The Isaac Maltzer and Lechtus Families in Kopaigerod

Yitzhak (Isaac) Maltzer (1855-1921) was a very learned Chassidic Jew. He was born in Vinnytska, Ukraine, and married Rachel Skolnick. They were well-to-do, and they lived in a large house in Kopaigorod, Ukraine (JF). Isaac is my fraternal great-grandfather.

Isaac’s second wife is Ethel, nee Kaufman Maltzer (1878-1949).

Isaac was a scholar and a bookkeeper for a Cooperative. From 3:00 to 6:00 A.M., Sy, his brother, and 2 others would study with Isaac. Other people came to Isaac's home to study to be Rabbis. Isaac started a new Synagogue outside of the town limits. There were 4 Synagogues within the town (SM).

Isaac Maltzer had changed his name from Calic to Maltzer. "That name was adopted as a means of gaining for him status as a first son, first sons being exempt from conscription (JF).” Jews in the Russian army were treated very badly, and many didn’t survive.

“Bassya’s grandfather (Isaac Maltzer) was a very religious man and a respected scholar – the town’s people turned to him for spiritual, practical, and financial assistance. He was president of the synagogue. Scholars spent the day in philosophical discussions which brought in little money. That left the wife of a scholar to take care of the family. Bassya recalls that her grandmother (Leah nee Skolnik Maltzer) got up every day at 4:30 in the morning, baked her bread, washed the clothes, ironed, prepared breakfast., At 7:30 she was in her little grocery shop that she managed until 6:00 pm. It was remarkable. My grandmother never complained about all her hard work. She accepted it as a matter of fact. She was a woman and this was a woman’s job’.” (Biography of Bassya Maltzer, cousin of Mayer Licht)

Bassya said “By the age of nineteen her father was a rabbi at the synagogue. However, being an idealist, he gave up his rabbinical position after one year. He then wanted to be a doctor but being a Jew made this impossible. He studied and became a Certified Public Accountant for a sugar factory. He travelled all over Russia opening sugar refinaries. However, he always remained an idealist and a scholar. Life was easier for Bassya’s mother. Her husband was not only a scholar but also had a paying job. Bassya’s mother did not have to work, she even had a maid. But she had no education and could not read and filled her time with socializing. She loved to dress beautifully. She had a beautiful figure and wanted to display it. She had parties with men and women, who used to compliment her. This was her world, this was her joy’. “ (Biography of Bassya Maltzer)

The children of Isaac and Rachel, in order of birth, are: 

• Yiska (Eta, Eda)   (1874-1933)

• Ben-Zion (1886-1918)

• Moishe (Morris) (1890-1968)

• Rivka (Rebecca, Becky) (1894-1929)

• Shyah (Sy) (1898-1994)

Isaac selected Yiska (Eta, Eda) Maltzer, at the age of 8, to marry Lazer (Laiser, Leiser, Eliezer, Louis) Lechtus (Licht) (SM).  They are my fraternal grandparents.

Lazer Lechtus moved from nearby Muravano-Kurilovtsy to Kopaigerod, to marry Yiska Maltzer.

They were married in 1894, before Baruch was born in 1895,  when Lazer  (1870 - 1953) was age 23, and Yiska (1874 -1933) was age 19.

Isaac and his family lived in a two story brick home, which Shyah (Sy) Maltzer said they built in honor of Sy's birth. It was luxurious, compared to other homes in town, many which were made of mud. Isaac and his family owned 4 stores. His wife Rachel had a hardware store, Ben-Zion had one store. Leiser and Yiska had two stores.  Leiser bought, stored, and sold flour. Yiska had a bakery where she baked and sold bakery products (SM).

Shyah (Sy) Maltzer said that he had an illness, went to Odessa in the Crimea, by train, for the warmer climate, and stayed there with Malka Skolnick,  6 months a year, for 7 years.

Joe Friedman told me that both Sy Maltzer and Batya nee Maltzer remembered there was a French dance teacher that gave dancing lessons to Rivka Maltzer in their house. Joe wrote that Moishe Friedman often visited the Maltzers in Kopaigerod, and “evidently the attraction that kept him returning was his cousin, Rifka, a tall, quiet, dignified girl who had been well educated for the resources of the town (14).”

Kopaigorod was the town, Podolski the state, Guberma the district, and Mogilev the nearest city. It is in southwest Ukraine, east of the Dneister River, which separates Ukraine from Romania. Kopaigorod is north of Mogilev-Podolski, which I estimate as about 26 miles on a map. Mogilev-Podolski is a different town than Mogilev, the latter located much farther north, and east of Minsk.

Rita Ostrrovskaya, in "Jews in the Ukraine", wrote about Mogilev-Podolski. "Mogilev was a melting pot to which the Jewish population contributed the largest portion. According to the 1917 census - taken before the October Revolution - some 3,000 Jews lived here at the time, making up 60 % of the city's population".

I learned more about Kopaigorod from Bernard (Barney) Kernfeld, who left there at age 7,  lived a year in Romania, and came to San Francisco in 1922 at age 9. Carolyn and I met with him in 1997. Barney, his brothers Joseph and Isaac, and his father Louis Kernfeld, lived in Kopaigerod, next to Joseph Abrams, who was the brother of Yossel (Louis) Abrams. The Abrams name in Kopaigorod was Yarmalmski.

