Category Archives: World War I

The Keidan Jewish Cemetery Project

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Andrew

By Ben-Tsiyon Klibansky July, 2021 The Initiative In 2016, I was invited to a seminar held in Vilna. At the end of the seminar, I took a train to Keidan, the hometown of my father and his mother, to visit … Continue reading →

Posted in Cemeteries, Contemporary Kedainiai, Holocaust, World War I | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Another Day to Remember

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Andrew

Recently, Jews around the world commemorated Yom HaShoah. Yet even if the Holocaust had never happened, however, this would be a season for remembering the suffering, death and displacement inflicted on the Jews of Eastern Europe by war – World … Continue reading →

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Riva Starr’s Journey

Posted on March 9, 2020 by ACassel

Riva Starr (1904-1993), born Riva Schneider in Keidan, emigrated to the U.K. in the early 1920s. In 1991, her son, Monty Starr, recorded an interview with her in Birmingham, England. The following is a transcription of that interview. M. It’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Emigrants, History, Memoir, Personalities, UK, World War I | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rabbi Avraham Halevy Sochen

Posted on February 27, 2020 by ACassel

By Dr. Mordechai Sochen (Minneapolis) My father, Rabbi Avraham Halevy Sochen (may he rest in peace) came to Keidan at the end of the last [19th] century, and married my mother (may she rest in peace), Feyge, daughter of Reb … Continue reading →

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From the Ministry for Jewish Affairs

Posted on February 27, 2020 by ACassel

Letter from the Ministry for Jewish Affairs, Division of Communal Matters No : 193/64 Kovno 13 January 1922 Document No:43736 To: The Congregational Committee in Keidan We are currently carrying out specific statistical investigation of the Jewish soldiers in our army, … Continue reading →

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The Big Celebration

Posted on February 27, 2020 by ACassel

By Hirsh Bloshtein Originally published in the newspaper “Birobidzhaner Shtern,” October 1970.  I once had a friend. We were born in the same town, on the same street and in the same year. We were together through our childhood years and … Continue reading →

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Fire in the Town, 1914

Posted on February 27, 2020 by ACassel

By Yitzhak Wolpe, as told to David Wolpe First published in the 1950 anniversary book, Keidan Sick Benefit & Benevolent Society of Johannesburg. 1. It was 1914, late spring, just a week after the holiday of Shavuot. The air in … Continue reading →

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Keidan in the Time of Troubles

Posted on February 26, 2020 by ACassel

By Shabtiel Deitsh (Haifa) Even though I wasn’t born, didn’t grow up and didn’t study in Keidan, it seems to me that I have the right to write about it, as well as a lot to say. Not only am … Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, History, Interwar, Landsmanshaft, Memoir, Personalities, World War I, Yizkor Book | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

World War I Refugees in Exile

Posted on February 26, 2020 by ACassel

By Pesach Weitzer-Chittin (Beit Zera, Israel) Published in “The Past,” a quarterly chronicle of Jews and Judaism in Russia, vol. 13. Tel Aviv, Iyar 1966.  1. More than 50 years have passed since the event I describe here, which I … Continue reading →

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