Breakfast at Poale Zedeck

Last year, my son concluded thirteen years as rabbi of a small congregation in suburban Chicago. During a number of those years, he and his family - his wife and six sons - would vacation at the yeshiva in Lakewood New Jersey, driving both ways. It is a long drive and usually they would stop overnight in Pittsburgh at Aunt Betty and Uncle Ken's.

This is the story of one of those stopovers.

The year Avrohom turned thirteen.

Before the big event
I went to Washington DC for the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, after a few days in Baltimore (another story for another time). The Conference ended Friday and Elliot Greene dropped me at the airport in Philadelphia where I picked up a rental car and drove to Lakewood.to spend Shabbat with the kids. (I told a story mentioning that Lakewood visit here.)

I spent a very pleasant day with the family, my son his wife and five of their six boys. Their second son, Avrohom, was in camp in Cleveland. The plan was that Abrohom would meet up with the family in Pittsburgh, getting a ride from Cleveland with one of the Pittsburgh boys at camp. But that wasn't going to work out, so I became the back-up plan.

Avrohom's thirteenth birthday fell while he was at camp, and they made a bit of a thing about his becoming a bar mitzvah. The bigger,family celebration was to be the Shabbat immediately after returning to Chicago, with a Sunday evening planned at Skokie Yeshiva for more family, classmates etc.

The kids' trip back to Chicago from Lakewood included Wednesday night in Pittsburgh. Wednesday night, meaning Thursday morning. I saw an opportunity and everyone signed off on it.

 From my great-grandfather down to my grandson. That's six generations.

It was not meant to be something big. The invitation went out to family members in Pittsburgh, including some we barely knew, as well as to a few old classmates of mine.

Pittsburgh Week - the first days
Sunday I returned the rental car in Philadelphia and flew to Pittsburgh where I picked up another. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I did alot of visiting with Aunt Betty and Uncle Ken and Monday I did a round of cemeteries on the north side of Pittsburgh. Probably a dozen of them.

Sig Rosenzweig - Zelig ben Moshe

Tuesday morning my wife arrived from Israel, to join the party.

Wednesday I drove to Cleveland to pick up Avrohom from camp. On my way up I stopped at the Ridge Road Cemetery where I photographed nine family graves. On the way back to Pittsburgh, Avrohom and I went to the Kinsman Road cemetery and visited the grave of my grandmother's brother Sig Rosenzweig who had died in1918 of influenza. He was twenty-seven.

The inscription is very difficult to read and finding the grave took quite a long time. I am guessing that we were the first family members to visit in decades.

Once in Pittsburgh, we made a stop at the Old Poale Zedeck Cemetery in Sheraden, where we visited the graves of my great-grandparents Regina and Moritz Rosenzweig (he of the shul building committee), my grandparents, Uncle Joe and Aunt Helen and some other family members. Avrohom appeared interested.

By the time we got back to the house, my son and family were there.

Thursday
Everyone was up early Thursday. How could we not be.

There had been some serious flooding earlier in the week, with deaths, and there would be more in another month, but this night was wind. And fallen trees. Rain as well.

We were only five houses away from the shul, but even that was something of a project. A number of our local guests did not make it, much as many had missed my own bar mitzvah years before due to an eighteen-inch snowfall the day before.

But we had out-of-town guests, despite the fact that we had only invited locals. Uncle Bob and his wife drove in by trailer from Baltimore ("Why go to a party in Chicago where there is an actual Torah-reading in Pittsburgh?") His daughter Linda - never one to miss a family occasion - came up from West Virginia. Three Kwoczka cousins - two of whom I had met less than two weeks previous - drove up from Baltimore. And a "new" third cousin from the South Hills and a classmate from Fox Chapel came despite the weather.

And sometime along the way, we heard that my great-grandfather, Moritz Rosenzweig, had made an appearance. He was on the building committee, but died in 1928, weeks after the first High Holiday services in the new building, but while they were still holding services in the old building in the Hill District. His wife had a stained glass window installed in his memory, at the top of the front wall of the main sanctuary, to the right of the Aron Kodesh. There was a heavy glass plaque.

