Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Maurice Goldfoot's Silver Falls Wholesale Meats' And His Father, Nathan's Trek to Portland, Oregon
Nadene Goldfoot
.
On December 23, 1791, Empress Catherine of Russia
issued a decree restricting Jewish habitation to specific areas.
This decree applied to White Russia (Byelorussia), the
Ukraine and other areas taken in the partition. After the Third Partition, the decree was extended to include the newly
acquired territories along the Baltic Sea. Thus was born the
Pale of Settlement, the area where Jews were allowed to live;
an area that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas.
Of the areas then inhabited by Lithuanian Jewry, ethnic
Lithuania and Byelorussia became an integral part of Russia
and the southerm part, around Grodno and Suwalk, became
part of the Duchy of Warsaw (Poland). Although Lithuania
may have been divided, the Jewish Litvak community
remained integrated until World War I.
It has been estimated that, at the time of partition, 25 percent of all the Jews of easterm Europe were Litvak
Labels: Dublin, Ireland, Jews of Portland, Lithuania, Russia, South Africa
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Our Origins and DNA of Jewish History From Lithuania of Male Line of Goldfus/Goldoot
Nadene Goldfoot
American-born violinist and conductor; Born on April 22, 1916 in Manhattan, New York City , United States, Died on March 12, 1999 in Berlin , Germany. Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Lithuanian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist, he was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. Actually, many Jews from Lithuania have this same claim.
18th Century Lithuanian rabbis include Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen that my father connects to, and Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna, (Gaon of Vilna). 19th century had Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim, and we do have Oppenheim on the tree.
Menuhin's sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah.
Jews first came from Ur of the Chaldees in Mesopotamia. Abraham lived there and migrated to Canaan, following the Hyksos and they both ended up in Egypt, living there for 400 years as slaves. They were freed by Moses and taken back to Canaan, which had dramatically changed. Our male line of Y haplogroup is the small group of Qs with ours being exactly QBZ67. Being Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Germany, they also later migrated to Eastern Europe's Lithuania in late 1700.s.
Our paternal grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfoot, came from Telsiai, Lithuania and our grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske came from Lazdijai, Lithuania which was on the border with Poland. In fact, her records wound up in Poland.
"When we first started we were bewildered men of northern European descent most of us with a Jewish heritage who were members of Haplogroup Q. If we paid the extra money and had our SNPs tested we found that in addition to the M242 SNP that put us into Haplogroup Q , we were offshoots of Q3-L275, the oldest known split within Eurasian/American haplogroup Q, most likely occurred in West or Central Asia in the upper paleolithic Period.
During the Mesolithic and Neolithic epochs, Q3 remained a minor component of the West Asian Y chromosome pool and gave rise to 5 branches; Q3a to Q3e. They spread across West, Central and parts of South Asia.
Rebekah Canada is the head of our Q group at FTDNA and has given us much of this information.
Around 3-4 millennia ago (Bronze Age) the Q3a branch underwent a rapid expansion, splitting into 7 branches, some of which entered Europe. One of these branches, Q3a1, was acquired by a population ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews and grew within this population during the 1st millennium reaching up to 5% in present day Ashkenazim.
To the best of our knowledge, only a few studies based on full Y-chromosome sequencing include Y-chromosomes belonging to haplogroup Q and none of them focused specifically on it. This haplogroup is well known because it makes up about 90% of indigenous Native American Y-chromosomes, but is also present in North Eurasia . A rare clade called Q3 has been detected in Y-chromosomal resequencing studies and was found at low frequencies in Iraqis , Iranians , Israelis , Indian Brahmins and Pashtuns . Rare haplogroups can be very informative for tracing human migration routes , and here we concentrate on improving resolution in the Q3-L275 portion of the first Q1’2 versus Q3 bifurcation of haplogroup Q-M242 . We combined the efforts of population geneticists and genetic genealogists to use the potential of full Y-chromosome sequencing for reconstructing haplogroup Q3-L275 phylogeography and suggest possible linkages to events in population history. Other Jews in Lithuania
Recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe. However, Ashkenazim have an elevated frequency of R-M17, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow. In the present study of 495 Y chromosomes of Ashkenazim, 57 (11.5%) were found to belong to R-M17. Detailed analyses of haplotype structure, diversity and geographic distribution suggest a founder effect for this haplogroup, introduced at an early stage into the evolving Ashkenazi community in Europe. R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazim may represent vestiges of the mysterious Khazars.
