Teofipol and Kupel

[RGerber]

How can I request records for these towns? My great grandfather (and others) arrived in the United States from these towns between 1890 and 1908. So I am looking for birth, marriage, and death records, as well as any census/revision records that may be available for the Jewish populations.

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated!

-RGerber

[Hannia]

I am pretty sure the general area that you are researching was called PODOLIA.

History of Podolia
http://happytogether.com/genealogy/pages/podolia.html

Teofipol (pronounced Te-o-fee-pol in Ukr.) is a district center town in the Khmelnytska Oblast/Region>now Ukraine.

Kupel (pronounced Coo-peel in Ukr.) is a village/selo in the Volochynskij Raion/District in the same oblast as Teofipol. Village still exists today.

c.1900 map of Podolia area. Kupel too small to show up on map. It is 16.7 miles SSE of Teofipol.
Oberman Family Tree
http://userpages.wittenberg.edu/dkaz...ty/Ob-cit.html

Use following link to locate both Teofipol and Kupel. Printable version of map also available.
To see where places are generally located in Ukraine, click on to zoom, two below middle.
JewishGen ShtetlSeeker - Town Search
http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm
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Jewish Archival Records for this area are difficult to find. There may be in the Kiev Historical Archives or in the Polish Archives??? Some Jews had lived in this area since Middle Ages, others had their roots in Poland.

The fellow on the this next link has apparently been successful in locating the records. He has ancestors coming from both Teofipol and Kupel. Contact him and ask.

Jay Nitikman's Genealogy: Shtetls
http://www.permeable.com/genealogy/shtetls.html
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Other links of interest:

Kupel is included in the book. Teofipol is not.
190 towns
http://www.rtrfoundation.org/html/190_towns.html

PS>Miriam Weiner also can be contracted to do your search for you.
Routes to Roots
http://www.routestoroots.com/index.html

Stories from Russia Ukraine
http://www.permeable.com/genealogy/stories.html

A Selected Jewish Ukrainian Bibliography of Felshtin and Ukraine, Books, Articles and Web Sites
http://www.west.net/~jazz/felshtin/biblio.html

This site is still under construction, but keep it bookmarked for yourself.
Welcome to the Ukraine Sig
http://www.jewishgen.org/Ukraine/

Petersburg judaica: Books
http://judaica.spb.ru/books_e.shtml

Jewish Genealogy and Avotaynu
http://www.avotaynu.com/

Khmelnytska Oblast Archives: 10 volumes - Search the US Library of Congress
excerpt
Guberniya
http://jewishwebindex.com/guberniya.htm

JGSWS Research Tools and Links
http://members.tripod.com/adm/popup/...8d9ebe47b56b21
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You can do a wildcard search for Jewish Immigrants coming thru Ellis Island. Use the soundex/sounds like, instead of starts with. If you come across any possibilities, make sure to examine the ORIGINAL SHIP MANIFEST/handwritten copy, using the zoom. Don't forget to examine every page.
I did a quick run thru and found a Ge/arber family coming from Podalsk (bad transliteration of Podolsk/Podolia - the Region). They list themselves as Russian. Think they were heading for Cleveland. I didn't look at the others. Stay flexible w/all the transliterations.

Ellis Island /Jewish Passengers Wild Card
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellisjw.html
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PS>Wish I could have been more helpful. Good Luck!!!

[Edited by Hannia on 14th March 2002 at 10:34]

[Hannia]

Additional link, which might be of interest. Shows time frame & where census records & birth records available for Kupel &/or Teofipol. Under Archives Databases on right, do a SEARCH DATABASE for Kupel and Teofipol.

RTRFoundation
http://www.rtrfoundation.org/

Good Luck!

[nina123]

Hi, I am looking for progeny of American Jewish brother of my grand father Isaac Shuster .
Isaac Shuster was from Kupel married to Charna had more then 8 kids.

In the beginning of previous century, very often my grand father Isaac Shuster went to Philadelphia, USA to visit his brother.
His brother was a dentist in Philadelphia, USA. His family name should be Shuster. I don't know his first name.

My mother is daughter of Isaac Shuster , her maiden family name is Shuster( Majka/Maria Shuster), she was born in Kupel.My mother has sister Acya.

[Hannia]

Hello Nina.

These posts are about 8/9 years old and this site has changed hands a few times., so I don't know if you will get a response from the original poster.
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Grandfather Isaac traveled to Philadelphia a few times ? Where did Grandfather live ?

If he came from abroad, the name and address of his brother would be on the ship's manifest.

During the Great Immigration Period there were approximately 3,000 people with this exact name showing up in approximately 800,000 records.

Do you know Grandfather's year of birth? Please supply whatever detail you may have, so we could try to locate Grandfather's travel documentation. It would be helpful if you could give us a closer time frame.

