Goldfoot Genealogy

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST The Ottoman Empire lived for 400 years. It was a state and caliphate that controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. The Turks of the Ottoman Empire teamed up with Germany and lost the 1st WORLD War (1914-1918), losing all this land to the Western forces, the Allies. The Middle East and Eastern Europe went to the United Kingdom, France, Italy and USA.  The Axis were the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Germany.

Did we know this history?  Polish–Ottoman War (1672–1676) was a conflict between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, as a precursor of the Great Turkish War. It ended in 1676 with the Treaty of Żurawno and the Commonwealth ceding control of most of its Ukraine territories to the Empire. Ottoman forces, numbering 80,000 men and led by Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed and Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV, invaded Polish Ukraine in August 1672. 

So the lands occupied by Jews were invaded by the Muslims of eastern Europe.  Russia would later keep Jews out of Russia proper; allowing them to live in the Pale of Settlement.   The Pale of Settlement was a western region of Imperial Russia with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. This was under the decree of Catherine the Great. 
                                                            

                                                                 

Lazdijai, Lithuania was the birthplace of my paternal grandmother, Zlata Hattie Jermulowske b: January 11, 1886 when it was on the border between Poland and  Lithuania, at that time a part of Lithuania, she said.  Zlata immigrated to the states in 1900 at about age 14.  She came  speaking only Yiddish and had had no education.  She ended up in Council, Idaho, a mining town in the mountains of Idaho where her half-sisters and brothers had found a spot for them.  Zlata worked in a nearby mining town of Cuprum, serving food and washing dishes.  She married at 19 to  34 yr old Nathan Abraham Goldfus.  


Lithuania was established by Sigismund II Augustus in 1570 and granted Magdeburg Rights by Sigismund III Vasa in 1587.

Lithuania was mostly in the Russian side (purple). 

Large numbers of Lithuanians had emigrated to the United States in 1867–1868 after a famine in Lithuania. Between 1868 and 1914, approximately 635,000 people, almost 20 percent of the population, left Lithuania. Lithuanian cities and towns were growing under the Russian rule, but the country remained underdeveloped by the European standards and job opportunities were limited; many Lithuanians left also for the industrial centers of the Russian Empire, such as Riga and Saint Petersburg. Many of Lithuania's cities were dominated by non-Lithuanian-speaking Jews and Poles.

Partitions of Poland, (1772, 1793, 1795), three territorial divisions of Poland, perpetrated by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, by which Poland’s size was progressively reduced until, after the final partition, the state of Poland ceased to exist.

Lazdijai (Lazdey) in Yiddish is located in the SW part of Lithuania with several big lakes nearby at the junction of roads leading to Mariamol and Alite and was established in 1570 by King Zigmunt.  It was part of the Polish Lithuanian kingdom up to 1795; then became part Russian and part Prussian.  From 1807-1813 it belonged to the Great Dukedom of WArsaw and was part of the Bialystok district.  In 1827 the population was 1988 living in 272 houses.  By 1887 about 1500 Jews had been affected by fires.  

Jews lived in Lazdijai by end of 16th century (since late 1500s.)  In 1879 200 houses were destroyed by fire and owners became homeless.  In 1886 another fire consumed  250 Jewish houses;  in 1888 another 70 houses.  

Those territorial divisions were altered in 1807, when the emperor Napoleon of France created the duchy of Warsaw out of the central provinces of Prussian Poland, and in 1815, when the Congress of Vienna created the Congress Kingdom of Poland. However, the main result of the partitions—i.e., the elimination of the sovereign state of Poland—was in effect until after World War I, when the Polish republic was finally restored (November 11, 1918).
                                                                   

Where  is Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania/Poland?  Lazdijai (pronunciation (help·info) Polish: Łoździeje) is a small town in Lithuania located about 7 km (4.3 mi) east of the border with Poland.  



The last and most tenacious of the Polish uprisings of the mid-19th century erupted in the Russian-occupied sector in January 1863 (see January Uprising). Following Russia's disastrous defeat in the Crimean War, the government of Tsar Alexander II enacted a series of liberal reforms, including liberation of the serfs throughout the empire. The high-handed imposition of land reforms in Poland aroused hostility among the conservative landed nobility on the one hand, and a group of young radical intellectuals influenced by Karl Marx and the Russian liberal Alexander Herzen, on the other.

