Author: Louise Goldstein
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The Sad Publicity of the Pashkov Affair
Iosel Pasikov’s murder and the accusation that his father had killed a Christian child in a ritual murder was apparently big news in the Russian Empire in late 1913-early 1914. Stas Tarasov, my new genealogy friend and possibly a Ronen cousin, has found quite a bit of material on the case. For example, he found […]
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Alive or Dead? Authorities want to Know
We know from our family letters that when Froim Pashkov (Pasikov)’s son Iosel was murdered, the authorities doubted that Iosel was really Froim’s son. Below is a police notice in Russian, with the translation following, forwarded to me by Stas Tarasov. Stas got it from Alex Krikovsky, a genealogy hero who scans official records in […]
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The Ronen Family Turns up in Florida
Today on Zoom I met the granddaughter of Franya Ronen, my grandmother Fannie Ronen Battalen’s sister. Her name, “Aleksandra Medvinsky,” kept appearing as my top DNA match on both MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA. A few years ago, I contacted the owner of the family tree on which she appears, Eric Reznik, but didn’t hear back; it […]
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A Chilling Detail
“… At that time our relatives from Fastov came to us, escaping from armed gangs. The bandits killed our uncle, and they were so scared. There was nothing to do but to have them stay with us, though we had a very small apartment and their family consisted of eight people…” These words are from […]
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Our Politically Suspicious Forbear
Our great-grandfather, Meier Yankelevich Ronen, was labeled “politically suspicious” by the fledgling Soviet government in 1922. What does that mean and how do I know this? In March 2022 I received an email through the JewishGen.org Family Finder from a man named Stas Tarasov: “I’m interested in your info on “Ronen” from Loyew and Kyiv […]
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Another Battalen Branch Says “Hi!”
“Macy Battalin” was a name I had heard a number of times over the years. My uncle Julie Fass said Macy was my maternal grandfather Louis Battalen’s cousin, who lived in Connecticut and was an optometrist; it’s very possible that other family members knew Macy and his family. In 2004 my mother Ethel Battalen Goldstein […]
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The OTHER other Sol Goldstein (not the gangster, not my grandfather…)
THIS Sol was one of the few Goldsztern family members to survive the Shoah. My grandfather Sol told me that his brother Yudel Moshe’s son Sol had immigrated to Palestine in about 1936 and that he later came to the US. My cousins Sharon Suckman Kimelstein, Lorraine Eisner Fitelson and Maxine Eisner Pollack remembered hearing […]
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Update on Solly Goldstein FOIA Request
Research into public records regarding Solly’s criminal career, disappearance and death fell victim to bad weather and records-purging policies. The response to my FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the New York State Police informed me that a records search produced no results. They stated, “Any records we may have had concerning (Solly Goldstein) […]
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The Battalen’s of Spring Street Make the News
My cousin Claire Stiglitz once related the story of a cross-burning across the street from our grandparents’ home in Bethlehem PA; her father Herbie Battalen had told her of the incident. Recently I turned to www.Newspapers.com to see if I could find anything about this event. To my frustration, nothing has turned up – yet. […]
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Cousin Solly and the “Kiss of Death Girl”
Hit-man for Murder, Inc…wanted to go straight… killed and thrown into a lake: the family legend turns out to be true. Solly (Solomon) Goldstein was the the fourth of five children born in the US to my father’s Uncle Shimon (Sam). Born in about 1913 in New York City, he was 23 or 24 years […]