During Shabbat services, less that two weeks previous, the plaque fell and shattered. They say it nearly hit the shul's executive director on the head.

It was as though Great-Grandfather was saying that we shouldn't forget him on this occasion.

We had the regular Thursday morning service. Avrohom read the Torah. I was saying kaddish for my mother that year, so there was that.
Afterwards we adjourned to the social hall downstairs, a room that had seen many family celebrations over the years. A buffet breakfast with enough left over that the kids made sandwiches for the drive to Chicago.


I spoke. My son spoke.

On the occasion of my father's bar-mitzvah seventy-five years previous, his grandmother, the wife of Moritz Rosenzweig, had given him a set of five machzorim, with the prayer services for the holidays.. Those came to me after my father died and I had them rebound a couple of months earlier. There - in the same place where my father had celebrated his own bar mitzvah - I turned them over to my grandson.

Afterword
Then everyone went home.

And because I have just spent a full week with Aunt Betty and Uncle Ken while in town for my DNA course. After having spent three days with Uncle Bob and Ro in Maryland.

"ARE YOU RELATED TO RABBI PICKHOLTZ FROM CLEVELAND?"

Cleveland
When this Pittsburgher first began having New York friends, they would always ask me how I am related to Rabbi Pickholtz from Cleveland, whose five sons went to Yeshiva University. In fact, over the years, most everyone I have ever met from Cleveland has asked that as well. Sometimes I joke that this is why I do genealogy - when my time comes after a hundred and twenty, I will no doubt be asked that again and I would be well advised to know the answer.

In the course of my genealogy work, I have corresponded by email with two of the sons of Rabbi Pickholtz and even had the occasion to speak with the rabbi himself on the phone, but it never worked out that I actually met any of them.

Noah
Soon after we moved to Jerusalem four years ago, we learned that Noah Pickholtz, the middle son of the youngest son of Rabbi Pickholtz, was studying at a yeshiva not far from us. We had him over for lunch and although it was very nice, it turned out to be a one-time thing.

We kind of kept up on his doings - mostly via the grapevine and Facebook - as he went into the army and eventually became engaged to Michal. We invited him to some of our activities, but as I say, it never worked out.

So we were really pleased to receive an invitation to the wedding, which was last Monday evening, not far from Jerusalem. Aside from the simcha itself, I was looking forward to meeting whatever of his family would be coming from the US. I don't think his father and I had ever had contact (though he had been in contact with my son in suburban Chicago on shul business), but I had a bit of contact with some of his father's brother's families.

I had also heard from Noah's older brother on the births of each of his four girls.

A couple of weeks before the wedding we received a Facebook invitation to the kiddush they were making the Shabbat before the wedding. It was at a shul about thirty minutes' walk from here, so we said we would be there. (It was a hot day and the walk was mostly uphill.)

I met his parents. (His father says "You are the one from the website." I suppose that's one way to put it.) And we met the bride's parents - they are from Basel Switzerland. I introduced my self to people as the Pickholtz genealogist, without getting into specific relationships.

The wedding itself was nice. It actually started on time. Since both families live abroad, most of the guests were friends of the couple, so we older folks were distinctly the minority. We met Noah's brothers and his sister-in-law. We sat at a table full of Clevelanders.

There were four people there named "Mrs. Pickholtz." During our trip to the US last summer, there were three occasions where there were three, but it has been some years since I have been with four. There should be a photograph which includes all of them - and the men too.

The family structure
So now you know why I am writing about this particular family at this time. Let me explain the structure.

The late Rabbi Isidore (Israel) Pickholtz was one of four children of Berisch and Golde Pickholz. That's Pickholz for both of them. They said they were cousins and some of the descendants took that to mean first cousins, which as you can see below is incorrect.

Berisch and Golde were both born in Rozdol, east Galicia. The four children were all born in Galicia and they went to the US in the early 1920s. Berisch went first, with some of his brother's family and Golde went with the children in 1924, after the quota system had been instituted - a fact which necessitated some "special payments."

