BULKIN FILES

 

The surname Bulkin comes from the Russian word for a roll of white bread (bulka).  There were several concentrations of Bulkins in imperial Russia:  one in the north, around Vilnius (also called Wilno or Vilna, today the capital of Lithuania); another around Gomel’ (Homyel’, today Belarus); and a third in the Kiev Region (today Ukraine).[i]  The Jews of imperial Russia were generally compelled to live within the Pale of Settlement (черта оседлости, cherta osedlosti),[ii] comprised of lands annexed from Poland up to 1795.  Local officials enforced the empire’s laws concerning Jews with varying degrees of efficiency and animus, but in general, Russia attempted to contain most Jews within the Pale – and, simultaneously, to integrate a limited number of them.[iii]  Most subjects of the Russian empire, including Jews, were landless, with no profession.  A smaller number of Jews were artisans.  A few were merchants.[iv]  Under Russian law, only merchants of the first guild were entitled to settle in the larger cities and/or beyond the Pale.[v]

 

Our Bulkins descend from Isaac and Sarah (Rosenfeld) Bulkin, and from Velvel and Frida (Grinberg) Bulkin, who were apparently artisans from Kiev or the surrounding area.  Isaac and Velvel were brothers.  Isaac lived in Obukhov, while Velvel lived in Rzhishchev, both towns in the Kiev District of Kiev Region.  Voter rolls for the 1907 Duma (parliament) show an Itsko Bulkin, son of Froim, in Obukhov; and a Volf Bulkin, also son of Froim, in Rzhishchev.  It is possible that these records refer to Isaac and Velvel.  (Contemporary Jewish civil records from the region use “Itsko” for “Isaac,” and I believe “Volf” is a likely equivalent of “Velvel.”  See endnote on 1907 voter rolls.)  Extant Jewish civil records for Rzhishchev at the Ukrainian state archives in Kiev also contain reference to a Beylya Bulkina, the wife of Rzhishchev burgher Froim Bulkin, who died in Rzhishchev on May 17, 1917 at the age of 82.  Beylya may thus have been the father of Itsko and Volf, or Isaac and Velvel.  She would have been born in 1834 or 1835.  Isaac and Velvel’s father may have been Froim (Ephraim) Bulkin, and their mother may have been Beylya.

 

 

Isaac and Sarah

 

Isaac and Sarah had four sons and seven daughters.  The boys were Meyer, Simon, Berl and David.  From the daughters, we know only the names Genya, Rukhl, Shifra and Fruma.  Meyer was the oldest child (born 1870), David the second youngest (b. about 1893), and Fruma the youngest (b. about 1900).  After reaching the United States, Meyer, Simon, David and Fruma always said on their official papers that they were from “Kiev.”  Isaac and Sarah’s granddaughter Lana recalls that the children were all born “in the Kiev area,” where a number of villages hosted Jewish communities of varying size and wealth.  (The Jews were formally expelled from Kiev in 1843, but some Jews certainly managed to evade the expulsion order.  Regardless of that order, Kiev’s Jewish community supported synagogues, schools and cemeteries through the end of the century.  Podol is one Kiev neighborhood that maintained a strong Jewish presence.)  According to Fruma’s emigration documents, which her daughter still has, Fruma was born in Obukhov (pronounced ah-BU-khof), between Kiev and Rzhishchev.  It is likely that David (b. 1893) and Simon (b. 1885) were also born there, and that Meyer (b. 1870) at least lived there sometime prior to emigrating in 1906.

 

Obukhov was home to a Jewish community prior to the Ukrainian civil war and the Bolshevik takeover.[vi]  There are a few surviving Jewish civil records from Obukhov for this period at the Ukrainian State Archive in Kiev (TsDIAK) and at the ZAGS Archive in Kiev, and they may contain records for our Bulkins.[vii]  The 1895 Vsya Rossiya business directory includes nine entries for merchants in Obukhov (“Obukhovo”):   Gorchakova, Shuster (grocery), Mikhailyuk (spirits), Polyakov (spirits), Pilyavskiy (wood), Pilyavskiy (separate entry) (fabrics), Pokrasa (fabrics), Lyubomirskaya (steam mill), and Rau (steam mill); and 96 qualified voters for the 1907 Duma elections (source:  www.jewishgen.org). 

 

1919 was a violent year for Ukraine, with multiple armies battling for control of Kiev.  The forces of Denikin, a White (monarchist) general, and those of Zelyonyy, a Ukrainian partisan commander, both carried out pogroms against Obukhov’s Jewish population in 1919.  The number of Zelyonyy’s forces is estimated variously, but there were apparently between 3,000 and 5,000 men, organized into a few battalions.  They were mostly peasants armed with scythes and axes; a few had machine guns.  According to a 1965 paper on pogroms in Ukraine during the civil war, in July 1919, the Red Army surrounded Zelyonyy from three sides (from Obukhov, from the Dnieper River to the east, and from Kanev and Kagarlyk (“Kaharlik”), two towns to the south).  Zelyonyy escaped, but Red forces engaged him in battle between Obukhov and Tripol’ye.[viii]  In 1926, the town’s Jewish population was about 100.

 

(According to Fruma’s daughter Sveta, there may also be a family connection with Borispol[ix], located on the other side of the Dnieper River from Kiev, about 20 miles to the east.  According to an article in the 1906-1913 Jewish Encyclopaedia,[x] the population of Borispol in 1897 was 8,953, of whom 1,094 (about 12 percent) were Jewish and 7,815 Eastern Orthodox, leaving 47 others.   On June 12, 1881, assailants bearing firearms threatened the Jews, creating public disturbances (bezporyadki).  In tsarist Russia, Borispol was part of the Pereyaslav District (uyezd) of the Poltava Region (guberniya).  The Poltava Region lay outside the Pale, so Jewish settlement was restricted.  The same article confirms that Borispol was closed to “new” Jewish settlement from 1882 on.  That measure may have represented an effort by the authorities to prevent new conflicts involving Jews.  In any case, the restriction on new settlement was abolished in 1903.  This suggests that, if Isaac and Sarah ever lived in Borispol, then they probably moved there prior to 1882 or after 1903 – although we do not know how effectively the restriction was enforced.  There had been Jews in Borispol since at least 1648-1649, when many of them were killed by Cossack troops under Khmel’nitskiy.  Also from this district, there are three Bulkin brothers from the town of Pereyaslav (1897 pop. 14,614, including 5,754 Jews[xi]) who settled in Philadelphia by way of Glasgow, Scotland:  Hyman, Wolf (William) and Leib (Louis).  There is no evidence that they were related to Isaac and Velvel.)

 

The contemporary map below shows both Obukhov, south of Kiev, and Boryspil, east of Kiev (source:  http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/97/Roman_Zakharii/map-kyiv-vasykiv-boryspil-obukhiv.gif).  For a map showing the area to the south, including Rzhishchev and Kagarlyk, see http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/97/Roman_Zakharii/map-kaharlyk-myronivka.gif.

 

 

Isaac was a tanner, according to his son David, and thus a member of the artisan class.  He treated animal hides to turn them into leather.  His oldest son Meyer made hats,[xii] possibly from leather prepared by his father.  Isaac’s wife was Sarah Rosenfeld, probably born before 1854.  Sarah’s son Meyer gave his mother’s maiden name as “Rosenfeld” on his marriage certificate in 1908.  Simon gave Sarah’s maiden name as “Rosenfelt” on his Social Security registration, while David spelled it “Rosenfield” on his own.  On David’s 1922 marriage certificate, he gave his mother’s maiden name as “Firt,” a surname that can be found in Kiev District in the “All-Russia” (Vsya Rossiya) Russian business directory from the turn of the century.  Isaac and Sarah’s grandson Bert remembers three of Sarah’s brother’s children living in Philadelphia in the early 1940s:  Harry, Max and a sister.  The children all changed their surname to Field or Fields.  Harry attended Penn State on a football scholarship and became a doctor.

 

Isaac and Sarah had a large family, with four boys and seven girls.  The boys were Meyer (b. 1870), Simon (b. 1885), Berel Reven (birth year unknown) and David (b. 1893).  (David named his son Bertram Raoul after his brother Berel Reven, who never made it to the U.S.)  The girls included Genya, Rukhl, Shifra and Fruma.  David was the second youngest child, and Fruma was the youngest.  The photograph at left is probably of Isaac, Sarah and their seven daughters.

 

According to David’s daughter Shirley, David attended a yeshiva as a boy.[xiii]  The boys used to play tricks on the rabbi, who would chase them with a stick but could never catch them.  David also told his own children about seeing the Cossacks ride through town on horseback, lopping off heads with their swords.  (Poltava Region, across the river, was home to a celebrated regiment of Cossacks.)

 

Isaac and Sarah with their daughters?

Source:  Bert Bulkin family album.  The back of this photo has a stamp from the photographer’s Kiev studio and part of a letter, written in Yiddish.  Sveta also has a copy of this photo from her mother Fruma.

 

Also according to Shirley, David was apprenticed to a tailor when he was six or seven years old, and he learned to make soldiers’ uniforms.  (Under Alexander II, the Governing Senate passed a law in 1855 granting regiments and military institutes in the interior guberniyas (those east of the Pale) the right to contract Jewish cutters and tailors.  A later law stipulated that Jewish cutters and tailors could live near regiments and military institutes, but only for as long as their contracts remained valid; otherwise, they were obliged to return to the Pale.)  The family has a photograph (at right) of David as a young man, dressed apparently as a young adjutant.  Like his cousin Jacob, David may also have worked for the Russian military until his departure.

