True Love From Telsiai, Lithuania Never Died

  Nadene Goldfoot                      

Leia noticed smoke coming from her wooden house.  She ran to help put out the fire, but it grew worse and she backed off.  Others came running.  A house on fire among all the other wooden houses was deadly.  To save theirs, they had to put out this fire.                                 

Luckily, they lived on the shores of Lake Mastis,, so water was nearby.  They didn’t save the house, but saved the others this way.  

The city was Telsiai, one of the oldest towns in Lithuania.  Meier ran to Leia and hugged her, letting her know that her parents and brothers and sisters were all right.  Meir adored Leia, hoping to marry soon.  He was working for the Russians, who were now one of three superpowers in the country, others being the Prussians and Austrians.  Soon, he hoped, to have enough money to build a house for them.  

  2,500 people lived in Telsiai in 1797 and of them,  1,650 were Jews (66%). By  1897, the Jewish population numbered 3,088, 51% of the total population. 

Jews were expelled during World War I, but by 1939, 2800 had returned, out of a general population of 8000. Many were involved in trade which included produce, wood, and crafts.                         

                     Telšiai Yeshiva building

A major source of income was the famous Telšiai Yeshiva, (a school for Talmudic study, sometimes called a rabbinical college). It was the largest and most famous yeshiva in Lithuania between 1875 and 1941, establishing Telšiai as a center of Torah studies (the entire body of religious law and learning, including both sacred literature and oral tradition). There was also an Orthodox Jewish rabbinical seminary and a Jewish day school providing secular and religious instruction for younger children.  

At the age of 15, inspired by an article he read, the soon to be become famous Hayim Nahman Bialik  convinced his grandfather to send him to the Volozhin Yeshiva in Lithuania, to study at a famous Talmudic academy under Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, where he hoped he could continue his Jewish schooling while expanding his education to European literature as well. 

No wonder that citizens were proud of their Litvak heritage.  It was a main center of learning.  Meir spent all his extra hours after work studying here and Dora was proud of him for doing so.  It gave her time to do things she wanted to accomplish.  

Marek Sats, the kosher butcher, father of Meir, tapped Meir on the shoulder, motioning him to follow along the side of the burning house.  There they found a pail and the remains of a can of petrol.  The fire had been started on purpose.  They both understood.  It’s because they were Jews.    They were the majority here in a majority Gentile country.

The Poles held a rebellion in 1830, hoping to overthrow Russia rule,  and  Leia and Meir suffered both from the rebels and from the Cossacks, even though Meir had a friend among them.  

Meir’s friend, Menashe Likniker, was even accused of helping the rebels and he also worked for the Russians.  He was hanged by these Russian rulers.

This caused the authorities in Telsiai to arm the population and to enlist men to fight the rebels. 

 Jews vocalized their thoughts, saying that they shouldn’t conscript Jews into the army, as they had no arms and also didn’t know how to use them.  Instead, they offered to supply the army with the necessary materials, such as steel, leather, gunpowder, etc, to which the authorities agreed, and a document was signed to this effect. 

Meir worked hard, shlepping hides to the Russians to be made into leather boots for the soldiers.  

Shooting was coming from many of the houses.  Meir ran home to get his gun to defend Leia and their Zalman and Rokhel.  He ran into a spray of bullets and dropped.  Leia screamed and ran to him, holding his head up. Meir’s head turned and Leia felt the life seep out of him. She sighed, picked up his rifle and held it to her eyes, and shot.  Leia had taken his place.  Their children would live.

Sam Gold had just interviewed a Harry Zeitz as a roommate in his big home in Portland, Oregon.  Sam was working for the Health Department of Beaverton, and this fellow was a student at the Law School at Lewis & Clark College.  They would get along fine.

Weeks went by and Harry mentioned that he had a sister back in Norfolk, Connecticut a few years younger than Sam and would it be all right if she wrote to Sam?  

“Of course, bring her on,” smiled Sam.  

The correspondence went well.  They had much in common.  Both loved possums.  Sam sent her a toy one.  Both loved dogs.  Sam had had several growing up.  

Finally came the day when Dora flew out to see her brother, and of course to meet Sam.  They had a glorious time walking through the parks.  Dora quickly learned where all the great spots were for entertainment and the young men enjoyed her visit more than they cared to say.  Then she flew back home.