To the right is an outline of eight generations of the family, beginning with Isak and Feige Pikholz (maybe one couple or maybe two with the same names - a discussion for another time) and going down to Noah and his brothers. Nine, if you add in Dov and Tammy's four girls.

It is clear that Berisch and Golde are, at best, second cousins.

We accept as axiomatic that the generation above Isak and Feige is Pinkas and Sara Ryfka Pikholz and that all the Pikholz families from Rozdol are descended from this couple. I think that the name Pikholz came from Sara Ryfka, rather than Pinkas.

Our family website has more detailed information about the family of David and Serka Pikholz (the grandparents of Berisch) and that of Hersch Leib and Sara Pikholz (the grandparents of Golde), for those who are interested.

Are you related to Rabbi Pickholtz from Cleveland?
None of this addresses the original question about my relationship to "Rabbi Pickholtz from Cleveland."

My Pikholz family - as I have written here before - comes from Skalat, about a three-four hour drive from Rozdol in today's conditions. The Skalat families go back further than the original Rozdol couple and there are more of them. It is possible that Sara Ryfka, the wife of Pinkas of Rozdol, came from Skalat around 1800, but there doesn't seem to evidence of that. Not even a significant overlap of given names.

So the answer to the question remains as it has always been - not that we know of.

Oh and let's not forget:

MAZAL TOV TO MICHAL AND NOAH

Wachs-Braun-Pickholtz

I have decided to put this into a blog format so that everyone can see everyone else's comments. Please sign your name to comments, with something that indicates who you are. You can also write me privately by email if you wish to say something not for general consumption.

I have tried to bring this to the attention of most of the relevant Pickholtz descendants, to a number of the descendants of Schewach Wachs (of Podkamen), to the genealogy researchers who responded to a question I posted on jewishgen.org a few weeks ago and to some of my gen-friends whom I think might be interested.

BACKGROUND
There are two bits of background:

Isak-Fischel and Rivka-Feige
The earliest couple we have in our own Pickholtz family is Isak-Fischel and Rivka-Feige, who were probably born around 1820 and lived in Podkamen (49°56' N 25°19' E), a town in east Galicia for which there are no records. It is my firm belief that Rivka-Feige is the Pikholz and we haven't a clue what Isak-Fischel's surname was.  Rivka-Feige is occasionally referred to as Feige-Rivka. Her father was almost certainly Isak-Josef Pikholz (~1784-1862) of Skalat.

Isak-Fischel and Rivka-Feige had four children that we know of - Yechiel, Leah (married Yaakov-Hersch Brunn/Braun), Bassie (married David Lazel Frankel/Franzos/Francis) and Hersch (married Jutte-Leah Kwoczka), during the approximate period 1843-1855.

Diagram 1

Yechiel's family was lost in the Holocaust, Bassie's family was largely in Denver (though she and her husband were in the New York area) and Leah and Hersch lived in Pittsburgh, though Leah lived for a time in Denver as well.  Hersch is my great-grandfather.

David Lazel Frankel was from Skalat, where the Pikholz families (including Rivka-Feige) came from, but the spouses of the others were from Zalosce, the next town over from Podkamen.  We have access to birth records from Zalosce for 1877-1890 plus quite a few years of death records, though these have little actual information.

In the course of my genealogy work over the years, I have sought out records of anyone named Izak-Fischel or Fischel-Izak, particularly in the records from east Galicia, just to see if something might turn up. Of the six I found, two lived in Tarnopol and one lived near Skalat, but there wasn't much I could really do with any of them. (Fischel is usually found as a Yiddish form of the Hebrew names Ephraim or Yeroham.  We know that our Isak-Fischel is Yeroham, not Ephraim.) I suspect something may show up in nearby Brody, but I haven't found anything yet.

Where the Braun and Wachs connections fit in
My father's first cousin, Herb Braun - who lives in Florida - is named for Hersch Wachs, who died 20 March 1917 in Pittsburgh. Hersch Pickholtz, Herb's grandfather, was alive at the time, so Hersch Wachs must have been quite close to the family. (We don't name for living relatives, so using the name while the grandfather was alive would be unusual, even if it were after someone else. So I figure it has to be someone important.)

