Bloch

BLOCH

Several Bloch families claim descent from the Gaon of Vilna. Although these Bloch families were not aware of a close relationship between them, the common denominator between their independent traditions of ancestry is the claim of descent from the Gaon of Vilna. This tradition is so widespread that it would seem that there must be some basis to their claims, as it improbable that so many people of the same surname would unjustifiably claim to be descended from the Gaon. It is not clear whether all Blochs are related. The name is particularly prevalent in Lithuania, where the earliest persons bearing the name lived in the seventeenth century in Vilna and included the in-laws of the Gaon's cousin Eliyahu Pesseles. The name may have been registered for many unrelated families by an overzealous government clerk who was responsible for enforcing the surname law in the Russian Empire in 1804.

Members of a  Bloch family which originated in Kretingen, Lithuania and settled in the north of England claim that the wife of their ancestor, Rabbi Shemaryahu Yitskhak Bloch (1864-1923),

Rabbi Shemaryahu Yitskhak Bloch

Bloch Adler wedding

 was the link with the Gaon. Bloch's wife, Rakhel, was a daughter of Rabbi Yehoshua Eliezer Rokeakh of Vidz, Lithuania. The source of this information was the late Rabbi Yosef Kahanaman  Rosh Yeshiva Ponevezh in Bnei Brak, who told members of the family when he met them on several occasions that Yehoshua Eliezer Rokeakh was a descendant of the Vilna Gaon in the fifth or sixth generation. Rokeach lived in the town of Vidz, Lithuania, where Kahanaman had served as rabbi and  was told directly of the relationship.

Although no documentary evidence exists to trace the exact line of descent of the Rokeakh and Bloch families, it seems that the connection is well founded, as a scholar of Rabbi Kahanaman's reputation would not have repeated idle rumours.

This author has researched many Bloch and Rokeakh families, but has failed to locate any record of Rabbi Yehoshua Eliezer Rokeakh of Vidz. There were few Rokeachs in Lithuania; the major branch of the family is Khassidic and was located in Belz, Galicia. One prominent Rokeakh family lived in Pinsk and was connected with the renowned Levin family  of Pinsk. The Vilna Rokeach family shares its ancestry with the Galician branch, and spread from Vilna to Volkovysk and Bialystok.There were marital ties between several branches of the Rokeakh and Bloch families, but Yehoshua Eliezer Rokeakh has not been discovered amongst the descendants of such unions.

The relationship of the Bloch family with the Gaon of Vilna was established after the discovery of a tombstone, dating from 1877,  in Sydney, Australia . The following is a translation of the Hebrew inscription:

          Here is interred

          Khaim Naftali son of Our Teacher the Rabbi

          Uri Shraga and grandson of Rabban

          Eliyahu son of Shlomo from Vilna

          Died on Thursday 3rd of Tamuz

          and was buried on the Eve of Sabbath

          In the year 5637

          aged sixty years

          May his soul be bound up in the Bond of Life.

The English reads:

           Sacred

           To the memory

           Of

           Hyam Phillips

           Grandson of

           Raban Eliasz

           Ben  Salamona Z. Wilne

           Who departed this life

           On Tuesday

           June 14th A.M. 5637

           Aged 60 years

The discovery of a photograph of the tombstone (the cemetery

has since been destroyed) is highly significant, both historically and genealogically. A tradition of descent of Hyam Phillips from the Gaon was

perpetuated by his family in Australia.  Indeed they preserve a

picture of the Gaon which has an inscription referring to their

descent. Details of Phillip's biography were researched by Jenny

King who located death and marriage certificates in England and Australia. It was known by the family that Phillips came from Poland/Lithuania to England about 1850 and settled in Australia in 1854. His original surname was Bloch, and he changed it in England to Phillips.

The terms of the tombstone inscription bring the descent of Hyam Phillips much closer to the Gaon than would have been expected from the material researched by this author, particularly with respect to the time frame involved. The Gaon was born in 1720 and died in 1797, eighty years before Hyam Phillips died.

