Connecting past, present and future

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Peace push
resumes
Published bi-weekly
Vol. 81 / No. 15 /16 pp.
July 26, 2007
11 Av, 5767
— page 5
Clark president
says no to boycott
— page 13
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Connecting past, present and future Upset over
Editor’s note: This is Part II of
a two-part series on the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Greater
Boston. Part I (June 28, 2007) discussed getting started in genealogy.
pope’s revival
of Latin Mass
By Ellen L. Weingart
By Ben Harris
T
NEW YORK —
measure intended to promote
greater unity within the Roman
Catholic Church by increasing
the use of the Latin Mass is sparking
confusion and controversy among
Jewish groups as they scramble to
understand the full extent of the decision.
Pope Benedict XVII recently issued
a Motu Proprio, literally a declaration
in the pope’s own name, authorizing wider use of the Latin Mass, an
older form of Catholic worship that
includes a prayer read only on Good
Friday for the conversion of the
Jews. The pope
removed a rule
that had required
a bishop’s permission before the
mass could be
used. Now, the liturgy can be used
on the authority of
an individual parish priest.
Benedict
The main
question for Jewish organizations is
whether the pope intends to permit
churches to recite the conversion
prayer on Good Friday.
Allowing the prayer to be read,
Jewish communal officials said,
would appear to run counter to the
spirit of Nostra Aetate, the landmark
1965 Vatican declaration, and subsequent reforms that absolved Jews of
responsibility for the killing of Jesus
and laid the groundwork for four
decades of improved Catholic-Jewish
relations. In particular, Jewish groups
say that a prayer to convert the Jews
would undermine previous steps
taken by the church recognizing the
validity of Judaism.
Leading the charge of those voicing alarm was the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), which even before
the pope’s decision had been made
public, issued a statement calling it
a “body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations.”
Some Jewish groups took a more
cautious approach as they sought
to gain a clearer understanding of
the pope’s decision. In a letter to the
Vatican’s point man on Jewish relations, Walter Cardinal Kasper, the
International Jewish Committee on
he best Passover Seder Heidi
Urich ever attended was at the
home of a newly discovered
relative.
Urich, president of the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Greater Boston
(JGSGB), became interested in her family history about 10 years ago when her
mother was ill with Alzheimer’s. “She
was the only one left to tell me, but
she was too ill to do so,” said Urich. “I
started looking into my family history
because I wanted to connect.” Urich’s
parents were Holocaust survivors;
most of the family on both sides had
been killed.
When she realized the International
Association of Jewish Genealogical
Societies (IAJGS) was holding its annual conference in Boston, she went right
over. “I was amazed at the amount of
information that was available on the
Internet,” she said. “I didn’t know it
existed.”
Through her research, Urich was
able to find distant relatives in Florida,
which connected her to extended
family on her mother’s side, living in
Israel.
She went to Israel and, on what
was supposed to be her final inter-
A
The Russian passport of Samuel Schumacher, Jerry Schumacher’s paternal
grandfather, prepared in 1904 for his immigration to the United States, was
in Florence Schumacher’s brother-in-law's garage in Los Angeles. It includes
the town where the grandfather was from, his occupation, his original name in
Russian and when he came to the United States. “It’s genealogical gold,” said
(courtesy florence schumacher)
Florence Schumacher.
view there, was given another name.
“When I interviewed this new connection, she talked about family in
‘Nooten,’” recalled Urich. On her return
to Massachusetts, Urich called; the
person turned out to be her mother’s
second cousin.
“It would have been a friend and
relative for my mother, but she had
already died,” said Urich. “But I found
a friend and relative for myself.” Urich,
her husband and their grown children
celebrated Passover with the newly
found relative.
Through Yad Vashem’s pages of
testimony — information submitted
CONNECTING page 3
Tie-dayenu, a Jewish look back at the Summer of Love
By Dan Pine
SAN FRANCISCO —
ooking out the window of her
Mendocino Mustard kitchens,
Devora Rossman sees the Pacific
Ocean in the distance.
