Family Tree Maker's Genealogy Site: Genealogy Report: Descendants of Yacob Schneider

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Descendants of Yacob Schneider

Generation No. 1

1. YACOB¹ SCHNEIDER died 1900 in Lithuania. He married LEIBA. She was born November 1839 in Lithuania, and died Bet. 1900 - 1910 in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Notes for YACOB SCHNEIDER:

I.
the Schneiders were from the shtetl PUSALOTAS, in the Uyezd Panevezys, in the Guberniya Kaunas, Lithuania. Pusalotas is 18 miles NW of Panevezys and Linkuva is 35 miles NW of Panevezys.

II. The word Schneider is from the German "schneiden", meaning to cut.

III. Notes from Jill Dubois, also researching Schneiders from Lithuania, dated 25 January, 2000

POSHELAT (PUSALOTAS) - Panevezys District D2

      Poshelat is near Pumpian (7 miles), Pokroi (10) and Posvol (14).

      In 1847, the Jewish population was 432, in 1897 - 920, about 70% of the general population; in 1913 - 500; in 1921- 210; and in 1939 - about 100.

      The Jews were engaged in crafts and farming. Most emigrated to South Africa. Some went to Palestine. There was a bank for small loans and a Gemach (an interest-free loan association aimed at counteracting the anti-Jewish cooperative movement). At the local Hebrew school, Yiddish was also taught. There was a library next to the school. The youth belonged to various Zionist organizations as well as sports groups.

      From the rabbinate: R. Yehuda-Asher bar Eliaha Ozerman; R. Yakov bar David Kalmas; R. Aaron-Zalman Dat; R. Yosef Pagramansky'; and the last rabbi, R. Zvi Flexman/Plechsman'.

I found this in a book called "Lithuanian Jewish Communities." It's interesting that it notes that most Jews from that village emigrated to South Africa -- clearly your cousin Cecil's family did so.

IV.
PUSALOTAS:
I found the cemetery on the lst trip in June, 1993. It is practically in someone's backyard. I paid to have the cemetery cleaned up. The villager doing the cleaning dug up about 50 gravestones buried next to the cemetery. I saw this in May, 1995.
He said another 50 gravestones are still buried. I gave him additional money to dig those up. I will see these in June. I took many photos and video of the gravestones. Unfortunately, many of them are illegible. Time and the weather have taken their
toll.
On July 1, 1941 between 250 and 300 Jews were living in Pusalotas - about 40% of the population. I have documented proof that all of them were murdered there by Lithuanians. My father's youngest sister, her husband and their three young children were among those murdered. Of course, there will not be any gravestones for them.

source: Howard Margol; e-mail:
hmargol@aol.com

V. From: Ada Holtzman <ada01@netvision.net.il>

If you read my message, you will find an amazing background: a grandfather killed by Goyiim in a small Jewish community Lithuania, nearly a century ago...

* Father: Israel Brog born 1912 in Lithuania in a village "Pushilt" (spelled as pronounced) near the town of Poniewiez (Panevezys), famous of its rabbinical tradition and Yeshivoth near Kovno (Kaunas) in Lithuania.

Israel Brog has been an orphan since 2 years old. He was born in 1910 His father, (Barak's grandfather) Reuven Brog was a rabbi of the small village and a pharmacist as well. He finished his studies in pharmaceutics in Vilna, a rather rare phenomena those times and came back to the village to serve his people.

On the summer of 1911 there was a disastrous fire which destroyed many parts of the village and also the synagogue of the community was burnt down. Reuven Brog traveled to America, to raise and collect money donated by Lensleit from the East Side of N.Y. He came back and hid the money in a secret place in his house, aimed to the restoration of the burnt synagogue.

But rumors spread about this treasure and one day he was attacked in his home by Christian hooligans. This happened on the first day of Sukkot,26 September 1912. Reuven and his wife Frida were murdered on the spot, leaving two sons, one badly wounded, Meir, who still has the scar from the attack - and Israel Brog, Ehud Barak's father.

VI. Subject: Searching Litvak History
From: "H. Elliott Lipschultz" <adoniram@taxhistoryfoundation.org>
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 03:28:16 -0500

      In planning a fall trip to Middlesboro, Ky. and the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, I found an internet site for a Lexington, Ky.
Congregation---Ohavay Zion Synagogue at www.uscj.org/ohio/lexingtonoz/WELCOME.html. They represent that 8-10 foundering families of their synagogue circa 1900 came from Pushelot, Ponevezh District, Lithuania.

