My great-great grandfather

Posted by: Emily on: November 11, 2003

• In: Family History Project
• 1 Comment

Here’s a little information I’ve dug up on my great-great-grandfather Jacob Rabinowitz (and yes, I should be working on my thesis proposal instead of doing this…)

From his obituary in the NY Times, December 10, 1939

“Jacob Rabinowitz, vice president of Spear & Co., Inc., a real estate concern here, and an active worker in Jewish philanthropies, died Friday night of a heart ailment in his home at 884 West End Avenue. He was 79 years old.

“Mr. Rabinowitz was an organizer of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, president of the United Hebrew Community and a judge of the Jewish Conciliation Court of America.” [The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives has a collection of documents from the court. According to their site, “Founded in 1931 as a board of lay-persons and rabbis, the Jewish Conciliation Board sought to fill a void in American society of a Jewish issues court.  The Board is a descendent of the Beth Din (a Jewish court of law) and as such is a free court allowing immigrants to avoid potentially costly litigation.”]

“He was also president of Congregation Zemach Zedek, treasurer of Maskil el Dol (Aid to the Poor) and of Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol, vice president of Machzikei Talmud Torah and the Hebrew Free Loan Society and a former president of the Hebrew Kindergarten Infants Home, and the Far Rockaway Infants Home.” [According to the American Jewish Historical Society, “In 1920 alone, the New York Hebrew Free Loan Society distributed more than $1 million in loans to Jewish-owned small businesses.”]

“He was a director of the Home of Old Israel and Anshei Mymud, and a member of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, Xitmer Darchei Noam Talmud Torah, Rabinical Colleges of Slonim and of Thelsi, Daughters of Jacob Home, Beth Abraham Home for Incurables, Israel Orphan Asylum, Rabbi Elkonon Yeshiva College and the Loan and Relief Society of Brooklyn.”

“Born in Russia, the son of Marias and Rose Stynowsky Rabinowitz, he came to the United States in the Eighties.”

“Surviving are his widow, three sons, Aaron Rabinowitz [my Mom’s grandfather], Maurice R. Spear and Leon R. Spear [apparently they changed their name when they went into the Army – Naomi Guismar is one of Leon Spear’s kids, and her daughter Barbara Howard was at grandpa’s recent 90th birthday]; two daughters, Mrs. Rose Gural and Mrs. Kenneth C. Newman [Aunt Felicia, who is Margaret Gordon’s grandmother — whose daughters are Edith Weinburger, Annette Gordon, and Dorothy Seligman (who was also at Grandpa’s birthday party) — those three are my grandmother’s first cousins then]; sixteen grandchildren and a great-grand-child.” [According to Mom, that first great-grandchild was probably Jeffrey Gural — Rose was the oldest of those five kids and her son Aaron was the oldest of the grandchildren and is now about 90.]