 

Shirley remembered hearing that David’s parents Isaac and Sarah starved to death in the basement of a church “during the pogroms” in Russia, and she believed that happened during World War I.  According to Shirley, the church took in “all the Jews as they could” to protect them.  However, Bert remembers hearing that Isaac and Sarah were hiding in a synagogue, not a church.  If Isaac and Sarah were in Borispol in October 1919, when it was under the control of White (anti-Bolshevik) General Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947), they may have been subjected to the pogrom carried out by his forces there in that month.  Eyewitness Frieda Stoyanovskaya recalled those events in a 2002 interview:

 

In October 1919 military units of the White Army that was in opposition to the Bolshevik order came to Borispol.  Those units looked more like [peasant] gangs, involved in robberies and murders, although there were quite a few tsarist officers in them.  At first they executed Bolsheviks and then started beating and murdering Jewish people and burning their houses. This pogrom happened at the same time as the Simchat Torah holiday.  Almost the entire Jewish population was in the synagogue, and that's where the slaughter started.  All those who couldn't run away were killed there.  My grandfather Zalman perished there, as well as his younger son and my uncle Shaya.  My daddy and mamma with my two-year-old brother Semyon were hiding in the house of some villagers that they knew.  My sister Ida and I ran to our teacher.  She was Polish and she had been teaching us for a year before these events.  She lived in the yard of the parish school and she kept us in some cellar for several days.  When it got colder she took us to her house.  […] Daddy and mamma, we three kids, and our granny Chernia went to Kiev where there were practically no gangs at that time.  We found shelter at our acquaintances' place and lived there for some time.  That was where my new life began as well as the history of our family's calamities during the terrible postwar years.  I can say that this pogrom was like a black bar, underlining my sister's and my childhood.  Daddy couldn't find a job. I never saw him smiling after the pogrom.  A few years later he died from typhoid, and before that he suffered from continuous heartaches.[xiv]

 

 

Velvel and Frida

 

Isaac’s brother Velvel lived in Rzhishchev.[xv]  Rzhishchev is in the Kiev District (uyezd) of the Kiev Region, on the right bank of the Dnieper River, about 50 miles downstream from the city of Kiev itself.  An 1899 map of Kiev Region (see below) shows only one road out of Rzhishchev, running 20 versts (about 13 miles) southward to Kazyn in neighboring Kanev District.  Smaller roads, not shown on this map, connected Rzhishchev to nearby villages.  There was also travel from the town port onto the Dnieper River, which flows south to the Black Sea.  The 1906-1913 Jewish Encyclopaedia states that there were 1,543 Jews in the town in 1847; by 1897, that number had grown to 6,008 out of a total population of 11,629.[xvi]  The article also states that Rzhishchev was home to a tsadik, a Hassidic religious leader.  Records from the period show Bulkins in Rzhishchev and the surrounding area, although no records refer clearly to Velvel’s family. [xvii]

 

(at left) Detail of Kiev District from 1899 map of Kiev Region

with arrow pointing to Rzhishchev; dotted blue lines indicate district border

(Source:  http://www.angelfire.com/or/yizkor/kiev.html)

(For a contemporary map, see: 

http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/97/Roman_Zakharii/map-kaharlyk-myronivka.gif)

 

Velvel was a tailor.[xviii]  He married Freda Grinberg and had at least four children.  Jacob (Jankel), Morris (Moische) and Esther (Ester) Bulkin were all born in Rzhishchev between 1889 and 1894, and were living there along with their father Velvel before they departed for the U.S. in 1910 and 1911.  According to Velvel and Frida’s granddaughter Wilma, there was also an older sister who was ill and could not emigrate.[xix]  We do not know what happened to Velvel and Frida, but Velvel was evidently still living in Rzhishchev in September 1911, when Esther listed him as her closest relative on the ship manifest, giving his address as Rzhishchev.  Jacob’s Philadelphia marriage licence application, dated December 16, 1915, also attests that Velvel was still living in “Russia” on that date, whereas Frida was deceased.[xx]  Frida may have passed away even before December 1910, when Morris arrived in the U.S. and gave his closest living relative as Velvel.  We do not know how Frida passed away or what happened to Velvel after December 1915.  Hopefully he did not live to see the Ukrainian civil war.  (However, Morris’ Philadelphia marriage license application from August 14, 1928 implies that both Velvel and Frida were then living.)[xxi] 

 

(at right) Market Day in Rzhishchev, early 1900s

(Source:  http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/eng_captions/30-1.html)

 

 

Leaving the Old Country, and Starting Over Again in the New World

 

Jews and other Russian nationals faced burdensome military-service requirements.  Under Nicholas I, from 1827 onward, conscription was extended to Jews, who had previously been exempted.  The term of service was no less than 25 years.  Young men and boys under age 18 were drafted in increasing numbers as kantonisty.  Historian Benjamin Nathans’ book on Jewish policy in imperial Russia[xxii] includes folk songs about families’ forced separation from their young sons.  The empire sought to use military service as a means to absorb and acculturate its Jewish population, even while maintaining discriminatory restrictions on promotion and residence.  Moreover, the regime targeted Jewish conscripts for “re-education” as Christians – although these measures were relaxed somewhat under Alexander II in the 1860s.  Our Bulkin family understands that Isaac’s son David expected to be conscripted because he lacked official papers; it is therefore possible that his birth was not recorded in the official, state-appointed rabbi’s “metrical books” (metricheskie knigi), which were strictly watched by the tsarist authorities for subsequent revision or tampering and very difficult to amend.

 

Widespread pogroms against Jews followed the 1881 assassination of the liberal tsar Alexander II.  As conservative forces gained the upper hand in the government, they enacted a new round of anti-Jewish legal restrictions, known as the May Laws.  A subsequent wave of pogroms took place from 1903 to 1906.  While many wealthier Jewish merchants and artisans in the Pale benefited from the empire’s selective integration policies, most Jews did not.  The great many luftmenschen (literally, “people of the air”) continued to lack any kind of steady employment or opportunity for higher education and advancement.  Within the Pale, there were also profound cultural divisions between religious conservatives and reformers, as well as between Zionists and those who were loyal or indifferent to the tsarist regime.  Nathans argues persuasively that most Jewish residents of the Pale lived outside of these conflicts in their everyday lives.  Even so, reactionaries made the Jews their targets.  In March 1911, the body of a Christian boy was found in Kiev, following which the authorities and the press found a Jewish suspect to accuse, invoking the blood libel (the charge that Jews use Christian children’s blood to make unleavened bread).  (Much later, the Jewish suspect was exonerated, and it was established that the police were fully aware from the beginning that the charges against him had been false.) 

 

Against this backdrop, over 1.5 million of Russia’s five million Jews left the country between 1881 and 1914, with about 1.25 million going to the United States alone between 1880 and 1928.[xxiii]  Companies such as the North German Line had offices in Kiev offering package deals to the U.S. by railroad and steamship.  Most Jewish emigrants, however, left clandestinely. [xxiv]

 

David, his brothers and his cousins were among those who left Russia before World War I.  Shirley recalls that Isaac and Sarah were anxious to get David out of Russia before the army conscripted him, so they wrote their son Simon, who was already in Philadelphia; Simon agreed to help David make his start.  The family remembers David saying that he left via Odessa.  According to David’s son Bert, David traveled with other migrants, and it was clear from David’s account that he traveled clandestinely.  David told his grandson Bruce that without passport or papers, he had to cross borders at night.  Bert remembers one story about crossing a cold river in the dark.  A pregnant woman in the group kept screaming, either from fear or the cold, or both.  David also told Bert the story of being rolled up in a shopfront awning, possibly in France, so he could sleep as he hid out.  It took him two years to get to the U.S.; he traveled through Italy along the way, as Bruce recalls.  David told his step-grandson Carleton that he hid in a barrel onboard a ship to avoid detection.  He arrived in the U.S. before 1917, on August 21 – a date that became his new birthday, according to his daughter Shirley.

 

David’s brother Meyer was much older than he.  In most records, his birth year computes to 1870.[xxv]  According to Bernie, Meyer had a hat shop in Russia; he made the hats, and his wife Esther ran the business.  Like a great many other emigrants from Russia, Meyer’s family left for the United States on the Hamburg-American Line (HAPAG).[xxvi]  (See photo below of emigrants boarding a steamship at the port of Hamburg.)  Ship depature records from Hamburg give Meyer’s occupation as “merchant” (Händler).  He and his family traveled economically, in steerage, on the SS Amerika, departing from Hamburg on January 3, 1906.  (In 1912, the SS Amerika relayed iceberg warnings to the Titanic before the latter vessel sank.[xxvii])  The ship visited Cuxhaven, Dover and Cherbourg on its regular route before reaching New York eleven days later.  Meyer’s naturalization papers[xxviii] confirm that he entered the U.S. via the port of New York on January 14, 1906 along with Esther, their three children Samuel (Sisel), b. 1901;[xxix] Gladys (Golde), b. 1902; and Ben (Boruch), b. 1904,[xxx] and another traveler named Jacob,[xxxi] age 14 (b. about 1891), identified on the manifest as Meyer’s son, perhaps spuriously.  Meyer is listed as a laborer on the ship manifest.  The family’s destination is given as the home of Chaim Salkin, identified as Meyer’s brother-in-law, on 100th St. in New York City.[xxxii]

 

In the family stories, Meyer is characterized as a very religious man.  Meyer’s grandson Bernie recalls one such story:  
 
There are two stories about Meyer and the ten-dollar bill.  In one version, Meyer, who was a very Orthodox, observant Jew, found a ten-dollar bill on the sidewalk on Shabbat, as he was coming home from the synagogue.  Now ten dollars would be enough to feed his family for a good long time, but it was the Sabbath, and he would not pick it up, much less carry money on the Sabbath.  So what to do?  He looked around, and finally saw a piece of newspaper.  He covered the ten-dollar bill with the newspaper, and hoped that no one would find it before the Sabbath ended.  In another version of this story, Meyer comes into his apartment building and sees a ten-dollar bill lying on the floor in the entrance.  Does he keep it?  No, he takes the bill and goes to each apartment in the building asking each tenant if they have, by chance, lost ten dollars?  In both versions of the story, it is unrecorded whether, in the end, he got to keep the money.  And in both versions, when his brother Dave hears of this he rebukes Meyer strongly for not putting the welfare of his starving family first.”  Also from Bernie:  “If Meyer thought there was any possibility that the food was not kosher, or kosher enough, he just did not eat.  This led him to not eat at the house of his daughter Gladys for many years.  Meyer's last years were spent in the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Manhattan, near Harlem.  I visited him there several times, taking the train with my father from Brooklyn.  He was not ill, not until the last few weeks of his life, and sometimes came out to visit us in Brooklyn.  One year I remember him coming to our Passover Seder.  For this occasion I learned to recite the four questions with a Yiddish introduction, because my father knew how it would please his father to hear that.