Resource
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5333174/
Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, pp. 11, 158, 190 (sister, pianist of Yehudi)
Labels: Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, Jews, Lithuania, Nathan Goldfoot, Vilna Gaon, Yehudi Menuhin
Thursday, January 26, 2023
New DNA Discoveries For Goldfoot the Lithuanian Descendant
Nadene Goldfoot
Nadene Goldfoot
David must be a Q3-L275 or (Q3a1) or (Q1b-L275) in his test showing QBZ67; evidently it's all the same. After the Big Y Test showing something like 111 alleles, he was labeled as QBZ67. This new label shows the divide of how geneticists see the Q line of Jews as well, evidently. Before the Big Y test his label was Q Y2200.
This new report is from : "Phylogeography of human Y-chromosome haplogroup Q3-L275 from an academic/citizen science collaboration" by Rebekah Adele Canada.
The Y-chromosome haplogroup Q has three major branches: Q1, Q2, and Q3.
Q1 is found in both Asia and the Americas where it accounts for about 90% of indigenous Native American Y-chromosomes;
Q2 is found in North and Central Asia; but little is known about the third branch,
Q3, also named Q1b-L275. Here, we combined the efforts of .population geneticists and genetic genealogists to use the potential of full Y-chromosome sequencing for reconstructing haplogroup Q3 phylogeography and suggest possible linkages to events in population history.
"We analyzed 47 fully sequenced Y-chromosomes and reconstructed the haplogroup Q3 phylogenetic tree in detail. Haplogroup Q3-L275, derived from the oldest known split within Eurasian/American haplogroup Q, most likely occurred in West or Central Asia in the Upper Paleolithic period. During the Mesolithic and Neolithic epochs, Q3 remained a minor component of the West Asian Y-chromosome pool and gave rise to five branches (Q3a to Q3e), which spread " or
".occurred in West or Central Asia in the Upper Paleolithic period. During the Mesolithic and Neolithic epochs, Q3 remained a minor component of the West Asian Y-chromosome pool and gave rise to five branches (Q3a to Q3e), which spread across West, Central and parts of South Asia.
Around 3–4 millennia ago (Bronze Age), the Q3a branch underwent a rapid expansion, splitting into seven branches, some of which entered Europe.
One of these branches, Q3a1, was acquired by a population ancestral to Ashkenazi Jews and grew within this population during the 1st millennium AD, reaching up to 5% in present day Ashkenazi.
This study dataset was generated by a massive Y-chromosome genotyping effort in the genetic genealogy community, and phylogeographic patterns were revealed by a collaboration of population geneticists and genetic genealogists. This positive experience of collaboration between academic and citizen science provides a model for further joint projects. Merging data and skills of academic and citizen science promises to combine, respectively, quality and quantity, generalization and specialization, and achieve a well-balanced and careful interpretation of the paternal-side history of human populations.
Distribution of Q3-L275 To evaluate the Q3 distribution, we analyzed both academic data from indigenous populations and data from genealogical projects. The frequency distribution map based on academic data (Fig. 2a) reveals that haplogroup Q3-L275 is confined to West Asia and neighboring parts of Central and South Asia – mainly Pakistan, West India, and up to 7% in Iran (see also Table 1). The map based on genealogical project data (Fig. 2b) also reveals the presence of haplogroup Q3-L275 in West Asia and neighboring areas, with a maximum frequency in Pakistan, but also throughout Europe. When data on Ashkenazi Jew genealogical projects are included (see Methods for details), the Q3 frequencies in Europe become almost as high as in West Asia (Additional file 1: Figure S1).
David's grandfather, Nathan Abrahm Goldfus, was from Telsiai, Lithuania. Lithuanian Jews are mostly of :Recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, showed that Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe.
However, Ashkenazim have an elevated frequency of R-M17, the dominant Y chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europeans, suggesting possible gene flow. In the present study of 495 Y chromosomes of Ashkenazim, 57 (11.5%) were found to belong to R-M17.