 Repeating the pattern of 1830–31, the open revolt of the January Insurrection by Congress Poland failed to win foreign backing. Although its socially progressive program could not mobilize the peasants, the rebellion persisted stubbornly for fifteen months. 

After finally crushing the insurgency in August 1864, Russia abolished the Congress Poland altogether and revoked the separate status of the Polish lands, incorporating them directly as the Western Region of the Russian Empire. The region was placed under the dictatorial rule of Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky, who became known as the Hangman of Vilnius. All Polish citizens were assimilated into the empire. When Russia officially emancipated the Polish serfs in early 1864, an act that constituted the most important event in history of nineteenth-century Poland, it removed a major rallying point from the agenda of potential Polish revolutionaries.

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

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                           

Freddy Krupa of Croatia and head of the Siberian Dragon Ass, . has a great map of the Huns expanding from Mongolia which I just copied for this article.  Our Q's came out of parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and possibly southern Suadi Arabia 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.  He just found that "DEEPAK CHOPRA (Chopra Clan/Gotra from Central Asia) turned out to be Q1b-L275."
                                                                                

This map shows a route our line could have taken, but it misses going into the Mediterranean Sea where our Q has been found.   Q-L245 was found from the modern locations of the Ancient city of Ur down to the tip of Saudi Arabia and Oman.  This covers the places where ancient Israel, Judah and Sumaria were located.  (from Rebecca Canada). It has now been upgraded to be called Q-BZ67.  

Going back to my own article written in 2012 on May 28th, "We go back 5,000 years for Q-M378 which includes Q-L245.  There are some Q-M378 in the Middle East who are not Q-L245, however.  This is why our leaders think that Q-L245 was born in the Middle East now.  The age of Q-L245 needs work.  Right now, they know that there are at least two branches."  

On one of my articles on L-245, a comment left was, "By the way did you know Robert Oppenheimer(Manhattan project) was Q1b?"  

Q-L245 as well as Q-M378  has been found throughout Iran. For that matter, it has been found throughout all of the ancient Babylonian and then Persian Empire lands.  As long as you are willing to believe that the Babylonian captivity happened and was not an invented story, it makes the presence of Q-L245 in the Jewish populations simple to explain.  from RC.   Then I can only believe that it's possible our family line was a part of the Jews living in Persia during the days of Queen Esther, subject of our Purim history.    Backing up in time to Babylonian attack of 597 and 586 BCE on Judah, the Jews captured were taken to Persia as well as to Babylonia which would be around Iran and Iraq.  Strange, the 2 countries had a great war between them in from September 1980 (when I moved to Israel)  that lasted till August 1988.  

 There are plenty of Q-M378 and Q-L245, Q-BZ67 men in Turkey too. 

As for the Huns and when they entered the scene of our DNA, The Huns were a nomadic people or peoples, who are known to have lived in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia between the 1st century CE and the 7th century which means 100 BCE to 600 CE. They were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns' arrival is associated with the migration westward of a Scythian people, the Alans.  They were first mentioned as Hunnoi by Tacitus. In 91 CE, the Huns were said to be living near the Caspian Sea and by about 150 CE had migrated southeast into the Caucasus.   By 370 CE, the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe.  

Now, the Khazars, who lived in what is now southern Russia, had established their own kingdom there and were predominantly Turkic and probably originated in the steppes of central Asia or perhaps in the Ural or Caucasus mountains.  Their details of origin are still somewhat obscure.  The early 9th century Greek historian, Theophanes, wrote that the Khazars were "eastern Turks."  An Arab chronicler, al-Masudi, wrote that the Khazars are a tribe of the Turks.  A Chinese chronicle also said that Khazars "belong to the tock of the Turks."  A 12th century Rabbi Yehudah ben Barzillai of Barcelona said that the Khazars , who are Turks,'...A 13th century Polish writer, martinus Oppaviensis, called the Khazars Turks.  

