I’ll get back to “Fiddler” later in the narrative.

(At long last, the musical connection, though I have no idea who played what instrument on this side of the family) I’ve already debunked the myth of a family owned piano factory but who knows whether there was a family Fiddler on the Roof in the Jewish Quarter. He married his second cousin (my grandmother) Rebecca Berhnardt/Bernardovitch/Muzakant. Jailed with Dzerzhinsky, who was later head of the Secret Service, Morris fled Vilna after the 1905 Revolution and came to America. Morris “Eli” was sent out as an apprentice at the age of 7 to the Passamentere (tailor/clothing venue) and eventually served in the Russian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. She lived in Seagate, way out on Long Island, and was deaf and blind at the time.) (I remember meeting Golda when she was well into her 80′s. His oldest sister, Golda, married her second cousin, Myer Myers and emigrated to Bridgeport, Connecticut sometime after 1905. One of these was my grandfather, Morris/Moishe Eliazar. Zalmen and Michelle had 6 children, apparently born in Vilna. The great violinist, Jascha Heifetz was from this prominent city. Vilna was known for its musicians, poets, intellectuals, philosophers, and labor organizers.

Moreover, it was regarded as a secular culture and therefore an alternative to traditional Judaism.” (Wikipedia) In addition to the scads of synagogues, libraries, schools, theaters, museums, medical facilities, scientific institutions, and publishing houses were established. “By the start of the 20th century, a Jewish renaissance was rising. They died during a famine sometime in 1915. Zalmen and Michelle lived in the basement of an old building in the Jewish Quarter of Vilna, Lithuania. Losing contact with his family in the process of prolonged military service, he eventually left the army, became a tailor and married Michelle Tzinn, a caterer, among other things. The story has it that Zalmen therefore took the name Druskin. It is assumed that the more affluent family was from Druskininkai, a town in Southwest Lithuania. Zalmen had been “sold” into the Czar’s army as a little boy in place of a wealthier Jew’s son. Its agents often did so by kidnapping children to fill the community. The “Kahal,” an executive arm of each Jewish community, was empowered to obtain recruits. Juvenile conscription began with 12-year olds. These recruits had to serve for 25 years starting at age 18. He did the arduous research and came up with a hair-raising narrative.ĭuring the reign of Czar Nicholas I, the Conscription Law of 1827 mandated that each Jewish community had to provide a disproportionately large quota of recruits for the czar’s army. One of my third cousins, once removed, Leon Ginenthal, succeeded where I had failed.

The genealogy papers were a miraculous find considering my own futile efforts to trace the family’s Eastern European roots. Tapruakh means “little apple.” (Ironically, I lived in the Big Apple for the first 30 years of my life) While shuffling papers within a folder labeled “Piano tuners/technicians,” I stumbled upon two pages clipped together, titled “Descendants of Zalmen Tapruakh (1835-1915) and Michelle Tzinn.” (1850-1915) These were my maternal great grandparents.

My family tree by two jura