Before they could imagine, a wedding was planned and the two lovebirds were together again in the same nest, Sam’s family home in Portland.  

Time went by and they celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.  

After talking to a genealogist on the phone, Dora screamed!  Oy vey!   I can’t believe this!  She couldn’t wait to tell Sam.  

“What happened,” he asked?

Dora caught her breath and gasped. “ I just found out that my Sats relatives came from Telsiai, Lithuania, and so did your Gold relatives!  They must have known each other !  It’s all proven by our DNA and by the genealogist who found both families living there.  How often can such a thing like this happen?  This is amazing!! It must be a one in a million event!  Somehow, two people in love married long ago in Telsiai and today their  descendants got back together for another love story event in Portland, Oregon. 

Sam, the scientist, looked at Dora and replied.  "It could be just a coincidence."

Dora thought a moment,, then had the last word. "There is no such thing as a coincidence.  It is part of the great plan!

"Really," Sam said quietly with a smile on his face. "Is it simply a colloquialism that signifies our faith in God’s Divine Providence, His ability to intervene in earthly affairs to ensure that His is carried out on earth?  Divine Providence and God’s intervention in nature are certainly widely accepted tenets of Jewish faith.  But to say that there is no such thing as a coincidence sounds to me like a stronger claim; it suggests more than the assertion that God has the power to intervene in the natural order or even that He does so whenever He chooses.  It implies necessity. 

"Why not?"  Dora whispered in Sam's ear.  " Well, they do say our city is a weird place !"  

Resource:

Update on Yeshiva, 6/2022

Preserving Our Litvak Heritage, a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin with Joel Alpert, editor, by Jewishgen.inc.

FTDNA results

https://www.britannica.com/event/November-Insurrection

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALiCzsbTtgbXw59ErzsynfcXRO-CrxZr5g:1654263626594&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Telz,+Lithuania&fir=Zb8h9zsBI-9dpM%252CsEKSn-Ce7cEugM%252C_%253BBSZDnbtnjvxyIM%252C59ctka2bXOo6NM%252C_%253BVSqcwIbQm_DVyM%252C59ctka2bXOo6NM%252C_%253BIX9l2pgq5ZY4GM%252CC5K0uVqx-jMeqM%252C_%253BF4tdh9L3bx325M%252CmBIw38xmEXx01M%252C_%253BkwJZ3TB33uMlSM%252CC5K0uVqx-jMeqM%252C_%253Bp_xf7Xp8bfjulM%252C59ctka2bXOo6NM%252C_%253Bz1FImAU5XZbeZM%252Cr3QLlXyfp5t-5M%252C_%253B6Kll3ZTdlBuMsM%252Cjfg9RHcgJG7i8M%252C_%253BHpb6j1iLrRkQiM%252CS3VeEcO_K6z8dM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kRHd7_VGk8mjJOcL75VYKHQivaxgA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3ts-etJH4AhW6FjQIHXJ_AdwQ7Al6BAgzEDk&biw=1745&bih=881&dpr=1.1   (many pictures of Telsiai, Lithuania)

Trip to Telsiai (Telz)-the capital of Samogitia (unique area in Lithuania with local dialect and has been known in the world as a spiritual centre of Jews.

 

Tour in Telz:
• Telz jeshyvah- Telšiai yeshivah, as a higher rabbinic school, was established in 1873 by rabbi Gaon Leizer Gordon. Telšiai yeshivah in the XIX century was acknowledged as one of the biggest in the world, there have improved the practicing rabbis from England, the U.S.A., Uruguay, SAR, Hungary and other countries. In the yashivah there have had studied up to 500 rabbis at a time.
• Former jewish hospital
• Jewish cemetery
• former synagogues (4) of Telz
• Telz old town and city centre

Descendants of Jewish Lithuanians: Up To Gaon of Vilna's Days

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

The most famous rabbi from Lithuania was the Gaon of Vilna.  His name was Elijah ben Solomon Zalman and he was born in 1720 and died in 1797.  He was an expert in the Talmud and was famous very early on for his scholarship.  
                                                                             
What was the world like that he had been born into?  His parents were Rabbi Shlomo-Zalman d: 1758 and Treina.  His mother came from the town of Seltz (today's Selets) near Grodno.  His father came from a prominent Vilna family.  The known male line started with Rabbi David Ashkenazy d: 1645.  He was known as the Rosh Yeshiva in Lemberg, Poland.  This could have been the same man known as Rabbi David, son of Mordekhai Ashkenazy .  David's son was Rabbi Moshe Kremer who died in 1688, who held the position of the chief rabbi of Vilna.  Moshe Kremer's son was Rabbi Eliyahu who died in 1710, known as Hassid due to his piety.  I was just doing some genealogy on one of the Gaon's descendants, a Kramer.  This may be the connection directly to this famous rabbi.  .

