Berman Family

The family before Yeshaya

The civil record now carries this line back through Itska and Shaya/Yeshaya, and to Movsha David, son of Elia, as a candidate for Itska's father, not yet confirmed. The names come from five revision-list rows, not from back-translated Hebrew. Movsha David was recorded in Volozhin in 1811 and died in 1813. The 1816 female list gives his household a wife aged 23 and two daughters, 9 and 7. Their names are hard to read, so their exact readings remain open. Itska appears in the 1834, 1850, 1858 and 1874 records. His wife was Zelda, daughter of Iosel; their recorded children include Mordukh Elya, Ovsey Elya, Shaya/Yeshaya and Freyda.

Movsha David and the separate David, son of Elia, were different men. Whether their fathers named Elia were the same person remains an open question.

Read the five revision-list entries

Yeshaya, Sara and their three sons

Yeshaya Dubinsky and Sara lived in Volozhin. Their sons were Rav Shimon Mordechai, Rav Moshe Shmuel and Rav Shlomo Yosef. Rav Shlomo Yosef, the dropped third brother, is named by Rav Shimon Mordechai in Shemen Rokeach and served as Av Beis Din of Kalelishok.

Family information: Sara's father is remembered as Moshe Tzvi, but no document found so far identifies him. Family information also names Rav Yitzchok Dubinsky as Yeshaya's father. Those links remain open.

Rav Shimon Mordechai, the family historian

Rav Shimon Mordechai was born in Volozhin in 1870, learned in the Volozhin yeshiva and lived for many years in Smorgon. He learned under Rav Chaim Leib and Rav Yehuda Leib Gordin, worked in the Strashun Library in Vilna, taught a yeshiva in Smorgon and wrote sefarim under the Dubinsky name. He was a resident Talmid Chacham, not the town's Rav. He died in Kharkiv in March 1946.

He and Chaya Feiga had a large family. The VGD online family tree (a Russian genealogy website) names six children: Itzko-Meir, Polina, Maria, Roza, Fania and Anna. A family chart names eleven, adding Nohm Chaim Vaisbord, Raina Dubinsky, Esphir, Zina, Naum and Manya. Raina Dubinsky was their daughter and the first cousin of the younger Raina Shmukler. Nohm Chaim Vaisbord’s placement and surname remain open; the site keeps both counts instead of forcing them to match.

The Kharkiv monuments document Itzko Meir, Polina and Maria. Some exact relationships in that evidence remain open rather than being forced into the connected line.

The Rav Chaim Volozhiner relationship

Our family is related to Rav Chaim Volozhiner. The connection is recorded independently on Rav Shimon Mordechai's 1903 title page, in the Smorgon Yizkor book, by Rav Dovid Cohen, and in a 1906 haskamah by Rav Eliyahu Baruch Kamai. Rav Shimon Mordechai also calls Rav Zalman Sender Kahana Shapira, a documented great-grandson of Rav Chaim, his own kin.

None of those sources gives the generations that connect the two families. The relationship may be descent, a sibling line or another branch. The site does not call this family Rav Chaim's descendants or grandchildren. Moshe Tzvi is remembered on Sara's side, but he has not been found in the published Rav Chaim trees.

Rav Moshe Shmuel: formation and Rabbanus

Rav Moshe Shmuel was born in Volozhin in 1879. As a boy he witnessed the upheaval around the yeshiva's 1892 closing and later published his own eyewitness account. He learned under Rabbi Ziskind, spent time learning under his brother Rav Shimon Mordechai in Smorgon, returned to Volozhin, and after his marriage learned in the Kovno Kollel, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski's kollel in Vilna and Rav Itzele of Ponevezh's kibbutz. A short, still unexplored period as a tutor in Iași also appears in one memoir. He received semichah from four Rabbanim.

In 1914 he was invited to give shiurim at a new yeshiva in Anykščiai, which closed when the war began. He later held the Alshad Rabbanus while his father-in-law was displaced during the 1915 expulsion, and returned the position when Rav Avraham Abba came home.

Chaya and the Zak family

The registers document eight daughters in Rav Avraham Abba and Leah Zak’s household: Mina, Chaya, Chana, Eizel, Dveira-Fruma, Rivka, Ginda (later Hinde/Hilda) and Iudis. Shimon, their only son, is named in his own memoir. Sarah and Chasiah appear only on a family chart. Golda belongs to another Zak household and is not counted as this couple’s child.

Hinde immigrated alone in 1921, became Hilda Zaron in Brooklyn, worked as a hat maker, married Morris Zaron and had no children. Shimon Zak survived and became a central printed witness to this family. Rav Avraham Abba, daughters Chana and Dvora, and their husbands were murdered near Telz in 1941. Other sisters and relatives were also murdered in the Shoah; those conclusions rest on named testimony and records, not a generalized assumption.

The children in Alsedziai and the family separated

The Lithuanian register records Yechiel at Olsiady/Alsėdžiai. The 1927 manifest gives Kantzan as the birthplace of Chaim and Jachel, while later American papers use Kurtzen/Kurtzan; that family-stated place remains unidentified and does not override the register. The manifest gives Chaja and Isaak as born in Alsėdžiai. Hyman’s 10 October 1909 birth is supported by five records; the 1902 year on one petition index is an outlier.

Rav Moshe Shmuel reached New York in 1923. His manifest says he was joining “Brother, Nathan Dubinsky, 292 Cherry St.” The Nathan and Dora candidate is important but not proved to be that brother. Chaja arrived in 1927 with Chaim, 17; Jachel, 14; and Isaak, 9. Those are Hyman, Yechiel/Joel and Irving/Isaac. The manifest’s ages and names do not create an Itzko Meir identity puzzle.

Brooklyn: lean years, Chaim Berlin and the manuscripts

The first American years were lean. In 1926 Rav Moshe Shmuel published a Yiddish appeal for the old Kovno Kollel. A Cleveland period is preserved in family testimony and letters printed in Darkei Shmuel, though those letters still need direct public review.

In Brooklyn he became principal of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin. A former talmid described his leadership, and another source says the yeshiva reached a peak under him in the 1930s. The exact length of his tenure remains disputed. Chaya died in 1946. The 1950 census index records his occupation as "rabbi" and his industry as "Yeshiva".

His son Yechiel, also Joel, owned a print shop, held his father's manuscripts and published the posthumous sefarim. Rav Moshe Shmuel's final article was a life of Rav Itzele of Volozhin; HaDoar noted that it reached the editors two days before his death in 1962. The article names his informants but makes no personal kinship claim, evidence that belongs beside, not in place of, the independent Rav Chaim relationship sources.

What remains open

The main open threads are the exact Rav Chaim route; Moshe Tzvi's identity; Yeshaya's father; whether the two Elias were one man; the names in Movsha David's 1816 household; the Nathan identity; the placement of Nohm Chaim Vaisbord; the Rosenblatt mechutan route; and whether Ovsei in the 1874 list is Mordukh's son.

Five short handwriting readings are shown on the handwriting readings page. The full set of documents, competing readings, disproven look-alikes, trees and research notes remains in Detailed research.