The Famous Rabbi: The Gaon of Vilna and Who Could Be Related To Him?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                            Rabbi Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797)

The Gaon of Vilna, Elijah Zalman, was born and raised in Vilna, Lithuania. He's known for his views on the teachings of the Torah.  He also had views on the future.  He considered the period in which he lived as the end of the Diaspora and the beginning of the Messianic era.  He then believed there was a period of Redemption that had to be actively initiated by human actions, of which the observance of the commandment to settle in Eretz Yisrael was of central importance.  That's the beginning of our return to Palestine, and for that to become today's Israel.  

 

Does my family have any chance of being related to him?

In my family tree, I have been able to go back to Iones "Jonas" Goldfus b 1730 in Telsiai (Telz) , Lithuania. 

Vilnius, the Jewish center,  and Telz are  150 miles apart;  (240 km.) Northwest of Vilnius (Vilna) Telz.  Jews lived in Vilna at the end of the 15th century but were banished in 1527.  A number returned only to be victims of another riot in 1592.  Then the next year they were formally allowed to settle, acquire houses, lend money (their vocation).  In 1633 they could even trade in precious stones, meat and livestock and be craftsmen.  Another riot in 1635, and by 1655 those remaining Jews were massacred by the Cossack army.  4,000 Jews were among the victims of famine in Vilna in 1709-1710.  

Until 1795, Telz was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, when the 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers of those times--Russia, Prussia and Austria---caused Lithuania to become partly Russian and partly Prussian.   Telz was in the Russian part.  

Finally, from the 18th century (1700s), I guess after the famine,  Vilna became a center of rabbinical study, the Jerusalem of Lithuania, mostly due to Rabbi Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna.

Chaim (Keith) Freedman has done the most work on Rabbi Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797), otherwise known to all as the Gaon of Vilna. He wrote a book about him called "Eliyahu's Branches-The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family."  Freedman  is a direct descendant of the Gaon of Vilna and is genealogist Chaim Freedman of Petah Tikva, who made aliyah from Australia in 1977. Freedman has been interested in Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (revered as the Vilna Gaon – the Genius of Vilna) since he was a boy in his native Melbourne.  Chaim Freedman’s family originated in the Raseiniai district of Lithuania; of which Kaunas (Kovno) is a town there.

Chaim (Keith) Freedman was born in 1947 in Melbourne, Australia to parents of eastern European origins. He was educated at Mount Scopus College in Melbourne. In 1977, he immigrated with his wife to Israel, 3 years before me.   Chaim is a noted genealogist having lectured at numerous genealogical and historical conferences including The International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, Jerusalem 1984,1994 and 2004. He has published his research in Avotaynu, Sharsheret Hadorot, Search, RootsKey, the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society and Yated Ne'eman. Freedman edited "Jewish Personal Names: Their Origin, Derivation and Diminutive Forms" by the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr, published in 1992 by Avotaynu. Freedman wrote several books about his immediate family, "Our Fathers' Harvest", a history of the Komisaruk and other families involved in Jewish agricultural colonization in the Ukraine, and "The Pen and the Blade", a history of the Super family. Chaim Freedmans major work is "Eliyahu's Branches.  

Freedman, an eighth-generation direct descendant of the Vilna Gaon, has spent decades researching genealogy and says that the number of known descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his siblings is in the range of 30,000. To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the death of the Vilna Gaon in 1997, Freedman published his laborious research in his 704-page book Eliyahu’s Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his Family. The book was published by New Haven headquartered Avotaynu, a leading publisher of books, journals and newsletters geared to people researching Jewish genealogy, Jewish family trees and Jewish roots. There are some 20,000 names and numerous concise biographies in the book. Since publication, Freedman has compiled around 10,000 additional names.

