Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain December 2017, Vol 25, 3

SHEMOT JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN DECEMBER 2017, VOL 25, 3

Shemot cover.indd 1 03/11/17 9:52 PM Contents An introduction to local and comparative Anglo-Jewish epitaphic epigraphy Michael Jolles 1 St Albans Masorti Synagogue: mapping SAMS Roots Pauline Symons 6 One big family – the Shuvals in Russia Jeremy Schuman 9 Remembering what went before – a farewell to Who Do You Think You Are? Live Daniel Morgan-Thomas 15 New York’s historical synagogues Moriah Amit 17 Jewish hairdressers in London in the nineteenth century Daniel Morgan-Thomas 19 The Hebrew Schools for Boys and Girls, Palestine Place, Bethnal Green Gina Marks 21 American censuses and substitutes. Part 2: finding substitutes for the 1890 and other censuses Ted Bainbridge 24 The Ziments from Kolbuszowa David Conway 26 Harry Levy, 1892–1917: an attempted biography of my great-uncle Derek Stavrou 29 A list of East End occupiers Stanley Melinek 37 Tracing the family name in nineteenth-century Germany Eva Lawrence 39 Happiness and sorrow go hand in hand Cynthia Shaw 42 Curiosity killed the Kohen Russell Eisen 44 Is there an actor in the house? My theatrical ancestors Danielle Sanderson 48 The (Berko)wiczes of East Warsaw: Part 1. How American Jewish genealogy can break down your English and Polish brick walls Leigh Dworkin 53 The light of the Lindos Doreen Berger 59

Cover photo: Leigh Dworkin’s great-grandparents Harris and Sarah Bercovitch in Warsaw (see his article on page 53 for their story).

Shemot is the journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain. It is published three times a year and is sent free to members. We publish original articles, submitted by members or commissioned, on a variety of topics likely to be of interest to our readers. We particularly welcome personal experiences that include sources and research methodology, explanations of technological developments and innovations, articles highlighting archival material and the work carried out by volunteers to preserve our heritage, biographical or historical accounts, and practical research tips. We also publish book reviews and letters.

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Shemot_25.3.indb 1 15/11/17 11:59 AM An introduction to local and comparative Anglo-Jewish epitaphic epigraphy Michael Jolles

Introduction Epigraphy, the analytical study of inscriptions, when applied to epitaphs (as on a headstone, chest tomb, obelisk, plaque, etc.), is of particular value to genealogists. It has not yet been established if the specific epigraphic features reported here have been observed in other Jewish cemeteries in the UK, or described elsewhere. Few printed articles in Shemot or elsewhere relate to local conventions of headstone artwork.1 Comparative studies exploring epigraphic features that differ between cemeteries are yet to be made in any detailed fashion. During a recent visit to the main Jewish cemetery on the south side of Colley Road, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, I noticed a special feature that I do not recall having encountered before, despite having visited dozens of Jewish cemeteries. This is the inclusion within the internal hexagon of a Magen David (literally the Shield of David, but usually known as the Star of David) of the initials of the deceased. This observation was also made at the nearby much smaller cemetery on the north side of Colley Road and at the cemetery at Walkley, Sheffield, but not elsewhere. For comparison and in order to broaden the subject, fifteen other cemeteries, mainly in London and the East Midlands, were visited. Further interesting observations are set out here. These provide examples of local and comparative Anglo- Jewish epitaphic epigraphy, a research field still in its infancy and one which genealogists are well placed to develop. In this article, all observations, especially quantified ones, are, of course, subject to verification, as it is impossible to always gain safe access to, let alone locate, observe and double-check, all the features on all the stones in these cemeteries, whose total burials add up to well over fifty thousand; minor oversights are thus liable to have taken place. What, then, are the customary features to be found on a typical Jewish upright headstone erected during the last 150 years in the British Isles? There may be, at the top, in the pediment, a motif. Sometimes there is a Magen David. The inscription, with the Hebrew text at the top and followed by the English text below, may begin with an introduction (pe nun or pe tet, discussed below) and may finish with a phrase indicated by five Hebrew initials at the bottom, derived from the first book of Samuel. The text, in whichever language, always includes the name and usually the full date of death. Attributes (e.g. attestations of character), biblical phrases, the names of principal mourners, along with other textual material, are often included. Although this pattern is considerably varied, it is favourably amenable to description and analysis.

(pe tet) פ׳ט pe nun) and) פ׳נ The use of pe tet, for women), denoting) פ׳ט pe nun, for men) denoting ‘here lies’ or) פ׳נAt the top of a headstone, two Hebrew letters ‘here is interred’, are usually found. Sometimes one letter is flanked on each side of a Magen David or they are both placed within its internal hexagon. פ׳נ At Willesden, Edmonton and Streatham, and at many other cemeteries, certainly a century ago, the convention of being applied to men and women respectively was adhered to in most cases. One may thus justifiably imagine that פ׳ט and may have been constant throughout the country, but this convention is no longer held in פ׳ט to פ׳נ the ratio of the use of .now predominates פ׳נ ,many cemeteries. Instead as are over 80 per ,פ׳נ At Leicester’s Gilroes cemetery’s new section (1970s onwards; 300 burials) about 65 per cent are cent at Coventry, about 85 per cent at Northampton, about 90 per cent at Derby (opened in 1902), and almost all at Sheffield is now being construed as denoting פ׳נ and Nottingham (Loughborough Road; 1940s onwards). One explanation is that thereby rendering superfluous the use of ,(פה טמונה for women (instead of פה נטמנה for men and (פה נטמן or) פה נקבר both Paradoxically, at Brandwood End cemetery . פ׳נAt Witton cemetery’s old section at Birmingham, about 99 per cent are .פ׳ט פ׳ט being seen in well over 95 per cent of stones, the ratio of פ׳נ at Birmingham (1918 onwards; about 550 burials), despite applies to men. All these ,פ׳ט abbreviated to ,פה טמון ,has actually increased since about 1990. Even so, confusingly פ׳נ to phrases mean ‘here lies’ or ‘here is/was buried’.

The Magen David It may also be thought that the Magen David had been an inconstant feature of the headstone. In Europe it appeared on stones towards the end of the eighteenth century. In Britain, it was only after the mid 1940s that it became increasingly popular, but in some cemeteries only. At Witton, less than five per cent have a Magen David. The earliest Magen David spotted on a stone there is dated 1905. There are also at least six between 1911 and 1918. At Norwich there is a prominent one at the apex of the stone’s pediment (1920). At Brandwood End, the earliest is dated 1924. There are then about six more before 1939. There were proportionately more during the 1940s but the number increased in later decades such that from 2000 every stone has one.

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The earliest Magen David at Northampton (opened in 1902) is on a stone dated 1939. In Leicester’s old section (about 500 graves) the earliest spotted is dated 1945, but there is also one dated 1915 in a reasonably convincing contemporary stone. Dating of a stone may be very difficult where it also includes a later inscription relating to the widow or widower or if there is an almost identical but separate stone. Would a second stone be a later copy of the first or would they both have been set at the later date? In Leicester’s new section every single stone has a Magen David. In each case but two, these are of a stylised double-stranded interlocking design. In Nottingham, all but 24 out of around 800 stones have a Magen David, representing 97 per cent. In Coventry’s new section (mid 1950s onwards), about 80 per cent have a Magen David, whereas in the old section (1866 to mid 1950s mainly) there is only one Magen David (1947) out of over fifty legible stones. At Oxford, there are just over forty Magen Davids out of over 300 stones; the earliest is dated 1955 except for an earlier Imperial War Graves Commission stone. In both sections of Hoop Lane cemetery, London, the Magen David is seen in less than one per cent of stones before 1950 (an early one is dated 1923). At Streatham (8000 burials), where the earliest one spotted is dated 1916, Magen Davids were rare until the 1940s, after which they gradually increased until about thirty years ago; they now appear on about half the recent stones. At Edmonton (opened in 1890; 35,000 burials), only about one per cent has a Magen David. Jacob Lewis’s headstone (1895) which bears a Magen David records his membership of ‘Court Shield of David’, the title of which society may love‘ ,אהבת ציון explain the Magen David. On Jacob Koffman’s headstone (1909) is a Magen David above which is written of Zion’. There are a handful of stones with Magen Davids from about 1909 until the 1914–1918 war, during which there was a noticeable but slight increase. The number rose again slightly during the 1920s and 1930s. At Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery, London (opened in 1873; 17,000 burials), less than one per cent of stones have a Magen David. The earliest one spotted is that of Jacob Levin (1897) and his wife Bertha (1904); the surname is Only about twenty were spotted dating from before 1939. Incidentally, at Willesden, during the .לעווין ,spelled in Hebrew 1920s and 1930s, the majority of stones appear to have just the English text only. In contrast, in the post-1955 section at Coventry (115 stones), only three have no Hebrew.

The inclusion of initials within the internal hexagon of the Magen David: a special feature At Sheffield, in the main Colley Road cemetery (opened in 1874; about 1400 burials), a cluster of fifty-six headstones was detected on which different combinations of two or three Hebrew letters are placed within the internal hexagon of which would normally introduce the Hebrew text of ,פ׳ט or פ׳נ the Magen David, thereby replacing the conventional the epitaph. Almost all these Hebrew letters have a dot above them, suggesting they are abbreviations; there is no other punctuation. Also, the first line of the Hebrew inscription, whether starting above or below the Magen David, begins This means, roughly ‘here rests .פה ינוה [for women ,תנוה] בשלומ על משכבו [for women , ]משכבה :with these five words in peace…’, a phrase which is fairly routinely used throughout this cemetery and which closely denotes what the two conventional letters do, and which almost invariably displaces them. These individual Hebrew letter combinations clearly correspond with the initials of the Hebrew forename or forenames found within the hexagon on the stone of an ,איל ,of the deceased together with the initial of the surname. For example Isaac Lesser, corresponds with ‘Eliezer Yitzhak’ consistent with the two Hebrew forenames on the stone, not just ‘Isaac’, the English text forename on the stone. The fifty-six examples, almost all of which record the surname in the Hebrew text, are on stones dated between 1904 and 1936. The first was Hyman Aronovitch (c.1848–1904), a cigarette manufacturer, shopkeeper and grocer, born in Poland and consistent with the Hebrew text declaring , חפאformer resident of Nottingham. His initials within the Magen David are his forenames as Chaim Pinchas, whilst the English text reads Hyman Aronovitch and his Jewish Chronicle death notice refers to him as Chaim Zelik. Some 230 burials took place between 1904 and 1936. Why this feature, which applies to a quarter of the stones during this 27-year period, emerged is speculative. Possibly it was a spontaneous initiative. The initials at the top of a headstone may help it being more easily located by visitors, but the initials, although at a focal point on the stone, are rather small. They may also serve to personalise the grave fractionally more, but the initials are not especially decorative. Maybe the idea was copied from an example on the continent, where artwork convention is sometimes less formal and restrained than that found in the UK. After the first time it was used, a stonemason or a synagogue official may simply have encouraged the practice and then it became, to a limited extent, customary to adopt it. This practice must have received some degree of official recognition because one stone whose Magen David encloses commemorates Baruch Zeev Cantor (Rev. Bernard Cantor), the minister who served the local community from about בזק 1900 to 1912 and who died in 1915. His stone-setting took place in 1916. The practice was stopped in 1936 quite abruptly, for it had been used on six occasions within the preceding twenty-two months. Six years later, the stone of a Dr Moses Schlaff (died 1942) had ‘Moses’ (in Latin letters) placed inside its Magen David’s hexagon. On the north side of Colley Road, just opposite the main gates and the ohel, there is a small cemetery. It contains about 120 stones. Just one stone has initials within the internal hexagon of the Magen David (1933), but on two others the Magen Zion), a feature only occasionally seen elsewhere (e.g. Northampton, 1960s). A few miles) זיון David encloses the word away, a visit was made to Walkley Jewish Cemetery (entrance via an iron gate on the south-west side of Waller Road, halfway between the points where Nichols Road and Rangeley Road each meet Waller Road). There are over 100 stones, but the initials within the Magen David were only noted on 18 (mainly 1910s and 1920s).

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representing David Isaac ידמ.The Hebrew initials within the hexagon are sometimes at variance with the English text Myers is an example of initial reversal. Some forenames in English do not relate very predictably to the Hebrew versions. represents Lizzy יק .that is Baila Reena ,ביילא ריינאrepresents Rebecca Schweitzer, her Hebrew names being spelled ברש the Hebrew ,חש Kaufman, the Hebrew text recording her forename as Yehudit. Marian Strassberg is represented by the Hebrew recording him as Issacher Dov. Had the ,ידכ recording her as Chaya. Similarly, Gilman Cohen is represented by practice of placing Hebrew initials at the top of all headstones been applied universally, it would have been of considerable benefit to genealogists.

Monograms and other initials at the top of four headstones (1922–1949), two of י׳א׳נ׳ A rare finding, so far only observed at Witton, is the inscription of ,יזכור אלקים נשמת ,them within the hexagon of a Magen David. These initials represent three words from the Yizkor prayer ‘May G-d remember the soul [of …]’. This is not to be confused with a monogram, which is also found at the top of a headstone; they are in a few cemeteries only. Monograms consisting of Latin, not Hebrew, characters, but not placed within a Magen David, were observed at Streatham (between 1923 and 1949), Willesden, Edmonton cemeteries (mostly from the 1910s to the 1930s), Coventry (two: being (ב) and at Witton, where a dozen were spotted (1889–1934). The only instance of a single Hebrew initial ,(1910 ,1899 enclosed within a Magen David that I have detected is that at Willesden of Babetta Adler (1929; her husband (same stone) died in 1940). At the main Colley Road cemetery in Sheffield, there is at the top of Martha Saygol’s headstone a depiction This includes her forename and surname, another unusual .מלכה סגל ע׳ה׳ :of an open book with nine Hebrew letters on it feature. In one exceptional case, at the top of Esther Levi’s headstone (1918) an open book surrounded by a chain of leaves with no dots on top of them. Below אסטר ליוואי is depicted, with words written on the open pages. They read her name These two letters, in this context, signify ‘peace be .עה ,these letters are two larger letters with dots on top of them within its Magen David, but this quite simply and literally represents Ethel עה upon her’. Another stone nearby has Hartman, an observation that demonstrates the importance of carefully construing each abbreviation with regard to its own context.

The inclusion of the surname within the Hebrew text Another interesting feature is the inclusion in the Hebrew text on the headstone of the surname of the deceased being spelled out in Hebrew characters. (Here, Cohen/Kohn as a surname is not counted if the Hebrew records Cohen or HaCohen.) It is unusual for the Hebrew text on Ashkenazi Jewish stones to include the deceased’s surname in Hebrew characters, but in these three Sheffield cemeteries it is frequently observed, but only for a limited period. An early example dates from 1891. It became common practice in Sheffield until the mid 1950s, after which it became very unusual (just two later instances in the main Colley Road cemetery were spotted (1971; 1992 a Sephardi burial). This feature was also noticed on four stones at Leicester’s new section, three at Coventry and at Oxford, two (1912) at Witton, one at Brandwood End, only a handful at the Willesden United Synagogue cemetery (an early one is dated 1890), one at Walkley (1916), one at Derby, one at Northampton, and only the occasional one at Edmonton and Streatham (e.g. 1933). At Hoop Lane cemetery in Golders Green, London (opened in 1897) there is a West London (Reform) section and a Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardi) section. In the Reform section very few have a surname in Hebrew, whereas in the Sephardi section it was common practice. Sephardi cemeteries are usually, but not obligatorily, separate entities from the Ashkenazi ones; at Ramsgate, the cemetery is mixed. It is not always clear if the spelling of the surname in the Hebrew text is in Hebrew or Yiddish or conforms to both. On the stone of Jacob Samuel at Colley Road, for example, the forename Samuel is in the conventional Hebrew spelling, ,Similarly .סאמי וּ�על ,whereas on the same stone the surname Samuel is spelled in a manner consistent with Yiddish ,סמואל with a dot on) מ Mark Woolman’s initials within the Magen David are a .דזייקאבס on another stone, Jacobs is spelled both being , אָ �and the second letter in Fox is , אָ� with a single dot on top. The first letter of Altman is װ it) followed by a consistent with Yiddish. In Hebrew, consonants are not doubled unless they are pronounced twice: Mr Lesser is recorded .the latter consistent with Yiddish ,לעססער whereas his wife is recorded as ,לעסער as

Further aspects of the inscriptions However in some cemeteries there are alternative .פ׳ט or פ׳נ Most Hebrew inscriptions, a vast subject itself, begin with (e.g. 1870s) על קבר in full (e.g. 1872) or פה נקברintroductions (incipits). At Witton, for example, inscriptions may start with ,( נפטרה,niftar’; or, for women‘) נפטר ,Also, instead of the almost universal Hebrew term for passing away .פה מצא מנוח or which, incidentally, almost always starts a new line (except at Witton where it is quite often in the middle of a line), phrases not observed ,(שהלכה לעולמה ,or, for women) שהלך לעולמו or (מתה ,or, for women) מת Witton frequently uses either routinely in the other cemeteries I visited. an abbreviation denoting ‘may his/her ,ת׳נ׳צ׳ב׳ה׳ At the end of the Hebrew text, or at the very foot of most headstones is soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life’. This – for some a slightly puzzling phrase – is derived from I Samuel 25:29, and has appeared on Jewish tombstones for centuries. At Witton, this abbreviation is also frequently found, instead, at the

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very top of the headstone, a feature unusual elsewhere (five spotted at Oxford). A more accessible and pleasingly phrased rendering in English may be found at the foot of the oldest stone at Coventry (Rosa Joel, 1866): ‘May her soul be bound in the bliss of eternal life’.

Artwork variation Published illustrations of funerary artwork of the nineteenth-century Jewish cemetery frequently depict images representing a Cohen and a Levy set in a tympanum at the top of the headstone. The Cohen image is usually of the backs of two hands in which there is an emphasised wide gap between the middle and ring fingers (the other fingers being close together), and where the thumbs touch or nearly touch each other. The image is occasionally of a palmar version (Ramsgate, Yarmouth). The Levitical image is of water being poured from the ewer (pitcher/jug) into a bowl. Over the last forty years, the ewer depiction has become a distinct rarity. However, a number of early ewer designs were spotted at Edmonton and Willesden, with about ten at Witton, one at Northampton (1967), at least five at Streatham (1937–1980), but very few elsewhere and very few recently. Other artwork designs observed during this article’s preparation include: a snapped or chopped tree trunk (often with a hatchet held by a right hand appearing through clouds), a broken pillar (also representing a young life cut short), willow branches in a ‘weeping’ pattern, a pair of lighted candles with a hand on either side (pious woman), candleholders with varying number of arms (usually three or seven [menorah]), a pair of candles, a charity box, wreaths, (extinguished) lamps, the two tablets with Decalogue, a prayer book (devotion to prayer and/or study), a scroll, a book with an open page with significant Hebrew letters displayed on it, a shofar (Streatham, 1939), a dove (Witton), a shell motif (Norwich), drooping drapery over an urn (Ramsgate, 1883), and an angel face with wings (Yarmouth, 1816/7). Some of these motifs were simply copies of Christian designs, sometimes reflecting the degree of their social integration or, more practically, simple expediency at the masons. Many others with geometric or floral designs simply serve as ornamentation. Imperial (‘Commonwealth’ since 1960) War Graves Commission stones, some almost a century old, often bear a Magen David, with the regimental, national or other symbol (e.g. a maple leaf for a Canadian serviceman) at the top. Affiliative wording appears on some stones. At Edmonton, one partially eroded stone records the London Hebrew Tontine Benefit Society Kindness Truth …, and, on another stone that mentions the Brethren of Justice Friendly Benefit Society are depicted two hands in a handshake position (1911). The masonic square and compasses are occasionally seen.

Individuality What may be deemed an idiosyncrasy in one cemetery is an established convention at another. At Streatham, for example, the speciality, an unusual one, is the surname being emblazoned on a superscription, usually in relatively large block capitals, on a horizontal entablature or pediment at the top of the headstone, and almost always in Latin characters. .in memory’) appear instead‘) לזכרון peace’) or‘) שלום Occasionally Occupations may be implied by an image or stated in the text (e.g. ‘librarian’, Witton; ‘journalist & mentor’, Norwich, 2008, which, incidentally, includes four hats; ‘photographer’, Norwich, 2012). However the cemetery with the greatest concentration of occupations is probably Oxford which records: editor; social anthropologist; linguist and lexicographer; social scientist; artist; scholar, teacher; physician; historian; Russian historian and academic; visionary; translator; and philosopher. Oxford also specialises in birthdates and birthplaces (from at least a dozen different countries as by today’s borders). Refugees’ stones tend to include birthdates. Seldom seen nowadays, the age of the deceased is recorded in the Hebrew text (1984) on a stone at Oxford, where on another the English text is at the top, with the Hebrew text, most unusually, below it (2013). One stone at Leicester’s new section and one at Witton (1896) include an acrostic. Another at Witton, unusually, has part of its inscription in italics. At Coventry, a recent stone records both the date of birth and the date of death in Hebrew. At Edmonton, one stone (1955) records, in addition to the Hebrew name and date of death in standard Hebrew characters, an eight-line text of Yiddish in cursive Hebrew characters. At Nottingham, one stone displays a musical stave with the initials of the deceased indicated upon the stave according to their musical letters (B, C). Another, at Witton, displays a page of music and text of a hymn (1924/1942). A short text, entirely in French, is found at Norwich (2001). A rather cryptic polyglot text at Oxford includes one word in the Arabic alphabet (2008) and another in Esperanto. An interesting inscription at Streatham is the Hebrew character text on the stone of the famous Yiddish author, I. A. Lisky, whose Hebrew names are in Hebrew, followed by an epithet, ‘Yiddish writer’, on the next line in Yiddish (1990).

Conventions Why does one set of features develop in one cemetery and not in another? Certainly, the monumental masons’ templates, conventions and capabilities are critical factors. Early Sheffield stonemasons included E. Smith of Cemetery Road, S. Crowther of Burngreave Street, J. Hobson, and H. Hornbuckle of Ellesmere Road, but the mason most predominantly associated with the Magen David designs enclosing the initials (in all three Sheffield cemeteries) was Bingley Bros of Darnall.

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Masons, the majority of whom were not Jewish, may well have had sample books of standard formats for use by customers, Christian and Jewish. Other factors determining which features would appear on a headstone are cost, locality and ‘local minhag’, denomination and group authority (reflecting, to a limited extent, conformity versus individuality; the United Synagogue passed by-laws concerning inscriptions), individual client preferences (especially regarding artwork), isolation (opportunity to copy other cemeteries’ customs), and the degree to which the variation of designs is already visible in the existing cemetery. The degree of ornamentation or individuality is not always determined by the level of orthodoxy. Some cemeteries show an imaginative range of designs – sometimes harmonious – whereas others only demonstrate the occasional, almost imperceptibly nuanced, variation. There is a low degree of variation at, say, Nottingham, and a relatively high one at Streatham. These factors vary considerably with the period under scrutiny. Some individual stone designs that appear slightly out of character (or are very simple) may have been chosen by the family of a mid twentieth- century refugee from Central Europe, who imported their own style of design and wording from abroad. Another feature of interest is the metal grave markers found at Norwich (some very decorative, but most are trefoil-shaped), Oxford and Ramsgate.

