History of the Abarbanel family

The work involved in collecting historical facts and reconstructing the Abarbanel family tree took several weeks. When exploring their genealogical history, I learned a lot about the resettlement of people with the Abarbanel surname from Eurasia to America. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews was an enormous help to my searches. This museum opened quite recently (in 2013) and has absorbed a lot of archival documentation about Polish Jewish communities.

I began my research by looking into the origin of the Abarbanel surname. As it turns out, this surname belongs to one of the oldest and most respected Jewish families, descending from King David. This family has given the world many outstanding figures in the fields of science, art and politics. The status of this surname is reflected in the proverb “It’s enough that my surname is Abarbanel”. In the 18^th century, the descendants of this Jewish family lived in different parts of the world, including Russia, Belarus and Poland. At one time, the Polish Jewish community was one of the largest in the world, but the Second World War made its own adjustments to the history of this family.

NOTE:

Stawiski is a small town in north-eastern Poland, located on the Dzezhbia River. Today, around 2,500 people live there. In the 1930s, nearly half of the population was made up of Jews.

My search was made a little difficult due to the total destruction of historical documents in the city of Stawiski during the Second World War. During this period, synagogues were destroyed, and in fact they were only revived after 1970.

Nevertheless, I learned that Abraham Abarbanel’s future wife was called Rebecca and she was born in the same year as her husband, 1815. The couple had five children and I was able to establish some facts about their lives.

When Abraham and Rebecca were about 16 years old, their firstborn son Nehemiah came into this world. A year later, daughter Feiga was born. Their third child was a boy, Chaim, and in 1840 came another boy, Joseph. When the couple were aged 38, they had Hannah-Sara (1853 / b.). Unfortunately, in 1855, both Abraham and Rebecca died at the very early age of 40.

I will now focus on the children of Abraham and Rebecca.

From archival data, I learned that Feiga, the daughter, was born in 1831. She married and subsequently gave birth to nine children, including a daughter, Mariam (born in 1905), and a son, Joseph (born in 1863). Feiga lived a long life with her family and eventually died in 1907.

Chaim was born in Poland in 1840. He married a girl called Rivka and they had three children together: a son Zalman (1880 / b.), a daughter Shana (1896 / b.) and another daughter Rosa (1897 / b.).

Joseph was born in 1840 in Poland. In adulthood, he married Esther (1873 / b.) who was only 16 years old at the time. The couple had nine children, including sons Moishe (1889 / b.) and Tsadok (1901 / b.). Joseph’s family emigrated before the First World War and they lived in Israel for the ensuing years. Moishe’s son was the owner of a shoe store.

Thanks to the data on migrants, I learned that Hannah Abarbanel was born in Poland in 1853. She married Israel Anchkovski in 1872. Israel was born in 1849, again in Poland. Hannah and Israel had seven children: daughter Libba (1872 / r.), daughter Chaya (1876 / r.), son Moishe (1879 / r.), daughter Rachel (1880 / r.), son Joseph (1881 / b.), daughter Fanny (1882 / b.) and son Louis (1891 / b.). Unfortunately, the living conditions in their city did not favour either a prosperous old age or a peaceful existence and development. Therefore, shortly before the onset of the First World War, Hannah, along with her whole family, emigrated to New York, USA. By that time, she was 57 years old. In the New World, her family strengthened and settled down. Towards the end of her life, Hannah lived in Brooklyn, New York where she left this world at the age of 73.

I will now tell you about the life of Nehemiah in detail. He was born in 1830. In adulthood (aged 34), he married a native of Grajevo, Hie-Libba, who was 18 years younger than him. At the age of 16, she gave birth to their first daughter. Unfortunately, the fate of Hie-Libba is tragic: she died when quite young (26 years old) almost immediately after the birth of her youngest daughter Rodel in 1876. Nehemiah lived a long life and died at the ripe old age of 96 (in 1926).

NOTE:

Before the First World War, Poland was part of the Russian Empire. In those times, the intelligentsia, the clergy and the nobility were the main people to emigrate. The emigrants sometimes left with entire families.

I was able to determine the chronological appearance of all the children of Nehemiah and Hie-Libba. In total, they had four children: daughter Tsipa (1864 / b.), son Zvi (1868 / b.), son Maurice (1872 / b.) and daughter Rodel (1876 / b.).

Below, I will present, in order, the information that I was able to recover from online archival sources about these children.

The eldest daughter Tsipa was born in the Polish city of Stawiski in 1864. She married Jacob, born in 1860, a native of the same city. Tsipa and Jacob had four children: son Jacques (1892 / b.), daughter Rachel (1893 / b.), daughter Regina (1896 / b.) and son Albert (1896 / b.). Later, the whole family emigrated to France (Paris). Tsipa completed her earthly journey at the honourable age of 75.

