Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Catherine II

Catherine II of Russia made the Pale of Settlement the area in which Jews were to live.  This is because Russia caused all Jews to be kicked out of the huge land of Russia due to anti-Semitism.

Catherine I, Empress of Russia, ruled from 1725 to 1727 and in May 1727, expelled all Jews resident in Little Russia.  This order was then countermanded after her death.

Catherine II, The Great Empress of Russia,  ruled from 1762 to 1796 and her Jewish policy was marked by a combination of liberalism and coercion.  Jews were allowed to register in the merchant and urban classes  in 1780, but permission was restricted to White Russia in 1786.

This marked the beginning of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT-which was started  in 1791.   During her last years, which were marked by the reaction from 1789 to 1796, she prevented the extension of Jewish settlement and in 1795, prohibited Jewish residence in rural areas.

The Pale of Settlement consisted of 25 provinces of Czarist Russia in Poland, Lithuania, White Russia (Belorussia) , Ukraine, Bessarabia and Crimea where Jews were permitted residence.
                                                                     

My little Bubba with her daughter, Ann and granddaugher, Harriet

Lithuania, where my grandmother was from, was a Baltic republic.  Jews lived here from 1321.  Karaites lived in Troki in 1398 existed.  by 1495, Jews were living in Vilna, Grodno, and Kovno and they totaled 10,000.  They had a charter by 1529 guaranteeing freedom of movement and employment.  It was in 1495, after the 1492 Spanish Inquisition where the Catholic Church was demanding conversion of the Jews or they were expelled, that they had been excluded from Lithuania, and that lasted till 1502.
                                                                                     

Lazdijai, Lithuania/Poland

Lithuania was a part of Russia from 1795 to 1918 and became a major cultural center, home of important yeshivot and leading rabbis, seat of the Musar movement and a center of Haskalah.
                                                                     

Bubba, her son Maurice and me! 1934-35

Lazdijai/Lazdey, Lithuania was where Zlata was from. She immigrated to the states on May 6, 1903 at age 17.   It was in the SW part of Lithuania.  The city was established in 1570 by King Zigmunt II August.  Until 1795 it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom.  then a 3rd division of Poland was done by 3 superpowers, Russia, Prussia and Austria.  This caused Lithuania to become partly Russian and partly Prussian.  The part of the state that was on the left side of the Nieman River Nemunas, including Lazdey, went to Prussia that ruled there from 1795 to 1807.  Then Lazdey was the county administrative center.  Today, Prussia is in part of Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Denmark.
                                                                       

Zlata's sister, Jennie b: 1881 and my mother, Mildred Goldfoot

From 1807 to 1813, Lazdey belonged to Warsaw and was part of the Bialystok district. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated and all of Lithuania was annexed to Russia.    In 1827 Lazdey had a population of 1,988 people living in 272 houses.  In 1866 it became a part of the Suwalk Gubernia as a country administrative center.  and that's where Zlata Jermulowske lived.  Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania was her birthplace on January 11, 1886.  Zlata didn't get a chance to go to school.  She was the chief baby-sitter for her step sisters and brothers since her mother had died and her father remarried.  It's a shame, too, because by 1887 there were Khadarim and Talmud-Torah schools with 14 teachers or Melamdim, 3 private teachers and 14 Judaaica studying societies.  They also had a system for the poor of distributing money to poor families for a scanty subsistence and bread for the poor.  Many Jews from here left for Palestine before the Zionist movement was even started.                  

Uncle Louis Jermulowske b: 1886 -Cattle Hide Dealer, in Weiser, Idaho

                                                                       

Cattle truck owned by Zlata's son, Maurice who created Silver Falls Meat Packing Co.in Oregon  He also dealt in hides.