The role of the genealogist Genealogists value the information supplied on tombstones, especially the dates, the Hebrew forenames, patronymics and alternative surnames.2 As if in recompense, genealogists and local historians have frequently been instrumental in scrutinising and re-annotating the local burial registers as well as in preserving and maintaining their local Jewish cemetery. To these commendable activities may be added the opportunity for them to research local and comparative epitaphic features and conventions, work embarked upon several decades ago by the late Rabbi Dr Bernard Susser, epigraphist par excellence. This discipline is distinct from local cemetery studies, which are devoted to architecture, theohel , the taharah house, prayer plaques or boards, the burial of sacred texts, burial registers, cemetery history (including its relationship with Jewish and municipal institutions), topography (cemetery layout, the mapping of grave sites, cremation remains, and places where cohanim, children, suicides and non-Jewish spouses are buried), ecology, use of stone and other materials, sociological and artistic aspects, and so on. Over the last few decades, several printed Jewish cemetery studies, mainly relating to burials details for genealogical purposes, have been published; others now appear online. However, published reports of comparative Anglo-Jewish cemetery observations and history are long overdue. The set of original epigraphic and other noteworthy cemeterial observations recorded in this article demonstrates the type of features that need to be subjected to further analytical scrutiny. It represents a fraction of what needs to be researched in depth in order to adequately develop the field of local and comparative Jewish epitaphic studies for the complete British Isles. A chronology of Anglo-Jewish cemetery history, epigraphy and other epitaphic features, as well as a list of historical and noteworthy inscriptions, merits being compiled.

Michael Jolles has current research interests in Anglo-Jewish collective biography, the history of chazanim in the British Isles, and the history of the Jews of Hastings and St Leonards, East Sussex. NOTES 1. Related articles of interest include: Susser, Bernard, How to read and record a Jewish tombstone (1995); Lewis, David, ‘Hull’s Jewish headstones’, Shemot, vol. 16, no. 3 (November 2007), pp. 7–9 (which includes a note on chronograms); Kadish, Sharman, ‘Bet Hayim ‘House of Life’: an introduction to Jewish funerary art and architecture in Britain’, Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, vol. 49, (2005), pp. 31–58; and Kadish, Sharman, ‘Jewish funerary architecture in Britain and Ireland since 1656’, Jewish Historical Studies, vol. 43, (2011), pp. 59–88. 2. Messik, Louise, ‘Gravestones yield key facts’, Shemot, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 2005), pp. 10–11.

Shemot_25.3.indb 5 15/11/17 11:59 AM St Albans Masorti Synagogue: mapping SAMS Roots Pauline Symons

Way back in 2013, some members of the St Albans Masorti Synagogue (SAMS) and St Albans United Synagogue prepared and gave a talk on the ‘History of the Jewish Community in St Albans’ at the Verulamium Museum, and later at SAMS. At the time, we talked about having a map where we could pinpoint where our own families had come from. We even printed out a map and started sticking dots on but they got a bit piled up and started falling off! Then we embarked on the SAMS Roots project in 2015–16. This project had Heritage Lottery Funding and allowed us to employ a biographer, our own Caroline Pearce, to interview twelve members of the community about their memories and experiences and what brought them to SAMS. You can find the transcripts, audio files and summaries at www.e-sams. org/roots. We also had our own display in the SAMS building and a very successful launch in June 2016. With the SAMS Roots project we realised that we now have the tools to create a virtual map with pinned stories, using an interactive website called Historypin.1 This allows you to create a collection and ‘pin’ photographs and descriptions to the Historypin map, giving the location and date for each photograph. We were encouraged to use this site by the University of Hertfordshire’s Heritage Hub team who supported the SAMS Roots project; for each of the twelve SAMS Roots interviewees one photograph was attached to the Historypin SAMS Roots collection so we had already made a start. Subsequently, Helen Singer and I thought it would be fantastic to ask all the adult members of SAMS to send us two photographs of their ‘roots’, together with the stories associated with them, to extend the original Roots project to the whole community and build up a virtual exhibition of all our Roots. We put together a project plan which was approved by the Trustees. We have also involved our cheder and the B’nei Mitzvah group. The aims of the project are to: • encourage our young people to find out more about their families’ Roots; • involve SAMS members of all ages, allowing us to discover the Roots of our community; • provide a showcase for SAMS and aid understanding of our diverse heritage. The project has its own web page www.e-sams.org/mapping-sams-roots which links from the Roots page. When you click on the SAMS Roots Tour on Historypin at https://www.historypin.org/en/sams-roots-tour/ you will see a description for each photo and the map will show where the photograph was taken. You can zoom into areas on the map or sort the photos by date using the slider bar. Helen and I devised a template and instructions to send all our members. This asked them to send us their photos and descriptions electronically but we were very happy to visit people in their own homes and really felt we got to know our contributors better. We tested out our template by providing our own photos and stories, starting with a photo of me as a baby in Australia, my grandparents in East London, Helen’s mother arriving in England on the Kindertransport and her father’s family in Germany taken with the camera he was given for his bar mitzvah. We are delighted with the response we received; at the time of writing we have 105 pins with over 1800 views. The project is ongoing, and we have arranged to visit some more members to obtain their contributions. The stories are weaving an amazing tapestry of our heritage over time and place, with roots in South Africa, Iraq, South America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and various parts of the UK, in particular the East End of London. It is interesting to see how early some members’ ancestors arrived in England and what occupations they pursued. The stories are so varied and colourful in terms of geography, history and personal anecdotes, from recipes for borscht to Yiddish theatre, with tales of sorrow and survival as well as tales of joy. We discovered connections with a famous illusionist, an intrepid South African journalist, a famous agony aunt, the Battle of Cable Street, a bullet given to Vera Lynn and a Schindler’s List survivor. As well as photographs of people, we have been able to incorporate some fantastic documents such as naturalisation certificates, a 1919 bar mitzvah invitation, a Yiddish betrothal document, and a Ketubah. The stories date back to an ancestor who was born in 1703, only fifty years after Cromwell readmitted Jews to England. The younger members of our community were enthusiastic about having the opportunity to ask their grandparents, aunts and uncles and other family members about their past. There is now a permanent display of their stories and photos in one of the cheder classrooms at SAMS (Figure 1). We see this as a way of getting the younger generation interested in their roots so that these wonderful stories can be preserved for future generations. We know that the JGSGB are keen to get the younger generation enthusiastic about genealogy – so what better way to engage them than to get them to tell a story, and there’s no doubt that any grandparent would love the opportunity to talk to their grandchildren about their own youth! We would like to thank our members who were generous with their time and very happy to share some wonderful and extraordinary stories and it has been a terrific way to bring the community together. Sometimes people said their stories were boring or that they didn’t have any, but with some gentle questioning we were thrilled to discover some amazing histories. We have received some lovely feedback on the project with participants telling us how much they enjoyed contributing their own stories and reading those of others and in some cases that it was a cathartic experience looking back on long-lost stories and photos.

Shemot_25.3.indb 6 15/11/17 11:59 AM ST ALBANS MASORTI SYNAGOGUE: MAPPING SAMS ROOTS 7

Figure 1. Classroom display.

We held a successful Mapping SAMS Roots Celebration on Sunday 25 June at SAMS (Figures 2 and 3). Leigh Dworkin, Chairman of the JGSGB, and Norman King, convenor of the North Herts Group, attended and offered their expertise to those people who are interested in researching their family history further. They were very impressed with the project and we are looking at ways in which we can mutually promote the concept to the wider Jewish genealogical community.

Figures 2 and 3: Mapping SAMS Roots celebration.

The website is accompanied by a permanent display in the SAMS building (Figure 4) so if you are visiting, do please take a look. We hope to be soon up and running with portable equipment to display hard copies of the exhibits when we take the project to other communities, conferences and exhibitions.

Shemot_25.3.indb 7 15/11/17 11:59 AM 8 PAULINE SYMONS

Figures 4. Permanent display.

We have put together a ‘Mapping our community’s Roots toolkit’ for any communities that would like to create their own collection. Do please get in touch if you would like to map your own community’s roots. We would be more than happy to visit you, or invite you to SAMS to view the displays and provide you with the toolkit, which of course is completely free of charge.

Pauline Symons became interested in genealogy when she realised that she knew next to nothing about the family of her paternal grandfather, who died at the age of thirty-six leaving six orphaned children, so she joined the JGSGB and has now found two cousins who, amazingly, live within a few miles of her – and her search for more relatives continues. She is a Trustee of St Albans Masorti Synagogue (SAMS), and feels privileged to be involved in the Mapping SAMS Roots project. She can be contacted at [email protected]

NOTE 1. Historypin. https://www.historypin.org/en/ (accessed 1 Sept 2017).

Shemot_25.3.indb 8 15/11/17 11:59 AM One big family – the Shuvals in Russia Jeremy Schuman

As far back as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by the lives of my ancestors. And the circumstances behind the evolution of my surname have held a particular fascination for me. I had been aware from my childhood that our original family name in Russia wasn’t Schuman, but at that time it was almost impossible to access any genealogical records from what was then the Soviet Union, so I had no way of verifying the stories I heard from my grandfather and other members of his generation. My relatives were all in agreement about the key facts relating to my paternal forebears: firstly, my great-grandfather Jacob Schuman had been born in the Russian city of Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) in about 1861; secondly, Jacob and the male members of his family were all cabinetmakers or woodcarvers in Russia; and thirdly, our original surname in Russia was either Suval or Shuval, this having been changed to Schuman when my great-grandfather migrated to England in about 1882. Apparently the name Shuval was misheard as Schuman by the immigration authorities either in England or while my great-grandfather was passing through Germany. The most interesting thing I discovered from my relatives concerned the origin of the Shuval name. According to family tradition, when our ancestors were required to adopt a family name in the early 1800s, they were given the name Shuval because they had recently come from the region of Suwalki, which lies immediately south-west of Kovno. However one of my grandfather’s cousins had heard a different story from his father: apparently our ancestor who took on the surname Shuval had recently undergone a religious reawakening, and chose the name because it had a hidden Hebrew meaning, El) being Hebrew for God. It therefore appears that my own) אל shuv) being Hebrew for return, and) שוב – ’return to God‘ surname has a hidden Hebrew origin, in a very roundabout way! As I gathered all the information known to my various relatives, further details about my ancestors emerged. While my great-grandfather Jacob Schuman worked as a cabinetmaker all his working life, his father Manny Schuman (Figure 1) was a highly skilled woodcarver, and had been commissioned by several Russian churches to work on their woodcarvings, often far away from his home in Kovno. He would spend several months at a time working for each church, although it is not clear if his family travelled with him on these visits. One story I heard indicated that he once travelled all the way to St Petersburg (over 400 miles away) to work in one of the cathedrals.

Figure 1. My great-great-grandparents Manny and Vichna Schuman.

I was also fascinated, as a child, by the possibility that my ancestors had come from the Middle East some two thousand years ago. My grandfather assured me that this was true, but, with my scientific mind, I was desperate to prove whether this, as well as all the other stories I had heard, were true. If my original family name in Russia had been Shuval, I needed to know which of my ancestors first took on this name and when. How long had my ancestors lived in Kovno? Where had they come from before they moved to Kovno? As it turned out, it would be a good twenty-five years before I had any chance of answering these questions.

Shemot_25.3.indb 9 15/11/17 11:59 AM 10 JEREMY SCHUMAN

By the start of the twenty-first century, a significant number of records from the city of Kovno had been transcribed and indexed by the Litvak Special Interest Group1 and many of the original records could be viewed via microfilms created by the Mormon Church.2 One of the records I found at that time was the birth record of my great-grandfather, Jacob Schuman, under his birth name Yankel Shemariah Shuval (see Figure 2). I finally had documentary evidence of our original family name!

Figure 2. 1861 birth record for Yankel Shuval.

Fortunately for me, I discovered that the surviving records from the city of Kovno (where my Shuval ancestors were registered for tax and military conscription purposes) were remarkably complete. As well as many of the birth, marriage and death registers, there were also various lists of inhabitants dating from several years throughout the nineteenth century (1816, 1834, 1851, 1852, 1858, 1868, 1874, and 1887–1893). The information in these records allowed me to piece together everyone recorded with the surname Shuval into one of two family trees (summarised in Figures 3 and 4).

Movshe

Itske Shuval (c. 1799–1882) m. Rochel (c. 1800–1880)

Boruch Hirsh Shuval Rivka Shuval Wolf Shuval Manke Shuval Necha Shuval Leib Shuval (c .1820–1887) (c. 1825– ) (c. 1827–1882) (c. 1829–1912) (c. 1836– ) (c. 1841– c. 1876) m. Vichna Drozen (c. 1834–1911) 4 children

Shachne 5 others Movshe 3 others Shuval Shachne Yankel Movshe 4 others (1861– ) Shuval Shemariah Shachne (c. 1852– ) Shuval Shuval (1861–1942) (c. 1863–1942) (My great- grandfather) Figure 3. Chart 1.

Leib

Shachne Shuval Wolf Shuval Movshe Shuval (c.1775–c. 1848) (c.1784 - ) (c .1800–c .1875)

Aron Abram Shuval Rochel Shuval Mortchel Shuval Minka Shuval Yankel Shuval 4 others Rochel Mendel 4 others Shneyer Necha (c.1799– ) (c.1804– ) (c .1811–1853) (c.1823– ) (c.1824–1902) Shuval Shuval Zalman Shuval m. Zalman Shuval (c.1800– ) (c.1824–) Shuval (c.1835– ) (cousin) (c.1830– )

Necha 5 others Necha David 5 others Meyer Necha 8 others Necha 5 others Shuval (all born Shuval Shachne Yosel Necha 7 others Shachne Shuval Shuval (c.1832– ) pre-1835) (c. 1833–) Shuval Shachne Shuval Shuval (c.1850– ) (c.1843– ) (c.1850– Shuval (1857– ) (c.1848– 1896) (1850– ) 1898)

Figure 4. Chart 2.

Shemot_25.3.indb 10 15/11/17 11:59 AM ONE BIG FAMILY – THE SHUVALS IN RUSSIA 11

The first family tree, summarised in Chart 1, has an individual called Movshe at the top (my 4x great-grandfather), who must have been born in the mid to late 1700s. Whether he ever used the surname Shuval or not, I have no way of knowing at the moment. His son Itske Shuval (c.1799–1882) appears in the Kovno Family Lists from 1851, 1852 and 1858, together with his wife and six children, but they don’t appear in any earlier Kovno lists, so I assume they came to Kovno from another town shortly before 1851. The other, much larger Shuval family tree (summarised in Chart 2), containing over 150 names, has someone called Leib at the top, born around the middle of the 1700s. His three sons were all living in Kovno in 1816, having recently arrived from the nearby town of Rossieni (now Raseiniai). The 1816 registration of residents was the first time that Russian Jews had been formally required to adopt a family name, so it’s likely that the three brothers all took on the surname Shuval at the same time. Prior to that time, Russian Jews were generally known by their patronymic names. For example, when my ancestor Itske Shuval was born in about 1799, he would almost certainly have been recorded as Itske Movshovitz (Itske son of Movshe). Although officially registered as residents of Kovno from the early 1850s, my ancestors clearly moved around quite often. In the 1874 Family List, the family is recorded as living in the town of Szaki (now Šakiai) in the Suwalki gubernia (province). The birth registers for that town also record the birth of my great-grandfather Jacob’s youngest brother Leib in 1876. As far as I can tell, Jacob was the only member of his immediate family to be born in the city of Kovno. His older sister Chayah told her children that she was born in ‘Kovno Gubernia’ (the province of Kovno). However, her birth doesn’t appear in the city’s birth registers, so I suspect the family were living away from the city at the time of her birth (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. North-west Russia – late nineteenth century.

Connecting the two family trees The question I most wanted to answer at this stage concerned the two separate Shuval families. Had the two families adopted the same surname independently, or was there a family connection between the two of them? Could they somehow be linked together in one family tree? As I studied the two separate family trees, I noticed that two relatively unusual personal names appeared several times in each tree. The first name was the male name Shachne. In Chart 2, it can be seen that, after the first Shachne Shuval (c.1775–c.1848) died, three of his children gave their next-born sons the name Shachne, in accordance with the Ashkenazi custom of naming a child after a deceased relative. In Chart 1, three sons of Itske Shuval also gave their sons this same name at around the same time. This could, of course, just be a coincidence, but was it possible, I wondered, that these three sons of Itske Shuval were closely related to the first Shachne Shuval, perhaps grandsons? Clearly Shachne wasn’t their paternal grandfather, but could he have been their maternal grandfather? In other words, could Itske’s wife Rochel have been a daughter of the first Shachne Shuval? The other name common to the two family trees was the female name Necha. In Chart 2, four children of the first Shachne Shuval gave this name to one of their daughters, implying that an ancestor called Necha – probably Leib’s wife – had died in about 1830. In Chart 1, Itske and Rochel’s first daughter born after 1830 is also named Necha. This is a further indication that Itske’s wife Rochel might have been closely related to the Shuvals in Chart 2. The 1816 Revision List (similar to a census) indicates that there were two Rochel Shuvals living in Kovno, both born at about the same time as Itske’s wife: one was born in about 1804 and was the daughter of Shachne Shuval, while the

Shemot_25.3.indb 11 15/11/17 11:59 AM 12 JEREMY SCHUMAN

other was born in about 1800 and was the daughter of Shachne’s brother Wolf. Both appear in Chart 2. According to the 1858 Family List, Itske’s wife Rochel had been born in about 1800, although ages given in these documents are often very approximate, so as things stood, either of the Rochels in the 1816 Revision List could have been the Rochel who later married Itske. Looking further at the details in the family trees I had compiled, I noticed that Itske’s wife Rochel gave birth to a son called Wolf in about 1827. It appears that Wolf Shuval in Chart 2 was still alive at that time, so it is highly unlikely that Itske’s wife was a daughter of that Wolf Shuval, as she surely wouldn’t have given her child the same name as her living father. Consequently, it seemed most likely that Itske’s wife was the daughter of Shachne Shuval in Chart 2. The evidence was mounting up, but I needed one further bit of proof to convince myself that my theory was correct. Fortunately this further bit of proof appeared in the Litvak Special Interest Group databases, in the form of the 1855 Real Estate Owners register. Itske Shuval (from Chart 1) and Yankel Shuval (from Chart 2) are both recorded as owning the same house (number 130) in Kovno. If my theory was correct, then Itske and Yankel were brothers-in-law, so owning the same house together would be perfectly possible. Perhaps they both inherited a share in the house from Shachne Shuval (Itske’s father-in-law and Yankel’s father)? I was now convinced that Itske’s wife Rochel was a member of the Shuval family in Chart 2, almost certainly the daughter of Shachne Shuval. Itske must have taken on the surname Shuval when he married Rochel (in the mid 1820s), perhaps because he didn’t yet have a surname himself. They then settled somewhere away from Kovno where their children were born, before they all moved to Kovno in about 1850. After posting a message to the Litvak Special Interest Group, I discovered that several members were able to give me examples of male ancestors of theirs who had adopted their wives’ surnames on marriage, so this theory was certainly plausible. Many Jews still hadn’t adopted surnames at the time of Itske’s marriage, the law requiring surnames to be adopted not being strictly enforced until a few years later. Now that I had been able to link the two Shuval family trees together, I looked to see whether there were any other Shuvals outside Kovno. I discovered that everyone in the Lithuanian archives with the surname Shuval (whether it was in Hebrew, or Schuwal in German) had their family origins in the שובאל ,spelled Шувал in Russian, Šuvalas in Lithuanian town of Kovno, and belonged to this one family tree. Individuals with slightly different surnames such as Suvalski and Shevel were all unrelated to my Shuvals. Having successfully combined all of the Lithuanian Shuvals into one family tree, I now wanted to know where my ancestor Itske Shuval and his sons had been living before they arrived in Kovno in about 1850. I decided to extend my search for Shuvals to other regions which fell within the so-called Russian Pale of Settlement. This was a large geographical area in western Russia that was created following Russian legislation in 1795, to restrict where Russian Jews were permitted to live. It remained in force for more than a century. Although the surname Shuval doesn’t appear in any of the records from present-day Belarus or Ukraine, I did find in the Polish records several appearances of the name Szuwal (the Polish equivalent of Shuval). All of the individuals concerned turned out to be descended from the Shuval family from Kovno (i.e. the Shuvals from both Chart 1 and Chart 2). Widening my search to the Latvian records, I discovered an Elya Shuval, son of Itzik, living in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils) in the 1897 All Russia Census. Although now in a different country (Latvia), in the nineteenth century Dvinsk was also in Russia, in the neighbouring gubernia of Vitebsk. Was it possible, I wondered, that this Elya Shuval was a previously unknown son of my ancestor Itske Shuval? Perhaps the family had lived in Dvinsk before moving to Kovno in about 1850, leaving Elya behind in Dvinsk? Had I, at last, discovered where my ancestors were living before they arrived in Kovno? One way to test whether Elya Shuval might have belonged to my Shuval family would be if I could compare the DNA of one of his descendants with my own. Fortunately, I discovered that one of his descendants, now living in the US, had taken an autosomal DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA.3 If Itzik Shuval and Itske Shuval were the same person, then this man should be a third cousin of my aunt, whose DNA I had already had tested with the same company. Comparing the two DNA profiles showed that there were no matching segments above the usual threshold of 7 cM, indicating that it was unlikely that this descendant of Elya Shuval and my aunt were third cousins. I therefore had to accept that Itzik Shuval of Dvinsk probably wasn’t the same person as Itske Shuval of Kovno. After writing to the Latvian State Historical Archives,4 I discovered that there were several records available from Dvinsk which haven’t yet appeared in the JewishGen Latvia database, and in all the records prior to the 1897 census, Elya Shuval was recorded under the surname Shuel. It therefore seems that there was no family called Shuval in Dvinsk after all, and the surname for the Shuel family had simply been misrecorded as Shuval in the 1897 census. I was now back to square one in my search for the original home town of Itske Shuval. In early 2016, FamilySearch made their entire collection of Jewish vital records from Lithuania viewable on their website. I now had a chance to examine images of the original records relating to my ancestors, looking for clues as to where they were living prior to 1851. These records are all in Russian, with some also in Hebrew. Fortunately one of my brothers is able to read Russian, and I can read Hebrew, so together we were able to extract all the relevant information. In all but one of the records, the family was described as being part of the Kovno community. However in just one of the early birth records, for Wolf Shuval (misrecorded as Shuvalski), the boy’s father Boruch Hirsh is described as being a member of the Keidani community (see Figure 6). This birth took place in 1855, soon after the family arrived in Kovno, so I now had my first positive clue as to where my ancestors might have come from. Frustratingly, I have been unable to find any trace of my ancestors in the surviving Keidani Family List from that time (1839), although I am hopeful that some evidence of their residence there will surface in future.

Shemot_25.3.indb 12 15/11/17 11:59 AM ONE BIG FAMILY – THE SHUVALS IN RUSSIA 13

Figure 6. 1855 birth record for Wolf Shuval.

Extending the Shuval family tree into the twenty-first century From a search of the Yad Vashem website,5 I discovered that many of the individuals in the Shuval family tree had perished in the Holocaust. However, I also discovered that a significant number of other individuals appeared in ship passenger lists leaving Europe both before and after the Holocaust, mainly heading for the United States. Thanks to the enormous number of vital records and census returns which have been made available through the Ancestry and FamilySearch websites, as well as US newspaper death announcements available online, I was able to trace several branches of the family tree forward in time. In doing so, I have identified over 200 present-day descendants of the Shuval family. Websites such as Facebook, Geni, and the US White Pages allowed me to make contact with each of these branches. In most cases there was at least one individual who had an interest in his or her family history, and who had already constructed a family tree for that branch. However, in almost every case, the researchers had been unable to extend their family trees beyond their immigrant ancestors, mainly because the personal and family names had been changed on immigration. (My newly discovered relatives who were descended through a purely male line now bore a variety of surnames, including Suval, Schuval, Shuwall, Shuwal and Sewall, as well as more obscure variations.)