Most nomadic Turks and Khazars were racially and ethnically mixed.  The Turks had people with black hair and dark brown eyes as well as red-haired people with green or hazel eyes and fair-haired people (blondes) with blue eyes.  Some had high cheek bones, wide faces and narrow eyes like people of east Asia.  Many looked like Europeans or Middle Easterners.  Turk is not a racial term but applied to cover many different nomadic tribes who shared a common language and culture.  Modern Turks carry these differences.  

The Khazars bumped into the Huns.  The Hunnic empire (Huns) started in the middle of Asia in the 3rd century BCE.  They moved into southern Russia and Crimea by  380 CE.  They controlled parts of the steppe lands during the 6th century including the Crimea.  Some went into Romania.  

By 555, the Khazars were listed among the nomadic tribes living in tents north of the Caucasus Mountains.  The Western Turks ruled the Khazars for over 60 years.  Khazaria was established as an independent state in the 630s and 640s. by Tong Yabghu's son.  It was always multiethnic and mulitireligious throughout its entire existence.  In the 7th century, the Khazars assimilated with other tribes and formed the Khaazarians.  The Sabirs intermarried with a large part of both the Khazar and Magyar (Hungary)  tribes.  The Khazars became the dominant power in southern Russia.  They displaced the Bulgars (mixed ones).  

In the 720, the Khazars moved their capital to Samandar after the Arabs invaded their territory.  Sometime between 730 and 750, Atil became the 3rd and final capital of the Khazar Empire. There were Muslim merchants living there. 

 Atil of 740, the capital had the kagan (king) , the bek, members of the army, 4,000 attendants and "pure-bred Khazars" living in it.   

We know the story of Khazaria and how the Kagan chose Judaism over Christianity and Islam for his own religion.  His famiiy also went along with his choice.  Being such a diverse land, others could choose as they saw fit.  It was quite democratic.  Khazaria had also become a place of refuge, like an actual city of refuge found in Israel.  Jews came here who found it unbearable under the government of other states for Jews who suffered from so much anti-Semitism.  Islam had become very demanding for converts after Muhammad had died in 632 so this, plus the Christians after Constantine's rulings expecting all to convert, was too much.  

Kiev in Ukraine, the magnificent "Mother of Russian Cities" had Khazaranians and Magyars living in it before Russia gobbled it up.  It is on the banks of the Dnieper/Dnipro River.  When in Russian hands in the days of Catherine II  in 1791 was the ruler, it became one of the states of the Pale of Settlement that also included Latvia, Poland, and Belarus where Jews  starting in 1795 under Russian government were allowed to live since Catherine didn't allow them to live in Russia.  As it turned out, the less observant Jews tended to live here with the more orthodox living in Lithuania which was a center of Jewish learning.  

Update origins: 12/9/2015 Resource: Alfred "Freddy" Krupa 
The Jews of Khazaria 2nd edition by Kevin Alan Brook
Abraham's Children by Jon Entine
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

                                                        14th Century Lithuania
Jews had lived in Poland since the 9th century and came either from Germany and Bohemia or southward from Kiev and the Byzantine empire.  They may have come from both, for that matter.  "By the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia.."  "Between 1569 and 1795 Poland and Lithuania formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which incorporated much of what is now Ukraine.^[1] Before 1918 both countries were part of the Russian empire and until 1991 part of the USSR."  We've been receiving many DNA matches from people with roots in Ukraine.  

Jews had settled in Lithuania by 1321.  In 1398, a community mostly made up of Karaites, Jews who rejected the Oral Law,  existed in Troki and in 1495, Jews were living in Vilna, Grodno, and Kovno, which totaled 10,000.  They were given a charter in 1529 guaranteeing freedom of movement and employment and soon monopolized foreign trade and tax-farming.  In 1495, 3 years after the the Spanish Inquisition, to 1502, they were expelled from Lithuania.  In 1566 till 1572, Jews had to wear a Jewish badge. Jews were also disqualified from giving evidence in courts.

