Leib Kaufman
Timber rafting in Belarus
Leib managed a logging crew that rafted timber logs along the Dvina River to the Baltic Sea.
Once the logs made it to the Baltic Sea, tugboats pulled them to England, where they were used for shipbuilding. Leib treated his crew well and in return they respected him. He was said to have left a good memory of himself among his Belarusian workers.
Leib died on the Kaufman Farm, in Zapesochnoe, around 1900.
Source: Leib's great-grandson, Jacob Kaufman, in Jacob's self-published autbiography.
Sarah Moiseevna Kaufman
To Yelsk by Oxen
Sarah had her own garden, a cow and a couple of oxen on the Kaufman Farm in the Targonsky settlement in the village of Zapesochnoe.
When her sons turned 14 she took them by oxen to the city of Yelsk where they studied in a Yeshiva.
When they finished their studies, the boys had enough skills that "wealthy" Jews would put them to work
Sarah moved from the Kaufman Farm in the early 1920s to the small village of Levkovichi, Ukraine where she died in 1923.
Source: Leib's great-grandson, Jacob Kaufman, in Jacob's self-published autobiography.
Abraham Shlomo Kaufman
Led the way to America
(in 1904)
Abraham was born in 1865 on the Kaufman Farm in Zapesochnoe, Belarus, or nearby in the town of Lelchitsy.
Abraham married Fradel (Chmookler) and by 1887 they had their first child, Moisey. The family lived in Zhytomyr, Ukraine where Abraham worked as a math teacher.
Often, they would have guests over, including Abraham’s brothers. One day, a brother who came to visit them began to play with Moisey, who was then 5 years old. The brother was tossing Moisey up in the air and then catching him. Suddenly he misjudged and Moisey fell to the floor, breaking a bone in his right thigh. As a result of this accident, Moisey had a walking impairment and walked with a cane.
Abraham and Fradel had 10 children, 5 of whom died in childhood.
Fradel Kaufman
(born Chmookler)
Married Abraham around 1886
Israel Kaufman
(Abraham and Fradel's son)
Sailing by himself to America in 1904
In May 1904, Abraham sailed to America by himself. Six months later, his son Israel, journeyed by himself, from Zhytomyr, Ukraine, to New York, to join his father.
In 1908 Fradel sailed to America, with three children, Mattis, Leib and Miriam. Moisey, who was 21 years old at the time, decided to stay in Zhytomyr.
Moisey married (Dyan-Dora Yakovlena born Greenshpun) and opened a camera studio in Ovruch, Ukraine and then moved to Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg), Russia, before the Nazis invaded.
Once in America, Abraham and Fradel and kids moved to Great Barrington, Massachusetts where they ran a used furniture store. Abraham died in Pittsfield, Mass. in 1926.
Two of their sons (Louis and Israel) moved to Middletown, CT and another son (Mattis) moved to Worcester, MA and then to New York.
Source: Leib's great-grandson, Jacob Kaufman, in Jacob's self-published autobiography, Ellis Island ship manifests, newspaper clippings and Russian birth records.
Abraham is shown here with his grand children in 1923
Joseph (first row), Elsie (sitting), Ruth (standing)
and Irving Leon (standing).
Velvel (Wulf, Volka) Kofman
Beila (Velvel's wife)
with their grand daughter Ida
~1933
The Trek to Tashkent
Velvel was born on the Targonsky Farm around 1867. Velvel (and his brother Yitzhak) changed their last name from Kaufman to Kofman. Velvul moved from the Targonsky Farm to Lelchitsy and made a living by horse-trading (per Jacob Kaufman’s autobiography).
Beila married Velvel and together they had 7 children. Beila was killed in 1941 when the Germans invaded Belarus.
Some of Velvel's children survived WWI by a forced evacuation to Uzbekestan.
During WWII, more than one million Jews from Eastern Europe, were evacuated by the Soviet authorities or managed to escape on their own into the Soviet interior before German troops marched into their towns and villages.
A significant group of evacuees, including several of Velvel's children and their families, arrived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1941-1942.
Registration Cards
Around 2006, 152,000 Registration Cards of Jewish evacuees and refugees were digitized and made available at the Central State Archives in Tashkent with funding provided by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial.
Five digitized Tashkent Registration Cards have been found for Velvel’s two sons and daughter-in-law.
After surviving the war in Tashkent, many families, including some of Velvel's decendants, returned to Eastern Europe.
Isroel (Srul) Kaufman
Nachas from the children
Isroel, also called Srul, was born in Zapesochnoe around 1865. He married Bluma Kaganovskaya and they lived in Petrikov, in what is now Belarus.
Between 1890 and 1905 they had five children. Bluma died in 1910 and a year later Srul married his half-niece Stisya, the daughter of Srul's half-brother Yankel.
Srul and Stisya lived together in Lugini (in current-day Ukraine) where they had four children.
The Russian Southwest Directory of 1913 (see below) shows that Srul had a "manufactory" or a factory, likely sewing clothes or making shoes, as those were the primary articles being manufactured at the time.
Srul and Stisya moved to Kiev around 1917, likely to be near Srul's daughter Mera and her husband Avrom Shapiro.
