand volunteers which will enable us to bolsterour achievements.

While our immediate focus is on this year’slectures, fieldtrips, seminars and otheractivities, our sights are upon the future aswell. The IGS will be hosting the 2014International Association of Jewish Genea-logical Society Conference. Since 1984, IGShas hosted the conference every 10 years,with the 2004 conference drawing nearly 800Israeli and overseas participants. Though thenext conference is four years away, the workof organizing has begun, and we shall beturning to our members to volunteer theirefforts to ensure our success.

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IGS Website and Databases Updates

The IGS website continues to grow and the special goodies in our Members’

Corner increase. We have begun uploading the presentations from the 2009

annual national seminar and continue to add newsletters from genealogical

societies around the world as we receive them.

Our new calendar of events allows you to see all lectures being given in each of

our branches and any special genealogical events that are brought to our

attention.

The databases of the 1839 and 1855 Montefiore censuses have been sent to the

Montefiore Endowment in London, and they are working on the search engine

for these databases, which will be open to the public on their website. Work has

begun on the 1849 census.

The database of ‘‘Memorials for Vanished Communities’’ continues to grow as

our members send us photographs of street signs, plaques in forests and

synagogues. The database of the Todros Warshawski’s Ledgers (Sefer

Hamokhtar Warshavski) for pre-mandate Jerusalem is near completion. The

use of family names among the Ashkenazi families is more common in this

database thus making it much easier to find your relatives. People interested in

volunteering are requested to contact Billie Stein: [email protected] for the

Montefiore Censuses and Rose Feldman: [email protected] for other projects.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1ii

Big Expectations; the Lyon’s Foreigners’ Files collection

Manuela Wyler

What would be the researcher’s dream? Tofind a new source, a ‘‘virgin’’ territory froman archival point of view? How would youfeel should you happen to have that chance?For me it was like snow in July or the firstwhale in the Saint Laurent River, or as mydaughter would suggest, eating matzeknep-flich before the Seder, the perfect dream.

Whenever I scout for new sources of archivesrelated to Jewish refugees in Europe, andvisit a repository for the first time, whilewaiting for the first boxes of material toarrive, I begin by looking (some could sayspying since as it is not always welcomed) atwhat kind of contents other readers areresearching and sometimes I find series thatare not mentioned in the inventories – andthis is how it all started.

In Lyon’s Departmental archives there was aresearcher who had a pile of individual dustyrecords with foreign surnames in front of her.After a short friendly talk, she showed me thecontents of this collection. They wereindividual files from the foreigners’ policesection of the prefecture du Rhone.1 Theresearcher was working on her PhD. on Polesin Lyon.2 I asked her if she had any idea onthe proportion of Jews there might be in thecollection and how big a collection it was.The answer was more than 1000 boxes (about50 to 60 records per box, which represents anaverage of 1250 pages per box) but she hadno idea of the ratio of Jewish people whosefate would be described in these files. Thishappened five years ago.

After that first visit, I met several times withthe archivist3 in charge of this particularcollection and she allowed me as a start, tocheck a database the Archives had created asa finding aid for the collection In it there is alittle over 60,000 names for the period

between 1933 and 1948, which was exactlythe scope of my research. I asked forauthorization to read these files, but at thistime it was forbidden to copy them.I sortedthe names by nationality and found thehistorical pattern we all know:

German Jewish refugees arrived in 1933, orafter the Nuremberg laws in 1935; Austriansescaping the Nazi invasion in March 1938and Kristallnacht in November of 38 and. Atthe beginning of 39, Poles arrived fromZbaszyn and the Sudatenland, fighters fromthe International Brigades escaping Franco’sSpain, Jews escaping the invasion of Belgiumin May 1940 and of course people from theoccupied zone of France trying to survive inVichy’s France after the defeat ofFrance.Later, survivors arrived from theconcentration camps and stil l laterDisplaced Persons emigrating to Eretz Israel.

Originally these records were a part of theControl Unit of the Foreigners’ section of thePrefecture. During WWII, this unit had theauthority to scrutinize each member of thefamily in order to check if he/she was adanger to the State, an unwanted alien, anasset or a problem. Most of the foreign Jewswere categorized as Unwanted Aliens, andsent to an internment camp, forced residencyor arrested, tried and sent to prison for nothaving the proper papers. In these files, thereis very little evidence of deportation. Therecord just ends with a returned letter or thereport of a gendarme or policeman statingthat the person no longer lives at the addressand was sent to the Northern Zone.

A year after I received permission to read thiscollection, I began reading the files and wasable to trace the saga of groups of people,families, and individuals on their routes ofexile. In 2008, the French archival law

1. Service du controle des etrangers de la Prefecture.

2. Her name is Laurence Prempain.

3. Agnes de Zolt is her name; she is a wonderful person, dedicated and interested in the various topics related

to persecutions in France. She is also answering the various requests of the CIVS3 for the investigation of

plundering either by Vichy or by the Nazis.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1iii

changed mostly permitting public access todocuments related to WWII.4 The collectionis finally accessible for the files closed before1950.

After acknowledging the incredible value ofthis collection for historians, families andgeneral research, Dorot association d’histoirestarted working for the Memorial de laShoah in Paris that some of you mightknow under the name CDJC, meaningCenter of Contemporary Jewish Documen-tation which is the oldest private archivalrepository in Western Europe for holocaustrelated sources. After a long time of dealingwith the Memorial and the Archives, anagreement was finally signed between bothparties and digitizing of the collection beganin July 2009. During the writing5 of thisarticle, 400,000 pages have already beendigitized and the company responsible6

reports that the job is half way completed.Next year this collection will be available inParis and Lyon and eventually in otherrepositories in the coming years. The digiti-zation represents only 57% of the totalcollection, due to economic restrictions andscientific interest for Holocaust research;some files that were not selected had peopleof south Asian origin or had a majority ofnon relevant information. The database iscomplete so even if a file is not digitized, it isavailable on site.7

What to expect from these records intracing a member of the family?

First, the geographic scope is almostuniquely about the Rhone department inFrance which means Lyons area. Somerecords deal with individuals sent inbordering departments, because Lyon wasalso the place of the regional administration.So there might be a chance to find a trace of

a relative who was living in Savoie or in theAin department.

Lyon in the time of WWII was known to bethe capital of Resistance where Jewishnetworks were very active. These networkswere active getting people out of theinternment camps, hiding children – OSE &Eclaireurs Israelites8 – forging fake identities,crossing the Swiss border and later armedresistance.

In the southern zone under the Vichyadministration, the French authorities werethe only ones in charge of surveillance andpersecutions until the invasion of the so-called free zone by the Nazis in November1942 and the official arrival of the Gestapo.Services from the Abwehr and the Gestapowere operating surveillance and liaison since1940 but were not able to arrest anyone.

Some files end without particular reason,meaning most of the time that the individualif he/she was not arrested for deportation,which can be easily documented through theMemorial de la Shoah archives andda t a b a s e s a nd t h e Memo r i a l d el’Oppression,9 went underground and mayhave escaped.

What is in the files?

The record starts usually with a letter froman individual requesting residence or asylum.Or it might start with an administrativedocument, police investigation, expulsionorder, or the like. Correspondence betweenthe services and the person can be veryexciting about finding facts but most of thetime every three months the same type ofletters are recorded: the foreigner asks for arenewal of authorization, a police investi-gator gives an opinion and the prefect’sservice states whether or not the foreignercan have a new permit of residence.

4. Except medical and judiciary data.

5. October 2009.

6. Ossenberg & Schneider gmbh known for its commitment in the ITS digitizing program.

7. http://www.exilordinaire.org/AD/nun.html.

8. Jewish scouts.

9. Another huge collection of investigations and reports of crimes and arrests collected after the Liberation for

the seven departments of the Region Rhone-Alpes. This collection is also digitalized and accessible at the

Memorial de la Shoah in Paris as well as in the Rhone departmental Archives in Lyon.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1iv

Foreigners had to ask authorization foralmost everything: getting married, movingetc...

There are passports, pictures, identity cardsof various natures. Sometimes only one sheetof paper is recorded, but in the vast majorityof the collection, an average of 20 to 50records per file is the usual of course,depending on the length of the stay in thedepartment. Letters are often telling stories,not all of them are true because of thesituation: lying to the administration wassometimes the only way to survive. There arevisas, letters of relatives, and letters of rabbisfrom the local community, letters fromwelfare and rescue organizations (particu-larly for the 1933-1940 and 1944-1948periods).

In some files lists the reason for an arrest orthe date of emigration happen to berecorded, which may be of interest in orderto understand the situation,

How to complete the information?

From home:

For information related to persecutions andinternment in French camps you can visit oursearch page in English athttp://www.jewishtraces.org/search.php.Only 25% of our databases are online, so donot hesitate to ask for more by mail. Forinformation related to deportation fromFrance the Memorial de la Shoah databaseand catalogue is online athttp://www.memorialdelashoah.org.There is an English version.

On site:

For a list of public and private archivalrepositories, which is huge, and forinformation on their collections please referto Avotaynu’s last issue Volume XXV,Number 2 and our article on UnwantedJewish aliens in France or contact us forspecific advice.

Naturalizations files are kept in both theNational archives outside of Paris for pre-

and postwar records in Fontainebleau, andin Paris main repository for earlier records,and in each department where the petitionwas submitted.

Unfortunately Yad Vashem does not have acopy of the departmental archives in Franceyet but maybe one day.

The Swiss federal archives have records ofindividuals who asked for asylum andcomplete the information from Lyon for alot of individuals; also one should be awareof a similar collection in the Nationalarchives in Belgium.

Suzanne Leo-Pollak and her mother’s file

In 2007 I came across a list of GermanAustrian and Polish people freed from theGurs’s camp in 1941and sent to forcedresidency in the Rhone department with thesupport of Christian organization.10 I starteddocumenting each of them and found formost them a file in the collection in Lyon, atthe same time I found the daughter of acouple on the list and met her and gave herinformation about her parents. Ilse Leo, hermother, is still alive in Vienna and we metlater.

Last summer, we became friends in themeantime, and as we were finishing theedition of a book about her parents,Suzanne and I went together to the archivesin Lyon with a TV crew11 to see the originalfile. Inside the file was a handwritten letter byIlse stating that she had to leave the center.The letter was an original but the contentswere a lie since at that time Ilse had alreadygone underground to survive and save hernewborn child. Anyone reading the recordwithout knowing the real story might sensesomething awry. So keep in mind that even ifit’s recorded, sorted and preserved, it is notalways the reflection of the real story.Suzanne Leo-Pollak knew the story but shediscovered the letter and she understood alittle more how her mother managed to keepher alive in these darkest years while herfather had joined the armed resistance.

10. See the centre d’accueil de Chansaye and the Abbe Glasberg chapter on Jewishtraces.org11. http://www.exilordinaire.org

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1v

Manuela Wyler is the founder and executivedirector of Dorot Association D’histoire, aFrench nonprofit research organization basedin Lyon specializing in contemporary microhistory and focusing on Jewish refugees inWestern Europe. Her expertise in ‘‘scouting’’

for archives has been acknowledged by thearchive department of the Memorial de laShoah in Paris which hired her organizationfor three years to trace and acquire public andprivate collections.She is the chief editor of thewebsite jewishtraces.org and publisher of LesEditions Traces & Empreintes which trans-

lated into French and published the writing ofIsraeli survivor and writer Batsheva Dagan.

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Frankel Family 28

Family Research and Family Gathering – 31.10.08-01.11.08, Netanya, Israel

Liora Cohen

Our family is a special family. My maternalgreat grandmother’s was one of twenty-eightchildren to one mother, one father and withno twins. Not all of them reached adulthoodand, in fact only fourteen of them raisedfamilies. We have the names of twenty out ofthe twenty-eight children.

The origins of the family is in Austro-Hungary, and we had documentationstarting from the 18th Century. Amongothers were found addresses of the parentsof the twenty-eight, Benjamin Wolf Frankl

and Regine-Rivka Obernbreit, and also ofRegina’s mother, Tziperl Obernbreit nee

Obernbreit. One daughter of the twenty-eight immigrated to the USA at the end ofthe 19th Century. Her descendants kept afamily tree and constituted a saving anchorfor those of the family who survived theholocaust in Europe. My parents, Chava andMordechai (Max) Livni took uponthemselves in 1977 to keep updating thefamily tree, and they do it until today.

In June, 2007, we decided to open a site onthe internet for the family throughMyHeritage. The site included the familytree, pictures, family stories, receipts andmore. The great investment in opening thesite enabled reestablishing the connectionwith distant family members in differentcountries.

All these years we believed that the familyorigins are from Bratislava, Slovakia. Therelived the parents of the twenty-eight andmany of their descendants. Simultaneouslywith opening the site, a family member fromthe USA visited Slovakia and decided to lookfor the traces of the family in a village not farfrom Bratislava, Mliecno, since the mother ofBenjamin Frankl is mentioned as Eva vonMilchdorf, the German name of Mliecno.The place was a small village and today ispart of the town Samorin. The visit did notbear any fruit but caused my parents toinvestigate that lead. Many family ancestorsand other relatives were found with the helpof a Christian Jan Hevera, who voluntarilyand with a deep sense of commitment hastaken care of the ancient cemetery there formany years. The family tree started growingbackwards.

Since then we continue to investigate. TheObernbreit branch remains unknown in thisstage; we have not found additionalinformation. We visited the Jewish archivesin Jerusalem and found pieces of informationthat in this stage cannot be connected to ourfamily. We are using websites that providegenealogical information JewishGen, awebsite of cemeteries in Slovakia, website ofAustrian newspapers from the 18th Centuryup to 1938 (where I found a few obituaries offamily members), Yad Vashem Names

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1vi

Database and more. We are also in touchwith an archivist from Bratislava andSamorin.

In May, 2008, I went to Samorin and visitedthe ancient cemetery. The experience wasextraordinary. At the family convention, theoccasion where I told the family about it, Iwas able ‘‘to take’’ them there, to have thefamily members stand with me exactly in thespot where my great grandfather Marcus hadprayed in the ancient synagogue.

