SHEMOT - JGSGB 2014 low.pdf · Shemot, Volume 22, 3—1 DECEMBER 2014, VOL. 22, 3 THE JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN SHEMOT Gby Pamela Weisberger ESHER Galicia [Hebrew:

Shemot, Volume 22, 3—1

DECEMBER 2014, VOL. 22, 3

THE JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

SHEMOT

by Pamela Weisberger

GESHER Galicia [Hebrew: The bridge to Galicia] is the special interest group (SIG) for people researching their Jewish roots in the former Austrian province

of Galicia, which was the largest province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was in existence from 1772-1918.

Today the cities, towns and villages which comprised historical Galicia are found in eastern Poland and western Ukraine. So what does it mean to do Galician research and where should one begin? Most importantly, how do you know if you are a Galitzianer?

If you grew up hearing stories about relatives who came from Austria, it is possible they were from Galicia. In some cases they might have been born in tiny shtetls [Yiddish: villages] hundreds of miles from the capital of the Austrian Empire, but much closer to the capital of Galicia, which was then known as Lemberg, or the Polish Lwów, which today is Lviv, Ukraine.

The best way to begin Galician research is with vital records databases, the building blocks of a family tree. Years ago, the indexes of JRI-Poland1 were the only databases available covering Galicia. These only represented the records held in AGAD (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych) the Polish State Archives in Warsaw2 and not the Jewish records held in Ukrainian archives, nor records less than 100 years old.

The All Galicia DatabaseGesher Galicia’s All Galicia Database (AGD)3 search

engine, which debuted in 2011, has indexes for records held in the Lviv Historical Archives and the Ternopil (Tarnopol) and Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanisławów) Ukrainian regional archives, along with many 20th century records from a range of archives in Ukraine and Poland. To get a complete survey of what records exist for your relatives, search both databases thoroughly.

What if you come up against a brick wall: no records for your towns, missing years or missing people? That is where unusual records and alternative sources come in.

The AGD currently has 309,331 records from 134 different data sources, covering everything from birth, death, marriage and divorce records to phone books, school, tax, voter, magnate and landowner records, all from the former Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, and has new data added weekly.

You can search by given name, surname and kinnui [Hebrew: Jewish nickname] and then sort data by town, repository, or record source. Most records on this search engine have never been online before. Our “Galician Archival Records Project” conducts research in Poland, Ukraine and Austria. We photograph and scan records on site, or index information directly at the archive.

We also have co-operative projects with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum4 and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People5 in Jerusalem. The data eventually finds its way to the AGD, a free search engine and the original digital images are also housed on our site for qualified donors to view.

Records and beyondHow does one move beyond vital records? That question

motivated Gesher Galicia to investigate unusual records that would provide useful genealogical information. The sole criteria would be that there were Jewish names, dates and locations that could place your ancestor in a specific town in a specific year.

We are especially proud of the Cadastral Map and Landowner Records Project—the first of its kind—which began in 2007 as a long-term initiative to inventory and obtain cadastral (property) maps and landowner records from archives in Ukraine and Poland and to index the information contained therein to further family history research.

GESHER’S UNIQUE AND UNUSUAL RECORDS

2—Shemot, Volume 22,3

Why this sudden interest in maps? Part of the reason might be that for so long Jewish researchers mistakenly believed that their ancestors did not own land. This is far from the truth. Not only did Jews own land, they had renters’ and business agreements from the Polish magnate landowners that allowed them to operate taverns, distilleries, mills and inns. Documentation for these activities is found in magnate record collections.

The interest in cadastral maps started growing when researchers saw how detailed these maps were, denoting house numbers, Jewish cemeteries, kahal [Hebrew: Jewish community building], synagogue and building locations, rivers and quarries.

As described by Brian Lenius, author of The Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia: “Three distinct property land surveys were conducted for all of Galicia during the Austrian period of the 18th and 19th centuries. These consisted of detailed records showing the size of land parcels, type of land, crops grown and more. The Austrian Stable Cadastral Survey of the 1830s to 1860s consisted of records and detailed maps showing the smallest parcels of land, individual yards, houses, barns, roads, field plots, cemeteries, churches and synagogues.

At least three versions of these maps were created at the time including a field sketch, a preliminary drafted version and the cadastral map in full colour. At least one or more versions of these maps still exist for most villages and towns.”

Earlier cadastral recordsThe earlier Franciscan and Josephinian cadastral records,

some dating from the 1780s have the earliest mentions of our Jewish ancestors living on Galician land as pictured in a 1788 Josephine Cadastre from the town of Rohatyn, in a time before Jews took surnames and were still using patronymics.

By matching details and the information in the land record books to the maps and comparing these maps to house numbers on vital records you can see exactly where in town your ancestors once lived and draw conclusions about possible relatives.

Many houses were handed down through marriage. Details on Jewish families, who owned buildings in the market square and where they conducted business were often hand-written on cadastral maps. See the example on the left for Bukaczowce.

The merging of these new data sources with traditional metrical records will offer Galician researchers a more comprehensive portrait of the lives their ancestors led. You can view both our Cadastral Map Room6 and search our GARP inventory7 online.

Several of our members have undertaken House Numbers Projects which trace the occupants of a single dwelling over hundreds of years. In this way one can discern inheritance and family patterns, and women, who were often lost to history once they married, can be found this way.8

TaxationStarting from the earliest days of Galicia, Jews were

subject to a poll tax and a toleration tax, and payments are documented starting in the late 18th century.

Andrew Zalewski, author of the excellent new book Galician Portraits: In Search of Jewish Roots, takes us further back, providing examples of “Inventories” housed in the Czatoryski Archives9 in Krakow, compiled in 1690 for the town of Rohatin (Rohatyn) and listing the town’s residents. The Jews used patronymics such “Jakub Zymszonowicz [Jakub son of Shimson] or names denoting a profession: “Josio Cerulik [Josiah the barber]”.

In other examples from my ancestral town of Grzymałów, an Inwentarz from 1765, created by the Polish magnate landowner, shows Jews and Christians divided by profession.

In this illustration we have Żydzi Piekarz, “Jewish bakers” followed by “Christian bakers.” When Jews were ordered to adopt surnames in 1788, many with professions chose these Polish professional words as their surnames instead of German names. Check online to see how many people still have the surname “Piekarz”).

Researchers can go back much further than imagined but one needs to do some digging to find these specialised resources. That is where we come in.

Through our crowd-funded, town-centric efforts our research includes voter, tax, magnate and school records spanning the late 18th through to the mid-20th centuries. There is much useful information to be found in this type of record that sometimes goes beyond what metrical records can tell us.

Often the town of birth is noted on these documents. We tend to forget that people moved around and a man who married might leave his village and his family. If you only search in one place, finding a record for a relative that identifies a town where his relatives lived could open new doors for you.

We are also covering newspapers from Lwów and Vienna, which are now available online, in which many Jewish names are mentioned and often from as far afield as Brody in Ukraine.

Details from maps of Bukaczowce, 1848-1853

Continued on Page 15


THIS is my last edition as Editor of Shemot and my farewell article is on page 11.I leave you with a landmark article by Pamela

Weisberger which provides a comprehensive review of sources for Galician and Polish research and provides clear guidance for novices and should encourage experienced genealogists to explore sources that have now become available.

We have a trilogy of articles on Scottish genealogy. Harvey Kaplan shows how the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre aims to document the stories of those who fled to Scotland from Nazi Europe including the children who travelled with the Kindertransport.

Kenneth Collins explains how the generous spirit of universities in Scotland allowed Jews to qualify in Scotland and for Jewish doctors fleeing from Europe to requalify and practice medicine with a minimum of delay. He describes some of the most famous graduates including Asher Asher who became the first Secretary of the United Synagogue. Asher’s life and genealogy are expanded in Doreen Berger’s Footsteps item.

Nicola Avery, who is Principal Archivist at the London Metropolitan Archives, describes one of the most important and extensive collections of Jewish archives in the country This includes the archives of the major national Anglo-Jewish bodies.

Two articles show how persistence and hard work over many years can elucidate the lives and times of an ancestor of the 19th century. Gina Marks describes her great-great-grandfather who worked in York as an optician and lens instrument vendor. Her detailed page of sources shows how to conduct a search for an ancestor and will be a model for many readers.

Pauline Malkiel started her research with a photograph and family recollections of her Chassidic ancestor with a superb voice in Warsaw. Contemporaneous written accounts by members of the family preserved vivid details which could have been lost. This article emphasises the importance of taking and recording oral history. Voice recognition, word processing and self-publishing have reduced the tedium of pen and ink.

Susan Soyinka describes a year-long art and social event culminating in a naming memorial to the 85,000 Austrian victims of the Holocaust.

I thank all the authors and readers who have supported Shemot during my time as Editor. Please send contributions for the next issue to [email protected].

Bernard Valman

FROM THE EDITOR

THIS EDITION’S PRODUCTION TEAM

EDITOR: Bernard Valman

PRODUCTION: Mike Gordon

PROOF READERS: David Benson

Gillian Gordon

Thea Valman

CONTENTSGesher’s unique and unusual records by Pamela Weisberger 1

A safe haven in Scotland by Harvey Kaplan ........................ 4

Jews and medicine in Scotland by Kenneth Collins ............. 7

Footsteps in the past by Doreen Berger .............................. 10

An editor retires by Bernard Valman .................................. 11

Genealogical sources at LMA by Nicola Avery ..................... 12

My unexpected York ancestor by Georgina Marks ............... 18

Memories of a Praga rabbi by Pauline Malkiel .................... 22

The Vienna Project by Susan Soyinka ................................. 25

Presidential report by Saul Issroff ...................................... 27

Book reviews .................................................................... 28

Index 2014 ....................................................................... 32

Published by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain© 2014. ISSN 0969-2258. Registered charity no. 1022738.

Designed and produced by Mike Gordon, 01895 822462.Printed by The Print Shop, 020-8429 0020.

EDITORSHEMOT, the highly respected journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, urgently needs a new editor.

The role requires a good knowledge of genealogy combined with an awareness of Jewish history and culture.

The person would be required to commission articles that would be of interest and assistance to Society members in their research endeavours.

A knowledge of publishing would be helpful but common sense, good communication skills and the ability to work to general deadlines are essential.

If you are interested please contact the Chairman on [email protected].


A safe haven in Scotlandby Harvey Kaplan

THE Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (SJAC)1 in Glasgow aims to document the story of those who fled to Scotland from Nazi Europe in the 1930s and

1940s including those who came on the Kindertransport, refugees and survivors.

We are also interested in the response of the Jewish and non-Jewish community in Scotland and the contribution made to Scottish society by these immigrants. SJAC has a wealth of material on this period and a fast-growing collection of photographs, documents, interviews, memoirs and artefacts.

There are no definitive figures for how many Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe came to Scotland. Frances Williams estimates 800 children came on the Kindertransport, while Kenneth Collins writes of around 350 doctors who retrained in Scotland at this time.2 There may have been another thousand or more refugees who passed through. Some refugees remained in Scotland, others moved on to England, Israel, America or elsewhere.

In some cases, kinder [German: children] were adopted by non-Jewish families and were “lost” to the Jewish community. In recent years, more and more of the surviving former refugees are coming forward with their stories and material and new information is coming to light on a regular basis.

I will attempt below to summarise the resources available in Scotland for family historians interested in this period.

SJAC has interviews and papers relating to children who came to Scotland on the Kindertransport. This includes passports, landing cards, correspondence, Home Office and Red Cross papers, photographs and memorabilia.

In 1990, a reunion was held for former kinder in Scotland and the SAROK group was formed.3 The group, which functioned until 2007, produced newsletters and held regular meetings. An anthology of 30 Scottish stories was compiled and a history of SAROK was written.4

Dorrith Sim CollectionDorrith Marianne Oppenheim was born in 1931 in Kassel

in Germany and came to Scotland in 1939, aged seven, on the eve of World War II. She married Andrew Sim in 1952. When Dorrith died in 2012, her family gifted more than 2,000 items to SJAC.

Included in the collection are many photographs and documents relating to the history of Dorrith’s ancestors—the Oppenheims, Wertheims, Pappenheims, Meyers and Lindenfelds—some dating back to the 18th century in Germany.5 This significant family archive constitutes a treasure trove for researchers interested in the history of these Jewish families in the Kassel area of Germany and elsewhere.

A number of refugee hostels were opened in Scotland to care for the refugees, enabling their rehabilitation and

integration. SJAC has a copy of the register of the Boys’ Hostel opened by Garnethill Hebrew Congregation in its grounds. This lists more than 175 individuals who were admitted between 1939-1948, providing: surnames, “Christian names”, country of origin, date of birth, occupation, date of admission, date left and destination.

Some 42 per cent were from Germany, 14 per cent Austrian and the rest from Poland, Russia, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. SJAC also has a list of 32 refugee boys who attended the nearby Garnetbank Primary School in 1939.

Other hostelsOther hostels are mentioned in oral histories and

testimonies, but no formal records have yet been discovered. These include the Quaker-run hostel for women and girls in Renfrew Street, around the corner from Garnethill Synagogue, in use from 1940 to 1942. Another was Birkenward Hostel in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire.

Whittingehame House, the former home of Arthur Balfour in East Lothian, served as a farm training school for refugee teenagers from 1939 to 1942. SJAC has a set of more than 400 photos of the training school taken by English teacher William Farinton Drew, as well as some reminiscences. A similar hostel was at Polton House, near Dalkeith in Midlothian.6

Some refugee children lived in Ernespie House, the Jewish evacuee hostel in Castle Douglas. SJAC has a photograph of residents in 1941 and a scrapbook from a reunion in 1975, containing correspondence, photos, reminiscences and press cuttings.

