He was a firstborn son, on March 20, 1910, to Jakob and Anna Säckler Kleinberg in Berlin Germany, after his parents had moved there from the shtetl of Narol in Eastern Galicia, not far from Cieszanow, which is today in southeastern Poland, but at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His parents had moved to Berlin at the encouragement of Jakob's older brother Leon, who helped set up the newly wed Jakob in a butter and egg business. Less than two years later, my father-in-law's younger brother Max was born, though curiously, we find that his mother returned to Narol to give birth to her second son, in 1911. Within two years, Jakob emigrated to the United States to seek his fortune, and sent for his wife and sons the following year. The family settled in Brooklyn, New York, where a year later, the youngest child, Mollie Kleinberg Mandel, was born.

Gifted with intelligence, the young Morris was able to apprehend that education would be the key to making something of himself in this open society. Despite the lack of encouragement to do so, he exercised the initiative to go to college, attending the University of Louisville in Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1933.

The young man, by that time, had set his sights on becoming a physician. However, this was not a good time for a young Jewish boy to aspire to an education in medicine. The infamous anti-Semitic numerus clausus was in force, by which the university establishment severely restricted the number of Jewish students that would even be permitted to have access to medical school education. Undaunted, he set his sights on attending medical school overseas. Perhaps because of his German birth, he applied and was accepted to study medicine at Albertus University in Königsburg, then in the East Prussian province of Germany. However, this was 1933, and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had already come to power in Germany.

It was under these heart-stopping circumstances that he pursued his medical education – a Jew in Nazi Germany, shielded by the thin pages of his American passport. The swastikas in his passport, and on his diploma, granted on September 18, 1938, are a stark and lurid testament to the knife-edge that he walked on, in order to achieve his ambition.

Upon his return to the United States, he began to pursue a career in medicine by joining the staff of the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City. It was there, in 1939, that he met his future wife, Frances Edith Krantz, of Hartford, Connecticut, who had come to work as a nurse after her own graduation from nursing school in 1937. They married on October 6, 1941, but their budding plans were interrupted by the outbreak of The Second World War.

Dr. Morris Kleinberg saw his duty clearly, and enlisted in the U. S. Army, where he was commissioned as a Lieutenant. Stateside induction and rotational training brought him and his pregnant wife to Shelbyville Indiana, where my wife, Carol Lynn Kleinberg was born on May 26, 1944. By now a Captain, Dr. Morris Kleinberg was sent to the Philippines, where he served as a battalion surgeon through the end of the war, and was honorably discharged on May 16, 1946 and promoted to Major.

Return to civilian life first brought the Kleinbergs to the well-known temporary veterans housing in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. On October 20, 1947, a second daughter, Susan Janet Kleinberg, today Dr. S. Jay Kleinberg-Flemming was born. The family soon relocated to the newly-built Glen Oaks development in Queens, where my father-in-law would practice medicine for over a quarter century. The family itself, eventually moved into a permanent residence in Great Neck, where the two Kleinberg daughters grew up. Despite an early interest in obstetrics, my father-in-law gravitated to general practice as a matter of economic necessity. However, he would derive considerable satisfaction from seeing his oldest grandson, Dr. Daniel A. Berger, become an Obstetrician-Gynecologist.

My father-in-law was a physician of notable quality. His patients adored him, not only for the obviously good care that he gave them, but also for his genial and compassionate manner, that set them at ease, and gave them a sense of security that they were in the best of hands. And indeed, they were. His quick mind, and mirth-provoking wit, was so effective in being able to dispel anxiety, and communicated a sense of confidence that engendered the feeling that no matter what the problem, he would be the one to set it right.

If medicine was his profession, then golf became his leisure time passion. With time, he became highly skilled at this hobby, and became a fixture at the Lake Success Country Club, along with my mother-in-law. He is the owner of a remarkable accomplishment there: three holes-in-one, two of which were shot on the same weekend. It was noted, in a news article on this accomplishment, that many of the world's leading golf champions have never shot even a single ace. He was an avid bridge player, and up to the last week of his life, would always be trying his hand at the crossword puzzle in the newspaper.

In the fulness of his ninety-six years, my father-in-law saw a great deal, accomplished a great deal, and was privileged to watch his family come to maturity, and see his progeny prosper and multiply. While we take a considerable amount of comfort in his longevity, there is a profound ache in our hearts at his passing, and knowing that this kind, dear, and gentle man is not with us any longer, and must live, from now on, in our hearts and in our memory. We are comforted in the sure knowledge that he will always be a bright and shining star in the firmament of our family ancestry.