The family convention

A direct result of the opening of the websitewas the desire to meet all of these people faceto face. In October, 2008, after a year long oforganization, we met for a weekend, 70people out of the living 200 in a hotel inNetanya in Israel from the 31.10.2008-01.11.2008.

The preparations were completed a few daysbefore the gathering itself. Kits wereprepared with T-shirts, name tags, abrochure and a farewell gift certificate. Formonths we prepared a presentation about thefamily, not a historic review, but a peek intothis special family from different points ofview.

People arrived from four continents NorthAmerica (USA), Australia, Europe and Asia(Israel). There was one who arrived [for] theUSA for one evening only because hepromised to participate in the family storiesevening.

In the hall where we were gathered, we hunggiant signs where the whole family tree wasprinted, every branch in the family having itsown sign. The impression was exactly as wethought everybody looked for his relatives,for the familial connections. They could nottear themselves from the walls.

We made an effort to diversify the programan opening meeting with a prepared presen-

tation; a group photo; an information centerwhere the people could update theirinformation, [to] scan pictures they havebrought with them, buy booklets with thefamily stories that were previously published,and receive guidance on how to use thewebsite; a lecture about the genealogicalresearch; a joint Kabbalat Shabbat; a familystory evening and mainly plenty of time forexciting meetings.

The success of the gathering was beyond allexpectations. Especially touching was theyounger generation; people who did notknow each other previously decided that thecontacts must continue. They were the oneswho pushed for holding another convention,and indeed, in the fall of 2010 we are holdingan additional convention, this time inBratislava.

Family website:http://frankl29.myheritage.com

Internet websites addresses:

JewishGen http://www.jewishgen.org/

Website of cemeteries in Slovakia:http://www.cemetery.sk/english/

Website of cemeteries in Austria:http://friedhof.ikg-wien.at/search.asp?lang=en

Liora Cohen lives in Yokneam Illit, and iscurrently employed as Human ResourcesAgency Administrative Manager. Hebrew isher mother tongue and she has full commandof English, German, Dutch and basic Arabic.She is active in the Theresienstadt MartyrsRemembrance Association; a non profit orga-nization – second generation – archive pre-servation. She is a member of ‘‘BusinessWomen Forum’’; YokneamMegido, a memberof ‘‘The Israeli Forum’’ for Aliyah and amember of the of the Education Committee in

the local municipality. Since 2007 she has beenresearching the families Frankl, [email protected]

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Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1vii

The Mystery of the Second Joseph Chelouche

Evyatar Chelouche

Introduction

During research I conducted recently into theorigins of the Chelouche family in NorthAfrica and the name, ‘‘Chelouche,’’ I becameacquainted with the different customs ofnaming children and with religious andscholarly literature on the subject. Thisexamination led me to revisit a genealogicalfamily mystery that has yet to be solved. I amreferring to the mystery of the two Josephs,the sons of Avraham Chelouche, whoemigrated from Oran in Algeria to EretzIsrael around the middle of the nineteenthcentury. The first Joseph, according to familylore, drowned in the sea of Haifa around1840, leaving no trace. The second Josephdied on May 9, 1865 (Eyar 13, 5625) and isburied in the Ajami cemetery in Jaffa.

Part One: Two Josephs – Background,Sources, and Interpretations

Joseph Son of Avraham Chelouche – The‘‘First’’ Joseph

The earliest evidence we have of Joseph sonof Avraham Chelouche, the ‘‘first’’ Joseph,who drowned in the sea of Haifa when thefamily immigrated to Israel, is a letter fromJoseph Eliyahu Chelouche to Moshe DavidGaon, dated June 13, 1928.

M. D. Gaon had been corresponding withJoseph Eliyahu Chelouche about financialhelp for publishing Gaon’s book, The Jews ofthe Orient. He had also requested detailedinformation about the Chelouche family.1 InGaon’s letter of June 7, 1928, he askedJoseph Eliyahu Chelouche:

I would be grateful to you, sir, if youcould enlighten me about why youalways sign yourself ‘‘Joseph Eliyahu’’

and not ‘‘Joseph Aharon’’ since, as far asI know, your father’s name was Aharon.

Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche answered hisinquiry on June 13, 1928:2

... regarding my signature, you ask, sir,why I sign myself ‘‘Joseph Eliyahu,’’instead of ‘‘Joseph Aharon,’’ the name ofmy father. You are correct, my friend. Thereason for this is that I was namedEliyahuJoseph at birth. My parents gave me thesetwo names in memory of my father’s twobrothers who drowned in the sea of Haifawhen they came by boat from Algeria. Asfar as I know, it appears in your notes andin the chronicles of our family.

An interesting fact, and a strange onealtogether, is that in this particular letterwhere he explains his two names, JosephEliyahu Chelouche signs himself, ‘‘JosephChelouche,’’ omitting his second name.

Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche recounts the storyof his two drowned uncles in his book, TheStory of My Life, published in 1931, but withan interesting difference. In chapter c, whenhe describes his love for his grandmotherSimcha, the wife of Avraham Chelouche tohim, he writes:

My Nana, my father’s mother who lovedme dearly – her soul was bound to mineand she loved me with all her might. Atnight I slept in her lap because I wasnamed ‘‘Joseph Eliyahu,’’ after her twosons who drowned in the sea of Haifawhen they were emigrating to Israel fromMorocco, one of them named ‘‘Joseph’’and the other ‘‘Eliyahu.’’ She could notpart from me.

1. The correspondence comprising seven letters, five from Gaon and two from Joseph Eliyahu, is in the family

collection housed in the Zionist Archive.

2. The original, signed by hand, ‘‘Joseph Chelouche,’’ on the letterhead of the Fabrique Chelouche Freres, is in

the National Library, estate of M. D. Gaon, file I-17. A copy of the same letter is stored in the Zionist

Archive as mentioned above, without a signature.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1viii

Gaon first recorded this story in a memoirepublished on the anniversary of JosephEliyahu Chelouche’s death (1935):

His father, Rabbi Aharon, born in Oran,Algeria, in 1829, immigrated to the HolyLand in 1840, accompanied by his family.The manner of their journey was bysailboat from North Africa to Haifa.While at sea, a fierce storm broke outclose to shore and their besieged vesselwas hurled and tossed continuouslybetween the great barriers for 30 days.When the ocean finally ceased its rage,the boats were lowered for the shore. Oneof them overturned and all 18 of itspassengers sunk into the great depths.Among them were the two brothersJoseph and Eliyahu Chelouche, sons ofRabbi Avraham Chelouche. In order thattheir memory not be forgotten, thesecond son of Rabbi Aharon wasnamed after them: he is Joseph EliyahuChelouche, RIP.3

Two years later, in 1937, Gaon republishedthe story in his book, Jews of the Orient, withmore details about the family members whotraveled with Avraham Chelouche and theages of the boys:

The manner of their journey was viasailboat from North Africa to Haifa,accompanied by other families. While atsea, a fierce storm broke out close to theshore and their besieged boat was hurledand tossed continuously between thetumultuous waves for a few days. Whenthe ocean finally ceased its rage, the boatswere lowered for the shore, but one ofthem overturned, and all 18 of itspassengers, men and women, sunk intothe great depths. Among them weredrowned his two sons, Joseph andEliyahu Chelouche. In order that their

memory not be forgotten, the second sonwas named.... The following list of hisfamily members who immigrated withhim at that time... his sons, Aharon, age11, Eliyahu, age 9, and Joseph, age 7.4

According to Gaon, Avraham Cheloucheimmigrated in 1840. If the facts in Gaon’sessay are correct, it transpires that thelifespan of the ‘‘first’’ Joseph is from 1833to 1840.

Another account of the drowning of the‘‘first’’ Joseph in the sea of Haifa is the oraltest imony by Margalit (Chelouche)Havatzelet, Aharon’s granddaughter:5

What I remember in my childhood, whenI was 4 to 5 years old, was thatGrandfather Aharon Chelouche lovedto assemble the children and tell themhow he came here. Then he would start tocry ... speaking about his brothers,Joseph and Eliyahu. ‘‘My brothers werewith me on the boat, the older brothersdrowned at sea, and I was left a smallchild of 11 together with my parents....’’

Although this testimony occurs relativelylater after the events described, one cannotbe indifferent to the moving impression ofthe weeping grandfather telling his grand-children about the loss of his two brotherswhile immigrating to Israel.

Joseph Son of Avraham Chelouche – The‘‘Second’’ Joseph

The fact that Avraham Chelouche had asecond son named Joseph, who was born inEretz Israel and died on the eve of hiswedding, has been known for some time. Hisstory disappeared from the family recol-lection for many years. It reappeared in theearly 1970s after the discovery of JosephChelouche’s tombstone in the Jaffa cemeteryby the researcher Pinhas Ben Shahar, who

3. Rabbi Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche: A Memoire on the Anniversary of His Death, edited by A. Elmaliach, and

Y. A, Abbadi (World Association of the Sephardic Jews Press: Jerusalem, 1935), p. 43

4. M. D. Gaon, Jews of the Orient in Eretz Israel, 1938, p. 670.

5. Margalit Havatzelet, born 1902, was interviewed in a movie produced by the Israeli Film Service in 1966,

Chelouche – from Neve Tzedek and Shalom.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1ix

was the first to record in writing the story ofthe ‘‘second’’ Joseph.6

The ‘‘second’’ Joseph is known to us fromfour historical records, presented below inchronological order:

1. Joseph is first mentioned in the secondMontefiore census (1849), together withhis parents, Avraham and Simcha, andhis older brother Aharon. Unlike the

later censuses, this census does notrecord ages or year of immigration.

2. Joseph appears in the third Montefiorecensus (1855), in the list of orphans, andhe is 10 years old (i.e., he was born in1845).7

3. The third attestation is the tombstone inthe Ajami cemetery in Jaffa, bearing thefollowing inscription:

A voicewas heard in Ramahabout a sturdy young manwho was cut offwhose stature was like a palm treeand my heart was bleedingoh pity on all this splendor around thelandmay my eyes overflow with tearsand my eyelids gush with waterat the time of his wedding he passed awayand turned joy into grief and lamentthe charming young manYOSEF CHELOUCHEmay his soul be bound upin the bond of everlasting life

13 Iyar 5625

4. The fourth and last piece of evidence isthe inscription on a Torah scroll casededicated by Joseph’s brother, AharonChelouche. This Torah scroll is locatedin the Chelouche synagogue on AharonChelouche Street in Neve Tzedek. Thedate of Joseph’s death in the dedicationcorresponds to the date on thetombstone. The rediscovery of thescroll bearing the dedication inscription(during the memorial service to Mosheson of Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche) isconcrete evidence that the Joseph

mentioned on the tombstone is indeedthe brother of Aharon Chelouche.

Aharon Chelouche (great-grandson ofAharon son of Avraham Chelouche,hereafter referred to in this article as‘‘Aroni’’) addressed this issue in his book,FromGalabiya to Kova Tembel [Brimless Hat]:

Surely he is not the son of ‘‘our’’Avraham Chelouche, because it is notpossible that he was born to the samemother, since in our places andcommunities the name of a son who

6. Pinhas Ben Shahar, Forerunners of the First Aliyah: Jaffa and the First Jewish Community Outside the Four

Holy Cities, Bulletin #13 (Museum HaAretz: Tel Aviv, 1971), later re-published in his book, The Houses of

Tel Aviv: Jaffa Tel (Ministry of Defense Press, 1991).

7. The age and year of birth should be considered carefully, due to the phenomenon of rounding, as Michal

Ben Yaacov explains in her article, ‘‘The Montefiore Censuses and the Study of Jews in the Mediterranean

Sea Basin,’’ Peamim 107 (Spring 2006).

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1x

dies is not given to another son for fear ofthe ‘‘evil eye.’’ And if for some reason itwas indeed given, why was it notmentioned in the family stories?8

The donor – Aharon Chelouche

The initial conclusion of Aroni is that the‘‘second’’ Joseph was the son of a differentwoman, and therefore the ‘‘evil eye’’ wouldnot apply. He conjectures that the ‘‘second’’Joseph was probably forgotten by Aharonand his descendants because their fatherneglected their mother, Simcha, in favor ofhis second wife. However, the dedicatoryinscription on the Torah scroll case, ‘‘Inmemory of his brother... the finest of youth,’’indicates a relationship of intimacy and love,not emotional detachment. Furthermore, thistheory posits the existence of another missingperson, the ‘‘other woman,’’ a figment of theimagination,9 for whose existence we have notangible evidence – no name, date of birth ordeath, burial place, or even written evidence.This explanation of the mystery of the twoJosephs and the ‘‘disappearance’’ of the

‘‘second’’ Joseph from the family history,based on the invention of a new missingperson, does not solve the mystery, whichstill stands.

‘‘In memory of his brother, the charming lad,

Yosef ben Chelouche...’’

Or Alekandrowicz10 raised, as a possiblesolution to the two Josephs mystery, thenotion that the ‘‘first’’ Joseph was aninvention. This explanation contradicts thepersonal story of Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche,described above. In addition, it requires theacceptance of one of two assumptions:

A. that the parents and/or grandmother ofJoseph Eliyahu Chelouche told him anuntrue story about the ‘‘Joseph’’ that hewas named after, and that in the drowningincident only one son – Eliyahu – was lost, or

B. that Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche, forunknown reasons, changed the story himself(knowing the true story of the ‘‘second’’Joseph, who died 5 years before his ownbirth).

8. Aharon Chelouche, From Galabiya to Kova Tembel, p. 23.

9. Eliyahu Adi Cohen, Aroni’s cousin, gave the writer of these lines the following testimony: ‘‘... when Pinhas

Ben Shahar brought to our attention the existence of the ‘other Joseph’ I imagined the possibility that

Joseph, whose untimely death was engraved on his humble tombstone, was born to a second wife....’’ Adi

Cohen presented Aroni with the idea of the second wife, and the latter included it in his above mentioned

book.

