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Origins · Maternal-Grandmother Line · Primary Source

The Maternal-Grandmother Line: the Sheveliov Family

AZR's distinguished maternal-grandmother's family from Lyady, and the family feud that shook the town
The chapter "A Family Feud" reveals AZR's maternal grandmother's family, the distinguished Sheveliov family from Lyady, and thereby completes the maternal-grandmother line. The chapter also tells a dramatic saga of a struggle between two families, and connects to Rav Kook. "Chapters of Memoirs" · Project Ben-Yehuda · public domain

A The Sheveliov Family: the Maternal-Grandmother Line

"Of the three brothers, sons of Yechiel Sheveliov (one of them Menachem-Mendel, the father of my mother's mother, of blessed memory), Tsvi Sheveliov grew up in his wealth… The Sheveliov family was reckoned distinguished in our town and its surroundings." AZR, "A Family Feud," "Chapters of Memoirs"; Project Ben-Yehuda.

Completing the Maternal-Grandmother Line

"Menachem-Mendel… the father of my mother's mother" = the father of AZR's grandmother on his mother's side. That is, AZR's maternal grandmother was a daughter of the Sheveliov family, daughter of Menachem-Mendel Sheveliov, granddaughter of Yechiel Sheveliov. Combined with the paternal line (Brook) of his mother, a complete picture of the four grandparents emerges:

On the father's side: R. Nissan ✕ Tsirli → Tsvi-Hirsh (the father)
On the mother's side: R. Yehuda Leib (son of R. Alexander Ziskind Brook) ✕ [daughter of Menachem-Mendel Sheveliov] (the grandmother) → Golda (the mother)

The Sheveliov family was wealthy and distinguished: Tsvi Sheveliov ("Hershl Leshe's") held the lease from "the squire" (poritz) of the wine-house, the meat and land taxes, and the mill (a fortune of some 40,000–50,000 rubles).

B The Family Feud: Sheveliov versus Feinberg

When Michal Feinberg ("Michal Yudke's") took the lease from Tsvi Sheveliov, a quarrel flared up. The declining Sheveliov family waged a campaign of "moral persecution" against Feinberg:

"On Feinberg's house there was found written every day… 'M.Ts.H.' — an acronym: 'Michal, oppressor of the Jews' (Michal Tsorer HaYehudim)… In almost all the synagogues, after the prayer they would light black candles and recite in public the Psalm 109" (curses) Ibid. (He was likewise proclaimed under "the ban of the Old Rebbe" (the Alter Rebbe).)

Feinberg fell ill and died; but the Sheveliov family too was not healed, and its great house fell to ruin. In the end the elder Tsvi Sheveliov was reconciled with Feinberg's sons, and every Sabbath eve he would carry from their house a bottle of wine as a gift in honor of the Sabbath.

C The Connection to Rav Kook

In a footnote AZR relates that he discussed "the ban of the Old Rebbe" with Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook in Jaffa, who answered him with an anecdote from Vilna (the Maggid who locked the wealthy man Apatov in a room until the lease-term should pass). Further testimony of the AZR–Kook connection (see "The Letters Archive and the Network of Relationships").

Methodological caution: the given name of AZR's grandmother (mother of Golda, daughter of Menachem-Mendel Sheveliov) is not recorded in the chapter; marked undocumented. What is documented: her affiliation with the Sheveliov family, and the names of her father (Menachem-Mendel) and grandfather (Yechiel). See "AZR's Lineage" and "Uncle R. Yitzhak" (the paternal line of the mother, Brook).

Collateral Relatives and the Limit of the Line (Sheveliov)

Documented collateral relatives: Yechiel Sheveliov had three sons; besides Menachem-Mendel (father of AZR's maternal grandmother), among them was Tsvi Sheveliov ("Hershl Leshe's"), the town's wealthy man who leased from "the squire" the wine-house, the meat and land taxes, and the mill, and whose eldest son Ze'ev was renowned for his pleasant voice in the study-house. Limit of the line: Yechiel Sheveliov is the last ancestor whose name is documented; his father's name is not given in the source. Further deepening depends on the revision lists of Lyady (NIAB), which specify patronymics, as was done to break through the missing generation on the father's side.