 

Meyer’s wife Esther went into labor while washing the floors on her hands and knees; a neighbor came to her aid and unknowingly poisoned her with the cleaning solution.  Esther was said to be hatching plans to restart the business when she died.  Since Meyer was an observant man, his remarriage probably took place within one month of Esther’s passing.  It appears that Esther died in July or August 1908.  Shirley’s caustic remark was that “under the rules, you had to get remarried within one month, and she had to be a virgin.  Well, he took one look at her and he was sure she was a virgin.”

 

On August 29, 1908, Meyer married Anna Ropkin (Rubin) in Brooklyn.  They were married by a rabbi in Brooklyn; Anna signed the marriage certificate in Hebrew, Meyer in English.  “Anna treated the older children terribly,” says Bernie, “and eventually drove them from the house.”  Esther’s three children were sent to live in an orphanage.  Meyer and Anna had five children of their own:  Lenore (b. 1909), Jacob (1911), May (1913), Freda (1915) and David S. (1918).  The family’s living space was so small that Meyer slept on the kitchen table.

 

Meyer continued to make hats and eventually went into baseball caps.  Bernie remembers that Meyer was also a chain smoker.  
 
He literally lit one cigarette with the previous one.  But, as an Orthodox Jew, he did not smoke on Shabbat.  This was particularly hard in the summer when the days were long.  When he was in the city, he knew what time the Sabbath ended and he could begin to smoke again.  But when he was at my parents' farm in New Jersey[xxxiii] he would stand outside, cigarette in one hand, matches in the other, looking for when he could see three stars.  Then he could smoke.
 
David’s brother Simon apparently also arrived in the U.S. in 1906, according to his responses in the 1920 and 1930 censuses.[xxxiv]  The family remembers him for his business savvy.  He used the name Samuel on at least some official records.  He married his wife Anna in about 1908.  In January 1920, he was living at 1826 South Fifth St. in Philadelphia and owned a clothing manufactory.  Complaining of sinus and other health problems, Simon and Anna moved to California in 1925.[xxxv]  By April 1930, Simon and Anna were living in 1700 block of West Adams Blvd. in Los Angeles, and they owned a dry-goods store.  According to Simon’s niece Shirley, the store was also on Adams Blvd. and was destroyed by an earthquake prior to 1937.  Later, Simon and Anna owned Bulkin's Department Store on Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles (“further up into Hollywood,” says Shirley).  Simon naturalized between the 1920 and 1930 censuses; Anna had not yet become a U.S. citizen by 1930.
 

After David arrived in the U.S., in August 1916 or before,[xxxvi] he went to stay with Simon and Anna, who were living in Philadelphia then.  (David’s three cousins Jacob, Morris and Esther had also settled in Philadelphia.)  According to his daughter Shirley, David never had trouble finding work as a tailor; since he was good at what he did.  He started going to night school right away to learn English, but he only stayed in Philadelphia for six or eight weeks before heading back to New York.  (Shirley thinks he may have been stirring up trouble among the girls of Philadelphia.)  By June 1917, when he registered for the draft, David was apparently living with his nephew Samuel Bulkin at 970 Freeman St. in the Bronx.  (This Samuel was evidently the son of David’s brother Meyer; although Samuel was David’s nephew, he was two years older than David.)  Although David had left Russia to avoid compulsory service in the tsarist army, that summer he was compelled to register for the draft in the New World – moreover, according to Shirley, David became a conscientious objector when faced with the draft (“that’s not what I left Russia for”).  His World War I draft registration card shows that he was working as a tailor for Ellis and Lovett, at 18 West 24th St., a Manhattan address.  He was single, not a citizen, of medium height and build, and had brown hair and brown eyes. 

 

Both Simon and David were fond of Coney Island, and the family has pictures of them on the boardwalk there.  Isaac and Fannie Lauer had a summer house at Coney Island, where Fannie took in boarders.  One of them was David Bulkin, and that was how he and Anne Lauer met.  They were nine years apart in age.  Their March 1922 wedding certificate shows that they were married in Brooklyn at 89 Osborn St. by Usher Schor, and the ceremony was witnessed by Jacob Kirshberg and Bernard M. Altenberg.  Anne was 18 years old but gave her age as 20.  David was 27 and working as a tailor.  Shirley recalls that Fannie liked David very much.  In fact, at the time of their wedding, the couple gave their address as that of Anne’s parents, who lived at 693 Stone Ave. in Brooklyn, just a few blocks away from Osborn St.[xxxvii]  David naturalized and became a U.S. citizen only after 1930 – 10 years after his wife Anne.  He studied hard for his citizenship exam and “was practically able to recite the Constitution,” according to Shirley.

 

Of Velvel and Frida’s children, Jacob (Jankel) was the first to arrive in the U.S.  According to his immigration papers, he arrived in Philadelphia from Liverpool on February 1, 1910 on the SS Merion.[xxxviii]  Morris (Moische) arrived in Baltimore from Bremen, Germany[xxxix] on the SS Main on December 11, 1910.  The SS Main was part of the North German Line’s regular passenger service from Europe to the United States.  The boys’ sister Esther (Ester), born about 1894, reached the U.S. on the same route, arriving on September 13, 1911 as a servant.  (According to the Jewish Museum in Baltimore, the landing point for immigrant passenger ships during this period was at Locust Point.  The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society met arriving passengers, but the museum only has arrival cards for the years 1913-1914.)  Like her brothers, Esther was short of stature.  She was 5 feet 3 inches tall, and had brown hair and grey eyes.  According to the ship manifests, Jacob paid the passage for each of his two younger siblings.  Wilma Bulkin recalls that the boys paid for Esther to travel to the United States first-class; Jacob and Morris had almost certainly traveled in steerage (third-class) and knew the conditions.  They were also almost certainly aware that U.S. immigration authorities subjected passengers in steerage to much greater scrutiny than those in first or second class, believing them more likely to become a burden to the state.  The immigration service also assumed that the unaccompanied women passengers with cheap tickets were unlikely to take up a respectable profession if admitted into the United States.

 

 

Detail from Baltimore Arrival Record of Moische (Morris) Bulkin, son of Velvel[xl]

(Source:  Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1892-1948 database, ancestry.com)

 

All three of Velvel’s children who reached the U.S. settled in Philadelphia and married after arriving in the New World:  Jacob to Anna Bellak on December 25, 1915, Morris to Minnie Stefan on August 26, 1928, and Esther to Morris Gold.

 

Jacob was just shy of 5’6”, with black hair and brown eyes.  He registered for the draft in Philadelphia during World War I, on June 5, 1917.  At that time, he was working as a designer for the Leveberg (?) company, located at 121 N. 7th St.

 

Morris took his oath of citizenship on November 12, 1916.  Like his brother, he also worked in the clothing industry:  when he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917, he wrote that he was a coat designer for the Star Ladies Tailoring Company in Philadelphia.  He was already hard of hearing and had an illness affecting his lungs.  Morris was 5’8” tall, had brown hair and dark brown eyes.

 

Jacob’s youngest child, Wallis Bulkin, was named after her grandfather Velvel, and Morris’ daughter Frida was named after her paternal grandmother.  Wallis remembers hearing that Jacob worked in Russia as the personal tailor to a Russian general, who released Jacob from his position only after considerable persuasion.  In Philadelphia, Jacob rented a five-story store on Chestnut St.  “I think the address was 1226,” remembers Wallis. 

 

He sublet the ground floor to a beautiful hat shop and at another time to a bridal salon.  The sublet stores had one side of the deep windows that let to the entrance and my father used the other for himself.  The second floor was for his retail operation where he sold his own as well as other manufacturer's goods.  It was very high-priced stuff!  He made patterns for other manufacturers in exchange for goods sometimes.  He sold coats and suits, no dresses.  At one time he gave the third floor to my sister [Florence] for a dress shop of her own.  Her interest apparently wasn't too strong!  The fourth floor was the workrooms, where he worked and among the other men was my Uncle Morris Gold.  Unfortunately, I was the only child who thought the whole thing was terrific, and I do believe had he lived longer I might have ended up ‘in the business.’  Morris Gold worked for my father in his workroom.  He continued there until my mother sold the business a year after my father's death.[xli]  (Jacob died in 1944.)

 

 

Back in the Old Country

 

Of Isaac and Sarah’s children, three left before the Bolshevik Revolution:  Meyer, Simon and David.  Their daughters and son Berl all stayed behind in Russia.  The family corresponded, in Yiddish, but lost contact after the revolution.  Later, Simon and David attempted to find their relatives through the International Red Cross.

