ORIGINS OF

THE MANKOFF FAMILY

IN RUSSIA

AND

THE AMERICAN MIDDLE WEST

by

Michael B. Pliam

Pliable Press

Burlingame, CA

1998

1

Dedication

This writing is dedicated to my mother, Ethel Mankoff Pliam, a remarkable woman who has lived a life now spanning 82 years. Born into an impoverished pioneer family on the desolate Dakota plains, at a time when women were regarded as more of a burden than an asset to a family, she was provided with only a trivial public education and encouraged to marry early. Despite this unpromising beginning, Ethel eventually rose to social prominence in Minneapolis, an acquaintance of the Governor of the State, a U.S. Senator and a Vice President, as well as many other prominent professional and business leaders in Minneapolis. Yet she never lost sight of those less fortunate and numbered among her best friends two of her former housekeepers and her husband's secretary. Devoted mother, sister and friend to many, Ethel's warm-hearted, open and honest approach to people has endeared her to all those who value such qualities. Never neglectful of appearances, she was once voted the Best Dressed Woman in Minneapolis. During her 82 years, Ethel and her generation have witnessed more changes than anyone had ever seen before in a single lifetime. Despite this, she has continued to sustain much of the old-world values, charm and grace that seem to be slowly dwindling from most of our lives. For this reason, she has been a major source of inspiration for this chronicle.

2

Suddenly, as Raizel and Laibel watched, a very bright star passedacross the heavens, flickered and went out. Another starfollowed it, and then another. "Look! The stars are falling!",Laibel laughed gently. "Don't be frightened, Raizel," he said. "stars don't fall. They only wander!" And like a wise, grownman he explained to her the mystery of the stars. Each star, hesaid, was a human soul. And those souls with a wandering starmust follow it, yes, even if it led over half the earth, for onlythere will they find their destiny.

Sholem Aleichem"Wandering Star" 51

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction............................................................................................................ 5

A Brief History of Russian Jews Up to 1900........................................................... 9

Berdichev, the Jerusalem of Volhynia.....................................................................15

Berish the Disinherited...........................................................................................17

The Ears of the Bear (Medvehzyeh Ushka).............................................................19

A Strong and Beautiful Rose (Rose Langer Mankoff).............................................23

Uncle Moshe Langer Shows the Way.....................................................................28

Mary – The First Mankovetsky in America............................................................31

Lazer Mankovetsky (Louis Mankoff).....................................................................34

Feige Istransky (Fanny Levine Mankoff)................................................................35

The Child Prodigy..................................................................................................39

Military Service and the Russo-Japanese War.........................................................40

Pogrom................................................................................................................... 44

Flight...................................................................................................................... 49

America the Beautiful............................................................................................. 52

Beyond the Prairie.................................................................................................. 58

Postscript................................................................................................................ 72

Sources and References..........................................................................................76

Family Connections................................................................................................ 81

Index........................................................................................................... 89

4

Introduction

Have you ever wondered about who you were, where you came from, how you got to

be where you are, or where you were going? With all the places to live in America, how did

your family come to reside in Minneapolis, Minnesota?

In the 1960s, many second-generation Americans realized that the time was ripe to

explore such questions because the older generation was dying off. The motivation to

establish a family history may stem from a variety of different reasons. Some may seek to

uncover connections with royalty, social, political or economic prominence, artistic genius, or

military fame in order to enhance a prideful sense of self-worth, glorify present-day family

members, embellish the current family’s perceived worth to society, or encourage present-day

aspirants. Others have little interest in dredging up the past if they feel that their predecessors

were largely poor, uneducated, undistinguished individuals whose life stories would not serve

to aggrandize them. A few are simply sentimental or nostalgic. But if all people are endowed

with the potential for significant achievement, and worldly accomplishments are largely the

result of opportunity, chance and cultural orientation, then every human life is worth serious

contemplation. It seems likely that those lives that have been connected most closely to our

own may have had the greatest influence upon us. Thus some knowledge of those lives might

enable us to achieve a better perspective of our own lives and those of our children.

With research, what begins as a few simple questions about “the family” soon gives

rise to a set of facts and dates and connections that at first seem confusing and pointless. With

further study, there emerges a picture with profound social, political, economic, religious and

cultural consequences for the present generation.

5

While the story of the Mankoff family has as much in common with countless other

stories of other immigrant families in America, several ethno geographical features make it

uniquely interesting. The family was uniformly Jewish and practiced Orthodox Judaism. The

family was from a specific locale in Eastern Europe. The family sustained severe religious,

social, and economic persecution. The family was forced to flee for their lives. The family

was resettled in a part of the United States, which was almost as hostile to them as their

original homeland, albeit in a subtly different way. The family survived, became educated,

and prospered.

Many of the present generation are unaware of the cultural heritage that fate has

bestowed upon them. Cut off from the traditions of their immigrant forefathers, they have no

access to knowledge of their ancestral origins. If history repeats itself, as it has a tendency to

do, such information may be of importance.13, 24, 28, 31 The few facts, photos, and references

provided here may stimulate some to look further. For those who are curious, at least there

will be an avenue to approach additional study

In attempting to provide an historical background for the story of the Mankoffs, I went

to the libraries at the Temple Israel and Adath Jeshuran synogogues in Minneapolis. There I

found many useful articles dealing with Jewish life in Russia. Most particularly, I found those

books by S.M. Dubnow of interest. 8, 9, 10 Dan Rottenberg provides one of the clearest

descriptions of the Pale of Settlement in his book, "Finding Our Fathers".52 Gunther Plaut's

book, "The Jews in Minnesota", is a scholarly work with many great descriptions of early

Jewish life in Minnesota.47 The Minneapolis Public Library provides access to microfiche

copies of old newspaper articles and passenger list manifests. The Hennepin County Clerk of

District Court has records of naturalization for Louis Mankoff as well as many other family

6

birth, death and marriage records. Homestead documents and related materials can be found at

the McIntosh County Courthouse in Ashley, North Dakota. The Encyclopaedia Judaica

provides countless useful insights into the life, times and places of Jews in Russia.

This work was not intended to be a work of scholarship so much as an easy reading

family history. Consequently, I have intentionally omitted most of the footnotes and reference

citations that would be considered good form in academic writing. But the bibliography lists

most of the major sources of historical material and it should be obvious to the perceptive

reader which parts of the text emanated from my own imagination.

Many of the Mankoff relatives are interred in various cemeteries in and around

Minneapolis, as they are in New York, Denver and Dallas. I have found it a sobering and

spiritually uplifting experience to visit the grave sites of of Louis and Fanny Mankoff and

Louis' mother, Rose at the Hebrew Union Cemetery (Jewish Cemetery) on Penn Avenue South

in Minneapolis. Be prepared to read some Hebrew if you go there. There is also an Adath

Jeshuran Cemetery on France Avenue South in Richfield where Bettie ("Mimibuntze")

Weinstein and Moshe Langer were buried there, as are many of the Langer family. I am told

that Zusche Istransky is buried somewhere in New York, but no one remembers exactly where.

My Great Grandmother, Leah Istransky is buried in Dallas, probably near her sons Mike, Izzy

and Abe.32

No amount of library, courthouse or cemetery research can adequately reconstruct the

lives our departed ancestors. It was only by talking extensively with a number of individuals

who were directly involved, most notably Louis Mankoff, Fanny Levine Mankoff, Harry

Mankoff, Cecil Mankoff, Ethel Mankoff, Solly Levine, Nate Gross, Angie Langer, and many

others that I was able to piece together some of the personal and human aspects of our family

7

story. I believe that it is a story of remarkably brave and resourceful people who loved each

other and who loved life. It is a positive story, one that I constantly draw courage from. I

hope that you will find it so as well.

8

A Brief History of Russian Jews Up to 1900

It is difficult to say exactly when the Jews first moved from the area of the

Mediterranean Sea to the region that we know as Russia. 3, 4, 8, 11, 50, 54, 57 Ancient Greek writings

mention Jewish settlements on the northern shore of the Black Sea in the first centuries of the

Christian era. Some Jews traveled from countries in western Asia to the Caucasus Mountains

at about the same time. The frequent wars between Rome (or sometimes Byzantium) and

Persia led may Jews to flee to safer areas. The most famous of the early Russian Jewish

groups were the Khazars. 26 The Khazars adopted Judaism in the eighth century. They lived in

the southern portion of Russia, near what is called the Crimea today. It is possible that the

Khazars chose Judaism because they wanted to remain neutral in the fighting which often took

place between their Christian and Islamic neighbors. The Khazars brought rabbis to their land

from western Asia to teach them about Jewish rituals. The modern Russian Empire is

connected with the rise of "Kievan Russia" late in the tenth century, centered in the city of

Kiev (which is today in the Ukraine). Prince Vladimir of Kiev chose to follow the Christian

religion. There is a legend that he made this decision after talking with people of the Christian,

Jewish and Islamic religions. According to the story, when Vladimir asked where the Jews

live, the Jewish spokesman replied:

We do not live in Jerusalem, for the Lord was wroth with our forefathers, and scattered us all over the earth for our sins, while our land was given away to the Christians.

Thereupon Vladimir exclaimed:

How then dare you teach others when you yourselves are rejected by God and scattered? If God loved you, you would not be dispersed in strange lands. Do you intend to inflict the same misfortune on me? 26

9

The emerging Russian civilization, with its newly chosen Greek Orthodox Christianity,

was intolerant of any faith other than its own. Most of Russian's early religious leaders came

from Byzantium, whose long tradition of religious intolerance included laws forbidding the

practice of Judaism. But despite this anti-Jewish attitude, the Jewish community of Kievan

Russia became quite prosperous. Although the Jews were apparently restricted to certain

sections of Kiev, they became successful businessmen. The fact that many Jews were fairly

well educated enabled them to exert a considerable influence on the Russian people. This

influence was later to have a deep effect on the Church itself. 3, 4

The center of Russian civilization gradually shifted from Kiev to Moscow. By the

thirteenth century, Kievan Russia had given way to "Muscovite Russia". The Jews had little

influence in Moscow. In fact, the people of Moscow excluded most foreign groups, including

the Jews. But Jewish influences came to Moscow in another way. Zechariah,a Kievan Jew,

settled in the old city of Novgorod and began to spread religious propaganda. Because of his

convincing arguments, a number of Novgorodian nobles and church leaders accepted some

teachings of Judaism. Zechariah taught them that the Messiah had not yet come, and that it

was idolatry to worship religious paintings and statues. A sect known as the "Judaizers"

formed in the Russian Church, and began to spread its ideas to Moscow. Some sources

indicate that even the daughter-in-law of the ruler of Moscow believed in the teachings of the

Judaizers. But the leaders of the Moscow Church turned the people against this new sect, and

many of its leaders were burned for the crime of heresy. 3, 4, 11

All during the sixteenth century, the rulers of Russia followed a severely anti-Jewish

policy. Jews were often robbed of their possessions and forced to leave the Russian Empire.

When Ivan IV of Russia conquered certain areas, he forced the Jews living there to convert to

10

Christianity. If they refused, they were drowned. In the seventeenth century, Czar Alexei

brutally persecuted the Jews of Poland. He supported Cossack uprisings against Poland, and

invaded certain portions of Poland and Lithuania. When his troops found large Jewish

communities in these areas, Alexei tried to force the Jews to leave. Many of the Jews fled,

hoping to find safety with Polish armies. But before they reached the Poles, large numbers of

them were massacred. 11

Under the fairly enlightened regime of Peter the Great (1682-1725), the situation of the

Jews was not truly improved. Peter felt that the Russian people were not yet ready for the

admission of more Jews to Russia. When the mayor of Amsterdam suggested that many Jews

be sent from Holland to Russia, Peter replied with this note:

You know, my friend, the character and customs of the Jews; you also know the Russians. I, too, know them both, and believe me: the time has not yet come to unite these two peoples. Tell the Jews that I thank them for their offers and I understand the advantages I might have derived from them, but I would have pitied them for having to live among the Russians.

It is difficult to determine how Peter felt personally about the Jews. From what we can

piece together, Peter the Great did not have personal anti-Jewish prejudices. He was perfectly

willing to make close acquaintances with Jews, but usually requested that these Jews convert to

Christianity. As Czar of the Russians, he truly believed that Christianity was the only proper

way to worship God. He wanted the men who served him personally to follow the Christian

faith.11

The plight of Russian Jews seriously deteriorated in the regimes of Catherine I, Peter

II, and Anna (first half of the eighteenth century). In 1727, all Jews were formally banished

from the country. Most Jews moved westward, to Poland and the other nations of Eastern

Europe. Only in Smolensk, on the border between Russian territory and Poland, did some Jews

11

remain within the empire. When one of these Jews erected a synagogue and converted a

Russian man to Judaism, both the Jew and the converted Russian were brought to Moscow and

burned in the public square. The regime of Czarina Elizabeth (1741-1762) was even worse for

the Jews. In 1742, she issued an order in which she tried once more to expel the Jews from

Russia: 8, 20

...all Jews, male and female, of whatever occupation and standing shall, at the promulgation of Our Ukase (Order) be immediately deported, together with all their property, from Our whole Empire, both from the Great Russian and Little Russian cities, villages, and hamlets. They shall henceforth not be admitted to Our Empire under any pretext and for any purpose, unless they be willing to adopt Christianity of the Greek persuasion. Such baptized persons shall be allowed to live in Our Empire, but not to leave the country.

