Welcome to the BERDICHEVSKY SOKOLKA FAMILIES web site

I was never interested in my ancestors. 
 After we moved to the US, my children grew up without an extended family and  no one to tell them who is in our family and were they came from.  As they got  older, I started to put on paper the little I know so it would not get lost.  That led me to write to my aunt and ask her to send me what she knew about  her side of the family. The information started to arrive but had to be  organized, and in English, in order to make sense.

The only way it could be done was with a genealogy program. Since I was  working with a Mac computer that my cousin Doron recommended, the only  genealogy program available for the Mac - Reunion. Once I entered  the information on the computer, it looked so neat and easy to follow up that  I wanted to know more......and from there it took a life of its own......

I have been researching our ancestors, off and on, since 1985 and still counting. It took me places I never thought I would go - and not  only taught me about our family, but also about history and the history of  Jewish families and their everyday life in the Diaspora.

In the process I have received a lot of "bonuses"... Family members that  were "lost", second and third cousins from different corners of the world that  I would have never met if not for this research, were now reconnected.  It is  very intriguing and rewarding to put the whole thing together... like a big  puzzle that you have to put together without a major picture to guide you.

This tree was named after the two families that made up my nucleus family. My  mother's Rachel Lev-Berdichevsky (Bernstein)from the Ukraine, and my father's  Matitiahu Sokolka (who changed his last name to the Hebrew name Aithan) from  Lithuania and Poland. The other major families in this research are: Verzoub  of Uman Ukraine, Ramberg and Baron of Lithuania and Poland. All other families  connected to these families are still being researched. New information is  always welcome.

My thanks to all who contributed information and helped research,  especially to my second cousins Esther Winograd, and Zohar Levitan who's lead  made this web page posabile.

I hope that you will have as much fun looking through this family tree as I  had putting it together. With any questions or additional information  regarding the families that are in this tree please feel free to contact me.  
 Judy A Goldberg
 ikasal@aol.com

Some background information about the two families who made up my nucleus  family.

SOKOLKA: My grandfather (on my father side -  Moshe Avrahm Sokolka was born in  Vistnitz, Poland in 1880 to Yitzhak Yaakov Sokolka, educated cigar merchant  and a devoted Zionist from the time of Chovevei Zion, his devotion of Zionism  prompted him to send his sons to Israel at the beginning of the 20th century  to study & settle there. 
 My grandfather, who was a successful young goldsmith and jeweler, arrived with  his wife, Sara Hannah Ramberg, and older child in Eretz Israel in 1907 and  settled in Jaffa where he built his business and home. His life story engulfs  the development of jewelry making in the first half of the 20th century in the  Middle East. 
 In 1938 he moved his business and home to Jerusalem where he lived and worked  until his death in 1952. He introduced the European methods of jewelry  manufacturing and was one of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv and the Diamonds  Exchange in Tel Aviv. 
 Among his client were the big European jewelry stores, the Royal German  Court, the Royal Jordanian, Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian Courts of that time,  and some of the richest families of Europe and the Arab world. As his sons grow up they joined him in the business. His younger son Matitiahu (my father) became a jeweler and executed most of the complicated work and his  older son David help in the administration of the business. The business was  named M.A. Sokolka and Sons, and was in operation until Matitiahu's death in  1961. 
 For photographs of their work please turn to the album of their works in this  web page under PHOTOS. Most of the Sokolka and Ramberg's descendents are  living in Israel and some are in Europe and the USA.