DNA evidence Having now identified several families with a purely male descent from the Shuval family of Kovno, it was now time to test how accurate the family tree I had constructed was, by using DNA evidence. If my theory about my ancestor Itske adopting the surname Shuval on marriage was correct, then my Y-chromosome (which is passed down essentially unchanged from father to son) should be the same as that for all purely male descendants of Chart 1, while male descendants of Chart 2 should all have the same Y-chromosome as each other, but different from mine. After testing my Y-chromosome with FamilyTreeDNA, I discovered that I belong to a haplogroup (genetic population) called J1, to which about 20% of people with Jewish ancestry belong. The subclade (subgroup) of J1 which I belong to, called L816, indicates that my paternal ancestry originated in the Middle East several thousand years ago, and arrived in Europe probably within the past 3000 years, which is entirely consistent with the traditional belief about the origins of the European Jewish people. I now had scientific evidence which backed up the story my grandfather told me all those years ago! I then tried to persuade as many of my new-found Suval, Schuval and Shuwal relatives to take the Y-chromosome test too. Most were reluctant to do so for a variety of reasons, but I did find one descendant of Shachne Shuval (c.1775–c.1848) and one descendant of Movshe Shuval (c.1800–c.1875) who were willing to take the test. The results showed that both men belonged to the same haplogroup as each other, E1b1b, and the similarity of their Y-chromosomes implied a very recent common male ancestor. This suggests that the family tree I constructed based on the Russian Revision Lists from the nineteenth century is probably very accurate. In addition, the fact that my own haplogroup differs from the haplogroup of males in Chart 2 is entirely consistent with my theory that my ancestor Itske became part of the Shuval family on marriage.

Shemot_25.3.indb 13 15/11/17 11:59 AM 14 JEREMY SCHUMAN

Thanks to the availability of DNA testing, and the mass transcription of nineteenth-century Russian records, I have now been able to verify that all the stories my grandfather told me as a child about our Shuval ancestors were true. Moreover, not only have I confirmed that our family name in Russia was indeed Shuval, but I have discovered that the name Shuval at that time was almost certainly unique to our family. And today it lives on, in many different forms, all over the world.

Jeremy Schuman is a regular contributor to Shemot, and was the winner of the Ronny Brickman award for the most interesting article published in 2013 and in 2015.

REFERENCES

1. JewishGen Lithuania Database. http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Lithuania/ (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 2. FamilySearch. https://familysearch.org/search/ (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 3. FamilyTreeDNA. https://www.familytreedna.com/ (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 4. The National Archives of Latvia.http://www.arhivi.lv/index.php?&1996 (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 5. Yad Vashem. http://www.yadvashem.org/ (accessed 1 Sept 2017).

Shemot_25.3.indb 14 15/11/17 11:59 AM Remembering what went before – a farewell to Who Do You Think You Are? Live Daniel Morgan-Thomas

Many members of JGSGB will no doubt have been as saddened and surprised as I was to hear the sudden demise of the annual and successful trade fair, celebrity market and all-round genealogical free-for-all that went by the name of Who Do You Think You Are? Live. WDYTYAL, as I will doubtless have to abbreviate it henceforth, only in April of this year marked its tenth anniversary show; whilst it had shrunk since moving to Birmingham the organisers had already advertised its presence in 2018 when a press release sounded the death knell of this unique event. I had helped out on the Society’s stall several times and always greatly enjoyed the chance to hobnob with family historians of all sorts. I appreciated the exposure the Society gained to a very wide audience of beginners in genealogy, particularly when the show was still in London. Most of all though, the demise of the show made me realise that I have never fully described the most extraordinary thing ever to happen to me at such an event – and which I suspect may be at any time ever in my genealogical life – namely the fair that took place at Olympia in February 2011. It was my second time helping out on the JGSGB stand and, as a keen seventeen-year-old, I was yet again eager to explore the Olympia Exhibition Hall and help as many members of the public as possible. The Society’s stall drew quite a crowd on the day and, as helpers on either side of me were talking to people already but I could see something of a queue growing, I decided to go out from behind the back of the tables and make pre-emptive conversation with a lady behind the other people. As I approached her, I noticed she had something in her hands that looked like a photograph frame. I asked what she had brought to show us and looked down to see for myself. I was shocked to see the face of my great-great-grandmother gazing back at me (Figure 1).

Figure 1. My great-great-grandmother.

I had not had time to take this in when the lady told me that she had brought a picture of her grandmother who she knew was Jewish but knew almost nothing about. When I replied that I knew who the woman in the photograph was exactly, because she was my great-great-grandmother, the lady carrying the picture looked as though she was about to faint. When I told her the name of my grandfather, she could confirm that her father was his father’s youngest brother; he had died at a relatively young age in the 1950s when my grandfather had been quite a young man.

Shemot_25.3.indb 15 15/11/17 11:59 AM 16 DANIEL MORGAN-THOMAS

My grandfather’s last contact with that branch of the family had been when he attended his uncle’s funeral (as the uncle’s wife had not been Jewish, his children and widow had sadly been regarded as less than part of the wider Robinson family by some relatives after his death). So by meeting Ruth Wilson by chance that day I had the chance to learn about a fairly close side of the family. What was more remarkable was that Ruth had not even bought a ticket to the show to investigate more about the family herself. A friend of hers had acquired a ticket but was unable to go on the day and passed it on to her out of interest. After we got over the initial shock and swapped stories of various parts of the family, we secured each other’s contact details and made plans for her to meet my grandparents in London and we have stayed in touch since. Ruth did meet my grandfather for the first time a few months later and was delighted to see more pictures of her aunts and uncles and grandparents whom she had never met, but whom my grandfather remembered well. Of course, we could have passed each other on the street, sat next to each other on a train even, without having any idea that we were related. Thanks to the genealogical jamboree at Olympia that year, I was able to meet a close relation, my mother’s coincidental namesake, for which extremely unlikely happenstance I will always be grateful (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The happy meeting of the day at Olympia.

Daniel Morgan-Thomas is a teaching assistant in north-east London. He has been a member of the Society since 2008, when he joined at the age of 15! Since then he has served on the Programme Committee, as a library volunteer and helped run some of the Society’s workshops at the Jewish Museum. He was elected to Council in 2016.

Shemot_25.3.indb 16 15/11/17 11:59 AM New York’s historical synagogues Moriah Amit

Did any of your Jewish ancestors settle in New York City? Are you interested in learning more about what life was like for those who settled on the Lower East Side or any of the dozens of other Jewish neighborhoods that emerged in the city’s five boroughs at the turn of the twentieth century? If so, you have likely wondered which synagogue they attended. As that information was not recorded in official documents and was rarely passed down in family stories, this is a challenging question, with a potential pool of hundreds of synagogues to choose from during the peak period of Jewish immigration to New York (c.1880–1924). However, since most practicing Jews preferred to attend a synagogue within walking distance from their homes, narrowing the potential pool to those located within a limited geographical radius around your ancestors’ homes is a logical first step toward identifying their synagogues. While you can find many listings of the city’s synagogues in directories that span from the early nineteenth century to the present, it is impossible to conceive of how they are spatially arranged across the city without viewing them on a map. To fulfill this need, the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History unveiled the New York Historical Synagogues Map (synagoguemap. cjh.org), a searchable online map, in August 2016 (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Close-up of New York Historical Synagogues Map (synagoguemap.cjh.org) © Center for Jewish History.

The New York Historical Synagogues Map is an ongoing digital mapping project designed to recreate the religious sphere of Jewish life in New York City during its heyday, the early decades of the twentieth century. The map was initially built by geographically tagging Manhattan synagogues listed in national and local Jewish directories dating from 1900 to 1918, including the American Jewish Year Book and the Jewish Communal Register of New York City. Selected additional information gathered from these directories, such as the date of organization and the names of any auxiliary societies, was also added to the map to provide a basic profile of each synagogue. The geo-tagged synagogues were then superimposed on two Manhattan maps, one from a 1911 atlas and the other from a 2015 online map. This feature allows users to view the synagogues in the context of the city’s physical landscape at around the time that they were active, as well as in a contemporary setting. You may search the map for a synagogue name, ancestral town or region, or a street name. You do not need to know the exact spelling of the terms you enter, as the search will also yield phonetic matches. You may also enter an * as a wildcard character to replace any letter(s). Using a wildcard character to replace the ending of a word is especially useful for those common Hebrew words in synagogue names that can be transliterated into English in multiple ways, such as entering “Ans*” for Anshe/Anshei/Ansche or “Aguda*” for Agudas/Agudath. To search for an ancestral town or region, it’s best to enter the modern spelling. If you do not know the modern spelling, you can use JewishGen’s Town Finder database (http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/Search.asp) to find it. Additional features of the map website include an alphabetical listing of every synagogue on the map, a detailed description of how the map was developed, a tutorial on how to use the map, a brief history of synagogues in New York City, and a listing of further resources for synagogue research.

Shemot_25.3.indb 17 15/11/17 11:59 AM 18 MORIAH AMIT

While currently featuring more than 1,000 synagogues, the New York Historical Synagogues Map is a work in progress and has significant room for growth and improvement. At press time, the Genealogy Institute is in the process of adding Manhattan synagogues from a 1939 survey conducted by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers Project. While we began with Manhattan, we plan to expand the map to encompass all five boroughs. Our ultimate goal is to transform the map into a portal for New York City synagogue research, adding information and links that will connect users to the active synagogues and archival repositories that maintain historical synagogue records. Nevertheless, the map has already proven an effective tool in homing in on the potential synagogues of one’s ancestors. Take a step back in time and explore the religious realm of your ancestors’ lives at synagoguemap.cjh.org.

Moriah Amit is the Senior Reference Services Librarian at the Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute. She is the creator and manager of the Institute’s New York Historical Synagogues Map project. Jason Carlin is responsible for the design and maintenance of the project’s database and website.

Shemot_25.3.indb 18 15/11/17 11:59 AM Jewish hairdressers in London in the nineteenth century Daniel Morgan-Thomas

In the twentieth century, the idea of the Jewish hairdresser was far from uncommon. Some of the great names in international hairdressing were Jewish, with Vidal Sassoon being the most famous example, and Charlie Chaplin’s famous underdog in The Great Dictator added to the mid-century image of hairdressing as a heavily Jewish occupation.1 Even one of the three barbers employed on the Titanic was Jewish.2 In my own family history, my great-great-grandfather, Solomon Louis (Sam) Altman (Figure 1) was always known by the wider family as a hairdresser; he had been practising in the industry when he married my great-great-grandmother Esther Bash in 1876 and had his own shops around London over the 1880s and 90s when his numerous children, including my great-grandmother Millie (Amelia Millicent), were born.

Figure 1. Solomon Louis Altman, c.1890.

One of his sons, Sam, set up as a hairdresser himself in the earlier part of the twentieth century before emigrating to Australia where he also continued in the trade for a while. What the family hadn’t been aware of, but I managed to discover through my research, was that Solomon’s father Aaron (who died in Kalisz, Poland in 1867) had also been a hairdresser, or more accurately perhaps, a barber-surgeon (Polish felczer) for many years. In fact, when his mother Bertha (Bajla) remarried in 1869, it was to another hairdresser, with whom she moved to England in the following year: Aaron Faivish Berkenbaum, who in England went by the name of Adolph Phillips. Moreover, Solomon’s two sisters, Bluma and Jessie, both married hairdressers: Emanuel Turnowksi (later Turner) and Alfred (Abraham) Morris. As a family they must have cut hair across the city and north and east London from the early 1870s until the 1930s. Unfortunately, although good photographs of Solomon Lewis and his wife have survived in the family, little trace of their profession has (although my late mother always cut her own hair as a young woman, because it had been “in the family”). Evidence for this, however, had to come from census entries but particularly Post Office directories of London, which reveal the frequency with which all the hairdressing branches of the family tended to move premises.3 With all of these family connections to the hairdressing trade in London in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, I was led to wonder just how common an occupation this was, particularly for Jews from Eastern Europe. Certainly, general impressions from censuses of the period and conversations with other genealogists suggest that hairdressing did not appear to be as popular an occupation with those of our ancestors who arrived on these shores in the period from 1880 to 1900 as tailoring and the associated “rag trade” or jewellery, say, though it may have become more popular in the subsequent century. So how could I establish just how prevalent the occupation of hairdresser was in the Jewish communities of London at the time – and how far back it might go? There seemed to be two reasonable methods of doing this: to find hairdressers in Jewish records or to find Jews in business records. I decided to do the second first. I turned once again to the Post Office directories for London. Starting with the earliest available (1841), I scoured the listings organised by profession under the heading of hairdressers (barbers did not have an entry, though the terms appear to have been largely interchangeable). Now of course there are two dangers with this, one specific to Jewish genealogy. The first is that Jews in any period are not always liable to bear names that mark them out as specifically Jewish

Shemot_25.3.indb 19 15/11/17 11:59 AM 20 DANIEL MORGAN-THOMAS

(my own Phillips ancestors being a good example), and secondly, a number of the men in the hairdressing trade at any given time will have been apprentices or assistants who, while very fully engaged in the trade – some even reportedly working ninety-hour weeks! – would not merit an entry in a trade directory. Nevertheless, it does not seem unfeasible that in 1841, there were no hairdressers in London with Jewish names; and in 1850 this had increased only by four (see Table 1). By 1870, the year my Altman and Phillips family arrived in the East End of London, there were twenty-five identifiably Jewish hairdressers; by 1876 this had increased to thirty and by 1880 to thirty-five. Jenny Towey’s analysis of East London hairdressers in 1881 reveals an extra three who had not featured in this last directory.4

Table 1. Jewish hairdressers in London.

Year 1850 1870 1880 1885 1902 No. of Jewish hairdressers 4 25 35 50 300

The year of 1881 also marked a major turning point in the lives of many of our ancestors who had not yet come to the UK: the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia and the start of increasingly violent anti-Semitic aggression across the Russian Empire, spurring the largest wave of Jewish immigration into the country, which only really came to an end with the start of the First World War in 1914. In this later period a corresponding increase in the number of Jewish hairdressers also becomes apparent. By 1885 the number of identifiably Jewish hairdressers had risen to fifty, and by the turn of the century it had increased so dramatically that it now numbered around 300. Within the trade itself, there were also signs of change. ThePerfumers’ and Hairdressers’ Gazette(originally known as The Perruqier5), established in London in 1877, is an interesting combination of advertisements, job requests, international and local trade news, legal notices and of course correspondence and gossip. Although its pages are not bereft of Jewish names in the early years, these mainly come under lists of suppliers, for example Henry Abrahams, glass dealer, or Jacob Kahn, fancy goods importer (June 1878), rather than as actual hairdressers. Yet by the start of the next century there were Jewish chairs of branches of the London Hairdressers’ Association in Stepney. So the increase in Jewish hairdressers was noticeable to members of the trade contemporarily and is evident from trade directories. It may then be wondered when it came to more prominence within the Jewish community. Its later prominence may also be seen in light of similar developments in Canada, where, from 1920, hairdressing became the second most common occupation for Jewish males, after cab driving, especially for those who had been born abroad.6 However, as my hairdressing ancestors were in the country before the start of the major wave of immigration, I wanted to know particularly how far back in London it might have its roots in the Jewish community. For this I felt the need to consult that almost encyclopaedic record set, the 1851 Anglo-Jewish database.7 From this record set, I could find just six (which seemed about right, given the four in the Post Office directory for 1850 mentioned above). One of these, Jacob Greenberg, was described as a journeyman, and therefore presumably would not have had a shop of his own. Only one was born in England (in contrast to a large number of others in that community who had been born in the country). Perhaps more tellingly, of these foreign Jews, only one was over forty. In other words, nothing in the data found from the middle of the century pointed to a major tradition of Anglo-Jewish hairdressing. Does this mean that my ancestors, Adolph Phillips and his clan of stepchildren, in-laws and other connections, were in some sense pioneers? Well, not quite. Whoever the first Jewish hairdresser was in modern London, it certainly was not him. His eldest stepson after all, Samuel Myer Altman, was assistant to one George Hanreck, a hairdresser in Hackney in the 1871 census (before the former moved on to New York later that same year). Hanreck had come from the same Polish town as the Altmans (Kalisz) and had been in London since at least the 1850s, according to the birthplaces of his children. Nevertheless, my ancestors in some sense belonged to a transitional period: they helped define the image of the Jewish hairdresser in London when he was still enough of a novelty in that profession, perhaps even establishing a reputation for efficiency and hard work from which those still to come benefitted. It was not the kind of trade that left the family with any heirlooms (or should that be hair-looms?) but it was a path that only grew in significance for Jewish families in London, and a perhaps overshadowed part of the much wider social history of immigrant Jews in London.

NOTES 1. Irving Rothman (2000) The barber in modern Jewish culture: a genre of people, places and things(New York). 2. Herbert Klein, from Leeds – the case launched by his widow to try and claim compensation from the White Star Line was an important test of workers’ compensation rights in British legal history. 3. Full sets of these may be consulted freely at the National Archives in Kew or the Bishopsgate Library in Spitalfields. 4. Jenny Towey (2004) German hairdressers in the UK (London). 5. The Perfumers’ & Hairdressers’ Gazette and Fancy Goods Trades Review, London. Available at the British Library. 6. L. Rosenberg and M. Weinfeld (1993) Canada’s Jews: an economic and social study of Jews in Canada in the 1930s (Montreal), pp. 200–201. 7. Available online through JCR-UK and in print, edited by Petra Laidlaw.

Shemot_25.3.indb 20 15/11/17 11:59 AM The Hebrew Schools for Boys and Girls, Palestine Place, Bethnal Green Gina Marks

Introduction I first read about Palestine Place a number of years ago while I was writing up one of my family history stories. Since then, whenever I have mentioned it to other researchers, they have been very surprised when I have told them what this school actually was. Recently, I was telling Rabbi Shalom Morris at Bevis Marks Synagogue about it and he suggested I write an article, as this was new and interesting to him as well. I had discovered from the 1851 census that my great-grandmother Esther Ascoli (Figure 1) at the age of seven was living at the Hebrew Girls’ Boarding School, Palestine Place, along with her sister Jane (Jeanette) aged nine, and forty-eight other Jewish girls. On the 1861 census, their brothers Marcus (Mordecai) aged twelve and Alfred (Abraham) aged ten, and their first cousin Augustus M. (Moses Augustus) aged thirteen were living at the Hebrew Boys’ Boarding School, along with about ninety other Jewish boys.

Figure 1. My great-grandmother Esther Vaz Martines née Ascoli.

The fact that they were at a Hebrew School along with all the other Jewish children didn’t seem strange at all and I naturally assumed that this was just an ordinary Jewish school, until I discovered from documents on Ancestry.co.uk that they were also baptised in the school’s church. Esther and Jane were baptised together on 15 June 1851, along with several other children from the same school. Alfred and Marcus were baptised on 7 December 1856 (Figure 2), also together with several other children from the school. Their parents, Moses Ascoli and Elizabeth Lee (Levy), were both fully Jewish and had been married by the Bevis Marks Synagogue in 1839. I have a copy of their Ketubah. The births of seven of their nine children are recorded in the Bevis Marks birth records, including Alfred (Abraham) and Marcus (Mordecai). Therefore, the fact that these four children were baptised is incomprehensible. Moses and Elizabeth were buried in the Novo Spanish & Portuguese Cemetery.

Shemot_25.3.indb 21 15/11/17 11:59 AM 22 GINA MARKS

Figure 2. Baptism record of Marcus and Alfred Ascoli.1

The history of Palestine Place The London Jews’ Society and the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews was an Anglican Missionary Society founded in 1809. Their agenda included declaring the “Messiahship of Jesus to the Jew first and also to the non-Jew”, “endeavouring to teach the Church its Jewish roots”, “encouraging the physical restoration of the Jewish people to Eretz Israel”, and “encouraging a Hebrew Christian / Messianic Jewish movement”. In 1811, they leased a field in Cambridge Road, Bethnal Green, building a school, a training college and a church called the Episcopal Jews’ Chapel. They called the complex Palestine Place (see Figures 3–7). In 1813, a Hebrew-Christian congregation named Benei Abraham started to meet at the chapel. In 1895, the original buildings were demolished and in 1900, the land upon which Palestine Place had stood was sold and the Bethnal Green Infirmary was built on it. The clock from the demolished chapel was saved and installed in the administration block tower. The Hebrew words beneath the clock on the chapel are from 1 Kings 8:34 (Figure 8). The infirmary remained under various guises until 1990 when all but the administration block was demolished. This is a listed building and has been converted into flats.

Figures 3–8. Palestine Place. Images and plans courtesy of Tower Hamlets Library.

Shemot_25.3.indb 22 15/11/17 11:59 AM THE HEBREW SCHOOLS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, PALESTINE PLACE, BETHNAL GREEN 23

Figures 3–8. (Continued).

Figure 9. The words beneath the clock on the chapel.

In spite of her baptism, my great-grandmother Esther Ascoli married Jonas Vaz Martin (Martines) in Bevis Marks Synagogue in 1865 and the majority of their descendants remain Jewish. Jeanette (Jane) Ascoli followed a different path and I have written about her extensively in a separate story, now lodged in the library of the town she emigrated to and where she died. She did accept Christianity following a major trauma in her life, sailed to New Zealand courtesy of the Ragged School in the East End of London and married twice, in church, but had no children. Mordecai (Marcus) met a Gentile woman, Jane Palmer, at a Christian mission in the East End. They married and had nine children, one of whom became a Christian missionary and died in Madagascar in 1924. Abraham also married a non-Jewish woman, so that branch of the family is no longer Jewish either. I have often asked myself why my great-great-grandfather Moses Ascoli would have sent some of his children to this school. Was it because it was a boarding school and it took the pressure off a crowded home situation? Or was it because he thought they would get a better education at this type of establishment – maybe become more “English”. As Moses himself was born in London and according to the inquest into his death he was “an intelligent man and master of several languages”, perhaps the latter is the most likely. Also, because of these comments, I cannot believe that Moses was unaware of what the school’s intentions were. I wonder too what happened to the other Jewish children who attended this school, many of whom were also baptised. Other researchers must have found their ancestors on these censuses but perhaps not even considered looking at the lists of baptisms, and it would be interesting to know their stories. The records of the school are held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and I do hope that some day I can get there to view them – I understand there are 500 boxes of them, unsorted when I last enquired ... a project awaits!

Gina Marks is a retired medical secretary. She is a cemeteries photographer, and a member of the JGSGB Library, Programme, and Preservation of Records Committees. Gina collects honey pots and all things bee-related apart from live bees (yet!) and postcards. She has large collections of both (but is always looking for more).

NOTES AND SOURCES 1. London Metropolitan Archives, Bethnal Green St John, Register of Baptism, p72/jn, Item 002. Accessed at Ancestry.co.uk in the collection: London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813–1906 [database online]. 2. Bethnal Green Hospital. Lost hospitals of London. http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/bethnalgreen.html (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 3. HTS Media. Palestine Place, Bethnal Green, London. http://www.htsmedia.com/palestine-place.html (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 4. Tower Hamlets Council. Local history library & archives. http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisure_and_culture/local_history/local_ history__archives/local_history__archives.aspx (accessed 1 Sept 2017). 5. Wikipedia. Church’s ministry among Jewish people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church%27s_Ministry_Among_Jewish_People (accessed 1 Sept 2017).

Shemot_25.3.indb 23 15/11/17 11:59 AM American censuses and substitutes. Part 2: finding substitutes for the 1890 and other censuses Ted Bainbridge

The United States created a nationwide census in 1790 and every ten years thereafter. All surviving pages of the censuses through 1940 are searchable on the Internet. However, all of the 1890 general census was destroyed, about one-third of the 1790 census has disappeared, and parts of other censuses are missing. Genealogists can partially compensate for those losses by using other records as substitutes.

Substitutes for the 1890 census The most common census substitutes are: • city and other directories (which list a city’s residents or businesses or both); • tax lists (land taxes, poll taxes, business taxes, import duties, and others); • voter lists (people who were eligible to vote, and people who did vote); • militia lists (for years when most men were required to enroll in the local militia).

