LitvakSIG - What does a Litvak look like ?

LitvakSIG

by Judith Shulamith Langer-Surnamer Caplan

How many of you have ever wondered what a LITVAK looks like?

Well, on Friday, July 24, 1998, as I was walking through Washington Cemetery, in Brooklyn, NY, near post 134 in Section 1, I spied a tri-lingual memorial gravestone of fairly recent vintage, complete with an engraved, photographic likeness that might lay this burning question to rest.

At the top of the matzeva, the Hebrew section reads:

Pay'"Nun (Poh Nikbar ~ Here is Buried)

Leib Bais"Resh (Ben Reb) Sh'lomo (Leib ben Reb Shlomo)

The two lines of English in the middle reads, simply,

Leonid Litvak

5-30-1924 ~ 8-27-1995

The final Russian section, as transliterated by Leonard Lapatnick, is inscribed:

Zdyes pokutsya

Dobri duzhi chelovek

Muzh, otyets, dyedushka

Navsyegda v nashikh syerdzakh

Since the art of translation varies, I am sharing two slightly different English versions of this Russian epitaph that were sent to me, the first by Leonard Lapatnick, and the second by Rita Hirschhorn:

Here rests
a good, spiritual fellow
husband, father, grandfather
always in our hearts

Here is buried
a kind soul ....
He is a father, grandfather
He will be forever in our hearts

But the picture speaks for itself....

Leonid~4.jpg (57278 bytes)

Judi20~2.jpg (11044 bytes)

Judith Shulamith Langer-Surnamer Caplan is Publications Committee Chair, and Co-Editor of the LitvakSIG Online Journal. Judi, who has a BA in English from Brooklyn College, an MS in Mass Communications from Syracuse University, and has studied at Seminary College of JTS, teaches English in the NYC school system. Judi is also a poet and short story writer, and has had two articles in AVOTAYNU, most recently "Another Surnamer Surfaces" (Winter 1998).

Judi is researching her extended mishpacha, especially her many Litvak connections: KAPLANS in Keidaniai or Kvedarna; COLUMBIS/KLOMPUS in Vieksniai or Sveksna, Lithuania; BOCHURS in Skaistkalne, Latvia, & Birziai, Lithuania; LEPARS in Zeimelis, Lithuania; and SURNAMERS and ZURINAMERS in Siauliai & Zagare, Lithuania, and Liepaja, Mitau, & Riga, Latvia, as well as Suriname, the Netherlands, Israel, South Africa, and England. The Surnamer family has been traced back to the mid 1600's, to Esther Isaac HaCohen and Zadok Simon HaLevi Van Coerland.

Judi, who talked about how to read a Hebrew Tombstone at the 19th Annual JGS Summer Seminar in New York in August 1999, will present an expanded version of her talk at the 20th Annual IAJGS Summer Seminar in Salt Lake City in July 2000.

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