Goldfoot Genealogy

                                                                   
Nadene Goldfoot
On May 14, 1948, 650,000 Jews were living in Israel and became citizens.  One such founding father was someone who had actively fought for this day, Stanley Goldfoot from South Africa, my newly discovered 3rd cousin.  He had become the Chief of Intelligence for the Stern Group, one of the fighting forces against the attacking Arabs and the British army.

Stanley was born on May 2, 1914 in Houghton, Johannesburg, South Africa.  He died November 24, 2006 in Jerusalem.  At age 18 upon graduating from high school, he immigrated to Palestine.  That year, 1932, had already seen the 1929  riots in Jerusalem led by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Sherif of Jerusalem, also called THE GRAND MUFTI.  where many Jews had been attacked and killed by the Arabs upon hearing that Jews were granted half of Palestine for a Jewish Homeland by the League of Nations.  This had come about with the 1st World War ending in 1917 whereby the Ottoman Empire  had sided with Germany, the Axis in the war, and had lost their Ottoman Empire.
                                                                       
Stanley had heard a speech about the Zionist vision by Ze'ev Jabotinsky at the age of 18 which appealed very strongly to him.  It was all he needed to hear before packing a bag, leaving a shocked family and heading for Palestine.  He joined a HaShomer Ha'Tzair Kibbutz, picking eggplants in the fields and making floor tiles, called "balatot."
                                                                         
Since he had arrived alone without an entry permit, the British police soon shipped him out of the country together with another South African.  In South Africa, he was then drafted into the South African Army, where he learned to handle a rifle.  Stanley joined the Jewish Revisionist Party, another name for LEHI.

At first opportunity, he returned to Tel Aviv to open the first "School of English" which gave him entry into the British High Society where he was privy to important information from the top echelon of the British Army.  He was now able to pass this invaluable information onto other LEHI members.  Stanley did this with alacrity, under cover of legitimately representing English and French news.  His valuable "PRESS CARDS" gained him admittance everywhere!
                                                                             

Stanley with 1st wife Rebecca "Rollo" Finger and their 2 daughters born in 1942 and 1950 probably taken in on an Israeli beach after 1948.

Stanley was active in many other activities against the British Mandatory Power while working in Jerusalem as a respected journalist.  Some of those activities were so sensitive that they were never made public.
                                                                     

King David Hotel, where I first met Stanley in 1980-1981 He said, "Don't worry, I'll know you."

 "According to the Israeli newspaper Dvar, as a member of the Stern Gang and also Irgun, Goldfoot was responsible for planting the bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22nd July 1946 which killed 100 British soldiers and officials. In 1948 he was also convicted and jailed by an Israeli court for the murder of UN envoy Count Bernadotte.   I could not find any evidence of his actual involvement in the bombing of the hotel, though he may have been in on the planning.  When I asked, him, he was mum about it.
                                                                     

My own uncle, Charles Goldfoot, looks so much like Stanley, I think. Charles was born in 1906, a little older and would have been Stanley's 2nd cousin once removed.

 Goldfoot has subsequently been influential in raising large sums of money, allegedly up to $100 million a year, for the 3rd Temple  JTF through American Christian TV and Radio stations and evangelical churches. He did this by speaking in football stadiums in the USA.   Although van der Hoeven has denied direct involvement in efforts to see the Jewish Temple rebuilt, he has admitted that, " ... when supporters volunteer to give money for building a temple, he directs them to Goldfoot."

After May 14 1948, he made aliyah legally in 1956, having been living in New York City.  His main goal became his desire to establish a Zionist English newspaper,  THE TIMES OF ISRAEL.  This paper eventually appeared on the streets of Israel, New York and the West Coast of the USA.  For this purpose, he even spent a year in New York to raise funds to promote his newspaper.

In the first issue of the TIMES OF ISRAEL, Stanley wrote his famous controversial LETTER TO THE WORLD FROM JERUSALEM, which at the time, caused a huge stir.  His article is still relevant, and I am therefore, including it. Uri Gobey, a South African Israeli IDF admirer of Stanley, also added this:
                                                                           
"Eventually he became an intelligence officer and worked with Yitzhak Shamir."
 Yitzhak was also in the Stern Group and was Stanley's age, being born in 1915.  He became Israel's 7th Prime Minister and served from 1986 to 1992.  I had just left Israel in the end of November, 1985. Yitzhak died on June 30, 2012.