Vilna, Lithuania has had its highlights.  From this date, of the 18th century, the city of Vilna, Lithuania became a center of rabbinical study, being dubbed the "Lithuanian Jerusalem".  Elijah Zalman was universally known as the Gaon of Vilna.  Many Haskalah leaders also lived there plus the Hebrew press belonging to the Romm family produced the Talmud that became standard.  Vilna was the birthplace of the Bund, a Socialist Polish, Lithuanian and Russian party, as well.  One thing to know; Rabbi Zalman led the opposition to the Hasidim in Lithuania.  He was adamant about it; ordering their excommunication and the destruction of their literature !  That wouldn't fly today, I'm sure as there are many Hasidim !  His obdurate attitude checked the spread of Hasidism in Lithuania, though.                                        

Rabbi Zalman wanted to go to Palestine.  The best path is to go from Lithuania to Rome and then get to Palestine by ship on the Mediterranean Sea.  

The Gaon of Vilna could have tried to stay on land and go to Turkey and from there to Palestine.  Turkey's borders on the European continent consist of a 212-kilometre frontier with Greece and a 269-kilometre border with Bulgaria. Turkey is generally divided into seven regions: the Black Sea region, the Marmara region, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, the East and Southeast Anatolia regions.  Turkey’s frontiers with Greece—206 kilometers—and Bulgaria—240 kilometers— were settled by the Treaty of Constantinople (1913) and later confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.We don't know how far the Gaon of Vilna had gotten.  The borders in 1780 were most likely very dangerous for a lone traveler.  

         ship Neptune in 1780 .  He may not have needed a ship.  

When he was 60 years old, Zalman  set out alone for Palestine, but returned before reaching there.  I could have told him so.  It would have been impossible then with more dangers than ever along the way.  

His followers were the Mitnaggedim (opponents of Hasidim)  who regarded him as their spiritual leader.  When the Russians entered Vilna in 1944, they found 600 Jews hiding in the sewers.  Jews from other areas began converging on Vilnus after the war.  By 1988 the Jewish population was 13,000.  

Chaim Freedman tells us that the Torah includes 477 genealogical records.  The Prophets and other books of the Bible include 2,756  genealogical records.  Chronicles is almost entirely concerned with genealogy.  He mentions Rabbi Meir Wunder at the Hebrew University National Library in Jerusalem who referred Freedman to people who had arrived at the library looking for information on the Gaon's family.                       

      from Roots web  Gaon's tree

He said, "Because the Gaon of Vilna was such a prominent figure in Jewish scholarship, descent from him was considered to be particularly worthy of honour....  Descent from the Gaon also carried with it a responsibility to live up to his standards of behaviour, particularly in religious matters.  

All the people with Lithuanian descent have probably claimed descent from the Gaon of Vilna, but DNA could clear up a lot of the questions.  My hope is that more and more do test, and that Freedman can keep that record as well.  As for me, I checked with FTDNA and find that I have DNA matches with 15 males and 10 females.  My brother also matches 13 men and 11 women with the name of Freedman.  Since Chaim Freedman is quite sure he's a descendant, he's a good marker to use.  One never knows if a woman is using her maiden name or married name.  Out of the men, I found one Freedman with the same haplogroup as my brother.  If ours is not the line, then we are related through other in-common surnames.  

Resource:

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/telz/telz.html

Book: Eliyahui's Branches by Chaim Freedman

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/01/descendants-of-jewish-lithuanians-up-to.html

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/a-time-honored-tradition-419226

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ultra-orthodox-anti-zionist/

http://chfreedman.blogspot.com/search/label/Chaim%20Freedman%20great-great-great-grandparents

https://www.litvaksig.org/information-and-tools/online-journal/18th-century-links-to-the-family-of-the-vilna-gaon-and-the-komisaruk-family-of-raseiniai

Where Is It Written About Abraham?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

How did people learn about Abraham?  Wasn't that fact of Jewish history introduced through the writing by Moses in his Five Books of Moses, the first part of the Torah, their reference?  What other sources were there before Moses who died in 1271 BCE?  (1800-1701 BCE).

According to Jewish history, Abraham was born in the 2nd millennium BCE or about 1948 BCE.  