Do Internet searches for each type of record along with a place name suitable to the task at hand. Hunt such data sets from 1880 through 1900 so that you cover all such records available between those two surviving censuses. Several city directories near 1890 exist. Some people consider the following kinds of records to be census substitutes because they contain lists of people who meet certain selection criteria: • synagogue/church/chapel records; • cemetery records; • records of births, marriages, and deaths kept by religious institutions or governments.

To find lists of religious institutions or cemeteries that were active during the time of your research project, visit the websites of county genealogical and historical societies. Also try state societies. Visit sites of counties that had jurisdiction at the time of your project, counties that have jurisdiction today, and counties that had jurisdiction between those two times. Identify counties that used to have jurisdiction by using the methods described in the “Finding essential maps” section in Part 1 of this series of articles.1 Go to https://familysearch.org/. In the menu across the top of the page, hover on Search and then click Wiki. In the search box that appears, type 1890 census substitute plus the name of the state, county, township, or city that interests you. If you name a county, also name the state because that county name might appear in more than one state. If you name a township, also name the county and state. If you name a town or city, also name the state. Examine every item on the hit list, because different items might show different facts about the subject of your research. (In some states, counties are divided into townships. A township can be entirely rural, or entirely built up, or partly rural and partly built up. If you have identified a county of interest in a state, do an Internet image search for map townships “X county” Y including the quote marks and typing the name of the county in place of the “X” and the state in place of the “Y”. Maps you find will show whether that county is divided into townships or not.) Go to https://www.ancestry.co.uk/, hover on Search, then click Census and Voter Lists. On the right of the CVL screen you can select information and advice screens on various topics, including how to partially compensate for the destruction of the 1890 census. You also will see items that can serve as partial substitutes for that census. Read every relevant item on the hit list so that you see all the data that might help your research efforts and so that you get all available advice. Go to http://www.cyndislist.com/. In the search box near the top right corner of the page, type 1890 census substitute. Examine each listed item that appears to be relevant to your research project. Go to http://ancestrylibrary.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/511/~/the-1890-census-substitute-database, read the explanations that are offered, then click the access linkhttp://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=8852 near the top of the page. These sites offer background information, suggestions, or data sets that might help: http://www.genealogybranches.com/1890census.html. http://www.familytreemagazine.com/article/now-what-Reconstructing-the-1890-Census. http://www.genealogy.org/censusyear.asp?y=1890. http://genealogybybarry.com/genealogy-1890-u-s-federal-census-tutorial/. Do an Internet subject search for 1890 census substitute. Adding a state, county, township, city, or town name to the search phrase is optional and will help focus the hit list on items that are most likely to aid your research. The hit list can show background information, research advice, data sets, links to helpful sites, and other informative sites sponsored by genealogical societies, libraries, or software vendors.

Shemot_25.3.indb 24 15/11/17 11:59 AM AMERICAN CENSUSES AND SUBSTITUTES. PART 2: FINDING SUBSTITUTES FOR THE 1890 AND OTHER CENSUSES 25

Information that can assist genealogical research efforts is added to the Internet frequently. So if your searches don’t reveal the information you need, try again after a suitable length of time.

Substitutes for other censuses In 1913 the Director of the Census reported to the Secretary of Commerce that no census returns existed for the following: • Delaware: 1790 • Georgia: 1790, 1800, 1810 • Kentucky: 1790, 1800 • New Jersey: 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820 • Tennessee: 1790, 1800, 1810 • Virginia: 1790, 1800

Part 3 of this series will show you how to hunt the missing 1790 data. To find other substitutes for the listed data sets, use all the methods suggested for finding 1890 substitutes but with the dates changed appropriately. Some counties in the 1810 census of Virginia are missing. Try Binn’s Genealogy at http://www.binnsgenealogy.com/ VirginiaTaxListCensuses/. Parts of the Pennsylvania censuses of 1800, 1810, and 1820 are missing. A great substitute is The Pennsylvania Archives. That is a series of books that includes 138 volumes. These books contain transcripts of a wide variety of governmental and nongovernmental documents from earliest colonial times through 1848, plus a few items through 1902. Tax lists, militia rosters, and other documents can be used as partial substitutes for censuses. Some of those items were created annually. You can search these books at http://www.fold3.com/title_450/pennsylvania_archives/. Fold3 is a pay site, but you can register for free and you can search The Pennsylvania Archives for free. When you find something you want, you can print it or download it to your computer for free.

Substitutes for the 1790 census Finding substitutes for the missing pieces of the 1790 census is very different from the methods described above, so will be described in Part 3 of this series.

Ted Bainbridge’s genealogical and historical articles are published throughout the United States. He can be contacted at [email protected]

SOURCES OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Anonymous, Heads of Families at the First Census 1790, http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790m-02.pdf Bureau of the Census, Return of the Whole Number of Persons Within the Several Districts of the United States, Philadelphia, J. Phillips, 1793, (images of the original printed document), http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790a.pdf CensusMate, Explanations, http://www.censusmate.com/explanations/explanations.htm Davenport, Linda, 1790 Census, http://www.lhaasdav.com/census/1790census.html Director of the Census, Annual Report of the Director of the Census to the Secretary of Commerce for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1913, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1913, p. 25 (this item labeled “College Library the Penna. State College C 3.1: 1913”), https:// books.google.com/books?id=NUtdGUeuimAC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=1790+census+burned&source= bl&ots= dGm4w2oKaF&sig=Tj pji3igbaKG7Y3UIg0LWSbsYPE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiJhezpgrLKAhVKx2MKHem-AJ04FBDoAQgxMAY#v=onepage&q=1790%20 census%20burned&f=false Dollarhide, William, Early U.S. Census Losses, http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=22612 FamilySearch, United States Census 1790, https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/United_States_Census_1790 GenGateway, 1790 Census, http://www.gengateway.com/census/1790_census.htm Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness, Overview of the 1790 Census, http://www.raogk.org/census-records/1790-census/ USGenWeb, History of the United States - Federal Census, 1790-1920, http://www.usgwcensus.org/help/history.htm

NOTE 1. See Shemot, 25(2), p. 59.

Shemot_25.3.indb 25 15/11/17 11:59 AM The Ziments from Kolbuszowa David Conway

My maternal great-grandmother Frimmet Feingold1 was the daughter of Nooson Ziment and Feiga Rosa (née Brand) and granddaughter of Osher Anchel and Bayla Ziment (Figure 1). She left Kolbuszowa2, then in Austria, now in Poland, in the late nineteenth century and eventually settled in Manchester where she was joined by her brother Eisig – or Isaac – Ziment (the surname, sometimes spelled Zimment or Siment, is derived from Bavarian German for a cylindrical standard measure3). This article relates information about Isaac and his wife Chaja, née Brand, and owes much to a deposition lodged with Greater Manchester County Record Office by his grandson, Neville Fraser.4

Figure 1. Osher Anchel and Bayla Ziment.

Figure 2. Isaac Ziment’s Polish passport photo.

Isaac’s birth date on his Polish passport was 1867, the birthplace Kolbuszowa (Figure 2). His wife, Chaja Freyda, was also born in Kolbuszowa in March 1867 as evidenced by her passport and 1941 registration certificate issued at Chapel-en-le-

Shemot_25.3.indb 26 15/11/17 12:00 PM THE ZIMENTS FROM KOLBUSZOWA 27

Frith for the purpose of the Aliens Registry. The latter records that she arrived in the UK in 1913 but the route is unknown. The naturalisation application papers for their son Hersch or Harry5 documented that he “was brought to this country by his mother in August 1913, his father having preceded them by a few months”. The couple never became naturalised. They initially stayed with Frimmet and her husband, Mendel Feingold, and Isaac worshipped with his brother-in-law at the (now defunct) Austrian Synagogue, which in August 1914 moved to 68a Waterloo Road. He later attended the Polish Synagogue, 115 Bury New Road, which closed about 1948. Subsequently, he donated a Sefer Torah to the Machzikei Hadass Synagogue, now at 17 Northumberland Street, Salford. Isaac became a cloth and woollen merchant. The 1927 telephone directory lists Ziment, I. and son, Woollen Merchants, 48 Bury New Road, telephone number City 9701. The Kelly’s (Slater’s) Directory of Manchester, Salford and Suburbs 1929 gives the same address but the 1932 edition lists Ziment, I. and H., cloth merchants, 145 Gt. Ducie St, Strangeways, tel. no. Blackfriars 0422. The couple had five children: Harry, Samuel, Minnie (Mindla), Annie and Malcher. In 1928 Samuel died aged twenty- seven of pulmonary tuberculosis in Winwick, near Warrington. Isaac died in 1935 of heart failure following prostatectomy. TheJewish Chronicle of 20 September 1935 recorded the death as follows:

On Tuesday the 17th of September 1935, corresponding with 19th Elul, at Breeze House Nursing Home, after an operation, Isaac Ziment aged 68 years. Deeply mourned by his wife Chaja, daughters Annie (Mrs Wachtel), Minnie (Mrs Freizeit), son Harry, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchild. Shiva at 145 Gt. Ducie St. Manchester.

He was buried in Rainsough Cemetery, Butterstile Lane, Prestwich, Manchester. His tombstone inscription is in the form of an acrostic with the first letters on every line spelling his name (Figure 3). The language is flowery, extolling his virtues and requesting God to receive his soul. There is no genealogical information.

Figure 3. Isaac Ziment’s gravestone, Rainsough Cemetery, Prestwich.

Shemot_25.3.indb 27 15/11/17 12:00 PM 28 DAVID CONWAY

Figure 4. Chaja Ziment’s Alien certificate.

Isaac left £1000 to his widow (value just under £50,000 today).6 The 1939 Register records that Chaja lived with her son Harry at 40 Promenade, Southport but during World War II she stayed in Buxton for a while, hence registration in 1941 as an alien at Chapel-en-le-Frith (Figure 4).7 She died in 1947 aged seventy-nine in Salford, Lancashire and was buried next to Isaac but her tombstone inscription is not as wordy nor is it an acrostic. She left effects worth £2091 10s 4d to her son Harry (value equivalent to £57,200 today).

Dr David Conway is a retired gynaecologist living near Glasgow. Email [email protected]

REFERENCES 1. Conway, D. “Kolbuszowa to Manchester”, Shemot, Vol. 17, 3-4, 2009. 2. Conway, D. “Kolbuszowa Family Connections”, Shemot, Vol. 17, 1, 2009. 3. Beider, A. A dictionary of Jewish surnames from Galicia. Avotaynu, Bergenfield, USA, 2004. 4. Greater Manchester County Record Office, Central Library, St Peter’s Square, Manchester M2 5PD, tel: 0161 234 1979, ref 1462. 5. Ref. HO144/12090, available from the National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU, tel: 0208 876 3444. www.nationalarchives. gov.uk 6. National Probate Calendar for England and Wales available at www.ancestry.co.uk 7. For a good account of Alien registration see Lafitte, F.The internment of Aliens, Penguin 1988.

Shemot_25.3.indb 28 15/11/17 12:00 PM Harry Levy, 1892–1917: an attempted biography of my great-uncle Derek Stavrou

Harry Levy was my great-uncle, the brother of my maternal grandfather, Alfred Levy (1890–1969). I first learned about Harry’s existence around twenty years ago when I first saw the official scroll commemorating his death in the Great War. Since then I have tried to learn more about his story but still know almost nothing about him as a person. Few of his surviving relatives – the descendants of his brothers and sisters – even know his name, so I have heard no family legends about him, and I have not yet found a single photograph of him, nor even a sample of his handwriting. These notes are meant as a tribute which bears witness to his life and death by putting what I have learned about Harry in the public records into the context of contemporary events.

A child of the ghetto Harry’s parents, Isaac and Dora Levy, were among the tens of thousands of indigent Jews who fled the Russian Empire during the 1880s to seek refuge in Britain. Their arrival caused tensions with the older-established Anglo-Jewish community, some of whom were anxious to preserve their own standing in British society and tried to persuade the newcomers to return to Russia or continue their journey onward to the United States. Harry, the third Levy child (and third son), was born on 23 February 1892 when the young family was living in one room at 78 Hanbury Street in Spitalfields (the scene of the second Jack the Ripper murder three years earlier1). His birth was registered in the name of Harris, which I imagine was an anglicisation of the Yiddish name Hirsch (= stag). Harry attended the Jews’ Infants School in Commercial Street until he was seven, and in 1899 transferred to the Jews’ Free School (JFS) in Bell Lane, the largest school in Britain at the time.2 Under the guidance of its headmaster Moses Angel, the JFS aimed to integrate the children of the recent immigrants into British society – to ‘iron out the ghetto bend’, as the Jewish Chronicle put it.3 Angel fought against the use of Yiddish, stressing the supremacy of English: the spoken language would wean children away from the heavily accented diction of their parents, while the study of literature would instil British values into them. The school ran extracurricular activities to strengthen this process of anglicisation and to counter the work of the evangelising Christian missionaries who were active throughout the East End: the JFS encouraged sport to counteract the stereotype of Jews as a stunted race and set up a branch of the Jewish Lads’ Brigade (JLB), with its own Cadet Corps and brass band. All this was within a Jewish framework – but it was a low-key Judaism with a distinctly English accent, the emphasis being to ‘play the game’ and ‘pull together’. Presumably Harry took part in at least some of these activities. On 2 February 1901, Harry and his brothers were surely amongst the crowds lining the route as Queen Victoria’s coffin was borne by gun carriage from Victoria to Paddington on its way to the funeral in Windsor. And the following day, Sunday, he and his classmates were probably there as “The Jews’ Free School … contributed by far the greater contingent of the youthful congregation” at the Special Memorial Service held for the late Queen at the Great Synagogue”.4 Harry left school on 27 April 1906, aged fourteen. He probably started work almost immediately as a casual labourer, perhaps working with Isaac as a tinsmith. By the 1911 census however, like both his brothers, Harry was working as a stick-maker, making the decorated walking-canes every gentleman needed. By this time, four daughters had been born to the Levy family who were now living in three rooms (plus kitchen) at No. 3, Key Street, just off the Whitechapel Road and only a few yards from the stench of the Truman and Hanbury Brewery. The cramped conditions and unhygienic surroundings may explain why the Levy daughters were struck by smallpox earlier that year.5 Harry’s entry into manhood came at a tumultuous time in British social history. The East End was a hotbed of political and industrial activity led by Jewish radicals who had fled Russia in the 1880s. Many were atheists and revolutionaries, but in London their common aim was to overthrow the prevalent system of sweated labour. Stickmakers’ unions were involved in the frequent strikes which took place between 1890 and 1914. The Jewish activists were faced by an increasingly virulent anti-alienist (i.e. anti-Semitic) movement on both the left and right wings of British politics. The centre of Jewish radical activity in the East End was the Arbeter Fraint (Worker’s Friend) group. Harry and his brothers may well have attended dances and taken part in the educational, cultural and trade union activity which they organised. And they probably witnessed the most dramatic act involving radical extremists: the Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911 which took place just a few hundred yards from their home in Key Street. Both Harry’s brothers had married by the age of twenty-three, and he had passed twenty-two by that glorious summer of 1914; perhaps he was ‘walking out’ with a young lady? They may even have discussed marriage – if events in Sarajevo had not made them change their plans.

August 1914: the rush to enlist After Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, Lord Kitchener launched a poster campaign ‘Your King and Country need YOU’, asking for 100,000 men to enlist within two weeks. All sections of British Jewry were caught up in this enthusiasm to enlist: the Jewish Chronicle’s leading article on 7 August declared ‘England has been all she could be to Jews, Jews will be all they can be to England’. Harry Levy was one of thousands of British Jews to answer Kitchener’s call.

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His enthusiasm may have been fuelled by more than patriotism: a soldier’s life may have seemed like an adventure when compared to varnishing walking-sticks in an East End sweat shop – especially when everyone ‘knew’ that it would ‘all be over by Christmas’. The army pay of a shilling a day, plus three square mealsand living in barracks which were almost certainly less cramped than his home in Key Street could have been extra incentives, not to mention being presented with a solid pair of leather army boots. His parents may not have been enthusiastic about him volunteering, but since both his brothers had families, they probably thought that if anyone in the family had to serve, it should be Harry, who was still unmarried. (Eventually both his brothers Lewis and Alf enlisted, after conscription was introduced in 1916.) At all events, on Saturday 22 August 1914, less than three weeks after the Declaration of War, Harry walked the mile or so from Whitechapel to the Finsbury Barracks in Moorgate and enlisted in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI) (see Figure 1). The fact that he enlisted on a Saturday suggests to me that he wanted to ensure he had his week’s wages (to be handed over to his parents?) before enlisting. (It also suggests that Sabbath observance was not a hindrance to his enlistment.) Finsbury Barracks was the regular home of the 7th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and I believe that Harry probably intended to join that regiment, which had many Jewish recruits. But since the 7th Battalion could not absorb all the volunteers who applied, some were passed on to other regiments, such as the DCLI, who had sent recruiting teams to the barracks. This is presumably why a Jewish lad from the East End enlisted in a Cornish regiment, a question which had intrigued me from the moment I heard Harry’s story. The new recruits were medically examined, completed an Attestation Form and took an oath to ‘faithfully defend His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors against all enemies’. From the Finsbury Barracks the new recruits would have marched to Paddington and taken the train to Bodmin, the regimental home of the DCLI. There Harry was given the regimental service number 10753 which he kept for the rest of his life. The Attestation Record provides the only physical description I have of Harry. It shows that at the age of twenty-two he weighed 140 lbs and was 5 feet 3½ inches tall; his chest measurement was 30 inches minimum and 33 inches maximum.6 Of the 29 men listed on this page of the DCLI Attestation Book (Figure 2), he was one of the shortest and skinniest – although only two men weighed more.

Figure 1. Cap badge of the DCLI.

Figure 2. Page of Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry Attestation Book (held at DCLI Museum, Bodmin).

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A Jewish soldier All new recruits attested to their religion in case last rites had to be administered. The men who joined the DCLI with Harry were mostly Church of England: he was the only Jew. (Although he declared himself a Jew, I am not sure how observant he or his family were.) But it is certain that the Jewish establishment took pride in its sons who enlisted: on 18 September, the Jewish Chronicle printed its first, very long, list of Jewish recruits under the headline: ‘The War. Our Honour Record of all Jews who are Serving’. Harry Levy appears on this list as a private in the DCLI.7 Jewish observance was naturally difficult in wartime, especially in the trenches:kashrut (rules regarding kosher food), daily prayers, and Sabbath and festival observance all made special demands on the Orthodox soldier. Food was a major issue: many Orthodox troops only ate food sent from home – or, when that was not available, bread and tinned sardines. But life is never simple: a chaplain who succeeded in having bacon replaced by a kosher substitute in one unit received aggrieved protests from many non-Orthodox Jewish troops.8 Where Halacha (religious law) appeared to conflict with the needs of the army, Joseph Hertz, the Chief Rabbi, tended to make rulings helping the military machine to keep moving: he even permitted Cohanim (descendants of the priestly caste – who are forbidden to come into contact with dead bodies) to serve, which caused disputes within the rabbinate. Jewish chaplains helped men maintain a Jewish way of life by holding services, distributing prayer books and religious articles and providing for their welfare – including maintaining links with their families at home. The chaplains were mainly members of the United Synagogue from the older-established branch of Anglo-Jewry. Calling themselves Reverend, some used English in their services, which was not always to the taste of the more traditional immigrants from the East End. The Senior Chaplain was the Reverend Michael Adler, whose ‘Experiences of a Jewish chaplain on the Western Front (1915–1918)’, gives a fascinating account of his ministry.9 He transcribed the Hebrew burial service into English and distributed it to Christian chaplains so they could conduct funerals when no Jews were available to do so.10 Relations between Jew and non-Jew in an essentially Christian citizens’ army reflected their relations in society at large. Apart from their religion, their looks and their language, Jewish soldiers could seem strange to their mates – for example, they spent less time and money than non-Jews in the estaminets (small cafés) of the Western Front. Sometimes resentment was felt if Jews were given time off to attend religious services, and some Jews deliberately missed services precisely to avoid such suspicions.11 But beyond misunderstandings caused by cultural differences, the Jewish soldier faced the endemic anti-Semitism found in varying degrees at all levels of British society: there was no war-time truce here. The writers Isaac Rosenberg and Gilbert Frankau both bore witness to the snide, insidious anti-Semitism they met on the Western Front. On the other hand, acting Corporal Issy Smith, the first Jewish recipient of the Victoria Cross, was widely honoured and there are many examples of both officers and the ordinary Tommy praising the character and actions of individual Jewish soldiers. Michael Adler found that ‘The Christian soldier was warmly attached to his Jewish “pal” and the relations between the soldiers of all denominations were remarkably cordial’.12 The existential threat facing Jew and non-Jew alike naturally fostered a camaraderie which transcended religious and cultural barriers – but Adler was undoubtedly adopting Anglo-Jewry’s agenda in encouraging his readers to equate the interests of the Jewish community with British war aims.

‘One and All’: serving with the Cornwalls13 Harry’s army records were lost during the Second World War, but material in the National Archives and online provides some information about his service. One document shows four periods of service in the DCLI: two in the 1st Battalion, one in the 7th and one in the 6th.14 The record does not give dates, but he probably joined and trained with the 7th Battalion before being transferred to the 1st, and then having a short attachment – probably in mid 1917 – to the 6th. His training with the 7th took place at Bodmin, Aldershot, Pirbright (Surrey) and Amesbury (Wiltshire)15: perhaps the drill he learned in the courtyard at JFS came in useful during his initial training? After his training, Harry sailed to France on 23 July 191516 as part of an advance party sent ahead to make logistic arrangements for the arrival of the full 7th battalion at the front. This journey to Boulogne may have been the first (and only?) time that Harry ever saw the sea. The record suggests that soon after landing in France, Harry was sent as a replacement to the battle-scarred 1st Battalion which had joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in August 1914 and lost hundreds of men at Mons and the other early battles of the war. Thus, although he had enlisted as a ‘Kitchener man’, he was assigned as a regular soldier to a regular army battalion, rather than to one of the ‘service’ battalions of the New Army. A picture of life in the trenches has become etched into the collective British consciousness, and been reinforced by recent studies marking the centenary of the Great War. Although the British Army had the finest equipment, training and tactics of any army in Europe on the outbreak of war, none of that, nor all his training, could prepare a man for the reality of life on the Western Front. The British Tommy – like ‘Fritz’ in the opposing trench – faced interminable enemy shelling; he was nearly always short of sleep; the stench of death and decay was everywhere. Before going ‘over the top’, he and his company shivered in their trench during the pre-dawn countdown, then on the officer’s whistle they climbed the ladder and advanced into No Man’s Land – knowing that an officer would shoot any man who failed to climb that ladder. Many who were not killed or gassed or injured by artillery later succumbed to shell shock. (Did their thoughts then flood back to those sunny days in 1914 when they had rushed to enlist?) What enabled them to cope with these horrors was the stoicism possessed by all classes of British society, combined with a camaraderie which they brought from their civilian workplaces.17 They shared everything with their mates and saw their main task as being less to beat the Germans than to make their hellish situation tolerable – and somehow get safely home to Blighty. Great-uncle Harry must have shared these attitudes and values.

