This book of photos from the late 19th and early 20th century of the Ginsburg family in various locales – Belarus, Ukraine, Warsaw – was put together in honor of Benson Ginsburg’s 90th birthday by his daughter Faye Ginsburg, and his grandchildren Steven and Joshua Meyer.
For their help in this project, we are indebted to the generosity and abilities of Alla Zlotnikov and her parents for the Russian translations; Jeff Shandler for the Yiddish translations and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett for the Polish translations, and encouragement. --- Benson Ginsburg’s father Meishe Ginzburg was born in 1892 to Naum (Nehemia) and Raizl Belinson Ginzburg in the town of Gori-Gorky, in Belarus (formerly known as White Russia). He was the youngest boy in a family of ten: he had five older brothers (Levik, Zelig, Boris, Grisha, and Elya) and two older sisters (Doba and Shifra/Anelya) and two younger sisters (Manya/Mare and Basya/Batya) . His grandfather and grandmother were each part of Rabbinical dynasties; Chabad-Lubavitch (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson) on his paternal side, and Misnagdim (Rabbi Teitzel) on his maternal side, despite the historical opposition between these two groups. (The Misnagdim had been opposed to Chabad)
In 1906, at the age of 14, Meishe Ginzburg left home and went to live in St. Petersburg with Levik, his oldest brother. Meishe was later apprenticed to the photographer, E.F. Shevelyov and completed his apprenticeship at the age of 19 in 1911, possibly in the town of Yekatarinoslav in Central Ukraine (currently Dnipropetrovsk.) He had wanted to attend agricultural school to prepare to go to Palestine, but there was a quota on Jews, so he studied photography instead which became his lifelong career. He was drafted into the army at age 24 in 1916 as more troops were called up for WW I. His army unit had been furloughed because the government couldn’t sustain them; he was in the newest group of recruits. Shmeryl Luskin, the leader of his Poale Zion youth group who had already gone to America, sent Meishe money for passage to join him in Buffalo before he was called up again, likely to face death in the terrible conditions soldiers faced in WW I. Luskin helped Meishe get a job in a photography studio in a Russian neighborhood in Buffalo where he also went to night school to learn English. Within the year, he moved to NYC and met Sonia Udkovsky, who was working in a photography studio retouching glass plates. They married in 1917 in Detroit where they settled to be close to Sonia’s sister Fagelle and her mother Chaya.
Sonia Udkovsky was one of 7 children. Four died during a smallpox epidemic. Only her older sister Fagelle (13 years older) and brother Moshe survived. Their father, Yehiel Ben Tzion Udkovsky (after whom Benson was named), died from TB at the age of 36, probably around 1900; he had worked as the caretaker of a Polish estate. Sonia moved to Warsaw where she lived with her uncle and attended school. Their mother, Chaya, lived with Fagelle who had married Isser Shmyevsky and moved to Detroit; Fagelle , had one daughter Helen (who married Joe Fenton, and were parents to twin daughters Sally Fenton and Suzie Fenton-Levitt). Isser ran a grocery store where he was able to employ Moshe’s girls, in particular Sonia Pittman. Moshe Udkovsky married Rivka and had four children before he drowned in 1925 while swimming in either Elizabeth Lake or Lake Orion with Meishe during a vacation with the extended family. Despite heroic efforts to rescue him, he was lost. (Over the years, the extended family summered at Lake Orion, Lake Elizabeth, as well as Deer Lake in Upper Michigan. Moshe and Rivka’s children were: Sonia Pittman (mother of Mark); Jack Udow (married to Madeline, son Michael Udow); Joe Morrison (married to Fran, with daughters Caryl, Nancy, and Kathy), and Sylvia Levine (married to Stanley, with children Gary, Dennis, and Lori.)
Isser did well with his grocery and invested some of his money in real estate, not always in great neighborhoods, so he carried a gun. (On one of their anniversaries the family was going to surprise them – sitting around in the dark, waiting for Isser and Fagelle to arrive home from an evening out, to say Happy Anniversary when they arrived home. When they came into the quiet house and Isser heard breathing, he fired his gun.)
When Benson was born, on July 16, 1918, he lived with Fagelle’s family as his parents did not really have room yet to care for him at home; at that point, Meishe and Sonia lived in a small apartment and were working in different studios in the city. Benson only moved in with his parents when he was 4, shortly after his brother Danny was born on November 7, 1922.
The apartment they moved into on Mack Avenue in 1922 was over a photography studio that his parents established in that working-class neighborhood, populated by Belgian, German, Scotch-Irish, and Mideastern residents. The Ginsburg Studio’s regular customers came in every year to take photos to send to their families overseas and for special occasions such as weddings As a result, the Ginsburg studio’s name was known in Belgium!