The following members of our extended family of landsleit, friends and well-wishers, provided financial contributions to help make the publication of this book possible. Their generosity assures the preservation of this heritage for future generations, by which they have earned a large measure of our collective gratitude.

Dr. Daniel Berger & Monique Monokoff David Berger & Dana Spanger Rachel & Robert Berger Herbert & Rita Beyenbach Bruce, Judy & Daniel Brickman Frank & Uta Catterson Martin & Ellen Diesenhof Lee Feldscher & Lisa Mintz Drs. Nicholas Flemming & S. Jay Kleinberg Kirsten Flemming Peter Flemming William & Roseline Glazer Richard, Nancy & Eric Goodman Harry-Paul & Judyth Greenbaum Dr. Sandy & Abetta Helman Robert & Dana Isbitts Allen & Jayne Jacobson Dennis & Sharon Ann Javer Herbert & Judith Javer Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain Frances E. Kleinberg Melvin & Martha Kosminoff Bruce Leeb & Rona Eagle Seelig & Edna Lewitz Charlie & Peggy Long Arthur Gary Melnick Beatrice Melnick Melvyn & Hadassa Morris Robert & Stella Plevan Susan F. Pollack Jaithirth & Neelambari Rao Seymour & Leslie Ratner Ron Rosensweig & Linda Dombrowsky Larry & Sharyn Rubin John C. Ryan Sandra & Larry Small Sisterhood, Temple Beth Rishon Lillian Silver Stephen & Susan Sorkenn Leonard & Ruth Stern Stephen & Margaret Taylor Robert & Susan Walters Alan & Sue Weber Gary & Marierose Zwerling

Like the prior books translated as part of this endeavor, Sefer Zikaron D'Kehillah Kedoshah Cieszanow is no exception in providing its own unique and special insights, and a variegated set of perspectives, that refresh the history, and add that much more to the record, of what transpired in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe during the course of their existence.

This sixth translation in a series, provides a memorial to the shtetl that is proximate to the ancestral home of my wife's paternal family in Narol – a shtetl in the Eastern Galician Province of what is today Poland. At the time I undertook the effort, I did not anticipate that I would come to dedicate this volume to the memory of my father-in-law, Dr. Morris Kleinberg, ע”ה, both of whose parents were natives of Narol. Sadly, there is no Yizkor Book for Narol. In fact, only 1,273 volumes of this kind were written after the Second Word War, despite the fact that 6,500 Jewish communities were obliterated. It is fitting that this book carry a synopsis of his life in its dedication pages, because the fulness and the drama of his 96 years is a testament, to the endurance and survivability that has become the hallmark of all Jewry throughout the ages.

This compendium about the shtetl of Cieszanow offers us a counterpoint to some of the books we have seen to date. By the admission of the compilers, it is a place that was not unusually distinguished, even though it boasted its own share of outstanding Jewish sages, scholars, and men revered for their holiness and piety. Its special value lies in the portrait that the writers give us of the outlook and feelings of a very typical Eastern European Jewish community, in which the spirit and doctrine of the Hasidic movement were dominant.

Yet, despite this, we are also told that, even in this seeming backwater, the winds of modernity could not be kept out. We see an almost anomalous ferocity, on the part of younger, and more enlightened age cohorts, as they give battle to their more recalcitrant elders, unwilling to let go of traditions, forged over centuries of placid and relatively static agrarian life, inexorably being swept away by the forces of industrialization and political upheaval. This is a very valuable record, because the tensions, in shtetl life that they describe, are often overlooked, or not documented at all, in conventional histories. Accordingly, an unrealistically idealized view of the shtetl often emerges, that does not reflect the rough and tumble contest of ideas that was taking place in Eastern Europe in the century prior to, and leading up to, the Holocaust.

While, again, it is true that the tragic outcome of the telling is known in advance, the record is enriched by the endeavor of these writers, to tell this tale from their own unique perspective.

I am indebted to Tomasz Panczyk and Leon Szyfer for their assistance in assuring that my rendition of Polish names and places, transliterated from Yiddish into English, were done correctly. I am also grateful to my friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Zoltan Fahidy for his help with getting the Russian idioms correctly conveyed in this text. Finally, my thanks also go to Yeshaya Metal, the reference desk librarian at YIVO in New York City, who, as usual, was ever ready with a suitable insight regarding the occasional esoteric word that would surface from time to time.

Spring 2006

Jacob Solomon Berger

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