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A basic tool in the Tommy’s arsenal to humanize his situation was food. Army rations of bully beef and biscuits were often supplemented by supplies from home, or by egg and chips at the nearestestaminet when they were in reserve. Generally, a battalion would spend about four days in the front-line trenches, followed by four days in reserve and another four resting out of range of enemy artillery. In reserve, boredom was sometimes considered as great an enemy as the Germans; some relieved it by visiting the ‘red light’ houses (blue lights for officers) licensed by the French government and monitored by the British Army. The 1st Battalion DCLI’s war diaries give glimpses into life out of the trenches. Typical entries read: ‘Fine Day. Combined Church Parade. Played Cheshires at football and lost 1-0’; on another day ‘A and B Company bathed at Divisional Baths during afternoon’.18 So, after a bath, Harry’s ‘A’ company changed their lice-infested uniform; but the relief was only temporary because the lice would reappear by the time they returned to the front line, and the men would resort to ‘chatting’ – crushing lice between the fingernails or burning them out with cigarette ends. Another activity was catching the rats and other vermin which invaded the trenches. Any spare time was spent catching up with lost sleep, card games, reading the papers, creating trench art from shell casings, keeping pets, writing home, keeping journals – and smoking. Music was also important, with divisional concert parties and impromptu sing-songs. Although ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary’ is seen as the archetypal song of the Great War, I imagine that ‘When this bloody war is over’, and the dark, dark lament ‘Hanging on the old barb’ wire’ probably reflect the soldier’s real feelings more accurately.19 As time went on, doubts were increasingly expressed about the conduct of the war, since so many lives were being lost with almost no gain in territory. It was inconceivable to blame ‘our boys’, so the conclusion was that they were ‘lions’ being led by ‘donkeys’. Harry and his pals may not have shared these doubts: their view of politics may have risen no higher than the parapet of their trench and most sources suggest that despite everything, the morale of the British Tommy stayed high throughout the war – strengthened by his trust in his mates, his belief in the British cause, and an ability to see the humour of the grimmest situations. It is difficult to determine which specific actions Harry took part in during the war, but since both the 1st and the 7th Battalions fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, we can assume that Harry was there, and he was certainly at Passchendaele (Third Ypres) the following year. Although the war diaries rarely refer to Other Ranks individually, some administrative attachments do mention Harry by name. The first lists him as one of twelve men sent to the 95th Brigade Bomb School on 16 November 1916 to master the use of hand-grenades.20 I assume that he spent the rest of his service – and of his life – as a bomb-thrower, ‘the most dangerous of all infantry tasks’.21 The next two references to Harry concern hospital admissions: the first, on 3 January 1917, gives no reason for admission or date of discharge, but the second shows that on 26 February 1917 he was admitted to the 14th Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps, at Festubert in the Pas-de-Calais, suffering from piles.22 He was transferred the following day to the No. 1 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS1) in Chocques, also in the Pas-de-Calais.23 Sometime after his release, Harry temporarily joined the 6th Battalion, when it was involved with the first and third Battles of the Scarpe. Being separated from his pals in his own company would undoubtedly have been an unsettling experience24 but Harry rejoined ‘A’ Company of the 1st Battalion on 18 September 1917.25

Death in Flanders The next – and final – mention of Harry’s name in the 1st Battalion’s war diaries is the report of his death on 4 October 1917. This was during the intermediate days of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which leads me to ask how – or if! – he had marked Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. He died at Broodseinde Ridge during the Battle of Passchendaele (the Third Battle of Ypres). As part of the 5th Division of the British 95th Brigade, 1st Battalion DCLI was ordered to advance against heavily fortified German positions to capture the Gheluvelt Plateau and occupy Broodseinde Ridge. The battle was seen as a victory for the British. Harry’s name appears on the Nominal Roll of Casualties with the annotation ‘killed in action’. The surname Levy stands out oddly among the phalanx of Anglo-Saxon names of his fallen comrades (Creasey, Hunt, Peters …).26 Forty-six officers and men of the 1st Battalion were killed or died of their wounds that day, together with 239 wounded and 79 men missing.27 We will never know if Harry was killed by German shelling or by what is called today ‘friendly fire’; or did he simply drown in the glutinous mud, like Siegfried Sassoon’s soldier who ‘died in hell – (They called it Passchendaele)’28? Harry has no known grave. By 1917 the Ypres Salient was ‘a vast festering swamp in which rotted the corpses of innumerable men and animals’29, so the recovery and burial of bodies was a nightmare. When the injuries of the dead were so devastating, visual identification was impossible, explaining why so many graves are marked ‘unknown’. Intensive shelling could simply vaporise men, leaving no remains at all, so tens of thousands were recorded as ‘missing’. The fact that Harry was listed as ‘killed in action’ rather than ‘missing’ leads me to hope that there was a recognisable body but that conditions did not allow an appropriate burial. Harry’s brother Alf was in the military hospital in Etaples when Harry was killed. How and when was he given the news? The Regimental Officer in Charge of Records would have sent Isaac and Dora a copy of Army Form B104-82 in a buff envelope stamped OHMS to inform them of Harry’s death. They would also have received a message of sympathy from the King and Queen, and a leaflet about solders’ funerals. They would also have received a copy of the Jewish Book of Comfort from the Office of the Chief Rabbi.30 To my knowledge, none of this correspondence has survived. The official notification

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presumably did not mention that there was no known grave, so the family would have sat shiva (traditional week’s mourning period).31 Perhaps they held a memorial service at their synagogue. They would certainly have marked the 18th of Tishrei as his yahrzeit (memorial date) every year afterwards, although I cannot say for how many years. Publishing a death notice in the Jewish Chronicle may have seemed too anglified – and expensive – for Isaac and Dora, and Harry’s death was not reported in the paper’s news section until 28 March 1919, eighteen months after the event.32 However, it was reported in the War Office Weekly Casualty Liston 13 November 191733 and in The Peopleon 11 November 1917.34 Harry’s name appears in two separate entries in the army’s records of soldiers’ effects: the first, made in April 1918, was a payment of £0/7/6, as the balance of his pay and allowances. The second entry, made in 1920, records the war gratuity paid to everyone who served in the war: Isaac received £17/12/10 – a significant sum for a poor family with four unmarried daughters living at home. But the family remained divided and unhappy: did the news of Harry’s death contribute to the depression of his sister Leah (the closest to him in age), and lead to her subsequent suicide?

In memoriam: commemorating the fallen Britain saw the Great War as an historic struggle between righteousness and barbarism. Victory was bought at the devastating price of more than 700,000 British soldiers killed, and tens of thousands more physically or mentally scarred. Virtually every household in the country was directly affected, so every fallen soldier became not only a lost son, husband or brother, but also a symbol of the whole nation. In previous conflicts, death in war was confined to a professional army which was despised socially, but in the Great War, the justice of the cause, the industrial nature of the fighting and the scale of the apocalypse demanded new ways of honouring the fallen which related the individual victim to the national experience. Memorials, not merely monuments, were required. The impracticality of repatriating the dead to Britain made this question of commemoration particularly poignant, since most bereaved families would not be able to visit the cemeteries of the Western Front. The most common form of the new style of commemoration was the stone war memorial, thousands of which would be erected all over Britain by local authorities, schools, colleges and other bodies. The memorials generally consisted of a dedication and a roll of honour naming the fallen: seeing, touching or kissing a name chiselled in marble offered countless families their only tangible way of grieving a fallen soldier. This was especially true, of course, for the families of well over 300,000 men who, like Harry, had no known grave.35 The memorials generally omitted the soldier’s rank and were mainly non-sectarian in order not to exclude Jews and other groups – angering many who deplored their lack of Christian symbolism. All the elements of the new commemoration came together at eleven o’clock on Armistice Day, 11 November 1920 in Whitehall. As Big Ben chimed the hour, the King unveiled the Cenotaph, the archetypal non-sectarian memorial. After the two minutes’ silence, the coffin of the Unknown Warrior was taken to Westminster Abbey. The body to be buried was one of four unidentified British servicemen of unknown rank exhumed from different battle areas and chosen at random so that each bereaved family could feel that this was ‘my’ soldier. He may have been Jewish. He could have served with the Cornwalls. Jewish commemoration could not always conform to the Gentile mainstream: many Jews objected to the street shrines erected in working-class areas during the war, because of their non-Jewish elements: the cross, floral tributes and pictures of the fallen soldier.36 Letters to theJewish Chronicle expressed distaste for the concept of the Unknown Warrior, both because exhumation is forbidden by Halacha and because the burial took place in Westminster Abbey.37 A distinctly Jewish form of commemoration originated in 1921, when Jewish veterans laid wreaths at the Cenotaph – a remarkable gesture at a time when floral tributes were not considered acceptable at Jewish funerals. This veterans’ group eventually became Ajex which later held its own parades at the Cenotaph a week after Remembrance Sunday. Like their comrades at the national ceremony, the Ajex veterans wear their medals proudly as they march, but their parade features Hebrew prayers, wreaths in the form of the Shield of David and ‘Adon Olam’ being sung as well as the national anthem. I know that Harry’s brother Alf took a proud part in these parades. The Jewish War Memorial Council planned a theological college to commemorate British Jews who had served in the war, just as some non-Jewish groups preferred to remember the fallen by building utilitarian projects like parks and libraries rather than stone monuments. Regarding specific commemoration of the death of Harry Levy, I was surprised and disappointed not to find a memorial to Harry and the dozens of other former JFS pupils who were killed. It is possible that a memorial was erected at the school but destroyed when it was bombed during the Second World War.38 However, Harry’s name and regiment do appear on the memorial erected at the East London Synagogue in 1926 to commemorate 674 East London Jews who had died in the Great War (Figure 3). It was re-erected at Waltham Abbey Cemetery in 1990, so that Harry is now commemorated very near the graves of my grandparents, his brother Alf and sister-in-law Rae. He is also commemorated in the British Jewry Book of Honour.39 The DCLI did not commemorate its fallen soldiers individually by name, but in 1924 a statue in Bodmin was ‘Erected by the DCLI to their Glorious Dead 255 Officers 4027 Other Ranks 1914–1919’. It depicts a DCLI soldier in full combat uniform with his bayonet fixed and holding a Mills bomb (of the type Harry knew so well) with its pin pulled out. His gas mask bag is open and the respirator pipe sticking out reminds us of the conditions in which Harry and his mates fought. So although we have no photograph of him, this image of a bomb thrower of the Cornwalls can serve as a memorial.

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Figure 3. War memorial from East London Synagogue, now in Waltham Abbey Cemetery, showing Harry as among the fallen of the DCLI.

Figure 4. Photo of DCLI war memorial at Bodmin.

Harry’s parents, like every bereaved family, received a commemorative scroll (Figure 5) and a bronze memorial plaque, ‘from a grateful King and Country’. The scroll is the only object I possess linking Harry to me personally. He was awarded the three possible campaign medals for his service: the 1914–1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914–1920 and the Victory Medal 1914–19. The official state commemoration of his death is at the Tyne Cot Memorial near Ypres which also records Harry in its Debt of Honour Register. My wife and I visited Tyne Cot in July 2017 for the commemoration of the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele; we saidKaddish (Mourners’ Prayer) for him, lit a memorial candle and placed a stone from Israel together with a poppy and a Star of David near the panel bearing his name. So Harry’s death was marked by his family, by Anglo-Jewry, by his regiment and by his country. The current interest in documenting the individual’s role in the Great War is another element in this process of commemoration. Harry’s story is both typical and unique: we know something about the details of his life – home, school, ghetto, army – but we will never know what was unique about him. He was deprived of the basic dignity of a funeral and a grave where his loved ones could mourn. His siblings and their descendants drifted apart over the years, and the Levy family name (on my branch at least)

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Figure 5. Scroll in honour of Harry Levy, from ‘King and Country’.

only lasted for one more generation. Harry’s story – just one among millions – was nearly forgotten. Near the centenary of his death, I would like these notes to be a tribute to his memory.

Born and educated in Britain, Derek has lived in Israel since 1968 and in Kfar Sava since 1987. He is married to Susan (Kay) from Manchester; they have four children and ten grandchildren, with another on the way. Derek worked for BOAC/British Airways at Ben Gurion Airport until his retirement in 2010. He has been interested in family history for nearly twenty years. He may be contacted at [email protected]

NOTES 1. The body of Annie Chapman was found in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street on 8 September 1888. 2. London Metropolitan Archives: Jews’ Free School admission and discharge registers (1869–1939) LMA/4046/C/01/002. I have not found any of Harry’s siblings listed in the JFS registers. Harry’s entry contains the puzzling Remark: ‘Exempt S.D’: I believe that S.D. are the initials of the teacher granting the exemption, which may have been from attending Religious Instruction: the Register for Infants of the Westminster Jew´s Free School has a rubric to be completed for each pupil: ‘Whether exemption from religious instruction is claimed: Yes or No’. 3. The phrase ‘to iron out the ghetto bend’ appears in Dr. Gerry Black (1998) J.F.S. The history of the Jews’ Free School, London, since 1732 (London: Tymsder Publishing), p .130. He attributes it to theJewish Chronicle, but does not state which issue. 4. Jewish Chronicle, 8 February 1901, p. 23. 5. Jewish Chronicle, 24 February 1911, p. 25. 6. 140lbs. = 63.5kg; 5ft. 3in. = 1.61m; 30–33 in. = 76.2–83.8 cm. 7. Jewish Chronicle, 18 September 1914, p. 23. His name has been mistranscribed as ‘Horace Levy’. 8. Englander, David (ed.) (1994) A documentary history of Jewish immigrants in Britain 1840–1920 (Leicester University Press), p. 351. 9. Michael Adler (ed.) (1922) British Jewry Book of Honour (London, Caxton Press), pp. 33–58. 10. See British Jewish chaplaincy in the First World War by Jonathan Lewis, p. 3. http://www.jewsfww.london/british-jewish-chaplaincy-in- the-first-world-war-by-jonathan-lewis-523.php (accessed 1 Sept 2017).

Shemot_25.3.indb 35 15/11/17 12:00 PM 36 DEREK STAVROU

11. Lloyd, Anne Patricia (2009) ‘Jews under fire: the Jewish community and military service in World War I Britain’, thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Southampton. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/79330/1. p. 99. 12. British Jewry Book of Honour, p. 44. 13. ‘One and All’ is the motto of the DCLI, and the title of its regimental march. 14. Ancestry.co.uk: Harry Levy in UK, WWI Service Medal and Award Rolls, 1914-1920: WO 329/1212. 15. Letter, 9 January 2017, from Major Hugo White, curator of the DCLI Museum in Bodmin. 16. WO 329/2716 P70, Roll for those eligible for the 1914–1915 Star, and 9 January 2017 letter from Major White. 17. I n Glum heroes: hardship, fear and death – resilience and coping in the British Army on the Western Front 1914-1918 (Solihull: Helion, 2016), Peter Hodgkinson suggests that the comradeship seen on active service mirrored that of the British workplace of the early 20th century. Quoting contemporary accounts (letters, memoirs, articles) by soldiers, he suggests that the internal resources enabling men to cope on active service included the code of manliness and the stoic emphasis on endurance and management of emotion. 18. Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn. Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan–1917 Nov), p. 132. 19. There are various versions of ‘Hanging on the old barb’ wire’, including: ‘If you want to see the General, I know where he is … He’s pinning another medal on his chest’; ‘If you want to see the Colonel, I know where he is … He’s sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody face’; ‘If you want to see the sergeant I know where he is … He’s drinking all the Company’s rum’; ‘If you want to see the Private, I know where he is … He’s hanging on the old barbed wire’. 20. Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn. Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan - 1917 Nov, p. 297. 21. White, Hugo (2006) One and All: a history of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 1702–1959 (Padstow, Tabb House), p. 244. 22. TNA MH106/35, matching an attachment to the DCLI War Diaries, Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn. Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan–1917 Nov), p. 75. Also pp. 607 of the Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn. Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan–1917 Nov) is a list of men admitted to and discharged from hospital during the week ending 4 January 17. This is confirmed by a typed list (p. 610) (which misspells his surname as ‘Levey’), showing his admission date as 3 January. 23. One puzzling aspect of the entry in the admissions register is the rubric ‘Months with Field Service’ showing ‘1 year’, implying that Harry reached the front in early 1916, whereas in fact he disembarked in France on 23 July 1915. When I asked the experts at Forces War Records, I was told: ‘He may have been … serving as a regular soldier with the Field Force for only 1 year – prior time may have been in training, or in another unit’. He may also have spent more time in hospital. 24. See Hodgkinson, p. 88. Robert Graves, in ‘Goodbye to all that’, also talks about the unsettling nature of being transferred to an unfamiliar unit. 25. Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan–1917 Nov), p. 394. 26. The roll shows that at least one other Jewish soldier was killed at Broodseinde: Pte. Joe Lapidus of ‘B’ company, who was commemorated with Harry on the Memorial of the East London Synagogue. Like Harry, he has no known grave and is commemorated at Tyne Cot. The DCLI Nominal Roll mistranscribed his family name as Lepidus. 27. Ancestry.co.uk transcription: Piece 1577/1-4: 95 Infantry Brigade: 1 Bttn Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (1916 Jan - 1917 Nov), p. 461. 28. Siegfried Sassoon: ‘Memorial Tablet’ written in October 1918 and first published in his 1919 collection Picture-Show. 29. Letter DCLI/MUS/8/HW/DJF 7 March 2000 from Major Hugo White. 30. ‘This was administered through the JWSC (Jewish War Services Committee) as the body holding the most complete list of Jews who had fallen in the war’. Lloyd, quoting LMA, ACC/2805/4/9/1. Hertz’s office to Major Schonfield, JWSC, 21 February 1917. 31. In August 2016 I asked the discussion group of JGSGB whether shiva would have held if there was no known grave. I received only two answers (one ‘yes’ and one ‘no’). When I asked other authorities, the consensus was that the letter from the army would have been considered proof of death and therefore the shiva would have been held. 32. Jewish Chronicle, 28 March 1919, under ‘Casualties to Jews ... Killed in Action (Not previously reported)’, p. 16. 33. Weekly Casualty List (War Office & Air Ministry), London, England (British Newspaper Archive), p. 28. Harry’s initial is wrongly given as ‘A’, but the record undoubtedly refers to him since his service number is given correctly. (BNA wrongly shows this as p. 32). The section is headed: ‘Daily List of November 9th (cont.) Killed (cont.)’ 34. The People,11 November 1917 under: ‘Last Night’s Roll of Honour: Casualties in recent fighting: NCO’s and Men Killed’. The entry reads: ‘Levy 10753 A.[sic] (Mile End, E.)’ (Available at FindMyPast.co.uk), p. 12. 35. http://www.1914-1918.net/faq.htm ‘In March 2009, the totals from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for the First World War (were): Buried in named graves: 587989; No known graves, but listed on a memorial to the missing: 526816, of which – buried but not identifiable by name: 187861 – therefore not buried at all: 338955. The last figure includes those lost at sea’. 36. See Jewish Chronicle, 27 October 1916, p. 22. 37. At the burial two Jews (Captain Robert Gee, Royal Fusiliers, and Sergeant Issy Smith, Manchester Regiment) were among the holders of the Victoria Cross forming the Guard of Honour in Westminster Abbey: See Martin Gilbert, Jewish Chronicle, 6 November 2008. 38. A direct approach to the JFS, as well as enquiries to the discussion group of the JGSGB, and the letters columns of both the Jewish Chronicle (30 June 2017, p. 35) and the Jewish News (London) 7 July 2017, p. 19, failed to provide a definitive answer as to whether a JFS war memorial was in fact erected. 39. Page 104 lists him on the Roll of Honour ‘In loving memory of the sons of Israel who have fallen in the war’ (Section for NCOs and Men). This section wrongly gives 24 April 1918 as Harry’s date of death, and Kay St as his address, not Key Street. He also appears (p. 323) in the DCLI section of the Nominal of Officers, NCOs and Men in H.M. Forces with an asterisk next to his name to denote that he was Killed in Action.

Shemot_25.3.indb 36 15/11/17 12:00 PM A list of East End occupiers Stanley Melinek

There is a private Act of Parliament which lists the occupiers of 637 properties in the East End of London in 1849. A further 383 properties are listed with the occupier described merely as lodger or lodgers. There are also 40 properties listed as empty. With a few exceptions, only the surname of the occupier is given, no forename or initial. Hence the list is of limited value for finding individuals unless the surname is unusual. On the other hand, the list could be useful for confirming an individual’s address in 1849 if there is other information available, such as an entry in the 1851 census. It may also be useful for confirming a house number where no number is shown in the 1851 census. The Act in question is ‘An Act for authorising the Sale of certain Parts of the Estates in the County of Middlesex devised by the Will of Sir George Osborn baronet deceased, for the purpose of discharging Incumberances thereon’, 11 & 12 Victoriae, Cap. 24 (dated 1 August 1849). Bancroft Road Archives has a copy of this Act in its deeds collection (reference 3195). The Act has thirty-four pages of text stating the provisions of the Act and giving the historical background, starting with the Will of George Montague Dunk, Earl of Halifax, dated 27 August 1770. There are also two schedules. The first schedule appears to be a list of head leases, giving only the names of the lessees (not the names of the occupiers). All the lessees appear to be non-Jewish. These leases were granted between 1769 and 1812. The earlier leases are longer than the later leases. Hence, all these leases expire between 1859 and 1868. The second schedule lists individual properties, giving the names of the lessees and also the names of the occupiers. Again, most of the lessees appear to be non-Jewish, though some (Hart, Joseph, Salmon, Daniel, Lazarus) could be Jewish. Most lessees owned a number of properties. A major leaseholder was Nightingale. It is not clear whether the stated lessees are the original lessees under the leases or the current lessees. If they are the original lessees then it is possible the current lessee will in some cases be the occupier of the property. Most of the leases in the second schedule were between fifty-seven and seventy years, though there were some shorter and some longer leases. There was a wide range of end dates, with some leases running well into the twentieth century. The following list shows the streets in the second schedule and the names of 198 occupiers who appear likely to be Jewish. When in doubt, I have included a name if most of the other residents in the street appear to be Jewish and excluded it if all or most of the other residents appear to be non-Jewish. I have also lodged with the JGSGB Library a list of all named occupiers, including those not thought to be Jewish. The properties listed do not necessarily include all the houses in the street. The properties listed are from four districts, namely Whitechapel, St Mary Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Mile End New Town. Mile End New Town (not to be confused with Mile End Old Town) appears to have had very few Jewish residents in 1849. It is difficult to be certain since in some streets most of the occupiers were described merely as ‘lodger’. The names of some of these lodgers might be given in the 1851 census.

Streets listed and occupiers thought likely to be Jewish Bell Lane, Spitalfields Frying Pan Alley, Spitalfields No. 11, Israel. No. 12, Philips. No. 3, Barnett. No. 2, Joseph. No. 3, Rouhe. No. 2, Levy. No. 1, Guermon. No. 4, Davis. Bull Court, Spitalfields No. 8, Harris. No. 5, Davies. No. 4, Cohen. No. 3, Israel. Lander’s Buildings, Spitalfields No. 2, Davies. No. 1, Nathan. No. 9, Hyams. No. 8, Hyams No. 8, Cohen. No. 7, Samuel. No. 6, Levy. No. 5, Levy. No. 7, Cohen. No. 6, Davis. No. 5, Lazarus. No. 1, B Isaacs. No. 3, Harris. No. 1, Davis. No. 1, Joel.