BERDICHEVSKY: My great grandfather Moshe Aaron Berdichevsky was born in Zinkovich  Village near Braslve, Ukraine in 1845 to Zvi Hirsch Bernstein the Rabbi of Tranovka,  Ukraine. Moshe Aaron Berdichevsky was the last rabbi in a dynasty of 50 generations  rabbis on his father side and on his great grandmother Beila Ha'Levi Horowitz. (See  the earliest recorded event on this web page is the birth of Ha'Levi, Shlomo in 1005). His older son Yechiel Micah Yosef Berdichevsky had a Rabbinical Smicha (ordained) and  was to continue the rabbinical dynasty. 
 But, his eyes were looking west to the Enlightment Movement and at age 25 he left the  Ukraine and went west. He settled in Germany and became a well known author, and  never returned to the Ukraine. His younger brother, Menachem Mendel (my grandfather,  who also had a Rabbinical Smicha) who lived with his family in Odessa, Ukraine was  the communicator between his older brother and his father. 
 Moshe Aaron Berdichevsky became the Rabbi of Pilba (1869-1871) near Mdzibuz at the  age of 24 and at 28 when,Rabbi Akiva Chiot of Dubova near Uman passed a way, he  became the Rabbi of Dubova and served in this position until his murder fifty years  later. 
 In summer 1919 his son Menachem Mendel and his family came to Dubova to visit the  grandparents. In the Dubova's pogrom that was headed by the Cossack Petlura that  summer, on the 12 of Av 1919 (August 8), one of many pogrom in this town that summer,  my grandfather and his father, Moshe Aaron the Rabbi of the town, were murdered with  very many other Jewish citizens of Dubova. (See bellow the chapter from the book  Dubova Scroll that describ the pogrom) 
 By the time the pogrom was over, the Rabbi's wife Esther was beaten and was left with  a fractured skull but alive, and my grandfather left a pregnant wife with six  children,ages 12 through 2 years old.  
 Two years after the pogrom my grandmother Yael (Yente) Berdichevsky (Verzoub) took  her children and headed to Eretz Israel, were her late husband and her always dreamed  of going. It took her and her five children a year to reach the shores of Tel-Aviv,  on the month of Nisan 1922. 
 A single mother of five who raised alone her children who grow up to became well  balanced contributing adults to the Jewish society in Eretz Israel and later in the  State of Israel. 
 The memories of the pogrom never left them and only strengthen their belief that the  place for the Jewish people is in the State of Israel. 
 Most of the Berdichevsky descendents are living in Israel and some in Europe and the  USA.

Translated from 
 Dubova Scroll by Rachel Feinberg
 Chapter 32

12th of Av (August 8, 1919)

That morning,another miracle happened at the Rabbi's home. That house saw miracles  not once. At the time of the first massacre, byt the 'Inverted First,' the  rioters/hoodlums overlooked the Rabbi's home. The dangerous hoodlums from the foreign  mob of Kazikov & his gang members also did not harm the Rabbi's house on the 20th of  Sivan.

These events left a great impression on the village Jews. They started to believe  that the rioters had no control over the Rabbi's house, and every person in the  community that had any valuables left brought them to the Rabbi's wife for safe  keeping in her house, so it will be close to the rabbi. All her trunks and cupboards  were filled with other people's property. They brought their expensive jewelry and  bundles & bundles of assorted paper currency that the Rabbitzin (or rabbi's wife)  from Dubova did not even know their name and value. All over her house, they were  hanging silk clothing and forma fur coats. They deposited a big fortune in her hand.

When the gang of rioters broke/stampeded the town, from child to old men, all the  Jews ran into the Rabbi's house. Whoever succeeded in getting in was assured to stay  alive on account of the rabbi. The Rabbitzin had plenty of flour in the house and she  baked bread & cakes. And she fed the crowd of people until G-d's mercy was on them  and the danger was over.

In those days of wrath, the Rabbi made a point to always be dressed up, and he lay on  the sofa in his room. That room that is called by family homeowners as the "court  room." An open book was on the table in front of him.

From time to time, he would call his wife to remind her not to forget to serve tea to  the nursing mothers and small children. Sometimes he'd call his son to change the  book that was in front of him. He would eat very little. He would just put something  in his mouth to relieve himself, and he mainly survived on different drops  (medication) to strengthen his heart.

He survived this way through the summer until Teesha Be'av (9th of Av), until the  great massacre.

The day after Teesha Be'Av when Kasakov's troops broke into Dubova with their swords  in the air and shining daggers, the Jews of the town as usual ran for cover to the  Rabbi's house so that the murderers could not control over them.

The Rabbitzin immediately went to work baking rolls and cakes as usual. On the table,  the Samovar was boiling to revive the nursing mothers and children with a hot drink.  The Rabbi asked his son for help in dressing. He wanted to lay down on the couch in  his court room. Every minute, men, women and children burst into the house with a  frightened look. The house became too small to contain them. All the rooms, the  kitchen and the foyer were filled with people. All the Jews of Dubova came to save  their lives under the old & sick rabbi's wings.

In this way, a few hours passed, and all of a sudden the catastrophe occurred. 

A hurl (knock) from the outside shook the walls. The glass windows shattered with a  (ring) piercing vibration and into the house burst a group of  robbers/rioters/thieves. They were all young and in their hands, swords and bats.  Without hesitation, they jumped over the Rabbi who was lying quietly on the couch.  With savage screams they piled on tope of the holy man's boney, meager, frail old  body using their impure hands. Bitter and muffled screams were heard from the streets  through the open door and the stunned crowd of Jews fearfully fled the old Rabbi's  house to any place their feet could take them.