 

Genya lived in the Pechersk neighborhood of Kiev.  Genya had a daughter named Zina, who married Lazar Vaynshteyn; they had a son, Mark, and a daughter, Masha.  Genya passed away before 1957.  About 1980 or 1985, Zina went to Israel with her son Mark; her daughter Masha had died young, around age 30.  Masha’s husband, Misha Polyakov, and their two children also went to Israel with Zina and Mark, settling in Ashdog, in the northern part of the country.  Mark is married and has two children.  Sadly, one of the children died in a terrorist attack.  Zina passed away before 2006, but Mark is still living there.

 

Shifra married Yosif Lemberg, probably in Kiev.  Before World War II, they were living in Kiev at ul. Bol’shaya zhitomirskaya 24.  Shifra’s younger sister Fruma also lived with them.  Shifra died before World War II in Kiev.  She and Yosif had no children.  During the war, the Germans kept horses in their old apartment building. 

 

Sometime after Shifra passed away, Yosif married Fruma.  Yosif was working in a war industry when the plant and its workers were evacuated to Central Asia to protect them from the advancing Germans, where were fast approaching Kiev.  Yosif and Fruma may have married in Tashkent.  In November 1943, Yosif and Fruma had a daughter, Sveta, while living in Ursat’yevskaya, near Tashkent in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (today Uzbekistan).  Although Fruma later gave her birth date as January 1906, her daughter later said that her mother was actually born around 1900.  Already over 40 when she married Yosif, Fruma had no other children and was surprised when Sveta came along.  Sveta remembers Yosif as a tailor who made coats on a Singer sewing machine.

 

Around 1945, after the end of the war, Yosif, Fruma and Sveta moved back to Kiev, settling in an apartment on ul. Pirogovskaya that was half below street level.  Sveta was still a small child, but she remembers that they put four chairs together to make a bed for her to sleep on.  Yosif was a heavy smoker and partial to papirosy, unfiltered Russian cigarettes.  He died on November 5, 1955 of heart trouble.  The family called an ambulance, which arrived only hours later.  The doctor gave Yosif some morphine and left; ten minutes later, he was dead.  Fruma was left with a pension of 20 rubles a month, while Sveta received an additional 16 rubles a month until she finished school.  A cousin of Sveta’s on her father’s side, a colonel named Aron who lived in Belarus, also helped the family out, but times were hard and it was difficult to make ends meet.

 

Around 1957 or 1958, Simon and David managed to establish contact with Fruma, who was the only other child of Isaac and Sarah’s still alive, in or outside of the Soviet Union.  The brothers sent a letter to her old address at ul. Bol’shaya zhitomirskaya 24.  (Fruma had not lived there since the war; in 1957, Fruma and Sveta were living at ul. Pirogovskaya 20, at the corner of ul. Lenina (near metro station Universitetskaya).  They were in a communal apartment, where neighbors were separated from one another by curtains and shared a common kitchen and bathroom.)  A former neighbor of Fruma’s who was still living on ul. Bol’shaya zhitomirskaya intercepted Simon and David’s letter and gave it to Fruma.   Fruma kept the letter a secret, fearing unpleasant consequences if it were known that she had contact with relatives abroad.  Sveta remembers that she was about 14 years old at the time.  Fruma’s brothers sent packages once or twice a year, often around Hanukkah; they took three or four months to reach her.  Fruma would go to the post office to collect them, wrapping them in a white sheet so no one knew what they were and where they were from.  The packages had shoes, dresses for Sveta, and fabric for making more clothes, possibly from Simon’s department store in Los Angeles.  Fruma sold some items, such as shoes, for much-needed cash, and made dresses from the fabric.  It was only later when Fruma let Sveta know where the packages were coming from.

 

Rukhl lived in Dniepropetrovsk and had a daughter named Masha.  Rukhl passed away before 1957.  Masha also settled in Dniepropetrovsk and was still living there in 1976.

 

Berl resided in Dniepropetrovsk and had five daughters.  From oldest to youngest, they were Golde, Betya, Frida, Dora and Manya.  Manya was born about 1914.  Frida and Manya each lived in Kiev, but their sisters all lived in Dniepropetrovsk.  Betya married a man named Jakob, and they lived in Dniepropetrovsk in a big house that had apple trees and a garden.  Manya married a man named Lev; they had a son, Berl, who died young, and two daughters, Tsil’ya and Svetlana.  Tsil’ya was born about 1938, and Svetlana in 1945.  Lev passed away before 1974, when Manya and her daughters managed to emigrate to Israel; they later reached New York.   Berl died before 1957.

 

Around 1964, the building where Fruma and Sveta were living, at ul. Pirogovskaya 20, was turned into a grocery store.  Mother and daughter were given a new apartment on Bul’var Lepse, in the Otravnaya district, about 20-25 minutes by bus from the center of town.  The new place was a one-bedroom apartment, slightly bigger than the old one.  In 1965, Sveta married Roman (Roma) Sandukovskiy in Kiev in a state marriage office (dom brakosochetaniy).  Roma was born in Kiev on January 3, 1941.  Sveta was a cosmetologist and Roma an electrician.  The couple lived in Fruma and Sveta’s apartment on Bul’var Lepse.  Roma and Sveta had a son, Igor, born June 15, 1966, and a daughter Anna, born March 29, 1971.  Sveta recalls that the apartment was pretty full, and that at night, they folded up chairs to make room for the bed.

 

Sveta remembers two visits from an aunt or a family friend named Sonya.  Sonya’s last name may have been Cohen; she was born in Russia, still spoke the language well, and was living in Los Angeles along with her son.  One of Sonya’s visits was when Igor was about nine months old (March 1967), the other when Igor was three years old (1969-1970).  Sonya stayed in a hotel and bought her relatives a refrigerator at the Kashtan hard-currency store on ul. Khreshchatyk.  Sveta’s cousin Sam, son of Meyer, also visited with his wife Golda.  They were in Kiev when Igor was four years old (1970-1971).

 

Simon filed the papers that made it possible for Fruma to emigrate.  He probably filed an F4 immigrant visa petition (for the brother or sister of a U.S. citizen).  The process was slow.  There is a waiting period before any F petition reaches the top of the queue.  Also, since Sveta was already married, the U.S. immigration authorities had to grant special dispensation for her, Roma and the two children to accompany Fruma out of the country.  Moreover, all of the emigrants needed exit visas from the Soviet authorities, and multiple approvals were necessary.

 

Along the way, the process was almost derailed.  Fruma suddenly became ill from liver poisoning.  She had been having trouble keeping food or liquids down, and reached a point where she could no longer eat.  Sveta had to call an ambulance from the pay phone on the street, because the family didn’t have a phone in the apartment.  Hours later, a doctor arrived, but he did not want to send Fruma to the district hospital for treatment, saying the beds were better used for younger people who were still working.  Sveta prevailed upon him to get her mother the care she needed, and Fruma survived.  If Fruma had died, Simon’s petition would not have helped Sveta and her family get U.S. visas.

 

Sveta remembers making a farewell round of calls on her cousins.  Rukhl’s daughter Masha was living in Dniepropetrovsk, but they were not very close.  Berl’s daughter Frida was living in the Podol district of Kiev, where there were still many Jewish residents in the 1970s.  Sveta remembered that there was a little synagogue nearby, and that Frida prepared a wonderful table for Yom Kippur, with traditional Jewish foods, including gefilte fish.  Frida had a son Berl (Boris) who was perhaps 10 or 15 years older than Sveta.  Berl (Boris) married his first cousin Fima (Serafima), who was Golde’s daughter.

 

Meanwhile, Frida and Golde’s sister Manya had left for Israel two years before, in 1974.  Manya was already a widow, and left with her two daughters, Tsil’ya and Svetlana.  Fruma and Sveta had maintained contact with Manya by letter, but had lost touch by the time they were about to leave the Soviet Union.

 

Ultimately, Fruma, Sveta, Roma, Igor and Anna got all the necessary papers in order and left the Soviet Union for Rome, where they had a brief transition period.  They and other Russian Jewish emigrants were hosted in Rome by the local Jewish community.  By sheer chance, they met Manya and her daughters among the other Russian emigrants in the city.  By this time, Manya had left Israel and was trying to emigrate to the United States.  Meanwhile, Fruma, Sveta, Roma, Igor and Anna all left Rome for the United States on September 9, 1976.  They flew through New York.  In Los Angeles, they were met at the airport by David and his wife Anne, and by Simon.

 

Manya later reached New York with her daughters.  She passed away in New York around 2001.  Tsil’ya is probably still living in New York.  Sveta’s last contact with her was around 1994, when she was living in Queens.  Tsil’ya is married and has two children, who each have families of their own now.  Tsil’ya’s last name may be Sluzhevskiy, and Sveta is trying to reestablish contact.


[i] Bulkin (Gomel', Kiev): see Bulka {Bulkin (Bul'kin), Bulk, Bulkis, Bulkovich}; Bul'kin (Vilna): see Bulka;  Bulka:  A: roll, white bread [Russian].  Source:  Beider, Alexander.  A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire. Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu, 1993.  Description:  This is a scholarly work which will help researchers identify the history and etymology of Jewish surnames. The area includes the Ukraine, Belorussia, Bessarabia, Lithuania, and Russia.  Ship manifests also show numerous passengers surnamed Balkin (var. spellings) arriving from Kovno guberniya in 1900-1910.