In a letter to the US to his sister-in-law Fridel (the wife of his brother Abraham) he wrote about the importance of "nachas from the children". In his letter he said:
Seeing naches (Yiddish for pride or joy) from our children is what helps us stay well and healthy in our old age.
In the same letter he also wrote:
I have a lot of free time and in the evenings I go to the synagogue to pray and to study a bit.
It is hard to determine why Srul stayed in Petrikov, Lugini or Kiev, when 5 of his brothers immigrated to the US. It could have been he did not want to leave behind his factory or certain family members (or both). Or he could have had other reasons - about which will be hard to learn.
Babi Yar
Kiev, Ukraine 1941
Soviet POWs covering a mass grave after the Babi Yar massacre
A Family Tragedy
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II.
Srul and Stisya, along with at least 6 other family members, were executed there by the German army in 1941.
The massacre was the largest mass killing under the auspices of the Nazi regime and its collaborators during its campaign against the Soviet Union, and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust" to that date.
Mera Shapiro
and Her Family
Mera Shapiro, Srul and Bluma's daughter, was killed at Babi Yar along with her husband Avrom and their four children: Bluma, Boruh, Sara and Aron.
Yad Vashem Documents
Yad Vashem documents were created by Esther (Fira) Kaufman (Srul and Stisya's daughter) in memory of her parents, her sister Mera and Mera's family.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem, have extensive descriptions of the tragic massacres that occurred at Babi Yar.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kiev-and-babi-yar
https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/communities/kiev/babi-yar.asp
Zvi (Hirsch) Kaufman
with son Bernie
circa 1921
A Manager's Manager
Zvi, aka Hirsch, Hess, and Harry, was born in Zapesochnoe in 1873.
He attended the Volozhin Yeshiva, a prestigous religous school in Volozhin (now Valozhyn, Belarus). A unique characteristic of this Yeshiva was its granting of subsidies to its students.
Zvi attended the Yeshiva from about 1890 to 1893 and received certification as an ordained shochet (slaughterer). He subsequently worked as a shochet in Veledniki, Ukraine and then in the US.
Zvi married Shane Malka “Molly” (born Schectman) who came from Chernakov where she was born in 1876. Together they had 9 children.
Molly came to the US with her oldest four children in June of 1904, 6 months after Zvi arrived in the US.
The picture at left is Zvi and Molly with Bella, their oldest child, at Bella's wedding, in 1911.
House Builder
Per Zvi's son Bernie:
“My father Zvi didn’t like living on the East side of New York with a lot of kids, so around 1911 he went to Long Island and he bought 10 lots in Corona. On one of the lots he built a house for his family, at 35 Granger Street.
Next to the house there was a garden and there were a few fruit trees. And in back he put up a shed for the wagons and a barn for the horses and cow.”
A Mikva Addition
Zvi helped build the Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Corona, which was completed in 1911 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Zvi was responsible for adding on a mikva (a Jewish ritual bath) as part of the synagogue.
Superintendent,
Home of Old Israel
Around 1923, Zvi led the rennovation of a building to house the Home of Old Israel, a Jewish assisted living home on Henry St. in Manhattan. He then became the Superintendent of the facility.
Vice Chairman,
Agudas Achim Anshei America Synagogue
Agudas Achim Anshei America Organizing Committee
Jerusalem ~1933
Zvi is seated in center of the first row.
Zvi played a major role in building the synagogue
which was completed around 1934.
An historic synagogue note states:
“Rabbi Zvi Kaufman initially served only as the vice chairman of Agudas Achim, but practically he was responsible for all the work and he bore that responsibility joyfully and willingly.”
The Agudas Achim Anshei America Synagogue is still operating as a synagogue in 2022.
It is located at 15 Reshit Khokhma St. in Jerusalem.
Moses Kaufman
A Mystery Agreement with Synagogue
Moses was born in Zapesochnoe on the Targonsky Farm in 1880. He came to the US around 1905. He worked as a kosher butcher in Otis, MA and then moved to Corona, New York.
Moses married Rebecca Wineblutte who was born around 1882 in Russia, likely around Petrikov, Belarus. Together they had three children.
In the picture to the right, Rebecca can be seen in Otis MA.
Moses and Rebecca's children were Louis, May and James.
Moses's decendants inherited a letter formalizing an agreement between Moses and the Love of Peace Society Synagogue in Great Barrington. The agreement (see below) states the synagogue agrees to hold an item listed as a "Schuterra", "Schotorra" or a "Schaftorra".
It is a bit of a mystery exactly what was agree to be stored at the synagogue but a likely guess was it was a Sefer Torah - likely a small hand writen bible scroll kept in the Ark of the synogogue.
There is a good chance the mystery item was a torah scroll or "Sefer Torah".
Esther-Beila Lorman
(born Kaufman)
Dutiful Daughter
Esther-Beila was born in 1882 on the Kaufman Farm in Zapesochnoe.
