Baltimore, MD - Mar. 26, 2017 - Contemporary American Jewry is rapidly diminishing. The in-marriage rate and the number of children per family, outside of the orthodox minority is much diminished. In fact, the fundamental question of whether Judaism can survive in a free and open society is up for debate, at least, outside of our "bubble". When one looks for descendants of families who came to these shores in the 19th century and whose descendants are still Jewish, the numbers are not great. But there are exceptions.
Today was the unveiling for my wife Feigi's first cousin, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Siegel, ZT’L. His five children came in from Israel, Toronto, Saint Louis, Detroit and Far Rockaway. For many of his descendants, it was a rare opportunity to visit the graves of their grandparents/great grandparents Morris and Miriam Siegel, ZT’L, and their great-great grandparents who came to Baltimore in the late 1800's and whose decendents today are at least 1,000 strong. Almost all of them are Shomer Shabbos and many are great scholars. How many American Jewish families can say that? What a zechus!
There are several other Baltimore families that go back many generations, among them the Cohn and Lehman families, who were part of the German community, uptown, around Shearith Israel. The Siegels were part of the mass immigration of Russian Jews who settled in East Baltimore.
Chaim and Sorah Feigi Siegel came to Baltimore in the 19th century from Ponovezh, Lithuania and settled in East Baltimore. They raised 8 children - three sons and five daughters - at a time when shuls were full of older people but bereft of the youth. Their older son, Morris, and some of his friends, were concerned about the trend of most youngsters to go away from Shmiras Shabbos. So, they founded a club.
In fact it was started on the parsha we read this past Shabbos where Hashem says to speak to the entire Congregation of the Son of Israel, in Hebrew, Adas Bnai Yisroel. So this past Shabbos was the Adas Shabbos and the organization decided to call itself the Adas. A few years later Morris Siegel and others formed a shul. It was actually called "The Boys' Shul". This was a place where young boys and girls could gather for shiurim and for socialization. Because of the Adas, many American youngsters remained Shomer Shabbos. Feigi's father, Chester Siegel, ZT’L, was Morris' younger brother. He met his future wife, Rosalyn, Z’L, when she visited for the summer and a girl friend suggested they go to the Adas where the frum kids were. They were married on the street in front of the Adas with the boys holding the Chupah poles.
Morris' son, Shmuel Dovid Siegel, was in the first high school graduating class of TA and went on to learn in Ner Yisrael. He was a tremendous masmid and developed an expertise in Zmanim, in the area of times. Rabbi Dovid Heber, an expert in Zmanim in his own right, often referred to him as one of the Torah world's experts in this rather arcane area. He was known to all for his dikduk b'mitzvos and his tremendous kavanah in davening. His son-in-law, Rabbi Yossie Florens of St. Louis, spoke at the unveiling and recalled that Rabbi Yaakov Kulefsky, ZTV’L, Rosh HaYeshiva of Ner Yisrael used to visit his home town of St. Louis to see his mother. When he told him that he was recently married to the daughter of Shmuel Dovid Siegel, Rabbi Kulefsky looked at him and said, “Shmuel Dovid is the Ner in Ner Yisrael.”
At the siyum that the family made afterwards, another son-in-law, Dr. Nosson Westreich of Toronto, said that in his later years, when his memory was fading, he took his father-in-law to see a neurologist. The doctor asked him how many children and grandchildren he had. When Rabbi Siegel answered 173, the doctor was sure he was not remembering correctly. At that point, he pulled out a paper and said to the doctor, "here they are - all written down on this list.”
Morris Siegel and his wife Miriam had three children. Shmuel Dovid and his sisters, Mrs. Debby Naiman of Baltimore and Mrs. Ada Sperling, who made aliyah many years ago. That is only one branch of the Siegel family tree. The fact is that there must be over 1,000 frum descendants of Chaim and Sorah Feigi Siegel. They instilled mesiras nefesh for Shabbos in their children and this has been passed on to the generations that followed.
This is how we are dealing with the Demographic crisis. Boruch Hashem, those pioneers who laid the ground work for the mosdos that later developed and who strove to influence young American boys and girls to be Shomer Shabbos and to find them jobs during the Depression where they could keep the Shabbos holy have the nachas in Heaven to see so many of their great-grandchildren living Torah true lives.
May Hashem bless us all with the zechus to follow in their path.
These two tombstones are of the ancestors of the Siegel family: Chaim and Soar Feigi Siegel.
Three generations of Siiegels are buried in the Bnai Israel Cemetery.
Rabbi Azriel Siegel of Ashdod
Dr. Chaim Siegel of Far Rockaway
The three sisters (L-R) Fayge Young of Detroit, Sara Westreich of Toronto and Miriam Florens of St. Louis
The following article was featured in Jewish Action Spring 2016.