Detailed analyses of haplotype structure, diversity and geographic distribution suggest a founder effect for this haplogroup, introduced at an early stage into the evolving Ashkenazi community in Europe. R-M17 chromosomes in Ashkenazim may represent vestiges of the mysterious Khazars. Or, this could show it is from old references.
Ashkenazi Jews, who have resided in various European countries during the Diaspora, traditionally trace their origin to the Jewish people that lived in the Holy Land before the Roman exile.
However, some studies claimed that a substantial part of Ashkenazim were descendants of Eastern European non-Jews. In particular, according to Middle Age historians, the Khazars from a small kingdom near the Caspian Sea converted en masse to Judaism and therefore might have contributed to the composition of the emerging Ashkenazi community.
Yet, recent genetic studies, based on Y chromosome polymorphic markers, clearly showed that Ashkenazim are more closely related to other Jewish and Middle Eastern groups than to their host populations in Europe Those findings argue against large-scale male-mediated gene flow into the Ashkenazi community during the Diaspora.
The male admixture proportion of Europeans in Ashkenazi Jews was estimated to be 0.5% per generation, indicating that Ashkenazim remained, to a large extent, genetically isolated throughout their history.
Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant disorder, characterized by markedly elevated plasma concentrations of LDL cholesterol, typically above the 95th percentile for age and sex, caused by mutations in the gene encoding for the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR).
Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant disease caused by mutations in the low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) receptor. Here we characterize an LDL-receptor founder mutation that is associated with a distinct LDL-receptor haplotype and is responsible for FH in 35% of 71 Jewish-Ashkenazi FH families in Israel. Sixty four percent (16/25) of the Ashkenazi patients who carry this mutant allele were of Lithuanian origin. The mutation was not found in 47 non-Ashkenazi FH families. This mutation was prevalent (8/10 FH cases) in the Jewish community in South Africa, which originated mainly from Lithuania. The mutation, a 3-bp in-frame deletion that would result in the elimination of Gly197, has been previously designated FH-Piscataway. PCR amplification of a DNA fragment that includes the mutation in heterozygous individuals results in the formation of a heteroduplex that can be demonstrated by PAGE and used for molecular diagnosis.
People with FH have increased blood levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, sometimes called “bad cholesterol.” Having too much LDL cholesterol in your blood increases your risk for developing coronary artery disease or having a heart attack.
Resource:
https://www.academia.edu/32595370/Phylogeography_of_human_Y_chromosome_haplogroup_Q3_L275_from_an_academic_citizen_science_collaboration
https://www.nature.com/articles/5201319 R-M17
https://www.proquest.com/openview/899bd2e89a5da9defde02fb8dc1db5bd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=44659
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1867200/
Labels: familial hypercholesterolemia, Lithuania, male Gokldfoot line, Rebekah Adele Canada Report
Friday, December 02, 2022
Our Bubba, Zlata Jermulowski/e Who Married Nathan Goldfus/Goldfoot and Her Hometown of Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania
Nadene Goldfoot
Bubba insisted that she was a Litvak. On the map above is Telsiai, Lithuania where the Goldfus/foot came from. Suwalki became Polish territory. Lazdijai is a small town in Lithuania located about seven kilometres 4+1/2 mile east of the border with Poland. All of Bubba's records
have been found in Poland.
Bubba, (Zlata or Hattie) Jermulowske, was born on January 11,
1886 to Joshua and Esther:Descendants of Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie
1 [1] Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie b: 1850 in Lazdzieje, Suwalk Gubernia, Lithuania/Poland, Lazdijai, Suwalki, Russia/Lithuania d: Bet. 1895 - 1950 in Lazdzieje, Suwalk Gubernia, Lithuania Age at death: 45 est.
. +Esther "Essie" Decatsky Decad Frank b: Abt. 1860
in Lazdzieje, Suwalk Gubernia, Lithuania d: Abt. 1886 in
Stellingen, Eimsbüttel, Hamburg, Germany/ Lazdzieje, Suwalk
Gubernia, Lithuania m: Abt. 1876 in prob. Suwalki, Poland Age at death:6 est. m: Abt. 1876 in prob. Suwalki, Poland
*2nd Wife of [1] Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie:
. +Dora Leah "Deborah" b: Abt. 1850 in "Russia" d:
Bet. 1895 - 1950 in Poland/, Russia m: Abt. 1888 in prob.