According to conventional chronology which interprets the biblical data (1 Kings 6:1; Ex. 12:40-41; Gen. 47:9; Gen. 25:26; Gen. 21:5) in a straightforward way, Abraham (then known as Abram) was born ca. 2166 BC. If this is correct, Abraham was born in the Intermediate Bronze Age, but lived most of his life in the Middle Bronze Age, which began ca. 2100 BC. Other Bible scholars interpret the numerical date in an honorific way, rather than as literal base-10 numbers, and believe Abraham lived later in the Middle Bronze II period (ca. 1900-1550).??

Moses was a Prince of Egypt, schooled with the Pharaoh's sons.  What he learned about history of Mesopotamia was what the Egyptians had researched and taught.  Otherwise, as we learn, it was knowledge from G-d that he heard in his head.  To me, this is how he wrote Genesis, which was ancient history.  Moses was separated from his family almost at birth and was found and adopted by the Egyptian princess.  He found his birth brother, Aaron, when in his late teens or early 20s. It is said that his birth mother was his wet nurse, brought to the princess by his birth sister, Mirium.   He left no heirs as his own 2 sons died when teens over disobeying the rules about the ark which killed them. Aaron left many descendants who were designated by Moses to be the Cohens (high priests) in their future Judaism.   With DNA today, this Y haplogroup is J1. Moses leaves us his writing: The 5 books of Moses.  Moses was from the tribe of Levi, one of 12 tribes of Jacob.     

What was going on then?  1750 BC: Hyksos occupation of Northern Egypt, according to some researchers. Abram could have been part of the Hyksos but is said to have lived from about 1948 BCE as a birthdate.   Sovereign states were Assyria (2025-611 BCE) and  Babylonia (1894-532 BCE).That fits right in the time frame.

This cuneiform text dates back to the 6th year of prince Lugalanda 

who ruled about 2370 B.C. in southern Mesopotamia. It is an 

administrative document concerning deliveries of three sorts of beer 

to different recipients (to the palace and to a temple for offerings) 

and gives the exact quantities of barley and other ingredients used in 

brewing. (Image credit: Max Planck Society)

First, we consider writing and when this started.  The invention of the alphabet in Canaan was around the 18th century BCE.  Our story took place with Abram living in Ur of the Chaldees, a spot on the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia, and he and his family moved to Canaan.                               

Scholars generally agree that the earliest form of writing appeared almost 5,500 years ago in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Early pictorial signs were gradually substituted by a complex system of characters representing the sounds of Sumerian (the language of Sumer in Southern Mesopotamia) and other languages.  So in other words, Abram lived in the source of writing.  

                       Egyptian alphabet:In the hieroglyphic system, instead of each letter (or character) representing part of a word, each hieroglyph represents a whole word. For example, instead of four symbols spelling B-I-R-D for the word bird, there would just be one; and it was probably just a picture of a bird!

Full writing-systems appear to have been invented independently at least four times in human history: first in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) where cuneiform was used between 3400 and 3300 BC, and shortly afterwards in Egypt at around 3200 BC.  

Stela of the Gatekeeper, Maati;  Maati is shown seated in front of an offering table with a jar for a sacred oil in his left hand.

New discoveries have pushed back the date for writing in Egypt close to that of Mesopotamia. Discoveries of large-scale incised ceremonial scenes at the rock art site of El-Khawy in Egypt date to around 3250 BC. They show features similar to early hieroglyphic forms. Some of these rock-carved signs are nearly half a metre in height. Found was an Egyptian stela with hymn to Osiris.  This was a  limestone stela showing classical hieroglyphs from 3,600 years ago.                                              

     The Stele-Rosetta Stone of Egypt

Many of us have heard of the Rosetta Stone, a computer program that helps us to learn new languages.  It was taken from a stele with many languages written on it.  The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.

From 2900 BC, these began to be impressed in wet clay with a reed stylus, making wedge-shaped marks which are now known as cuneiform. Writing in ink using reed brushes and pens is first found in Egypt. This ink writing came to be known in Greek as hieratic (‘priestly’ script), whilst the carved and painted letters we see on monuments are called hieroglyphs (‘sacred carvings’).

