. GILBERT HERBERT A SHORT FAMILY HISTORY BEING AN ACCOUNT OF MY HERBERT, PAIKIN, MILLER and YERUSALIMSKI ANTECEDENTS, WITH A NOTE ON THE FAMILY OF MY

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1 . GILBERT HERBERT A SHORT FAMILY HISTORY BEING AN ACCOUNT OF MY HERBERT, PAIKIN, MILLER and YERUSALIMSKI ANTECEDENTS, WITH A NOTE ON THE FAMILY OF MY WIFE VALERIE RYAN...

2 Herbert / Ryan Archives, 8 Eder Street, Haifa , Israel,

3 C O N T E N T S Introduction 1. The Yablochniks, later Herberts 1.1 Eliezer Yablochnik 1.2 Haim Ze ev Yablochnik, later Simon Herbert 1.3 Fanny Yablochnik 1.4 Sarah Yablochnik 2. The Paikins 2.1 Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin 2.2 Shalom Yedidia (Yehudah) Paikin 2.3 Boris [Moshe Dov] Paikin 2.4 Minnie [Minna Zelda] Paikin 2.5 Golda Paikin 2.6 Sarah Paikin 2.7 Maryasha Paikin 3. Haim and Minna Yablochnik, later Simon and Minnie Herbert 3.1 The marriage of Haim Yablochnik and Minna Zelda Paikin 3.2 Emigration to England of the Yablochniks 3.3 The change of name to Herbert 3.4 The enigmatic Irish connection 3.5 The man from Trinidad 3.6 The Herberts in London 4. The next Herbert generation 4.1 The next Herbert generation: the Herberts in South Africa 4.2 Lazarus [Eliezer] Herbert 4.3 Hannah Herbert 4.4 Rachel Herbert 4.5 Hilda [Hinda] Herbert 4.6 Jack [Jacob] Herbert 4.7 Benjamin Herbert 5. The Millers 5.1 Origins of the Miller family: the Miller/Pitel conundrum 5.2 Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller 5.3 Unknown Miller 5.4 Beila Yenta Miller 5.5 Yehudah Leib Miller 5.8 Kreine Miller 5.9 Israel Miller 5.10 Lazar [Eliezer] Miller 5.11 Solomon (Sholom) Miller 5.12 Menucha Miller 5.13 Minnie (Minna Hinda) Miller 5.14 The family of David Mendel Miller 3

4 6. The Yerusalimskis 6.1 The Yerusalimskis 6.2 Eliakim Halevi Getzel and Deborah (Taube) Yerusalimski 6.3 Julius Yerusalimski, later Miller 6.4 Phillip (Lipman) Yerusalimski [Eauslinsky], later Harry Phillips 6.5 Solomon Yerusalimski [Jerusalimsky], later Miller 6.6 Hannah Yerusalimski [Erisolominski] 6.7 Nathan (Nachman Ezra) Yerusalimski [Erusalimsky], later Harry Nathan 6.8 Abraham Yerusalimski [Erusalimsky], later Miller 6.9 Israel Yerusalimski [Jerusalem], later Nathan 6.10 Rose Yerusalimski [Jerusalymski], later Miller 6.11 Joseph (John) Yerusalimski [Jerusalymski], later Miller 6.12 Simon Yerusalimski? 6.13 Summary: The Dispersion of the Yerusalimski Family 7. Solomon and Hannah Miller 7.1 Travels of the Millers: England, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa 7.2 Sophia Miller 8. Benjamin and Sophia Herbert: our immediate family 8.1 Benjamin and Sophia Herbert: my parents 8.2 Family life: the early days 8.3 Harold Hyman [Haim] Herbert 8.4 Cecil Solomon [Shlomo] Herbert 8.5 Gilbert [Eliakim Getzel] Herbert: bachelor days 9. The Ryan Family 9.1 Alexander and Agnes Ryan (born Kaplan) 9.2 Lorna Sally Ryan 9.3 Raymond Ryan 9.4 Valerie Estelle [Hava] Ryan 10. Gilbert and Valerie Herbert 10.1 Gilbert and Valerie Herbert: Marriage 10.2 Starting a family 10.3 Emigrating to Australia 10.4 Going on Aliyah 10.5 The death of our son: Barry Charles [Binyamin] Herbert 10.6 Carrying on 10.7 Margaret [Margalit] Herbert, later Boyangiu 10.8 Transition: from active careers to active retirement Conclusion Bibliography 4

5 HERBERT FAMILY TREE YABLOCHNIK PAIKIN MILLER YERUSALIMSKI later HERBERT or PITEL SHOLOM MILLER/ PITEL HAIM MOSHE DAVID YABLOCHNIK PAIKIN MILLER/PITEL ELIEZER JACOB ZE EV ABRAHAM ELIAKIM GETZEL YABLOCHNIK PAIKIN MILLER YERUSALIMSKI m. Menucha b.1825 m.sima m. Deborah Zelikman m.hinda Maryasha daughter of Joseph HAIM ZE EV MINNA SOLOMON HANNAH YABLOCHNIK m- ZELDA [Sholom] m - YERUSALIMSKI [SIMON HERBERT] PAIKIN MILLER Dvinsk1866- Vilkomir Dvinsk Dvinsk Joh burg 1942 Joh burg 1911 Joh burg 1929 Joh burg 1918 BENJAMIN [Binyamin] SOPHIA [Sima Maryasha] HERBERT - m- MILLER London 1889-Joh burg 1945 Belfast 1888-Safed 1981 GILBERT [Eliakim Getzel] VALERIE ESTELLE [Hava] HERBERT - m- RYAN (dtr. of Alex & Agnes) b.joh burg 1924 b.port Elizabeth BARRY CHARLES [Binyamin] MARGARET LYNN [Minna Liba] later MARGALIT HERBERT HERBERT Joh burg 1955-De Aar 1977 (buried Haifa) b.joh burg m- YITZHAK BOEANGIU Bucharest 1958-Haifa SHANI OSNAT BOEANGIU, b.haifa AVRI BINYAMIN BOEANGIU, b.haifa MAOR ELIMELECH BOEANGIU, b.haifa

6 HERBERT FAMILY MIGRATIONS - JOURNEYS ======== TO UNITED KINGDOM ======== TO SOUTH AFRICA ======== TO USA 6

7 HERBERT FAMILY MIGRATIONS - TIMESCALE CHRONOLOGY MAIN PLACES OF SETTLEMENT 1810 * THE OLD COUNTRY * LITHUANIA: Vilkomir, Kavarskas 1820 * LATVIA: Dvinsk, Kraslava, Rezekne BELARUS: Polotsk 1830 * Birth of great-grandparents 1840 * 1850 * Birth of paternal grandparents 1860 * Birth of maternal grandparents 1870 * 1880 * EXODUS: MOVING TO BRITAIN * Birth of parents, UK ENGLAND: London, Manchester 1890 * N. IRELAND: Belfast Emigration to SA and USA SCOTLAND: Glasgow 1900 * THE FIRST DISPERSION * USA: New York, Chicago 1910 * SOUTH AFRICA: Cape Town, Birth of my brothers, SA Somerset West, Port Elizabeth, 1920 * Johannesburg, Pretoria My birth, SA 1930 * 1940 * 1950 * Birth of my children, SA 1960 * THE SECOND DISPERSION Emigration from SA AUSTRALIA: Adelaide * ISRAEL: Make aliyah 1968, Haifa Jerusalem, Safed ] Brother, mother 1980 * Birth of my grandchildren, Israel USA: Fair Lawn, NJ ] 1990 * AUS: Sydney, Brisbane ] Nephews Melbourne Gt. niece, nephew 2000 * ENGLAND: London Gt. niece, nephew 7

8 I N T R O D U C T I O N This chronicle is a personal document, and the views expressed in it are mine only. I have tried to make it as factually correct as possible, but in a work such as this, based largely on oral history, it will inevitably contain errors and misinterpretations. I ask forgiveness for any allusions to members of the family which may be incorrect or inadvertently hurtful. I am very fond of my family, and I write with malice towards no one. I have structured this account based upon four main components: the HERBERTS, the family of my paternal grandfather; the PAIKINS, the family of my paternal grandmother; the MILLERS, the family of my maternal grandmother; and the YERUSALIMSKIS, the family of my maternal grandmother. We will see that in some cases the family names changed over time, some in Eastern Europe, others after emigrating to Anglo-Saxon countries. I know the names of my grandparents, and have learnt something of their history. However, in tracing the earlier generations of my ancestors, the further back we go the fainter the paper trail and the flimsier the information. As we shall see, the four branches of my family were interconnected in several ways: Herbert/Paikin by marriage, Paikin/Miller by marriage, Miller/Yerusalimski by marriage, and Paikin, Miller and Yerusalimski by their Latvian origin, three of them coming from Dvinsk. We don t know if the families knew each other then, but the Paikins and the Yerusalimskis lived relatively close (about 1km) to each other in Postojalaya and Podolskaya Streets in Dvinsk, and my Lithuanian grandfather as well as his sister married in this Latvian town. These families constituted the main roots uniting to form the trunk of our family tree, but as members of the family married, other peripheral branches were grafted on. Together our core families, and those who have interwoven their fate with ours, form that complex, organic union I call the clan. This history of the clan comprises biographical details, family chronicles, detailed genealogical tables and selected illustrations. The account is based largely on verbal history recorded in talks with older members of our families and interviews with our own contemporaries, over the past four decades or more. We have noted anecdotes (sometimes apocryphal) as well as facts. Only rarely have we received information in an orderly fashion from other researchers, but when we have, such assistance has been invaluable. Where possible our work has been based on documentation, but this exists in limited form only. For documentation we have retrieved some, but far from all, birth, marriage and death certificates, some in Hebrew from the rabbinate, others in English (either directly or transliterated) from official government population records. Occasionally this has been achieved through the mail, but usually it has involved innumerable hours of personal search. We have examined inscriptions on tombstones in Lithuania, England, the United States and South Africa, and have consulted the registers of many cemeteries. We have searched the British censuses from 1881 to 1911, American censuses from 1910 to 1930, examined applications for naturalization certificates in Britain and South Africa, and have culled information from commercial directories in local history libraries in London and Belfast. We have pored over passenger lists in the Public Record Office at Kew, and shipping lists in the old Cape newspapers, a task made much easier since the records have become available on-line. We also have extracted documentary references to some members of the family (including some possible relatives) in the Latvian and Lithuanian State Archives in Riga and Vilna, and have consulted the Belarus Archives in Minsk. Through the Internet we have obtained Social Security records from the USA, and have searched the web-site of the Ellis Island Immigration Center. The Internet has also been the source of maps of the diverse locations where, at one time or another, the family had settled. We have intensively searched the various web-sites of the Jewish Genealogy Society ( especially their invaluable All-Lithuania and 8

9 All-Latvia Databases. The genealogical search website Findmypast.co.uk has been useful in getting information from official United Kingdom sources, Ancestry.com provided access to American records, and Rootsweb contained South African records. The critical documents have been recorded separately, but an index of sources is included in this account. The information from these various sources, especially in relation to dates and names, is not always reliable, and often not even consistent. Memories of events long past are not always dependable. We are dealing with an unstable world, a world of boundary fluctuations and changes in national sovereignty, where national affiliations and place names change. Moreover, we are dealing at the outset with a population in a state of flux, with migrations from Eastern Europe to Britain, the USA, Canada, and South Africa; and consequently with the problems of communication with local immigration officers struggling to understand and eventually to transliterate the unfamiliar names of the immigrants. This is a generation of strangers in an alien land. Our ancestors language was not English but Yiddish, or occasionally Russian; their given names in the vernacular were not identical with their formal Hebrew names. Even back in Russia we often find members of the same family with different surnames, sometimes in a desperate attempt to circumvent the catastrophic conscription of Jewish boys into the Tsar s army. Our forefathers calendar was based as much on the Jewish festivals as on the Julian or Gregorian calendars of the non-jewish world. My mother, for instance, always cited her birthday as being the day before Kol Nidrei night. By cultural usage they sometimes gave a loose connotation, based on affection and respect for older relatives, to such kinship terms as uncle and aunt, which further complicated the task of constructing a precise family tree. The question of dates is particularly troublesome, as we rarely have birth certificates for the more remote of our ancestors. As an example, let me take the case of my paternal grandfather, Haim Ze ev Yablochnik, later Simon Herbert. Theoretically, his date of birth should not be problematic, as he is well recorded, except for the lack of his birth certificate. We have five separate dated documents, all specifying grandfather s age. I shall list these, and calculate his age accordingly, knowing that this might be adjusted if we knew the month of his birthday: Marriage Register (Dvinsk, 1875), age 23, calculated date of birth 1852 Census (UK 1891), age 33, calculated date of birth 1858 Ships Manifest (UK 1894), age 43, calculated date of birth 1851 Naturalization (Cape Province 1899), age 44, calculated date of birth 1855 Tombstone (Johannesburg 1911), age 56, calculated date of birth 1855 We are confronted here with a seven-year spread, from 1851 to In this case I shall eliminate the extremes, as both the UK records, the Census and the Manifest, had other factual errors, probably arising out of communication problems deriving from language and literacy. In choosing, I have opted for 1852, the date derived from the Marriage Register, not only because here there was no language barrier, but because a young man generally knows his age more precisely than an older one. In general, where we are confronted by inconsistencies we have adopted certain ground rules. We have generally given precedence to documentary evidence over verbal evidence, and where we are dealing with documentary evidence, we have given precedence to official documents over inscriptions on tombstones. Adherence to these rules ensures that there is some system in our work, but in no way eliminates possible errors. The one exception to this rule relates to individual and family names. Here we accept customary usage based on later documentation, as early documentary evidence, dependent on the transcription of spoken Hebrew, Yiddish or Russian names into written English by a monolingual English-speaking official usually resulted in a confusion of variants, as we mentioned above. More recently, the preparation of databases 9

10 dependent on the reading and transliteration by different recorders of hand-written names, often in Cyrillic script, leads to many problems of nomenclature. Because of the dynamics of our history, and the mobility of our families, it is necessary at this point to insert a geographic note. These comments should be read in conjunction with the maps inserted in the text. The detailed movements of each family will be noted later, but at this stage we should say something of the major areas in which the history of the family was played out. Our remarks are of course based mainly on published sources, but we have personally visited most of the cities and smaller towns in which our families lived. These pilgrimages have taken us, inter alia, to Siauliai (Shavli), Telsiai (Telsh), and Ukmerge (Vilkomir) in Lithuania; Daugavpils (Dvinsk) in Latvia; London and Manchester in England; Belfast in Northern Ireland; New York in the United States; Ste. Agathe in Canada; and Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Somerset West, Port Elizabeth, Haarlem, Oudtshoorn and Uniondale in South Africa. We have been concerned with the origins of my grandparents (Herbert/Paikin; Miller/Yerusalimski) and their antecedents, and those of my wife Valerie (Ryan/Rappaport; Kaplan/Lipschitz), which are chronicled in a separate document [Valerie Herbert: Chronicles of My Family, Haifa, 2015]. A word of caution is necessary here. When we state that a family came from Lithuania or Latvia, it should be remembered that in the 19 th century, the period of the beginning of our recorded family history, such countries had no independent existence. Once part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (comprising present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia and the northeastern region of Poland), since 1795 these areas were incorporated as regions within Imperial Russia. Seven of our eight founding families came from a relatively small geographic area in these north-west regions of Imperial Russia, embracing the provinces of Kovno [Kaunus] in Lithuania, Livland [Livonia] and possibly a foothold in Kurland [Courland] in Latvia, and the adjacent White Russian [Belarusian] province of Vitebsk. (The remaining family, Valerie's ancestors the Rappaports, came either from Volkovisk [Volkovyshki] in the Bialystok district of the province of Grodno, also in Belarus, but much further to the south-west, or alternatively from Vilkowiskis, in Lithuania. These areas of Jewish settlement in that corner of Imperial Russia our families called Lita, and they defined themselves as Litvaks. To be a Litvak had cultural, linguistic and religious connotations of a sectarian nature, as well as being a definition of location in the hierarchy of Russian administrative districts. A province (Guberniya) was an Imperial Russian administrative region comprising several districts (uyezd), and these divisions (which changed from time to time) reflected the bureaucratic convenience of the Imperial Government rather than the ethnic integrity or history of the areas concerned. In determining the locations of the home towns of our ancestors, I have relied mainly upon the sub-division in provinces shown in The London Geographical Institute s map of Central & South Russia, published in the Harmsworth Universal Atlas of c1887. While our ancestors, from a legalistic point of view, were Russian citizens, and usually referred to themselves as such (sometimes more specifically as citizens of a province such as Kovno), their preferred classification, embracing both their regional roots and their Jewishness, was undoubtedly that of Litvaks. Kovno and Vitebsk were in the notorious Pale of Settlement, where Jews were permitted to live. Penetrating as a wedge between these provinces, Kurland was on the borders of, but not actually within, the Pale. The Kovno province of Lithuania, in the heartland of the Pale of Settlement, was richly endowed with important centres of Jewish life. No less than four of our ancestral families hailed from Kovno Guberniya, and it was effectively under the administration of this provincial government that they lived their lives. In the province of Kovno is Shavli (in Yiddish, Shavl; in German, Schaulen; in Lithuanian, Siauliai). This was the home town of two of the ancestors of my wife Valerie (Ryan) Herbert: the Kaplans and the Lipschitzes. This town, a centre of Jewish 10

11 settlement since the 17th century, was at one time Lithuania s second city. From the 1850s to the end of the 19th century, the relevant period for our families, the Jewish population, occupied in trade and industry, especially the leather business, had more than trebled to about 10,000, constituting about 75% of the total population. Kovno is in Lithuania, not Poland or Russia, but, according to Michael Levitt, that has not always been the case. From 1795 it became part of the Russian empire. However, even prior to that, though part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, that Duchy was itself part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the 16th century; although initially Lithuania remained politically distinct, with a separate government within the commonwealth, latterly it was one with Poland. No doubt, all this change meant that by the nineteenth century, people in politics and government circles considered the people of Kovno and elsewhere to be Polish/Russian, since the reality was that such a thing as a Lithuanian hadn t actually existed for some centuries in effect. Shavli lay on the railway line which led to Libau (in Russian, Libava; in Latvian, Liepaja), the main port of embarkation of Jews emigrating from Lithuania to England and points beyond. Present-day Siauliai presents the sadly-familiar picture of a once thriving Jewish community destroyed by the Nazis and their Lithuanian accomplices, and its physical heritage, including the graveyard and the main synagogue, vandalized by the communists. The Ryan family also came from the province of Kovno, from a town about 50km west of Shavli, the important centre of Jewish learning, Telsh (Telz, Telschi; in Lithuanian, Telsiai), the one-time seat of an renowned yeshiva. The large red-brick building of this yeshiva still stands, derelict of course, bearing mute testimony to an ancient heritage destroyed. There are still a few tombstones standing in the vandalized Jewish cemetery, among the tumbled and defaced memorials; and among those still decipherable are two bearing the Ryan (Rein?) family name - in ר''ן Hebrew About 120 km south-east of Shavli, also in Kovno Guberniya, lies the town of Vilkomir (in Polish, Wilkomierz; in Lithuanian, Ukmerge). It was from Vilkomir, or its immediate vicinity, that my father s family, the Yablochniks (later Herberts) had originally come. In the 1880s Vilkomir had a Jewish population of some 10,000 (constituting more than 50% of the total inhabitants), engaged in commerce and crafts. There were also about a thousand Jewish farmers. It was a town with a strong community life, with a Jewish hospital, at least two synagogues and more than a dozen small prayer-houses. By the 1880s, however, many Jews had left Vilkomir. The population generally declined when the railway to Libau by-passed the town in the 1870s, and in June 1877 it suffered a disastrous fire, spurring a further exodus from the ravaged town, whose wooden houses were so vulnerable to fire. As far as the rest of my family is concerned, the main origin was the Latvian town of Dvinsk (in German, up to 1893, Duenaburg; in Latvian, Daugavpils), a town with an important Jewish community. There is either documentary or verbal evidence which suggests that three of my ancestral families, the Paikins (some of whom it would seem moved between Dvinsk and Polotsk), the Millers and the Yerusalimskis, had prior to their emigration lived in, or in the vicinity of, Dvinsk. The region, which in the past had been under German ( ) and Polish ( ) rule, was (from ) part of the Russian empire, when Dvinsk fell under the provincial government of Vitebsk. Between the wars it became part of the independent state of Latvia, only to be absorbed by force into the Soviet Union during the Second World War. (With the break-up of the Soviet empire, Latvia, together with the other Baltic provinces, Lithuania and Estonia, have once more regained their independence). Dvinsk was generally regarded in Jewish lore and historiography as being within the accepted concept of Lita, and my family perceived themselves unequivocally as Litvaks. 11

12 The River Dvina was the boundary between the province of Kurland to the west, and Vitebsk (and further north, Livland) to the east. Dvinsk, situated on the river, was a divided city, with the greater part on the east bank, and only the suburb (or satellite township) of Griva on the west. Griva was founded in the 18th century by Jewish merchants, and was once known as Jerusalem. While the bulk of Dvinsk was under Vitebsk administration, part of it (Griva) was also in Kurland, and one can envisage a great deal of commercial interaction and physical movement between the two. One could be living in Dvinsk, but traditionally, historically, emotionally, remain a Kurlander, as some of my Miller family certainly did. Moreover, the population was a mixed one. According to the census of 1897, Dvinsk had a total population of 69,489, of whom 32,639 were Jews. As such it was Latvia s second city, and rivalled the city of Vitebsk in size. It has been described as a melting pot of Litvaks, Jews from Belarus and White Russia and the descendants of early German Jewish settlers in Courland. It had significant rail links not only to the north, to the Latvian capital of Riga, but also to Lithuania, with the line to Libau running through Shavli. The town was richly endowed with Jewish institutions, including two major Jewish cemeteries (later vandalized and destroyed by the Soviet authorities), the neo-classic Choral Synagogue, and a less-pretentious but handsomely-proportioned smaller synagogue, both of which still stand, although not in use as houses of worship. Most Jews were small tradesmen, artisans and stall-holders. Amongst the economic activities of the more established Jews was the timber industry and flour milling. These activities were also the principal source of income in the smaller town of Polotsk, up-river in Vitebsk province. The records (in Family List 4936) show that by 1877 many Dvinsk families (including several members of our ancestral Miller family) had moved to the nearby town of Kraslava. By the turn of the century the economic situation of the Jewish population in Dvinsk had declined to a catastrophic extent. An account in the Russian-Jewish magazine Voshkod in July 1904 depicts an appalling picture of poverty and unemployment, and of a flood of emigration. Probably as a result of the harassment of the Jews of Russia which followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the enduring fear of conscription, and endemic economic problems, the traditional Jewish communities of Lita began to disintegrate. Many families began to emigrate to the more secure and, in their perception, more prosperous countries of the west. Amongst these were all our grandparents, and even some of our great-grandparents. From the early 1880s, they began to abandon their familiar surroundings in Dvinsk and Vilkomir, Shavli, Telsh and Volkovisk. There were alternate routes of emigration, and we cannot be sure by what means our ancestors came to England, as there are no passenger lists extant of vessels arriving from European ports. Some migrants travelled by train to the German ports of Hamburg and Bremen. The Lithuanians most likely embarked at Libau, for, as we have said, there was a rail link from Shavli to that port city, and after 1894 that port came to dominate the emigrant route. It is just possible that the Dvinskers, especially in the early days, took the main line journey to Riga, from which there was an established shipping line to England (calling on the way at Libau) a journey of 990 nautical miles. Our ancestors sailed, sometimes alone, sometimes with other members of their families, to an unknown world and, hopefully, a better life. Professor Aubrey Newman, in his paper The Union Castle Line and Emigration from Eastern Europe to South Africa has graphically described the difficulties they were likely to have encountered on the way. In this account we have followed the lives of the emigrants. Of those who remained behind we have little or no knowledge. As they lived in areas later occupied by the Germans in the Second World War, areas moreover where the Nazis found willing collaborators among the anti-semitic indigenous population, it is likely that many perished in the Holocaust. 12

13 Of those of our ancestors who emigrated, it would seem that most chose the two-to-three day journey to England, probably landing at Millwall Docks, Hays Wharf or St. Katherine s Dock adjacent to London s East End. This journey cost about 2-3, not significantly different, I am told, than the fare across the Atlantic. Conditions on board, for passengers travelling steerage, were abominable. Whether from London, or from the east coast ports of Grimsby or Hull (other destinations of the ships coming from Libau), some moved, temporarily at least, to provincial British cities, notably Manchester, where there was an important Jewish community, and Belfast, in Northern Ireland. The majority, however, settled in London, particularly in the East End, where the Whitechapel area was fast becoming a predominately Jewish-populated neighbourhood. My father s parents my grandfather Haim Yablochnik and his wife Minnie Paikin - were probably the first to emigrate to England, and while we don t know the exact date it was by no later than 1883/84, because by 1885, when their first child, Lazarus, was born, they had already settled down, and had changed their name to Herbert. They were probably accompanied by Haim s widowed sister Fanny Bendit, who came to England some time after the birth of her second child in Europe in 1881 and before January 1887, when she remarried in London. It is also likely that Minnie s sister Sarah Paikin travelled to England with the Herberts, for it was in London, in late 1884, that Sarah married Lazar Miller. We assume that three Miller brothers, Israel, Lazar and Solomon (my maternal grandfather), came to England together, but if so they split up. Isreal going first to Manchester and then to Belfast, where he was later joined by Solomon. In 1887, in London, Solomon Miller married my maternal grandmother Hannah Yerusalimski. It is doubtful if Hannah, a young single woman, had undertaken the arduous journey from Dvinsk on her own. She was probably accompanied by her brother Nachman Hershel Yerusalimski (later Harry Nathan), who by 1889 had settled in London, and had married there. In early 1891 my great-grandmother Deborah Yerusalimski a widow and her two youngest children were living with this son. It is possible that all these Yerusalimskis (including my grandmother Hannah) had travelled together as a family from Latvia to England, after my great-grandfather Eliakim Getzel had died. By 1890 my great-grandmother and all four grandparents (and some of their siblings) had uprooted themselves from their ancestral homes in Lita, and had established themselves at least for the time being in London. In London s East End, as in other centres of Jewish settlement in Britain such as Cheetham in Manchester, a strong organizational structure of religious, educational and social institutions, as well as an informal network of family and community support, provided the framework for the continuance of the protected Jewish environment of the shtetl back home. Except for the ravages of the Blitz during the war, both the physical and documentary evidence of the families British sojourn have survived to a greater degree than in Eastern Europe. Here, at least, we have located some precise addresses, and access to original documents of birth, marriage and death, although tantalizing gaps in the record still remain. Some members of the family were to remain permanently in England, while quite a few - notably the Yerusalimskis - went on to North America. Our own extensive researches on the family who settled in America (conducted by personal interviews and correspondence, but with no documentary backing), have lately been supplemented by a comprehensive family tree of at least part of the Yerusalimski family prepared by our American cousins, and one branch of the Paikin family prepared by a descendant of Yedidia Paikin, unaware of his connection to our family. Our knowledge of our American family has also expanded thanks to the resources of the Ancestry.com data bases. From the mid-1890s, however, continuing up to the First World War, our grandparents and many other branches of the family moved once again, this time to South Africa, braving the long three-to-four week journey. They were part of a mass movement which brought 40,000 Jews, the great majority of whom were Litvaks, from Eastern Europe to South 13

14 Africa in the three decades from While of course not comparable in absolute numbers, this was, in relation to the absorbing population, a higher proportion than that of Jewish immigrants to America at that time. There were two relevant centres for our family in South Africa, the Cape Colony and the Transvaal. Up to the time of the Anglo-Boer War ( ) the Transvaal was the independent South African Republic, which imposed certain conditions tending to limit immigration. The Cape, however, was a British colony, with a more liberal approach, demanding neither passport nor identity document, nor the possession of a large capital sum. Most of the family therefore stayed in the Cape Colony, some temporarily, before moving to the richer prospects of the Transvaal, others permanently. After the war, the whole country came under British control; in 1910 the various British colonies united as provinces in the Union of South Africa; and in 1936 the Union became a dominion in the British Empire, until it declared itself the Republic of South Africa in In the Cape Province, different branches of our family settled mainly in the city of Cape Town, with its old, well-established Jewish community; in nearby Somerset West; and in Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape. There were those in Valerie's family who preferred the farming areas of Uniondale and Oudtshoorn (or 'Little Jerusalem' as it was sometimes called), the centre of the booming ostrich-feather industry. In the Transvaal the main centre was Johannesburg, the emergent metropolis of the golden reef. Some of the family lived in predominantly Jewish suburbs, such as Doornfontein or Troyeville, others moved north to the middle-class suburbs, such as Berea. In every part of Johannesburg, wherever the family settled, there was always the basis of Jewish life, with a synagogue within walking distance. These dispersed centres - Eastern Europe, Great Britain, North America, South Africa - are the stage upon which the drama of our family history is played out. For our grandparents it seemed that South Africa was the final station in their wanderings in search of a home; and indeed they all found their final resting place there. More recently, however, during the troubled decades of apartheid and the traumas of transition to a new social order, the migrations of the South African family have continued, and there are now descendants of the Herberts and Ryans living not only in South Africa, but in Israel, England, Australia, Canada and the United States. 14

15 1. T H E Y A B L OC H N I K S, later H E R B E R T My paternal grandfather's family, of Kavarskas and Vilkomir [Ukmerge], Lithuania Ukmerge: Left: Former EZRA (Jewish Aid Society) Building; right: Synagogue Ukmerge: Location of Jewish communal buildings 15

16 1.1 ELIEZER (LEIZER) and MENUCHA YABLOCHNIK My great-grandparents (1) HAIM YABLOCHNIK * My great-great-grandfather m. Unknown (2) LEIZER [Eliezer] YABLOCHNIK * My great-grandfather m. Menucha Unknown (3) HAIM [Haim Ze ev] YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) * My grandfather m. Minna Zelda Paikin FANNY YABLOCHNIK, m1.nathan Bendit; m2. Solomon Weinberg SARAH YABLOCHNIK?, m. Yaakov Wapnik In order to discuss the origins of my paternal family the Herberts it is necessary to consider and attempt to clarify two problematic areas, both of fundamental importance. The first relates to the question of the original name, which I have always understood was not Herbert, and the second is the place they came from. Being realistic, I did not expect, at the outset of my research, to establish these facts beyond the early 19 th century, at the very best. We start with what was generally accepted as family history. As my father, who died in 1945 at the relatively young age of 56, was not there for me to question about the Herbert family, I depended mainly on the available sources, my mother, my father s sister, Aunt Annie Rosenfeld, and his sisterin-law, my aunt by marriage Sarah Herbert (usually known by her stage name, Sarah Sylvia), and to a lesser extent other relatives of the older generation. Aunt Annie believed the original name to have been Yablutchnik, while Aunt Sarah, consulted separately, thought it might be Yapulshnik. Given the vagaries of memory, and the inconsistencies of pronunciation, these were pretty close. Alexander Beider, the authority on Jewish family names in Eastern Europe, confirmed that the name, a variant of which was Yablochnik, was an accepted Jewish family name. It is more commonly found in the Kiev district of the Ukraine than in Lithuania, and this is born out by the large number of Holocaust victims of this name coming from the Ukraine. However, I know of no Ukrainian connection. A Russian-speaking friend confirmed that in pronunciation one stressed the first syllable. I also knew, from my grandfather s tombstone (in Johannesburg s Braamfontein cemetery) that his Hebrew name was Haim, the son of Eliezer - On two of his sons tombstones their father s Hebrew name was given.חיימ בר אליעזר more fully, as Haim Ze ev. The English name on his tombstone, however, was Simon Herbert. We shall have to account for the change of name. Yablochnik in Russian (Yablonchik) means an apple merchant. Whether this trade derivation is meaningful for our family I do not know. I have been in touch with Rabbi Raymond Apple (formerly of Melbourne but now of Jerusalem), who is the son of Haim Yitzhak Yablochnik, ben Bezalel Leib Yablochnik. Haim Yablochnik changed his name to Harry Apple on emigrating to Australia. From Yablochnik to Apple seems reasonable, but there seems to be less logic in the transformation, in our case, of Yablochnik to Herbert. The change of name probably took place when the Yablochniks moved to England, or possibly just prior to the move. We shall discuss the circumstances later, when we deal with my grandfather s story. As far as the place of origin, there was broad consensus that, like most South African Jews, we were all Litvaks, coming from Lithuania. In researching the name and place, while there were several Yablochniks in such places as the Ukraine and Poland, none matched the criteria I already had: the given name and dates of my grandfather, and his father s name. I therefore focused on Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus, whose Jews were traditionally regarded as Litvaks. These data bases produced no results whatsoever, until one day a friend and fellow genealogist 16

17 (to whom I am forever indebted) drew my attention to the list of box tax payers of Kavarskas, in the JewishGen All-Lithuania Database. This is what I found: Tax and Voters List We have confirmation here not only of the original name of grandfather Haim (Vulf in Yiddish derives from Ze ev in Hebrew, both meaning a wolf) but that of his father Eliezer (which is Leyzer in Yiddish, or Lazarus). Furthermore, we now have the name of the patriarch, my greatgreat-grandfather Haim. Kavarskas [Kovarsk], a small town about 16 km NNE of Vilkomir (today Ukmerge), the main town of the uyezd. In 1877 Kavarskas was the county administrative centre, with a population of about 1,500 souls, of whom approximately 60% were Jews. This Jewish community supported a synagogue, and employed a rabbi, Yehuda-Leib Grinshtein, and a shokhet, or ritual slaughterer. The box tax, or korobka, was a tax levied by the Government on the Jews for each animal slaughtered in accordance with the kashrut rules and for each pound of this meat sold. However, according to a JewishGen 2001 conference paper by David D. Hoffman and Vitalija Gircyte, the uses for the tax was used were expanded after 1878 to include the state rabbi, and after 1892, many other municipal services. The only other document relating to the original family name came from the Riga Rabbinate records, as transcribed by the late Christine Usdin. It is this record of the marriage of my grandfather to a 20-year-old girl from Polotsk marriage record, Dvinsk noted in transcription The bride s name is not stated, but as we shall discuss later, we know who she is, and why she was in Polotsk. This document infers that Haim Yablochnik came from the district [uyezd] of Vilkomir, rather than from the town itself, which may point indirectly to Kavarskas. And here we have a problem, for there are many indications that they were from Vilkomir. My Aunt Annie told me the family came from a town called Valkemia, a place at that stage of my investigations completely unknown to me; my grandfather in his 1899 application for naturalization stated that his birthplace was Walkemir, Govan Geberge [that is, Vilkomir, Kovno Guberniya], Russia; and Haim s sister Fanny s certificate of marriage to Solomon Weinberg, which I found much later, affirms that she is a native of Vilkomir. Apart from the tax records, and the indirect hint of a provincial origin in Haim s marriage register, nowhere is there a reference to Kavarskas. In order to try and reconcile these two seemingly contradictory narratives, we need to turn our attention to the difference between place of birth, where one is registered, and place of residence, where one lives. This was a distinction of considerable import to the Russian 17

18 bureaucracy, but of little conceptual significance to one who has left behind the legal intricacies of the Imperial system of control. Hoffman and Gircyte, in their paper explained that early tax lists provide information about where people came from and later lists, from the 1880s through the early 20th century, indicate where they are actually living (even though they may still be registered to the town in whose list they still appear. In this reading, Kavarskas, in the tax list of 1877, would be the Yablochniks place of birth, where they would be registered, but not necessarily their place of residence. At this time there was a strong trend amongst Lithuanian Jews to move from the shtetl to the more secure environment of a nearby city, with its promise of a better education, municipal services, and economic opportunities. While we cannot determine this issue in any definitive way, it is probable that the Yablochniks, though born in Kavarskas, spent their lives in Vilkomir, which in retrospect they regarded as their home town. Vilkomir and Kavarskas The box tax listing was, for me, a most fortunate find, for it provided documentation that Yablochnik was the original family name, and also gave me the name of my great-greatgrandfather, another Haim. My reasoning in equating the names Yablochnik and Herbert (already established in family lore) is based upon an identical chain of given names, the location, and the chronology. This box tax document confirmed the relationship, and that the name of Yablochnik was correct. We know that grandfather Haim Ze'ev was born c1852, which - if we figure a generation roughly as 25/30 years - puts Eliezer s birth approximately in 1825/30, and my great-great-grandfather Haim s at the turn of the century. As surnames only became obligatory in Russia in 1804, this remote ancestor Haim was probably the first in the family to take a surname, and would therefore be the very first Yablochnik. We can only speculate on this choice of name. It is also apparent that my grandfather Haim was named after his grandfather Haim. 1.2 HAIM ZE EV YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) My Grandfather, son of Eliezer and MenuchaYablochnik (2) ELIEZER YABLOCHNIK m. Menucha (3) HAIM ZE EV YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) m. Hinda Paikin (4) LAZARUS HANNAH m. Rosenfeld BENJAMIN RACHEL m. Moss HINDA JACOB In the mid-19th century Eliezer married Menucha (surname unknown). Of the children of this couple we originally had definite knowledge of only one: my grandfather Simon (Haim Ze ev), born in Vilkomir or its immediate district. Grandfather s first name, on the birth certificate of his first-born son Lazarus (born in London in 1885), was given as Hyman (the English 18

19 equivalent of Haim), but on all later official documents, first in England, later in South Africa, it is Simon (except for Rabbinate documents, where it of course remains Haim). We shall be following grandfather s history in much greater detail later in this account. Until the change of name in England we call him Haim; when he becomes a Herbert we refer to him as Simon. In view of the large families of those times, it was unlikely that Haim was an only child. There may have been other children in addition to Haim, but of these we could only speculate, as up till recently we had no hard evidence of any of his siblings. However, there were at least two possibilities, two sisters whose families were definitely closely related to my father. This family connection was strong, and was acknowledged on all sides. Unfortunately, I did not begin to explore the precise relationship until after my father and his generation had passed away, and none of the surviving members of these families had been able to establish the exact nature of the connection. I vaguely recall my father talking of the older female members of these families, of his father s generation, as aunts, and he always called their descendants, his contemporaries, his cousins. On the basis of this, for most of the long period during the research and writing of this family history, I had speculated that Sarah Wapnick and Fanny Weinberg, who I believed were sisters, were children of Eliezer Yablochnik, and therefore also sisters of my grandfather Haim Ze ev Yablochnik [later Simon Herbert]. The suggestion that they were sisters to each other came from my contemporary, Enid Bradpiece, a great-granddaughter of Sarah Wapnick. Sam Israelstam, a grandson of Fanny Weinberg, confirmed that the two families were related, but was uncertain what the relationship was. The supposition that Simon, Sarah and Fanny were siblings was strengthened when we looked at the frequent reoccurrence of names in the succeeding generations of all three families. YABLOCHNIK [HERBERT} WAPNICK WEINBERG generations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haim Haim Haim Haim Eliezer Haim Eliezer Eliezer Haim Eliezer Hannah Hannah Hannah (two) Rachel Rachel Rachel Rachel Benjamin Benjamin (three) Benjamin All this was speculation. Recently, however, as a result of a new campaign of research prompted by contact I had with Lana Lewis, a great-granddaughter of Fanny Weinberg, significant new evidence emerged which enables us now to affirm that Fanny and Sarah were not just possibly but most probably my grandfather Haim s sisters. I shall argue each case separately, starting with Fanny, where the factual evidence is convincing, before proceeding to the more circumstantial arguments in the case of Sarah. 1.3 FANNY [Feiga] YABLOCHNIK later HERBERT ( ; m1. Bendet; m2.weinberg) Daughter of Eliezer and Menucha Yablochnik (2) ELIEZER YABLOCHNIK m. Menucha unknown (3) FANNY (Feiga) YABLOCHNIK ( ), later HERBERT m1. Nathan Bendet/Bennett, m2 Solomon Weinberg (4) RACHEL LEAH BENNET (b.c.1875) m. Isaac (Leib) Lewis BENJAMIN (BENNET) WEINBERG ( ) FLORRIE WEINBERG ( ) m. isaiah Israelstam MORRIS WEINBERG (c1891-c1945) REBECCA WEINBERG (1894-c1954) m.joe Joffe 19

20 Our contention that Fanny was a sister to Haim Yablochnik is based not only upon circumstantial evidence but also upon documentation. What was once a speculative relationship, and was treated as such in all previous versions of this narrative, has lately (since December 2010) been recast in more definitive terms, as we interpret the new evidence we have unearthed. Let us discuss the significance of the documents which Lana Lewis and I have now retrieved. We know that Fanny (Feiga) was born in Vilkomir in the 1850s. The birthplace is documented in a later English record (Fanny s civil marriage certificate), but we have no Lithuanian record of the name Feiga Yablochnik, nor of her date of birth, which is uncertain. The British census makes her birthdate 1857, and according to her British civil marriage certificate, if she was 27 in 1887, then she was born in This latter date would mean that her first child was born when she was only 15, unlikely but not unknown in Eastern Europe. However, as the civil marriage certificate, as we shall see, contains so many errors, it is patently not a reliable source. From the death notice in the National Archives of South Africa (NASA) of Morris Weinberg, younger son of Fanny, we learn that Fanny had been married twice. Her two older children, Rachel (b.c1875) and Benjamin (b.1881), were issue of her first marriage, the following three, Florrie (b.1888), Morris (b.c1891) and Rebecca (b.1894), were children of the second marriage. This notice confirms the names of the spouses, and that Fanny was known as Feiga, information we had previously from family sources. Feiga s first marriage was to Bendet, her second (when she was using the name Fanny) to Weinberg. Let us follow the story of each of these marriages. The surname of Feiga s first husband was Bendit/Bendet, although at some time the family name was changed to Bennett (and by some branches to Baron). We shall use the Bendet version in our account of this marriage. There is a problem of Bendet s given name. One source (his daughter Rachel s rabbinic marriage certificate) gives it as Efraim, while a later source (Rachel s tombstone) says Nathan. Documentation deriving from the Riga Rabbinate records, and information from Stanley Baron, the great-great-great-grandson of Moshe Bendet (born c.1825) supports the latter. According to the Bendet Family Tree, Moshe Bendet was born in Vilkomir, established the family in Novo-Alexandrovsk, in the Kovno Gubernya, Lithuania, and then, in about 1860, moved from Lithuania to Dvinsk, about 20 miles away in Latvia. We know that Moshe had at least several sons, of whom two, Efraim and Nathan, naturally are of interest to us. Efraim Bendet married Mikhlia Khatzkelevna, so he is obviously not our man. However, we learn that Nathan Bendet married Feiga (maiden name unknown.) In the Riga Rabbinate records of births in Dvinsk there is the following entry: date of birth: 30/06/1878 name of father: Nota Movshovich Beidet? name of mother: Feiga name of child: Isriel - Iser Beidet instead of Bendet is not a problem, as there was obviously some difficulty in deciphering the handwritten name Bendet. As for Nota, this is a recognized diminutive form of Nathan. This interpretation is confirmed by his descendant Stanley Baron, who writes: Another of Moshe Bendet s sons was named Note (Nathan). We strongly believe that Nathan is our Feiga s first husband, which would make Efraim her brother-in-law. One might ask why Feiga, who came from Vilkomir in Lithuania, married a man in Dvinsk. However, we should recall that Feiga s brother Haim my grandfather also got married in Dvinsk, in 1875, which 20

21 was the approximate date of Fanny s marriage to Nathan. This reinforces our earlier speculation that the Yablochnik family might have spent some time in Dvinsk, before returning to the Vilkomir district. Coincidentally, there is actually a Bendet connection with Vilkomir, because both Nathan Bendet s father and his brother Shlioma were born there. Feiga s marriage to Nathan Bendet took place in Eastern Europe, probably in Dvinsk. From subsequent records we know that there were two children, Rachel Leah (1875/6-1946) and Benjamin (1881/3-1946). If our assumption is correct that Israel is a yet another child born to the couple, then his birth in 1878 falls neatly between long gap between Rachel and of Benjamin. We have no further record of this son Israel. It is possible that he died at an early age, but there are so many substantial gaps in the Dvinsk records that this cannot be substantiated. We presume that Nathan Bendet died in Dvinsk, although no record has been found of his death. His widow moved with her children to England, possibly travelling together with her brother Haim Yablochnik and his wife Minnie in the early 1880s. In London, in 1887, she married Solomon Weinberg. The civil marriage register in the General Register Office, UK, is a problematic document, especially in connection with the names, where there is considerable confusion. The groom is correctly identified as Solomon Weinberg, aged 24, a boot finisher, but his father is listed in similar fashion. When dealing with the bride and her father the confusion is twice confounded. She is named as Fanny Albert, a widow, aged 27, he as Lazarus Bendit, a fishmonger. These names were inserted by an official, because neither bride nor groom was literate in English. Albert possibly derives from Herbert (the father s name) while Bendit should apply to the bride. To reduce this chaos to some semblance of order we must resort to another marriage document. From the Office of the Chief Rabbinate, London, we received the record of Fanny s marriage, celebrated at the Princes Street Synagogue on 23 January 1887, which proved to be the turning point in our investigation. The groom, Solomon Weinberg (in Hebrew: Sholem ben Meir?), was a native of Hershnow, his address was 118 Old Montague Street/Brick Lane, and his brothers were Yitzhak, Mordechai, Lazar, and Yehoachim. The bride, Fanny Benditt formerly Herbert (in Hebrew: the widow Feiga bat Menucha and Eliahu/Eliezer not clear), had been married previously, and was a native of Wilkomir. Seeing the phrase formerly Herbert was a Eureka moment for me. 21

