Butkowitzes and Klaymans

by emails. Norman Gilfenbain is married to Gloria, his high school sweetheart, and lives in Brentwood, California. He has two children, Stuart and Robin Gilfenbain Baker. Norman owns a company called Cal Fruit. He and both of his brothers followed in their father's footsteps in the produce business, except they became wholesalers and apparently all became wealthy. Harry Gilfenbain's son Steven also is in the produce business, buying and selling carloads of fruits and vegetables. Sari, Harry's daughter was a special education teacher. She was always the beauty of the family. Chic had one daughter, Arlene, who died tragically young, leaving 5 children and 4 grandchildren. Like me,she had her first child when she was about 20. Rthe g in Gilfenbain? (The difference between the ai and ei spellings is immaterial. Both signify the "ay" sound in Yiddish dialects.) Well, in many dialects of Yiddish, a word beginning with a vowel automatically is pronounced with an h before it. My Bobi Ostrach actually called her elbow her "helbow." This is not unique to Yiddish. The h sound slips and slides around in many languages. Did you ever wonder why English spells and with an h? It was once pronounced, and Cockney speakers in London are notorious for "putting h's in where they don't belong." In any event, at some time, the Elfenbein family began pronouncing their name "Helfenbein." However, as they got closer to Poland, the h became a g. For instance, Ukrainian and Polish are the same thing: stuffed cabbage. So, Helfenbein eventually became Gilfenbain, but not until after my grandfather's arrival in America. Apparently, pronouncing it with a g was a point of honor with my grandfather, as he once told my mother that his brother, whom he had broken off relations with, pronounced his name Helfenbain, but he, my grandfather, pronounced it Gilfenbain. Why he changed the pronunciation in this country, I don't know. Perhaps he thought it sounded more Polish that way. In any eent,, hr certainly was aware of the g-h correspondence in Polish and Ukrainian words. My uncle Norman told me his father couldn't write, but somehow he got the spelling of both his first and last names changed.My grandfather arriThe Gilfenbains
store and her
My grandfather is listed on the Ellis Island passenger record as Avrum Helfenbain, 19 years old, occupation printer, last residence, Nowydor, Austria. This last is an obvious error, as he came from Nowy Dwor, Poland. There is no Nowy Dwor, Austria. He must have told the official on the ship he boarded that he came from Nowy Dwor near Warsaw, and the official misheard, not understanding either Yiddish or Polish. The offical was probably German, since the ship departed from Hamburg, so he thought he heard "Austria." By the way, the officer also listed Avrum's ethnicity as Russian, Hebrew. The boundaries between Russia and Poland have shifted dramatically through history. Look for the wonderful postcard showing Nowy Dwor on the photo page for Gilfenbain. Terry got records from Nowy Dwor from a contact on ancestry.com which show a huge number of people named Elfenbein and Helfenbein. Undoubtedly, many of these were aunts, uncles, and cousins of my Avrum's. Many of their descendants are in the U.S. and other places around the world. Terry has heard from one in France.Avrum arrived on a ship which was called Amerika. It arrived at Ellis Island on April 5, 1908. He was to go to his brother Mendel Helfenbein in Boston, Massachusetts. He listed as his closest relative in Poland his sister Chana, who pretty much raised him as his mother, Rosa Minya (nee , my mother's namesake, died when he was very young and his father remarried. Avrum's stepmother was abusive to him. One story he told my mother was when he was about 7, he heartily ate a dish of boiled beef and kasha, which he loved. His stepmother, seeing how he ate it, then forced him to eat several more bowls of it. He became very sick and for the rest of his life could not eat boiled beef. His other sister, Rifka Gilfenbain Marcus already lived in Boston in 1908, and Avrum stayed with her before he got married. Chana was the last of the family to come. Her married surname was either Kushner or Kirshner. Neither Terry nor I could read the handwriting on the ship's manifest very well. My mother loved her Mema Chana, but never said much about her beyond how wonderful she was, so I don't even know if she had children. I never knew her or saw a picture of her. The only thing I know is that she was a very freckled redhead, a fact often mentioned because I had a face full of freckles and reddish hair.Actually, Terry found that my grandfather's father Eliezer had the last name Elfenbein. So, the name went from Elfenbein to Helfenbein to Gilfenbain. The reason for this variation is the way Yiddish, Ukrainian, and Polish are spoken. Avrum became Abraham in America.But what about that last name? The name was probably originally Elfenbein. It was not, as my mother thought, Elfenbaum, because, in Yiddish, means 'tree,' but means 'bone.' And, is Yiddish for 'elephant.' There is no elephant tree, but there is an elephant bone. That is what is called in Yiddish. The original Elfenbein was a Jewish merchant, probably trading with Turkish or Greek merchants along the early trade routes along the Black Sea into Ukraine and on up to the Danube. There was so much trading with Turkey, that in the 10th century, Turkish Jewish merchants converted the people in what is now Ukraine to Judaism, and the Khazars became a Jewish kingdom. Later, of course, St Cyril converted the Slavs and the resulting Christian church with its superior organization and hierarchy became predominant.How did the h appear in Helfenbein? And why ved in Boston two years after my grandmother Jenny did. Her father, Schlomo, caught Abram climbing in my grandmother's bedroom window one night. Shortly thereafter, they were married, apparently at the insistence of her father. Three children, Chick, Rose (my mother), and Harry were born in 1911, 1912, and 1913. My grandmother was a child with children, and my grandfather barely 20.My grandmother was a fun-loving, generous, good-hearted, totally accepting woman. She was never mean or stingy or unfriendly. She loved to sing bawdy Yiddish songs and to dance and play cards. She delighted in a "freylach," a lively party for a wedding or a bar mitzvah. Perhaps because she married so young and had children so soon, later on she had love affairs. I know of two. One was with a greengrocer whose store was near my grandfather's in the North End. My mother recalls going to visit this man's ose (Rosa Minya), my mother, had two children, me, of course, and my older brother Herb, a brilliant scholar, who died at 71, which I find too young.

