Goldfoot Genealogy

Taken between 2006-2008  in Portland, Oregon by son Steve. I wrote this after answering interview questions from my son and having to think about  the answers.

1. WWII declared December 7, 1941 at age 7; 2nd grade.  This didn't end or change our life until 1945 when new cars appeared on the streets and my Uncle Kenny bought one and showed us his.  I was involved in eternal paper drives; collecting paper and bringing it to Abernathy School to be weighed an entered under my name; Tin cans were stepped on and smashed, collected for needed tin.  Dad worked 2 jobs; never was seen much, worked in shipyards as a boss after his own business work in meat/hide industry of his Lincoln Wholesale Meats on SW 3rd and Lincoln in Portland.  Newspapers held war news only.  I'd ask my mother what they used to print about other than war events.  Cutting out cartoon jokes for books to send to soldiers from magazines.  Bringing pennies to buy bonds for America.   By age 10 1/2, I was pretty mature.  I'd daydream while drying dishes of talking to the heads of state and bringing the war to an end.   I was 11 when the war ended.
                                                           

About 11 years old, 1945

2. United Nations (UN) created to end all Wars. 26 nations on January 1, 1942 who were allies in WWII agreed on the need for a United Nations to be formed-from the League of Nations.   29 nations signed a Declaration of UN endorsing the Atlantic Carter in 1945.  On October 24, 1945 in was born. I was led to believe at the age of 14 that peace had finally come to our world.  Never again would there ever be wars.

                         

3. Graduating from Abernathy Grade School: K-8th grade  age 12. June 1947. I skipped 2 half terms.      Back row; 5th from left with black waistband on dress.  Our teacher was Mrs. Jagger. Mr. Tate was Principal.  44 students in picture.

1949 at age of 15

4. Creation of Israel on May 14, 1948.  Having attended Sunday school since age 5, I felt this was also my state. I continued attending Sunday School until I wound up teaching there in my teens, a good background on my developing my teaching skills.  Included in this was attending the high holidays with my mother every year, and celebrating the holidays at Neveh Zedek Synagogue.
                                                                         
5. Attack on Israel 5 minutes later.  This was one year after my confirmation at age 13.  I was duty bound to Israel.  I remember double dating later when Si N.  talked to the 4 of us about joining the war defending Israel.  I knew it was happening but not how it would affect me.

                       

Nadene Goldfoot

Nathan "Nochum" Abraham Goldfoot b: August 5, 1872, d: July 19, 1912 from Telsiai, Lithuania to England to Ireland to Council, Idaho to Portland, Oregon

Nathan Abraham Goldfoot was known to his family without the middle name.  That was found during research.  He never did speak English, only Yiddish.  My father was 4 years 18 days old when he was killed in a horse and wagon accident.
                                                                             

Nathan's 2 sons: Charles b: 1906 in Council, Idaho and  Morris "Moshe" b: 1908 in Portland, Oregon

  Nathan Goldfoot was born on August 5 or 15,  1871 according to www.findmypast or 1874 on a Saturday.  It is possible he was born in Telsiai, Lithuania, commonly referred to as "Russia."  According to the Goldfoot family in South Africa, they came from the Ukraine in Russia.  On the 1910 census he said he was born in 1872.  When he died, his wife was not told about the accident as it was Shabbas.  She learned about it later.  He had money hidden, and she never learned where it was.

Grandfather Nathan "Nahum" came over to the U.S.A in 1896  ? when he was 24 years old.(according to census information or death certificate. (July 19, 1912.)  He died at age 40 years 11 months 4 days.  That would be two years after being in Quebec. He's buried at the Shaarie Torah Synagogue Cemetery in Portland alongside his 2nd wife, Hattie "Zlata" Jermulowske.  .

12/5/08 Not listed on ancestry.com UK incoming passengers 1878-1960, though many other Goldfoots are in there. http://tinyurl.com/668qq5.   Died at age 39 years 11 months 14 days in horse and wagon accident in Portland, Oregon.

4/13/11:   Feb 21, 1893 married in Dublin, Ireland to Lena Goldberg, daughter of Naftolee Goldberg, capmaker, who was deceased at the time of the marriage.. Nathan's father was listed as Morris Goldfoot, Distiller, also deceased.   By June 14, 1893 was on ship headed for Winnipeg listed as single. Nathan is found on the www.findmypast.com list having left Liverpool, England, Londonderry (Irish port) bound for Quebec and Montreal in 1893 at the age of 22.  If the age is correct, he was born in 1871 and not 1874 as I have thought.

