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in
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It Takes A Village

Local man
hopes to help
local landsmen
reconnect.

SHARI S. COHEN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

TOP: Aaron Tilchin came
to the U.S. from David-
Horodok in 1912. Because
of WWI, he could not bring
his family until 1920. This
photo of his wife, children
and brother was taken in
David-Horodok in 1918.
Berel Tilchin, the brother,
was in the Polish army in
1918. He perished with his
family in the Holocaust. Left
to right: Seymour Tilchin
(who later would become
publisher of the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle), Berel
Tilchin, Miriam Tilchin
Knoppow, Minnie Siporin
Tilchin (Aaron’s wife) and
Sadie Tilchin Sandweiss.

L

andsman — it’s a term familiar to
many Jews of baby boomer and older
vintage. A landsman is someone
from the same town in the old country as
your family. More specifically, landsmen are
Eastern Europeans who emigrated from the
same place — generally during the late 1800s
through the 1940s.
Whether they came to the U.S., Canada,
South America, South Africa or what was
then Palestine, many Jewish immigrants
chose to develop connections through
benevolent societies, landsmannschaften,
comprised of former residents of their home-
towns. These were social and philanthropic
organizations whose members came mainly
from villages and towns throughout Poland,
Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine.
Through landsmannschaften, immigrants
helped each other find jobs, learn English
and adjust to a new life. These societies
sometimes operated cemeteries and provid-
ed financial assistance for burials. They also
sent money back to their European home-
towns to help landsmen there.
In 1938, the federal Works Progress
Administration reported 2,468 lands-
mannschaften in New York. The Jewish
Genealogical Society of Michigan reports at
one time 25 such groups existed in Metro
Detroit and one in Bad Axe. The num-
bers dwindled as immigration slowed and
European Jews assimilated successfully.

SOME STILL ACTIVE

But some groups continue to meet, donate to
charity and honor those Jewish communities
decimated during the Holocaust. They are
descendants of landsmannschaften mem-
bers, continuing the benevolent society tra-
dition in memory of deceased relatives and
out of curiosity about their
familial roots in Europe.
“I was 5 when my father
showed me the building in
Detroit where the Bereznitz
Society met. They sent
money to Israel, to Europe
and locally,” says Richard
Stoler, D.O., of Bloomfield
Richard Stoler
Hills. For 12 years, Stoler

18

August 2 • 2018

jn

has devoted many hours to researching
Bereznitzers worldwide and has visited
Bereznitz in Russia.
Now he is hoping local individuals from
other, once-active Detroit organizations will
be motivated to reconnect.
“If we don’t do it now, it will be forgotten,”
he says, speaking of the heritage of Eastern
European Jewish immigrants.
The Jewish Genealogical Society of
Michigan recently presented a panel of
representatives from active Detroit-area
landsmannschaften whose European home-
towns once had large Jewish communities.
Roz Blanck of Franklin had a grandmother
born in David-Horodok, who was active in
Detroit’s David-Horodoker
women’s organization,
established in the 1920s.
David-Horodok means
David’s town; David was
a Lithuanian prince, she
explains. The town is now
part of Belarus.
The David-Horodok
Roz Blanck
group has more than 500
member families and has
traveled to David-Horodok
four times. They have held an annual dinner
in Metro Detroit for 81 years. For 15 years,
the group has held a memorial service for the
7,000 Jews massacred nearby by the Nazis
and local residents in 1941 and 1942.
In 2017, 31 Detroit David-Horodokers,
including 10 in their 20s and 30s, went to
Cuba, once home to some landsmen; a trip
to Argentina is planned for 2019. Blanck says
there is a group in Israel as well.
The Detroit group helped to organize and
fund a permanent exhibit at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills. The
exhibit includes photos of David-Horodok
from the 1800s-1900s, many of families with
members now in Detroit.
Jews from Radom, Poland, created the
Radomer Aid Society in Detroit in 1920.
Sandy Tuttleman of West Bloomfield became
active in the group through her late husband,
Oscar. Today, she says the 50 member families
have an annual banquet and hold dinners five
times a year. Through membership dues and

contributions, the group
has donated three ambu-
lances to the American
Friends of Magen David
Adom (the Israeli version of
the Red Cross) and funds to
10 other charities.
The Radomer Aid
Sandy Tuttleman
Society has a separate sec-
tion and small structure
within Hebrew Memorial
Park cemetery, where members take care
of graves and monuments. They meet there
every September and share photos and sto-
ries of relatives, including those killed in the
massacre of Radom’s Jews on Feb. 19, 1942.
Suzanne Shawn’s grandfather emigrated
from Pinsk, a town in Belarus, in 1914 and
was a founder of Detroit’s Pinsker Progressive
Aid Society in 1927. Shawn of Farmington
Hills says the society was a big part of her life
growing up and, when it was going to dis-
solve, she became active about 12 years ago.
“We have quarterly meetings, an annual
brunch and the younger members — those
under about 75 — have get togethers. We
have a couple of millennials,” she says.
According to Shawn, the organization has
traditionally been “very philanthropic and
very social.” During World War II, funds were
collected for war bonds and later to buy an
airplane for Israel. The group has an annual
beautification day at the Pinsker section of
Hebrew Memorial Park.
Today, Radom, Bereznitz and David-
Horodok have no Jewish residents. Stoler
said when he visited Bereznitz nine years
ago he found a Torah scroll, Kiddush cup,
the building that had housed a Stoliner Shul
and the house where his cousin’s father was
born. The town reminded him of the village
in Fiddler on the Roof.
Individuals seeking to learn about or
reactivate their landsmannschaften can
contact Richard Stoler at vassardr@outlook.
com. Stoler says resources are available at
the Temple Beth El Archives, Holocaust
Memorial Center Library, Burton Historical
Collection of the Detroit Public Library and
the Wayne State University Walter Reuther
Library. •

