Cousin Marriages
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Marriages among cousins were not uncommon in the shtetl, and they were quite common in the Bezbrozh family. It's not hard to understand why. In 1900, there were only about 2,800 Jews in Lysyanka. So, perhaps there were only 50 or 60 people who were single and the right age to marry. A sizable number of those might be related to you. There were at least four cousin marriages in the Bezbrozh family:
Froium Bezbrozh, the son of Moishe, married his first cousin once removed Slava Lyutrovnik, the granddaughter of Moishe's brother Meyer.
Uzik Bezbrozh, the son of Slava Litrovnik and Froium Bezbrozh, married his first cousin once removed Ida Zelinkova, the granddaughter of Froium's sister Mariasi.
Abe Bernstein (Avram Bezbrozh) married his cousin Dora Kagan. Dora was related through Abe's mother Rivka Zeldich.
Feige Bezbrozh, the daughter of Moishe, married her first cousin Pincas Bezbrozh, the son of Moishe's brother Noech.
Fanny Bernstein (Feige Bezbrozh) related the following story about how she met and decided to marry her first cousin Philip Bernstein (Pinnie Bezbrozh.) In January of 1918, twenty-year-old Feige and her father Moishe made the forty mile journey from their village of Tagancha to Zvenigorodka for the wedding of Feige's brother Isaac. At the wedding, Feige became acquainted with her first cousin Pinnie. Feige obviously made quite an impression on Pinnie, because after the wedding he traveled to Tagancha to visit her. In 1920, Moishe was now living in Zvenigorodka with his daughter Mariasi and her husband Yechiel Shafir. Feige went to Zvenigorodka to visit her father and Pinnie was also in the town. Feige and Pinnie made two very important decisions. They decided to get engaged, and they decided to leave the Ukraine. According to their son Ralph, once day Pinnie came to Feige and said, "We're going to America." And that was that.