Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 11 May 1911

This post continues translation from Yiddish and analysis of letters sent by Levi Yitzkhak Liderman to his son, Morris, who was settled, initially, in New York City in 1910. For further background, see the first post in this series. 

For links to other posts in this series, scroll to the bottom.

As noted previously, translation is an art. Any comments or clarifications by Yiddish speakers/translators are welcome.

As an aid to understanding, I have placed a family tree at the end of the post.

Postmark

11 May 1911, Polonnoe, Volin G. [Volhynia Gubernia]
[This is the Julian calendar date, which was in effect in the Russian Empire at this time. The letter was written two days earlier on 9 May 1911. The equivalent in the Gregorian calendar (in use in the United States, then and now) was 22 May 1911.]

Addressed to: 

Mr. J. Simberg

134-136 Cannon [Street]

Neu Yorc

for Morris Liderman

[The Russian printed text on the top left side of the card reads: L. Liderman.]

Translation

Translation by Esther Chanie Dushinsky

[Notes in blue as well as those at the end of the post are mine. Levi Yitzkhak tried to squeeze as much on the card as possible and did not break the text into paragraphs. For ease of reading, I have added paragraph breaks in the translation.]

9 May [Russian calendar], 22 May [USA calendar] 1911

Tuesday, Bamidbar[1]

My dear and beloved son, my ____ soul, Mr. Moshe'leh, should live. They sent all you letters from my house, to me, as well as the postcard that you sent to my current address ____.[2]

I read your letters that there is hope that ____ 12 dollars to ____. I am adding my request, and I am asking, who is going to give, and I hope that the Ribono Shel Olam [God] will judge you favorably and your charisma will be seen in the eyes of others, with even greater charisma, good luck and blessings.

Why, my son, wouldn't you write to me the entire time what job you currently have? Will you have a specific job, or will you just be working for them?

____ ____ [last week?] I received the letter and card that were returned to me from America. ____ Rosh Chodesh Nissan ____, 17 March Russia, 30 March English.[3] And I sent you this card to Reuven's address, A 132. Most likely they couldn't find him in America, so they sent it back to me, what is this? It could be, that if you'd write to me that Reuven got married already and is in the country already, that's why they couldn't find him in New York.[4]

You wrote that you had not letters for 12 days. That's surprising to me, because I write a letter to you, from here every single week, They also write to you from home amost every week. What could be the matter [?]?

Moshe'leh, my son, today I picked up a letter today from our Zanvel'n a letter. He's complaining sadly - he tells me "you gave to Faiga'n, you gave to Moshe'n, and I am the sacrifice."[5] I am crying and mourning over this. What can I do? One God should have mercy. I write to mother that she should sell the home and we can settle somewhere else. Because I am depending ____ ____ our situation is very dire.

[side 2]

A fine, smart, a ____ and has nothing to do in Bushtin [?]. It's possible that in Polonnoe he might find something to do. Times flies. He isn't a boy anymore. What can we do? "What do we do?" He wants me to give him 50 Rubles [?], so that he can travel to ____ or somewhere else. What you wrote about, when I will be home I will see where it will take me. I should come up with a good idea, a solid idea to advise him!

Your father who wants the best for you, good luck, and happiness, ____ ____

[upside down]

Send regards to my brother in law and the entire family.[6]

Notes:

1. Bamidbar is the 34th weekly Torah reading in the Jewish cycle. It is the book Numbers 1:1-4:20.

2. Home was, at this time, in Annopol. Levi Yitzkhak was working in Polonnoe, 57.4 kilometers (35.6 miles) distant.

3. The Hebrew date, 1 Nissan (Rish Chodesh) 5671, was the equivalent of Gregorian calendar (USA), 30 March 1911, and Julian calendar (Russia), 17 March 1911.