22 Let me summarise the evidence supporting the contention that Feiga Bendet/Fanny Weinberg was a daughter of Lazarus [Eliezer]Yablochnik, and thus a sister of my grandfather Haim Yablochnik/Simon Herbert: At the time of her marriage to Solomon Weinberg, Fanny gave Herbert as her maiden name, Lazarus as her father, and Vilkomir as her birthplace. These facts parallel those of my grandfather Simon Herbert, son of Lazarus (Leizer/ Eliezer Yablochnik), of Vilkomir. (We shall have to consider whether Simon s father Eliezer Yablochnik also underwent a similar name change between 1877 and 1887, or if the Herbert name was conferred upon him retroactively, as it were, by his descendants) Fanny declared that her father Lazarus was a fishmonger, and we know that the Herberts were fishmongers by trade, Simon in London and South Africa, his son Benjamin (my father) following in his footsteps. Then we have the question of propinquity: in 1891 the Herbert home was at 2 New Court, near the corner of Wentworth Street, in Whitechapel, and that of the Weinbergs at 66 Wentworth Street we are talking of one block away, or ten minutes walk. Their marriage took place at the Princes Street Synagogue, just three months after my maternal grandparents Solomon and Hannah Miller had celebrated their nuptials in the same synagogue: and the Millers were closely related by marriage to Minnie (Paikin), Simon Herbert s wife. In the 1891 census, when the Weinberg family was living at 66 Wentworth Street, Whitechapel, we find further details of the family. Rachel and Benjamin are listed by the name of their stepfather - whether from convenience or because they were formally adopted we do not know - and are living with the family; but there is now an addition, a half-sister Flora (Florrie) born to the Weinbergs in Eventually, from this second marriage there were three children, Florrie ( , m.isaiah Israelstam), Morris ( ) and Rebecca ( , m. Joe Joffe). The following year, on 4 September 1892, Rachel, reverting to her original name of Bendet but adapting it to Bennett, married Lewis Isaacs (later Isaac Lewis), a natïve of Bialystok, in the East London Synagogue. When my grandmother Minnie Herbert and her children travelled to South Africa in 1896, Fanny s married daughter Rachel accompanied them, as is apparent from the ship s manifest. We should point out that also travelling on the Aotea was another Weinberg family, Mrs. A. Weinberg and her 8 year old son Nathan. Very probably these Weinbergs were related to Solomon. From the Brakpan cemetery records we know that Nathan s father (and therefore the husband of Mrs. A Weinberg) was Harry Hyman (Chaim Zvi), who was the son of Natan (Nota). This means that Harry Hyman could not be the brother of Solomon, whose father as we learn from the Rabbinate marriage certificate of Fanny and Solomon was Meir. My guess is that Solomon and Harry Chaim were probably cousins, and that their fathers, Meir and Natan, were possibly brothers. As for the dates when the Weinbergs travelled to South Africa there are so many Solomon Weinbergs that it is impossible to determine which one is the relevant one for our purposes. We do however have the record of Fanny's emigration. She sailed from London on 8 June 1898 on the Ionic, bound for Wellington, and disembarked at Cape Town. Her age is given as 36, and she was accompanied by her children Benjamin (14), Florrie (8), Moss (5), and Patsy (2). Moss is Morris, but I don't know who Patsy is; this may refer to Rebecca, whose name is not listed. At this time Fanny's brother Simon and his family were in Port Elizabeth, and a few months later moved to the Transvaal. We do not know for certain when and where Fanny died. There is a Fanny (Feiga) Weinberg buried in the Braamfontein Cemetery Johannesburg in 1917, recorded as aged 67, which would put her birth date at about 1850, which is early, but correlates more or less with her age 36 on the 1898 passenger manifest, which makes her birth Unfortunately there is no stone to mark this grave. There is also a Fanny (Faiga Baila) Weinberg, born c1858, died 1939, buried in the Green Street Cemetery, Kimberley, who may possibly be our Fanny. 22

23 Rachel, as we have said, emigrated to South Africa in 1896, her husband presumably having preceded her.this family probably lived in Pretoria, as both Rachel and Isaac are buried there, which is probably why we Herberts did not know these close relatives of our father. On the other hand the Weinberg's daughter Florrie (m.isaiah Israelstam), was always referred to by my father as his cousins. This was the branch of the family we were closest to. Florrie was a frequent visitor to our home (and later to my brother Cecil s home, where my widowed mother lived). At one time Florrie lived at 63 Harley Street in Yeoville, not far from our Mitchell Street home. Of her children I knew her son Sam Israelstam, at one time a teacher of chemistry at our school, and later a Professor at my Alma Mater, the University of the Witwatersrand, and occasionally met with him. He was definitely regarded by us as our cousin. In turn he acknowledged the relationship, but was not knowledgeable about the maternal line of his family history. The Israelstams had a large family, with one of whom Sam s son Len, who came on aliyah to Israel I have had marginal contact. I do not recall meeting Fanny s other descendants in South Africa, but have a good relationship with Lana Lewis, Rachel s great-granddaughter, who is my prime source of information about the family. I have no recollection of meeting Rebecca, but her son Philip (now a nonagenarian) says he remembers the Herberts, most likely through contacts with my late brother Harold, and through my aunt, Sarah Sylvia [Herbert]. All I know of Morris is that he was unmarried, had a garage at 407 Commissioner Street, Fairview, and died in the General Hospital, Johannesburg on 8 December He is buried in West Park cemetery, where Rebecca also lies. I have no further details of Benjamin, except that he presumably lived in Johannesburg, married Beatrice Ellen Jeanes, and had two daughters (Dorothy and Fanny). He was buried in West Park cemetery in SARAH YABLOCHNIK (m. Wapnick) Daughter of Eliezer and Menucha Yablochnik (2) ELIEZER YABLOCHNIK m. Menucha unknown (3) SARAH YABLOCHNIK ( ) m. Yaakov Wapnick (4) MARYASHA (MARY) WAPNICK ( ) m.lazar Misell DINAH LEAH WAPNICK ( ) m.sam Gale ANNIE WAPNICK ( ) m1.davidow, m2.abe Gale ( ) NAOMI WAPNICK m.charles Cohen LAZARUS [Haim Eliezer] WAPNICK ( ) m. Leah Judith Shapiro GITTEL WAPNICK m1.?, m2.levy This section is based upon the assumption that Sarah was a sister of Haim Yablochnik. I have no documentary proof of this; my assumption is based on circumstantial evidence only, evidence which is convincing but not conclusive. Sarah married Yaakov (Yekke) Wapnick in the late 1860s. The Wapnicks, according to verbal evidence and some extant documents in the Kovno and South African Archives (NASA), also came from Vilkomir, the home area of the Yablochniks. In fact, in a Wapnick [Vapniek] death notice in NASA, the birth place of two of Yaakov and Sarah s children, Annie and Mary [Maryasha], is given as Valkimir, the same approximation of the name as grandfather Simon s in his application for naturalization. In the Vilkomir tax and voting records, from the year 1877 until 1914, there are numerous Wapnik (or Vapnik) families. Of particular significance is the fact that a Yankel (that is, Yaakov) Vapnik and his brother Leyba, sons of Itsko, were living in Vilkomir in Sarah and Yaakov Wapnick apparently remained in Europe (Yankel and Leyba appear again in a 1914 tax record), but their children eventually settled in South Africa. There is also a Haim Wapnik (b1901 in Vilkomir), relationship unknown, who emigrated to South Africa in My father always referred to the Wapnick daughters, especially Maryasha (m.lazar Misell in London in 1895) and Dinah (m.sam Gale in Boston), as his cousins. I know that Lazar Misell (listed as Lazarus 23

24 Mysel) travelled to South Africa in September 1898, on the Tokomaru, but do not know when Maryasha joined him, nor do I know when Dinah and Sam Gale emigrated to South Africa. We were in constant contact with both these families. Maryasha and Lazar Misell had a dairy, and their son Benjamin used to deliver the milk to our home. Dinah s daughter Sarah married Harry Kotzen. I remember a family holiday spent at the Kotzen farm in Bethal, probably in This was for us definitely a family occasion. For me, as a small child, Sarah s brother Pincus (Pinky), riding his horse, wearing a ten-gallon hat, and carrying a shotgun, my cousin the cowboy, was a hero-figure. Two other of Sarah Wapnick s children, Annie and Lazarus, had the same first names as two of Simon Herbert s children. We know that Annie was born in Vilkomir, and that Lazarus (Haim Eliezer) Wapnick, was born in the province of Kovno (which Vilkomir was located), married in Vilkomir, and emigrated to South Africa in March 1901, sailing from Southampton on the Garth Castle. The name Haim Eliezer is significant, as it relates both to my great-great-grandfather Haim and my great-grandfather Eliezer, which strengthens the supposition that Haim Eliezer Wapnick s mother Sarah was a sister of my grandfather Haim Yablochnik (Simon Herbert). It may also be significant that Haim Eliezer Wapnick s son Benjamin named his son Max Herbert Wapnick, the English version of Meier Hershel (derived however from the maternal side of the family). From the age of Sarah s children (the oldest, Maryasha, was born in 1867), she was probably older than Simon. I had at one time speculated that Sarah might be Eliezer Yablochnik s sister, that is Simon s aunt, but considering the fact that the first of Simon s children was born ten years after Simon s marriage, I have decided not to build upon this alternate line of thought. It remains a possibility, to be resolved finally only if I can retrieve more information from Lithuanian sources, or from Sarah s surviving descendants. Let us return to my great-grandparents. We have no oral testimony regarding the name of Eliezer Yablochnik s wife. There is one documentary source, and that is the Rabbinate certificate of Fanny Weinberg s marriage, which gives the names of her parents, Menucha and Eliezer (or Eliahu). The writing in Hebrew is not entirely legible, and that is why there is some doubt about her father s name, but that of Menucha מנוחה seems clear enough. There are no immediate descendants named Menucha, but Sarah s first child, born in Vilkomir in 1867, was named Maryasha (Mary), which is a possible, but unlikely, variant of Menucha. On the other hand, there are at least four Hannahs and four Rachels in the next two generations. We do not know when great-grandfather Eliezer Yablochnik died. If Sarah Wapnick was Eliezer s daughter, as we have suggested, then Eliezer s death would have been by 1877, when Sarah s son Lazarus (Haim Eliezer) was born. However, if Sarah was out of the picture it would have been between 1877 and 1885, when Eliezer s first grandson, Lazarus (Eliezer) Herbert (Haim s eldest son) was born. According to the tax records of 1877 Eliezer Yablochnik was still alive in that year. The exact timing of this birth and the compilation of the tax records is critical, for the birth must have preceded the tax record, if Wapnik hypothesis is to hold. Unfortunately, the cemetery at Vilkomir, which we visited, was desecrated by the Russians after the Second World War, removing all the tombstones. At the time of our visit we did not know of the Kavarskas connection, but we understand that the cemetery there was to all intents also destroyed. Jewish memorial in the destroyed cemetery, Vilkomir 24

25 All this speculation about my remote Yablochnik ancestors is very unsatisfactory, and our knowledge of my great-grandparents remains indecisive. We are on firmer ground when we come to deal with my grandfather Haim Yablochnik himself. In the mid-1870s he married a girl from Polotsk, Minnie Paikin. It is to this family, that of my paternal grandmother, that we now turn, before we can unite Haim and Minnie in holy matrimony, 25

26 2. T H E P A I K I N S My paternal grandmother s family, of Dvinsk [Daugavpils], Latvia, and Polotsk, Belarus Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin, parents of my paternal grandmother Jew Street [Ebreju Sela] and Synagogue, Dvinsk (Daugavpils) 26

27 2.1 JACOB ZE EV (WULF) and HINDA PAIKIN My Great-grandparents (1) MOSHE PAIKIN (2) JACOB ZE EV (WULF) PAIKIN (b.1825) * My great-grandfather m. Hinda unknown (3) SHALOM YEDIDIA PAIKIN BORIS PAIKIN GOLDA PAIKIN SARAH PAIKIN MARYASHA PAIKIN MINNIE [Minna Zelda] PAIKIN ( ) * My grandmother m. Haim Yablochnik (Simon Herbert) The family into which Haim Yablochnik [Herbert] married was the Paikin family of Dvinsk. Our understanding that the family came from Dvinsk is based not only on verbal information from many members of the family, but documentation relating to the Paikin family. According to records in the Minsk Archives, in 1869 Jacob Ze ev (Wulf) Paikin, the son of Moshe Paikin, was 44 years old, of Jewish faith, religious, had children, was literate, and from birth had lived in Dvinsk. He was an elder in the synagogue of craftsmen, and taught children Hebrew. Jacob Ze ev, also known as Wulf, was certainly resident in Dvinsk in 1876, when he appeared on the register of voters for the Douma or city council. Three children of Jacob s daughter Golda Paikin (m.bor) - Betsy, Abraham, and David Hillel were born in Dvinsk. Also, at least one of Jacob Ze ev s sons (Boris) was born and educated in Dvinsk, and all of Boris s children were born there. Boris and his family also lived for many years in the town of Polotsk, and as we shall see - my grandmother Minnie Paikin came from Polotsk to Dvinsk to marry my grandfather Haim in The name Pajkin was common in the Polotsk district, in such towns as Disna, Lepel, or Nevel, and there was a concentration of Paikins in Rezekne. On the website of the Paikin Genealogy Project organized by Elsebeth Paikin there are 15 separate Paikin families in addition to mine, but so far no connection has been found with any of them, with some possible exceptions, which we shall have to deal with. There is a frequent recurrence of given names Berka, Haim, Shmuil which suggests that several branches were related. Timber Market, Polotsk Let us speculate for a moment on the ancestors of my great grandfather Moshe. As we shall see later, one of Jacob Ze ev s grandchildren, Yudka Paikin, lived almost next door to another Paikin family, that of Haim Paikin a watchman in a Jewish school (b. Dvinsk ca.1836), the son of Aharon [Aron], and his wife Sora Dweira. I believe that this is Haim Leib Paikin, with whose descendant, Leah Hammer, I am in touch. While we have not been able to establish a relationship, the fact that Haim s family lived close to Yedidia s son Yudka is suggestive. Even more intriguing is the striking family likeness between Hilda Bor whose mother was Anna 27

28 Paikin and Haim s descendants, notably Haim s daughter Leah and grand-daughter Genya. Haim Leib s father Aron had a brother Mordechai Hershanov Paikin (b.rezekne 1817, d.dagda c1870), m. Rivka Kresla, b. c1817, daughter of Leiser. According to the Paikin website Mordechai was sometimes known as Movshi, or Moses. I believe there is a chance that this may be my gt.-gt.-grandfather Moshe Paikin. If I can prove this speculative connection it will enable me to take my Paikin line back two further generations, to Hirsh and beyond that to Faibush, b.c1750. Now a descendant of Faibush is Henning Paikin (husband of Elsebeth Paikin of Denmark, genealogist of the Paikin family). We have met, and both agree that there is a family resemblance between Henning and me. One other factor is that there are marriages between Henning s family and the Bor family, just as there are between our Paikin family and the Bors. Finally, there is an insistent repetition of names in both our families. None of this is conclusive, and the search for a positive link continues. The only photographs we have of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda show him as a patriarchal figure, copiously bearded, and her as a strong, fine-looking if rather stern-faced old lady. Jacob Ze ev was born about We do not have the dates of death of Jacob Ze'ev and Hinda, but we shall speculate that Jacob had passed away by 1898/99, when the first grandson to be named after him, my Uncle Jack (Jacob), was born; and that Hinda had passed away by 1895, when two grand-daughters were named after her. However, in the absence of any further, confirmed, information about Jacob and Hinda, let us turn to the story of their descendants. We tell the story of the first of these at some length, because it illustrates the long and complicated process by which information is uncovered. Genealogy is in a sense a detective story, in which clues are followed, and mysteries solved. 2.2 SHALOM YEDIDIA [Yehuda] PAIKIN (c ) Son of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin (2) JACOB ZE EV PAIKIN m. Hinda unknown (3) SHALOM YEDIDIA PAIKIN ( ) m1. Sheina Khaya unknown; m2. Elka Leizerovna Gurvich (4) JULIUS [YUDEL] LIZZIE [LESSA] m. Irving Vonner MAX [MOTTEL] ABRAM Shalom Yedidia Paikin The oldest son of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda was Yedidia, a man known to the family as Yedida. According to my mother, Yedidia was immersed in the study of Torah, which perhaps earned him honour in the world to come, but hardly provided an adequate income on earth. This inability to make a living perhaps was the origin of the admonition of his niece Annie Goodman (her mother was Yedidia s sister Sarah), who used to caution her children that if they did not 28

29 behave they would end up like Fette Yedida. This was my mother s belief, but perhaps the undertone of moral disapproval also derived from other sources, a possibility we shall discuss in due course. We understood that Yedidia was born in Latvia, possibly Dvinsk, although his Latvian passport describes him as a Polotsk petty bourgeois. Like other Paikins, his family emigrated to England, but eventually went to the United States instead of following their kinsmen to South Africa. As we had no direct contact with this family its history remained obscure, but with perseverance its complexities are gradually being unravelled The emerging story of Yedidia derives from a strange interaction of sources: oral tradition in the family, information from Arthur Henry Paikin in America, documents to which Irayne Paikin in England drew my attention, the 1897 census of Rezekne (Rhezhitsa) in Latvia, and the records of the Riga Rabbinate, translated by Christine Usdin. Yedidia s first wife was Sheina Khaya, the daughter of Zalmon Aron. Sheina Paikin died in Rezekne on 12 May 1887, at the age of 57. Whether there were children from this first marriage we do not know, nor when the marriage was terminated. We do have a recently-discovered record of Yedidia s second marriage (Edid Paikin, aged 28, son of Vulf, from Polotsk, to Elka Gurvich, aged 28, daughter of Leizer, from Rezekne), on 1 June The Riga Rabbinate records note that both bride and groom were divorcees. Divorce was a rare occurrence in that generation, but whether this was a factor in the implied criticism of Yedidia I cannot say. It is interesting that Yedidia married a Hurwitz (Gurvich). I shall later comment on the close relationships between the Paikin family (my father s relatives) and my mother s family the Millers. Is it just a coincidence that my great-aunt Minna Hinda Miller also married a Hurwitz? Yedidia, according to family tradition, had three children, Yudel, Lessa and Mottel. Arthur Henry Paikin, a contact in America (but at that stage not a known relative), reported that his great-grandfather Yehuda Paikin had three children, Julius, Lesser and Max. On the basis of the strong parallels between these accounts, and an insight by Elsebeth Paikin of Denmark, the doyen of Paikin genealogy, we made the tentative assumption that Arthur s Yehuda was our Yedidia, Julius was Judel, Max was Mottel, and Lesser was Lessa; and that this American family was our family. At this stage, this was a likely but unproved hypothesis. However, there was yet a further strand in this complex history, deriving from my English contact, Irayne Paikin. Irayne had briefly noted the following: the marriage of Louis Vonner and Lizzie Paikin (father Solomon) in London, in 1904; the marriage of Marks Paikin (the son of Judah) and Mary Greenstein in London, in 1908; and the death of Solomon Paikin (the father of Marks) in London, in We therefore made a further assumption: that Lizzie Paikin was probably Lesser (or Lessa), and Marks Paikin was Max (or Mottel). The question arising, however, was: who was Solomon, and how could the father of Marks be Solomon in one document, and Judah in another? Could Solomon and Judah be one and the same person? I decided to commission more research, this time in the archives of the London Chief Rabbinate. The documents I retrieved (the marriage registration of Marks, and the registration and marriage certificate of Lizzie) proved invaluable. They revealed that Lizzie (Hebrew name Lessa), born 1891 in Russia, was the daughter of Shalom Yedidia Paikin, a writer (scribe?); and that Marks (Hebrew name Mordechai), also born in Russia, was the son of Yedidia Paikin. The official registration certificate of Mark s marriage, as we saw above, gave the father s name as Judah. This information resolved the enigma of the man we once knew as Fette Yedida, and Arthur Henry Paikin knew as Yehuda. He proved to be Shalom Yedidia Paikin, also known as Yehuda (or Judah), who died in London in The facts from all three sources are thus neatly tied together; or, to be precise, nearly tied together, for one small anomaly remains. On Marks s marriage certificate it says in Hebrew that his brother s name was Yehuda. As his father Yedidia was also known as Yehuda (according to Arthur Henry), or Judah (according to 29

30 Irayne), his brother could not possibly bear the same name as their father. I assume that this was a simple clerical error, substituting Yehuda for Judel (Yudka). To round off the story, through Elsebeth Paikin we later received the records in the Minsk Archives, including the 1897 census of the town of Rezekne (Rezhitsa), a small Latvian town on a railway junction about 80km north-east of Dvinsk. This census records the presence in a wooden building on Soldatskaya Street, in the house of Breslav, apartment 3, of a Paikin family consisting of the following members: Yedid Wulfov Paikin, aged 49, born in Dvinsk, literate, self-taught, following the occupation of copying [rewriting] papers; his wife Elke Leizerovna, aged 48, born in Rezhitsa; their son Yudel, 17, illiterate, a shop assistant, born Rezhitsa; and their son Motka, aged 11, born Rezhitsa. Among other things, this information proves that Yedid Wulfov was indeed Yedidia, son of Jacob Ze ev (Wulf). There is no mention of Lessa, but she may have already left home. Strangely, according to the census, Judka (son of Yedid) is also recorded as living at another address, Ludzenskaya 67-1, in Rezekne, as a lodger in the home of his employer, Haim Getzel Hurwitsch, the son of David (another Hurwitz connection?). Hurwitsch was an elderly widower, who owned a grocery store in which Judel (Judka) was a shop assistant. It was nearby, in the same street, at Ludzenskaya 75, that as we noted earlier - Haim Leib and his wife Sora Dweira Paikin lived. Let us follow the history of each of Yedidia s children in turn. Lessa (b.c1878) was apparently the first to leave home. We next hear of her in London, where her name becomes Lizzie. In 1904 she married Louis Vonner, a Russian Jew (b.c1875), in Mile End Old Town. In 1905 a son, Jack presumably named after Lizzie s grandfather Jacob Ze ev - was born to them. The next year Louis sailed from Southampton to New York on the Philadelphia, arriving on 2 June At Ellis Island he is listed as Louis Fanar, Russian/Hebrew, from Grodno, going to a friend. On 9 December Lizzie came to join her husband, arriving in New York on the Etruria from Liverpool, accompanied by her son Jack. At Ellis Island she is listed as Lizzie Faner, Russian/Hebrew, resident of England. By 1910 they have settled in Campbell, Kentucky, where, according to the Census, the name is now Foner. Louis is listed as a cabinet maker, and the family has grown with the addition of a daughter, Annie, born two years previously in Ohio. Ten years later, in 1920, they have moved once again, with their two children, this time to Los Angeles. I have not been able to trace this family in the 1930 Census, so do not know anything of their later years. Before we come to Judel we must briefly mention that after Lessa there was a child Abram, born to Yedidia and Elka on 18 April 1880, who died seven months later, on 20 November. The story of Judel (born some time between 1879 and 1883) is complex, the stuff of legend, and rich in enigmas. We first meet him listed at two addresses at the same time, in the 1897 All- Russian Census, an incident which is in itself somewhat strange. However there is a further complication. My Latvian researcher Alexandrs Feigmanis, in a written report to me in 1993, appended a note to the entry for the Luzdenskaya address, where Judel was reportedly staying with his employer. This note states that Judel, a painter, at the time of the survey had gone to Dvinsk. This triple obfuscation of the records suggests that Judel was hiding from the authorities. Two not necessarily conflicting stories passed down the generations in Judel s family suggest a reason. One is that the young man was trying to avoid being drafted into the Czar s army, was eventually caught, and was sent to Siberia. For those of us aware of the terrible predicament presented to Jewish lads by conscription, this has a sadly familiar ring to it. The other story follows a less characteristic event in the life of a religious family: that young Judel had got a girl into trouble, and had refused to marry her when the illegitimate baby was born. In this less salubrious version Judel also ended up in Siberia, having been denounced by the irate father of the girl. 30

31 I would like to suggest another possible scenario. We have already mentioned that there were several connections between the Paikin and Bor families. Nison Bor, who had married Merka Paikin, was related to Juda Bor (b.1857), whose records show that he had been banished to Siberia. Could the Siberia story have originated with Juda Bor, and have been mistakenly ascribed in family legend to Juda Paikin? Such things happen in oral history: the Paikins were also connected to the Millers by marriage, and as we shall see later, in the legend of the drowning of Abraham Miller, that the victim eventually proved to be Abraham Bor. In Paikin folklore there follows a dramatic account of an escape from Siberia, taking the young fugitive across the breadth and depth of Europe to the Mediterranean coast, a voyage to a South Africa embroiled in the Boer War of , enrolment in the British forces, a stab wound in the neck, and eventually arrival in England. As there is no documentation whatsoever to validate this saga, I am not prepared to endorse or deny it, but confess that I have my doubts. These are reinforced by other documented events taking place in Rezekne over the same time span. On 1 January 1900 a son, Sheftel, was born to Yuda the son of Edid, and Reiza-Raitza, the daughter of Aron, of Dvinsk. Then on 2 November 1902 the same couple had a daughter, Sifra-Dveira. Given a normal course of events this would mean that Judel was in Rezekne from about March 1899, when Sheftel was conceived, till the end of 1902, that is, for the entire period of the Boer War. While it has been suggested that the circumstances were far from normal, the time-table still presents difficulties in constructing a coherent and credible narrative. The next news we have of Judel is on 7 March 1908, when he sailed from Southampton to the United States on the New York, arriving nine days later. At Ellis Island he is listed as Joseph Paikin (on the ship s manifest he is Joseph Parkins), 25 years of age, single, painter and paperhanger, a Russian national of Hebrew ethnicity. Asked to give the name and address of the nearest relative in country whence he had come, he stated: cousin Jacob Paikin, Dwinsk, Latvia. He intended going to his friend J.Birman, 6/69 Miseroli [Meseroli] Street, Brooklyn. His sister Lessa was already in America, but was probably already in Ohio, not New York. There are two questions that arise from the Ellis Island manifest. If Joseph (Judel) is single, what has happened to his wife Reiza-Raitsa and his two children born in Rezekne? We know that his daughter Sifra-Dveira married a man named Slemka Elkins in Rezekne in 1936, but have no further record of his wife or his son Sheftel. Then, who is the Jacob Paikin of Dvinsk, whom he claims is his closest relative in Latvia, his country of origin? There is no such person on our family tree other than the patriarch Jacob Ze ev, long since deceased. However, there is a Jankel Paikin (born 1857), son of Samuel and a native of Polotsk, who in 1897 lived at No.34 Podolskaya, in Dvinsk, close by to Boris Paikin, the brother of Yedidia, and thus Judel s uncle. Boris, Yedidia and Jankel all had connection with Polotsk, and were of the same generation. They were probably cousins, which would have made Judel and Jankel first cousins once removed. Some time after his arrival in New York, Judel married Helen (Anna) Slavin. From information in the 1910 Census, Helen (aged 25), of Russian origin, had been in the USA since 1905, and could speak English. On the other hand, Judel, now Julius Pikin, 30 years of age, a painter, was still listed as a Yiddish-speaker. They had been married for two years, and had a child, Charles, born in June 1909, which puts the marriage date back to between March 1908, when Julius arrived, and September 1909, the presumptive date of Charles s conception. We don t know where or when Julius and Helen first met. In 1910 they were living in 95 th Street, Manhattan. Ten years later they were still in a rented home in Manhattan. Julius had reverted to the name Joseph, and while Charles no longer appeared on the Census form, there were now four other children: Solomon, aged 11, David, aged 9, Elsie, aged 6, and the six-month old Sophia. At the time of the next Census, in 1930 the family remains unchanged, but they have moved to the 31

32 Bronx. Julius (now a widower) and his children Dave and Sophie are there in 1940, the last record I have of them. Throughout this American saga there is no mention of Julius s original family, who presumably remained in Latvia. This is certainly true of his daughter Sifra-Dveira, who in 1902, in Rezekne, married a man from Riga When Julius emigrated, Mottel, who had adopted the English name Marks (and later Max), was the only Paikin sibling who remained in England, together with his father Yedidia. About the time of Julius s departure, early in 1908, he had married Mary Greenstein, in Mile End Old Town. In July 1909 Marks and Mary, together with their year-old daughter Annie Hettie, were living in Bethnal Green, at 82a Hackney Road. A year later he was to make his own move to America. The whole family embarked on the Philadelphia at Southampton on 18 June 1910, arriving in New York nine days later. The Ellis Island document records the details of this Paikin family: Marks, 25, a cabinet maker, Mary his wife, 23, and Annie Hettie, aged 2. They were going to their brother, Mr. J. Paikin, 307 East 59 th Street, New York, who had paid for their fares. Our next record is the 1920 Census, where we learn that that they are living in New Castle, Delaware. At about that time Max Paikin applied for naturalization, and the application is more detailed than the census report. Max is a cabinet maker, and they are living in Delaware. The exact birth dates are given, Max on 27 May 1885, Mary on 19 May 1887, both in Razitz (Rhezhitse/Rezekne), Vitebsk. The children are Anna Etta (b.21 September 1908) and Elick (b.2 June 1912) the latter surprisingly does not appear on the 1920 Census. In 1930 Max, Mary and their son David are still in WilmingtonI don t know when Yedidia came to England, or whether his wife Elke accompanied him, as apart from the death notice I have no record of either of them in London. At the time of his death in 1909 Yedidia was also living in Bethnal Green, at 288 Brick Lane. His son Marks, who had been present at the death, reported it to the authorities. 2.3 BORIS [Moshe Ber/Dov] PAIKIN ( ) Son of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin (2) JACOB ZE EV PAIKIN m. Hinda unknown (3) BORIS [Moshe Ber] PAIKIN ( ) m. Dobba [Dvora] Chasa Abramova (b.c1857) (4) AFSEH HAIM HANNAH m. David Bor ABRAM [Abrassia] LASURE [Eliezer] MANYA m. Dave Pallet ALEXANDER Boris Paikin Boris Paikin was variously known as Moshe Ber or Moshe Dov (the correct Hebrew form of the name Ber), and Movsha Ber Yankelevich or Berka Wulfov (using the alternative Russian 32

33 forms of patronymic for his father Jacob Ze ev). He was probably named after his grandfather Moshe. He was born in Dvinsk where, as a boy, he studied at the Duenaburg Gymnasium. In 1873 Boris succeeded in purchasing exemption from military service. He married Doba Khasia (Dobba Chasa) Abramova, born 1857, a girl from Drissa, a town on the railway midway between Dvinsk and Polotsk. Boris was registered in Polotsk as a petty bourgeois in 1874, but was then living in Dvinsk. It is difficult to know where the principal place of residence was. All the children were born in Dvinsk, and the three boys attended the Dvinsk Jewish State School. On the other hand, Afseh-Haim attended a cadet school in Polotsk. The death of the Paikins infant son Sender in 1888 gives Polotsk as the place of residence, but Dvinsk as the place where the death was registered. Finally, Boris was listed in the 1897 census as being resident, together with his wife and remaining five children at Apt. 2, 27 Postoyalaja Street, Dvinsk, a brick and timber building with a metal and shingle roof. Boris was reputed to be one of only four Jewish advocates in Dvinsk, and this appears to be confirmed in a document held by Irayne Paikin, which describes Boris (or Barnett, as he is there referred to) as a solicitor. However, in the census he was listed as a secretarial worker (correspondence clerk), with Russian as his and his children s mother tongue. Boris remained in Latvia, and died in Riga on 30 October 1904, reputedly having been struck on the head by a criminal. One son of Boris and Dobba Chasa, Sender Alexander ( ) had died, as we have noted, in infancy in Dvinsk. Another, Abrassia [Abram] ( ), a watchmaker, who stayed in the old country, was apparently murdered at the time of the revolution of that year. He disappeared, according to one account, after his jewellery shop in Dvinsk was ransacked, and his body was never found. Dobba Chasa worked with her husband. After Boris s death she moved with four children to England, whether together or separately, I am not sure. Only one of Boris s children who came to England eventually remained there: Anna [Hannah] ( ), a book-keeper (according to the 1897 census she knew accounting and worked with her father), who married her cousin David Bor (son of Boris s sister Golda, and whom we shall discuss later) in London in The others eventually settled in South Africa. The oldest of Boris s children who eventually came to South Africa was Afseh [Haim Yehoshua] ( ), an accomplished violinist. He was inducted into the army, as a volunteer, in 1894, after having passed the examination of the Polotsk Cadet School, and served in the reserves as a musician. He studied music for a year at the Warsaw Music Institute, and was a graduate and assistant professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire. Amongst his pupils were the children of Rimski-Korsakov. He came to London probably about 1906, and spent some years playing in various orchestras, including five years with Sir Henry Wood and the Queen s Hall Orchestra. On 20 November 1910 Afseh married Bertha Liffchitz, in the Fieldgate Street Synagogue in Whitechapel. In about 1913, together with his cousin (and brother-in-law) David Bor, he formed an orchestra to play at the Colonnade, Bexhill-on-Sea. The Colonnade Orchestra specialised in light and classical music, which was much appreciated by the social elite who frequented that south coast resort. Amongst these admirers was an elderly widow, a Mrs. Alfreda Few, who on her death bequeathed the sum of 3,000 to Afseh, on condition that he play Ave Maria over her open coffin. It was on the strength of this bequest that Afseh [aged 48], his wife Bertha [46], and his three surviving daughters, Rosa [12], Miriam [5], and 2-year old Alfreda [actually named Alfreda Ethel Gertrude, after her godmother, Mrs. Few], left their home at 68 Station Road, Bexhill, and moved to South Africa, travelling on the Windsor Castle in October On the same ship were his mother Chasia [Dobba Chasa, aged 68], and his sister Minnie [Manya, aged 34], their last address being 42 Parkhurst Rd., Bexhill-on-Sea. Afseh is noted as a musical director, and his wife and sister as musicians. Afseh and Bertha s first-born child, Sonia Gertrude, had died of diphtheria in 1921 at the age of four. The Paikins settled in Saratoga Avenue, in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Doornfontein in Johannesburg, and there eventually they had a son Boris, named after his 33

34 grandfather. Nine years later Afseh died: on his tombstone was inscribed: If music be the key to heaven he is surely there. Afseh was just one of the many musicians in the Paikin and Miller branches of our family, a phenomenon I have documented in my monograph Harmonious Relations: the Genealogy of a Musical Family. The Russian Orchestra, Savoy Hotel: almost entirely a Paikin-Bor- Miller ensemble Afseh s younger brother Lasure [Lazar or Leizer] ( ) went to the Jewish State School in Dvinsk, and became a book-keeper by profession and a double-bass player by avocation. He went first to England, where in 1901, as a young man of 18, he was living with his Uncle Lazar and Aunt Sarah Miller (born Paikin) in their Brick Lane home. On 15 June 1913 he married his cousin Sophia, a daughter of the Millers, at the Spitalsfield Great Synagogue. This was the second time that the lines of these two families had intertwined. As we shall see later, Boris s sister Sarah, a Paikin by birth, had become a Miller by marriage; now her daughter Sophia, a Miller by birth, had on marriage reverted to being a Paikin. Their eldest daughter, Bella, was born on 12 February 1916, the birth being registered at St. Pancras. In March 1920 Lasure [aged 37, a musician] and Sophia [31], with young Bella, sailed to South Africa on the Llanstephan Castle, and went to live with Sophia s parents the Millers in a house on the corner of Harrow Road and Saratoga Avenue. They had three children in all, a son, Monty Woolf, and two daughters, Bella and Golda, who were both pianists. This house was not far from that of Afseh and his extended family, which included his widowed mother Dobba Chasa (who died in 1938) and until her marriage to Dave Pallet - his sister Manya [Masha] ( ). 2.4 MINNIE [Minna Zelda] PAIKIN ( ) Daughter of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin (2) JACOB ZE EV PAIKIN m. Hinda unknown (3) MINNIE [Minna Zelda] PAIKIN ( ; m. Haim Yablochnik, later Simon Herbert) My grandmother, daughter of Jacob Ze'ev and Hinda Paikin 34

35 Minnie Paikin Minnie [Minna Zelda] Paikin, the second child and oldest daughter of Jacob Ze'ev and Hinda Paikin, married Haim Yablochnik, my grandfather. We deal with the story of Minnie, my paternal grandmother, later in our account. 2.5 GOLDA PAIKIN ( ) Daughter of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin (2) JACOB ZE EV PAIKIN m. Hinda unknown (3) GOLDA PAIKIN ( ) m. Samuel Hyman Bor (4) BETSY m. Solly Spinak ABRAHAM ISAAC DAVID HILLEL HILDA m. Vincent Howard Golda Paikin Golda (born Paikin, ) and her husband Samuel Hyman Bor ( , the son of Abram) and their four children made their permanent home in England. In 1891 they were living at 54 Pelham Street, Whitechapel, with their three Dvinsk-born children, Betsy (1879), Abraham Isaac (1883) and David Hillel (1884). By 1901, by which time a new daughter, Hilda (1896) had been born, they had moved to 17 Sylvester Road, in the heavily Jewishpopulated London inner suburb of Hackney. For some reason Samuel Bor is not listed at that address, although he was still alive at that time, passing away in There was abundant musical talent in the family. Samuel Bor, one of several Bor families originally of Dvinsk (some moved later to Kraslava), was a musician by profession. Samuel and Golda Bor s older son, Abraham Isaac [Alf], was a violinist, and I have a picture of him in the Savoy Hotel s Russian Orcestra, an ensemble comprised mainly of members of the Bor and Paikin families. Abraham married Rosie (d.1938); their son Sam ( ) at the age of 18 35

36 was a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, when it was established in Sam Bor achieved recognition, first for ten years as the leader and assistant conductor of the South Australian Symphony Orchestra, then from as the leader of the Scottish National Orchestra, and conductor Sir Alexander Gibson s right hand man. He was renowned not only for his leading role in these important orchestras, but as a soloist and player of chamber music Robert Ponsoby, long-time manager of the SNO, recalls Sam playing chamber music in his (Ponsoby s) Glasgow flat with Jaqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim. While he died in Adelaide, Sam was recognised in Britain in two impressive obituaries, in the Scotsman and the Independent. Sam married twice, first in 1938 in London to Rosemary Kerrich, with whom he had three children; later, in the 1960s, after this marriage ended in divorce, he married Dorothie Sawtell in Adelaide. The younger son, David Hillel ( ), was a pianist and violinist, and boasted of being descended from a line of musicians extending over eight previous generations. As we recounted earlier, he was joint leader of the Bor-Paikin orchestra at the Colonnade, Bexhill-on-Sea. Later he was the pianist in the well-known De Groote trio. David married his cousin Anna Paikin on 10 March 1908 at the East London Synagogue. Their four children, Hilda, Margot [Marguerite Beatrice] (both pianists), Sylvia Gertrude (a cellist) and Edward (a violinist), carried on this musical tradition. David Bor s daughter Hilda, incidentally, was not only a concert pianist (she once played the Sant Saens piano concerto with the BBC Orchestra of which her cousin Sam Bor was a member - at the proms, under the baton of Sir Henry Wood) but also a music teacher, and among her pupils were Prince Charles and Princess Anne, and the children of Yehudi Menuhin. Hilda was perhaps best known for her role in organising the morale-building wartime lunch-hour concerts at the Royal Exchange, in which she frequently performed. In addition to their father, a primary source of the Bor s musical talent lay in the Paikin family, which was abundantly blessed with musicians. Not only was David Bor s mother a Paikin, but Anna the mother of his gifted children was also a Paikin. Golda s older daughter Hilda Bor ( ) married James Vincent Howard in London in late I once had the pleasure of attending a chamber orchestra rehearsal in London with Edward Bor, where I first met the Howard s son (and my second cousin) Tony Howard ( ), who was playing the violin and, if my memory doesn t fail me, also leading the ensemble. I know nothing of his personal life or career, but there is a violinist named Anthony Howard who may be our Tony - who later recorded Vivaldi Concertos with Sir Neville Marriner in the The Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields chamber ensemble. Betsy Bor, Golda and Samuel Bor s younger daughter, married Solomon Spinak, a woodcarver in a furniture factory, in Mile End Old Town in Solomon had been listed in the 1891 Census as living with his widowed mother Blume, and his sisters Hannah and Rachel, at 211 Brunswick Buildings, Goulston Street, Whitechapel. We shall see later that my Herbert grandparents had been living in the same Brunswick Buildings in 1885, where their son Lazarus was born. It is also interesting to note that next door to the Bors, at 15 Sylvester Road were two other Spinak families, those of Leon and Rose, and Charly and Bertha, both men being woodcarvers like Solomon. I can t find Solomon and Betsy Spinak in the 1901 census, but it seems that in December 1902, Solomon went to South Africa, for a Mr. S. Spinak, a married man born c.1876, a wood carver by trade, was a passenger on the Goth to Cape Town. There is no record that Betsy and their infant son, Abraham Albert, born 1901, accompanied or followed him. Solomon must have returned some time later to London, for in 1904 their second son, Jack, was born in Mile End. In 1911 Solomon and Betsy Spinak, together with their two young sons were living in 5 Abingdon Buildings, Bethnal Green. The nationality of the parents is noted as Russian. Surprisingly, their son Abraham is listed in the 1911 census not only as living with his parents, but also with his grandmother Golda, who by that time was sharing a home 36

37 with her son David Bor and his family, at 56 Bulverhythe Road, St. Leonards on Sea, conveniently near to Bexhill. Abraham (Albert) Spinak, who was living at 43 Walton Buildings, Bethnal Green, married Constance Cunliffe in the West London Synagogue in May They had two daughters, Elizabeth (b.1928), who married Gerald Dillon in 1955, and Barbara (b.1932), who married Charles Bulteel, in 1954, both marriages taking place in Preston. The Dillons had two children, Ian (b.1956) and Ann (b.1957) m. Philip Crighton, and the Bulteels four, Karina, John, David and Frankie. Albert, reputed to be a sweet and gentle man was a member of Albert Sandler s well-known orchestra playing in Bournemouth during the war, when he was killed there during an air raid. I know little about Jack, other than he was born in Mile End Old Town in 1904, living with his parents and brother Albert (listed as Aby) at 5 Abingdon Buildings, Bethnal Green East in 1911, and might have been the Jack Spinak who married Agnes Swift in Fylde, Lancashire, in I believe they had a son, Michael. Later children of Betsy and Solomon Spinak included Samuel (b.1912), also a musician, and a daughter, Florence (b From a variety of sources we know something of Sam s career. For instance it is recorded on the ship s manifest that he travelled to New York on the Queen Mary in 1950 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in which he was a first violinist when they toured America. Then there is an article in the Canadian music critic Audrey St. Denis Johnson s column The Sounding Board, published in the Victoria Daily Times, British Columbia, on Saturday, 3 October 1964: Sam Spinak studied violin initially. His teachers were four pupils of the great Karl Flesch and Leopold Auer. First lessons on the viola were given him by Lionel Tertis and subsequently he became a student of one of the greatest living violists, William Primrose." Sam s first visit to Victoria, BC, was with Mantovani in 1963, his return there the following year as the leading violist of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. A year later, Sam Spinak was dismissed from his post upon the direct instructions of the conductor, Otto-Werner Mueller. Family speculation for the reason suggested a dispute between the East-Ender Jew, as Sam described himself, and the suspected Nazi sympathies of a German in the orchestra possibly the conductor himself. On his return to England Sam performed with several of the leading British orchestras, and also gained a reputation as a fine teacher of the viola. Betsy and Solomon Spinak s daughter Florence married Arthur Rich (Arter Rajek) in Hendon in Their older daughter, Vivienne, lives with her husband Joe Sarousi and their children Sarit, Ilan & Tami in the coastal resort town of Netanya, Israel, and we keep in touch with them. Vivienne s sister Elissa, married to Schornstein, is at present living with her family in the United States. 2.6 SARAH PAIKIN ( ; m. Lazar Miller) Daughter of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin Sarah Paikin 37