10. Or Aleksandrowicz, ‘‘A Journey to a Forgotten Yesterday,’’ in Chelouche: One Family, One House. The

Chelouche family published this booklet in October 2004 and distributed it to the participants of a

conference for the descendants of Aharon Chelouche.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xi

Each of these assumptions is problematic onits own. With respect to the first assumption,another written source reinforces the versionthat two children were drowned. In theeulogy on Aharon Chelouche, AvrahamElmaliach,11 the editor of Doar Hayom,writes:12

And the journey in those days was notlike it is today, but all the difficulties andall the perils of travel could not dissuadethe young Zionist from immigrating tothe country of his dreams. After muchwandering, the deceased and his familyreached Alexandria. Since they could notfind on shore a ship going to Jaffa, heand his two older brothers sailed on aboat, but when they reached Jaffa a greatstorm arose and sank the boat and all ofits contents. His two brothers drowned aswell, and he alone survived miraculouslyand decided to settle in Jaffa....

Although the names of the two drownedbrothers are not mentioned, Elmaliach’seulogy is dated 15 years earlier than thefirst written testimony left to us by JosephEliyahu Chelouche in his book. Thedifferences between the earlier version andthe later one of Joseph Eliyahu Cheloucheare evident, i.e., the place of departure andthe location of the drowning. Does thisdifference arise from the fact that Elmaliachheard a different story from Aharon himselfor did Elmaliach’s story become distorted inhis mind, while writing the eulogy aboutAharon? This is an open question thatrequires further research.

Another detail captures our attention: whilethe name of the Torah scroll contributor isAharon Chelouche, the name of his brotheris written ‘‘Joseph son of Chelouche.’’ Thetombstone of their father Avraham recordsthe name ‘‘Avraham son of Chelouche.’’

Why did Aharon make sure the word ‘‘son’’was written beside his brother’s name(instead of ‘‘Joseph Chelouche’’), and yetomit this addition from his own name? Thebook is dedicated on Elul 25, 5626(September 5, 1866), only a year after hisbrother’s death. Is there any significance tothis strange discrepancy? We will address thisquestion later.

We return once again to Aroni’s words. Thedeclaration that it is not customary ‘‘in ourplaces and communities’’ includes twoelements. The first is ‘‘custom’’ and thequestions that it raises – what really is thecustom, what is its origin, and are thereexceptions to this custom? The secondelement is ‘‘our places’’ – what are ‘‘ourplaces’’ that would affect AvrahamChelouche’s naming of the ‘‘second’’Joseph, who was probably born in 1845?

Avraham emigrated from North Africa, andso we should consider North Africa as ‘‘ourplaces,’’ because the ‘‘second’’ Joseph wasborn in Eretz Israel, shortly after the familyimmigrated.

Further research into the mystery of the twoJosephs led to more thorough study of theagreed customs in the following chapters: thegeneral custom of naming (part two) and thenaming customs that were practiced in NorthAfrica (part three).

Part Two: Customs Relating to Naming

Joseph David Weisberg13 describes differentcustoms related to naming and includesmany references from the Talmud and otherrabbinical sources for these customs. To theauthor’s credit, he includes many exceptionsto the rule and references that contradict theprincipal rules. Here are some importantreferences relating to the naming of the‘‘second’’ Joseph.

11. Avraham Elmaliach (1885-1967), author, journalist, researcher of Jewish history in the Levant, President of

the Western Ethnicity, and a leader in the Sephardic ethnography in Jerusalem, member of the Municipality

of Jerusalem.

12. Doar Hayom 2:156 (April 1936), 1920. Grayevsky quotes this eulogy in ‘‘Zikaron Lehovevim Rishonim

(Memory of the First Pioneers),’’ fasc. 19 (1929), p. 45.

13. Otzar HaBrit: Encyclopedia of the Laws and Customs of Brit Milah and Pidyon haBen, Joseph David

Weisberg (Torat haBrit Institute Press: Jerusalem, 1986).

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xii

Naming After a PersonWho Died Young14

A. It is customary not to name after aperson who died after a short life, andsome say that if he was righteous he maybe named after even if he died young,[and there are] some who name someoneafter a father and mother even if theydied young.

B. Some wrote not to name after a youngperson if he was killed but if he died inbed he may be named after. Yet, if hedied young without sons he is nevernamed after.

Since Joseph was among the righteous,according to rule A. the phenomenon of thetwo Josephs was completely acceptable.However, according to rule B., it is notacceptable. Therefore we can reach nodefinitive conclusion based on these rules.

Naming After a Person With Bad Luck15

Some say one should not be named aftera person with bad luck, but the nameshould be changed slightly or anothername added.

Although this rule (not to name after aperson with bad luck) is presented with anexception (to change or add to the name), wehave no clear evidence that the ‘‘second’’Joseph can be considered an exception to thisrule, and so it is reasonable to accept the ruleliterally: if a person dies as a result of badluck he is not named after.

Giving Identical Names to Two Sons16

Although we could play with the twoprevious rules in the hope of finding a legalloophole that allows two Josephs, this articlecloses the door on such a possibility:

One cannot give his two sons the samename, even if the first son has alreadydied. Also, if [the first son] has twonames, his brother shall not be giveneither of those names. If he gave one ofhis sons a certain name, he shall not givehis brother this name together withanother one. Some say this is forbiddeneven if the second son was born to himfrom a different woman.

If we relate to the second part of this strictinstruction, it further weakens Aroni’sassumption of ‘‘another woman.’’

Naming After Two People17

Some say one should not combine twonames from two people. In any case, ifone named his son after two people it isprudent to call him by his two names.

This reference is not relevant to the twoJosephs but it is included here due to the caseof Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche himself.18

Summary of Naming Customs

Determining the extent to which AvrahamChelouche was familiar with or influenced bythese customs and aware of their Talmudicsources is difficult. It is also hard to evaluatehow much the trauma of losing two sonscould have influenced his common sense innaming an additional son who was born aftertheir deaths. Could his wife Simcha have ahand in this matter? If we assume thatAvraham Chelouche was a God-fearingperson, knowledgeable of the scriptures,and strict about the different customs, thenit would be hard for us to explain theexistence of two Josephs, in light of thecustoms described above.19 Therefore, wemust look for a different explanation of

14. Otzar HaBrit, §7.



17. Otzar HaBrit, §12

18. As written in his letter of June 14, 1928, and quoted in Part One.

19. It should be noted that most of the sources quoted by Weisberg are Ashkenazi, in particular, R. Shabtai

Lifshitz, Brit Avot; R. Moshe Feinstein, She’elot u-Teshuvot; R. Shlomo Luria (the Maharshal), Yam shel

Shlomo; R. Tzvi Hirsch Eisenstadt, Pischei Teshuvah; R. Meir Arik, Minchat Pittim; R. Joseph Patznovsky,

Pardes Yosef; R. Chaim Yehuda Litvin, Sha’arei Dayah; R. Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer and

others.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xiii

why he did not follow these customs. Wewill examine this question by researchingwhat was customary ‘‘in our places,’’ whichare assumed to be North Africa, not EretzIsrael. The details for this are in the nextsection.

Part Three: ‘‘... In our places’’

Research20 on the descendants of theChelouche family in Oran revealed 102records (birth, marriage, and death) ofbearers of the name ‘‘Chelouche’’ (includingvariant spellings in foreign languages). Theserecords, discovered in the Centre desArchives d’Outre-mer in Aix en Provence,relate to descendants who lived in Algeriabetween 1837 and 1902.

An interesting phenomenon that wasdiscovered during the research is the re-useof names given to newborns who died young.We found in two family units (out of sevenidentified family units) a number of cases inwhich the name of girls who died young wasre-used for siblings born later. We did notfind such cases for boys, however. Is itpossible that there are similar cases,unknown to us, that attest to the existenceof a different custom? Apparently, theanswer is ‘‘yes’’ and here are a few examples:

In a conversation I have conducted onOctober 22, 2007, with Rabbi David HaimShloush, the Chief Rabbi of Nethanya, therabbi told me the following story about theorigin of his name (with supplemental

information from Joseph Toledano’sbook):21

Rabbi David Haim Shloush’s grandfatherwas Rabbi David Shloush22 (1800-1893), afamous Moroccan rabbi and the son ofRabbi Joseph Shloush.23 When RabbiDavid Shloush was 90 years old, heremarried. The first son born from thatmarriage was named Joseph DavidShloush24 (1860-1890). Joseph David was2.5 years old when his famous rabbi fatherdied. At the age of 13 he emigrated fromMarrakesh to Eretz Israel and later became afamous rabbi in his own right.

Rabbi Joseph David’s first-born son wasnaturally named after his illustriousgrandfather, David Shloush. This son diedwhen he was about one year old. After thatson’s death, Rabbi Joseph David and his wifehad a daughter named Abigail. The thirdchild was another son, whom his fatherwanted to name ‘‘David’’ after hisgrandfather and in order continue thetradition of having a David in eachgeneration, a chain temporarily broken bythe death of the first-born son. The motherobjected to this idea, fearing the evil eye thatcaused her first son to die. As a compromise,the third son was named ‘‘David Haim,’’which is different from ‘‘David’’ but stillpreserves the name of the famousgrandfather. This David Haim Shloush wassuccessful in the rabbinate and later becameChief Rabbi of Nethanya.25

20. Evyatar Chelouche, ‘‘In Search of the Roots of the (Chelouche, Schelouche, Schlouch, Chlous & Slous)

Families in Algeria, Late 18th–early 20th Centuries,’’ ETSI 10:38 (September 2007). Also published in

Hebrew in Sharsheret Hadorot, 28:2 (May 2008/Eyar 2008).

21. Joseph Toledano, Une histoire de familles: Les noms de famille juifs d’afrique du nord des origines a nos jours

(Editions Ramtol, Jerusalem, 1998).

22. Toledano, p. 754: born in Rissini in the Tfilalat district. At the age of 20, he moved to Marrakesh and

established, during the late nineteenth century, a prosperous yeshiva that gathered many students from the

Atlas villages. Moroccan Jewish tradition records that when his son was about two years old, he was gravely

ill and was dying. The rabbi prayed and offered his soul for his son’s. Indeed, the son lived and the rabbi

died a few weeks later. His burial place became a pilgrimage spot.

23. Toledano, p. 754: a rabbi and a poet who lived in the Tfilalat district in Morocco during the late eighteenth

century.

24. Toledano, p. 754: Immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1903 at age 13 with 35 families from Marrakesh. During the

First World War, he returned to Morocco and immigrated again in 1919.

25. Toledano, p. 756: grandson of R. David Chelouche of Marrakesh.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xiv

This example from the beginning of thetwentieth century illustrates the greatimportance North African Jews attached tothe tradition of preserving a name in anunbroken chain of generations. It isreasonable to surmise that AvrahamShloush, wanting to name his fourth sonwho was born in Eretz Israel, found himselfin a situation similar to that of Rabbi JosephDavid Chelouche. If he did not name hisnewborn son ‘‘Joseph,’’ despite the namehaving been given to a previous son who diedin tragic circumstances, the continuity of thename ‘‘Joseph’’ would be lost from the familychain. The obvious conclusion is that, ‘‘inour places,’’ giving a subsequent son thesame name as a son who died young was notan unprecedented event. On the contrary,this custom was practiced among NorthAfrican Jews. Parallel research reveals thatthis custom existed in other Sephardiccommunities.26

To return to the discussion of the ‘‘second’’Joseph – the unanswered question is whetherthis Joseph had an additional name thatdifferentiated him from his namesake. Bothpieces of evidence, the tombstone and theTorah scroll case, preserve only one name,‘‘Joseph.’’ If we had evidence of a secondname, the solution to the mystery might havebeen found. Since we do not have concreteevidence, this conclusion remains in therealm of probability.

Is it possible to deduce, from the custom ofpreserving a name in the family chain, thatthe second Joseph was not the younger son ofAvraham Chelouche, but actually his first-born son?This issue is discussed in the next section.

Part Four: The ‘‘First’’ Joseph – Eldestor Youngest of Avraham Chelouche’sChildren?

Before we deal directly with the question ofwhether the ‘‘first’’ Joseph was the first- orlater-born of Avraham Chelouche’schildren, we must address one of theunresolved questions in the family history:the birth date of Aharon son of AvrahamChelouche.

We have two conflicting reports of AharonChelouche’s birth date. The first version, thathe was born in 1840, is corroborated by threerecords from that period: the Montefiorecensus of 1855, where Aharon is listed as a15-year-old, the Montefiore census of 1866,where Aharon is listed as a 26-year-old, andthe 1888 registration of Algerian protegees atthe French consulate in Jaffa, where AharonChelouche declares he was born in Oran onMay 19, 1840.27

The second version is that Aharon was bornin 1829. It is based on Gaon’s account of thefamily’s origins which were written by him in1935. According to Gaon, the familyemigrated in 1840, when Aharon was 11years old (Gaon based his account oninformation supplied by Joseph EliyahuChelouche, 90 years after the fact).

Is there any logical reason to prefer Gaon’sversion over the three records that contradictit, including a statement by Aharon himself?It appears not. From the material evidencewe must accept the first version that Aharonwas born in 1840. The obvious conclusion isthat Gaon’s record of the immigration year isincorrect and that Aharon’s year of birth wasconfused with the family’s year ofimmigration. It is possible that this mistakecame from the original source, the recollec-tions that were presented to him by JosephEliyahu Chelouche himself.

26. Including: Oran, Casablanca, Metz, Livorno, and others.

27. The document was discovered in an archive in France by Dr. Rina Cohen.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xv

Montefiore census in Jaffa (1855) – Registration of Avraham Chelouche’s children.

Aharon is 15 and Joseph is 10 years old.

The Montefiore census in Jaffa (1866) – Aharon Chelouche is 26 years old (last line).