Dorrith Sim’s landing card, 1939


Other hostels included Darleith House, Cardross and The Priory in Selkirk. This was a holiday home for under-privileged children from Edinburgh. A number of Jewish refugee children were accommodated here during the War. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has photographs from the Priory.7

The Imperial War Museum in London has an album containing ephemera compiled by mainly German and Czech refugee children at The Priory from 1938 to 1946, including signatures, artwork, greetings cards and newspaper cuttings concerning the lives of the children and their mothers and their educational achievements at Selkirk High School, with profiles of a few of the refugee schoolboys.8

Assisting the refugeesIn addition to providing refugee hostels, various

committees were formed in the Jewish community to assist the refugees.

q SJAC has: The cash book, correspondence and, papers of the German Jewish Aid Committee/Glasgow Jewish Council for German Refugees, including a list of donations from 1936.

q The minute book of the Glasgow Women’s Appeal Committee, 1939-1940.

q Statement of Receipts & Payments, 1934-1938 and papers of the Central British Fund for German Jewry-Glasgow Branch.

q List of donations to the German refugee appeal, Giffnock & Newlands Hebrew Congregation, March 1940.

q SJAC is also collecting information about the efforts of the Quakers, Church of Scotland and other religious groups, as well as individual Jewish and non-Jewish families who sponsored and adopted refugees.

q SJAC has minutes, correspondence and papers of the Mutual Aid Refugee Society, 1950-1959, which includes a list of around 180 refugees. This group existed:

“…for the purpose of helping all those of our friends who find themselves in needy or difficult circumstances . . .’

“Who gives the money?—Any of us refugees who earns a single penny more than he needs.”

“Who gets the money?—Any of us refugees who earns a single penny less than he needs.”9

Oral history/personal testimoniesq SJAC has a growing collection of around 45

Holocaust-era interviews and testimonies, including the transcripts published online by the Gathering the Voices project.10 This project was established to preserve the memories of Holocaust survivors and refugees in Scotland and to document their contribution to Scottish society. SJAC has transcripts of all published interviews.

q Holocaust-era autobiographies and biographies in SJAC’s library include:

Black, T. A Golden Glow—A Grandmother’s Life Story. Glasgow. 2010.

Haase, D, (ed): I Knew I was Painting for My Life. The Holocaust Artworks of Marianne Grant. Glasgow. 2002.

Kölmel, R. «Die Geschichte Deutsch-Jüdische Refugees in Schottland». Unpub. doctoral thesis. Heidelberg. 1979.

Kölmel, R. “Problems of Settlement: German Jewish Refugees in Scotland” in Collins, K, (ed.) Aspects of Scottish Jewry. Glasgow. 1987.

Kress, W. From the Holocaust to the Highlands Aberdeen. 2007.

Kutner, B. Over My Shoulder. Glasgow, 1995.Levy, E (Rev). Just One More Dance. Glasgow. 1998.Sacharin, R. An Unwanted Jew. Glasgow. 2014. Wuga, H and I. Our History to You: Oma’s and Opa’s

Memories. 2002.q In addition to the extensive Dorrith Sim collection

(see above), SJAC has other sizeable collections of refugee papers. These include material from:

A group of residents at the Garnethill Boys’ Hostel, 1939

Glasgow Refugee Appeal receipt, January 1940


Irene Marchand, who came to Glasgow in 1939 from Gelsenkirchen in Germany with her young son Ernst and became matron in the Garnethill Boys’ Hostel up to 1948. Her son Ernst graduated as an electrical engineer from the University of Glasgow.

The papers include school reports and exercise books, family memorabilia, correspondence about Irene’s domestic service visa, employment references and the restitution process. Also included are 19th century documents and photographs from Irene’s Lewin family from Falkenburg in Pomerania and the Marchand family in Gelsenkirchen.

Kalman Frischer was born in Kraków but moved to Leipzig, where he married Helene Altwein in 1932. Before his marriage, Kalman was an amateur boxer with Bar Kochba, a Jewish sports club in Germany and also in Glasgow, and presumably elsewhere. (It was a forerunner to Maccabi, the current major Jewish sports organisation.)

In 1938 the Frischers and their children were deported to Poland. They managed to emigrate to London, then came to Glasgow, where Kalman re-established his fur business.

q SJAC has around 180 items, including the family’s birth, marriage and death certificates, press cuttings, contracts, photographs about Kalman’s boxing career, 1924-1929; British naturalisation papers and correspondence; papers about German reparations.

Isaak Millner and family from Vilna, Lithuania, survived the Kovno Ghetto, Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps and emigrated to Glasgow, where Isaak set up a knitwear factory. Material includes family history, Dachau affidavit and naturalisation papers.

Hilda Goldwag, was a refugee artist from Vienna who escaped to Edinburgh. She and her fellow refugee Cecile Schwartzschild relocated to Glasgow when the war broke out. Includes diplomas from an art school in Vienna, passports, correspondence, textiles and paintings.

Dr Charles Blum, an eminent consultant radiologist from Brunn/Brno in Czechoslavakia. His wife, Luise Friedlander was from Vienna. Includes family photos, correspondence, medical papers, restitution claims and business papers.

Henry Wuga from Nuremberg and his wife, Ingrid (née Wolff) from Dortmund. Collection includes scanned passports, landing cards, Red Cross papers and photographs, reflecting their immigrant and refugees experiences, but also their subsequent career in kosher catering.

q Edinburgh City Libraries has the Ernest Levy Archive, gifted by his daughter in 2010, including books, manuscripts, music, photographs and papers relating to this popular former cantor in Glasgow synagogues.

Polish servicemen in Scotlandq SJAC has a large collection of papers, correspondence

(in Polish, Yiddish and English), photographs, etc. (1943-1947) relating to activities by Rabbi Major Heszel Klepfisz and Rabbi H Melcer, chaplains to Polish servicemen in Scotland and elsewhere. The Polish servicemen were based all around Britain, and Rabbi Klepfisz seems to have worked mainly in South Banteskine House, Falkirk, Kinnaird House, near Falkirk, and Polkemmet Camp, Whitburn, West Lothian.

q SJAC has passports and other papers relating to Szyja Trinczer from Stanislawów, Poland, who came to Scotland after the War with the Polish Resettlement Corps.

In order to better preserve and maximise access to these Holocaust-era collections for researchers and to exploit their educational potential, a feasibility study has recently been carried out into the creation of a Scottish Holocaust Era Study Centre as an adjunct of SJAC. Please contact us if you wish to know more about this project or have relevant information or material to contribute.lThe author is Director of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre in Glasgow.

REFERENCES 1. Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, [email protected] , www.sjac.org.uk .

2. Williams, F. The Forgotten Kindertransportees—The Scottish Experience. Bloomsbury. 2013. “European Refugee Physicians in Scotland, 1933-1945” in Collins, K Go and Learn: the International Story of Jews and Medicine in Scotland. Aberdeen. 1988.

3. Scottish Annual Reunion of Kinder.

4. Sacharin. R (ed): Recollections of Child Refugees from 1938 to the Present. Glasgow. 1999.

SAROK—A History of the Kindertransport Scotland. Glasgow. 2008. See also Williams, F, The Forgotten Kindertransportees—The Scottish Experience. London. 2013.

5. The earliest document dates from 1789, when the Duke of Hesse granted to Dorrith’s ancestor, Mendel Meyer of Cassel, the right to reside and trade in the principality.

6. The most comprehensive descriptions about life in the school are contained in Fay Cohen Stein’s Whittingehame Farm School—A Memoir, 1995, and Hilda Seftor’s interview for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Both were daughters of school governors and SJAC has copies. SJAC also has a copy of the article written by former matron Lucie Laquer, “How internment intruded on Whittingehame Farm School,” AJR Information, November 1960, as well as a number of press cuttings.

7. http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1151482.

8. www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030007790.

9. MRAS appeal, December 1955, SJAC.

10. www.gatheringthevoices.com/.


Jews and medicine in Scotlandby Kenneth Collins

OVER the many years that have passed since the first Jewish doctor graduated in medicine in Scotland there have been a number of occasions on which

Jewish practitioners have benefited from the local regulations which have made it easier to obtain qualifications in Scotland than elsewhere.

The first Jew to obtain a medical degree in Scotland was Jacob de Castro Sarmento, born Henrique de Castro in Portugal in 1691, and who had received the MD degree at the University of Coimbra. Fearing the Inquisition he fled to London in 1720 and obtained a licence to practice but was aware that a British MD degree would enhance his standing within the medical profession.

The ancient English universities of Oxford and Cambridge were then closed to Jews as both matriculation and graduation involved taking religious oaths of an Anglican form.

During the 18th century it was possible for reputable practitioners to obtain an MD in Aberdeen on the basis of affidavits from physicians of good standing. Sarmento received his from Marischal College in Aberdeen in 1739 sponsored by Sir Hans Sloane, President of both the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians of London.

The practice of awarding medical degrees by affidavit fell into disrepute after two notorious Jewish quacks, Samuel Solomon and William Brodum, managed to obtain Marischal College MDs with possibly forged documents.

Aberdeen’s two colleges took more care over the awarding of degrees in this way and the practice continued into the first decades of the 19th century benefiting some dozens of Jewish doctors mainly working within the Jewish community in London.1

However it was in Edinburgh that the Jews began to enter the medical profession after a proper period of undergraduate study. The city was an attractive place to study and the reputation of the medical school in Edinburgh had grown during the 18th century, so that it could be regarded as the leading medical school in Europe.2 In addition, the system was both flexible and cheap.3

Many students came for a year or two, using their period in Edinburgh as part of a range of medical studies that could include attendance in Leiden, Padua or other great contemporary centres.

The number of medical students at the university grew rapidly and while the number of Jewish students was small there was hardly a year during the last decades of the 18th century without a couple of Jewish students studying there.4

Joseph Hart Myers (1758-1823), of New York, but with strong family connections in London, graduated in Edinburgh in 1779.5 He was the first Jew to graduate at a British university after a due period of undergraduate studies.6 Following an extensive tour of medical centres in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Leiden he settled in London where he had a prominent role in Jewish and medical circles.

First Jewish graduateThe first Jewish medical graduate at the University of

Glasgow was (the unrelated) Levi Myers (1787-1822) from South Carolina. After training as a physician’s apprentice he set out from home to study medicine. At the time there were only three medical schools in America and Edinburgh was the model for their medical education. Although he studied in Edinburgh he graduated at the University of Glasgow where graduation was permitted after two years of full-time study and they did not insist on a Latin thesis.

A Jewish contemporary of Myers in Edinburgh was Solomon de Leon, a native of St Kitts in the West Indies, who studied from 1786 to 1788 before graduating MD in Leiden. Like Joseph Hart Myers, de Leon subsequently served as an honorary physician to the Hebra [charitable hospital] in London.

However, Myers and de Leon were not the only Jews in the city. While the formal establishment of a Jewish community in Edinburgh only took place in 1816 there is evidence of a continuous Jewish presence in the city for a generation or more before then.7

The community was composed of diverse and somewhat disputatious tradesmen but also included Herman Lyon (or Lion), a chiropodist and a colourful figure who later tried unsuccessfully to obtain an MD at Edinburgh University, despite five years of undergraduate study, as the university was not prepared to grant their degree to a “corn operator”.8

During these years 16 Jewish doctors obtained qualifications in Aberdeen in absentia while there were 27

Dr Jacob de Castro Sarmento MD, Aberdeen, 1739


Jewish medical students in Edinburgh about half of whom graduated there. A further six doctors graduated in St Andrews and another six in Glasgow while a few practised with just the qualifications of the Scottish Royal Colleges of Medicine and Surgery.

During the 19th century a few Scottish Jews entered the medical profession.9 The first was the Edinburgh-born Louis Ashenheim who enrolled for three years at the university although he graduated in St Andrews in 1839. He subsequently emigrated to Jamaica where he and his descendants played a prominent role in the Jewish community. His brother Charles, a less assiduous student, graduated in Edinburgh in 1852, after nine years of study, and emigrated to Australia.

Asher Asher (see Footsteps in the Past), the first Glasgow-born Jew to qualify in medicine, graduated at the university in 1856, subsequently practising in London’s East End before leaving the profession to become the first secretary of the United Synagogue.

Samuel Levenston was a member of a family heavily engaged in commercial medical botany in Scotland. He decided to enter Glasgow University as a mature student and obtained his MD there in 1859. However, his later activities, where he attempted to combine his regular medical practice with sales of proprietary medicine and texts of medical “advice”, led to his exclusion from the medical roll.

By 1914 about 20 Scottish Jews had graduated in medicine and as undergraduates they had formed the majority of Jewish university students. The entry of Jews into medicine in Scotland indicated the movement into a respected profession by the children of immigrants and represented a proportion greater than in other western countries.

Local Jewish professionalsMany graduates migrated south or moved abroad

but the beginnings of a local Jewish medical profession could certainly be discerned by the 1920s. One of the pre-war medical graduates was Noah Morris who capped a distinguished medical career, which included the Bellahouston Gold Medal for an outstanding MD thesis, by becoming Regius Professor of Materia Medica in 1937. Morris symbolised the successful combination of Jewish and medical scholarship as Asher had done earlier.

The open nature of Scottish medicine continued to attract Jewish students from beyond Scotland into the 20th century. Many were South African and Jewish medical students who maintained their own clubs in both Glasgow and Edinburgh until the end of the 1930s.

During the 1920s the second generation of Jews whose parents had emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe sought to enter the medical profession. Concentrated mainly in the New York area they found it difficult to enter some of the prestigious American institutions and it was soon clear that a quota system was in operation.

Numbers of Jewish American medical students in Scotland increased rapidly. By 1930 they numbered 256 and the numbers increased to 476 four years later. As conditions deteriorated for Jews in Germany and Austria, the proportion studying in Scotland increased to reach about 60 per cent

of all American citizens studying medicine abroad in 1938-1939.

Initially, Jewish students found places in all the Scottish universities. Aberdeen took nine in 1929 and St Andrews admitted 53 between 1928 and 1929. More than 50 entered Edinburgh University and around 30 studied at Glasgow.

However, as the 1930s progressed it was the so-called extra-mural medical schools which enrolled the bulk of the medical students. St Mungo’s College of Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Anderson’s College, situated beside the Western Infirmary and Glasgow University and the Medical School of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh eventually coped with the influx of students.

These students took the final licensing examinations of the Scottish Royal Colleges, known as the Triple Qualification. The American medical authorities were not happy with students travelling abroad to study but the Scottish extra-mural schools were not discouraged by letters from the General Medical Council.