 How were Lithuanian Jews different from other Jews in other countries?  My grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske, was born in  Lazdijai which was on the border between Poland and Lithuania, but she wanted her children to know that she was a Litvak; and proud of it. In 1855 Lazdey had 1,546 Jews.  That was 60% of the population for that town.   My poor bobba could not read or write in any language, but she produced 2 grandchildren who were American PhDs and 3 teachers of elementary schools, and one of those PhDs taught in college as well. She produced a master's degree.  Zlata was proud of her Litvak heritage and their reputation.  A ggrandson is a veterinarian.  A ggrandson is a classical pianist.

Our grandfather Nathan Goldfus couldn't read or write English, that I know when he came to the states in 1900.  His town of Telzh had 3,209 Jews in 1855, 61% Jewish.  By the time he immigrated in 1897 there were 3,088 Jews there which had dropped to 51% of the town's pop

ulation.  Jews were leaving.  .                                                         

Lithuanian Jews did have a reputation.  They were known for their intellectual and rational attitudes.  They were also called the Cross Headsa, suggesting that they would be ready to strike out vertically and horizontally  in order to achieve his goal, or to cross check his findings in order to reach THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH.  This was seen not only in their daily life but in other times in the social-cultural strata, such as not falling for any FALSE MESSIAHS.  It's known they were against the Chassidism, and can probably thank the Gaon of Vilna for that, since he fought against it pretty hard.
                                                                           

Shtetl of Shkudvil, Lithuania 

They studied the Torah with diligence in the synagogues as well in the Yeshivoth Ketanoth and in the Great Yeshivoth.  Jewish Lithuania was famous for its great Yeshivoth of Slabodka in Telsiai (Telzh) where my grandfather lived.  They also had Yeshivote in Poniezh and Kelem where hundreds of foreign students also studied.

The Salant community was also well known because it was from here that the MUSAR (ETHICS) movement began an spread by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter whose principals were based on the idea of intellectual activity and knowledge in order to correct and improve the behavior of the individual.

Lithuanian Jewry was also known for fostering the HIBATH ZION MOVEMENT, and later by practially adopting the Zionist idea, and at the same time an almost simultaneous openness to the challenge of the HASKALAH or (ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT.)  It didn't matter if it was in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian or German.
                                                                     

Jews had developed impressive attributes and achievements as well as a special character within the Jewish world, developed alongside the prolonged struggles for their economic and civil rights among the ethnic Lithuanian population where they were born in those days in spite of the frequent changes of rulers.                                               

By the time our Gaon of Vilna was 20 he spent his time traveling among the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany and finally settled down in Vilna, Lithuania where he taught and later founded his own academy.

As we know, Jews were driven out of Judah in 70 CE by the Romans who burned down the 2nd Temple there and even Jerusalem, taking who they could has slaves to Rome.  Those were the first Ashkenazi Jews as they would then make their way to Germany eventually.
                                                                     

13 Century Jews of Germany

The first settlement of Jews into the Great Lithuanian Princedom, THE MAGNUS DECATUS LITHUANIAE, began in the 1300s by invitation only from the Grand dukes Gediminas and Vytaufas (Witold).  They extended invitations usually because they heard of the Jews' prowess at math and keeping records, helping other governments with their skills.

By 1388, one year after the Christian-Catholic religion was introduced all over Lithuania, the Catholics also granted the Jews a preferred civil status and incomparable bills of rights such as protecting their bodies and property;  freedom to keep their religious rituals;  significant alleviation in the field of commerce;  and money lending which was permitted in relation to their Christians.  There was even a special regulation to protect Jews against blood libels.
                                                                     

The Italian Christopher Columbus could have been Jewish.  He wrote to
his son in Hebrew.  His ships had a Jew or two on as sailors, getting out of Spain.  He sailed at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.  Maybe he was
related to the well known Jewish Kalonymus family in Italy.  

