Since writing about my speculation as to when my great great great grandmother Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU died, and about Haskel LANDAU's possible second marriage (in order to be the father of Icek, father of R. Ezechiel LANDAU (1888-1965)), a few new pieces of information have come to light.
One helps fix the likely date of Nesche death. I previously thought that Nesche had died in the late 1850s, but there was one data point that seemed to call that into question. Nesche's son Israel Jonas LANDAU (1827-1900) named a daughter Nanny. From her 1885 marriage record, I first thought that this Nanny was born in 1851. This date was too early, based on when Israel Jonas' sisters were having daughters and naming later ones Nanny.
Last week, when I re-reviewed that 1885 marriage record, I could see that Nanny's birth year was not "ein und funfzig" as I had earlier thought, or "vier und funfzig" as the Ancestry.com indexer thought, but rather was "neun und funfzig" -- 24 February 1859.
So, based on the dates when Nesche's four granddaughters named Nanny were born, and the earlier dates when the last granddaughters not named Nanny were born, it seems very likely that Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU (b.ca.1804) died between the dates of December 1856 and February 1859. That pretty much narrows her death date down to some time in 1857 or 1858.
That sets the stage for re-considering Haskel LANDAU's putative second marriage.
The other new pieces of information came from Przyrow Jewish community vital records which I first learned about through the indexing work of the Czestochowa-Radom Area Research Group (CRARG), an 1860 marriage entry and an 1863 birth entry, most helpfully translated by almost-cousin and good friend Halina in Lodz:
1860 marriage of Haskel Landau and Frymeta Zeligman, dated 1 August 1860 (13 August 1860):
On that date they appeared at the office (at 2 pm) accompanied by the Rabbi and two witnesses and they announced their marriage. He was a widower, aged 55, living in Przyrow, making his living selling grain. She was a widow, from Przyrow, aged 36, making a living in 'small trade'. The pre-marriage banns had been announced in the Przyrow parish on the following dates: 16, 23 and 30 July (28 July, 4 and 11 August). There were no impediments for their marriage, nor were they related to each other. They had not signed any prenuptial agreement, due to their poverty. The document was signed by the newlyweds, witnesses and Rabbi Szloma Altman.
1863 birth of Icyk Landau:
In Przyrow, on 18 February 1863 (2 March 1863), at 8 am. Haskiel Landau, field worker, aged 50, living in Przyrow, appeared, accompanied by witnesses Gdula Altman (48, stallholder) and Ankel Kasztersztajn (58, flour trader), with a male baby, born to him and his wife Frymeta nee Kasztersztajn, aged 38, on 10 February 1863 (22 February 1863). The child, during the religious circumcision ceremony, was named Icyk. The document was signed by the father Haskiel Landau and the witnesses.
From these two documents, with a few assumptions thrown in, one can conclude that Haskel LANDAU (b.1805), whose first wife had died before 1860, married Frymeta ZELIGMAN geb. KASZTERSZTAJN (b.ca.1824), whose first husband, presumably Mr. ZELIGMAN, also died before 1860, and they had a son Icyk in Przyrow in 1863 who was the Isak (Isyk) LANDAU (b.1863, Przyrow) who later lived in Berlin, was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and died there in 1943.
Other than his name (which is not so uncommon), his age and his status as a widower, there is nothing in these records which directly suggests that this Haskel LANDAU was the widower of Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU. And one could question how Haskel of Kempen, Prussia came to be remarrying in Przyrow in Russian Poland, and why he seemed to of a lower station (compared to having been Kaufmann in Kempen).
But the factor that trumps the seeming unlikelihood of these being the same Haskel LANDAU, is the family memory among the descendants of Isak (Icyk) LANDAU of a connection to the BACH family of my mother's mother, including the meeting(s) of Isak's son, the orthodox rabbi Ezechiel LANDAU and Sanitätsrat Dr. Josef Hirsch BACH of Breslau, characterized by Ezechiel's half sister Anni SHREM geb. LANDAU as “ein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens” (a German citizen of the Jewish faith). Ezechiel and Josef Hirsch would have been half first cousins, explaining why they knew of each other and had a connection despite their different religious outlooks.
So, with apologies to R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON, I have concluded that Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU, son of R. Isaac LANDAU of Wlodawa, was first married to Nesche LANDAU (ca.1804-ca.1858), and then, in 1860, married Frymeta ZELIGMAN geb. KASZTERSZTAJN. He was not married to a daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen, but to the rabbi's niece Nesche.
Friday, February 5, 2016
Haskel LANDAU and R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON (Part 11 of 6)
For the last 8 years, I have wondered whether R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON (1863-ca.1942) made a little mistake.
Well, at first, I did not know that the mistake could be attributed to R. MICHELSON (or even to his having just repeated it). I only knew that a small piece of the LANDAU family tree published by Dr. Neil ROSENSTEIN in his work "The Unbroken Chain" (2nd Ed. 1990) seemed too close to fitting my family line not to be suspected of containing an error. As I have written before, that was the purported marriage of R. Ezekiel LANDAU, son of R. Isaac LANDAU of Wlodawa, to a daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen. From what I subsequently learned, it was R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON who first (?) wrote about that.
Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON was born in Bilgoraj in 1863. He was a rabbi in Warsaw. Sadly, he lived long enough to be deported and murdered in the Shoah, probably in Treblinka K.Z in about 1942. His wife Hinda Sarel SZWERDSZARF (d.1924, Warsaw) was a great great granddaughter of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU (d.1824) of Kempen. R. MICHELSON (re)published a work of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU entitled "Sefer Ein haBedolach" with a preface in which he included information about his wife's LANDAU family. Among other things, R. MICHELSON wrote that R. Jecheskel, son of R. Isaak LANDAU of Wlodawa, was a son-in-law of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU (ca.1799-1836) of Kempen, a brother of Hannah ASCHKENAZI geb. LANDAU, great grandmother of Hinda Sarel.
To insert my family into this picture, it only required imaging that R. MICHELSON had made a small mistake. Rather than Jecheskel LANDAU having married an unknown daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen, I suspect that that this same Jecheskel LANDAU had actually married Nesche, a daughter of [R. (?)] Arjeh Jehuda Leib LANDAU (ca.1780-1838) of Kempen, another sibling of Hannah and Joseph Samuel. I began imaging that 8 years ago yesterday.
It was only during the last two months' immersion in all things LANDAU, that I realized that R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU had no daughter who could have been the wife (only wife or second wife) of Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU. When R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU died in Kempen in 1836, the death entry includes a list of his surviving family members, including his widow Elke, his 5 sons and his 2 daughters, one of whom was already married at that time. The daughter Rosa (Rosalie), born ca.1820, married Jochen (Chaim) COHN. The other daughter Gitel (Henriette), was not quite 3 years old when her father died. In 1865, she married her first cousin Josef Szyja PERETZ. There is no available information to suggest that either Rosa or Henriette had a second marriage, before or after the one each is known to have had.
So, if Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU, son of R. Isaac of Wlodawa, was married into the family of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU of Kempen, it seems much more likely that this was the man Haskel LANDAU, Kaufmann in Kempen, who was married to Nesche LANDAU, daughter of Arjeh Jehuda Leib LANDAU of Kempen. The wife of Haskel still has the same relationship to R. MICHELSON's wife as he "knew" it to be -- first cousin of the grandmother of MICHELSON's wife. It is just that she was a daughter of one brother of Hannah rather than another. There is no reason to suspect that R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU had a posthumous daughter who would have married a fairly old Haskel in 1860 or later.
Well, at first, I did not know that the mistake could be attributed to R. MICHELSON (or even to his having just repeated it). I only knew that a small piece of the LANDAU family tree published by Dr. Neil ROSENSTEIN in his work "The Unbroken Chain" (2nd Ed. 1990) seemed too close to fitting my family line not to be suspected of containing an error. As I have written before, that was the purported marriage of R. Ezekiel LANDAU, son of R. Isaac LANDAU of Wlodawa, to a daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen. From what I subsequently learned, it was R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON who first (?) wrote about that.
Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON was born in Bilgoraj in 1863. He was a rabbi in Warsaw. Sadly, he lived long enough to be deported and murdered in the Shoah, probably in Treblinka K.Z in about 1942. His wife Hinda Sarel SZWERDSZARF (d.1924, Warsaw) was a great great granddaughter of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU (d.1824) of Kempen. R. MICHELSON (re)published a work of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU entitled "Sefer Ein haBedolach" with a preface in which he included information about his wife's LANDAU family. Among other things, R. MICHELSON wrote that R. Jecheskel, son of R. Isaak LANDAU of Wlodawa, was a son-in-law of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU (ca.1799-1836) of Kempen, a brother of Hannah ASCHKENAZI geb. LANDAU, great grandmother of Hinda Sarel.
To insert my family into this picture, it only required imaging that R. MICHELSON had made a small mistake. Rather than Jecheskel LANDAU having married an unknown daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen, I suspect that that this same Jecheskel LANDAU had actually married Nesche, a daughter of [R. (?)] Arjeh Jehuda Leib LANDAU (ca.1780-1838) of Kempen, another sibling of Hannah and Joseph Samuel. I began imaging that 8 years ago yesterday.
It was only during the last two months' immersion in all things LANDAU, that I realized that R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU had no daughter who could have been the wife (only wife or second wife) of Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU. When R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU died in Kempen in 1836, the death entry includes a list of his surviving family members, including his widow Elke, his 5 sons and his 2 daughters, one of whom was already married at that time. The daughter Rosa (Rosalie), born ca.1820, married Jochen (Chaim) COHN. The other daughter Gitel (Henriette), was not quite 3 years old when her father died. In 1865, she married her first cousin Josef Szyja PERETZ. There is no available information to suggest that either Rosa or Henriette had a second marriage, before or after the one each is known to have had.
So, if Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU, son of R. Isaac of Wlodawa, was married into the family of R. Israel Jonah LANDAU of Kempen, it seems much more likely that this was the man Haskel LANDAU, Kaufmann in Kempen, who was married to Nesche LANDAU, daughter of Arjeh Jehuda Leib LANDAU of Kempen. The wife of Haskel still has the same relationship to R. MICHELSON's wife as he "knew" it to be -- first cousin of the grandmother of MICHELSON's wife. It is just that she was a daughter of one brother of Hannah rather than another. There is no reason to suspect that R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU had a posthumous daughter who would have married a fairly old Haskel in 1860 or later.
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