In 1791 Catherine II decreed that Lithuania was one of 25 provinces of Czarist Russia where Jews were permitted permanent residence.  This was called the Pale of Settlement.  Jews were restricted to stay within the borders of the pale.  It was in reality a ghetto.  This severely hampered the Jewish economic developement.  By 1795 to 1918, Jews found that they were not only a part of the Russian Empire, but were a major Jewish important cultural  group.  Those in Lithuania established a distinguished yeshivot with leading rabbis of the age.  It was the center of Haskalah.

c1900 Telshi, Kovno, Russian Empire- c1930 Telsiai, Lithuania- c1950 Telsiai, Soviet Union

Telz was one of the oldest towns  and is in the NW part of Lithuania on the shores of Lake Mastis and was mentioned in the chronicles of a Crusader Order in 1320.  During the 2nd half of the 15th century a royal estate was established there.  .Merchants and artisans began to settle around it.  The Swedes invaded in 1710 and the town suffered.  2/3 of its population died from epidemics at that time.  By the mid 1700's a court was established in Telz which helped the town to develop and grow.
                                                                       
Until 1795 Telz was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom just like Lazdijai.  Telz fell under Czarist Russian rule from 1802 as part of the Vilna Province or Gubernia as a district administrative center and then from 1843 as part of the Kovno Province.  The 1812 Napoleon retreating army passed right through Telz and left behind desolation and a big gun which can still be seen in the town park.  The town was damaged during the Polish rebellions of 1831 and 1863.
     
Nathan came from Telsiai, Telsiai, Kovno, in Yiddish Telzh, which was 242 km NW of Vilnius and lay 55 degrees 59 ' N and 22 degrees 15' E.  His family went back to 1730 in this city.

Though they were not far apart from each other, they met in Council, Idaho after immigrating from Lithuania in sometime before 1905 when they married there.

Apparently Jews settled in Telz at the beginning of the 17th century.  The Telz community was a subject of the Kahal of the Keidan district.  A municipal council was established in Telz on January 1, 1800 which included 3 Jewish delegates.  In 1804 the Jews were removed from the municipality at the request of the Christian delegates.  2,500 people lived in Telz in 1797 of which 1,650 were Jews or 66%.

Telz Jews suffered from the Blood Libels.  One was in 1758 and the 2nd was in 1827.  Both times the accused Jews were released by the court, but as a result the Jewish population suffered through a period of fear.  there were also plots by estate owners who saw the Jews as competitors in producing and selling alcohol, and so in 1825 the nobles asked the Tsar to expel the Jews because they spread diseases and threaten to rob and to steal.

During the Polish rebellion of 1831 Telz Jews suffered both from the rebels and from the Cossacks.  Menashe Lukniker, a Jew, was accused of helping the rebels and was hung by the Russian rulers.  The authorities in Telz started to arm the population and to enlist men to fight the rebels.  Local Jews said that they shouldn't be forced into the army as they had no weapons and didn't know how to use them anyway.  Instead they offered to supply the army with steel, leather, gunpowder, etc and the authorities agreed and they both signed a document about it.

Even so, in 1859 a school was established in Telz and its first teacher were Avraham Simkha Mapu and Meir Shapira.  During the 1880s a Jewish-Russian school for boys and 2 classes for girls were established by the poet, Yehudah-Leib Gordon.  The orthodox declared war against this school and its headmaster, who answered with his witty writing, but after 7 years from 1865 to 1872 in Telz, he left.  In 1866 a school for girls was opened.  They were partly financed by the government.  In 1879 Jewish women established a vocational school for girls and nearby a boarding school for girls from poor homes.  The head of the founding committee was a rich woman named Feige Lurie who donated the money for maintenance of this place.  Poor children studied at Talmud-Torah schools and others of a Kheder type where they learned reading, writing, bible with "Rashi" commentaries and "Gemara" (Talmud).

By 1870 Telz had 6,481 people including 4,399 Jews which was 68% and in 1897 there were 6,000 people and of them 3,088 were Jews which dropped down to 51% or over half the population of the town.

There was a famine throughout Lithuania from 1869 to 1872.  My grandfather Nathan was born in 1871.  There was an assistance committee for Telz Jews with the following members: Dr. Mapu, Yehudah-Leib Gordon, the merchants Leib Kantsel, who was Gordon's father in law, and Berman.  Later on, Izik Rabinovitz and his wife, Idel Gordon, Meir Atlas, Yehoshua-Heshl Margalioth, Yitshak Elyshev, Hayim Rabinovitz and his son in law Broide, Rabbiner Khazanovitz, Yeshaya Bai, Shabtai Raseinsky, Aharon Neimark, Gershon Meirovitz were also active.  Other lists were of Telz Jews who donated money for hunger victims in other Lithuanina towns.