Suwalki, Poland/Russia Age at death: 45 est. m:
Abt. 1888 in prob. Suwalki, Poland/Russia
I have found a DNA match to Esther, Joshua's 1st wife, and it is Decatsky or Decad.
He turned out to be a friend already through genealogy, fantastic surprise.
Actually, Lazdijai (Lazdey) was parat of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom until 1795,
when a 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers occurred: Russia, Prussia and
Austria. It was then that Lithuania became part Russian and part Prussian. Laszdy
lay on the left side of the Nieman River went to Prussia (ruled from 1795-1807).
Lazdey was the country administrative center.
After 1815,all of Lithuania was annexed to Russia. Lazdey was included in the
Augustowa Province (Gubernia) and in 1866 became part of the Suwalk Gubernia
as an administrative center.
In 1872 was the Great Famine.
The city suffered from many fires. In the summer of 1879, about 200 houses were
ravished by fire and owners were then homeless. In 1888,70 houses burnt down and
a Jewish woman was a victim. 1886 was the birth of our grandmother! The town's
Jews suffered economically, which by 1887 amounted to about 1,500 souls.
Out of Bubba's siblings and half-siblings, she was the only one that could not read or
write. She had been the chief baby-sitter of her growing family.
People of Lazdijai mentioned in References
Altshuler, Eliezer Mordehai; established moving to Israel
Aranzon, Yosef-Mosheh (1805-1875) Rabbi, died in Chicago
Blumental, Hayim-Yehoshua HaCohen, 1853, Rabbi for several years
Decatsky (Decad)
Gershon, son of Moshe d: 1910: cemetery
Ginsburg, Yehudah-Leib, Rabbi
Glikman, Yehudah; money donation, (I had a Dr. Gluckman, is that close enough?)
Hayah, daughter of Rabbi Yudi Rosh HaGalil, d: 1897: cemetery
Kahana, Tsevi-Hirsh, Rabbi (interesting because our 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot,
became close to Rabbi Kahana, who became infamous in Israel.
Meir, Rabbi Avraha;m Tsevi ben,
Reuven, son of Yehudah Frid, d: 1895: cemetery
Yaffe, Avraham-Eiver (1823-1908) Rabbi in Lazdey 1873-74)
Yehuda-Leib Yaffe, b:1842..? Rabbi from 1908 in Lazdey.
Yekhezkel, Rabbi Avraham ben; d: 1798, father- in -law of Yehudah-Leib,
son of the "Gaon" from Vilna (Stanley Goldfoot always thought we were related to the Gaon. )
Zilberman, Simkha; money donation.
Immigration
Our Bubba immigrated May 6, 1903 and wound up in Council, Idaho or near it in
a little mining town.
My grandmother Hattie"Zlotta" came over from "Russia" on May 6, 1903 along with
her sisters Jenny and Bessie. She was 17. 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.
Her name was spelled Zlate Jemulosky on Dad's birth certificate. He was born at
277 Baker St, the residence his parents lived in. His name was Moses Goldfoot.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania%E2%80%93Poland_border
Preserving Our Litvak Heritage, a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin, by JewishGen.inc. (Book) p. 234--
https://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/telsiai/tel034.html: full of rabbis, etc.
Labels: history, immigration, Lithuania, Suwalki, Telsiai, Zlata Jermuilowske
Sunday, November 06, 2022
Life Among Anti-Semitic Lithuania for Nathan Abraham Goldfus/Goldfoot, My Grandfather
Nadene Goldfoot
Today, Lithuania is still showing signs of being anti-Semitic. Our line of Goldfus connected with Grant Gochin of South Africa whose Faive Shrago Gochin married our Tsipora Goldfus in 1857 in Papile, Siauliai, Kuanas, Lithuania. Papile and Telsiai are 51.8 km apart or 32.1 miles. Grant, like me, writes a lot about Lithuania and anti-Semitism. He has also published a book about it. He has been kept from having Lithuanian citizenship due to being Jewish, so he has sued the government.