      Source: John Cooper's "Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food." Published 1993 by Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, N.J.
Historiographical introduction on the history of Jewish food. 270 pp. Covers from Biblical times. Chapters 8 and 9 on "Everyday, Sabbath and Festival Food of Central and Eastern European Jews" Has anyone used this source?

H. Elliott LIPSCHULTZ
adoniram@taxhistoryfoundation.org

Adoniram ben-Abda halevi's descendants migrated from Babylonia 10th Century C.E.to Siauliai, Kraziai, Lithuania and then in the late 19th Century to Philadelphia, Chicago and in the 20th Century across the United States of America.

Notes for LEIBA:

I. According to the US census of 1900, Leiba Snyder was the mother-in-law of Israel Melmed, living with them at 714 South Randolph Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA. She was a midwife with 0 years experience.

II. This is taken from <http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Pusalotas/Pusalotas.html>:

"The Life and Death of a Shtetl"
(Lithuania )

55°55' / 21°46'

Personal memoir written by Howard Margol

Unpublished work, completed June 1, 2000

This is a personal memoir written by Howard Margol, "The Life and Death of a Shtetl", unpublished work, completed June 1, 2000.

This material is made available by JewishGen, Inc. and the Yizkor Book Project for the purpose of fulfilling our mission of disseminating information about the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities. Persons obtaining this material may not duplicate or create multiple copies except for non-commercial use. In no event may copies of this material be sold or bartered. Rights may be reserved by the copyright holder

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A SHTETL

By Howard Margol (with the help of Willie Mann)

Pushelat (Pusalotas), a small village in the central part of Lithuania, has existed for hundreds of years. It is located about 12 miles Northeast of the fifth largest city in Lithuania, Ponevezh (Panevezys). It is not known in what year the first Jews arrived in Pushelat but according to the 1816 census, Jews were living there at that time. On the 1882 census, 811 Jews are listed as living there. By then, it was more of a shtetl rather than a village. In 1897, 920 inhabitants were Jewish out of a total population of 1,200. After the turn of the century, emigration began to have its effect and the number of Jews living in Pushelat was about 500. In June 1941 when the German army invaded Lithuania, approximately 200 Jews remained in Pushelat. Today, the population of Pushelat (now Pusalotas) is 1,100 and no Jews.

A good friend of mine, Willie Mann of Johannesburg, South Africa was born in Pushelat in 1913 and spent the first fifteen years of his life there. What follows is mainly Willie's story and his remembrance of what life was like in Pushelat.

1 want my grandchildren to know how Zaida managed to live and grow up without a motor car, television, computer, electricity, running water, inside sewerage and even Coca-Cola, for Pushelat had none of these 'musts'. Life was quiet and primitive. News from the outside world reached us via the Kovno daily “Die Yiddishe Shtime” to which three or four families would subscribe jointly. We would wait for it with much anticipation, eager for the “news” which was often days or even weeks old.

There was not a single motor car in the shtetl -and all the traffic to Ponevezh had to go by horse and cart during the summer and by sleigh in winter. During my time there was no railway or bus service. Ponevezh, the fifth largest city in Lithuania, was a great city of learning and commerce. It was famous for its outstanding Yeshiva and the great Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who later transferred the Yeshiva to Israel. When the odd car did pass through Pushelat the children ran after it in great excitement. It had no doctor or hospital, so for minor ailments we used to go to the only chemist, who was a Russian. For serious illnesses we had to travel to Pumpian (Pumpenai), only four miles away, where there was a Feldster - an unqualified doctor - or to Ponevezh where there was a Jewish hospital. In charge of this hospital was the famous Dr. Shachna Mer who was one of the few Jews in Parliament, the Seijm.