Consular Certificate of Residence (1888) – Aharon

was born on May 19, 1840, in Oran

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xvi

If, however, we accept 1840 as the correctyear of birth, the question of when the familyimmigrated arises. The second Montefiorecensus places the family firmly in Jaffa in1849. If we assume that two years havepassed between their arrival in Haifa andtheir registration in Jaffa (en route theystayed in Nablus/Shekhem and Jerusalem),we conclude that the year of immigrationmust be 1847 at the latest. This means thatAharon would have been about 7 years oldwhen he immigrated.28

According to Gaon, it appears thatAvraham’s children were Aharon, age 11,Eliyahu, age 9, and Joseph, age 7. Multiplesources confirm that one of the children was7 years old. Was this child Joseph (accordingto Gaon) or perhaps Aharon himself (as theabove calculation seems to indicate)?

We therefore return to the question of thechildren’s order of birth. Two pieces ofevidence in the first part of this articlesuggest that Aharon was the youngestchild.29 In addition, we present thefollowing logical fact: if (according toGaon) the older child of the drownedchildren was Eliyahu and the younger wasJoseph, why would Aharon choose to call hissecond son Joseph Eliyahu Chelouche andnot Eliyahu Joseph? It is more likely that thebirth order played a role in determining thename for remembrance, meaning that Josephwas older than Eliyahu. If we take intoconsideration the notion that Aharon was 7years old when he immigrated (and not 11, asGaon writes) the ages and birth order of thechildren when they immigrated would be:Joseph (eldest, age 11), Eliyahu (age 9), andAharon (youngest, age 7).

Summary

The new theory that I wish to present to thereader30 to solve the mystery of the twoJosephs is this: the ‘‘first’’ Joseph was theeldest son of Avraham Chelouche and wasprobably named after one of Avraham’sancestors, as was customary among NorthAfrican Jews. Avraham gave the same nameto his fourth son, born in Eretz Israel, for oneor both of the following reasons:

A. He wanted to perpetuate the tradition ofthe name ‘‘Joseph’’ in the family chain,after the ‘‘natural’’ successor (his firstson) died in tragic circumstances in hisyouth.

B. He chose ‘‘Joseph’’ as a symbolic namebecause God gave him an additionalson,31 after he lost two sons when heimmigrated.

This theory explains why it was reasonable tobelieve that Avraham Chelouche had twosons named ‘‘Joseph.’’ However, thequestion of why the youngest of Avraham’schildren, ‘‘the charming young man’’ who‘‘at the time of his wedding passed away’’disappeared from the family’s recollection,remains an unsolved riddle to this day.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Avital Pinnick and Yves Fedidafor their assistance with the English version.

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28. t should be noted that according to the Montefiore census of 1855, the family immigrated in1842. This date does not agree with the birth of Aharon in 1840. In the census of 1866, AharonChelouche (age 26 = born 1840, immigrated 1846) and his son Avraham Haim Origin ofAharon – ‘‘Waharan.’’ It turns out that Aharon was six when he immigrated. This date fits verywell with the results of the above calculation.

29. According to Elmaliach’s eulogy and Margalit Havatzelet’s testimony.

30. In contrast to other assumptions raised by some family members: a) That there had been a second wife, and

b) That there was only one Joseph.

31. The Hebrew name Joseph or Yosef means ‘‘he will add.’’

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xvii

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Evyatar (Tari) Chelouche was born in TelAviv in 1956 and is a descendant of theChelouche Family, one of the foundingfamilies of Neveh Tzedek and Ahuzat Bait.After his military service, he acquired a B.Sc.in computer Science from the Naval Post-Graduate School Monterey-California, andMBA from Ben-Gurion University. Currentlyemployed as a program manager in the high-tech domain. As a hobby-philatelist. Evyatarresearched the domain of Israeli MachineVended Stamps and created a website on thistopic. [email protected]

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‘‘A Laurel upon his Grave’’

A Short Description of the Life and Works of Chacham Isack Aboab da Fonseca

Lydia Hagoort and Ben Noach

Chacham Aboab died in Amsterdam onAdar II 27th, 5453, being April 4th 1693 atthe ripe old age of 88. At his funeral the nextday in Ouderkerk, the poet-rabbi Solomond’Oliveyra spoke at his graveside andcommemorated Aboab in poetic words. Hestarted his speech with a metaphor about abroken clock: ‘‘the clock does not workanymore, the wheels have fallen out and thecords are broken, everything is mixed up’’.

I

This confusion is perhaps also the state ofmind of the speaker and his audience and

that is very well imaginable: Isack Aboabhad served the Portuguese community forover 70 years and during this period he wasfor many a source of wisdom, a beacon and asource of strength. The seventeenth centurywas a ‘‘Golden Age’’ of prosperity andf reedom for the Repub l i c o f theNe the r l ands , Ams t e rdam and thePortuguese Jews. At the same time,however, it was for the Sefardim a centuryof uncertainty, distress and conflicts to whichAboab was witness. To begin with, there wasthe uncertainty of the earliest period ofsettling in Amsterdam. Then there was the

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xviii

laborious strain around the ‘Uniao’, theuniting of the three separate communitiesBet Israel, Bet Jakob and Neve Salom intoone, the Talmud Torah in 1639.

Around 1641 Aboab and his companions leftfor Recife in Brasil; they survived the roughconditions that prevailed during thePortuguese siege. After his return toAmsterdam, Aboab was involved in thecommotion around Baruch Spinoza in1656. He was also swept along in theecstasy around Shabtai Zvi in 1666 andafterwards experienced disenchantment withhis ideas. In the end Aboab was the drivingforce behind the building of the newsynagogue.

Aboab has left behind many works, bothwritten as well as translated; he cooperatedwith writers, poets and printers and portraitshave been painted of him. In the notaryarchives of the city of Amsterdam minuteshave been found proving that he participatedin the every day life of the city.

After his demise, his library was sold. Adescription of his collection has been kept.

In short, Aboab has left behind a long trailand his biography echoes the story of theSefardi Jews in Amsterdam of theseventeenth century.

II

Isaac Aboab was born in 1605 inCastrodaira, Portugal; his parents wereDavid Aboab and Isabel da Fonseca. Outof fear of the Inquisition, the family hadthemselves baptized; Isaac got the nameSimao da Fonseca. Nevertheless, the familywas not safe; they fled the persecution to St.Jean-de-Luz, very near the border in Franceand from there to Amsterdam where theyarrived about 1612. His father became amember of Neve Salom. Isaac Aboab waseducated by Chacham Uziel, who was anative of Fez in Barbary. Aboab turned, likehis teacher, into a follower of the Cabala.

The first time his name appeared in a sourceis in the manual of the treasurer of NeveSalom. In the year 5380 (1619/20) he paid forthe first time a small annual contribution tothe community. The following year, in 5381,

he received a salary of about 15 guilders: hetaught at the Talmud Torah and he dedicatedhimself to the Study of the Law. At that timehe was not yet seventeen years old.

III

During this period, the development of theJewish printing industry started began inAmsterdam. Menasse ben Israel (1604-1657)initiated in 1626 the first Jewish printinghouse in Amsterdam. He printed Spanish,Hebrew and Latin books. He was quicklyfollowed by other Jewish printers/publishers.The arrival around 1640 of the importantVenetian printer Emanuel Benveniste meantthat Amsterdam had overtaken Venice as thecenter of the world market for Hebrewbooks. This came about as a result of thegreat freedom that Jews enjoyed there, aswell as the economic growth in the Republic.The Jewish printing industry provided workfor printers, proofreaders, agents andbookbinders – and the books were sent toall over Europe, as well as to the OttomanEmpire and Asia. Isaac Aboab earned hisliving in the printing industry, along withother activities. The first Hebrew book wasprinted in Amsterdam in 1627 by Menasseben Israel, with Aboab’s assistance as theproofreader for this prayer book.

In the historical writings of the period, it isalmost always mentioned that Isaac Aboabwas chacham at Beth Israel in the periodbefore the union in 1639. From the archivesit seems, however, that he was engaged by theNeve Salom community. In 1633/34 hereceived 200 guilders a year as chazzan. Thefollowing year, in 5395, chacham Aboabreceived 300 guilders a year. In 1638, oneyear before the Uniao, he still received thissalary as chacham; chacham Menasse benIsrael received 150 guilders, as did ‘Ruby’Jaccob Gomes.

IV

In 1639, along with the Uniao and thefounding of Talmud Torah, Menasse BenIsrael, David Pardo, Saul Levi Morteira andIsaac Aboab were appointed chachamim.Aboab was instructed to teach the Hebrewlanguage and the first lessons in Gemara. Healso had to provide the ‘Derashot de noite’.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xix

He did not serve long at the new TalmudTorah of the community. From the colonyPernambuco in Northern Brazil came thenews that Jews could live there in fullfreedom. The Dutch had conquered thiscolony in 1624 from the Portuguese. Aboabtogether with Mozes Raphael de Aguilar,among others, left around 1641 for Brazil.He served in the community Kahal Zur Israelin Recife. It came to light recently that KahalZur Israel, probably founded in 1636, wasthe oldest Jewish community on theAmer i can cont inen t , and not thecommunity Mikve Israel in Curacao, as wassupposed until now. At the height of itsexistence in 1645, Kahal Zur Israel had 1,630members. Aboab was for a long time therabbi of this prosperous community; as amatter of fact he was the first rabbi to servein the New World.

However, the Portuguese tried to re-conquerthe colony from the Dutch. The siege waslengthy and the hardship was great.Afterwards Aboab wrote his memoriesabout this time in a Hebrew work ‘‘ZecherAsiti Lenifla’oth El’’: Reminded was I ofG’d’s Miracles.

Upon his return to Amsterdam in September1654 he was immediately reinstated in hisformer position of chacham because of seusmeritos pasados y presentes – his past andpresent merits. He earned a salary of 450guilders and had to hold one sermon permonth.

In 1655 he published an importanttranslation. Isaac Aboab, as mentioned, wasa cabalist; he was a follower of the Lurianmystical tradition. In his teachings, IsaacLuria (1522-1570) mainly emphasized thedeep meaning of daily pious

deeds, which would bring the world nearer toa state of perfection. Luria was a native ofSafed (Tsefat), where he headed a group ofCabalists. With their philosophy they madethe town of Safed famous.

An important representative of the Lurianthought was Abraham Cohen Herrera(ca.1570-1635), who lived part of his life inAmsterdam. Cohen Herrera wrote in Spanishthe cabalist-mystical work Puerta del Cielo –

Gate to Heaven. Aboab translated this workinto Hebrew, entitled ‘Shaar Hashamayim’thus bringing it to the attention of a largerpublic. The book was printed in 1655 byEmanuel Benveniste.

After the departure of chacham Menasse benIsrael to England in January 1656, Aboabtook over some of his tasks. He now had tohold two sermons per month at a salary of600 guilders. In his position as chacham hewas involved in July 1656 in thepronouncement of the ban of Spinoza.After the death of chacham Saul LeviMorteira in 1660, Aboab became head ofthe rabbinate.

VI

In 1666 a large part of the Sefardiccommunity in Europe got carried away bythe belief in the arrival of a Messiah, namelyShabtai Zvi (1626-1676). In Venice andHamburg people became overwhelmed bythe prophecies, visions and wondersconnected to the supposed Messiah. Also inAmsterdam the poor as well as the richbecame intoxicated. They tied green ribbonsto their clothes (green was the color ofidentifying Shabtai Zvi) and atoned inpublic for their sins. In the synagoguesmusical instruments were now allowed.Prominent Amsterdam Sefardim madearrangements to leave for the Holy Land inorder to join the Messiah. Aboab too was inthis state of intoxication and believedstrongly in the ‘new king’.

The disenchantment was great when ShabtaiZvi was taken prisoner by the sultan inConstantinople and after being given thechoice in September 1666, between death orconversion to Islam, he chose the latter. Theboard in Amsterdam ordered all publicationsand books referring to him to be destroyed.His name was cursed and all traces of himwere obliterated.

Belief in tradition and authority were to takethe place of shaken expectations.

VII

Aboab’s wife Ester died in 1669. She wasburied in a new part of the cemetery, whichhad been bought in 1663. There was plenty of

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xx

space in that part. Up till until that year onewas buried in order of entry, but after thisexpansion of the cemetery there was thepossibility of reserving burial spots inadvance. Chacham Aboab made use of thispossibility and had the tomb of his wifecovered with a double stone. On the right sidethe following text by Aboab was engraved:

I shall stow away EsterUntil the time comesThat she shall return andHer soul shall rejoice in happinessBecause her end came in the night

Above the text is a wreath of leaves with thetext ‘a virtuous woman is the jewel of herhusband’. Underneath the text on thetombstone, a reclining hour-glass isengraved.

Aboab remarried with Sara, whom he alsosurvived. David Henriques de Castrodiscovered in the nineteenth century a smallblue tombstone very near the doubletombstone. According to this stone Sarapassed away in 1690.

VIII

In 1670, when it turned out that thesynagogue at the Houtgracht had becometoo small, Aboab took the initiative to arguefor building a new synagogue instead ofenlarging the existing one. On November23rd, 1670, he held an enthusiasm-inspiringsermon after which the amount of approxi-mately 40,000 guilders was offered. Hisexertions were rewarded and it was decidedto buy a piece of land near the synagogue atthe Houtgracht. The construction suffereddelays because of the war against Englandand a heavy storm. However, on Friday,August 2nd, 1675, the building wasinaugurated in the presence of mayors,aldermen and other notables. The imposingbuilding was lit up with candles. Threeencirclings were made carrying TorahScrolls and with Chacham Aboab carryingthe first Torah Scroll. The songs that weresung during the three rounds were composedby Aboab himself and Solomon d’Oliveyra.

The name of Aboab is intertwinedingeniously in the Hebrew words above theentrance to the synagogue. The text reads as

follows: ‘But I shall enter Your Housethrough Your greatness and mercifulness’(Psalm 5:8).

According to tradition a date/year can bemade up from the letters/numbers of anaphorism. These words are then oftenindicated by little stars or other signs. Inthis case the last word is ‘beit-cha’: meaningYour House, the letters beth-yud-tav-kafhaving the value of 2+10+400+20. Thesetotal up to (5)432 = 1671/1672.