[ii] Although the Russian word cherta translates as “line,” in English usage “Pale” refers not only to the borderline of the zone of Jewish settlement, as in “beyond the Pale,” but frequently to the zone itself, i.e., to live “in the Pale.”  According to the All-Russian Census of 1897, the number of Jews in the country was 5,189,401, or 4.13% of the total population.  However, only about 6% of them had permission to reside outside the Pale, the rest were confined to stay within these boundaries.  In the Kiev Province [Region], Jews made up 88% of the population in Berdichev, 67%; in Skvira, 40%; in Vasilkov; 34% in Tarasche, and 8% in Kiev, where at one time they had been prohibited from residing.  (see:  http://www.rtrfoundation.org/kiev-1.html)

[iii] For a useful summary of the position of Jews in Russia in 1872, see September 29, 1872 letter from Eugene Schuyler, Charge d'Affaires of the Legation of the United States in St. Petersburg, Russia, to his superior, U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.  The letter is part of a submission of President Chester Arthur to Congress in response to a Resolution of the House May 2, 1882 (House of Representatives Executive Document No. 192, 47th Congress, 1st Session, Serial Set 2030; see also http://www.angelfire.com/ms2/belaroots/schuyler.htm).

[iv] On the position of Jewish merchants after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, see Eugene Schuyler, Charge d'Affaires of the Legation of the United States in St. Petersburg, Russia, in a September 29, 1872 letter to his superior, U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, and quoting a contemporary Russian Jewish writer.  The letter is part of a submission of President Chester Arthur to Congress in response to a Resolution of the House May 2, 1882.  “in spite of the recent reforms, the condition of the Hebrews in Russia, massed together in the western provinces, without room for productive occupation or healthy competition, is growing worse and worse. Indeed, a recent Hebrew writer, Mr. Orshansky (The Hebrews in Russia, by T. G. Orshansky, St. Petersburg, 1872, Page 13), says that ‘the general economical progress of Russian life has proved injurious to the interests of the Hebrew population;’ and goes on to show that the emancipation of the peasants, the organization of credit banks, the railways, the changes made in government contracts, brandy, farming, &c., the lowering of the tariff, and cessation of smuggling, the rural and municipal self-governments, have all been prejudicial to the Hebrews. Their former clients, the proprietors, are learning to do without them as factors and managers; the peasants get loans at the banks; the improvement in the communications have ruined the country taverns; there is less liquor drank; there are fewer uses for middlemen, and it is harder to live off of the weaknesses and follies of other people.  That the Hebrews were in such a position as to be ruined by the increase of the general prosperity is not their fault, but that of the laws which placed them in this position, and forced them to such means of livelihood. There is an historical reason for it. The old Polish laws forbade the peasants to engage in trade; the nobles thought it beneath their dignity. The Hebrews, who were cut off from agriculture and other pursuits and professions, naturally monopolized the trade of the country and fell into this position of being the factors, the go-betweens, and the agents of both the upper and lower classes, making, of course, their profit from each. With the changes in the laws that benefit both upper and lower classes, by making them more independent, the Hebrews are cut off from the means of livelihood which the oppression of centuries had condemned them to seek, and are reduced to their present, deplorable condition. To quote again the words of Mr. Orshansky, page 42:  ‘In the life of the Hebrews of Western Russia are noticed all the symptoms of the social malady known under the name of proletarianism - a lack of settled residences, constant change of domicile and vagrancy, lamentable sanitary conditions, and, as their consequence a great mortality, a lowering of morality, a want of means, and an insignificant amount of profits and money saved’” (source:  House of Representatives Executive Document No. 192, 47th Congress, 1st Session, Serial Set 2030; see also http://www.angelfire.com/ms2/belaroots/schuyler.htm).

[v] For a list of specific restrictions on Jews in Kiev and Sebastopol circa 1890, see:  http://www.angelfire.com/msz/belaroots/foster.htm.  On first-guild merchants in Kiev:  “No Jews, even members of the first guild, may purchase landed or house property in any part of the town of Kiev.  Only merchants of the first guild are excepted who, before being registered as merchants at Kiev, have been during five years members of the first guild in one of the towns with the Pale of Settlement.”

[vi] From the International Jewish Cemetery Project website on Obukhov:  “OBUKHOV:  US Commission No. UA09240101.  Alternate names: Obukhov. The town is located at 50° 6 30° 38, 45km from Kiev. The cemetery is located at NW outskirts of the town at new buildings on Lukavitsa St. Present town population is 25,001-100,000 with fewer than 10 Jews.  Town officials: Town Executive Soviet, Chairman Noga Aleksej Aleksejevich, 255400, Obukhov, Radjanskaja St., N7 [Phone: 5-15-30]. Rayon Executive Soviet (Rayispolkom), Malishko St., N10. Chairman Korpenko Mikhail Vasilijevich, [Phone: 5-14-44]. Regional: Kiev Regional State Archive.The earliest known Jewish community was 17th century. 1926 Jewish population was 100. Effecting [sic] Jewish Community were 1648-1658 Khmelnitski pogroms, 10.09.1996 [sic; 1896?] pogroms without executions, and 1919 pogroms by Zeljonij and Denikin. No other towns or villages used this Conservative unlandmarked cemetery. The isolated suburban crown of a hill has no sign or marker. Reached by crossing private property, access is open to all. No wall, fence, or gate surrounds the cemetery. The approximate size of cemetery before WWII was 10.25 hectares. No stones are visible. Stones removed were incorporated into roads or Structures. The cemetery contains no known mass graves. Municipality owns property used for housing. Properties adjacent are agricultural. Rarely, local residents visit. The cemetery was vandalized prior to World War II. Jewish Community of Obukhov cleaned stones, cleared vegetation and fixed gate in 1928. There is no maintenance now. Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures. Cemetery was destroyed. Since 1992, there are buildings on the cemetery site. The land was ploughed in 1929. No threats.
     Sokolova Eleonora Yevgeniyevna of 253152, Kiev, Tichini St. N5, Apt. 68 [Phone: (044)5505681] visited site on 29/08/1996. Interviewed on 29/08/1996 were Domatenko Jurij Kornejevich of Obukhov, Kievskaja St., N14 [Phone: 5-36-33], Samojlichenko Jlja Avramovich of Obukhov, Telmana St., N6 [Phone: 5-14-13], and Zhivago Pjotr Jakovlevich of Obukhov, Shevchenko St., N55 [Phone: 5-50-39]. Sokolova completed survey on 29/08/1996. Documentation: Veytsblit I.I. 'Movement of Jewish People in Ukraine', published by 'Proletar', 1930; Jewish Encyclopedia published by Brokgauz- Yefron', Leningrad. The History of Towns and Villages of Ukraine, Kievskaja oblast, Kiev, 1971. Semyonov P., Geographical and Statistical Dictionary of Russian Empire, 1865; The list of populated sareas in Kievskaja Province'. Statistical reference-book of numbers of Jewish population in Russia', 1918. Other documentation exists but was inaccessible.”  (Source:  http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/e-europe/ukra-o.html.)  A search of the online Jewish Encyclopedia (www.jewishencyclopedia.com) includes no article or mention of either “Obukhov” (Russian) or “Obukhiv” (Ukrainian), but I want to consult a copy of the original encyclopedia, e.g. at the Stanford libraries.  A search of the website for “Rzhishchev” (Russian) and “Rzhyshchiv” (Ukrainian) also comes up with nothing, although the original encyclopedia does contain a short article on the town.

[vii] Extant catalogued Jewish civil records from Obukhov prior to 1917:  birth (TsDIAK), 1870-1872 (fond/opis/delo 1164/1/270, 297, 327) and (ZAGS) 1876, 1878-1885, 1887-1888, 1894, 1899, 1901-1902, 1904-1907, 1909-1913 at ZAGS; marriage (TsDIAK), 1870-1873 (fond/opis/delo 1164/1/272, 298, 328, 354) and (ZAGS) 1880, 1888, 1891, 1893, 1895, 1897-1898, 1900-1901, 1903, 1905, 1907-1908, 1911-1914; divorce (TsDIAK), 1869-1871 (fond/opis/delo 1164/1/249, 299); and death (TsDIAK), 1869 and 1871-72 (fond/opis/delo 1164/1/250, 300, 330).  The Central State Historical Archives (TsDIAK) are located at (street address) vul. Solom’yanska 24, (postal code) 03110, Kiev; tel. +38 044 275 27 27, 275 26 66, fax 275 36 55; e-mail mail@archives.gov.ua.  The deputy director is Ol’ga Volodymyryvna Muzychuk.  ZAGS is a local archive that is not normally accessible to individual researchers; it is possible to route a request for specific records through the Ukrainian embassy or consulate.  In the U.S.:  Consul General of Ukraine, 240 E. 49th Street, New York, NY 10017, http://www.brama.com/ua-consulate; and Embassy of Ukraine, 3350 M Street NW, Washington, DC, 20007, http://www.ukremb.com.  (Sources:  Return to Roots Foundation, http://www.rtrfoundation.org.  For more on how to request ZAGS records, see http://www.rtrfoundation.org/webart/Pol-Chap4.pdf.)

[viii] From Tcherikower, Elias, “Di ukrainer pogromen in yor 1919,” New York:  YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, translated by Janie Respitz:  “The struggle between Zeleny and the Bolsheviks took on more and more of a bitter character. Zeleny continually evaded capture. In July he attacked Ruzhitsev near Tripoliye, once again killing many Red Army soldiers. He then commandeered a steamship and raced to Perioslav in Poltava province, on the other bank of the Dnieper, in order to confiscate a large sum of money. He was chased out by the Bolsheviks and returned to the Right Bank of the Ukraine, arriving in Kaharlik. There the peasants did not like him and refused him entry.