When my brother Zorach - a brilliant scholar at the Ponevezh Yiddish Mittel School - was home for the school holidays and for some reason decided to climb the roof of our house and fell down breaking both his legs, my mother began frantically looking for transport. My father and I were in South Africa by then, so after much panic he was rushed to Pumpian. The Feldster was not of any great assistance so my brother was transported by horse and cart to Ponevezh where he spent months at the Jewish Hospital. Gangrene set in and. he suffered a horrible and painful death. My mother was devastated and it took her months to get over this tragedy. When she arrived in South Africa she would not talk about it and would not allow any of us to name a child after him

During our time there were about forty families living in the shtetl and our elders told us that prior to World War I there had been over a hundred families in Pushelat. Mass emigration began, mostly to Amerike, as the Russian Czar, Nicholas II, conscripted Jews into the army, forbade them to live in Russia proper, and generally made life difficult for us. America at the time had an 'open door' policy and anybody who could write a European language could enter the country. Yiddish was considered to be one of these languages.

In 1911, two years before I was born, a major fire occurred in Pushelat. The wooden synagogue was destroyed and 77 Jewish houses sustained damage. Jews from Pushelat, living in America, sent money to rebuild the synagogue. A decision was made to have the Rabbi, Ruvin Brug, hold the money until a new synagogue could be built. Rabbi Brug had graduated from Vilnius University as a pharmacist. The shtetl could not afford a full time Rabbi so Rabbi Brug supported his family by being a pharmacist in Pushelat. Lithuanian burglars found out about the money being held by Rabbi Brug, robbed him, and murdered him and his wife Frida in the process. Their two sons, 4 year old Mejer, and 2 ½ year old Israel, survived. Today, Rabbi Brug's grandson, Ehud Barak, is the Prime Minister of Israel.

The three main streets in the shtetl had no paving, sidewalks, names nor house numbers so post had to be collected at the post office. The postmaster was Mr Beinarawitz, a Lithuanian, and his house was near ours. His son was born blind and he became my constant companion, speaking only Lithuanian. The streets were sandy and passable in summer but in spring when the snow melted it was most unpleasant as blotes developed and it was heavy going for the carts.

As far as 1 can remember there was only one telephone in the whole Jewish community, at Isaac Frank'shouse. Isaac was the Gabai of the shul, a very prominent man, and in case of an emergency he allowed us to use the phone. In my time there was no Rabbi as the community was small and poor. Almost all of the houses were built out of wood, as solid logs were cheap and available, as was labour - no trade unions then. The roofs were made of solid wood but this was not always so. Originally, the houses had thatched roofs but the shtetl learned from bitter experience that the thatch caught on fire very easily. Today, in Pushelat, the roofs are made of tin. There were also a few brick buildings, one of which belonged to our cousin Velvel Witten, a well-known poet. Another belonged to the Gillelovitz family, a house full of girls, so we usually congregated there. The building even had a balcony - the only one in the shtetl.

At the top of the marketplace was the big Catholic Church - the Lithuanians were all Catholics. The church was surrounded by a vast cemetery, which in turn was surrounded by a high stone wall. We were scared of the church but I sneaked in once or twice. The icons, religious pictures and other relics overawed me and it was all so strange. Across from the church lived the priest, Gallech, on a huge estate but he did not worry us too much. Our relations with the Lithuanians were cordial and there were no pogroms in our shtetl during my time.

The main centre of activity was the shul - a solid two-storey brick building which was the heart of the shtetl. This was the new shul that was completed in 1913 after the wooden synagogue burned down. The main hall had two large tiled stoves that were always lit during winter, as it was extremely cold. This hall was only used on Shabbat and Yomtov. For daily prayers we used a small room heated in winter with ready-cut wooden logs - there was always a tall stack of them in the open yard - as Lithuania had no coal mines. Prayers were held three times a day and we boys were expected to davven every day, which we duly did. The shul had no toilets, as there was no running water in the shtetl and no indoor plumbing.

To the left of the shul was a large garden. Next to the garden was the Berman family house and our house was next to it. The shul has many wonderful memories for me. We boys used to climb up to the loft from the woman's section and catch pigeons that had a nest in it. I did it mostly with my best friend, Hilke Koton, who unfortunately died in Johannesburg at an early age. The “shames”used to chase us and it was always great fun getting away.

My Barmitzvah presented no problem and I did not have to practice for it or take lessons, as all of us knew the Torah well. My father was already in South Africa and my mother baked lekech and made kichel and herring. She bought two or three bottles of lemonade (no Coca-Cola in those days!) and everything went off well. No presents were given nor expected.