With her cats curled up nearby,
Rossman helps her staff prepare the
day’s batch of Hot & Sweet kosher
mustard. It’s the flagship product of the
Fort Bragg-based business she founded
in 1977.
Rossman, 62, is living out a dream
she dreamed long ago.
It was a dream that took shape in
Haight-Ashbury, where everyone wore
flowers in their hair. It was a dream that
burst into psychedelic glory in Golden
Gate Park, where thousands gathered
in the summer of 1967.
With the 40th anniversary of the
Summer of Love, Jewish veterans of
the long strange trip can’t help but look
L
back. Though the pan-spirituality of the
times allowed no room for traditional
religion, Jews who were there agree
Jewish values informed much of the
hippie worldview.
Chabad of San Francisco Rabbi Yosef
Langer, at the time a San Jose State
University student, today sees beyond
the peace signs and roach clips. He
perceives something more significant
coming from the Summer of Love.
“The yearning for utopia, in spiri-
tual terminology the promise of the
Prophets, is what this generation was
all about; everyone is looking for the
time when we will live in peace and harmony,” he said. “That’s what happened
with the busting out of the hippie and
political revolution.”
It was indeed a revolution.
The civil rights movement, the antiwar activism and the popularity of
mind-altering drugs. All of that swirled
around baby boomers with the revelatory power of a burning bush.
And the Promised Land was the city
by the bay.
As a Jew involved in leftist politics
from the late ’50s on, Berkeley resident
Michael Rossman, Devora Rossman’s
brother, sees a connection between
the hippies and the Jewish mandate to
repair the world.
To trace the origins of the hippie
SUMMER page 11
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Connecting
Jews from Galicia to Vienna in the last girl. Still another was of
Europe, said she feels a
quarter of the 19th century,” he said. me, my grandmother and
special interest in geneCont. from page One
Galicia was once part of the Austrian- the little girl. There were
alogy.
Hungarian Empire, became part of similarities in appearShe recalled her best
genealogical experience.
to the memorial to commemorate Poland after World War I, then part of ance but I didn’t realize
“We were in Vienna about
those killed in the Holocaust — Urich Germany and divided between Poland until I began researching
five years ago,” she
found a submitter with a surname that and the former USSR after World War records in Czechoslovakia
said. “We knew my husappears in her family. The address II. Today, much of what was Galicia is that this was my cousin
— my father’s brother’s
band’s grandfather on
of the submitter was in Mexico City, in Ukraine.
Hoping to learn more, Weiss trav- daughter.” Weiss has vishis mother’s side came
to where the woman had emigrated
to Detroit from Vienna
from Poland in the 1920s after the eled to Ukraine in 2000. “Conditions ited her and writes to her
in 1911. We had a picUnited States decreased the Polish are very rough there,” he said. What’s about once a month. She
ture of the grandfather’s
immigration quota. Urich called, but more, records are mostly unavailable. went with him on one of
gravestone so we knew
the woman had moved to Sweden. Weiss visited the Jewish cemetery in his trips to Prague.
Buczacz, the town where
“I never would have
the name of his father.”
Serendipitously, her son
his grandfather was born, thought it was possible to The photo of Florence
The burial records for
was in the apartment
Schumacher’s aunt, Sorah the old Jewish cemetery
and in Rozniatow, the town do this,” said Weiss.
at that moment. “They
where his grandmother
Jay Sage’s main inter- Steinberg Roitman and
in Vienna were on the
thought they were the
was born, hoping to find est in tracing his geneal- her husband Menachem,
computer.
only ones who survived,”
the graves of his ances- ogy is finding — and meet- is restored from a 1929
“From the little bit
said Urich. “They’re disphoto taken in Kishinev.
tors. “The cemeteries are ing — living relatives. He The original, given to
of information I had, I
tant cousins.”
large and in terrible condi- found one cousin in Israel. Schumacher by an older
was able to find burial
The families began a
tions, and the gravestones “The last contact between cousin, is a postcard
records for the grandfaconnection that brought
are in Hebrew, which I do the families had been a with Yiddish writing, sent
ther’s parents, including
Urich to New York in June
not read,” he said.