The name of Aboab is spread over twowords, one after the other. The fifth wordAvu=aleph-beth-wav-aleph and the first letterof the last word, the already mentionedbeith-cha. In this way his name, spelledaleph(a)-beth(b)-wav (like o)-aleph-beth iscleverly intertwined in the text.

The building still is impressive. The Czechwriter Egon Kisch wrote: It is in no way ahouse of assembly for outcasts, the houseneither withered nor tending to hide, abeautiful building, a Jewish cathedral.

Isaac Aboab was and is still being honoredfor his contribution to the realization of thehouse of prayer. ‘‘Honor to his memory forthis meritorious work! For this a laurel wasput on his grave!’’ wrote David Henrigues deCastro.

IX

The period of about 1670 till about 1685 wasa turbulent one in the history of the TalmudTorah. There were constant conflicts aboutmoney between the management and themembers of the community (family DelSotto), about the prohibition of buyingpoul t ry f rom the Ashkenaz i Jews(Abarbanel), about choices of maritalpartners (families Curiel and Aboab), aboutthe place persons were assigned in the newsynagogue (Isack Henriques Coutinho), andabout the text of the hashkava at the grave ofa deceased (families Pereira and deMercado).

The conflicts had one thing in common:rebellion against the authority of theparnassim. These quarrels always camedown to the same thing: the families whowere in opposition wanted to establish their

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxi

own community and home synagogue.Obviously the parnassim strongly opposedthis and were supported by the Amsterdammunicipal authorities. The aldermen passed aruling in 1680 in response to the request of aPortuguese Jew who was denied permissionto establish a home synagogue: as long as hewanted to be Jewish he would have to keep tothe regulations of the establishment.

Aboab fulfilled an important role in all theseconflicts. It appears from the events that themembers of the community mostly did notlisten at all to the parnassim, but in the endthey recognized the authority of thechachamim. In all these conflicts Aboabstood steadfastly behind the parnassim andtried to restore the peace. He was successful:in the end the rebellious families returned tothe Talmud Torah.

One of the quarrels was about the text of thehashkava used for David de Mercado whodied in 1682. Here, a group of familymembers and friends, amongst whom JacobIsrael Pereira and his sons did not agree withthe leadership and the Chief Rabbis. Thedocuments have been kept in the notary’sarchives; we can follow this conflict almostday by day.

Chacham Aboab also handed a declarationto the notary. In Dutch he described what hehad experienced at the cemetery inOuderkerk and in the synagogue. In thecemetery a quarrel broke out about the textof the hashkava. The family and friends ofDavid de Mercado wanted to perform thehashkava as it was phrased originally: hahamasalem. Aboab translated this for the notaryas ‘a wise and perfect preacher’. But becausethe leadership and the rabbis were of theopinion that David de Mercado had been amember of the community just like all theothers, they refused to honor him this way .Arow broke out and many hard words weresaid. Because chacham Aboab and chachamSasportas (who would succeed Aboab afterhis death) could not calm the people’s moodthey both left Ouderkerk in haste in a boat. Afew days later the quarrel was continued inthe synagogue. There was a great row andthe parnassim did not succeed in restoringorder. Finally, the chachamim raised their

voices and told them to be quiet and so theycalmed down.

X

Isaac Aboab was absorbed in his studies untilhis death.

When he was about 75 years old he wrote acommentary to the Pentateuch: Paraphrasiscomentada sobre el Pentateucho. The bookwas published by Jacob de Cordova in 1681.

During the last years of his life Aboab wasblind. Even though the light in his eyes wasdarkened, he saw the Light better throughstudy and contemplation, said Solomond’Oliveira in a speech at his grave.

Aboab was laid to rest next to his first wifeEster. The double tombstone now got thetext on the left side: ‘Tombstone of the verywise and excellent rabbi (...) spiritual headand leader of theological studies at the HolyCommunity in Amsterdam, who was calledto the divine fields of heaven on Saturday, 27Adar II of the year 5453 (April 4th, 1693).For 70 years he was head of this communityand reached the age of 88 years (...). Abovethe text are engraved a pomegranate branchand an olive branch hanging from a crown,beneath the text lies an hourglass andbetween both sides stands a column with anopen book and a little crown as well as onone page a burning candle. Beneath this is atext from Yesaya ‘and your virtue is yourvanguard’, and out of a cloud appears anarm whose hand holds a crowned F. The Frefers to Fonseca. A two-armed lamp isplaced above both slabs with the text. Aspreviously mentioned, his collection of bookswas put up for sale. From the catalogueprinted in 1693 by David Tartas, we knowthat he had owned more than 400 books,most of which were in the Hebrew language.In this collection there obviously were notonly a great number of cabala works, butalso philosophical works from Jewishauthors like Maimonides and non-Jewishones like Aristotle.

His name lived on, also in a literary sense.After his death his name and the date of hisdeath were printed on each side of theSephardic Ketuba, the marriage settlement.These forms were still in use.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxii

Lydia Hagoort (1953), historian, works at the

Stads Archief Amsterdam (=Municipal Ar-

chives of Amsterdam). During the last decade

of the past century she wrote a number of

articles in Studia Rosenthaliana, among others

about A.M. Vaz Dias, Rebecca Naar and the

17th century family Del Sotto.

In 2005 her book about the Portuguese Jewish

Cemetery – Het Beth Haim in Ouderkerk aan

de Amstel : de begraafplaats van de Portugese

Joden in Amsterdam 1614-1945’ – was pub-

lished by Verloren in Hilversum.

At present she is preparing a biography about

Samuel Sarphati (1813-1866), physician and

entrepreneur. She is married to Ruben Sijes

and her hobbies are Marathons (New York2008), riding a bike and golf.

Ben Noach was born in Deventer (NL) in1936. Survived the Nazi persecution in hiding.Emigrated to Israel in 1953. Retired CertifiedPublic Accountant (Isr.) Married, 3 marriedchildren, 10 grandchildren. Active in genealogysince 1992 (website: http://www.bnnch.net).Region of main genealogical research: Ach-terhoek, Overijssel. Vice chairman of theBoard of Amoetat AKEVOTH and coordina-tor of its daily activities. Leisure and specialinterests: History of the Bible and the SecondTemple period, archeology, and chambermusic.

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MISSING PERSONS BUREAU

Searching for Relatives in Israel

Dr. Joseph M. Schwarcz, Dr. Ida SelavanSchwarcz [[email protected]]

According to my late father, his secondcousin, Avraham Lehrman, a watchmaker inUman, Kiev Province, Ukraine, came to

Eretz Yisrael (before World War I?) and

lived in Haifa. His mother was Alta, nee

Kitaigorodsky and I do not know the name

of his father. He had a brother David. I

would love to find descendants of Avraham.

* * *

Jessica Falikman Attiyah [[email protected]]

Falikman: My father’s family came fromCzernowitz, which was once part of theAustro-Hungarian Empire but then was inRomania and eventually became part ofUkraine. I know that my father had a half-brother (whose given name I don’t know)who was living in Israel in the 50’s or 60’swhen my father visited there. This halfbrother, whose father was Josel Falikmanand whose mother was Bertha or BraneSperling, had a son who might still be inIsrael, possibly with family. My father, bornin 1893, was registered at birth as Adolph,but in America he was known as Moe in hiswork with the International Ladies GarmentWorkers Union and with Histadrut, and as

Misha among family. Also, becauseFalikman is an unusual name, I am verymuch hoping that perhaps others of myfather’s siblings or other relatives managed toemigrate to Israel, with children and grand-children still there, and that the Falikmansurname is known to this generation.

My grandfather and grandmother wereJOSEL/JOSEF/ FALIKMAN and HENIEGROSS, both of whom died in Czernowitzbefore WWII. Henie’s parents were GROSSand FISHBACH, from Zaleschiki.

Josel’s and Henie’s children who survived toadulthood were all born in Czernowitz/Cernauti. Except for Max and his wife andson I do not know what became of them:

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxiii

. CHAYA GITEL FALIKMAN, born onDecember 1, 1879.

. MANELE FALIKMAN (Max), born onMarch 9, 1881. He married BERTAOSTRER, in Czernowitz. She was bornSeptember 24, 1885. He was a merchant.They had a son, BERTHOLD FALIK-MAN, who was born in Czernowitz in1908. They all died in Siberia Geo Region,according to Pages of Testimony submittedby her sister Roza Lerer in 1957, in Israel.

. LEON FALIKMAN, born on April 24,1888. He married MINA BRANDES,who was born on October 31, 1897, inBotosany, Romania.

. FISHEL FALIKMAN, born on April 4,1890.

. MARKUS FALIKMAN, born on June23, 1895. He married ROSA KIMMEL-MANN on February 1926. She was bornFebruary 22, 1900.

There were other children, whose names wereTobias and Dora. Tobias died as a youngchild in Czernowitz. Dora married ELIAS

FELDMAN in New York the day after shearrived at Ellis Island in 1912; he died a fewyears later, after they had two children(Daniel and Muriel). Dora died in 1948.

Note: Josel’s first wife, Bertha/BraneSPERLING, had several children, amongthem Rozel and Sali, and the half-brother myfather met in Israel. Rozel died inCzernowitz, and Sali married ADOLF/ABRAHAM SCHATTEN in 1901 inCzernowitz, son of SHLOMO SCHATTENand JUTTE/ETI KANDLER. He was born1877 in Podgaytsy, Ukraine. Both Sali andher husband Abe Schatten emigrated toAmerica in about 1909. Sali died around1947. Abe died some years later.

I know that there are other Falikman familiesin Israel whose ancestors came from the townsof Lyubar and Kizhniki in Ukraine. I wouldlike to hear from them. I have been in touchwith their cousins in Moscow and Berlin. Iwould also like to hear from any otherFalikman or Falikmann descendents.

A

NEWS FROM ISRAELI ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People

Hadassah Assouline

In the past few months there has been a gooddeal of ‘‘genealogical’’ activity at the CentralArchives for the History of the Jewish Peoplein acquisition, in detailed cataloguing ofextant genealogical material and in the useof a computer program to catalogue newmaterial by genealogical keywords, inaddition to the traditional geographiccategories.

New Acquisitions

The following is a selection of genealogicalmaterials which have recently been acquiredby the Archives:Microfilms of:

. a card index made by the late ProfessorRuth Kestenberg-Gladstein from the cen-sus of Bohemian Jewry carried out in 1724;

. the census of Lithuanian Jewry, carried outin 1765;

. birth, marriage and death registers from 9communities in the area of Lvov (Lem-berg), 19th century (Berezany, Bolechow,Brody, Drohobycz, Lwow, Nadworna,Podhajce, Stanislawow, Tarnopol);

. birth, marriage and death registers fromcommunities in the area of Zhitomir,(including the registration of Chaim Nach-man Bialik’s birth).

A list of voters to the Polish parliament fromRohatyn, 1870.

A list of deaths in Bialystok, 1938.

A list of tax payers from Krakow, 1906.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxiv

A digital list of burials in 4 Jewish cemeteriesin Buenos Aires.

A Selection of Extant GenealogicalMaterial Recently Catalogued

Over the past few years the Central Archiveshas benefited from the assistance of a groupof volunteers from Argentina, whocatalogued a number of collections fromSouth America, some of which containmuch material of genealogical interest.Among those collections are:

The Files of the Argentinian Branch of theJewish Colonization Association (JCA)

This collection contains about 9,000 files, ofwhich 7,000 files are personal files ofcolonists who immigrated to Argentinafrom Eastern Europe and received plots ofland in the colonies set up there by BaronMoritz Hirsch and the association which hefounded. Each such personal file contains acontract and/or other legal papers relating tothe colonist’s plot of land. A complete list of

these files is posted on the web site of the

Central Archives (http://sites.huji.ac.il/

archives)

The remaining files in this collection consist ofcorrespondence, reports, account books andcensuses of the various colonies in Argentina.These censuses often contain names ofcolonists and of their wives and children, aswell as their ages upon arriving in Argentinaand the name of the community in EasternEurope from which they originated. Suchinformation is of great value to thegenealogist in locating the community fromwhich his or her family came, enabling themto approach the relevant archives in EasternEurope, housing vital statistic registers fromthese towns. In some cases microfilms of theseregisters are to be found at the CentralArchives in Jerusalem. (see above –Zhitomir, Lvov etc.) The list of these files

does not yet appear on the web site, but is

available on the Central Archives’ premises.

The Files of JCA’s Head Office (Paris)

These files contain correspondence, reports,newspaper clippings, maps etc. concerningthe activities of JCA in various parts of theworld, including Eastern Europe, Israel and

South America. The correspondence filesconcerning emigration of Eastern Europeanto South America often contain lists ofpotential emigrants, often includinginformation on their ages, occupations andcommunities of origin. The list of these files isavailable on the Central Archives’ premises.

Files of the Far Eastern Jewish CentralInformation Bureau for Emigrants Daljewcibwhich was located in Harbin and later inShanghai, China.

This collection contains correspondence fileson the organization’s activities assistingrefugees from Soviet Russia and NaziEurope between 1918 and 1947. Thecollection also contains personal files ofabout 3,000 Jews from Germany, Austria,Poland, Italy and other countries in Europe,who sought refuge in Shanghai, China duringthe years 1938-1940 via the German JewishHilfsverein. A detailed list of these names is

available on the Central Archives’ premises.The collection also contains files listing theJews who resided in Shanghai during WorldWar II, and who applied for permits toemigrate after the War.

Computer Program

The Central Archives have begun tocatalogue microfilms recently acquired, aswell as a selection of other material, bymeans of a computer program which allowssearches, not only by the customary geogra-phical place names, but also by a number ofkey words. From 640 microfilm reels(containing thousands of files) registeredthus far (excluding the material fromLwow, mentioned above, which has not yetbeen catalogued), the program (quickly)extracted 57 files of contain birth, marriageand death registers from Eastern Europeduring the years 1752-1887, using the keyword ‘‘genealogy’’. The key word ‘‘lists ofnames’’ yielded 594 files from places inRussia, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania,Romania, Turkey, Morocco and Bulgaria,which contained lists of names, from theyears 1626-1940. Each day the number ofmicrofilms on this data base increases,increasing the number of files of genealogical

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxv

interest, retrievable, with relatively littleeffort.