Cox’s Square, Spitalfields Mill’s Court, Spitalfields No. 5, Cohen. No. 5, Griffen. No. 1, Levy. No. 9, Wolf. No. 3, Lewis. No. 8, Abrahams. No. 9, Lyons. No. 10, Levy. No. 5, Wolf. No. 1, Lyons. Montague Street, Spitalfields No. 1, Israel. No. 2, Symons. No. 3, Barnet. No. 4, Hyams. Cobb’s Yard, Spitalfields No. 5, Simmons. No. 6, Isaacs. No. 4, Cohen. No. 3, Hart. No. 2, Benjamin. No. 1, Aarons. No. 4, Hyams. No. 3, Mayers. No. 2, Isaacs. No. 1, Nathan. New Court, Spitalfields No. 2, Mayers. No. 3, Polock. No. 5, Levy. No. 6, Moses. No. 4, Levy. No. 5, Jacobs. No. 6, Jacobs. No. 7, Joseph. No. 4, Joseph. No. 3, Levy. No. 2, Harris. No. 1, Levy. No. 5, Joseph. No. 4, Davies. No. 2, J Harris. No. 1, Aaron. No. 9, Ellis. No. 3, Abraham. Coburg Court, Spitalfields No. 2, S Rebecca. Paradise Place, Spitalfields No. 2, Isaacs. No. 9, Wolf. Cobb’s Court, Spitalfields No. 2, Lazarus. Petticoat Lane, Spitalfields No. 29, Cohen. No. 28, Colman. No. 27, Somers. No. 26, Moses. Cox’s Square, Spitalfields No. 25, Levy. No. 24 and premises, Isaacs. No. 23, Cohen. No. 22, Cohen. No. 21, Cohen. No. 20, Cohen. No. 19, Davies. Dinah’s Buildings, Spitalfields No. 18, Jacobs. No. 17, Abrams. No. 16, Raphael. No. 15, Lyons. No. 9, Hart. No. 10, Hyams. No. 12, Nathan. No. 15½, Cohen. No. 13, Levy. No. 14, E Jacob. No. 1, Lazarus. No. 2, Levy. No. 3, Jacobs. No. 4, Cohen. No. 5, Abrahams. Fishers Alley, Spitalfields No. 6, Lyons. No. 7, Moses. No. 9, Levy. No. 8, Isaacs. No. 4, Moses. No. 3, Jacobs. No. 2, Joseph. No. 1, Abrahams. No. 7, Hart. No. 6, Samuel. No. 5, White. No. 4½, Mendother. No. 7, Jacobs. No. 6, Michaels. No. 5, Isaacs. No. 4, Isaacs. No. 4, Iles. No. 1, Moses. No. 2, Hass. No. 3, Jacobs. No. 4, Isaacs. No. 1, Hyams. No. 2, Lyons.

Shemot_25.3.indb 37 15/11/17 12:00 PM 38 STANLEY MELINEK

Short Street, Spitalfields Heneage Street, Spitalfields/Mile End New Town No. 1, Shipman. No. 2, Moss. No. 3, Jacobs. No. 4, Jacobs. No. 5, Lyons. No. 6, Hart. No. 7, Isaacs. High Street, Mile End New Town

Tripe Yard, Spitalfields Hobson’s Court, Mile End New Town No. 4, Lyons. No. 3, Nathan. No. 2, Davis. No. 4, Cohen. Hobson Place, Mile End New Town No. 2, E Nathan. No. 1, Jacobs. No. 10, F. Hart. Tuson’s Court, Spitalfields Hope Street, St Mary Whitechapel Wentworth Street, Spitalfields John Street, Spitalfields/Mile End New Town/St Mary Whitechapel No. 13, Harris. No. 12 and premises, Hart. No. 9, Davis. No. 7, Israel. No. 9, Levy. No. 20, S Levy. No. 6, Isaacs. No. 5, Solomons. No. 3, Marks. No. 1, J Isaacs. John’s Court, Mile End New Town/Spitalfields Kingshead Court, Spitalfields No. 1, Cohen. Johnson Street, Mile End New Town

New Court, Mile End New Town King Street, Mile End New Town

Anne’s Court, Mile End New Town King Edward Street, Mile End New Town No. 37 + Cow-yard M Teitgen. Boundary Court, Spitalfields/Mile End New Town Little Halifax Street, St Mary Whitechapel Charles Street, Mile End New Town No. 2, Abrams. No. 14, W Lee. No. 15 and saw mills, Goldsmith. Little John Street, St Mary Whitechapel No. 17, Lee. No. 7, Levy.

Church Street, Mile End New Town Lower Pelham Street, Mile End New Town No. 36, Philips. No. 47, I Nathan. No. 50, J Lepine. Lumberd Street, Mile End New Town Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town/St Mary Whitechapel No. 10 & Cow Yard, Tucker. No. 3, Harris. No. 4, Abrams. No. 3, E Davis. No. 11, S Sampson. No. 17, H Adams. No. 20, Albrecht. Luntley Place, St Mary Whitechapel No. 9, Davis. No. 2, Davis. Chicksand Place, Mile End New Town Masons Court, Mile End New Town Deal Street, Mile End New Town No. 5, R Newman. No. 4, Rohrs.

Dowsing Place, St Mary Whitechapel Montague Street, Mile End New Town/St Mary Whitechapel No. 16, Phillips. No. 11, Lipman. No. 7, Nathan. No. 4, Hart. No. 17, Boz. No. 11, Heinbrokel. No. 7, Lupus. No. 6, Salmon. No. 4, Bernstein. No. 3, Brown. No. 2, Eve. Dunk Street, Mile End New Town No. 26, Turner. Pelham Street, Mile End New Town. No. 10, Abell. No. 7, Lee. No. 3, Beljinim. Dunk Court, Mile End New Town Yard and Skum House, W Zable Pleasant Row, Mile End New Town No. 14, Franklin. Eele Place, Mile End New Town House yard and stable, W Newman. Vacant ground, William Newman. Princes Street, Mile End New Town. No. 6, Abrams. Eele Place, St Mary Whitechapel Pugh’s Row, Mile End New Town Finch Street, Mile End New Town/St Mary Whitechapel No. 3, Simmons. No. 5, Hoefler. No. 8, Mantinhoff. No. 12, Burnboom. Queen Street, Mile End New Town No. 10, Abrahams. No. 3, Myers. No. 2 and premises, Myers & Handfeld.

Frostick Place, St Mary Whitechapel Ramar Place, Mile End New Town Workshop, Hort. No. 4, Hyams

Garden Place, Mile End New Town Spring Garden, Mile End New Town No. 13, A Hertstein. No. 14, A Hertstein. Thomas Street, Mile End New Town George Street, Mile End New Town No. 3, Abrams. No. 22, Mehetabel. No. 19, Greenfield. No. 14, Levy. Unanimous Row, Mile End New Town No. 13, Morris. No. 12, Lauriman. No. 11, Abrams. Well Street, Mile End New Town George Court, Mile End New Town Wilks Court, Mile End New Town Halifax Street, Mile End New Town (17 properties) No. 17, Buckmaster. No. 12, J Landenberger.

I have looked briefly at the 1851 census. For Cobb’s Yard, there is a good match with the above table, with twelve out of twenty occupiers at the same address in the 1851 census as in the above table. However, there are some changes in the spellings (Aarons/Aaron, Mayers/Myers, Coster/Costa). I have found matches in the above table with the 1851 Anglo- Jewry Database. There were also some matches between the above table and Kelly’s Post Office Directory 1848, vol. 1, Streets, Commercial.

The author is a retired civil servant living in Hertfordshire who has been researching his family history, on and off, since childhood.

Shemot_25.3.indb 38 15/11/17 12:00 PM Tracing the family name in nineteenth-century Germany Eva Lawrence

Post-modern readers will understand that ‘my facts’ are not necessarily ‘your facts’. This is an attempt to summarise information that I’ve come across in discussion groups and in my own research, not all of which will be new to the reader. I offer it in the expectation that it will open up a wealth of personal stories and start up arguments in true Jewish tradition. 1. Jewish men have a Hebrew name – a patronymic – consisting of a given name that is particular to them in their own family and their father’s name which identifies the family with their community. For genealogists these are valuable clues to each man’s place on the family tree. 2. Jewish women, too, have a Hebrew name consisting of a given name and, again, their father’s name. 3. Levis and Cohens, the priestly castes, have always had family identifiers (surnames) which are handed down from generation to generation, but until around 1800, other Jewish families, particularly in rural communities, did not. 4. By the end of the eighteenth century quite a few rich or powerful Jewish families had taken surnames like their Gentile counterparts, for example the Rothschilds, the Oppenheims and the Einsteins. In 1787, too, Joseph II of feudal Austria had begun the process of regularising the names of his Jewish subjects.

The French Revolution 5. Records of birth, marriage and death were only kept by religious bodies, until the National Assembly of France, elected after the 1789 Revolution, altered the basis of French civil administration radically from a feudal to a democratic model, a move that influenced political attitudes all over Europe. 6. The word ‘bureaucracy’ was invented at this time. A rigid hierarchy ofdépartments , arrondissements and cantons (in German, Department, Kreis, and Bezirk) was created for keeping administrative control of every aspect of government. 7. Civil administration required the vital records of its citizens, so a scheme for civil registration was drawn up. Elected mayors and elected clerics were made legally responsible for keeping detailed records of the people in their community, intended to replace the old parish records. 8. The revolution with its mantras of Liberty and Equality at first resulted in total emancipation for French Jews in the newly created republic.

The Napoleonic laws of 1808 9. Appointed as Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte saw the benefits in administrative efficiency which accrued from a one- size-fits-all approach. In 1808 he proclaimed a famous and far-reaching edict nicknamed theDécret infâme, because it took back rights already conceded, and ignored the recommendations of the Great Sanhedrin, which Bonaparte had consulted. The edict required all Jews to adopt fixed family names to be passed on from generation to generation, upon pain of banishment. 10. So in 1808, every Bürgermeister or maire under French jurisdiction had to complete a roll-call of the Jewish population in his area, listing each person’s old Jewish name and an acceptable new name by which they were to be officially known thereafter.

Every single person, man, woman or child was accorded a paragraph with a fixed form of words which, if they were literate, they signed to show acceptance of the new name and the citizenship rights that went with it. Censuses of a region’s Jews were made quite often for taxation purposes, but unusually, these particular records contain not only details of men or of heads of households, but also of every Jewish woman and every Jewish child in a given area within a well-defined time period. They are an exciting link to a long-gone generation of whom we might otherwise know very little, usually giving the age and trade of adults, and the date and place of birth of children.

11. Over the course of the nineteenth century, similar laws were passed in most other European jurisdictions. Notably there was a tranche of such edicts in 1848, sometimes in regions where the French law had already been in operation. In German, these edicts were called Namensfestlegung der Juden and in French prises de noms des Juifs. The registers of name-adoptions are referred to in German as Matrikell. Many are known to have survived until today in local archives, on microfilm or in transcription. Genealogists are currently busy trying find the rest.

The enactment of Napoleonic laws in the Rhineland-Palatinate 12. Between 1798 and the defeat of Napoleon, the large region of Germany occupied by the French was among the first to regulate the naming of its Jewish population.

Shemot_25.3.indb 39 15/11/17 12:00 PM 40 EVA LAWRENCE

13. Often the law conflicted with the long-standing patronymic system. Every family had to acquire a surname for use by every future generation, which had to be acceptable to the local officials. Biblical names and place-names could not be used for surnames (patronymics were excluded unless they had already been used as a recognised surname previously). 14. Each individual also needed an acceptable given name, chosen from a range already set in 1803 for the Christian population. Jacob easily became Jacques, Levi became Leonard and Mendel chose Emanuel. But another Jacob in my family was turned into a Josephe, and an Anschel is shown with the new name Jacques. 15. What about the women? They too, had to choose an acceptable given name. Very few of them had previously possessed a suitable one because pet names were the norm. (A great many Jewish women in this area adopted the official name Jeanette in 1808, whatever their familiar given name. After the return of a German jurisdiction, many Jeanettes decided to become Johanna, a name which was then re-used in later generations. So if a Jewish family member is called Johanna, there is a good chance that the family originated in lands which were French in 1808 but later returned to Germany.) 16. Married women were required to take the same surname as their husband and their children. Unmarried women by convention took their father’s new surname. In records I’ve inspected, literate women signed for themselves, apparently as equals to the men, a right Napoleon did not give them. 17. In spite of the formal name adoption, most people still used their familiar Yiddish names in their daily lives. Pet names and nicknames have always been a feature of German family life and can be found creeping into later records such as passenger lists.

Naming traditions, name adoption and the Ney family Naming one’s child after a relative has traditionally been a way of honouring them, both for Jews and non-Jews. However, different Jewish traditions have evolved their own conventions about how relatives are honoured. In my parents’ German family, one doesn’t re-use the name of a living relative. A twentieth-century niece has married into a North African family where the tradition is to name a daughter for one’s wife’s mother. Since my mother was still alive and present when the child was born, a certain difficulty naturally arose. My paternal line originated in Niederkirchen, a village nestling in the hills of the Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate), which was occupied by the French around 1795 and was sporadically under French rule until 1816. I’m lucky enough to have a transcript of the 1808 name adoption register for the sixty-eight Niederkirchen inhabitants. Town clerks supervising name adoption registration had to stick to the law, which had no sympathy with old traditions. In my Niederkirchen Ney family and in others I’ve come across, a grandfather and his married son ended up with the same official name. Quite possibly, this was the norm among their Gentile neighbours. Two Josephe Neys, father and son, were termed Josephe Ney le premier [the first] and Josephe Neyle second [the second]. Because of the meticulous records and the power of the patronymic, I know for sure that Josephe Ney 2, formerly Josef Kieve, was the son of Josephe Ney 1, formerly Kieve Mendel (see Figures 1 and 2). What might have been an uncomfortable situation does not seem to have been resented, though it has overturned one of my genealogical assumptions. No doubt Josephe le second was still called Kieve at home by his wife and family. The ‘old name’ appearing on the name adoption record has proved valuable in tracking the movements of Joseph 2 as he learned his craft of cattle-trading with a relative in nearby Otterberg, some years before name adoption. Joseph Kieve appears in a count of Otterberg Jews of 1803. He lived as a worker in the house of Joseph Getsch, a livestock trader, and his wife, Kelgen Meyer, who would have been a sister of Joseph Kieve’s grandmother, Johanette Meyer.

Figure 1. Descendants of Joseph 1 and Bella (deceased) after name adoption.

Shemot_25.3.indb 40 15/11/17 12:00 PM TRACING THE FAMILY NAME IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY GERMANY 41

Figure 2. Descendant chart for Mendel Jossell before name adoption.

After the Pfalz was returned to German Bavaria (Bayern) in 1816, some of the Ney family began using the Germanic spelling Neu, which translates as ‘new’. The two versions of the name do sound identical in Pfalz dialect and the story goes that this meaning was in fact the reason for Kieve Mendel’s choice of surname, even if he spelled it with a Y. ‘If I’ve got to have a new name, it might as well be New’, he is reported to have said. German spelling in the nineteenth century was largely a matter of local choice, so names in both printed and manuscript nineteenth-century records are found in many different variations. Then, in 1902, a commission introduced standard spelling into the now-unified German Empire (Deutsches Reich). It ironed out regional differences and cracked down mercilessly on French orthography. The hard C was dropped in favour of K, so that my great-grandmother who had embroidered her trousseau with a C for Caroline before she married in 1862 died conventionally as Karoline in 1929. Her daughter, named Louise in 1872, called herself Luise throughout the next millennium. In addition, an early-twentieth- century standard German dictionary contains only six words starting with X and the letter Y has also been eliminated. A third-generation Josef in my family (born in 1863) set out our claim to the name Ney in a document of 28 June 1901 at the Otterberg Amtsgericht (district court), while Josef the second (born in 1796), his son Abraham and all Abraham’s seven sons, including my grandfather Gustav, always defiantly signed documents with the French spelling Ney that my parents have handed down to me.

Finding the documents The German-language Chronik Odenbach, vol. 3,Jüdisches Leben in Otterbach by Alfred Wendel is available in the JGSGB library, and contains an accessible transcription (p. 34) in the original French of the name adoption register for Odenbach, a village near Lauterecken in the Pfalz, with a copy of the original manuscript (p. 45), and a table of the name changes (p. 43). The page gives a flavour of the wealth of information that can be extracted from this type of record. The website of Kultur-Büro AHB at http://www.a-h-b.de/AHB/links_e.htm has for years been collecting name adoption tables, which it makes available to members of JewishGen. The site has both English and German versions. FamilySearch has put online images from microfilms of numerous further Matrikell, which are not always easy to navigate. Roger Lustig of JewishGen has recently put online an index of those he has found (see http://www.jewishgen. org/databases/Germany/Naldex.htm). There is a volunteer project to provide transcriptions of all of these in the near future. Chronicles of the Jewish life of many small localities like Odenbach have been written over the years. There may well be one for the place in Germany where your own ancestors lived at the start of the nineteenth century, just waiting to be discovered.

Eva Lawrence is a regular contributor to Shemot.

Shemot_25.3.indb 41 15/11/17 12:00 PM Happiness and sorrow go hand in hand Cynthia Shaw

The story of my paternal grandfather, Aaron Breitelman aka Harry Brentman aka Harry Harrison, begins in Czarist Russia seventeen years before the turn of the twentieth century. Aaron was born on 14 October 1883 to Schimin (Simon) and Basia Rejzya (Rosie) in a village that he called Yompola (Yampol) and which was situated on the banks of the river Dnetre near the Black Sea in the county of Kremenitz where Rosie had been born in September 1864 to Aaron and Etel Cohen. Schimin’s birth date is not known. Schimin and Rosie had seven children in all, including twin boys who died when they were two years old and two other children who also died in infancy. Their surviving offspring were Zelda aka Janey, and Etel. My grandfather received a very poor education at the Hebrew school in Yompola and at the age of eleven went to work with his father, a tailor who also traded in fabrics. In the course of their work it was sometimes necessary for father and son to travel to distant markets, a journey which took some three or four months and which could not be undertaken until the spring when the mud tracks that passed for roads had dried sufficiently to take the weight of a horse and cart. Travelling such distances was not an easy matter as it required a document to be signed by a local magistrate or Russian equivalent. The travel document was an absolute necessity in the case of being stopped by local police when, with the added inducement of a small bribe, one could continue on one’s travels knowing that petty officials were always in fear of signed and sealed documents. The cart on which they rode carried a treadle sewing machine, cast iron pressing irons, a supply of materials and all the paraphernalia necessary to set up a small workroom. On arrival at these remote markets they made new clothes, repaired old, and refurbished uniforms for an agreed amount of money. The work was arduous and the hours long. In a small village such as Yompola it was almost impossible for anyone to make a decent living and there was a pressing need for Schimin to make enough money to support his family for the rest of the year, which for the most part was deep in winter when the need to keep warm was uppermost in the minds of the town’s dwellers. In order to preserve heat the citizens would go to extraordinary lengths, including burning the rafters and lintels of their wooden homes to make fires, but when spring arrived and the ice melted it was not unusual for houses to collapse as it was only the frozen water in the thatch that was holding it together. The thaw caused roofs and walls to subside, sometimes with loss of life. That was the way that my ancestors lived until 1898 when my grandfather together with his father were returning from a remote area and as they crossed a frozen river the ice gave way and they fell into the freezing water. Although both were rescued, my great-grandfather Schimin developed pneumonia from which he died. According to Jewish custom, he was buried within twenty-four hours of his death and the speed of his burial so shocked my grandfather that for the duration of his life he believed that his father was buried alive. Because he was the only male child Grandpa was expected to become the breadwinner, but in his small village there was little hope of earning enough to support his family and it was decided that he would go to England where his cousin Louis Zeid was said to be making his fortune. Louis’s brother Joseph had joined the elite White Guard and become bandmaster to the Czar but my grandfather had neither the inclination nor the physique to make the military his career and in May 1900 at the tender age of seventeen he packed a few meagre belongings and set off on the long and difficult journey to an unknown land. Grandpa had no conception of the distances to be covered before he would cross the boundary between Russia and Poland and it took several days to reach the frontier where, despite having previously bribed the guards, he was shot at, though not injured, by the border patrol. En route he met a travelling companion, Moishe Preuss, with whom he struck up a friendship. In the distant future their families would intertwine when their as yet unborn children married. On 15 May Grandpa reached the port of Hamburg and bought a passage aboard the SS Leicester, a Bibby Line ship bound for Grimsby. Passenger no. 99003 was on his way. Upon arrival in Grimsby, Grandpa was issued with Alien Registration Certificate no. 233311 and, although he spoke only Russian and Yiddish, managed to find his way to London’s East End where he procured lodgings at 94 Fashion Street, and employment as a tailor. In 1901 he changed his name to Harry Brentman and became an employee of Messrs Webb & Co with whom he remained until his marriage on 11 June 1905 to Flora, daughter of Fischer Besztymt (deceased) and Rachel Argeband (née Wanderman). My grandparents made their home in the seaside town of Portsea (Portsmouth) and opened a naval tailoring and outfitters shop at 96 Queen Street (see Figure 1). The name Harrison was adopted when a signwriter was employed to write the name Brentman on the shop front. When asked how the name was spelt, my grandfather (who could neither read nor write) was unable to say. It was the opinion of the signwriter that the name Brentman sounded rather foreign and as there was so much anti-Semitism in the area at the time, his advice to Grandpa was to choose a more English-sounding name such as his own, which was Harrison. My grandfather agreed that the name Harrison would be most desirable. The two shook hands, the Harrison name was engraved on the hoarding, and that is how our family name came to be Harrison!

Shemot_25.3.indb 42 15/11/17 12:00 PM HAPPINESS AND SORROW GO HAND IN HAND 43

Figure 1. My grandparents seen in the doorway of their shop in Queen Street, Portsmouth, c.1908. The young woman is Nellie Mason and the child is my aunt Celia.

Harry Harrison was later employed as a uniform-maker to the Royal Navy and was allowed on the battleships in Portsmouth harbour to fit the naval ratings with their regimental apparel. Grandpa was also required to measure the sailors returning from foreign service for replacement uniforms and in 1906 he was both proud and delighted to be standing on the same battleship as King Edward VII who was there to launch HMSDreadnought . My grandfather’s naval tailoring shop in Portsmouth had originally been a public house known as the Victoria Hotel. Grandpa had the building converted into three lock-up shops and had extensive alterations including electricity in part of the premises. The accommodation above the shop where my grandparents lived comprised a sitting room, a kitchen, two additional rooms on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second, one of which was occupied by sixteen-year-old Nellie Mason, a domestic employed to help look after the children: six-year-old Celia, four-year-old Philip, two-year-old Sarah, and five-month-old Cecil. Philip was the apple of his father’s eye and for one so young had an aptitude for impersonations, frequently imitating his father’s mannerisms, in particular the way that he walked with his hands clasped behind his back, a talent which was a constant source of amusement to his parents. It was a very happy family that sat down to dinner on the night of 15 April 1912 and no one could have anticipated the terrible tragedy that was soon to befall them. As the clock struck midnight, my grandparents were awakened by the sound of hammering on the shop door and, as Grandpa ran down the staircase, he glanced out of the window overlooking Queen Street and saw the reflection of flames in the window of the shop opposite. He realised to his horror that his building was on fire. Rushing back upstairs, he shouted for Flora but there was no reply and when he reached the bedroom only the baby was there. Grasping the infant to him, he ran back down the stairs which by that time were filled with black acrid smoke and as he ran he heard my grandmother screaming, “Harry, Harry, it’s fire, it’s fire”. In the terrifying moments that followed he saw through the window that the crowd congregating in the street below were holding out a blanket and shouting to him to throw the baby down. Paralysed with fear, he was at first unable to find the courage but there was no alternative and with shaking hands and a sinking heart he threw the child out of the window. Thankfully the baby (my father) landed unharmed in the blanket and was taken away to a place of safety by Mrs Norris, a neighbour. The fire brigade arrived and shouted at my grandfather to get out through the window. He was shaking so much it was a miracle that he didn’t fall as he inched his way along the precarious narrow ledge until he reached the next-door premises of his relatives the Mikardo family. Many were gathered outside the burning building when Flora and Nellie appeared at a window. People were shouting to them to jump into the blanket but they quickly disappeared from sight, perhaps to get the children. A fire officer fought his way into the burning structure and found Celia unconscious on the bed. He carried her to the safety of the street and then made a second courageous attempt to enter the building but was forced back by billowing smoke and intense heat. On 16 April at 2.30 in the morning the blaze was finally brought under control and members of the fire brigade entered the building. Inside they found the bodies of Flora, Philip, Sarah and Nellie, all of whom had died from smoke inhalation. To say that my grandfather was traumatised is a huge understatement. He was later found wandering in Queen Street distraught, unable to speak and clad only in his nightshirt. More than two hundred people attended the funerals and it is said that the whole congregation mourned. Full reports of the fire can be found in the Portsmouth newspapers of the time but my story doesn’t quite end there. Exactly twenty-five years later, on 16 April 1937 at 2.30 in the morning, I arrived in this world. An extraordinary coincidence perhaps? The hand of fate, it is said, moves in mysterious ways.