hundred years ago,” he by Sorah to her brother
when they died, from
to attend the bat mitzHe decided to photo- said. Sage’s son visited (Schumacher’s uncle) in
what and where they had
vah of the woman’s greatgraph the gravestones, the cousin and there has Canada to announce her
been living.
granddaughter.
first having to clear away been contact between marriage. Sorah was
The Schumachers
“It’s great to trace back,
brush that obscured many the families ever since. Schumacher’s father’s
were able to find the
but I get more pleasure in
of the stones. He returned Another cousin surfaced sister and was killed in
grave, but there was no
meeting living relatives,”
Jay Sage photographed a in 2001 to finish the job when Sage listed his the Holocaust. “I made
said Urich.
copies and sent it to all her marker. With help from
photo of family matriarch
with
the
help
of
his
sons;
mother’s
unusual
maiden
the cemetery’s caretaker,
Little to go on
nieces and nephews now
Charna Rigler that a
he has more than 2,000 name on Jewishgen.org’s in the U.S. and Canada to they erected a graveWhen Tom Weiss cousin in Minneapolis
photographs. The grave- family finder and received restore her rightful place
stone.
embarked on a search for had. That photo is
stones have been trans- an e-mail with the saluta- in our family's history and
Then the couple went
his roots, he already had not an original either;
memory,” said Schumacher. to the addresses where
lated, but Weiss has found tion “Hi Cousin.”
some experience in gene- according to a label on
none for people he can
Sage also had the satisSchumacher’s
(courtesy florence schumacher) Jerry
alogy, having researched the back, it was made
identify as relatives. “A faction of discovering for
great-grandparents had
the ancestry of his wife, by a department store in
Minneapolis. Sage said
lot of the stones are lying whom his mother had been named. lived. “We stood outside the apartment
Aurice.
down, so they weren’t pho- “My mother’s knowledge of her family building where my husband’s grandfaBut unlike Aurice, they would take normalsized photos, blow them
tographed,” he explained. tree didn’t go back far enough,” he said. ther lived before coming to the United
whose family had been in up and charcoal over
the United States for gen- them. His cousin once saw “And lots of stones are It was his mother’s great-great-great States,” said Schumacher. “Even my
missing. Anything that’s grandmother, Charna Rigler, who died husband, who is not very interested
erations and for whom the original photo, but
marble is gone. I have at 104, shortly before Sage’s mother in this, was moved.”
records were relatively doesn’t remember who
an aerial photo of the was born.
Counting the couple’s grandson, she
accessible in the court- had it. The store-made
Sage and his wife, Daphnah, are one has been able to trace her husband’s
houses of Kentucky and version sat in a closet for cemetery taken by the
Germans in 1944, and you of the few couples to do genealogical mother’s family through 10 generaother places of what used 40 years before Sage’s
to be “the U.S. frontier,” cousin found it and took it. see rows of stones. More research together. The two are for- tions. She maintains separate folders
(courtesy jay sage) recent aerial photos show
mer JGSGB co-presidents. The Sages for each of the families she is researchWeiss had little informamany are missing. There’s have researched records kept by the ing. The folders include the written
tion to go on. He knew
that he was born in Prague, that his a rumor that the Buczacz police station Mormons in Salt Lake City, where this histories she continues to work on as
well as documents.
father had been born in Prague and steps are made of the gravestones year’s IAJGS meeting was held.
“The Mormons have a religious comNext generation
that his mother had been born in — I checked it out and it appears to
“I feel a responsibility to do this,
mandment to do genealogy,” explained
Vienna. The family had left what was be true,”
Weiss has posted the photos on Jay Sage. “They need to find salvation although my children are not yet at that
then Czechoslovakia in 1939, shortly
after the German occupation began. the Internet (www.shetetlinks.jew- for ancestors who died before the stage where they’re all that interested,”
Weiss and his mother spent 20 months ishgen.org/Suchostav/Buchach/ Mormon church was founded.” The she said, repeating an observation
as refugees, primarily in France, before BuchCemIndex.html and www. church has more than 2 million reels made by other JGSGB members that
being able to come to the United States shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Rozhnyatov/ of microfilmed records. Sage said it genealogy doesn’t typically appeal to
RozhCemIndex.html) and has heard is possible to research the records young people.
in 1941, when he was 7.
