The Second Brother-Moshe Bezbrozh

The Second Brother - Moshe Bezbrozh

The second son of Yankel Bezbrozh was Moishe.  Moishe is also called Moisey or Moshko on various records.  Moishe Bezbrozh was born about 1861, probably in Lysianka. Unlike his other two brothers, he moved to the nearby village of Tagancha. Moishe was in the business of buying fruit and flowers from farmers and selling them at market. Moishe married a woman named Ruchel and they had nine children, most of whom stayed in Russia. Ruchel died before many of the children were grown, sometime between 1910 and 1920. Until May of 2019, I did not know where or when Moshe died, but I finally solved the mystery.  I will explain how the mystery was solved in the next couple of pages. 

MENU

 Moshe and Ruchel had nine children:

Mariasi was born in 1888. She married Yechiel Shafir and they had three children, Sonya, Mikhail and Elena (also known as Etya). Mariasi and her family eventually left Tagancha and settled in the nearby town of Zvenidgorodka. Mariasa’s father Moishe eventually left Tagancha and went to Zvendigorodka to live with Mariasa and her husband. Mariasa passed away in Dnepropetrovsk in June of 1964. Her descendants who are living today have the last names Bezbrozh, Yagudin, Sokolov and Shafir and live in Canada, Germany and Israel.

Meir was born in Tagancha in about 1893.   As a young man, Meir worked helping with his father’s fruit business. Meir met Clara Polsky (1902-1991) and they were married on December 12, 1921. Meir and Clara came to the United States in 1922. They had two daughters, Rose and Beatrice. Meir changed his name to Max Bernstien. He is the only member of the family to spell his last name “ien” instead of “ein.” Max passed away in Los Angeles, California in 1971. Current day descendants of Max and Clara Bernstien have the last names Eliash, Karno, Leffler and Berkowitz and they all live in California.

Until May of 2019, all we knew about Avrum was that he was married.  Then came along the amazing Tamara Modebadze who found this birth certificate from Zvenigorodka (click to the left) showing the birth in 1923 of Isaac Bezbrozh, the son of Avrum Moiseyevitch Bezbrozh (29 y.o.) and Riva Emanuilovna (25 y.o.).  I think it is extremely likely this Avrum Bezbrozh is Moshe and Ruchel’s son, which means that Avrum was born in 1894, was married to Riva Emanuilovna and had a son named Isaac.  We do not know what became of them.

Feige was born in Tagancha around 1898. Feige married her first cousin Pincas (or Pinnie) Bezbrozh, who was Noech and Rivka’s son. Feige and Meir (above) were the only children of Moishe and Ruchel’s to leave the Soviet Union, arriving in the U.S. in 1923. After they arrived, they changed their names to Fannie and Philip Bernstein. They had two children, Ralph and Beatrice. It is not a coincidence that both Feige and Meir named one of their children Beatrice. The name Beatrice was in honor of their grandmother, whose name we do not know, but undoubtedly started with a “B”. Fannie passed away in Los Angeles in 1985. Fannie and Philip’s descendants have the last names Bernstein, Hooson and Menkes.

Froim was born in about 1896. From his attire in a group photo, Froim appears to have served in the Russian army. Froim married his first cousin-once removed Slava Litrovnik and they also moved to Zvenigorodka. They had one child, a boy named Uzik (or Usher) who was born in about 1926. Froim, sadly, died from blood poisoning (or possibly blood cancer) in 1930 at the infectious diseases hospital in Dnepropetrovsk.  His son Uzik was only four years old. The descendants of Froim and Slava who are living today have the last names Bezbrozh, Bright, and Yagudin.

Until May of 2019, all we knew about Chana Bezbrozh was that she born in Tagancha in the early 1900s, that she moved eventually to Dnepropetrovsk and was alive up until the early 1940s.  We will explain on this page and the next how we finally unraveled the mystery of Chana Bezbrozh.

Until May of 2019, we also knew very little about Dotsie Bezbrozh, only that she was born in Tagancha in the early 1900 and that she was alive at least until 1922.  We will learn more about Dotsie later on in our story.

In 1975, either my grandmother Fanny or my father Ralph told me that Moshe and Ruchel also had a son named Yishca.  According to Meir's wife Clara, Meir and Feige’s youngest brother died at a young age.  Supposedly he was the most brilliant of the siblings. Feige sometimes alluded to one of her siblings being killed in a pogrom.  This could have been Yishca.  We don’t know if Yishca was killed in a pogrom or died for some other reason, but it seems that by about 1920, Yishca was no longer alive.

The final child was girl name Tresca.  (According to Meir’s wife Clara, this sister was named Reva.)   Clara also reported that a sickly sister of Meir's died before 1921. This probably was the girl named Tresca or Reva.  

Moishe Bezbrozh and his family

This photo, taken around 1919, is the only photo of Moishe Bezbrozh.  When I was a child, my father told me that the young man to the right of Moishe was Moishe’s son Avram, and the young woman holding Avram’s hand was his wife.  However, after my father passed away, I carefully examined the photo, and I think that the young woman in the white blouse on the right is my father’s mother Feige (Fanny) and the the man to her left is her brother Meir (Max).  It would seem unlikely that my father would not recognize his own mother and uncle, but I think my father was assuming that this photo was taken after his mother left Russia, and it never occurred to him that this could be Max and Fanny.  Also, perhaps the fact that they were holding hands made him thing that they were husband and wife.  But I think that they are Max and Fanny.  I have compared the images from this photo with some later photos of Max and Fanny.  You can see my results below to the right and make your own conclusions.

Top row, from left: Mariasi's three children Sonya, Mikhail and Elena (also called Etya), then Mariasi’s siblings Chana, Dotsie and Froim.

Bottom row, from left: Mariasi, Moishe, Meir (Max) and Feige (Fanny). 

Compare the image on the left above to a photo of Max Bernstien taken a few years later.  I think this is the same person.

Compare the image on the left above to a photo of Fanny Bernstein taken a few years later.  Once again, I think these are both Fanny.