1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue-Spain kicked out all Jews from Spain unless they converted to Christianity.

Christianity got around very fast and furiously.  By 1495, the Grand Duke Alexander expelled all Jews from Lithuania, too!  Jews by then numbered more than 6,000 people.  The  government also took all their property as well!  That must have been a good political move, because 8 years later he was elected King of Poland.  They had a joint rule clause between these 2 countries.  Then he allowed the Lithuanian Jews to return to their homes-if they weren't already occupied- and gave them back only part of their property.  He left most of the privileges alone as they had been so that they reserved the legal, civil and economic status of the Jews which must be why they decided to return.
                                                                     

Lithuanian town

The townspeople were not impressed or happy to see them return.  They  were mostly from Germany and were organized now in merchant  and artisan unions and who had been enjoying the MAGDEBURG RIGHTS  and now they saw the returning Jews as competitors who had to be fought.

They brought about an edict DE NON TOLERANDIS JUDAEIS, making it forbidden to Jews to settle in Vilna or to trade there.  These insults to Jews by the urban Christians, even students of theological seminars, continued for hundreds of years.  Anti-Semitism was created.
                                                                           

It was different in another part of Lithuania, though.  The NW region, ZEMAITIJA/SAMOGITIA had ethnic Lithuanian tribes living there who had become Catholics much later in 1413 and han't yet become infected with anti-Semitism with a religious background.  Zamut Jews were in the business of customs and tax collection.  Another wave of Jews came and settled there after Vilna and Memel Jews were kicked out in 1567.

Feudalism reigned in Lithuania.  Most people made a living as farmers, breeding cattle and poultry, fishing in rivers and lakes and harvesting trees.  It was the Jews who were peddlers, and a few of them dealt in importing and exporting agricultural products.  Finally due to improved roads, taverns and storehouses were built near crossroads and river ports turned into villages and towns where many Jewish artists and merchants settled.

Until the 18th century, townships were granted to only 83 settlements.   and rights for commercial activity to 87 settlements.  Really, there was no big difference between a small and a big town.
                                                                         

Granddaughters of a Jewish family in Eisiskes, Lithuania at time of Holocaust

Most of the people were Christians.  Most believed in devils and ghosts and now THE JEW replaced these evil symbols.  It was very easy for the average Lithuanian to believe in the BLOOD LIBELS.  It's a phenomenon that continue to exist until only recently in Europe, and I see some in the Middle East like Syria are believers as well.  The Blood Libel is when someone accuses a Jew of using human blood in making food such as matzos, the flour and water cracker eaten during Passover.  It's disgusting!  Jews don't even eat blood accidentally when eating any meat!  It's a no no to Jews, part of our Kosher laws.  No Blood.
                                                                             

At the end of the 18th century there were several places where half of the population was Jewish and in a few even a decisive majority.  In urban areas, Jews lived in the JEWISH QUARTER, sometimes called THE JEWS' STREET, just like in Syria.  Jews outside this confined area remained strongly linked, connected to Jews in this confined area.  Western Russia had created THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in many countries brought about through Catherine the Great.  She influenced these other countries where they held where many restrictive edicts and harsh limitations that  were imposed on the Jewish population.  These caused great hardships and continued until World War I 1914-1917.
                                                                           

Warsaw, Poland Uprising 

The Holocaust started earlier than the USA became involved.  The late 1930s were horrible times for Jews of Europe with Hitler's rising.  On the eave of this Shoah, there were about a quarter of a million Jews including the Vilna region and the refugees from Poland. They were only about 0.9% of the world's Jews during the 20 years of Lithuania's Independence.  As we already know, 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust.
                                                                         

1941 Jews being led away by Kovno, Lithuanian  militianman to the fort.   

References: https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-academic-wonder-gaon-of-vilna.html
 Preserving Our Litvak Heritage-a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, editor
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Eliyahu's Branches-the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family by Chaim Freedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Lithuania

Center of Jewish Learning: Vilna, Lithuania

Nadene Goldfoot                                       

Today's Vilna, Lithuania reminds me so much of our own Portland, Oregon.
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania. With 542 932 inhabitants (2011), it is the largest city in the country. It lies at the mouth of the Vilnia in the Neris River in a wooded area just 40 km from the Belarusian border removed.