“I wanted to do this for my grandchil“I didn’t think many records could from people who have found a rela- remotely, but it takes longer. “You
also get excellent help if you’re in Salt dren as they came along,” said Weiss,
have survived,” said Weiss, the JGSGB tive’s stone.
Finding answers
Lake City, including language help,” who so far has a 700-page family hisprogram chair and a retired MIT proOne of Weiss’ interests in compil- he said.
tory — including many photographs.
fessor. He grew up without his father,
“I wish my own grandparents had done
Cemetery project
Rudolph Fischer, who had run off to ing his family history is to determine
Sage is currently working on a this, but now I’m the grandparent.”
England when he was called in to the what happened to his relatives in
He said his 8-year-old granddaughCzech army, abandoning Weiss and the Holocaust. His search has con- project that will help others find
his mother. His mother eventually firmed the decimation the Nazi horror their ancestors. The Jewish Online ter has some interest in the subject.
divorced Fischer and married Eugene wreaked upon his family: at least 98 Worldwide Burial Registry is a database “She knows that book is there and
Jewishgen.org is assembling my daughter (her mother) has hung
Weiss, whose name Tom Weiss took. family members perished.
In France, he found transthat will contain information photos of ancestors in her home,” he
His mother died when he was 17.
from tombstones in all the said. His 10-year-old grandson is less
Weiss’ search for his ancestors port records for an uncle
Jewish cemeteries. “The first interested.
began in earnest in the late 1990s when who was shipped to nine
“When I asked him why I was doing
step is listing all the Jewish
he was on sabbatical at Cambridge different camps in less than
cemeteries,” he said. “Next is this, he said it was for his mother and
University in England. “You just have to a year before he was killed.
to get photographs of all the uncles,” said Weiss. “I told him it was
start out with what you know and ask But Weiss also has found two
tombstones.” Sage has been for him too and his eyes lit up.”
yourself how to proceed from there,” living cousins.
Unknown to Weiss and his
Weiss’ other grandchildren are too
photographing tombstones
he said. “Just pull on a thread and see
mother, her first cousin and
in the Jewish cemeteries in young to grasp what he’s doing.
where it takes you.”
“At our 25th anniversary celeBoston. “It’s moving slowly,”
He traveled to Vienna — his first his family had come to the
he said. “It would be helpful bration, our guest speaker, Arthur
visit in almost six decades. He found United States in 1951 and, Weiss
Kurzweil (author of From Generation to
the 1903 marriage record of his mater- like them, were living in New
(courtesy tom weiss) to have a committee of volunGeneration: How to Trace Your Jewish
teers working on this.”
nal grandparents, which included his York City. Weiss has since
Tombstones give information on Genealogy and Family History), spoke
grandparents’ birth dates and the found his cousin Willy Frankel. He is
names of their parents. “So with this the only other living member of Weiss’ individuals, but by looking at nearby of genealogy as ‘a spiritual quest,’”
said Schumacher. “That’s true for me,
graves, more family is often found.
one document, my knowledge of my generation on his mother’s side.
Weiss also discovered a first cousin
Florence Schumacher, JGSGB pub- as in the biblical ‘from generation to
maternal family was extended back
on his father’s side who is living in licity chair, is researching four families generation.’ Different people approach
one generation,” said Weiss.
He also learned that his grandpar- Wales (United Kingdom). “I saw photos — those of her mother and father, and it from different perspectives. I feel the
ents weren’t born in Vienna, but in of my father, me, a little girl and another of her husband Jerry’s mother and need to connect to my roots.
“It’s a little like being a detective.
Galicia. “Both of these grandparents man,” he said. “Another photo showed father. Schumacher, whose parents
were part of the large migration of my mother, me and the same little immigrated to Canada from Eastern One clue leads to another.”
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