Diagram 2

When Herb told me this about a dozen years ago, I made contact with a number of Hersch Wachs' descendants.  Some of them were aware of a vague connection with the Pickholtz family, but aside from Herb, no living Pickholtz descendant had ever heard of such a connection.

Diagram 3

When I made some broader inquiries, I learned that the brothers Zale and Chatzkel Anis - whom I knew well during my brief Chicago period forty years ago - were descendants of one Schewach Wachs and Chatzkel had a tree that included the Hersch Wachs from Pittsburgh, as well as his namesake who was born about 1814. Chatzkel put me in touch with Lenny Schorr - a native Pgher living in Haifa, whose grandmother was Devorah Feige Shapiro, the sister of Hersch Wachs. Lenny told me back then that the Wachs were not related to the Pickholtz family, but to the Brauns - Herb's father's side.


Diagram 4-Note the twenty-year age difference between the groups of step-siblings.

That's where things stood until this past summer.

Feige Rifke Silbermann, daughter of Chana Wachs
Last summer, I was preparing a large order of east Galician records from the AGAD archives in Warsaw and while looking for something else, I happened to see a listing in the JRI-Poland index for Feige Rifke Silbermann, daughter of Chaskel Silbermann and Chana Wachs. This Feige Rifke was born in 1878 in Tarnopol, which is the provincial capital of an area which includes all the small towns I mentioned above. The juxtaposition of my great-great-grandmother's given name Feige Rifke and the surname Wachs was intriguing, so I ordered the birth record, without doing any further research in the index.

The record came in early December and much to my amazement, it showed that Chana Wachs' parents were Isaak and Feige Rifke Wachs. Those are the same given names as my great-great-grandparents', minus the "Fischel."  My first thought was that this was perhaps the same couple and that there was a fifth child, Chana, whom we had never heard of. Not to mention perhaps finally putting a surname on our Isak Fischel.

That euphoria didn't last long.  I went back to JRI-Poland and found the marriage record for Chaskel and Chana.  Chana was born about 1842, which - if she had been a sister to my great-grandfather - would have made her the oldest, but well within the normal range of birth years. But the marriage record also showed that her father was not Isak Fischel, but Isak Leib.  Still it was worth following up.

I also posted on several of Jewishgen's message boards as follows:

Does anyone have any Isaac WACHS references in the mid-late 1800s, particularly one with a daughter Chana who married Chaskel Silberman?

These would likely be in (or from) the Tarnopol area.

I also went to the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) to see who else was researching Wachs in the right area and sent those researchers a similar message.

I received a number of responses, none of which made specific contributions to my search. All those who responded have been invited to this conversation.

I then touched base with Chatzkel Anis and Lenny Schorr and had another look at the list of Schewach Wachs' descendants. Perhaps the most striking thing there is the total absence of anyone named Isak. Schewach Wachs (b. ~1770-1780) was known to have had seven children, but the chart has names for only four of them.  (See Diagram 3, above.)

One of those sons is connected to the town of Husiatyn, a town the other side of Skalat.  (The chart says "Rusiatyn," but that is surely an error.) The Husiatyner Rebbe had a large following in Skalat, so those towns were well connected to one another. One of the researchers in JGFF has Wachs in Husiatyn.

It is entirely possible that one of the less developed lines from Schewach Wachs has the Isaks. And it may or may not have anything to do with our Isak Fischel. But I can't just walk away from it.

I have been trying to make contact with the keeper of the Schewach Wachs chart to see what she might know and what her sources are.

So...

I'd like to get some thoughts and advice, particularly from the Schewach Wachs family and other Wachs researchers, as well as my gen-friends. How might we proceed to see if the several Isak Wachs who appear in JRI-Poland's database are somehow part of the Schewach Wachs family?

Incidentally, this index entry, which I just found now, is particularly interesting

and I will include it in my next order, in the spring. It is from Mosty Wielkie, which is about 55 miles NW of Podkamen and includes an Isak whose surname is both Schewach and Wachs and who has a specific connection to Podkamen and Brody.

That's it for now.  Thank you for your attention. (If you click on the images, you can see a larger version.)