The Siegel Family, Baltimore, Maryland
by | Jewish Action March 18, 2016 in History
In the 1890s, Chaim and Sora Feiga Siegel left a life of poverty and anti-Semitism in Ponevezh, Lithuania, for the promise of a better future in America. Their first stop was Boston, Massachusetts. Upon hearing that Baltimore was in those days the “Yerushalayim of America,” they promptly headed south. The Siegel descendants were at the forefront of building the Torah infrastructure in Baltimore’s Jewish community. Chaim and Sora Feiga raised eight children, almost all of whom who not only remained true to Torah and mitzvot, but also influenced generations to do the same.
By Rabbi Elchonon Oberstein (husband of Feigi, the daughter of Chester Siegel). The author would like to thank Gerald Shavrick, who provided much of the information about his uncles Morris and Chester Siegel.
My wife’s paternal grandparents, Chaim and Sora Feiga Siegel, moved to Baltimore in 1900. The couple named their second American-born son after Chaim’s father, Yechezkel. But the midwife refused to put Yechezkel on his birth certificate. She said she would not burden an American boy with such a foreign name. One of his sisters solved the dilemma. A street in East Baltimore that she crossed on the way home from school was called Chester Street. It sounded a little like “Chezkel,” so that is how he got the name.
The poverty in East Baltimore, where most of the Jews lived at the time, was great; Chaim eked out a living selling chickens—he was a shochet and a butcher. Later, he started a hosiery company called the Hyman Siegel Hoisery Company. When he passed away in 1935, my wife’s father, Chester, and her uncle Morris took over the business.
Even though the level of shemirat hamitzvot in Baltimore was pretty high in those days, shemirat Shabbat was a constant struggle. The Siegels were determined to adhere to strict observance even if all around them others were abandoning Shabbat observance. Little Chester went to public school in the day and the Hebrew Parochial School after school. The Hebrew Parochial School, later named Talmudical Academy (TA), opened in 1917 with six students in a second-floor apartment. It was the third Jewish day school in the United States and the only one outside of New York City. Until TA opened, the Siegel children went to public school and were taught limudei kodesh privately.
In 1918, Baltimore was home to some 65,000 Jews. However, Chester, his brothers and sisters and the other frum boys and girls in East Baltimore were distressed to see how many of their contemporaries were leaving Torah observance. They founded a club called the Adas Bnei Israel. It was a place where their friends got together for shiurim and socializing. Morris led the youth groups, which included some members who later became roshei yeshivah, such as Rabbi Aharon Feldman, Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt”l and Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, zt”l. The Siegels organized the Adas to encourage other young people to keep Shabbat. They wore pins on their lapels that read: “Judaism in general; Shabbat in particular.” During the Depression years, under the leadership of Morris, the Adas organized a job bureau so that people could get jobs that wouldn’t require them to work on Shabbat.
Three generations of the Siegel family, builders of Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community. Top, from left: Morris, Chester and Daniel Siegel. Morris and Chester were particularly active in the leadership of the Adas Bnei Israel club (later shul). Middle: The five Siegel daughters, Lillian, Anna, Evelyn, Lena, and Rose. Bottom: Chaim Siegel, patriarch, and his wife, Sora Feiga, with their grandson Gerald Semer, son of their daughter Evelyn (standing directly above her son). Courtesy of the Oberstein and Shavrick families
Adas Bnei Israel eventually became a shul in East Baltimore around 1920. My wife’s father gave shiurim in the shul. It is still a functioning shul in Baltimore, and today, the rabbi of the shul is Rabbi Shlomo Naiman, a descendant of Chaim Siegel.
Chester met his future wife, Rosalyn Weinstein, at the Adas. A teenager, she was visiting from Altoona, Pennsylvania and was overwhelmed to see so many frum young people. They were married outside of the Adas.
The couple was childless for eighteen years before Rosalyn became pregnant. The Ladies Auxiliary of Ner Israel Rabbinical College threw her a baby shower. Years later, the mashgiach of Ner Israel, Rav Dovid Kronglass, zt”l, told me that he couldn’t understand this strange American minhag to give a woman a shower before she gave birth. Unfortunately, when Rosalyn went into the hospital to have a C-section, the nurse gave her medicine intended for another patient and it killed the fetus.
Nothing shows the righteousness of this couple more than that they accepted the decree with emunah shleimah (complete faith). Not long afterward, the Siegels were blessed with two children, my wife, Feigi, and subsequently, her brother, Chaim.
Chester and Rosalyn were exemplars of the kind of ba’alei batim who built Baltimore and laid the foundations of everything we have today. Generations of Baltimoreans have told me over the years how much of their Yiddishkeit they owe to the Siegel family. Thousands of frum Jews exist today because their great-grandparents were influenced by the Adas way back in the olden days in East Baltimore.
There’s a cemetery on the outskirts of Baltimore where most of the Siegel relatives who have passed on are buried. There are many hundreds of descendants in the US, Israel and Canada who live their lives according to the values exemplified by Chaim and Sora Feiga Siegel.