By the time of Catherine the Great (1762-1796), anti-Jewish prejudice was deeply rooted in

the thinking of the Russian people. Catherine professed to believe that all people should be

entitled to certain basic freedoms, but she had to be very careful when it came to discussing the

Jews,because of the way most Russians felt about them. By Catherine's time most of the

Russian Jews had either been massacred or had fled to Poland. But now, through a series of

wars, Catherine was able to carve up Poland and add certain formerly Polish areas to the

Russian Empire. Large numbers of Jews suddenly found themselves within the boundaries of

that empire. Their freedom of movement was soon limited, and they were restricted to certain

areas, the so-called "Pale of Settlement", within which borders the Jews had to reside. 11, 22, 29, 38,

46, 52, 54 By the beginning of the nineteenth century, high officials in the Russian government

began to realize that nothing would be gained by pushing the Jews out of the empire. Instead,

they argued that the Jews might benefit the Russian people. Mikhail Speransky, a minister in

the government, wrote in 1803:

12

It is preferable and safer . . . to propel the Jews toward perfection by opening to them new avenues for the pursuit of happiness, supervising their activities from a distance, and removing obstacles from their path, but without the use of force. One ought not to establish new special agencies acting in their behalf but rather encourage their own fruitful pursuits. In short, as few restrictions and as much freedom as possible - these are the simple ingredients of an effective social order. 9

Such ideas were aided by the then popular concept of "mercantilism". This theory said a

country should acquire undeveloped lands, from which they could get raw materials cheaply.

These materials could then be made into finished products and sold, making the country rich

and powerful. The Jews could help to develop Russia's industry because of their abilities in

trading and business. So Jews were permitted to join associations of merchants and

industrialists, and soon came to occupy important positions in Russia's business world. But

many developments which took place in those years harmed the Jews of Russia. For example,

when a severe famine occurred in the western portions of the country in 1799, it was blamed

on local Jewish innkeeepers. The superstitious peasants rose up against the Jews, and killed

many of them. In response to the intense anti-Jewish feelings of the Russian people, the

government adopted a policy of prohibiting Jewish movement within the country. Jews were

forced to remain in those areas where they already lived. Jews were not permitted to leave the

Pale of Settlement until the twentieth century.

In the early 1800s, Russia was ruled by Czar Nicholas I whose motto was "Orthodoxy,

Autocracy, and Nationality". In other words, Nicholas felt that the most important elements

for a strong Russian nation were the Russian Orthodox Church, the unquestioned power of the

czar, and the protection of Russian national purity. There was no room in his Russia for

"different" people, people of different religious faiths or national origins. In 1816, Nicholas

wrote:

13

The ruin of the peasants in these provinces are the Zhids (Jews)... They are full-fledged leeches sucking up these unfortunate provinces to the point of exhaustion...Surprisingly, however, in 1812 they were very loyal to us and assisted us in every possible way (in the war against France) even at the risk of their lives. 9

It is easy to see the anti-Jewish feelings have been present throughout the course of

Russian history. Superstition and prejudice are basically linked to the religion of the Russian

Church (known as the Greek Orthodox Church because it originally came from the Greek

civilization of Eastern Europe). The Church has been the prime source of anti-Semitic

teachings throughout Russian history. Its early leaders came from Byzantium, where Jewish

religious practices had been outlawed. Anti-Jewish prejudice became a basic teaching in

Russian religious circles. But beyond this, a fundamental cause of Church anti-Semitism was

the belief that the Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Perhaps you can

understand how a Russian peasant might feel about the Jews when he was told that they were

responsible for the death of Jesus. In addition, the Russian peasantry formed anti-Semitic

prejudices as a result of the everyday dealings with local Jews. Many Jews ran successful

small businesses, and sold various supplies to the Russian peasantry. In bad years, when the

farms did not yield profits to the peasants they still had to buy clothing and food from the

Jewish businessmen. This led to jealousy and hatred. Then too, the Jews lived apart and

followed Jewish religious customs. Some may say that the Jews remained apart from their

Gentile neighbors because they were forced to. While this is certainly part of the answer, it is

also true that the Jews wished to associate mainly with each other, and chose to stay away

from much contact with the Gentile world. On both sides there was lack of knowledge of the

other group, which resulted in feelings of distrust and suspicion of the unknown. Still another

factor served to single out the Jews of Russia for "special treatment". Nearly all of Russia's

14

minority groups developed over the years within a specific land area. Looking at a map of

Russia, you will see that the country is divided into sections, each of which bears the name of a

national group. In general, when the government had to deal with any of the national groups

within its borders it found itself concerned with a particular area of the country. Since the

czars wanted to avoid having one section of the empire cause trouble, or perhaps revolt, they

treated each national group with a certain amount of care. But the Jews, along with some other

minorities such as the Gypsies, had no home territory. Instead, they were scattered among

other national groups living in various areas. Jews in the Ukraine were surrounded by a

majority of Ukrainians; Jews in Georgia lived among a majority of Georgians. Thus the

government had no fears that strict measures taken against the Jews would arouse the

antagonism of an entire region. This fact has been an important element in the persecution of

Russian Jewry. 11

Berdichev, the Jerusalem of Volhynia

Berdichev is an important city in Russian Jewish history and a place from which

Mankoff family roots can be identified. While we can piece together very little of the actual

events of the Mankoffs (Mankovetskys) lives prior to the middle nineteenth century, many

written historical accounts of the city allow us to reconstruct something of the time and place.

Such a description, while somewhat dry and academic, is useful when we try to imagine just

what kind of people our great great grandparents might have been. The following description

has been loosely taken from the Encyclopedia Judaica. Berdichev is a city in the government

of Kiev, Russia; in historical and ethnographical relations part of Volhynia. It has one of the

largest Jewish communities in Russia, and was often called the "Jerusalem of Volhynia"

15

(Volhynia is a large province in the Ukraine). It is difficult to determine the time when Jews

first settled there. From the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth, Berdichev was

under the dominion of Poland; and the polish family of Tishkewitz, the hereditary owners of

that domain, ruled over it as they pleased. In 1593 it is stated that the owners of the "new

town" of Berdichev farmed out to a certain Jew the mill and bridge taxes. In the eighteenth

century the Jewish population increased considerably, and a Jewish "Kahal" (government of

the community) was established, as in other large cities of Poland. A trade union of Jewish

tailors was formed in 1732 with the permission of the lady of the domain, Tereza Zawisha,

who granted them autonomy and exemption from the rule of the Kahal. In 1794, Prince

Radziwill permitted the Jews to elect their own civil judges in addition to the ecclesiastical

court. 8, 9, 10, 11

16

Berish the Disinherited

Berish (Benjamin) Mankovetsky about 1870. This likeness has been retouched. It was copied from the only known surviving image of him. The image was provided by Harry and Sarah Mankoff and was a composite that included his wife, Rose. It might have been the couples wedding picture. Born in Berdichev in 1853, he moved to a small village near Vinnitsa in the Ukraine. He married Rose Langermann in about 1870. Berish lived through the pogroms and the height of the Russian Revolution. He died near Vinnitsa during the typus epidemic of 1912.

My great grandfather, Berish (Benjamin) Mankovetsky, was born in the Ukrainian

town of Berdichev in about 1853. He apparently grew to manhood in Berdichev where he

obtained his education, most likely a combination of Russian public schooling and Jewish

religious and Hebrew school (hedar). He spoke largely Russian and Yiddish. His parents were

said to have been moderately affluent, of the merchant class and Berish's father is reputed to

17

have been a successful grain and cattle broker and perhaps a dry goods merchant as well.

Berish's uncle was said to have been an attorney. 33 He probably had a number of brothers and

sisters, but with the passing time, the detailed events of Berish's life in Berdichev and the

people that surrounded him have all faded away.

Berish was recalled as an attractive man who was quiet and something of a retiring

intellectual.33 He followed in the footsteps of his father in that he became a wheat broker and

in time moved to the area of Vinnitsa which lay some fifty miles to the south of Berdichev.

There he established himself successfully and probably lived out most of his life in the nearby

small farming village of Medvezhyeh Ushka. Rose Langerman's family lived in another small

town near Vinnitsa. Rose had been born there in 1850. Her father, Lev Langerman, was an

Orthodox Jew and saw to it that his family followed a strict observance of Jewish traditional

customs and observances. The Langerman family was more traditionally Jewish than were the

Mankovetskys of Berdichev. 14, 22 The Mankovetskys were not pleased when Berish

announced his intention to marry Rose Langerman. Evidently, they felt it to be a poor match

because the Langermans were a poor family and were considered to be of inferior social

standing. Money and social standing were significant issues for Russian Jews, even as it

remains for them today in America. Nevertheless, the wedding took place.

A permanent rift developed between Berish and his family in Berdichev as result of

this marriage. The Berdichev relations never came to visit. In fact, some years later when

Berish and Rose's daughter, Sophie (Sonya) Mankovetsky, was wed to Charlie Kennis in

Medvezhyeh Ushka, the grandparents fifty miles to the north wrote to Berish to come and pick

up a gift for Sophie. Berish, responding to the letter, returned from Berdichev with a one

hundred and fifty pound box of valuable gifts including jewels, quilts and china. Such a

18

wedding gift for their granddaughter probably attests more to the affluence than to the warmth

or generosity of the Berdichev grandparents. Whatever the reason, Berish Mankovetsky

undeniably became alienated from his parent’s family in Berdichev.33 He must have married

Rose in about 1874. Apparently he saw very little of his parents family after that and it has

been said that they disinherited him. In any case, he probably lived out his life as a quiet,

retiring intellectual and grain broker in Medvezhyeh Ushka. 33

The union of Berish and Rose produced at least twelve offspring, although six of their

children are known to have died before the age of eight years. 33 The six remaining children

who survived into adulthood were born Lazer (Louis) in 1875, Sosi (Sophie) in 1881, Manya

(Mary) in 1883, Sarah (Sonia) in 1892, Harry in 1893, and Pearl in 1898. Each of these

children was born in Mevezhyeh Ushka, in the Province of Kiev, Gubernya Podolska

(Podolia), in what is today the Ukraine. Each of them ultimately made the journey to

America, eventually settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota where they lived out much of their

lives and raised their respective families.

The Ears of the Bear

The Mankovetskys were one of perhaps five Jewish families who lived in the small

agricultural village of Mevezhyeh Ushka, population about two thousand. The populace

consisted largely of Russian-Ukrainian peasants who were illiterate and ignorant. The mayor

of the town was allegedly unable to read or write. The name "Medvezhyeh Ushka" is my best

attempt at alliteration in English of the Russian pronunciation as conveyed to me by Harry

Mankoff and some Russian friends of mine. The town's name was said to have derived from a

contraction of the Russian words, "medvezhyeh" meaning bear and "ushka" meaning ears. Just

19

what the significance of the ears of a bear was to the history of Mevezhyeh Ushka remains a

subject for speculation. One old peasant legend claimed that the ears of a slain bear had been

nailed to a tree in order to mark the proposed site of settlement for early pioneers. In

Medvezhye Ushka there existed a Russian Orthodox Church and a Public School but there was

no synagogue or "header" (Jewish religious school) there. In those early days, just before the

turn of the century, it was a rather happy village and people got along fairly well. Most of the

residents were on a first name basis with one another and surnames were seldom used.

"ZDRAHST-vwee-t'yeh, Berish"(greetings Berish), might the merchant have greeted. "DOH-

bree d'yen, Utko. Kak vwee pa-zhee-VA-yeh-t'yeh?" (Good day,Utko. How are you?), might

great grandfather have replied. Utko, or Edel as he was known in Yiddish (each of the Jews

had both a Russian and a Yiddish name) was the representative for a sugar refinery in nearby

Kiev. He lived in Medvezhye Ushka with his family, making his living by broking sugar

beets. A wealthy Jewish family controlled the refinery. Volko was the local Jewish grocer.

Gitman, on the other hand was largely retired, something of an intellectual man of leisure who

had been fortunate enough to marry a wealthy wife.

The Mankovetskys lived in a house on the shore of a lake. The lake was about one half

mile across. During the warmer summer evenings, the younger people would get together at

the lakeshore for socializing and singing. Russian and Yiddish songs could frequently be heard

drifting across the lake through the warm summer air. The young Jewish folks would

frequently socialize in this manner with their Ukrainian peasant friends. Singing was a

common pastime in those long happy days. And the Mankovetsky children were notably

blessed with excellent singing voices. 33, 49 In fact, they prided themselves on this, although

none of them played musical instruments since there were never any instruments at hand.

20

Berish Mankovetsky made a reasonable living as a grain broker in Medvezhyeh Ushka. But he

was hardly a wealthy man, and he had to struggle to provide enough for his ever-enlarging

family. Despite his somewhat formidable appearance and the fact that he was an Orthodox

Jew, the neighboring peasants got along with him quite well, trusted him and his family, and

were eventually even protective of his wife and family. Berish was not active in local politics.

This was customary of the Jewish population who seemed to wish not to get involved rather

than risk provoking the enmity of political rivals. But the mayor of the town frequently sought

Berish out since the mayor himself could not read nor write. If a letter were to be written,

Berish would write it and the mayor would then affix his official seal. Berish was an honest

man. He could be trusted. 33

The Mankovetsky children grew up in Mevezhyeh Ushka where they worked, played

and went to school. The public school was not a church school per se, but each morning the

Russian Orthodox priest would come into the school house and proceed to offer a prayer to

start the school day, whereupon the priest would depart, not to reappear until the following

school morning. The young Jewish students were allowed to leave the room during these

prayers, and the Mankovetsky children invariably took this brief leave of absence from their

Ukrainian classmates during school prayers. Schooling concerned itself with reading, writing

and arithmetic skills together with a liberal sprinkling of political propaganda, especially

concerning the Romanov dynasty and particularly Czar Nicholas II. 17, 36

Some very ignorant peasants truly believed that the Czar was their own personal

representative to God Almighty. In those days, utterances against the Czar were punishable by

imprisonment or worse. A popular riddle of the day among the children, one that was usually

whispered while huddled in a remote corner of the school yard and followed by nervous

21

giggles went something like this: Question: "What is not obscene but cannot be said?"

Answer: "That Czar Nicholas is a damnable fool." The humor of this riddle no doubt has lost

something in translation and after the passing of almost a century, but it is recounted here as a

surviving artifact of the folk mentality of that time and place.