Winston Churchill was born  in 1874, and  Nathan Goldfoot b: 15 August 1871 in possibly Telsiai, Lithuania or Ukraine, Russia and died 19 July 1912 in Portland, Oregon.

Nathan was born at the worst period in Russian history.  The 1880's was another dark period of rising anti-Semitism, expulsions from large cities and many other general restrictions.  It was mandatory for Jews "to keep the same names that had been entered in the vital records."

1881 saw Alexander II assassinated causing antisemitism. Jews were traders and artisans since Middle Ages and were now restricted in Russia including much of Poland. in Pale of Jewish Settlement.  Serfdom was in Russia until 1861.

 In 1891 22,000 Jews in chains led from Moscow and St. Petersburg to the Pale.  It was hard to leave Russia.  They had to cross borders illegally into Austria/Hungary, then to Vienna or Berlin.  In Hamburg, Bremen and Rotterdam, thousands tried to find passage to America, standing in long lines.  Then they crowded into steerage for 2 to 4 weeks of seasickness and hundreds sharing a toilet. 

 In 1904,  20,000 people did not pass the inspection and were sent back to Europe.  Between 1881 and 1910 1.5 million Jews immigrated to USA.  Of that 1 million were from Russia.    Most Eastern European immigrants destined for Oregon stopped on the Lower East Side before traveling by train across the country to Portland.  Others came more directly because relatives or families had already settled here.

Pograms in Russia= Nathan was age 9
May Laws of Jewish Discrimination, Nathan was age 10

Lithuania lies in the eastern Europe, on the coast of the Baltic Sea. In the north Lithuania borders with Latvia, in the east and south with Byelorussia, in the south-west with Poland and with the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation.

12/20/08 I found him in Quebec arriving in 1893 on ship Parisian.  Reference RG76; microfilm C-4539.  He contracted to get off at Winnipeg.  He was number 29520 on the ship of 8 men and 2 women passengers.  Parisian was the 1st large steamer of the Allen Line taking immigrants to Canada.  It weighed 5,359 tons and sailed first on May 1881.  It took 13 1/4 days from Liverpool, England to Canada and took 18 days from Glasgow, Scotland.

His name, Nathan,and Natan is a Jewish name from the ten Polish Provinces of Kalisz, Kielee, Lomza, Lublin, Pietrkow, Plock, Radom, Siedlce, Suwalki, and Warsaw.  Poland was partitioned in 1772, 1792 and 1795.  Then it was part of Russia.  Nathan must be the anglicized name.

Naum\Nakhim\(Nahum 1:1) Variants: Nakhim (L), Nokhim (L,P,V), Nokhum (L), Nukkhem, Nukhim (P,V) Nukhimche(P).  (L )means Lithuania, present-day Lithuania and northern Belarus.  (P) means Poland, the 10 Polish provinces, and (V) Volhyn, present day Zhitomir, Rovno, Luts'k and Volyn regions.

  4/13/11: Dublin In 1911 the city was 83% Catholic, 13% Church of Ireland, 2% Presbyterian and Methodist and 2% others, including a growing Jewish presence.”  Nathan was there in this year.

4/2/15 Nathan lived at 13 Arbutus Place, South  Circular Road, Dublin Ireland in 1893 when he married Lena Goldberg.  I found this about the address: from a man in 1949 in a nursing home located just down the street at 102 South Circular Road, Portobello, (now renumbered as no. 18), at a house that had been the home of the President’s father, the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Isaac Herzog, throughout the 1920s. (He later moved the short distance to 33, Bloomfield Avenue for the remaining years of his ministry here before becoming Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel.) He was accordingly born in the same house where Chaim Herzog spent most of his Dublin childhood and where his gifted brother, the late Ya’acov Herzog, had been born in 1921."  Nathan left this addresss, at least 4 months later after February 21, 1893 when he married Lena.