And so fell the last "fort" of the Dubova Jews. The rioters beat the rabbi savagely.  Blood poured out of his ears. They twisted his arm against his back. Besides him, the  rioters did not touch anyone. Immediately they turned to the trunks and cupboards  where they were blinded and overwhelmed by the hidden valuables of the village Jews.  The rioters were so stunned by the money and the jewelry that they forgot about the  people around them. The fortune and expensive items/treasures that the Dubova Jews  and their wives gave to the rabbi's wife for safe-keeping turned the rabbi's modest  home into a gold mine, while the other Jewish homes in the town were already  completely barren. The first thug that broke into the house came out loaded with  money and jewelry. Word spread quickly among the rioters that the small home of the  Jewish rabbi has unlimited hidden fortune! So everyone ran to that house to grab and  profit from the bundles of money, gold coins and beautiful items.

Groups of rioters all armed with axes and clubs burst into the house, the cupboards  and trunks. They broke and destroyed everything in the way.

The rabbi laid in his court room on the (made) couch against the fluffy pillows and  down comforters that cushioned his wounded body. On the table still lay the open  book. His wife sat quietly on the chair and put cold compresses on his head. The  robbers went wild. They broke tables & benches. They turned empty cupboards upside  down and shattered the furnace, but they did not touch the two old people. They  didn't look at them as though they never saw them.

This went on as long as they could find something to steal. Finally, there were no  more gold coins or jewelry to find and then they turned to the quiet old couple that  was sitting in the disheveled (rabbi's chambers) courtroom.

When the rioters came in and saw the overturned empty cupboards, they jumped on the  old man raising their wooden clubs, "Tell, Old Devil, where did you hide your money!"  They kept screaming at him while beating him with the handles of their rifles.

And the rabbi from Dubova continued to lie on his comforter now soaked in his  blood. On the table next to him lay the open book and his wife emphatically begged  and swore that she doesn't have any more money. The insistence of the old couple made  the rioters angrier and more convinced that the couple was hiding the information  from them.

Now, the torture began. Like this, they thought they could get the secret out of  them. They especially tortured the rabbi. With buckets, they began to pour all the  water from the kitchen barrel on the rabbi. Then, they dragged him from where he lay  to the floor and repeatedly kicked him in the head.

After they left the house, his wife put a pillow under his head on the floore and the  rabbi requested that his open book be placed on a chair next to him. The image of the  blood-soaked old man lying on the floor with his open book next to him sparked a wild  laugh from the incoming hoodlums. They kept on coming in groups to look for gold and  packages of money.

"Tell us, Old Devil, where is your Kike G-d now!" They screamed with a wild laugh  while endlessly stabbing him with their daggers. And the rabbi from Dubova fially  made a sound and said to his wife, "Please tell them in their language (Ukraine) that  they better shoot me in the head."

"You better shoot him with a bullet," repeated the old woman his request word for  word in the Ukraine language. Ferocious laughter muffled her quiet voice, desperate  with sorrow and tears.

"Tell us, where is you kike G-d!" they mocked. 

"My G-d in Heaven I am receiving with love the torture that you have brought upon me!  but I cannot stand when your name is defiled (taken in vein)!" The rabbi's speech  was weak. He spoke in fragments an dhis wife repeated his words in a warm and soft  Ukrainian slang. He continued, "Ask them again! please, in their language! please.!"  She did as he asked while she begged and cried. She asked for a bullet for herself  too.

But Kasakov's thugs did not fulfill their request. They did not want to kill them  with a bullet from their rifles. They tortured him from Wednesday morning until  Friday morning while she stood there on guard at all times to take care of him until  his soul returned to his creator. It seem to her that at any moment he would die  despite that he spoke all the time and his mind was clear. He did not stop praying  and his voice grew weaker.

She dressed him in white clean clothes. She prepared his talis and white robe that he  used to wear on Yom Kippur and Passover Sedar. She prepared everything ahead of time  so that she would not miss the moment he would return his pure soul to his creator,  and could run out to find 2 or 3 old Jews to help her bring him immediately to  burial. That way she would avoid shaming the dead by leaving his body out and  maintain his dignity. She did not want the murderers to contaminate his  body with their touch.

So she was thinking for herself and then she thought of another plan: Maybe with the  last of her energy, she would be able to carry his body to the garden of the farmer  nearby. When they would stop torturing him, maybe he could regain his strength. But  she couldn't move, because when she sat in her house, she guarded the attic. There  her son, her daughter-in-law and their five kids were hiding.