 40 years of walking:  The Journey--The Exodus  out of Egypt

According to Jewish history, Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died 120 years later in 1271 BCE.  He was the author of the Exodus.  He used his time on the Exodus to write about it and the earlier history the people of the Exodus told him about that they were taught by their parents.  That way, the stories about Abram of Ur were recorded.  It's figured that Abram lived in the 2nd millennium BCE in about 1948 BCE.  

Abram and Sarai by their tent with baby Isaac.  

We first hear about Abram in In the Book of Genesis,(12:1-9) the story of Abraham is a story of the conversation between God and the people of Israel. That long conversation begins with Abraham, a great man of faith. When God first called Abraham, he was known as Abram. 

                   Abraham, father of Monotheism

Therefore, it seems to be the only original reference available to Muslims who developed as followers of Mohammad (570-632).  Anything written about Abram-Abraham would have been after Moses.  The fact special about Abram was how he broke away from polytheism and became the Father of Monotheism. 

Modern secular laws treat human sacrifices as tantamount to murder. Most major religions in the modern day condemn the practice. For example, the Hebrew Bible prohibits murder and human sacrifice to Moloch, a god of one of the polytheistic people. It was one of the aspects of Baal, the Sidonian god of hell.  The Canaanites and peoples under their influence sacrificed human beings, especially 1st- born children.  Evidently people in Ur were doing it, too, which is one reason why Abram left Ur, only to find it practiced in Canaan.  

                Ur in the distance with the ziggurat.  

 In the ancient Near East and Egypt, human sacrifice was associated with elite tombs and funerary practices. One of the world’s most famous ancient sites is Ur, located in southern Iraq on the Euphrates River. A royal line of Sumerian kings and queens ruled there in the third millennium BCE, commissioned monumental buildings and temples, and towards the end of the millennium, created perhaps the most iconic type of Mesopotamian structure – the ziggurat.

But hundreds of years before this, around 2500 BCE, the Sumerians mourned and remembered their dead by building large mudbrick tombs. Sixteen such ‘Royal Tombs’ were found during excavations in the 1920s directed by Sir Leonard Woolley, among hundreds of more modest graves. These royal funeral proceedings were flamboyant and extravagant. The largest assemblages contained thousands of objects: gold, silver and bronze vessels, jewelry, seals, weapons, tools, gaming boards, musical instruments elaborately decorated, and a wealth of other exotic and prestige items, some of whose functions we still do not understand. Animals and humans were sacrificed to complete the assemblage.

Because of Judaism, other people have learned of their ancestry, also found in the Bible that Abram was the son of Terah and the father of Isaac by Sarah and Ishmael by his concubine, Hagar.  The story of how he left Ur and lived among the Canaanite and Philistine inhabitants of Canaan (Eretz Yisrael), how he visited Egypt and returned to live in Hebron. He fought to save Lot, his nephew,  from  Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, Amraphel, king of Shinar and their allies.  They can learn how G-d appeared to him in a vision and promised that his descendants would inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates," made a covenant with him, and tested his loyalty by ordering the sacrifice of Isaac which is the topic causing disagreements between Jews and Muslims, for Muslims have changed the story to have Ishmael be the sacrifice, not Isaac.  

     Moses as a baby brought to Princess of Egypt.  Mirium, older sister of Moses suggested a wet nurse who was her mother, Jochabed, real mother of the baby.  

Judaism, the religion of the followers of Moses' teachings,   certainly was an ancient religion by then,  ancient already by the time Christianity came into being as followers of Jesus who died by Jewish history in 29 CE.  By the way, the name, Jesus, is the Greek form of Joshua.  

By 70 CE, the Romans had occupied Jerusalem, then burned it down with the Temple.  

Rabbis took their copies of the Torah and fled along with any Jews left alive.       

The first to establish a Hebrew printing-press and to cut Hebrew type (according to Ginsburg) was Abraham ben Hayyim dei Tintori, or Dei Pinti, in 1473. He printed the first Hebrew book in 1474 (Tur Yoreh De'ah) or Tanakh. In 1477 there appeared the first printed part of the Bible in an edition of 300 copies. People were finally able to read for themselves about Abraham and our beginnings.                      

