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How I Discovered My Rabbinic Ancestry
by Arthur Kurzweil
I
looked dejectedly at Rabbi Israel, but continued a general conversation
about my research. He, too, had the hobby of genealogy, and he showed me
some of the material he had collected on Chassidic families. Since he
was showing his collection, I decided to show him what I had brought
with me. I gathered whatever I had concerning the Gottlieb family and
showed him pictures and other documents. One piece of paper in
particular interested him. It was a piece of stationery, with a
letterhead that read, "Bistritz Vicinity Aid Society." It also
had my grandfather's name on it listed as financial secretary. I had
found the stationery in my grandparents' apartment.
Rabbi Israel looked at and told me that
there was a man in the neighborhood who was from Bistritz. He was known
as the Bistritzer Rebbe. Rabbi Israel suggested that he might be able to
help me. Handing me his phone, Rabbi Israel looked up the rebbe's phone
number and told me to call him. Thinking back on that morning, I'm glad
I was forced into it. I doubt very much that I'd have the courage to
call a rebbe myself. It's not something that I'm accustomed to doing.
When I dialed the number from Rabbi Israel's home, a man answered the
phone. He asked me if I could speak Hungarian and I said no. I asked him
if he could speak English and he said "A little." I told him
that I was a grandson of Zalman Leib Gottlieb from Bistritz, and I asked
him if he might have known him. He told me that he knew Pinchas
Gottlieb. Pinchas was a brother of my grandfather and I was excited to
hear that I was speaking to a man, a rebbe, who knew a great-uncle of
mine. I also knew that Pinchas had been killed in the Holocaust.
The rebbe asked me to come to his address
which was just a few blocks from where Rabbi Israel lived. I quickly
left Rabbi Israel after thanking him for his help. I was disappointed by
what had happened, but was distracted by my imminent visit with a rebbe.
When I arrived at the address, I was
surprised to be at a synagogue. I expected an apartment or a house, but
there I was standing at the steps of a synagogue with a sign in Yiddish
announcing it to be the Bistritzer synagogue. The rebbe came to the door
and asked me to come in.
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At
that moment, what I entered was not just another synagogue run
by another rabbi, but a different world from the one I had
known. |
At that moment, what I entered was
not just another synagogue run by another rabbi, but a different
world from the one I had known. The shul was a room, a square room, crowded by
benches and long tables, books spread upon them. The room was dimly lit,
tallisim hung in several spots around the place, and I stood there for a
few moments taking it all in. It was unlike anything I had ever seen,
except in photographs of shtiebles in Europe. And then I knew that I was
in a shtieble, just like the ones my ancestors prayed
in, and the fact
that this one was in Brooklyn and that my ancestors were in Europe made
no difference once the door was closed. The rebbe was an elderly man,
bearded of course, and slightly bent from age. Yet he was very quick and
his eyes were bright. His face was serious, but friendliness came
through. He asked me to sit down, and I did, at one of the long benches
in front of one of the long tables. The rebbe said he would be back in a
moment. I examined the room from every angle, imagining the activity
that must occur each day at prayer times and each Shabbas. What was then
a silent room must burst with religious energy, the same kind that my great-grandfather,
with his long coat, wide-rimmed hat and beard with side-curls must have
had just three generations ago. I was truly in another world and was
delighted by this opportunity.
The rebbe returned and we spoke briefly
about my family. He knew my grandfather's brother, and also knew he had
been killed in a Death Camp. He told me they had studied together. After
he had run out of things to tell me, in his broken English, about my
family in Europe, I decided to tell him the story of my search for a
connection with Chaim Joseph Gottlieb, the Stropkover Rebbe. I told him
every detail, like a fool, as if he cared. But he listened with intense
interest, asking questions along the way. I concluded by saying that
Rabbi Israel had been unable to help me, and I wondered if he remembered
whether my family descended from the rebbe.