The cholera pandemic, beginning in India in 1881, did not subside until 1896, when it had spread across the Far East, Middle East, Russia,and Germany.  More than 300,000 people died of cholera in famine-stricken Russia alone.
                                                                         

Morris, Nathan's son, remembers his beard.  He might have looked like this Goldfus grandfather, of which Chaim Goldfus the archaeologist and Chaim Goldfus the insurance man, both of Israel and 1st cousins, have as grandfather.  Nathan's wife had said Nathan's father was Chaim Itzak Goldfus.  Hmmm.

  He was 38 years old in 1910 at the time of the 1910 census, but 37 years, 11 months and 4 days old  in 1912 when he died according to the death certificate.  (I now have him figured to have been 39 years 11 months 14 days old when he died.   He died on a Friday.  (It was reported in the newspaper that he was 45 at the time of death.) He lived at 265 Arthur St. S., Portland, Oregon.  He married Addie Hattie "Zlotte" Jermulouske (my grandmother) on November 20, 1905 in Council, Idaho. (Volume 3, page 405)  The census stated that he had been married for 6 years in l910.  He was 32 years old when he married Hattie.  They had only been married 6 years when he was killed in an accident.  Nathan was 6 years older than his wife.  I thought he came to either the Baltimore, MD port, or the Philadelphia, Penn. Port, or some other port.  But I found him on www.findmy past as coming from Londonderry,  Ireland to Quebec on 9 June 1893, so he may have come in from Quebec.  1910 census, 6th Ward, Dist. 169, series T624, roll 1285, part 2, page 210B , Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.  Listed as Goofoot.  They lived at 265 Arthur St. in Portland.  Next door was Moses Schnitzer and wife Becky with children Sadie, Joseph, Barney, Harry, Louis, and Fannie.    Listed this as 2nd marriage.

My mother told me that he had been married before, but had no children. His wife had blamed him for this.  He divorced her and married my grandmother in Council, Idaho.  They then had five children in their six or eight years of marriage. My father, Maurice, was only about 4 yrs old)  when his father died.  He remembered sitting on his father's lap and combing his beard.

He said he was a junk dealer on the 1910 census.  He had a wagon and a horse.  One day the horse was out of hand and ran.  He was injured and unconscious and was taken to the hospital.  A friend would not get my grandmother as it was Shabbus (the  Sabbath).  He died without telling her where his money was hidden.  It was probably hidden in the hay in the horse barn.  No one ever found it. (Read newspaper article below.)

2/1/04:  Oregon Daily Journal Newspaper, July 19, 1912:  SHE SEEKS HUSBAND WHO FAILS TO RETURN; BODY IS AT MORGUE  N. Goldfoot, Expressman Who Was Killed in Runaway Unidentified Many Hours.

After lying 12 hours fatally injured and unidentified at St. Vincent's hospital, where he had been rushed in the Red Cross ambulance, after having been hurled from his express wagon when his horse ran away, Nathan Goldfoot, aged 45 years, died this morning, without regaining consciousness, and was not identified until his wife called at the morgue.

  When the expressman was picked up by passersby at East Twenty-eighth and Belmont streets, and the wagon, which was badly wrecked, several blocks further on, an effort was made to learn the man's identity, but there was no license tag on the wagon and no papers in the man's pockets.  Late last night Mrs. Goldfoot reported to the police that her husband was missing and when Detective Litherand, who took the case up this morning, compared the report of the accident and the one of the missing man, the identification became possible.

  Goldfoot resided at 265 Arthur street, was 45 years old and leaves a widow and three children. She was pregnant with my aunt Ann who was then born later on November 11, 1912.   The wrecked express wagon and the horse are at a livery barn at 145 East Seventh street.

  In the mad flight of the horse down the street, the wagon narrowly missed a collision with an auto, which was stopped by a pedestrian who saw the horse plunging down the street.  The widow was prostrated when she found the body.

  The Morning Oregonian Saturday, July 20, 1912:  WIFE SEEKS MATE; DEAD  Man Hurt in Runaway Dies at Hospital: Unknown to Spouse.  While Mrs. Nathan Goldfoot of 268 Arthur street searched "high and low" for her husband Thursday night and for several hours yesterday morning, he was lying unconscious at St. Vincent's Hospital, a victim of a runaway accident.  Not until he had been dead for more than an hour did the worried wife finally learn of her husband's fate.

