Maybe my ancestors heard the Yiddish expression “to live like God in Odesa!” and believed Odesa was the land of opportunity. Whatever the reason, members of three branches of my family emigrated there from within the Russian Empire. Mythical in the Jewish imagination, Odesa was a polyglot, free port city founded…
Tag: Scheckowitz
The two lives of Sam Schechowitz
A lot of people had questions about Sam. His first family, who knew him as Sam Schechowitz, wondered what happened to him when he disappeared in 1929. His second family knew him as Sam Miller and they wondered about his past. Through DNA and genealogical research, I’ve been able to…
Mike Schackowitz, Satanover Benevolent Society
Michael Schackowitz is the reason I started photographing the Satanover Benevolent Society. My elusive great great grandfather Moses Schechowitz or Scheckowitz (or indeed, about 30 other spellings of this name) was registered in the nearby town of Volochisk, so when I saw that there were several Scheckowitzs and Shackowitzs buried…
Taube Spilka Scheckowitz, Satanover Benevolent Society
Last year I visited Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens, New York and spent a few hours taking photos of every headstone in the section for the Satanover Benevolent Association landsmanshaft. Mount Hebron has a very useful website where you can search for people by name or by burial society, and…