4. [Don't tell anyone ;-) but] I am working on an hypothesis that this Reuben mentioned in several letters was Reuben Resnick. Reuben and his sister Pearl Resnick Flikoff (some letters also mention Pearl in the same breath as Reuben) were immigrants from the same general area (Zaslav Uyezd) as the Lederman and Garber families. Reuben lived in Lower Manhattan until he married Rose Berse on 19 March 1911. Shortly after that, he moved to Plainfield, Union County, New Jersey, where he opened a stationery/candy store. If this is the correct Reuben, then Levi Yitzkhak might have considered Reuben's move out of New York City as a move out to the country. Reuben's father was identified as Jacob Resnick and his mother as Rose Flikoff (Pearl may have married a cousin). I think that Reuben and Pearl might have been related to the Ledermans via their father's Resnick line. See Reuben's marriage record: New York Co., NY, marriage certificate no. 8218 (1911), Reuben Resnick and Rose Berse, 19 March 1911; Municipal Archives, New York City. More on this possibility as the information does or does not click into place.

5. Zanvel and Feiga are two of Moshe's siblings.

6. Moshe had been staying (or at least collecting his mail) at his uncle's (Jacob Simberg) home.

~~~~~~~~~~

Posts in this Series

 

"Bond of Brothers"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 10 December 1910"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 17 December 1910"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 27 December 1910"
"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 18 January 1911"
"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 4 February 1911"
"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 21 February 1911"
"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 8 March 1911"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 25 March 1911"
"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 27 April 1911" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 11 May 1911"   

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 21 May 1911"  

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 27 May 1911"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 21 June 1911"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 5 August 1911" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 9 August 1911" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 31 August 1911"  

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 11 September 1911"   

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 21 September 1911"  

"Letter from Frieda Lederman, date unknown (ca. 1910-1913)"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 19 October 1911"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 28 November 1911"  

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 27 December 1911"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 14 January 1912" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 19 March 1912"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 14 April 1912"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 4 July 1912" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 13 August 1912"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 30 August 1912" 

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 28 November 1912"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 2 December 1912"  

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 28 December 1912"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 18 February 1913"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 29 March 1913"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 1 June 1913"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 8 July 1913"

"Letters from Levi Yitzkhak Lederman, 23 April 1914"

  

Ukraine 2013: Mapping the Journey

My daughter, Katherine, and I will be leaving in a few days for Ukraine. I will be suspending my Tombstone Tuesday and Treasure Chest Thursday blog posts until I get back (unless, of course I find something wonderful and have an overwhelming need to share under those themes immediately!).

In the meantime, here is a concept map of the planned trip. I say "concept" because while we will pretty much take these routes, there is flexibility built into the schedule and things may change.

Map constructed in Google Maps, 26 May 2013

Our journey will start in the Galicia section of Ukraine, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. We will arrive in Lviv (A) about mid-day on 3 June. The next day we will head to Yaremche (B) with Alex Dunai (our genealogist, translator and guide) to take in Hutsel culture. I had hoped to hike Mt. Hoverla, the highest point (6762 feet) in Ukraine, but we've already had to change that plan due to a foot injury Katherine, my daughter, suffered yesterday. 

After at least looking at Mt. Hoverla we'll wend our way back to Lviv through the Carpathian Mountains. We will stop at Bolekhiv (C), the shtetl that Daniel Mendelsohn wrote about in his book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. I am finally getting around to reading it. Alex Dunai is featured as Mendelsohn's Ukrainian genealogist.

My first family shtetl stop will be at Skole (D). Skole is the place where Jutte Ett Barath was born on 21 January 1894 and where, her mother (also mother of David Ett, and Sophie Ett Leiner, Sarah Ett Cohn, and Chaitze Ett Rappaport) Perl Wenkert Ett died on 18 August 1895.