This was Mendel, the younger brother of Michal Yosef Berdichefsky. The Hand of G-d  was in this younger son of the rabbi from Dubova. He was already middle-aged, a man  of 37 years, a father of six children. His oldest son was already in the army, and  still the father was as handsome as was in his prime! as though he was a recently  married groom. His black eyes were burning with the flames of youth. His dark curls  emit a shiny glow like velvet. His body stood firm and erect. In those crazy-ridden  days, all these qualities made him very suspicious in the eyes of the "goyim." The  look of Mendel Berdichevsky was the look of a typical communist. Therefore, he was in  great danger that summer of 1919! much more than the rest of the Jewish Youth in  Dubova. 
 Consequently, each time there was a tumult/commotion in the village, all hurried to  hide Mendel, son of the rabbi, so that he would not attract the stares of goyim to  his shiny black hair.

He chose to hide in the attic of his father's house.

On the first day of the Big Massacre, at the time that the rioters exercised their  control over the rabbi's house, Mendel hid in the attic joined by his wife and their  five little children. With them in the attic hid a Jewish butcher, the rabbi's  neighbor.

They settled comfortably into the attic. They brought up their bedding, a bucket of  water, a box of sugar, bread and butter. Then they removed the ladder and the old  couple stayed downstairs by themselves so that no one would suspect that there might  be someone else in the house. However, there was a dangerous obstacle that could have  brought disaster on the hidden family.

The 7 year old Raisaleh, Medel's daughter, did not want to stay in the attic with her  parents. She wanted to be downstairs with grandma and grandpa. Out of fear that she  would cry and raise her voice to be heard from the attic, they fulfilled the little  one's wish and took her down from the attic. So the girl stayed with the old couple  all the time. When the thugs broke into the house to beat up the old man, the little  girl hid behind the furnace so no one could see her. Later, she would return and sit  on the floor with Grandma and watch her bandage Grandpa's head.

So, Raiseleh sat with the elders until Thursday night. In the later hour, after  midnight, all of a sudden, she got scared of the rioters and she asked to go upstairs  to her mother. After the old woman took her up to the attic, the girl hugged her  mother crying, "Mommy, I'm scared! the hoods gouged out Grandpa's eyes!"

It was already dawn, the rabbi laid practically dead, but still mumbled a few words  here and there. He continued to ask for a bullet. "In their language! ask! in their  language! Esther!"

His wife, the rabbitzin, didn't listen to his words. In the last moment, she had to  leave her post. She sat on the foot stoop of her house. Her  head smashed, blood  pouring from her wounds, and with all her might, she hit her heart with a fist. Like  her husband, she too was saying her last prayers while at the same time, she begged  G-d to protect the rest of the chicks in the attic, "Do it for the sake of the  innocent babies!"

At that moment, another group of armed  young hoodlums broke in. A farmer lady passed  the house with a bucket of water in her hands and rescued the fainting rabbitzin from  the hands of the ruffians. The gang was about to leave when a coughing sound was  heard from the attic.

It was rabbi's neighbor, Moshe the butcher. All his life, he used to cough. Three  whole days, the rabbi's daughter-in-law fed him sugar so he would not cough. But all  of a sudden, he coughed. The band of hoodlums were overjoyed. With screams and wild  laughter, they dragged everybody out of the attic. When they saw Mendel, they all  called in one voice: "Here is the Communist!"

The local farmers dressed him. Mendel Berdichevsky was always dressed in the best and  most beautiful clothes. Between the goyim, a fight started for his clothes. They  could not share between his beautiful shirt and his shoes. The conflict continued  until one shoe was left in one hood's hand and one in the hand of his rival.

And then, they killed Mendel. Because they concluded he was, in fact, a communist,  they chopped off his fingers and toes. Moshe the butcher, a simple Jew, they killed  with a gunshot.

And then the miracle happened. 

At that exact moment, the church bells started to ring. It was already Friday  morning. With dawn, they called a meeting. The Dubova Farmers got tired of dragging  dead Jews to the lime pits and on the 3rd day of the massacre, they demanded Kasakov  stop killing women and men. So the rabbi's wife, with her young daughter-in-law and  the five little children were transferred to the rescue home of Dimitri Shbolinskythe  good man to watch over them.

And the church bells continued to ring. The sun came out and the local "goyim"  gathered the dead. By the Rabbi's house stood a big cart pulled by two horses. It was  filled with dead Jews of every age and gender: men, women and children. Two horsemen  threw the bodies of Moshe the butcher, the Rabbi and his son on top of the pile of  dead bodies. They shared between them the talis and the white robe of the rabbi, the  one that his wife had prepared to robe and bury him in. the cart was led to the  bottom of the hill where his body was thrown first into the bottom of the pit among  the rest of his dead community.

Translated to English by the Rabbi's Great Great granddaughter Ahdee