38 As we mentioned above, Jacob Ze ev Paikin s daughter Sarah, my father s aunt, married my mother's uncle, Lazar (Eliezer) Miller. We shall deal with their story later, in the section dealing with the Miller family. 2.7 MARYASHA PAIKIN Daughter of Jacob Ze ev and Hinda Paikin (2) JACOB ZE EV PAIKIN m. Hinda unknown (3) MARYASHA PAIKIN ( ) m. Unknown (4) YUDEL ABRAHAM I do not know whether Maryasha Paikin remained in Latvia, whom she married, or where she and her family - she apparently had two sons, Yudel and Abraham eventually settled. She may have stayed in Dvinsk or have moved to Riga, where we know her brother Boris died in 1904, and her nephew Abrassia lived until his disappearance in Before leaving the Paikin family, I would like to introduce another, speculative, branch. Some years ago, in Israel in the 1990s, news came to us of a family of Paikins who had come from the Soviet Union to settle in Jerusalem, and we went to investigate. The grounds for our curiosity were that the newcomer, Zvi Hirsh Paikin, was a musician and composer and, as we have remarked, music is a characteristic activity of our Paikin family. The grandfather of this family, we were told, was named Moshe, in all likelihood Movsha Girshev (son of Hirsh) Paikin, a citizen of Drissa, a town mid-way between Dvinsk and Polotsk. It will be recalled that Boris Paikin s wife Dobba Chasa (a contemporary of Moshe s) also came from Drissa. Moshe later lived in Osun with his wife Esther, their son Mendel, and eight daughters. In the 1897 Census we find Mendel a soldier of the 100 th Infantry Battalion, Ostrovski regiment, in the Konstantinovskaya barracks in Dvinsk. According to our host, his father Mendel (married to Minna Stein) had four sons: the twins Michael and Abrassia, born in 1911; Zvi Hirsh ( ); and David. We should note that our Boris (Moshe Ber) also had a son Abrassia (1879-c1905). The occurrence of the names Moshe and Abrassia in both families could be significant. It seems that Mendel s family came originally from Dvinsk, and they had relatives in South Africa at the beginning of the century. There is also significance in the geographic overlaps: Dvinsk, Drissa, Polotsk, South Africa. Finally, from photographs and personal inspection, we noted a marked physical resemblance to other members of our Paikin family, especially the Bors, and between Mendel and me. Zvi Hirsh Paikin 38

39 Let us speculate for a moment. Assuming that Zvi Hirsh is of my generation, then his greatgrandfather Moshe would be of the same generation as my great-uncle Boris (Moshe Ber) Paikin, and that both of them were possibly named after a common ancestor, my great-greatgrandfather Moshe Paikin. This would make Zvi Hirsh my third cousin. 39

40 3. HAIM YABLOCHNIK and MINNA PAIKIN later S I M O N a n d M I N N I E H E R B E R T My paternal grandparents Haim Ze ev Yablochnik [later Simon Herbert] and Minna Zelda Paikin [later Minnie Herbert], my paternal grandparents. Note: the blurred photograph of Haim is taken from the locket worn by Minnie 40

41 3.1 THE MARRIAGE OF HAIM YABLOCHNIK AND MINNA ZELDA PAIKIN Let us turn for a moment from the history of the Yablochnik family to the related problem of geography. Haim s presumed older sister Sarah was first to be married, in the late 1860s, to a man from Vilkomir. However, some years later my grandfather Haim, although born in or near Vilkomir, nevertheless married the daughter of a family from Dvinsk or Polotsk. My supposition was that the marriage would have been no later than 1875 as, according to my mother, my father s parents had been married at least ten years before the birth of their first child in With new data which has recently come on line, deriving from the Riga Rabbinate records of 1875, I now have a more complete account of that marriage, the details of which are recorded as follows: noted in transcription Date: 25/06/1875 (Julian calendar) or 07/07/1875 (Gregorian calendar). Place: Dinaburg Groom: Khaim-Vulf YABLOTSHNIK, son of Leizer, age: 23, from Vilkomir province Bride: Name not stated, age: 20, from Polotzk The dowry is noted as 75 rubles, that is approximately $60, which would be about $1387 at today s value, a not inconsiderable sum. The fact that the bride is not named is not problematical, for all the known facts match that of Minnie Paikin. The Paikin family, my grandmother s family, had roots not only in Dvinsk but also Polotsk. According to Belarus records Minnie s brother Boris (Berka), a resident of Poltsk, had moved to Dvinsk, and was living there in 1874, a year prior to Minnie s marriage. It is likely that Minnie had accompanied her older brother when he moved. In 1877 Haim appears as a tax payer in Kavarskas. Either the young couple had moved back to the paternal home in Lithuania after the wedding, or they remained in Dvinsk, but were registered in Kavarskas. If the Yablochniks had lived in Dvinsk for some time, they had to find some employment. Many members of the Jewish community of Dvinsk found their livelihood in its large fruit and vegetable market, and it would be a pretty conceit to think that the Yablochniks (the apple merchants ) had come, at least for a time, to settle there. The market place, Dvinsk There is also an interesting question, to which we have no answer: where and how had they met? Grandfather Haim was from Lithuania, while his in-laws, the Paikins, were from Latvia (with connections to Belarus). This might possibly have been a shidduch, an arranged marriage, 41

42 but according to my mother Haim and Minnie were very much in love. We do not know if the Yablochniks were in any way connected, by kinship or friendship, with the Paikins However, we should note that the marriage was witnessed by one Mordukh Matlin. Now, according to the Soundex system Matlin and Modlin are variants of the same name. We shall see later that the Modlin family, on at least two occasions, was connected by marriage to my mother s family the Millers, who in turn were connected to the Paikins. This could be a further strand in the intricate web of relationships which characterized the links between my father s and mother s families. 3.2 EMIGRATION TO ENGLAND OF THE YABLOCHNIKS For many years after their marriage, my grandparents Haim and Minnie Yablochnik were childless, Minnie being unable to conceive. Because of the great love he bore her, Haim refused to consider divorce, although according to the custom of observant Jews childlessness was considered sufficient grounds. In fact, this may have been the reason for Yedidia Paikin s divorce, for there is no record of any children from his first marriage. In the early 1880s Haim and his wife Minnie emigrated from Russia to England, and settled in the East End of London. Records of arrivals in English ports from Europe were not kept, but they would have come some time between 1882 (they do not appear in the 1881 census) and early 1885, when the first known record of the family in England gives the date of of birth of their first son, Lazarus (Eliezer), as December In London, a miracle had occurred: after the pain of ten barren years, Minnie at last fell pregnant. As all other records (census, ship manifest) state that Lazarus was the first child, and his sister Hannah the second, we have accepted 1887 as her probable date of birth. To date we have not been able to find a record of birth to confirm this. A Hannah Herbert was born early in 1882 in Bethnal Green, but this is unlikely to be ours, as it would reverse the accepted order of the Herbert children, and would make the date of arrival of my ancestors in England earlier than thought. We have speculated that Haim s father Eliezer Yablochnik had died some time around 1877, presumably in Lithuania. This accords with my mother s understanding that my grandfather had come to England without his parents. It is possible that Haim s widowed sister Fanny and her two children accompanied him. The Herberts: from Libau Emigration Station to St. Katherine s Docks, London 3.3 THE CHANGE OF NAME TO HERBERT In London, Haim Yablochnik changed his name to Simon Herbert. The first documentary evidence of a change of name comes in 1885 from the birth certificate of their eldest child, my uncle Lazarus, when his parents are listed as Hyman and Minnie Herberd. At this time my grandfather was illiterate in English, and had signed the birth certificate with an X, so the spelling of the name was a transcription by the clerk of a verbal report. On my father s birth certificate, in 1889, his parents are Simon and Minnie Helerbert, and on the short version the 42

43 unclear hand-written name might possibly be Hlerbert. We assume that these are misspellings, for which my grandfather must take some responsibility, for he actually signed the certificate, albeit in an uncertain hand, and the signature seems to read Helerbert. Presumably the pronunciation of the letter H was difficult for an East European. There is no letter H in Russian (the nearest equivalent being the letter G), and there was a tendency to confuse the Latin letters L and H, and this would have naturally given rise to further difficulties in pronunciation. The Russian clerk who issued my visa to Russia in 1996 spelt my name Helbert. The 1891 British census and all subsequent official documents, including my grandfather s naturalization papers, give the family name as Herbert. We shall use the name HERBERT from this point onward, even when it might be anachronistic How did grandfather settle on the very English name of Simon Herbert? The anglicization of Haim s first name underwent two transformations: first from Haim to Hyman, and then to Simon. The adoption of a new surname is more difficult to account for. According to family tradition, there was a Jewish family already living in London, who had assumed the name of Herbert. Apparently it was from this family that Haim and Minnie took the name of Herbert. There are very different theories which might give a clue as to the identity of this family in England, who were to play such a significant role in our history. We shall deal with one account briefly, before turning to other hypotheses. This account relates to an unknown person (possibly a family member) who had a fishmonger's shop in or near Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane), where my grandfather, then a man in his late 20s, went to work. That grandfather from his London days followed the trade of a fishmonger was a documented fact, which might have given rise to this supposition. We do not know what Haim s original occupation had been back home, but have pointed out the connection between the name Yablochnik and the business of the apple-dealer. However, it is possible that he had been a fishmonger in Latvia, for the Sventoji River, the longest river that flows entirely within Lithuania, passes through both Vilkomir situated on both its banks and Kavarskas, Haim s home towns. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that Haim s sister Fanny, on her wedding certificate, states that her father Lazarus (Leizer) was a fishmonger. Incidentally, a neighbour of the Herberts, at 5 New Court, was a 26 year old widow, Leah Isaac, whose occupation is given as a fish dealer, and from our account of Fanny Weinberg we have learnt of a possible tangential connection with an Isaacs/Lewis family. There is incidentally another Isaacs family who were fish dealers: this was Nathan Isaacs, who from 1881 to 1901 lived at 61 St. Peters Road, Mile End Old Town, not far from Ada Nathan and my grandmother Hannah Miller, at no.58. Was there a Jewish fishmonger named Herbert in Whitechapel? Examining the trade directories and censuses I tried to identify such a connection, but without success. There was a John Herbert (wife, Emma) who was listed as a fishmonger at 108 Bakers Road, Whitechapel, in the 1880s and 1890s. It is doubtful, however, if this was a Jewish family, as one of John Herbert s sons was also named John, which is contrary to Jewish custom, at least for Ashkenazim. There was another John Herbert living in the area, who might have been Jewish (his wife's name was Leah, and one of his sons was Solomon), but his occupation is listed in the 1891 census as 43

44 porter. That my grandfather was a fishmonger in London is likely, but this does not appear to be the source of the family name. We must search for a more probable origin. 3.4 THE ENIGMATIC IRISH CONNECTION I have explored another explanation of how we came by the name of Herbert. There are still Jewish Herberts living in Northern Ireland (with connections in London). Although we have been unable to trace any direct relationship, there are some interesting possibilities upon which I would like to speculate. Lazar Herzberg of Tukums, in Kurland, Latvia, married Jennie, surname unknown. They had two sons, Aaron ( ) and Joseph ( ). Joseph moved to Britain, eventually settling in Lurgan, a small town not far from Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the early 1880s, and took the name of HERBERT. He was accompanied, or was possibly joined later, by his mother Jennie ( ), and also by his brother Aaron (m. Jennie Rebecca Furst) and his nephews Abraham and Leo (Lazar), all of whom adopted the name Herbert. My family (ex-yablochniks) is obviously not directly related to these Herberts (ex-herzbergs); but we could possibly be related to the older Jennie Herbert (maiden name unknown). There are at least two possible scenarios. The first is that Eliezer Yablochnik s wife was a Herzberg, and Lazar Herzberg was her brother. The second is that Lazar Herzberg s wife Jennie was a Yablochnik, and Eliezer Yablochnik was her brother. In other words, according to either scenario, Eliezer Yablochnik and Lazar Herzberg were brothers-in-law. When Haim Yablochnik came to England, and sought a new anglicized name, he naturally turned (in this scenario) to his nearest relative, his aunt Jennie Herbert, adopted her name, and thus became Hyman (later Simon) Herbert. I have no proof whatsoever of this theory, and the likelihood that it is correct is remote. 3.5 THE MAN FROM TRINIDAD I come now to the hypothesis which seems to me the most promising account of the origin of our name Herbert. In my youth there was an elderly widow, a Mrs. Herbert (aged 84 at the time of her death in 1946), then living in Palace Buildings, Johannesburg, with whom my father remained in contact, and who was an occasional visitor in our home. She had married, in London, into a Herbert family, and was therefore probably connected to us by marriage. My father certainly considered her to be a relative. I recall her talking of her son, Ralph, who was or had been an officer in the British Army, and of another Herbert (her late husband) who had some connection with Trinidad, in the West Indies. When I became immersed in family history I began to speculate that this was a possible origin of our family name. This exotic source of our family name was intriguing, but alas there was no documentary evidence to support it. However, my enquiries from the London Rabbinate brought to light a marriage certificate of one Meyer Hime [Haim] Herbert (born in Russia, the only son of Reuven Dov), to Amelia Scharfmesser (born in Galicia). I am convinced that this Amelia was the old lady we knew, although she was buried in Johannesburg under the name of Mildred Herbert. Such name transformations frequently took place: as we shall see below, my own grandmother Minnie is listed on more than one document as Amelia, and Amelia Eusalinsky on one census is Millie later on. Significantly, it was noted on the Rabbinate document that the groom was from Trinidad, West Indies. In their civil marriage certificate the name of Meyer Hime s father was given as Reuben Woolf Sterren Herbert, then deceased. They were married in London on 12 September 1880 by Rev. B. Berliner, the Minister of the St. John s Wood Synagogue, the ceremony taking place in the home of the bride, 59 Boundary Road, St. John s Wood, a lodging house run by her widowed mother. In this document the bride s age is given as 21, which creates a small, but not critical, discrepancy with the information recorded on her death. In the official registry document the occupation of Meyer was given as Merchant. This 44

45 fact was confirmed by a document I later received from Hans Stecher, of the Jewish community of Port of Spain. This is an extract from The Trinidad Almanack of 1879, showing a half-page advertisement reading: M. H. Herbert, General Outfitter, Gentlemen s and Ladies Hosier, Importer of British and Foreign Goods. This business, entitled The West End Store, was situated at the corner of King and Chacon Streets, Port of Spain. The Trinidad Herbert's business, 1879 To return to the marriage registry document: here Meyer s age was given as 41, and his London address as 13 Albany Street, Regents Park. From a marriage announcement in the Jewish Chronicle further information came to light. Meyer Herbert, of Port of Spain, Trinidad, was the only surviving son of the late Hon. Reuben Douve Sterren Herbert of Krupyan Castel, Lithuania. This supports the Rabbinate document, which gives Reuben s second name as Dov, rather than Woolf (Ze ev), as appears in the civil registry. It also raises some questions. I can find no trace of a town called Krupyan Castel. However, there is a town (or shtetl) called Kraupenai (a variant is Kroupyani) just over a mile from the town of Baleliai in Lithuania, which is less than 10 miles from Vilkomir, and even closer to Kavarskas. In other words, it is on the Yablochniks home turf. Our assumption is that Kraupenai was a nobleman s estate, and that Reuben Herbert was an official of sorts (possibly a steward, or castellan) at this minor court. This would explain both the name of Krupyan Castel and the appellation the Hon. attached to Reuben s name. My Lithuanian sources can give no suggestions as to possible local significance of this term; it may of course simply be a translation of the Hebrew Reb Reuven. As I have no further information about Meyer Hime s origin and background I have been unable to prove his speculative relationship to our family. However I have recently discovered another clue which at the time of writing I am pursuing, in the hope that it will elicitate further information, and thus throw more light on the origin of our family name. The 1911 British Census records the following family, living at 7 Amber Street, Leeds, Yorkshire: 45

46 Herbert, Reuben, head, M, age 31, b.1880, tailors machinist, gents coats, b.russia Herbert, Rachel, wife, F, age 28, b. 1883, b.russia Herbert, Leah, daughter, F, age 9, 1902, school, b.russia Herbert, Harry, son, M, age 7 mths, 1911, b.leeds There are many parallels between this Reuben Herbert and that of Meyer Hime Herbert, whose father and first-born son were both named Reuben. They were contemporaries, they both came from Russia, and they were both in the tailoring business. It is unlikely that this is just coincidence, especially given the rarity of Russian immigrants having (or taking) the name Herbert. It is a reasonable supposition that they were related. We suggest one such possibility, which follows Jewish naming patterns: Meyer Hime says he is the only surviving son of the patriarch Reuben Ze ev, which means that at one time he had brothers. The Reuben Herbert of Leeds could be the son of one of these brothers, that is, Meyer Hime s nephew. We are left with the problem the original source of the surname Herbert. On the face of it, it seems unlikely that the name in Lithuania was originally Herbert, as this is not usually considered a Jewish name, and where it does occur is in the spheres of Britain or Germany, often as a given name. It could just possibly have been taken over from Reuben s supposed patron at Krupyan Castel, if he was originally from a Teutonic family. However, while there are few if any records of Jewish Herberts in the Eastern European data banks, there are several Gerbert and Gelbert families. Now we know that there is no letter H in the Russian language, and when transliterated by Russian speakers it is usually replaced by the letter G; hence for example the name Hirsh often appears in the transcribed records as Girsh. From this we can read Gerbert as equivalent to Herbert. One of the Gerbert families listed in the 1885 Lithuanian Revision Lists is of particular interest. The head of this household is Vulf Gerbert, born c1834, son of Girsha. Vulf and his wife Itke at that time had two sons (Gerts and Leyzer) and two daughters (Blyuma and Dreyze). Consider the names Vulf (Woolf, Ze ev) and Leyzer (Eliezer), and relate them to my great-grandfather Eliezer and my grandfather Haim Ze ev. Although of different generations, this coincidence of given names suggests a possible link between this family and my Yablochnik family. It also provides a precedent for Reuben s name really being Herbert. The possible connection of three separate Herbert families is interesting. The coincidence in nomenclature is supported by geography. At the time of registration, this Gerbert family was living in the small town of Lygumai, but originally came from Vabalninkas. Both Lygumai and Vabalninkas are in Kovno Gubernya, the province in which Ukmerge, Kavarskas and Kroupyani are located. We are left with the more likely supposition that Meyer Hime s father Reuben Herbert was the descendant of a Yablochnik, but that he changed his name to Herbert. If we accept the hypothesis that Reuben could have changed his family name from Yablochnik to Herbert, then Meyer Hime Herbert could well have been related to my grandfather Haim. We assume that grandfather Haim Ze ev Yablochnik was named after his paternal grandfather Haim, the father of Eliezer Yablochnik. Could it be that Eliezer Yablochnik and Reuven Dov/Ze ev (Herbert) were brothers, and as both my grandfather and the man from Trinidad were named Haim they were perhaps named after a common grandfather? If this supposition is correct (but so far, we have been unable to prove this connection) we have the following table. (1) HAIM YABLOCHNIK (2) REUVEN DOV (or ZE EV) YABLOCHNIK, later HERBERT (3) MEYER HAIM HERBERT (2) ELIEZER YABLOCHNIK (3) HAIM ZE EV YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT 46

47 On 13 January 1882 the following notice appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of London: Birth the wife of Mr. H. Herbert (nee Amelia Scharfmesser), of Trinidad, W.I., of a son (repeated in the London Standard on 16 January). At first, I assumed from this notice that the Herberts had returned to Trinidad shortly after their marriage (an assumption supported by the fact that they did not appear in the 1891 British census), and that their son was born there. However, after intensive searches carried out in the Port of Spain records, there is no record of such a birth. On further consideration, the brief announcement in the Jewish Chronicle could be read in another way, that while the residence of the Herberts was in Trinidad, the birth had actually taken place in London. A further search has borne this out, and we now have the British birth certificate, which reads that Reuben Moses Whitfield, son of Meyer Hime Herbert (a merchant) and Amelia Herbert (formerly Scharfmesser), was born on 10 January 1882, at 2 Chiswick Cottages, Chiswick (an outer suburb of London), in the county of Middlesex. Reuben and Moshe are the names of the child s paternal and maternal grandfathers. The birth was registered by the mother Amelia, who gave her address as Trinidad, West Indies. If these Trinidad Herberts had in fact been in London in 1882, it then became possible for my grandfather to have made direct contact with them when he arrived in England. I do not know how long these Herberts remained in England, for shipping records from England are available only from The next record we have is of M.H.Herbert embarking at Southampton on the Orinoco for Trinidad on 14 October 1891, unaccompanied by his family. I find no mention in the 1891 census of this Herbert family, but ten years after the birth of their first child they were again in London, for according to an announcement in the Jewish Chronicle of 19 February 1892, another son was born to the Trinidad Herberts. Their address was given as Clarendon Villa, Disraeli Road, Baling, WI, a West Indian residential address, but again, the birth took place in England, for according to a notice in the National Archives of South Africa (NASA) this son, Edward David Asher Herbert, was born in Brentford, an area of London adjacent to Chiswick. On 28 September 1892, Meyer, his wife and infant son (together with a nurse) travelled from Southampton, again on the Orinoco. Where their first-born son, now 10 years old, was at this time possibly at a boarding school, in Trinidad or England we do not know. Our next record of Meyer Hime and his family finds them in South Africa. It had always been my assumption that Amelia had come to live in Johannesburg (I never thought to ask why) after her husband Meyer had died in Trinidad. I have lately had occasion to re-examine that assumption in the light of new information sent me by a distant relative, Lana Lewis, who has been researching the family of her ancestor Fanny Weinberg. It appears that not only Amelia but both Meyer and his son Reuben also emigrated to South Africa. We have no information of when or why they made this move, for they had apparently been well-established in Trinidad. We have no relevant shipping details for Meyer Hime, but Amelia was possibly the Mrs. Herbert and son (Reuben or Edward?) who sailed on the Mexican from Southampton for the Cape on 18 August Another possibility is that Meyer and Amelia are the Mr. and Mrs. Herbert who travelled on the Nineveh on 9 October The ages are not quite right, but Mr. Herbert is listed as a dealer, which fits. Meyer Hime died in Johannesburg on 2 January 1916, and was buried in the Braamfontein cemetery, where Simon Herbert (his presumed cousin) was interred just five years previously. As recorded in the Jewish Chronicle of 18 February 1916, a ceremony commemorating his death was held in Hampstead. There is no stone marking this grave. His death notice records his address as 69 Sherwell Street, Doornfontein, and his occupation as tailor. The only other record we have of Meyer is his inclusion in the Sefer Prenumeranten of the book The Generations of Beth Yosef, a call up to the Torah in accordance with ritual practice... by Rabbi Hayim Yosef Isser Gad (son of Rabbi Yitz hak Arye Halevi of blessed memory), born in Kovna and then living in Johannesburg. This reference to Meir Herbert is problematic. Our Meyer Hime died in 1916, and this book was published in Either the reference relates to another Meir Herbert in Johannesburg and 47

48 we know of no such person or it is a tribute to his memory, made either by his son Reuben, or, as is more likely, by his widow Amelia. The Herberts older son, Reuben Moses, lived at 33 Stanley Avenue, Vereeniging, a town some 40 miles from Johannesburg. He married twice; first to Daisy Ivo (who died in Vereeniging in 1913), and there were two children from this marriage, Dulcie Ethel (m. Champion) and Eric Allister Hampden Herbert; then to American-born Lilian Emma Lea-Mason ( ), and they had a daughter, Rosemary Amelia, born Reuben Moses died in the Vereeniging Hospital on 16 November It is from Meyer Hime Herbert s death notice (a document usually filed where an estate is concerned) that we have gained much of the information cited above. When compared with a death certificate, the names, dates and family relationships contained in a death notice are usually supplied by a member of the deceased s family, and can be a rich source of information. In this case, it also casts light on how family names can change as they adapt to a new environment. In this document Meyer Hime Herbert s name appears as Martin Henry Herbert (this version of his name also appears in the Jewish Chronicle announcement), his son Reuben Moshe Whitfield Herbert is now Ralph Maurice Whitfield Herbert, Meyer Hime s father Reuben becomes Ralph, and his mother, of whom we had no previous record, is listed as Mary. It is likely that this information was provided by the son, rather than the widow, as it seems from the names of his wives and children that he was distancing himself from his Litvak roots. The name Ralph is not a problem. Amelia, when we knew her, always referred to her son Reuben by the more English-sounding name of Ralph; and the son, knowing that he was named after his grandfather, would probably have felt comfortable in transferring that name back to his ancestor. The name Mary for a Litvak is more unusual, but originally could well have been the Hebrew Miriam, or the Russian Maryasha, a name which occurs in the Wapnick family, a collateral branch of the Yablochniks/Herberts (Maryasha Misell, nee Wapnick), who is called Mary in a NASA document. The death notice gives the name and date of birth of Meyer Hime s second son, but no further details. Thanks to the initiative of Lana Lewis, we now have his obituary, in the Journal of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of August 1963, from which we learn that Sir Edward Dave Asher Herbert, M.A., born 12 February, 1892, died 28 April, 1963, had a distinguished military career in the First World War, which earned him an OBE and Croix de Guerre. Subsequently, as a mechanical engineer, industrialist, and director of companies his professional career was equally spectacular. After the war he was in South Africa, returning to England in He was in South Africa once more in 1923, and until 1926 was active in business there on his own account, before returning once more to Britain. His masterly administration of large industrial undertakings led in 1939 to his appointment as Managing Director of Trinidad Leaseholds at the request of the Air Ministry, and on their behalf a refinery was constructed at a cost of 18 million to produce high octane fuel. In this way, the Trinidad connection was reestablished. In 1960, when Edward was visited by his niece Rosemary, he was living at West Leake Manor, near Loughborough. He died in 1963, and was survived by his widow Jean, and a son and daughter, but we have no record of their names. To sum up: I believe it is reasonable to presume the validity of this source of our family name. My father s acknowledged kinswoman, the old Mrs. Herbert, and her son Ralph; the Trinidad connection; and the traditional repetitive naming patterns; all this makes for a convincing case. The probabilities are great that our family name Herbert derives from this connection. The fact that Meyer Hime Herbert came to live in Johannesburg at the time that Simon s family was there, before the First World War, strengthens our belief that there was a relationship yet to be proven - between that family and ours. 48

49 3.6 THE HERBERTS IN LONDON Simon and Minnie Herbert had six children, Lazarus [Eliezer] ( ), Annie [Hannah] ( ), Benjamin [Binyamin] ( , my father), Ray [Rachel] ( ), Hilda [Hinda] (b.& d.1895), and Jack [Jacob] ( ), all except the last having been born in London. When the Herberts first child, Lazarus, was born, in December 1885, they were living at 96 Brunswick Buildings, Whitechapel. This was located in Coulston Street, notorious for its association with Jack the Ripper. By the time my father was born, on 16 August 1889, they had moved to 2 New Court (later renamed Corea Court), Whitechapel. In the census of 1891 the name Simon Herbert appears for the first time, as far as I know, in an official document. 2 New Court: Census 1891 The Herbert family, still resident at New Court, already comprised Simon, his age incorrectly given as 33 (instead of 39), a fishmonger; his wife Amelia (was this an anglicized version of Minnie or Minna, or had the English enumerator misheard the Yiddish-accented reply?), aged 35; and children Lazarus, aged five, Hannah, aged four, and Benjamin (my father), aged two, all the children having been born in the Spitalfields district. New Court was just off Middelsex Street, better known as Petticoat Lane, renowned for its street market. It is my understanding that Simon s fish shop was located there. At this time the East End of London was populated mainly by Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe. It was a poor working class district, but endowed with those institutions religious, educational and social supportive of a rich and vibrant Jewish communal life. Brunswick Buildings, Coulston Street 49

50 Petticoat Lane, looking down Coulston Street towards Brunswick Buildings and Wentworth Buildings (on the right) The Herberts fifth child, Hilda [Hinda], born in London on 8 July 1895, died of scarlatina a few months later, on 4 November. While I had never heard my father or my aunts mention this child, I have traced both her official birth certificate (Hilda, daughter of Simon and Minnie Herbert) and the rabbinate death certificate (Hinda, daughter of Hyam Herbert) which proves her brief existence conclusively. We recall that the child s maternal grandmother s name was Hinda. The address on both certificates is given as 32 Norton Folgate, a street later renamed Shoreditch High Street. However, 32 High Street, Norton Folgate, was the address of Grandma Minnie s sister Sarah and her husband Lazar Miller - their son Henry was born there on 15 January so it would seem that the Herberts and the Millers were then living in the same house. The circumstances surrounding the birth and premature death of Hinda have implications on the emigration of the Herbert family, as we shall see below, when we follow the story of Simon, Minnie and their children in South Africa. 50

51 51

52 4. T H E N E X T H E R B E R T G E N E R A T I O N The children of Simon and Minnie Herbert in South Africa Manifest, s.s. Aotea: Minnie Herbert and her children, passengers to Cape Town, 1896 Towns in South Africa where Herbert family settled: Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg 52

53 4.1 THE NEXT GENERATION: THE HERBERTS IN SOUTH AFRICA (2) ELIEZER YABLOCHNIK m. Menucha Unknown (3) HAIM [Haim Ze ev] YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) m. Minna Zelda Paikin ( ) (4) LAZARUS HERBERT ( ) HANNAH HERBERT ( ) m. Natie Rosenfeld BENJAMIN [Binyamin] HERBERT ( ) * My father RACHEL HERBERT ( ) m. George Moss HINDA HERBERT (b/d 1895) JACOB HERBERT ( ) The Herberts emigrated to South Africa in the mid-1890s, when my father was a young lad. According to my grandfather s naturalization application of February 1899, he had been in the Cape Colony for five years, which would have made his emigration to South Africa date from There is in fact a record in the ship s passenger list of the Methven Castle, bound for South Africa, of a Mr. S. Herbert (a foreigner ) embarking at Southampton on 19 November The stated age of this passenger is given as 43, just about Simon s presumed age, and his occupation that of a miner. This is the description was almost automatically given to most of the male passengers, many of whom were in fact Cornish tin miners; the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, and later gold on the Witwatersrand, had turned South Africa into a new El Dorado. I do not know why he left England, or chose South Africa as his new home, and perhaps the designation of Simon s occupation as miner was more an expression of anticipation than reality. As with so many other Litvaks who emigrated to South Africa, hoping for a better life, Simon showed great courage in pioneering the family s move to this far-off unknown land. Simon travelled to South Africa alone. We will recall that the Herberts daughter Hinda (who died in infancy) was born in July 1895, which means that the earliest date of conception of the child would have been in October It is possible that when grandfather set sail for South Africa he did not even know that he and grandma had conceived another child. It was common practice at that time for the man of the family to set out first, to establish a base for his family in the new land, and to earn sufficient money to pay for their passage. In her husband s absence, Minnie and her four children moved into the house of her sister Sarah Miller (born Paikin), at 32 High Street, Norton Folgate. There the child Hinda was born, the birth being registered by Minnie (not Simon); and five months later it was there that the child succumbed to scarlatina. We can only imagine how hard it must have been for grandmother Minnie to experience these traumas of birth and death without the support of her husband. On 5 August 1896, after the year of mourning, Minnie and her four surviving children, Lazarus (aged 10), Hannah (9), Benjamin, my father (7) and Rachel (5) accompanied by Simon s recently married niece, Rachel Isaacs - embarked in London on the Aotea, whose ultimate destination was New Zealand, and some weeks later disembarked at Cape Town. The Aotea, after discharging passengers in Cape Town, left the same day for Hobart, without continuing to the other South African coastal ports. Simon, as we shall see, was probably then living in Port Elizabeth; whether he had come to Cape Town to meet them, or whether they trans-shipped to Port Elizabeth, we do not know, but the family at last were reunited. These were long, arduous journeys, especially for passengers travelling steerage, without the relative comfort of private cabins. It was made harder by the fact that our family observed kashrut, meaning that on the whole they had to cater for themselves. Many of those travelling steerage, our family amongst them, were originally immigrants from Eastern Europe, and were labelled in the passenger lists 53

54 as foreigners. It should also be noted that on the passenger list grandma s name was given as Mrs. A. Herbert, which is the second time that we have come across an allusion to the name Amelia. The vessels were not large: the Methven Castle, for example, was a ship of only 3750 tons, with the Aotea at 4916 tons not much larger, despite being on the long haul to New Zealand. Simon had set up in business in Port Elizabeth as a fish merchant, plying the trade he had worked in, in London. On 1 February 1899, after at least three years residence in Port Elizabeth, Simon applied for naturalization as a British subject - surprisingly, he had not done so when living in England - and this was granted on 10 March

55 The following is a transcript of the document: SIMON HERBERT, 1 February 1899, at Port Elizabeth Birthplace: Walkemir, Govan Geberge [that is, Vilkomir, Kovno Guberniya] Russia. Age next birthday: 44 years; Occupation: Fish Merchant Place of residence: Port Elizabeth; Length of time in Colony: 5 years; Refs. a) sig. unclear; Warshavsky? S.A. Ice and Mineral Water Works, P.E. has known Simon for 3 years. Simon has now [ ] left for the Transvaal with the intention of staying there. b) E. Eliasov, 3 years Application Ref: CO vol. 8567, ref.22, 1899 Approved 10 March 1899 [ref. no. 3/348] As we see, three weeks after making the application it was noted by one of the witnesses that Simon had left for the Transvaal with the intention of staying there. This was despite the attestation in the application that Simon intended to remain in the Cape Colony. It would appear that their youngest son, Jacob (Jack), was born in Port Elizabeth in 1898, during the reunited family's relatively short stay in this Eastern Cape city. The timing of the move to the Transvaal was unfortunate, for at the end of 1899, after the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, most of the British families living in the Transvaal, by now an enemy country, fled or were expelled. One of my father s most vivid memories was of his evacuation to Cape Town by train, together with many other British children, travelling the thousand-mile journey in cattle trucks. He was then about ten or eleven years of age. He may possibly be one of a long line of children on the platform of Park Station, in the photograph (now in the Kaplan Institute, Cape Town University) recording this historic event. Back in Cape Town, Simon once again started a fishmonger s business. Some years later the Herberts returned to Johannesburg. I have not determined the precise date, but it must have been between 1902, when my father celebrated his barmitzvah in Cape Town, and 1908, when we have a photograph of Uncle Bertie and his fiancée Sarah inscribed Johannesburg My grandparents settled, I recall being told, in Wolhuter. Simon, Minnie and their five children were to spend the rest of their lives in Johannesburg. In 1911, my grandfather Simon died, and was buried in the Braamfontein Cemetery, Johannesburg. The copy of his death certificate, which I acquired in 2001, was filled out very inaccurately, stating that he died of philhisis pulmonium (probably phthisis, or pulmonary tuberculosis), and that he was a fish manager (instead of fish monger) It also raised a real problem, when it stated that Simon lived on the corner of President and Market Streets. For most of their length these are parallel streets, but they eventually converge, and at the point of intersection are crossed at right angles by a street called Wolhuter Street. The township of Wolhuter lies to the south-east of the centre of Johannesburg, while Wohluter Street at the intersection of Market Street is in Newtown, to the south-west. Both areas were mainly working-class districts, but which of the two was grandfather s address I cannot determine. Possibly it was the latter, not only because of the information on the death certificate, but because at this time there was a far heavier concentration of Jewish immigrants here than in the Wohluter district to the east. Newtown was the location of the large fresh produce market, including the stalls of dealers in fish, conveniently adjacent to the Kazerne goods yard, where fish arriving by train from the coast, packed in ice, would arrive in Johannesburg. According to Leible Feldman s The Jews of Johannesburg the Jewish community of which the Herberts had now became a part was ethnically homogeneous but culturally and linguistically divided, between the Yiddish-speakers and those who had acquired the English tongue and mores. Simon and Minnie had been in England since the early 1880s, and I assume they could 55

56 reasonably be described as Anglo-Saxon Litvaks. My father and his siblings, as well as my mother, were British-born, and although they could speak Yiddish, English was the native tongue of our family. After the death of my grandfather my grandmother Minnie lived on for a further sixteen years, usually with her daughter Annie Rosenfeld. However, as grandma was an observant Jewess, and Aunt Annie did not keep a kosher home, Minnie, seeking a more congenial Jewish environment, would spend important Jewish holidays such as Passover, the New Year and the Day of Atonement with her sister Sarah Miller, in her house in Saratoga Avenue - the same sister with whom she had shared a home in London in We shall return to the story of my father at the end of this chapter. But it is necessary to put him into the correct family context, so at this stage we shall briefly discuss his brothers and sisters, and their families. 4.2 LAZARUS [Eliezer] HERBERT ( ) Son of Simon and Minnie Herbert (3) HAIM [Haim Ze ev] YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) m. Minna Zelda Paikin ( ) (4) LAZARUS HERBERT ( ) m.sarah Goldstein (Sarah Sylvia) (5) ABRAHAM YEHUDA HAVA LAURENCE Lazarus Herbert and Sarah Goldstein, 1908 Simon and Minna Herbert's oldest child, Lazarus ( ), who was named after his grandfather Lazarus [Eliezer] Yablochnik, was usually called Bertie (short, of course, for Herbert). He had his barmitzvah in 1898, possibly in Port Elizabeth, before the family moved for their short and ill-timed first stay in Johannesburg. In 1908, after the Herberts had returned to settle in Johannesburg, he became engaged to, and then married an immigrant from London, Sarah Goldstein (1890/1-1976), who under the name of Sarah Sylvia became a very well-known actress of the Yiddish theatre in South Africa and overseas. Recognition of her talents came early when, in 1905 as a fifteen-year-old, she played her first major role as the heroine in Goldfaben s Shulamis. She together with another local teenager, my mother s cousin Dora Nathan - had joined Waxman s touring company for its season of performances of plays and operettas in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Incidentally, Waxman s musical director was Max Weinbrenn, who much later was my violin teacher. At first Bertie had a dry-cleaning business, which Sarah ran, in the Johannesburg suburb of Denver. As we shall see, Denver was the location of his sister Ray s hotel. The course of the marriage did not run smoothly, and after the birth in 1910 of their first child, Abraham, Sarah at the suggestion of the Waxmans - returned to London, taking little Abe with her. In London 56

57 she worked with the renowned actor Maurice Moscovitch, became his leading lady in 1911, and in 1912 played opposite Moscovitch in his Yiddish production of The Merchant of Venice. I am not a Yiddish-speaker, but I did see her in an English-language drama, Arthur Miller s Death of a Salesman, and was most impressed by her professionalism and talent. From reports her role in the English-language The World of Sholom Aleichem was equally outstanding. Bertie followed Sarah to England, at a date unknown to me. We do know that Sarah gave birth to a baby girl, Hava (Eva) in 1911, in the London district of Fulham. The child unfortunately died at an early age, which probably explained why she was listed as unnamed in the birth register. In July 1913, Bertie sailed from Liverpool to Buenos Aires on the Araguaya, accompanied by his three-year-old son Abraham. In the manifest he is somewhat surprisingly described as a fish dealer, his family s trade for some generations, but not one he is known to practice. What the purpose of this journey was, and how long he stayed in Argentina is not clear, but we have a picture of him back in London in about In this photo he is in army uniform. I have no proven details of his military service, but there is listed a Private L. Herbert who served in the Middlesex Regiment in the Great War. Lazarus (Bertie) Herbert in London, WW1, c.1914 The family apparently spent the war years in Britain, where a second son, Laurence, was born in Fulham in In April 1920, sailing on the Edinburgh Castle, Sarah Herbert, listed as Mrs. S. Herbert, her occupation theatrical, returned on her own to South Africa. Bertie followed in February 1921, on the Norman. His occupation was listed as a Theatrical Manager. It seems that the family was breaking up, for Sarah later returned to England, from where, in February 1927 she embarked at Liverpool on the Highland Laddie for Buenos Aires, followed in October on the Darro by Laurence, a mere lad of eight. I understand that Sarah spent several years in Buenos Aires, which, according to Michael Terry, experienced a golden age of Yiddish theater in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the second city of the world history of Yiddish theater. Eventually she returned to Johannesburg, where she became a household name in the world of Yiddish and English theatre, both as an actress and an impresario. Before we discuss each of Bertie' s children my cousins in more detail let us sum up the complicated movements of Bertie and his family, as far as we can trace them: 1910: Abraham, the first son, born in Johannesburg. Sarah and Abraham sail from Cape Town to London Bertie sails from Cape Town to London 1911: Hava, only daughter, born in London 1913: Bertie and Abraham sail from Liverpool to Buenos Aires 1914: Bertie back in London, in army 1919: Laurence, second son, born in Fulham 1920: Sarah sails from London to Cape Town 1921: Bertie sails from London to Cape Town Sarah returns to London from Cape Town, date unknown 1927: February, Sarah sails from Liverpool to Buenos Aires 1927: Laurence sails from Liverpool to Buenos Aires 57

58 Abraham Herbert Abraham Yehuda ( ), (Abe, or Alfred), Uncle Bertie s only child to live in South Africa, inherited the genes of both his father and mother. Like Bertie, he was fond of the horses, and for part of his career practised as a bookmaker under the name of Captain Alf. His more creative side, and his attachment to show business, obviously came from his mother. He might have been a feckless entrepreneur with a taste for gambling, as one report put it, but he was to play an important role as an impresario in the development of black music in South Africa, a considerable achievement during the apartheid period. It was the first time in history, the same report notes, that a white audience could witness black Africans perform on a stage. Many well-known black stars were in his shows, including Dolly Rathebe (taught to sing Yiddish songs by my Aunt Sarah) and Miriam Makeba, later internationally known, who first made her name when she began an 18-month tour of South Africa with Alfred Herbert s musical extravaganza, African Jazz and Variety. I did not have much contact with this cousin who had more in common with my musician brother Harold but on one memorable occasion, when on the Southern Cross from Australia to South Africa for a home visit we found Abe and his whole troupe travelling on the same vessel. I did have an opportunity to consult Abe s daughter Doreen (m.gerassi), and we had a frank and useful discussion about family history. I also met his son Leon, a lawyer, by chance, when one year we were both visiting Cape Town. The other son, Laurence ( ), was an intriguing figure in our family history, around whom many legends (some probably apocryphal) were woven. I never knew him, so am dependent on the stories I have heard. He was reputed to be something of a chancer, not always on the right side of the law; but nevertheless a charismatic figure attractive to women. He was married nine times, or so we are told, and reputedly remained on good terms with all his ex-wives. One of Laurence s sons I believe was named Napoleon, surely the most prestigious name on the Herbert family tree. Family folklore suggests that Laurence was actually fathered by an eminent actor on the Yiddish stage, but there is no proof of this, and Bertie officially acknowledged him as his own son. My uncle was apparently cast in a different mould to that of his brother Bennie, my hardworking, conscientious father. My father might enjoy an occasional game of solo [whist] with friends but Bertie was a compulsive gambler, and the uncertainties of his profession - which saw him oscillating between states of relative affluence and financial embarrassment - was one of the contributory factors to the uneven course of his marriage, which eventually resulted in separation and ultimately divorce. Unlike his more settled siblings, the life of Uncle Bertie s family was less stable, and was played out in three locations: Johannesburg, London and Buenos Aires. Based on verbal evidence, some suppositions, and incomplete documentation, we have tried to establish some sort of coherent pattern. There were times when Bertie, on his uppers, stayed with us, and I still have a memory of my father recounting how, upon leaving to catch a tram to work early in the morning, he met his brother, resplendent in his tuxedo, 58