Accepting the authenticity of the tombstone inscription establishes that an actual grandson of the Gaon of Vilna settled in far off colonial Australia, a unique and amazing discovery. In fact Hyam Phillips's departure from Lithiuania in 1850 and subsequent move from London to Australia in 1854 took  place at about the same time as several of the Gaon's grandchildren and great-grandchildren left Europe. Tuviah Yurbarsky settled in Jerusalem about 1860, and Shmuel Yekhezkel Vilner settled in England about 1870. These emigrations are unique in that they preceeded the large waves of Eastern European Jewish emigration, which took place in the 1880's.

Given the name of Hyam Phillips's father as stated on the tombstone as "‏Rabbi Uri Shraga"‏ת Hyam Phillips' identity can be established precisely.   Hyam's marriage certificate records his father's name as "‏Philip Phillips", but the death certificate records the father's name as "‏Hyam Block Phillips"‏. It can be assumed that neither record was exact, particularly since the father and son could not have had the same name. Ashkenazi Jewish naming custom forbids naming a son after a living father. It was a common custom for Jews in English speaking countries to use the name Phillip for the Hebrew Shraga. Knowing from the tombstone in Australia that Hyam Block Phillips's father's name was Uri Shraga, it appears that Hyam Bloch (or Block) changed his surname to Phillips upon arriving in England, based on the common anglification of his father's first name. The reason for the name change may have been connected with Hyam Phillips's reputed activities in the Polish revolt. He may have been sought by the Russian authorities and concealed his identity upon arriving in England.

The identity of Hyam Phillips' father can be established within the immediate family of the Gaon of Vilna. The Gaon had a son-in-law Rabbi Uri-Shraga-Feibush, son of Shlomo, of Dubrovno, Byelorussia. The triple-barrelled name consisted of the Hebrew Uri with the Yiddish/German Shraga-Feibush and was often shortened by dropping one or other of the names. Rabbi Uri-Shraga-Feibush was married to the Gaon's daughter Tauba. Tauba was Uri-Shraga-Feibush's first wife and several other marriages by Uri-Shraga-Feibush are recorded. The multiple marriages of Uri-Shraga- Feibush complicate the establishment of Hyam Phillips amongst his progeny with respect to the other two wives. Yet, since the tombstone states that Hyam was a grandson of the Gaon, his mother must have been Uri-Shraga-Feibush's first wife Tauba, the Gaon's daughter.

Unfortunately virtually nothing is known about Tauba. The Gaon's various

biographers either omit her name and refer only to her husband, or

at best include her name with no biographic details. Similarly, little concrete  biographic material exists regarding Tauba's husband Rabbi Uri-Shraga-Feibish of Dubrovno. His claim to fame seems to have been his status as a son-in-law of the Gaon, and the fact that he helped publish the Gaon's writings after the Gaon's death,  together with the Gaon's sons Yehudah-Leib and Avraham, and another of the Gaon's sons-in-law, Moshe of Pinsk. In addition to his efforts with the Gaon's writings,  Rabbi Uri-Shraga-Feibish wrote a book in his own right called "Menorat Shlomo", dedicated to the memory of his father, Shlomo.

A study of the various sources quoted by this author, as well as the various books written by the Gaon, his family and students, facilitates the establishment of the period in which Tauba and Uri-Shraga-Feibish lived. In order to establish Tauba's lifespan, references to her husband

have been sought in several books written by relatives of his second and third wives which refer to him , such that the relevant time span can be narrowed down .

In addition to the discovery by this author of the existence of Tauba's son Hyam Phillips, there is oral information about a certain son of Tauba and Uri-Shraga-Feibish who settled in Safed, Eretz Yisrael about 1836. Most of his family perished in one of the frequent earthquakes of the period, and his descendants returned to Europe, settling in what is now Hungary/Roumania. His family claims that the name of this son of Tauba and Uri-Shraga-Feibush was Eliyahu Reezel. The Reezel family maintains that Eliyahu's mother was Tauba, daughter of the Gaon. Details of this family and others, coupled with Hyam Phillips' birthdate, led this author to conclude that Tauba was one of the Gaon's youngest progeny. This had to be so if she was still of childbearing age at  the time of Hyam Phillips' birth in about 1812. Hyam must have been Tauba's youngest child because her birthdate cannot be stretched later than about 1768, bearing in mind Tauba's mother's age and childbearing ability.

