THE SER-CHARLAP FAMILY NEWSLETTER Feb
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THE SER-CHARLAP FAMILY NEWSLETTER Vol. 3, No. l Feb.-March 1Y92, Adar 575~ YTZKDR BCX)KS In his seminal book on Jewish genealogy, From Generation to Generation, Arthur Kurzweil suggests that Yizkor Books are among the best sources for learning about the destroyed communities of eastern Europe. Typically, these are volumes of several hundred pages devoted to one particular town, or a town and the surrounding countryside and villages. Kurzweil relates that "members of landsmannschaften, because of their affect ion for their old communities as well as their admirable historical sense, have published these books as a tribute to their old homes and the peopl~ who were murdered during the Holocaust.'' Yizkor, or memorial books exist for hundreds of towns (shtetls), villages (dorfs), and cities. We have been assembling those Yizkor Books which treat of the area in which our family lived before the tragedy of World War II. We now have copies for Ciechanowiec, Czyzewo, Tykocin, Suwalk, and excerpts from Zaromb, Semiaticzi, Wysokie Mazowieckie, and others. Our family association has been translating the Ciechanowiec Yizkor Book into English. Over half of this l,000 page tome has been translated. Many ****************************************** of the essays and articles are by family CI~---:cHAl\fOWIEC HUMOR members and among the editors are Chava by Hersch-Ber Pasternak Werba (257,Plate Jh), Tzvi Pasternak (5831, Pl. 24a), Menachem Levine, and Avraham A YF....SHIVA BOY, A SORCERER. Moshe Wrobel. Recently, we have been asked to edit the Suwalk Yizkor Book. This has In the years of 1925-26, Ciechanowiec already been translated into English, but was home to an excellent yesh]va which much work remains to be done. Suwalk attracted students from distant towns. The Gebernya encompasses the extreme northeast boys would board in the homes of the portion of Poland and parts of southern townsfolk. One evening, a neighbor whom we Lithuania. Among the towns discussed are shall call "half-woman" because she was so Kalvaria, Krasnopol, Sejny, and Mariampole. small, knocked on our door in an agitated These were all home to our family. When we state. She told my mother, "~;]ma Gittel, are finished with the Ciechanowiec and let's go into another room as I have Suwalk volumes, we hope to do the same for something important to tell you. 11 A few Czyzewo, Tykocin, et al. minutes later my mother returned, telling For this newsletter we present an us that the half-woman was very frightened excerpt from the Ciechanowiec Yizkor Book and upset beca~se the yeshiva student who which was written by Hersch-Ber Pasternak, sleeps in her house ]s a sorcerer. Every who in 1964 was living in Haifa, Israel. He night he arrives late and goes to his room. is a family member, but we have not, as Upon lighting a candle, he takes out of a yet, been able to place him on the tree. (cont. next page) 2 case little wooden carvings, some with shown the miracle-by pushing a button you horses heads, others with strange shapes. could control the light. He places them on a board, moves them· In the synagogue, we hung an elertric about, and talks strangely to himself. lamp. Electric candles were placed on the This is how the half-woman of pulpit on the Cantor's lectern. They looked Ciechanowiec described the game of chess. very much like wax candles. We'd lift little children and ask them to blow out THE RIDICUI_OUS CXJMPARISOJ\r the candles. Of course they could not do it. We laughed and laughed and there was A drayman, or hauler, lost his much joy throughout Ciechanowiec. We mother. At the funeral a minyan was considered ours to be a very sophisticated gathered from the Ciechanowiec lantzmen. As town. was the custom, the son expressed remorse with great emotion. Someone approached him RADIO DAYS and said, "Don't carry on so. It is sad to lose a mother, but she was ninety years old We had heard about radio by reading and lived a full life. Besides, it is known the newspapers. They told about programs that you did not treat her with respect." that would be broadcast. Once in the The mourner continued to cry even louder newspaper Moment, an article appeared with and shouted out so that the entire instructions on building a radio. It said congregation could hear, "What do you know? to make two holes in a box about twelve Can you feel my pain? Can you imagine how I inches on a side. A horn should stick out feel upon losing my mother? G_d Forbid my of one hole. A cat is then put in the box horse should die, I would not be as sad as with its tail sticking out the other hole. I am with the death