59 returning from an all-night session of chemin-de-fer. Uncle Bertie died in I remember going with my brother Harold to the Turffontein Race Course and paging his son Abraham (Alfred), in order to inform him of his father s death. Uncle Bertie is buried in the Brixton cemetery, Johannesburg. 3 HANNAH HERBERT ( ; m. Nathan Rosenfeld) Daughter of Simon and Minnie Herbert (3) HAIM [Haim Ze ev] YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) m. Minna Zelda Paikin ( ) (4) HANNAH HERBERT ( ) m.nathan Rosenfeld (5) OLGA m1.alf Bass M2. Seeff MARJORIE m.phil Levy NORMAN HERBERT Hannah (Annie) Herbert (m. Rosenfeld) Simon and Minnie s second child was Hannah, or Aunty Annie, as we always called her. She married Nathan Rosenfeld ( ), a Rumanian Jew, who had a mineral-water bottling business in Johannesburg. Uncle Natie had a fine, if somewhat pedantic, turn of phrase, and a dry sense of humour which he retained well into his nineties. I have tried to trace his background with modest success. I assume that his family first came to England, before moving to South Africa. There was a Rosenfeld family living in Poplar in 1901, which was probably that of my uncle. In the 1901 Census the head of that family was Esther, whose husband, it was noted, was abroad. There were four children, of whom the two older children, Nathan (b.1883) and Rebecca (b.1885) were Rumanian-born. The date of birth of Nathan supports the assumption that this was my Rosenfeld family.this family travelled to South Africa on the Norman in September 1902, probably to join the father. Aunt Annie was an attractive woman, always well-dressed and softly-spoken, who aspired to a social niche more elevated than that of her older brother, the gambler, or of my father, the hardworking and not very well-off fishmonger. To be frank, these social aspirations did not always endear her to my cultured but unpretentious mother. Relationships generally between my mother and my father s family were always proper, but never especially warm, which must have distressed my affectionate father. The Rosenfelds lived in Fellside, near Orange Grove, in Johannesburg, in a house on a triangular site, probably on Forbes Street, and with a large shaded verandah lush with hanging ferns. On the infrequent occasions on which we visited them when I was a child, my most vivid memories were of a tram-ride down Louis Botha Avenue, the tram clickety-clacking along a special track much like a railway line, complete with gravel ballast between the sleepers. There were three Rosenfeld children, closer to my brothers age than to me: my cousins Olga (m1.bass, m2.seeff; ), Marjorie (m.levy; ), with whom I always maintained contact, and Norman Herbert Rosenfeld ( ), whom I hardly ever saw. The family has dispersed in recent years, and sadly we have lost touch. Olga s son Denton later lived in Australia, and Marjorie s daughter Wendy a 59

60 friend of my niece Hilary went to America. There her daughter Lisa married a Rabbi Benchimol, another instance of the younger generation returning to their Jewish roots. Natie Rosenfeld, with Marjorie, Annie and Olga Marjorie was the most helpful of my cousins, when it came to providing information about the family, but that information was sadly limited to her immediate family, the Rosenfelds. In response to my probing the relationship between the Herberts, the Wapnicks and the Weinbergs, I received a cry of desperation in the form of the following delightful little poem: Dear cousin Gilly You re driving me silly Why can t you relax And stop searching for facts? It s really no joke To keep looking for folk Who perhaps may be On that family tree! Was HAIM FLO S brother? Then who was her mother? And could a YABLOTNIK Have married a WAPNICK? If the accent is nasal Could MISELL be MAISEL? Should HERBERT read FEINBERG Or do I mean WEINBERG? Maybe I can t spell Those strange names very well, Or the surnames have changed... I m completely deranged. 4.4 RACHEL HERBERT ( ; m. George Moss) Daughter of Simon and Minnie Herbert (3) HAIM [Haim Ze ev] YABLOCHNIK, later SIMON HERBERT ( ) m. Minna Zelda Paikin ( ) (4) RACHEL HERBERT ( ) m.george Moss (5) ALBERT MORRIS DAPHNE HILDA m. Jacobson

61 Rachel (Ray) Moss, born Herbert, and George Moss My father s younger sister was Rachel, usually called Aunty Ray. She married George Moss ( ), of an established Anglo-Jewish Liverpool family. I visited this family in 1950, and was received with warmth and friendship. George Moss, possibly the passenger by that name, a grocer, who came to Cape Town from Liverpool on the Suevic in December 1902, was nearly twenty years older than Ray, and had reputedly been first attracted to Ray s older sister Annie, but the marriage by all reports was a very solid and happy one. My memories of Uncle George are inevitably compounded of the smell of his ever-present pipe, and the image of this quiet man sitting in his corner, tamping down the tobacco in the bowl. Aunt Ray, as I recall, was unsophisticated and somewhat naive in her manner and speech. The Mosses were the proprietors of the Station Hotel at Denver (a south-eastern suburb of Johannesburg), where our family every Christmas Day joined them for a festive lunch, to the obvious pleasure of my father, but in retrospect I suspect somewhat to the discomfort of my more religiously observant mother. I cannot speak for my older brothers but I, at least, as yet untroubled by such Jewish niceties, and not always aware of family undercurrents, loved these ritual gatherings, not least for the flaming brandy-soaked Christmas puddings with their imbedded sixpenny pieces. Uncle George died in 1951, and his widow moved to Orange Grove, presumably to be nearer to her sister Annie; she passed away twelve years later. There were two Moss children: my cousins Albert Morris ( ) who emigrated to the USA, and Daphne Hilda ( ; m. Morris Jacobson, a graduate of Arcadia, the Jewish Orphanage in Johannesburg). Albert and Daphne, as well as my cousin Norman Rosenfeld, served in the South African forces in Second World War. Albert was a business man, as was my brother Harold, which gave them interests in common, but the stronger bond between them was a passion for the game of bowls. Daphne was a swimming instructor, and gave lessons in the pool in her garden. Albert and his wife Helen, together with their two daughters, Jillian and Marion, moved to America. Daphne and Morris had three sons: George Michael, Roy Jack, and Denis Charles. Daphne Moss, with her uncle Bennie Herbert Albert Moss 61

62 4.5 HILDA [Hinda] HERBERT (July-November 1895) Daughter of Simon and Minnie Herbert. Named after her grandmother Hinda, who by then presumably was no longer living, the young Hinda died in infancy of scarlatina. As we explained earlier, the birth and death occurred in London, after my grandfather Simon had left for South Africa. 4.6 JACK [Jacob] HERBERT ( , unmarried) Son of Simon and Minnie Herbert Jack (Jacob) Herbert Jack (Uncle Jackie, or Yankel, as he was affectionately called) was the only Herbert child born in South Africa. He was presumably named after his maternal grandfather, Jacob Paikin. As a boy he had suffered from the disease we knew as St. Vitus s Dance, and as a consequence had a facial tic and was rather slow-witted. Perhaps because of these incapacities he never married; but he was blessed with a sweet if somewhat temperamental nature. He had served in the German East Africa campaign as an under-age soldier in the First World War, and enlisted once again in the Second World War, serving this time only in South Africa. In this capacity, he did not experience the heat of battle, but probably had the best-polished boots of any soldier in the Allied armies, an attribute of which he was inordinately proud. He died suddenly just after the end of the war, while still in uniform, and was buried in the military section of the Westpark cemetery. Graves of my Uncles and Aunts: Lazarus, 1942 (Brixton Cemetery); Annie, 1968; Ray, 1963; Jack, 1945 (Westpark Cemetery) 62

63 The wedding of Olga Rosenfeld and Alf Bass: A rare group photo of my Herbert relatives: my brother, aunt, uncle, and 5 first cousins Jack Herbert Harold Herbert Albert Moss Norman Rosenfeld Daphne Moss Olga Rosenfeld Marjorie Rosenfeld Annie Rosenfeld 4.7 BENJAMIN HERBERT (b. London d. Johannesburg ) Son of Simon and Minnie Herbert What was the origin of my father s name, Benjamin? It is common in the Wapnik and Weinberg trees, where as we have seen there are five Benjamins, but the chain of Yablochnik ancestors Haim, Eliezer, Haim Ze ev does not include another Benjamin. However, there is a historic link between the names Benjamin and Haim Ze ev, for Ze ev in Hebrew means Wolf, and the wolf was the biblical symbol for the tribe of Benjamin. Binyamin [Benjamin] Ze ev is a common Jewish double name. 63

64 Benjamin came to Cape Town with his mother and his siblings, joined his father there, and accompanied him on his peregrinations, which brought him to Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and back to the Cape. We have noted that Simon, in Cape Town after the Boer War, had returned to the fish business, the trade he had entered into in London, and had practised in Port Elizabeth. However, nothing could have differed more than the conduct of his business in Petticoat Lane, and his method of trading in Cape Town. In the Cape he would buy, not from a central market such as Billingsgate, but directly from the fishermen returning with their catch. In this he was assisted by my father, now a child of about 11 or 12, who would sleep on the beach at Muizenberg, to await the arrival of the fishing boats at dawn. According to family lore, a coloured family, who ran a dry-cleaning business or laundry, adopted the young lad, and cared for him. The need to help his father make a living, coupled with the constant moving from place to place - at this early age he had already lived in London, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Cape Town - had conspired to rob my father of the joys and opportunities of childhood. Before moving to South Africa little Benjamin may possibly have had a year or two at the Jewish Free School in Bell Lane (which his older brother Lazarus entered in 1894), and his subsequent education was minimal. In South Africa he had been a proud member of the Jewish Lads Brigade: as Saron and Hotz explained in their book The Jews of South Africa, by November 1898, there were sufficient young Jews, immigrants and South African born, to make a Jewish Lads Brigade possible. He continued with his Jewish education until his barmitzvah in 1902, which was celebrated in Cape Town, perhaps at the Old Shul in the Gardens, but possibly at the newly-established Roeland Street Synagogue of the New Hebrew Congregation, set up largely by refugees from the Transvaal. Eventually, as we have seen, the Herberts returned once more to the Transvaal, some time before Our knowledge of our family in the years in Johannesburg prior to the Great War is somewhat hazy, lacking documentation. My belief that my father Benjamin, or Bennie as he was always called, once again went to work, is based on speculation rather than documentation, but is entirely consistent with what I know of the family circumstances, his previous history, and his character. Whether he once again worked with his father Simon as a fishmonger or independently I do not know, but we can be sure that he carried a fair share of the weight of the family on his shoulders, for while he was not the oldest son, he was by far the most responsible and stable of the Herbert boys. My grandfather Simon died in 1911, and was buried in Johannesburg s Braamfontein Cemetery. Braamfontein Cemetery, Jhb., 1911 At the time of my grandfather's death in 1911, my father was a young man of 22, now with a widowed mother and two younger siblings. For a while he worked as a steward on the railway from Johannesburg to Waterval Boven, in the Eastern Transvaal; but he eventually returned to the occupation he knew best, the fish business. With his widowed mother living with the 64

65 Rosenfelds, Bennie moved into rooms of his own; and in 1915 he was living at 7 Lancaster Buildings, Johannesburg. In Johannesburg Bennie met up with Sophia Miller, whom he had known since childhood, and had last seen as a teenager at his barmitzvah in Cape Town. Their friendship began to deepen, and Bennie sent Sophia a studio portait of himself, suitably if somewhat formally inscribed on the back. On 14 July 1915, in Johannesburg, my father married Sophia Miller. Before we can recount that romantic story, however, it is to the story of my mother s family, first the Millers (her father s family) and then the Yerusalimskis (her mother s family), that we must now turn. 65

66 5. T H E M I L L E R S My maternal grandfather's family, of Dvinsk (Daugavpils) and Kraslava, Latvia Sima Maryasha Miller, my mother s paternal grandmother 66

67 5.1 ORIGINS OF THE FAMILY: THE MILLER/PITEL CONUNDRUM SHOLOM * My great-great-great grandfather father of (1) DAVID MILLER/ PITEL) b.1803 * My great-great-grandfather (2) ABRAHAM (ABRAM) MILLER (1820/21-c1875) * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha unknown (3) UNKNOWN, m. Baruch Raizon BEILA YENTA, m. Haim Maisels YEHUDA LEIB KREINE, m.eliahu Ber Modlin (or Hirsh Leibowitz Modlin) ISRAEL LAZAR [Eliezer] SOLOMON [Sholom] MILLER ( ) * My grandfather m. Hannah Yerusalimski MENUCHA, m. Israel David Pitel MINNIE [Minna Hinda] m. Zalman Hurwitz (2) DAVID MILLER b.1835 m. Lea Yenta unknown BEILA ROKHA [Rivka] m. Avsei Aronovich Modlin BARUCH YOSEL HINDA SPECULATIVE SIBLINGS (2) AHRON PITEL, b.1818 (3) YOSEL PITEL (2) HIRSH PITEL, b.1819 (3) DAVID PITEL My mother s paternal grandparents were Abraham (Abram) and Sima Maryasha Miller, of Dvinsk [Daugavpils] in Latvia. If my great-grandfather David (b.1803), the father of Abram, was the first Miller, then subsequently for approximately two hundred years this family Miller has been the accepted name of this branch of our family. From our very first documentation of the family, recorded in the Jewish Families of Dvinsk Database on the JewishGen website, (Fond 4936, in the State Historical Archives in Riga, established in 1876 and subsequently updated, originally compiled for the purpose of establishing liability for tax and/or military service, ) the name of identifiable members of our family is always given as Miller (sometimes transcribed as Meller). MELLER Dovid Scholom MELLER Abram Dovid ( ) Died To Kraslava in 1877 To Kraslava in 1877 Daugavpils Daugavpils Daugavpils Daugavpils MELLER Leiba Abram Daugavpils Daugavpils I interpret this extract from the Data Bank as follows: Leiba is Yehuda Leib, my grandfather s brother; Abram is Abraham, my great-grandfather; Dovid is my gt.-gt.-grandfather; and Scholom is my gt.-gt.-gt.-grandfather, after whom my grandfather Solomon and in turn my brother were named. In the Database, with its transcription of names originally handwritten in Russian Cyrillic, the name is transliterated as Meller, but we shall use our accepted family variant, Miller. However, it is believed by several branches of our Miller family including various descendants of my grandfather s siblings Yehuda Leib, Minna Hinda, and Lazarus - that the original surname was not Miller but Pitel. According to Alexander Beider s A Dictionary of 67

68 Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire, the name Miller or Meller was common in Dvinsk. The name is derived from the Yiddish term for the occupations of miller or dealer in flour, while the name Pitel, or Pitlyuk, also frequently found in Dvinsk, curiously enough relates to the milling trade as well, deriving from Pytel, a machine for sifting grain. We have found no documentary evidence of this change of name from Pitel to Miller, and although both names appear in the Dvinsk records, we have not been able to establish any firm correlation or linkage, apart from two separate instances, one relating to my grandfather s sister Menucha, the other to his sister Kreina. The following extracts from the Riga Rabbinate list of births in Dvinsk confirm this Pitel-Miller relationship. The evidence we have that Pitel was once the name of our family is the listing of Abraham Miller s daughter Kreina (m.modlin) on the Rabbinate records of the birth of two of her children as Kreine Abramova Pitel, that is the daughter of Abraham Pitel, not Abraham Miller. 09/10/1891 Girsh Leibovich Madlin Kreina Abramovna Pitel L Birth of son Leib-Aizik (Isaac) 28/11/1892 Girsh Leibovich Modlin Kreina Abramovna Pitel Birth of son Movsha (Maurice) This is the most convincing evidence so far that the original family name was Pitel. As the male members of the family at this time were already Millers, we can speculate that the women not subject to the hazards of the draft were not under the same pressure as the men to change their names. However, Kreine s sisters Beila Yenta and Menucha went under the name of Miller, and Maurice states his mother to be Kreine Miller on his 1948 naturalization application. The other relevant extract records the birth of a son to the couple Israel David Pitel, son of Yosel Pitel, and Menucha Miller, daughter of Abraham Miller. I shall suggest later that this was a marriage between two cousins. 7/02/1894 Izrail-David Yoselevich Pitel Mnukha Abramovna Meler Birth of son Leib-Aizik In the Dvinsk databanks there are five families with a remarkably similar set of given names. There is our Miller family - Sholom, David (1803), and Abraham (1820), as well as David Miller (1835) a brother of Abraham and his son Yosel (1866). In the same source we find two Pitel families. The first, born and residing in Dvinsk, is that of David, his sons Ahron (1818) and Hirsh (1819), and their sons Yosel (1834) and David (1837). The members of the other Pitel family, born in Dvinsk but then residing in nearby Jasmuizha, are David, Hirsh, Itzik (1815), and Sholom (1842). Hirsh (Girsha Davidovich) and Itzik (Yitska Girshevich) are noted in the Belarus Archives as living in Dvinsk in 1844 with Hirsh s father David, when their wooden home and shop were destroyed in the disastrous fire that devastated Dvinsk in that year, on 29 February. Hirsh, Itzik and David Pitel, it is noted, received interest-free loans for merchants and craftsmen from Vitebsk City Hall for reconstruction. Finally, there is another Ahron Pitel (1804), born in Dvinsk, the son of David, who died in Rezekne in The naming patterns further strengthen the evidence we have cited of the relationship between the Pitels and the Millers. To make sense of this complex jigsaw puzzle of families, I propose a scenario based partly on known facts, and partly on a speculative, but entirely feasible, assumption. These are established facts: that Abram Miller and David Miller were brothers, and 68

69 that Ahron Pitel and Hirsh Pitel were brothers. Both pairs of siblings, whose dates put them in the same generation, are the children of a man named David: David Miller in one case, David Pitel in the other. My suggestion is that David Miller and David Pitel were possibly one and the same person. As was common in the 18 th century, this patriarch probably had no surname. The adoption of the name of Pitel probably took place in the early 19 th century, and was changed to Miller after the birth of the first two sons, Ahron and Hirsh, who kept the name Pitel. The two younger sons, Abram and David, were either born Millers, or a more likely supposition, considering the case of Abram Miller s daughter Kreine Pitel - at some later time adopted the newly acquired name of Miller. Those members of the family who subscribe to the Pitel origin of the name believe that the name Miller was acquired from a person who had been given exemption from military service, in order to save the boys from conscription into the Russian army. Indeed, as we learn from the records, the family of Itzik Pitel (possibly a cousin of David) was especially vulnerable in this respect. Itzik himself was called up in 1854, his sons Yankel and Hirsh in the same year, his grandsons Abram (the son of Sholom) who received his call-up papers, and was due to go into the army in 1889, aged 19, and Elja-Zalman (the son of Yankel) Rafail Itzikovitch Pitel received notice of his intending recruitment in two years time, when he would have been only 14. Nine years later, in 1873, he was listed in the military department of Vilkomir, of all places; and he died twenty years later. It is no wonder that the latter s brother Faivish is among many young men listed as absent. For some reason, Millers seem to be immune to this endemic harassment. According to information from Saul Issroff after the military reforms of 1874 in the Russian Empire all male citizens of whatever class were eligible for the draft of a seven-year term of service. There were some reductions of the period for those with education. There were a number of exemptions for various categories: only sons, second sons of families with a son already in service, support of widows, etc. The call-up affected 21 year olds (but there were exceptions). The seven-year period listed here does not include the long period of reserve duty, which could extend service up to 25 years. The Family Lists confirm the family consensus, backed up by the naturalization applications of many branches of the family, that our Miller family originated in Dvinsk, and were resident in that city. In the 1897 All-Russia Census we find several of the siblings, Beila Yenta, Yehuda Leib, and Menucha, listed at Dvinsk addresses. There is thus no doubt that from the time of my great-grandfather Abram until the dispersion at the end of the century the Miller family were concentrated in Dvinsk. However there is a faint chance that they had in the 18 th century lived in Lithuania. In the Lithuanian revision lists of 1811, 1816 and 1834 a Miller family exists whose name sequence uncannily presages the later Latvian sequence. There is Leiba ( ), a kahal elder, the son of Abram; Leiba s son Yankel (b.1795); and Yankel s three sisters. A further complication derives from a comment next to the name of Abram Miller and his elderly father David in the Dvinsk records, noting that they had moved to Kraslava in 1877, and that Abram had died (no date given, but the first grandson named after him, Leiba s son Abram, was born c.1875). Kraslava was a medium-sized industrial town, a centre of the Jewish labour movement. According to the 1897 census there were 4051 Jews, 51% of the total population of the town. It was a town some 23 miles east of Dvinsk, upstream on the Dvina River. It is of some interest to note that in a list of Dvinsk Jews who moved to Kraslava in 1877 there is another Miller family: this group comprised the brothers Juda ( ), Simon (b.1810), and Mowscha (b.1815) - sons of Ephroim and Sora Miller - as well as Simon s son Leiba and his wife, and Mowscha s sons Scholom and Jankel (and his wife Hena Sifra). They were probably of Abram s generation, and one can reasonably speculate that they were cousins, 69

70 their fathers David and Ephroim being brothers. Consider the repetition of family names: Juda [Yehuda], Leiba [Leib], Scholom [Sholom] and Yankel. We do not know what occasioned this wholesale move, but a possible cause lay in the fact that in 1876 there was a typhus epidemic in Dvinsk, as well as many deaths from influenza, the latter continuing into the following year, when the move to Kraslava was at its peak. Photographs recently published on the web by Christine Usdin show a large relatively well-preserved Jewish cemetery in Kraslava, but the names on many of the gravestones are difficult to decipher. Other of our Miller family also moved to Kraslava. Abraham s daughter Menucha Miller (b.1863, m. Pitel) lived in Kraslava, where some of her children were born. Furthermore, according to the oral evidence of her grandson Ronnie Horwitz, Abraham s youngest daughter, Minnie (Minna Hinda, m. Horwitz) came to South Africa before the Great War directly from Kraslava. From the records I see that many Hurwitz families moved to Kraslava in Kraslava main street However, let us set aside this speculation on the Pitel connection, and concentrate on the firm ground of what I have called the Miller scenario, that is, the record of my immediate family. The first incontrovertible documentary evidence we have which records the name Miller is my grandfather Solomon s London marriage certificate of 1887, which gives his late father's name as Abraham Miller. However, as I noted earlier, I accept the evidence deduced from the Jewish Families of Dvinsk Database as a reliable record of the history of the Miller family. 5.2 ABRAHAM (ABRAM) and SIMA MARYASHA MILLER My great-grandparents In the Family Lists (Jewish Families in Dvinsk) we have an Abram Miller (born 1820/21), married to Simka (b.1836). They have a son Leiba (b.1851), who was married three times. From my other sources, both documents and oral testimony, I have the following. My greatgrandfather was Abraham Miller, married to Sima, with a son Yehuda Leib, who was known to have been married three times. Given the minor errors inherent in transliteration, and the imprecision of dates in oral testimony, I believe the correlation between the tables gives a sufficiently firm basis to the family tree with which I have headed this chapter. My maternal grandfather s family, as we noted above, came from Dvinsk. That was also the birth-place of my great-grandmother Sima (or Simka), born I have not been able to glean any information about the life of the Millers in Dvinsk. According to my mother, greatgrandmother Sima Maryasha, apparently a forceful character, insisted that any girl born into the family after she passed away should be named after her. I believe she died in England, but I have been unable to trace her death certificate. This would have been before 1886, when Leib named his new-born daughter Simka ( ); later three other grand-daughters, my mother 70

71 Sophia (b.1888), Lazar Miller s daughter Sophia (b.1889), and Israel Miller's daughter Cissie (b.1890) were given the traditional name Sima Maryasha, as the old matriarch had wished. Abraham and Sima Maryasha were reputedly blessed with thirteen children, of whom we have been able to trace only nine. We shall first deal with one daughter whose details are uncertain. 5.3 unknown MILLER (m. Baruch [Dov] Raizon) Daughter of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) unknown MILLER, m. Baruch [Dov] Raizon (4) ROBERT [REUBEN] RAIZON ( ) This daughter, whose first name we have so far been unable to ascertain, married Baruch Raizon. I do not know whether these Raizons remained in Europe, but if so I have not been able to trace them. They had a son, Robert (Reuben), who was probably the R. Raizan who sailed to Cape Town on the Gaika on 4 November On the passenger list he was listed as a foreigner, and gave his occupation as a dealer. Robert settled in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he married Hannah (Annie) Kapelowitz in Bulawayo on 19 December It is from Robert s gravestone in Bulawayo that we have the name of his father, Baruch. The Robert Raizons had three children, Benjamin (d.1994), Solomon, and Jessie (m. Shragger). It is only with the last-named (who at times lived in Israel) that I have had any contact, although I have spoken to Solly s widow on my last visit to Cape Town. I have also been in touch with Steven Fader, who is researching the Raizon family from Kraslava. Steven has sent me an old hand-written family tree, but unfortunately it is almost indecipherable. The patriarch of this family, Shone? Raizen ( ) had four children, one of whom seems to be Bera. On his ketuba, Reuben gives his father s name as Dov, for which the Yiddish version is Ber. Dov, Ber, Bera, and Baruch are all variants of the same name. This hand-written tree shows Bera married to what looks like Hanna or Hasia. There is a Boruh Retsin (Baruch Raizon) married to Sara Hasha (Hasia) who, in 1886, had a child in Bobruisk, in the Rezekne district of Belarus. This might be the Hasia Reisin, the daughter of Yehudah Leib HaLevi, who died in 1926 and is buried in the Ludja cemetery. It is tempting to think that this was Yehuda Leib Miller, which would tie in with our family, but this would make Baruch s wife the grand-daughter (and not the daughter) of Abraham Miller. This seems a remote possibility, unless Hasia was Yehuda Leib's first-born child, but the dates are problematic. Unfortunately, the mystery of the Miller (or Pitel) daughter who married Baruch Raizon remains unsolved 5.4 BEILA YENTA MILLER (b. 1842, m. Haim Maisel) Daughter of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) BEILA YENTA MILLER, m. Haim Maisel (4) YANKEL ZALMAN MAISEL b.1868 BEHR LEIB MAISEL b.1874 RIVKA MAISEL b BENJAMIN BEINES MAISEL b.1882 Not much was originally known to me of this daughter, except that according to family lore she married Haim Maisel and they had a son, Beines. However, from the 1897 Dvinsk Census we get a comprehensive picture of three generations of this family, living at Alexander Newski

72 In discussing them I shall use my own transliterations, the more familiar Maisel for Maizel, Haim for Khaim, and so on, rather than those on the translated census. We learn that Haim Maisel, son of Shlomo (aged 52) and his wife Beila Yenta, daughter of Abram (aged 55), had the following children: Yankel Zalman (29), a shop assistant; Behr Leib (22), a shop assistant in the iron trade; Benjamin Beines (17), an apprentice shoe-maker; and a daughter Rivka (18). In the same household were Hasia Feiga (born Rabinowitz, in Vilkomir), Yankel s wife, and their children Abram Shlomo (2) and Israel Getzel (8 months). Haim s occupation is not listed, but he obviously was reasonably well off, as they had a live-in maid, 16-year-old Sheina Feigin. In the Rabbinate record of the birth of Behr Leib in Dvinsk on 5 January 1874 the name of his mother is more or less correctly recorded as Beila Yanta Abramova Meler.From other Dvinsk records we know that Benjamin Beines had a wife, Hana Slata (b.1879), and Behr Leib s wife was Basja (b.1876). Another son of Shlomo, Zundel Maisel (presumably Haim s brother), and his wife Chaya, two sons and five daughters, lived nearby, at Bolotnaya Street 60. In the same house was the Shapiro family: Zundel s daughter, husband and small daughter. It is interesting to note Shlomo, the father of Haim and Zundel, was the son of another Zundel Maisel and his wife Hanna Hurwitz (Khana Izrail-Itzikovna Gurvich). We have across the Hurwitz family before, in connection with the Paikins, and shall meet them again later in our narrative. Haim died in 1904, but I am not sure when Beila Yenta passed away. It would appear that some at least of the younger generation of the Maisel family remained in Latvia. It is noted that in 1914 Behr Leib belonged to the 2 nd Guild Merchants of Daugavpils. In the Database of Names and Fates of Latvian Jews, , based probably on the census of 1935, we find the names of Behr Leib Maisel, b.1876, a salesman, his wife Basja, and Yankel, b.1868, and his wife Hasia Feiga, all residents of Dvinsk. Behr Leib s daughter Sima (b.1903, m.levenstein) was living in Dvinsk in 1939, but moved to Riga during the war. There is no mention of Rivka or Beines, but Beines had died by 1902, the year a nephew was named after him. This was Beines Maisel, son of Zalman, who served in the Russian Army during the war, and was reported missing, presumed dead. 5.5 YEHUDA LEIB MILLER (c ) Son of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) YEHUDA LEIB MILLER m1. Feiga [Freida?] Beila Unknown; m2. Liba Reina bat Schewel Wulff, m3. Hena Basa bat Morduch (4) ABRAHAM WOLF JACOB ALTER CHAYA SORA m.schneider ITTA BERKO 72

73 Yehuda Leib Miller The oldest of the Miller sons was Yehuda Leib Miller, described as a shammas (beadle) or a watchman in Jewish school [synagogue] in Dvinsk, a city, with its large Jewish population, once well provided with synagogues. Lashplesha Street Synagogue (1828) The Choral Synagogue (1865) Dvinsk today According to family tradition and confirmed by the records (Jewish Families of Dvinsk), Leiba (as he was generally known) was married three times Given Name Father Age (in year) Died Comment Residence Origin Leiba Abram Daugavpils Daugavpils Freida Beila First wife of Leiba Daugavpils Daugavpils Liba Reina Schewel Wulff Second wife of Leiba Daugavpils Daugavpils Hena Basa Morduch Third wife of Leiba Daugavpils Daugavpils The entry in the 1897 Census gives a picture of Yehuda Leib s family as then constituted: Leiba the son of Abram (aged 46) and his wife Liba Geina (aged 36), and their children: Abram Khaim (22), Jankel Iser-Abram (18), Alta (8), Khaya (5), Itta (2), and Berko (1 month). The first two sons, Abram and Yankel, were children of the first marriage, while the remaining siblings (half-brother Berko and half-sisters Alta, Khaya and Itta) were born to Liba Reina. In the census Leiba and Jankel are listed as plumbers and journeymen, and Abram as a traderclerk. Presumably Leib had a trade, as well as being a watchman. A notable omission from the Census is Leiba s second son, Wolf, born 1878, who must by then have left home. 73

74 The three sons of his first marriage, all born in Dvinsk, came to South Africa in 1898/9, and settled initially in the Cape Province. As I have no records of them in England, nor of any voyages from the UK to South Africa, I assume that some of them may have travelled directly from Europe. Yehuda Leib s oldest son was Abraham (c ). He is probably the Abraham Miller, a 20-year old single man of English nationality, occupation pedlar, who sailed from the Port of London on 13 May 1896 on the Tokomaru, a ship bound for New Zealand, but disembarked in Cape Town. He first settled in Somerset West, and when in 1902 he applied for naturalization, he described himself as a general dealer, born in Dvinsk, Russia. He later moved to Johannesburg, and set up as a picture framer. Abraham Miller and his wife Jessie, with their son Solly and their three daughters, Florence, Mona, and Grace, lived not far from our house. Solly was a mathematics genius, able to multiply any five figure sum by another five figures in his head, a feat which greatly impressed us. He was also an unrepentant communist all his life. I liked the girls, especially Grace, and I naturally got to know this branch of the family better than the geographically remote Cape Millers. One of the families living in the Cape was that of Abraham s younger brother, Wolf ( ), who left Dvinsk for South Africa in After a short period in Stellenbosch, where he made a living by selling framed pictures of the Boer generals to the local Afrikaners, one report says that he then moved to Cape Town, where in 1904 he married. However, when he applied for naturalization in 1902 he was resident in Somerset West. There he had a house in Pagin Street, and established a general dealer s store in Somerset West, which his son Israel (b.1917) ran after his father s death. Wolf was an early Zionist, and a note in the Jewish Chronicle of 17 March 1905 records that he had presided at a meeting of the Somerset West Zionist Association held in the Zionist Hall on 5 February. His other four sons all became attorneys. The oldest son was Nathan (d.1992), who was interviewed in 1983 as part of a project undertaken by the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at Cape Town University. His deposition paints a rich picture of the lives of a comfortably well-off immigrant Jewish family in the first decades of the 20 th century: strongly family-centered, responsible members of the community, observant but not ultra-orthodox Jews, and convinced Zionists. Nathan s brother Solly settled in George, where he and his wife Sophie also served as Mayor and Mayoress, from One of Solly s children, Barbara (m. Diamond, div.), is a friend of ours in Haifa. The next son, Harry, settled in Mossel Bay, where he married an Afrikaans girl, much to the distress of his father. Harry served as Mayor of Mossel Bay from , and was a one-time Master of the local Masonic Lodge. The only daughter of Wolf s whom I knew, Violet (Feiga Beila: ), married into the prestigious Comay family of George. Her husband, Harry Comay, was the son of Alexander Comay, founder of the George Zionist Society, member of the town council for fifteen years, and Mayor from Harry Comay s brother Michael rose high in the ranks of the Israeli Foreign Service, as Ambassador to Canada, Britain and the United Nations. My cousin Violet a musician, like so many of the Miller family, and whom I met when I visited George - was distinguished in her own right, as an executive member of the National Council of Women and other women s organizations. Their son Michael is an architect living in Israel, and was for a brief time a student of mine at the Technion. Yehuda Leib s son Jacob (Jack or Yankel: ) came to South Africa in 1899, and like his brothers settled in Somerset West, where he was a smous [hawker]. He met his future wife Bessie when she emigrated from Shovel. They moved north to Johannesburg, living at 51 Clifton Street, Mayfair, where their three children, Violet (Feiga Beila, named after her grandmother), Philip (Mullie) and Gladys. The family was unsuccessful in Johannesburg, and moved, first to Port Elizabeth, and finally to Cape Town, where I first came into contact with them, staying in their flat on one occasion. Jacob, like Abraham, was a picture framer, and belonged to a Chassidische shul. Although I had less contact with the Cape Town branch of the family, as I have said, I did know Yankel s children Philip (Mullie) and Gladys. A daughter of 74

75 Yehuda Leib s second marriage, Chaya Sora ( , m.schneider), also eventually settled in South Africa, in 1928/9. She is buried in Cape Town. There were three other daughters (one named Alter) and a son from this second marriage. One of these daughters might have been Esther, daughter of Leib, who was reported to have died in The children who remained in Eastern Europe with their father presumably had a different and less kind fate than their South African siblings. In 1915, when the Kaiser s army invaded Kurland, the Russian army command, who suspected the Jews of sympathizing with the Germans, drove all Jews out of their houses and deported them into Russia s interior within 24 hours. In point of fact, it was not only in Kurland that the expulsion took place. The province of Kovno, west of a north-south line running through Vilkomir, was an area most severely impacted by this harsh decree. However, the reference to Kurland brings us a back to a problem raised earlier. Nathan Miller, in his testimony to the Kaplan Institute, referred to above, claimed that the Millers were proud of the fact that they were Kurlanders, despite the fact that all their documents stated that they were from Dvinsk. Now Dvinsk was in Livland, in the Pale of Settlement set up in 1835, but Griva, just across the river, was in Kurland. In fact, until the 19 th century Jews were not allowed to live in Dvinsk, but were permitted to work there. Consequently, there was a considerable amount of commuting across the river, and for practical purposes Griva and Dvinsk were one city. Whether the Millers actually lived in Griva I do not know, but according to Nathan they considered themselves both Dvinskers and Kurlanders. Daugavpils [Dvinsk] // Griva Perhaps it was due to the expulsion order that Yehuda Leib and his family came to Alexandrov, then later moved to Leningrad. There he was visited by his South African grandson Nathan Miller (the son of Wolf) in 1935, who after travelling to Palestine and Europe had adventurously flown to the USSR to meet him. A photograph of Yehuda Leib taken at that time shows a Sholem Aleichem-type figure, with a long straggling beard and sidelocks, wearing a greatcoat and peaked cap, standing in front of the weather-boarded wall of a house. While Yehuda Leib died before the war, his children in Leningrad probably experienced the Nazi investment of the city, and possibly perished in the siege, in which over 1,000,000 people died of starvation. When I visited Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in July 1996, I endeavoured, without success, to ascertain the fate of these relatives. 75

76 5.6 KREINE MILLER/ PITEL ( ; m. Eliahu Ber Modlin or Hirsh Leibowitz Modlin) Daughter of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) KREINE MILLER/ PITEL ( ) m. Eliahu Ber Modlin (or Hirsh Leibowitz Modlin) (4) ANNIE LILY [Liba] m. Herman LEAH (Lena, Lisa) m. Feldman (formerly Dorin) ABRAM AARON LEIB-AIZIK MAURICE (Morris) ZALMAN (Sam) Kreine Miller [m. Modlin] Abraham and Sima Miller s daughter Kreine was born (according to her USSR passport) in Dvinsk. Family consensus is that she married Eliahu [Dov] Ber Modlin, of Druja, a small town 30km from Dvinsk, a short distance upriver from Kraslava. This name is inscribed on the tombstones and other documents of his descendants, including the marriage certificate of his daughter Lily. Nevertheless, there are problems associated with this name, to which we shall return later. Probably after the death of her husband Kreine moved from Latvia to Russia, possibly to her brother Yehuda Leib. In 1928 she eventually emigrated from what had become the Soviet Union to South Africa. She travelled to London, spent two days in the Poor Jews Shelter, then embarked from Southampton on the Arundel Castle on 4 August 1928, arriving in Port Elizabeth 24 days later, a determined old lady who would not let the bewildered customs officials examine and thereby contaminate her collection of kosher pots which, together with her down-filled perana, constituted her main items of luggage. According to the arrival document (in Rootsbank) she was going to join her son A[aron] Modlin. Briefly reunited with her children, she died three years later in Johannesburg. Kreine had married Modlin in her home town, Dvinsk, where all their children were born. There were three daughters and five sons. I believe the eldest child, Annie (c ), was still unmarried when she died in Dvinsk, but I have no documents to support this. The next child was a daughter, Lily (Liba, as we affectionately called her, )), who was a more integral part of our family. A birth notice in the Riga Rabbinate names Rokhel Lea, daughter of Hirsh Leibovich and Kreina. This entry is problematic, as it is uncertain whether this applies to Liba or her sister Leah (see below). From Latvia (although from Dvinsk, I understand she had also lived in Riga) Lily went first to Britain, where she married Hyman Herman, (formerly Gavronsky, I believe) in Bethnal Green in 1907; her marriage certificate gives her name as Liba 76

77 Rivka bat Eliahu Dov. Eventually, after the birth of their first two children, the Hermans emigrated to South Africa. This was probably on 20 April 1911, when on the passenger list of the Dunluce Castle sailing from London there was a family consisting of Mr. and Mrs. H. Herman, Miss B. Herman (Bella/Isabelle?), and Master L. Herman (Leon?). In Port Elizabeth, Lily Herman and her husband ran the Pollock Hotel. Liba was already a widow living in Johannesburg when I knew her. Hyman had gone to England (to visit his son Jock, who was working at the Great Ormonde Street Hospital), when he suddenly died. This was in November We were very fond of Aunty Liba, as we called her, so much so that we actually gave our daughter Margaret what we thought in our ignorance was a Hebrew name, Minna Liba: Minna after my paternal grandmother, and Liba in Lily's memory. (Margie, better informed, later adopted the authentic Hebrew name of Margalit). A constant visitor in our home, Liba was a remarkable little old lady. She was always immaculately dressed, took little steps in shoes with incredibly high heels, visited Kreine s grave to consult with her late mother when she needed counselling or consolation, and expressed herself in such aphorisms as such a lovely world, a pity men spoil it, or the kindly he is beautiful in his ugliness. My contact with Lily s five children varied in intensity. I did not have much contact with her eldest son Leon (Sonny), who at first lived in George, where he owned the Gelderland Hotel. On a return visit to South Africa I did meet him, and also established a brief but warm contact with his son Hugh and his wife Jennifer. Hugh Sydney Herman was born in Queenstown. A lawyer by profession, he later had a successful business career, as Managing Director of the giant Pick n Pay organization from 1986 to 1993, and later as Chairman of Investec Bank Ltd., a financial institution with global affiliations. Until her death in 1992 we visited Isabelle (Lily s only daughter) whenever we were in London. Isabelle s late husband Alec Gelb, a militant atheist, ironically dropped dead in St. John s Wood Synagogue, where he had gone to hear a lecture by Helen Suzman. Lily s son Eli was a highly respected citizen of the town of George (the novelist Anthony Trollope in 1877 described it with excessive enthusiasm as the prettiest town on the face of the earth. ), on the Garden Route, first as owner of the George Hotel, and in its later years as one of the conductors of the Friday night service in the synagogue. Eli, whom we had visited in his home in George, later settled in Israel, staying with his daughter Ethlee Dembo, who lives not far from Haifa, at Manof. It was at Manof that Eli, a senior citizen held in much affection in the moshav, died in When I lived in South Africa, of all the Herman children I was particularly close to Jock Herman, who was my doctor and dear friend. His widow Zelda and their daughter Charis are in Melbourne, their daughter Vivienne (m. Bonner) in California. Liba s youngest son, Sydney, moved to Rhodesia, and I lost contact with him altogether. The Modlin s third daughter was Leah (later Lena/Lisa, ). Leah married Harris Dorin, also of Dvinsk, and moved to England. In 1911, according to the census, they were living in Whitechapel, at 10 Underwood Street, Mile End Old Town, with two children, Annie (b.1907), and Henry (b.1909), both born in Whitechapel. They had two relatives staying with them: Leah s bachelor brothers Aaron, aged 21, a watch maker, and Morris Modlin, aged 18, a cabinet maker. A third child, Alec, soon followed, (b.1912), also born in Whitechapel. Presumably while Leah was pregnant with this child, but before the birth, Harris left for the USA, arriving in New York on 7 May 1911 on the Philadelphia from Southampton. On the manifest he is listed as Harris Feldman, having changed his name from Dorin, for reasons unknown to me. Surprisingly, when Alec was born in 1912 he was still registered under the name of Dorin. I have not been able to trace when Leah and the children joined him, but it was obviously some time before Leon, their fourth child, was born in New York in I have not found the Feldman family in the 1920 Federal Census, although there is a Harry Feldman listed as a patient in the Jewish Hospital in New York in that year. The whole family (Harry and Lena Feldman born in Latvia - and four children) appear in the 1930 Census, living in Brooklyn 77

78 Following Leah/Lena, Kreine had five sons: Abram (b.dvinsk 1887, d.druja, 1894), who died at the age of eight of meningitis; Aaron, (b.1889); an otherwise unidentified son Leib Aizik (b.1891) of whom I know nothing; Maurice (Morris, ) who went to England before eventually settling in South Africa; and a youngest son Zalman (Solomon or Sam, ). As I have noted, according to the 1911 census Aaron, a watchmaker, and Morris, a cabinet maker, were living with their sister and brother-in-law, Leah and Harris Dorin, in their Whitechapel home. I shall discuss each in turn. Aaron travelled to South Africa on the Garth Castle on 19 August 1911, together with his cousin Saloman, (b.c1884, son of Avsei Leibovitch Modlin) a cap maker, according to the manifest. I had little contact with Aaron, except that I was occasionally in touch with his daughter Margo, and her husband Aaron Fluxman, who had a clothing business in Johannesburg. I did not know Zalman, the youngest son, a watchmaker like his older brother Aaron. Zalman was only in England in transit, having a prepaid ticket to continue to South Africa. He spent one night in the Shelter, then sailed to Cape Town on 14 May 1914 on the Braemar Castle. He died at the age of 45, and was buried in the Kroonstad cemetery, in the Orange Free State. There is no mention of a wife or children on his tombstone. The Modlin family I knew best was that of the second son, Maurice (Morris), who came to South Africa in about I remember Maurice Modlin and his wife Ella from my earliest childhood, he a small lively man delivering bread (he described himself as a vanman in his maturalization apllication), she a stalwart lady, rubber apron around her waist, a great block of ice gripped in her tongs, loading the ice-chest in our pantry. Maurice and Ella had three children. The eldest, Jock, the best man at our wedding, passed away in 2011; until her death in 2011 their daughter Iris Sender remained a close friend whom I saw in South Africa and later frequently in Israel, where her son Edwin, an ordained rabbi, lives; and the younger son Kelvin Modlin has lived at Shluchot, a religious kibbutz in the Bet Shean valley, for more than fifty years. Kelvin Modlin Kelly - with whom I am in constant touch, is one of the few who shares my interest in family history, and is especially knowledgeable about sources of information. It was Kelly s persistence and genealogical experience which enabled him to discover the wartime fate of his late wife Pnina s family, and reunite her with her brother, the sole survivor of her family in Russia. The documentation I have of the births of Lily/Leah?, Abram, Aaron, Leib-Aizik, and Maurice Modlin, derived from the Riga Rabbinate, as well as the death notice of Abram in the JewishGen Databanks, together with the 1897 Census entry, presents us with a problem, as yet unresolved, as it conflicts with later Modlin family records. In all the above documents, deriving from Latvian records, the name of the father is given as Hirsh Leibovich Modlin. On the other hand, family consensus, supported by naturalisation applications, tombstone inscriptions and Liba s marriage certificate, all insist that the name of Kreine s husband was Eliahu Ber Modlin. According to Kelvin Modlin, Hirsh and Eliahu Ber Modlin probably were brothers, sons of Leib. If that is so, then there was yet another brother, Avsei Leibovich Paikin (m.hanna Eida/Khaya), who in 1897 was living in Dvinsk with his wife and four sons (Evel, Movsha Aron, Salomom, Mendel Don) and daughter Tauba. To complicate matters, Hirsh had a first cousin, Ovsei Aharonowitch Paikin, who was married to Beila-Rokha Miller, Kreine s first cousin, and this family lived as tenants in Hirsh s house. Hirsh Leibovich, Avsei Leibovich and Ovsei Aharonovich had the same occupation, that of coachman. The Morris Modlin I knew drove a horse and cart. In the face of this conflicting evidence who was Kreine s husband, Hirsh Modlin or Eliahu Modlin, both from the town of Druja? Is it possible that Kreine had in turn been married to both brothers? In accordance with the known facts, but without any evidence, my assumption is that some time after the 1897 Census, possibly between the birth of Maurice and Zalman, 78