Barney said in Kopaigerod there were 40 Jewish families. Barney's older brother, Joseph, wrote that there were about 300 to 500 Jews in Kopaigerod. There were 1,000 people surrounding Kopaigorod, mostly Christians who lived on farms. Most, but not all, of the Russian peasants were friendly to the Jews.

Joseph Korengold wrote that the Korengolds’ house was the most elegant home in town.

In Kopaigerod there was no sewage system, no sidewalks. There was no doctor, hospital or clinic. Their grandfather hid his money in the ground. They had kerosene lights, an outdoor out-house, water came from a spring carried in a bucket. There was a community bath house, for men. No Jew had a garden, or cattle. There were no police. The Korengolds did have servants. There was a weekly Yarid (vegetable market) to which the Christian farmers would bring their produce.

There was no public education. The schooling was Heder, (Hebrew school). The conversational language was Yiddish, at home and at Heder, while Yiddish and Russian were spoken in the marketplace. The prayers, Torah, and other religious texts, were printed in Hebrew.

Barney remembered square matzohs delivered to homes in white bed sheets, and a Succoh built on the rooftop of their home His farther was an acting Rabbi, and people came to his house for advice, especially about Kashrut (Kosher food rules).

There were periodic pogroms by Cossacks riding horses. They came to only the Jewish homes, and took valuables. Barney remembers one raid when the Cossacks came to his house and took the watch off the wrist of his younger brother. The Schwartzman family had a Bakery, with a large cellar. All the people in town went there to hide, when they were in danger.

In 1903 a mob of Christians attacked the Jews of Kishnev. Forty five Jews were killed, their bodies mutilated. Hundreds of Jews were injured. Fifteen-hundred homes and shops were destroyed. At about the same time 300 Jews were killed in Odessa (The Shtetl Book, 90). Kishnev is south east of Kopaigerod, about half way to Odessa.

The first person from Kopaigorod to leave and go to San Francisco was Yosel ( Louis) Abrams. He left about 1898. His first job in San Francisco was lighting street lamps. He started Metropolitan Furniture Corp. in 1905, originally a mattress manufacturer.

Leiser (Lazer, Eliezer, Louis)  and Yiska (Eta, Eda) Lechtus had all their children born in Kopaigerod. They are  Baruch (Bennett) 1895, Meilech (Meir, Mayer) 1897, Leu (Leah) 1901, Gidaliah (James) 1903, Chana (Anne) 1906, Eta (Ella) 1908.  Mayer is my father.

Israel and Dina Friedman, had their children born in Kopaigerod: Anya 1893, Schmuel (Samuel) 1895, Solman 1897, Shimon 1900, Clara 1902, Harry 1906, and Morris 1908. These Friedmans were friends, not blood relatives of the Lichts and Maltzers. (Later in the United States, Sam Friedman married Anne Licht.)

Bennett Lechtus and Samuel Friedman, went to Warsaw, Poland, to go to school. Bennett took Mayer with him. Bennett and Samuel were the firstborn in their families, and therefore exempt from conscription into the Russian Army. Bennett and Mayer stayed with their uncle, Josef Lechtus, in Warsaw. Bennett, much later, told his cousin Simon, that he remembered Simon as a young child playing underneath the table at the time of their stay at his home. Bennett and Mayer went back to their home in Kopaigerod.

Then Louis Abrams came from San Francisco to Kopaigerod for a visit and, offered to sponsor five young men to emigrate to San Francisco. The four were brothers Bennett and Mayer Lechtus,  brothers Samuel and Solman Friedman, and Max Kibrick.

They left Europe on 7/17/1913,  on the ship Chemnitz from Bremen, Germany. They arrived 08/08/1913 in Galveston, Texas. Their age was Bennett 18, Mayer 17, Samuel 18, Solman 17 (DF).  

There are more details about their leaving and immigration in my article entitled Sol and Sam Friedman Brothers - The Second Wave.

Bennett and Mayer arrived in San Francisco in 1914. They were the first of their extended family to emigrate from Ukraine to San Francisco.

Bennett and Mayer quickly arranged for their parents, brother, and two sisters, to leave the Ukraine for San Francisco. They arrived in I9I4. Their ages at that time were Louis 44, Eda 40, Leah 13, James 11, Ann 8, and Ella 6.

After they were in the United States Leiser changed his name to Louis, Yiska changed her name to Eda, and the family surname was changed from Lechtus to Licht.

After World War I the surviving Maltzers included Isaac and his new wife Ethel (JF). The war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, at that time their ages were Isaac 63, and Ethel 40.

Isaac Maltzer came to the U.S. in May 1921, in time for the Pinyon Haben of Robert (Bob) Licht Isaac got sick at Ellis Island, he had a double hernia that ruptured, and he was sick when he got to San Francisco (SM). Isaac Maltzer died Aug. 4, 1921, and is buried in Eternal Home in Colma. There is more information on our page The Second Wave, which indicates Isaac intended to immigrate and did not go to San Francisco only for a visit.

Ethel came with Isaac to San Francisco (BB). She continued to live in San Francisco in various locations.

• 1923 at 2331-A Mission Street

• 1930 at 326 Capp Street, with Sy and Dina Maltzer and their children Irving and Sarah (Census from NB)

• 1948 at 4301 Mission Street

Ethel died in 1949 and is buried in Eternal Home in Colma.

(I have started with Hebrew or Yiddish names spelled as on the ship passenger list,  which were used in the Ukraine. I later changed to English names for our familiarity).