Amazingly, if you pay enough money, Sephardic Jews who can prove Spanish ancestry, are gaining citizenship in Spain after having the terrible Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Evidently Lithuania can't even go that far.
Interestingly, Grant's profession as financial advisor is the same one that Ian Goldfoot, our found cousin also of South Africa, was in. So Goldfus/foot have been found in Lithuania and I've found relatives in Ukraine as well but no Goldfus/foot there or in Poland. Our Bubbie was very proud of being a Litvak, a person of Lithuania. Sadly for her, she lived on the border and Poland took over Lazdijai where she was from. To her, she was still a Litvak but her records wound up in Poland.
The town of Telsiai is so old that it dates back to the chronicles of a Crusader Order in 1320. In 1495, there were Jews living in Vilna, Grodno and Kovno totaling 10,000. From 1495 up to 1502, Jews were excluded from Lithuania so were expelled. By 1529 they received a charter guaranteeing freedom of movement and employment and soon were monopolizing foreign trade and tax-farming.
Then in 1566 to 1572, the Jewish badge was introduced and Jews were disqualified in courts from giving evidence, always a 2nd class citizen.
Jews entered this town in the 1600s. From 1623 to 1764 the "Va'ad Medinath Lita" was established and the Telz community was a subject of the "Kahal" of the Keidan district. They followed the Kahal or 4 kingdoms. The "four lands" were Greater Poland, Little Poland, Galicia (with Podolia) and Volhynia. The earliest form of the Council was organized in 1514 by Sigismund I the Old and Abraham of Bohemia was put in charge of it.
In 1648 to 1656, 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Chemielnicki massacres next door in Poland and Ukraine. The Khmelnytsky Uprising, also known as the Cossack-Polish War, the Chmielnicki Uprising, the Khmelnytsky massacre or the Khmelnytsky insurrection, was a Cossack rebellion that took place between 1648 and 1657 in the eastern territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukraine. Under the command of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, allied with the Crimean Tatars and local Ukrainian peasantry, fought against Polish domination and Commonwealth forces. The insurgency was accompanied by mass atrocities committed by Cossacks against the civilian population, especially against the Roman Catholic clergy and the Jews. Why the Jews? They're the scapegoats of every situation. This uprising was led by Chmielnicki (Khmelnitsky) Bogdan (1593-1657) the Cossackleader. 744 communities were wiped out. The Ukrainians regarded Chmielnicki as anational hero.
Then in 1758, Telz Jews suffered from "Blood Libels." A 2nd libel happened in 1827. In both cases,, the "accused" were released by the court, but as a result, the Jewish population suffered through a period of fear. They had realized people were anti-Semitic.
In 1825, the nobles asked the Tsar to expel the Jews because they....spread diseases....and threatened to rob and to steal....lies describing the opposite of what the Jews were like. Actually, what was going on was that plots were told by estate owners who saw the Jews as competitors in producing and selling alcohol. From the records I have found, our great grandfather, Movsha Goldfus (1836-1878) was a distiller, a person or company that manufactures liquor."barrels that the master distiller deems to be of superior quality."
His father, Iosel "Josel" Symka ben Yankel Goldfus (1798-1878) was a 3rd guild merchant.
By 1791, Telz was granted the Magdeburg rights of self rule by King Stanislaw-August. Until the 3rd partition of 1795, Telz was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom. This was a time when the 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers of Russia, Prussia and Austria had caused Lithuania to become partly Russian and partly Prussian, sort of like Ukraine is today between Ukraine and Russia.
By 1797, 2,500 people were living in Telz and 1,650 of them were Jews. It was a town where 66% of the people were Jewish.
On January 1, 1800 a municipal council was formed in Telz which included 3 Jewish delegates, but by 1804 the Jews were removed from the municipality at the request of the Christian delegates.
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Telz fell under Czarist Russian rule in 1802 as part of the Vilna Province (Gubernia) as a district administrative center. Alexander I (Russian: 12 December] 1777 – 1 December [O.S. 19 November] 1825) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death.
By 1843 it was part of the Kovno Province.