According to a current resident of Zapesochnoe, Esther-Beila (remembered as "Strabolla" Kaufman) was the last child to leave the Kaufman Farm. She likely left to marry Shmuel Lorman and lived in the very small town of Levkovichi, where her son David was born in 1919, where her mother Sarah died in 1923, and where the picture to the right was taken in 1935. It is likely that Esther-Beila was the child that spent the most time taking care of Sarah.
Esther-Beila and Shmuel had 6 children together, 4 girls and 2 boys. The boys, David and Leiser, did not survive WW II. Esther-Beila and Shmuel survived the war by evacuating to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as did the the family of Velvel (Esther-Beila's older brother). Tashkent Reigstration Cards were found for Esther-Beila and Shmuel which also listed their youngest daughter Riva (age 14 at the time).
Esther-Beila, Husband Shmuel Lorman & Family
Standing (L. to R.): Leiser, Lea, and Rokhl
Sitting (L. to R.): David and Bluma
Riva on Shmuel's lap
1927
Levkovichi, Zhytomyr region, Ukarine
Shmuel and Esther-Beila (sitting)
Rokhl (age 21), Riva (age 8), and Leiser (age 17) (standing)
1935
Levkovichi, Zhytomyr region, Ukarine
Shmuel, Riva and Esther-Beila
Sept. 1958
Ovruch, Ukarine
After WWII, Esther-Beila, Shmuel and Riva likely returned to Ovruch, Ukraine. Esther-Beila and Shmuel both died in Ovruch in 1965, where they are both buried.
Yitzhak Kaufman
Another Family Survival
via Evacuation Story
Yitzhak was born in 1885 in Zapesochnoe on the Targonsky Farm, in Belarus. He moved to Buinovichi, Belarus about 50 km from Targonsky. He married Tema Rechansky, who was originally from Yelsk, Belarus.
Together they had 10 children. (One child died in an accident as a young child).
Yitzhak’s daughter Michlya, met some Polish Jews around 1941 who were evacuating Poland and warned her about upcoming problems with the Germans. Michlya convinced her family to evacuate with the younger children (Shloyme, Fagel, Zeda and Chlava, and Michlya) and Dova.
They evacuated to Bashkiria - a republic of Russia located between the Volga and the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe.
Around 1945 they returned to Mazyr and subsequently Yelsk.
Yitzhak’s son, Mark (Meir), moved to Minsk to study around 1933. Around 1937 he married Riva Glicken and then moved to Mogilev.
In 1941 Mark and Riva evacuated to the Ural District and then returned to Mogilev around 1944.
A daughter of Mark moved to St. Petersburg to study engineering in 1955.
Her son subsequently convinced the family to move to Israel. Her son tells the following story:
"I met an officer in the Russian army that spoke Hebrew and Yiddish and I was impressed. I thought, why have I lost my language?
My Grandma Riva asked me to go to the synagogue and donate to the shames to pray on the yahrzeits of her family.
The shames explained that people were making Aliyah to Israel and I decided I wanted to make Aliyah.
I faced a lot of anti-semitism and welcomed the opportunity to move to Israel when immigration opportunities opened up around 1988.
My family agreed to join me and we moved to Israel in 1990."
Aron Kaufman
A Prisoner
in the Russo-Japanese War
In the early 1900s, Russian Jews found themselves at the forefront of conscription and Aron was conscripted to fight in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. He was captured by the Japanese, according to Jacob Kaufman's autobiography.
In 1905, Russia lost the 19-month war and lacked the funding to repatriate troops. Demobilized soldiers, including many Jews who were reluctant to return to their home settlements, decided to settle in Harbin, China. Appearently Aron was one of the demobolized soldiers who settled in Harbin.
By 1908 there were 8,000 Jews in the city, and a central synagogue was built in 1909.
Jacob wrote that his family received letters from Aron in the 1930s and when Aron died he bequeathed his large library to Jacob's father Moisey. However, Moisey decided against taking it, and requested the library be used for the Jewish community of Harbin
Max (Meier) Kaufman
Success,
with the help of Produce
Max was born on the Targonsky Farm in 1894 and came to the US by himself in 1911 at the age of 17. He married Frieda on Feb. 15, 1920.
Frieda Flaster, was born in Queens, New York about 1900. She had 4 brothers (Max, Samuel, Solomon and Isadore and 3 sisters (Pearl, Esther and Ruth).
Max owned and operated a produce business in Los Angeles. He is seen holding a box in the image to the left.
Before moving from New York to Los Angeles with his family in the mid-1940s, Max got his start working with produce at the Washington Market in Manhattan.
The Washington Market was one of the largest market in the US, stretching about a dozen blocks around Washington, Fulton and Vesey Streets in Manhattan.
On the site of what is now One World Trade Center, independent vendors sold fruits, vegetables, livestock and specialty foods of all kinds.
Bernie Remembers his Uncle Max & vegetables
“There’s Max. Well Max worked himself up.
In fact, my father [Zvi] brought the younger one, he brought the younger one over, Max.
And Max went to Washington Market and he started working in wholesale vegetables.
Until he established his own firm and then my brother [Louis] worked for him.
And Max turned out to be a very rich man, also from vegetables.”
Audio clip from: "Conversation with Bernie Kaufman 1978"