From the small selection described above, itis clear that the Central Archives haveacquired and are acquiring much primaryand secondary material of genealogicalinterest. The potential for acquiringadditional material is practically unlimitedand is a function only of the funds madeavailable to the Central Archives.

Finally, we are looking for personal or familycorrespondence written from Europe torelatives who emigrated to the U.S., Israelor elsewhere – for the years precedingW.W.II, as far back as they go. Thismaterial, although ‘‘private’’ and seeminglyunimportant, provides us with valuable

information on the lives of people in thoseyears and on communities, for some of whichno material remains.

The Central Archive of the History of theJewish People (CAHJP)

Tel: 02-6586249 Fax: 02-6535426E-mail: [email protected]

Hadassah Assouline was born in New York.Grades 1-12 at Jewish day schools. B.A. inhistory from Brooklyn College. Aliya in 1965.Degree in archival sciences and M.A. in Jewishhistory from the Hebrew University in Jeru-salem. Employed a the Central Archives forthe History of the Jewish People since 1966.Director since 1993.

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The Meir Padoa Collection of Jewish Family Trees from Italy

Horia Haim Ghiuzeli

Israel Mario Meir Padoa was born inFlorence, Italy, on March 30, 1907 son ofGustavo Emmanuel Padoa and Clara neeSacerdoti (Cohen). Both parents belonged toJewish families with multi-centennial roots inItaly. Dr. Meir Padoa’s biography stands outas a typical example for the stories of manyother Jewish families of Italy during the 20th

century. The emergence of the Fascist regimein the 1920s and especially its rapprochementwith Nazi Germany in late 1930s encouragedan incisive introspection into the identity ofmany Italian Jews. Scion to deep-rootedItalian Jewish families who by early 20th

century underwent a strong acculturationinto the host society, only to be faced withrapidly changing realities no longer than acouple of decades later, the young MeirPadoa developed a growing interest inJudaism and Jewish history while taking anactive part in the activities of student Jewishorganizations in Italy. His studies andpersonal experiences turned him into anardent Zionist who in the early 1930sdecided to settle in the Land of Israel. Itwas then that Mario changed his name to

Meir. His later career never prevented himfrom pursuing an extensive research into thehistory of Jewish families of Italy. It becamehis main occupation after his retirement inthe early 1970s. With the constant assistance,encouragement and collaboration of hisfamily and many friends Meir Padoamanaged to accomplish a vast work ofdocumentation of Jewish life in Italy.

There were many factors that left theirimprint on the history of the Jews in Italy.Although never a large community, the Jewsof Italy have developed a highly originalcivilization to the extent that today theirheritage and place in the general history ofthe Jewish people is considered by anincreasing number of researchers as beingon the same level of achievements with thatof the Jews of Spain and the Jews ofAshkenaz, the two dominant centers ofJewish life in medieval Europe.

The life of the Jewish communities in Italywas strongly influenced by the intricatehistory of that country. Known in Italian asIl paese dei cento citta (‘‘The country of one

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxvi

hundred cities’’), Italy achieved politicalunity only during the last half of the 19th

century. Deep historical divisions havemarked the Italian history since lateAntiquity; foreign domination and inter-vention as well as internal strife and rivalryhave resulted in different paths ofdevelopment for the various regions ofItaly. The fate of the Jewish communitieshad repeatedly been decided by thosepolitical events as well as by changingeconomic conditions.

‘‘Jews of Italy’’ or ‘‘Italian Jews’’ are actuallygeneric names designating numerous smallcommunities dispersed in almost all theregions of Italy. There are discrepancies intheir specific heritage reflecting local devel-opments and achievements: Jewish history inVenice is different from that of Rome andboth significantly dissimilar to that of thesmall communities in the regions of Marcheor Piemonte. Moreover, Italian Jewrycomprises many congregations of variousorigins including descendants of galut Romiand immigrants to Italy from northernEurope, Spain, the Levant and NorthAfrica. In addition there was a permanentmigratory movement inside Italy eitherbecause of intermarriages or as a result ofhistorical vicissitudes and the pursuit of abetter life and more promising economicopportunities. The rise of Fascism promptedmany Jews to seek refuge in other countries.Their dispersion includes Israel, Brazil, andUSA.

Already at a young age, Meir Padoa startedcollecting photographs and postcards ofbuildings in Italy that once belonged toJews. He was especially interested incollecting personalized postcards that werefashionable with affluent Jewish familiesduring la belle epoque before the start ofWW1. These postcards frequently featureviews of private properties, either sumptuouspalazzi in the heart of historic towns orpicturesque villas in the countryside andoccasionally they even feature images ofhighly decorated salons and living rooms.The collection was organized according tofamilies, cities, and provinces in Italy. Thevisual collection contains over 37 albums

with thousands of photographs classified bycities and provinces. There is also analphabetical card index with the names ofthe property owners, a vast correspondencewith individuals in Italy and other countries.The visual collection has an importanthistoric and artistic value. It was preciselythis vast visual documentation of the life ofJewish middle class that ignited Dr. MeirPadoa’s interest in the history of the Jewishfamilies of Italy. As a result, he started tocollect information about Italian Jewishfamilies and systematically to build theirrespective family trees. His effortscontinued after his retirement in the 1970sand increasingly Meir Padoa dedicated moreand more time to his genealogical project. Itis worth pointing out that most of his workwas done in the era before the advent ofmodern instant communication and growingaccessibility to archives, secondary literatureand other sources. Padoa labored restlesslyon every working day for long hours day andnight, writing thousands of letters topractically all corners of the world askingfor details about the lineage of thousands ofJewish Italian families. At least once a yearhe travelled to Italy with a detailed work planthat he had prepared months in advance. Hisvisits were focused exclusively on conductingextensive research in the archives of variousJewish communities as well as in themunicipal or national archives trying to getanswers to all the questions encountered inhis investigations. Meir Padoa continued hisresearch persistently even when he wasalready into his 90s and his sight wasseriously impaired. During his last years ofwork Meir Padoa received the invaluablehelp of Ms. Anita Kersenti, his personalassistant. Meir Padoa stopped expanding hiscollection when he was 92 of age, having feltthat the work had been finished and themission accomplished.

The scope and detail of the genealogicalcollection, the result of the great efforts MeirPadoa employed for many decades, are trulyimpressive. The Meir Padoa Collectioncontains eight hundred family trees ofJewish families from Italy, some of themgoing back to the 16th century. Thegenealogy of the Padoa family, for instance,

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxvii

goes back to the 17th century, when itsearliest known ancestors lived in Modena.There are well over 30,000 individualsrecorded in these family trees, the majorityof them covering the 19th century and theearly decades of the 20th century. As a resultof the well known fact that after the MiddleAges, Italy has never had a large Jewishpopulation, and remembering that at leastthe initial scope of the research was focusedon middle and upper class families, MeirPadoa’s collection of family trees covers thegenealogy of the majority of the JewishItalian bourgeoisie especially in northernand central regions of Italy during the lastcouple of centuries. Therefore, anyoneinterested in the genealogical history ofJewish families in Italy has a good chanceof finding the required information in thecollection of Meir Padoa.

The original collection was organizedaccording to the various Italian provincesand by the alphabetical order of the familynames. The eight hundred family trees coverall Italian provinces that hosted Jewishcommunities during the last two centuries:Veneto, Lombardia, Piemonte, Liguria,Toscana, Lazio, Campania and the South.The history of Jewish families from smallcommunities in the Piemonte and Emilia-Romagna as well as the larger and betterknown communities of Trieste, Milan andRome is being pursued systematically overmany generations. It is the story of ancientItalian families who are believed to havesettled in Italy already in the days of theRoman Empire, but also the history ofillustrious Sephardi families that trace theirancestors to Spain and Portugal as well as ofJewish families that came to Italy from othercountries in Europe and the Mediterraneanbasin. The chapter dedicated to the region ofVeneto includes information on Jewishfamilies from ten communities includingthose of Venice, Trieste, Padova etc., butalso from other lesser known communitieslike Maurogonato, Gorizia etc. In additionthe research covers six communities fromLombardia, including Milan; seventeen fromPiemonte and Liguria; sixteen from Emilia-Romagna; six from Toscana; four fromLazio, including Rome; and Naples for the

chapter dealing with southern Italy. Thecollection also contains some family trees ofJewish families from cities on the Dalmatiancoast – places that used to be under Italianrule – and a small number of family treesbelonging to families originating from othercountries (France, Poland, and Ukraine).There are many hundreds of surnamesrecorded in the collection. The Meir PadoaCollection boasts the ancestry of a number ofwell known Jewish families, among them theOlivetti family of Ivrea or the Naples branchof the Rothschild family. It also contains thegenealogy of famous Italian Jews, like theLivorno-born painter Amedeo Modigliani(1884-1920); the 1986 Nobel Prize laureatefor medicine Rita Levi-Montalcini (b. 1909);the Verona-born criminologist CesareLombroso (1836-1909); the first Jewishmember of the Italian Senate Isacco-Jonathan Artom (1829-1900); the Zionistleader and Resistance fighter Enzo Sereni(1905-1944).

In the summer of 2002, at the initiative ofMr. Ugo Luzzati, a connection wasestablished between Ms. Michal Padoa, thedaughter of Meir Padoa, and the Douglas E.Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center at BeitHatfutsot. Their aim was to convert thefamily tree collection into a digital formatand to integrate the information into thegenealogical database of the museum. MeirPadoa knew about this initiative and the startof the important process of digitizing hiscollection. In accordance with Dr. Padoa’swill, his family decided to register hiscollection with the database of the DouglasE. Goldman Jewish Genealogy Center at BeitHatfutsot. Dr. Meir Padoa passed awaypeacefully in Jerusalem, the city where hespent most of his life, in 2003, before theaccomplishment of the digitizing process, butknowing that future researchers will enjoythe fruits of his life work.

The digitization work presented numerouschallenges. Over 90 percent of the materialwas in manuscript, sometimes in hard todecipher handwritten notes in Italian. Therewas no consistent method of recording thedata, actually there was a large diversity inthe way the family trees were arranged and

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxviii

recorded. It was very important to follow themeticulous instructions that Meir Padoainserted in his manuscripts. They containedclues on how to connect the various branchesof the same family tree or between differentfamily trees. Almost every family treecontained several layers of annotationsreflecting strenuous research spanning overseveral decades. With the help of the devotedteam of volunteers that included Ms.Barbara Esmond, Mr. Yitzhak Volkin andMr. Julio Mazo, as well as the kind assistanceof Ms. Michal Padoa and Ms. AnitaKersenti, the family trees have beendigitized and inserted into the database ofBeit Hatfutsot.

The introduction of an advanced databasesystem by Beit Hatfutsot in late 2007 enabledthe integration of the genealogicalinformation recorded in the Meir PadoaCollection with items from other sections ofthe database. Beit Hatfutsot’s extensivecollection of photographs contains an

important visual documentation of Jewishlife in Italy. An advanced search of thedatabase retrieves not only the names ofvarious individuals from the genealogicalcollection of Meir Padoa, but also explana-tions of the meaning and origin of theirfamily names, short histories of the relevantJewish communities in Italy, visual documen-tation, including photographs of specificindividuals that have been collected by themuseum from different sources, and alsopieces of music reflecting the specifictradition of the Jews of Italy. Meir Padoa’simportant collection is now accessible toresearchers from all over the world.

For a detailed biography of Dr. Meir Padoaand a short history of his family pleasereview the website of Beit Hatfutsot at:http://www.bh.org.il/database-article.aspx?48187

Horia Haim Ghiuzeli is the Director of theDatabases Department of Beit Hatfutsot –The Museum of the Jewish People.

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First Book of Circumcisions in

Tel Aviv Rambam Library, Beit Ariella

Avishai Elbaum

Towards the centennial (2009) of the estab-lishment of the city of Tel Aviv there was anexhibit at the Rambam Library at ‘‘BeitAriela’’. For the first time, the CircumcisionBook of the mohel Reb Nachum Weinstein,was open to the public. In this book, arelisted the names of over 22,000 boys born inTel Aviv and were circumcised from 1909-1955 by Reb Nachum Weinstein.

Circumcision books are a unique source ofinformation. The mohel lists the names of thechild born with the date of the brit.Sometimes there are notes on the side, suchas in the secret book of Reb David Lida. Inthe catalogue of facsimiles in the NationalLibrary at the Hebrew University in GivatRam, Jerusalem there are over 270 circum-cision books from the 17th century onwards.

There are many more in private collections orin the hands of mohalim or their descendants.Circumcision books were used in all theJewish communities, be they Ashkenazi orSephardi.

What is the reason for writing these books? Itis well known that it is a big mitzvah toperform the brit mila as a reward in the worldto come. .It seems that the right to bring Jewsinto the covenant of Abraham, which is thenrecorded in the Circumcision Book, willstand by the mohel when he has to justifyhis life on earth.

Circumcision books are a source ofinformation for the genealogist. Theinformation varies from book to book.Usually, the basic information given is thename of the child, his father’s name and the

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxix

date of the brit. Sometimes the date of birthis also mentioned since the brit can bedelayed for reasons of health. Sometimesthe place of the brit is also mentioned whenthe mohel is the mohel of the district and notjust in his own town or city. The informationwritten is considered truthful since it comesfrom a primary source. There is also adisadvantage in the circumcision books.There is no mention of the birth of girls.For genealogy, this is a problem. Sometimes,there are two mohalim and in special casesthe mohel may go out of his community inthe case where the mother gave birth at theresidence of her parents and not in her ownhome.