Berish was a kind and loving father, a man possessed of a stern will but yet of a

remarkably even temperament. He preferred a somewhat leisurely pace of existence. Thus he

worked only four months of the year broking grain and farm produce, probably during the

harvest season. The rest of the year he bided his time working with various handicrafts. He

always took a daily afternoon nap. On the Jewish High Holidays (Rosh Hashona and

YomKippur), the Mankovetskys would journey to nearby Vinnitsa to attend synagogue

services. Vinnitsa was a town twelve versts (eight miles) to the north and the trip was made in

the family's horse drawn wagon. The boys were not always so lucky though, because they had

to walk the eight miles to Vinnitsa and back each day in order to attend hedar after public

school had let out. They were taught to take their Jewish education quite seriously. The daily

sixteen-mile trek must have helped them to stay in superb physical condition. In preparation

for the children to "lay tfillen", which is the old way of saying, to perform the ceremony then

attending their Bar Mitzvah, the "Malamed" (Hebrew teacher) would come to Medvezhyeh

Ushka for two weeks to help the youngsters prepare. Of course the parents paid for these

teaching services, but such trouble and expense was regarded as a basic necessity.

22

A Strong and Beautiful Rose (Rose Langer Mankoff)

Rose Langer Mankovetsky (Rose Mankoff). This photo was copied from only known image of her and was provided by Harry and Sarah Mankoff. The photo was probably taken around 1870 when Rose was about twenty years of age. The likeness has obviously been retouched. It was originally a composite photograph of her and her husband, Berish Mankovetsky. It may have been her wedding picture.

Mother Rose (pronounced ROZ'ye with the proper Russian inflection) was a rather

pretty, tall, slender young woman whose family resided near Medvezhyeh Ushka. There she

was born in 1850. Her father's Hebraic name was Lev (according to the yartzheit inscription

on her tombstone). 41 Rose’s mother was named Minnie Weinstein. The Weinstein family

also immigrated to Minneapolis and were instrumental in bringing the Mankoff family to

Minneapolis. Rose had at least five siblings, brothers Moshe (Moses), Nathan and Sidney,

sister Ita (Edith) and two other sisters whose names have been forgotten. One of Rose’s older

23

sisters lived all of her life in Russia where she married, raised a family and died at the age of

one hundred and five. Most of rose’s siblings eventually immigrated to America, settling in

Minneapolis, Minnesota and shortening their family name to Langer. In addition, Lev

Langerman had an older daughter who is said to have lived all of her life in Russia, marrying

and raising a family and dying at the age of one hundred and five. There are no verifiable

reports to substantiate rumors that this venerable lady consumed greater than usual amounts of

Russian yogurt during her lifetime. In addition, Rose had three brothers, one of whom, Moshe

Langer(man), immigrated to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1892, probably at the invitation of his

cousin, Mayer Weinstein. Rose’s sister, Ita (Edith) married Joseph Kennis. The Kennis

family eventually immigrated to South Dakota and later to Minneapolis where many of them

reside to this day.

Joseph Kennis and Ita (Edith) Langer Kennis. Rare well-preserved pictures from the “Old Country”. The garb is typical of that worn by Russian Jews of the period. The couple had at least five children, Charles, Pearl, and Paul, who immigrated to America, and two others who apparently remained in Russia and whose fate is unknown. Charlie Kennis married his first cousin, Sonia (Sophie) Mankoff, joined his cousin, Louis Mankoff in founding the MKT Stores in South Dakota.

Rose and Berish Mankovetsky had at least twelve children, six of whom died before

reaching the age of nine years.33 Of the surviving children, there were two sons, Lazer and

Harry, and four daughters, Mary, Pearl, Sonia, and Sarah.

24

As the six children grew to young adulthood and each in turn married and moved

away, rose and Berish were left with the task of minding their grandchildren from time to

time, and tending to the few livestock that they maintained. By the time that the Russian

Revolution was well underway, chaos reigned in much of the country and for a time, the

children and their families would seek refuge in the small village near Vinnitsa. In fact, rose

and Berish encouraged their children to leave Russia and go to America. This was because

Russia was a the time a very dangerous and very antisemitic place and there was little

opportunity for Jewish people to obtain a good job or a formal education.

By 1906, most of the children had left for America, the last ones to leave being Harry

and his sister, Pearl. The Russian Revolution was in full swing and pogroms were occurring

by the thousands in both large cities and in small villages throughout the Ukraine. When

Lazer and his wife Feige left for America, they left their infant son, Cecil, with Rose . There

Cecil remained for three years, until he was brought to Ellis Island by eighteen-year old Harry

and his sister Pearl to rejoin his parents in 1909.

These were terrible years for the family. With violence and civil strife came economic

and social dispair. People were starving in Eastern Europe. Disease and death were rampant.

In 1912, a massive epidemic of typhus swept the region. Berish Mankovetsky died of typhus

that year, leaving Rose alone to fend for herself at the age of sixty-two.

The Russian Revolution disrupted any hope for a safe or peaceful life in Russia.

Bolsheviks fought with numerous contending political factions for control of various parts of

the former Empire. World War I broke out in 1917 and further added to the political and

economic turmoil in the region. Eastern Europe became even more lawless and dangerous

when marauding bands of thieves took advantage of the disorder to plunder and murder the

25

innocent. Communication with the outside world deteriorated, as is often the case during

wartime. People in America were afraid to write to their relatives abroad for fear that their

letters would be intercepted and used to somehow incriminate their loved ones. That Rose

Mankovetsky survived these ordeals bears testimony to her strength and forbearance.

Sometime in 1920, eleven years after rose had last set eyes on any of her children and

eight years after she had even heard from any of them, a message arrived one evening in the

little village of Mevehzyeh Ushka. Her son, Harry was in Vinnitsa. He had come to take her

to America.

Young Harry Mankoff circa 1920. Harry is dressed in his AEF Uniform. With the help of Polish soldiers, he managed to sneak over the Russian-Polish border, risking his life to rescue his mother, Rose, and bring her back to America.

Rose lived out the rest of her life in the Upper Midwestern

United States, traveling between South Dakota, where her family operated the

MKT Stores, and Minneapolis, where they eventually came to reside following

26

the Great Depression. Rose Mankoff is remembered by her grandaughter as a

tall, quiet woman who was very religious and always wore a shawl. She never

learned to speak English and spoke only Russian and Yiddish.49 She died in

1931 in Gettysburg, South Dakota at the age of eighty-one. Since most of the

family resided in Minneapolis by that time, her grandsons, David and Melvin,

were dispatched to bring her remains back to Minneapolis on the train.48 She

lies buried in the Jewish Cemetery there.41

The headstone of Rose Mankoff in the Jewish Cemetery in Minneapolis. The Hebraic inscription is characteristic of most of the headstones placed at the time. The Hebrew letters . . . . . (Hebrew letters .heh veht. .eyein .noon .tahv ) translate to mean “May her soul be bound up in the bond of life.”

27

Uncle Moshe Langer Shows the Way

Moshe Langer was to have a profound influence on the family of Berish Mankovetsky.

14, 33 Mayer Weinstein was either the brother-in-law or the cousin of Moshe Langer, or perhaps

both. (There was a lot of intermarriage in those days.) Mayer had left Eastern Europe

sometime in the 1840s and ultimately came to reside in Hopkins, Minnesota where he

established a farm and traded in cattle. For those familiar with Minneapolis, the Weinstein

farm was along Excelsior Boulevard near the Minnekada Golf Course. It was through this

Weinstein connection that Moshe Langer came to reside with his first wife, "Mimibuntzeh"

(Bettie Weinstein) in Minneapolis in about 1892. Mayer Weinstein was a vigorous

entrepreneur who was involved in a variety of businesses. While operating his cattle farm in

Hopkins, he also owned an interest in a general dry goods store that was located in Pollack,

South Dakota. 33

Now Uncle Moshe and Mimibuntzeh Langer (Bettie Weinstein) had already had

several children before they left Russia. Two of their daughters, Rachel and Kate, also

immigrated to the Minneapolis area. Rachel Langer (pronounced ROOCH'L by the older

generation) married a man named Mordacai Greengross (later shortened to Gross). One result

of this coupling was that on March 17, 1883 a son, Shaia (later changed to Charlie) Gross was

born. Shaia Greengross (Charlie Gross) and Mary Mankovetsky may have grown up in the

same part of Russia, but probably never knew of each other while they were in the "Old

Country", even though they were the same age. Ultimately, they were to marry in America

and become instrumental in bringing the rest of their families to the Midwestern United States.

28

Rachel Langer, Moshe Langer’s daughter, shown here with a part of her family in about 1900. From left to right, Rachel, (standing) Betty, Nettie, Nate, and (sitting in front) Mini. Rachel’s husband, Mordacai Greengros and her son, Charlie are not pictured here, perhaps because they had already left for America to join Uncle Moshe. Young Nate was an adopted son. (Photo courtesy of Angie Langer)

Kate Langer, the eldest daughter of Moshe Langer. Kate married Isadore Kerrmish. The couple immigrated from Russia to Minneapolis around 1910. They had four children, Sumner, Minnie (Preaskil), Cyrene (Mazur), and May (Josewitz). It is likely that the young child shown here is May. (Photo courtesy of Angie Langer)

29

Details of the immigration of the Rachel Gross and Kate Kerrmish families to

Minneapolis are known best by their own immediate families. It seems likely that Rachel

Gross lived for a time in South Dakota with her eldest son Charlie when he was involved with

the MKT Stores before the Great Depression forced the family to move to Minneapolis. Both

Rachel and Kate lived on the North Side of Minneapolis for a time. Rachel is remembered to

have lived for awhile with Rose Langer Mankoff near Olson Highway and Russell Avenue.

The two elderly widows spoke no English, only Yiddish, lived in a walk up apartment, and

seemed very “religious” to younger observers.49

Interestingly, despite their close origins, the Langer, Gross, Kerrmish, and Mankoff

families have largely lost contact with one another as differing interests, prosperity, geographic

divergence, and time have intervened. One descendent of the Nathan Langer family, a

daughter of Esther Langer and Gregory Kalika, is said to have perished in the Halocaust. 14 A

substantial part of the Langer and Mankoff families never came to America. Some remained

in Eastern Europe and may have survived the Revolution, two World Wars, and the Halocaust.

Some Langers are said to have immigrated to Israel where they lived at least until 1984.14

Others may still remain in Russia and the Ukraine. There is a banker in Tel Aviv who was

thought to be a Mankovetsky relative.33

30

Mary - the First Mankovetsky in America

Mary Mankoff Gross circa 1950. She was born near Vinnitsa in 1883. The eldest daughter of Berish and Rose Mankovetsky, Mary was the first of the Mankoff children to come to America. She came at the invitation of her Uncle Moshe Langer. Mary accompanied her Uncle’s wife-to-be, Atel Aberman, to Minneapolis in 1906. There she met and married Charlie Gross (aka Shaia Greengros). Mary had three children, Toots (Bernice), Toby (Theodora), and Mort. She died in Minneapolis in 1965.

The young, attractive Mary Mankovetsky was no doubt blissfully ignorant of the

enormous changes that were about to envelope the world around her and her family, as she

dutifully helped her mother with the many chores attendant to looking after a busy household.

She would rise up early each morning to help with breakfast, attend school and return to help

with the evening chores and the preparation of supper, then to study, prayers and off to bed.

When time allowed, she loved to sing and play. She was particularly noted for her lovely

singing voice. 33, 49

31

Sometime in 1906, Charlie Gross received a letter from his grandfather, Moshe Langer,

suggesting that Charlie come to the United States. Twenty five year old Charlie, acting upon

this suggestion and the promise of a brighter future than he was likely to find in czarist Russia,

came to Minneapolis that same year. Charlie's stepbrother, Nate Gross, was soon to follow.

Both boys worked with Moshe Langer and Mayer Weinstein, both in Minneapolis and in South

Dakota. Then, in 1906, Moshe Langer's wife, Mimibuntzeh (BettieWeinstein), died of

tuberculosis. This singular event was to have far reaching consequences for the

Mankovetskys. In fact, it was one of the key events that finally led to most of the family's

immigrating to the United States.

One day, a letter addressed to Rose Mankovetsky arrived in Medvezhyeh Ushka. It

was from her dear brother Moshe, who by that time had been in America for almost fourteen

years. The letter sorrowfully related the passing of his beloved wife, Mimibuntzeh. But

Moshe, like many of the earlier settlers on the frontier of America, was a practical man albeit

perhaps something of a romantic. The letter went on to inquire as to the current marital status

of Moshe's old attraction, Atel (Ethel) Aberman. Incidentally, the letter further inquired,

would any of Rose's children like to come to America? If such were the case, and Atel was

willing and able to come, one of the children could escort the new bride to be to America and

Uncle Moshe would pay for the trip.

There followed no small amount of jubilation among the Mankovetsky children

concerning the possibility of going to America on an all-expense paid journey to be provided

by Uncle Moshe. All of the children wanted to go. What part they played in cajoling Atel

Aberman to go we can only guess. But Mary was generally agreed to be the most

adventurous, and apparently the most adamant. So it was finally agreed that Mary would be

32

the one to go. 33 As Uncle Moshe's luck would have it, Atel Aberman was at the time

widowed and was willing to make the long journey to Minnesota in order to reunite with her

old flame and become his new wife. And so it was that Mary Mankovetsky and Atel Aberman

made the journey to Minneapolis together in 1906.

Upon her arrival in Minneapolis, Mary obtained a job doing the only type of work a

poor uneducated immigrant girl who could not speak English could get. She worked as a

"sweat shop" laborer for the Robitchek Coat Manufacturing Company. Through Uncle Moshe,

Mary was introduced to Charlie Gross. The two fell in love and were married. Then,

probably at the suggestion of Uncle Moshe and under the influence of Mayer Weinstein, Mary

and Charlie moved to Pollack, South Dakota where they were to run a general dry goods store

for Mayer Weinstein.

When the Depression struck in the 1930s and the MKT Stores went bankrupt, Mary

and Charlie moved back to Minneapolis. The couple had three children, Toots (Bernice),

Toby (Theodora) and Morton. Mary died in Minneapolis in 1965.