A representative of the American Medical Colleges came to Scotland in 1939 for a cursory inspection of the medical schools, a move that Dr John Orr, Dean of the Medical Faculty of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh, felt was sinister and implied racial discrimination. The American medical students had an outstanding academic record and performed well in the board examinations on their return to America.

The role of the extra-mural colleges in aiding the Jewish American students owed much to the resolve of John Orr who learned of their plight during a visit to New York. The Principal of St Andrews University, Sir James Irvine, was a frequent visitor to America and the Jewish Americans helped to enlarge his medical school. Their medical alumnus association body raised considerable sums for St Andrews in subsequent decades.

Refugee physiciansDuring the 1930s and 1940s hundreds of refugee

physicians from Central Europe, overwhelmingly of Jewish origin, took the Scottish Triple examinations to enable them to enter the British medical register. German and Austrian MD degrees were not recognised by the General Medical Council and the refugee physicians needed to re-qualify as quickly as possible to enable them to continue in medical practice.

In 1932 the English medical licensing bodies decided to increase the residential period before taking re-qualifying examinations to two years. Doctors began to arrive in Britain soon after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 and they were soon aware that the regulations for re-qualification differed between Scotland and England.

The Scottish colleges maintained their policy of permitting the refugees to take the Triple Qualification after only one year of clinical studies, with no requirement to take the anatomy and physiology examinations required in England.

John Orr, supported by Dr Grant in Glasgow, provided programmes to orientate the newcomers to British medicine and to facilitate their progress towards the Triple Qualification. It was not surprising, therefore, that many


refugees made their way directly to Glasgow and Edinburgh on arrival in the country.

Some 352 doctors took the Scottish examinations between 1934 and 1945, with more than half of the number qualifying between 1934 and 1936 when they made up more than a third of all the licentiates. The presence of so many refugee Jewish doctors in Glasgow and Edinburgh led to the formation of a number of social groups, not all of which were connected to the local communities.

The path into British medicine was further eased by organisations like the Jewish Medical and Dental Emergency Committee while the medical scientists received support from the Academic Assistance Council, later called the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. As the prospect of war loomed there was greater resistance from the British medical profession to the admission of larger numbers of refugee doctors.

European doctorsNevertheless, the medical profession benefited greatly

from the influx of doctors from Germany and Austria. Many had been leaders in medical science and the psychiatrists and psycho-analysts developed a speciality which had previously been under-represented.

Angus MacNiven at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow and Peter McCowan in Dumfries used the services of refugee psychiatrists, attracting many outstanding figures, such as Irwin Stengel and Willi Meyer-Gross to develop their services and enhance the quality of their research output.10 In 1941 the wartime need for additional doctors led to the recruitment of hundreds of additional doctors through the Emergency Medical Services and all were placed on the permanent register after the War.

Some Polish Jews, who had entered Scotland with the Polish Army, managed to find places at the Polish School of Medicine which was set up at Edinburgh University in 1941.11 During its nine sessions there were 228 graduates, 21 of whom were Jewish.

So the story of the Jews in medicine in Scotland consists of several strands. Increasing social mobility enabled generations of Scottish Jews to enter the mainstream of Scottish professional life while the open nature of Scottish medical education provided the qualification route for hundreds of American Jews and continental Jewish refugees. In an age of intolerance the opportunities were gratefully received.

REFERENCES 1. Collins, K, Go and Learn: the International Story of the Jews and

Medicine in Scotland, Aberdeen University Press, 1987: 38

2. Hamilton, D, The Healers: A History of Medicine in Scotland, Canongate Press, Edinburgh, 1981, p.111.

3. Ibid, The Healers, 112-126 details the background to the growth and development of the Edinburgh medical school. Indeed the records show that in the mid-1700s Benjamin Franklin would supply introductions to Americans studying in Edinburgh. Roy Porter describes how Edinburgh became the “British Leiden” pioneering infirmary based teaching while providing the elements of anatomy surgery, chemistry, medical theory and practice in The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present, Harper Collins, London, 1997: 290-292. Lisa Rosner, in Medical Education in the Age of Improvement, p.17 notes that while studying in Edinburgh was cheap, Glasgow was even cheaper.

4. Grey Graham, H, The Social Life of Scotland.

5. Massil, S, “Dr Joseph Hart Myers (1758-1823) and his family: public prominence and private losses”, Jewish Historical Studies, 44.

6. See Chapters 2 and 3 in Collins, K, Go and Learn: the International Story of the Jews and Medicine: 1739-1945, Aberdeen University Press, 1987.

7. Roth, C, in his “Rise of Provincial Jewry: the Early History of the Jewish communities in the English Countryside”, The Jewish Monthly, London, 1951, noted a reference to a Jewish community in Edinburgh as early as 1780 regarding an Edinburgh resident buried that year in the Jewish cemetery at Hoxton in London. Levy, A, in his The Origins of Scottish Jewry, a paper presented to the Jewish Historical Society of England in 1958 noted the presence of Jewish traders in the city from 1691 and further individual Jews from 1750.

Phillips, A, in A History of the Origins of the First Jewish Community in Scotland: Edinburgh 1816, pub Donald Publishers, Edinburgh, 1979, refers to individual Jews in Edinburgh during 30 years before the establishment of a community in 1816.

However, it has been the searches carried out by Michael Tobias into early Edinburgh records: Scottish Post Office Directories: Edinburgh 1773-1776, 1784-1785; Williamson’s Directory for the City of Edinburgh, Canongate, Leith and suburbs: 1784-85 Edinburgh Business Directories: 1773-1795 which have confirmed Roth’s original impressions of a continuous Jewish presence in the city from the 1780s.

8. Collins, K, Go and Learn. Various references

9. Ibid, Be Well! Jewish Immigrant Health and Welfare in Glasgow 1860-1914, pub, Tuckwell Press, East Linton, 2001.

10. Collins, K, “Angus McNiven and the Austrian Psycho-analysts”, Glasgow Medicine, 2, 1985.

11. Details of the Polish School of Medicine can be found in J Rostowski, History of the Polish School of Medicine: Edinburgh University, pub. Edinburgh University Press, 1955.

Sir Abraham Goldberg (1923-2007), Professor of the Practice of Medicine, Glasgow University, and one of the most distinguished medical scientists of his generation

SHEMOT is the magazine of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain and is sent

free to members. It contains original articles of genealogical interest ranging from personal experiences of individual members, perhaps recording a chance meeting with a distant relative or a visit to an East European shtetl, to family histories and

biographies of your ancestors.Research methods and sources are important as are details of useful websites. Articles, preferably of 1,000-1,500 words, are most welcome and should be sent in Word format, without pictures in the first instance, to the Editor at

[email protected]


Footsteps in the pastby Doreen Berger

THE first official census of the Jewish community of Glasgow was made in 1831 by the statistician James Cleland. He enumerated the community to number 47

individuals, of whom only 21 had been born in the British Isles. It was estimated that in 1879, when the Garnethill Synagogue was consecrated, the community did not exceed 1,000 people.

Asher Asher, whom I will call “The Scottish Doctor”, was born in Glasgow on 16 February 1837. His parents were among the earliest Jews resident in the city.

In an 1838 directory his father Philip is listed as a stationer and general agent, living at 5 King Street, but in later censuses, he was listed as a furrier.

Philip was born in Lublin where his father Asher Wolff ran a small dry-goods store. He was grandson of the eminent rabbi and leader of his community Zev Wolf and, through his mother, a descendant of the famous Maharal [The MaHaRaL, the Hebrew acronym of Moreinu ha-Rav Loew, (“Our Teacher, Rabbi Loew”) of Prague.

Orphaned at 16, he made his way first to London where he took his father’s given name as his surname and became Philip Asher. Working first in the London Docks he soon moved on to the young community in Glasgow.

Asher’s mother, Hannah, listed in the same early directory as a furrier, was born in Amsterdam, the daughter of Solomon Hart, a chemist.

It is likely that the Solomon Hart who was buried in the Jews’ Burial Place at the Elayon Necropolis in Glasgow in September 1840 aged 54 was her father. Asher was their eldest child.

An excellent scholar, he obtained a situation as bookkeeper to Messrs Hyams in Glasgow, managed to study medicine and entered himself at Edinburgh University, aged 15, to qualify in his chosen profession four years later.

At the end of 1861 the young doctor left for London. Before he left a special meeting of the Glasgow congregation was held and Asher was presented with a handsome silver tea and coffee service bearing the inscription: “Presented to Dr A Asher, by the Glasgow Hebrew community and Philanthropic Society as a token of gratitude for his valuable services.”

He had been taken into partnership with Dr N Canstatt, of 4 Castle Street, Houndsditch, the medical officer of the newly formed London Jewish Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor, as a physician and mohel [circumcisor].

Patients were seen by one or other of the partners either before 11.0 am or after 6.0 pm.

The Scottish Doctor settled well in London and married Lucy, the daughter of Samuel Garcia, a Covent Garden fruiterer, of 2 Tavistock Street, on 13 January 1864 under the auspices of the Great Synagogue. They moved to 10 Bernard Street, Russell Square, and became the parents of a daughter, Hannah, and two sons, Philip and Samuel.

Cholera in LondonIn 1866 a cholera epidemic took hold in London and

Asher took urgent measures to deal with the outbreak among the Jewish community, even using the hall of the Great Synagogue as a screening centre, organising sanitary measures and new standpipes for fresh water. He insisted on hospitalisation for the worst cases. As Superintendent of the Jewish Sanitary Society, he is credited with reducing substantially the death rate among the poor. The list of deaths from prevalent diseases included smallpox, measles, scarlatina, diarrhoea, influenza, fevers and tuberculosis.

When the important position of secretary to the Great Synagogue became available, Asher was a popular candidate for the position. One objector, however, was Moses Angel, the iconic headmaster of the Jews’ Free School, who considered that his services to the Jewish poor were far too valuable to lose.

Another objector, calling himself “A Friend to the Poor”, suggested that Dr Asher, although highly appreciated, was insufficiently paid and that there was not another man in the community who could fill his place so ably. At the election that took place for this important post, the Scottish Doctor was placed in first position of the competing candidates.

In 1870 the Scottish Doctor became the first secretary of the newly formed United Synagogue, linking the main Ashkenazi (German and Polish) Orthodox synagogues in London, and transforming himself into a communal civil servant. His knowledge both of Yiddish and of medicine meant that he was able to communicate with the Jewish refugees arriving in London.

He visited Jerusalem with the communal worker Samuel Montagu in 1875 to report on conditions in this city for the Moses Montefiore Testimonial Fund and accompanied Samuel Montagu and Lawrence Oliphant to the Russian border to assist with the congestion of those trying to leave. He also acted as adviser to Baron Lionel de Rothschild and as almoner to the Rothschild family.

In 1884 he travelled to the United States and Canada to report on the agricultural colonies established by the Mansion House Fund for the Relief of Russian Jews. In 1886 he again accompanied Samuel Montagu into Russia and saw the terrible conditions that his relatives, still living in Lublin, had to endure.

Clashed with authoritiesThere were times he found himself in active opposition

to the religious authorities, particularly regarding matters he considered as superstition, and he was not afraid to say so. He published a booklet on the religious and historical aspects of circumcision called The Jewish Rite of Circumcision,


taking the view that the procedure should be conducted on scientific rather than religious grounds, bringing himself into opposition with the Chief Rabbi, Dr Nathan Adler.

He tried to institute a delay in death and burials to ensure that an individual was actually deceased, which was again in opposition to the religious viewpoint. His letters to the Jewish newspapers, often controversial, may be found under various pseudonyms, including that of “Delta” in contentious correspondence with the Rev Simeon Singer.

The Scottish Doctor died at home, 18 Endsleigh Street, Tavistock Square on 7 January 1889 of lung cancer and was buried at Willesden Cemetery. The funeral procession made a detour past the Central Synagogue and a memorial plaque was erected at the entrance of the Garnethill Synagogue.

His son, Samuel, instituted the Asher Asher Memorial Gold Medal, awarded annually at the University of Glasgow in the class of diseases of the throat and nose. Scotland has reason to be proud of the Scottish Doctor.REFERENCESRabbi Naftali Ha-Cohen Family Tree. www.loebtree.com/mahnl.html.

Levy, A. The Origins of Scottish Jewry. Published privately. 1958.

Collins, K, “Asher Asher, Victorian Physician, Medical Reformer and Communal Servant”. Jewish Historical Studies. Vol. 37. Transactions of The Jewish Historical Society of England. 2001.

Collins, K, Asher Asher. Oxford DNB. Oxford University Press. 2004.

Berger D. The Jewish Victorian: Genealogical Information from the Jewish Newspapers 1861-70. Robert Boyd Publications. 2004.

Death certificate of Hannah Asher. 1901. Provided by Harvey Kaplan.

Censuses of the Asher Family, 1841-1881.

I agreed to edit Shemot for three years but by extending it to eight became its longest serving editor. What has been achieved? My four objectives were to produce a

journal that was attractive to the readers, helped them with their research, provided facilities for them to publish it and encourage a critical approach to genealogy.

The first three objectives were achieved and culminated in the journal receiving first prize from the IAJGS for an outstanding publication in 2012. However, I failed to develop a more constructively critical approach to evidence compatible with the new science of genealogy.

One of the most satisfying rewards of an editor is in transforming material that was unpublishable into a readable article. When I started as editor of Shemot the majority of articles were submitted spontaneously and a large proportion of authors were writing their first articles and needed help.

There has been a considerable reduction in the number of submitted articles and we have used the available space for themed editions with commissioned articles which have been popular. This innovation has provided the opportunity for more attention to be given to authors born or living outside London and for the publication of high quality articles from experts. I hope that this did not discourage more modest new authors.

Some scientific journals, for example the British Medical Journal, now publish one-page summaries of research articles with the full versions and references only in the Internet edition. This leaves more space for the widely read review articles by experts.

Reader surveys of several journals have shown that most readers only read two or three articles in an edition and suggests that a great deal of paper is wasted in print editions.