In 1868, in the city of Stawiski, Nehemiah and Hie-Libba had a son, Zvi. In 1891, he married Libbe, born in 1872. At the time of the wedding, Libbe was 19 years old and Zvi was 23. Like their kin, they lived in Poland. In April 1920, the family emigrated by ship from Rotterdam to Ellis Island (New York, USA). At the time of emigration, Zvi was 52 years old. He died in August 1931 in Monticello (New York, USA) when he was 63. His wife lived for 68 years and passed away in Brooklyn (New York, USA) in 1941.

Zvi and Libbe had 10 children (all of them born in the city of Stawiski): son Abraham Moishe (1891 / b.), son Philip (1893 / b.), son Isidore (1896 / b.), daughter (died in infancy) (1898 / b.), son Fabel (1902 / b.), son Leisel (1906 / b.), daughter Feig (1907 / b.), son Michel (1908. / b.), daughter Rachel (1910 / b.) and daughter Sheina (1914 / b.).

The firstborn was Abraham Moishe, a son born in 1891. After emigrating, he settled in Brooklyn (New York, USA) but he died tragically in 1934 at the age of just 43. The second child was Philip, born in 1893. After emigrating, he also lived in New York and he passed away there when he was 80 years old. The third child, Isidore, appeared in 1896. As with the rest of the family, he also emigrated to America. At the age of 21, Isidore married Mary. He is known to have owned a grocery store in adulthood. Towards the end of his life, he lived in Roanoke (Virginia, USA) where he died at the age of 68. The fourth child was a daughter who was born in 1898 but she only lived for one year. The fifth son Fabel was born in 1902. Unfortunately, he also did not reach maturity and left this world very early at the age of 17. The sixth child was Leisel (born in 1906). After emigrating to New York, he lived with his family where he died early at the age of 42. The seventh child was Feig, a daughter born in 1907. Evil fate or family genes prevented her from living a long life and she also completed her earthly journey early aged just 38. The eighth child, Michel (born 1908), died suddenly in infancy. The ninth child was daughter Rachel. She was born in 1910 and, unfortunately, like Michel, only lived a short while and died a child at the age of 6. Sheina was the youngest child of Zvi and Libbe, born in 1914. After emigrating, she lived in America where she died at a respectable age (85 years old).

Now let’s go back a little to the third child of Nehemiah and Hie-Libba, a son called Maurice. He was also born in 1872 in Poland. He was married twice, and each wife bore children. After emigrating, Maurice lived in America (in New York) where he passed away at the age of 60.

Maurice’s first wife was Rivka, a native of Poland, born in 1880. At the age of 18, she gave birth to their first child. She had three children in total and died early at the age of 27.

From his two wives, Maurice and Bertha had seven children: son Abraham Joseph (1898 / b.), daughter Esther Joy (1902 / b.), son Nathan (1907 / b.), daughter Helen (1910 / b.), son Charles (1912 / b.), son Milton (1914 / b.) and son Henry (1916 / b.)

Based on the obtained documents, I can discuss Maurice’s children in order. The first son Abraham Joseph was born in 1898 in Poland. He later emigrated with his parents to America where he died at the age of 53. The second child was daughter Esther, who was born in 1902. After emigrating, she lived her entire life in America and completed her earthly journey at the venerable age of 96. The third child of Maurice and Rivka was their son Nathan, born in 1907. Unfortunately, he left this world in adolescence at the age of 12.

The second wife of Maurice Abarbanel, Bertha, was born in 1884. She was 12 years younger than her husband. I was able to establish that she lived in New York, like almost everyone in the line of Nehemiah Abarbanel. She gave birth to four children and died surrounded by her family at the age of 61.

Now we will focus on the children of Maurice and Bertha. The eldest daughter Helen was born in New York in 1910. She lived a long life and died at the age of 73. The second child was son Charles. Born in 1912 in New York, he lived there his entire life and passed away at the age of 73. The third child of Maurice and Bertha was a son, born in 1914, who was named, Milton (the youngest). He lived in America all his life and passed away at the ripe old age of 96.

The fourth child, Henry, was born in 1916 in New York. In old age, he moved to New Jersey where he died at the age of 69.

The last child of Nehemiah and Hie-Libba was their daughter Rodel (1896 / b.), who, like most of her brothers and sisters, was born in the city of Stawiski. Together with her parents, she emigrated to America. She then she got married and gave birth to a son who unfortunately died in 1942.

It took me two weeks to research the history of the Abarbanel family. I studied a huge amount of information from internet resources and several of their ancestors’ biographies. As a result of this research, a family tree was drawn up, including more than 36 members. You can view this tree HERE.

Today, the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Abarbanel live in many countries: the USA, France, Belgium, Poland and Israel.