33

Lazer Mankovetsky (Louis Mankoff)

Lazer Mankovetsky (aka Louis Mankoff) was born in the small Ukrainian village of Medvehzyeh Ushka near the city of Vinnitsa in 1875. There he met and married Feige Istransky (aka Fanny Levine in 1900). Louis The couple lived in Odessa for awhile. Pogroms and the Russian Revolution forced them to immigrate to the United States with three of their four small children, Sam, Harold, Molly, in 1906.

Lazer (Louis) Mankovetsky, my grandfather, was born in Medvezhyeh Ushka on

November 15, 1875. 21, 33 He grew up in this small, quiet agrarian settlement eight miles to the

south of Vinnitsa. His schooling , like that of his father, was obtained from both the Russian

public school which was heavily influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church and Czarist

political propaganda, and the Jewish educational system (hedar) provided in Vinnitsa. In this

setting, Lazer learned to speak a variety of languages including his native Russian, Yiddish,

Hebrew, German, some Polish, Czech and Ukrainian. Lazer was a physically robust young

man with an enchanting smile, an exuberant physique and regarded both by others and himself

34

as something of a "ladies man".33, 35, 49 Lazer was at one time engaged to his first cousin,

Manya (Mary) Langerman, but he later broke this off. Reverberations from this broken

romance have echoed down through the years and the Langer family of Minneapolis still

speaks of it. (Manya was apparently determined to "keep it in the family" since she finally

married another first cousin, Charles Langerman.) 14

Feige Istransky (Fanny Levine Mankoff)

Feige Istransky (aka Fanny Levine Mankoff) was born in the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa in 1877. There she grew-up and met Lazer Mankovetsky (aka Louis Mankoff) whom she married in 1899. Fanny had four children in Russia, Sam, Harold, Molly, and Cecil. She immigrated to the United States in 1906 during the Revolution and pogroms. After a year of living in New York with her brother, Abe, she and her husband, Louis, homesteaded a farm in Ashly, North Dakota, bought a home in Pollack, South Dakota, and raised seven additional children. Fanny died in Minneapolis in 1954 of cardiac failure at the age of seventy-seven.

Now there lived in Vinnitsa at the time, a poor Jewish family of Polish and Bohemian

extraction who were to play an important role in the life of Lazer Mankovetsky. In about

1870, Zusche (Zessel) Istransky had married a woman remembered today only as Leah. Now

35

Leah was a remarkable woman in several ways. To begin with, she was extremely short,

standing perhaps 4 feet 6 inches on her tiptoes. She was further noted for her obsessive

cleanliness. She is said to have often served as a midwife in Vinnitsa. In so doing, she is the

first known health care professional in the family. Leah was an extremely determined person,

if her surviving picture provides any accurate clues to her personality. Zusche and Leah

Istransky brought at least four children into the world of czarist Russia. They were named

Abraham, Feige (Francis), Michael and Isadore. It is probable but uncertain that all of them

were born in Vinnitsa where they spent the major part of their childhood and where they

received both Jewish and Russian public school education.

36

Leah Istransky surrounded by her three sons, Michael, Isadore, and Abram. The photo was probably taken in New York sometime around 1905. Leah’s husband, Zusche Istransky, and her daughter, Feige are not present. Unfortunately, one corner of the photo is missing. Leah’s exact origins are unknown. She may have served as a midwife in Vinnitsa. Leah and her family must have immigrated to New York between 1900 and 1905. Zusche was accidentally gassed to death in about 1905. The family changed its name to Levine. Most of the brothers moved to Oklahoma and later to Texas where they have prospered. Leah died in the 1930s and is buried near Dallas, Texas.

37

Lazer probably first met Feige (pronounced FAY'geh), in Vinnitsa while he was

growing up, possibly through her brothers whom he may have met at hedar. It seems likely

that the Istranskys knew the Mankovetskys for some time since it is recalled that Feige

Istransky and Pearl Mankovetsky ran a grocery store together in Vinnitsa for a short while

Feige, Francis or Fanny, as she was later to become known, was allegedly born in Vinnitsa in

1877, although one of her daughters recollects that her mother was able to speak fluent

Rumanian and thinks that she may have been of Rumanian or Bohemian origin. 49 Feige was

said to have been a vibrant and vivacious young woman who loved to sing and dance. She

may have actually danced in public performance in a theater at one time. Like her mother,

Leah, she was short in stature at 4 foot 10 inches. She had brown hair and brown eyes that

seemed always to twinkle with laughter. She had an iron constitution and an irrepressible

sense of humor.

The Istransky family resided in Vinnitsa during the later part of the 19th century, but

certainly may have originated from elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Feige's father, Zesche, had a

sister, Becky, and four brothers, Laibel, Ike, Moes and Simon. All of them eventually

emigrated to America where they settled for a short while in New York before changing their

family name to Levine and moving on to Texas and Oklahoma. But that is really another

story, the story of the Texas Levines, and I leave it to one of them to chronicle their own

history.

Lazer and Feige were probably married in Vinnitsa in the winter of 1899. Feige was a

pert, vivaciously attractive twenty-one year old and Lazer the handsome mustached groom.

What is believed to be their wedding picture survives. Alas, the Istransky family had little

money. Besides her obvious feminine charms and wit, Feige came with no dowry. But as was

38

the custom of the day, the families pulled together to make a wedding. One version has it that

things were so tight for the Istranskys that Feige's brother, Mike, sold his overcoat to help

provide money to make the wedding. But Mike couldn't go outside with the wedding party

since it was winter and he had no coat. 32, 33

It may have been the turning of the century that suggested to Lazer and his new bride

that it was time to make a change. Feige, as was to become her custom, was pregnant. It may

have been that there were simply not enough opportunities in the area of Vinnitsa for the

energetic and adventurous young couple. Feige's work in the grocery store with her sister-in-

law, Pearl provided little other than the basic necessities. One day, Lazer heard of an

opportunity to sell a line of pewter dishes in the city of Odessa. Odessa was a famous city. It

was large and exciting compared to Vinnitsa. There was the Black Sea with its fashionable

resorts, an opera house, and a sizeable Jewish population, even a Jewish Theatre. Lazer may

have hoped to make his way in this new and exciting place by selling pewter ware, at least

until something better might come along. As was characteristic of most of his business

endeavors, the pewter business went poorly for Lazer. Their first son, Sam, was born in

Odessa on December 15, 1900. In about 1902, Lazer gave up on the pewter business and he

took a job as a manager of one of the health spa resorts for which Odessa was then famous.

The Limond (which may have been the actual name of the place or just a generic name for that

type of natural mudbath resort) was where Lazer worked. On March 20, 1903, Mealke or

Molly (later called Cyrene) was born. On December 15, 1904, Harold was born. 21, 33

39

The Child Prodigy

Feige was greatly enamored of music and loved the violin. During this time, Lazer and

Feige had as their close neighbors the Elman family. This relatively poor Jewish family who

lived across the street had a ten-year-old boy who was extremely talented on the violin. 2, 18

Many years later, Feige would recall to her grandchildren the beautiful playing of this young

child whose name was Mischa and who later became a famous concert violinist. Some fifty

years later, Feige would still hum some of the tunes this child prodigy used to play for the

neighborhood in Odessa and tears of joy would come into her eyes. 48 I found out much later

that the Elmans had moved from the village of Tolna to Odessa just so that their gifted son

could enroll at the Imperial Academy of Music at Odessa. Young Misha's musical abilities

had been recognized early and he had been granted a scholarship to the Academy through the

beneficence of the influential Russian nobility after the Countess Urosova had heard the child

play. It happened that the greatest of Russian violin teachers, Leopold Auer, was on tour in

Odessa and heard twelve-year-old Mischa Elman play the fiddle. Auer was so impressed that

he arranged to have the boy sent to the St.Petersberg Conservatory so that he could study

under Auer himself. Soon the boy was introduced into the homes of nobility that were quickly

charmed and fascinated with him. The Grand Duke of Mechenburg-Strelitz who was a relative

of the Czar, gave him an Amati violin. Soon the boy was touring Europe. He performed at a

command performance before England's King and Queen. On December 10, 1908 Misha

Elman made his American debut in New York. He performed with the Russian Symphony

Orchestra on that occasion and played the first American performance of the Tschaikowsky

40

Violin Concerto. Elman subsequently lived most of his life in New York where he died in

1968. His violin playing has become a legend among musicians.

Military Service and the Russo-Japanese War

The war between Russia and Japan was ostensibly a fight over disputed territory. Its

immediate cause was the failure of the two nations to agree on the relation which each should

maintain toward Korea and Manchuria. 5 The underlying cause of the struggle was the mighty

clash that was bound to come when those measures, which Japan believed were necessary to

her self-existence, met the glacier-like progress of Russia eastward toward the Pacific.

Following a round of futile negotiations and the subsequent severing of diplomatic relations by

Japan, the war broke out on February 8, 1904. That afternoon a fleet of Japanese transports,

escorted by a squadron of battleships and powerful cruisers appeared off the harbor of

Chemulpo. The Russian gunboat Korietz, on its way to PortArthur with dispatches, sighted

the hostile craft. The commander cleared for action, fired a shot a the Japanese torpedo scouts,

then returned at full speed to shelter near the Russian cruiser Variag, inside the Korean harbor.

This proved to be the first shot of the war, and was so claimed by the Japanese when accused

of attacking Port Arthur without formal declaration of war. Early on the morning of February

9, Admiral Uriu, commander of the Japanese fleet, notified the two Russians that they must

surrender or leave the harbor by noon, else he would attack them where they lay. The

Russians did not surrender, but sailed out of the bay, with bands playing, to certain destruction.

By four o'clock that afternoon the Variag and Korietz were at the bottom of Chemulpo Harbor,

and the war was on.

41

About two months before the war, the Russian viceroy of the Far East had prohibited

Jews from residing in PortArthur and upon the Kuantung Peninsula. Despite this, a prominent

Jewish newspaper in Russia expressed support for the war. The "Voskhod" wrote:

This is not the time to irritate the old wounds. Let us endeavor, as far as it is in our power, to forget also the recent expulsion from Port Arthur, the pogroms of Kishinev . . . Let the Jewish parents not think of the bitter fate of their children who had been thrown overboard (by being barred from the educational establishments). The Jews will go forth into battle as plain soldiers, without any hope of attaining an officer's rank, or shoulder-straps, or distinctions - the blood of our sons will flow as freely as that of the Russians. 9

Jews were marched to the Far East to assist Russia in making the province of Manchuria part

of Siberia in which Jews were forbidden to reside. The number of Jews at the front was

disproportionately large; it amounted to some thirty thousand, owing to the fact that, in

accordance with the usual military regulations, the Jewish recruits from the Western

governments were generally dispatched to Siberia, so that, at the very outset, they were near

the theatre of military operations. Disproportionately large was also the number of Jewish

physicians in the reserves. They were mobilized at once, evidently for the reason that they

lived on their private practice and were not allowed to occupy any state or public office,

whereas the Russian physicians were not drawn upon to the same extent, so as not to divert

them from their administrative and municipal services. Out of the thirty physicians who were

mobilized in Kiev, twenty-six were Jews.9 In Odessa, the Jews furnished twenty-one

physicians out of thirty. While scores of thousands of disenfranchised Jews were fighting for

the prestige of Russia in the Far East, their families back home in European Russia continued

to be oppressed. In a number of places the authorities began to expel the families of the

soldiers and physicians who had been sent to the war, on the grounds that with the departure of

the head of the family the wife and children had forfeited the right of residence, the latter

42

being conditioned by the profession of the husband and father. This policy, however, was too

monstrous even for St.Petersburg, and Plehve (the Czars's Interior Minister) was soon forced

to decree that the families of the mobilized Jews should be left in their places of residence,

"pending the termination of the war".

Though the Government was compelled to relax for awhile its oppression of the Jews,

social Judaeophobia, fanned by the chauvinism incident to wartime, broke out with greater

violence than ever. Irritated by the rapid failures of the Russian armies and by the unexpected

military superiority of the Japanese, the reactionary press began to circulate preposterous

rumors to the effect the Jews were secretly helping the Japanese, their "kinsmen by race", in

order to wreak their vengeance upon Russia for having perpetrated the Kishinev massacres.

In addition to all of this, military service for Jews in Russia carried with it some

unpleasant memories for Jewish people. Most of the families remembered or had heard of the

pitiful experiences that Jewish youngsters had experienced under Czar Alexander II. By a law

of 1827, compulsory Russification of the Jews was to be carried out. Personal military service

- instead of the former exemption tax - was to be at the core of the program. Compulsory

military service for all Jews between the ages of 12 and 25 years was to be required. As for

minor recruits, the so-called "Cantonists", they were placed in military preparatory schools and

had to serve six years above the obligatory 25 years. Many of these youngsters were taken

from their families and never heard from again.8, 9, 10

Sometime during the winter of 1904, Lazer Mankovetsky and many thousands of

others like him were compelled to perform military service for the Czar. It is likely that he left

Feige and the children at their home in Odessa and probably journeyed across Siberia to the

battlefront in Manchuria. The historical accounts of the war include many vivid descriptions

43

of the miserable conditions faced by the combatants. The two thousand-mile supply lines,

incredibly cold winter weather, inadequate food and medical supplies, and so on. Many of the

infantrymen had to endure the hardship of a forty-mile march across frozen Lake Baikal ,

through snow and over treacherous ice, in a temperature that was at all times far below zero

because the Trans-Siberian railroad had not yet been completed around the lake.5

While the Russo Japanese War has now been dwarfed by time and the great European

and Pacific conflicts that were to follow, it was at the time a war of very significant scale. The

Battle of Liao-Yang was the culmination of the Japanese campaign in Manchuria and was, in

the point of number of men engaged, the greatest battle that had been fought up to that time.