After the setting up the state of Israel, Stanley  moved to the United States. Then  he returned  to Israel.   In 1964, he decided to establish a new paper in the English language, because he sensed that the Jerusalem post, " was too leftist. He founded Zionist newspaper in the English language as "de times ugh Israel", published in Israel, New York and the west coast of the United States. In 1969, he wrote and posted the letter, now famous.  . He died in Jerusalem in 2006, at age 92.
                                                

His father was from Lithuania and had immigrated to England and then Ireland;.  Descendants of Simon Shimon Goldfoot.  With conditions in Lithuania, many Jews there had immigrated to Palestine at this time.

1  Simon Shimon Goldfoot b: 1874 in Telsiai, Lithuania, Russia/ Ireland d: October 28, 1958 in Johanesburg, South Africa Died: age 84
.. +Sarah Tavriger b: March 1887 in West Derby,Lancashire, England d: November 28, 1956 in Johanesburg, South Africa age 69.
                                                                       

Stern 1907-1942 Killed by British Police while being arrested

Stanley met Avraham Stern, the leader of this group, who was 7 years older than Stanley.  He was a Nationalist, knowing that the only hope for Jews'  existence was to have their own country back, since they had been scapegoats for everyone since losing their Jerusalem in 70 CE.  Many people today seem to be against the idea of Nationalism, but this is one example of the benefits of having one's own nation.

Abe, called Yair,  left the group, Irgun Tzevai Leumi in 1939-1940 as their leader because they had refused to continue anti-British activities in Palestine during WWII.  He had formed an underground organization later known as LOHAME HERUT ISRAEL.   The British called this the Stern Gang, which carried out acts of sabotage, etc.  Stanley corrected me when I mentioned it with this name and told me it was the STERN GROUP.   Yair had been one year older than my own father whose father had come from Telsiai, Lithuania as well.  The families were of course related.  Stanley was my 3rd cousin.  Being in the USA, my family knew nothing about him, nor were they ever aware of what was going on in Palestine.
                                                                                   
Remember the movie, EXODUS.  released in 1960?  Sal Mineo played Stanley, I believe.  Though Sal was short, Stanley was a tall, slender man in real life.  Based on Leon Uris' novel, this historical epic provides a dramatic backstory to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, in the aftermath of World War II. Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.  

Haganah, meaning DEFENSE, was a clandestine organization for Jewish self-defense in Palestine being the British weren't doing it. It took over from HA-SHOMER in 1920 and existed until 1948 when its members were transferred to TZEVA HAGANAH LE-ISRAEL.   After 1929, it intensified when the British policy was that of appeasement to the Arabs.  By 1931, Haganah split up, only with some reuniting  in 1936.  In 1939, the British WHITE PAPER put the icing on the cake with groups like the Stern Group becoming very serious.
                                                                       

Helen Goldfoot, 2nd wife that I met in Jerusalem with ancestors also from Lithuania

In 1980 Stanley lived on Dor V Dor Street in Jerusalem (from Generation to Generation). He would have been our 2nd to 3rd cousin, and being a Goldfoot, would have had the Y haplogroup that my brother has, and that's QBZ67.

The Jerusalem Temple Foundation was founded by Stanley Goldfoot, a former "terrorist" member of the Stern Group  together with Terry Reisenhoover and several other American evangelicals to facilitate the rebuilding of the Temple.96 .  When I visited him in 1981 and later on, he showed me the plans for the Temple.  I had originally found him by using the telephone book-written in Hebrew, after seeing a picture and article including him about the Temple group in the Jerusalem Post, the English newspaper.  Imagine his surprise, being located by a new American cousin.

When Stanley died, this was said of him:  "Also, in every generation, there were Jewish heroes with vision who were willing to sacrifice everything, even their very lives, in order to preserve G-d's promise to the Jewish people.                      