Grandfather's brother may have belonged to a professional dental association, or a religious and/or political group, but we cannot do a search without a given name.
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Following is an excerpt from the History of the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia.

In 1880, approximately 15,000 Jews lived in Philadelphia. By March of 1890, Moses Dropsie noted in his report to the annual meeting of the Hebrew Education Society that there were between 26,000 and 28,000 Jews in Philadelphia, about 10,000 of whom were born in Slavic and Hungarian countries. It is estimated that 60,000 Jewish immigrants landed at the port of Philadelphia between 1882 and 1904, nearly quadrupling the cities’ Jewish population and dramatically altering its ethnic mix, in twelve years.The immigration pattern in Philadelphia was a microcosm of that in the United States. By 1904, Jewish immigration hit 75,000 and by 1918, it was 200,000. In fifty years, the Jewish population in the United States increased twenty times while the total population more than tripled.

The Eastern European Jews who arrived at the city’s port, at the foot of Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia were, for the most part, poor and unskilled. They settled in the alleys and courtyards of Fourth and Fifth Streets south of Pine in what would become the equivalent of New York’s Lower East Side. They became peddlers, rag men, cigar makers, even "horse radish men" calling out their wares in Yiddish, a dialect that was as foreign to the city’s older more established German Jewish population as it was to their gentile neighbors. Nonetheless, the German elite population felt an obligation to care for their "poorer cousins" even though, as Dropsie notes, "yet but very few of them are able to contribute in relieving the necessities and caring for the well being of their countrymen." As Dropsies’ remarks suggest, a large and sustained rift would develop between the two factions of Philadelphia Jews that would continue well into the early years of the Federation.

One of the reasons for this tension was the demand that the large influx of Russian Jews placed on the city’s previously largely symbolic Jewish charities. From the moment a Jewish immigrant arrived on the dock in Philadelphia, his every need was met by some charitable organization. An agent of the Association of Jewish Immigrants directed him; the Sheltering Home offered him a place to stay for a few days; the employment bureau of the Hebrew Charities helped him find a job. Whenever he required their services, the hospital, orphan asylum and burial society were all at his disposal. It is little wonder that there were was never enough money to go around. Up until the immigration act of 1924 curbed the mass influx of European Jews, the fledgling Federation found itself in the position of supporting the economic and welfare needs of an impoverished population that was not able, or willing to repay its debts.

Russian Jews, for the most part, founded and supported their own charitable organizations. They established their own Orthodox synagogues, burial societies, schools and newspapers (in Hebrew and Yiddish) to provide newcomers with information about their community as well as their relatives all over the world. Department store owner Samuel Lit is said to have solicited a well-to do Russian Jew for the Federation-sponsored building of Eagleville Sanitarium for consumptives, by suggesting that since he had prospered, he should contribute to the effort. "You’re right.," was the reply. "so I’ll tell you — You German Jews contribute the money, and we Russian Jews will contribute the tuberculosis."

By 1918, the Federation’s income totaled $289,819 but annual deficits, met by borrowing from endowment funds, had piled up to more than $100,000. World War I had brought inflation and the problem of meeting ongoing needs with less valuable dollars became critical. In the Spring of 1919, the Board of Directors of the Federation decided to regroup and reorganize. They voted to expand their original constituency from 14 to 39 agencies and amend their by-laws to permit directors and officers of constituents to serve on their board, which they enlarged from 12 members to 40. But by far the most significant change they enacted was to include Russian Jews in leadership positions previously occupied by Jews of German descent. By including Russian Jews among their elite, Federation sent a message to their constituency. The time had come to accept and recognize Russian Jews, and their charities, as part of the Philadelphia Jewish community. In 1919, the Federation’s new agencies included some that were founded by Russian Jews, notably the Talmud Torah Association, Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Sheltering Home and Old Age Home. The board also included representatives from these constituencies including Jacob Gutman, one of the few Russian-born Jews to penetrate into high FJC circles.

The recognition of Russian Jews by the leaders of the Philadelphia Federation mirrored a major change in American Jewry in the early 20th century. Up until the 1920’s, most Jews in the United States were immigrants or children of immigrants. With the passage of the immigration act of 1924, the focus of the Federation, and rightfully its leadership, shifted from Europe and the "old country" to America and the creation of a "new" country — Israel. American Jewry had matured and so, for the first time, had its leaders in America. This new generation recognized Federation as a business and, as such, hired its first full time administrator, Jacob Billikopf, who according to Gutman (as quoted in Murray Friedman’s book, Jewish Life in Philadelphia, 1830-1940), was "a brilliant man who knew how to unite communities around federated organizations...He also had a strong Lithuanian accent."