Almost half a million men fought in the two armies and when the five day duel was over the

total losses of killed and wounded were estimated at about 30,000. The result was that the

Japanese Army gained complete control of the Liaotung Penninsula, north of Port Arthur, and

the Russian Army was forced to retreat. During this period, morale was extremely low among

many of the Russian troops. News from home was almost as bad as news from the front,

especially for Jews. Just what Lazer Mankovetsky's personal experiences were at the time, we

have no way of knowing. His daughter recalled that he used to speak of travelling to

Vlodivostok during the war, that he was a Cossack (Russian soldier), and that he was wounded

by a saber blade and carried a scar upon his face as a memento of this action. More than this

we may only guess.49

On August 16, 1905 the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed that ended the Russo

Japanese War. Troops were allowed to return home. Lazer was eventually allowed to return

home to Odessa and to his family. But his homecoming was to provide only a brief cause for

happiness.5

44

Pogrom

Unlike our grandparents, some members of the present generation may not be familiar

with the word "pogrom". But all of the Russian Jews of our grandparents generation were all

too familiar with this term. For them, it had a particularly terrible meaning. The word,

"pogrom", is a Russian word designating an attack, accompanied by destruction, the looting of

property, murder, and rape, perpetuated by one section of the population against the other. In

modern Russian history, pogroms have been perpetrated against other national groups

(Armenians, Tatars) or politically defined inhabitants (intelligencia). However, as an

international term, the word "pogrom" is employed in many languages to describe specifically

the attacks accompanied by looting and blood shed against the Jews in Russia. The word

designates more particularly the attacks carried out by the Christian population against the

Jews between 1881 and 1921 while the civil and military authorities remained neutral and

occasionally provided their secret or open support of these attacks.

On April 6, 7 and 8 of 1903, a famous pogrom occurred in the South Russian town of

Kishinev, not far from Odessa. The cry of "Bei zhidov" shrilled through the ghetto. More

than fifty Jews were killed and hundreds of others wounded. No fewer than thirteen hundred

shops, houses and flats were sacked. When the terror was over, the city looked as though it

had been ravaged by civil war, as indeed it had been. At Kishinev, Count Pushkin,

commander of the Odessa military district, carried out a personal investigation of the

slaughter. He satisfied himself that no pogrom would have occurred or could have occurred

had the local authorities called upon the military garrison to intervene, as was their duty. They

made no such call and the troops stayed in their barracks. It was Pushkin's opinion that the

pogrom had been carried out with the toleration, if not the actual permission, of Plehve, the

45

Czars's Interior Minister. The massacre of Jews at Kishinev resounded around the world.

Anger and revulsion were intense in London, Berlin, Paris, and particularly in New York. The

Russian government was somewhat embarrassed and sought to absolve itself of the

responsibility. It put the blame on local antagonisms, which had gotten beyond control. But

the truth was quite different.4, 8, 9, 10, 20, 54, 55

Czar Nicholas II was, to be sure, anti-Semitic. He openly expressed complete

contempt for and distrust of the Jews to his War Minister, Kuropatkin. There were many

reasons for this, both historical and psychological. Nicholas' grandfather, Czar Alexander II

had been assassinated by a terrorist bomb explosion. The revolutionary group, Narodnaya

Volya (People's Will) was responsible. A young Jewish woman was eventually arrested for

her participation. The government became convinced that many Jews participated in this

organization and they became generally paranoid about them. The slain czar's son and

successor, Alexander III was a paranoiac, viscious antisemite. Alexander III endorsed

Ignatyev's anti Jewish policy, was bent on limiting admission of Jews to schools, closed many

Jewish schools, openly condemned the Jews for the Crucifixion, read and supported

antisemetic papers, favored a state liquor monopoly as an anti Jewish measure, expelled the

heads of the Moscow Jewish community, forced the closure and sale of the Moscow

synagogue, caused expulsion of the Jews from Yalta, and on and on. He narrowly escaped a

terrorist bomb assassination attempt upon his life.8. 9, 10

Since the entire Romanov dynasty believed that they were almighty God's agents here

on earth, and that disloyalty to the Russian Orthodox Church was the same as disloyalty to

God, the Czar, and so the Russian State itself, it is easy to understand the antisemitism of Czar

Nicholas II. The policy of pogrom got its real start under Count Ignatyev and was continued

46

by General Durnovo and carried to a peak under the now infamous Interior Minister,

Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Plehve. Oddly enough, Plehve himself was not antisemetic by

conviction but knew that his policy pleased the Czar. Plehve had a plain and simple rationale

for the pogrom. Not only did it take the minds of the masses off the ills of the Government

and focus attention on another target, but it was directed against what he perceived as the most

revolutionary element in Russian society, namely the Jews. The pogrom, by this definition,

was an anti-revolutionary countermeasure. When world opinion became more and more

aroused, Plehve met with leading Jews in Paris as well as with rabbis in Russia. He told them

bluntly "If you will put a stop to the revolution, I will end the pogroms." To which the Jews

replied that they could not change the revolutionary mood of the young, so long as the

Government continued its harsh measures of discrimination.8, 9, 10

By 1905, the war with Japan had been ended with the signing of the Treaty of

Portsmouth on August 16 and seasoned troops were on their way back to European Russia,

ready to crush any disorders that might break out. On October 17, the Czar had been forced to

issue a proclamation, the Czar's Manifesto, that promised the population more freedom and

more say in the government. But tensions everywhere were nearing the breaking point. The

Manifesto failed to quiet the people. The most bloodthirsty pogroms Russia had ever seen

now began to break out. A series of general strikes took place in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Viscous right wing riots struck Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Toms. In Russian Poland

and the Baltic capitals conditions approached anarchy.55, 59

The worst antisemetic outrage occurred in Odessa. There was a three day long siege of

burning, looting , and killing of Jews. More than five hundred perished. Police and Military

authorities refused to intervene, insisting that the Jews had brought on the trouble themselves.

47

In villages and across the countryside peasants burned their landlord’s estates and killed many

of the inhabitants, often under the influence of violent Socialist Revolutionary agitators who

assured them that the Czar's manifesto meant that the land was theirs.55

During the riots in Odessa which took place in October of 1905, Feige Mankovetsky

was able to recall hiding in an attic with the aid of some Russian friends while the rioters

stormed into their home, vandalized and looted the home, and murdered their landlord. Feige

was twenty-eight years old, huddled in an attic with her four small children, Sam, Mealke

(Molly), Isador (Harold), and the five-month-old infant, Cecil. She heard the muffled screams

of the landlord and the breaking of wood and glass, then silence. She did not come down for a

long time. When she cautiously emerged from her hiding place and crept down from the attic

many hours later, Feige was horrified to find amidst the wreckage of the home, the bloody

mutilated body of the landlord. They had cut off his head.35

More than two thousand similar outbreaks occurred in the Baltic provinces alone.

Russian Jews by the thousands poured out of their native land to seek refuge elsewhere. The

easiest place to go was to the West, and many went to Germany. Within a couple of months,

cousin Willy (KaiserWilhelm II) was writing Cousin Nicky (Czar Nicholas II) in great

concern about the number of refugees from Russia. The failure of the Manifesto to quiet the

Russian people quickly began to convince the Czar that counsels of moderation were futile.

He wrote to his mother on October27, 1905:

It is undeniable that the situation in Russia is still very difficult and serious. In the first days that followed the Manifesto the bad elements of the population raised their heads very high but very quickly strong reaction set in and the whole mass of the loyal people made itself known. The result was understandable and what one might expect here. The people are indignant at the insolence and the audacity of the revolutionaries and the socialists and since nine-tenths of them are Jews all the hatred is directed against them. Hence the pogroms, against the

48

Jews. It is astonishing with what unity and how simultaneously these occurred in all the cities of Russia and Siberia. In England, naturally, they write that these disorders were organized by the police. But this is already a well-known fable. Not only have the Jews suffered -also engineers, lawyers and all other kinds of bad people. What has happened in Tomsk, Simferopol, Tver and Odessa clearly shows what can happen in a storm of fury - the houses of the revolutionaries were surrounded and set afire. Those who were not burned to death were killed as they emerged. I have received very touching telegrams from everywhere with thanks for the gift of liberty but also with clear declarations that they wish autocracy to be preserved.11, 20

The Revolution of 1905 had reached its final stages. It was a good time to leave Russia.

Flight

While it might have come as a surprise to Czar Nicholas II, not all Russian Jews were

revolutionaries. Mainly, they were ordinary people, concerned with raising their children,

making a living, going to the synagogue, and getting some joy out of life. Indeed, many Jews

did not understand the various revolutionary theories, for they were not politically inclined,

nor did they feel the need to identify with the revolutionary groups, for there was no heritage

of democratic government in Russia. Russian Jews were, for the most part, peaceful people

who wished only to be permitted to live their lives free from the complex influences of the

outside world. But their lives were devastated by the events which surrounded them. They

were threatened by the pogroms, and challenged by the calls of the revolutionaries for

sweeping changes in the life of the Russian people.

The precise details of Lazer and Feige's flight from the revolution torn city of Odessa

have been obscured by the passage of time. Only the recollections of a few survivors and the

documents recording that incredible passage remain. It is likely that the couple returned to the

relatively safe town of Medvezhyeh Ushka near Vinnitsa for a time following the Odessa

pogrom. They may have stayed with Berish and Rose for awhile. But as the revolution spread

49

throughout Russia and as the counter-revolutionary measures of the Government, which

focused greatly upon the Jewish population, were increased, Lazer and Feige, like many

others, were increasingly pressed into finding a safer place to live. Now Feige's father,

Zusche, and her brother, Abram had moved to Brooklyn, New York several years before.

Then Zusche had died tragically when the gas lamp in his apartment had gone out and he had

been accidentally asphyxiated.35, 49 Lazer and Feige named their youngest son Zusche (also

called Zessel or Cecil) in his memory. Lazer's eldest sister, Mary was then living in

Minneapolis and wrote good things about life there. (Manya was clearly undismayed by the

severe winter climate which was similar to that she had grown up with in the Ukraine.) Letters

received from these and others suggested to the Mankovetskys that America might be the best

place to go. At least there was family there and the children might be allowed to grow up in

safety.

So it came to pass that sometime during the Fall of 1906, Lazer and Feige and three of

the four small children made their way to Liverpool, England. (Their exists today a Mankoff

family in Liverpool. These may be distant relatives.) I do not know just how this leg of the

journey was made or how long they lingered along the way. One possibility is that they

traveled through Lvov, as Lazer noted on his Declaration of Intent filed some years later. This

would be consistent with the account of many thousands of Russian Jewish refugees pouring

out of western Russia by way of the small town of Brody during this period, as has been

described by Rotenberg.52 Regardless of their early itinerary, we know that on November 14,

1906 the family boarded the passengership, S.S. Cedric in Liverpool, England and set sail for

America.1, 21, 59 It was necessary that little Zusche (Cecil) be left behind in Russia because it

was thought that he was too young and sickly to make the trip. So the Cecil stayed with his

50

grandparents in Medvezhyeh Ushka for the next three years. Many years later, Cecil recalled

the pleasant setting of the lake home there and he vividly remembered a little white lamb pet

that his kindly grandparents had given to him and to which he had grown quite attached. 34

Young Cecil came to America in 1909 accompanied by his Uncle Harry Mankovetsky , his

Aunt Pearl and her husband, IsadoreTrupman, when Cecil was four years old. Years later, he

remembered his reluctance to leave his pet lamb behind and that he traveled posing as the child

of Aunt Pearl and Uncle Izzy.

Lazer, Feige, Sam, Molly and Harold arrived at Ellis Island in the harbor of New York

aboard the S.S. Cederic on November 23, 1906. A copy of the passenger manifest lists some

other Russian Jews whose names are unfamiliar to me. This manifest is a document that was

designed to provide the U. S. Immigration Officer at the port of arrival certain useful

information to aid in the processing of immigrant passengers. One item asks "Whether in

possession of $50, and if less, how much?" Lazer listed forty-five dollars. His occupation was

listed as "merchant", his nationality "Russian", his race or people, "Hebrew". Under the

designation "Whether going to join a relative or friend, and if so, what relative or friend, . . . "

Lazer listed the following information:

Brother in LawAbram Istransky98 Norfolk Str.

New York

It was further noted here that the family’s passage was paid for by his brother in law.59

Certainly, these must have been frightening and difficult times for the thirty year old

Lazer and his twenty-eight year old wife, Feige. With this rather inauspicious arrival, my

grandparents came to America. In my entire life, I don't ever recall seeing any articles or

personal possessions of theirs which they brought with them from the "old country". It is my

51

assumption that they brought very little with them of material value. More importantly, they

came bearing only their hopes and dreams for the opportunity of a better life for themselves

and their children. In the sense of a well-worn cliche, the really did come with not much more

than "just the shirts on their backs". The ship's passenger list manifest fails to mention that

Feige was pregnant again, this time with another son, Lloyd.

As I attempt to reconstruct in my mind the arrival of my poor struggling grandparents

to New York on that day, the famous poem by Emma Lazerus, a portion of which is inscribed

at the base of the Statue of Liberty, takes on real meaning for me.

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Emma Lazerus30

America the Beautiful

Life on Norfolk Street was not much easier for Lazer and Feige than it had been in

Russia. Lazer worked for a time in a "sweat shop" factory in the city and later as a house

painter. He worked hard, as did his wife, but had little to show for it. These were difficult

52

times. Lloyd was born in New York in 1907. And it wasn't long before Feige was pregnant

again. The following year Hilda (Helen) was born. A girl at last!

There are many accounts that superbly document the conditions of these difficult times.