79 Hirsh Modlin (then about 50 years of age) passed away. Unfortunately there are no death records for Dvinsk between 1897 and 1901 to prove this. Then Hirsh s presumed brother Eliahu Dov/Ber (named after deceased uncle Elia) married the widow Kreine Abramova., probably adopting the young children, all under the age of 18. The custom of a brother marrying his late brother s widow is well known. The custom of children adopting their step-father s name is not unknown. 5.7 ISRAEL MILLER ( ( Son of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) ISRAEL MILLER m. Sophia Rhome (4) ABRAHAM WILLIAM CISSIE [Sima Maryasha] m. Wolf BESSIE m. Albert BARNEY VIOLET m. Tucker Israel Miller Israel Miller, born in Dvinsk, migrated to England. In Manchester he met and married Sophia Rhome. They subsequently moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, some time before 1887, and in 1888 were living at 8 Hillman Street, where, according to his birth certificate, their son William was born. His parents are listed on that document as Israel Miller and Sophia Rum, and Israel s occupation is that of an India Rubber Worker. This was a trade he had apparently learnt in Manchester, which was the centre of the mackintosh industry in Britain. Soon after, he opened his own business as a manufacturer of waterproof raincoats. The address of both Israel Miller s workshop and his family home in 1890s, according to the Belfast Commercial Directories, was at 11 Canning Street. In 1894 Israel is still listed at 11 Canning Street, this time in Slaters Royal National Directory, and is described as a managing cutter. In 1896, after Israel left Ireland, the firm changed hands while the name of the firm remained unchanged; it relocated to 10 Eia Street, and again, in 1899, to 34 Groomsport Street. A Robert Miller, the son of Sholem and Jennie Miller of Kovno is listed at this address, but I have not been able to trace a connection with our family. In 1896, Israel Miller and his family emigrated to South Africa, leaving London on 15 April 1896 with three young children and an infant daughter on the Gothic. He settled in Somerset West, where he once again set up as an India Rubber Manufacturer. Israel, judging by a photograph of him as a young married man in Belfast, was probably the most handsome and debonair of the Miller sons. He was reputed to be a restless soul and impulsive traveller, always setting off on foreign trips - he was described by one of the family as a rover' - and, 79

80 from 1913, Sophia bore the principal responsibility of running the family business, the Masonic Hotel in Hope Street, Cape Town. The first five of Israel and Sophia s six children were born in Belfast. Of Israel and Sophia s eldest son Abraham (c ) I know nothing. Their second son, William ( ) followed in the hotel business, in Port Elizabeth. William s son James I believe lives in England, but I have had the pleasure of meeting their daughter Edna (married to Manny Stern) in Cape Town. Israel s daughter Cissie ( ; m.wolf), called Semie on her birth certificate, but more correctly Sima Maryasha, was born in Belfast, a year or two after my mother, another Sima Maryasha Miller. In trying to get my mother s birth certificate from Belfast on one occasion, it was Semie s that I was mistakenly sent. Another daughter was Bessie (c ; m. Albert), whom I did not know; I have had only brief contact with their two sons, Eddie, an architect in Cape Town, and Don, a music critic in Johannesburg. The youngest of the Miller sons, Barney ( ), a hotelier like his mother and brother, ran a hotel at Three Anchor Bay, Cape Town. Finally, there was the youngest child, the only one not born in Belfast: Violet ( ; m.tucker), who was born in Cape Town, and whose daughter Charlene (m. Dorfman) has been one of my sources of information. 5.8 LAZARUS [Eliezer] MILLER ( ) Son of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) LAZARUS [Eliezer] MILLER m. Sarah Paikin (4) SOPHIA [Sima Maryasha] m. Lasure Paikin SAMUEL ABRAHAM HYMAN ANNIE m. Lionel Goodman HENRY HAROLD LEWIS ISAAC Lazarus Miller In London, towards the end of 1884, my mother s uncle Lazarus Miller ( ), a master tailor, married my father s aunt Sarah Paikin and thus, as we have recounted, gave my mother and father a common set of cousins is the earliest recorded year of our family s presence in London. In the introduction to this history we suggested that Lazarus Miller and his brother Solomon might have come together to England, while Sarah Paikin had probably accompanied her sister Minnie and brother-in-law Haim Yablochnik when they left Lita for England. Lazar and Sarah Miller set up home in London. We know that in 1887, probably earlier, they were living at 68 Brunswick Buildings, the same building where Simon and Minnie Herbert (Sarah s 80

81 sister) were living at about the same time (Minnie s son Lazarus was born there in 1885). By 1896 they had moved to 32 High Street, Norton Folgate, in the East End, where Minnie came for a while to live with them, as we explained earlier. Later, according to the 1901 census, Lazar and Sarah Miller and their family were living at 71 Brick Lane, Spitalfields, in Whitechapel. They had seven children: five boys and two girls. Before I deal with their children I must note two relatives who were living with the Millers when the census was taken. One of these was, her nephew Lasure (Lazarus) Paikin, (the son of Sarah s brother Boris), then a lad of 18. The other was a young man named Mark Golansky (b.1881), a Hebrew teacher, noted as being a cousin. This young man later emigrated to Montreal, sailing on the Dominion from Liverpool on 2 August I have not been able to trace the exact relationship of the Golanskys to the Millers, but there are interesting indirect links. Two members of the Pitel/Miller clan married into the Magid family of Dvinsk. Basia [Basha] Pitel (b.1870), who was Menucha Miller s sister-in-law and second cousin, married Movsha Josel Magid, and Perel Pitel (b.1886), a more distant cousin of Basia s, married Movsha Josel s cousin Sholom Magid. Now Sholom had a brother Movsha Yankel Magid, who married Sora Esther Golansky, so we have a conjunction of the names Miller/Golansky/Magid/Pitel, which raises interesting avenues of speculation. Perel and Sora Esther Golansky were sisters-in-law, and as Basia and Perel Magid were part of the Pitel/Miller family, they were also Lazar s kinsfolk. Whether this earned the title cousin for Mark Golanky is doubtful, but such terms of relationships were loosely used in our extended family (the mishpoche), a clan whose structure consisted of a ravelled skein of interconnections. Like their Paikin cousins, as we shall see, the Millers were a family of musicians. Sarah Miller, the matriarch, had a musical connection (in addition to her Paikin antecedents) of a somewhat different sort. She is reputed to have bought (appropriately for a song) a grand piano in Petticoat Lane. Its bargain price was explained by the fact that it had nothing inside, being innocent of any strings or hammers. This empty piano, carted home with the greatest difficulty, had an honoured place in Aunt Sarah s parlour, covered by a fringed shawl. This shrewd woman knew exactly what she was doing, for she had knowingly acquired, for a few shillings, an object with far greater value than a hollow status-symbol. On Fridays, when the shawl was removed, the broad upper surface of the instrument formed an incomparable work table of the most generous dimensions for such routine chores as chopping herring or liver, rolling out the dough to be cut into strips of lokshen, or preparing the gefilte fish, all ingredients of a traditional festive Sabbath meal. Lazar and Sarah Miller s oldest child was a daughter, Sophia ( ) - another Sima Maryasha whose somewhat complex history we shall return to. A son Abraham (b.& d.1887) followed, but died at the age of four months.the next birth was that of a son, Samuel ( ), who was a pianist; and his only child, Arthur, following the musical traditions of the family, was a talented violinist whose repertoire ranged from orthodox classical music to the jazz he played (sometimes in the style of Stefan Grapelli) in my brother Harold s dance orchestra. Maybe (I say this half-jokingly) because the next in line, Hyman ( ), and the youngest son, Harold Lewis Isaac ( ) were not musicians, our contact with them and their families was less intimate. However, there was one son (apart from Sammy) who was a musician: this was Henry ( ), who played the cello. We remain in touch with Henry s sons: Lester (a rabbi in New York); and Stephen who at times has lived in Israel, as have two of his married children, Hillel and Leora. Lazar and Sarah s younger daughter Annie ( ; m. Lionel Goodman) was close to our family circle. Annie was a real character (a term I use here affectionately), full of fun and good 81

82 humour. She too played the piano, with more brio than finesse, in the local cinema, to create the appropriate atmosphere for the silent movies. Her husband Lionel I remember mainly as an inventor of sorts, and one of his gadgets especially impressed me: an electrical switch at his bedside which enabled him by remote control to unlock the back door so that the servant could enter the house early in the morning, without the master of the house having to rise from his bed. The Goodman s younger son, Arthur, has much of his mother s happy ebullience, and we have remained in touch over the years.we renewed contact with his older brother Natie on a trip to South Africa, just prior to his death in September I am not sure when Lazar came to South Africa. We know from a dated photograph that the four Miller sons were in London in July 1909, but Lazar is not with them. It is probable that he had already emigrated, but I have not been able to trace his journey. However, we have the manifest of the voyage of the Galician from Southampton to Cape Town, sailing on 11 June 1910, where on the passenger list we find the following persons (noting that an adult is one over 12 years of age, a child one under 12). They are only identified by their initials, but we can compare these names with those of Lazar and Sarah s family. Passenger list Lazar and Sarah s family Mrs. S. Miller Sarah Miller Miss S.Miller (adult) Sophia Miller (aged 24) Miss A. Miller (adult) Annie Miller (aged 16) Mr. S. Miller (pianist) Sam Miller (aged 20) (pianist) Mr. H. Miller (adult) Hyman Miller (aged 18) Master H. Miller (child) Henry Miller (aged 14) Master I. Miller (child) Isaac Miller (aged 13) The match is pretty good, but there are some anomalies. The problem of the age of the two youngest boys is trivial. Ages calculated from birth dates are always approximate. Moreover, we know that parents of children over twelve sometimes knocked off a year or two (my mother s, for instance) if they could benefit from the cheaper fare. We also notice that Lazar is not with his family, but we have a photograph of him with three of his sons and his daughter Annie, taken in Johannesburg dated April 1915, so obviously the family was by that time reunited. However, by that time Sophia had returned to London, where in the first half of as we recounted earlier - she married Lasure Paikin, her cousin, thus reintroducing her mother Sarah s maiden name into our already complex family history. After they were married Sophia and Lasure remained on for some time in London, where their first child, Bella, was born in A few years later the Paikins emigrated to South Africa, sailing on 12 March 1920 from Southampton on the Llanstephan Castle to Cape Town, eventually to join the family in Johannesburg, We have already mentioned, in dealing with the Paikin family, that Lasure played the double bass (in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra), and Sophia and Lasure s daughters Bella and Golda were both pianists. Sarah, originally a handsome woman, developed, according to a photograph taken of her in London with her daughter Sophia, into a hard, tight-faced martinet. Later, in her home in Johannesburg, as a self-proclaimed invalid, she retired to her bed, from which she ruled her family, as I remember well, as an absolute tyrant. Lazar, in my memory of him, and as photographs bear out, was a small, bearded, kindly man, much closer in looks and, I suspect, in temperament to my grandfather Solomon than to their more dashing brother Israel or the patriarchal Yehudah Leib. The Miller s house on the corner of Harrow Road and Saratoga Avenue, Doornfontein, was a centre for family gatherings of Millers, Paikins and Herberts, bringing the various strands of the family (in all its generations) together in frequent informal, noisy, well-fed, assemblies. 82

83 5.9 SOLOMON [Sholom] MILLER ( ( Son of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) SOLOMON [Sholem] MILLER * My grandfather m. Hannah Yerusalimski (4) SOPHIA [Sima Maryasha] m. Benjamin Herbert Next in sequence was my grandfather, Solomon Miller who, in the 1880s, had come from his home town of Dvinsk to England and had settled in the East End of London. There, like his brother Lazar, he worked as a tailor. At some time, possibly before emigrating, Solomon had become engaged to Hannah (Annie) Yerusalimski. We shall deal with grandfather Solomon and his wife, my grandmother Hannah, in a later section; and of course also with their only child, my mother Sophia ( ). But before we recount the story following Solomon and Hannah s marriage in London we must complete our account of the Millers, dealing with the two youngest daughters, Menucha and Minna Hinda MENUCHA MILLER (b.1863, m. Israel David Pitel) Daughter of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) MENUCHA MILLER, m. Israel David Pitel (4) ABRAHAM YENTA BRACHA LEIB ISAAC Menucha Miller was born in Dvinsk on 29 June At the beginning of this chapter I explained that Menucha had married Israel David Pitel, probably her second cousin once removed. Details of the death of Menucha are not recorded, but she is listed in the Database of Names and Fates of Latvian Jews (Centre of Jewish Studies, University of Latvia) as a widow resident in Kraslava in the Latvian Census of From family sources I understood that Menucha had two children, Abraham and Yenta. I have no information about Yenta. According to the Dvinsk Database, the son s full name was Ahron Abram, born in Dvinsk in 1887; this date correlates with the data of the 1897 census, where the age of Abram is given as 10. Abram, who had studied with a rabbi as a boy, became a teacher, and married Sora Beila Fonarev, born in Viski in They made their home in Viski, where they had a son, Israel David, born 1924, and it was in this small town, 15 miles from Dvinsk, and with less than 700 Jews, that all three perished during the Shoah, in the massacre of 30 June Because of Menucha s possible family connection with the Golanski family, which I noted earlier, it is interesting that a Golanski family, Jude David (1868), Shlioma (1871) and Josel (1873), the sons of Itzik Golansky, had transferred to Vishki in The Riga Rabbinate records the birth in February 1894 of another son, Leib Isaac, whose fate is unknown to me. Finally, from the Central Database of Shoah Victims we learn that Menucha Pitel had another child, Bracha, born 21 June 1887 in Dvinsk. This may be the twelve-year-old daughter Rokhe Mira, listed in the 1897 census, when the family was living in Dvinsk, at 85 Zhitomirskaya Street. Bracha, married to Israel Cohen, had at least three children: Sima (presumably named after her greatgrandmother Sima Maryasha), born Kraslava 1919, died Bergen-Belsen 1945; David, born 83

84 Kraslava 1925, killed Kraslava c.1941; and Hava (m. Janover), who survived, and emigrated to Israel. It was Hava who gave Yad VaShem the information of the death of her mother, father, sister and brother, at the time of the German occupation of Kraslava. I am not sure when the Pitels had moved to Kraslava, but they were certainly there in 1919, when Sima was born. Most of the Jews of Kraslava were shot when the German invading forces reached the town in 1941, the rest being sent initially to the Dvinsk ghetto. The fate of Menucha s family is one of the few proven records we have of the martyrdom of members of my ancestral family during the Holocaust. In 1897 Basia and Movsha Josel Magid, together with their infant daughter Lea-Mirka and Movsha Josel s widowed father Leib, were living in Dvinsk at 167 Shosseinaya Street, not far from her sister-in-law Menucha s sister Beila Yenta Maisel (born Miller), at 40 Alexander Nevsky. The Magid s later moved to Dagda, where they, and the husband and children of Beila Yenta, probably perished in the 1940s. Other possible relatives who perished were the Dagda residents Movsha Leibovich Magid and his wife Basha Yoselevna, born Pitel, a sister of Israel David Yoselevich Pitel, the husband of my great-aunt Menucha; 5.11 MINNIE [MINNA HINDA] MILLER ( ; m. Hurwitz [or Horwitz]) Daughter of Abraham and Sima Maryasha Miller (2) ABRAHAM MILLER * My great-grandfather m. Sima Maryasha (unknown) (3) MINNIE [Minna Hinda] MILLER m. Zalman Yankel Hurwitz [or Horwitz] (4) ABRAHAM HORWITZ MICHEL HURWITZ EVA HURWITZ m. Jack Shapiro ADA HURWITZ m1. Schneier, m2. Sneg Minnie Miller [m. Hurwitz] The Miller s youngest daughter, Minnie [Minna Hinda] married Zalman Yankel Hurwitz [Gurvich], son of Hirsh, in Dvinsk in January According to the marriage records the groom was 29 and Minnie [Munia Ginda Meller] was 20 at the time of the marriage; if she turned 21 in 1889 she would have been born in 1868, which still doesn t quite correlate with the date (1863) we have from other sources but dates are notoriously unreliable. Together with many other members of the Miller clan Minna Hinda lived at some time in Kraslava, and it was from that town that she came to South Africa before the first world war. We have a record of Miss M.Hurwitz sailing from London to Cape Town on the Durham Castle on 6 October 1910; if this is our Minnie she was possibly in transit in London, for we have no record of her living in London. 84

85 Her son Abraham [Avremel] ( ) went to London in about 1903, where he stayed with my grandfather, his uncle Solomon Miller; he was welcome company for his cousin and contemporary, my mother Sophia. His subsequent moves are not clear. I believed that after some years he made an abortive attempt to emigrate to America, but finally came to South Africa in about However, there is a record of an Abraham Hurwitz, a watch maker, who came to New York (on the New York) on 7 August 1910 from Johannesburg, giving this as his last place of residence. His contact in America was his friend Mr. Dew, of 80 Barnes Road, Brixton, Johannesburg. As his contact was not an American, this might have been the reason Abraham s entry was refused. When Abraham actually came to South Africa is therefore unclear. There is a record of a A.Hurwitz, of Russian origin, who arrived in London with a pre-paid ticket, who proceeded to Cape Town on 31 March 1910 on the Garth Castle. Eventually, when in Johannesburg, he was taken by his uncle Lazar Miller to Johannesburg s most prestigious hotel, the Carlton, where he was employed as a waiter, but mistakenly under the name Miller. Eventually, as Abraham Miller-Horwitz, he rose to the rank of head-waiter at the Carlton, and subsequently at the elite (and notoriously anti-semitic) Rand Club. Abe s wife Becky (born Friedman) was regarded with the greatest affection by our family, an affection which even extended to her sister Polly. The outreach of our family feeling was seemingly boundless, and in fact, to this day, we regard Polly s daughter Pam (m. Pogoda) who lives in Efrat, as mishpoche. Abe and Becky had two sons, Basil and Ronny, the latter being the closer to my age. Now working in Johannesburg, Abe was able to bring out his brother Michel Hurwitz (c ), and his two sisters, Eva (c : m. Shapiro) and Ada (c : m1. Shneier, m2. Sneg). There is a record of a M. Hurwitz, a transmigrant alien, sailing from London to Cape Town on the Tintagel Castle on 26 August 1910, which supports this narrative. Michel had an only child, Cecil, who became a teacher and then head-master of a school, and who at one time lived, I believe, in England. Eva and Ada were two tiny little ladies whom my mother (an only child) looked upon almost as sisters: a large framed portrait of Eva stood upon an easel in our entrance hall. Each of the sisters had one child, namely Harold Shapiro and Gerald Shneier. To differentiate this Harold from my brother, he was invariably called little Harold. It would be remiss of me not to recall one most important fact. My mother s cousin Abe Horwitz was blessed with a retentive memory as far as the family was concerned, even in his nineties. As such, he was an invaluable source of factual information and piquant anecdotes about the family. It was he who told us, as we pressed him to reminisce about the past, of a dramatic event in Dvinsk 140 years ago. The central figure in this incident, in his account, was his grandfather (and my great-grandfather) Abraham Miller. In brief, this is the tale, the legend of the peasant and the wrath of God: Great-grandfather Abraham was, by trade as well as by name, a miller, a trade which, as we have seen, was a common occupation in Dvinsk. One winter s day, on his way home from the mill, he slipped and fell into the river Dvina. Weighted down by his heavy coat and boots, he drowned. Some time later, a peasant in a state of great agitation appeared at the newly-widowed Sima s house, telling an extraordinary tale. He had witnessed the accident but, he now confessed, he had done nothing to save the drowning man, preferring to let the Jew die. Later there was a storm, and his hut had been struck by lightning. The superstitious peasant saw in this the wrathful hand of God, whom he wished to appease by asking my great-grandmother s forgiveness. We understood that this story of a personal family tragedy also reflected, in microcosm, the endemic anti-semitism of Czarist Russia, which eventually impelled Abraham s widow Sima and some of her children, including my grandfather Solomon, to emigrate in the 1880s to England. I should like now to reconsider this story, in the light of new evidence, and perhaps 85

86 draw new conclusions from it. While I believe that the gist of the story is right, there is reason to doubt the identity of its central character, who was possibly not Abraham Miller but Abraham Bor. My reason for this reassessment is based on a contradiction inherent in the facts as we knew them. While we were unable precisely to determine the date of the tragedy which presumably caused great-grandfather Abraham Miller s death, we argued that it would have been before 1874/5, when the first grandson named Abraham (Yehuda Leib s son) was born. However, from the Dvinsk Family Lists great-grandfather is recorded as being aged 55 in 1876, and that he went to Kraslava in While it was noted that he had died, there is no record of this in the lists of deaths in Dvinsk which I subsequently obtained. There is, however, a notice in the list of 1870 of the death on 17 March of Abram Bor, where the cause of death is given as drowning one of only two occasions I have come across any such phrase in the many cases I have examined. Dinaburg BOR Abram not stated not stated Drowning (Утонулся) Now while there is no direct familial connection between the Millers and Bors, they are both part of an intricate web of relationships which ties together the main stems of our family and some of its peripheral branches. Abram Bor ( ), of Dvinsk, the man who drowned, was the father of Samuel Hyman [Schmuil Haim] Bor, who married my paternal grandmother s sister Golda Paikin. We know from our previous account that there was a close relationship between the Paikins and the Bors, which was reinforced when David Bor, son of Golda and Samuel, later married his cousin Anna Paikin, the daughter of grandmother s brother Boris Paikin. The Bor-Paikin conjunction is strengthened by inter-marriages in other branches of the Paikin family, as Elsebeth Paikin has recorded. Shneyer Morduchov Paikin, a contemporary of Samuel Bor, married Zelda Bor; and Maria Paikin, Shneyer s daughter, married Isaac Bor. The story becomes more complicated when we recall our previous discussion of the close relationship between the Paikins and the Millers, which started when Sarah Paikin (my father s aunt) married Lazar [Eliezer] Miller (my mother s uncle), and continued when their daughter Sophia Miller married Lasure Paikin, her mother s nephew, who had been living with the Millers when he came as a youth to England. As a result of these Paikin-Miller marriages the two families developed strong mutual bonds, which endured over the generations, as they moved first to England, and then to Johannesburg. Let us now return to our source of the story, cousin Abe Hurwitz (or Miller-Horwitz, as he was known professionally), and ask if this old man with a retentive memory could have been confused about the identity of the person involved in the tragedy so long ago. Where do the Hurwitzes fit in to the tangled skein that is our family? As I have recounted, Abe is the son of Minna Hinda Miller, my maternal grandfather Solomon Miller s youngest sister, who in 1889 married Zalman Yankel, son of Hirsh Gurvich [Hurwitz], of Rezekne. This is the second Hurwitz-Miller connection (see also Beila Yenta Miller) I am aware of, but it may have been the consequence of an earlier Hurwitz-Paikin connection. In 1875 Yedidia Solomon Paikin (c ), the oldest brother of my paternal grandmother Hinda Paikin, married Elka, daughter of Leizer Gurvich, of Rezekne. This was a second marriage, as both bride and groom are listed as divorcees. A son of this second marriage, Yudka Paikin, later lived in a building in Rezekne located on Bolshaya Ludzenskaya 67-1, in a building apparently owned by a widower, Haim Getzel Hurwitsch, in whose grocery shop Judka Paikin was employed. In a neighbouring building, incidentally, we find another Paikin, Haim, son of Ahron, and as we suggested earlier there is a possibility of Haim being part of our wider Paikin family. 86

87 5.12 THE FAMILY OF DAVID MENDEL MILLER (2) DAVID MILLER b.1835, m. Lea Yenta unknown (3) BEILA ROKHA [Rivka] b m. Avsei Aronovich Modlin BORUKH YOSEL b.1868 HINDA b.1887 Finally, for the record, my great-grandfather Abraham had a brother, David Mendel Miller (b.1835/7, married to Lea-Enta). I have mention of three children born to David and Lea. Their older daughter, Beila Rokha Miller (b.1866, married to Avsei Aronovich Modlin); in March 1894 they had twin daughters, Khaya-Mirel and Leia Enta, the latter being named after her recently deceased paternal grandmother Lea-Enta Miller, wife of the younger David. Next there was a son, Boruch Yosel Miller (b.1868, married to Elka Goldberg), who in 1897 lived on the corner Mitavskaya and Tulskaya St. in Dvinsk; their children were Freida-Basha ( ) and Khaim-Leib (b.1896). Finally, the 1897 Census, when after the older children had left home David and Lea were tenants in an apartment in Shosseinaya Street, another daughter, Hinda (b.1887) is listed. In the Census, David s wife is listed as Lea, daughter of Berko. This is possibly a second wife, because we have the death notice of Lea-Enta, wife of David Meler (son of David), who died of pneumonia in Dvinsk on 3/1/1894 aged 55. Finally, as a further example of the complex pattern of intermarriages in our family, we note the following: Beila-Rokha Modlin was the daughter of David Miller, the brother of my greatgrandfather Abram Miller, who was the father of her first cousin Kreine Modlin. As their husbands Ovsei ben Aron Modlin and Hirsh ben Leib Modlin were also first cousins, it means that two Miller cousins, Kreine and Beila-Rokha, married two Modlin cousins, Hirsh and Ovsei. 87

88 6. T H E Y E R U S A L I M S K I S My maternal grandmother s family Hannah Yerusalimski, my grandmother Hannah Miller (b.yerusalimski) and Sophia Miller, my mother 88

89 6.1 T H E Y E R U S A L I M S K I S My maternal grandmother s family (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI ( ) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah [Taube] Zelikman ( ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) JUDEL YERUSALIMSKI, later JULIUS MILLER PHILLIP [LIPMAN] EAUSLINSKI, later HARRY PHILLIPS HANNAH YERUSALIMSKI ( ) * My grandmother m. Solomon Miller SOLOMON YERUSALIMSKI, later MILLER NACHMAN EZRA ERUSALIMSKI, later HARRY NATHAN ABRAHAM ERUSALIMSKY ISRAEL JERUSALIMSKI, later NATHAN ROSE JERUSALYMSKI, later MILLER, m. Simon Quinn JOSEPH JERUSALYMSKI, later MILLER SIMON YERUSALIMSKI? The Hebrew name of the patriarch of the Yerusalimski family is Eliakim halevi Getzel. This name is documented in my grandmother Hannah s marriage certificate of His wife was Deborah [Taube] Zelikman (or Seligman). His surname, as it is transliterated into English, is Yerusalimski (or variants of that name). There are documents as well as oral history attesting to the fact that Eliakim Getzel and Deborah and their children all originally bore the surname Yerusalimski (or variants of that name), although some of them were to change it later in life. There is also documenation that my great-grandfather Getzel (or Eliakim Getzel) was commonly known to his wife and children as Gershon. Researching the Yerusalimski family presents several problems for the chronicler of this family history. Family consensus across the spectrum is that the family came from Dvinsk (Daugavpils) in Latvia. Our first problem was that Latvian archives unfortunately have not yielded much documentary information about the Yerusalimskis, except for one branch of the family, that of Yudel Yerusalimski. This has necessitated a disproportionate amount of searching for and extrapolating from personal documents birth, marriage, naturalization, censuses, tombstone inscriptions of later generations, in the UK, USA and South Africa, for the family dispersed after leaving Eastern Europe. This has been particularly difficult because of the idiosyncratic way in which the name Yerusalimski has been transliterated and adapted by various branches of the family. Finally, many branches found the name Yerusalimski unmanageable in Anglo-Saxon countries, and adopted new names, so that we are confronted with siblings with entirely different family names. 6.2 ELIAKIM GETZEL and DEBORAH [TAUBE] YERUSALIMSKI My maternal great-grandfather was Eliakim Getzel Halevi Yerusalimski ( ). The late Professor Jerry Esterton, an authority on Jewish first names, gives this explanation of the name: The Hebrew name Eliakim Getzel is a standard Hebrew double name. This means that it is composed of a first name which is a traditional Hebrew name, and a second name which is Yiddish, but which has been adopted as a true Hebrew name for use in Hebrew double names. This double name was used in Lithuania and Latvia. In practice, such names were the correct Hebrew name for a Jew and had to be used for a Jew when he was called to the Tora for an aliya 89

90 Eliakim derives from Kings II:18:18, and Getzel from the Yiddish or German Goetz. This double name was not used in everyday life, and Getzel by itself would be found in official Russian documents. However, there are many Jewish documents - the marriage certificate of Nachman, the death certificates of Julius and Rose (if Yerushom is a mis-spelling of Gershon), and the tombstone of Joseph - which refer to their father as Gershon. The death notice of Deborah refers to her late husband as Gershon. Family tradition is insistent that the family came from Dvinsk, but I have only been able to find one reference to a Yerusalimskis of my great-grandparent s generation or earlier in the Latvian, Lithuanian or Belarus databanks. This is the note of the death in Riga, on 8 January 1855, of Hirsh Jerusalinsky, a soldier, aged 27. Born in 1827, Hirsh was a near contemporary of Eliakim Getzel, possibly a brother or cousin. Unfortunately, the name of Hirsh s father is not given. As we shall see, there was no one named Hirsh in our family, but two Harrys Philips (b.1860) and Nathan (b.1870). Harry may have been a variant of Hershel, a name by which Harry Nathan was sometimes known (the inscription on his son Leigh s tombstone reads Leib ben Herschel Nochim). The only documented family we have found in the Dvinsk databanks of this later generation is that of Julius (Judel) Yerusalimski, my grandmother s brother. However, there are documents giving Dvinsk as the birthplace of five of the next generation, that is, my grandmother Hannah and her siblings. In South African records, the naturalization papers of two of Eliakim Getzel s other sons, Harry and Israel Yerusalimski (later Nathan), cite Dvinsk (Israel actually says Daneburg) as the town of origin. The London Rabbinate marriage certificate of my grandmother Hannah Yerusalimski (m.miller) also lists her birthplace as Dinaburg, and in the 1911 census both she and her brother Abraham are listed as coming from Dvinsk. Without questioning the Litvak origin of the documented Yerusalimskis - great-grandfather Eliakim Getzel s children, whether in England, America or South Africa, adamantly claimed to be Litvaks the frequency of references to Yerusalimskis in 19 th century Polish records should also be noted. There are also numerous Yerusalimskis listed as Holocaust victims in the Yad v Shem data bank, mainly in the Lodz Ghetto list. In the JewishGen data banks, of the rare Getzel Yerusalimskis I have found, one is of particlar interest: this is Geczel Jerozolimski, who was born in Belchatow, in the Lodz province, in In 1820 Belchatow, then under Prussian rule, was an industrial centre, about 25 km. south of Lodz, with Jews constituting more than half the population is the approximate date of my great-grandfather s birth. This person could possibly be my great-grandfather, but as he had a son Szama (Shamai) and there is no known sibling of my grandmother of this name we must think of other possibilities. One is that Szama was indeed a son of our Getzel but remained in Poland, where he married Chana Nowak in Another scenario is that this Polish Getzel might be a cousin of my greatgrandfather, and that they were named after the same ancestor. Also in Bialystok, at the end of the 19 th century, there was a Gershon Jeruzalimski who had three sons, whose names echo those of an earlier generation: Judel Gerszonowich (1895), Jakov Gerszonowich (1897), and Szlema [Solomon] Gerszonowich (1900). There is a reasonable chance that this was a collateral branch of our family. Bialystok, now in Poland, was in the Grodno district of the Russian Empire at this time. It should be noted that there are many Yerusalimskis in the All-Lithuania data bank, and we know that in the second half of the 19 th century many Lithuanian Jews moved to Latvia. Our date of birth of Getzel, 1824, originally an estimate, is now possibly supported by an item in Ancestry.com, linked to a photograph of a street in Dvinsk. We come now to the date of death. My grandmother stated on her marriage certificate that by 1887 her father was no longer living. Getzel s first known grandson, Daniel, was born in 1879, and the second, Israel, in 90

91 1885/6. It was only the third grandson, born in 1887, who was named Getzel. Given traditional Jewish naming patterns, this was obviously the first opportunity to honour the deceased patriarch of the family, which means that Eliakim Getzel died between 1885 and 1887, most probably in The 1886 date is confirmed by two documents, the shipping manifest when the family went to America in 1898, and the New York State census of This however raises an interesting question: who was Daniel the first son of the first son named after? Logic and tradition would have it that he was named after his paternal grandfather. That being the case, it is likely that Eliakim Getzel s father s name was Daniel. There was another child, Lipman s son, also named Daniel. There is some confusion as to Getzel s occupation. Various documents give it as tailor (1889), dealer (1898), and waiter (1903), Jason Finegold s interpretation of the last being a customs officer (tide waiter). I would tend to regard the earliest, that of tailor, as most likely. My maternal great-grandmother was Deborah [Taube] Zelikman (c ). Her date of birth derives from the UK censuses of 1891 and However, her death notice in 1903 gives her age as 59, which is obviously incorrect. In the family tree prepared by Rupert Finegold, of the American branch of the family, she was reputed to be the daughter of Joseph Zelikman (or Seligman: b.1792) but I have not been able to ascertain the original source of this information. I have found several Zelikmans named Jossel/Yosel [Joseph] in the databanks. Three are in Lithuania: I have no details of the first except that this Jossel s children and grandchildren lived in Lechava, in the Kovno district, in 1892, that they were well-to-do, and that Jossel s older son, Zelik, was born in 1813, which would make the father about the right age as our Joseph; the other Jossel, son of Levin, of Vilna, was born in There is a Jossel from Belarus, son of Aron, born 1797, from Minsk. Finally, there is Jossel Seligman, b.1804, the son of Jankel, in Jekabpils, Latvia. I have been in contact with two related Seligman families, Clive in the USA and Jon in Israel, who have researched the Seligman/Zelikman family, mainly from Slobodka, in the Braslav area of Belarus, just south of the Latvian border, with later connections in Dvinsk and Kraslava. What drew me to this family was the fact that there is a recurrence in this branch of the Zelikman family of the names Eliakim Getzel, which led me to consider a possible relationship. The occurrence of the relatively uncommon name Eliakim Getzel in both the Zelikman and Yerusalimski families may of course just be coincidental, or it may suggest a family connection in an earlier generation. At this stage, lacking data, such a link is purely speculative. For the record, I should point out that in the death certificate of Julius Miller [Yerusalimski], his mother s name is Tillie Taube (or Tauber, not clear), but I do have an unconfirmed suggestion that Deborah went by the name of Taube. A granddaughter named Tybie [Taube] Nathan was born in 1894, a year after her grandmother s death. On Rose s death certificate her mother is Bella Felikman, the latter seemingly confirming the Selikman name. In early 1891 my great-grandmother Deborah Yerusalimski a widow and her two youngest children were living with her son Nachman Hershel Yerusalimski (later Harry Nathan), who in 1889 had married in London. Her daughter Hannah (my grandmother), who had married in London in 1887, was living at that time in Glagow. It is reasonable to speculate that all these Yerusalimskis (including my grandmother Hannah) had travelled together from Latvia to England. I don t know if Deborah had a profession back in Eastern Europe, but in London she was a monthly nurse, that is, not a mid-wife, but a nurse hired for a period to aid a mother and her new-born baby. As we shall see, Deborah died in 1903 Before we can proceed with the history of the family the name Yerusalimski itself must first be addressed. We do not have original Latvian records relating to the patriarch Eliakim Getzel Yerusalimski, but as we have said, we are fortunate that the family name of some identifiable members of our Yerusalimski family is recorded in Latvian archives. Our documentary record of the name Yerusalimski comes from the Latvian vital records, which state that on 24 91

92 September 1889 Yudel Hetzelevich (the son of Getzel) and Gena Movshevna Yerusalimski were citizens of Velizh. Velizh was in the Vitebsk guberniya, about 200 miles from Dvinsk. This Judel (Julius) was my grandmother Hannah s brother. In the All-Russia Census of 1897 the same Yerusalimski family was living in Dvinsk, at 24 Podolskaja Street. In other words, the original name of the family is Yerusalimski. The birth of two of Judel s children are recorded with variants of the Yerusalimski name in Dvinsk Rabbinate lists: Genoch Movsha, son of Yudel Getzelovich Yerusaliem and Genia Movshovna (on 24/09/89), and Yankel, son of Yudel Getzelevich Eruzolimski and Gena Movshovna Gelsheer (on 30/04/91). Gena is the Hannah Gelsigger we know from later documentation Establishing the original name is important, because of fluctuations the family name underwent. When the family moved to Anglo-Saxon countries (Great Britain, the USA, South Africa) confusion set in, as English-speaking officials wrestled with the intricacies of this unfamiliar Eastern-European name. Consider the idiosyncratic variations of the spelling of the name. We have the certificates of marriage of my maternal grandfather Solomon Miller and grandmother Hannah [Annie], which took place in London on 20 March On the civil marriage certificate the bride is listed as Annie Erisolominski, and her father as Getzel Erisolominski; on the rabbinate certificate in English she is Annie Erisolominski, and in Hebrew Hannah, daughter of Eliakum Halevi Getzil. Her maiden name, common to both documents, is Erisolominski. In 1888, however, when my mother Sophia was born in Belfast, Ireland, her mother s name was inscribed as Ruralimski. When Hannah s brother Nachman married in London in 1889, Nachman has transmuted to Nathan, and his surname is Erusalinski. On his tombstone his Hebrew name is Nachman Ezra b reb Eliakum Getzel. The surname of Hannah s brother Phillip (later Harry Phillips) was Eauslinsky, and this appears on documents relating to the birth and marriage of his daughters from 1898 to 1929; and his Hebrew name on his tombstone is Lipman b reb Getzil. Morry, Harry s first-born, retained the name Eauslinski when he moved first to Canada, and then to the United States, where he shortened the name further to Eauslin. Abraham, on his marriage, is listed as Erusalinsky. Julius and his family, in America, have simply become Jerusalem. Variants of the name Yerusalimski given by Beider include Ierusalim, Ierusalimskij, Erusalimskij, and Erushalmi. In the JewishGen databank the name is often listed as Jerozolimski. While these names derive from Jerusalem the holy city, in the case of my family it might have come from their home town, for as we noted previously, Dvinsk was known to the Jews as Jerusalem d Lita. Unless we have other information we shall use the spelling YERUSALIMSKI throughout this account. With this Babel of names it is not surprising that when Eliakim Getzel s children left Eastern Europe some chose completely new names. Several of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah s sons and a daughter took the surname Miller, as did Deborah herself, probably adopting the name of her sister Hannah s husband, which indicates a close relationship between these two families from Dvinsk. We know that Abraham lived with my mother s parents Solomon and Hannah Miller in Glasgow, and I believe that the youngest of these, Joseph (my mother s beloved Uncle Johnny) stayed with them at one time in London. Many of the Yerusalimskis who moved to America adopted the name of Miller, some like Joseph and Rose while in England, others after some time in the New World. Other Yerusalimskis changed this name, cumbersome to English ears, to more anglicized names such as Phillips and Nathan. As we report on each family, we shall refer to the question of name changes in each specific case. 1 st documented name born change of name documented Hebrew name Judel Yerusalimski 1855 later Miller (in the USA) Yehuda Leib ben Eliakum Getzel Phillip Eauslinsky 1862 later Phillips (in England) Lipman ben Getzel Solomon Jerusalimsky 1864 possibly later Miller (in the USA) Hannah Erisolominski 1866 (m. Solomon Miller) Hannah bat Eliakim HaLevi Getzel Nachman Erusalinsky 1870 later Nathan (in England) Nachman Ezra ben Eliakim Getzel 92

93 Abraham Erusalimsky 1872 later Miller (in Scotland), then back to Erusalimsky (in UK) Israel Jerusalem 1874 later Miller (in UK), then back to Jerusalem (in transit to South Africa) then Nathan (in South Africa) Rose Jerusalymski 1878 (m. Simon Quinn) Rachel bat Getzel Joseph Jerusalymski 1881 later John/Joseph Miller (in the USA) Yosef ben Gershon As I have stated, on the marriage certificate of my grandparents, dated 20 May 1887, it was noted that Eliakim Getzel was no longer living, presumably having died in Dvinsk. Many descendants of Eliakim Getzel were named after him (the half-dozen Getzels, Gershons, Gilberts and Georges found in the family tree). The first of these was Julius Yerusalimsky s son Getzel, later Gerson Jerusalem, then Gilbert Miller, born 1887/8. I, born in 1924, was probably the last. It is not known when the family began to disperse, but we shall try and follow their individual paths. While Julius s family moved directly to the United States, the remainder of the family, whether as a unit or seperately, gathered in London. Eliakim Getzel s widow, my great-grandmother Deborah Yerusalymski, appears in the 1891 UK Census, living with the family of her married son Nathan Yerusalymski, together with her two younger children, at 241 Brunswick Buildings, Goulston Street, Whitechapel. It is interesting to note that my paternal grandparents were living in Brunswick Buildings, although in a different apartment, at the time their first child, Lazarus, was born in However, by the time Nathan married in 1889 and settled in Brunswick Buildings, the Herberts had left, moving a stone s throw away to New Court. Ten years later, according to the 1901 Census, Deborah (now Deborah Miller) was still in London, living as a boarder at 102a Old Montague Street, Whitechapel, the home of her son Solomon. She later moved to Hackney to her daughter Rose Quinn, where, in 1903, she died. Eliakim Getzel and Deborah had a very large family, of whom we have information, to a greater or lesser extent, about nine descendant families, and the unconfirmed name of a tenth. My original basis for constructing this branch of the family tree came from conversations I had with my mother Sophia (Hannah s daughter), Gilbert and Robert Miller (Joseph s sons), and Ray Alper (Harry Philip s daughter). The details have been filled in by later contacts with numerous other members of the family in England, South Africa and the United States, and on-going research (latterly with considerable aid from the internet) in archives world-wide, ranging from der heim in Eastern Europe to the New World. I am indebted to Jason Finegold and Andrew Quinn, who have documented their American branches of the Yerusalimski family. 6.3 JULIUS YERUSALIMSKI, later MILLER Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) JULIUS YERUSALIMSKI, later MILLER ( ; m. Hannah Gelgisser) (4) DANIEL IDA m. Barnet Fast (Fastovsky) GILBERT ISADORE MURRAY JOHN ALICE m. Edward Berkenfield JAMES I shall use the the history of the first-born son, Julius, as an exemplar of the complex history of the Yerusalimski descendants. We are fortunate that in this one case we can follow the 93

94 documented paper trail of Julius, his wife and children, from their origins in Eastern Europe (we even have their address in Dvinsk) to their voyages across the Atlantic from England to New York, and their lives and deaths in America. Apart from my grandmother Hannah s story, this is the fullest documented account I have. To the best of my knowledge Julius Miller and his wife Hannah had at least six sons: Daniel ( ), Gilbert ( ), Isadore ( ), Murray ( ), John ( ), and James ( ); and two daughters: Ida ( ; m. Barney Fast) and Alice ( ; m. Edward Berkenfield). These are their names in America, as derived from the family tree prepared by Rupert Finegold (Feingold), grandson of Ida. These names are confirmed from other family sources. To gain knowledge of this family I met with Rupert and with Julius Fast, a son of Ida, and with Judy Fast Zander, on one of my visits to New York. Julius is the author of Body Language, and his brother Howard Fast is the best-selling novelist. As we noted, Howard Fast had dedicated one of his books, The Jews, to his mother, Ida Yerushalayim, and it is interesting to note that he used a version of this original family name rather than the adopted name of Miller, or her married name. I have a photograph of Rena Fast, Rupert s mother, who married a Feingold, the same family into which two of her great-uncles, Harry Nathan and Joseph Miller, had married. In this photograph are her husband Julius, and the two sons of Joseph Miller, the youngest of all the children of Eliakim Getzel and Taube Yerusalimski. There seems to have been some attachment to tradition in the older generation, for Murray, James, and Joseph had sons named Gilbert, presumably named after Eliakim Getzel, the patriarch of the Yerusalimski family, and I understand that in more recent times the generations get together once a year for a family gathering on Thanksgiving Day. Yet I am told that among their descendants there has regrettably been a great deal of marrying out of the faith. Gilbert Miller, many years ago, commented sadly on this in a letter to me, and this sentiment was echoed later by Rupert, Julius and Judy, who wryly suggested that many of the younger generation of the American Yerusalimski/Miller family are Jewish only in the sense that Hitler defined Jews, rather than halachically. Recently, however, I have been in touch with Jason Finegold, Rupert s son, who not only is interested in his family s history, but is anxious to understand the nature of their lives in Eastern Europe. I have also noted, on the Quinn-Salvador tree run by Andrew Ira Quinn, a descendant of Rose Yerusalimski, Julius s sister, a certificate of his circumcision and the Hebrew naming certificate of his sister Laura Diane. It is true that inter-marriage in America is a more significant phenomenon than in England or South Africa, but while the sense of Jewish identity of the American branches of our family has suffered its blips, it apparently still remains alive. The family of Julius Miller is recorded in the1897 census of Dvinsk residents. Podolskaya st. House N 23. Apt 3 Lana- Genia* Movsha F Head of the household Bricks Metal JERUSALIMSKI ЕРУСАЛИМСКИЙ 36 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Seamstress Ita Judel F Daughter 15 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Itzik Judel M Son 14 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Getzel Judel M Son 9 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Movsha Judel M Son 6 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Supported by mother Supported by mother Supported by mother Supported by mother Genia was married to Judel, the son of Getzel JERUSALIMSKI