About 20 years ago I heard a lecture from an authority on the journal print industry which predicted that paper editions would disappear within 10 years. He was unduly pessimistic but increasing costs of print editions will induce change.

I thank Mike Gordon who has designed, copy edited and published Shemot for most of its existence, for his print and publishing knowledge and meticulous attention to detail which has ensured that every edition has been of the highest quality.

Saul Issroff’s advice on capable authors for the themed editions has been the main reason for their success. Doreen Berger has contributed fresh and intriguing articles in her Footsteps series for virtually every edition while Richard Cooper has always been available to give sound advice on Polish genealogy.

The techniques of journal publication and the availability of online data-bases are improving rapidly but family histories still start with oral history and as genealogists we have a duty to help new recruits as others have helped us. I hope that my successor will enjoy editing the journal as much as I have.

BERNARD VALMAN

THE Bard wrote that “Parting is such sweet sorrow” and the retirement of Shemot’s editor Dr Bernard Valman is indeed so. He originally told me that he would do the job for a few years so we cannot complain that he stuck around for the best part of eight!

Bernard has reached the highest levels within his chosen profession of paediatric medicine and many members have family members who received excellent treatment from him. So I think it appropriate that I mention one slightly genealogical tale in this short farewell.

Our daughter suffered from a serious skin complaint and ended up in Northwick Park Hospital under his stewardship. After much investigation he succeeded in halting and eventually curing the condition.

Last year I was at his home fixing his PC when my mobile rang. It was my darling daughter, now married but with an ailing baby. She started to tell me her troubles but I stopped her and gave the phone to “the man”. They had a conversation and daughter signed off a happy lady. Bernard thought it most amusing. The family tree at work.

As well as being a doctor, Bernard is a noted published author of serious medical tomes as well as many books on childhood illness for concerned parents. I understand one of his books is now in its sixth edition.

He dealt with Shemot issues that arose quickly and calmly, his instructions were clear and precise and I do not think we ever had a cross word. His experience has made our working partnership delightful, speaking for myself!

I shall miss working with him.

MIKE GORDON, Publisher

An editor retiresFOOTSTEPS—continued


Genealogical sources at LMAby Nicola Avery

LONDON Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is the major centre for archives of the Greater London area. In addition to the archives of London government bodies

including the Greater London Authority and its predecessors, LMA also holds archive collections which have been deposited by other organisations and institutions.

These include charities, businesses, courts, schools and hospitals. Records of religious organisations are well represented, especially from Christian and Jewish communities.

LMA holds one of the most important collections of Jewish archives in the country. Its holdings relating to the history of Jewish life in London are unrivalled and include the archives of many of the major national Anglo-Jewish bodies which have their head office in London.

These include the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the United Synagogue, the Office of the Chief Rabbi, the London Beth Din and World Jewish Relief (WJR). Many of these collections do not contain information specifically of interest to those researching their Jewish ancestors but they can contain useful contextual information reflecting Anglo-Jewish life.

Most Jewish communities are covered by collections held at LMA, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi, and include religious congregations from the Orthodox, Reform and Liberal branches of the faith. In addition to the major national bodies, many synagogues, schools and charities based in the London area and working for the local Jewish population have also deposited their archives. The collections described in this article form just a sample of the Jewish collections held at LMA, so do look at our catalogue or come in to see us to find out what else we have.

Conditions of accessThe majority of collections from the Jewish community

have come to LMA on long-term loan, remaining in the ownership of their creating bodies. It is important for anyone considering research within these collections to know that many of the organisations who have deposited their collections require potential researchers to write to them to request permission to view material.

In their request, researchers should explain their research and specify which records they would like to view. When a letter of permission has been granted it can be taken to LMA in order for the records to be produced. Staff are able to advise on whether a collection requires permission to view from the owner and the information appears on all relevant catalogues. Always check either LMA’s online catalogue or the paper copies of the catalogues in LMA’s search room before attempting to request items.

Information relating to individuals for much of the 20th century may not be available to be viewed, even if permission

is granted from the owner of the archive. Data protection legislation dictates that personal information about anyone who is still alive must not be made available to the public until the subject of the information is more than 100 years old. Archival documents which fall into this category are marked on LMA’s catalogue as “Not available for general access” and it will not usually be possible to view them.

CollectionsSome synagogue archives contain information about

members of the congregation and their families, although this is often patchy. If you know the synagogue your ancestor belonged to it is always worth checking to see if LMA holds records for that synagogue and if relevant documents survive. Records containing useful information for genealogists can include registers of birth, circumcision, marriage authorisation and burial. This type of record often includes the names of other members of the immediate family, especially fathers.

Other records can include seat registers and membership accounts although this type of document often gives little more than the name of the person and the amount they paid.

For the Sephardi community the records of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation contain a wealth of genealogical information. Registers of births, circumcisions, marriages and burials are held for the 18th and 19th centuries. Seat lists and registers are also held for the 19th century. However this collection requires the permission of the congregation before access can be granted.

For the Ashkenazi Orthodox congregation there is little genealogical information held. In the main, registers created by the United Synagogue (US) and its constituent synagogues have been retained by US head office. If you are interested in birth, marriage or burial information you should contact them direct.

Exterior view of the entrance toBevis Marks Synagogue, 1958.


Some membership registers for constituent synagogues are held, as are records relating to the burial society, including burial rights payment registers for some synagogues. Some constituent synagogues have also deposited marriage authorisation registers, so see our catalogue for details of these. The US collection is only accessible with permission of the creator.

The Federation of Synagogues, founded by Sir Samuel Montagu as a counterpoint to the US and consisting largely of congregations within the East End of London, has also deposited its archive at LMA, where it is available with prior permission of the owner. Registers of members are held for constituent synagogues of the federation from 1897 to 1929. The New Road Synagogue, a federation member, has deposited its archive separately and membership registers are held for the 1960s for this synagogue.

Education including religious educationSome synagogue collections also include information

about religious education undertaken by and for the congregation. Registers of participants are rare but a few do exist, including for the Spanish & Portuguese Jews Congregation for the early 20th century. The Sephardi congregation ran the Shaare Tikva [Gates of Hope] Charity School from the early 19th century, whose aim was to clothe and educate poor boys from the community. The school continued to offer general education until 1886 when it moved to offering religious education only.

Registers of pupils at the school, in both its incarnations, are held among the archive of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews Congregation. A similar institution for girls, the Villareal School is also represented in the collection by a register of girls leaving the school dating 1910-1912.

For the Ashkenazi community, the Jews’ Free School (now JFS Comprehensive) is the largest school archive held. Pupil records include admission and discharge registers from 1869 to 1939 and again for the late 20th century, although under current legislation registers dating later than 1921 will not be available for general access. Other records are accessible with prior permission of the school.

Charities and other welfare organisationsCharities and welfare organisations are often sources of

extremely detailed information about individuals and their families who may have needed extra help because they were in financial difficulty or were newly arrived here.

The Jews Temporary Shelter was opened in 1885 to provide a refuge for homeless and/or jobless immigrant Jews. Its aim was to help migrants but not to encourage permanent immigration. Inmates were required to pay what they could afford. The majority of residents at the shelter came from eastern Europe, with refugees from Belgium arriving during World War I, and German and Austrian Jews during the 1930s.

Registers of inmates held at LMA begin in 1896 and for the period 1896-1914 the registers are freely available online.1 The original registers for this period are only available with prior permission. Later registers are unavailable due to legislation.

The records of WJR include an extraordinary set of case files for Jews who left Germany and Austria for Britain and beyond during the 1930s. The files include those of children who came here via the Kindertransport initiative. These detailed files include much information about the subsequent lives of the subjects after their arrival. Please be aware however that access to the content of these files is only available to relatives of the subject of the file, by applying directly to WJR who will request the file from LMA themselves.

There are also some smaller charities represented among LMA’s holdings, including the Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor, Spitalfields. This charity was set up in 1854, originally to provide bread, soup and meat to impoverished members of the Jewish community. After World War II the kitchen itself closed but the charity continued to provide bread and groceries. Records held include registers of people receiving relief, which are currently unavailable after 1914 under data protection legislation, and registers of donors which are currently unavailable for the same reason from 1929.

Social and contextual informationIn addition to the above sources, which all contain

information about individual people which would be of use to genealogists, there are Jewish collections held at LMA which can help provide a picture of the general Jewish community in London in the 19th and 20th centuries.

These can give genealogists an idea of what life would have been like for their London ancestors—the communities they were living in, where they worshipped, what their pressures and preoccupations may have been and how they would have lightened their lives with recreation and social activities.

Some can also give a bigger picture of Anglo-Jewry through the years, how it administered itself within the United Kingdom and also its attitudes and reactions to worldwide events. What follows are a few examples taken from these collections, all of which are accessible only with permission of the creating body, except for that dealing with the Maccabi Union of Great Britain (MUGB) which is generally available except when documents give personal information and which are therefore closed.

In the area of recreation, archive collections held include the Victoria Club, which began life in the East End as a club

A Hebrew reading lesson for girls at the Jews’ Free School, 1908


for Working Boys in 1901 but soon diversified and became a community centre for all ages. The records of the MUGB are also held. This organisation aims to encourage the development of Jewish youth through physical exercise and sport and is part of a worldwide network of Maccabi clubs.

More generally, the archive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews gives a wealth of information about the administration of Anglo-Jewry and its place on the world stage from the time of its inception in 1760. The Jewish Memorial Council archive shows how this organisation has attempted to improve Jewish education and make provision for the Jewish ministry in the past century.

In addition to archives of Jewish organisations, other collections at LMA can also add value to genealogical research. Records of London’s governing bodies show what life was like for Londoners and sometimes will also contain visual material such as photographs of synagogues. LMA’s local government collections do not require prior permission to view and are generally available to be consulted.

Visitor informationLMA is free to visit and if you just want to consult

our catalogues and online resources you do not need a reader’s card. Original archive material is stored in our secure strongrooms and can be ordered, to be produced in our Archive Study Area. If you are interested in ordering original material to view, you will need an LMA History Card. Registration for a card can be done online but you will need to visit LMA and produce identification before your card can be issued.

Although many documents can be ordered online in advance, the majority of our Jewish collections which require permission to view from the creating body cannot be ordered in this way as staff need to see the letter of permission before documents can be ordered. LMA’s catalogue can be searched online via its website2 where you can also begin registration for a history card. LMA has produced an information leaflet on its Anglo-Jewish holdings, which can also be accessed via the website or is available in hard copy.lThe author is a principal archivist at London Metropolitan Archives with responsibility for cataloguing and archive systems. She also leads on the acquisition of Jewish sources into LMA.REFERENCES1. http://chrysalis.its.uct.ac.za/shelter/shelter.htm.

2. www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma.

All photos © City of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

For current opening times please check the LMA’s website: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visiting-the-city/archives-and-city-history/london-metropolitan-archives/visitor-information/Pages/opening-times.aspx.

The Great Synagogue,

corner of Brick Lane

and Fournier Street, 1972

lRICHARD COOPER offers this piece of advice concerning Tabula registers (see overleaf).He explains that they are ledger books of legally binding contracts that are matters of public record.

These most often document the transfer of ownership of property, but could also be detailing mortgages, business partnerships, etc.

The indexes referred to in the Gesher Galicia item run to at least 300 volumes, so the number of ledgers still existing must be in the thousands.

They would be difficult to search because they are arranged by town and then chronologically (1780-1891), not alphabetically, although a search through the tabulae of a shtetl would be do-able.

He concludes that Tabula is Latin for a page and the earliest Galician Jewish records (before 1800) have Latin headings. Our thanks to Richard for this clarification. Hands up all those who can remember their declensions?

A MY wife Gill came home with her 2015 Holocaust Memorial Day(HMD) facilitators pack. She will be helping to take many schoolchildren aged 12-18, from all faiths and none, state school and private, through a 45-minute workshop highlighting the millions of people killed in the Holocaust and later in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

HMD takes place on 27 January and marks the anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Activities with pupils include participation in discussions to help them understand the horrendous statistics involved, highlight the issues surrounding racism in all it forms and listen to an actual survivor from the camps or Kindertransport.

Gill told me that the students consider activities Jews were forbidden from doing by the various Nuremberg Laws and the one that always strikes home is: “Jews are not allowed to keep pets”. They are asked to think about what would happen to their pets if they had to hand them over to the authorities. Another chilling moment often occurs when a Kindertransport survivor invariably tells them: “This was the last time I ever saw my parents”. Remember, they are attempting to look at these events from a young person’s perspective.

HMD was introduced in Britain in 2001 and this particular group, organised jointly between Northwood United and Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogues, will guide some 2,700 students through the experience this year. Since the start of the programme more than 22,000 students have attended.

However, HND speakers are becoming fewer and those who remain are finding it much harder to tell their stories so it is imperative that genealogists who have elderly relatives who survived take steps to preserve and document what they have to tell us for posterity using all the tools now available.

In some families, younger members have taken on the role of presenter. If you can help, please contact The HMD Trust on http://hmd.org.uk/ or seek advice within your own community.

MIKE GORDON

HMD Day 2015


Note the interesting text on this 1847 notice in one edition. (See below.)

SUMMONS: The city council (magistrate) of the free Hanseatic Town of Brody asks the following people to register: All individuals due for military service but absent during the recruitment of 1846 on the Ussenplatz must register within six weeks and must explain why they did not show up. Otherwise they will be treated according to the current rules as “draft dodgers.”

From there we have a list of mostly Jewish residents of the town who were not eager to join the Austrian army:

Baleisen, Jossel—House 44, Papuscher, Marcus—House 131, Rozin recte Rutin, Dawid—House 302.

Note that Recte means that he had his mother’s name because his parents had only a religious marriage, not a civil one, but his father’s name is also listed. This is a common problem when doing Galician research. If a couple did not register their marriage with the state they were not considered legally married and their children were recorded as illegitimate.

Surname confusionOften the children of the same couple were registered

under a variety of surnames, which added to the confusion. Imagine the insights into your family history provided by discovering an item such as this. All those stories about people leaving town to avoid the draft, there in print!