“Under the circumstances, the Soviet government decided to liquidate Zeleny. A military division of a few thousand men was set up. Among them were many Red military students, under the leadership of Podvoysky himself, the People’s Commissar of War. They had artillery and armoured boats on the Dnieper. The Bolsheviks blocked his way on three sides from Obukhov, from Kaniev-Kahorlik and from the Dnieper, and attempted to capture him. A bitter battle broke out between Obukhov and Tripoliye that lasted four days. Zeleny suffered defeat, but then raced over to the western side of Kiev Province…”  (CMB note:  There are slight differences in transliteration of place names between this English translation of Tcherikower’s Yiddish text and Russian or Ukrainian, but all place names are recognizable as being from the area immediately south of Kiev.)  (Source:  http://www.berdichev.org/the_pogroms_in_ukraine_in_1919.htm; also:  http://nachshen.com/zeleny.shtml.  For more on the roles of partisans, Whites and Bolsheviks in the mid-1919 pogroms in this region, see:  http://jewukr.org/observer/eo2003/page_show_en.php?id=386.)

[ix] Boryspil, in Ukrainian.  Kiev’s international airport is called Boryspil, but the town itself still exists and is located a few kilometers away.

[x] Evreyskaya entsisklopediya, ed. Katsenel’son, L. and Baron Gintsburg, D. G.  St. Petersburg:  Obshchestvo dlya nauchnykh evreyskikh izdaniy I izdatel’stvo Brokhaus-Efron, 1906-1913.  16 volumes.  Article on Borispol comes from vol. 4, pg. 830.

[xi] Katsenel’son, op. cit., vol. 12, pg. 402.

[xii] According to Meyer’s grandson Bernie.

[xiii] an institute of learning where students study sacred texts, primarily the Talmud; or, an elementary or secondary school with a curriculum that includes religion and culture as well as general education

[xv] According to the U.S. arrival records for Velvel’s children Moische (Morris) and Esther (Ester).

[xvi] Katsenel’son, op. cit., vol. 13, pg. 476.

[xvii] Other Bulkins in Rzhishchev:  Kiev Gubernia Duma Voters List: 

Name, Patronymic, Year / Number, Qualifications, Town (type), Street, Uyezd, District:

 

BULKIN, Shlema Meerov 1906 / 3029 property owner  Chigirin  Chigirin 

BULKIN, Itsko Froimovich 1907 / 284 property 200 Rubles Obukhov (m)   Kiev

BULKIN, Volko Ejnov 1907 / 283 apartment tax  Rzhishchev (m)   Kiev

BULKIN, Iosif Volkov 1907 / 285 apartment tax  Rzhishchev (m)   Kiev

BULKIN, Volf Froimov 1907 / 54 real estate 300 Rubles Rzhishchev (m)   Kiev

BULKIN, Lejba Gilev 1907 / 55 real estate 300 Rubles Rzhishchev (m)   Kiev

BULKIN, Bentsion Moshkov 1907 / 282 property 30 Rubles Tripole (m)   Kiev

 

Notes:  This database contains a transliteration from Russian of the Voters Lists from the first, second and third Duma elections, which appeared in the newspaper Kievskie Gubernskie Vedomostie in 1906 and 1907 (source:  http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Ukraine/KievDuma.htm).  If Itsko is “Isaac” and Volf is “Velvel,” the records above for Itsko, son of Froimo and Volf, son of Froimo look like possible matches for Isaac and Velvel; however, Isaac and Sarah were living in Borispol circa 1900, and we have no other indication that they moved from there to Obukhov.  Obukhov is located between Rzhishchev and Kiev, on the other side of the Dnieper River from Borispol.

 

Other notes on Rzhishchev:  Rzhishchev is located in Kiev District (Kievskaya oblast, formerly Kievskiy uyezd), at 49°58 31°3, 62 kilometers (48.9 miles) from Kiev.  Present town population is 25,001 - 100,000 with 11 - 100 Jews.  1939 Jewish population (census) was 1,608.  Its name is rendered either as Rzhishchev (Russian), Rzhyshchiv (Ukrainian), Rzyszczow (Polish), Ryzhishchev (Yiddish) or Zhishchuv (German).  There is also a Rzeszczow in Poland, roughly south of Lublin, but this is a different city.  Technology:  Rzhishchev learned of Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication in 1917 by telephone.  Commerce:  The 1911-12 Vsia Rossiia business directory lists the following types of businesses in Rzhishchev, which is classified as a “small town” (mestechko):  barber/hairdressers (3), bread and grain (1), butcher (1), dishware and utensils (1), fish (1), kerosene and oil (1), metal goods (1), pharmaceutical goods (1), pharmacies (2), textiles (5), wine (3) and wood/firewood (1).  The merchants’ surnames are mostly Jewish:  Apter, Berlyants, Bron, Divinskiy, Khersonskiy, Kholodenko, Klunerman, Knin, Kobilyatskiy, Kuperman, Levinshteyn, Lomazov, Merkulev, Mitkevich-Zholtko, Ostrovskiy, Poliskiy, Rybalskiy, Shaurbaka, Spektor, Strat, Taver, Vilyants, and Zaslavskiy.  Wealth:  Rzhishchev had 24 qualified (landed) voters in 1st Duma (3 surnamed Budkin), 30 in 2nd, 29 in 3rd, 17 in 4th, 29 in 5th, 28 in 6th and 17 in 7th.  None on lists is surnamed Bulkin.  Jewish community:  The first known Jewish community in Rzhishchev dates from 1847, according to the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Cemetery Project.  (The Jews were expelled from Kiev in 1843.)  Hassidim, intra-Jewish violence:  In 1864, a riot erupted in Rzhishchev when “a [Hassidic] holy rabbi from another place had the temerity to visit Rzhishchev, where another holy rabbi resided, to collect money.  As Asaf wrote in his article: ‘Of course, the Hassids of the local holy rabbi cursed and stoned the invader and he was almost killed.’  Many of the Hassids were wounded. The two holy rabbis then proclaimed that ritual slaughterers of each side were not kosher; each rabbi also proclaimed that the prayers of the other side were ‘an abomination to God.’  Scuffles ensured. The holy rabbi of Rzhishchev was denounced by his colleague as a forger of banknotes. A police investigation followed.”  (See also http://www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/rabin_assassination.html.)  Russian Orthodox:  There was an Orthodox monastery in Rzhishchev in 1917.  Famous native son/daughter:  Aron Izraelevich Dashevskiy, a famous Jewish doctor, was born there in 1904.  Noted Ukrainian poet Lena Kostenko was born in Rzhishchev in 1930.  Extant Jewish cemetery:  US Commission No. UA09120101.  The Jewish cemetery was established in the 19th century with last known Hasidic burial 1970s.  No other towns or villages used this unlandmarked cemetery.  The isolated rural (agriculture) site has no sign or marker.  Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all.  No wall, fence, or gate surrounds site.  1 to 20 common tombstones, none in original location, are more than 75% toppled or broken.  The cemetery contains no known mass graves.  The cemetery property is now used for agriculture (crops or animal grazing).  Properties adjacent are other.  No one visits.  The cemetery was vandalized during World War II.  There is no maintenance now.  Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures.  Vegetation overgrowth is a seasonal problem, preventing access.  [Contact:] Tsyauk Vladimir Trofimovich of Kiev, Kvitneviy per. 12, Apt. 95 [Phone: (044) 4176555] visited site and completed survey on 7/20/94.  Interviewed was not listed.  (Second entry for same cemetery:)  The [Rzhishchev Jewish] cemetery is located several miles outside the town on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Dneiper River, accessible via a dirt road.  The cemetery, which is adjacent to a large private vegetable garden, includes a young grove of birch and a field.  Neither plaque nor other memorials mark the area.  Lying on the ground where children were buried was a small ulna [bone].  Three gravestones remain. One is face down in the field, the second one lying face up and very well preserved, and the third fallen over the cliff to rest along the river bank. This cemetery visited by Dan Kirschner & Davida Sky (with guide Regina Kopilevich & driver Dina Kopilevich) in August 1994.  Contact person: Dan Kirschner, 135 Winchester St. #2, Newton, MA 02161, tel: 617-965-6839, kirschnd@bc.edu [CMB e-mail sent 1/12/06, no reply as of 4/29/06] (see:  http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/e-europe/ukra-r.html).  Other genealogical researchers are looking for the Golubtchik and Polissky families from Rzhishchev.  Archeology:  The town is also a center for archeology related to the Trypillya culture, dating from the Neolithic Age.  Picasso reportedly found inspiration from a show of Trypillyan artifacts in Paris.  see:  http://www.trypillya.kiev.ua./index_eng.htm.  Other towns in Kiev District per 1911-12 Vsia Rossiia:  Belovorodka (village, post office Boyarka on SW rail line), Borodyanka, Borshchagovka (village), Boyarka (village), Bucha (settlement), Byshov (town, post office Motovilovka, SW rail line), Demiyevka (village), Dymer, Germanovka, Gorenichi (village, post office Boyarka on SW rail line), Gostomel’, Ignatovka (town, post office Boyarka on SW rail line), Kachanko (village, post office Fasova) Kagarlyk, Makarov, Mostishche (village), Myshelovka (house), Nemyshayevo 1-e (station, SW rail line), Obukhov, Pushcha-Voditsa, Rak (farmstead? “Khut. Rak”), Shulyavka (suburb? “predm.,” post office Kiev city), Solomenko (village, post office Kiev city), Svyatoshino (ur.?), Tripol’ye, Vorzel (settlement). 

[xviii] Per son Jacob’s 1915 Philadelphia marriage certificate.  The same certificate gives Jacob’s mother’s name and states that she is deceased.  Son Morris’ 1928 Philadelphia marriage certificate gives his father’s profession as “merchant.”