From Ukraine to America: 4 Families

The Butkowitzes and Klaymans

I do not know any stories of the Butkovitz and Klayman families from the Old Country, as my Bobi Jenny moved to California when I was a toddler. My mother told me a few stories of her childhood in Boston, but the Butkovitzes and Klaymans, although loving people whom we visited often never told me any at all. All Aunty Ida, Jenny's sister, ever said to me was, "If the Old Country was any good, we'd never have left." I didn't realize until I was writing this that my cousin Millie Klayman Cohen, Rifka's daughter, was born in the shtetl and spent much of her childhood there. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, nobody ever thought to ask her what life was like there. Perhaps her daughters knew of some stories. If they do, I invite them to contact me so that I can post them here. Note that the Butkovitz's and Klaymans came from the same shtetl. Phillip Butkowitz was married to Tillie Klayman. That is, both Phillip and his sister, Rifka, married a Klayman sister and brother, respectively. My cousin Selma Klayman Baker notes that in all her family pictures of weddings and the like, Tillie appears in the group pictures of both the Butkowitz and Klayman families.

The Butkovitzes lived about 40 miles from Kiev in a shtetl, Koshoweta, a poor village inhabited by Jews. Millie Klayman Cohen, who was born there, not emigrating to America until the early 1920's, pronounced it "Kashevit." They were tailors, furriers, and leather workers, trades which they brought with them to America.

Sholom Butkovitz, a tailor, arrived in 1906 from Rotterdam with two of his daughters, Taibl and Malke (apparently whom we all knew as Jenny and Ida, names they gave themselves in America.). Oddly, Taibl is listed as his niece. Terry said that, on the ship manifest, next to Taibl's name, in a handwriting different from the rest of the document, the word niece appeared. This was probably because Sholom had listed his brother Manya, who had emigrated 6 years earlier, as his American contact, and the Ellis Island official somehow thought Taibl was Manya's daughter. There was, of course, a language barrier, and, if Sholom didn't understand a question and just said something about going to his brother, that could have been the source of the error.