  Goldfoot was an expressman, 45 years of age.  While on his way home Thursday afternoon, his horse ran away and collided with a tree, hurling him to the pavement, inflicting injuries from which he failed to regain consciousness.  He remained unconscious from the time of the accident until he died.  He had no papers from which his identity might be ascertained and there was no number or name on his express wagon by which he could be identified.

On the death certificate, it says his father's name was John Goldfoot. It actually was Chaim but this probably sounded like John to the nurse.   He was born in Russia and his father was born in Russia.  We know his father's name was Chaim Itzak as that is what the headstone says. (on jewishgen.org, I have found a different name for his father-Movshsa ben Josel Goldfus.)  There are Chaims listed in Telsiai.  It was his wife who thought she knew the name of his father.  Was she wrong?  I don't know.

At this time, I do not know  his brother's name who he left Russia with .  Supposedly they went to England.  The brother stayed there, and Nathan travelled  to the U.S. This was oral history through a relative in England that my brother met.

My father was about 4 years old when he died, so not enough information was passed on.   He had filed for his first papers (Pa) for citizenship.

He should be on the 1900 Portland census.  I'll try to check. (Have never found him there.)

Jewish immigration into the American continent did not really begin until the enactment of the May Laws in Russia in the 1880's  (American Origins, Pine,p. 351)
       
12/24/02  Contact with Mike Posnick who is the other Goldfoot researcher besides Abraham Goldberg. (Abraham turned out to be Rabbi Abraham Goldberg who was slaughtered in Jerusalem by terrorists while praying "davening" in a synagogue. I never knew he was a rabbi.  He told me that his Goldfus family lived in Laukuva, Lithuania, which was the southern-most town in the former Telsiai district of the Kovno province of the Russian Empire.  The town is located at the crossroads of the Kaunas-Klaipeda and Taurage-Riga highways.    He went on to say that we believe that all of the Jewish Goldfus(s) and Goldfoot families are related to one another.  All appear to have originated in the area around Telsiai.  Those who adopted the name Goldfoot all appear to have resided in the British Isles for at least a short time before moving elsewhere. (My grandfather, Nathan was in England before moving to Dublin, Ireland.)

Note from Mike Posnick, Researcher of Goldfoot:  Nathan may have been travelling at the time of the 1900 census.  That would explain why you can't find him.  He also may have been using a different name, or the census taker or census indexer may have mispelled his name.  Anything is possible.

It's not surprising that the eldest child was born where your grandmother's family lived.  It was common for a daughter to return to her parents' home to give birth, especially for a first child.  One finds this common in Eastern Europe as well as in the United States and Canada.

Are there any family stories about where, when, and how your grandparents met?  They might shed some light on where Nathan was at the time of the 1900 census.  Also, does a birth record exist for the first child?  Have you seen it?  It might contain some helpful fact(s).

I would agree with your comment that all of the living Goldfeet are accounted for,  Hopefully, the research I am presently doing and planning to do will yield connections.  I would appreciate it if you would pursue the subject of naturalization papers filed by your grandfather.  If either first or second papers can be found, it will assist us in connecting him to the larger family.  I will make a point of looking for him among the passenger manifests when I am next in Salt Lake City was Washington, D.C.
Mike

On his death certificate of July 1912 it states he had been here 13 years.  That may mean he was in Oregon for 13 years.  I also have that he came to this country in 1896.  There is a 1 by the address of 265 Arthur Street.   Moses (Maurice Goldfoot)-my father,  was born at home at 277 Baker Street in 1908.  6/8/08  Gold Foot: ?????? ?????? and a try at pronouncing them would be Zoloto Peshkom

2/28/04  I heard from Chaim Goldfus in Jerusalem.  He is a Phd and teaches classical archaeology and his cousin is also Chaim Goldfus,  the insurance agent.  They are both named for their grandfather Haim Goldfus from Leukova, Lithuania.  According to his father, all the Goldfuses are connected and they are all from Lithuania.  There are also Goldfuses that are not Jewish.  He is a relative of Avraham Goldberg.  He says that common characteristics among the Goldfuses he knows are highly moralistic, straight people proud of carrying the name and more.