Jews were able to settle in Vilna, Lithuania at the end of the 15th  century.  By 1527 they were banished by Sigismund I because burghers insisted upon it.  Burghers were "citizens of a town or city, typically a member of the wealthy bourgeoisie."  

Some returned anyway after a spell, only to become victims of a riot in 1592.  This is more commonly known as a pogrom.  The next year, Jews were formally allowed to settle, acquire houses and then they practiced the only job they were allowed; lending money.  

Finally, in 1633, permission was granted to trade in precious stones, meat and livestock and to become craftsmen.  There was another anti-Jewish riot in 1635, a pogrom.  
                                                                   

Cossack on duty (portrayal of 16th-17th century), painting by Józef Brandt

In this same year of 1635, those Jews who had not fled were massacred by the Cossack army, another vicious pogrom.    

Then came the famine of 1709 that lasted through 1710.   4,000 Jews were among the victims of this famine.  
                                                                   

   
It was from the 18th century that Vilna became a center of rabbinical study and was called the Lithuanian Jerusalem.  It's best known scholar was Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, universally known as the VILNA GAON (1720-1797.  Many Haskalah leaders also lived there.  

A gaon was an intellectual leader of his people.  Sometimes, it even meant that they had considerable temporal power during the Babylonian Jewish community in the post-talmudic period from the 6th to 11th centuries.  Usually they were head of their academies, ancient institutions.

This was at the time of the use of the printing press.  Around the late 1430s, a German man named Johann Gutenberg  invented it.  A Hebrew press lasting over several generations belonged to the family of Romm in Vilna.It was Baruch ben Joseph Romm who died in 1841 who established it in Grodno 1789 but brought it to Vilna.    They printed an edition of the Talmud which became standard, called the Vilna Shass.  Family members kept it going and was active until after the outbreak of WWII.  They had printed the magnificent Babylonian Talmud of 1892.  

Vilna was a Zionist center and also the birthplace of the BUND.  This was a political party called the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland , and Russia.  It was the Jewish Socialist Party, founded in 1897, coming out of Russia from the end of the 1880s. 

WWI brought famine to the Jews under German rule and from a pogrom at the hands of the Polish troops in 1919. 

 YIVO was headquartered there from 1925 to 1941.  This was an institute founded in Vilna in 1925 for the scientific study of Jewish life throughout the world but with particular emphasis on the eastern European Jewry and its Yiddish-speaking heir on all continents.  By 1939, they had branches in 30 countries.  

At the end of the 19th century, the Jewish population of Vilna was 140,000.  The 2nd WW by 1941 saw it fall to 65,000 besides taking in 15,000 refugees from Poland.  The Germans created 2 ghettos in Vilna and 30,000 Jews were killed there by the end of 1941.  The 12,000 left were augmented in 1943 by transports from White Russian rural districts.  Deportation of taking Jews to extermination camps began in August 1943 but with some resistance.  When the Russians entered Vilna in 1944, they found 600 Jews hiding in the sewers.  Jews came to Vilna from other areas after the war.  

In 1988, Vilna's population reached 13,000.  By contrast, in 2011, Portland, Oregon's Jewish population reached 47,500.  It had doubled from 25,000.  Still, we Jews are only 2% of our USA's total population.  In the world population, Jews are less than 1% of the population.  
"There are about 14 million Jews in the world as of 2010; 6.2 million in Asia (including Israel), 5.5 million in America, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa. Out of the world's population of seven billion, the Jews are about 0.2%."
                                                            

My grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfus, lived in Telsiai, Lithuania.  That 184 miles from Vilna.  Lazdijai, in Suwalki, Lithuania, was on the southwestern border with Poland and Poland took that town in another of their wars.  Our grandmother, Zlata Jermulowski was from there.  Lazdijai is only 79 miles from Vilna by flight.  

I've traced his Goldfus line back to 1730 in Telsiai, Lithuania finding Ionas (Jonah) Goldfus. 
Lazdey was established by King Zigmunt II August in 1570.  Until 1795 it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom.  

Telz was one of the oldest towns in Lithuania.  mentioned by Crusaders in 1320.  The latter half of the 15th century brought in merchants and artisans to a royal estate established there.  


Reference:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks
Book: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage-history of 31 Jewish communitites in Lithuania by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, editor, published by JewishGen,inc.