It was quite usual for fathers to come to America and later send for their families, but what was, perhaps, less usual was for the father to take two of his daughters with him, leaving his sons Samuel and Phillip, and the youngest daughter, Anna, at home. Phillip came early enough to serve in the American army in World War I. When Anna, Sam, and my great-grandmother Sarah came, I don't know, but it was before 1919 because they're in the family picture on the Home Page.

Rifka, actually his oldest daughter by his first wife, was also left behind, possibly because she was either engaged or actually married. She came with her husband and their children after 1919. The children were Sidney, Millie, Tunni, Solly, and Mugsy Klayman.  All the Klayman children were born in Kashevit except for Mugsy, the youngest. He was born in Rumania, as the family was fleeing Ukraine. One story I heard was that he was crying so much one day that the other refugees wanted my Mema Rifka, his mother, to smother him because they were afraid that his crying would bring officials to their hiding place. Many Jews fled Ukraine during the Russian Revolution by illegally crossing the border to Rumania, which then had a large Jewish population.  Mugsy's daughter Deborah told me her father didn't even know he was born in Europe until he went to get his birth certificate. He thought he'd been born in Boston.

My great-grandfather, Sholom, brought my grandmother, Taibl (later Jenny), with him. My mother told me it was because Taible because she was "incorrigible." She wasn't bad, but she was frisky. She loved to dance, to play, to joke, to sing. She wasn't staid and quiet like the rest of the family, so her mother apparently thought she'd be better off going with her father. Malke, later known to us all as Aunty Ida, was probably taken along to keep my grandmother company. Phillip was married to Tillie in the Old Country, and his oldest son Davey was born there. Notice that Phillip is sitting up in 1919 holding his second son, Nacham, whom we all called Nookie . My mother once posited to my sister-in-law Terry that Phillip was paralyzed from the neck down because he was gassed in WWI, but that war was over when we see him sitting. He is also sitting up in the other large family picture taken in 1924. The reason my mother gave me for Phillip's being paralyzed was that he caught "sleeping sickness." This sounds more likely to me. I, of course, don't remember Phillip until late 1938 or 1939 (I was born in 1934), and remember him only as a ghostly figure lying on a cot in his mother's kitchen, being tended by his mother and wife. He was able to talk very quietly and only in short bursts. At least, that is the only way I ever heard him talk. He didn't ever seem to be part of a conversation.

My memories of his older sons, Davey and Nookie, are very positive. Davey was sweet and, when my mother lay dying, at one point, she called out, "Davey what are you doing here? You're dead." He was. Nookie was always joking. He was kind and sweet and loving and caring to his wife, who was a lovely person, but suffered from clinical depression. I always loved being with them and the entire Klayman family who were unfailingly nice, kind and welcoming. They were a contrast with the Ostrachs who were like a family straight out of a Dostoevsky novel: always discussing something earnestly in loud voices, arguing about ideas, delighting in verbal thrusts. The Butkovitz's and Klaymans were peaceful, more like a Louisa May Alcott novel, except for one thing. They loved to play cards. They formed a Cousins' Club, of which my mother was a member, and frequently met at each others' homes to eat, talk and play poker. The men often shot craps. I still remember Becky Klayman with a green eyeshade on her head calling out 'three ladies" (for three queens). My Uncle Harry and his children Sari and Steven often showed up at these events at our house as well. Uncle Harry taught me valuable lessons, like what a "Philadelphia bankroll" was. I also learned to play craps myself at these staid family gettogethers.