6/23/04  I found a Goldfuss on passenger and immigration lists: Philadelphia, 1800-1850 on ship Johann Andreas from Tonnengin port of departure to Philadelphia on March 7, 1805 in Nat'l archives #425 #8 list #20.
1/13/06  I found a Max Goldfoot in Boston, Suffolk, Mass on 1910 census 19 April age 32 b: 1878.  He was a junk dealer.  (So was Nathan Goldfoot). Max and Rebecca immigrated in 1895.  They probably came through the Boston port.

   wife: Rebecca age 30, sons Harry age 7 and Robert age 2 and Florence 2 mo old.  They were Russian Jews who spoke Yiddish.  He could be the brother of Nahum, younger by 4 years.

I also found a Rose Goldfoot on the 1910 census 26 April in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania age 10 in the Home for Hebrew Orphans.   She was Russian Jewish and spoke Yiddish and English.

5/20/06  a Joseph Goldfoot, b: 1891,  came over to the Philadelphia port on 28 May 1906.  He was a school boy originating in Russia, spoke Hebrew, and came from Queenstown, Dublin, Ireland on the ship Haverford.  He was meeting an uncle who lived on 32nd North Broad, Trenton, New Jersey.

9/21/06  About 800 Jews came to Oregon under the auspices of the Industrial Removal Office (IRO) founded by trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund in 1900.  They lent settlers money for train tickets.  With the help of Portland's Hebrew Benevolent Association, Ben Selling would locate work and housing.  Settlers frequently became junk peddlers with money for a horse and wagon lent to them by the Hebrew Benevolent Association.  This must be what had happened to Nathan Goldfoot. (The Immigrants' Children by Polina Olsen).

1/13/07 Mike Posnick found Nathan on www.findmypast emigrating from Londonderry, Ireland in 1893 to Quebec Canada port. The ship was the Parisian steamship of the Allan Line.   He was 22 years old.  An Abraham, Lina, Rachel, and Sarah left in 1894 from Liverpool and Londonderry.  Only 47 people were on this small ship.  In Find My Past, there were 3 ships leaving Londonderry for Canada in 1893.  The ship "Vancouver" left two time; 16th June 1893 and 21st July 1893.  The Labrador left 15 Sept 1893.  I bet it was the Vancouver, and that's how he got to Portland.  (Could Lina be Lena who married my grandfather?

He probably took the train across; there would be records of his entry into the US if he crossed in 1895 or after, but not if he went directly from Quebec to the US in 1893:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~holdenclan/albans.htm

He wouldn't have required a passport at that time; in 1893 the border wasn't properly monitored and the Europe --> Canada --> US route was popular precisely because it avoided the US ports and therefore US inspection.

A US census should let you know when he came to the US from Canada.

10/16/08  I found a Pearl Goldfoot who died 5 July 1990 in North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada on the Jewishgen burial registry.  She is in plot 4-D-51.  She's buried in the Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Nathan: June 14, 1893 on Parisian ship of Allen line (British 1881-) from Londonderry, Ireland to Winnipeg at age 22. b: 1871.

12/9/09 [edit] Jews in Telsiai
The Jewish community was proud of its renowned yeshiva, or rabbinical college. In 1941, the Telshe yeshiva was resettled in Cleveland, Ohio by a group of faculty members who escaped the Holocaust. The original yeshiva building still stands in Telšiai.

Under the subsequent Nazi German occupation in World War II, large Jewish population of Telšiai was almost completely annihilated.

Telsiai or Telzh in Yiddish, it is in Kovno Province.  Telshi is the name of the town and the district.  In 1900 there were 3,088 Jews living there.  It is 42 miles West of Siauliai.  and is in the NW part of Lithuania.

12/18/10 Interesting that I found an 11 yr old Nathan Goldbont going from Hamburg to NY via London from Suwalki, Poland on 1 May 1881 to 30 May 1881.  (Suwalki, Poland is where my paternal grandmother, Hattie "Zlata" Jermulowske b: Lazidai, Suwalki, Lithuania, found herself living when part of Lithuania was taken over by Poland.  This had not happened to Telsiai, which was further east.

2/2/11: Found an 11 yr old Nathan Goldbont on Hamburg Passenger List written in German traveling alone from Suwalki, Poland on May 30, 1881.  Interesting.  Going to New York via London on Viola.

Ship Name: Parisian  from Liverpool, England to Londonderry, Ireland to Winnipeg
Years in service: 1881-
Funnels: 2
Masts: 4
Shipping line: Allan (British)  1893 Liverpool Mar. 23 Halifax Apr. 02 Londonderry - Portland. Allan & State LineTransatlantc ID .  Was this Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon as Nathan came to reside in Portland, Oregon.