The Studio had a large room in the back with different kinds of scenery and props. The dressing room had costumes although as time went on, people mostly wore their own clothes. The studio had fixed and movable lights with diffusers and a transluscent skylight. They used a glass plate camera and lenses and did the developing, framing, coloring, and air brushing. Meishe was trained in all areas of photography. Sonia did spotting, retouching, lighting, and coloring. Eventually, she became sensitive to the chemicals.
Meishe had a big camera, as well as several portable set ups (Speedgraphic, Graflex) to cover events. Benson and Danny used these to take pictures of HS sporting events, and even sold photos to the Detroit Free Press. They also used to help in the studio. They would take pictures of people’s favorite pets when they died. In the neighborhood, they would sometimes photograph people in their caskets in their homes, or occasionally the funeral parlor would bring the casket to the studio – especially among the Belgians and Germans.
Remarkably, Ed Belinson, Meishe’s first cousin, visited the studio one day to sell him frames. Meishe looked at the salesman’s card and realized it was his cousin. Ed had married Luba, and they had a daughter May who married Harry Hellman. Their son was named Leroy.
The Depression was very bad for business. Meishe had wanted to go to Israel and had bought a grove in Herzlia. He also bought land in Detroit on Woodward Avenue (what has become a main artery) but lost it because he couldn’t keep up payments on the taxes. Their friends, the Margolis’ , decided to go to Israel and bought Meishe’s land, and gave their possessions to the Ginsburg family, which included a piano and a Maltese Terrier named Tootsie that they gave to Danny, although the dog was devoted to Meishe.
Meishe and Sonia were active in different Jewish movements. Meishe was part of Poale Tzion, while Sonia was part of the Arbeitering (Workmen’s Circle), a Jewish socialist organization, that at the time was not especially friendly to Zionism. They must have had a strong relationship as they had very different philosophies and different circles of friends. Later, in the 1930s, with the rise of Hitler, Sonia “converted” to Meishe’s views on the need for a Jewish homeland.
The photos here are mostly of Meishe, his parents and siblings, and friends of there. They are taken in various studios in Yekatarinoslav and Warsaw, and places we can’t identify. From the inscriptions and dates, it looks like they were circulated as people left for war or to emigrate, or perhaps were mementos that Meishe had brought with him or were sent to him after his arrival in the U.S. A subset of the photos were generously given to Benson by cousin Bronja Ginzburg in 1993. We still have some photos that we cannot identify. This is a work in progress.
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This book of photos from the late 19th and early 20th century of the Ginsburg family in various locales – Belarus, Ukraine, Warsaw – was put together in honor of Benson Ginsburg’s 90th birthday by his daughter Faye Ginsburg, and his grandchildren Steven and Joshua Meyer.
For their help in this project, we are indebted to the generosity and abilities of Alla Zlotnikov and her parents for the Russian translations; Jeff Shandler for the Yiddish translations and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett for the Polish translations, and encouragement.
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Benson Ginsburg’s father Meishe Ginzburg was born in 1892 to Naum (Nehemia) and Raizl Belinson Ginzburg in the town of Gori-Gorky, in Belarus (formerly known as White Russia). He was the youngest boy in a family of ten: he had five older brothers (Levik, Zelig, Boris, Grisha, and Elya) and two older sisters (Doba and Shifra/Anelya) and two younger sisters (Manya/Mare and Basya/Batya) . His grandfather and grandmother were each part of Rabbinical dynasties; Chabad-Lubavitch (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson) on his paternal side, and Misnagdim (Rabbi Teitzel) on his maternal side, despite the historical opposition between these two groups. (The Misnagdim had been opposed to Chabad)
In 1906, at the age of 14, Meishe Ginzburg left home and went to live in St. Petersburg with Levik, his oldest brother. Meishe was later apprenticed to the photographer, E.F. Shevelyov and completed his apprenticeship at the age of 19 in 1911, possibly in the town of Yekatarinoslav in Central Ukraine (currently Dnipropetrovsk.) He had wanted to attend agricultural school to prepare to go to Palestine, but there was a quota on Jews, so he studied photography instead which became his lifelong career. He was drafted into the army at age 24 in 1916 as more troops were called up for WW I. His army unit had been furloughed because the government couldn’t sustain them; he was in the newest group of recruits. Shmeryl Luskin, the leader of his Poale Zion youth group who had already gone to America, sent Meishe money for passage to join him in Buffalo before he was called up again, likely to face death in the terrible conditions soldiers faced in WW I. Luskin helped Meishe get a job in a photography studio in a Russian neighborhood in Buffalo where he also went to night school to learn English. Within the year, he moved to NYC and met Sonia Udkovsky, who was working in a photography studio retouching glass plates. They married in 1917 in Detroit where they settled to be close to Sonia’s sister Fagelle and her mother Chaya.