Much has been written which portrays a certain romance concerning Brooklyn and theLower

East Side of New York as a melting pot for new immigrants on the verge of enormous

opportunities in their newly chosen land. For some, these expectations undeniably were

realized. But there is another side to this story. And that side has been little emphasized. The

fact is that many of these families suffered almost as great a hardship in America in those early

years of the twentieth century as they did in Europe. An illustrative letter was written by an

immigrant from Minsk, Russia in 1902 to the Jewish Daily Forward:

. . . where is the golden land, where are the golden people? What has happened to human feeling in such a great wide world, in such a land which is, as it is said, a land flowing with milk and honey? When in such a rich city like New York on 88 Clinton Steet is woman is dying of hunger, of lonliness, and need -- that can only say: "Cursed be Columbus, cursed be he for discovering America"56

Now it may have been that Lazer and Feige were small town folks by nature and that

Lazer missed the quiet country life that he had known as a boy growing up in Medvezhyeh

Ushka. Perhaps Abram Istransky could no loner abide the ever increasing size of the

Mankovetsky family. Maybe it was just wanderlust and curiosity of an energetic young

immigrant family, disenchantment with New York, or the lure of 160 acres of free farmland in

the West. Whatever the reasons, it was decided after a year or so to leave NewYork and to

move West to North Dakota. No doubt the fact that Shaia Greengross (Charlie Gross)and his

wife Mary (Lazer's sister) were living in Artas, South Dakota where they ran a hardware and

drygoods store had some influence.33 And because of the Homestead Act, anyone might have

160 acres of public land by agreeing to cultivate it for five years and make some minimal

53

improvements. One can only imagine what a grand opportunity this Homestead Law must

have seemed to provide to impoverished immigrants who had lived all of the their days in a

country where ownership of any land by Jews was unthinkable.

But there was a much larger and more subtle influence that led the Mankovetsky's to

want to move West and homestead farmland in the far away Dakotas.25, 45, 56, 58 The political

and social undercurrents that had preceded them to America had been in operation for some

time. Large-scale immigration of European Jews to America had been going on since the mid

nineteenth century. Many of the Jews who were first to arrive in America were from Western

Europe, had some money, and were somewhat educated and worldly. It was not long before

many of these Jews established themselves in their communities and formed good relations

with their gentile neighbors. When the great wave of Eastern European Jews arrived at the

turn of the century, established American Jews were to some degree appalled. Here was a

dirty, disheveled horde of ignorant, penniless refugees, many of whom were in poor health

from disease and starvation and most of whom were really destitute. They had few skills,

could speak or write little English, and seemed unlikely prospects to make any positive

contribution to the community. Furthermore, they continued to congregate in the cities, thus

serving as both an embarrassment and an economic drain on their more established American

coreligionists.

Some of the feelings that helped to set the stage for these times are dramatically

illustrated by an article which appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune in July of 1882 regarding

the recent arrival of Russian Jewish immigrants to Minneapolis:47, 56

The Russian Jewish Refugees

The condition of the 185 people who were sent here, as similar parties have been sent from Europe, to other American cities without warning,

54

has been materially improved since Saturday. Sunday and yesterday morning they were fed by Rabbai Wechsler from such means as he could personally obtain, and the scenes when they were served with food are described as shocking. There was such a rush for the food, such jostling and grabbing, protesting and quarreling, as to leave the looker-on to choose only whether he should regard these people as having had all the fine feelings starved out of them, or as the worst lot of selfish mendicants he had ever seen. Some are inclined to the latter view, being prejudiced against Jews generally and shocked by the rags and dirt adhering to this party, and having read in some Eastern paper that a similarly appearing and acting party, on being searched in New York was found to be quite well provided with money. But the general opinion, in which our Jewish residents are unanimous, is that these people are really destitute and when they arrived here were on the verge of starvation. Since yesterday noon they have had an abundance of food and have behaved better. At meeting of resident Jews Sunday evening $500 was subscribed for relief and care of the party. Yesterday forenoon the board of education granted the temporary use of the Franklin School building for their quarters and they were removed from the railroad emigrant house. Temporary kitchens for their cooking and washing were erected in the schoolyards; cots were provided for the sick and aged, and all they could eat, was served to them. At a special meeting of the city council about the same time, $500 was voted toward their support while in the city and the chamber of commerce, at its meeting in the morning, appointed a committee to see that more money should be raised if needed. Eleven men of the party have been sent to railroad work at Cable,Wis; nine to Crookston for grading; six to points beyond for railroad section work, and fourteen have been hired in and near St. Paul. Today, six families ,numbering twenty five persons, will be taken to Col.Thompson's farm near Wells, Minn.

A further note is separately made:

Rev. J. Wechsler, rabbi of the Jewish tabernacle in this city leaves on Sunday evening to attend a meeting at Montreal, called for the purpose of providing ways and means to care for the Russian refugees who are coming to the West. He says that it is wholly inadvisable for these refugees to come to Minnesota at the present, as they are practically penniless, and no means are at hand to provide for their necessities. The meeting at Montreal will doubtless be productive of good results.

The concept of redistribution of this wretched group of Eastern European Jewish

immigrants to the interior of America as farmers arose from several different sources. But

wealthy Jewish philanthropists in America and abroad were convinced that this was the best

55

solution to be adapted. One of these was to obtain funds from wealthy Jews to aid in the

resettlement of Russian Jewish immigrants in America. The names of the French railroad

magnate, Baron Maurice DeHirsch and the New York philanthropist, Jacob Shiff, are usually

remembered for playing major roles in this regard.25, 56 Also, there was a campaign of

propaganda directed at the immigrants through such organizations as the Hebrew Immigrant

Aid Society and such drawing attention to the positive aspects of farm life on the frontier, and

so forth. This propaganda, however, did not reveal the whole story.

In 1882, Rabbai Judah Wechsler from St. Paul had obtained a land grant in Burleigh

County, North Dakota, near Painted Woods, on the Missouri River, and assisted in the

settlement of eleven Russian Jewish Immigrant families there. This colony became widely

known as the Russian Jewish Farmer Settlement Wechsler. At the time of its first anniversary

the colony had made a name for itself wherever Jewish papers were read. Not only in Russia,

but also in Germany, the St. Paul experiment attracted attention. About a hundred persons

were now settled at Painted Woods, which could be reached by a good horse in a six hour ride

from Bismarck, or by boat to a landing one mile away. But the colony ceased growing after a

hard winter. Calamities seemed to multiply. There were crop failures, a disastrous prairie fire

almost destroyed all dwellings. During the best year, in 1884, there were 54 families, each

owning 160 acres. A school district was established and is called Montefiore to this day. In

1885, the crops failed again. People started to move away. The colonists were despairing.

The Jewish settlers seemed to be on bad terms with their neighbors. Many still lived together

in mud huts and temporary dwellings, and many had not gone out to work on their own claims.

There was contention in their own midst. Comments of their neighbors varied from pity to

near enmity. At one time, twenty-five farmers on adjacent lands requested the removal of the

56

colony. "Poor, oppressed, ignorant peasant class, uneducated, inexperienced and utterly lost in

their new freedom from serfdom." The Jewish settlers had many children and seemed old

even at thirty-five; they had no competent leadership. "They quarreled among themselves and

with their American neighbors, by whom they were often misused, reproached and despised."

They felt that they were objects of charity. This proved a disastrous deterrent to their

independence and initiative. Few if any had previous farming experience.12, 47, 56

All in all, the experiment was doomed to fail. It is of interest that a similar venture was

started in Kansas by the Cincinnati Jewish community at about the same time. This was the

similarly ill fated Beer Sheba Colony. But these and other agricultural misadventures of the

Russian Jewish refugees did not completely discourage the various planning committees from

continuing their propaganda efforts. Besides the obvious need to resettle the refugees, there

existed a belief that working the soil for a living was somehow intrinsically ennobling.

Certainly these newcomers needed to be ennobled.47, 56

After a year of living in New York, Lazer and Feige moved to North Dakota with their

six children, Sam, Harold, Molly, Cecil, Lloyd and Helen. There they homesteaded 160 acres

of farmland just outside the town of Ashley, less than 20 miles from Artas where Lazer's sister

Mary lived. A homestead was erected, probably with the aid of some neighbors. This may

have been in the form of a mud hut, which was the typical prairie dwelling of the day. For a

while they lived on and worked the farm with the children. But before long it became obvious

to them that this was going to be a very difficult manner in which to scratch out a living.

Lazer was eventually able to find work in nearby Pollock, South Dakota as a dry goods

merchant. This was around 1908 and marked the beginning of the MKT Stores which

eventually sold goods in Gettysburg, Artas, Mowbridge, Pollack and elsewhere.

57

The family farm in Ashley was about fifty miles from the Russian Jewish Farmer

Settlement site in Burleigh County. Farming in those days was hard work. Most farmers in

America worked very hard but earned relatively little, taking pride then, as they still do, in

their independent life style and coherent family ties. But this did not seem to be enough for

many of the Jewish immigrant farmers of North Dakota. Most of them sold their land after a

few years and retreated to the towns and cities to ply their more traditional trades as merchants

and craftsmen.22, 47, 56

Beyond the Prairie

It wasn't long before many more of the family immigrated to South Dakota to found

what was to become a successful chain of dry goods stores, the MKT Stores. MKT stood for

Mankoff, Kennis and Trupman who were the partners. You'll recall that Pearl Mankoff

married Isadore Trupman and Sophie (Sonya) married Charlie Kennis. So the MKT Stores

were run by Louis Mankoff and the husbands of his two sisters. The stores continued to

expand through the 1930s. The farm in Ashley was sold and Louis and Fanny Mankoff moved

to a home in Pollack, South Dakota. Here they lived and worked until the early 1930s.

It is difficult to imagine life in the small community of Pollack during the 1920s.

There was a large Native American Indian reservation not far from Pollack. As recently as the

late 1880s, there had been serious Indian uprisings in the region. But by then, Crazy Horse

and Sitting Bull were dead, and most of the Native Americans lived on the nearby reservation.

Fanny recalled that the Indians would need to be watched very carefully whenever they came

into the store because they were very adept at stealing things. On Friday nights, during the

summer, a boxing ring would be set up in the center of Pollack and local men would fight with

58

each other. A number of the Mankoff boys participated in these prize fights. Lloyd Mankoff

was the most successful of these pugilists, as some of his brothers proudly recalled.

Because the original town of Pollack was located on a flood plane adjacent to the

Missouri River, the inhabitants were periodically ravaged by flooding. These periodic floods

may explain why few or no artifacts of the family have survived to the present time. In fact,

during the 1930s, the Federal Government instituted the Missouri River Dam Project whereby

the Missouri River was diverted such that the original town-site of Pollack now lies beneath

the Missouri River. What is now Pollack should really be called New Pollack. Many of the

homes in Pollack were moved to new sites and the Louis Mankoff home was moved to Pierre,

South Dakota.

Photograph of Pollack, South Dakota taken in the 1920s. The Louis Mankoff residence has been identified by an unkown artist. Because of periodic flooding when the Missouri River overran its banks, a dam was eventually built which reduced flooding and provided hydroelectric power for the region. The dam project

59

included diverting the Missouri River such that the original town of Pollack now lies beneath the Missouri River. The Louis Mankoff home was sold and moved to Pierre, South Dakota. (Photo courtesy of Ethel Mankoff Pliam)

When the Great Depression struck South Dakota in the late 1930s, the MKT Stores

were no longer profitable and one by one they were closed.33, 43 The family gradually moved

to Minneapolis where they settled largely in what had become a Jewish ghetto on the North

Side of Minneapolis, in the vicinity of Plymouth Avenue.6, 7, 12, 13, 19, 27, 37, 53 Louie and Fanny

moved into a home at 1651 Russell Avenue North where they struggled to raise the rest of

their eleven children. The children all attended Willard Elementary School close by. Louie

tried his hand at a number of merchant trades and was at one time a tavern keeper, a furrier, a

grocer, and a floor-covering salesman.

Fanny Mankoff died in Minneapolis in 1954 of cardiac failure. That great heart

succumbed to coronary disease at the age of seventy-seven. Louie died in 1956 in

Minneapolis at the age of eighty-one of lung cancer. At a recent reunion of the Mankoff

family in Denver, there were some 250 relatives identified. Among these were distinguished

lawyers, physicians, artists, architects, business leaders, sculptors, actors and philanthropists

from across America. I believe that Berish Mankovetsky and his wife, Rose, would have been

very proud of their family.

60

LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

Fannie (Feige, Francis) Levine MankoffBorn Vinnitsa, Russia, 1877Died Minneapolis, MN, 1954

Louis Mankoff (Lazer Mankovetsky)Born Vinnitsa, Russia, 1875Died Minneapolis, MN, 1956

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THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

Sam Mankoff

Cecil Mankoff

62

THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

HAROLD MANKOFF

LLOYD MANKOFF

63

THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

DAVID MANKOFF

MELVIN MANKOFF

64

THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

BURTON MANKOFF

MOLLY (CYRENE) MANKOFF ANNECSTON

65

THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

HELEN MANKOFF RICH

ETHEL MANKOFF PLIAM

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THE CHILDREN OF LOUIS MANKOFF AND FANNIE LEVINE MANKOFF

EDITH MANKOFF RAPPAPORT

Perhaps the article which appeared on December 11, 1982 in the Minneapolis Tribune

says it best. I have taken the liberty of reproducing it below in its entirety.

Sarah and Harry Mankoff in the 1960s. The proud parents of Ron and Marilyn, they were fortunate enough to witness their daughter as a successful bank executive and to be present when their son addressed the United States Supreme Court. As my Godparents, they never forgot my birthday or Jewish Holiday Greetings, no matter where in the world I was. Harry died in Minneapolis in 1996 at the age of one-hundred and one. Sarah passed away the following year.

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Ron Mankoff. Forever, he has been by hero, not because he is a successful lawyer, but because he played Center on the North High football team and because he is a totally cool guy. This photo is from a family picture taken in the 1960s.

To hear Ron address high court, Mankoffs turned out in forceBy Steve BergStaff Correspondent

Washington, D.C.The room in which the Supreme Court of the United States presides over its cases is an impressive place to visit on a Monday morning. The 24 huge gray marble pillars, the shiny brass railings, the red velvet draperies and the polished wooden fixtures lead you to believe that this isn’t the beginning of just another mediocre day.

