The Obermans – Israel
Making a Connection
Early in 2018, I was contacted through the MyHeritage website by Jonathan Acker, who lives in England with his family. He had a question: Were our families related?
Jon Acker had noticed an overlap in our family trees. Both his tree and mine included Rywka Halborn and her husband, Huna Oberman. Both included an older brother of Huna’s named Josef. Both Huna and Josef’s father is listed as Hersz Lejb Oberman, born in Częstochowa in the early 1800s. Both Josef and Huna mother is listed as a woman named Laja.
Hersz Lejb Oberman and Laja, were the parents of Josef Oberman and the grandparents of the children of Josef and his wife, Basia Kron. They were also the parents of Huna Oberman and the grandparents of his children and his wife Fajga Rywka Halborn. But exactly how were the descendants of these two brothers related? Were Jon Acker and all of our Halborn family members perhaps cousins two or three times removed?
It took some time to work through the available records and get an answer. And the answer surprised us: We have a shared set of relatives . . . but we are not related at all.
Josef and Huna’s father, Hersz Lejb Oberman, was born in about 1814 and, over a period of 45 years, he married twice and fathered 12 children — six with his first wife, and then an additional six with his second wife. Both wives shared a given name: Laja. But Hersz Lejb's first wife was Laja Brajkop. His second wife was Laja Essig.
Josef Oberman, born in 1851, was the youngest son of Hersz Lejb and Laja Brajkop. Huna Oberman, born in 1865, was the second son of Hersz Lejb and his second wife, Laja Essig. Huna and Josef were half brothers.
The descendants of both Josef Oberman and Huna Oberman, including Jon Acker, are half cousins, several times removed. But our relationship is on the female side, through Rywka Halborn, who married Huna Oberman in 1893. So, technically we have no relationship to Josef, Huna's older half brother, or to Josef's descendants. Nevertheless, we consider the relationship a real and meaningful one — especially meaningful because it enabled us to find our living Oberman relatives.
Huna and Rywka’s first child, Berek, was born in Częstochowa in November, 1893 and named after his deceased Halborn grandfather.
Israel: Berek Dov Oberman
Jon Acker has spent part of his life in Israel and never lost touch with his Oberman relatives in both Israel and Australia. Some of those relatives are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Huna Oberman and Rywka Halborn. They are his half cousins, several times removed. They are also our full cousins, several times removed.
Berek Oberman, the oldest of Huna Oberman and Rywka Halborn’s children, outlived the Holocaust because, by the time the Nazi movement had begun taking over Germany, he was no longer living in Europe. Between the two world wars, Berek, who was a committed Zionist, had decided to immigrating to Palestine. During the 1920s he traveled to Germany to study agronomy. Then he made his way to Palestine and — perhaps after multiple trips — settled at Rishon Le-Zion. He, and his family members are listed in the Rishon Le-Zion family data base.
Beyond a few basic facts, we know very little about Berek Oberman and his family (spelled Huberman in Rishon Le-Zion records). The little we know about Berek and his family comes from the Richon Le-Zion Digital family album.( http://www.gen-mus.co.il/en/person/?id=6918 ) The website contains some group pictures that include family members, but does not identify individuals.
In 1946, a year and a half before the State of Israel became a reality, Berek applied for naturalized citizenship.
Berek remained a member of the Rishon Le-Zion community for the rest of his long life. He worked as an agronomist, and died, in 1993, at the age of 99. His grave is located in Israel, at the Rishon Le-Zion cemetery. Berek’s wife, Liza Leah Meirovitch immigrated to Israel from Vilnius, now in LIthuania. She was a piano teacher. She, too, is buried in the Rishon Le-Zion cemetery.
Berek and his wife had two sons. The oldest, Amnon, was born in Rishon Le-Zion in 1929 and died there in 1995. Amnon and his wife, Esther, had two children. Amnon worked in Rishon Le-Zion as a music teacher and as headmaster of the community special education school. His younger brother, Yoram, was born in Rishon Le-Zion in 1932 . He worked as a maintenance mechanic and died in Rishon Le-Zion in 2003. He and his wife, Shoshana, had three children.
Both of Berek’s sons are buried in the -Rishon Le-Zion cemetery.
Berek and Leah also had three great grandchildren and, so far, two great great grandchildren have been added to the family. And while some Oberman family members remain in Israel, several have moved to Australia.
While we know little about the living descendants of Berek Oberman and his wife, we have been in touch with several. We are pleased to have them in our extended family and certainly hope they will contribute to our Halborn web site and add to our family story.