In 1812, Napoleon's retreating army passed through Telz, leaving their big gun which sat in their park.
In 1831 the town was damaged during the Polish rebellions and damaged again by more rebellions by 1863.
In 1843, there were 25 Jewish artisans in Telz: 14 tailors, 10 shoemakers and 1 watchmaker. Most Jews made their living from commerce, crafts and peddling. There were also artisans from other communities who would wander, coming to Telz. Until WWI, there was a strong organization of Jewish artisans, which helped its members with loans for buying raw materials and tools. There were several who had big businesses of grains and flax and made a good living. There were also several textile merchants who imported merchandise from Germany, one of the being Ya'akov Rabinovitz.
"The Great Yeshivah" was a source of income of many families who supplied living quarters and food for hundreds of its students. It was like being a college town. Many families maintained gardens beside their houses as additional income. In 1875 a group of young rabbis established the Telshe Yeshiva. The success of this yeshiva is related to a famous figure – a rabbi and rosh yeshiva Eliezer Gordon (1841-1910), who became the first Rosh of the yeshiva and adopted the modern methods of teaching: entrance examination system, after which students were divided into separate groups according to their level of knowledge. After his death, the rosh yeshiva became rabbi Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch, who managed to secure the fame and prestige of this yeshiva.
%20Rabbi%20David%20Oppenheim.jpg)
Rabbi David Oppenheim (1664-1736), chief rabbi of Prague, historical capital of Bohemia 1773. Artist: Balzer, Johann (1738-1799)-nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer, born in Worms, Germany. Kept his huge amount of books in Hanover because of censorship in Prague. Notice the movement of this Ashkenazi family of Oppenheim; from Jerusalem in 70 to Rome to Germany to Bohemia and Czech Republic and on up to Lithuania in 1854....
Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim (Hebrew: צבי יעקב אופנהיים; 1854-1926) was Chief Rabbi of Kelm, Lithuania, and one of the founders of the Telz Yeshiva. We have several DNA matches with Oppenheim with 9 Oppenheim and Oppenheimer matching me as 3rd to 5th cousins on FTDNA. Rabbi Oppenheim was born in 1854 in the small village of Yakubowe (now Jokūbavas, Kretinga district, Lithuania). He showed extraordinary talents from his earliest youth and at age nine could already study a page of Talmud with commentaries on his own. He was an orphan, and his relatives sent him to Trishik, where he studied with the local rabbi and teacher, Rabbi Lev Szpiro, a son of Rabbi Leibele Kovner.
From Trishik he traveled to the study group of Rabbi Yosef Rosin, who was then chief rabbi in Telz. He was already famous in Telz as a great scholar and while he was still a very young man, Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv chose him as the head of his modern mussar yeshiva. After several years there, he returned to Telz and taught Talmud to the students in the group in which he himself had once studied.
In 1883, Rabbi Eliezer Gordon relinquished the Kelm rabbinate and after a short period in Slabodka, became the rabbi in Telz. Through Rabbi Gordons's intercession, the twenty-nine-year-old Rabbi Oppenheim became the new Rabbi of Kelm, not to be confused with Chelm which is in Poland.
Rabbi Oppenheim served as the rabbi in Kelm for forty-three years and died on Thursday, February 11 (27 of Shevat), 1926, at 72. He was succeeded as Rabbi of Kelm by his son in law, Rabbi Kalman Beineshovitz.
By 1869, the town suffered a famine that lasted till 1872. This was the time when Nathan was born. The town had a Hebrew newspaper, "HaMagid" from 1872 to 1874 and they published lists of Jews who donated money for hunger victims in other Lithuanian towns.
By 1870, Telz's population was 6,481 which included 4,399 Jews (68% of the population.
In the 1880s, many Jewish families earned their living in Telz while living in the surrounding villages. During the 1880s were persecutions and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and other places, so the self-confidence of Telz Jews was damaged. They had to undergo conscription into the army for a period of 6 years which was reason enough for the young Jewish men to leave Telz and immigrate to America, Argentina and South Africa. Nathan left sometime for America and a cousin wound up in South Africa that we know of. That's how we found Ian Goldfoot of South Africa who had immigrated to Texas. This wave of immigration lasted till WWI. So, the Jewish population of Telz decreased by 2,854 people.