We will then spend a couple of days seeing the sites of Lviv and working in the archives. Records will likely be in Polish script. I have been reviewing "Reading Polish Handwritten Records," a 3-part tutorial in the Learning Center on FamilySearch.org.

After Lviv, we will once again head south to continue treading the ground where my Wenkert and Liebross (maternal) relatives trod: Kolomyya (E), Chernivtsi (G) and Zalishchyky (F), Ustechko and Torskie. By the way, I have not been able to put Ustechko on the above map (I didn't even attempt mapping Torskie!). Each time I ask Google Maps to include Ustechko, Google places a dot north of Ternopil - way off from Ustechko's actual location just north of Zalishchyky. So, I had Google Maps place a dot near Chortkiv (H), which is a little north of Ustechko.

I am really looking forward to Kamyanets-Podilskyy (I). The photos I've seen indicate a picturesque location: a walled town with a castle. One of my floater "relatives," Samuel Myers (nee Zise Malzmann) lived in K-P before emigrating to the United States.

Visits to the archives in Khmelnitsky (J) and Zhytomir (O) will mark my entrance to the old Russian Empire and Volhynia Gubernia and my father's side of the family (Garber, Mazewitsky/Morris, Malzmann, and Kesselman). The Family History Library has been unable to film any records for Yurovshchina [once Labun (K) and Lubin], Gritsev (M) and Polonnoye (L). These towns, having been neither part of Poland nor the Austro-Hungarian Empire since about 1795 , have no records in the Warsaw archives (accessible to JRI-Poland). So, the best bet is checking the Ukrainian Archives. The records will likely be in Russian script. I'm working on understanding that, too.

I hope to not only find family records but to locate village records for Labun, Gritsev, Polonnoye and Baranovka that may be acquired, perhaps at a later date, for use by other Jewish researchers.

I'm trying not to be too excited about setting foot in Yurovshchina. I just don't know what to expect. But I will come prepared with early 20th Century maps for comparison sake and a photo the the bath house (pictured here) repaired with the American Joint Distribution Committee's help in 1923. I'd like to see if we can locate where it was located in the town. I want to know where the Jewish section was. I want to visit the cemetery - if there still is one. And I want to know where the Jewish people lived. 

I know that many Jewish people were slaughtered along with their Jewish neighbors from Polonnoye in a location near Polonnoye. I want to go there, too. 

I would like to visit Baranovka (N) so I can see the town where Feiga Grinfeld (Fannie Greenfield) was born. I've written so many posts about her, I've an investment (!). 

We'll end our trip with a few days in Kiev (P) and then fly home on 22 June. I hope to have my iPad and Dropbox folders filled with photos to share. If all goes well, I'll be able to blog a bit about my trip as it happens. If not, I'll be sure to post quite a bit when I return to the United States.

Ukraine SIG: Getting Personal

The Ukraine SIG and its website leave something to be desired. But, that's the point. The website is an exciting work in progress and continued progress depends on volunteers who want more.

About 20 months ago, JewishGen Ukraine Special Interest Group decided to remake itself. While some other SIGs were actively scouring eastern European archives and Family History Library films for records, the Ukraine SIG had been quiet. Enter Ron Doctor who became Coordinator of the Ukraine SIG. 

Based on Ron's experience with finding and acquiring records for Kremenets (see the Indexed Concordance of Personal Names and Town Names) and surrounding villages in Ukraine, he and the Ukraine SIG's Board saw opportunity that had been missed during previous years. Previously, the SIG had been gubernia (province) oriented. The group decided to focus on town-based research and to reconstruct the SIG to support the way Ukraine SIG members researched their roots. Board member positions were now to be geared toward project initiation and management. The SIG was restructured so that its primary focus would be increasing access to records: identifying record sets, indexing, acquiring, transliterating and translating, as needed.

In August of 2011, Ukraine SIG announced an ambitious program to revitalize the group.   

Our objective is to connect you to information that will further your Jewish family history research in Ukraine. We are active in seeking out records, translating them,  processing them and making them available to you. ["Introduction to Ukraine SIG"]

During a presentation at the 2011 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference, Ron Doctor set a two-year goal of revitalizing  the Ukraine SIG. Later that August he posted messages on the JewishGen Ukraine SIG Discussion Group outlining the SIG's vision. [1] The vision included:

• developing a new research plan identifying projects that could be accomplished in the long and short-term;
• emphasizing volunteer support for projects;
• identifying existing, new or reconsidered sources for records;
• extracting data from existing kehilalinks webpages, Yizkor books and other JewishGen datasets to be added to the All-Ukraine database; and
• improving communication with Ukraine SIG researchers.