There were persecutions and pogroms against Jews in the 1880's in Ukraine and other places which took away the self confidence of Telz Jews.  Besides these problems,  they had to contend with  the young Jewish men were conscripted into the army for a length of 6 years, so many left Telz and immigrated to America, Argentina and South Africa, my grandfather and his cousins  among them.  This wave of immigration lasted until WWI.  From 1870 to 1923 the Jewish population of Telz decreased by 2,854 people.

The cholera epidemic of 1893 took many victims, especially among poor Jews who lived in overcrowded conditions and had bad hygienic conditions, which I'm surprised at.  The local rabbi, Eliezer Gordon, started a committee which collected money from the rich to supply the sick with medicines, disinfectants and medical help.  Around this time the Telz Jewish  Hospital was establish.

Local Jews made their living from commerce, crafts and peddling, which was what my grandfather did when he came to Idaho and Oregon.  In 1841 there were 25 Jewish artisans, 14 tailors, 10 shoemakers and one watchmaker not counting wandering artisans.  Among the Jewish merchants there were several who had big businesses of grains and flax and made a good living of which grandfather's cousin was a part of.  there were also several textile merchants who imported merchandise from Germany, one being Ya'akov Rabinovitz.

The Great Yeshivah was a source of income for many families who supplied living quarters and food for hundreds of its students.  Many families maintained gardens beside their houses as additional income.  In the 1880's many Jewish families earned their living while residing in surrounding villages.

The Telz Jews, the small shop owners, artisans, peddlers, coachmen and the carriers found economic conditions difficult.  There were also poor people who subsisted on welfare support and some who collected alms by going form house to house.

Telz had 4 synagogues of which were the great  Beth Midrash, one of the tailors, the butchers and of the soldiers, where Jewish soldiers would swear the oath of allegiance to the Tsar.  The Telz Yeshivah was established in 1880 by 3 young men; Avreikhim-Yitshak Ya'akov Openheim, Meir Atlas, Zalman Abel and with the help of a German Jew, Ovadyah Lakhmana from Berlin, which developed and prospered.   Rabbi Eliezer Gordon was nominated as its head in 1884 and it became the main institution of orthodox education.

 At the end of the 19th century, it had about 400 students and was counted as one of the greatest in the world.  Next to it there was a preparatory class called the Yeshivah Ketanah for boys aged 10 to 16.  Among the graduates of this Yeshivah were rabbis and spiritual leaders of great Jewish communities in the Diaspora and in Israel such as Rabbi Professor Simchah Asaf, Rabbi Yekhezkel Abramsky, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur, Avraham Hartsfeld, M. Bar-Ilan and others.

Jews left from Telz in the mid 1860s  and immigrated to Eretz-Yisral (then called Palestine).  The following are buried there: Hanah, wife of Izik d: 1862; Leib, son of Ya'akov d: 1863; Izik Nagar d; 1866; Ya'akov, son of Benjamin-Ze'ev d: 1868; Eta-Gishe, wife of Mosheh-Yehoshua, son of Yekhiel d: 1876; Zlata, daughter of Mosheh d: 1890; Sheina, daughter of Ya'akov Mendilsh d 1891; Avigdor, son of Rabbi Avraham;  Avraham-Yitshak Epelman, born in Telz, came to Eretz-Yisrael in 1883, lived in Jerusalem and made his living from bookbinding.

Later in the first census performed in 1923  in Lithuania  showed that Telzh had 1,545 Jewish people which made up 33% of the total population.  Lazdey had 1,141 Jewish people making up 48% of the total population.  There were none left by 1945 due to the emigration and finally the Holocaust.  In Telzh, there were 70 Jews left in 1970 and 23 by 1989.