Hyam Phillips's birthdate varies in the available sources. His tombstone states ‏"sixty"‏ both in Hebrew and English, establishing a birthdate 0f 1817. His marriage certificate in 1851 states his age as 31, which sets his birthdate at 1820, and not 1817. The death certificate, however states his age as 65 which would make his birthdate 1812.

According to information on and by the family of Uri-Shraga-Feibush's later wives , it can be calculated that his first wife Tauba died at the

time of, or very shortly after, Hyam Block Phillips' birth. In fact one of the books which was written by Uri-Shraga-Feibush second wife's grandfather was published in 1817 ("Nakhalat Azriel") . Since Uri-Shraga-Feibush and his second wife are both mentioned in the introduction to the book, the first wife, Tauba, must have already died by the time the book was published in 1817. Therefore, it can be concluded that Tauba's last child, Hyam Block Phillips, was born  before 1817.

It seems that the surnames Bloch and Rokeakh may have been used interchangeably by families in Lithuania bearing these names. Rabbi Levi ben David Rokeach (died 1818 in Vilna) married a daughter of Noakh Bloch (died 1809 in Vilna) . Some of their descendants used the surname Bloch and others used Rokeach. Support for the contention that these two familes may have been the same family is found in a death notice that appeared in the Hebrew newspaper Hamaggid in 1874 for Moshe-Leib Bloch Rokeach!

Further supporting evidence for a Bloch-Rokeach connection is the fact that the father of the abovementioned Noach Bloch of Vilna was named Shraga-Feibush. This name passed down through both the Bloch and Rokeakh families and presumably shared its origins with the father of Hyam Phillips, alias Khaim Naftali ben Uri Shraga (Feibush) Bloch.

This author has tried to trace the ancestry of Rabbi Uri-Shraga-Feibush of Dubrovno to establish a Bloch connection, to no avail. Jews in the Russian Empire were not required by law to use surnames until 1804, so for most of his life Uri-Shraga-Feibush would have had no official surname, if in fact he ever adopted one. Therefore it seems that his sons took different surnames, some chosing Bloch, others Rokeakh and one Reezel.

One Bloch family claims descent from the Gaon via the families Shmukler and Boyarsky . One member of the family, Rabbi Avraham David Bloch (died in 1943 in Vilna) wrote several books including "Divrei Eliyahu". Whilst Bloch's wife was reputed to be descended from the Gaon, Bloch does not mention any relationship with the Gaon in his book. This is surprising since Bloch spent most of his life studying in the ‏Kloiz of the Gaon‏ in Vilna. His wife, Khaya Feiga was the daughter of Rabbi Eliyahu Shmukler of Ivia. A biographic note about Shmukler in "Sefer Zikaron Lekehilat Ivia" (the memorial book of the community of Ivia, Lithuania) states that Shmukler was of non-rabbinic descent. So if Shmukler's descendants were connected with the Gaon it would have had to be through Shmukler's wife, Tzeite Miriam Boyarsky. This author's study of the Boyarsky family does not confirm this.

An interesting reference about the Bloch family was discovered by this author while researching the Boyarsky family, although no connection was discovered to the above Shmukler family. The father-in-law of the Gaon's son Yehudah Leib of Serhei was Rabbi Avraham of Serhei. Very little information is known about Avraham, but he is mentioned in "Tosefet Shabat"  88  (Boyarsky, 1886). Extensive details are given about the author's family. Boyarsky was descended from Noakh Bloch of Vilna and

Bialystok. Boyarsky notes that Noakh Bloch had two famous Mekhutanim:

Rabbi Alexander Margolis of Satanov.

Rabbi Avraham ABD Lazdei who was the Mekhutan of the Gaon of Vilna.

Whilst the connection between Bloch and Margolis is known  , the relationship with Avraham of Lazdei (later of Serhei) remains a mystery, yet another tangled Bloch connection.

Friedlander

FRIEDLANDER

New York genealogist Alex Friedlander has provided a a great deal of information for this book about various families, particularly those living in what was once Suwalki Guberniya - southwest Lithuania/north-east Poland. Records of the families,Altshuler,  Bardin, Charlap, Frank, Friedlander, Kantorowitz, Lapin, Margolis, Shatz, Visanska, Warszawsky, Wishtynetsky,  Winstock, Ziv,  and many others, show  a phenomenon of considerable intermarriage between them. Furthermore, the families shared an often repeated oral tradition of descent from the Gaon of Vilna. Yet the exact nature of the Friedlander family's descent from the Gaon has yet to be documented.

