I’m never thrilled to admit it, but there are wise men (and women) out there, serious types, persons of probity, even people I know and like, who do not concur with my assessments of life on this planet or my world view. There are those, for example, who believe that the IDF can and should press for a ‘total victory’ in its campaign against Hamas, even if that means going it alone against a cruel world that does not share its goals or its optimism. There is at least one Nobel Prize winner advocating a return to Israeli rule over Gaza when the fighting is over. There are some, made of the sternest stuff, who would accept a deal to return the hostages – those lucky ones who are still alive – only if the terms were to the liking of politicians of a certain stripe. Well, no, say others with equal conviction. A majority of Israelis, according to a recent poll, no longer believe #1 is possible and aren’t about to be convinced otherwise by anything Our Leader says; #2 only demonstrates, to these folks, that a person can be brilliant without having much sense; #3? Please indulge me while I share a few thoughts of my own, for reasons that will become clear as I ramble on. Oh, and I have good news about my new coffee grinder, the one I just ordered.
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Tales of the daily grind
I only wish it were true…
It’s just not true. I wish it were, but I know it’s not. There is this notion, spread by well-meaning but overly enthusiastic olim, that these days, whatever you want, whatever you need, you can find it here in The Land. Sure, you might be able to get it cheaper by having it sent on Amazon, and, OK, English language books you pretty much have to have shipped in, but everything else…There are many things I can’t get here, but I won’t bore you with a recitation of a host of esoteric items. However, number one on my wish list is a quality coffee grinder designed for home use. (There, I’ve said it.)
The Nuclear Option
As it is widely appreciated that caffeine is one of the basic building blocks of life, it is axiomatic that any and all efforts to obtain said substance for oneself and others should be encouraged, even applauded. It should therefore come as no surprise that, when push came to shove and there was no other choice in the matter, the nuclear option would have to be invoked. How all that transpired will be detailed below for the patient reader.
You remember your great-grandmother? — Part 2
I kept adding names…
Names of relatives, or relatives of relatives, or relatives of relatives of relatives, some on Barbara’s side, some on mine. That’s how my Family Tree blossomed from 200 ‘leaves,’ to 1800. But I wasn’t just adding names. I was unraveling mysteries, making sense of self-created urban legends. One thing I never understood was how and why Samuel and Mascha Jacobson, indisputably German-speaking Jews, assumedly already united in matrimony, wound up in Riga before coming to The States. What were they doing hanging out in Latvia? Answer: That’s where the family, the whole kit and kaboodle had been living since at least (documented) the middle of the 18th century. Oh. And no, Tante Mascha’s brothers, Willie and Lazer – the ones I’m told would hang out and play pinochle with my grandfather – did not arrive in America one step ahead of the jackboots, as I had assumed They had all arrived by 1900. And no, my grandparents only got married in 1894 – in NYC.
You remember your great-grandmother? — Part 1
I gotta ask him about that
My eyes still dilated after an eye examination, my vision blurred, I walked as best I could down Rehov Yaffo, determined to find my way, no matter what obstacles were placed before me, to Power Coffeeworks, the home of the finest coffee known to mankind and the most unexpected conversations you’d ever want to hear, guaranteed to glue you to your seat long after you’ve finished sipping your beverage. Perched at my usual stool at the counter, I could not but hear the fellow a few seats away. Somewhere in the middle of his discussion with the young barista on-duty, he mentioned his great-grandmother. This guy remembers his great-grandmother? I gotta ask him about that.
It seems that Natan Shlomo’s great-grandmother was part of his life until he was nineteen. He remembers her well and the stories she told about their family. Some of their ancestors were on board a ship on the Black Sea, ostensibly headed for the Holy Land. But to avoid pirates, the captain sailed in the other direction, landing in England and ultimately in Boston. This was in 1810, a Jewish family arriving in New England when there weren’t many kindred souls to greet them as they disembarked from the ship.
Do you realize, I asked, how fortunate you are? Some of us are spending copious amounts of time and effort – let alone money – to find out even a fraction of the information you’ve acquired about your family. By the time I was four, I explained, I had only one grandparent left, my beloved grandmother, known as ‘Tante Mascha.’ I remember reading to her when I first learned how, ‘teaching her English.’ When I was in college, I would visit her at the ‘Old Age Home’ where she would live out her last years. (Today they would call it a ‘Senior Residence.’) I would walk into the lobby and have to pick her out from a long row of elderly Jewish women sitting quietly by themselves with not much to do. As soon as I located her and said, ‘Hello Grandma,’ she would invariably inquire if I was ‘Frankie’ (my fraternal twin-brother) or ‘Freddie,’ even though I was always the one who stopped by to see her. (It’s always good to be sure!)
Unlike some of her contemporaries, Tante Mascha was not the sort to regale you with stories about her long life. Maybe if I had thought to ask; if I had sat down and compiled a list of what I’d like to know about a woman who arrived in the New World in 1889 and now it was 1960 and things had changed a bit. But I was too busy being an indifferent English major at City College to give a thought to where she came from or what she remembered about her family. (What made you decide to leave Europe? Did you come alone? Do you remember what it was like when you arrived at Castle Garden?)