A monument in the park says, "In this place the Hitler murderers and their local helpers in July-August 1941 murdered about 8,000 Jews; men women and children."

 c 1900 Lozdzieje, Sejny, Suwalki, Russian Empire-c1930 Lazdijai, Seinai, Lithuania-c: 1950 Lazdijai, Soviet Union

Lazdey is in the SW part of Lithuania and has several big lakes nearby. Lazdijai is 127 km WSW of Vilnius, Lithuania and lay  54 degrees 13 ' N and 23 degrees 31' E.  This is where Nathan Goldfus's wife, Zlata Jermulowske  came from.   It was established in 1570. Until 1795 it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom which was the 3rd division of Poland by 3 superpowers; Russia, Prussia and Austria.  The result was it was partly Russian and partly Prussian.  Lazdey was handed over to Prussia which ruled during 1795 to 1807 when it was a county administrative center.  Then Napolean defeated Prussia and still the Jews had no civil rights.  From 1807 to 1813 it belonged to Warsaw and was part of the Bialystok district. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated and all of Lithuania was annexed to Russia.  By 1827 Lazdey had 1,988 people living in 272 houses.   In 1866 it was part of the Suwalk Gubernia as a country administrative center.

Lazdey was surrounded by Jewish farms and farmers till WWI.  Many Jewish families also had vegetable gardens behind their houses.  In 1872 during the great famine in parts of Lithuania, local Jews donated money for the starving.  The collectors were Yehudah Glikman and Meir Simkha Zilberman.

Individual Lazdey Jews also left for Eretz Yisrael before the emergence of the Khibath Zion movement, like Telz Jews.  In the cemetery in Jerusalem there are 3 tombstones; Gershon, son of Moshe d: 1910; Reuven son of Yehudah Frid d; 1895; and Hayah, daughter of Rabbi Yudl Rosh ha Galil d: 1897.  A rabbi in Lazdey was Yehudah-Leib, son of the "Gaon" from Vilna, known to us as the Vilna Gaon (Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman 1720-1797) . The Mitnaggedim regarded him as their spiritual leader.   

Reference: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania
http://www.jewishgen.org

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      
 The Y-DNA Q Project is likely the largest collection of Worldwide Q samples around.  We have about 685 Q samples so far.  Our Goldfoot haplogroup for Ydna is Q1b1a.  My paternal grandfather, Nathan Goldfus, anglized to Goldfoot, was from Telsiai, Lithuania.

We are still working on finding our roots.  Q1b1a is a Jewish haplogroup that makes up only 5% of the Jewish male population.  The countries where 27 people match up with us in a subgroup with  our allele #395 =15-19 are from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia.  These countries were all a part of the Pale of Settlement that belonged to Russia for several hundred years.  Also included in the 27 was someone from Hungary and another from Estonia which were outside the Pale.

The study of this end of genetics is called Population Genetics.  One should have a good historic background to help match the possible history of the genes.  It makes history all the more interesting when you're tracing these bits and pieces on our 23 chromosomes.

Testing is very easy today.  Blood is not a part of it.  One only has to scrub the insides of his cheeks with a swab that comes in a kit and send it back.  The scientists do all the work.  It helps to already have an interest in  your family history and have a genealogy tree made first.  They like to know who your oldest ancestor was from both your mother's side and your father's side, what year they were born and where they were born.  If you  don't know, that's okay, too.  You'll find out more about that with the results of your test.

 Resource:  http://www.familytreedna.com/public/ydna_q/default.aspx?section=yresults

First Jews were locked up inside the ghettos in Italy. That's where the term came from. They were actually locked in at night. This happened in Venice from the 16th to 18th century. 


Then Jews were confined in the Pale of Settlement. They were not allowed in Russia proper unless they were special and had a special pass allowing them to do so. When I first received a tree of the Goldfoot clan, it showed that one had a special permit to sell corn in Russia. That was very special.


"In 1772 and 1793, parts of Poland were ceded to Prussia, Austria and Russia.  In 1795 the final partition of Poland ceded the balance of Poland to these 3 countries, and Poland ceased to exist as an independent country until 1918.  In the part ceded to Russia, Jews were permitted to live only in the area just acquired.  This area became known as the Pale of Settlement. " Avotaynu. 