From the available evidence researched by Friedlander, it seems highly likely that the link with the Gaon was through the Gaon's son Rabbi Yehudah Leib of Serhei, since his family had a considerable number of marital ties in the region where the Friedlander family lived, the town of Versbolova (known also as Virbalin).

The generation of the Friedlander family which is relevant to a marital link with the Gaon's son Yehudah Leib of Serhei is that of Yitskhak Friedlander of Versbolova, who was born about 1785. Yitskhak's wife Golda was most probably a daughter of Yehudah Leib of Serhei. Other branches of the Friedlander family that also hold a tradition of descent from the Gaon were compared to Friedlander's family by genetic testing and found to be unrelated and should be deleted from the database of the family of the Gaon. Further details follow.

Despite the lack of documented evidence, this author  included the Friedlander family in Eliyhau's Branches, so that, should such evidence be forthcoming in the future, the family will be able to take its rightful place on the family tree of the Gaon of Vilna.

Chinitz

CHINITZ

Members of this extensive family possess a document that traces the history of the Abarbanel family and the alleged marriage of one member of the Abarbanel family to a daughter of the Gaon of Vilna. One descendant of this family is claimed to be Rabbi Moshe of Pinsk, who was married to the Gaon's daughter Khiena, hence the origin of the surname Chinitz.

Unfortunately the location of the original Hebrew manuscript is unknown

and the English translation is therefore a second hand source. Nevertheless it is unwise to disregard such a tradition, despite the unavailability of the original documented evidence on which the tradition was based.

A number of statements in the Chinitz document  are inconsistent with

historical facts. Although the presence of these inconsistencies is troublesome in regard to the authenticity of the source, it is possible that they may have been deliberately construed in order to establish false identities for the Chinitz brothers, or their sons, to enable them to evade conscription into the notoriously anti-semitic Tsarist army.

Whatever its other merits, the claim of the manuscript that Moshe of Pinsk changed his name to Zalmen Zelig is contrary to accepted Jewsih practice and conflicts with the facts recorded about Moshe of Pinsk. Moshe of Pinsk is accurately recorded in a number of books , including those written by the Gaon and published by Moshe, such as "Shnot Eliyahu" . Likewise Moshe's father's ancestry is detailed in "Sefer Yukhsin" 52 (Rozenkranz, 1885), and in "Zekher Leyehosef" (Stern,1898). From these sources it is clear that Moshe of Pinsk's father was Yehudah Leib of Pinsk  and had no connection with the Abarbanel family.

It remains to be seen whether the Gaon's daughter Khiena (and not Khana as incorrectly recorded in the Chinitz document and other sources)

had two husbands, Zalman-Zelig and then Moshe. Another possibility is that the name  Zalman-Zelig was fictitiously listed in his sons' or

grandsons' military documents in order to confuse the authorities as to their conscription obligations. This practice was commonly used by many families which recorded some of their sons as belonging to different parents, whose sons  were exempt from military service.

In summary, the weight of evidence, both from those parts of the Chinitz document that are historically tenable, and from the strength of oral tradition of descent from the Gaon, held by many branches of the Chinitz family, it is the opinion of this author that such descent is most likely valid. This assertion is independent of the problems of establishing the identity of Khiena's husband as  Zalmen-Zelig on the one hand and Moshe on the other.

Rivlin records only one son of Khiena and Moshe of Pinsk: Avraham.

To further complicate the issue, members of the Bayuk and Palefsky families   claim descent from the Gaon through Moshe of Pinsk, whom they claim was known by the surname "Penchuk" or "Pinchuk". Moshe of Pinsk does not use this surname, or any other, as his signature to his introduction to "Shnot Eliyahu" . The name, probably derived from the name of the town Pinsk, may have been adopted by one son of Moshe of Pinsk, Yedidiah Penchuk, when Yedidiah left Pinsk to settle in Kobrin, and not used by Moshe himself.

Archival records show that the Gaon had a daughter by his second wife Gittel nee Luntz. The daughter was named Khana after the Gaon's first wife.