Stanley Goldfoot

One such hero in our generation is Stanley Goldfoot. During his lifetime, Stanley witnessed the rise of tyrants such as Hitler and Ahmadinijad, who are bent on destroying the Jewish people.
Sadly, our friend Stanley passed away last week, November 24, 2006, at the age of 92. His family and all his many friends not only mourn his passing, but remember with gratitude his love and devotion for Israel and the Jewish people. "

Resource:  https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/state-of-israel-proclaimed
Book:  Genesis 1948-the First Arab-Israeli War, by Dan Kurzman; p. 557, 561, 564, 568
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia:  Stern Group Abraham Stern
http://www.templemount.org/goldfoot/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Shamir

Nadene Goldfoot                                                        

Josef Rosin b: January 24, 1922 in Kybartai, Lithuania cousin of my cousin, Joel Alpert

Josef Rosin was an illegal Jewish refugee to Palestine from Lithuania.  He was the relative of my newly found relative, Joel Alpert, also from Lithuania.  They were Litvaks.   My grandfather and grandmother were also from Lithuania, only they had left earlier in the very late 1800s.   Israel was re-born  for Jews on May 14, 1948 who were under dire straights then and needed to have a Jewish Homeland where they could live in peace without worry of being killed.
                                                                                 
 Josef Rosin was denied the very place our Jewish Homeland was created for by people who would become the European Union and the USA; the Allies of WWI. He was a young engineer student who had already finished his 1st year of college, and his world was caving in on him!
                                                                             

Paul Newman, Peter Lawford in Exodus, trying to get the Jews on their ship passage into Palestine.

Only Josef wanted to enter Palestine legally by the end of March, 1945 but  had to sneak in.  It was already a miracle that he was still alive after the Holocaust which killed 6 million Jews.   He knew that there had been Jewish leaders who had met with the Allies since the end of the First World War and all had been decided.  England held the mandate since then and had it for 30 years.  Remember the movie, EXODUS of 1960 with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint?  It was a similar situation.

The BALFOUR DECLARATION happened on November 2, 1917, saying that the British government showed sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations and pledged support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.  They were issued the Palestine Mandate on July 24, 1922.  After 2,000 years of waiting, they were to have their own homeland!   It was to be up with the Brits leaving their policing of the land on May 14, 1948, but here it was for him, 1945, the end of WWII, and Jews weren't allowed!  .
                                                                             
He had been through so much already.  It was as if to have reached heaven, and be turned back.  To what?  To a hell!  He had already left Lithuania and had gone through frightening days of illegal travel there through Poland, Slovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Austria and Italy.  He had arrived in Eretz Yisrael on October 24, 1945 on the ship of "Ma'apilim", which means Illegal Immigrants.

Life was actually pretty exciting for the  young   man that he was with all this illegal movement through countries.  He married Peninah Cypkewitz from Wloclawek, Poland, whose path had been equally dangerous during a stay in Rumania.
                                                                           
Of course, the Jews of Palestine accepted and protected illegal Jews, knowing the circumstance and hating the English for it.  Josef and Peninah lived on a kibbutz, Beith-Zera in the Jordan Valley for 9 months.  In the autumn of 1946 they moved to Haifa where he wanted to continue his studies at the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Technion.
                                                                             
He was accepted as a 2nd year student, but had a year of delay at attending, because the WAR OF INDEPENDENCE  broke out.  This started on November 29, 1947 when Arabs responded with violence to the new United Nations resolution on Palestine, and it lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949, after the Brits had left the land on May 14, 1948.  They had left and had left the Jews without arms to defend themselves.
                                                                                   

Hitler's Nazi leaders talking to Amin al Husseini, the Sherif of Jerusalem as to how to get rid of the Jews who were coming into Palestine

Here Josef was, having lived through the horrors of Europe, the rounding up of Jews everywhere and killing them in horrendous ways, and now the Arabs had refused to accept the UN partition resolution, so from April 1948, units of Arab irregulars had crossed into the country from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, to reinforce the local Arabs in their attacks on the Jewish villages and towns in an attempt to block the main roads.
                                                                                 