95 Jakov* Judel M Son 3 Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Ema(?) Judel F Daughter Supported by mother 1 month Dvinsk Dvinsk Jew Yiddish Supported by mother Jakov, also Jankel JERUSALIMSKI was born on 30/04/ Other records refer to the widow Lana Gena Movsha Yerusalimski, who lived at 23 Podolskaja Street (incidentally close to the family of one Yankel Paikin at number 34). Six children (aged between fifteen and one) lived with their mother: Eta Yudeleva (b.1882), Israel Yudelev (b.1887), Hetzel Yudelev (b.1888), Movsha Yudelev (b.1891), Yakov (b.1894) and Elja (b.1896). These dates of birth are deduced from the ages of the children given in the census, and must be regarded as approximate only. According to the patronymics, the father's name was Yudel. From earlier Dvinsk records, we know of a child, Henoch Movsha, born to Judel and Gena, then living in Velizh, in Gena was born in Dvinsk, and Judel is noted as a citizen of Velizh, a town in the Vitebsk Guberniya, some 200 miles away. Given some flexibility in fixing birthdates, it is likely that Henoch Movsha, son of Judel, and Movsha Yudelev are one and the same person. The father's name is given in full as Judel Hetzelevich Yerusalimski. Hetzelevich is a patronymic, meaning the son of Hetzel (Getzel). From another source, the Riga Rabbinate records, we have these two birth announcements: Genoch Movsha, son of Yudel Getzelovich Yerusaliem, born 24 September1889, and Yankel, son of Yudel Getzelevich Eruzolimski, born 30 April1892. My assumption that the family of Judel Hetzelevich Yerusalimski is actually Julius s family is based on two criteria: firstly, our knowledge that the Yiddish or Hebrew names of the family in Lita were commonly anglicised on emigration to England or America, and that these English names were not arbitrary but were usually derivatives of the originals; and secondly, on the correlation of birth-dates, give and take a year or two. Data from Dvinsk Census 1897 Data from US Census 1900 The family of (the widow) The family of JULIUS JERUSALEM LANA GENIA MOVSHA YERUSALIMSKI wife: ANNIE JERUSALEM b.1861 b. 1861, 23 Podolskaja Street, Dvinsk 103 Monroe Street, Manhattan, NY Not living at home Daniel b.1879 Ita b.1882 Ida b.1881 Itzik (Israel) b.1887 Isadore b.1884 Getzel b.1888 Gershon b.1887 Movsha b.1889 Morris b.1889 Yakov b.1894 Jacob b.1893 Ema? (Elja) b.1896 Ellos b.1897 The correlations are striking, beyond the possibility of mere coincidence. However, there are two problems which must be accounted for, the absence of Judel and Daniel. In one version Gena is described as a widow, but we know that Julius Yerusalimski, later Miller, lived until There is a feasible explanation of this anomaly. That Judel was not present at the time of the census seems clear. Perhaps the census clerk was given the wrong information, or simply made an error in completing the form. Gena would not have been aware of this, as she was illiterate. As we shall see, Judel (Julius) had already emigrated to America, to prepare the ground, as was customary, for his pregnant wife and the remaining five children. Jul. Jerusalimsky arrived in New York on 16 September 1896 on the Munchen, a Norddeutscher Lloyd liner of 4536 tons, sailing from Bremen. He had been preceeded in 1895 by his son Daniel, the first of the family to move to America. Julius and Daniel were joined 1897 by Ida and Israel Jerusalimsky, who sailed from Southampton to New York on the St. Louis on 21 95

96 August In the manifest where incidentally their ages (given as 11 and 16 respectively) are reversed, Ida at 16 being the older child - they stated that they were going to join their father, who had paid for their fares. This casts a new reflection on the legend surrounding the parents of the author Howard Fast. From his autobiography we read: In 1897, working in a tin factory in Whitestone, Long Island, my father... became bosom pals with Danny Miller and Danny showed Barney a picture of his beautiful sister. My father fell in love with the picture, began to correspond with Ida Miller, saved his money, sent her a steamship ticket for passage to America, and in due time married her. The love story may be true, but the facts are not: both Daniel and Ida at that time were still Yerusalimskis, not Millers, and apparently it was Ida s father Julius who paid her fare, not the infatuated Barney Fast. Annie and the four younger children reunited with the family a year and a half later, travelling on the Lake Huron from Liverpool to Halifax, Feb/Mar 1898, but disembarking at New York. Annie put down Dvinsk as their last place of residence, so presumably they were only in transit in England. We should however note that Ida and Israel had earlier stated that their previous place of residence was London. The family settled in New York, and Julius and Annie Jerusalem (as the name is now spelt) are listed in the 1900 US Federal Census at 103 Monroe Street, Manhattan, together with their children Daniel, Ida [Eta], Isadore [Israel], Gershon [Getzel], Morris [Movsha], Jacob [Yakov/Yankel, and Ellos [Elja]. All members of the family are recorded to be of Russian origin (as are Julius and Annie s parents). Julius is a cook, Daniel and Isadore are silver-smiths, and Ida works with paper boxes. By September 1900 a watershed has been reached in this family s history, for according to Daniel s marriage certificate of that date the family name has changed from Jerusalem to Miller. By 1905, the Miller name is confirmed in the New York State census. Other changes are noted: a new child, Joseph, has been born to them in New York, Gershon has become Gilbert, Jacob inexplicably has become Charles, and Ellos is now Alice. Two children have left home: Daniel had married his Russianborn wife Anna, in 1900 and Ida had married Barnet Fast (Boris Fastowsky) in 1903, the marriage having been witnessed by her brother and sister Gilbert and Ellos. The succeeding censuses tell the evolving story of the family. By 1910 Charles (previously Jacob) has become John, Julius has up-graded his profession from cook to caterer, and Gilbert is a physician. Ten years later, the cohesion of the family unit has disintegrated. Julius died on 9 December 1917 of myocarditis, and was buried in the Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Riverside. His Hebrew name on the tombstone is Yehuda Leib ben Eliakum Getzel, but his father s name on the death certificate, as I pointed out earlier, is Gershon. By 1920, Ida and Barney Fast are living in Manhattan, with their children Lena (aged 14), Jerome (aged 6), Howard (aged 5) and Julius (aged 8 months). Their son Arthur, born 1908, died tragically in In the same 1920 Census Daniel and Anna Miller are in Brooklyn, with their daughters Elsie (aged 17), Marion (aged 11) and Ronda (aged 9). After Julius s death his widow Annie moved to a rental apartment in 113 th Street, with her children Murray [Morris], Alice, and James [Joseph], a writer. By 1930, according to the census, she had made her final move, and together with James was living with Alice Berkenfield and her family in Queens. Annie died in 1934, and was buried, like her husband, in Mt. Hebron Cemetery. The inscription on her tombstone reads Lena Hannah bat Hanoch Moshe, the same Lana Gena Movsha of the Dvinsk census of Her parents, her death certificate tells us, were Moses and Sarah Gelgisser. Sad to say, her daughter Ida Fast predeceased her, having died at the early age of 39 in Gilbert, too, died at a relatively early age, in

97 6.4 PHILLIP [LIPMAN] EAUSLINSKY, later HARRY PHILLIPS Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) LIPMAN [PHILIP] EAUSLINSKI, later HARRY PHILLIPS ( ; m. Kate Kalor) (4) MORRY (EUASALIN) JOSEPH DANIEL ESTHER, m. Levy SOPHIE, m. Cohen RACHEL, m. Harry Alper SARAH [SADIE], m. John Valinsky (Marks) ALICE MILLIE, m. Werbloff (Vennor) Lipman Eauslinsky (later Harry Phillips) Lipman Yerusalimski ( ) came to England from Dvinsk, and settled in London with his wife Kate (Chasha), nee Kalor ( ). Originally he used the form of the name Eauslinsky (with variants), then changed his name to Philip Eauslinsky, and finally, some time after the birth of some (perhaps all) of his many children, he changed his name to Harry Phillips, and this eventually became the accepted surname of all his children except the firstborn, who adapted the name Eauslinsky to Eauslin. This son, Morris emigrated to Canada, and then in 1909 to the United States. The rest of the family put down roots in England. Our first documentation of this London-based family comes from the Census of Living at 153 Back Church Lane, Whitechapel, are Phillip Eauslinsky (26), a painter; his wife Kate (33), sons Morris (17), a brass finisher, Daniel (14), and Joseph (12); and daughters Esther (10), Sophia (7), Rachel (6), Sarah (3), and Amelia (1). The parents and all the older children are listed as Russian-born; Sophia and the three younger girls were born in London. If Esther was born in 1891 in Russia, and Sophia in 1894 in London, we can assume the date of immigration to England as being about From the next census, of 1911, we can note the changes, the information being attested as true by Joseph. The address is now 61 Blyth Street, Bethnal Green, and the surname is noted as Silinsky. Phillip s occupation is more fully described as House Painter and Paperhanger, and the same trade is followed by Daniel; Joseph is an Umbrella and Walking Stick Mounter; Esther and Sophie are Gentlemen s Tailoresses; and young Rachel, now 16, is a Milliner. Sarah and Amelia (now called Millie) are at school, and there is a late addition to the family, Alice, born in Morris, of course, is no longer in England. 97

98 All in all, the census notes that there had been 11 children in the family, of whom 9 had survived. With so many mouths to feed, it is no wonder that even the teenagers went out to work. Let us summarize this family. The oldest son, Morris ( ), married Rosie Penn in They moved first to Canada, and then in 1909 to the United States, crossing the border at St. Albans, Vermont. Morris and his wife Rose settled in Milwaukee, where they are listed in the 1920 and 1930 censuses, and where their children were born. Morris is recorded as having been born in Lithuania, and dealing with auto radiators. This family later moved to Chicago, where in 1950 I enjoyed meeting Morris s daughters Josephine (m.martin) and Jane (m.saunders). Their other children were Philip and William. Phillip and Kate Eusalinsky s other sons were Joseph ( ) and Daniel (c ), neither of whom married. Then followed their six surviving children, the daughters Esther ( ), who in 1919 married Emanuel Levy; Rachel ( ), who in 1918 married Harry Alper; Sophie ( ), who in 1919 married Lewis Cohen; Sarah (Sadie, ), who in 1923 married John Valinsky (who after the birth of his daughters changed his name to Marks); Alice ( ), who was unmarried, and Millie ( ) who in 1929 married Louis Werbloff (later Vennor). So far, I have only been able to trace the births of Rachel and Sarah in the UK birth records: Rachel Eusalinski, born 17 October 1895, at 58 Wentworth Buildings, and Sarah Eusalinski, born 8 April 1897, at 25 Plough Street Buildings; the other dates are derived from the UK record of death, or the censuses. When I first visited England in 1950 I was invited by Rachel (Ray) Alper (whom I had met when she visited Cape Town some time before) to stay with them in their Upton Park home. As a graduate student with a modest scholarship I was happy to accept this generous offer. Austerity reigned in post-war Britain, but the hospitality I received was warm and plentiful. The Alpers had a stall in one of London s colourful street markets, and on occasions I helped them on a busy Sunday. Cutting large blocks of icecream into smaller rectangles and inserting these between two wafers, listening to the endless good-humoured banter going on between the Alpers and their customers, was a new experience for me. On that first visit I met most of the English branches of the Phillips family, some of them at Millie s funeral. After Harry Alper s death my wife and I made a point of visiting the Alpers each time we went to England, and remained in touch with the Alper children, Clarice (m. Wakely, later living in Canada) and Philip, until their deaths. Another of Harry Phillip s descendants we are still in regular contact with is Eva Kushin, Sarah Mark s daughter, together with Eva s husband Gerald and their son Simon. One member of the Phillips family, Philip Vennor, lives in Israel, but while his wife Zahava shares our interest in the family tree, we have not remained in touch. It is unclear when the name changed from Eauslinski to Phillips. Harry s grandaughter Eva thinks it was in 1919, after World War I, but on the grave of the patriarch, who died in May 1918, the name Harry Phillips is already inscribed. The pattern is confused. In addition to Morris Eauslin s American documents (1920 and 1930 Censuses) we have the following English documents relating to the original Yerusalimsky family name: the births of Rachel Eusalinsky in 1895 and Sarah Eusalinsky in 1897; the marriages of Sadie [Sarah] Eusalinsky in 1923 and Millie Eusalinsky in On the other hand, we have the marriages of Ray Phillips in 1918, and Sophie Phillips in Presumably some members of the family remained faithful to the old name, while others switched with their father to Phillips. 98

99 6.5 SOLOMON YERUSALIMSKI (JERUSALIMSKY), later MILLER Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) SOLOMON YERUSALIMSKI (JERUSALIMSKY), later MILLER ( ??; m. Annie Baum) (4) BENJAMIN GETZEL JOSEPH SARAH MIRIAM My account of this family is based upon the UK census of 1901, whose information provides a reasonable basis for constructing at least the London phase of Solomon s history. However, it has one major problem, because of the difficulty of deciphering the almost illegible script of the recording clerk. In the printed version of the relevant entry in the 1901 census (on the website findmypast.co.uk) we have the family of Solomon Irosbrivsky, living at 102a Old Montague Street, Whitechapel. On trying to check this unlikely looking name against the actual handwritten original document, it appears that it might reasonably be transcribed as Iroslinsky, or even Irosolinsky. This is by itself is not sufficiently persuasive, but the details of the residents are convincing evidence of a family link. This Solomon, born in Russia in 1868, is a House Painter, which is the trade of at least three of his siblings. One of his sons is called Getzel, an unusual name, but common amongst the descendants of Eliakim Getzel. Then there are three boarders, all born in Russia, living in the house: Deborah Miller, a widow born in 1837, and her sons John Miller, a bachelor born in 1880, and Israel Miller, a bachelor born in We know that by this time some Yerusalimskis had changed their names to Miller, and these dates relate to Deborah Yerusalimski, Eliakim Getzel s widow; Joseph (later John) Yerusalimski, Solomon s youngest brother; and Israel Yerusalimski, another of Solomon s siblings. But there is more than just a coincidence of names. John Miller is described as a Stylographic Pen Maker, an unusual trade but one followed by our John Miller; and Israel Miller is listed as a Painter, which indeed was the calling of several of Eliakim Getzel s family, including Israel himself. To sum up, accepting this scenario, I believe that this was Solomon s family as it existed in Solomon s wife was Annie, b A son was born to them before they came to England: Benjamin, born in Russia in 1886, also a house painter. In England they had two further sons, Getzel, born in 1891, and Joseph, born in 1898, both births registered in Whitechapel, London, followed by a daughter, Sarah, also born in Whitechapel, who was 9 months old at the time of the census (Sarah Miriam Irasslovsky, b.21 July 1900). From Sarah s birth certificate we learn that Annie s maiden name was Baum. We have no further record of this family in England, as they don t appear in the 1911 census. This is logical, as we have a record, in the category of border crossings from Canada to US, of Saloman Jerusalimsky, aged 38, a painter, who arrived in St. Albans, Vermont on 27 June 1903, having sailed from Liverpool on the Mount Temple. We know that this is our Solomon, because he states that he is going to join his brother, Mr. Julius Jerusalimsky, of 165 Monroe Street, New York. I have not been able to follow the trace of Solomon and his family beyond this point of entry, nor do I know if they followed Julius s example, and adopted the name of Miller. There is one possibile indicator that this was the case, relating specifically to the oldest son, Benjamin. The story starts with an application in December 1924 for an American passport by Benjamin Miller, son of Solomon Miller. Benjamin s data fit the facts we know. He was born in Russia in 1886, and his occupation is that of a painter and paper-hanger. He stated that he had arrived from Liverpool in I checked the arrivals, and found that in fact he had crossed from Canada into the USA at St. Albans, Vermont, in March 1908, following the same route as 99

100 his father Solomon. In the manifest he states that he is going to his uncle, Ali (not clear, could be Abe) Miller that is Solomon s brother, Abraham. Two points in his passport application are of interest. He states that he was born in Sarnova, Russia, which according to the JewishGen Shtetl Seeker could be Cernova, a small town in Latvia about 120 miles north of Dvinsk. Then he states that the purpose of his proposed journey is to visit Palestine, travelling via France and Egypt. The last document we have is the Federal Census of 1920, indicating that Benjamin was then living in Baltimore, MD, with his wife Rosie. If I know nothing more of Solomon s family I am not alone. Gilbert Miller, writing to me from America about family matters in 1976, commented wryly: The Solomon (Schlaymer) branch has evaporated as far as we know haven t heard about them for at least 40 years, though I m sure they re still in this hemisphere. 6.6 HANNAH YERUSALIMSKI (ERISOLOMINSKI) ( ) Daughter of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski. Of those members of the family whose date of birth is known my grandmother Hannah is next, but we shall discuss her later. At this stage we turn to her younger brothers and her only sister. 6.7 NATHAN [NACHMAN EZRA] YERUSALIMSKI (ERUSALIMSKY), later HARRY NATHAN Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) NATHAN [Nachman Ezra] YERUSALIMSKI, later HARRY NATHAN ( ; m. Ada Feingold) (4) JACKY ALEC DORA (DVORA) m. Lurie KATE m. Joe Schaeffer JOSEPH TYBIE (TAUBE) m. Abrahams LIONEL LEIGH REINA m. Goldstein STANLEY SOLOMON Nachman Ezra Erusalimsky (born in Dvinsk) underwent two transformations in the process of the anglicization of his name. Firstly he transformed his first name Nachman into Nathan. Then, after his marriage, following the same stage-by-stage process adopted by his brother Philip, he took his recently acquired first name Nathan as his surname, and adopted a new first name, Harry. By these stages Nachman Ezra Erusalimskiy became Harry Nathan. Harry may have been a variant of Hershel, a name by which he was sometimes known (the inscription on his son Leigh s tombstone reads Leib ben Herschel Nochim). Surprisingly, two Yerusalimski brothers chose different surnames, Phillips and Nathan, but the same first name, Harry. In England, Nathan Yerusalimski (in the marriage register it is spelt Erusalinsky) met and on 27 October 1889, in Sandys Row Synagogue, married Ada Feingold, born in Germany of parents of Russian-Jewish origin. They were neighbours, Nathan living at 2 Plough Street, Ada at 34 Plough Street Buildings, and it is possible that there were commercial connections, for both Nathan and his future father-in-law Reuben Feingold were house painters by trade. 100

101 As we shall see, there was to be a significant relationship between the Feingold (or Finegold) family and the Yerusalimskis. When we first encounter this family, in the 1891 UK Census, they are living at 12 Plough Street Buildings, Buckle Street, Whitechapel. The head of the family is Reuben, a painter, born 1848 in Russia, as was his wife Bertha (mistakenly enscribed as Bertie), born We can then trace the evolution of their large family through two subsequent censuses, those of 1901 and The first six children: Ada (already married to Nachman, she does not appear on the census), Lena (b.1875), Morris (b.1877), Fanny (b.1879), Sarah (b.1881), and Matilda (b.1883), were all born in Germany. They are followed by the children born in Whitechapel: Samuel (b.1886), Isaac (b.1888), David (b.1890), and Julius (b.1896). As often occurs, there are some discrepancies between the various censuses. In 1901 Fanny has become Florrie; and Bertha s widowed mother, who is living with her daughter (but on her own means ), is Lena Rosengrave (b.1828) in 1891, and Lena Newmark (b.1836) in Two girls from this family, Ada and Matilda, married two Yerusalimski brothers, Nachman and Joseph, and a son, Julius, married Rena Fast, the grand-daughter of his Uncle Julius Yerusalimski. Finally, there was Lena herself. She came to South Africa, where I knew her, the sister of my mother s two great aunts, as Aunty Lena. Her claim to fame, in my adolescent eyes, was that I understood her daughter Dolly was the first woman pilot in South Africa, and Dolly s husband, a chief engineer in the Post Office, served as a senior officer in the Signals Corps with the SA 6 th Division in North Africa. Harry Nathan emigrated to South Africa in 1900, arriving in April (according to his naturalization application). As was the custom with many emigrants, he had left his young family (his wife and young children) behind in England, and the census taken at the end of March 1901 shows the family living at 58 St. Peters Road, Mile End Old Town, with Ada, the head of the household ( living on own means ), and three children, Dora (10), Alex [Alec] (6), and Katie (3 months her conception must have taken place just prior to Harry s departure). Interestingly, at the same address we find my grandmother Annie [Hannah] also described as head and my mother Sophia (12). Hannah and Ada of course were sisters-in-law, Hannah Miller and Harry Nathan being Yerusalimski siblings. The implications of this domestic arrangement upon the question of the Millers own immigration we shall discuss later. The family believes that Harry returned to England to bring out his wife and young children. While I have not been able to ascertain when this occurred, there is a family Mr. and Mrs. Nathan, and two daughters and a son who sailed from Southampton to Cape Town on the Dunottar Castle on 20 September The composition of this family matches exactly, and the date ties in with the birth of their first child in South Africa. Unfortunately, this is a rare manifest which has no details (ages, first names) whatsover. Harry was joined in South Africa by his brother Israel (see below). They settled at 45 Mount Street, Cape Town, which was their address in mid-1903, when they took out naturalization papers in the Cape Colony. There they started a business as painters and decorators, the same trade as their brothers Harry Phillips and Solomon Jerusalimsky and their nephew Benjamin Jerusalimsky had practised in England. Harry and Ada Nathan later moved to Johannesburg. The family lived at 117 Staib Street, Doornfontein, and the father, as well as carrying on with his profession, served as a shammes (beadle) in a nearby synagogue. The household was an orthodox Jewish household, and at the family seder on Passover there would be up to thirty people around the table. Theirs was a large family. At least the first four children were born in London: three of them, Dora (Dvora: ; m.lurie), Alec (Alex, ), and Jacky (John, 1896, accidentally killed as a young child), had the surname Erusalimsky, the next, Kate ( ; m.schaeffer), was a Nathan. This tells us that the name change took place between 1897 and The remaining children were born in South Africa: Tybie (Taube: ; m.abrahams), Lionel Leigh ( ), Reina ( ; m.goldstein), and Stanley Solomon ( ). I am not sure when and where the son Joseph (190?-1918) was born. He reputedly died in the great flu 101

102 epidemic at the end of the war. The Nathans, like many other branches of the family, were amply blessed with artistic talent: Dora as a singer and actress on the stage of the Yiddish theatre, her son Ronald as an outstanding baritone, Tybie as a musician, Solly as an artist, his daughter Brenda as a musician. I do not remember great-uncle Harry well, but am told he was a tall and good-looking man. On the death of Harry in Johannesburg, Ada joined those of her children - Tybie, Kate and Alec - who had settled in Pretoria. Leigh and Reina remained in Johannesburg (Leigh later moving to Durban, where he died), Dora is buried in Durban, and Solly settled in Port Elizabeth. 6.8 ABRAHAM YERUSALIMSKI [ERUSALIMSKY] Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) ABRAHAM ERUSALIMSKY ( ??; m.alice Levy) (4) GEORGE (GETZEL) ESTHER ROSE ANNIE DEBORAH We shall take only a brief look at the family of Abraham Erusalimsky, for unfortunately we have little conclusive information. Abraham does not appear on the Finegold tree, but was on the original list given to me if my memory does not fail me by Gilbert Miller. I have some roughly pencilled notes, dating back many years, which record that Abraham married Alice, that they had three children, George (Getzel), Esther, and Rose, and that they reportedly settled in England. The following account is the most feasible, as it best fits these few facts. In 1891 we find Abraham in Glasgow, living with his sister Hannah and her husband Solomon Miller, listed mistakenly as Abraham Miller, not as Erusalimsky, as we might expect. In 1894, now as Abraham Erusalimsky, he married Alice Levy in Mile End Old Town, London. A son, Gershon, was born to them in Then, according the official registers, in 1896 we have the birth of Esther Erusalinsky, in 37 Davis Avenue, Whitechapel, followed by that of Rose Erusalinsky, also in Whitechapel, in We have learnt that Gershon was the everyday name of Getzel, Abraham s father, and together with Esther and Rose these are the three children we always believed were our Abraham s offspring. In the 1901 UK Census Abraham Shlinsky [Erusalinsky], a tailor s presser, and his family are still in Davis Avenue, and he and Alice now have a newly-born third daughter, Sophia. Living with them is Abraham s mother-in-law Millie Levy. The 1911 UK Census shows the Abraham Erusalinsky family living in 9 Wyndham Road, Upton Park. This census is more detailed, and informs us that Abraham Erusalinsky was born 1872, in Dvinsk, and his wife of 17 years, Alice, was born in 1873 in Riga. Apart from the four children, all born in Whitechapel: Gershon, aged 15, a ladies tailor, Esther, aged 14, also a ladies tailor, and Rosie, aged 12, are two children born in Forest Gate: Annie, born in 1902, and Deborah, born in Deborah is the name of Abraham s mother, who had died in London the previous year, and it is reasonable to assume that Abraham would have honoured his mother s memory by naming his new-born daughter after her. Missing from this list is Sophia, who had died aged 1 in July-Auguat 1901 At this point we lose the trail, and cannot account for the later history of Abraham and his family. He may have changed his name to Miller, but although there are a multitude of Abraham Millers, I can t find any record of a change of name that correlates with this family; nor can I trace an emigration to America, which tends to confirm the belief that they settled in 102

103 England. We have suggested that if Solomon s son Benjamin came to his uncle Abe Miller in America, this uncle might be Abraham, but this is far from conclusive. However, there is one more intriguing piece to this fascinating genealogical jig-saw puzzle. When my grandmother Hannah, Abraham s sister, and my mother travelled to South Africa to join my grandfather in 1912, they were accompanied by an Abraham Selinsky, a tailor, aged 40. Who was this man? May we speculate that this is our Abraham, going to join his sister Hannah and his brother Harry Nathan in South Africa? If so, what became of his family? My immediate family in Johannesburg certainly had no contact with Abraham and his descendants, nor can the descendants of Lipman in England shed any light on the family of their kinsman Abraham. 6.9 ISRAEL YERUSALIMSKI [JERUSALEM], later NATHAN (1877/8-1909) Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski As we have noted, Harry Nathan was joined in South Africa, in about 1902, by his brother Israel (born in Dvinsk). We have suggested that the Israel Miller living with Solomon Iroslinsky is the adopted name of Israel Yerusalimsky. If this is so then we have a rare case of a double change of name. It would appear that Israel took the Miller name in England, as had his brother Joseph. However, he sailed to Cape Town on the Aberdeen on 29 November 1902 as Israel Jerusalem, before eventually taking his brother s new surname of Nathan. This lack of decisiveness is reflected in his subsequent career. After a sojourn of four years in Cape Town, he left South Africa for France, where he transhipped in Cherbourg on the St. Louis for the United States, docking in New York on 4 March At Ellis Island he was listed as single, residing in South Africa, of Russian and Hebrew ethnicity, aged 28. From British records we learn that the St. Louis had originally sailed from Southampton on 24 February 1906, and that Israel was a painter. At Ellis Island he stated that he was going to join his brother-in-law Simon Juiman [the name is unclear], of 287 Madison Street, New York, who had paid his fare. Possibly this is his sister Rose s husband, Simon Quinn (see below), for this is his only brotherin-law in America. Deciphering the name Quinn as scrawled on a manifest or other document is not an easy task. I have seen it transcribed elsewhere (in Ancestry.com) as Iminn. After his arrival in New York, we have found no further trace of Israel, except his death notice. He apparently never married, and died of pulmonary pneumonia, at the age of 33, after a long ilness, spending nearly a year at the Riverside Hospital at 510 East 139 th Street, New York. Poor Israel had only been in the United States for two years, half of the time in hospital. It was recorded that his father s name was Gilbert the only time that I have seen Getzel referred to by that name and his mother as Dora (not Dvora, or Deborah) 6.10 ROSE YERUSALIMSKI [JERUSALYMSKI], later MILLER ( ; m.simon Quinn) Daughter of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Deborah Zelikman (c ), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) ROSE JERUSALYMSKI, later MILLER ( ; m. Simon Quinn) (4) ISABELLE ALEXANDER DAVID IRVING ROBERT The dates of Rose s birth and death originally came from the family tree compiled by Rupert Finegold, a genealogist of the American branch of the Yerusalimski family. Her dates (

104 1947) are confirmed by later documentation. I originally learned about Rose from some American cousins, from whom I understood that Rose had married a Catholic by the name of Simon Quinn, and was therefore the first of our family of her generation to marry out of the faith. I assumed that this most unlikely marriage, which would have distressed our observant family, took place in America, when several of the Yerusalimskis after a short period in England emigrated to the USA. This account, I have now learnt, is without any basis in fact, and I apologise to the descendants of the Quinn family for having included it in earlier versions of this family history. I have recently uncovered documents which have caused me to discard this narrative. As I have discovered in two previous incidents, the presumed shadowy past of my great-uncle Yedidia Paikin and the legend of the drowning of my great-grandfather Abraham Miller, family lore is sometimes picturesque, but not always reliable. This is the reconstructed and more factual story of Rose Yerusalimsky, as it now emerges. She left her home town in Eastern Europe (probably Dvinsk) and moved with her widowed mother and young brother Joseph [John] to London. In 1891, according to the census, Deborah, Rosie (aged 14) a cigarette maker and John Jerusalymski (aged 9) were living with the family of Rose s married brother Nathan, at 241 Brunswick Buildings in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. In London Rose (now Rose Miller) met and married a man named Simon Queen, the marriage taking place in the East London Synagogue, Mile End Old Town, on 31 July From her marriage certificate I learned that Simon Queen was not a Catholic as had been suggested but a Jew, the son of David Queen. Rose Miller gave her father s name as Gatchel (Getzel?) Miller, and his occupation that of a dealer. Her address, 102 Old Montague Street, was the London home of her older brother Solomon Yerusalimski. As we have noted this, according to 1901 census, was where her widowed mother Deborah and her two bachelor brothers Israel and Joseph Miller were lodging. The couple settled in the London suburb of Hackney, where a daughter was born to them in We find the family listed in the UK 1901 Census not as Queen but as Quinn. Simon, aged 30, a boot machinist, was listed as a Russian subject not an American, as I had been given to understand as was his wife Rose, aged 23. Their daughter Bella was now 2 years of age, and living with the family was Simon s unmarried sister Dora Quinn, aged 18. Their Hackney address was 4 The Grove, and it was at the Quinn home, as we shall see, that Rose s mother Deborah passed away, in March Shortly thereafter, the Quinn family began their move to America. Simon, as the trailblazer, went first, arriving in New York from Liverpool on the Etruria on 27 December He is listed as a machinist of Russian Hebrew ethnicity, aged 33, going to join his brother-in-law J. Jerusalimsky, 165 Monroe St., New York. This would have been Julius, as Joseph was still in London. He remained there at least until Rose and the children came to join him the next year, arriving on the Carpathia from Liverpool on 8 July This time she was listed as Queen I suppose to Anglo-Saxon ears the name as pronounced by a Russian immigrant could be either Queen or Quinn and was accompanied by her expanding family: Bella, now aged 5, Alexander, aged 2, and the infant David. From the censuses we learn something of their life in America. In the New York State Census of 1905 they are living at 384 Cherry Street, with their three children. Simon is listed as a tailor, which is not his trade. According to the US Federal Census of 1910 they are at 20 Bartlett Street, Brooklyn, NY. Simon is now working as a jobbing carpenter, and they have a new son, Robert, born in Simon, Rose and their parents are noted as having been born in Russia, with Yiddish as their mother tongue. By 1920 they have moved to Myrtle Avenue, and Simon is once more working at his original trade, in the shoe industry. The household has changed: while Bella has left home, there is another son, Irving, aged 10, and a 24-year old unmarried cousin, David Quinn, who had come from Russia to the USA in The grown-up sons Alexander and David are now working as grinders in the painting trade. In 1930, the next documented 104

105 record we have of the family, they are still in Brooklyn. David, his wife Florence and son Theodore, aged 4, are living in the parental home. David is listed as a pen maker, possibly with his Uncle Joseph, whose business as we have already noted - was the manufacturing of pens. Rose died in On her death certificate it gives her father s name as Yerushon Miller and her mother as Bella Felikman. It is difficult to know what to make of these names. Yerushon could be Gershon, and Felikman seems to be Selikman (although Bella is obviously incorrect: one does not name a child after a living parent, nor does Bella jibe with Taube). The inscription on Rose s tombstone, however, is unambiguous: Rachel bat Getzel. If it seems strange that a Russian Jew should have the name of Quinn (or Queen) we should note that there are many Quinns in the JewishGen American data bank. We also have to remember that this is an English-language version and phonetic rendering of the original Yiddish or Russian name, which was probably Kvin. In this connection it should be noted that there about 65 people named Kvin or Kwin in the JewishGen data bank of Jews living in Dvinsk at the end of the 19 th century. Vladimir Salita, whose maternal great-grandfather was Kasriel Kvin from Dvinsk, suggests that they were probably all of one clan. From Simon Quinn s 1920 application for naturalization he gives Dvinsk as his place of birth. While I never heard my grandmother Hannah talk of Rose she obviously thought of her fondly. I have a photograph of my grandmother inscribed To my dear sister Rose; this photograph, however, was not sent, for it remained in my mother s possession. When I last saw Gilbert Miller, who had originally provided me with details of the Quinn family tree, he told me that some of the Quinns were living in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I had no contact with Rose s descendants over the years until recently, when I began to communicate and exchange information with Andrew Quinn, Rose s great-grandson, an assiduous chronicler of the history of his family JOSEPH [JOHN] YERUSALIMSKI [JERUSALYMSKI], later MILLER Son of Eliakim Getzel and Taube Yerusalimski (2) ELIAKIM GETZEL YERUSALIMSKI (c1824-c1886) * My great-grandfather m. Taube [Dvora] Zelikman (c1836-c1903), daughter of Joseph Zelikman (b.1792 or 1804) (3) JOSEPH [JOHN] JERUSALYMSKI, later MILLER ( ; m. Matilda Feingold) (4) DORIS m. Saul Lehds GILBERT ROBERT Joseph Yerusalimski (later Miller) Joseph, born 15 May 1882, was my mother s youngest uncle, who I believe had stayed at her parents home in London on his arrival from Russia. As was the case with Rose, the evidence of his name Yerusalimski comes from the UK 1891 census, where he is John Yerusalymski. 105

106 However, by 1901 he is John Miller. My mother had the greatest affection for Uncle Johnny, as she called him, and perhaps looked upon him as a brother, close to her own age. As an only child she missed the companionship of siblings, and Joseph obviously proved attractive to his young female relatives. Howard Fast in his autobiography Being Red suggests that Joseph had more than avuncular feelings for his niece Ida, then also living in London. Despite the fact that they were of different generations they were the same age. When my grandfather Solomon Miller left for South Africa in March 1901, and Hannah and my mother moved in with my grandmother s sister-in-law Ada (Feingold) Nathan, Joseph apparently went to live with his older brother Solomon, as we have seen. Joseph emigrated from England to the United States in 1904, arriving in New York on 2 August on the Ryndam from Rotterdam. In his Ellis Island passenger record he is going to join his brother, S. Miller, at 31 Scammel Street, New York. This was possibly his brother Solomon, with whom he had lived in London, although I have not found evidence that Solomon Jerusalimsky had by then, a year after his arrival, changed his name to Miller. In London Joseph had met Mathilda (Tilly) Feingold [Finegold], a sister of his sister-in-law Ada Nathan. Tilly in 1901 was living with her family (a grandmother, her parents Ruben and Bertha, and six siblings) at 12, The Buildings, Plough Street, Whitechapel. She too emigrated to America, arriving on the Campania from Liverpool on 27 May 1905, going to join her friend, J. Miller, who by then had moved to 5 Monroe Street, New York City. They were apparently married soon after her arrival, for in June 1905, when the New York State Census was taken, John and Matilda Miller are listed at 384 Cherry Street, next door to Simon and Rose Quinn. In the 1910 US Federal Census we find the Miller family living in New York at 41 Brook Avenue: Joseph, Mathilda, Doris (born 1906) and Gilbert (born 1908). While no occupation is listed for Joseph, Mathilda is described as working in the fountain pen industry as a rubber turner (a fountain pen turner - or lathe operator - was a recognized job description). She may have been working for her husband, but more probably this was inserted on the wrong line, and should have applied to Joseph. We know, from Solomon s census entry, that Joseph was a Stylographic Pen Maker, and in later years he had a fountain pen factory, making pens and more elaborate desk sets. By 1920 the Millers had three children: Doris ( ), Gilbert ( ), and Robert ( ), and were living at 366 Cypress Ave., the Bronx. The following census, in 1930, finds them at 707 Fteley Avenue. Joseph is correctly described as a rubber turner in the fountain pen industry, Gilbert is a copyist in the advertising industry, and Doris has left home. I originally met my cousins Gilbert, a graphic artist, his wife Anita, and their children Frederika and Donny, when I was a house guest at their home in 5 Norman Drive, Rye. The Gilbert Miller residence 106

107 This was on my first visit to the States in I also got to know Robert and his wife Ethel, unfortunately a childless couple. My wife Valerie and I again met the family, and Robert s second wife, Ann, (after the death of Ethel), when we were on sabbatical in Boston. Significantly, we also met Joseph (like my mother, who had fond memories of him, I always called him Uncle Johnny) and Aunt Tilly, who were then living at 1200 College Avenue, the Bronx. I did not know the oldest sibling, Doris, who married Saul M. Lehds, an English-born son of Polish parents. The Lehds lived in New Jersey, at first in Newark, later in West Orange, but in 1950, when I first met the family, I believe they had moved to the west coast. Mathilda died on 4 July Joseph survived her by many years, living a long and active life, but in 1976 Gil reported that his father, then 96 years of age, was in a nursing home and deteriorating. He died on 9 January 1980, and is buried next to Tilly at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in New York, the same cemetery where his brother Julius is interred. Unlike Julius, whose inscription reads.גרשון- Yehuda Leib ben Eliakum Getzel, Joseph s reads Yosef ben Gershon Gil Miller had a strong sense of family, and was a valuable source of information about the various branches of the American Yerusalimskis who had become Millers. I developed a close rapport with these cousins, which was maintained over several later visits to the USA, the last, after Robert s death, when I took the train out to White Plains to see Gil and Anita. Unfortunately they never managed to come to Israel, but we did enjoy a visit from Robert's widow, Ann Miller. We have also had occasional contact with Ricky, Gil Miller s daughter, but the last contact I recall with their son Don was when he was a four-year old in 1950 but my wife says that my memory is faulty, and that I did meet him as an adult. This was the main branch of the American family of one-time Yerusalmskis with which we regularly kept in touch, although I later had correspondence, and eventually as I have recounted I met Julius Fast and Rupert Finegold in a visit to New York. I am now in contact by with Jason Finegold, Rupert s son, who has inherited his father s interest in the family history, and Andrew Quinn, who have both been most helpful to me. We have noticed that four of the Yerusalimskis of my grandmother s generation were painters and decorators. This, I would suggest, implies a certain manifestation of both manual skills and aesthetic sensitivity. As pure speculation, let me carry this line of thought a little further. In succeeding generations of Yerusalimskis, these skills and this sensitivity recur. Gilbert Miller was a graphic designer and artist, Solly Nathan drew and sculpted and his daughter Norma also paints, Rupert Finegold was a graphic designer, his son Jason is a photographer, and I sketch and paint as a hobby, and am an architect by profession SIMON YERUSALIMSKI? ( ) Son of Eliakim Getzel and Deborah Yerusalimski? The only information we have about Simon is that his name appears as one of the siblings on the Finegold 1993 family tree of the American Yerusalimski/Miller family. No details are given, other than he was deceased. The listing of Simon as a Yerusalimski sibling is possibly an error, resulting from a possible confusion with Simon Quinn, a brother-in-law, not a brother. 107

108 Lower East Side, New York, where most of the American Yerusalimskis settled Note the three parallel streets, Madison, Monroe and Cherry, which are mentioned in our narrative 6.13 SUMMARY: THE DISPERSION OF THE YERUSALIMSKI FAMILY On 8 March 1903 the matriarch of the family, Deborah Yerusalimsky (now Deborah Miller), widow of Getzel Yerusalimski (Gershon Miller), of 4 The Grove, Hackney, died. Information about her death was given to the Registrar by her son Joseph Miller, of the same address. This was the home of Rose and Simon Quinn. We do not know when and why Deborah moved from Solomon to the Quinns, but it is obvious that by the turn of the century the Yerusalimski family was in a state of flux. 1896: Julius Jerusalimski emigrates to America (sailing from Bremen) 1898: Rose Miller at the time of her marriage is living with Solomon Erisolominski and his family at 102 Old Montague Street, Mile End Old Town. 1899: Rose and Simon Quinn are living at 4 The Grove, Hackney 1900: Nachman Erusalimski (Harry Nathan) arrives in South Africa in April 1901: Deborah, Israel and Joseph Miller are living with Solomon Erisolominski and his family at 102 Old Montague Street. Hannah Yerusalimski (m. Solomon Miller) and my mother Sophia move in with sister-in-law Ada Nathan at 58 St. Peter s Road, Mile End Old Town (Hannah and Ada s husbands are already in South Africa) Hannah and Sophia sail to South Africa in August to join Solomon Miller 1902: Israel Jerusalem (Nathan) sails to South Africa to join Nachman in November 1903: Deborah and Joseph Miller are living with the Quinns at 4 The Grove, Hackney Deborah dies in March Solomon sails to America, June Hannah and family return to England, July, having heard that Deborah was ill Simon sails to America, December 1904: Rose and children sail to America, July Joseph sails to America, August From this we learn not only of the dispersion over a short period of the family only Harry (Lipman) Phillips and possibly Abraham remaining in England, for Hannah and family returned to South Africa in 1912 but also the strength of family ties, and the degree of mutual support the Yerusalimski siblings extended to each other and their widowed mother. The home of one was always a ready shelter for a brother or sister, and Deborah always had a home with one of her children. 108

109 7 S O L O M O N and H A N N A H M I L L E R My maternal grandparents Solomon [Sholem] and Hannah Miller (b.yerusalimski), my maternal grandparents Marriage certificate, Solomon Miller and Annie Erisolominski, London,

110 7.1 TRAVELS OF THE MILLERS: ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, ENGLAND, SOUTH AFRICA Solomon Miller and Hannah Yerusalimski, possibly already an engaged couple, came to London in the 1880s. Precisely when they came and whether they came independently or together I do not know. At the time of their marriage in London, which took place at the Princes Street Synagogue on 20 March 1887, they both stated their residence to be at 26 King Edward Street, Whitechapel. It is unlikely that they were both living there unless they were chaperoned, possibly by Hannah s mother Deborah. Alternatively, this might have been the home of Solomon s brother Lazar and his wife Sarah, who by this time were married and had one child. Lazar is noted on Solomon s marriage certificate. Both brothers were tailors, but I don t know whether they worked together. In London Solomon found it difficult to make a living, and my grandparents soon moved to Belfast in Northern Ireland, where grandfather s brother Israel Miller, as we have already noted, had a waterproof factory, at 11 Canning Street. In Belfast Solomon found work as a tailor, presumably in his brother s workshop. It was in Belfast that my mother Sophia (Sima Maryasha) ( ), was born. Map of Belfast, c.1900 In searching for my mother s birth certificate, an extraordinary coincidence came to light. In 1995 my wife Valerie and I were in Belfast, checking on our respective family histories. I traced the birth certificate of my mother, and noted the following information, written by hand more than a hundred years before: Sophia Miller, born on 4 October 1888, at 19 Merion Street, Belfast (Urban District No. 2), the home of her parents Solomon and Hannah Miller. Valerie had the birth certificate of her uncle, also born in Belfast, and we compared notes to see if her family, the Ryans, and mine, the Millers, had lived in the same neighbourhood. We discovered that her uncle Reuben Ryan was born on 24 October 1889, at 19 Marion Street, Belfast (Urban District No. 2), the home of his parents Cushman (Charles) and Rachel Ryan, that is, Valerie s grandparents. Now in South Africa my family and Val s lived more than 700 miles apart, and the first known contact between the two families was at the end of Yet sixty years before, our two sets of grandparents had lived in the very same house, within a maximum of twelve 110