The record of Jews forced into service in Russia and Poland were terrible. Young boys were taken, and Jews were placed on the front lines, ill prepared. They were fodder for the army. Then they had to serve for many many years if they could live that long. From what we see today, they are pulling the same acts with today's Russian civilians who are running away as fast as they can.
In 1893 there was a cholera epidemic that took many victims, mostly the poor Jews because they were living in overcrowded conditions which caused bad hygiene. The local rabbi, Eliezer Gordon, started the establishment of a committee which collected money from the rich in order to supply the sick with medicines, disinfectants and medical help. Around this time, the Telz Jewish hospital was established.
By 1897 the population dropped to 6,000 of which 3,088 were Jews (51%).
After Nathan left, the town was burned down in 1907 that lasted for 2 days. Wooden houses burnt very fast and that's what they were made of. When they rebuilt, they used bricks instead.
Nathan first went to England from Lithuania. From there he moved to Londonderry, Ireland's port and lived in Dublin, Ireland in or with relatives there of Ian's Goldfoot line. Then he took a ship to Quebec, Canada and somehow wound up in Council, Idaho after that. I found he marrying our grandmother in Boise, Idaho with the worst spelling on a marriage certificate--a wonder that I recognized who it was for. The witnesses gave it away.
Telz Jews suffered both from the rebels and from the Cossacks. Monish "Menashe" Lukniker, Jewish, was accused of helping the rebels and was hanged by the Russian rulers.
When the Telz authorities started to arm the population and to enlist men to fight the rebels, local Jews suggested to the authorities that they should not 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 steel, leather, gunowder, etc and so the authorities agreed to that and they all signed a document.
Our grandfather, who would have called himself our Zaida, died on July 19, 1912 at about the age of 38-41. He was given a horse and wagon to earn a living by a Jewish Aid group. Jews had been steered away from New York as they already had many Jews there, and he wound up in Council, Idaho-a little mining town in the mountains where he had met the only other available Jewish woman, our grandmother or Bubbie, Zlata "Hattie" Jermulowski/e (1886-1950). She was there with her siblings and had been born in Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania. What a break for my grandfather ! They spoke the same kind of Yiddish and neither were literate in English. They married and had their 1st son, Charles Goldfoot b: 1906. Then the 3 moved to Portland, Oregon where there were Jews and synagogues.
I'm sure that he was afraid of that horse, and had never used a horse before in Lithuania. I know because my mother's father was also in the same business but had a team of 4 horses and a larger wagon and had met Nathan. He was a farmer who had raised horses and was very very familiar with them. His father, Abiathar Smith Robinson, had been from Vermont, then moved to Illinois and he was a newcomer also to Portland. They had had horses and cattle.
Dad's brother Charles born 1906 and Dad in 1908
My father was then born in Portland in 1908. He was 4 years old when Nathan was killed accidently while riding in his horse and wagon because the horse was spooked by a sound, maybe a honk, and Nathan was thrown out, hit his head, and never woke up. All this happened on a Friday. His wife, pregnant with my Aunt Anne, was frantic, knowing something horrible had happened. Not to come home on a Friday afternoon? By Evening? Shabbat was ready to start. It's a wonder she didn't miscarry. Anne was born on November 11, 1912. Zlata was left with Charles 6, Moshe 4, Elsie 1, and a baby, Anne, due within almost 4 more months. She had lost their 3rd son, Abraham, when he was an infant of 5 months from crib death, no doubt being he was sleeping with his parents in their feather bed. He died January 25, 2010. This was in the days when the USA had nothing to offer to help Zlata. She was on her own with a brother, Louie Jermulowske an his wife, Dinah in Portland with her living within walking distance in South Portland.
What our ancestors have gone through makes me realize how lucky I am to have been born.
Resource;
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Book: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin, jewishgen.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Four_Landshttps:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvi_Yaakov_Oppenheim
facts about Israel from Israel ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
Labels: anti-Semitism, Goldfus, immigrant, Lithuania, Nathan Abraham Goldfoot, Oregon, Portland, Telsiai-Tenz