This may contribute to an explanation of the relationship of the Chinitz and other families from two daughters of the Gaon, Khiena and Khana.

Archival records provide further information and will be presented here in the future.

BARDIN, LIPSHITZ, OLKENITSKY, GRAD

THE ORPHAN GRAND-DAUGHTERS OF THE GAON OF VILNA

FAMILIES:  BARDIN, LIPSHITZ, OLKENITSKY, GRAD

(updated 28.03.2011)

Rabbi Eliyahu Landau (born 1872 Jerusalem, great-grandson of Avraham son of the Gaon), expert on the family of the Gaon of Vilna  , told Rabbi Eliyahu Kushilevsky of Jerusalem,   that the Gaon had two granddaughters who were orphaned from their parents at an early age and were then raised in the Gaon's household. Rabbi Landau claimed that many families were descended from these two granddaughters.

 

Rivlin  records one daughter of the Gaon's eldest son Shlomo Zalmen, named Treina. Since Shlomo Zalmen was born about 1758, it can be estimated that his two daughters were born about 1776 and 1777. The younger daughter was born about  1777 when her mother Rakhel (nee Kissin) seems to have died in childbirth, thus accounting for the fact that Shlomo Zalmen had no further children.

it is known that Shlomo Zalmen was sickly  and died during his father's lifetime , about 1780, apparently soon after the death of his wife, otherwise he would have remarried and other children would be recorded. This situation regarding the Gaon's son Shlomo Zalmen correlates with the story about the two orphan granddaughters of the Gaon.

The Gaon had undertaken to support his son Shlomo Zalmen and daughter-in-law after her father, Yisrael Kissin of Vitebsk had completed his obligation in that respect. The Gaon did not live up to his promise and may have felt guilty after their death, hence his ‏adoption‏ of his granddaughters.

Evidence for the existence of children of the Gaon's son Shlomo Zalmen appears in records of the "‏Kloiz Hagra"  in Vilna which refer to trustees who were responsible for the property of Shlomo Zalmen's heirs.‏ These records clearly indicates that Shlomo Zalmen died during the Gaon's lifetime and that he left children, who had rights to the Gaon's property.

The families Grad, Bardin, Lipshitz and Olkenitsky hold strong oral traditions of descent from the Gaon of Vilna. Yet this author has been unable to determine the exact nature of their descent.

The author's extensive research of the family of the Gaon and his familiarity with the descendants of many branches of the family, lead him to the conclusion that the families are most likely not descended from the Gaon's sons Yehudah Leib or Avraham, nor are they likely to be descended from the Gaon's daughters.

The author, having studied the details of these families, believed that it is most highly likely that they descend from the orphan daughters of Shlomo Zalmen, the Gaon's eldest son. Despite the lack of documented evidence, the author has included these families in Eliyahu's Branches, in the hope that such evidence will be discovered in the future.

Since publication of Eliyahu's Branches in 1997, such evidence has not been forthcoming such that the above scenario requires review.

BARDIN:

Genealogist Alex Friedlander, aside from his descent from the Gaon through the Friedlander family, also holds a strong tradition of descent from the Gaon of the Bardin family. The Bardin  family was intermarried with the Friedlander family, but a number of branches of the family hold a tradition of descent from the Gaon, independent of the Friedlander tradition. The evidence lead this author to conclude that Rakhel, the wife of Yaakov Bardin (born about 1770 in Suwalki Guberniya), was a daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen, the Gaon's eldest son.

This scenario is compatible with the tradition related  by Rabbi Eliyahu Landau about the families descended from two orphaned grand-daughters of the Gaon.

Various theories have been propounded as to the meaning of the

surname Bardin. The origin of the name most likely relates to the phrase "‏Ben Av Bet Din",‏ son of the head of the rabbinic court, who was usually the Chief Rabbi of a town. This form of surname adopted by the Jews was based on an abbreviation of either the individual's name, title or occupation. Given that the Rabbi (Av Bet Din) of Serhei, Avraham( born about 1730) was the father-in-law of Yehudah Leib (1764 -1816) son of the Gaon, and thereby already associated with the Gaon's family, it is possible that, when a match was sought for the earliest recorded Bardin, Yaakov (born about 1770), a suitable bride was sought from the family of the Gaon. It is possible that the Bardin family can be identified from a list of individuals in Serhei who subscribed to a book published in 1795.

