Asked about her collection of family heirlooms, Linda Silverman Shefler will likely say that as a child, she was somewhat of a nudnik!
Linda Silverman Shefler's family wall, which features 50 old family photographs and documents.
Photo: Courtesy
As far back as she can remember, she would pester her grandmothers with questions: Who were those people in all the photographs? What did those documents she couldn't read really say? To whom did this or that object belong?
Eldest of the 10 grandchildren on each side of the family, Shefler was the only one who showed interest in the family history: "I believe that's what made me the logical candidate to inherit so many wonderful family treasures."
Shefler began researching her family 23 years ago after her grandmother died and she inherited a drawerful of photographs. She began to research a previously unknown Cleveland, Ohio branch, and her journey of discovery has gathered 80 direct ancestors, 10 generations and more than 11,000 relatives, going back (in one branch) to the late 1600s. "There's still so much research to do," she adds.
Shefler, an interior designer, made aliya with her husband in April; they live on Moshav Mishmeret.
Her most treasured heirloom? Her family wall, which features 50 old family photographs and documents that were cleaned, repaired and preserved by an archivist, then matted and framed.
"My maternal grandmother gave me her mother's brass candlestick that she brought with her from Russia," said Shefler. An appraiser said the candlestick dated to circa 1850, and Shefler wonders if it originally belonged to her great-great-grandmother. Likely one of a pair separated many years ago, it was always on her grandmother's dining room sideboard, and is prominently displayed in Shefler's home.
That's not all her treasure trove offers. Some items were inherited from her grandmother; others came to her because no one else cared enough to want them. The collection includes old Kiddush cups, a great-grandmother's jewelry, 1920s "flapper" dresses, old prayer books and a century-old Haggada, in addition to letters written by members of three different generations. A collection of small items (crochet, a shoe buttonhook, business letterhead and more) was combined into a hanging for her office. "Each of these connections to my past is a treasure to me and I feel very blessed to have them," she says.
Another prized possession is Shefler's paternal grandmother's monogrammed (M for Marx) century-old silver. "My grandmother wanted me to have this and it fascinates me to think of who used it." As a child, Shefler would polish it before family events.
Shefler has often wondered - and worried - what she will do with all these treasures: "Who will become the guardian of the past when I'm not around?"
Someday, when she has grandchildren, she hopes to instill in them a fascination with their family history. "I hope that I will be able to spend hours with them, like my grandmothers did with me, patiently explaining who the people were, to whom the 'treasures' belonged and entrust these pieces of their past to them."
The difference, of course, adds Shefler, is that she'll be able to hand over a history - one her grandmothers didn't know - with the heirlooms.
Shelly Levin, 51, a former genetics counselor and current "domestic goddess," wishes she knew the family stories of her three-century-old candlesticks. "If only [they] could talk," she sighs. Levin can imagine the stories they'd tell if they could "and the genealogical questions I would ask."
Rachelle Berliner of Atlanta, Georgia, also has her grandmother's candlesticks. Rachel Golda Zagona and Joseph Jacobs (Eichler) - from Przasnysz, Poland - arrived in London in 1865, and sailed to America in 1880, with three brass candlesticks. Berliner's mother, the youngest of 11 living children, inherited them and gave them to her daughter.
In London, her grandfather ordered a watch chain with a design representing a Torah cover. Her mother made it into a necklace and Berliner wears it every day.
For Australian-born genealogist and author Chaim Freedman of Petah Tikva, his great-great-grandfather's tefillin - which might go farther back than that - are worth more than diamonds.
In 1950, when he reached bar mitzva age in Melbourne, his mother gave the tefillin to him and said he should treasure them, as they belonged to her father's grandfather, Shlomo Zalman Komesaroff (Komisaruk). They had belonged to Shlomo Zalman's grandfather, Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk (1830-1897), and might even be from Pinkhas's own grandfather, Rabbi Dov Ber Komisaruk (1776-1843), Freedman says.
He only has to glance at the tefillin to remember his family's history, as they migrated from Raseiniai, Lithuania in 1847 to the Ukrainian Jewish agricultural colony of Grafskoy, later journeying to Australia in 1913 and, finally, to Israel in 1977.
Meryl Frank, 49 - the mayor of Highland Park, New Jersey, and mother of four - is the guardian of her grandmother's trousseau. Her grandmother, Meryl Kagan, was the daughter of tinsmith guild master Reb Duvid Kagan. In 1890, Frank's grandfather came to Vilna to apprentice with Reb Kagan. On his first day at work, a woman walked into the shop to have a new "brass limb" made. The guild master took the old brass limb she had brought in and threw it to Frank's grandfather, saying "Here, kid, make something from this."
Today, two beautiful brass kettles sit on her mantle in New Jersey. Frank's grandparents were married in Vilna in 1901, and her grandmother's trousseau includes embroidered pillowcases, a table runner with Kagan's initials embroidered in Russian, a cotton nightgown, an engagement present pocket watch, and Shabbat candlesticks made in Warsaw.
Bernard Israelite Kouchel of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also has his grandmother's candlesticks. In 1902, Sarah Israelite of Novogrudok, Belarus carried her precious possessions (three children, four candlesticks) to rejoin her husband Michl, who had left for Brooklyn in 1899.
Kouchel, a retired contractor, inherited the candlesticks from his mother. "I envision Shabbat candle lighting rituals with Bubba waving her hands over the lit candles - it endures in my memory," he says.
