Moishe and Esther Malka Kandel

Moishe Kandel of Makhnovka, about 1904

     Some time ago I posted about Philip Lieberman and his wife Bella (Beile).  While I know little about Philip before he came to the US, Bella's family is a different story.  Bella's father was Moishe Kandel, and her mother was called Esther Malka.  They lived in the town of Makhnovka in the Berdichev Uzezd, Kiev Gubernia, in what is now Ukraine.  In the late 1890s, Makhnovka was a good sized town with about 5300 inhabitants, of which 2400 were Jews [1].  Moshe was said to be a cantor for the local congregation.
     Moishe and Esther Malka had at least four daughters Pesa, Alte Sara, Chana and Beile.  All four daughters married in Makhnovka, and had children there.  Pesa, the oldest, was born about 1851, and died about 1877 in Makhnovka.  She married Shalom Yosef Keyser in about 1870, and had twin boys, Aaron and Lieb in 1872.  Aaron, who became Harry, came to the US in about 1904.  Lieb, who became Louis, came to New York on June 19, 1904 aboard the SS Etruria from Rotterdam.[2]  They both came to Philadelphia and worked for their uncle, Philip Lieberman, Beile's husband, making men's pants.
     Alte Sarah was born about 1860 and married Yehuda Lieb Apple in about 1879.  They had four children, Samuel (Sholem, 1885), Harry Isaac (Aaron, 1890), Gertrude (Golde, 1899), and Dorothy (Dora, 1901).  Lieb came to the US in about 1901 where he worked as a self employed poulterer or butcher.  On October 2 1902, Samuel arrived in Quebec sailing from Liverpool aboard the SS Lake Champlain[3].  He joined his father in Philadelphia, probably travelling on the Grand Trunk railroad through St Albans NY, the usual route of passengers arriving from Canada.  On January 24, 1905, Sarah and the other three children arrived in Philadelphia aboard the SS Friesland from Liverpool to join their husband and father[4].

L-R: Golde Apple, Moishe Kandel, Harry Apple, Alte Sarah Apple, Dora Apple.  The photo was taken in Makhnovka in 1904 before Sarah and the children left for Philadelphia to join her husband and son.  This is the original from which the photo above of Moishe Kandel was restored.

      Chana Kandel, the next oldest sister was born about 1876.  She was married three (or four) times over the years and had five children.  Her first marriage was to Shlomo Friedman.  They had a daughter, Lillian in about 1892.  Chana's second husband, was Alter Diamond.  They had a son Jossel in about 1896.  Jossel and Lillian both later went by Chana's third husband's name, Aron Goldenberg.  Aron, Chana, and Jossel came to the US on the SS Pretoria which docked in New York from Hamburg on January 2, 1901[5].  Aron was a tailor and reported that he was going to his brother-in-law, Philip Lieberman in Philadelphia.  Lillian came later, according to family lore, after her grandfather had died.  Jossel became Joseph Goldenberg, and later, Joseph Bernard Gould.  Chana became Anna or Annie.  Anna and Aaron had three more children after they settled in the US, first in Philadelphia and then Wilmington, Del.  Leopold and Philip were born soon after the couple arrived in the US, and a daughter, Esther Malka, was born in 1902[6].  Aron died in 1937.  Family lore says that Anna married again, to a man named Eisen, but I haven't found a record of it.  She died March 25, 1945 and was buried under the name Anna Goldenberg.
     The youngest sister Beile, or Bella, who married Philip Lieberman, I have treated before.  Philip and Bella had a large family of six children which I will discuss in a later post.  All three Kandel sisters, their husbands, some children, and other family are buried in Montefiore Cemetery in Jenkintown PA, in a section purchased by the Moishe Maknovker Benevolent Association, founded by them and named for Moishe Kandel of Maknovka.