The book "Or Khakhamin" (Yedaya ben Avraham, 1795) , includes a list of eight rabbis from Serhei who supported the publication of the book. Heading the list is

"The Rabbi the great luminary, our teacher Avraham, may his light shine forth B"D (Beit Din) of the holy community of Lazdei".

Rabbi Avraham's father, Rabbi Yekhezkel was Chief Rabbi of Lazdei, Lithuania, and Avraham was referred to in relation to his home town.

The third member of the list is:

"The Rabbani, the Nagid (prominent person) Reb Yaakov, son of Rabbi Yekhezkel".

Yaakov Bardin was the son of an individual called Yekhezkel.‏ He may have been identical with "Yaakov son of Yekhezkel" who appears in the above list. It should be remembered that the Jewish communities in small towns like Serhei at the end of the seventeenth century were very small, numbering a few dozen families . Therefore it is to be expected that these families were intermarried, particular the rabbinic families who sought good matches amongst themselves.

Bearing in mind that that the father of Rabbi Avraham of Serhei was called Yekhezkel, and the father of Yaakov Bardin was also called Yekhezkel, and that Avraham and Yaakov both lived in Serhei at the time of the publication of "Or Khakhamim" in 1795, it is possible that the two families were already related. If so, a match within the family circle would have been the obvious choice when a bride was sought for Yaakov Bardin. Records of the Bardin family indicate that Yaakov Bardin's wife's name was Rakhel. For that reason, this author proposed that Rakhel was the name of one of the orphaned daughter of Rabbi Shlomo Zalmen of Vilna, named after her mother Rakhek Kissin who appears to have died in childbirth, and may have been the wife of Yaakov Bardin.

Whilst these theories may be the result of a number of coincidences, they provide a basis for further research to verify the exact link between the Gaon of Vilna and the Bardin family.

However, since another link is possible, it is preferable to disconnect the Bardin family from this specific link to the database of the Gaon's family and regard them as being descended from an "unknown link".

LIPSHITZ

The identity of the husband of Treina, the other daughter of the Gaon's son Shlomo Zalmen can only be proposed in theory, as specific records have not been discovered. A family Lipshitz, which settled in Petah Tikvah, Israel at the end of the nineteeth century, is descended from the Gaon of Vilna. Moshe Mordekhai Lipshitz (1817-1899) was the son of Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz (born about 1796) who is described by Tidhar as

 "grandson of the Gaon Reb Eliyahu of Vilna".

A manuscript  73 which lists tombstone inscriptions in Vilna records:

"Shlomo Zalmen, the son of Tsvi Hersh,

grandson of the Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu

died 3rd of Av, 5598 (1838)"

The identity of this grandson of the Gaon has not been noted in any of the souces reviewed by this author. The time period is compatible with a theoretic connection between the above Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz and the Gaon's eldest son Shlomo Zalmen. Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz, born about 1796 may have been named after the Gaon's son Shlomo Zalmen  who died about 1780. Such a relationship would account for the statement by Tidhar that Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz was a grandson of the Gaon. The term "grandson"  was often used by authors and on tombstones to indicate descent of some degree, and not specifically a grandson. If the above theory is correct, Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz was a great-grandson of the Gaon. If Shlomo Zalmen Lipshitz was identical with the Shlomo Zalmen whose epitaph is quoted above, then his mother was most probably Treina, one of the daughters of the Gaon's son Shlomo Zalmen. If this was so, than Treina's husband was "Tsvi Hersh" who appears in the epitaph as the father of Shlomo Zalmen. That is to say, Treina's husband was an individual called Tsvi Hersh Lipshitz.

GRAD

The Grad family maintains a tradition of descent from the Gaon. Considerable research by the late Dr. Eli Grad did not produce a definitive link, despite the consistency of the oral tradition related independently by many branches of the family.

According to Eli Grad :

"The tradition of descent from the Gaon has been well established in EVERY branch of the family - though some branches had no contact with others for half a century or longer. In my own case, my grandfather was the source of this information, and he cited HIS grandfather as having transmitted the tradition to him. I am convinced that the fact of descent is accurate, but I have not been able to establish the connection yet. It appears that the missing link is only one or two generations: my grandfather was born before 1850. His grandfather must have been born around 1800 - so the time gap is not too great."