Ariel Parkansky the SIG's webmaster redesigned the Ukraine SIG webpage with this vision in mind. It has a complex but user-friendly structure. The site serves as a gateway to known information of genealogical interest regarding specific Ukraine SIG communities. Actual datasets are either located on JewishGen or on outside websites. The intent is to encourage content placement on kehilalink sites and other existing databases on JewishGen. Records will be indexed and surnames included on JewishGen's All-Ukraine database.

You may enter Ukraine SIG via JewishGen. Click on the Research tab and then on Special Interest Groups.

JewishGen Home Page

Scroll down the SIG page and click on Ukraine SIG. Alternatively, one may reach the same page by entering its URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/ukraine .

JewishGen Ukraine SIG Home Page

The Ukraine SIG home page provides several options for starting your journey. The first thing to note is the geographic area covered by Ukraine SIG. It does not look much like today's Ukraine (or yesterday's for that matter).

Map of Ukraine, The World Fact Book, Digital image, Central Intelligence Agency (http://ww.cia.gov : accessed 30 December 2009).

The last couple of hundred years have brought many changes in political boundaries in Eastern Europe. This affects where we may find archived records today.  JewishGen divided the Eastern European map into areas related to the political and administrative boundaries from about 1792 (when the Polish Commonwealth was disassembled by Prussia, Russia and Austria) through about the end of the first World War. They combined this with a nod to current political boundaries. For example, Gesher Galicia covers the province of Galicia (now part of southern Poland and western Ukraine) that was once under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Bessarabia SIG is mostly today's Moldova, but also takes a small chunk out of today's Ukraine. 

JewishGen's Ukraine SIG includes Russian Empire gubernias now in Ukraine: Podolia, Volhynia, Kiev, Poltava, Chernigov, Kharkov, Kherson, Taurida and Ekaterinoslav. (If you need help determining which JewishGen SIG includes your community, please read my previous post on JewishGen SIGS.) The map on the Ukraine SIG home page shows the locations of these Russian Empire gubernias.

Getting Started

The best place to begin ones exploration of the Ukraine SIG website is with the tabs across the top. The Get Started tab is a must. The drop down menu includes the opportunity to learn about the SIG and its mission (Get started with UKR-SIG), the website (Get started with this website) and the pages of the site most critical to successful use of its services (Most visited). 

Note the section on the home page called What's New. Here one will find the most recent information regarding new databases and general news about the SIG.

Leaving Home

The Ukraine SIG site includes several avenues of access to information of interest. For example, one may select the tab on the home page for Towns & Districts or one may start at the gubernia level (e.g., select Volhynia gubernia on the map on the home page).

The next page will show the districts (uyezds) within the selected gubernia and larger communities. One may either select the desired district by clicking on the map, or selecting its name from the list under Districts. Or, if one wishes to go immediately to one of the towns listed, one may select that. In this case, I've selected Novograd-Volynskiy District.

Note also the letters T, K, P and/or D located to the right of some of the town names. This gives one an indication of the information currently available for the town. T indicates the community has someone who has volunteered to be the Town Leader - the point of contact for data acquisition. K indicates that there is already a kehilalinks webpage for the town (or that one is in progress). P means there are projects in progress for the town and D, that there are documents available.

Also note the sections Articles and Related Links on the gubernia page. These are links to more general information about the province and may include information that had been on the previous gubernia-oriented Ukraine SIG webpage. 

Selecting a district (in this case, Novograd-Volynskiy) will take one to the district page. Hovering ones mouse over the town name will identify the town's location on the map.

Clicking on the town name will take one to the town page where one may see who, if anyone, is leading the effort to collect and display town information. In this case, there is a town leader, but no kehilalinks page on JewishGen for Novograd Volynskiy.  

Some of the geographical and political/administrative information is similar to what one will find on the Community Page on JewishGen. The Ukraine SIG town page provides additional information on ongoing projects, known datasets and collections, and other informational links.

Clicking on the information symbol next to items under Document and Dataset Collections provides a short summary of what's provided. 

Clicking on the magnifying glass links one to catalog information about the collection.  

If one clicks on the book symbol one will be taken to online images or datasets. The goal is to link to images or indexed data sets on JewishGen or other websites. In this case, the image for Novograd Volynskiy is one of a few select pages that had been on the old Ukraine SIG webpage. It is not so much a collection, but a small group of records likely collected for one or just a few families.