Upon the announcement that Jews had created the land into their state on May 14, 1948, Israel was invaded by the regular professional armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and also a Saudi-Arabian contingent.  The very next day, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azszam Pasha, announced from Cairo, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and Crusades!"  Yes, Jews had lived in places where the Mongolians had attacked with Genghis Khan and his ilk, and before that the Crusaders had even invaded their homes while on their horses and killed their wives and children before their eyes, as what happened to another of my relatives.  Josef had escaped from one extermination attempt that almost succeeded completely only to step into another!
                                                                                   

Out of the Holocaust into the Fire on March 10, 1949 in another war; The War of Independence;  for Israel

At this time, there were only 650,000 Jews and its pathetic army was of course poorly equipped, but they DROVE BACK THE INVADING FORCES.   Now how, you can figure it out.  They had a reason to survive and were determined without an ounce of fear in their bones.  G-d was on their side as he was during the Exodus. RIGHT wins over MIGHT.

Josef was again surrounded by death.  6,000 new Israelis were killed in this War of Independence, more than in all the subsequent wars combined.

Josef recalled his young life.  He was born in Kybartai, Lithuania on January 24, 1922 to Yehudah Leib Rosin from Sudargas, Lithuania and Hayah Leibovitz from Marijampole, Lithuania.  They had owned their own business, a paper and stationary shop in Kibart, Lithuania, which was a town.  He went to school in Kibart, and in the towns of Virbalis and Marijampole.  From 1939 to 1941 he had attended the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Kovno (Kaunas) University.

Josef had left home 2 days before the German invasion in the USSR, and Lithuania was part of USSR.  His parents and sister had stayed in Kibart and hadn't left like he had and were caught and murdered with all the other Jews of the town in July 1941.  Josef had reached the Kovno Ghetto and stayed there for more than 2 1/2 years until the beginning of February 1944.  He escaped and went into the woods of the Rudniki forests and later went into the Naliboki forests in Belarus.  He stayed there until the liberation by the Red Army.  In August 1944, he returned to Kovno.  By the end of March 1945, he joined a group of young Lithuanian Jews who were determined that they all should get out of Europe and get into their Eretz Yisrael.  They intended to become part of the movement later called the Brikha (Flight movement).
                                                                               
He and his cousin, Joel Alpert, wrote a Remembrance Book, "PRESERVING OUR LITVAK HERITAGE-A HISTORY OF 31 JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN LITHUANIA.  Being my grandparents were from 2 of the towns written about in this book, I'm sure they would thank them.  I thank them for writing about my Nathan Abraham Goldfus's town of Telsiai (Telz), Lithuania in the north and Zlata Jermulowske's town of Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania on the eastern border, which was so close to the border of Poland that it was included in Poland in a division of land later.
                                                                             
I know I'm related to Joel Alpert because of the DNA familyfinder test finding so many Alpert matches for me and my living relatives who have also been tested.  This allows us to be part of the Halpern & Branches group on Family Tree DNA.  If Joel were able to test, I'm sure he would be one of them, so I'll check.

I just checked FTDNA and my paternal 1st cousin and I am related to 5 Alperts while my brother is related to 6, and a Joel Alpert is one of them for my brother and myself!  He and we are 5th cousins with me sharing 60.70cMs over 18 segments.  Our largest segment shared is 8.11cMs.  We share 1700 SNPs.  That's enough sharing of genes to tell me that way back, we shared a common ancestor.  Of course!  We have roots from Lithuania.  How amazing to have such a distant relative and realize how lucky I am.  I'll most likely never know who this common ancestor is because Lithuania, though they kept good records for their own reasons, didn't think of women enough to include their surnames in their census listings like they did the men.  Women make it on the records of the USA by the 1850 census.  My 1st cousin matches Rosinger of Hungary,  but not a Rosin of Lithuanian roots.  I didn't.  The luck of the draw at birth as to what genes you inherit.  You never know.

One of the leaders of our DNA group is also an Alpert who matches us and Joel. In fact, the group was created around this connection.    Finding us and being able to communicate knowing our ancestors were related is one of the miracles of living in this scientific century.  We have come together again.

Resource: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, Editor-by JewishGen,Inc.
Facts About Israel by division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.
Family Tree DNA, Houston, Texas



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