Sonia Udkovsky was one of 7 children. Four died during a smallpox epidemic. Only her older sister Fagelle (13 years older) and brother Moshe survived. Their father, Yehiel Ben Tzion Udkovsky (after whom Benson was named), died from TB at the age of 36, probably around 1900; he had worked as the caretaker of a Polish estate. Sonia moved to Warsaw where she lived with her uncle and attended school. Their mother, Chaya, lived with Fagelle who had married Isser Shmyevsky and moved to Detroit; Fagelle , had one daughter Helen (who married Joe Fenton, and were parents to twin daughters Sally Fenton and Suzie Fenton-Levitt). Isser ran a grocery store where he was able to employ Moshe’s girls, in particular Sonia Pittman. Moshe Udkovsky married Rivka and had four children before he drowned in 1925 while swimming in either Elizabeth Lake or Lake Orion with Meishe during a vacation with the extended family. Despite heroic efforts to rescue him, he was lost. (Over the years, the extended family summered at Lake Orion, Lake Elizabeth, as well as Deer Lake in Upper Michigan. Moshe and Rivka’s children were: Sonia Pittman (mother of Mark); Jack Udow (married to Madeline, son Michael Udow); Joe Morrison (married to Fran, with daughters Caryl, Nancy, and Kathy), and Sylvia Levine (married to Stanley, with children Gary, Dennis, and Lori.)
Isser did well with his grocery and invested some of his money in real estate, not always in great neighborhoods, so he carried a gun. (On one of their anniversaries the family was going to surprise them – sitting around in the dark, waiting for Isser and Fagelle to arrive home from an evening out, to say Happy Anniversary when they arrived home. When they came into the quiet house and Isser heard breathing, he fired his gun.)
When Benson was born, on July 16, 1918, he lived with Fagelle’s family as his parents did not really have room yet to care for him at home; at that point, Meishe and Sonia lived in a small apartment and were working in different studios in the city. Benson only moved in with his parents when he was 4, shortly after his brother Danny was born on November 7, 1922.
The apartment they moved into on Mack Avenue in 1922 was over a photography studio that his parents established in that working-class neighborhood, populated by Belgian, German, Scotch-Irish, and Mideastern residents. The Ginsburg Studio’s regular customers came in every year to take photos to send to their families overseas and for special occasions such as weddings As a result, the Ginsburg studio’s name was known in Belgium!
The Studio had a large room in the back with different kinds of scenery and props. The dressing room had costumes although as time went on, people mostly wore their own clothes. The studio had fixed and movable lights with diffusers and a transluscent skylight. They used a glass plate camera and lenses and did the developing, framing, coloring, and air brushing. Meishe was trained in all areas of photography. Sonia did spotting, retouching, lighting, and coloring. Eventually, she became sensitive to the chemicals.
Meishe had a big camera, as well as several portable set ups (Speedgraphic, Graflex) to cover events. Benson and Danny used these to take pictures of HS sporting events, and even sold photos to the Detroit Free Press. They also used to help in the studio. They would take pictures of people’s favorite pets when they died. In the neighborhood, they would sometimes photograph people in their caskets in their homes, or occasionally the funeral parlor would bring the casket to the studio – especially among the Belgians and Germans.
Remarkably, Ed Belinson, Meishe’s first cousin, visited the studio one day to sell him frames. Meishe looked at the salesman’s card and realized it was his cousin. Ed had married Luba, and they had a daughter May who married Harry Hellman. Their son was named Leroy.
The Depression was very bad for business. Meishe had wanted to go to Israel and had bought a grove in Herzlia. He also bought land in Detroit on Woodward Avenue (what has become a main artery) but lost it because he couldn’t keep up payments on the taxes. Their friends, the Margolis’ , decided to go to Israel and bought Meishe’s land, and gave their possessions to the Ginsburg family, which included a piano and a Maltese Terrier named Tootsie that they gave to Danny, although the dog was devoted to Meishe.
Meishe and Sonia were active in different Jewish movements. Meishe was part of Poale Tzion, while Sonia was part of the Arbeitering (Workmen’s Circle), a Jewish socialist organization, that at the time was not especially friendly to Zionism. They must have had a strong relationship as they had very different philosophies and different circles of friends. Later, in the 1930s, with the rise of Hitler, Sonia “converted” to Meishe’s views on the need for a Jewish homeland.
The photos here are mostly of Meishe, his parents and siblings, and friends of there. They are taken in various studios in Yekatarinoslav and Warsaw, and places we can’t identify. From the inscriptions and dates, it looks like they were circulated as people left for war or to emigrate, or perhaps were mementos that Meishe had brought with him or were sent to him after his arrival in the U.S. A subset of the photos were generously given to Benson by cousin Bronja Ginzburg in 1993. We still have some photos that we cannot identify. This is a work in progress.
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