[xix] If you are interested in visiting Boryspil, Rzhishchev or other locations, one service that organizes tours is JewishGen.org’s Shtetl Schleppers.  See:  http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSchleppers/

[xx] Jacob’s 1915 marriage license application:

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, County of Philadelphia, Statement of Male:  Jacob Bulkin; Color:  W; Relationship of parties making this application, if any:  none; Occupation:  Designer; Birthplace:  Russia; Residence:  1343 So. 6th St.; DOB:  15th Jan'y 1888; never married before; no transmissible disease; father:  Walter Bulkin; mother:  Freda Greenberg; residence of father:  Russia; of mother:  "dead"; color of father:  W; of mother:  W; occupation of father:  Tailor; of mother:  "dead"; birthplace of father:  Russia; of mother:  "same"; Is applicant an imbecile, epileptic, of unsound mind, or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind, or under the influence of any intoxicating liquor or narcotic drug:  no; Has applicant within five years been the inmate of any county asylum or home for indigent persons:  no; Is applicant physically able to support a family:  yes; (signature) Jacob Bulkin; Statement of Female:  Anna Bellak; Color:  W; Occupation:  Housework; Birthplace:  Russia; Residence:  "sameaddress"; DOB:  23rd Nov 1893; never been married; transmissible disease:  no; father:  Charles Bellak; mother:  Rose Sehly; residence of father:  "sameaddress"; of mother:  "same"; color of father:  W; of mother:  W; occupation of father:  Tailor; of mother:  Housekeeper; father POB:  Russia; of mother:  "same"; applicant an imbecile etc., under influence of etc.:  no; (signed) Anna Bellak; (date) 16 Dec 1915.  (Source:  certified copy of original, obtained from Clerk of Orphans Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas, Room 415, City Hall, Philadelphia, PA  19107.)

[xxi] Morris’ 1928 marriage license application:

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, County of Philadelphia, Statement of Male:  Morris Bulkin; Color:  W; Relationship of parties making this application, if any:  none; Occupation:  Mfg; Birthplace:  Russia; Residence:  1758 N. Beach Str.; DOB:  August 19, 1891; never married before; no transmissible disease; father:  Walter Bulkin; mother:  Freda Grenberg; residence of father:  Russia; of mother:  "same"; color of father:  W; of mother:  W; occupation of father:  merchant; of mother:  (blank); birthplace of father:  Russia; of mother:  "same"; Is applicant an imbecile, epileptic, of unsound mind, or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind, or under the influence of any intoxicating liquor or narcotic drug:  no; Has applicant within five years been the inmate of any county asylum or home for indigent persons:  no; Is applicant physically able to support a family:  yes; (signature) Morris Bulkin; Statement of Female:  Minnie Staffin; Color:  W; Occupation:  buyer; Birthplace:  Russia; Residence:  6031 Ellsworth Str.; DOB:  Jan. 28, 1906; never been married; transmissible disease:  no; father:  Elias Staffin; mother:  Libe Eitten; residence of father:  a(?) adr.; of mother:  "same"; color of father:  W; of mother:  W; father POB:  Russia; of mother:  "same"; applicant an imbecile etc., under influence of etc.:  no; (signed) Minnie Staffin; (date) 14 August 1928.  (Source:  certified copy of original, obtained from Clerk of Orphans Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas, Room 415, City Hall, Philadelphia, PA  19107.)

[xxii] Nathans, Benjamin.  Beyond the Pale:  the Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia.  University of California Press:  Berkeley, 2001.

[xxiii] “Between 1881 and 1908, a total of 1,545,000 Jews left the country; the 1897 census put their number at 5,189,401. Out of this million and a half people, more than 1,250,000 headed to the United States, some 150,000 to England, and only some 145,000 went to all the other countries (30,000 went to Canada and France each; 20,000 to Palestine and to Argentina; 15,000 traveled to Germany and South Africa each; and some 10,000 to Egypt, etc.)

 

Emigration data to the U.S.:
approximate from 1881; accurate from 1899:

 

Periods

Total per Period

Average per Year

1881-1885

64,322

12,865

1886-1890

142,545

28,509

1891-1895

224,145

44,424

1896-1899

132,119

44,424

1900-1904

237,750

33,029

1905-1909

448,682

88,735


These figures are interesting in particular because U.S. immigration authorities
did not register the new arrivals according to their nationality.

 

“During the 1905-1909 period, the number of Jews who left Russia was greater than the number of the Jewish newborns in the country. From June 1, 1908 til June 1, 1913, as many as 900,000 Jews left Russia for the United States.”

(see:  http://www.rtrfoundation.org/kiev-1.html)

[xxiv] “The memorandum of the Jewish Emigration Society to Russia's Minister of Interior of 1913 (opis 2, item 230) noted that 75 percent of the emigrants crossed the border illegally, assisted by clandestine emigration ‘agents.’ These operations resulted in tremendous financial losses to the treasury, the Russian Red Cross Society and funds for the disabled. Moreover, clandestine agents often deceived the emigrants, depriving them of their foreign passports and livelihood.”  (see:  http://www.rtrfoundation.org/kiev-1.html)

[xxv] On Meyer’s Ellis Island arrival record, he was 37 years old when he arrived on January 14, 1906.  In the 1920 census, he was enumerated on January 6 as age 35.  In the 1930 census, he was enumerated on April 8 as age 60.

[xxvi] The lodgings owners and emigration agencies in Hamburg were notorious for defrauding the emigrants of their small savings. The Jewish community in Hamburg tried to protect the emigrants from the worst by providing advice and accommodation.  At the beginning of the 20th century the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actiengesellschaft (HAPAG) built an emigrant's "city" in Veddel, in the port area, as a refuge. It could accommodate 5,000 people awaiting departure of their ships. It included a kosher canteen and a synagogue.  […] Today, only one pavilion remains from this former settlement. It is reached by taking the S3/S31 train to Veddel and then walking roughly 200 metres to the corner of Veddeler Straße and Veddeler Bogen.  The building is in use but in a dilapidated state (source:  http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035/emigration.html).

[xxvii] On April 12 the Daily Memorandum contained information that numerous icebergs and extensive field ice was sighted in latitude 41 58' north and longitude 50 20' west, on April 11. Certainly some of those bergs might be expected to be in that vicinity three days later. But on April 14 the Hydrographic Office received a telegram transmitted by radio from the Amerika, of the Hamburg-American Line, through the Titanic, stating that two large bergs were in latitude 41 27' north and longitude 50 08' west. In spite of these warnings the Titanic sped on at 22 knots at night and met her doom in latitude 41 46' north and longitude 50 14' west. Had she but heeded the one warning that she transmitted she would probably have saved herself.  (Source:  Annual Reports of the Navy Department for the Fiscal Year 1912. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913): 193-197, found at http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq94-1.htm)

[xxviii] Meyer’s 1927 naturalization petition:  Petition for Naturalization, name Meyer Bulkin, place of residence 183 Varet St., Brooklyn, NY, b. 15 Aug 1870 in Kiev, Russia, emigrated to the U.S. from Hamburg on/about 4 Jan 1906, arrived at the port of New York on/about 14 Jan 1906 on SS America [sic], married to Anna, b. [no date indicated] 1879, b. Russia, resides "with me," names of 8 children, birth dates and current residence given:  Sam b. 15 Nov 1892 Russia, living in Bronx; Gladys, b. 19 Apr 1903 Russia, living in Coney Island; Bennie, b. 3 Dec 1915 [sic] Russia [sic], living in Coney Island; Jack b. 26 Feb 1911 NY, living "with me"; (other children living with Meyer:) Lena b. 26 Jun 1910 NY; Mamie b. 20 Jan 1913 NY; Freida [sic] b. 1 May 1915 "Bklyn."; David b. 23 Oct 1918 "Bklyn.," no prior petition, witnessed by Harry Appel and Hyman Bernoff, known since 1 Jan 1921, signed 2 Jun 1927; Declaration of Intention No. 77127, Eastern District, NY,:name Mayr [sic] Bulkin, age 50, profession cap maker, color white, complexion dark, height 5'6", weight 138 lbs, hair black, eyes gray, no distinctive marks, b. Kiev, Russia, married to Anna, who was b. Russia, "residing with me," arrived in U.S. on 14 Jan 1906, signed 28 Sep 1920

[xxix] Incongruously, Sisel is listed as age 4 on the manifest, suggesting a birth date in 1901; this may be an error, this child may have died, or this may be the wrong record.

[xxx] Meyer’s 1927 naturalization petition gives Ben’s date/place of birth and residence as follows, erroneously:  Bennie, b. 3 Dec 1915 [sic] Russia [sic; Ben arrived with Meyer in 1906], living in Coney Island.  Ben’s 1926 Declaration of Intention:  name Benjamin Bulkin, aged 23 years, occupation chauffeur, color white, complexion ruddy, height 5'7", weight 160, hair brown, eyes grey, distinctive marks:  1st joint index finger right hand missing, b. Kiev, Russia on 6 Feb 1903, now residing at 1468-79th St., Brooklyn, NY, immigrated to the U.S. from Hamburg, Germany on the SS America [sic], last foreign residence Kiev, Russia, not married, arrived at port of New York on/about 14 Jan 1906, signed in Brooklyn on 7 Jul 1926.  Ben’s 1929 Petition for Naturalization:  name Benjamin Bulkin, residing at 1968-79th St., Brooklyn, NY, occupation iron worker, b. 6 May 1903 in Kiev, Russia, immigrated to U.S. from Bremen on/about 1 Jan 1906, arrived port of NY on 14 Jan 1906 on SS America [sic], declared intent 7 Jul 1926 in Brooklyn, not married, no children indicated, witnessed Morris Shevack and Morris Axelrod, 16 Jan 1929.  (Note:  Shevack's address is 1468-79th St., Brooklyn, same as Ben's address in 1926 petition.)