68

Harry Mankoff, who will be 90 later this month, sat in the eighth of 14 rows of seats. He waited impatiently for the appearance of the justices so that things could get under way. The government would go first. His boy would speak second.

A dozen other members of the Mankoff family sat with Harry, who lives in St. Louis Park, Minn. They had come not only from the Twin Cities but from Hartford and Dallas to make this a true family occasion. It wasn’t every day that a Mankoff argued a case before the supreme court. In fact this was the first time.

And even though the “boy,” Ron is 51 and has been a successful tax attorney in Dallas for years, he is still Harry and Sarah’s son and the family was not about to shove this occasion into some obscure corner as if it were no big deal.

Didn’t Ron try to say, hey Mom, don’t make such a fuss?

“Yes he did,” Sarah Mankoff said. “But we wouldn’t listen.”

That a family could come together and turn what will probably be a rather obscure tax case – The Internal Revenue Service vs. Tufts – into a warm and festive affair with a comfy, Old-World flavor seems noteworthy in this town, where few people seem to take pause from their extremely serious duties to savor much of anything.

This is not a family town, especially now that Congress is suddenly back and vital issues once again swirl and encircle. Dense pack. Five-cent gasoline tax. The delivery of health-care services. Ways and means. The Consumer Price Index. Budget deficits. Potholes. The plight of beached whales.

At twenty past 10, Ron began to argue his case for Tufts, the Texas real estate developers from whom the government wants to extract more taxes. He was more eloquent and seemed more relaxed then Smith, the IRS attorney, and was not questioned nearly so severely by Warren Burger, Sandra )’Conner, Byron White and some others.

“We all want a fair tax system,” he told the court. “But we don’t feel that sections 1001B and 752C mean that government can seek to recover what government perceives to be improper earlier deductions.”

By ten ‘till 11, it was all over. There were hugs and kisses outside the courtroom and snapshots on the front steps of the Supreme Court Building.

“It looks like a winner,” Ron told his dad, and the old man beamed.

69

“Dad always impressed on me the importance of doing your best with what you have,” Ron said. He was not a strict father. “He spanked me once and then we both cried our eyes out.”

Ron had been born on a crisp, sunny day in Gettysburg, S.D., delivered by a nurse from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation because the doctor was out hunting pheasants. That the son of Jewish immigrants from the steppes of the Ukraine could come into the world near an Indian reservation on the South Dakota prairie seems slightly improbable. But those were turbulent times and people were on the move.Harry has been on the move a lot in his 90 years, although he was for the moment stationary, sitting on a nice brown sofa in the lobby of the Capitol Hilton in downtown Washington, having just finished a nice lunch with his family at one of the city’s nicer restaurants.

He came to America in 1909 to join his older sister and her husband who ran a general store in Pollock, S.D. Although he was 18, 10 years older than most of the other students, he went to grade school (they had to bring an adult-sized desk into the classroom), and later moved to Minneapolis to finish high school at North and enter the University of Minnesota. His plan was to scrape together enough money to bring his parents and younger sister to America.

It’s difficult for younger Americans to understand why children left Europe without their parents, he said.

“I’m talking from the Jewish point of view. We had very little opportunity, both in education and in employment or taking part in government. Prejudice. So a father and mother, realizing that, took every opportunity to get their children out of Russia. They know that if we come to United States, maybe some day they can be saved from prejudice, too. It was hot only the Jewish youth. I knew dozens of young gentiles, too, whose parents sent them to United States or France or Germany in the days before the Nazis.”

During World War I, he dropped out of the university to join the army. Before long he received word that his father had died. Russia was in chaos. The Bolsheviks held the territory around Vinnitsa where his family lived. He felt compelled to get his mother out of the Ukraine.

Harry Mankoff sets all this out no as a folksy, southern storyteller might. He is not an embellisher, an entertainer. Rather, his tale has an academic quality to it as if he knows that these are the bits and pieces from which history is assembled. His tale also is therapeutic. “It’s good exercise for the mind,” he said.

His quest to reach his mother began in Poland where he bribed Polish soldiers fighting the Bolsheviks to take him to the front. He figured that he would

70

benefit from the wearing of his U.S. Army uniform with the sergeant’s stripes. He figured wrong. The Poles accused him of being a spy, arrested him and threw him in jail. By the time he was cleared, he had spent seven months in Poland and Russia and had gotten no closer to his mother than 150 miles.

He set out for Romania and when the Poles temporarily drove the Bolsheviks out of the region, he crossed the river into Russia.

“I came into the town at dusk, by horse and buggy. I was all by myself. There was no one around. As I crossed a little bridge, I saw a figure, so I ran after her and caught her. It was my second cousin. They had moved out of their big house into the alley because they were afraid.”

He sent a messenger to contact his mother, who lived in a village six miles away. She came the next day. Mother and son had not seen each other for 11 years, had not communicated for eight years because of the chaos of the war.

Relatives interrupted Harry’s story. They stopped by the brown sofa in the hotel lobby to hug Harry and kiss him and say good-by and wish him a happy birthday.

“It’s nice to be 90,” he said. “Everybody celebrates your birthday.”

Harry went on to tell about dodging the bandit, Sheppel, whose gang roamed the region in those days, killing and looting, and about how he stumbled, by circumstance, into helping 108 people get out of Russia and into new homes in America. And he told about the Potec boy.

“I was siting on a bench (in Romania) about two blocks from the river and I see a youg fellow walk by. And I struck me that I knew that boy, or that he resembled somebody I knew. He struck me so that I couldn’t rest until I found out who he was.

“Now when I had been in business in South Dakota we had a boy, a clerk, working for me. He joined the service and he died. His name was Potec. So when I asked about this young fellow, they said his name was Potec. It’s his younger brother.

“He asked me, ‘Do you know my brother in America?’ Yes, I said, and later I told him about his brother, and he started to cry. And his tears were running so, it was such a pathetic thing. He had his father and mother there. I had no choice but to take care of them, and so I saved that family from starvation.”

Harry made two trips to Russia in those years, then returned to Minneapolis to marry Sarah. They raised a son and a daughter – Marilyn Rovner of St. Louis Park – and helped run a chain of 12 general stores, the MKT markets, in small

71

South Dakota towns. In 1929 they went broke. Harry ended up selling insurance in Minneapolis and eventually going into the real estate business.

“Today I am playing gin rummy, a little poker and going here and there, whenever there is an occasion for me to go,” he said. Is he a good poker player?

“It’s like this,” said Sarah, feigning disgust. “Have you ever found a wife who says here husband is a GOOD poker player?”

Minneapolis TribuneDecember 11, 1982

Postscript

Site of the Louis Mankoff farm in McIntosh County, North Dakota. The homestead of 160 acres was granted to Louis Mankoff in 1912. Photo taken in 1979. No trees are in evidence for miles. The original homestead house is no longer standing. According to Fanny Mankoff, she once sought shelter in the basement of the house when a tornado ripped the roof off. Because the land was low and poorly drained, it was only good for one or two hay crops a year. Fanny minded this farm as best she could while Louis worked in the dry goods store in Pollack, South Dakota, about 15 miles away.

In 1978 I made a motor trip to visit the Mankoff homestead near Ashley, North

Dakota. A visit to the McIntosh County Courthouse and a few basic questions were all were

necessary for me to obtain a copy of the actual homestead grant, ostensibly signed by President

William H. Taft, and a plat map of Hoskins Township. With the legal description of the

72

property from the grant and the map, I was able to drive right to the property. It seems that

this type of pastime had recently become popular around the area and the local residents were

enjoying their newly found role as guides to the past after so many decades of neglect. It was

in the springtime and the flat, treeless landscape struck me as singularly monotonous in a

beautiful sort of way. The original home site had been leveled long ago. A farmer by the

name of Jerrold Neu was on his tractor cutting the first Spring hay crop. He came over to chat

with us when he saw us standing there. He was a soft-spoken, amiable man probably in his

forties. He never got down off his tractor. No, he didn't remember the Mankoff name. He said

with a grin that he didn't for a moment doubt that the original homesteaders had become

discouraged with farming that particular piece of property, since most of it is sort of lowland

and is flooded out for much of the year. "Good only for a couple of hay crops a year at best.",

he allowed with a bit more of a grin that I found myself deeply resenting. Jerrold Neu told me

that most of the Jewish folks had moved away some years ago. His father had farmed this area

before him. The Neus were Russian Catholics.

I subsequently drove about fifty miles to Pollack, South Dakota where, to my

amazement, I found people who remembered the Mankoff family fondly, particularly Sam

who was the last to leave. I was disappointed to learn that the actual house of Louie and

Fanny (where my mother had been born), was no longer there. In fact, the entire town of

Pollack was really no longer there. As it happens, the Missouri River had been diverted by a

dam project many years before and the original town site of Pollack now lay beneath the

Missouri River. That Pollack of my grandparents truly is no more, unless one cares to scuba

dive for it. The Mankoff home, like many others in old Pollack had been sold and moved to

Pierre, South Dakota where I was told it still stands. But the Pollack Newspaper has kept

73

many old pictures and articles from the Mankoff era and there are many old newspaper

advertisements promoting the MKT stores.

Harold Mankoff’s General Merchandise Store in Artas, South Dakota about 1930. This store was one of a chain of dry goods stores operated as the MKT Stores (standing for the founders, Mankoff, Kennis, and Trupman) from about 1915 to the early 1930s. Several of the Mankoff sons including Sam, Harold, and Cecil, were put in charge of similar stores in Pollack, Gettysburg, Leyola, and Artas South Dakota. The whole Mankoff family worked in these stores. The family prospered until the Great Depression of the 1930s when they went bankrupt and were forced to move to Minneapolis to find work.

In 1995, I was invited to go to Moscow to participate as a member of an open heart

surgery team. It was with mixed emotions that I accepted the invitation, the story of my

family having been by this time indelibly imprinted in my mind. In a way, it was like going

home to a place that I had never been to before. I kept imagining that my great grandparents

might have at one time trod these same streets. Certainly much has happened in Russia since

the time of Berish and Rose Mankovetsky, and yet I could easily imagine them visiting

Moscow as they might well have done a century before. In Red Square there were peasant-

like demonstrators marching bearing the old communist banners. I heard some of them shout

anti-Jewish epithets to antagonistic onlookers. And I knew for sure that things seldom change

74

for long, and that part of me was truly Russian. Some day I will go to visit Vinnitsa and to

look for the tree by the lake where they hung up the ears of the bear.

75

Sources and References

1. Allan, M.: "Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals." Immigration

Information Bureau, Inc. New York, 1931.

2. Applebaum, Samuel and Sada. "The Way They Play", Book I., Paganiniana Publications,

Inc., Neptune City, New Jersey,1972.

3. Chesler, Evan R. "The Russian Jewish Reader", Behrman House,Inc., New York, 1974.

4. Clarkson, Jesse D. "A History of Russia", Random House, New York, Fifth Printing, 1966.

5. Collier's "The Russo-Japanese War: A Photographic and Descriptive Review of the Great

conflict in the Far East", P.F. Collier & Son, New York, 1904.

6. Dimont, Max I. "The Indestructible Jews", World Publishing Company, New York, 1971.

7. Dimont, Max I. "The Jews in America: The Roots and Destiny of American Jews", Simon

and Schuster, New York, 1978.

8. Dubnow, S.M. "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until

the Present Day", Translated from the Russian by I. Friedlaender. Volume I: "From the

Beginning Until the Death of Alexander I (1825)"; the Jewish Publication Society of

America, Philadelphia, 1920.

9. Dubnow, S.M. "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until

the Present Day", Translated from the Russian by I. Friedlaender. Volume II: "From the

Death of Alexander I Until the Death of Alexander III (1825-1894)"; the Jewish

Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1920.

10. Dubnow, S.M. "History of the Jews in Russia and Poland: From the Earliest Times Until

the Present Day", Translated from the Russian by I. Friedlaender. Volume III: "From the

76

Accession of Nicholas II Until the Present Day with Bibliography and Index"; the Jewish

Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1920.

11. Ebban, Abba. "My People: The Story of the Jews", Random House, New York, 1968.

12. Feldstein, Stanley. "The Land That I Show You: Three Centuries of Jewish Life in

America", Anchor Press/Doubleday, New York, 1979.

13. Flannery, Edward H. "The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-three Centuries of Anti-Semitism",

The MacMillan Company, New York, 1965.

14. Frank, Angie Langer. Personal communication, 1984.

15. Frederic, Harold. "The New Exodus: A Study of Israel in Russia", G.P. Putmnam's Sons,

New York, 1892.

16. Friendly, Fred W. "Minnesota Rag: The Dramatic Story of the Landmark Supreme Court

Case That Gave New Meaning to Freedom of the Press", Vintage Books, New York, 1982.

17. Gerhardi, William. "The Romanovs", G.P. Putman's Sons, New York, 1939.

18. Ginsburg, Lev. "Ysaye", Translated from the Russian by X.M. Danko, edited by H.R.

Axelrod, Paganiniana Publications, Inc., Neptune City, New Jersey, 1980.

19. Gordon, Albert I. "Jews in Transition", University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1949.

20. Greenberg, Louis. "The Jews In Russia: The Struggle for Emancipation", Volume I. 1772-

1889, Volume II. 1881-1917,Schocken Books, New York, 1976.

21. Hennepin County Clerk of District Court - Declaration of Intent of Louis Mankoff on file

at in Minneapolis.

22. Howe, Irving. "World of Our Fathers", Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1976.

23. Hot, Edwin P. "The Guggenheims and the American Dream", Funk and Wagnalls, New

York, 1967.

77

24. Hilberg, Raul. "The Destruction of the European Jews", Harper Colophon Books, New

York, 1979.

25. Joseph, Samuel. "History of the Baron De Hirsch Fund: The Americanization of the

Jewish Immigrant", The Jewish Publication Society, New York, 1935.

26. Koestler, Arthur. "The Thirteenth Tribe", Random House, New York, 1976.

27. Kramer, Judith R. and Leventman, Seymour. "Children of the Gilded Ghetto: Conflict

Resolutions of Three Generations of American Jews", Yale University Press, New Haven,

1961.