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He communicated to me, by his questions and his comments, that
what I was doing was very important. |
One of the most intriguing aspects of
this whole encounter was the seriousness with which he took what I was
saying. He communicated to me, by his questions and his comments, that
what I was doing was very important. He never explained why, but
continued to indicate this to me. I, on the other hand, wondered if I
was taking up too much of his time by talking to him about what I
thought must be dead ends. He never once seemed
impatient, however; on the contrary, he seemed eager to spend as
much time as I wanted in discussing the matter.
One of the additional pieces of information
I had discovered along the way was that my great-grandfather's father
was named Shlomo. I knew this from the inside cover of my grandfather's
Bible where many years ago he wrote brief genealogies of his mother and
father. Rabbi Israel was unable to use this additional name for my
purposes, but the rebbe seemed interested. He looked through the
biography of the Stropkover Rebbe that Rabbi Israel had written, and
while flipping through the pages he kept repeating "Usher ben
Shlomo, Usher ben Shlomo, Usher ben Shlomo." The rebbe just
repeated those names, the names of my great-grandfather and his father,
over and over to himself as he looked through the biography. It was
obvious that he was looking for the names, but I was sure he would not
find them there. A few times while he was examining and reading the biography,
a phone in a back room rang. The rebbe was so involved in the biography
that it was not until the fifth or sixth ring that he stood up and
walked to the back to answer it. Each time the phone rang, the rebbe
took so much time to answer it and it stopped before he got there. When
he returned to look through the biography again, he seemed happy that
he didn't have to talk on the phone so that he could get back to his
reading.
In the meantime I just sat there,
watching the rebbe continue to read the book and repeat the names,
"Usher ben Shlomo, Usher ben Shlomo, Usher ben Shlomo." I sat
there staring and looking around the room. My imagination was active
during those minutes, wondering what it was like when the room was
filled with praying Chassids. Suddenly, the rebbe spotted something on a
page. He brought it to the window, since the light in the room was
rather poor. He then came back and sat down and said, "Shlomo was
the son of the rebbe."
I didn't know what to do. I knew that he
was wrong since Rabbi Israel told me each of the names of the rebbe's
sons. But I was not comfortable telling the rebbe that he was incorrect.
Somehow it just didn't seem right to contradict a rebbe. I decided to
say, "Really?" in a confused and doubting voice.
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He then looked
and told me that where he was from it was a custom to take a mother's
last name rather than a father's. |
He looked again and said, "No, no,
no, no, no." He shook his head in apparent disappointment in himself
and sat in silence for a few minutes staring at the book. He then looked
and told me that where he was from it was a custom to take a mother's
last name rather than a father's. In fact, he said, this was so in
almost 50 percent of the cases in his community in Europe. Then he said,
"The rebbe Gottlieb had a daughter Gittel. Her husband was Shlomo
Zalke." He paused and then said in a deep, confident tone, as if he
were making a proclamation, "This is your Shlomo. You come from
them and take her last name. This is my opinion."
His remarks sounded final, and he ushered
me to the door. There was something unreal about the whole thing, especially
the way it ended, but the rebbe seemed absolutely convinced that his opinion
was right. When I left, I looked at the biography and reread where it
said that the rebbe's son-in-law was named Shlomo Zalke, not just
Shlomo. For some reason, the name Zalke sounded familiar. I rushed home
and looked again at the genealogy written by my grandfather in his
Bible. There it was. He did not just write the name Shlomo, but Shlomo
Zalke! I had forgotten about this! It was now obvious. And it was
obvious that I was, in fact, a descendant of the Stropkover Rebbe.
Everything matched: the names, the dates and even the story about the
name not originally being Gottlieb. We had taken the name of the rebbe's
daughter rather than his son-in-law. I had finally found the link.
The rebbe in Brooklyn was able to solve
the entire issue for me. The fact that my great-great-grandfather,
Shlomo Zalke, took the name of his wife, Gittel Gottlieb, explains the
fact that Maurice was told the name was not originally Gottlieb. I
couldn't wait to call my mother and share the news with her. When I did
she was delighted to hear all of my stories. My father, whose family I
had researched for seven years, stood by with a smile on his face, as I
detailed the generations of my mother's family back farther than I was
ever able to get with the Kurzweil family.
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