It didn’t take long for Natan Shlomo and me to engage in a long conversation Power Coffeeworks-style, one in which I talked about MY great-grandmother Zelda (the one who was born sometime between 1827 and 1831 and died in 1929), he talked about his Jewish journey, and we exchanged thoughts about the Ramchal, Shammai, and Tiferet Shlomo (more on him later). We could have kept chit-chatting for the longest time, but there are always things to do and places to go. I said good-bye to the crew at Power Coffeeworks and headed home, thinking about what it would be like to converse with a great-grandparent.
There was this guy named Yankel…
Because I can’t reach out to the parents of my grandparent – even if we shared a common language – I needed to join the army of special people who do genealogical research to learn about who they were, where they were from, and what was life like back then. I first conceived of this project as akin to solving a puzzle, placing pieces in the right places, or deciding that the answer to ‘certain photoreceptor cells’ in four letters was ‘rods.’. Then I realized that the puzzle was never ending; every time you thought you were done, there was another clue to solve or another piece to add. But maybe it’s more like a journey; perhaps akin to starting out for the Holy Land and winding up far away in New England, where you never thought you’d be. And along the way, there are people who will help you. Otherwise, you’d still be on dry land, watching the ship set sail without you.
I’ve already mentioned Jeremy, who got me started, in effect, carrying my luggage aboard the ship. But, in growing my Family Tree, there were other genealogists who helped me along the way, and I owe them a HUUUUUGE debt of gratitude.
Barbara’s cousins Pat and Jerry, hearing about my project, wrote to her, Hey, our son David has researched our lineage. Why doesn’t Fred contact him? Which I did. And what did he send me?
Descendants of the Danilevsky Family
Family tree started by David Danoff (b. 1939, grandson of Hyman)
Expanded by David. J. Danoff (b. 1977, great-grandson of Avraham Lev)
Last updated 6/10/2023
There was this guy named Yankel, who lived in the area close to the borders of today’s Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. He and his wife Chatsel had a son Shloma (born around 1810), who, with his wife Riva, had a son Sholom, who, with his wife Sora Raisa, had three sons, Abraham, Chaim Yehezkel, and Orlik, and one daughter, Brina. And these four had together thirty children, born between 1892 and 1922. And there it was, downloaded and printed out in outline form, covering thirteen pages, are all of the above-mentioned and all their children and their spouses, and their children and their spouses, going through eight generations (starting with Yankel). I showed this extraordinary research to Barbara, which enabled us to make connections between members of her sprawling family. (Barbara, didn’t we meet someone named Lil Burka at your mother’s apartment in Deerfield Beach – some sort of cousin? Well, there she is on page nine. She’s the granddaughter of your great-grandmother’s sister.) Anyone who looked at this chronology would get a sense of a typical Jewish family coming to America one by one and going off in many directions. Over here in generation #7, we find a Gandalf and a Galadriel, and over there in a different lineage, we find in the same generation, a Chananel, a Yechezkel, and a Elyashiv. All duly entered in my Family Tree.
And then Jason Casden and I connected. Unlike Barbara’s family, which regularly held Family Circle meetings with over 100 attendees (I know because I got to attend a few of them), the Casdens were a little more stand-offish. I always knew that Henry Cohen – who died a few months after we were born – had a brother, and together they had a shop on the Lower East Side, in which they made furniture. But I never saw hide nor hair of any of his family. As in, Nathaniel Casden had first cousins who were total strangers to us. That’s not normal, but….
Anyway, the brother, Charles/Yishai, was not just making furniture. There’s a whole family out there that I never knew about, including Jason, who should be my second cousin twice removed. And he has been doing some research, including DNA stuff. In addition to adding several layers to my Tree, he shared with me some correspondence between himself and Adam Cherson, a major researcher of Cohanic DNA. According to Cherson, ‘the current data suggest you are a direct descendant of a close paternal relative of R’ Eleasar HaCohen, grandfather of Tiferet Shlomo. R’ Eleasar was the chief rabbi in Vaidislaw around 1740 CE, a small town in Poland south of Katowice and Czestochowa. Tiferet Shlomo (I said I would get back to him.) was the founder of the Radomsker Hassidic Dynasty, in a town just north of Czestochowa.’ Holy moley, the Casdens, today a very un-Hassidic family, most likely have some very interesting ancestors! I shared this information with Jeremy, and, not to be outdone, he sent me a link to a YouTube video he had made, tracing part of his family a lot further back. A lot further back! (You may watch here.)