Cynthia Shaw is a regular contributor to Shemot.

Shemot_25.3.indb 43 15/11/17 12:00 PM Curiosity killed the Kohen Russell Eisen

Introduction My name is Russell Eisen. Eisen is the shorted form of Eisenstadt and this is the story of my research into the family name. In 1938, as a boy aged two, my father, Ralf (Figure 1) and his family left Berlin and on arrival in the UK dropped the second half of the family name – this wasn’t a time to be too German in Britain. The reason for departure from Germany is obvious, but one consequence of leaving was the total loss of family history from before my great-grandfather Hugo. Hence my curiosity!

Israel Tuvia Eisenstadt = Rachel

Abraham Eisenstadt = Johanna Sackheim

Heimann Ludwig Eisenstadt = Elsie Schmulewitz Hugo Eisenstadt = Anita Aisenstein

Arnold Eisenstadt = Eva Ursula Ansbach

Ralf Eisen

Figure 1. Family tree.

The beginnings Starting with a blank piece of paper, the obvious beginning was Google. And a search for Eisenstadt revealed two things. The first was the Austrian town, around seven miles from the Hungarian border and also known by its Hungarian name of Kismarton. Famous for the seat of the Esterhazy family (and their cake), the home of Joseph Haydn whilst alive, and now home to his tomb and two skulls, Eisenstadt was not entirely unknown to me. When I was growing up, a few old family books in German were stored in our attic and one of these contained my grandfather’s name, written as Arnold Eisenstadt. At that time I didn’t have any reason to suspect a connection between the name and the place. However, one summer around thirty years ago, well before the days of the Internet, I drove to Eisenstadt and was surprised to find a large Jewish museum there. It seemed perfectly logical, therefore, to go and ask whether they had any records that could point to a connection between my grandfather and the town. The question was met with a response of ‘Where do you want me to start?’ and it is only now that I understand why, the second thing made clear via Google. Nearly everyone with the surname Eisenstadt is related to one man – Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt – the first to bear the Eisenstadt name. Known as the MaHaram Ash, the Hebrew acronym for ‘Our Teacher Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt’, he was born in 1670 in Poznan. A classic ‘wandering Jew’, he held a number of communal positions, including heading a yeshiva in Worms, before arriving in Eisenstadt in 1714. There he become rabbi for what was called the ‘Seven Communities’ (seven towns in Burgenland protected by the Esterhazy family). He also opened a well-regarded yeshiva there. However, he had enemies, and was forced to flee in 1723, because of ‘Informers and Calumniators’.1 He left his son in charge, only returning three years later, and he remained there until his death in 1744. It was during this time that, as well as issuing a ban on all card- playing except for the festivals of Channukah and Purim, he completed his main work Panim Me’irot, for which he is also known. He also expounded on the newly arrived drink in Europe, coffee, raising a concern about the addiction Jews quickly developed, resulting in visits to coffee houses on Shabbat, and the difficulties that then brought.2 Thus with Meir Eisenstadt I had the beginnings of the name, but still had to trace a link with the Eisenstadts of my family.

The source My great-grandfather Hugo had died in 1939 within months of coming to the UK, and my father’s parents, understandably, did not talk about their time in pre-war Germany. Hence my father couldn’t provide any natural starting point. So it was back to Google, and in searching for Hugo this led to a direct hit on Geni.com, one of the many family tree websites. Although Hugo was only an offshoot on another family tree, this did suggest that his father was one Abraham Eisenstadt.

Shemot_25.3.indb 44 15/11/17 12:00 PM CURIOSITY KILLED THE KOHEN 45

So, ignoring specifics for now on Hugo, I immediately moved on to searching for Abraham and there I came across a reference to a book, Scattered Seeds by George Sackheim, a monumental work in two volumes tracing various Sackheim family histories.3 So it seemed logical to seek out this book and of course, the British Library obligingly had a copy. It is a very odd feeling sitting in the hushed quiet of a British Library reading room, opening a book you know nothing about and seeing a family tree that covers several generations to your father! What was even more interesting was that Scattered Seeds kept making references to another book called Da’at Kedoshim.4 This book, written in Hebrew, provided an even bigger surprise. After enlisting the help of a rabbi friend to translate, not only did I discover that the author was Israel Tuvia Eisenstadt, my great-great-great-grandfather, but the book was a complete family tree going back to Rabbi Moshe HaKohen around the 1550s. Indeed, this also explained how Rabbi Meir’s mother was the sister of Rabbi Shabtai HaCohen, known as the Shach, the renowned Talmudist (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The Shach (1622–1663), uncle to Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt.

The book is not simply a family tree; it is a dedication to the martyrs of Ruzhany: two rabbis, Israel and Tuvia, as explained in the introduction to the book:

Da’at Kedoshim includes memoirs of the following family histories: Eisenstadt, Bachrach, Ginzburg, Heilprin, Morawicz, Mintz, Friedland, Katzenelenboigen, Rappaport, and Rokach. They are related through their parents or their wives to the martyrs who gave their lives in the blood libel that took place in Ruzhany in the Horodno Province in the State of Lithuania. It also contains a Selicha for the martyrs who were murdered on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, 5420 / 1659.

Israel Tuvia was born and lived most of his life in Ruzhany. He died in 1893 and was buried in Warsaw. I visited Warsaw in 2016 and with the help of the Jewish Historical Institute5 came across a published obituary, an extract from which reads:

Ruzhany, our city has suffered a great loss in the passing of the great Rabbi, intellect and exceptional teacher R’ Yisrael Tuvia Eisenstadt, who passed away in the city of Warsaw on Friday the 25th of Tevet. He was a scion of the great family tree, the 6th generation of the great Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt, author of the Panim Meirot of blessed memory and on his mother’s side he stemmed from family Zackheim, 7th generation of the Martyrs of Ruzhany. The honoured citizens of Warsaw who knew the tremendous worth of the deceased of blessed memory paid him his last honour and accompanied him to his final resting place. He was 65 years old when he passed away and left after him a blessing of two sons who go in the straight path of the Torah of God Almighty.6

There quickly followed a trip to Okopowa Street Jewish cemetery, where I found both his and his wife Rachel’s grave. Da’at Kedoshim provided a fantastic source in tracing the family history and included many fascinating stories such as that of Rabbi Yaakov Eisenstadt, a grandson of Rabbi Meir, who at some point around the mid 1700s came to London. He lived

Shemot_25.3.indb 45 15/11/17 12:00 PM 46 RUSSELL EISEN

in the City and not only attended the Great Synagogue that existed in Duke Street, but also gave sermons there. Some of these he condensed into a book, published in 1770. Entitled Toldot Yaakov, this was the first recorded book published by a Jew in London.7

Ich Bin Ein Berliner So with Israel Tuvia I was now very close to being able to flesh out the bare factual details first seen inScattered Seeds. As mentioned in the obituary, Israel Tuvia had two sons. One, Zalman, I’ve not been able to trace any details for, but the other, my great-great-grandfather, was Abraham Eisenstadt. Judging by the marriage certificates of his various children, which gives their place of birth, he and his wife Johanna moved around Germany frequently, but eventually the family settled in Berlin. And here lay a further surprise. Having made various enquiries in Berlin, it appears that for about twenty years – from around 1890 to 1910 – he was cantor to the community, including at the famous Neue Synagogue. Indeed, the Berlin phone directories from that time, now available online, confirmed that he lived around the corner from the Shul on Oranienburger Straße. In 1897 he published a collection of liturgies used on Shabbat and festivals (Figure 3). In the introduction to this book he states:

The following collection of old Jewish songs was created because of the desire of the author in part to record for research the melodies which had been handed down by his family for centuries from generation to generation and in part to preserve them for practical use. … The family records establish that from the lineage arose a lot of scholars, such as the families Bachrach and Eisenstadt and others. For these reasons alone the songs recorded here should lay claim to a fairly great traditional significance, even if the whole nature of the songs didn’t attest to their great antiquity by itself.

So this provided me with enough proof that, even without Abraham’s birth certificate, the family connection, as indicted by Scattered Seeds, was verified.

Figure 3. Abraham Eisenstadt’s book of liturgies (Shire ḳodesh le-Shabat / ges. und zsgest. von Abraham Eisenstadt, held at Frankfurt am Main Univ.-Bibliothek).8

Shemot_25.3.indb 46 15/11/17 12:00 PM CURIOSITY KILLED THE KOHEN 47

Heinmann Ludwig Eisenstadt In tracing various further documents, Ancestry.co.uk also proved very useful and as I found out more about Abraham and Johanna’s children, more surprises arose. Hugo’s older brother was Heinmann Ludwig Eisenstadt, who was born in 1872. He became a doctor and specialised in the sexual health of the Jewish community in Berlin. He wrote various articles in the local Jewish papers, as found in the digital collection at the Leo Baeck Institute9 including jointly with his father, Abraham, offering both a medical and halachic perspective. He died comparatively young. His obituary, published in the Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt(Berlin) on 10 May 1918, provided further clues to build on:

He was the descendant of a Jewish family, distinguished by great learning, from whom important Hebrew works have come, he constantly tried to prove himself worthy as a true grandson of his great Rabbi. He has gone and has left behind grieving parents, spouse, children and siblings, but also a great flock of patients who constantly think of him.

Heinz Eisenstadt In searching online records for his children, I found his son, Dr Heinz Eisenstadt. Heinz was born in 1905, and in 1934 married Ruth in Berlin. Shortly after their one child, Rita, was born they moved to the US, settling in Port Arthur, Texas. He was a specialist in treating hiccups, with his most difficult patient suffering for twenty-seven years. More interestingly, a Google search revealed a connection with the Dishman Art Gallery.10 Heinz died in 1986 and Ruth in 1991, and upon her death she bequeathed their vast art collection, started in Berlin. As it is known, the Eisenstadt Collection comprises more than 450 paintings, bronze and porcelain sculptures, carpets and significant historical pieces of furniture, primarily from the nineteenth century. One of the most important works is a painting by Thomas Moran, who also has one of his paintings hanging in the Oval Office. Their daughter Rita married and has a daughter my age – so she is a new cousin actually traced!

Curiosity killed the Kohen As mentioned, I had help in translating Da’at Kedoshim and it was pointed out that there was no immediate reference to Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt being a Kohen (priest), nor indeed anyone else in the Eisenstadt line, which I was, following my father and grandfather. To consider this further I contacted the Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt.11 They sent me a picture of Rabbi Meir’s grave which confirmed there was no traditional symbol on the grave to suggest he was a Kohen. This lack of reference was echoed on the gravestones for both Israel Tuvia and Abraham. So this raised the question: how is it that my grandfather, father and myself are Kohens? An examination of the genealogical evidence by the London Beth Din led to the eventual withdrawal of the Kohen status, subsequently supported by DNA tests. So a family history found, but a religious status lost. Such are the dangers of family history research!

Born in Yorkshire but now living in London, Russell is Head of Tax for a firm of accountants. Aside from piecing together his family history, Russell and his wife Susan are world authorities on floaty pens (www.floatypens. org). Initially Russell researched his maternal side of the family, surprising his mother by finding that not only did the family live in London for a period of years but that Russell and Susan spent four years unknowingly living in the converted synagogue where his great-grandfather had been married 110 years earlier! He may be contacted at [email protected].

REFERENCES 1. Patai, Raphael (1996) The Jews of Hungary: history, culture, psychology. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2. Liberles, Robert (2012) Jews welcome Coffee: tradition and innovation in early modern Germany. Brandeis University Press. 3. Sackheim, George (1986) Scattered Seeds: the descendants of Rabbi Israel, one of the martyrs of Rozanoi, who perished on the second day of Rosh Hashonah 5420 (Friday, September 9, 1659). Skokie: R. Sackheim. 4. Eisenstadt, Israel Tuvia (1897-98) Da’at Kesoshim. St Petersburg: J Berman. 5. Jewish Historical institute. www.jhi.pl (accessed 4 Sept 2017). 6. Ha-Zefira, 14 April 2893, p. 3. 7. Roth, Cecil (1950) History of the Great Synagogue, London 1690–1940, London: E. Goldston. 8. Europeana Collections. http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/09302/_ubffm_item_urn_nbn_de_hebis_30_1_126637.html (accessed 4 Sept 2017). 9. H. Ludwig Eisenstadt Collection 1906–1918. www.lbi.org (accessed 4 Sept 2017). 10. Eisenstadt Collection. https://fineartscomm.lamar.edu/dishman-art-museum/collections/eisenstadt-collection.html (accessed 4 Sept 2017). 11. Österreichische Jüdische Museum. http://www.ojm.at/ (accessed 4 Sept 2017).

Shemot_25.3.indb 47 15/11/17 12:00 PM Is there an actor in the house? My theatrical ancestors Danielle Sanderson

My interest in genealogy began twenty years ago, courtesy of my grandma Myra who sketched out part of my family tree on the back of an old cornflakes packet. Myra Thomas, my mother’s mother, was born in 1914 in Birmingham, and was named after her grandfather Myer Gershon Tamuz (see Figure 1), who had died four months earlier. Samuel Elias Tamuz came to Birmingham from Vilnius, with four of his sons (Simon, Myer, Julius and Isaac) and one daughter (Rachel). I haven’t managed to trace what happened to his youngest children, Shneur Zalman Tamuz and Binyamin Sanel Tamuz. In Birmingham, the family name was changed to Thomas and the sons became furniture dealers (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. Descendants of Movsha Tamuz.

Figure 2. Descendants of Myer Thomas.

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Myer Thomas Myer Tamuz married Emily Belcher, daughter of Harris and Dora, at Singer’s Hill Synagogue in 1875, while Simon (Zeman) Tamuz married Emily’s sister Betsy three months later. Many members of the Thomas family were involved in theatrical professions. My grandma Myra’s brother Basil (Figure 3) was a playwright, song-writer and manager of the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton.

Figure 3. My grand-uncle, the playwright Basil Thomas.

Basil’s plays included Shooting Star, Book of the Month, Springtime, This Blessed Plot, Two of Everything, and The Love Birds, and he also wrote songs for films starring David Niven, Vera Lynn and George Formby. He wrote many songs for Arthur Askey, who described Basil as ‘That lovable and witty man’. 1 Like many seemingly witty men, however, Basil suffered from depression, and tragically committed suicide in 1957, aged forty-four. I have heard or read of three causes for his depression. My mother understood that his depression was, at least in part, due to the fact that he and his wife Hedy wanted to emigrate to America, but he believed that he wouldn’t be allowed entry because he had suffered from TB. His cousin Derek Salberg, of whom I will write more below, mentions that Basil was depressed by poor notices that critics gave to The Lovebird, starring Dora Bryan and Ronald Shiner when it came to Birmingham2 (although ‘it had a very good run in London of which, very sadly, he was unaware as he died just before it opened’). His daughter Susan moved to America with Basil’s widow Hedy, and became Arts Editor of the Washingtonian Magazine. In a piece for the Washington Post,3 Susan wrote about a revival of Shooting Star that she came to watch, and mentioned that her father’s depression was due to ‘an imbalance in his body chemistry’ that nowadays would be treated by medication. She notes that Basil’s ‘ashes lie on the perimeter of London’s Liberal Jewish Cemetery, ostracised because of the Jewish doctrines that cremation is not acceptable and the taking of one’s own life, murder’. Susan married the lawyer Daniel Davidson, whose phone was tapped during the Watergate Affair and who was a US delegate at the Paris Peace Conference in 1968. Another of Basil’s plays, Please Turn Over, was directed by his second cousin Gerald Thomas (see Figure 4). Gerald worked as a film editor at Denham Studios, editing Lawrence Olivier’sHamlet , but is best known for producing all thirty of the Carry On films. His older brother Ralph was also a producer. ‘What his younger brother, Gerald, was to theCarry On pictures, Ralph (pronounced Raaf) was to the Doctor series. Starting with Doctor in the House (1954), most of them starred Dirk Bogarde, in his matinée idol days, as a shy, young houseman up against his bombastic chief Sir Lancelot Spratt’.4 Ralph’s son, Jeremy Thomas, was a film producer whose works included producing Bertolucci’sThe Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Figure 4. Descendants of Julius Thomas.

Grandma Myra’s aunt Janey Thomas married (Jacob) Leon Salberg, a nephew of the first Jewish Mayor of Warsaw.5 (This relationship is also mentioned in various newspaper obituaries for Leon, but I haven’t been able to corroborate it.) According to Leon’s obituary,6 his father died when Leon was about ten years old, and he ran away during the shiva period and worked in an embroidery factory. His family eventually recovered him, and they sent him to England

Shemot_25.3.indb 49 15/11/17 12:00 PM 50 DANIELLE SANDERSON

where some of his older brothers had settled. In 1911, with no experience of running a theatre, Leon bought the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham with two of his brothers-in-law, Joshua and Julius Thomas (the latter being my great- grandfather). The ‘Alex’ theatre was very successful, and was particularly well known for its pantomimes. Leon died in his office at the Alex in 1937, and his ghost is said to haunt the theatre. When I was in Birmingham a few years ago I asked to look round the theatre (which has been redeveloped). The lady in the box office, unprompted, mentioned that she had seen Leon’s ghost, and there have reportedly been many sightings. Leon’s wife, Janey, had died of eclampsia in childbirth in 1918, having given birth to three sons: Stanley, Derek and Reginald (shown in Figure 2), all of whom were influential in the theatrical industry. Derek Salberg took over the running of the Alex and has written several books about the theatre and the plays, and particularly the pantomimes which played there. My Love Affair with a Theatre7 has a foreword by Lord Olivier, and contains much information about my Thomas and Salberg families. Once Upon a Pantomime8 has a foreword by Arthur Askey, and A Mixed Bag: Mostly about the Theatre9 has a foreword by Leslie Crowther. Derek was awarded the OBE in 1965 and a CBE in 1978 ‘for services to the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham’.10 His older brother, Stanley, ran cinemas and theatres in the north of England, while his younger brother, Reggie, was also awarded an OBE, in 1966, for his role in forming several repertory companies and being general manager of the Salisbury Playhouse. Another Salberg who was active in the entertainment industry was the first cousin of Stanley, Derek and Reggie, Victor Saville, who changed his name from Salberg in 1920. Victor enlisted in the 18th Regiment of the Territorial Army, the London Irish Rifles, but was invalided out in 1916 following a head wound at the battle of Loos.11 As a civilian, he worked for Solomon Levy, a leading film distributor and proprietor based in Birmingham. In 1919, Saville formed his own film business, Victory Motion Pictures, in which he joined forces with a friend, Michael Balcon, later a leading film producer himself. In 1937 Saville replaced Balcon as head of production for the short-lived British venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-British, where he produced The Citadel and Goodbye Mr Chips. Victor Saville paid £5,000 for a half-share to the film rights toThe Mousetrap when it was in the seventeenth year of its run, on the understanding that a film could not be made until the play finished its London run.12 His direct descendants may be waiting a long time for their inheritance! (Saville’s daughter, Ann, married the son of Charles Moss Woolf, who was a film distributor and financial backer of Saville and Balcon.) Returning to the Thomas family, another of my great-grandfather Julius’s siblings, Ethel, married Raymond Stross, who was also a film producer. His obituary in theLos Angeles Times (he moved to Hollywood and died in Beverley Hills)13 describes him as a ‘British-born producer who made a series of avant-garde films, many with sexual overtones and some starring his wife’ (who won Miss Great Britain in 1949, and was known professionally as Anne Heywood). Raymond Stross was born in Leeds, became a ‘motion picture’ director, and ran a chain of theatres before turning to producing more than forty films. One of the best-known wasThe Fox, and various clips on YouTube show Anne discussing the film (for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4iNZPew3Ec). Another relative of mine who was an actress was my first cousin thrice removed Selina Iris Salmon (Solomon), who was known to me as Aunt Lennie, and whose stage name was Lennie Deane. She was my grandma Myra’s first cousin once removed, and was mainly a child actress, appearing as Cinderella in pantomime in 1921 and 1926 at the Palladium (Figure 5). An extract from Pathe can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yThsaLtYJP0. Because she had been an actress, she was able to spend her last years at Denville Hall in Northwood, the care home for elderly thespians. She lived to the age of 97 while her two sisters reached 98 and 100. My gran made it to 96, so I am hoping I have inherited their longevity genes.

Figure 5. Photo of my Aunt Lennie as Cinderella.

Another of my first cousins thrice removed is the actor best known for playing Alf Garnett in Till Death us do Part, the late Warren Mitchell (born Misell) (see Figure 6). He was forty in 1966 when he first played the role, and the sitcom and its sequel ran for many years. However, he was also a classical actor, playing many serious roles, including Lear in Shakespeare.14

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Figure 6. Extract from the Misell branch of my tree.

Until now, all the people I have been talking about have been on my mother’s side of the family, but I also have relatives in the entertainment industry on my father’s side. The actress Thelma Ruby is my third cousin, and she has written a book with her husband15 in which they describe their background and acting careers. Of her mother, who was the actress Paula Ruby, Thelma writes:

My mother was born in Leeds in 1901, in a snowstorm. Her parents were a middle-class Jewish family named Lubelski, and mother was the eldest of four children…. There was a direct line of artistic talent through the family of her mother, my grandmother Gertie whose family name was Hollander.

Thelma describes the musical and artistic talents of the Hollanders and the early acting career of her mother. In her autobiography (p. 20), Thelma mentions how her mother’s uncle was a pioneer in the film business and knew a lot of theatre people, and was able to get Paula Ruby ‘started professionally’. That uncle was the Sol Levy whom I have referred to earlier, the person who helped Victor Saville early in his career in the film industry. Of her father’s family, Thelma writes:

My father, Louis Ely Wigoder’s background was entirely different: born in Lithuania in the Kovno district – ‘Kovno Gobernia’ is how he described it.

Louis moved to Dublin when he was three months old, and lived initially in great poverty. However, he was able to train as a dentist at Trinity College, Dublin, and came to England in 1914, to become the first qualified Jewish dentist in Leeds. Thelma Ruby has a website www.thelmaruby.com)( on which she lists all the plays she has been in. I recall seeing her opposite Topol in Fiddler on the Roof in 1984 at The Apollo, Victoria. Another relative with close connections to the theatrical profession was my father’s first cousin, (Bertram) David Jacobs. His grandfather, John, owned the Times Furnishing Company, and, with one exception, he installed each son as manager of a branch of the store (see Figure 7). The exception was David’s father, Myer Albert Jacobs. Myer Jacobs appears to have been formidably intelligent according to various newspaper articles,16,17 winning countless scholarships and matriculating first class at London University in June 1899, passing all stages of the Law Society Solicitors’ Exams first class and being awarded many prizes. An article in theJewish Chronicle states that ‘Mr. Jacobs is a direct descendant of the Rev. Moses Myers, Rabbi of the New Synagogue from 1792 to 1802’, but I haven’t been able to substantiate this claim, although I have corresponded with staff at the Parkes Library, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, which holds some collections of Jewish historical material. Myer was Michael Balcon’s solicitor and his son David also became a solicitor. David Jacobs’ clients included The Beatles and many of the well-known actors and other performers of the time, such as Marlene Dietrich, Diana Dors, Judy Garland and the Rolling Stones. David Jacobs ‘represented Liberace in his successful libel case against Cassandra of the Daily Mirror … Jacobs had seen his client commit perjury in the witness box by denying he was homosexual and walk away with £8000 in damages and £27,000 in legal costs’.18 David was himself ‘openly gay – he wore make-up, even in court in front of disapproving judges.