The shtetl was comprised mainly of Jews except for the municipality - the postmaster, the teachers and the single policeman as the Lithuanians all lived on plots outside the shtetl. Only on Sundays and Christian holidays was it invaded by hundreds of peasants who came to attend church services. They used to leave their horses and wagons in the Jew's yards and each Jewish family had their regular customers. Into our house they came in their Sunday best, went to the “small toilet” in the yard and did the shopping in our grocery room run by my grown sister and myself. Ma was a very enterprising woman and expropriated a quarter of our house for a press and dyeing business. The peasants used to bring their homespun and hand-woven cloths for her to press, which brought in some Lits. Unlike Henry Ford, she used all colours. This was the only one in the shtetl and she was extremely busy. To this day I do not know how the press worked.

We had a large house according to Pushelat standards, with a big kitchen and large oven heated by wood, where Ma baked the daily bread, “kitkes” on Friday, and “cholent” for Shabbat. In the wintertime, some of us would vie for the privilege of sleeping on top of the oven. This was sheer bliss. Next to it was one big bedroom with three beds so the boys had to sleep two to a bed, head and feet at opposite ends. Since we kids did not bathe that often, it was neither very pleasant nor comfortable. The next room, a quarter of the house, a large stove, a big table for us kids to do homework and more beds for our parents, sister and the other boys. We also had a big cellar under the house where we kept potatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables for the winter.

Besides being a large family - seven boys, one girl - we also had Ma' s mother, blind ever since I can remember, very skinny and totally bedridden. She stayed with us all the years I can recall and died only a short time before I left for South Africa. She must have been close to a hundred. Besides all of us we had a girl cousin who was very poor and often slept at our house. She now lives in Israel.

In order to bathe, Ma used to heat up water from our own well on Fridays. (This water was not drinkable). We used to bath one after the other. The communal bath outside the shtetl was only used four or five times a year, before the Yomtovs. Thursdays were for men and Fridays for women. Before Pesach huge pots of boiling water outside the building were used, kashering pots and pans and cutlery tied up with string. There was no Lux or Palmolive soap, only homemade kind.

Jewish weddings were always exciting and festive for the entire shtetl. In 1921, Dinah, one of six daughters of Yossel (Joseph) and Mara Rocha (Schemer) Gillelovitz, was married. One of her brothers was in the Lithuanian Army stationed in Ponevezh. He came to Pushelat for the wedding and brought with him a Lithuanian Army band. I do not remember whether they arrived in a vehicle of some kind or a horse and wagon. I do remember them starting to march down the street in Pushelat, playing very stirring martial music. All of us kids fell in behind the band and marched with them. It was a very exciting time in Pushelat. All of the Jews as well as hundreds of Lithuanians came to watch them march and to listen to the music. It was the only wedding ever held in Pushelat that had a band play music. A year ago, my friend Howard Margol in Atlanta, Georgia sent me a photograph taken at the wedding. Fifty-six people were in the picture including the Army band. There I was, sitting on the ground in the front row.

As the shtetl had no bioscopes or theatres, we made our own entertainment, mostly Yiddish plays. Our cousin Velvel Viten and our sister were main organisers and I well remember the following plays. King Lear, Yankel der Smid and the very popular one, Motke der Ganaf. Velvel roped me in at the age of twelve as the secretary of the jury. It was all in good fun.

There were only four or five in our age group as the others emigrated soon after barmitzvah. There were dozens of girls, so we boys were in great demand. In summer, Friday and Saturday nights were the highlights of the week for us-young boys and girls. We used to go for walks in the moonlight, past the cemetery, past the church for want of anything better to do. I remember those walks, full of innocent fun and much laughter . . . the joys of youth! Also, the girls and we boys walked to the big bridge on the river, halfway to Pumpian and swam there. No bathing costumes were available or necessary as the boys swam on the right side of the bridge and the girls on the left. We had lots of fun. In wintertime, we used to go on sleighs in the street, as there was no motor traffic.