Eli Grad's grandfather was Barukh Grad. Barukh Grad's grandfather was Barukh Bendet Grad (born about 1800). Barukh Bendet Grad was identified as one of the earliest known ancestors of the family in the memoirs of Rose Tennenbaum . She refers to Barukh Bendet as ‏"Jacob's father, Bennet, was one of the most learned men in Plungyan." (In fact Jacob lived in Plungyan, not his father). Records of such an individual appear in a number of Prenumeranten lists from the town of Ritova, Lithuania, in particular in "Retzon Yireyim" (1859)  . This book includes only a few notable people who subscribed to the book. The first entry for the town of Ritova is:

"The great wise man, generous in spirit, keen and expert, all his ways are based on truth, and his wisdom is apparent, our teacher the Rabbi Barukh Bendet, son of our teacher Rabbi Yoel, of blessed memory".

It is of interest that the very first person listed in "Retzon Yireyim" is "Shlomo the son of our teacher Rabbi Tzvi Friedlander" who appears in the list of subscribers from "Verbelov" (Versbolova). Perhaps it is more than coincidental that the ancestors of two families claiming descent from the Gaon appear prominently in the same prenumeranten list.

A study of many factors such as the recurrence of personal names,

the relevance of dates and places of residence of the succeeding generations, leads to the theory that the link between the Grad family and the Gaon was through his eldest son Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen's orphaned daughters as referred to above. Yaakov Grad was born in 1825, so his mother Gittel could have been born about 1800. Thus Gittel's mother (who could have been born about.1780) could have been one the two orphaned daughters of the Gaon's eldest son, Rabbi Shlomo-Zalman of Vilna. That is, Gittel was most probably a daughter of Shlomo Zalmen's daughter Treina and her husband Tzvi Hersh Lipshitz (see above regarding the Lipshitz family).

Another relationship between the Gaon of Vilna and one branch of the Grad family was through the Ziv family. The wife of Yaakov Grad, son of Barukh Bendet, was Peena (1817-1913), the daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen-Leib. Family tradition held that Peena was reputed to be a Gaon descendant in her own right. Her maiden name was thought to be "Ziv" or "Israel"  . Peena's surname is confirmed as "Ziv" from the memoirs of the famous English businessman, Lord Israel Sieff (originally Ziv). Sieff   relates that he was told by his great-grandfather that he was a descendant of the Gaon's bother ‏Joshua.‏ Since the Gaon had no brother bearing this name, it seems that the brother in question may have been Yissakhar-Ber.  A common name in the Ziv family was Azriel. It seems that the father of Peena Grad was Shlomo Zalmen Leib, son of Azriel Ziv. The name Azriel was confused in oral tradition with Israel. Exactly which Azriel Ziv has yet to be established, as does the connection by marriage with the Gaon's brother Yissakhar-Ber.

Archival records provide further information and will be included here in the future.

OLKENITSKY  (KOMISAR, HELMAN, BAMBERGER)

The Olkenitsky family of Vilna held a tradition of descent from the Gaon of Vilna. A descendant of this family, the late Leib David Komisar of Hertzlia, Israel related what was known to him of the family tradition :

"My grandfather, Yehuda Leib David Olkenitsky (born 1865) was the son of Yaakov Olkenitsky and Sarah Mera Olkenitsky (nee Rubin). She was, according to tradition a descendant of the Gaon of Vilna. I don't know which of her parents was the descendant of the Gaon. I was given this information by my mother's cousin. Lately I have checked the notes I took about 25 years ago after a comprehensive conversation with my late aunt, Freida Gorodosh (nee Olkenitsky). She maintained another version: according to her, it was not Sarah Mera, the wife of Yaakov Olkenitsky, who was the descendant of the Gaon, but the mother of Yaakov Olkenitsky, whose name was Fruma, and who was either a grand-daughter or great-grand-daughter of the Gaon."

Komisar further related that his great-grandfather, Yehuda Leib David Olkenitsky, who operated a wine store in Vilna, had a family tree tracing his descent to the Gaon. This tree hung on the wall of his shop, and when he died in 1910, it was published in a Vilna newspaper. Unfortunately, neither the family tree nor the newspaper article about it, have been located.