of my mother." After closing the box, you pull the cat's tail and hear radio. I'm not certain that anyone followed these directions, but I do know that Meyer Shapiro's son built a real For a long time there were no street radio. He'd let us listen for a price - ten lights in Ciechanowiec. Then the groschen for a half hour through one authorities installed gas lamps. Several earphone. Two earphones cost fifteen years later, when we were all accustomed to groschen. I lined up and he told me, "Wait the gas lamps, we hear that the magistrate until twelve noon. Then you'll hear music." has ordered the building of an electric The others pushed in front of me and heard power plant. The privileged Jews will no reports in Polish about weather conditions longer have the pleasure of their gas lamps and farming conditions. I waited and heard because Ciechanowiec shall have beautiful music. It didn't matter to them electricity. Ah, who doesn't remember that that they knew not a word of Polish. They first night when many homes experienced the had listened to voices on the radio! secret of electricity. We would look ****************************************** through the windows and see the blazing The Jewish mother, after her preparations lights go on and off as the children were for the Sabbath are completed, kindles the ****************************************** Sabbath lamp on Friday evenings. That is THE SER CHARLAP FAMILY NEWSIJETTER is symbolic of the Jewish woman's intluence on published three to four times per year. We her own home, and through it upon larger encourage submittal of news items, essays, circles. She is the inspirer of a pure, poems, and historical articles. chaste family life whose hallowing Correspondence should be directed to: influences are incalculable; she is the Arthur F. Menton, Editor center of all spiritual endeavors, P.O. Box 108 confidante and fosterer of every Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. 11724 undertaking. The Talmud teaches us: It is Tel: (516) 754-1742 woman a lone through whom G__ d' s blessings Copyright @) 1992 .are vouschafed to a house. Arthur F. Menton Henrietta Szold All rights reserved 1893 3 REPORT TO FAMILY ASSOCIATION MEMBERS The Ser-Charlap Family Association was founded at our tirst convention, held at Hi·own's Hotel in the Catskill Mountain region of New York. It's hard to believe that was way back in September 1989. The aim of the association's founders was to support research on the family, provide for improved communications between various branches of the family, and establish a framework for future conventions. The Ser-Charlap Family Association has succeeded beyond anything we expected. Five hundred copies of this newsletter are printed and disseminated. If we assume that each copy is read by two to five people, we may have over 2500 readers. This is not insignificant for a newsletter of this type. As reported in the last issue, the newsletter goes to several libraries, archives, and historical societies. We inadvertently omitted two such recipients. These are the National Archives of Canada and the .Jewish Genealogy Society. Since the formation of our association, the number of names on the family tree has continued to grow. We are now approaching 7,100 dating back to Abraham Charlap, who was born in the mid 1700s. Research is continuing in all branches of the family. We have managed to bring together many people who had not seen each other for years. We continue to discover new relatives whose existence was unknown. On a recent business trip to Paris, we learned of a large number of Jewish Sers who came from our general area. Investigation is under way to determine how they fit into the family. Serge Sukiennick, an engineer living in Paris, is related to the Trotz family. The Trotz family is intertwined with us, as is the Sukenik {Sukiennick) family. Serge is being helpful with the French connection. During the past year, we have also discovered many more Charlaps and Charlips in diverse places. We have not as yet placed any Charlups on the tree, although that is definitely a variation of the name. We have also seen the name simplified to Harlap and complicated to Tscharlop. We have discovered Amiram Charlap (6833,Pl.A-12), thanks to Paul Falcon (5790,Pl.17cdb). Amiram is an architect in Tel Aviv. He is the father of Ruth Harlap (6835,Pl.A-12}, the well-known Israeli actress. Paul was also helpful in alerting other Charlaps from the California region. Among them is Gerry Charlop (6865,Pl.A-13). Harry Mankuta (1832,Pl.17b) has been active in tracing family members in Israel. He uncovered a whole group of Mankutas who have Hebraicized their names to Manor.