[1]  The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust vol 2.  Shmuel Spector editor in Chief.2001 New York University Press New York, NY. p. 653, entry for Komsomolskoye.
[2]  Ancestry.com New York Passenger Lists 1820-1957 (Provo UT, Ancestry.com Operations Inc. 2010) Year: 1904; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0469; Line: 1; Page Number: 11. Record for Lerb Kunher.
[3]  Ancestry.com. Border Crossings from Canada to the U.S. 1895-1956. (Ancestry.com Provo UT, USA. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. 2010)  National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Manifests of Passengers Arriving at St. Albans, VT, District through Canadian Pacific and Atlantic Ports, 1895-1954; National Archives Microfilm Publication: M1464; Record Group Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Record for Scholem Appel.
[4]  Ancestry.com.  Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists 1800-1963 (Provo, UT, USA. Ancestry.com Operations Inc. 2002) record for Alte Appel.
[5]  Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists 1820-1957 (Provo, UT, USA Ancestry.com Operations, Inc 2010) Year: 1901; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0167; Line: 22; Page Number: 23. Record for Fron Goldenberg
[6]  Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census.  (Provo Ut, Ancestry.com Operations Inc. 2006) Year: 1910; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 1, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T624_1385; Page: 17A; Enumeration District: 0006; FHL microfilm: 1375398. Record for Aaron Goldenberg

Phillip Lieberman

Philip Lieberman 1868-1937

     Philip Lieberman, another great-grandfather of mine, has been a genealogical mystery man to me for a long time.  No family members I spoke to seemed to know much about him, and nothing about his contemporary family.  To further complicate my research, although I thought I knew that my Philip lived in Philadelphia, other folks who posted what seemed like his family tree had him living in New York and dying there.  I couldn't find a passenger list or a naturalization record for him either. Finally, with the assistance of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS.gov), I obtained his naturalization record and was able to untangle him from another Philip Lieberman (born about the same time, wife also named Becky), who was a Romanian furrier living in New York.
     My Philip (Pinchus as he was then) was born  February 27, 1868, in the town of Berdichev, Zhitomir district, now in Ukraine.  According to his tombstone, his father's name was Tszi Hirsch.  Berdichev was a large and prosperous town having more than 40,000 Jews out of a total population of over 53,000 in 1897.[1]  In about 1886 he married Beile Kandel of the nearby town of Makhnovka.  They quickly had three children, Dwore, Lieb, and Chaie.  In 1893, Pinchus left Makhnovka and travelled to Bremen where he embarked on the ship H.H. Meier sailing to New York City.  He arrived on August 1, 1893, listing himself as a laborer.[2]
      By 1895 Philip had moved to Philadelphia where he lived at 532 South Street.  In September 1985 he went to the Rosenbaum Immigrant Bank and purchased passage to Philadelphia for Beile and the three children. He paid in two installments, $48.25 in the first, and $20 due in 30 days[3].  They arrived in New York, also aboard the H.H. Meier, on November 15, 1895.[4]  Five years later, according to the 1900 census, they were living in a rented house at 308 Christian Street, along with the original three children, now named Dorothy, Louis, and Ida, as well as a new son, Nathan, and a daughter Annie .  By 1910, they had bought a new house at 716 Tasker Street, where Philip had a tailor business [5].  At that time, their grandson, Henry Bogatin was also living with them, as well as another son, Irving, and a servant, a 26 year old black woman named Rebecca Anderson.
     Philip and Beile (Bella, Becky,) continued to live at the Tasker Street address until his death in 1937.  Census records and various City Directories show that he continued as a tailor making pants (trousers, pantaloons)working for himself or as a contractor.  They have many descendants and I have traced most of them, but I have not been able to find anything about any siblings or other relatives of his.  I was told that a Simon Lieberman, a well known colleague of V.I. Lenin, was a cousin.  He was also born near Berdichev and photos show a resemblance, and I have done some research on him, but can't confirm that he was related in any way.  Lieberman cousins out there.... do you know any more about Philip or his family?

1.  Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. Vol 1. p. 112. Shmuel Spector, Editor in Chief.  2001. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.  New York University Press, Washington, Square, New York.
2.  New York Passenger List for S.S H.H. Meier, arrival 1 August 1893 in New York City.  Manifest for Pinchus Lieberman (indexed as Pinchus Hieberman aboard H.H. Heier). (Ancestry. com Provo Utah.) record online.
3.  Rosenbaum Bank Ticket Purchase Books  1890-1934. September 1895 page 105. Record online. accessed at Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
4.  New York Passenger List for S.S. H.H. Meier, arrival Nov 15, 1895 in New York City.  Manifest for Beile, Dwore, Lieb, and Chaie Lieberman p.0354. (Ancestry.com, Provo UT.) database online.
5.  Ancestry.com, 1910 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006) database online.