I PEOPLE I
For your viewing pleasure
William Blackwell of the "Edna
Hibel Corporation," will be at
Ginopolis On The Grill,
27815 Middlebelt Road,
(at 12 Mile Rd.)
Farmington Hills, Michigan
Sunday, December 17, 1989
Available at this showing only.
from
1:00 pm to 6:00 pm.
...Imported Soapstone Boxes
...Framed Reproductions
...Music Boxes
...Collector Plates
...Porcelain Dolls
Grossman Gallery, Inc.
Franklin, Michigan
Make your Holiday shopping easy -
There is a price for everyone!
At this time you may view _all
new lithos by Edna Hibel, as
well as many of her older
pieces, including pastels and
artist proofs.
Please join us for Hors
d'oeuvres, champagne and-
showing.
Kindly R.S.V.P, (313) 851-6637 Fred and Becky Grossman
PETER
MAX
American Red Cross
Blood Services Southeastern Michigan Region
E• jewelry
<• accessories
0 ■ apparel
(j) ■ furniture
■ bridal registry
O ■ wish list
■ executive gifts
"ASIA"
Danielle Peleg Gallery
Crosswinds Mall
4301 Orchard Lake Rd., Ste. 103
West Bloomfield
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10.6
Thurs. 10.8, Sun. 12.5
626-5810
$' WANTED $
Herman Miller
and
Knoll Furniture
1940s - 1970s
(w) 398.0646
(h) 661-4236
Designs by
Charles Gassam
Ask for Les
$ TOP CASH PAID
TREND
Applegate Square
SPECIALIZING IN
1 —CUSTOM LAMINATED FURNITURE—I
• Wall Units
• Tables
• Dining RooMs • Custom Bedrooms
C.C.C. Cabinetry
72.
FREW, Dzatguti5,198.9,
941-3050
Holiday
and
Cruise Wear
Arriving Daily
Open Sunday 12-5
Men's & Boys'
52-4244_,/
Mishpochology Reveals
Even A Tie To Detroit
CARL ALPERT
Special to The Jewish News
G
enealogists and mish-
pochologists have of-
ten _queried me as to
the source of the name
Alpert, and all sorts of
theories have been adduced.
The question stimulated me
into research of my paternal
origins, with the result that a
whole new and exciting world
opened before me — a world
which embraces a shtetl in
Lithuania, the draining of
swamps in the Emek, a mass
Nazi massacre, and even the
new immigration to Israel
from the Soviet Union, not to
speak of more than a dozen
cities in the United States, all
involving immediate
members of my family, some
of them previously unknown
to me.
Included is Phyllis Bean of
Detroit, from whom we would
like to hear.
Missing details were filled
in for me by Nissan, a first
cousin I had never met, the
last surviving member of the
family from the old country,
who recently arrived in Haifa
from Kowno. The story is
mine, but how much modern
Jewish history is packed into
it! I have no doubt that every
reader, if he were to search
and inquire and preserve
memories of those still alive,
could also reconstruct his own
family story.
The secret can be told. The
original family name was
Devenishky, taken, I am told,
from the little town of
Devenishki near Vilna. In the
Russian census of 1898, the
town had a pouplation of
1,877, of whom 1,283 were
Jews. The family spread
throughout the area, taking
up residence, among other
places, in Aisheshok, where
one of them became head of
the yeshiva, and in
Butrimantz which, sadly, has
entered Jewish folklore as the
home of horse thieves.
Lithuania had been spared
pogroms which erupted in
Russia at the turn of the cen-
tury in Kishinev and
elsewhere, but the resltess
children of Moshe and
Shayne Soroh (Sirota)
Devenishki turned their eyes
to the Goldene Medina
overseas, and one by one, five
of them made their way to
America, settling at first in
Boston and Philadelphia. Of
the six siblings, only one,
Rachel, remained behind.
There was no one to look after
elderly, ailing grandma
Soroh, and Rachel took on the
task.
Others of the aunts and
uncles had gone to Palestine,
helped drain the swamps of
the Emek and founded kib-
butzim like Tel Yosef and
Geva where, for the most part,
their descendants still live.
When the old folks passed
on, Rachel was left alone in
Butrimantz. She was married
three times, surviving three
husbands, and had a child by
each. One, cousin Hadassah,
went to Palestine in 1935.
Another Jack, went to
America, and the third,
Nissan, remained, studied at
the Kowno Polytechnicum,
and then entered the Lithua-
nian army, which was absorb-
ed into the Red Army when
Rachel's siblings
were saved from
that fate because
they had the
courage, the
initiative, the
daring to venture
off to America.
the Russians swept into that
country. He was wounded, but
did not fall into the hands of
the Germans. •
The Nazis came next, and
when they eliminated the
Jews of Butrimantz on Sept.
9, 1941, Rachel was among
the victims. Nissan
remembers the date because
in the years that followed,
after the war, he made annual
pilgrimages to the town and
to the mass grave, over which
a monument has been
erected.
A sober thought: Rachel's
siblings (and their descen-
dants), were saved from that
fate because they had the
courage, the initiative, the
daring to • venture off to
America. Among them were
my father Max and his
brothers, Wolf and Israel, in
Boston; his brother Meyer,
later of Los Angeles; and his
sister, Hinde (Ida) who
became a Gross and raised a
family in Philadelphia. There
have been four generations
since then, and some of us
have gone from America to
Israel, where we have met up
with Rachel's children, our
first cousins, Hadassah and
Nissan, and resumed contacts
with the offspring of her
nieces and nephews in the
kibbutzim.
Nissan had nothing for
which to return to