This is disappointing. On a few other town pages, such as Odessa, one will be more fortunate. There are links to more comprehensive community-oriented online collections. There are directories and other databases already online. However, do not dispair. On the Novograd Volynskiy page look under Projects and click on the magnifying glass next to the CAHJP project.[2]

Under Tasks, note that the SIG has identified and translated 49 catalog cards of records held at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. The next step is setting priorities for record acquisition and translation. For those of us with interest in this community and this district, it's time to get involved.

Get Specific

The walk through the new Ukraine SIG website, as described above, starts at the larger geographical and administrative subdivisions and moves to the smaller ones until reaching the community level. But, of course, one need not go through all this clicking if one knows ones objective at the start.

On the Ukraine SIG home page there are two search boxes.

One may enter a town name, district, province or any other search term of interest in the UKR-SIG Site box and see all references on the Ukraine SIG site for that search parameter. In this case I entered "Novograd" and the result provided 145 hits.

Or, one may enter a community name in the Town Search box and find the direct link to the the Town Page. Again, I entered "Novograd" and got two results since there are, apparently, two communities within the Ukraine SIG site with phonetically similar names: Novograd and Novogrod.

Clicking on the magnifying glass icon will take one to the Novograd/od of ones choice. 

In addition, if one wants to see projects or documents and collections available on the Ukraine SIG website, one need only go to the Research tab on the Home page. Click on either Master Index of Projects or Master Index of Documents. From there one may enter search parameters or, if one would like to see all projects or all documents/collections, leave the search parameters set to "all" and click search. Results will be listed in a table. Click on any column heading to sort the list. 

Make Yourself Useful

I confess, I'm a genealogy wonk. I love the InfoFiles section of JewishGen and my favorite place on the Ukraine SIG website (since acquisition of datasets of interest to me are still pending) is under the Research tab on the Ukraine SIG home page. On the drop down menu, click on InfoSheets.

There are esoteric but useful topics for Russian translators such as "Abbreviations used in Russian Documents" and "Terminology for Russian Administrative Divisions." In addition, there are articles on how Ukraine SIG standardizes town names and distinguishes between collections and projects.

Most useful to those of us whose skills are not up to translating are instructions for creating fund-raising projects and detailed tutorials of how to index additional data from passenger manifests, Yizkor books and kehilalinks webpages.

 

Dressed for Success

I spoke with Ron Doctor a few weeks ago as background for my planned walk through the new Ukraine SIG website. [3] I wanted to know, 18 months into a two-year plan, where the SIG is on its road to revitalization. He felt that the revitalization part of the job is done. There is a new culture in Ukraine SIG. There is excitement and many volunteers (more than 300), many of whom are assigned and actively working on projects. The website has been redesigned and is being frequently improved to meet the needs of researchers. About 150 projects are in various states of completion. The Ukraine SIG Discussion Group has been revitalized, as well. Subscribers have risen from 2,400 to 3,013.  

Right now there are two main challenges: 1) recruiting volunteers who are willing to take responsibility as project managers and handle the backlog of data sets that are nearly ready for submission to JewishGen, and 2) finding people who can handle information in Cyrillic and Hebrew alphabets and translation. Not enough of the projects are completed and ready to go online.

The SIG has instituted a skills survey to build a bank of skilled and willing volunteers and to encourage contributions of skills, records and funding. In the Ukraine SIG, volunteer interest guides project priorities. The concept being that researchers are more likely to contribute on projects they view as likely to provide direct benefit to their research. 

Keeping it personal: a recipe for success.

Notes: 
1. Doctor, Ron, "Revitalizing JewishGen Ukraine SIG Part 2 of 3," JewishGen Ukraine SIG Discussion Group, message posted 27 August 2011, JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org : accessed 9 March 2013).
2. For explanation of how Ukraine SIG defines Collections and Projects, see "Document Collections vs. Projects" in the InfoSheets sections. 
3. I started researching this post with no formal affiliation with Ukraine SIG except that of interested researcher and owner of a kehilalinks site within the SIGs geographical boundaries. At the end of our interview, Ron (ever the persuasive recruiter) asked me to head up the volunteer recruiting and management effort for the SIG. Darn it! I am now Volunteers Director of Ukraine SIG.