Licht Family History

Wisserberg tribe - Hadera

The representative of the family: Yossi Calic, grandson of the eldest son, David Wisserberg and grandson of Rachel and Yosef Wisserberg.

David arrived in Hadera in 1917 and was immediately hired by the Gurevitz family to be the head coachman because he knew how to drive a four-horse cart.

The family is originally from the town of Mezhbizh, the town of Baal Shem-Tov in Ukraine.

Yosef and Rachel were the owners of an agricultural farm, which included a herd of cows and horses and a plow. (A Jewish farmer was not so common in the diaspora in those days.)

The grandfather was drafted into the Tsar’s army in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. He served in the artillery corps, driving the horses that led the artillery.

In 1919, Yosef sent his second son, Moshe, who joined the commune in Hadera, and soon, his only sister, Hannah, later Kahana, who left Ukraine at the age of sixteen, also arrived.

In 1925, the parents, Yosef and Rachel, immigrated with their sons: Binyamin, Mordechai, and Natan, and a bride, named Haya, intended for the eldest son, David. Haya was a descendant of the Baal Shem-Tov. They came to the wedding of their daughter Hannah, who married Avraham Kahana, who was a member of the commune, and later a member of the Hadera city council and active in establishing “Yad Labanim” as well as the resort in Olga.

In 1926, the grandfather purchased an estate that included 2 lots on Tel Aviv Street (now Hillel Yaffe) on which the sons built the family home, which still stands today.

The “estate” also included agricultural lands in Pokhara and Neve Haim. As part of the “estate” he also had to purchase four hundred dunams of dunes, which the family, as farmers, had no use for and therefore abandoned. These sand dunes are today the site of Hillel Yaffe Hospital.

On another lot, at 32 Hillel Yaffe Street, they established the first Jewish dairy for separating the cream from the milk and a manual cheese and butter churn.

[Photo: Product label:] Low-fat cheese, manufactured and packed by the farm of Yosef Wisserberg, Hadera – Pokhara, Net weight 1000 gr.

The dairy thrived. To supply the milk they needed, they built a barn for sixteen milk cows.

The plots in Pokhara were mainly used for alfalfa and hay crops. But when the dairy grew and the centrifuge machine was purchased to separate the curd from the milk, the milk was a popular commodity, so they built a large dairy farm in Pokhara, along with horse stables.

[Photo: Newspaper clipping, “Les Barattes-Malaxeurs Alfa-Laval” – Alfa-Laval Churn Mixer (French)]

In the evening, fodder was brought from the fields in Pokhara to the barn in the village. Two brothers would remain on guard duty to sleep in the attic of the stable and the distant barn with Jift [sp?] (hunting) rifles to secure the place during the riots.

In the early 1930s, when the [British] High Commissioner visited Hadera, the council chairman, Mayerson, representing Hadera’s founders, took the entourage to showcase the grandfather’s farm in Pokhara.

In 1936, they dug a well in the black soil and found water at a depth of eighteen meters, and built a water tower, so that water would be available even when the well motor was not working. The fields were cultivated with a Caterpillar D6 tractor, and the harvest was done using Hadera’s first combine, purchased and operated by the tribe.

Later, they built the first cold storage in Hadera with an area of ​​about 900 square meters for storing fruits, vegetables, and potatoes from the summer harvest, to sell during the winter and spring months. The cold storage continued to operate until the end of the eighties.

The clan lived its life as one big family. Sabbaths and holidays were celebrated as family events.

There were joint trips to the beach. The grandfather held the Seder night for fifty people, and at Sukkot, they would dismantle the tile roof of the shack in order to live in the sukkah that the grandfather built.

During Hanukkah, the children went from one adult to another to receive Hanukkah gelt.

Weddings and birthdays were happy events, but we also can’t forget the childhood illnesses that were passed from child to child.

It was never boring, not even for one moment.

The Old Synagogue

When the construction of the large synagogue on the site of the Khan in Hadera was completed, it was decided to destroy the old synagogue, which is located on Rabbi Orenstein Street, and to combine its area with the public school – today the “Ahad Ha’am” school.

Great-grandfather, Yosef Wisserberg, and other worshipers opposed the idea; however, the rabbi of the moshav ruled that a synagogue should not be kept without a rabbi.

Yosef located a young rabbi from the Hebron yeshiva, Rabbi Zevulun, and brought him to Hadera to become the rabbi of the old synagogue, and thus the synagogue was saved from demolition.

But this is not the end of the story. The grandfather paid the rabbi’s salary, then bought a lot for him and built the rabbi a house when he had children. Later, he purchased the land for the construction of the synagogue in the Ephraim neighborhood and donated it to the community.

Yoseph and Rachel – the descendants:

Fourteen cousins ​​(grandchildren) and thirty-six great-grandchildren. [Note: I’m guessing the spelling of the names, and using mostly transliterations rather than the English equivalent – e.g., Avraham and not Abraham, Yehudit and not Judith. –NB]

1.     Yocheved, daughter of David and Haya, married Shmuel Rappaport
Yossi and Irit

2.     Ahuva, daughter of Hannah and Avraham, married Aryeh Drimer
Yehudit and Nadav

 3.     Yechiel Hillik, son of Hana and Avraham, married Ilana née Klein
Hedya, Erga, and Ron

 4.     Zev, son of David and Haya, married Ora née Haimov
Rachel, Guy, and Yael

 5.     Bruria, daughter of David and Haya, married Yitz (Yizchat) Calic
Yossi, Danni, and Ilan

 6.     Margalit, daughter of Moshe and Bracha, married Victor Halbani
Yuval, Giora, and Ruth

 7.     Techiya, daughter of Moshe and Bracha, [married] Imanuel Eitan
Ofer, Yaron, and Danny

 8.     Shlomo, son of Mordechai and Shoshana, married Clara née Mefutah
Shai, Gadi, and Vered

 9.     Noa, daughter of Binyamin and Yocheved (didn’t marry)

 10.  Ilana, daughter of Binyamin and Yocheved, married Moshe Gutz
Ayelet [or Eilat], Vered, Yael, Hagar, Ofra, and Yehonatan

 11.  Yoram, son of Natan and Bella, married Rachel née Dickstein
Ron and Amit

 12.  Eli, may God avenge his death, son of Avraham and Chana, killed in the battle of Ammunition Hill and the capture of Jerusalem

 13.  Yedidya, son of Natan and Bella, married Shoshana née Schnapp
Eli, Mordechai, Liach, Hadar Liraz and Rotem Bella

 14.  Uri son of Binyamin and Yocheved, married Sima née Kirzman
Einat and Chen