Gesher Galicia has also conducted research in the Austrian State Archives which hold community and kahal records, detailing intimate details of shtetl life and sometimes bearing the signatures of your ancestors.

Many of these documents reflect disputes with the rabbi over his salary, election irregularities, the town scribe being upset over not getting a work room promised to him, or the towns’ elders being upset because they were slandered by another group. The arguments voiced are reminiscent of life today and humanise our relatives who toiled local politics.

We have also acquired tables showing the rabbis, cantors and shochets [Hebrew: ritual slaughterers] for every Galician Jewish community that had a synagogue for a variety of years as well as a listing of Jewish schoolteachers created in 1788. Other Austrian records are various applications to the Austrian ministries for alcohol licences at the turn of the last century found surprisingly at the Warsaw AGAD archives. These are also being indexed with the data added to the AGD.

Tabula registersKnown as the Tabula Krajowa, or Tabula Registers,10

these also exist for many Galician towns and are held in the Lviv State Historical Archive.11 In 1780 the State Registrar Department—established by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II—began documenting the purchase and sale of real estate Brody draft notice in Lwowa Gazeta, 1846

The 1765 inventory for Grzymałów, in Polish

GESHER GALICIA—Continued from page 2


and land, property leasing, testaments, deeds, money-lending agreements, promissory notes, and public sale for debts, etc.

Because Jewish people were active in commerce—it was one of those areas in which the government allowed them to work—many families had occasion to participate in some kind of business relationship and sign a contract, which often contained names of both the husband and wife, represented in the deal as one participant.

Other documents, such as testaments and public sales for debts, frequently contain information on several generations. In order to give you an idea of how important and universal were the documents kept by the department, it is enough to mention that there were about 300 volumes of various indexes to the records and all the landownership registers after 1874 were arranged based upon the registers.

To learn more about this resource see the article in The Galitzianer, written by Lviv-based researcher, Alexander Dunai. One of his translations of a tabula record provides a wonderful example of the precise and the unexpected information it contained.12

Contract of purchase #124. Kalusz April 29, 1816.

“Today, in the end of the day, between a realty owner Ester Glanz on the one side and her son Moses Glanz on the other side there has been agreed and declared next : Ester Glanz sells a house #327 (which she has inherited according to the Will dated Iyar 5, 5567 issued by her husband Izaak Glanc who died because of fire) and a parcel of land within the known boundaries between the neighbours Osias Hausner and Dawid Lemonim, to her son Moses Glanz for the amount of 1400 florins which she has received in advance. This contract has been signed by

witnesses: Berl Frankforter and Jakob Rudolf.Although it would be impossible to photograph every

register, we are starting to digitise the name indexes to these books, and the information will be placed on the AGD in coming years.

Polish magnate landowner records, which detail the holdings of these nobles, also contain a wealth of information about the Jewish residents of the towns. Leasing contracts and the inventories of Jews who worked for the magnates are often quite detailed and can date back to the mid-1700s.

These documents are usually found in special libraries, such as the Stefanyk Library13 in Lviv or the Zakład

Narodowy im. Ossolińskich (Ossolineum)14 in Wrocław and they first require your doing the research to determine which magnate owned your town during the years when your ancestors lived there. A complicated but manageable task.

One way to discover which magnates owned your shtetl is to consult The 1891 Galician Business which contains more than 25,000 names and is searchable on the All Poland Database on JewishGen.15 You can view the entire town’s records which includes the estate owners and all community members, both Christians and Jews. It is an excellent resource, as are the entire run of Polish and Galician directories to be found on Logan Kleinwak’s Genealogy Indexer, which cover the 19th and 20th centuries.16

Census recordsWe have not forgotten about census records and have

indexed many valuable collections including the 1890 and 1910 censuses for Tarnopol, a major centre of Jewish life in Galicia. We are currently indexing the 1939 Stanisławów census and passport applications from that district, with plans to index a collection of German visa applications from the Lwów district for the 1920s and 1930s. (See overleaf.)

A surprising find was a “Children’s Census,” from the town of Grzymałów, conducted in June 1926 listing children born from 1913-1925 so that the Polish Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education could plan for schools in future years.Chula Katz’s alcohol licence application, 1905, in German

From the 1910 census for Tarnopol,


Pictured here is the entry for Solomon Kahane, who now lives in Tel Aviv, aged 90. We interviewed him about his life in Poland which he remembered vividly even having left at age 14. His video is available for viewing on our website, in the video section, in Hebrew.

About Gesher GaliciaIf you are delighted by the prospect of finding so many

unique records for your towns, but daunted by the thought of having to hunt them down yourselves, consider joining Gesher Galicia and using our resources to organise a town project for you. We are a membership organisation with annual dues, which include a subscription to The Galitzianer, our quarterly journal focused on Galicia covering topics of interest to Jewish genealogists from all regions.

Our Member Portal provides keyword-searchable access to 20 years of back issues of The G and the searchable Gesher Galicia Family Finder where you can locate others researching your towns and names.

We also provide members with videos of conference presentations on research topics and special digital record collections that are not seen on our general website. On our research page are details about the Galician Archival Records Project how to find out if a project exists for your town and, if not, how to get one started.

Currently, while the archives are co-operative with Jewish researchers, we need to take advantage of the situation and get as much data as possible. Each day we hear of a research breakthrough someone has made using our resources. Perhaps it will be you!

Start from our home page, join and support our research efforts, as you embark on your Galician journey of discovery back in time.lThe author is president and research co-ordinator of Gesher Galicia. www.geshergalicia.org.

REFERENCES 1. www.jri-poland.org/.

2. www.agad.archiwa.gov.pl/eng/.

3. http://search.geshergalicia.org.

4. www.ushmm.org/.

5. https://cahjp.huji.ac.il/.

6. http://maps.geshergalicia.org.

7. www.geshergalicia.org/inventory/cadastral-maps-and-records/.

8. Harris, A, House Numbers in Zborów in the 19th Century and the People Who Lived There: A Project To Link Families When No Other Data Is Available. http://tinyurl.com/zborow.

9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czartoryski_Museum.

10. (Fond 166, 1780-1891).

11. www.archives.gov.ua/Eng/Archives/ca04.php.

12. www.geshergalicia.org/galitzianer/tabula-registers-an-untapped-genealogical-resource-in-the-lviv-archives/.

13. http://lsl.lviv.ua/en/.

14. www2.oss.wroc.pl/index.php/english/.

15. Kaufmännisches Adressbuch für Industrie, Handel und Gewerbe. Pub. L. Bergmann and Co., Vienna. www.jewishgen.org/databases/Poland/galicia1891.htm.

16. www.GenealogyIndexer.org.

Stanisławów passport, as issued during the

1920s-1930s


My unexpected York ancestorby Georgina Marks

My family connection to York is rather tenuous but nevertheless interesting and somewhat intriguing. When I started my genealogy 12 years ago, as far

as I knew all my Jewish ancestors in England were either from the City or East End of London.

I started with my late father’s family. Jonas Leonard Marks, was born in Hackney in 1904, his father Samuel Marks (my grandfather) was born in Shoreditch in 1867 and Samuel’s father George Joel Marks (my great-grandfather) was born in the City in 1825. I obtained the available birth, marriage and death certificates and also found the relevant census entries .

I researched my great-great-grandfather Solomon Marks and found him on the 1841 census, aged 40, living with his wife Amelia and their seven children in Acorn Street, since demolished and now part of Liverpool Street Station in Bishopsgate. This was the home of Amelia’s parents, George and Mary Joel. George was listed as a plate glass dealer and Solomon as a plate glass cutter.

Both Solomon and George appear to have been born in England, although not in Middlesex. Solomon and Amelia’s first son, George Joel Marks, was given Amelia’s maiden name as well, presumably to continue her family surname.

I then found the details of Solomon and Amelia’s marriage in the Hambro Synagogue records as having taken place on Wednesday 12 September 1827. To my surprise,

this stated that Solomon Marks of the City of York married Amelia Joel of Brick Lane, Spitalfields.

Now this was something most unusual. To find that Solomon Marks came from York was totally unexpected. To clarify, since the time of the massacre of Jews in Clifford’s Tower in 1190, Jews were not permitted by Jewish law to live in York. This ban was finally lifted in 1990, following a ceremony at the site.1

For the above reason, it seemed odd that Solomon’s place of residence should be York. Because only the Hebrew name of Solomon’s father (Issachar Behr HaCohen), appeared on

the marriage record, this has prevented me from finding out anything further about him, neither his English name nor place of residence, so I have no possibility of taking this line any further back. This is still my hardest brick wall.

My breakthrough on Solomon and his link to York came when I started to search newspapers online and to my astonishment I discovered an announcement in The York Herald, dated 1 August 1827, advertising “S. MARKS”, WORKING OPTICIAN, No. 54 Stonegate, York.” The long advert then goes on to list the numerous types of instruments he had for sale and the skills he offered. (See overleaf.)

With great excitement, I arranged a short trip to York with my sister. We located 54 Stonegate, now a jewellery shop, but the owner told us that the numbering in the street had changed, perhaps more than once over the years, and that the No. 54 occupied by Solomon would have been situated elsewhere in the street. This was rather disappointing news. Perhaps old maps and plans of the City will reveal the exact position of No. 54 in the 1820s.

In the York archives, I also found announcements of the marriage of Solomon to Amelia. The York Herald and

General Advertiser, Saturday September 22, 1827, issue 1922, and The Yorkshire Gazette, 29 September 1827.

Glass dealerAmelia’s father George Joel was a plate glass dealer and

I wondered which way round events took place.W a s S o l o m o n

already an optician who bought glass from George Joel , hence meeting his daughter? Or did he get involved in the optical business after meeting Amelia and going into partnership with, or working for, George?

I presume he would have needed some specific training

to operate as an optician. As usual, family research poses more questions than answers.

Some while back, I found online the following research done in York by Geoffrey Cantor, BSc, PhD, who is Emeritus Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds and Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London.

He writes: “A small number of Jews and Quakers became opticians, an occupation that required a knowledge of optics and a high level of technical skill in grinding lenses

Transcription showing fathers’ names. Source: Angela Shire and www.synagoguescribes.co.uk


and constructing optical instruments. By the 1830s Jewish opticians were to be found not only in London but also in many other cities. For example, Alexander Alexander built up a successful practice in Exeter, Solomon Marks plied his trade in York, David Cohen in Newcastle, and various members of the Abraham family in Liverpool. During the second half of the century, William Aronsberg pursued a flourishing business in Manchester as an optician and scientific instrument maker.”.

York ArchivesI found a further piece of information in the York Archives

which may relate to Solomon. This was within a collection of interesting books and other items about coaching to and from York, with ledgers of routes and bookings.

On a ledger page headed Loftus’s General Coach Office, Collingwood Street—Newcastle-upon-Tyne to London. The Wellington Coach, an entry reads: Saturday the 3rd Day of September 1825 York— 1—Marks—Pristle (?)—out (outside seat) To pay 16/- [80p].

There seems no doubt that Solomon was proud to state that he came from the City of York and from the advertisements and the fact that his marriage was announced in the local papers, it appears he was a well-known person there. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Hackney while Amelia was buried in the East End of London. Strangely, although Amelia had married Abraham Levy after Solomon’s death, her tombstone shows her name as Amelia Marks.

I also made other discoveries at the York Archives; an entry in Pigot’s Trade Directories of 1828 and 1829 where Solomon was listed under the heading OPTICIANS—Marks Solomon, 54 Stonegate.

An entry in the Electoral Roll Register for 1827—Marks Solomon, Optician, and another entry in the Poll at York Book of 1830—Marks Solomon—Optician with his place of residence being given as London.

Another enigmaI have another enigma within this family group. On that

1841 census, a Jane Marks appears, living with Solomon and family, aged 35, not born in the county. Solomon Marks died in February 1851 before the next census was taken. Although Amelia remarried in August 1852, Jane appears living with the family in each census until her death in 1875.

She is listed as a family servant and as deaf and dumb, born in Exeter, another previously unheard of town of origin in my family. I have not found her birth record. Solomon was born in 1801 and she in 1805. Perhaps they were cousins.

There does appear to be one Jewish Marks family living in Exeter according to the 1841 census. This is headed by Joseph Marks, a silversmith aged 35. Joseph’s 1833 marriage is announced in Exeter newspaper articles and refers to him as a glass merchant.

Jewish records have revealed nothing about Jane Marks apart from a burial record which gives her father’s Hebrew name as Dov. I have not succeeded in locating her grave.

I am almost certain that these two Marks families must be connected and would be very pleased to hear from any researchers who may be able to suggest other lines I could follow up to gather more information on Solomon and his time in York.

UPDATE: Since completing and submitting this article for the York Family History Society magazine, I have done some further research and discovered that Solomon also operated a similar optical business in Durham, just prior to moving his premises to York.

Similar advertisements appear in the Durham newspapers: From the Durham County Advertiser dated 11 November 1826: The advert states “S. MARKS, WORKING OPTICIAN FROM LONDON, has taken a shop for a short time, opposite the Durham Brewery in New Elvet.”.l The author is a member of Council, photographer of tombstones and researcher in chief of the Ascolis.


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TIMELINE FOR SOLOMON MARKS1801-1851


OBITUARYPHILIP WALKER

1949-2014

IT is with great sadness we mark the passing of a true friend to Shemot and the JGSGB. Philip held a remarkable store of knowledge of Anglo-Jewish

history, especially that of London’s East End. He communicated this to others with enthusiasm and gusto, never losing the excitement of finding out more.

Television documentary makers, magazines (us included), newspaper journalists, book researchers all benefitted from his energy and expertise, generously given to all who asked. He also contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

His big interest was the Jewish East End. His mother had been born there and his father’s business, which he later took over, had its roots there a generation earlier.

Philip was one of the earliest members of the Jewish East End Celebration Society, which seeks to increase awareness of the Jewish history and culture of the area. He ran the organisation’s website as well as handling the production of its magazine, The Cable, edited by his brother, David.

The walking tours of the East End he organised were deservedly popular as was his own highly regarded website, www.jewisheastend.com.