"The "Pale" was created in Czarist Russia in 1835 and lasted till the 1917 revolution. This area covered 386,100 square miles from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. The 1897 census recorded 4,899,300 Jews, which formed 94 percent of the total Jewish population of Russia. Most Jews lived in shtetlach (plural of shtetl, "small town").Nathan Goldfoot, born in 1871, and Hattie Jermulowske, born in 1886, were no doubt included in the 1897 census figures though I haven't found her as yet.  I just found Nathan a week or so ago on http://jewishgen.org/.
Visit the Pale of Settlement website for a map and more information.  I just received a catalog from Avotaynu with the Pale of Settlement on the cover.  Telsiai is on the northwest side of Kovno which is very far north.  That's where Nathan Goldfoot came from.  Suwalki landed in the Kingdom of Poland and was just below Kovno.  It was also very close to vilna, which was in the Pale.  Suwalki had once been a part of Lithuania.  This is where Hattie was from.  They could have been neighbors. 

The pogroms and anti-Jewish decrees, especially those during the 1880's to 1906, resulted in major Jewish immigration to Western Europe and the United States. The door slammed shut for Jewish Eastern European U.S. immigration in 1921 Passage, by Congress, of exclusionary laws in the 1920's - The Quota Act of 1921 reduced Jewish (and all other ethnic groups) immigration to 3% of 1910 numbers; and the Reed-Johnson Immigration Act of 1924 further reduced immigration to 2% which effectively ended most Jewish immigration until 1965.  For more information about the history of Jewish life in the Pale and why many left spend, visit the informative and extensive Beyond the Pale, The History of Jews in Russia website exhibit.

Bryan’s research found that many Jews migrated to South America in the 1400s after being expelled from Spain and Portugal. They spoke the language, etc. During the 1700-1900s, if you had the money, you went where you could... eventually you get tired of getting beaten or having your neighborhood set on fire... and there were established Jewish communities in South America and the Caribbean (specifically, Jamaica -- first temple built in the early 1600s) Common Spanish-Jewish names... Perez, Ramirez... Portuguese... Cardoso (as in Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo 1932-1938). " Ronald Miller

"In the Russian Pale of Settlement, Jews were required to take surnames at various times in different countries, having previously been known as by given name and father's given name. Czar Alexander I unsuccessfully mandated that Jews adopt surnames in 1804. However, it was not until 1836 that all Russian Jews had surnames. By 1844, they were compelled to enter their names in a public register. Surnames were chosen according to various schemes: profession, town of birth, physical appearance or purely ornamental. It is generally accepted that those with Spira or Shapiro type names originated from Speyer in Germany, which welcomed Jews in the 11th century at the behest of Rudiger, Bishop of Speyer. As an example, source documents from this period make reference to Reb Kalonymos ben Reb Yosef haKatan miShpeira (mi - from; Shpiera - Speyer). As outlined in the history section, it is possible our ancestors moved from Germany to Poland and Lithuania in the 16th century and would still have carried the tag 'from Speyer' in their name (names being largely of the form A, son of B, from C). Alternatively, Saperia may have been an ornamental name derived from the Hebrew word for sapphire. Letters received from Mr S. Szapira and Mr M. Freedman argue for Speyer and sapphire respectively.

Whilst this surname is not common, is has a curious persistence amongst those who emigrated to Leeds from the Suwalki area. This strongly suggests that the various Saperia family trees are linked and that those who emigrated were following in the footsteps of their relatives, though we have not been able to establish this from records.

Aswell as sharing a surname, the Saperias evidently favoured a limited selection of given names. Amongst the girls, Rachel, Fannie and Ann(ie) were exceedingly popular, whilst Louis, Harris and Nathan recur as choices for boys. A word of caution: there was a brief fashion for 'Simon' in the 1890's, which faded rapidly as all the unfortunate babies died in their first year! "  Saperia.com
Our surname, Goldfoot, came from Goldfus, and I have found many Goldfus/fuss in Lithuania and in several particular towns.  Telsiai had our family.  In the USA, we are the only family.  Our other branch is in South Africa.  They both came from Telsiai and went through London and then Dublin, Ireland before disembarking for South Africa and Oregon. 

http://ronaldimiller.com/pale.htm
Avotaynu, publisher of works on Jewish genealogy 2011 Catalog
http://www.saperia.com/Pages/name.htm
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/venice-ghetto
http://www.romanhomes.com/your_roman_vacation/quarters/jewish-quarter.htm (with music)
http://www.frommers.com/destinations/rome/0064022151.html