Origins - Dina and Isaac Leibowitz Family

The oldest physical evidence of the origins of our branch of the Leibowitz family is this photograph, taken in 1892 (or 1893), of Dina and Isaac Leibowitz with their first three children, Louis, Dora, and Fanny. (THANKS to my cousin Fran Levine for providing this photo.)

From left: Dina (Morgenstern) Leibowitz (~26 yrs) holding baby Fanny (~7 mos), Louis (~7 yrs), Isaac (Alexievitch) Leibowitz (~28 yrs), Dora (~3 yrs). Photo probably taken ca. 1892 in Theodosia, a Black Sea port in Eastern Crimean.

Important information appears on the back of this photo. It provides dates and ages of the five people in the photo, as well as information about some of Dina and Isaac's later children. This information was written by Fran's mother, Diane Levine, in 1973.

According to this information, which was written in 1973, Diane and Isaac moved to Ekaterinoslav in 1900 or 1901. Further information:

• In the photo, which was taken in 1892 (or 1893), Isaac is 28 and Dina is 26. So Isaac was born in 1864 (or 1865) and Dina in 1866 (or 67).
• Louis Leibowitz (my Grandfather) was 6 or 8 in the photo, so, assuming he was 7, he was born in 1885 (or 1886).  However, the typewritten information on the back of the photo says Louis was born about 1883, which would make him 9 or 10 in the photo.
• Dora Long was 2 or 3 in the photo, so, assuming she was 3, she was born in 1889 (or 1890). 
• Fanny Lebo was 7 months old in the photo, so she was born in 1891 (or 1892). 
• Max Leibowitz (born after the photo was taken) had passed away at age 79 sometime prior to when the notations were made in 1973. Therefore, he was born prior to 1896, let us say 1894 (or 1895).
• Zelda Leibowitz (Diane's mother and Fran's grand-mother) was alive at age 77 in 1973, so she was born in 1896.
• Yasha Leibowitz was alive in Russia in 1973, and communicating via mail with my Grandfather Louis. he was around 70, and was therefore born around 1903.
• Three others are named, Sasha, Yemah, and Lisa. They are said to have perished in WWI or WWII. My grandfather told me he was one of some 13 siblings, and we have named only 9, so there may be four more whose names and fate are unknown to us.

VISITS TO RUSSIA BY RELATIVES

1929 Visit by Louis and Lena Leibowitz and their Daughter Ruth

Prior to the stock market crash and subsequent economic depression, my Grandfather Louis Leibowitz apparently was doing pretty well financially. He told me he had invested in a building in New York City and, as attested by the photo below, he was able to travel to Russia with his wife Lena and their teenage daughter, Ruth (my Mother).

The building investment went bad. He  told me that completion was delayed and he got out of  the deal. However, the trip went well.

Ruth wrote detailed letters to her sister Blanche. I read some of them as a kid. However, the letters were misplaced or discarded when my parents, Ruth and Morris Glickstein, retired and moved from their home in Brooklyn to San Francisco. 

Translation of Russian writing: "Photograph in honor of American guest. Baku, 1929" (Best I  could do with no real Russian language facility. If you can do better, let me know!)

While in Russia, Louis told me that he paid for family gatherings, such as this one in Baku, Russia in 1929. My Grandmother Lena was from Baku. For those, like me, who are not familiar with Baku:

Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan Republic, which was also the capital of Shirvan (during the reigns of Akhsitan I and Khalilullah I), Baku khanate, Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and Azerbaijan SSR and the administrative center of Russian Baku governorate.

I've included the Russian version of "Leibowitz" (Лейбович) as a searchable label for this posting, hoping  that some Russian-speaking relative will find it in a search. If any of our "long lost" Russian relatives happen upon this Blog and can identify some of the many people in this photo, please contact me at ira@techie.com!

Close-up centered on Louis Leibowitz (white shirt, dark tie, mustache and glasses). His wife, Lena, is seated to his left, and daughter Ruth is standing between and behind them.

2014  Brief Visit to St. Petersburg, Russia by Vi and Ira Glickstein and Family

We had a two-day stop in St. Petersburg, Russia during our 50th-anniversary Baltic cruise with our family in 2014. The photo below shows us with one of our grandchildren, Alex Hagler.

Here we are in a very comfortable park in St. Petersburg, Russia. The park is dedicated to the famous Russian writer Pushkin. Notice that the pigeons have an unusual fondness for the famous Russian writer. I tested my ability to sound out Cyrillic characters by reading the inscription on the Pushkin statue, "Алекса́ндр Серге́евич ПУШКИНУ" is "Alexander Sergevitch PUSHKIN". 

If any other relatives have photos of their visits to what our forebears called "the old country", please send me copies and I may include them here.

Ira Glickstein

Leib-owitz [Yiddish: = לייב-וביץ = "Lion-Son"]

WHO ARE WE? Our ancestors are Jews who settled along the Rhine River in Europe around the tenth century, referred to as Ashkenazi Jews. Their traditional language was Yiddish, a dialect of German written using Hebrew characters. Over succeeding centuries, these European Jews spread eastward, and some settled in Russia and Ukraine, where our earliest Leibowitz ancestors lived. 

SURNAMES Jews did not take surnames until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the authorities required them to do so. They took surnames based on their occupations, physical characteristics, geographical location, and other factors, including a "patronymic" based on their father's first name.  In Slavic languages, the endings -ovich, -evich and -ich are used to form patronymics for men.

LEIB-OWITZ Based on my research, the "owitz" in "Leibowitz" is a Yiddish variant of a Russian patronymic, and the "Leib" (pronounced "Layb") is from the Yiddish word לייב for Lion (as in the biblical Lion of the tribe of Judah). Thus, those of us descended from Dina and Isaac Leibowitz are sons [and daughters] of the Lion of Judah! 

My Grandfather, Louis Leibowitz, told me his Yiddish name was "Wolf-Layb" ("Wolf-Lion" - a fierce combination of canine and feline characteristics).

His name in Yiddish in Hebrew characters - וואָלף-לייב 

PRONUNCIATION Although "Leibowitz" is usually pronounced "LEEB-owitz", I believe "LAYB-owitz" (or even "LAYB-ovich") might be more correct. As you learned in grammar school, "I before E, except after C, or when sounded as AY as in neighbor or weigh." The "ei" in "Leibowitz" is not after C, so it should be sounded as AY! QED.

DISCUSSION In preparing this Blog posting, I considered the possibility that both parts of "Leibowitz" are from the original German roots of Yiddish. The "Leib" could be from the German word for "body", and the "wits" from the German word for "joke", so "Lieb o witz" might mean "Body or joke". Anyone like that?

Further research determined that the Google Translate result for "Leibowitz" is ליבוביץ in Yiddish, and Лейбовиц in Russian. When I reversed the languages, ליבוביץ translated to "Libubits" and Лейбовиц to "Leibowicz", which indicated, to me, that "Leibowitz" is a mixture of languages.

When I split the original translations, the Russian Лейб о виц translated to "Leib about HIV" and the Yiddish ליב ו ביץ translated to "Love u bits". Further indications of multiple languages.

To make sense of all of this, I had to add a second "yud" to the first part of the usual Yiddish spelling, changing ליב to לייב, which translates to "Lion". That explains why I'm quite sure  that "Leib-owitz"  לייב-וביץ (here with two "yuds") is a variant of a Russian patronymic, joined to the Yiddish word for Lion, namely "Lion-Son" or "Son of Lion".

Ira Glickstein