All the way from Utah…
And then I heard from Susan, all the way from Utah, of all places. She tracked me down through a DNA match that established that we are (likely) second cousins on the Jacobson side. Thanks to Jeremy, we had already established the existence of great-grandmother Zelda Allschwang and a whole slew of related Allschwangs, one of whom, Schorre (or Sarah), was Susan’s ancestor. Her son Mark was hot on the trail of our common lineage and the connections between the Jacobsons and the Allschwangs, with some Effenbachs and Michelsons thrown in for good measure. Sure enough, he had all this material from the Latvijas Valst Vēstures Arhïvs. (I love how easy it is on a Mac to add these funny accent marks). The first cover letter says:
In reply to your application please be informed that the records of the archives fond (sic) “Riga Tax Administration” – the lists of Jewish families belonging to Riga, set up in 1858-1887, 1902 and subsequently supplemented, as well as the birth, marriage and death records of the Jewish community in Hasenpoth for 1885-1905, as available at our archives, the inhabitants lists of Jewish families living in Grobin-Hasenpoth district, set up in 1893, contains the following information on the family of Max Jacobson…. Well OK then!
What was enclosed, in addition to two pages of summary information about the life and death of sundry individuals, were twenty-eight sheets, photocopies of barely legible hand-written documents in who-knows-what language, a translation into English of what those documents said, and three handy-dandy genealogical charts. If that wasn’t enough, what followed in a subsequent correspondence was ‘…the recruits’ enlistment registers of the Jewish community in Pilten for 1848, 1851, 1854,1871…’ If nothing else, these folks were thorough. Well, thorough but not always accurate – or at least needing a proofreader. As in:
‘Leiser’s relative Hirsh – son of Joseph Jacobsohn, born in ca. 1772 or 1873 or 1775… His wife Zippe, born in ca. 1877 or 1879 or 1881 (she was registered as aged 25 in ca. 1805-1806…) A good try, but come on! Or as my charming wife would tell me: Pay attention. Always good advice.
It’s Chanukah After All
So when was the last time you were there?
Sometime over the summer. Ezra and I went to see the latest Indiana Jones movie, the one that came and quickly vanished – like morning dew. No, wait, we went after that, me and Barbara, along with Ezra. And Iris joined us also. We went to see Oppenheimer when Barbieheimer was a big thing. That’s how long it’s been.
And now you went to Cinema City twice in two days?
Correct.
And you didn’t go to see a movie?
Correct.
OK, what was that about?
If you have a few minutes, I’ll try to explain.
A Leg to Stand on
A man walks into a bar, sits down at the counter, orders a beer, and puts out some bird seed for the parrot that’s sitting on his shoulder. They guy sitting next to him asks, ‘What’s with the bird?’ The man replies, ‘This is Ralph. He’s very special. I take him everywhere.’ The guy asks, ‘What does he do that’s so special?’ The man lifts up the bird’s left leg and it starts to sing, “Come to me my melancholy baby.” Then he lifts up the bird’s right leg and it starts to sing, “Way down upon the Swanee River.” They guy is suitably impressed. ‘What happens if you lift up both legs?’ ‘It falls on its face, stupid.’ (Badaboom)
After the Hagim — Part 5
I hate to admit it, Sid, but you were right, after all. (That’s one way of getting folk’s attention. Who is this guy Sid, and what was he right about? So I need to do some explaining.)
After the Hagim — Part 4
Most days, one of the first things Barbara does when she wakes up is check the news feeds on her phone. If nothing else, we’ll find out if it will be hotter than usual or even hotter than that in our part of the world. But a few days ago, she read an announcement in Ivrit that she shared with me. To honor the memory of a young soldier from our community, Yonadav Raz Levenstein, who had fallen in battle a day or two before, there would be a Civilian Honor Procession starting down the hill in Mitzpe Nevo and going through the city and continuing on Midbar Yehuda, a main road around the corner from us, until the city exit. We couldn’t figure out if that meant that people would be walking or driving. If they were walking, I figured, when they reached us, I would go down and join the march, my Israeli flag – formerly to protest, now to show unity – in hand. The procession was supposed to begin at 9AM, but, this being Israel…… Starting at about 9:30, I took my position, cup of tea in hand, by our living room window. No matter who, what, when, or where, if they came our way, I would see them. Sure enough, starting at about 9:40 I noticed a dramatic increase in vehicular traffic. Well, that answered my question. A fleet of cars, stretching for blocks and blocks came by. No way I could join them on foot. I later noticed a post on our Anglo email group that the procession wasn’t just a local affair; they were on their way to Har Hertzl for the military funeral, so of course they were driving. What I should have done was stand on the street waving my flag, paying silent tribute to the fallen soldier, as some other people did – but I didn’t think of it in time. Another small opportunity to contribute that eluded me – alas.
After the Hagim — Part 3
If anyone needs a jolt of caffeine, as well as a liberal dose of bonhomie – assuming one is within hailing distance of Jerusalem – what better place to be than Power Coffeeworks? Especially during these, shall we say, troubling times. When I arrived last week, Brandon was glowing with a sense of accomplishment as things seemed to be going his way. The municipality FINALLY, after a year and a half of half-hearted effort, finished the construction in front of the alleyway where he’s located. My concern was that he wouldn’t be able to keep roasting his beans at his borrowed roastery in the Gush, effectively putting him out of business, but he has found a way to make it work. (We don’t need to go into details; mum’s the word.) Also, it seems that he will, after all, be able to get the business loan he needs to build his own roasting facility near where they live. But the first thing out of his mouth was, I’ve been accepted into miluim.
alittlebiteast 