He was a leading member of the South London Liberal Synagogue where he was involved in many management and teaching roles. After serving as the treasurer and chairman he was elected president in 2013 and also represented the congregation on the Council of Liberal Judaism.

Philip died just weeks before his 65th birthday and we offer our condolences to his wife and family.

REFERENCES1. Further information can be found at: www.bbc.co.uk/religion/

religions/judaism/history/pogromyork_1.shtml.

2. Memorial to the Bull and Mouth Inn at Museum of London, EC1 in the Rotunda Garden, St Martins Le Grand. www.british-history.ac.uk.

Tombstone of Solomon at Lauriston Road. The Hebrew inscription translates as: “May his soul be bound up in the

bond of the living souls”

Amelia’s tombstone at West Ham Cemetery

JGSGB GUIDESJewish Ancestors—A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Poland

ISBN: 978-0-9551023-0-1 (£7.99)

Jewish Ancestors—A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Latvia and

Estonia

ISBN 09537669-9-3 (£5.95)

Jewish Ancestors—A Guide to Organising Your Family History

Records

ISBN: 09537669-4-2 (£4.95)

Jewish Ancestors—A Guide to Reading Hebrew Inscriptions and

Documents

ISBN: 09537669-6-9 (£4.50)

Jewish Ancestors—A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Lithuania

ISBN: 09537669-8-5 (£5.95)

Jewish Ancestors—A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in United

Kingdom

ISBN: 09537669-7-7 (£5.95)


Memories of a Praga rabbiby Pauline Malkiel

MY late father once told me he had an Eckstein relative on his mother’s side, R Israel Moshe ha-Levi of Praga, famed as a chazen [Heb: cantor]

in the Gur community, renowned throughout Poland. He led the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayers for thousands of people.

Gur was a small town near Warsaw [German and Polish Góra Kalwaria]. It was the centre of a most influential Chassidic dynasty in Poland, led by the Gerer rabbis. My father also told me that someone had written about this chazen. My father was named after his eldest son Menachem Mendel. I was named after Israel Moshe’s wife, as was my grandmother (Menachem Mendel’s daughter).

Since childhood I have been fascinated by a family photo taken in Poland about 1910, showing my grandmother as a young girl, with her parents, four brothers and two children, one of them holding a hoop. When I asked what happened to the children, I was told that they “disappeared in Poland”. Alas, only much later did I discover that they, their parents and three of their siblings had perished in the Warsaw ghetto.

A few years ago a relative sent me a 32-page manuscript, discovered in a drawer, called “Chapters of Memories”. The passages describing life in 19th-century Poland, with insights into the lifestyle of the Gerer Chassidim, stood out in my memory, as did the description of Israel Moshe’s stature and charisma, combined with his beautiful singing voice, his charitable nature and kindly disposition. I also recalled the tragic events in his life, described later.

Information gatheringMeanwhile, I worked intermittently, collecting

information about his descendants. Through networking with recently discovered cousins I found a Hebrew transcript of the “Memories” of Israel Moshe of Praga written by my grandmother’s brother Aaron Eckstein (my great-uncle). Taking the manuscript from Belgium to Israel in 1949, when he was in his 60s, it was translated by his first cousin Yehuda Harel as a testament to Israel Moshe.

By 1875, Rabbi Israel Moshe Eksztejn had become a prominent personality and a communal leader. He lived at 2 Koscielna [Church] Street in the Praga district of Warsaw. Avraham Mordecai Schwarz, husband of his daughter Miriam, lived nearby at 42 Moskovska Street.

He remembered Israel Moshe as a tall, handsome man with a smiling face walking to the Bet Midrash [Heb: Study/prayer house] of the Gerer Chassidim at 44 Moskovska Street1 on Shabbat through the streets of Praga1. He cut a majestic figure with an elegant, flowing white beard, wearing a fur coat with fur-folded sleeves, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.

Israel Moshe had a unique singing voice and at the time of his bar mitzvah in 1856, his father Shmuel took him to Kotsk [Polish Kock], the seat of the Kotsker Rebbe Menachem Mendel (1787-1859), one of the great Chassidic luminaries of the 19th century. Honoured with reciting Hamavdil before R Mendele at the termination of Shabbat, Israel Moshe was acknowledged by the Chassidim as an outstanding future prayer leader.

Shmuel Eckstein led the morning service on Yom Kippur in the study house of the Kotsker Rebbe and is mentioned in the list of elders of the Gerer prayer house at 156/7 Wolowa (Targowa) Street in Praga in 1869.2

In 1873 when Israel Moshe was 30, he was appointed as Ba’al Musaf [Reader of the Additional Service for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur], at the Gur Bet Midrash at Moskovska Street. His reputation reached the Sfas Emes, [the head of the rabbinical court] R Yehuda Aryeh Leib3 (1847-1905) in Gur, who invited him to be Ba’al Musaf for the high holydays in Gur, and he remained so until 1906.

Israel Moshe’s grandson Aaron wrote that the congregation in Gur was spellbound by his grandfather’s voice at prayer. It echoed through the courtyards, where 3,000 worshippers and a further 7,000 in the courtyards around it listened.

Israel Moshe imported cattle from Russia to Poland. The cattle arrived in freight trains at the Trans-Poland (Terespolter) Station in Praga and from there were taken to a market nicknamed the “Bull Market” next to the horse market. Before the advent of trains, the animals were herded on the hoof along the Brest-Litovsk road, and then put into stalls, where Israel Moshe’s herdsmen fed and watered them until their sale to the butchers.

As the business developed many families of cattlemen earned their living as transporters of cattle, or as butchers, their assistants, managers and bookkeepers. Praga became an important commercial centre and two more train stations were built, the Petersburg and the Visla (Nadvislank) stations, which became depots for the import of large quantities of produce such as grain, fodder and flour from Russia.

Business prosperedAs a consequence of these developments Israel Moshe’s

business prospered. His two brothers, Benjamin and Yitzhak David, became partners and his sons and sons-in-law were also employed in the trade.

A section of a map of Praga, 1910


Israel Moshe kept an open house and never ate his meals alone. On Shabbat he always invited several Jewish soldiers serving in the Russian army who were permitted to attend prayers in the morning and a meal at the table of Israel Moshe and his family where there was always a minyan [quorum] of guests.

The soldiers had to leave by 1.0 pm and although the meal lasted several hours Israel Moshe always ensured that they were served without delay to enable them to return to barracks on time without the risk of disciplinary action.

Israel Moshe had his own coachman who was nicknamed “Itche with the cart”. He was paid 25 kopeks an hour to be in constant attendance at Israel Moshe’s front door to carry him whenever he wished to meet the cattle trains, collect money from the merchants, or make one of his frequent trips to Gur.

His party usually consisted of guests and several of his grandchildren, who made a two-hour stopover at the farmhouse of a Jewish farmer in a village called Choinef [Polish Coniew] four miles from Gur. On reaching the village his first task was to feed his horses. Everyone was given a slice of black bread and butter, cheese and sour milk. It was a rustic meal, which the youngsters looked forward to as a treat after the meandering five-hour journey.

They continued their journey to Gur, where the next day they were joined by the family and his choir. In his latter years, when his children were helping in the business, his whole life was focused around Gur. From the learned Chassidim to the known idlers such as Naskah the batlan, [Yiddish: someone without a trade] they all frequented the his court for inspiration and the atmosphere of joy.

Israel Moshe and his sons and sons-in-law were on good terms with the authorities and frequently interceded

with the Russian police in such cases as the ransoming of Jewish prisoners. On occasions, malicious troublemakers, in particular two Jews from Praga, would embitter Israel Moshe’s life by fabricating false charges against him to extort protection money. During these difficult times he sought consolation from the Sfas Emes in Gur, who gave him the strength and encouragement to continue, and he returned to Praga revived.

Police summonsOnce, two days before Rosh Hashanah, he received a

summons ordering him to appear at the headquarters of the supreme political police at 10.0 am the next morning before the Governor of the Warsaw district, Baron Korf. After several hours he returned home, tense and silent, immediately sent for his droshky [Polish dorozki; a horse-drawn carriage] and within 15 minutes he was on his way to Gur. He arrived 10 minutes before the start of the festival. This incident of slanderous complaint was well remembered by his family.

A further incident, which the author remembered as a child, involved a gun. As a prosperous businessman Israel Moshe carried large sums of cash and was licensed by the police to carry a revolver for his safety. The cattle market in Brokova Street by the River Vistula was near a tavern owned by an innkeeper named Eliyahu, where Israel Moshe and his son Mendel met tradesmen from Praga and where all accounts were settled.

Hanging on the tavern wall was a picture of the Russian Czar Alexander III whose eyes had been removed. The same troublemakers falsely reported to the secret police that Israel Moshe had deliberately shot out the eyes. The police removed the picture for full investigation but further

An early 20th century Eckstein family photo


examination showed that the eyes were removed not by bullets but by a blade, and so he was exonerated.

When overburdened by his troubles Israel Moshe would send for Itche his coachman and direct him to prepare the carriage and his white mare for the journey to Gur. After two hours’ preparation he was on his way. If Itche was unavailable he would travel by a hired droshky.

On another occasion remembered by a grandson, Israel Moshe was returning home in Itche’s carriage when he was attacked in Wolowa Street by ruffians who threw stones at his carriage. As soon as the family and neighbours heard about this incident they enlisted the aid of a neighbour and his servant and armed with sticks, rushed to the fire station and gave the gang appropriate punishment.

There was no fear of police intervention because the friends and neighbours knew of Israel Moshe’s good standing in the community and with the government of the day.

Yosef Eckstein related another incident told to him by his mother, which took place on the eve of his parents’ wedding in Nasielsk in 1896. Among the wedding guests were Israel Moshe and his entourage, coming from Praga by train. The train from Praga left twice a day and was usually late. This time it was punctual and when the entire family arrived at the station, dressed in their finery, it had already left.

This was a calamity, but Israel Moshe, as a respected customer, had a private word with the stationmaster, who assured him “Don’t worry Mr. Eckstein, the matter will be taken care of immediately,” and then ordered a special train for the wedding guests and telegraphed the stations along the way, to keep the tracks open.

As the train passed through, the villagers and their families, dressed for the occasion, came out to greet the distinguished passengers on the train. They were disappointed and angry when they realised it was Jews in their Shabbat clothes, and the incident caused much amusement in the family.

Family troublesIsrael Moshe had his share of family troubles. His first

wife Dobra-Pesa (née Sygal) died aged 40 and on 6 July 1890

in Nasielsk he married her younger sister Juria (Yure). Shortly after this his eldest daughter Yure died and her children came to live with him, and then his daughter Miriam also died before reaching 40.

His grandson Chaim Yosef, who accompanied him in a beautiful alto voice, died a few days after his wedding, aged 18.

On Yom Kippur 1904 Israel Moshe had a premonition of another tragic loss and the following spring, the Gerer Rebbe the Sfas Emes died. Israel Moshe felt he had lost the source of his strength and inspiration and suffered several heart failures. His eldest son Mendel took

care of him and brought doctors who sent him to a resort called Otwock. The sons took over the management of the business, and Mendel’s son Aaron and his daughter Etka were constantly at his side.

Aaron was due to marry in Pultusk in the spring of 1906, and on the Shabbat three days before the wedding, on the Yahrzeit [Heb: anniversary of death] of the Sfas Emes, Israel Moshe asked his grandson and chorister, Gavriel, to sing him the major passage from the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service, called Ato Nigleso [“You have revealed Yourself”].

The next day he gave Aaron 40 silver roubles from his safe as a gift for his wedding sermon. That evening, after a massive heart attack, Israel Moshe recited the Shema and when he pronounced the word echod [Hebrew: one] he died.l The author worked at the Encyclopaedia Judaica in Jerusalem from 1968 to 1971. She has been Librarian of the Valmadonna Trust Library in London since 1982.REFERENCES1. The location of the Bet Ha-Midrash of the Gur Hasidim of Praga

(circled on the 1910 map of Praga. It burned down in 1901 and was replaced by a new building). The map also shows Moskovska (Moskiewska) Street and the known family address in Wolowa (now part of Targowa Street). Neither street exists today. [The Plan of the City of Warsaw from 1910, re-edited by MTR Kartografia, Warsaw 2002. Sourced by Grazyna Rychlik].

2. List of elders of the study house of Gur from 1869, mentioning Szmul Eksztein at Wolowa (Targowa) Street 156 / 7. Source: Bergman, Eleonora. Nie Masz Bóżnicy Powszechnej [about the synagogues of Warsaw from the 18th-21st centuries]. Together with an illustration of the former prayer house (white building) at the site. Sourced by Grazyna Rychlik.

3. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, known as the Sfas Emes (1847-1905) took the mantle of leadership from his grandfather Yitzhak Meir Alter of Gur (1799-1866), the first Gerer Rebbe, and established Gur as a major Chassidic centre, with thousands coming to the Rebbe each day, and on Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah tens of thousands gathered in the courtyard of the Bet Midrash. The scholarship was in the spirit of Kotsk—he inspired and guided his followers and his court became a sanctuary for his chassidim.

AuthOR’s AcKNOwlEDGMENts

I am immensely grateful to Rabbi Dr Neville Kesselman for his care, judgment and advice in helping me edit the expanded version of this article and for his enthusiasm and sensitivity for the material.

I am thankful to Grazyna Rychlik for her excellent research report ([email protected]), her patience with my inquiries, her help and encouragement and her interest in the project.

The Gerer Chassidim walking in the woods with the Imrei Emes, Carlsbad, Poland, c 1930s


The Vienna Projectby Susan Soyinka

My mother, Lucie Fowler née Smetana, was born in Vienna in 1919 and fled to England in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. She lost eight members

of her immediate family who were among the 85,000 Austrians murdered between 1938 and 1945.

They were not only Jews like my mother, but also Roma, Sinti, the mentally ill and physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and many political dissidents.

All of these victim groups were memorialised in The Vienna Project, an impressive year-long art and social action event, conceived and directed by the remarkable American artist and academic, Karen Frostig, whose family were numbered among the victims.

The project opened on 23 October 2013, subsequently played out in numerous events on the streets of the city, and culminated in the closing ceremony on 18 October 2014, with a full programme of music, speeches and readings that was live-streamed around the world.