     Greek and Roman Gods on Mt. Olympus

 At this same time, Greece and Rome had a polytheistic religion that they were following and took a long time to forget even with the adopting of Christianity.  Forms of it snuck into Christianity. 

Abraham, 1st on the list of our prophets;  on the trek to Canaan; took 2nd wife, Keturah; Abraham said to die at age 175, bought and  buried in the cave of Machpelah which became the family burial place.  

There are legends about Abraham.  According to hellenistic legends, he was king of Damascus.  Arab legends claim he laid the foundations for the sanctuary at Mecca.  

"The story of Abraham and Isaac is also part of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions", Catholic Artist Trina Paulus said who was making a statue of Abraham and Isaac. "The Muslims celebrate Abraham and Isaac 50 days after Ramadan as a feast parallel to the crucifixion", Paulus said.  

“It’s the great mystery feast for them,” Paulus said, adding that Muslims have put a lot of emphasis on Isaac’s willingness to be sacrificed. 

It’s a disturbing story to many people of all faiths. Some theologians such as Martin Luther praised Abraham’s unquestioning loyalty to God, while others like ethics philosopher Immanuel Kant felt that Abraham should have realized God would never make such an immoral command.  

Recent biblical research is inclined to maintain his historical integrity.  It is generally believed that he lived at the beginning of the 2nd millennium.   BCE. 

 

Resource:

https://www.bl.uk/history-of-writing/articles/where-did-writing-begin#:~:text=Full%20writing%2Dsystems%20appear%20to,Egypt%20at%20around%203200%20BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_century_BC

https://answersresearchjournal.org/abraham-chronology-ancient-mesopotamia/

https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2021/07/16/top-ten-discoveries-related-to-abraham/

https://jerseycatholic.org/the-uncomfortable-story-of-abraham-and-isaac-interpreted-by-local-catholic-artist-1#:~:text=For%20years%2C%20Catholic%20artist%20Trina,willing%20to%20sacrifice%20for%20us.

Jews of Oregon Arrived Early (Jewish American Heritage Month)

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Jews first arrived in Oregon in 1849, just years after the first Overland immigrations brought re-settlers to the region.  The vast majority, like Goldsmith and Wasserman, were immigrants from German lands; but rather than coming directly to Oregon from Europe, most spent years elsewhere in the United States before following the Gold Rush west and establishing merchandising networks anchored in San Francisco and extending north to Oregon. 

   Nyssa, Oregon -neighbor of Ontario and the Oregon Trail

Jacksonville , in the south near Medford, Oregon

Look closely and see Albany and Eugene south of Salem.  

Although the first known Jewish religious service in Oregon took place in Jacksonville in celebration of the High Holidays in 1856, and there is evidence of holiday observances and life-cycle rituals in other towns across the state, no lasting congregations or other Jewish institutions emerged outside of Portland in the nineteenth century, aside from a burial society in Albany that served communities from Eugene to Salem. Jews who lived in in the Willamette Valley or in more remote parts of the state often traveled to Portland to celebrate High Holidays or life-cycle events. Such trips provided opportunities to conduct business and to meet potential marriage partners.

 In 1869, Bernard Goldsmith, an immigrant Jew from Bavaria, was sworn in as the mayor of Portland. Two years later, he was succeeded in office by his friend, countryman, and coreligionist, Philip Wasserman, a former state legislator who would later serve on the city’s school board.

 Many Jewish pioneers, arriving as single men, delayed marriage until after they had established businesses and traveled to San Francisco or even to New York or Europe to find Jewish partners. It was not until 1858, after the arrival of several Jewish women and the birth of the first child, that a Jewish congregation, Beth Israel, the reformed Temple, formed in Portland. In 1861, the congregation erected the state’s first synagogue, with seating for two hundred; its consecration attracted many non-Jewish Portlanders and the attention of the press.