111 months of each other but possibly at the same time. Cushman Ryan was a mackintosh maker by trade, and we have suggested that my grandfather Solomon was at that time employed in his brother s raincoat factory in Belfast. Were our grandparents both working for Israel Miller? It is possible that the Miller-Ryan relationship went back even further, for Israel and Sophie Miller had been married in Manchester in the mid-1880s, and so we believe had Cushman and Rachel Ryan. Manchester at this time was the centre of the newly-developed industry manufacturing waterproof materials. Let us speculate further. Israel Miller s wife was Sophia Rhome. The only person of that name I have been able to trace appears in the All-Lithuania Data Bank. This is her birth notice: ROMM, Sofiya Mane Gavriel, Rubin Iosel Gitlya, Iosif Tsalko GARKAVY 24/3/ Adar II Vilnius Vilnius Vilnius 2nd guild merchant brother's family Because the name is unusual, and the date of birth is appropriate, I believe that this is Israel Miller s wife. (Unfortunately, I cannot confirm this, as her tombstone in Cape Town does not record her father s name). Now, according to the Soundex System, Rhome, Romm, Rain and Rein are all variants of the same name, and this opens up an intriguing possibility. If Sofiya Romm was actually Sophia Rein, then she was possibly a relative of Cushman Rein, and thus a link in Manchester between Israel and Cushman. Israel, his brother Solomon and Cushman later moved to Belfast. There Sophia and Israel Miller established a raincoat factory, where Solomon and Cushman (now Ryan) probably both worked and of course lived in the same house. This is all hypothetical, but it does explain what otherwise seems an extraordinary coincidence. The family s stay in Belfast was relatively a brief one, as was the Ryans, who returned to Manchester. When my grandparents returned to Britain they first settled not in London, as one might have expected, but in Scotland. They probably went there directly, for the main shipping route from Ulster to Britain at this time was from Belfast to Glasgow. The first regular steamship service on this route in 1818 charged 14 shillings steerage - a couple of week's wages for a labourer - but fares were later to fall dramatically to as little as sixpence a head. In the 1891 Scotland Census we find the Millers living in the Gorbals at 11 Florence Street, Hutchesontown, Glasgow the main centre of Jewish settlement in Scotland. At this address we find Solomon, aged 29, a machinist; Annie, his wife, aged 25; Abraham Miller, Annie s brother, aged 20, a presser all Russian born and Sophie, aged 2, the daughter, born in Ireland. Abraham, as we have noted earlier, was actually Abraham Erusalinsky, but presumably had taken his brother-in-law s name - or else was given it in error by the enumerator of the census, who may have assumed that Abraham was Solomon s brother, not Annie s. In all later English records he reverted to the name of Erusalimsky. I have only recently discovered this Scottish episode in the Miller saga. How long they remained in Scotland I do not know. The commercial section of the GPO London Directories has Solomon Miller, Tailor listed annually from 1889 to 1893 at 71 Brick Lane (between Princelet and Hanbury Streets). We will recall that in 1891 this was the home of Solomon s brother Lazar, who was also a tailor, and my mother frequently made reference to Brick Lane as part of her childhood memories. In 1891 my grandfather Solomon was in Scotland, and he is missing from the1901 Census, as he was on his way to Cape Town, as we shall see. However, I have come to the conclusion that may also be another Solomon Miller, unconnected to our family. There is a tailor referred to in the Directories who is probably 111

112 Solomon Miller, born in Russia in 1863, and listed in both the 1901 and 1911 Censuses as living at 10 Prescot Street, Whitechapel. This Solomon, a ladies tailor, was married to Phoebe Rains, a sister of Samuel Rains, a tailor and costumier, and the firm of Rains and Miller, ladies tailors, was listed in the Directories in the mid-1980s at the same address as Solomon, 10 Great Prescot Street. To complicate matters further, there is yet another Solomon Miller (b.1855) and married to Jennie Hodes, whose son, Robert Miller, was listed in the Belfast Directory at 34 Groomsport St., the address of Israel s raincoat factory. Let me add a speculative thread to this complex web of relationships. We may recall, in discussing Israel Miller s wife Sophia Rhome, that we suggested that the name Rhome might be a variant for the name Ryan. Similarly, if we search for the name Ryan in the JewishGen databanks, one of the names that the Soundex system of phonetic equivalents comes up with is Rains. This leaves us with the possibility of a link between the Millers and the Ryans, and the crossing of their paths in Manchester and Belfast. According to my mother, her father Solomon - whom she always referred to as Papa - was a small, gentle and affectionate man, who wore a trim beard. This description is borne out by the only photograph we have of him. He was often in poor health, suffering from asthma. My grandmother Hannah was the only grandparent I knew really well: my two grandfathers died before I was born, and my father s mother when I was a small boy. Hannah was a tall, vigorous woman, an excellent cook and needlewoman, and a most capable housewife, who tended to be protective of her only child, my mother. Because of my grandfather s health problems, the Millers decided to emigrate to the more congenial climate of South Africa. According to Solomon s naturalization certificate, taken out in Cape Town in January 1903, he had arrived in South Africa in about March There is a Mr. S. Miller, matching all Solomon s criteria, who sailed from Southampton for Cape Town on the Avondale Castle (3542 tons, Capt. S.C.Browne) on 14 March At this time, as we have learnt, Solomon s wife and daughter were still in London, sharing a home with Ada Nathan and her family at 58 St. Peters Road, Mile End Old Town. This arrangement provided a secure base for both families, and some sort of income, as they let rooms to two young men, fellow immigrants from the Old Country. Solomon s family joined him after six months, when Mrs. A. Miller (aged 37) - Annie [Hannah] - and her daughter S. Miller (aged 12) obviously my mother Sophia sailed for Cape Town on 3 August 1901 on the Braemar Castle (3964 tons, Capt. A.F.Marshall). s.s. Avondale Castle s.s. Braemar Castle Hannah s brothers Harry and Israel Nathan were already in Cape Town, and Solomon s brother Israel had by this time settled just outside Cape Town at Somerset West. Also in Somerset West were Solomon s nephews Wolf, Abraham and Jack Miller, the sons of his brother Yehuda Leib. In their relatively short stay in Cape Town, my grandparents and my mother lived at 59 Upper Mill Street, while Solomon worked as a tailor. The Millers, including my mother, were guests at my father s barmitzvah in Cape Town in 1902, as the Millers and Herberts were mishpocha, through the Paikin connection. In 1903 Solomon applied for naturalization. The following is a transcript of the document in the Cape Archives, 112

113 SOLOMON MILLER, 18 January 1903, at Cape Town Birthplace: Dvinsk, Russia. Age next birthday: 42 years; Occupation: Tailor Place of residence: 59 Upper Mill Street, Cape Town; Length of time in Colony: 1¾ years; Approved 26 February 1903 [ref. no. 2/612] Despite the expressed intention of staying in the Colony, as stated in Solomon s application for naturalization, and despite the presence in the Cape of so many of the family on both sides, the Millers failed to settle down well, and in July 1903 they returned to England, sailing I believe on the Walmer Castle, a vessel of 6463 tons (Capt. J.C.Robinson). On the passenger manifest the listing is Mr. and Mrs. Miller and 1 child (female under 12). My mother was actually fourteen at that time, but she was small and could easily have passed for twelve, and thus benefited from the 50% reduction in fare granted to children up to twelve. The Cape climate had proved less beneficial for grandfather s asthma than they had hoped, and his health deteriorated. Also, they perhaps had news of the illness of great-grandmother Deborah, who was soon to pass away in March, before they managed to return. In London the returning Millers eventually went to live at one time in Bow Road (an eastward extension of Mile End Road), and in 1911 they were at 7 Coborn Road, which runs into Mile End Road at right angles, not far from Mile End Station. The latter house, as my mother recalled, was a comfortable two- or three-storey residence, with a garden at the back. It was later destroyed in the Blitz. When young Abraham Horwitz, my mother s cousin, came from Dvinsk to stay with them, he was greatly impressed and, standing upon the doorstep, he is reported to have said, in Yiddish: This can t be my uncle s house; it must be the house of a count! 7.2 SOPHIA MILLER (b. Belfast d. Safed ) Daughter of Solomon and Hannah Miller 113

114 My mother was Sophia [Sima Maryasha] Miller (b. Belfast 1888, d. Safed 1981), the only child of Solomon Miller and Hannah Yerusalimski. She was an accomplished pianist, whose musical career was developed in London, Cape Town and Johannesburg. During the Millers first stay in Cape Town mother took lessons as a young girl at the University s Conservatory of Music in Rondebosch. On their return to London, after their brief stay in Cape Town, my mother resumed her schooling, and later took a course in Pitman s shorthand, in preparation to starting a secretarial career. However, her real interest was music, which she studied at a conservatoire in Swiss Cottage, and she also took advanced lessons with Prof. Michael Hambourg ( ), a renowned teacher and father of the Hambourg brothers: Mark, the concert pianist, Jan the violinist, and Boris the cellist. From a young age she gave public performances, often as an accompanist. An account of a concert which appeared in the Jewish Chronicle of December 1904, when she had just turned sixteen, made mention of the accompanists of the soloists, Mr. G. Jones, Mr. Pim (?), and Miss Sophia Miller. We understand that Sophia s hand in marriage was much sought after, and eventually, succumbing to parental pressure, she became engaged. However, according to my late sister-inlaw Becky Herbert, my mother (who was then living with my brother and his wife) told her that when as a teenager she had attended my father's barmitzvah and renewed their childhood relationship she had fallen in love with my father. She had reportedly continued to keep in touch with him, which may be the reason why she eventually broke the engagement off. This was while the Millers were still in London, before the family returned to South Africa. Solomon s health was deteriorating, and they had come to the radical decision of once more trying the South African option. My mother's desire to be reunited with my father may have been another factor prompting their return. In this venture it would appear that Solomon once again preceded his wife and daughter, but I cannot trace his journey. On the other hand I have the record of the journey made by my grandmother Hannah and my mother. They sailed from Southampton on the Dover Castle (5221 tons, Capt. T. Clinock) on 27 January 1912, my mother s occupation being listed as pianist. They were accompanied by a gentleman named Abraham Selinsky, described as single (a term frequently signifying unaccompanied), aged 40, and a tailor by trade. I can only speculate that this was my grandmother s brother Abraham Yerusalimsky, who as a young man had stayed with them in Glasgow. Extract from ship s manifest, s.s.dover Castle Before we settle the Solomon Millers finally in South Africa, we should perhaps summarise their peregrinations. 1887: Marriage of Solomon Miller and Hannah Erisolominski in London 1888: Birth of Sophia Miller in Belfast 1891: Living in Glasgow 1897: 10 Gt. Prescott St., London : Living in Cape Town, SA 1903: Return to London : 10 Gt. Prescott St., London 1911: 7 Coborn Road, London 1911/12: Return to South Africa 114

115 Grandmother Hannah and my mother Sophia disembarked at Cape Town, where as we have seen they had many relations, and were probably met there by Solomon. Some time thereafter they moved to Johannesburg, with its more congenial climate, and lived at 56A Mooi Street. In the Transvaal, at this time, there was also a strong concentration of the family, including various branches of the Millers, Paikins and Nathans (ex-yerusalimskis), as well as their family connections, the Herberts. There were close ties between all branches, and this extended family constituted an important support group for my mother, an only child. My grandfather Solomon continued to work as a tailor. He died in 1918, and was buried in the Braamfontein Cemetery, Johannesburg. Solomon Miller, Braamfontein Cemetery Later, Solomon s widow Hannah remarried, her second husband being a close friend and former work-associate of Solomon s, Jacob Malin ( ), a widower. It had been grandfather s dying wish that Jacob Malin take care of his wife. My brothers and I regarded Jacob, whom we called Uncle Malin, with the greatest affection, as the only grandfather we knew. He always conducted the family Passover seder, translating every sentence into Yiddish (for Grandma) and English (for the children) we rarely finished before midnight. His sons from his first marriage - Dave, Julius, Henry and Abe (the youngest, who at one time stayed with us) - were of course my mother's step-brothers. In the latter years of grandmother Hannah s life the Malins lived in a flat in Troye Street, near the centre of Johannesburg, not far from us. She died suddenly in 1942, and was interred in the Brixton Cemetery, Johannesburg. Jacob Malin, who later suffered a severe stroke, nevertheless survived her by eleven years, the last years of his life being spent as an inmate of the Jewish Old Aged Home in Doornfontein. My brothers and I visited him there, none more assiduously than my brother Harold. Hannah Miller and Jacob Malin Hannah Malin, Brixton Cemetery 115

116 8. B E N J A M I N & S O P H I A H E R B E R T: O U R I M M E D I A T E F A M I L Y 116

117 Copy of Civil Marriage Certificate, July 1915 On vacation in Durban BENJAMIN AND SOPHIA HERBERT: MY PARENTS (4) BENJAMIN [Binyamin] HERBERT ( ) * My father SOPHIA [Sima Maryasha] HERBERT ( ) * My mother (5) HAROLD HYMAN [Haim] ( ) CECIL SOLOMON [Shlomo] ( ) GILBERT [Eliakim Getzel] (b. 1924) As I have indicated, my father and mother were no strangers to each other. Even before my parents were born, their families were linked, as we have seen, through the previous Paikin- Miller marriage. My father and mother, who were not directly related, grew up in the East End of London with a mutual uncle and aunt, and a large number of mutual cousins. However, although my parents shared a family background, it was by no means an uninterrupted period. Let me recapitulate: my father, born in London in 1889, left for South Africa in August 1896, while my mother, born in Belfast in 1888, left Ireland to live in Glasgow some time between 1889 and 1891, before moving to London. This meant that Bennie and Sophia had only a few years of shared childhood before he moved to South Africa. My mother embarked for Cape Town in turn in August 1901, by which time the Herberts who had previously been in Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg had returned to that city. My mother s and father s families again had only a limited time to share in Cape Town, before the Millers returned to England in July In that brief period, in 1902, my father celebrated his Barmitzvah, and my mother, as I have noted previously, was among the guests. The seeds of mutual affection, as we have suggested, were probably laid then. However, it was only after 1912, when the Millers had once 117

118 more returned to South Africa, that my father and mother, then both in their twenties, got to know each other as adults. The rest, as they say, is history. From the Miller house at 56a Mooi Street in down-town Johannesburg, three years before grandfather Solomon s death, my mother Sophia Miller set out to marry my father Benjamin Herbert. The marriage was conducted in the Johannesburg Magistrates Office on 14 July The following month, on 15 August, the marriage was recorded by the Witwatersrand Old Jewish Congregation, it being noted that they had been married by a magistrate, and then solemnized by Wm. Woolf, a Jewish Minister. Strangely, there is no mention of a synagogue; if there had been, it was probably at the President Street Synagogue, the Old Jewish Congregation s venerable 19 th century synagogue. I do not really know why there were two distinct marriage ceremonies, a month apart. However, recently a story was reported to me by one of the family based on hearsay - that my parents had actually eloped, which might explain why first there was a civil wedding and then, a month later, a religious ceremony. According to the addresses on the two certificates the couple moved into the Miller house in Mooi Street after the civil marriage. I believe a reception was held, presumably after the rabbinate marriage, at the Corona Lodge, now a Freemasons Lodge, in O Reilly Road, Berea. If my memory serves me, I was told that they then honeymooned in Middelburg, a town in the Karroo. Magistrates Office document, July 1915 Hebrew Congregation document, Aug After the Act of Union of 1910, the Transvaal was a province of South Africa, a British colony. When my parents married in 1915 the country, hardly recovered from the Anglo-Boer War of , was once more at war. The economy was suffering, and relations between segments of the population black and white, rich and poor, Afrikaners and Englishmen were often tense. Jews had equal rights, but anti-semitism was always a factor. Johannesburg Jews (mainly immigrants from Lithuania and Latvia) chose on the whole to live in fairly homogeneous areas in the southern, less affluent, areas of the city. As in other main cities and in contrast to the country areas they tended to identify with the English-speaking section of the population. For my British-born parents this went without saying. My father was at that time a tall, well-set man, a graceful dancer and skater, and an adept handler of a horse-and-trap (in which, he used to recount, he was once caught in the crossfire during the rebellion of 1922). Originally quite slender, he later put on considerable weight, at one time weighing over 200lbs. He was outgoing and affectionate, quick to lose his temper when under stress, and equally quick to forgive and forget, never bearing ill-will or a grudge. He inspired the affection of his family and friends, as well as his many customers, evoking the often-expressed view that Bennie was one of nature s gentlemen. To my grandmother Hannah he was a most thoughtful and caring son-in-law, often stopping off at her Troye Street flat on the way home from a long and exhausting day s work, to see how she was, or to bring 118

119 her delicacies to eat. Dad worked terribly hard, leaving home at about 5 a.m., returning late in the day, spending long hours in the shop (at M.J.Myers & Co., Fish and Provision Merchants, where he was manager) or in the Cold Storage chambers; and was usually too tired, after such a hard day s work, to intervene directly in the control of our day-to-day lives. This control was in the effective hands of my mother, Sophia. This is not to say, however, that he was not concerned with the future of his children, and was inordinately proud of our achievements I was touched to find that he carried around my latest school report to show to his customers. When Cecil went to work as an accountant, it was Dad who used his contacts to place him in a respected office as an indentured clerk. When he feared that I might need to study part time a turn of events which fortunately did not eventuate again it was he who persuaded one of his innumerable connections, a well-established architect, to take me in as an assistant. Dad was sociable, and had a lot of business contacts, from which we children were the beneficiaries. The wife of I.W.Schlesinger, the hotel and cinema magnate, was one of his customers, and was possibly the source of the flow of complimentary tickets to the cinemas which came our way, week after week. His contacts at Gundelfingers, a major wholesale establishment, meant that on Guy Fawkes Night we always had a bountiful supply of fireworks. Finally, through his daily connection with Piel s Cold Storage we were invited to Piel s Farm, on what was then the outskirts of Johannesburg (later the suburb of Waverley} to see Mr. Piel s private zoo, which included several lions. Bennie was an affectionate father to his children, and was generally indulgent of our shortcomings, except when prompted by my mother to exert parental discipline. To my mother he was an adoring and protective (perhaps over-protective) husband. In build mother was short, tending to plumpness, perhaps, but not fat; in manner she was shy and somewhat withdrawn, not always easy in her relationships. She gave the impression of frailty, and was constantly nervous (sometimes excessively so) about her own, and her family s, health and well-being. Despite this appearance of timidity, she was strong-willed, and, backed by my father, was usually the dominant force in giving direction to the family, and establishing its sense of values. She was insistent that we gave proper respect to our father, as head of the family. At our evening meal we were not allowed to start until Dad had taken the first bite, and no one left the table before our parents. Although not well-off, my mother and father always lived within their means, never ran into debt, and never aspired to keep up with the Joneses (or the Cohens). As a family we lived modestly, went on few holidays, and of course had no such luxury as a motorcar. We did, however, have a handsome Gors and Kallman piano, as well as an assortment of other musical instruments: there was always music in our house. My mother and father both came from families liberally endowed with musical talent; my mother was, as I have mentioned, an accomplished pianist, and she saw to it that all her sons received a musical education. Sophia Herbert at the piano 119

120 8.2 FAMILY LIFE: THE EARLY DAYS The Herbert brothers: Cecil, Gilbert and Harold By 1924 there were three of us: my brothers Harold and Cecil, and I. We boys were all born at home, in the family house at 4 Fuller Street, Troyeville, Johannesburg. Not only was this a fairly common practice, but my mother was terrified of hospitals, and avoided them at all costs. In 1925 the Herberts moved into a house my father had purchased the previous year - much against my cautious mother's wishes - at 81 Mitchell Street, Berea, Johannesburg. In retrospect this was an uncharacteristic decision. The city of Johannesburg, wrote M.W.Rubin, experienced significant northward expansion during the 1920s and early 1930s with the aspirant bourgeoisie moving into the pleasant suburbs to the north and east of the city centre. Yeoville and Berea catered for the emerging upper-middle class of Jews, and were generally characterized by detached or semi-detached houses on slightly bigger stands These terms should be considered relatively, and in context. My parents, while certainly not working class, even in terms of the white population, were hardly aspirant bourgeoisie. Still, our house was a free-standing architect-designed residence of red brick, graced with two bay windows set symmetrically on either side of a front verandah whose roof was supported on a simulacrum of Doric columns. Internally there were three bedrooms, a formal living room, a family-cumdining room which we called the breakfast room, and a generously-sized kitchen, with a separate pantry and scullery. At the centre of this large kitchen stood a scrubbed pine table large enough to take our small billiard table. Billiards and snooker were family games in which my father excelled and in which we boys performed reasonably well, and the table was the centre of many friendly gatherings. 81 Mitchell Street, Berea, Johannesburg As I grew up, our house was upgraded. In the 1930s the sewerage system was extended to our suburb, and an internal flushing toilet was installed. In 1936, at the Empire Exhibition, we bought a Defy electric stove to replace our coal stove, and a Frigidaire to replace the ice-chest. A telephone was installed, and a Pilot cathedral radio, (later replaced by a Mullard radiogram with an automatic record changer, a great luxury). My brother Harold, the handyman of the 120

121 family, erected a large aerial mast in the back garden, which enabled us (getting up at four in the morning) to tune in to America to listen to an historic boxing match featuring Max Baer. If my memory doesn t fail me, this was the fight in June 1933 when Baer, half-jewish and wearing a Magen David embroidered on his shorts, defeated the German Max Schmelling, Adolf Hitler s favourite. Every night, as the programmes ended, we turned a switch mounted on the window-sill, in dutiful response to the announcer s stern injunction: Now don t forget to earth your aerials. An excellent housekeeper, my mother furnished her new home simply but with impeccable taste, and kept it immaculately. She and her children were always neatly dressed and well turned out, despite the constraints of a tight budget. We kept a first-rate table: my mother herself was a competent cook, my grandmother - who spent a lot of time with us - was outstanding, and my father prided himself on his fried fish. Our grounds were relatively small, an eighth of an acre, but large enough to give us a small formal front garden (with beds of pansies and snapdragons, and some fine hydrangeas in the shade), a reasonable area of lawn in the privacy of the back yard, and a gravelled driveway - separated from the front garden by a wooden fence covered with morning glory - big enough to play cricket in. When greater space was needed for our outdoor activities there was Mitchell Park at the end of the block, with its swings and its extensive, if unkempt, stretches of grass. In 1929, four years after the family moved to Berea, my father s mother, Grandma Minnie, passed away. She is buried in the Brixton Cemetery. Minnie Herbert, Brixton Cemetery, Jhbg Before moving to Berea, my brother Harold had gone to Troyeville School; while we younger boys, each in his turn, went to Observatory Primary School, and then Yeoville Intermediate School. The latter was within easy walking distance of our house, but to get to Observatory meant taking the tram along Raleigh Street to the Observatory terminus. This tram-ride gave me my first taste of independent travel. We all celebrated our barmitzvahs at the Yeoville Synagogue (where Harold sang in the choir), our Hebrew teacher being the well-known Hebrew scholar Jacob Yudelowitz. My barmitzvah took place on Saturday 3 July 1937 (24 Tammuz 5697), my portion being Pinchas. As Yudelowitz was a better scholar than a teacher, I performed my duties adequately that day thanks only to my excellent memory and my good ear for music, for my knowledge of Hebrew and the cantillation was rather perfunctory. Yeoville Synagogue 121

122 We each went on to Parktown Boys High School, Harold I think by proscription, Cecil and I by choice. We were all put in the Trojan House the other houses were the Romans, Tuscans and Thebans, Parktown being a classically-minded school. It was a school tradition that all members of the same family entered the same house. When Harold enrolled at Parktown he informed them that his cousin Max Kavnat had previously attended. The records were consulted to establish which house Max had been in, and as a result Harold duly became a Trojan. This was the beginning of a proud tradition, for as one after another of the family subsequently became Parktonians - first Cecil, then our cousins Basil and Ronny Horwitz, followed by me, and eventually my nephew Brian - we were all Trojans. Tradition was duly honoured, except for one minor fact: Harold had been mistaken, for Max Kavnat, number one in this chain, was in no way related to us, but was the son of a friend of the family. Harold was the leader of the school s military band, Cecil played the clarinet in the school orchestra, and I sang in the school choir, and later also joined the orchestra as a violinist, eventually becoming (by default, for lack of a more able candidate) the leader of the orchestra. None of us, I should add, distinguished himself in sport, the only activity the school then really appreciated, but I did play cricket in the house team. Parktown Boys High School, Johannesburg Looking back in retrospect, I realize that I was singularly blessed, for ours was a strong, united and happy family. Our standard of living was modest, but comfortable and reasonably secure. We had a well-built house of our own, set in its own grounds in a decent middle-class neighbourhood. We were certainly not affluent and, as I have said, could not afford major luxuries such as a motor car or regular holidays at the sea, but on the whole we accepted this with equanimity, without resentment, and were not especially demanding. The Herberts were obviously not good material for a social revolution, but rather we complied with the definition, as set out in the Ethics of the Fathers, of a rich man as one who is happy with his lot. We were taught to be honest, to avoid extravagance, and never get into debt. Saving was a cardinal virtue, nothing was rarely if ever bought on credit in the Herbert household, and the driving ambition of my parents was to pay off the mortgage on the Mitchell Street house, a mission finally accomplished before my father s early death in When World War Two broke out in 1939 we suffered its traumas and tensions at second hand, as it were, through the newspapers, the Gaumont British newsreels, and the BBC, but our direct involvement was minimal. In October 1939 my father, at the age of fifty, volunteered for the National Reserve. My brother Harold undertook part-time civil defence duties. My own military career, as we shall discuss later, was cut short by an accident. My Uncle Jackie, aged nearly forty, rejoined the army in which he had served as an under-age soldier in the First World War, 122

123 but this time remained in South Africa. Several cousins served in various units, at home and abroad. One, Leon Herman, was taken prisoner by the Italians in North Africa, causing his mother much anguish which we shared - but on the whole the family survived the war unscathed. As practically all the family had left Europe, we also did not have direct experience of the Holocaust, but its emotional impact was, and remains, a heavy one. The Herberts in uniform: World War II In 1941, when my brother Harold married and set up his own home, my parents moved from Mitchell Street to Connaught Mansions, a flat in Bree Street, at the heart of the downtown area. My mother had long wanted to give up the burden of running a comparatively large home in the suburbs, and the move was convenient for my father, as he was now within walking distance of the shop in which he worked. I don t recall that Cecil and I were consulted about the move, but we were certainly not unhappy about it, although we had to sacrifice the luxury of our own room, and sleep on convertible couches in the living room. I certainly thrived in the lively urban environment, and spent many happy hours on the balcony of our fifth-floor apartment, watching the stream of life go by. Bree Street was a busy thoroughfare. In the early hours of the morning one could hear the bleating of sheep being driven to the City Market, a mile or so down the road. On the corner to our right was the intersection with Eloff Street, Johannesburg s main commercial street, and on the corner to the left the monumental Metro Theatre this according to my Aunt Ray was the best cinema in town, because she slept better there than in the 20 th Century or the Colosseum! Opposite us was the exotic East African Restaurant, adjacent to the Jewish Guild, then functioning as a recreation centre for blue-clad RAF personnel. Of these there were many thousands in South Africa, the fit ones undergoing training, the sick and injured being rehabilitated in the Baragwanath Hospital. Johannesburg, while not exactly a little Manhattan one of its tallest buildings, Ansteys, was a block or so away was nevertheless by our standards a lively, throbbing metropolis. Johannesburg s tall buildings, 1930s: Anstey s Building and Escom House 123

124 In more than a half-century our nuclear family (that is, apart from our grandparents) had lived in three homes. For 30 years or so I personally really experienced only two, the bourgeois environment of Berea and the cosmopolitan urban life of Bree Street. I was blessed in my youth with a stability of environment and circumstances in which to grow up and mature. HERBERT FAMILY HOMES IN JOHANNESBURG 1. Wolhuter: The home of my grandparents Simon and Minnie Herbert 2. 56a Mooi Street: The home of my grandparents Solomon and Hannah Miller 3. 4 Fuller Street, Troyeville: First home of my parents Benjamin and Sophia Herbert; birthplace of Harold, Cecil and Gilbert Herbert Mitchell Street, Berea: The Herbert family home, Connaught Mansions, Bree Street: The Herbert family home, Despite a regime of budgetary discipline, we were never really deprived of the basics: a caring and affectionate environment, a comfortable home, good food, clean clothing and a fine education. We found most of our entertainment in the home, with games and toys, books and music; but we did frequent the local cinema on Saturday matinees. If, as is only normal, there were conflicts in the family between husband and wife, these were brief and generally in a low key, and we the children were rarely aware of them. If there were occasional moments of tension between parents and children these were the minor strains of the generation gap, never exploding, never seriously threatening the family fabric. Harold inevitably bore the brunt of these rare outbursts of parental anger, not only because as the eldest son more was expected of him, but because by nature he was perhaps the most rebellious. Cecil, on the other hand, was a good boy, rarely provoked, and generally managed to keep out of trouble. As for me, well I was the baby of the family, and as such was spoiled, not only by my parents, but by my big brothers too. 124

125 Our stable nuclear family was a component of the wider structure of the extended family: of Grandma and Uncle Malin, of real aunts and uncles, of so-called aunts and uncles, and cousins both near and many-times removed. This family network, the numerous interacting descendants of the Herberts, Paikins, Millers and Yerusalimskis, was - together with a small circle of intimate friends - the familiar context of our social activity, an anchor of stability in a rapidly changing world. We of course exchanged visits with the family, and while I was not close to my first cousins, who were all too old for me, my second cousins formed a ready source of companionship. When our parents went visiting, usually on a Sunday, we younger children were expected to go too, and the children of our parents friends were, not always by choice, our friends too. Most of these enforced friendships naturally evaporated with the passage of time, but some persisted over the years. I have intimated above that we were in essence a conservative family. We accepted the local political system as a given (I cannot recall hearing politics discussed in our home), and my father voted as a matter of course for the United Party. As for racial segregation (the term apartheid had not yet gained currency), we did not really question it. As a matter of normal behaviour (and Jewish ethics) we treated our black servants decently and humanely. There were two of these: our maidservant (the shikse ), who lived in a room in the back yard, and Tom from my father s shop, who came every Wednesday afternoon (early-closing day) to help with the heavier chores, debugging the iron bedsteads with boiling water and insecticide powder, or carrying the 100lb. sacks of potatoes and onions into the car-less garage which served us as a storeroom. In this (for us) comfortable relationship of master and servant, black-white politics hardly impinged on our lives, and of course there was no social contact between the races. The divisions which concerned us were ethnic rather than racial: firstly, the linguistic, cultural and political divide between English and Afrikaner South Africans; and then the vital issue, with which Jews were always concerned, the real or perceived gulf between us and them. For our family, and I believe for most of the Jewish community at that time, the Jewish and Gentile worlds, for all that they overlapped, at school and at work, were nevertheless worlds apart. This was for us not so much an exclusion from the Gentile world, but a very strong and positive sense of our Jewish identity. For most of my childhood anti-semitism was a question of awareness of a possibility rather than actual experience. Growing up in an exclusively Englishspeaking and predominantly Jewish environment, we boys were aware of what I might call lowkey anti-semitism, the occasional bullying at school, or the existence of social barriers (membership of the Rand Club, access to certain golf-courses), which offended our sense of what was right, but which we had no motivation to actively challenge. But with the rise of Nazism in Germany, and the sympathy it aroused in the ranks of militant Afrikaner nationalism, by the end of the 1930s we were certainly aware of the threat of a more virulent strain of the scourge of anti-semitism. To set the record straight, to the best of my knowledge neither our immediate family, nor our wider circle - which always openly proclaimed its Jewishness - ever experienced any harassment of this harsher sort. Before the end of the war, my father died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage. In response to an urgent call from my brother Harold I arrived home just at the moment that the doctor abandoned the attempt to revive him. Dad was buried at Westpark, the newest of Johannesburg s cemeteries, on a dismal winter s day, against the background of a bleak hillside and a surly cloud-laden sky. 125

126 Benjamin Herbert, Westpark Cemetery, Johannesburg, 1945 Let me turn now to a brief account of my own generation of Herberts, as we mature in the post-war era, shape our careers, marry and raise our families. 126

127 The family tree Consider the tree, there s so much more to it than the eye can see. Below, in the earth, an unseen network of interlocking roots; above, beyond the leafy tops, an expanding universe of potential growth. Now take our generation, there s so much more to us than the here and now. We are as the tree-trunk, drawing our sustenance from ancient roots deep-embedded in the soil of time, impregnated with memory s rising sap. Above us are our children, a canopy green and fruitful, heirs to our history and dreams, progenitors of untold generations still to come, passing on tradition with their genes. A family tree, an organic bridge carrying life s vital flow from then to now, beyond, a remembrance of years gone by, potential of lives yet unborn, continuum of history and hope. 127

128 8.3 HAROLD HYMAN [Haim] HERBERT ( ) Son of Benjamin and Sophia Herbert (5) HAROLD HYMAN [Haim] HERBERT ( ) * My brother m. Mildred Zelikow (6) HILARY ANN (b.1943) m.solly Solomon, div. (7) MARC STEPHEN ( ) MICHELLE FRANCINE (b. 1967] BELINDA HELENE (b. 1973) m. Salfas (8) ELLA AMALIA (b.2004) ADAM MARC (b.2008) (6) BRIAN JEFFREY (b. 1947) m. June Cohen (7) DANIELLA (b. 1967) CONRAD (b. 1971) Harold Hyman Herbert My oldest brother, Harold, the most accomplished musician of us all (playing the piano, clarinet, alto and tenor saxophone), formed his own jazz band while still at school. This remained his avocation after leaving school; he formed and was the leader of the Apollo Dance Orchestra, and later a musical agent and impresario, bringing to South Africa (and providing the musical backing for) such popular stars as Tom Jones and Liberace. He was instrumental in consolidating the various provincial unions into the South African Musicians Union, and was its President for more than twenty years, until his retirement in He represented the Union on several occasions at international conferences in Europe. However, music being an unpredictable source of income, he sought a more reliable livelihood, and for many years, in parallel to his activity in the world of music and show business, he ran his own sanitary-ware and hardware firm, trading as Herbert & Lampert (Pty) Ltd. In 1941, Harold married Mildred Zelikow, the elder daughter of Harry [Avram Hershel] and Ray [Rachel Feiga] Zelikow, in the Yeoville Synagogue. In the photograph below, my mother and father are the couple on the left, next to my brother Cecil, and Grandma Hannah and Uncle Malin are on the right. 128

129 The Harold Herberts lived in a series of houses, all of which had been designed and built especially for them; the first in Greenway Road, Greenside, by the architect Harold Le Roith, and the other two to my designs, in Marico Road, Emmarentia, and (by remote control, as it were) in Janet Road, Bordeaux. Harold loved to be involved in building projects, and initiated the construction of several houses for resale, as well as his own building in Braamfontein, which I designed. He was a man of initiative (as well as considerable skill as a home carpenter), who organized well, and had a great deal of practical knowledge; but he was also a dreamer of ambitious dreams which often outstripped his limited capital resources, so that he lived in a world of recurring financial crisis. He was more successful in his hobby, playing bowls, than in business, and had a rackful of cups to testify to his proficiency. Harold Herbert: the bowler and the band-leader Two children were born to Harold and Millie. The older was Hilary Ann (b.1943), the only grandchild my father lived to see. Hilary, much loved by me as my first niece, grew up into a fine young woman, but has not had an easy life. She married Solly Solomon, and they had three children: Marc Stephen ( ), Michelle Francine (b.1967), and Belinda Helene (b.1973). Hilary's was a difficult marriage which eventually ended in divorce in 1986, a couple of years after the tragic death of their son Marc in a freak accident. He was killed while on leave from the South African army, when still a conscript, and is therefore buried in the Military Cemetery in Westpark, not far from his great-great-uncle Jacky Herbert. Sophia and Bennie Herbert with their first grandchild, Hilary Ann Herbert 129

130 Hilary, an efficient working woman, is the only Herbert of her generation still living in South Africa. Her older daughter Michelle remains there too, but the younger, Belinda, now lives in Melbourne, Australia, her married name being Salfas. They have two children, Ella Amalia (b.2004) and Adam Marc (b.2008). The Solomons: Belinda, Michelle, Marc, Hilary, Solly Harold and Millie s second child, Brian Jeffrey (b.1947), was a very talented musician, not only as a precocious young jazz drummer, but later as a tympanist in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. Brian Jeffrey Herbert Brian and June He gave up music shortly after his marriage to June Cohen, and entered business. They have two children: Daniella (b.1967) and Conrad (b.1971). Some time after their marriage Brian and June (at June s urging) became Jehovah's Witnesses, much to the distress of my brother Harold and the rest of our immediate family, who are observant Jews. In fact, among the South African family there has been little if any incidence of assimilation. My nephew Brian eventually settled in Australia, in the city of Brisbane, Queensland. We visited them in 1989, and found them to be a warm, united and loving family. Brian Herbert, with Daniella, June, and Conrad 130

131 Shortly after his 50th wedding anniversary, my brother Harold contracted an acute form of Parkinson s disease, and after a rapid decline which greatly weakened him, succumbed to pneumonia on 8 July He was buried in the Westpark Cemetery, Johannesburg, in a sad ceremony which I was able to attend. His widow Millie continued to live in Johannesburg, eventually moving to Our Parents Home, where she spent her last days, until her death on 20 October Harold Herbert, 1992, Westpark Cemetery, Johannesburg 8.4 CECIL SOLOMON [Shlomo/Sholem] HERBERT ( ) Son of Benjamin and Sophia Herbert (5) CECIL SOLOMON [Shlomo/Sholem] HERBERT ( ) * My brother m. Rebecca [Becky, or Feiga Beila] Nudelman (6) BERNARD BENJAMIN (b.1946) m. Russel Furman (7) GARY WAYNE (b. 1968) m. Caron Patley (8) DAVID JOSH [Joshua] (b ) GABRIEL ZE EV (b ) AARON ZVI (b.2001) (7) LISA KIM (b. 1970) m1. James Teeger, div. m2. Daniel Lyons (8) JACOB [Yakov] BARUCH (b ) REBECCA SOPHIE [Sima] (b. 1999) JOSHUA SAMUEL (b.2001) ELIANE SARAH (b.2003) ARIELA CHANA (b.2005) AHARON SHALOM (b.2008) NATENEL YAIR (b.2008) (7) TONY LEE (b. 1972) RICKI MARC (b. 1984) LORI ANN (b. 1987) (6) JOSEPH [AVRAHAM] ( ) m. Bette Unger (7) SHIRA RACHEL (b. 1881) m. Yakov Lisker (8) TALIA ADIRA (b.2006) DAVID MOSHE (b.1983) ADINA SIMONE (b. 1985) m.zvi Dubin ADAM BINYAMIN (b. 1987) JOSHUA ARIEH (b. 1992) ELLANA RUTH (b. 1995) 131

132 Cecil Solomon Herbert In 1945, my second brother Cecil married Rebecca (Becky, or Feiga Beila) Nudelman, the only daughter of Shmuel Meyer and Ruda Nudelman, in the Great Synagogue, Wolmarans Street, Johannesburg. The Nudelman family came from Lodz, in Poland, the father coming first, followed by Ruda and the children, traveling from Lodz to Danzig by train, then by boat to England, spending a short period in the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter in London, and finally making the long journey to South Africa, sailing on 12 October 1932 on the Durham Castle. Rebecca [Nudelman] Herbert Cecil and Becky on honeymoon, 1945 Cecil s ambition (and I believe his true vocation) was to be a school teacher, but despite the fact that he had a satisfactory Matriculation Certificate he failed to get accepted by the Johannesburg Teachers Training College. We assumed that the reason he was rejected was that when asked, on the application form, what his race was, he proudly wrote Jewish, when of 132

133 course, as every South African should have known, the correct answer was White! With his chosen career blocked by his Jewish pride and his political naiveté, Cecil sought an alternative, and so qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Auditor. He established his own practice, working with Becky, a book-keeper, as his associate, and later became a partner in the large Johannesburg accountancy firm of Scher, Abrahamson and Partners. I doubt if Cecil ever loved his profession, but being punctilious and precise in everything he undertook, he was good at it. His only professional drawbacks, which naturally limited the ceiling to which he could have risen, were integrity and honesty. The Cecil Herberts bought a house in Algernon Road, Norwood, where they lived until leaving South Africa in For most of the time, after my marriage in 1953, my mother lived with them. The Herbert family in the garden, 81 Algernon Road Cecil and Becky (following in our footsteps) settled in Israel at the end of 1969, together with their son Joseph. After Ulpan they bought a flat in Jerusalem, at Ramat Eshkol, and Cecil began to work as an accountant for the Rim Company, manufacturer of kitchen furniture and other assembly kits. After retirement they moved to Safed, where Cecil could enjoy his real love, listening to and studying classical music. In 1971 my mother, now in her eighties, came to join her two younger sons in Israel, and lived until her death with Cecil and Becky, first in Jerusalem, then in Safed. She had had a long widowhood, surviving my father by 36 years, and her grave, in the cemetery at Safed, is separated from his in Johannesburg by some 4,000 miles. Sophia Herbert, Safed Cemetery,

134 Bernard Benjamin Herbert Bernard and Russel Herbert My brother s older son, my nephew Bernard Benjamin (b.1946), an accountant, an innovative teacher of accountancy and former organizer of high-level seminars for executives of corporations, became a highly successful director of companies., At a young age he married Russel Furman, and they lived a full family life in Johannesburg, until their move, in February 1994, to Sydney, Australia. Bernard has mastered the art not only of working but also of playing, and enjoys life - the pleasures of travel, vacations, long-distance running - with the same intensity as he devotes to his career and his family. Lisa [Herbert] Lyons, Tony Herbert, Gary Herbert, Lori Herbert, Ricky Herbert Bernard and Russel have five children, split into two age groups. Gary Wayne, the eldest (b.1968), is an actuary, living in Johannesburg with his wife Caron (nee Patley) and their three boys, David Josh [Joshua] (b.1996), Gabriel Ze ev (b.1998), and Aaron Zvi (b.2001). Bernard s second child is Lisa Kim (b.1970), who for a short while was married to James Teeger, but this marriage unfortunately ended in divorce. She later remarried, and now lives in London with her husband Daniel Lyons. Lisa and Daniel have seven children: Yakov Baruch (b. 1998), Rebecca Sophie [Sima] (b.1999), Joshua Samuel (b.2001), Eliane Sarah (b.2003), Ariela Chana (b.2005), and the twins, Aharon Shalom and Netanel Yair (b.2008). Both Gary and Lisa are chozrim b'tshuva, and have adopted a deeply-religious Jewish lifestyle. Their children (and those of our other great-nephews and nieces) have added yet another generation to the family tree, and made me a great-great-uncle! My nephew Bernard s second son, Tony Lee (b.1972), for many years represented an Australian firm in Indonesia, spending most of his time in 134

135 Djakarta. His first marriage ended in divorce, but now he has remarried and divides his time between South Africa and Israel. The two youngest, Ricky Marc (b.1984) and Lori Ann (b.1987), live in Australia. Joseph Avraham Herbert Joseph and Bette Herbert, Shira, Adina, David, Adam, Joshua and Ellana My nephew Joseph Avraham ( ), Cecil and Becky s younger son, was a brilliant student who was a graduate of the Hebrew University s Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. He married an American nurse (Bette Unger) whom he met in Jerusalem, when he worked as an interne. Joseph was a reluctant expatriate Israeli citizen who lived in the United States, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, but returned frequently to Israel. Joseph and Bette have six children. The eldest, Shira Rachel (b.1981), was their only child to be born in Israel. The remaining five are all American-born: David Moshe (b.1983), Adina Simone (b.1985), Adam Binyamin (b.1987), Joshua Arieh (b.1992), and Ellana Ruth (b.1995). Joseph had a distinguished career a doctor and a researcher. He was Professor of Neurology and Director of the NYU Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Care Center. This world-class MS Center, which Joseph was credited with having built, "from the ground up and nearly single-handedly," is reputed to have changed the life forever of people with MS and for those who care for them. Dr. Joseph Herbert at NYU Medical Centre, with his Aunt Val and our daughter Margie Joseph was a deeply religious Jew, an idealist, sensitive, intelligent, caring; all qualities to which I am greatly drawn. Sadly, he passed away in January 2015, after a long struggle with cancer. 135