28. Kupferberg, Herbert. "The Mendelssohns: Three Generations of Genius", Charles

Scribner's Sons, New York, 1972.

29. Kurzweil, Arthur. "From Generation to Generation: How to Trace Your Jewish

Genealogy and Personal History", Schocken Books, New York, 1980.

30. Lazerus, Emma. "The New Colossus”, In “Poems That Live Forever”, selected by Hazel

Felleman, New York, Doubleday, 1965, pp 153.

31. Levin, Nora. "The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933-1945", Schocken

Books, New York, 1973.

32. Levine, Saul. Personal communication, 1985.

33. Mankoff, Harry. Personal communication, 1985.

34. Mankoff, Cecil. Personal communication, 1985.

35. Mankoff, Fannie Levine (Istransky). Personal communication,1944.

36. Massie, Robert K. "Nicholas and Alexandra", Atheneum New York, 1967.

37. Mayer, George H. "The Political Career of Floyd B. Olson", The University of Minnesota

Press, Minneapolis, 1951.

78

38. Michener, James. "Poland", Fawcett Crest, New York, Ballantine Books, 1984.

39. Michener, James A. "The Source", Random House, New York,1965.

40. Minneapolis Health Department Division of Vital Statistics, Death certificate of Louis

Mankoff on file, 1956.

41. Minneapolis Jewish Cemetery - Tombstone engraving from the headstone of Rose

Mankoff, , Penn Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

42. Minneapolis Tribune, July 18, 1882, pp. 4, col. 6

43. Minneapolis Tribune, Sat, December 11, 1982, section 4C. “To hear Ron address high

court, Mankoffs turned out in force.”, by Steve Berg.

44. Morton, Frederic. "The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait", Atheneum, New York, 1962.

45. Nevins, A. and Commager, H.S. "A Short History of the United States", 5th Edition, The

Modern Library, New York,1969.

46. Orvis, Julia Swift. "A Brief History of Poland", Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston and New

York, 1916.

47. Plaut, Gunther W. "The Jews in Minnesota: The First Seventy-five Years", American

Jewish Historical Society, New York, 1959.

48. Pliam, Michael B. Personal recollection.

49. Pliam, Ethel Mankoff. Numerous personal communications.

50. Potok, Chaim. "Wanderings: Chaim Potok's History of the Jews", Alfred A. Knopf, New

York, 1970.

51. Rosenfeld, Lulla. "Bright Star of Exile: Jacob Adler and the Yiddish Theatre", Thomas Y.

Crowell Company, New York, 1977.

79

52. Rottenberg, Dan. "Finding Our Fathers: A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy", Random

House, New York, 1977.

53. Rutman, Herbert S. "Defense and Development: A History of Minneapolis Jewry, 1930-

1950", Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1970.

54. Sachar, Abram L. "A History of the Jews", Alfred A. Knopf, New York, Fifth Edition,

1967.

55. Salisbury, Harrison E. "Black Night, White Snow: Russian'sRevolutions 1905 - 1917",

Doubleday & Co., New York, 1978.

56. Sharfman, I. Harold. "Jews on the Frontier: An Account of Jewish Pioneers and Settlers

in Early America", Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1977.

57. Shepherd, William R. "Shepherd's Historical Atlas", Ninth Edition, Barnes and Noble

Books, New York, 1964.

58. Szajkowski, Zosa. Deportation of Jewish immigrants and returnees before world war I.,

American Jewish quarterly,1978;67:291-306.

59. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Administration - Passenger Manifest List of the

steamship SS. Cederic

80

FAMILY CONNECTIONS

THE LANGERMAN FAMILY

LEV (LEO) LANGERMAN M MINNIE WEINSTEIN

MOSES (MOSHE) NATHAN SIDNEY ? ? ITA ROSE 1855-1925 1850-1931

THE MOSES (MOSHE) LANGER / BERNICE (BETTIE) WEINSTEIN FAMILY

MOSES (MOSHE) LANGER M BERNICE (BETTIE) WEINSTEIN1855 – 1925 1847 – 1904

RACHEL KATE 187? – 1950 1873 – 1947

M M

MORDACAI ISADOREGREENGROSS KERRMISH

SHAIA BETTY NETTIE MINI (NATE) SUMNER MINNIE CYRENE MAY(CHARLIE) (JACK)1883 – 1923

M M M M M M M M M

MARY HARRY JOSEPH CHARLES ? FRED MAX ALEXMANKOFF HOFFMAN CHUTTER SMOLKIN PREASKIL MAZUR JOSEWITZ

FLORENCE

THE ROSE LANGERMAN / BERISH MANKOVETSKY FAMILY

ROSE (RACHEL) LANGERMAN M BENJAMIN (BERISH) MANKOVETSKY 1850 – 1931 1853 – 1912

LAZER MARY PEARL SONIA SARAH HARRY 6 OTHERS(LOUIS) MANKOFF MANKOFF (SOPHIE) MANKOFF (GREGORI) DIED UNDER1875 –1956 1883-1965 188? - 1961 MANKOFF 1891 – 1962 1895-1996 AGE 9 YEARS

M M M M M M

FEIGE CHARLIE ISADORE CHARLIE JOSEPH SARAH(FANNY) (SHAIA) TRUPMAN KENNIS (JAKE) FRANKLEVINE GROSS

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART I)

LOUIS MANKOFF (LAZER MANKOVETSKY) M FANNIE LEVINE (FEIGE ISTRANSKY)

81

1875 – 1956 1877 – 1954

CONTINUED

SAMUEL HAROLD 1900-1959 1904-1964

M M

ANNETTE IRENE CHARLESTON REDETSKY)

MIRIAM ARLENE ROBERTA JOANN EILEEN PHILLIP

M M M M M M

HUSBAND HUSBAND HUSBAND HUSBAND DAVID SUSAN PERLMUTTER GOLDSTEIN ESKANOS HILAVITZ ALBERT ADELSTEIN

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART II)

CONTINUED

MOLLY CECIL(CYRENE) 1904-1903-1994

M M

ABRAHAM ANN(JACK) WEISMANANNECSTON

EARL RUSSELL LENISSE WESLEY

M M

BURTON MARYGOLDBERG LUNNON

PAUL BRADLY NANCY CONNIE TERRY SCOTT GARY

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART III)

CONTINUED

LLOYD HELEN (GOLDA)

82

(CYRENE) 1907-19411905-

M M

LILLIAN MORRISHIRSCH) RICH

GERALDINE DIANE RONALD

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART IV

CONTINUED

ETHEL 1918-

M

NATHAN PLIAM

MICHAEL BETSY GAIL NATHAN1937- 1939- 1941- 1952-

M M M M

DOLORES ANN JANICE MARIE ARNOLD STEVEN BLATHERWICK RATZLAFF BENNETT DAVID

JENSEN

STEVEN BRADLEY JOHN HEIDI WENDY JILL NATHAN ANNE

SUSAN MICHELLE SARAH

83

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART V)

CONTINUED

EDITH BERTRAM1920-1998 (BENJAMIN)

1919-1972

M M

JAMES SERENERAPPAPORT CHARRIS

STEWART RICHARD LORI ELLEN

THE LOUIS MANKOFF / FANNIE LEVINE FAMILY (PART VI)

DAVID MELVIN

M M

MARLENE BEVERLY HELD SEGAL

KAREN LINDA FREDERICK HARRIET

M M M

84

THE CHARLES A. LANGER / MARY LANGER FAMILY (PART II)

MAX EDWARD TOBY

M M M

LILLIAN HELEN JACK MARGULIES DESOTA ROSE

BETSY FRED ROBERT CLAUDIA PAMELA GLORIA MARK CHARLES ELAINE RONALD

M

SUSANNE BEUGAN

LISA JAY MARGIE BRUCE

THE CHARLIE GROSS (SHAIA GREENGROS) / MARY MANKOFF (MANYA MANKOVETSKY) FAMILY

CHARLIE GROSS (SHAIA GREENGROS) M MARY MANKOFF (MANYA MANKOVETSKY)1883 – 1923 1883 1965

MORTON TOBY (THEODORA) TOOTS (BERNICE)

M M

BABETTE KOPALD HARRY ZIPPERMAN

CHARLIE HAL (aka ELLIOT ROSS)

SUSAN CONNIE

ALVIN ZELLICKSON MYRON SAMOVITZ

BARRY BRIAN

THE NATHAN LANGERMAN / ETHEL MERVAD FAMILY

NATHAN LANGERMAN M ETHEL MERVAD

85

BROTHER MARY ESTHERLANGER (MANYA) LANGER

1877 - 1951

M M

CHARLES GREGORYALBERT KALIKALANGER

1882 – 1949

LEON DAUGHTER

ANGIE ROSE LEO OSCAR MAX EDWARD TOBY

THE CHARLES KENNIS / SONIA (SOPHIE) MANKOFF FAMILY

CHARLIE KENNIS M SONIA (SOPHIE) MANKOFF

DAVID LENORE MONET

M M M

NORMA HECHT MICHAEL GREENBERG LOUIS HARRIS

DAUGHTER DAUGHTER PATRICIA RICHARD LOUIS, JR MARGO CINDY

86

THE ITA (EDITH) LANGERMAN / JOSEPH KENNIS FAMILY

JOSEPH KENNIS M ITA (EDITH) LANGERMAN

CHARLES PEARL SISTER BROTHER PAULKENNIS KENNIS KENNIS KENNIS KENNIS

(aka PAUL KENIS)

M M M

SONIA HUSBAND PAULINE(SOPHIE) ROSENBERG KAGAN

87

88

A

Abraham Istransky (Levine)................................39Adath Jeshuran......................................................6Adath Jeshuran Cemetery......................................7Alex Hailey...........................................................5Ashley, North Dakota......................................7, 77Atel Aberman....................................................34

B

banished..............................................................12Bar Mitzvah........................................................22Baron Maurice DeHirsch.....................................59Beer Sheba Colony..............................................60Berdichev......................................................15, 17Berish (Benjamin) Mankovetsky.........................17Bettie Weinstein..................................................30Black Sea..............................................................9Bolsheviks...............................................26, 74, 75

C

Cantonists...........................................................46Catherine the Great.............................................12Charlie Gross...............................30, 33, 34, 35, 57Charlie Kennis..............................................19, 62compulsory Russification....................................46Czar Alexander II................................................46Czar Alexei.........................................................11Czar Nicholas I...................................................14Czar Nicholas II..................................................49Czarina Elizabeth................................................12

E

ears of the bear...................See Medvehzyeh UshkaEllis Island..........................................................54Emma Lazerus....................See The New ColossusEncyclopaedia Judaica.........................................7Ethel Mankoff Pliam.............................................2

F

Feige (Francis) Istransky...........See Fanny MankoffFinding Our Fathers.............................................6

G

Gettysburg.........................................28, 61, 74, 78Great Depression.................................................63Greek Orthodox..................................................10Gunther Plaut........................................................6

H

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society...........................59Hebrew Union Cemetery.......................................7Hennepin County Clerk of District Court..............7Homestead Act....................................................57house painter.......................................................56

I

Isadore Istransky (Levine)...................................39Isadore Trupman.................................................62Ita (Edith) Langer......................See Joseph KennisIvan IV................................................................11

J

Jacob Shiff..........................................................59Jewish Daily Forward.........................................56Jewish High Holidays..........................................22Joseph Kennis.....................................................25Judaizers.............................................................10

K

Kahal..................................................................16Khazars.................................................................9Kievan Russia.......................................................9Kishinev..............................See Kishinev massacreKishinev massacres.............................................46

L

Lake Baikal.........................................................46lay tfillen............................................................22Lazer Mankovetsky

Louis Mankoff.................................................37Leah Istransky.....................................................39Lev Langerman...................................................18Liverpool, England.............................................53

M

Malamed.............................................................23Mary Mankovetsky.............................................33Mayer Weinstein...........................................25, 29McIntosh County.................................................77Medvezhyeh Ushka. .18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 34, 37,

52, 54, 56mercantilism.......................................................13Michael Istransky (Levine)..................................39Mikhail Speransky..............................................13Minneapolis Public Library...................................6Mischa Elman.....................................................43MKT stores.........................................................78MKT Stores...........................25, 28, 35, 61, 63, 78Moshe Langer...............................................25, 29Muscovite Russia................................................10

N

named Minnie Weinstein....................................24Narodnaya Volya................................................49North Side of Minneapolis..................................63

O

Odessa................................................................42Odessa pogrom of 1905.......................................50

89

P

Pale of Settlement.....................................6, 12, 13Peter the Great....................................................11Plehve, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich...................49Pollack.................30, 35, 38, 61, 62, 63, 76, 77, 78PortArthur...........................................................44Prince Radziwill..................................................16Prince Vladimir of Kiev........................................9prize fights..........................................................62

R

Rabbai Judah Wechsler.......................................59Rachel Langer.....................................................30Robitchek Coat Manufacturing Company............35Rose Langerman.................................................18Russian Jewish Farmer Settlement Wechsler.......59Russian Revolution..................................17, 26, 37

S

S.M. Dubnow........................................................6S.S. Cedric..........................................................53Sholem Aleichem..................................................3Sophie (Sonya) Mankovetsky..............................19source of anti-Semitic teachings..........................14

sweat shop..........................................................56

T

Temple Israel........................................................6The Jews in Minnesota..........................................6The Limond........................................................42the Mankovetskys of Berdichev...........................18the Missouri River Dam Project..........................62THE NEW COLOSSUS......................................55Treaty of Portsmouth...........................................47typhus.................................................................26

V

Vinnitsa. .17, 18, 22, 26, 27, 33, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 52, 64, 65, 74, 79

Volhynia.............................................................16

W

Weinstein farm....................................................29Willard Elementary School.................................63

Z

Zechariah............................................................10Zusche (Zessel) Istransky....................................39Zusche Istransky asphyxiated..............................53

90