With Portland’s Jewish population nearing 500 in 1869, a second congregation, Ahavai Sholom, was founded by a splinter group of eight men from Posen, Prussia. Ahavai Sholom would emerge as a Conservative congregation, striking a balance between orthodoxy and the modern innovations of Reform. Beth Israel, after considerable discord over religious practice in the 1860s and 1870s, gravitated toward Reform. By the end of the century, Beth Israel had built a grand, two-towered synagogue that seated 750 people, a fitting structure for a congregation associated with Portland’s Jewish political and business elite. Its status was further elevated by its rabbis, Stephen S. Wise, who served at Beth Israel from 1900 to 1906, and Jonah Wise, who served from 1907 to 1926. Both rose to national prominence.

                   Neveh Zedek Synagogue's front view  

Two more congregations were founded in Portland in the 1890s, Talmud Torah and Neveh Zedek, which formed to accommodate the Eastern European and Russian Jews who were then arriving in Oregon. My grandparents went to Ahavai Sholom but their children went to Neveh Zedek where I attended and wound up as a teacher, starting my teaching career. I attended from K in 1939 to about 1960.  

In 1866, a Portland lodge of the B’nai B’rith formed. 

Jewish communities in eastern Oregon towns such as Baker eventually followed a similar course. Although the decline in population followed broader boom-and-bust patterns, the exodus was accelerated among families that longed to participate in a larger Jewish community and provide their children with a Jewish education. Such was the case of the Durkheimer family, for example. 

Julius Durkheimer ran stores in Baker, Prairie City, Canyon City, and Burns and served on the school board and then as mayor of Burns. Yet, fulfilling a promise to his wife, who longed to be closer to family and a Jewish community, they moved to Portland ten years after their marriage.

Between 1881 and 1924, the migration shifted from Central Europe eastward, with over two-and- one-half million East European Jews propelled from their native lands by persecution and the lack of economic opportunity. Most of those who arrived as part of this huge influx settled in cities where they clustered in districts close to downtowns, joined the working class, spoke Yiddish, and built strong networks of cultural, spiritual, voluntary, and social organizations. This period of immigration came to an end with the passage of restrictive laws in 1921 and 1924. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States never again reached the levels that it did before 1920.

   Charles, age 4 and Moshe (my dad) at age 2 had parents that arrived  in the USA's golden age for Jews;  before 1921.  

After the German Jews had arrived early on, the eastern European Jews arrived quite late.  My father's parents came after first living in Idaho's mountain town of Council where they both landed somehow and then took the train to Portland in about 1906 after their 1st son was born September in 1906. This little kid standing will wind up owning the big cattle truck below.   

My father's business grew from his being a kosher butcher in Portland's shop on SW 3rd and Lincoln St by 1935.  He then formed his own business of Lincoln Wholesale Meats across the street with a slaughter house out of the city by 1953.  Finally, he bought out a business on Colombia River Blvd and renamed it Silver Falls Meat Packing Co which happened before 1960.  He was the main buyer of cattle so traveled all over Oregon to the auction Houses of cattle. Hermiston, Vale and LaGrande were places with cattle auctions.   He held his cattle before shipping in Ontario, Oregon where he settled down with his wife in his 2nd home from home in about the 70s. The distance across the state is 6 hr 7 min (375.4 mi) via I-84 E.                                          

                     My children in Ontario, Oregon

Otherwise, I think most Jewish people congregated in Portland.  We were the only Jews in Ontario, Oregon for most of the time, and had to drive to Boise, Idaho to attend the nearest synagogue.  I had been living in Ontario as my parents were there, and taught 4th grade at Lindbergh Grade School. Mom did stumble on another Jewish lady there and they became fast friends.  Her daughter was a counselor nearby, and she had a Jewish friend she worked with.  I remember one year when we got together and made latkas, not just from potatoes but we did it with other veggies as well.  Potatoes are the best, though.  

I have to mention:  Son took debate in high school and he and his Japanese partner went to Salem as winners and came in 2nd place from all of Oregon's high school debaters.  His partner became a lawyer and when an adult, moved to Portland. This speaks highly of the schools in Ontario compared to Portland.   Ontario had a small community of Japanese who were there from decisions during WWII and our government.  They were great farmers and had beautiful gardens at their homes.       

Resource:

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/jews-in-oregon/#:~:text=Jews%20first%20arrived%20in%20Oregon,brought%20resettlers%20to%20the%20region.