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Clay in My Boots: A Romp Through My Genealogical Past

My Tour of Lithuania and Ukraine to explore the home of my Ashkenazi ancestors. Family names include: Snyder, Highstein, Gouline, Bass, Musicant, Oks, Khait, Galon, Shenker, Kreiger, Paliukar, Zaidel, Gertsberg, Shkurnik, Kats, Altschul, and Khazan.

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Pakruojis Synagogue

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- August 17, 2018

The only wooden synagogue restored to its original beauty.

Both outside and in.

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/pakruojis/index.htm

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From Russian Village to North Dakota Prairie: The Story of Joseph Nudelman

- February 14, 2025

While my SNYDER Big Y-DNA test didn't provide many matches, I was able to contact the family of Joseph Nudelman, who is listed as an Earliest Known Ancestor. Our Y-DNA lines separated over 1,000 years ago, so he is a very distant relative. Here is his story: Joseph Nudelman's life story is a testament to the resilience and ambition of Jewish immigrants in the late 19th century. Born in a small village near Odessa, Russia in 1844, Joseph received a traditional Jewish education, becoming fluent in Yiddish and Russian. After apprenticing as a carpenter, he became a wine and grain merchant in Romania due to pogroms in Russia. Driven by the ideals of the Am Olam movement, which sought to establish Jewish agricultural settlements, Joseph, with financial backing from Baron de Hirsch, led a group of 25 families to America in 1881. He was delayed due to his wife’s illness but followed in 1882 with more settlers. The journey wasn't easy. The initial group gathered in Denv...

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Memorialization for the Holocaust Victims from the Town of Birzh (Birzai), Lithuania

- May 19, 2018

On August 8, 1941, 2400 Jews living in the town of Birzh were force-marched to the Astrava forest, 3 Km outside of Birzh, and brutally murdered. The victims lie buried in the forest in two large mass graves. A fuller description of this horrific event is found at: https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/birzai/Birzh_3.html A major undertaking to build, at the gravesite, a memorial to the victims is now in process, with the goal of dedicating the memorial in October 2018. Carol, Wendy, and I plan to visit this site when we are in Birzai, August 15-17, prior to the formal dedication. A list of victims has been constructed using data from the Yad Vashem Database of Shoah Victims Names. However, this list falls well short of identifying a majority of those who died on that fateful day. The organizers of the memorial project urgently seek people who can contribute names of Jews who were resident in Birzh during WWII or Jews...