Ship description: Built by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow, Scotland. Tonnage: 5,395. Dimensions: 441' x 46'. Single-screw, 15 knots. Compound engines. Four masts and two funnels. Steel hull.
History: Passengers: 150 first, 100 second, 1,000 third. Maiden voyage: Liverpool-Halifax-Boston, March 10, 1881. Re-engined with triple expansions in 1899 and also had her original funnels replaced with a single large one. Served in various North Atlantic routes, including Glasgow-New York run. Sold to Italian shipbreakers in January 1914, and soon afterwards was dismantled at Genoa.

3/1/11 Found Nathan Abraham Goldfoot in Dublin South on Ireland, Civil Registration Index for marriages; film number 101257, volume #2, page # 631, digital folder # 4179389, image # 00022.   Marriage listed Jan-Mar 1893.  Then on  June 14, 1893 he was heading for Winnipeg on the ship Parisian.  Something happened.  He was alone.

Search collectionAbout this collectionName: Nathan Abraham Goldfoot
Registration District: Dublin South
Event Type: MARRIAGES
Registration Quarter and Year: Jan - Mar 1893
Estimated Birth Year:
Age (at Death):
Mother's Maiden Name:
Film Number: 101257
Volume Number: 2
Page Number: 631
Digital Folder Number: 4179389
Image Number: 00022
5/12/11: He died on a Tuesday at age 40 years 11 months 4 days.  He was born on a Saturday.

I just found in Telsiai, Lithuania the birth of Nokhum Abram Goldfus on 1/1/1871.  Father was Movsha, grandfather Liosel, mother was Beile.  Could this be my grandfather?  The year is right but not the month or day.

11/18/11 On ancestry.com he was listed as either Goofoot or Garfoot and does have PA, which means Declaration of Intent; this is if he understood the question for on the 1910 census  of April 16, 1910 he did not read or write.

The Jewish community was proud of its renowned yeshiva, or rabbinical college. In 1941, the Telshe yeshiva was resettled in Cleveland, Ohio by a group of faculty members who escaped the Holocaust. The original yeshiva building still stands in Telšiai.
Under the subsequent Nazi German occupation during World War II, large Jewish population of Telšiai was almost completely annihilated. Telšiai has a rare, surviving wooden synagogue.[4]

Nadene Goldfoot

I have found quite a few Goldfoots in Ireland including my own grandfather who came from Lithuania.  I've often wondered why Jews went to Ireland.  What did it have to offer?

Professor Keogh, 53 year old Catholic from University College in Cork, became interested in Irish Jews as he was researching Irish history during WWII.  He  has found that the Irish Jewish community came about between 1880 and 1901 with the arrival of Ashkenazim from one Lithuanian village, Akmene.  They were fleeing from Tsarist pogroms.  Dublin legend says that many of them had booked passage to America, but were landed in Dublin instead.  Unscrupulous ship captains had assured them they had reached New York.

There were smaller communities with Jews in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Belfast and Derry which were found in prof. Diner's paper that investigated the origins and early years of the Jewish Community of Dublin.  First, there were Sephardic Jews who arrived in the 17th Century from Spain and Portugal who went to the Netherlands and on to Ireland.   He found that there was a great migration of eastern European Jews who left the continent between 1820 and 1920.  Most Jews in Ireland arrived from the 1880's on, though there was already a small group of about 600 in the country, mostly the children of an earlier immigration in the 1820's and 1830's. 

Later, the Irish carried the British Aliens Act of 1906 in their own laws, so only a few European Jewish families were allowed in Ireland.  In 2005 there were under 1,000 Jews in Ireland from having 6,000 in 1940's.  In the past 2 years 200 more have "appeared". 

There were lots of Jewish peddlers in the 1860's to the 1880's in Britain, and there were still many in Wales at the same time as in Ireland.  Many Jews in Ireland had worked in factories in England and wanted to go into business for themselves.

Peddlers  stayed with families where they were welcomed.  Many cooked for themselves, some stayed in barns or out in the open.  Intermarriage was relatively limited.  Some who were well integrated married into the upper classes, like the painter,  Estella Solomons. 