Shemot_25.3.indb 51 15/11/17 12:00 PM 52 DANIELLE SANDERSON

Figure 7. The Jacobs family.

He intimidated everybody, not only the other side in court cases but his clients as well and he was incredibly pompous’.19 My mum remembers attending one of the parties he used to hold in Dolphin Square and at 2 Princes Crescent, Hove. She was a naïve nineteen-year-old, newly married to my late father, and couldn’t believe the goings-on at the party. The Kray twins apparently asked David Jacobs to represent them, but he refused. Soon afterwards, he was found hanged in his garage in Hove, aged fifty-six. There are various conspiracy theories surrounding his death, not least because the actress Susanna Leigh received an invitation from him to dine at La Caprice restaurant the very day she read in the newspapers of his death on 15 December 1968. ‘I was holding the newspaper telling me he was dead in one hand and the postcard inviting me to lunch in the other,’ she said. ‘It didn’t seem right.’ Susanna was so disturbed by the incongruity that she rang Scotland Yard. Articles about his death ask: ‘Had Jacobs really walked to the post-box near his home, 2 Princes Crescent, Hove, and posted his card to her, then calmly gone into his garage and hanged himself? Or were more sinister forces at work?’20

Danielle Sanderson read physics at Oxford and worked as a researcher and trainer in industry for many years, before returning to academia in 2012. She was awarded her PhD in 2016 from Henley Business School, and is currently a lecturer in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. Danielle started running in 1989 and represented Great Britain twenty-one times in various World and European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. She is married to Steven and has three children: Joseph, Miriam and Hannah. 1. Salberg, Derek (1978) My love affair with a theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. p. 44. 2. Salberg, Derek (1978) My love affair with a theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. p. 109. 3. Davidson, Susan (1998) ‘My father’s shooting star’, The Washington Post, 26 Oct. 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5006020 (last accessed 22 Aug 2017). 5. Josephs, Zoe (Ed.) (1984) Birmingham Jewry: more aspects 1740–1930. Birmingham, Birmingham Jewish History Research Group. 6. Salberg, Derek (1978) My love affair with a theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. 7. Salberg, Derek (1978) My love affair with a theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. 8. Salberg, Derek (1981) Once upon a pantomime. Luton, Cortney Publications. 9. Salberg, Derek (1983) A mixed bag: mostly about the theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. 10. http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/obituary-derek-salberg-5559379.html (last accessed 22 Aug 2017). 11. Brown, Geoff (2011) ‘Saville, Victor Myer (1897–1979)’,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. http://www. oxforddnb.com/view/article/65532 (last accessed 29 Aug 2017). 12. Salberg, Derek (1983) A mixed bag: mostly about the theatre. Luton, Cortney Publications. p. 41. 13. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-08-02/news/mn-6631_1_raymond-stross (last accessed 22 Aug 2017). 14. ‘Alf as Lear? Stands to reason, dunnit’, Jewish Chronicle, 22 Sept 1995. 15. Ruby, Thelma and Frye, Peter (1997)Double or nothing: two lives in the theatre. London, Janus. 16. Jewish Chronicle, 24 Nov 1905, p. 12. 17. Kentish Mercury, 3 Nov 1905. 18. http://web.archive.org/web/20050207052658/peterthompson.net/contact.html (last accessed 16 Aug 2017). 19. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10094665/The-mystery-of-David-Jacobs-the-Liberace-lawyer.html (last accessed 16 Aug 2017). 20. http://web.archive.org/web/20050207052658/peterthompson.net/contact.html (last accessed 16/08/17).

Shemot_25.3.indb 52 15/11/17 12:00 PM The (Berko)wiczes of East Warsaw: Part 1. How American Jewish genealogy can break down your English and Polish brick walls Leigh Dworkin

My mother Carole was a Bercovitch before she married to become a Dworkin. She got her maiden surname from her Zaida, Harris (or Gershon) Bercovitch, and her given name Carole from her Booba, Sarah (or Tzerial) Bercovitch. Indeed Carole’s Hebrew name is Tzerial. Sarah/Tzerial died a few years before my mother was born in 1937 and so, in the Ashkenazi tradition, she was given her recently deceased ancestor’s name. I was aware that Harris and Sarah had originally come from Warsaw, as a very young picture of them – possibly their wedding picture (Figure 1), was from a Warsaw-based photographer. Another early picture of the family group in England, dated approximately 1910 (Figure 2), shows the two elder boys born in Warsaw, Barney and Sid, the eldest daughter Millie (born in England) and my grandfather David on his father’s knee.

Figure 1. Harris and Sarah Bercovitch before departing Warsaw.

Figure 2. Bercovitch family group c.1910.

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I managed to collect a fair number of documents to piece together the family history. The 1911 census and 1939 Register were easy to obtain. Death certificates for Sarah in 1934 and Harris in 1944 were in the family archives. I ordered burial authorisation documents from the United Synagogue for both Harris and Sarah, which suggested immigration dates of 1904 for Sarah and 1899 for Harris and that they were both from Poland originally. As Sarah predeceased Harris, the accuracy of 1904 is higher than that of 1899, as the informant for him may have been guessing about when exactly Harris arrived in England. The 1911 census pinpoints this more accurately, showing immigration between Sid (Sonny)’s birth in Poland in 1902 and Millie’s birth in Whitechapel in 1907, and that they had married in 1898 in Poland (Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Bercovitch family in 1911.

Fortunately, none of their four children had died, and we also see birth dates for Harris in 1879 and Sarah in 1883. Harris and Sarah did not naturalise, as this was an expensive process. However, the two Polish sons did, and naturalisation certificates and petitions for both were found at the National Archives in Kew. These revealed many details of the boys as well as their parents. Ignoring one minor brush with the law, and a discrepancy in birth date (caused by the two-week difference between Gregorian dates and Julian dates) which caused many years of delay granting citizenship, both Barney and Sid naturalised successfully. The naturalisation documents prove that the family was definitely from Warsaw and immigrated in 1904/1905, and that Sarah’s maiden name was ‘Gruska’. I had also found a number of birth records and certificates for Harris and Sarah’s children. A younger daughter Golda had a mother whose maiden name was Grewsky. My own grandfather David’s certificate had a perplexing mother’s maiden name of ‘Corvhter’. However, several years of scratching my head was rewarded when the UK General Register Office (GRO) published transcriptions of mothers’ maiden names on birth certificates, and declared this to be ‘Rooshter’ not Corvhter. Clearly (at least to me) Grewsky and Rooshter are synonyms for Grushka/Gruska. One other interesting fact, that will become important later, was the address in Whitechapel where my great-grandparents lived, and where my Grandpa Dave was born: 4 Spectacle Alley (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Detail from David’s birth certificate.

The only other UK-based records that I found were the tombstones for Harris and Sarah (Figure 5). These had patronymics for the deceased in the Hebrew names, so Harris was Gershon ben Avraham and Sarah was Tzerial bat B-uh-rish. After a little head-scratching I figured out my great-great-grandfathers were Abraham Bercovitch and Boris Grushka.

Figure 5. Detail from Harris and Sarah’s tombstones.

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At this point I was stuck with my UK research and had no way to go back further or find out more about these people and their lives (and their wives!), so I decided to switch to some Polish research using JewishGen, JRI-Poland and the Polish State Archives website. I was hunting for the birth records of Harris/Gershon Berkowicz and Sarah/Tzerial Grushka, as well as their subsequent marriage; similarly anything to do with Abraham Berkowicz and Boris Grushka. Sadly, I found nothing. There are a lot of Polish Jewish records available, especially in Warsaw. However, there was a healthy fear of authority in the era of pogroms and it is my belief that people did not register all events, particularly births, when doing so could make conscription into the Russian army for twenty-five years more likely. That being said, I did find a marriage index record for a Gersz Berkowicz in 1901. Sadly it is only an index so there is no marriage certificate available, nor is it obvious who this Gersz is marrying. In the superimposed image (Figure 6) there is nothing but the name written in Cyrillic alongside the record number.

Figure 6. Marriage index record for Gersz Berkowicz.

More promising, however, was the record immediately below, for the birth of a Ber Berkowicz the year after. I had noticed this record several years previously, but I vividly recall the excitement (during an IAJGS Conference in Salt Lake City) when I discovered that the ‘View Image’ link had been added. I clicked to see the first evidence of my family in the Polish records that I had managed to find. The record is in Russian, and I managed to spot the BERKOWICZ and the BER, which are highlighted in yellow (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Birth record for Ber Berkowicz.

I thought that I could spot more, but my command of Cyrillic is not as good as it should be. I find that the longer I stare at the handwriting, the more it turns into what I want it to say. So I posted the record onto the JewishGen ViewMate site to request a full translation. Within a day, some kind soul confirmed that the father is indeed Gersh Berkowicz, a twenty- three-year-old Warsaw shoemaker, the mother is Tsyrlya Nislya Grushka (aged twenty) and the child, born on 30 May 1902, is Ber (aged nought). Ber = Barnett = my great-uncle Barney. This is the same Uncle Barney whom my grandmother would speak of often.

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While the marriage index record might be right, and fits in with the birth of the first son the year after, I should just mention in the spirit of full disclosure that there was another Gersz Berkowicz in Warsaw at this time having children with a different woman who is not my great-grandmother. (At least, I hope it is a different Gersz.) Berkowicz is not an uncommon name in Warsaw, so one has to tread carefully and not jump to conclusions. So with a modicum of success with my Polish research (one confirmed record!), I found myself stuck again. How should I break through this brick wall? The solution came to me at a family gathering including some Bercovitch relatives. I expect I was droning on about genealogy and crying into my dinner over the latest brick walls. (It is good to share.) Fortunately, my audience was sympathetic as they share my interest – if not my addiction – to Jewish genealogy. My mother happened to mention an American Bercovitch cousin who used to be her pen pal, called Theda Berkowitz, perhaps changed to Theda Berkley. Similarly my uncle Barry, my mother’s only brother, mentioned a memory of his from after the Second World War when an American cousin came visiting. All he could remember, as Barry was very young, was that he had said ‘Hoi, I’m Hoiman’ in a New York accent. I vowed to research these people. American genealogy is reasonably straightforward, and with practice it becomes easier and you can find out a lot. I tend to rely on Ancestry to allow access to census data, naturalisation data and New York shipping lists. This isn’t possible in Ancestry UK, but is possible in Ancestry US, Ancestry Worldwide or Ancestry Library Edition. The latter is free to use in most UK libraries. This may be augmented by using FamilySearch (which is free), where it is also easy to get at census data and also some American vital records, in particular New York BMDs. Fortunately, Theda is quite an unusual name and, using the 1920, 1930 and 1940 census data, I quickly managed to reconstruct the family group in St. Louis and New York. Max and Sadie Berkowitz were the parents of three daughters including Theda. Similarly, Herman is not that common, and I discovered another Berkowitz family group in New York. The parents were Isidore and Fanny, with four sons including Herman that appeared as the censuses progressed from 1920, 1925, 1930 and 1940. (Although by 1940 it appeared that Isidore may have died young, as he was missing from the latest census.) At this point, I shared my findings with my mother and uncle, and a set of photographs was found in my uncle’s collection. These must have been sent as part of my mother’s pen-palling with Theda. So I now had two American Berkowitz family groups to add to the UK-based Bercovitches, even though I didn’t know how we were all related (Figures 8 and 9).

Figures 8 and 9. Berkowitz family groups.

By the simplest interpretation of ‘cousin’, it seemed possible that Harris, Max and Isidor were siblings, therefore all sons of Abraham Berkowicz, but that was speculation, and I needed proof. I managed to find naturalisation documents for Isidor, proving that his wife was indeed Fannie and that he had come to America in 1912 on the SS Vaderland in

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June 1912. These documents were rich with genealogical details and confirmed a lot of assumptions. Sadly, I could not find the naturalisation documents for Max or Sadie Berkowitz (at least, not the right Max or Sadie Berkowitz). Buoyed by my progress, I continued to use Ancestry (Library Edition) and the Ellis Island website including Steve Morse’s wonderful 1-Step websites to make it easier to explore New York shipping lists. There are a lot of Berkowitzes who travelled to New York. Quite a few of these were called Max and Isidore. Even if you look at just the Maxes, there were several who married a Sadie or Sarah. Even if you look at just the Isidores (Isadors/Ignatiskis/Iceks) there were several who married a Fanny or Fannie. Clearly care was needed to disambiguate them and it would be easy to make mistakes. After a few missteps, I managed to find Max’s shipping record. I had to reject quite a few Max Berkowitzes who did not hail from Warsaw. There was even a Max Berkowitz from Warsaw who was the wrong one! He went to New York in 1905 and kept me busy and distracted for several months. But in the end I knew I had found the right Max ‘Berkowitch’, travelling on the SS Majestic in April 1910, a twenty-year-old bootmaker from Warsaw, Russia. What clinched it for me was that his last registered address was in the UK – 4 Spectacle Alley, London East, staying with brother F. or G. Berkowitz (Figure 10). Perplexingly, Max was due to stay with another brother (presumably older) in New York; an L. Berkowitz of 222 E 199th Street, NY, NY. Try as I might, I could not find mystery brother L. living at this address in the 1910 census, and was forced to give up after weeks of searching. So, we have documentary evidence that Max and Harris/Gershon were brothers, and can conclude that Abraham Berkowicz of Warsaw is father to both. I tried the same trick with Isidore. I quickly found an Itzka Berkowitz aged twenty, travelling on the SSVaderland from Antwerp to New York in June 1912. He would be staying with his brother M. Bercowitz at 19 E 98th Street, NY, NY. This must be Max (Figure 11).

Figure 10. Passenger record for Max Berkowitch.

Figure 11. Passenger record for Itzka Berkowitz.

However, most interestingly, his previous address was back in Warsaw, Poland: 82 Preisky Street, where he was staying with his mother ‘Lose’ Berkowitz (Figure 12). This was huge! Even though I struggled to read the bad handwriting on the manifest, and I had never heard of the name Lose, I decided to pronounce it ‘Lo’se’.

Shemot_25.3.indb 57 15/11/17 12:01 PM 58 LEIGH DWORKIN

Figure 12. Passenger record for Itzka Berkowitz.

We now have documentary proof that Isidore, Max and Harris/Gershon are brothers, and that their parents were Abraham and Lo’se Berkowitz of 82 Preisky Street, Warsaw, Poland. I searched the Polish records in JewishGen and JRI- Poland for Max and Isidor Berkowicz. I found a Max born in a feasible year, but he had the wrong parents. I found an Icek born in the right year, but the record was missing and the index didn’t include parents so is inconclusive. I again searched the Polish records for Abraham and Lo’se Berkowicz. There were too many Abrahams and no Lo’ses. I happened to be on a business trip to Warsaw and decided to visit Abraham and Lo’se. Admittedly, they had most likely been dead for seventy-five to a hundred years but that didn’t stop me. Unfortunately, Warsaw was flattened during the Second World War and Preisky Street was no more. There is still a very large Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street, which was within walking distance of my hotel. There were five different Abraham Berkowicz graves. None of them mentioned a Lo’se. All had different fathers, but I could not distinguish between any of them, and gave up. It is all well and good doing American genealogical research with censuses, but the main problem is that you are working in the past as the last published American census was in 1940. Quite a lot has happened in the seventy-seven years since. I managed to find a tree on Ancestry that had Sadie and Max Berkowitz at the top, owned by a Rachel Rader. I also managed to find a tree on Ancestry that had Isidor and Fannie Berkowitz at the top, owned by a Darrell McDaniel. Then began the hunt for living relatives. To really find out more about these American families, I decided to use modern genealogical tools: I used Google, Facebook, Ancestry, MyHeritage. I would have used Twitter too, but I hate it. I would have used Snapchat too, but I don’t understand it. In the case of Max and Sadie, I sent ‘You don’t know me but …’ messages to six different Rachel Raders. Some got back to me quickly as they knew they were the wrong Rachel. Eventually, after almost three years (I kid you not) the real owner of the tree and the right Rachel Rader got back to me. What then followed was a few months of photo exchanges and bringing the family trees forward to the modern day. I am still in touch with Rachel, but not so often as when we first found each other. I think she tired of my intensity. Again we need to be careful to respect the difference between interest and obsession. She did, however, introduce me to a cousin of hers, Stacey, who has lots of family photos. She is probably the daughter of Theda Berkowitz. Having sent out another message via Facebook, I await a response. In the interests of privacy, I will not include the pictures that I now have from these exchanges, but they are included in my online trees which respect privacy and only allow visibility of details and photos for living relatives to tree members. Similarly, I reached out to Darrell McDaniel and his daughter via Facebook. I have been waiting for a response for many years. Sometimes, people don’t see messages in Facebook, when you are not already ‘Friends’. Other times people see them and have a reason not to respond. In the case of the McDaniel tree and Isidor and Fannie’s family, I do not know which, but I suspect that there might have been a messy divorce from a Berkowitz descendant, and the last thing they want to do is speak to a dodgy Berkowitz descendant like Leigh to remind them of the Berkowitz family. I have collected many pictures of this family from Facebook, but without real contact there are privacy issues and it is too easy to make mistakes about exact relationships. This brings us to the conclusion of Part 1, where we discovered how application of American Jewish genealogy has managed to smash through several English and Polish brick walls to find two new American families of Berkowitz cousins, to discover the name of a new female common ancestor (my great-great-grandmother Lo’se) and to introduce me to some living relatives of these American families. Even so, it raises several questions: • Who is the mysterious brother ‘L. Berkowitz’ who Max stayed with when travelling to New York? • Why can’t we find records in Poland for Harris and Sarah? • Why can’t we find records in Poland for Max or Isidor? • Why can’t we find records in Poland for Abraham and Lo’se? • Will Isidor’s descendants ever respond to me? • Will Rachel continue talking to me about Max and Sadie’s family? • Will Stacey get back to me? (or has Rachel warned her about me?!) In part 2 we will answer these questions, and discover that – despite all this careful English, Polish and American Jewish genealogy – Abraham and Lo’se Berkowitz are not my great-great-grandparents anyway! Sigh.

Leigh Dworkin is Chairman of the JGSGB.

Shemot_25.3.indb 58 15/11/17 12:01 PM FOOTSTEPS IN THE PAST The light of the Lindos Doreen Berger

Even if we have not actually seen it, many of us may have heard of the elaborate and beautiful Lindo lamp. Dating from 1709, it is the oldest example of an English-made Hanukah lamp. It was made by the silversmith John Ruslen for the Sephardic merchant Elias Lindo in celebration of his marriage to Rachel Lopes Ferreira. Hanukah is the Jewish winter festival of light, which coincides quite often with the Christian festival of Christmas. This historic lamp passed down the Lindo family for generations and was purchased by the Jewish Museum in London in 2010, where it is considered one of the treasures of Anglo-Jewry. The mercantile Lindo family originated in Castile in mediaeval Spain. As persecution took place they became New Christians, settling in Portugal before moving on, one step ahead of the Inquisition. In the Canary Islands in 1660 two young sons of the family were denounced, charged with Judaising, and imprisoned without trial. Finally released, one of them – Lorenco Rodriguez Lindo, now known as Isaac – arrived in London to join other New Christians in the new Sephardic community around Bevis Marks. One branch of the family established themselves in Kingston, Jamaica, where British citizenship was granted to Jews under the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Isaac Lindo was recorded in the parish of St. Catherine Cree in the City of London census of 1684, his household consisting of his mother, Constanza Nunez, his wife, Perpetua Lopes, now known as Leah, two sons and three daughters. He became a broker on the Royal Exchange, his descendants continuing in this office until the nineteenth century, and in 1694 he was a signatory to the official Jewish Laws (the Escamot) at Bevis Marks. Isaac was buried in 1712 in the seventh grave of the eleventh row in the ancient Sephardic cemetery at the rear of 253 Mile End Road. In 1793 the marriage of a Lindo daughter became a leading case in the courts. Esther Lindo, the orphaned daughter of Elias and Grace Lumbroso de Mattos Lindo, and a minor, had agreed to marry Mendes Belisario without the consent of her family and went through a ceremony before two Jewish witnesses, but with no marriage contract or blessing. Her husband was much older than the bride and her guardian, Abraham de Mattos Mocatta, referred the marriage to the Sephardic religious authorities. She became a ward of the High Court of Chancery, who ordered that the validity of the marriage should be tested in an English court. This proved to be a very complicated case. Various Jewish authorities were consulted, opinions taken and the religious authorities could not agree among themselves, but it was finally decided that Miss Lindo was not the wife of Mr Belisario. David Abarbanel Lindo, married to Sarah Mocatta, was a well-known communal worker and became President of the Elders of the Sephardic community. He conducted the circumcision of Benjamin Disraeli, who was part of his extended family. His daughter, Abigail Lindo, who wrote a Hebrew–English and English–Hebrew dictionary, was the only woman of her time to have publications in her own name. Benjamin Lindo supplied specially prepared perfume to the royal family and Gabriel Lindo was solicitor to the Sephardic congregation. In January 1909 the marriage of Frank Charles Lindo (whose 6x great-grandfather had fled the Inquisition) to Miss Violet Guendolen Portman, daughter of the Honourable Edwin and Mrs. Portman of Cadogan Place, was announced in The Times. Anxious to repay the care he had received from members of the nursing profession over many years, Frank Charles Lindo built a nurses’ home and private wing at St Mary’s Hospital, known as the Lindo Wing, which opened in 1937. By then, after long and distinguished service in the community, that branch of the family had no connection with their Jewish heritage.

Doreen Berger has broadcast on the radio and written in Shemot since its first publication. She is Convenor of the Anglo-Jewish Special Interest Group and has served as Chairman and now a Vice-President of this Society.

SOURCES Jewish Britain. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/jb-Hanukah-lamp Letter, The Times, Doreen Berger, 29 July 2013. Lindo. http://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_002_0013_O_12558.html Sketches of Anglo-Jewish history, James Picciotto, Soncino Press, 1956. The Jewish Victorian: genealogical information from the Jewish newspapers. 1861–70, Doreen Berger, Robert Boyd, 1999. The Lindo Legacy, Jackie Ranston, Toucan Books, 2000. The Sephardim of England, Albert M. Hyamson, 1951.

Shemot_25.3.indb 59 15/11/17 12:01 PM Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain President: David Jacobs Vice Presidents: Doreen Berger and Anne Webber President Emeritus: Anthony Joseph

COUNCIL

Chairman: Leigh Dworkin Secretary: Martin Hill Treasurer: Sue Woolf Membership Administration: Hazel Atlass Librarian: Lydia Collins Preservation of Records, Website Liaison: Leigh Dworkin Shemot and Newsletter Editor: Jessica Feinstein Publications, Genealogical Enquiries: Geoff Munitz Premises, Regional Groups, Special Interest Groups: Anita Benson Anthony Rosenthal Daniel Morgan-Thomas

PORTFOLIO HOLDERS

Archivist: Anita Benson Cemeteries Liaison: Raymond Montanjees Cemeteries Photographer: Gina Marks Cemetery Conservation: Doreen Berger Education & Mentoring: Jeanette Rosenberg Federation of Family History Societies Liaison: Martin Hill Fund Raising and Legacies: Vacant Genealogical Enquiries: Geoff Munitz International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Liaison: Mark Nicholls JCR-UK Webmaster: David Shulman Librarian: Lydia Collins Membership Administration: Hazel Atlass Membership Administration (Deputy): Mark Nicholls Newsletter Editor: Jessica Feinstein Premises: Anita Benson (supported by Doreen Berger) Preservation of Records: Leigh Dworkin Programme & Events: Raymond Montanjees Publications: Geoff Munitz Regional Groups: Anita Benson Security: Raymond Montanjees Shemot Editor: Jessica Feinstein Speaker Secretary: Jeanette Rosenberg Special Interest Groups: Anita Benson Visits Organiser: Elaine Jacobs Webmaster: Mark Nicholls

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