The subject of this report, Reb NachumWeinstein, was five years old when hisparents left Jerusalem and went to live inJaffa in 5641 (1881). His father was the Shub(=shohet and bodek [ritual slaughterer] forthe tiny Ashkenazi community in Jaffa. Atthe tender age of 17 Reb Nachum marriedand was sent to be the ‘‘mohel’’ of Gedera,Lod and Ramla. For three and a half yearshe served in Cyprus in the community thatwas founded by Ahavat Zion [=Lovers ofZion]. At the age of 24 he returned to Jaffa totake over from the veteran mohel, Reb MeirHamburger. In the course of time with theestablishment of Ahuzat Bayit, the firstneighborhood of Tel Aviv, Reb Nachumbecame one of the founders. He went to live

there with his brother. For many years till hedied at the age of 80 he circumcisedthousands of children. It was told that theMayor of Tel Aviv, Dizengof promisedWeinstein that after 20,000 circumcisions hewould be rewarded with a car. A street innorth Tel Aviv was named after him.

I became acquainted with the Circumcisionbooks of RebNachum throughmy friendRebYaakov Shlomo Levi, the head of the ‘‘TelAviv Shel Maale Institute’’ which researchesthe religious life of Tel Aviv from its earliestdays. The grandson of Reb Nachum has thepinkasim in his possession and he too is a well-known mohel in Bnei Barak. He agreed tohave the ‘‘circumcision books’’ exhibitedbefore the public. The first book covers theperiod of 1908-1926 and has 3,620 britotlisted. The importance of such a document isthe documentation of life in the city from itsbeginning. At the time, Reb Nachum was theonly mohel in the city. With the 4th Aliya andthe influx of Ashkenazim, there wereadditional mohalim and the work doing thismitzvah was divided up among them. Fromthese pinkasim, a facsimile edition was madein order to computerize the data. There is nowa computerized database at the library whichcan be used by visitors.

For those who have family in Tel Aviv orroots in the city looking at the books is afascinating journey into the past. It includesall the people living in the city withoutdifference from where they came from ortheir place in society .In the first few pagesone can also find some personal informationabout the family such as the profession of thefather or where he originated from. Forexample, on page three we see Ben Zion wasthe son of Zalman Dworkman, theshoemaker. On the same page, we will meetJoseph Cohen from Safed [=Zfat], acarpenter as opposed to the carpenters ofJaffa: Haim Steinberg and Yaakov JosephZaliansky. It appears that the profession ofcarpenter was popular at the time. It isinteresting to note – who was Eliyahu, thefather of the child called Ezrach who wascircumcised on 26 Ellul 5669 (1909)? Thefamily name of Eliayahu was not given only

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxx

that he was the son-in-law of the teacherFeffer.

A certain amount of detective work wasrequired of me when I came to look for thegenerals in the ‘‘high command’’ in all thegenerations who were born in Tel Aviv. Mostof them changed their names to ‘‘Israeli’’

names as was the custom to do. AharonRemez (833 in the book of circumcisions)was born to the Reis family. YishaiyahuGavish was born Shaklir (No. 2877), the lateYekutiel Adam was Admovitz (No. 4820)and Beni Peled was listed as Wiedenfeld (No.6098).

The exhibit is called ‘‘Tel Aviv of Mila’’ aplay on words for circumcision and word intribute to the expression of ‘‘The heavenlyTel Aviv’’, as the brit mila ties every Jew tohis roots and to his people.

While the exhibition was on, many peoplecame to check out the database at the libraryand were glad to find their loved ones listedas having been circumcised by the mohel, RebNachum.

Beit Ariela: Rambam Library

25 Shaul Hamelech, Tel AvivTel: 972-3-691-0141/249 Fax: 972-3-691-9024

Avishai Elboim listed a few professional mile-stones in his life: graduate of ‘‘Merkaz Harav’’yeshiva with Rabbinic ordination (Smiha). Heis a graduate of the Library School at HaifaUniversity (BA). He has been the director ofthe Rambam (Maimonides) Library at BeitAriela in Tel Aviv since 1991.

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REPORTS

Report on The Israel Genealogical Society; Fifth Annual Seminar

Hagit Matras

As we begin the year 2010 we can look backwith pride on the success of the AnnualGenealogical Seminar ,that was held in 2009on the 1st December 2009 at Beit Hatefutzot.

As one of those responsible for the planningand implementation of the last two seminars(December, 2008 and December 2009) Iwould like to evaluate both of them interms of the content, goals and conclusionswhen looking towards the future.

The aim of the 4th annual seminar can be

seen from the title:’’Oral Family tradition – a

source of family roots’’ whereby the aim was

to look away from the modern tools such as:

computer, telephone and electronic ties back

to ‘‘family stories’’. To be reminded of the

family albums, the old wives tales, the food

we were raised on day by day and on

holidays. To listen to the lullabies and

songs we once heard as children and the

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxi

heirlooms that were handed down fromgeneration to generation. All of thesedeserve their rightful place in building ourprivate family history. As we toil to put inanother name, date and place in our familytree programs we tend to neglect all the othermaterials that we have around us and thatmake up our past as it was. The aim of theseminar was to give the ‘‘family aspects’’their pride and glory in the family history.

The subject of the 5th annual seminar was‘‘From the Family to the Community –Keeping the Memory of the individual andthe collective in the past and present’’. Inreality, this year’s subject was a directcontinuation of what came previously. Thisdoes not mean that the old tools are passebut there are now so many new options forresearching the more distant past of thefamily. This includes: archives, newcomputer programs, internet options forconnecting people the world over and thepossibilities of reaching sources aboutfaraway places which were beyond ourreach in the past.

We were fortunate in having so many peopleturning to us to give us the benefit of theirresearch. I don’t know if it was by chancethat the interest was double that of last year.This enabled the committee to have moreoptions to choose from and to keep a balancebetween the languages of the lectures and thescope of the topics from Sephardi, Ashkenaziand Mizrachi=Oriental communities. One ofthe aims of the seminar is to have high-levellectures. However, this is not an academicseminar and some of the lecturers andresearchers were chosen because of theabstract they sent and subsequent commu-nication over the phone. Success can bedetermined not only by the way the subjectis presented to the audience but by theinteraction between the lecturer and thelisteners. Each lecturer has his technique inpresenting his subject matter.

In both seminars we thought it was best tobreak up the continuity of lectures only. Forthat reason there were workshops to give the‘‘hands on’’ approach. The public wants to‘‘work’’ with the materials at hand. Peopletoday are ‘‘connected’’ to the media (this I

learned from participation in the inter-national conference in Philadelphia). Itappears that the workshops were a bigsuccess. They were given by the people whoare experts in their field and by members ofthe Israel Genealogical Society. It is needlessto say that all the lecturers were not given afee.

The annual seminar of the Israel Genealo-gical Society is the only place and time whereall members, guests, students and outsiderscan get together in order to exchangematerial and ideas, pick up new ways ofdoing research and make acquaintances withpeople working in the same area.

Over and above, this is a golden opportunityfor members of the different branches tobring each other up to date on what is goingon and how the members can cooperate witheach other furthering various projects. In myopinion, more can be done in this field.

It is important to note that much of Jewishgenealogy is concerned with the narrative ofperpetuating ‘‘memory’’ of family andcommunity. This is especially importantwhen dealing with communities that weredestroyed and are no longer in existence.Many times the researcher goes in manydirections and is not sure where it will leadhim. In that case, it is not his personal‘‘memory’’ but rather that of ‘‘recreating thefamily’’ that was.

All of the above is directly connected to themessage that should be passed on from theyearly seminars: an educational message tothose involved in ‘‘hadracha’’=informal andformal teaching: that the research of familyshould not be a one-time project in the 7th

grade towards the Bar/Bat mitzva but anongoing one for the entire family.

It is our goal to try and bring this message tothe public at large.

Dr. Hagit Matras is a lecturer and aresearcher in Hebrew Literature and inFolklore and a professional Archivist. She islong time member of IGS-Jerusalem, and is amember of the editorial committee of Shar-sheret Hadorot.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxii

International Conference on Digitization of Cultural Heritage

Rosemary Eshel

Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute was the venuefor an International Conference on theDigitization of Cultural Heritage organisedby Eva /Minerva network on the 10th & 11th

November 2009 . The conference had a fulland varied program with three parallelsessions throughout the day focusing on thevarious digitization projects by Internationalorganisations and portals and IsraeliArchives and other institutions

On the second day of the conference, severalIGS members participated in a veryinteresting genealogy session – which waswell attended and there were many questions.Daniel Wagner and his project on the Polishtown, Zdunska Wola and his virtualrebuilding of a vanished community;Mathilde Tagger with a masterful presen-tation of the comprehensive Sephardicwebsite www.sephardicgen.com and itsmany databases, which contains materialfrom all over the Sephardic Diaspora andRose Feldman’s excellent look at the digiti-zation of material here in Israel in progress,

and what has been already uploaded onto theIGS website. Haim Ghuizeli of

Beth Hatefutsoth gave an overview of somegenealogy material being digitised includingthe collection of the late Dr. Meir Padoa,family trees deposited in Yad Vashem andthe Museum’s participation in Face Book. Ata second presentation Haim Ghuizeli showedphotos from Beth Hatefutsoth’s Collectionfrom Lithuania, Spain and Synagogues fromHungary.

From the lively audience response to thesession on Jewish Genealogy it is clear thatthere is much public interest in academic andscholarly genealogy. Such conferences presentan important opportunity for the IGS toparticipate and be represented in scholarlyand other forums relating to Jewish studiesand other fields of interest in the future.

Rosemary Eshel is a consultant to DigitalHeritage Israel and undertakes genealogy andother research commissions in Israel andabroad.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dictionary of Jewish Bulgarian Surnames

A dictionary of Jewish Bulgarian Surnamesby Mathilde A.Tagger has been uploaded onthe web. It includes 803 surnames, many ofwhich were found in the territories ofOttoman Empire.

. The details given for each surname are asfollows:

. the surname,

. all its variants,

. the language it derives from,

. its meaning

. when available, a reference to itshistorical background in medievalSpain. These references are all partof databases on Spain found in:www.sephardicgen.com/databases/databases.html

. Eight surnames remained of unknownlanguage and/or meaning.

. Ashkenazi surnames of those who settledin Bulgaria at the end of the 19th and thebeginning of the 20th from mainly Roma-nia, Ukraine and Russia have not been

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxiii

treated here as they can be found in one ofthe already existing dictionaries.

Before searching any name, it is suggested tofirst read the introduction in order tounderstand the history of the BulgarianJewish surnames as well as paying attention

to the rules of transliteration from Cyrillicalphabet to the Latin one.

The present dictionary is searchable at:http://www.sephardicgen.com/databases/BulgarianSurnamesSrchFrm.html

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From the Director of the Oded Yarkoni

Archives for the History of Petach Tikva

A number of years ago the Petach TikvaArchives donated the 1922 censusenumerated by the British to the IsraelGenealogical Society (IGS). At that time wehad not thought of a web site for the archiveand cooperation with the IGS gave usexposure on the internet. Nowadays, as thewebsite of the archives is in its final stages ofconstruction, we have decided to continuethis cooperation with the IGS because we

have no plans (and no budget) which would

enable us to build a special information

system especially for genealogy. This is a

win-win situation: The IGS enlarges its

collection of databases for public use, and

the archive has a place in which to expose the

content of its collection relevant to genealo-

gical research (all with the approval of the

city’s legal advisor, of course).

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MyHeritage.com – Beit Hatfusot Family Tree Collaboration

Under this collaboration, online family treesbuilt on MyHeritage.com http://www.myher-itage.com/BH or via its free software, FamilyTree Builder http://www.myheritage.com/BeitHatfutsot – with the consent of the treecreators – will be transferred to the Museumfor digital safekeeping.

MyHeritage was founded in 2003 by a teamof people who combine a passion for familyhistory with the development of innovativetechnology. It is now one of the world’sleading online networks for families, and thesecond largest family history website.MyHeritage is available in 36 languagesand home to more than 35 million familymembers and 420 million profiles. For 30years, Beit Hatfutsot has been collectingdigital information about the Jewish people

in many categories. The goal is preservationfor the future of these materials, includingfamily trees with millions of records.

The immediate benefit of the newarrangement, is to offer the public freesoftware from MyHeritage.com to createfamily trees, with the option to share thosetrees with Beit Hatfutsot.

For more information please contact:

For MyHeritage.com:Daniel Horowitz, Genealogy andTranslation ManagerE-mail: [email protected]

For Beit Hatfutsot:Haim Ghiuzeli, Databases and CollectionsE-mail: [email protected]

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxiv

ASK THE EXPERTS

Banai Lynne Feldstein: Mormon Microfilms

Q. I am new to genealogy, and have heardabout the Mormon microfilms, can you tellme more about these microfilms and how willthey contribute to my research. Do thesemicrofilms only relate to Ashkenazi research?

A. Mormon is another term for members ofthe LDS Church, the Church of Jesus Christof Latter-Day Saints. <http://lds.org/> TheLDS religion began in the 1820s in NewYork State. They put a strong emphasis onfamily and on conducting genealogyresearch. One purpose for the genealogyresearch is their desire to baptize theirancestors, which allows those ancestors toaccept the religion in the afterlife, thusallowing them to spend the rest of theirafterlife with their descendents in the LDSversion of heaven.

To this end, the LDS created the FamilyHistory Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City,Utah (the base of the LDS Church), andFamily History Centers (FHCs) around theworld. The LDS, using the name Family-Search (and historically, the GenealogicalSociety of Utah), travel all over the worldand create microfilm and microfiche ofgenealogical records. They keep the originalfilms in a vault in Granite Mountain in theSalt Lake Valley. The FHL has copies ofmany of the microfilms, and any others canbe ordered from the vault to the FHL forfree. Most films can be loaned to the FHCsfor a small postage fee.

The LDS have over 2.5 million filmscataloged. These films can contain civilrecords, census, probate, land, military, andreligious records, including Jewish, coveringa variety of locations around the world. BothAshkenazic and Sephardic research can beconducted with the records. The catalog isonline, so you can see what is available:< http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp>. Theyare actively filming in over 100 countries

and create 20 thousand rolls of microfilm peryear, according to their web site: < http://www.gensocietyofutah.org/about_us.asp>.