Anti-Semitism was mostly non-physical.  It  began when a priest used the pulpit to attack Jews.  He called Jewish peddlers and merchants "leeches" who were sucking the blood of the Irish by overcharging or tricking the poor.  He called for a boycott of Jewish merchants, and the town obeyed.  Within a few years, virtually all of Limerick's 25 Jewish families and the rabbi had left.  The Limerick pogrom was physical to an extent, as the Blueshirts threatened physical action, and there a few incidents before Limerick.  One person was beaten up, and a brick was thrown  at a Rabbi's window.

Gerald Yael Goldberg, b: 12 April 1912 in Cork d: 31 Dec 2003 was the Jewish Lord Mayor of Cork in 1977.  He was a lawyer and a member of the Fianna Fail Party.  He was the son of Lithuanian Jewish Louis Goldberg from the village of Akmian/Akmene, Lithuania.  They were told that Cork was the Gateway to America.  Akmene is  238 km NW of Vilna., Lithuania.  His family was one who left Limerick in the pogrom for Cork.  Louis's father was Simon and Elka Goldberg b: abt 1836 in Akmene. 

  I note that in Dublin  on February 21, 1893, Lena Goldberg of 38 Warren Street, Dublin, daughter of Naftolee Goldberg, already deceased, married Nathan Abraham Goldfoot of 13 Arbutus Place S.C.R, a Com Traveller, son of Morris Goldfoot, who had been a Distiller but was already deceased.  One of the witnesses was Leah Goldberg.  Certain members could have intermarried or converted. 

Both immigrations were Jews who arrived rather poor, found a niche for themselves in commerce, lived in cities, and were religiously traditional.  They improved both economically and educationally.   Prof. Diner refutes Keogh's theory of being tricked to come here.  He says there were never any pogroms in Lithuania, where they had come from.  Besides that, many had already lived in Britain before coming to Ireland.  He feels they came to Ireland deliberately.  They saw the prospects for economic success-they went into small business, started with itinerant peddling which most arrivals did. 

No other migrants arrived in Ireland in the 19th century, which was marked by mass emigration to Britain, USA and beyond.   Jews saw a demand for consumer goods, which itinerant peddlers could satisfy.  In Ireland land mattered, and the Jews being in cities alienated themselves from the marker of Irishness.  Also the cultural nationalist movement excluded Jews from the nation as they could not be associated with a pure, "Celtic" past, and Catholic domination in Irish religioius, political and social circles led to the exclusion of Jews.  Only a small group of Irish intellecftuals, like Michael Davitt, welcomed Jewish particiipation in Irish life. 

Israeli President Chaim Herzog came from Ireland, and Dublin had a Jewish lord mayor, Robert Briscoe in the 1950's and 60's.  The entire island's Jewish population has been tiny-ranging from about 400 in the 1880's to 5,400 in the mid-1940's to less than 20,000 in 2007. 

There is the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin founded in 1985 and opened by Chaim Herzog, then president of Israel.  It is in the former Walworth Road synagogue at 3 and 4 Walworth Road which opened in 1916.  It is noted that in the 1940's young Jews became assimilated and there was a great deal of intermarriage.  At that time the Church insisted that the non Catholic had to convert. 

Dublin had an enormous main synagogue, the Dublin Hebrew Congregation, located at 37 Adelaide Road.  It was erected in 1982 and can hold up to 1,000 people.  It was almost sold a a mosque, but is now the headquarters of a high technology company.  Stars of David are visible on its windows.  Dublin's kosher bakery, The Bretzel, has been owned by non-Jews for two generations, but a mashgiach comes in daily to oversee kashruth.  Until the 1950's there were enough Jews in Dublin to support 8 kosher butcher shops and a dozen synagogues. 

Still and all, in 2007 there were 3 Jewish members of the Irish Parliament, and both Dublin and Cork have had Jewish mayors.  the most famous Irish Jew of all is fictional:  Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce's novel, Ulysses.  A plaque marks his house at 52 Clanbrassil Street in Dublin. 

We do know that many Irish Jews migrated to South Africa where we find some of our relatives today. 

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m04111/is_is_3_48_ai_64507455/pg_3  2/21/2007
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/IrishStudies/Sep_2003_minutes.htm
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/8878/format/print/dis
http://www.isjm.org/jhr/IInos1-2/ireland.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Goldberg