Girls, being in the majority, decided to form a society and Hashomer Hatzair were founded. We used to meet at the bridge with the Pumpian society of the same name, and uniforms were made over weekends. On the cultural side my mother started a library of Yiddish and Hebrew books, which were well used. The men of the shtetl made a living by going to the nearby Derfer to buy chickens, eggs, sheepskins and intestines. They cleaned the intestines, and these were in great demand in Germany for making Vienna sausages. Before Christmas, geese were much sought after, so we used to force-feed them and export them to Germany together with lots of dairy products. Germany was Lithuania's biggest trading partner in dairy products. But the main income was derived from drafts: nearly every household had a father or son in South Africa, or in the United States, who sent money in the form of drafts. These could not be changed in Pushelat as it had no banks so everyone had to go to Ponevezh where there was a Jewish bank (Elizur's). They also had to do shopping there, as Pushelat had no clothing, or shoe shops. In Ponevezh ice cream was a great attraction for us as it was not available in Pushelat.

The year 1925 in our shtetl was memorable for two events. The first one was a family affair - Ma's brother Joseph Witten (Viten) arrived unexpectedly from Jacksonville, Florida, where he had a big department store, to visit his mother and sisters. My mother's sister Soro-lta Berman was our next door neighbour. Uncle Joseph brought us lots of presents of clothing and shoes. To our great surprise and joy, Bobba recognised his voice as soon as he walked in and great was her joy. He stayed with us for two days and donated 50 dollars to the shul, which was a fortune in those days. It was used to repaint the shul in all the colours of the rainbow.

The second event - a national one - was the opening of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A radio with a loudspeaker at full volume was installed in the open marketplace and all the Jews gathered there to enjoy the great historical event. We listened to the speakers, Dr Chaim Weitzman and Sir Herbert Samuel, even if none of us could understand English or even Hebrew.

My mother was quite well off by Pushelater standards. Father sent her a £10 draft every month, and when I got to South Africa I sent her a £4 draft, so with the exchange rate of 50 Lit to the pound she had plenty of money, more than she could spend in Pushelat. She paid no rent, no electricity or water accounts, and no income tax or insurance. There was a small municipal charge. We had a plot on the outskirts of the shtetl where we kept a cow and chickens. We had our own milk, eggs and butter, and grew our own potatoes and other vegetables. Herrings - the main diet - we bought by the barrel; they were cheap, and the Holland herrings, much in demand, were our staple food together with potatoes.

We baked our own bread and kitkes. The only thing we had to buy was meat - veal was very inexpensive - and we only bought red meat on Yomtov from the Kotons, the only kosher butchery. I was so sick of veal that when I arrived in South Africa I would not touch it for years. My mother was therefore safe and secure and did not want to leave Pushelat. It was only my father's pleas, along with mine and my brother Sam's, that made her change her mind. She just managed to arrive in South Africa as she was in one of the last ships to arrive in the country, with Jewish immigrants, before Jews from the Baltic were no longer allowed in.

When I finished at the primary school in Pushelat I begged my mother to let me study further in Ponevezh as I used to get good marks. I enrolled in the Ponevezher Yiddishe Mittel School, which had four classes. We wore very nice uniforms. In summer we used to walk home barefoot. In the winter lifts had to be arranged to and from Ponevezh and Pushelat. We had excellent teachers, notably a Wilkomirer poet Leib Bassman, and I received a very good education. I passed with flying colours and came second in the school.

I was just over sixteen, not knowing what to do in the future, when a registered letter arrived with visas for me to enter South Africa and enough money to pay for a train ticket to Kovno, then the capital city. There were moretrain tickets to Libau, Latvia, where I took a boat, the Baltriger to London. Together with my best friend in Pushelat, Hilel Peisa (Hilke) (Phillip) Koton, we boarded the ship “Garth Castle” and arrived in Cape Town, June 23, 1929, never to return to my Pushelat.

Arriving on the same ship with Willie and Hilke, also from Pushelat, were Jankel Sapira, Boruch Gurvic, Osif Davidzon, and David Zuk.

...

Howard Margol, a native and former resident of Jacksonville, Florida is President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. His father was born and grew up in Pushelat. In the 1920-1930's, thirty Jewish families from Pushalot lived in Jacksonville, Florida.

More About LEIBA:
Immigration: 1899, USA

Children of YACOB SCHNEIDER and LEIBA are:

2.	i.	BESSIE (BOSA RIVA)² SCHNEIDER, b. March 1869, Panevezys, Lithuania; d. August 27, 1950, 14th Elul, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
3.	ii.	MAX CECIL (MOSHE ZISSEL) SCHNEIDER.
	iii.	ANOTHER CHILD SCHNEIDER.

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