The FHL and FHCs are almost like publiclibraries. They are free for anyone to use andcharge only for copies, certain handouts andforms, and for shipping the microfilms thatyou request to the FHCs.

Currently, there is no FHC in Israel. Some ofthe LDS microfilms are available at BethHatefutsoth. There is a list on their web siteof the Polish films that they have: < http://www.bh.org.il/database-article.aspx?55905>JRI-Poland estimates that Beth Hatefutsothhas about half of the Jewish Polish films,though BH itself claims that it has only afraction of the records originally filmed in the1960s and 1970s. The LDS films will oftenhave either a lot of records for the locationyou are researching or they will havenothing. Some archives simply do not allowthe LDS to film; some don’t seem to wantanyone to have access to the records theyhold. Recently, the Catholic Church hasdecided to disallow the LDS from filmingbecause of the religious implications; theythink the LDS will try to baptize theirdeceased church members, as has happenedin the past with Jewish Holocaust victims.

Most of the research that I have done formyself and for clients has been American andEastern European. I have traced back someJewish families into the late 1700s, withrecords going back to the early 1800s, inseveral Polish locations, as well as Ukraineand Lithuania. It is my understanding thatSpanish records may go back to even earlierdates, but I have not yet researched anySephardic families. On the other hand, formy family from a city in present-dayMoldova, the earliest record I have is thepassenger ship list to America because theLDS have almost no records for thatlocation; although I was able to find a lot

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxv

of US information about the family in theLDS films.

The LDS microfilms can provide excellentgenealogical sources for many, if not all, ofyour family lines. Salt Lake City is a popular‘‘vacation’’ spot of genealogists. There areseveral genealogy societies and professionalsthat plan annual group excursions to theFamily History Library. The IAJGS annualconference returns to Salt Lake City approxi-mately every seven years. Even Europeanswill travel all the way to Salt Lake Citybecause it’s easier for them to use the FHLthan to go to their local archives. Whenyou’re ready to visit, be sure to contact the

Utah JGS <http://ujgs.org/> and perhapssome of our people can meet with you to helpyou get started.

Banai Lynn Feldstein is a professional gene-alogist who currently conducts most of herresearch at the Family History Library in SaltLake City, Utah, USA. She has extensiveexperience with USA and Eastern Europeanresearch including Poland, Ukraine, Lithua-nia, and Hungary. She can decipher recordsfrom Polish, Russian, and most Europeanlanguages. You can contact her by email [email protected] or at her web sitehttp://IDoGenealogy.com/.

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BOOK REVIEW

Sephardic Genealogy; Discovering Your Sephardic Ancestors and Their

Worlds, Second Edition by Jeffrey S. Malka1

Mathilde A. Tagger

Dr. Jeffrey S. Malka’s earliest initiative in thefield of Sephardic genealogy was in 1996when he created the first website dedicated toSephardic genealogy. All the Sephardicwebsites then existing were mainly orientedto culture and cuisine and perhaps one ortwo to history.

The first edition of Dr. Malka’s book inDecember 2002 was an event of immenseimportance since it was the very first bookever published on the genealogy of SephardicJews. This noteworthy work won the 2002Best Reference Book of the Association ofJewish Libraries – a well-deservedrecognition of this premiere.

In this second edition Dr. Malka has revisedthe existing chapters, enlarging some of themand updating addresses and URLs. He hasalso included new chapters, although thebook’s format remained as it was before,covering four parts: A Little History,

Genealogy Basics, Country Resources andInternet. The book concludes withAppendices, Surname Index and Index.

The following were added to the new edition:

Several sentences on the Hellenic Era as partof the ‘Evolution of the Sephardic Names’chapter; a whole new chapter about‘Sephardic Surnames in Iberian Research’ –a must for understanding and researching therich medieval Spanish archives which areslowly opening their doors closed forcenturies; a novelty dealing with ‘DNA andGenealogy’ – an actual topic that has itsplace in any Jewish genealogical researchbook. Asked, Dr. Malka answered: ‘‘There istoday so much discussion about DNA ingenealogy – it would be wrong not to saysomething about DNA, at least to state whatwe know and don’t know about the subject’’;the Genealogy Software chapter has beenenlarged with ‘‘Reviews of Software

1. First appeared in Avotaynu, Vol. XXV, No. 3, Fall 2009.

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxvi

Programs’’’ – a good tool to help newresearchers to make a choice; the‘Periodicals’ chapter now includes selectedbibliographies from Avotaynu, Etsi (France)and Revue du Cercle de Genealogie Juive(France).

Then comes the third part entitled CountryResources, alphabetically arranged by namesof country even though Bulgaria andYugoslavia are both placed under ‘Balkans’.

The heading ‘Austria’ did not exist in the firstedition and this is a very necessary additionsince Turkish (Sephardic) Jews formed animportant community in Vienna until itscomplete decimation in the Holocaust.

By a quick look at the ‘‘Suggested Reading’’in the ‘Balkans’ chapter, one realizes that it isincomplete, especially regarding Yugoslavia.Missing, for example, is the book of MarkCohen on the Jews of Monastir (now Bitola,Macedonia) (NY, FASSAC, 2003), which,among other things, lists in detail all the 760families that were sent to their deaths in1943; or Pinkas Hakehilot: Yugoslavia (YadVashem, 1988).

‘England’ and ‘Germany’ are new chaptersthat complete the Sephardic North-Europeantriangle of Amsterdam-Hamburg-London.

After ‘Germany’ ‘Greece’ is not listed, butfurther on one will find Rhodos as well asSalonica. In the first edition Salonica was theonly representative of Greece. It isr eg r e t t ab l e tha t the o the r Greekcommunities such as Athens, Ioannina,Larissa, Volos etc. did not catch Malka’sattention. It is true that the literature andresources are mainly written in Greek, yet it

is possible to overcome that difficulty. But‘‘Greece’’ has been added in the Internetfourth part of the book.

’This edition, as the first one, includeschapters on Iraq and Iran that were notspecifically Sephardic communities. Wheninterviewed about this issue after thepublication of the first edition, Dr. Malkasaid: ‘‘Oriental Jews have no books ongenealogy, and I wanted to be as inclusiveas I could’’ (Avotaynu, 2003, IX, 1: 60-61):

A completely new chapter is dedicated toIsrael – an important addition since manyrich genealogical resources are concentratedin this country.

The chapter on Turkey that was quite shortin the first edition has been here enlarged andthis is indeed an important extension.

The last part ‘INTERNET’ has beencompletely updated and nearly doubledwith added items on the Balkans, Greece –as earlier mentioned – Hamburg (Germany),Portugal and Turkey. Besides all these Jewishgenealogy blogs are also included.

The thirteen appendices as well as thesurname index and the general indexcomplete this new edition while forty-fourpictures of scripts, diagrams, all kinds ofcertificates, family tree, memorials etc.illustrate the book.

The extended information and addedchapters in this second edition make thisbook, more than before, an ‘‘essential’’source for the researcher with Sephardicroots, no matter where his family used tolive. Bravo and thank you Dr. Malka

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Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxvii

ABSTRACTS OF ARTICLES FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS

Avotaynu – Spring, 2009 Volume XXV,No. 1

Meriam Haringman

History and Genealogy of the Jews of Rhodes

and Their Diaspora by Leon Taranto

This Judeo-Spanish community was inexistence from the time of the Ottomanconquest in 1522 until the Holocaust. Thematerial online includes cemetery lists.Otherwise, if interested in the census or civiland municipal records one has to make emailcontac t wi th the communi ty . Forinformation on Jews of Rhodes whoperished in the Holocaust there are thepages of testimony from Yad Vashem butalso others that appear in books by HizkiaFranco and Lilianna Picciotto Fargion. Thearticle also gives a good amount of materialavailable online.

When Jews Could Not Marry: Forbidden

marriage in 18th and 19th Century Bohemia

by Jerome King Delson

Delson gives a practical description how Jewsmanaged with the Familiant Law whereofficially only the first born son couldmarry. Jews of course wanted all theirchildren to marry.

British Migration Records, 1793-1960 byNicholas Evans

Evans shows how people tracking theimmigration of a family can use Britishsources not only for those who intended tostay in England but also those who used it intransit for other destinations. His list ofsources both in books and online sites is mosthelpful.

Just How Were Passenger Manifests Created?

by Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pinkus

Sallyann makes it clear that the kind of exactdocumentation we now have did not exist ahundred years ago. Thus, many manifest listshad information about the passengers from

the people themselves who did not knowEnglish well or from their relatives. Thecompanies supposedly knew who and howmany people were on board but many timespeople bought the tickets from agents andnot directly from the shipping company. Inaddition, the shipping companies listed thenames of those in steerage while the names ofpassengers in cabin class were not listed.Thus, one should check more than onesource when looking for information aboutfamily who reached Ellis Island.

The Jews of Vienna and Their Moravian

Hometowns by Julius Muller

Muller explains how Jews living in Vienna inthe19th century had come from the towns ofMoravia, circumventing the familiant lawsand improving their economic conditions.Usually, the second and third sons were theones to migrate.

Successful Quest for Ancestors in Aleppo and

Baghdad and for Kinsmen in Calcutta byLucien Gubbay

Recently more and more research is beingcarried out on the wandering Jews in theOrient. Gubbay has enabled the reader totrace the movements of the Gubbay familynot only in Aleppo, Baghdad and Calcuttabut their migration to the West in London,Buenos Aires and Brazil. Very welldocumented.

Two articles deal with directories. The articleby Alex Friedlander is larger in scope, whileEdward David Luft, in his art ic le‘ ‘D i rec tor i e s in Addi t ion to Ci tyDirectories’’ limits himself to the nineteenthcentury.

Directories by Alex E. Friedlander

Though some of the information in thisarticle appeared in 2004, it has been updatedand gives the reader an overview of the

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxviii

different kinds of directories available andhow to use them. The scope includes not justthe addresses or phone numbers, but alsoinformation connected to business and theprofessions and of course the ’’Who’s Who’’.The writer also warns the reader how to usethe directories in an intelligent manner and tobe aware of their limitations.

If you are interested in learning about theprojects undertaken by Jewish GenealogicalSocieties, then take a look at what SallyannAmdur Sack-Pikus has written on the subject.

Finding Prisoner B68739, Jacob ‘‘Cuppy’’

Migden by Carl R.Migden

Though the writer could not find conclusiveevidence that this criminal was his relative, heis giving the reader the tools to go and searchvarious avenues for material.

Dealing with Relationships That Are Known

but Cannot Be Proven: A Case Study by IsraelPickholtz

The advantage of Picholtz’s article is hisbasic assumption that one needs supportingevidence to show family ties. His persistencepaid off and only after checking informationat Yad Vashem did he finally reach a livingrelative who enabled him to finish the puzzle.

Vilnius Jewish Leaders who were Killed (1941-

1945): Seeking Answers by Howard Margol

Though lists have been published, the workbeing carried out today is to try and obtainbiographical data on these people. Margoldescribes what has been achieved until nowbut there is still work to be done.

Maajan 89 – The Genealogy Journal ofSwitzerland and Hamburg, December 2008

Esther Ramon

Switzerland

Rabbis in Switzerland by Raymund M. Jung

Rabbi Moritz-Meir Kayserling (1829-1905)served as a rabbi in the Argo province ofSwitzerland from 1861-1870 and isconsidered the representative of the Jews inthe German speaking part of Switzerland.

Analysis of the Hebrew Text on the Listings in

the Birth Registry of Vienna by Anna L.Staudacher (part 2)

The details go into the handwriting.

The Jews’ Oath in the Luebeck Trials in the

18th and 19th Centuries by Peter Guttkuhn

During the oath the Jew had to lift the fingerof his right hand while it was turnedoutwards. This was the tradition until 1879when the laws of the Reich came intoexistence for the Jews as well.

The Descendants of Salomon Manus Viant

Shene Bloch by Thomas Bloch

There is a family tree of four generations.The family history begins in 1737 until ourown days. The first three generations lived inGailingen, Germany and then moved toSwitzerland.

Who was the Uncle Izzy or Julius Gutmann?

by Ariane Mil-Gutmann

Julius Gutmann was born with the nameIsrael Gutmann in 1889 and died in 1960. Hewas an opera singer in Germany and later amusic teacher in the United States after hismigration there in 1934. The writer made agenealogical study of Gutmann from thebiographical details she had in hand and wasthus able to make contact with hisdescendants.

Hamburg

News about the Painter Alfred Yaakov

Schueler, the brother of the poet Else

Lasker-Schueler by Ulrike Schrader

New information about the poetess ElseLasker-Schueler with careful notation of thesources.

Details from the Hamburg Civil Marriage

Registry by Hannelore Goettling-Jakoby

The data includes 50 listings according to thealphabet k-w. In each registration record thefollowing details appear: date and place of

Sharsheret Hadorot, Vol. 24, No. 1xxxix

marriage, name of the groom, name of thebride, dates of birth, names of the parentsand their occupations.

Further Information on the Stolpersteine and

their Use for the Memories of Ernst Victor

and Gertrude Gumpel and their Three

Children by Johann-Heinrich Moeller

There is ample information about the familyand photos are included as well.

Sources of Information for Jewish Families in

the State Archives by Juergen Sielemann

Revue du Cercle de Genealogie Juive No. 99

Juillet- September 2008

Mathilde A. Tagger

A guide in French has recently beenpublished by two members of the FrenchJewish Genealogical Society, Basile Gingerand Daniel Vangheluwe, for researchingroots in Poland, especially for those who donot know Polish but know some English.

15,000 vital records from Constantine,Al-geria, for the years 1843-1895 have beenindexed and database is online in themembers’ corner at http://www.genealoj.org

only open to paying members of the Society.The records were found in Centre desArchives d’Outre-Mer, in Aix-en-Provence,France.

Other articles in this issue concern Jews fromthe French Moselle district.

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