[xxxi] Meyer’s 1927 naturalization petition lists eight children, but not this Jacob.  The manifest may be in error, or the family may have made some sort of arrangement with this traveler to facilitate his immigration.  Meyer also had a nephew named Jacob who was slightly older (b. 1889), but he does not appear to be this traveler.  In the naturalization papers for Meyer’s nephew Jacob, filed in Philadelphia in October 1922, Jacob claimed to have arrived at the port of New York on/about February 1, 1910 on the SS Merion from Liverpool; however, the record shows that the authorities were unable to confirm his arrival on that date.  To confuse matters further, Meyer’s first son by his second wife Anna was also named Jacob (Jack), b. 1911.  At first glance, the Jacob Bulkin traveling with Meyer and Esther in 1906 would seem to be a match for these two records:  (1) 1930 US Census (10 Apr), residing at 2120 Crotona Ave., Block E, Bronx, NY, head of h/hold is restaurant manager Jacob BULKIN age 42 (est b yr 1888, checks), b. Russia, f/m b. Russia, spoke Yiddish in home country, year of arrival 1905, naturalized (citizen), owns a radio set, age 27 at first marriage (est m yr 1915, matches marr record below), renting home for 47/month, able to read/write, living with wife Anna, b. NY, f/m b. Russia, spoke Yiddish in home country, occupation "none," and three children, all b. NY:  Seymour 13, Lydia 6, and Phylis (sic) 4 yrs 6 mos.  Neighbors include Leo/Clara ROSENFELD 44/43 Russia/Russia.  Most neighbors either b. Russia or f/m b. Russia (record citation:  Year: 1930; Census Place: Bronx, Bronx, New York; Roll: 1484; Page: 11B; Enumeration District: 539; Image: 24.0).  In 1920, the same Jacob, Anna and Seymour are living at 3651 Second Ave. in the Bronx; but note that Jacob’s year of immigration is given as 1910 (vice 1906), Anna’s as 1900; and (2) marriage record:  NYC Grooms Index:  Bulkin  Jacob  May  1  1915  Bronx  1428 (source:  http://www.italiangen.org/).  On that 1915 marriage record, however, this Jacob Bulkin, occupation “restaurant keeper,” gives his parents’ names as Harry (Bulkin) and Ella Katz.

[xxxii] Esther’s children gave her maiden name as Jaroslav; this may have been a patronymic, and Chaim Salkin may have been Esther’s brother.  No Salkin appears in the contemporary censuses from New York.  “100th St.” could have been in either Manhattan or Brooklyn.

[xxxiii] Bernie’s father was Jacob Bulkin (b. 1911), Meyer’s first son by his second wife, Anna.

[xxxiv] Prior U.S. arrivals of persons surnamed Bulkin:  1830-1912 (castlegarden.org) has:

1)       Cesse BULKIN, Spinster age 20, F, date of arrival 18 Aug 188?, place of origin Russia, ship Wisconsin

2)       Ychie BULKIN, Spinster, age 22, F, date of arrival 18 Aug 188?, place of origin Russia, ship Wisconsin

3)       Basche BULKIN, Child/Youngster, age 4, M, date of arrival 8 Mar 1889, place of origin Russia, ship City of Berlin

4)       Duoje BULKIN, Infant, age 11 months, M, date of arrival 8 Mar 1889, place of origin Russia, ship City of Berlin

5)       Boris BULKIN, Laborer, age 23, M, date of arrival 25 Jun 1892, place of origin Poland, ship Furst Bismarck

6)       Meyer BULKIN, Laborer, age 50, M, date of arrival 30 Apr 1894, place of origin Russia, ship Scandia, embarked in Hamburg, final destination NY (additional info from ellisisland.org)

The Ellis Island Foundation website (ellisisland.org) gives 48 hits for Bulkin passengers arriving between 1894 and 1923 (database covers 1892-1924).  They come from:  Bobruisk (Belarus), Grodno (Belarus), Kanin (Russia), Kiev (“Kiew,” Kievskaya guberniya, Ukraine), Minsk (Belarus), Pereyaslav (Poltavskaya guberniya, Ukraine), Pustyn? (Gorkovskaya guberniya, Russia; indexed as “Pivatyn”) Rozhyshche/Rozyszcze? (“Rozyszege,” apparently Rozhitche of Volyskaya guberniya, Ukraine), and Vilnius (Wilno/Wilna, Lithuania).

[xxxv] Shirley, born on December 21, 1922, remembers that she was two-and-a-half years old when Simon moved to California.

[xxxvi] David’s naturalization papers should state when and how he arrived.  However, a search by the National Archives and Records Association has yet to produce the record.

[xxxvii] 1920 US Census (January 19), residing at 693 Stone Ave. (apt house) in Brooklyn, Kings County, NY, head of household is Isaac STRAUSS (age 40, est birth year 1879, b. Russia, speaks Yiddish, father b. Russia, spoke Yiddish, mother b. Russia, no lang. given), occupation barber in his own store, wife Fannie (age 39, est birth year 1880, b. Russia, speaks Yiddish, both parents b. Russia, spoke Yiddish), occupation "none," three children:  Michael (19, b. Russia), occupation painter in a sign store, Louis (17, b. England), occupation clerk in a jewelry office, and Anna (16, b. England), occupation finisher in (workplace diff to read).  None is a citizen, none of the children has attended school in the last year.  Year of immigration 1905.  Almost all neighbors b. Russia and speak Yiddish, same for their parents.  Note:  The name of Stone Ave. was later changed to Mother Gaston Blvd.  Record citation:  Roll:    T625_1146  Page:    9B 

ED:    1688  Image:    0537

[xxxviii] “MERION / TIGER 1901.  The MERION was a 11,621 gross ton ship, length 530.5ft x beam 59.2ft, one funnel, four masts, twin screw and a speed of 14 knots. There was accommodation for 150-2nd and 1,700-3rd class passengers. Built by John Brown & Co Ltd, Glasgow, she was launched for the American Line on 26th Nov.1901. Chartered to the Dominion Line, she started her maiden voyage on 8th Mar.1902 when she left Liverpool for Boston. Her eleventh and last voyage on this service started on 5th Mar.1903 and she commenced her first sailing for the American Line in April 1903 between Liverpool and Philadelphia. On 30th Mar.1903 she was damaged in collision with the British ship CLAN GRANT off Tuskar Rock but was repaired. She started a single round voyage under charter to the Red Star Line on 16th Nov.1907 between Antwep and New York and on 31st Oct.1914 commenced her last Liverpool - Philadelphia sailing. Sold to the British Admiralty in 1914, she was disguised as the Battlecruiser HMS TIGER and on 30th May 1915 was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine UB.8 in the Aegean Sea. [North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.3,p.945-6].”  (Source:  http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/ShipsM.html)

[xxxix] While we have a record of Morris and Esther’s arrivals in Baltimore, the departure record from Bremen has been lost:  “While most of the Bremen, Germany passenger departure records were destroyed, 2,953 of them from 1920-1939 (still incomplete) have survived and are stored at the Bremen Chamber of Commerce” (source:  http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/ei.html).  More on the SS Main:  “MAIN 1906
The MAIN of 1906 was the second vessel of that name owned by Norddeutscher Lloyd [North German Lloyd]. She was built in 1900 by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg and was a 10,200 gross ton ship, length 501ft x beam 58.1ft, one funnel, four masts, twin screw, and a speed of 14 knots. There was accommodation for 148-1st, 116-2nd and 2,500-3rd class passengers. Launched on 10/2/1900, she sailed from Bremen on her maiden voyage to Cherbourg and New York on 28/4/1900. On 30/6/1900, she sank after being involved in a New York dock fire and on 27/7/1900 was refloated and subsequently reconditioned at Newport News, her accommodation then being 369-2nd, 217-3rd, and 2,865-4th class passengers. On 21/8/1902 she commenced her first voyage from Bremen to New York and Baltimore and subsequently sailed between Bremen and New York and/or Baltimore. In June 1914 she made her last sailing from Bremen to Baltimore and between 1914 - 1918 was laid up at Antwerp. In 1919 she was allocated to Britain under the War Reparations scheme and in 1921 went to the French government. She was scrapped in 1925. [North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.2,p.562].” (source:  http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/ShipsM.html)

[xl] Full entry reads:  age 21, m(ale), s(ingle), occupation:  tailor, can read/write, nationality/race: Russian/Hebrew, last permanent residence:  (country) Russia, (town or city) Rziszew, name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came: “father: Welwel Bulkin, Rzis. [continues next line:] szew, Kiew Russia,” bound for: (state) PA (city) Philadelphia, has ticket to final destination, passage paid by brother, in possession of 5 dollars, never before in U.S., going to join brother Jankel [Jacob] Bulkin 1221 South [4th ? 19th?] Str. Philadelphia PA, whether deformed or crippled: “Scars on Conj.,” 5 feet 8 inches tall, fair complexion, hair brown, eyes brown, place of birth (country) Russia (town) Rziszczew, no contiguous Bulkin entries.  Source:  Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1892-1948 database, ancestry.com.  According to his WWI Draft Registration Card, signed June 5, 1917, Morris was single and living in Philadelphia, where designed cloaks and suits for the Star Ladies’ Tailoring Company at the South East (Coe?) 5th Market.”  He was 5’8”, had brown hair and brown eyes, was already “hard of hearing” and “sick in lungs” at the age of 27.

[xli] Wallis Bulkin e-mails to CMB, March 2006.