Uncle Sam Butkovitz was the other son of Sarah and Sholom. He unfortunately married a beautiful, but mentally ill woman, a situation he couldn't cope with. Since there was no counseling in those days or any real help for the mentally ill, Sam, unlike anybody else in his family, became a shikka, an alcoholic. He worked on the railroad on the Boston to Washington route. Once, on the train to Boston with my giirlfriends, he came up to me, obviously pathetically drunk, and I, a teenager, tried not to let him see my, which, to this day, makes me feel ashamed. Years later, at a family wedding, he came up to me and complimented me on my three sons. Then he said, "Now don't go joining those Lady Libbers." At the time, I was in the middle of getting my doctorate. Sam was an anomaly in the family because he had no trade and wasn't in business. Ida and Anna were leather workers. I don't know what Phillip did when he was well.  Three Klayman brothers were in business, and Solly was a furrier.

Aunty Ida moved to New York City and had an apartment in Brighton Beach. I visited her regularly there when I was a child and teenager. Aunty Anna also moved there and she had two children. Ida's marriage to Louis Thal was arranged by her father. Louis was the son of a rabbi. He was a sweet, effeminate, fussy man who took good care of Ida, washing the floors and doing the housework. They had no children. It was well known in the family that Louis was impotent. Ida could have gotten out of the marriage, but, my mother explained to me that Ida wouldn't shame her father that way, so she stayed in it and, instead, had a career as a labor organizer. Actually, she was very fond of Louis and mourned his death. Ida was the universal aunt to all her nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews, a delight to be around. She was serious, a worker and leader in the early labor unions. Not surprisingly, she was also a Communist. When I stayed with her, often heavily accented Russian males called asking for her. She spoke Russian as well as Yiddish and English. Her English betrayed no foreign accent at all.   Anna was sweet and friendly and easy to talk to. She was married to Laban Bresky, a man with huge blue eyes, but a tiny frame like her father's. Anna was under 5 feet tall, as am I. That ran in both sides of the family. Neither of my grandmothers was 5 feet tall, but my mother, Rose, was 5'2", which, in our family, was good. Ruth actually made it to 5'6", which, in our family, is very tall.

I ask all readers of this to please supply me with more information if they have it, either of the family in the old country or the early years in America. I knew two of Phillip's sons well, Davie and Nookie, but not his younger sons who moved to Philadelphia in their twenties. Their names were Morton and Harold Butkovitz, but I don't know whom they married or if they had children. Uncle Sam had three sons, but I don't know what became of them, nor do I remember their names, except, I believe, one was named Nathan. I last saw him with his wife. She was many years his senior and he was wheeling her in a wheelchair, utterly devoted to her.

Anna Butkovitz Bresky had two children, Seymour, who is about my age and with whom I played regularly when I visited Aunty Ida and Aunty Anna in Brighton Beach during my childhood, and Harriet who is younger than I am. Seymour settled in Springfield, Mass., becoming a well-known announcer and movie reviewer there going by the name of Sy Becker, but I haven't heard from him in years. I saw him last at his son's Bar Mitzvah. Harriet married a lawyer and lived in the Boston area. Her last name is Flashenberg or Flaschenburg. Terry thinks the former. I think the latter.

As for Klaymans, I know Millie, who married a very nice, handsome man named Max Cohen, had three daughters: Sylvia, a raven haired beauty and a lovely person, and younger identical twins who had silky red hair. Sidney had a son Jack and a daughter Selma, a tall, blue-eyed blonde, who is my age, and with whom I was very friendly when we were young. She lives in Peabody, Mass and is happily married to Larry Baker. We see them occasionally. Solly Klayman, a wonderful kind soul, was married to a lovely woman named Arlene. Solly was a furrier. He actually designed custom furs in his shop in Boston. He had two daughters, whom I never met. Neither married, so he and Arlene had no grandchildren. Tunni Klayman had one daughter, Muggsy, had at least one daughter, Deborah, who contacted me because of this site.   To my knowledge, the Klayman sons, and the one grandson, Jack, had daughters only, so that surname wasn't passed on.

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