Independently of the information conveyed by Komisar, this author received collaborating information from Khaya Bamberger of Bnei Brak Israel . She related  stories of her descent from the Gaon which she  heard from her grandmother, Zelda Tsiftman:

"The elders of the family told that there was a person by the name of Olkenitsky, who was a cousin of Freida Gittel (grandmother's grandmother). He owned a wine shop in Vilna and in his cellar he had a family tree which reached back to the Gaon. My grandmother believes that apparently the connection with the family of the Gaon is via the wife of Yeshaya Helman (the father of Freida Gittel Gerbish, 1855-1921) and whose name was Reizel. Either Olkenitsky's father  or mother was a brother or sister of Reizel."

Zelda Tsiftman believed that the family was probably descended from a daughter of the Gaon, although this theory was not firmly established.

The obvious common denominator between the traditions held independently by  Komisar and Tsiftman enabled this author to link the family trees of the two families which, although they had lived in Israel concurrently for about fiftly years, were not aware of each other.

Another link in the chain was provided by a nephew of Zelda Tsiftman, Rabbi Avraham Gurwicz of Gateshead, England  :

"I would advise you to contact Rabbi Eliyahu Kushelevsky, who is my late father's brother, and who, many years ago discussed our family's descent from the Gaon with Reb Eliyahu Landau of Tel Aviv. According to what I understood from him, the Gaon had a daughter who was widowed at a young  age and her two daughters grew up in the Gaon's home, and our descent is from one of these daughters. My late father told me that as a young boy he visited Vilna and a member of his family had the family's family tree, from the Gaon, printed on the wall of his shop."

 

This information also confirmed the traditions related above. Research by this author, as related above, leads him to conclude that, whilst this tradition of descent from the Gaon is essentially valid, the circumstances seem to fit more closely the situation of the early death of the Gaon's eldest son Shlomo Zalmen, since both he and his wife died young leaving two orphaned daughters. Rabbi Eliyahu Kushilevsky confirmed Rabbi Gurwicz's version of the tradition, adding that, according to Rabbi Eliyahu Landau:

"Many of the families who do not know the exact details of their descent from the Gaon are descended from the two orphaned grand-daughters."

The archive of Benyamin Rivlin includes a note about the Olkenitsky family. Apparently Rivlin discovered information confirming that the Yaakov Olkenitsky's father, who Rivlin records as Moshe Dov Olkenitsky, was married to a descendant of the Gaon. Rivlin does not note her name, but, according to the Komisar family, Yaakov Olkenitsky's mother was called Fruma. She was most probably a daughter of Treina Lipshitz, one of the Gaon's orphaned grand-daughters. Based on tradition conveyed by Zelda Tsiftman, Reizel Helman must have been a sister of Yaakov Olkenitsky, thus accounting for the descent from the Gaon of the Kushilevsky, Gurwicz and related families.

Further research is required to confirm the above theoretic relationships with the Gaon's family.

Archival records provide further information and will be included here in the future.

Kamai and Finkel Families

Kamai and Finkel families

(Updated March 28, 2011)

There is a longstanding tradition that the families Kamai and Finkel,  rabbis of Mir Yeshiva, are descended from Avraham Ragoler, a brother of the Vilna Gaon.

The connection is to be  found in the 1816 revision list for Zemaiciu Naumiestis (Neustadt)http://www.jewishfamilyhistory.org/1816%20Zemaiciu%20Naumiestis%20Rev%20List%20-%20Part%201.htm

Click to enlarge

Avraham's son Eliyahu appears under the "surname" Magit. A son-in-law is Uriash Komay, married to Eliyahu's daughter Pera. Their son was Abram, and he is known to be the father of Rabbi Eliyahu Barukh Kamai, the
father-in-law of Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel, Rosh Yeshivah Mir whose many descendants are now able to know their exact relationship to the family of the Vilna Gaon.

Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel (1877-1965)

Rabbi Eliyahu-Barukh Finkel (1947-2008 Jerusalem)

 

The Kamai and Finkel families are being researched by Yosef-Meir Finkel, a great-grandson of Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Finkel.