Spectacular venueThe ceremony was held in the spectacular Austrian

National Library, housed within the Hofburg Palace, seat of the Hapsburg Empire for more than seven centuries until the start of World War I.

Amazingly, given my background, I only learned of the Vienna Project in September 2014, when Karen circulated a request for letters from victims, and I submitted two, one from each of my grandparents, which appear in my book, A Silence That Speaks, A Family Story Through and Beyond the Holocaust (for which I received an award from JGSGB).

As I was unable to attend myself, I arranged for my daughter, Lara Bayode, and my granddaughters, Faith and Hannah, to visit Vienna and participate. They flew to Vienna on 15 October and stayed at the Hotel zur Wiener Staatsoper, close to the Vienna State Opera House in the heart of the city.

The hotel was also close to 12 Schubertring, where my mother had lived as a teenager from 1932, and from where, standing on her balcony in March 1938, she witnessed Hitler’s triumphant procession around the city, following his annexation of Austria. The crowds in the boulevard below cheered enthusiastically, but my mother regarded this momentous event with a huge sense of foreboding.

As part of the project, victim letters were to be read at 38 memory sites all around the city on Friday 17 October 2014, and for one hour, the voices of the victims echoed around the streets of Vienna. Groups of school children were involved in this mass reading, so that the process of remembering should be passed down the generations.

One of the designated sites was the State Opera House, near my family’s hotel. Sadly, the teacher who wanted to bring his class to read at this site was not able to do so, as

his dean would not give him the necessary permission. A sad reflection on the lack of understanding of the importance of this event in certain quarters.

Nevertheless, my daughter and granddaughters went to this site, where they were lucky enough to be met by Karen Frostig. My granddaughter, Faith, was privileged to read a letter, so at least one child was represented here. My daughter read another letter from a father who was just about to die, who said that he was going to a place where flowers do not die and that he forgave all those around him. Lara wept, so touched was she by these words.

Four of the victim letters, representing the various victim groups, were read at the closing ceremony on the 18 October 2014. I am thrilled that one of the four was a postcard sent from France by my grandmother, Berta Smetana, to my mother, Lucie, in England, on 3 September 1939, the very day Britain declared war on Germany.

Berta had left her home in Vienna and was on the run in France with my aunt Sonja, aged 11. Berta and Sonja were ultimately deported to Auschwitz from Drancy, Paris, on 2 September 1942, having been arrested by the Vichy police in Nice, along with 7,000 other Jews in the south of France.

The card was read by my granddaughter, Faith, Berta’s great-great-granddaughter. What makes Faith’s participation in this stunning event so poignant is that she is black, in fact three-quarters African. She was accompanied on the stage by Gilda Horvath, of Roma descent, who read the original German version of Berta’s card.

Here is the wording of the card, first in English translation, and then in its original German:

3 IX 39My dear, precious little Lucie, I am desperate as I have had no mail from you for two

weeks now. I have been travelling for 24 hours and have just ended up here. If I don’t find little Sonja (Sonjali) soon, I may not find her perhaps for months, because the evaluation is kept secret. I don’t know where Omi (Granny) is either.

Lucie, for your birthday I wish you every good thing, and above all health, health, and once again health. I shall send you a present from Paris.

Write straight away Paris, 24 Bld. Malesherbes. It may take another day or two until I arrive there.

Warm and loving kisses from your Mummy.

3 IX 39Mein liebes, teures Lucel!Bin verzweifelt, da ich schon zwei Wochen keine Post

von Dir habe. Ich fahre seit 24 Stunden und bin erst hier gelandet, wenn ich nicht rasch zu Sonjali komme, so kann ich sie vielleicht Monate nicht finden, da die Evaluierung geheim gehalten wird. Wo Omi ist weiß ich auch nicht.

Lucie, ich wünsche Dir zu Deinem Geburtstag alles, alles Gute und vor allem Gesundheit, Gesundheit und wieder Gesundheit. Ein Geschenk werde ich Dir von Paris aus senden. Schreibe sofort Paris 24, Bld. Malesherbes. Es kann noch ein – zwei Tage dauern bis ich dort ankomme.

Es küßt Dich herzlichst u. innig Deine Mutti


(Note: the card was translated into English by Margret Vince, who also translated many of the documents which appear in my book. She kindly transcribed and translated many of the victim letters used in the project).

The entire occasion was incredibly moving. Faith’s performance drew much praise, indeed she read so beautifully that several people asked afterwards if she was a professional reader! Project Director Karen Frostig wrote me these kind comments:

(The readings) were a total success, reflecting the soul of the project. Faith was amazing! She captured everyone’s

hearts . . . Totally captivating . . . Her maturity, sensitivity to the material and her poise were impressive.

Naturally I am very proud of my granddaughter, and I am so pleased that the memory of my lost family has been preserved in this way. Thank you The Vienna Project and thank you Karen Frostig in particular for the great service you have done to so many people who have likewise no longer been forgotten.

What a wonderful and memorable event. My sincere thanks and congratulations to all those who helped to make The Vienna Project such a resounding success.

There is a lot more information on the project’s website http://theviennaproject.org/

IAJGS International Jewish Cemetery Project

SOME of our newer readers may be unfamiliar with this massive undertaking. The IAJGS is attempting to

document every Jewish burial site in the world.They have already collected information about thousands

of Jewish cemetery sites all over the world together with information on the location of the cemetery, and how to obtain more information.

Each Jewish cemetery or burial site listed in the project by town or city, country, and geographic region is based on current locality designation. Some listings include links to other websites with additional information such as burial lists or a name to contact by email or mail. Web user can use the search engine to check the site for information.

The web page for the project that you should head for is www.iajgsjewishcemeteryproject.org/. There are many more Jewish burial sites to be identified. and the IAJGS is asking for the help of visitors to their website and genealogists around the world in this quest for more and updated information.

If you have any to share about a burial site not included on their website, please contact their project co-ordinator or complete the Burial Site Survey found in the “Instructions and Information” section.

For information about individual burials, please visit the Jewish Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) at jewishgen.org.


Presidential reportby Saul Issroff

ABOUT 15 JGSGB members attended the 34rd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Salt Lake City, July/August 2014. This year, as in

previous years, the programming was excellent and being a smaller conference than usual was much easier to negotiate.

The city is set in a basin surrounded by mountain ranges. Scenically these are stunning and my friends took me up on ski lifts several times to see the wild flowers in bloom. I hear the skiing is spectacular.

However the main attraction for genealogists is the Family History Library, an easy walk from the conference. This is the major resource with a library and great facilities for easily researching and accessing the many millions of microfilmed records. There was also access to its non-Internet accessible collections.

The volunteer staff were helpful and friendly. The Mormon Temple is not accessible to non-Mormons but my Mormon cousin (a Litvak by descent, YDNA!) gave me a tour of the gardens and the exterior of the complex.

The conference lasted five days and at any one time there were four or five talks to attend, films of genealogical interest, computer workshops, a well-stocked resource room, exhibitor stands and other activities. My compliments go to conference co-chairs Hal Bookbinder, Banai Feldstein and Ken Bravo for a relatively flawless conference.

Keynote speechA highlight was the opening keynote talk, this time by

David Laskin a writer who is also a genealogist who has written two recent books: The Family: A Journey into the Heart of the 20th Century and The Long Way Home: An American Journey From Ellis Island to the Great War, which explored how the war marked the great divide between Jewish families in Europe and the United States. His report on the conference is available online at http://tinyurl.com/nyeoyj8.

Michael Tobias and Warren Blatt gave a great outline of Jewishgen Inc and the plans for the coming year. Neville Lamdan, Chairman of the International Institute of Jewish Genealogy, Jerusalem, outlined the achievements of the past 10 years and some of the ongoing research projects.

Particular note was made of the Scottish Jewry Project, JGS members Harvey Kaplan and Michael Tobias being integral to this.

More than 800 individuals participated in person or through LIVE!, a new innovation of online streaming of the main events. Registrants came from 18 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay. 40 US states and Canadian provinces also attended.

The focused theme was Jews in World War I which included 15 presentations and films on the war. A gallery of Great War-era family pictures, posters and stories were exhibited with many photos being submitted by genealogists.

The play, Time Capsule in a Milk Can, the story of Emmanuel Ringelblum and the Warsaw Ghetto, was superb and included audience participation reading some pieces.

Focus areas related to World War I, Technology, Migrations, Ethics and the Jews of the Western United States. There was an opening reception and a Shabbat dinner which gave plenty of time to schmooze. The Special Interest Groups (SIG) lunches again proved popular with most being fully booked.

In all there were 250 sessions including presentations, films, meal functions, meetings and computer workshops and nearly 140 were recorded sessions, most with synchronized slides which can be purchased.

I took the bus trip and tour of Ancestry.com headquarters in Provo, Utah. This was an eye-opener. We were taken through the various sections. Interesting to see the mail room, logging-in of rare books and documents from all over the world, and then to see the equipment they have developed for scanning fragile documents and how the quality control over all aspects of scanning, digitising, etc. is handled. Database development was discussed and I was bemused to find out that Ancestry.com is largely owned by British venture capitalists and has some Jewish executives.

Our stand at the Share Fair, to learn about and link up with diverse genealogy organisations (SIGs, BOFs, JGSs, etc.) was well looked after by Mark Nicholls, Jeanette Rosenberg and Leigh Dworkin. There was considerable interest from many Americans in the several presentations relating to United Kingdom Jewish genealogy.

THE 35TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JEWISH GENEALOGY

6-10 JULY 2015, JERUSALEMFrom our venue at the Ramada Hotel, at the entrance to the city, you are within easy walking distance of the Light Rail (Mount Herzl/Yad Vashem, the City Centre/Old City and more), the Knesset, Israel Museum, Bible Lands Museum, Hebrew University Givat Ram campus, Cinema City and other Jerusalem landmarks.

This conference will be unique. Our Shabbaton (Friday-Saturday) programme prior to the conference opening will offer special insights and opportunities. Exploration Sunday will offer diverse research and touring options and if you have family in Israel we

can help arrange your reunion.

In addition to the event’s lectures, workshops, resource centre, networking opportunities and special events many archives and repositories holding essential genealogical records will be at the conference. Many other one-of-a-kind programmes will make this

conference memorable.

We hope you will take advantage of this year’s Jerusalem conference to extend your stay, giving you and your family an opportunity to tour and

learn about Israel.

We look forward to personally welcoming each of you.

Registration opened on 7 October. Go to www.iajgs2015.org/

A call for papers is also up on the website.


World War one and the Manchester Sephardim

By Basil Jeuda

DURING the centenary of what was called the Great War there will be many different types of commemoration. Among them will be those devoted

to particular communities or parts of them.The Sephardim have been an important element in

Manchester Jewry and are interesting in this context for having originated mainly from various parts of the Ottoman Empire and were thus, in many cases, technically enemies of Britain and her allies.

The author skilfully includes background information on the development of the community. He explains that by 1914 the earlier Sephardi immigrants had become settled and therefore it was their sons and grandsons who joined the British armed forces, whereas more recent immigrants were aliens, consequently some were interned for that reason and had other restrictions placed on them.

The most interesting part of the book consists of biographies of many of those who served in the armed forces. There were 67 members of the Manchester Sephardi community but including some Ashkenazim who were associated with it, mainly through marriage. The names are from two lists: one of 61 names which were on an illuminated address of 1917; the second was of 67 names in a book celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Cheetham Hill synagogue.

For most of them he has usefully added their regiments. One of those without a regiment was Corporal Absalom Sevi. In JCR-UK there is a list of burials in the Jewish section of the cemetery at Douglas, Isle of Man. One is for Absalom Sevi. He died on 9 January 1953 and his grave is marked with a tablet showing that he served in the 15th Isle of Man Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. There is a brief history of the unit on the Internet. I assume it is the same man; if so, he served in both wars.

Personal historiesFor those who were killed he has more to say. He gives

potted histories of the six who died. Three of them died on the Somme in 1916, although 2nd Lieutenant Joshua Cansino was killed in June, leading up to the beginning of the battle on 1 July. Two privates, Nissim Lisbona and Saul (Sidney) Torres were killed in that long drawn-out battle, the latter on the day before it ended, in November 1916, during the battle of Ancre.

Two were killed in April 1917, one being Lieutenant Leon David Goldseller, from an Ashkenazi family. The last was Private Baron Mendes da Costa, killed in April 1918, during the last great German offensive.

Among others whom the author describes were Captain Samuel Ades, the highest decorated of the group and Major

BOOK REVIEWS

Isaac Leslie Belisha, better known as Leslie Hore-Belisha, who in the 1930s was a Cabinet Minister, responsible for the introduction of Belisha beacons on British roads and who was Minister for War at the start of the World War II.

As well as details on those in uniform the author writes about the civilians, especially the aliens among them who were under various restrictions. A number were interned on the Isle of Man, at the vast camp at Knockaloe on the western side of the island. The largest number of internees were Germans—there are the graves of two German Jews in the churchyard opposite the site of the camp. The author describes the camp, noting the special facilities provided for Jews.

The author provides much information about the course of the War, including statistics of casualties and broad descriptions of major events. Thus there are discussions about the Somme battle, for example. He notes that four of the soldiers joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and there is a section of eight pages on this corps which includes details of one soldier who was the first cousin of the author’s father, as well as of a nurse who served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment in a Manchester hospital.

Much of this eight-page section deals with army hospitals in the Manchester area and, like other parts of the book, some information may seem a little distant from Manchester Sephardim, but for those with a limited knowledge of World War I the details he provides are undoubtedly useful. Indeed, the whole book displays a considerable amount of research.

