Home

Most descendants of Penny and his wife Jennie stayed near Fall River and are still in Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Most members of the other two branches left Fall River early on and settled in the New York City and New Jersey, and are now mostly in New Jersey. Members of each branch are in South Florida, which now has one of the largest American Jewish communities. Although some of our Floridians are snowbirds, others have settled there at a much younger age. All the information you are reading is subject to change as we learn more.So why did the family leave the Ukraine? 

 One of the precipitating causes for men to leave Russia was to avoid being drafted into the Russian army.  

 In addition, Europe experienced an internal as well as an external migration in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Changing  economic conditions made small farms became uneconomical and at the same time large industry needed laborers in massive industrial enterprises. The Ukraine experienced a long period of peace during the 19th century. Improvements in public health led to population increases. People immigrated from small villages and rural areas to large cities where jobs could be found.  Most stayed in Europe, but  substantial numbers immigrated to the United States and other countries. Most of the migrants settled in  the industrial cities in the United States, just as they would have done if they had stayed in the old country.  This applied to both Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants.  

    Jews were only allowed to live in peripheral areas of Russia, The Pale of Settlement,  during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This included Russian Poland, what are now the Baltic States, and parts of the Ukraine. It did not include Kiev, Moscow or Saint Petersburg and most of the industrializing parts of Russia. These areas were only open by special permission, and the rules kept changing, as did the enforcement of the rules. So these natural destinations were unavailable.

     Of course it was tempting for Jews to leave Russia, where they were subject to government sponsored anti-Semitism. In addition, Russia was in obvious disarray. The Czarist regime was unable to make the transition to constitutional government, and the country was racked by increasing disorder. Had our ancestors remained in Europe, our family would have been much smaller thanks to the vicissitudes of the Russian Civil War, Stalin, and Hitler.  Ironically, being under communist rule for seventy years would have wiped out much of our Jewish identity, even more than the open society of the United States.

     Many of our family underwent a second migration, from Fall River, Massachusetts, to the New York, New Jersey area.  Fall River had its heyday in the 1880s and 90s, and has been declining ever since. Some parts of our family have become extremely successful in the United States. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this.  I believe that one reason is that Jews started leaving the Ukraine earlier than more western parts of Russia.  The government inspired anti-Jewish campaign started sooner in the Ukraine, perhaps in an attempt to distract the Ukraine's nascent nationalism.  Even a ten year head start, I believe, could have been very useful in moving up the ladder in the United States.

Although I take full responsibility for these pages, David Guss has kept me on track and helped me get the facts straight. And it doesn't hurt to have a professor as a proof reader. In addition to David, Arthur Abramson, a retired professsor of linguistics, was helpful, as was Sidney Swidler, a retired architect. If there was a charge for every spelling mistake, it would amount to a lot of kopeks. We are also indebted to Arthur Abramson for the pictures from Gorodishche.

you may learn more about here. Aaron Ginsburg