 One of the businesses of Lazdey Jews was butcher shops and the Cattle Trade.  Out of the 13 businesses here, 11 were owned by Jews.  This is interesting because Zlata's half-brothers were in this business in Idaho.  Louis/Lewis Jermulowske.  born November 20, 1886 became a hide buyer and dealer and lived in Weiser, Idaho.  Charles Jermulowske b: May 27, 1894 was a hide and wool buyer and dealer also and lived in LaGrande, Oregon. He said he was born in Zurok, Russia, but there never was such a place.  It must have sounded like that, but the closest town to that was Serock- Serotzk in Yiddish and Russian, Poland at 52 o 31'N21o 04E which was 30 km North of Warszawa (Warsaw).
                                                                       
TelsiaiTelz, Lithuania was the home of Nathan Goldfus/foot, Zlata's husband.  Until 1795, Telz was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom.  When the kingdom was divided by the 3 superpowers, Telz fell under Czarist Russian rule.  From 1843 on it was part of the Kovno Province.  The town was damaged during the Polish rebellions of 1831 and 1863.  Famine came to the town from 1869 to 1872.  Nathan was born on August 5, 1972.  In 1870 there were 6,481 residents of which 4,399 were Jews (68%).  By 1897 there were 6,000 residents and 3,088 were Jews (51%).  Nathan had already immigrated June 14, 1893 from Dublin, Ireland  heading for Winnipeg, Canada.   He had originally left Lithuania for England and when he left England, he was 22 years old.  By the time he got to Dublin and married his first wife, he was 23.  It was in 1896 that he left for the USA and was then 24.

  The White Russians or Belorussians had Jews who went there originally from Poland.   Bessarabia was a province, formerly Romanian, now in the Moldavian and Ukrainian Republics.  Jews were resident there when Bessarabia was annexed to Russia in 1812.

To live outside the area, one needed permission and was granted only to certain groups; members of the liberal professions with a high school diploma, big businessmen, skilled artisans, and ex-Cantonists.

The fate of Jews found outside the Pale without permission depended on the arbitrary decision of the local governor.  The borders were changed from time to time, by the oppressive "Statute Concerning the Jews" of 1835.

By May 3, 1882, the MAY LAWS were passed.  Jews were excluded from rural areas inside the Pale. They couldn't live or acquire property outside the Pale.   As a result of these restrictions, Jewish economic development was severely hampered.  The Pale was abolished in effect in August 1915, and legally in March 1917 at the end of WWI.
                                                                         

Zlata when very young, probably taken in Boise, Idaho. Born January 11, 1886.   She immigrated at the age of 17 and landed in New York. My grandmother Hattie"Zlotta" came over from  "Russia"on May 6, 1903 along with her sisters Jenny and Bessie.   Bessie was  21 or 20.  Jenny must have been about 11 years old.  I have not found them in the Ellis Island Port yet.  On the Declaration of Intention paper, she said she came here via Hamburg, Germany on the ship Altverten and landed in New York.   She had black hair and brown eyes and was dark complected.  She was only 64 years old when she died. This was written by a clerk in the circuit court. She was married in November 20, 1905 to Nathan Goldfoot in Council, Idaho, where her sisters Bessie was married to Sam Criss and Jennie was married to Harry Criss and Louis Jermulowske was single and living in Council in 1901 or 1902.  He didn't marry until 1908 and that was in Portland, OR.  She probably lived in Cuprum, Idaho with her sisters, a small mining town close to Council before she married. Six years earlier in 1897, a store was established here.  Then a post office was built in December..  Cuprum means copper.  In 1898 the town went through a boom.  It soon had 3 general stores, 2 hotels, a hospital/drug store, a blacksmith shop, 2 livery stables, a newspaper-The Seven Devils Standard, an assay office, 6 saloons, a wholesale liquor store, post office in one of the stores, a shoe repair and laundry, a barber shop and several eating establishments.  From 1898 to 1900 the population as as high as 1,000.  There were about 21 homes in the town at one time.  It had grown because it had a copper smelter that was built in 1897.  They had 3 operators trying to make the smelter work, but they all failed and the smelter was dismantled.

Poland took over part of Lithuania in 1919-1920.  The towns of Vilnius, Suwalki region, Augustow and Sejny were taken from 1919 to November 1920.  The wife of Nathan Abraham Goldfus/foot was from Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania, but it was close to the western border and was taken by Poland.  My grandmother, Bubbi, always said she was a Litvak.  Happily, she had met her husband, Nathan, in Council, Idaho and he turned out to also be from Lithuania

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_War
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Preserving Our Litvak Heritage, a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin and Joel Alpert, editor.
http://www.kolpack.com/packnet/prussia.html