However, the best part of the book consists of the huge number of illustrations he has accumulated. Some, such as the picture of an Alien Registration Card, are new and unusual. Altogether this is a publication to be welcomed as providing a detailed picture of the effects of World War I on a particular community.

hAROlD POllINs Sephardi Congregation of South Manchester, 8 Queenston Road, West Didsbury, M20 2QZ. 114p. Illustrated. £9.99, plus £2 p and p.


tracInG YoUr JeWIsh ancestors

a GUIde for faMIlY hIstorIans

second edItIonBy RosemaRy WenzuRel

THE author is a long-standing JGSGB member and a former council member, and so we must take pride in her fully revised guide, which was first published

in 2008. Such a comprehensive book does need to be reprinted

to keep the fast-moving world of genealogy up to date with developments in the Jewish side of family history. With so many people delving into their roots and discovering that, perhaps surprisingly, they had a Jewish ancestor, it is essential that a well-presented guide is available for them. This, of course, is it.

Tracing your Jewish Ancestors not only informs beginners how to get started and the practicalities associated with discovering more about their family but it is a boon to those experienced enough to want to know where they can look to find out even more about their own historical past.

I particularly liked the chapters on drawing up a family tree, which archives can be consulted, the libraries and museums to be visited and her suggestions for Holocaust research.

Of course, as Rosemary explained to me, not everything could be covered as fully as we all might like. George Rigal’s volumes on Jewish Surnames in London-based Insurance Policies are now available to researchers, but omitted from the guide.

I would have preferred to see more concerning newspaper research, particularly as the News Room of The British Library displays The Jewish Victorian reference books in pride of place on the open shelves. However, I had to accept that it will never be possible to cover all the available sources.

Our Society is mentioned more than once and the guide goes a long way to answering many of the questions that family historians researching their Jewish genealogy will naturally have.

Congratulations to Rosemary for this contribution to genealogy and for putting Jewish genealogy in the forefront of historical research.

DOREEN BERGERPublishers: Pen & Sword, 2014. £12.99

Under the heel of BUshIdo

By maRtin sugaRman,

THIS book is of particular interest to two often quite distinct audiences: Jewish genealogists and those with an interest in military history, specifically the

experiences of prisoners of war (PoWs) in World War II. It is to the author’s great credit that he has produced a volume of so much use to both.

The testimonies listed on the Contents page give some indication of this book’s vast scope; not only British and Empire soldiers, but also Jewish civilians of both the British and Dutch-controlled Far East are represented.

Yet even these represent only the detailed stories of PoWs that the author has been able to put together. Anyone perhaps looking to confirm or deny a family myth of imprisonment in the Far East would be wise to check the Roll and Record of Honour starting on page 609, which also includes long lists of civilians.

Many of the testimonies themselves include useful genealogical information such as the parents of the individual concerned and these are in themselves in some ways pertinent to family history. Martin often includes some description of their later lives in Britain, the Commonwealth, or Israel, as well as the voices of the children of internees.

The testimonies have been made fully understandable to the non-military specialist as well as the non-Jewish reader and are thus most accessible, especially with the help of the map. They also each make in themselves a compelling narrative, which is principally thanks to the author’s ability to combine the plain facts with the real drama of the situation though some testimonies include direct quotation from diaries of the soldiers, unadorned but hard-hitting.

The author’s self-confessed aim in this book is to put the record straight with regard to Jewish PoWs in the Far East and in this he is unflinchingly determined. In citing the statistic that 25 per cent of all PoWs died during internment, he gives an initial indication of the terrible brutality experienced by all during the War.

The testimonies provide grimly fascinating accounts of the ordeals they faced, especially gruesome in the case of those who served in medical roles, but they also reveal a complex relationship between the Japanese and Jewish prisoners; individual experiences seems to have varied from thorough anti-semitism to levels of understanding and even mutual respect.

Some tales of remarkable heroism are incredible: the prisoner who survived 23 different Japanese camps; others are inspiring, such as the story of the choir organised between Canadian and Russian Jews. Whether miserable or uplifting, it is this deeply personal element to the book that makes so large a piece of work, perhaps otherwise regarded as just too big and impenetrable, a remarkable and gripping read.

Not to be read from cover to cover in one sitting, but to sit and read a few testimonies, to remember, and to be thankful would not be far from doing the author’s efforts justice.

DANIEl MORGAN-thOMAs

Publishers: Valentine Mitchell, London. 2014. £50.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR READERS


the rolnIck chroMosoMesthe GloBal dIspersIon of the rolnIks of lIthUanIa

By WilfRed donald stein

IN more than 30 years of genealogy I have not come across a family chronicle as meticulously researched as Wilfred Stein’s The Rolnick Chromosomes. Durban-born Wilfred

Stein is Emeritus Professor of Biophysics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He traces the Rolniks, Rolnicks or Rollnicks from the mid-1700 period to the present day. With origins in Lithuania they migrated around the world.

There are sections which highlight individuals such as Congo Joe Rollnick, a trader and pioneer who went to the Congo and made a fortune in mining. The Rolniks from Skaudville went to Chicago, those from Raiseniai to New York. Each chapter is a story on its own with many characters. The majority of family members emigrated but others stayed in Lithuania only to be killed in the Holocaust. Masha Rolnik wrote a diary of the Vilna Ghetto. The Northern Rolniks came from Telšiai and the central Rolniks from Raiseniai.

Others went to Baltimore, New Jersey and Oklahoma. A branch went to Palestine before Israel was established, a group moved to England early in the 1900s and later others who had originally moved to Germany and South Africa went to England. Some descendants settled in Australia.

Like many other Litvaks Professor Stein’s family went to South Africa. Even here, there were two groups of Rolniks living in different areas. One family had “Rolnick’s Drift” named after them but it is doubtful whether these families were related or even knew each other.

Like many Jewish families who started off as peddlers they became shopkeepers. The “black sheep” are given equal coverage with successful descendents. One such was Myer Rolnik, who was a pioneer in Oklahoma. Stories such as that of Felix Zandman, a Holocaust survivor, who pioneered transistors and founded Vishay Industries abound.

The basis of his research is clearly referenced, whether proving or disproving a relationship. Extensive use is made of newspaper research with clear reproductions of the relevant article or photo. Most images and charts are clear with photographs, lucid diagrams and every item, be it a book, archival source, personal correspondence, newspaper or web page is properly referenced.

In my opinion, the most significant chapter is Chapter 10. To take a complex subject and make is easy to understand is the mark of a good teacher. Here, with clear diagrams and text, he explains the science and application of genetic genealogy and how it applies to his family study. This could be expanded into a guide to the perplexed.

The lack of an index is a major omission which I understand will be rectified in a future edition.

This is a book I can strongly recommend to anyone seriously interested in family and social history, research methods and especially the cutting edge of genealogy, namely genetic genealogy.

sAul IssROff

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2014. 424p. £28.97.

VIntaGe GlaMoUr In london’s east end

CuRated By miChael gRiesman, assisted By fRank haRRis

THIS is most certainly not a quick guide to old exotic photos or a digital photography handbook but a celebration of the life and works of Boris Bennett

(1900-1985), possibly the most famous photographer of Jewish marriages and family portraits in the 1930s and 1940s.

Not only does it mirror the movement of Jews from their East End origins to the more affluent suburbs over time but it highlights the changing styles of wedding dress for both bride and groom, through utility wear in wartime and out into the brave new world of 1946. The book also includes some family and military portraits.

For those photographers among you, there are illustrations of hand-painted photos and a gradual relaxation from the rigid early days of studio shots.

The author, Michael Greisman, assisted by Frank Harris, must have spent many hours working with families to acquire precious family portraits to digitise, together with a brief family history to accompany the images. In all, they worked with more than 500 photos.

It is hard to imagine just how many families have images created by Boris’s studio among their genealogical archives, so how these particular images were chosen must have been a difficult process, I wonder how many times they were asked: “Why did you not use my picture?”.

There is a brief history of Boris (aka Sokhatchevsky) written by his son Michael, some East End scene setting from Blue Badge author Rachel Kolsky and fashion guidance from Edwina Ehrman, curator of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

However, the author lets the photos speak for themselves and the early images especially made me wonder how people who lived in such hard times ever managed to get together enough money to put on such elaborate weddings. They say the camera never lies but I think that in some cases it may have bent the truth a little bit. It made me dig out my own parents’ 1940 wedding photos.

MIKE GORDON

Publishers: Hoxton Mini Press and bookshops and online from the publisher’s website and other sites. 2014. 208p. £25.


desIGnInG the 20th centUrY:lIfe and Work of aBraM GaMes

JeWIsh MUseUM, london, UntIl 18 JanUarY 2015

ABRAM Games (1914-1996) was the famous graphic artist who designed the logo for Shemot. His motto was “Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means”.

Our logo is one of the smallest of his hundreds of designs but exemplifies these principles. Shemot is Hebrew for names and he has used the initial letter (shin) embellished with a family tree to make an arresting and easily recognised emblem.

An exhibition at the London Jewish Museum is celebrating the centenary of his birth and illustrates the life and work of one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century.

Born in Whitechapel, he was the son of Latvian parents. His father was a professional portrait photographer who taught his son his own skills including “air brushing”’ which was used to colour the black and white photographs.

He attended Hackney Downs School but received some disparaging school reports about his drawings but persisted in his interest in posters and attended art school.

He enlisted in the Army in World War II and served as a private but fortuitously was appointed designer of posters for the War Office because the previous incumbent had been posted to another unit.

He was given a garret in the roof of the War Office and developed his distinctive style which made an immediate impact. His simple messages were based on

The famous BBC “bats wing” logo, c 1953. Its intriguing evolution appears on www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25168633

personal experience as a soldier and the brilliant colours he produced using the air brushing technique contributed to the effectiveness of his designs.

However, some of his posters attracted adverse criticism from politicians and he modified or withdrew them but later he would not change a completed design at the request of a commissioner.

Many of the artefacts that he used in the studio in his house in Golders Green have been preserved by his family and enable us to see how he worked. He would develop a series of drawings of a concept and show them to his children Naomi and Daniel. If they were not able to grasp his objective, he would destroy the drawings and start again. He designed the 1951 emblem for the Festival of Britain and the first animated logo for the BBC in 1953.

Games created many designs for Jewish organisations both here the United Kingdom and also in Israel and in many cases charged no fee. There was a whole showcase of these designs on display. The depth of his inventive approach to a subject is shown in his memorial window for AJEX which will remain on permanent exhibition in the Jewish Museum.

BERNARD VAlMAN

A The official Abram Games website can be found at www.abramgames.com/bb.htm.


AA unique set of marriage documentation, Geoff Munitz 1,16A safe haven in Scotland, Harvey Kaplan 3,4A Sephardi gentleman’s last years, Miriam Rodrigues-Pereira 1,25An editor retires, Bernard Valman 3,11

BBarbed wire disease, Reva Hill 2,22Book reviews 1,27, 2,28, 3,28

CCadastral maps and registers in family history research, Jay Osborn 1,9

DDNA testing helped me, Jill Whitehead 1,19

FFamily heirloom from Galitzia, Reva Hill 1,4Footsteps in the past, Doreen Berger 1,20, 2,17, 3,10From the Editor 1.3, 2.3, 3,3

GGenealogical sources at LMA, Nicola Avery 3,12 Gesher’s unique and unusual records, Pamela Weisberger 3,1

IIn search of my elusive Austro-Hungarian ancestors, by Jeremy Schuman

Index 2014 3,32Jewish records in Poland, Richard Cooper 1,14Jewish soldiers in World War I, Harold Pollins 2,4Jews and medicine in Scotland by Kenneth Collins 3.7JRI-Poland: a new era has begun, Hadassah Lipsius 1,1

LLest we forget, Mike Gordon 2,1

MMemories of a Praga rabbi, Pauline Malkiel 3,22 My unexpected York ancestor, Georgina Marks 3,18

NNew 102,000-name memorial, Henri Obstfeld 2,26

PPolish war records, Geoff Munitz 1,7Preserving Jewish artefacts from Rohatyn, Marla R-Osborn 1,12

Presidential comment 1,26 2,25, 3,27

SScottish Jews in World War I, Harvey Kaplan 2,8South African Jewish war effort, Saul Issroff 2,13

TThe Adolphus family in the West Indies, Jeremy Schuman 1,30The Bradford–Brno link, Nigel Grizzard 1,29The Jews of Exeter, Helen Fry 1,18The Jews of Liverpool, Arnold Lewis 1,22The Marsilos of Bishopsgate, Martyn Webster 2,27The other side, Thea Valman 2,21The story of a portrait, Eva Lawrence 2,31The Vienna Project, Susan Soyinka 3,25“They won’t even remember your name”, Anthony Joseph 2,24Two Great War poets, Clive Bettington 2,19

UUS Jews in The Great War, Jordan Auslander 2,10

INDEX 2014Something to ponder

SAUL ISSROFF has provided an interesting commentary on the current concerns being expressed on both sides of the “right to be forgotten” argument currently being fought between Google and the European Union (EU).

Simply put, increasing numbers of people are demanding the right to have web searches about themselves that they feel are no longer relevant or just plain wrong, to be removed from search engines. The EU court’s decision is resulting in discussions about the correct balance with freedom of expression.

This debate impacts upon the pending EU proposed data privacy regulation which includes both the “right to be forgotten” and the “right of erasure.” Opponents say that is public information and is an attack on the free flow of information.

According to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) the proposed regulations could have a serious impact on genealogists because relevant documents may be included in the “right to be forgotten.”

To complicate matters even further each of the EU member states have different country specific rules as to whether their privacy regulations affect only current or current and past records.

In August 2013 in a letter to the 28 EU member countries’ Ministers of Justice the IAJGS talked about the “right to be remembered” regarding Holocaust victims and the need for genealogists to have access to vital records in order to reconstruct families and tracing genetically-inherited attributes in current family members. These issues are still of concern to the Jewish genealogical community.

As of 10 October, Google had received 144,954 requests for removing a person’s name from 498,737 URLs evaluated for removal. Just over 58 per cent of the requests were granted removal. Most were removed from Facebook. Google has updated its transparency report to show by country the number of requests, and those accepted.1

The amount of requests granted vary greatly by country. For example, Google has accepted 53 per cent of takedown requests from Germans but only 26 per cent from Croatians. Many rejections for removal were due to residents who were trying to hide criminal pasts or stifle criticism.2

REFERENCES1. See https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/

europeprivacy/.

2. See www.engadget.com/2014/10/10/google-details-european-search-removals/.