136 In 2005 Cecil suffered a heart-attack while on holiday in Caesaria. He recovered, but his health gradually declined. For most of 2005 he was ill, also suffering from the unbearable itching caused by a debilitating skin condition. He was hospitalized in Safed in 2006, and was sent to Nahariya Hospital, in the north of Israel, for tests. At the time he was due to be returned by ambulance to Safed the war with Lebanon broke out. Immediately, all the roads in northern Israel were closed to civilian traffic, and for several anxious hours we lost touch with the hospital and the ambulance. Eventually he was safely returned to Safed Hospital, and was actually there when it was hit by a katyusha rocket. His condition rapidly deteriorated, and he was transferred to Reut Hospital in Tel Aviv, where on 28 July 2006 he succumbed to multiple organ failure.he is buried in the Safed Cemetery, the same cemetery where our mother Sophia lies. As I noted, neither of Cecil s two sons lives in Israel, but Bernard was in Israel at the time his father died, and the funeral was delayed until the arrival of Joseph from the USA Cecil Solomon Herbert, 2006, Safed Cemetery During the Lebanese War Safed, an ancient and holy city, was a target for incessant bombardment, being hit by some 600 missiles, some close to the building where the Herberts had their apartment. The family sat shiva in Safed at the height of the war, with rockets falling all around us, and our mourning was punctuated by the incessant wailing of the air-raid sirens. 8.5 GILBERT [Eliakim Getzel] HERBERT: BACHELOR DAYS (b. 1924) Son of Benjamin and Sophia Herbert My years as a teenager were spent predominantly in an all-male environment. I was one of three sons, my close friends were all boys an innocent generation, we were curious about sex, but not driven to put our theoretical knowledge to the test of practice and I was educated at Parktown High, a boys school with an all-male staff. I was a good student, diligent and, at that 136

137 time, blessed with an excellent memory. I was a voracious reader, taking out three books a week from the Public Library as well as reading a host of other material; my taste was eclectic and catholic. My main hobby was drawing and sketching, but I also had an absorbing interest in every aspect of the motor car (except the mechanical). Upon the outbreak of war in 1939, I became an armchair general, following every development in each campaign with deep emotional involvement. At the end of 1941 I matriculated, with distinctions in Mathematics, General Science, English and Art, at that time the highest number of distinctions ever achieved in the Transvaal matriculation examinations. These good results enabled me to win a scholarship and enter university. This was a critical turning point for me, for without the scholarship I could not have afforded to study full-time, and would have ended up with a parttime diploma instead of an academic degree. In March 1942 I began to study Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand. The architectural course included, in the fourth year, an extended period of practical experience: in 1945, therefore, I worked for some months in the office of Gilbert Londt, and for the rest of the year with P. Rogers Cooke, a well-known veteran architect. Sapper Gilbert Herbert; right: Spitzkop Camp, 1942 During the war I volunteered for overseas service in the South African Army, and served as an interim measure in the Rand University Training Corps, a part-time unit of the South African Engineering Corps. Officially, I was Sapper Herbert, No.!35000, SAEC. In mid-1943 I was discharged on medical grounds, following a motor accident which left my right arm partially, but permanently, disabled. I graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Architecture in March Immediately on graduating, I was offered three appointments: in architectural practice, with the architect Harold Le Roith; in research, with the National Building Research Institute; and in architectural education, as a lecturer in the School of Architecture of the University of the Witwatersrand. I chose the latter, and my subsequent career was primarily as an academic. However, I also began to practise professionally as an architect, in a very modest way, mainly designing private residences. During 1948 and 1949 I took a post-graduate course leading to the Diploma in Town Planning, which I received in 1951, after a year of study and travel in Europe and America on a Union Government Post-graduate Scholarship. This year abroad was a milestone in my development, and quite an event in the life of our family. In our family history, long journeys had been undertaken out of necessity, not for pleasure. Moreover, the war had separated Europe and South Africa, in time, space, and experience. At Park Station, Johannesburg, a considerable crowd of relatives - second and third cousins, even my brothers parents-in-law - joined my close family to wish me bon voyage. My brother Cecil travelled with me to Cape Town, to see me off safely on a Union Castle liner to Southampton. I spent several months in an England still in the grip of post-war austerity, 137

138 staying mainly with my mother s cousin Ray Alper (a Yerusalimski) and her husband Harry. Then I toured extensively throughout Europe (in France, the Low Countries, Germany, Austria, and Italy) with an architectural colleague, Gerry Goldman. As far as Austria we travelled by car (a friend s Singer convertible); always exhilarated by the richness of the experience, sometimes shocked by the extent of war damage in the ravaged cities. Then we continued by train to Italy, the Mecca of all architects. Finally, after returning to England, I sailed to New York from Liverpool on the Britannic, and divided my time between staying with my cousin Gilbert Miller (another Yerusalimski) and his wife Anita, in their home at Rye, Westchester County, and being in residence at the John Jay Hall, Columbia University. Despite being on a tight budget I managed to travel widely throughout the United States, incidentally making my first flight, from Chicago to New York. I returned to Britain on the Queen Elizabeth, then transshipped back to Cape Town. My research on architectural education undertaken during 1950 at various schools of architecture in Britain and America (University College, London, the Architectural Association, and Liverpool University; and Columbia and Harvard Universities and MIT in the United States) eventually led to the degree of M. Arch, in My contact with the great architect and educator, and founder of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius, also led to the writing of my first book, The Synthetic Vision of Walter Gropius, originally written in 1955, but published in book form in Between these momentous events, my education, my first travels overseas and my first book, a far more significant event took place. In 1953, I married Valerie Ryan, the younger daughter of Alexander and Agnes Ryan, at that time of Uitenhage, in the Eastern Cape Province. 138

139 9. T H E R Y A N F A M I L Y Val (b.ryan) and Gil Herbert Alexander and Agnes Ryan Lorna (b.ryan) and Monty Nudelman 9.1 ALEXANDER AND AGNES RYAN, born KAPLAN My wife s parents My wife Valerie is preparing a fully-documented account of her family history. In fact, it was at her initiative, more than forty years ago, that I started my own investigations. I give here a brief summary, as background to the subsequent story of our immediate family, concerning two families, those of Valerie s father and mother, Alexander and Agnes Ryan (born Kaplan) (1) ELIAHU REIN (2) AARON RYAN m. Rivka Kliotz (3) CHARLES RYAN (c ) m. Rachel Leah Rappaport (c ) (4) ALEXANDER [Eliahu Dov] BERNARD RYAN ( ) m. Agnes Kaplan (1) ISRAEL TUVIA KAPLAN m. Eva unknown (2) ABRAHAM KAPLAN m. Toube Shulman (3) BARNARD KAPLAN (c ) m. Rachel Lipschitz (c ) (4) AGNES [Osnat] KAPLAN ( ) m. Alexander Bernard Ryan

140 Alexander Bernard Ryan ( ) was born in Manchester of parents Charles Ryan (c ; of Telz, Lithuania) and Rachel Leah Rappaport (c ; possibly of Volkovisk, in present-day Belarus) who had emigrated separately from Eastern Europe and had married in England. The Ryans moved from England to Belfast, then later returned to England. This pattern of movement paralleled that of my mother s family, the Millers, and I have already noted the extraordinary coincidence of both Ryan and Miller families living at the same address in Belfast, 19 Marion Street, at about the same time. With an increasing number of children the Ryans then emigrated to Canada, acquiring a timber plantation near St. Agathe, in Quebec. When this plantation burned down in a disastrous fire they moved once more, this time to South Africa, settling in Uniondale, in the Eastern Cape Province. Valerie's mother, Agnes Ryan (nee Kaplan: ), was born in Uniondale. Her parents were Barnard Kaplan (c ) and Rachel Lipschitz (c ), both of Shavli, in Lithuania. Both these families had moved seperately to South Africa, possibly with a short stopover in England, and settled in the Eastern Cape Province, the Lipschitz family in the early 1880s. Barnard and Rachel were married (in 1900) in Oudtshoorn, the ostrich-feather capital of South Africa, a town with so significant a Jewish presence that it was known as Little Jerusalem. The newly-wed Kaplans then moved to Uniondale, where their child Agnes Kaplan attended the same school (but in the junior class) as Alex Ryan, then in his final year of schooling. In 1927 Alex Ryan and Agnes Kaplan (chaperoned by Alex s father) eloped to Port Elizabeth, where they were married in a civil ceremony, and then returned to Uniondale, for the proper Jewish ceremony. They subsequently moved to the nearby hamlet of Haarlem, where they had several farms, a flour mill, and a general store. Alex, a highly respected citizen, became the burgomaster of Haarlem. The Ryans eventually moved to Port Elizabeth, which had been the birthplace of their three children (4) ALEXANDER BERNARD RYAN ( ) * My wife s father AGNES RYAN born Kaplan ( ) * My wife s mother (5) LORNA SALLY ( ) VALERIE ESTELLE (b. 1932) RAYMOND (b. 1937) LORNA SALLY RYAN ( ) Daughter of Alexander and Agnes Ryan (4) ALEXANDER BERNARD RYAN ( ) AGNES RYAN ( ) (5) LORNA SALLY RYAN ( ) * My wife s sister m. Monty Harry Nudelman (6) RACHELLE m1. Borochovitz, div. m2. Kalika SHARON, m. Mervis SAMUEL The Ryan s eldest child, Lorna Sally Ryan (1929=2011), grew up in Port Elizabeth, but after matriculating moved to the Transvaal, in order to study domestic science at the Johannesburg Technical College. In Johannesburg she met and married Monty (Mordechai Hirsch) Nudelman ( ), the younger brother of my sister-in-law Becky Herbert (nee Nudelman). At this wedding, I was the best man, while Lorna s younger sister Valerie was maid-of-honour; and it was here that I met my future wife for the first time. Lorna and Monty Nudelman had three 140

141 children: Rachelle (m1.borochovitz, m2.kalika), Sharon (m.mervis) - now both living in the United States - and Samuel, a dentist and business-man in Johannesburg. Samuel and Jill Nudelman have four children. I have visited my nieces in America, and they see us in Israel; and I have a great deal of affection for both of them. Rachelle had a troubled marriage and a difficult divorce, which caused all of us much anguish. She has daughter living in Israel: Ilana (m.radami), who lives in Bet Haggai, near Hebron. Her seven young children - our great-greatnieces and nephews- are the youngest generation of the family living in Israel. Monty Nudelman died some years ago, and Lorna passed away on 28 December 2011, shortly after her 82 nd birthday. Raymond, Valerie and Lorna Ryan Raymond Ryan and Lorna Nudelman 9.3 RAYMOND RYAN (b. 1937) Son of Alexander and Agnes Ryan (4) ALEXANDER BERNARD RYAN ( ) AGNES RYAN ( ) (5) RAYMOND RYAN (b. 1937) * My wife s brother m. Yvonne Green (6) ANDREW ROBERT Valerie s brother, Raymond Ryan (b.1937), is five and a half years her junior. Raymond went to school in Uitenhage, and then studied medicine, commencing at Stellenbosch University in the Cape, but completing the main body of his studies at Trinity College, Dublin. As part of his internship, he spent some time in Israel, staying with us. He later took his fellowship, specialising as an ophthalmic surgeon. On his return to Johannesburg he married Yvonne (Eve) Green, and they have two sons: Andrew and Robert. Some years ago the Raymond Ryans moved to Sydney, Australia, where we visited them in Andrew is married to Lisa Ross, and they live in Melbourne with their two children, Blake and Ashlee. Robert lives in London. 141

142 9.4 VALERIE ESTELLE [Hava] RYAN (b. 8 April 1932) Daughter of Alexander and Agnes Ryan Valerie Estelle [Ryan] Herbert Valerie Estelle (Hava) Ryan, the Ryans second child, was born in Port Elizabeth in 1932, although the family home was in Haarlem, a small country town in the Langkloof, Cape Province. At the age of three, Valerie moved back with her family to Port Elizabeth, the city of her birth. There she started her education, at the Collegiate School. At the age of twelve her family moved once again, this time to the town of Uitenhage, about twenty miles inland from Port Elizabeth. Here the Ryans took over a hotel, the Crown Hotel, which they ran for many years. Valerie went to school at Riebeek College in Uitenhage, and studied ballet (for which she had considerable talent) in Port Elizabeth, which necessitated commuting weekly by train. On successfully completing her high-school studies, she came to Johannesburg for her sister Lorna s wedding. As I have recounted, it was at this wedding of Monty Nudelman, the brother of my sister-in-law Becky Herbert (nee Nudelman), to Lorna Ryan, Valerie s sister, in December 1949, that we first met. Valerie Ryan Gilbert Herbert Marriage of Lorna Ryan and Monty Nudelman Immediately after the Nudelman wedding, we went our separate ways, I to spend a year overseas on a post-graduate scholarship, Valerie to enrol in Cape Town University, to study Speech Training and Drama, in which she took her teacher s diploma. These three years of study were spent in residence in Cape Town, travelling back to Uitenhage for the vacations. It was at this time that her parents bought her a small motorcar, a Morris Minor, to facilitate her movements in Cape Town, between the University and the Little Theatre and the schools where much of her practical activities were focused. 142

143 In the summer of 1951 I was invited to spend a holiday in Uitenhage with Monty and Lorna Nudelman. Valerie was spending part of her university vacation at home, and we unexpectedly renewed our acquaintance. At that stage, it was no more than a somewhat casual friendship. However, there must have been some chemistry at work, for we corresponded during the following months, when she was back at university for her final year. On graduating from University Valerie returned home, where she taught in a modest way, and adjudicated in an eisteddfod in a school for coloured children. When I returned on a holiday to Uitenhage with the Nudelmans at the end of 1952, Val and I saw a lot of each other, and our relationship became more serious. In February 1953, Val and her mother were in Johannesburg, visiting Lorna. Naturally, we spent a lot of time together, and our romance blossomed. One night, on the way back from a St. Valentine s Ball - an appropriately romantic occasion - we decided to get engaged. Because we were to be married in Johannesburg, we had a splendid engagement party at the Crown Hotel in Uitenhage, to enable the Ryans friends and family to attend. It was on a larger scale than the actual wedding reception. 143

144 10. G I L B E R T & V A L E R I E H E R B E R T The wedding reception, Luthjes Langham Hotel, Johannesburg, 18 June

145 10.1 GILBERT and VALERIE HERBERT: MARRIAGE On 18 June, 1953, the marriage took place of Gilbert Herbert, the youngest son of Sophia and the late Benjamin Herbert, and Valerie Ryan, the younger daughter of Alexander and Agnes Ryan. Our marriage, Great Synagogue, Wolmarans Street, Johannesburg, 1953 Our marriage was celebrated in the Great Synagogue, Wolmarans Street, Johannesburg. The wedding reception was held at the Langham Hotel, and the following day we left for an extended honeymoon. We were under no pressure of time, for I was on sabbatical leave from the university. Our leisurely car trip took us first to the Eastern Transvaal, along the route past Waterval Boven that my father had travelled when he worked on the trains, to the Kruger National Park. Then we headed north, via Magoebaskloof and the magnificent landscapes of the Northern Transvaal, to Southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe], for the Centenary Celebrations in Bulawayo, with an excursion to Northern Rhodesia [now Zambia] to see the Victoria Falls. Returning from Rhodesia, our marriage nearly came to a premature and disastrous end when our Morris Minor car, on a lonely stretch between Fort Victoria and Beit Bridge, left the road at a sharp bend and plunged down some ten feet or more over a precipitous bank to land, miraculously unharmed, in the soft sand of a river bed. The Morris Minor, of course, was Val s car; my cars, a 1948 Morris 8, and a 1937 SS Jaguar (which I had purchased as an abandoned saloon and had redesigned and rebuilt, transforming it into a stylish, unique, and completely unreliable four-seater convertible), were later sold (the latter with a heavy heart) after we got married SS Jaguar, reconstructed 145

146 10.2 STARTING A FAMILY (5) GILBERT [Eliakim Getzel] HERBERT (b. 1924) VALERIE ESTELLE [Hava] HERBERT born Ryan (b. 1932) (6) BARRY CHARLES [Binyamin] ( ) MARGARET LYNN [Minna Liba] (b. 1959) Barry Val Gil Margie Back safely in Johannesburg, we set up our first of many homes in the Herbert flat at 510 Connaught Mansions, Bree Street, in the very centre of the city. After the birth of our first child, Barry Charles [Binyamin], on 20 May 1955, we decided to build a house on the thirdacre plot we owned at 39a Homestead Road, Bramley, a north-eastern suburb of Johannesburg. Naturally, I designed the house; it was spacious, had everything we wished (within the constraints of a lecturer s salary), and we were both delighted with it. In addition to the usual residential accommodation, it had a large studio, intended to function mainly as a speech and drama studio for Val, but also on occasions as a drawing office for me, although most of my work was carried out at the university within the framework of Studio 7, a loosely-organized ad-hoc cooperative of some of my colleagues in the department. 39a Homestead Road, Bramley, Johannesburg 146

147 My architectural practice remained small, mainly comprising residential buildings and some exhibition work for academic and professional institutions, and once, for the South African Government. Of my larger projects, which included a multi-storey factory building, and an office building, my two most important commissions (in association with others) were the John Moffat Building for Architecture and Fine Art, at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Johannesburg Cinerama Theatre. The Bramley house, of whose design I was very proud, was completed towards the end of 1956, but we did not move in, as we were to leave, early in 1957, for a year in Europe. This adventure had not been foreseen when we undertook the building of the house; rather it was thrust upon us, as it were, when I was awarded the prestigious Sir Herbert Baker Scholarship for study in Italy and England. We travelled to England on the Stirling Castle, had a new car - a Hillman convertible - delivered to us at the docks, and after a brief stay in England, eventually drove across France to Italy. We spent four months in Rome, living in two rooms of an apartment in Via Acherusio 16, near Viale Eritrea. Based on the British School in Rome, I studied the architecture of Rome in the Library and at first hand. We later spent two months exploring the entire length of Italy, from Sicily in the south up to Lake Como and the Swiss border. Returning by car to England, through Switzerland, France, and the Low Countries, we spent a further three months in London, living in a rented flat at 12 Wyckham Gardens, Golders Green. Barry, our small son, who had travelled everywhere with us (we carried his folding bed in our car, so that he would have the security of sleeping in a familiar environment each night, whilst we were constantly on the move) now went to kindergarten, at St. Ninian s Presbyterian Church. In London I worked on my research, and Val took her Licentiateship in Mime at the Royal Academy of Music. This year abroad was a rich and rewarding experience for us, which was marred, however, by two disastrous events. In Paris, our car was broken into, and amongst the things stolen were all the records of my Italian research. Some of these were irreplaceable, but others I managed to reconstruct in London with such expenditure of effort that I actually collapsed one day at the Library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and was ill for some weeks. Then, on the return journey to South Africa Val, who was in the early stage of pregnancy, threatened to miscarriage, and spent many traumatic days in the ship s hospital, in the care (if that is the correct term for what was criminal neglect) of an alcoholic ship s surgeon. After receiving emergency treatment at our stop-over in Cape Town, from a local doctor we knew, including the delivery of blood for transfusions, she finally miscarried between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and on arrival was rushed to hospital in Uitenhage, our immediate destination. Back home in Johannesburg, eventually, we renovated our house, vandalised by our tenants, and early in 1958 moved, at long last, into Homestead Road. The following year, on 23 June 1959, our daughter Margaret Lynn [Minna Liba] was born. The responsibility of bringing up a family in a social and political environment entirely abhorrent to us bore very heavily upon us. Our attitude to, and criticism of apartheid, had hardened considerably, compared to the laissez-faire attitude of our parents of the pre-war period. Hitler had sensitized us to racial intolerance, and the rigidity and ruthlessness of the entrenched Nationalist regime inspired our deepest revulsion. We were no revolutionaries, although we did what we could - sometimes flouting the apartheid laws - in our personal sphere, especially by teaching black students. We found that we could not continue to benefit from all the material advantages of a system we deplored. We began to think seriously about emigrating, and - with sabbatical leave due to me in considered the possibility of a six-months trial period on a kibbutz in Israel. We were both, at that time, somewhat ambivalent Zionists: strong in our support for and belief in Israel, tentative about the idea of aliyah. I had been a member of the SA League of the Haganah, even acting as a barely-qualified instructor in military engineering, and had volunteered for service 147

148 in Israel during the War of Independence; but my old disability, which had kept me out of active service during World War II, together with a critical six-weeks illness, contrived to foil my plans to go to Israel in Now, in 1960, as political tensions mounted, to climax in the Sharpville massacre, a turn of fate was once again to deflect us from our half-formed intention to explore the possibilities of living in Israel 10.3 EMIGRATING TO AUSTRALIA I had heard, very late (in fact, after the deadline) that a position had been advertised for a Reader in Architecture and Town Planning at the University of Adelaide, in South Australia. I applied, almost lightheartedly, while at the Bushman s Rock Hotel in the Eastern Transvaal, where I was recuperating after an operation; and shortly thereafter was offered the position. We received the news with a sense of both elation and shock: the decision to emigrate, in a sense, had been made for us, for it was an offer we could not refuse, but we were to go to Australia, and not to Israel. We spent, in all, seven years in Australia, from I took up my senior post at the University of Adelaide, acting, in 1964, as head of the department and dean of the Faculty of Architecture. Val began to work at the Adelaide Teachers Training College, as a lecturer in the Speech and Drama Department; and was also invited to teach creative movement in Adelaide University's Conservatoire of Music. We rented a duplex apartment (or maisonette) at 153 Cross Road, Westbourne Park, and the children, on reaching school age, went to Westbourne Park School. We had settled down well, had made a wide circle of friends from within the University and the Jewish community and our children had begun to speak with an Australian accent. It was at this time that we became heavily involved in Zionist and communal activities. Val was one of the founders and first president of Wizo Carmel, and served on the Wizo State Council. I served at various times as president of the SA Friends of the Hebrew University (with Val as secretary), president of the JNF of South Australia, a member of the SA Zionist State Council, and a member of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. In the southern summer of , on our way to Greece, we made our first brief visit to Israel, passing through South Africa en route, and leaving our children with the family there. Because of our official Zionist connections, we were given VIP treatment, being provided with a car and driver; and consequently, although we had only ten days in Israel, we saw a great deal of the country, and were deeply moved by what we saw. We resolved that our next visit would be longer. In 1966, on sabbatical leave, we returned on the Southern Cross to South Africa for several months, where I became involved in research on the life and work of Rex Martiennsen - a study which eventually earned me the degree of D.Litt et Phil from the University of South Africa. We then went on to Israel, intent this time on exploring the possibility of eventually 148

149 settling there. We rented a flat in Tel-Aviv for a couple of months, to get the feel of living in (rather than merely visiting) Israel, and made our first contacts with the Technion s Faculty of Architecture in Haifa. From Israel we went to Italy, and then on the Rafaello to the USA. In Canada, where I had a lecture tour, we crossed the Rockies by train, then sailed on the Oriana from Vancouver back to Australia, via California, Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand. On our return to Adelaide at the beginning of 1967, we rented a house in Greer Street, Unley. Almost immediately, I applied to the Technion for a teaching position. The outbreak, in June, of the Six-Day War (which incidentally disrupted all appointment procedures at the Technion) was for us a traumatic event, which convinced us of the necessity finally to move to Israel, whether a job was available or not. Instead of signing the contract for our proposed new house in Beaumont (for which all the papers: the working drawings, the agreed tender, the mortgage, were ready) I submitted my resignation to the University, agreeing to their request to remain on for nine months, to enable them, if possible, to find a replacement GOING ON ALIYAH At the end of 1967, we packed up our home, sold our bulkier furniture and our Wolseley car, (and, somewhat later, our plot of land in Beaumont, and Val's Mini-Minor); and, on the strength of my having received a Myer Foundation Award, we all went to South Africa, for me to complete my Martienssen research. Val and the children then remained in Johannesburg, while I returned to Adelaide to fulfil my obligations to the University. Val rejoined me for the last month or so, and then we returned to Johannesburg, where our son Barry celebrated his Barmitzvah, at the same Yeoville Synagogue as I had, thirty-one years previously. Gilbert Herbert, 1937 Barry Herbert, 1968 Barmitzvah boys Two weeks before we finally left for Israel, confirmation was at long last received that I had a two-year appointment at the Technion, as an Associate Professor. On 18 August 1968, we came on aliyah to Israel, and moved into a furnished flat at 18 Eder Street, Ahuza, in Haifa. About a year later, we moved into our own new apartment at 8 Eder Street, the first home we had actually owned since we sold the Bramley house in In a home of our own - where we still live, four decades later - and in a country of our own, we at last put down roots, 149

150 8 Eder Street, Haifa After my initial temporary appointment, I was granted tenure at the Technion in 1971, and the following year was promoted to full professor. In the summer of that year (1972) we took the children to England, where I was to continue my research into 19th century prefabrication. We rented a large late-victorian flat in the heart of London, just off the Tottenham Court Road, as our primary base: and there we were joined by Val s mother Agnes. Perhaps because of our English roots, reinforced by the strong cultural bias towards England in our education, our family has a very special feeling for London, and we have made recurrent visits there over the years. To go further afield in the United Kingdom, in visits which took us to as far north as Scotland, we rented a Bedford Bedouin motor-caravan. In 1973, I was elected Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion. My term of office was made infinitely more difficult by the impact of the Yom Kippur War (of October 1973) and the long drawn-out aftermath of the War of Attrition upon the Technion in particular, and upon the nation as a whole. Barry was a new recruit in the Israel Defence Forces when the war broke out, and - together with most families in Israel - we suffered ten days of anxiety until we received the first indirect word of his well-being. After the war he received a commission in the Navy, serving at Sharm-el-Sheik in Sinai, and later as a supply officer with the Naval Commando at Atlit. After four years of service he was eventually demobbed with the rank of lieutenant. Lieut. Barry Herbert While Barry was still in the forces the rest of the family spent six months in South Africa in 1975, where I took up an appointment as visiting professor at my alma mater in Johannesburg. We rented a furnished serviced apartment at Preston Place, Berea, close to Barnato Park 150

151 School, where Margie was to study. We were loaned a Ford Taunus car by our nephew Bernard, which enabled us to undertake field trips to such off-beat places as Barberton and Pilgrim s Rest, to further my research into 19th-century prefabrication, as well as to visit Swaziland. By plane and train we travelled extensively in South Africa during this period, for the purposes of research, a lecture tour sponsored by the Institute of Architects, and family visits. While we were in South Africa, my second book, Martienssen and the International Style, was published, and was very well received. Back in Israel I completed my studies of 19 th century prefabrication, and they were published as Pioneers of Prefabrication in 1978 In 1974 I had been appointed to the Mary Hill Swope Chair in Architecture at the Technion, a post I was to hold until my retirement in Val, after a variety of short-term jobs, including giving courses at Haifa University, and Oranim and Gordon Teachers Training Colleges, settled into a tenured position as a part-time lecturer, specializing in phonetics, in the English Department of the Arab Teachers Training College in Haifa, the largest Government-run Arab educational facility in Israel. She eventually took early retirement in 1992, so that we could spend our leisure time together. Our careers, after the inevitable strains and uncertainties of a transitional period, now entered a more consolidated stage. But if our professional lives seemed settled, our personal life was not free of difficulties, for our family had suffered a devastating blow THE DEATH OF OUR SON BARRY CHARLES [Binyamin] HERBERT Barry Charles Herbert On our return from South Africa, at the age of 51, I was asked to give up the exemption I had from military service, and I enlisted in the reserves, serving in a bomb rescue squad in Haga, the Civil Defence unit. I was eventually released from service, three years later, after being 151

152 involved in an accident (my stationary car was run into) in which I suffered severe whiplash injuries and some significant loss of hearing was a black year. After completing his military service, Barry applied for enrolment as a student in the Technion s architectural school, and then set off for an extended visit to South Africa. He spent several happy months with the family, staying with his cousin Bernard Herbert, and was then loaned a car by his cousin Samuel Nudelman, so that he could tour the length and breadth of the country. On the last leg of this tour, returning from Cape Town to Johannesburg, the car crashed into the parapet of a bridge, near De Aar. He was eventually taken to De Aar Hospital with severe internal injuries. Val s brother Raymond Ryan, a doctor, took a rented plane to De Aar to bring him to Johannesburg, but Barry died on the tarmac, as he was being taken on a stretcher to the plane. This was on 23 June, 1977, our daughter Margie s 18th birthday. Barry was brought back to Israel for burial, and his uncle Harold Herbert accompanied him on this last sad journey. He lies in the Haifa Cemetery, and a grove of trees was dedicated to his memory by our family and friends in the Nir Etzion Forest, overlooking the Atlit Naval Base where he once served. This forest was later destroyed in a disastrous fire which ravaged Mount Carmel.The family also established a scholarship in his name at the Technion, and his Uncle Cecil set up a memorial fund at the Jerusalem College of Technology. Barry [Binyamin] Herbert: Memorial Grove, Nir Etzion Forest; Sde Yehoshua Cemetery, Haifa, CARRYING ON The official year of mourning passed, but the intensity of grief has remained with us. Life, however, must go on. In June 1978 we marked our 25th wedding anniversary by travelling to Spain. We took a car by ferry to Ancona in Italy (via Cyprus and Greece), travelled from the Adriatic coast to Rome, and then north to Genoa, where we linked up with our dear friends Max and Yeta Govezensky, also celebrating their silver wedding. Together we drove through Southern France (the Riviera, Provence, Marseilles), across the Pyrenees to Andorra, and thence to Barcelona. We shortened the return journey by taking an overnight car-ferry from Barcelona to Genoa. This was a trip rich in experience, but undertaken with a heavy heart. Shortly after our return, we received the sad news that Val s mother Agnes had been struck down by a heart attack, and we flew to South Africa for the funeral. The next few years saw us travelling extensively. In 1979 I received an invitation to spend the summer at the University of Adelaide, as Visiting Distinguished Scholar, and this gave us the opportunity to renew old ties in the city where we had spent seven happy years. An exchange 152

153 professorship also took us to Sydney and Melbourne. There was considerable interest in Australia in my work on 19th century prefabrication, and my book Pioneers of Prefabrication, which had recently come out, was well known there. All our previous travels to and from Australia had been South Africa-based, but flying now from Israel opened up a whole new area of the world to us, the Far East. This trip, and other visits to Australia in late years, made it possible for us to visit India, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong (including a one-day excursion to Macao and China) and Japan. In I once again had sabbatical leave. This enabled me to take up two invitations: as Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Paraná, in the city of Curitiba, Brazil, for the second half of 1980; and as Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, for the first half of We flew to Rio de Janeiro from Johannesburg, after we had attended a ceremony at which I received the Architectural Critics and Writers Award of the Institute of South African Architects. Our stay in Latin America was an entirely new and utterly delightful experience for us. Val and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Curitiba; my work at the University was interesting, and Val, teaching English at Cultura Inglesi (the local British Council branch), had excellent rapport with her students. We were received with the most gracious hospitality, both by our colleagues and the small Jewish community. We toured Brazil extensively, from Foz da Iguaçu on the Paraguay border to Manaus in the Amazonas. We also took the opportunity of visiting Argentina, Peru, and (on our way north to the United States) Mexico. Our daughter Margie (who had officially changed her name from Margaret to Margalit) had by this time undergone her compulsory military service, eventually serving as adjutant, with the rank of lieutenant, in a reserve artillery unit. At the beginning of 1981 she joined us in New York, and came with us to Boston, where we moved into an apartment at Soldiers Field Park, and I settled in at Harvard s Graduate School of Design. The appointment at Harvard was prestigious, and had the advantage for me considering my topic of research - of housing the archives of Gropius s letters and drawings, but I must confess I found my architectural colleagues at MIT more congenial. The next six months were probably the most fruitful, from a research point of view, that I have ever spent, and the work I did at Harvard, at neighbouring MIT, and in far-off Los Angeles, where I was given access to the official archives and, through the kindness of his widow, the private records of Konrad Wachsmann. The Gropius and Wachsmann sources generated the material which eventually formed the focus of my next book, The Dream of the Factory-Made House: Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann, published by MIT Press in Our stay in Boston was also a special time for us as a family, as it brought the three of us, Val and I and our now grown-up daughter, very close together. We ended off this rewarding year of 1981 with a trip to Scandinavia, but on our return to London (from where we had planned to go to Paris, and thence return home) we were greeted with the sad news of the sudden death of my mother in Safed. 153

154 10.7 MARGALIT HERBERT, later BOYANGIU (6) MARGARET LYNN [Minna Liba, later MARGALIT] HERBERT (b. 1959) m. Yitzhak Boyangiu (7) SHANI OSNAT (b. 1984) AVRI BINYAMIN (b. 1986) MAOR ELIMELECH (b. 1992) Marriage: Margie Herbert and Yitzhak Boyangiu, During the Lebanese War of 1982, although Margie had by then left the army, she was mobilized and seconded to the Ministry of Labour, to deal with the call-up of key persons in industry. In March 1983 she married Yitzhak [originally Julien] Boyangiu. Itzik, the son of Mircea and Gianna Boyangiu, was born in Rumania in He had recently been demobbed with the rank of captain (he was later a major in the reserves), and was about to study Mechanical Engineering at the Technion. Margie too was a student, qualifying as a teacher of special education at the Gordon Seminary; and she later also completed her BA degree as an external student at the Open University. 154

155 Capt. Yitzhak Boyangiu Margie on Graduation Day, Open University Margie and Itzik's three children are Shani Osnat (b.1984), Avri Binyamin (b.1986), and Maor Elimelech (b.1992). With the birth of her children, Margie gave up the onerous task of teaching, and after some time spent in the advertising world has for many years worked as the office manager of an attorney who is also the American Consul in Haifa. She also completed two years of further studies at Haifa University, in the field of Library Sciences and Information Management. Her husband Itzik moved from mechanical engineering he was for a long period responsible for the administration and technical maintenance of the Rakevel (the Haifa Cable Car) to the more satisfying field of computers. In recent years he was employed as a computer expert by the Associated Maritime Agencies, a ship provisioning and managing company, and later another similar firm. In 2007 the Boyangiu family name was changed to Boeangiu, to conform to the spelling on Itzik s Rumanian birth certificate. Some years ago Itzik developed a malfunctioning kidney, a congenital disease, which eventually necessitated undergoing a kidney transplant. In subsequent years he suffered from ill-health. On 23 November 2014 he passed away suddenly in the night. The family Maor Elimelech Itzik Margie Shani Osnat Avri Binyamin Val and Gil Herbert The Boeangiu children are now adults. After they completed their compulsory service, Shani choosing to do National Service, Avri and Maor in the army, they each spent several restless years travelling the wide world, and working at a series of part-time jobs. Shani obtained a BA 155

156 degree in the humanities at Bar Ilan University. Now they seem to be settling down: Shani has set up home with her partner Shy Gabzo, and she recently gave birth to a lovely little girl, Yuval Leia, making Margie a grandmother and blessing Val and me with a long-awaited greatgrandchild; Avri has opened a business selling health food shakes, yoghurts and (in the winter) hot soups, and has a steady girl-friend; and Maor has just applied for acceptance into the biology programme of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem TRANSITION: FROM ACTIVE CAREERS TO ACTIVE RETIREMENT During the last quarter century we travelled back to South Africa on several occasions. In 1985 we spent six months in Johannesburg, where I was Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. Margie and her husband and her baby daughter Shani came to join us for the Passover holidays, and together we renewed contact with many branches of our extensive family. In 1986 we returned to Johannesburg, this time for a brief visit, when I was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Witwatersrand, a unique occasion, as I had been selected by my Alma Mater as the sole honoree commemorating the centenary of Johannesburg. D.Arch (honoris causa), Witwatersrand University, 1986 Two years later, in 1988, I again took up a visiting professorship in Johannesburg. We had a short sabbatical in London in 1992 and, following my retirement that year, went on to South Africa, for the last time before their change of regime, when I was invited as a Visiting Professor at the University of Natal, Durban. While in Natal I heard that my book Bauhaus-onthe-Carmel (jointly with Silvina Sosnovsky) had come off the presses in Jerusalem. Although I am retired, I remain academically active, but on a reduced scale. For some time I continued with my graduate courses, and my last doctoral students have now all graduated. I continue to research and to write. Several of my books have come out in recent years. The Beginnings of Modern Architecture in Israel: the First Power Stations (1996), was followed up 156

157 in 2003 with a much more comprehensive study, written with my colleagues Ita Heinze- Greenberg and Silvina Sosnovsky, entitled In Search of Excellence: the Architecture and Building Projects of the Electric Industry in the Land of Israel This book formed the basis of an exhibition mounted in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and later shown in the Haifa Historical Museum. The Search for Synthesis (1997), which contains a selection of my writings on Architecture and Town Planning over five decades, was produced as a Jubilee Edition, to coincide with a most heartwarming public celebration of my fifty years of teaching and research, under the auspices of the Technion. At this celebration Sir Jack Zunz, an old friend and eminent engineer, was the keynote speaker. The Jubilee Celebrations: addressing the gathering My next book, Through a Clouded Glass: Mendelsohn, Wijdeveld and the Jewish Connection, written with Liliane Richter and published by the prestigious Wasmuth Verlag, was presented at the International Book Fair in Jerusalem early in Finally, my tenth book, co-authored with Mark Donchin, was published in 2013 by Ashgate Publishers. My collaborator Ita was a former research assistant of mine, and Silvina, Liliane and Mark former graduate students. The exhibition based on my book Bauhaus-on-the-Carmel, after it had been displayed in Italy, was brought by our Foreign Ministry to Japan in An invitation to open the exhibition in Osaka gave us the opportunity to visit Japan for the first time. Being under the official aegis of the Embassy, the Institute of Architects and the Japanese Foundation meant that we were given VIP treatment, and saw the architectural gems of Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto and Tokyo under the most favourable conditions. From Japan, it was possible to go on to Australia, to visit Val s brother Raymond and our nephew Bernard. Early in 1999 the exhibition was transferred to Chicago, and once again an invitation from the sponsors, the Israel Consulate-General to the Midwest, the American Jewish Congress, Columbia College, and the Chicago Architecture 157

158 Foundation, enabled us to have a most rewarding visit to one of America s most stimulating cities. We were back in the USA in October 2000, where I gave a paper at a conference in Philadelphia, and we took the opportunity not only of visiting our families in Pittsburgh and Fair Lawn, but of spending quality time with Val s old school friend Barbara Jones and her husband Bob in Parma, Ohio. In January and February 2001 we were back in South Africa, this time on a family visit, and in July we went to London for the International Conference of the Jewish Genealogical Society, spending some days in Prague on our way home. As one may see from the above, Val and I have enjoyed our new status, our shared leisure and activities, and the privileges which come with senior citizenship. Our cultural life is very rich. For some twenty years or more, until it disbanded, we both sang in the Carmel Choir, Val as a mezzo-soprano, I as a bass-baritone. Val continues in the reconstituted choir, in its new format. The Carmel Choir, 1994 For many years we subscribed to the concerts of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. We have taken art lessons, and are still active members of a discussion group, where we have given several talks. We performed in the Haifa English Theatre, I marginally, Val as a central figure. She was one of the founders of the Theatre, and for 25 years was a leading actress in many productions. Starting from their very first play, Arsenic and Old Lace, she has given memorable performances in many fine plays including You Can t Take it with You, Mornings at Seven, Table Manners, The Dresser, A Delicate Balance, Lettice and Lovage, and Summer End. Valerie Herbert as Her Ladyship in The Dresser and Claire in A Delicate Balance From the point of view of public service, Val was the founder and a principal driving force of the Haifa Committee for Soviet Jewry, which for over 15 years played a significant role in helping to free Prisoners of Zion, in bringing about the reunification of Russian families in Haifa, and easing the pains of their absorption. Presently she is a highly-appreciated volunteer teacher of English at Mishan, the parents home down the street from us. 158

159 Members of the Haifa Committee for Soviet Jewry As we get older we celebrated our 60 th wedding anniversary in 2013 and my 90 th birthday the next June we have naturally have slowed down.we tire more easily, and walking for me at least has become difficult. We have not renewed our driving licences, and have given up our car. Still, we count our many blessings. We have our beloved family, with various cousins all over the country, ranging from Rosh Hanikra on the Lebanese border to Beer Sheva in the south, and from Bet Haggai in the so-called West Bank (Judea and Samaria) to Jerusalem and eastward to Tel Aviv and the coastal plain. For many years I was blessed to have my mother and brother Cecil living in Israel, and until recently our sister-in-law Becky Herbert was not too far away (and in almost daily telephone contact) in Safed. Sadly she suffered from Alzheimers and has been moved into Bet Protea, a South-African run Parents Home in Herzlia, where she passed away this year. Margie and her family are near us in Haifa, and we are consequently very involved grandparents. Shani, our eldest grandchild, now lives in Petach Tikvah. After a year of National Service, two years of study at a college for cinema making and directing, and studies in anthropology, sociology and geography at Bar Ilan University, graduating with a BA degree, she has just started to work for a large company outsourcing project management and operations in the public and private sectors. She is a delightful young woman, sensitive, creative and intelligent, and we derive much pleasure from her. Avri, when he finished his army service, spent several exciting months back-packing in South America. This post-army adventure has become a tradition with young Israelis, but he has also inherited the travel bug from his parents and grandparents. He has explored various options: the restaurant business (he is a qualified barman), being a tour guide (he took a course, but has decided it s not for him), and has qualified as an instructor in extreme sports, especially rapelling. This took him to New Zealand for a few months, but he is now back in Israel. Our youngest grandchild, Maor, was involved in the youth group at our synagogue, the Moriah Congregation, where he was a Madrich or group leader. As part of this group he enrolled in Nachal (Pioneer Fighting Youth); after several year s service on a kibbutz and in the army he has just finished his military service, and is working in a hotel in Eilat until he starts University. We are basically a very small family unit. Following Barry s tragic death Margie became an only child.her husband Itzik also had a small family, and his only sibling, his sister, is since her divorce a single parent with only one child, who considers us his surrogate family, and calls us Grandpa and Grandma. While small in numbers, we are, thank God, a close and affectionate family. A few years ago we went to England together, and took a narrow-boat canal trip from Bristol to Bath (and back again). Even in this constricted environment, our three-generation family got on well together. Later we repeated the experiment of a total family holiday. Margie and Itzik celebrated their 25 th wedding anniversary in March 2008, and to mark the occasion the three generations (all seven of us) rented a delightful modernized old farm-house in the Loire Valley, and for about ten days explored the chateaux and the country-side in a large Opel people carrier. Again, it was a most rewarding experience. 159

160 The farmhouse, Le Foeaux, Loire Valley We are also blessed with a close circle of intimate friends, some of whom take the place of the extended family that we enjoyed in South Africa in our childhood. We have gone to Jordan, Eastern Europe and Morocco with our close friends the Kaplans, to Italy, Spain and Portugal with the Govezenskys, to Mombasa with other friends, for we have travelled a great deal, as has been evident in this chronicle. Until walking became difficult for me we were regular attendants at the Conservative Synagogue, not so much because we subscribe to the philosophy of the movement, but because our Moriah congregation is a warm and supportive one. I belong to no particular political party, but at times of stress and crisis - and we in Israel have not been short of such things in recent years - we are politically active, on the side of traditional Jewish values and an unshakable belief in Zionism and the integrity of our Israeli homeland. And when time hangs heavy on our hands, there is always work to do on the family history, a seemingly unending, and always fascinating, task. C O N C L U S I O N Our family history reveals the story of four different strands, at whose head stand my four grandparents, and those of their antecedents I have managed to identify. I hazard a supposition, that these four ancestral families, the Paikins, Millers, and Yerusalimskis from Dvinsk, and the Yablochniks [Herberts] from Vilkomir were acquainted with each other in their Litvak days. The Yablochniks and Paikins were linked by the marriage of my paternal grandparents, Haim Yablochnik (later Simon Herbert) and Minnie Paikin. As we shall see, this was not an accidental coming together, as Haim was from Lithuania and Minnie from Latvia, and for Haim to have gone from Vilkomir/Kavarskas to Dvinsk to marry a girl from a Dvinsk family then living in Polotsk would have taken some pre-planning. The Millers and Yerusalimskis, both from Dvinsk, were linked by the marriage of my maternal grandparents, Solomon Miller and Hannah Yerusalimski. There was obviously a close family connection, for several Yerusalimskis took the name Miller on coming to England. Then there was a connection between the families of my paternal and maternal grandparents, the Paikins and Millers, with the marriage of Lazar Miller, Solomon s brother, and Sarah Paikin, Hinda s sister; and a generation later of Lasure Paikin to Sophia Miller. The interlinking of families extended to the periphery, including those families which through marriage were integrated into the core, a phenomenon we have remarked on in this narrative. The most notable are three Dvinsk families, the Bors, Horwitzes and Modlins, and their connections with two of my ancestral families, the Paikins and the Millers, in multiple and various combinations: Paikin-Horwitz, Paikin-Bor, Miller-Modlin, and Miller-Horwitz. Ours is indeed a complex family, an extended family I like to think of as a clan. In Jewish tradition 160