The sweep of family history across the generations
Sholom and Sophie Tulbowitz left their ancestral town in the 1870s to settle for 20 years in Russia near Rostov-on-Don.
Rearing eight children in Albany’s Third Ward
Abe Blokh became Abe Ratner to avoid conscription and get out of Russia. With his young wife and her mother, they voyaged from Bremen to Leeds to New York
The Tulbowitz tavern in Novocherkassk was overrun by Cossacks during the Rostov pogrom of 1881
Today it is Rezekne in Latvia. In the 19th century, it was the village in Vitebsk Province where our Tulbowitz clan lived in the old Yiddish way
From 1880s to the 1930s, the Ringel family prospered in the garment trade in the German capital. Herman made men's outerwear.
Schija Ringel came from Poland to seek his fortune in Berlin’s old Jewish district.
Joseph Rabinowitz’s mother was Bertha Yesersky. Was she related to Sora Yesersky, the wife of Rabbi Elchanon Spektor?
If Sholom Tulbowitz had gone to Dvinsk instead of Rostov, as his cousin did, his Ratner descendants might have grown up in Perm instead of Albany.
Walter thought he had proved the family legend of descent from the celebrated Kovno Rav, Rabbi Yitchak Elchanon Spektor. Later facts emerged that suggested a more tenuous connection.