| Notes |
- It is almost certain that his birthplace "is the present K rotoszyn, a medium sized county seat and trading centre a s well as an important army base with large barracks in th e outskirts of the town, not far from Poznan. Poznan was th e largest and growing city of Great Poland and was under Ge rman rule with Krotoszyn for about two hundred years. Th e name Mussina may be derived from present day Muszyna whic h is a most beautiful health resort in the Carpathian Mount ains not far from the border of Czechoslovakia and in the K rakow province. Muszyna was under Austrian rule for abou t two hundred years." (from a letter dated Nov. 24 1967 fr om Joseph Szczepkowski, Superintendent of the Methodist Chu rch in Poland, to M. V. Mussina, original of letter in poss ession of Carolyn Mussina Seaman, Kinderhook, NY) (Krotosc hin is the German spelling of Krotoszyn.)
According to Jewishwebindex.com/POLAND.HTM "Krotoschin (Kro toszyn) - this town had a large and learned Jewish communit y since 1423 and had a famous publishing house of Judaica . The town is located 65 km north northeast of Wroclaw. Wa s part of Poland until the dissolution of Poland at the en d of the 18th century. For the next 140 years, until 1918 , it was in Posen Province, Prussia (Grenzmark Posen-Westpr eussen). In 1939 it fell to the Nazi new order - Reichsga u Wartheland. With the rebirth of the Polish Republic in 1 918, the town found itself in Poland, and within five year s 95% of the Jewish community transferred to Germany, mostl y to Breslau and Berlin. According to Ruben Frankenstein t here are no Jewish remnants of the old Jewish community wha tsoever."
Family tradition reports that he was a rabbi who married a n English gentile. It has now been confirmed that the fath er of Lyons and Zachary was NOT a rabbi, but someone who wa s very influential in the Jewish community. And we now kn ow that his wife was not English, not a gentile. Where thi s legend began is unknown. That the sons came to America a lready speaking English is the basis, according to a lette r in the possession of Carolyn Mussina Seaman from someon e in Hamburg, Germany, to Lyons Mussina that if he knew Eng lish as well as Lyons Mussina knew it before coming to Amer ica, he, the writer, would also be in America and doing a s well as he had heard Mr. Mussina was doing. However, th e work of Dr. Rosenstein indicates that the wife of Moshe M ussina was named Keila and she was the daughter of Issacha r HaLevi of Kalisz. Thus, there is no substantiation of th e English connection.
The following letter was translated by Sam Gurkov, 1998: ( Letter #11)
BH1, Monday 27 Marcheshvan2, 5513
May Go-d be gracious unto you, my son4 , love of my so ul, elect5 and erudite, young Yehudah Leib myl6 . My dea r son, I have received from you two writings that came a s one7 . I saw from your letter that you worry about me, a nd that you are anguished. Where is your wisdom? Not onl y - of what avail is it to me, your worry and anguish abou t me, but you add grief to my grief, in that you distrac t yourself from your duties. An now my son myl, do not wor ry about me, for anything small or great. The Lor-d who h ad shepherded me from my birth even to this day 8 He wil l sustain me and my family . But you - don't worry about me ; worry about yourself: Exert your best efforts to attai n the great objective 9 Make me very happy with your letter s. Write to me about your health and about your current ac tivities, and what you occupy yourself with. Write everyth ing with clear detail. Only this I ask of you: Conduct you rself well and properly, and do not associate with bad frie nds, lest you will be disdained in the eyes of [proper] peo ple. And you should do all the things that you do with gre at diligence - both in worldly matters and in matters of H eaven 10 , in order that you attain the objective9 Xxx x xx11 This is my consolation in my affliction12 Beware fr om today onward not to worry about me or to have any grie f or anguish - only: Rejoice, young man in your youth13 an d be diligent in your studies, and if not now, when?14 An d do not, when you are away from home, spend your time in t rivial pursuits, heaven forbid. My dear son, I have sen t with my brother-in-law Mr. Hirtz15 One rt16 . Let me k now if you have received it. You should enjoy the six x x like six xx . And if Go-d will enlarge my domain, the n will I send you more and more. Due to necessity, I wil l cut this short. Your father who wishes you well and long s to see you, accomplished with all the best qualities an d traits - Moshe Brch's17, of blessed memory18.
Your mother, msl 6 and my daughter Faigla msl and my so n Issachar19 mhl and my son Jacob20 mhl [send their rega rds]. Xxx xxx my son-in-law Xxx mhl along with my daugh ter Tzerl msl xxx [also send regards].
Please send regards to all the generous folks and to all th e elect5 young men who deal kindly with you, and especiall y to xxx the elect wonderful young man Zelig mhl. Last Sun day I was in Blashki, where I visited his dear mother, msl . I related to her all the kindness that he had done for yo u, as you had indicated in your previous letter. She nodde d to me with her head and she requested that when I receiv e the next letter from you, I should come and inform her ab out all the new good things he does for you. May he receiv e his reward in full21. I wish I had the opportunity to d o for him at least a portion of [what he did for you] xxx x xx and serve him. I ask of you, that "he who begins", etc. 22, that he will be good to you as much as possible, and yo u should heed him, for he is an intelligent young man.
[Address Page]
To the Holy Congregation of Altuna
To my Go-d-fearing learned son, love of my soul, the elect 5 wonderful young man ,
the honorable Yehuda Leib, son of Moshe Brch's7 of Kratschen
XXX
From the Holy Congregation of Kratschen
Notes
1. "BH" is a Hebrew abbreviation commonly written at the t op of letters. It signifies either "Blessed be the Name" , or "by the Help of the Name." Alternately it can mean "Th anks be given to the Name".
2. Marcheshvan is the second month of the Jewish calender . It corresponds roughly to October-November
3. The "551" is short for the year 5551. (Today's Jewish da te is 12 Tamuz, 5758). Twenty-seven Marcheshvan 5551 was s omewhere in November 1790. (1791)
4. "May Go-d be gracious unto you, my son" - Genesis 43:2 9.
5. "elect" - The Hebrew word is "Bochur", denoting an eligi ble unmarried young man.
6. "myl", "mhl", "msl", are this translator's rendition o f the common Hebrew abbreviations, meaning "May you live" , "may he live", and "may she live".
7. "Two writings that come as one" is a Talmudic expressio n referring to two Scriptural passages that have the same m eaning. This letter-writer is playing on the words to mean : two letters that arrive at once..
8. Genesis 48:15
9. "the Objective". The Hebrew word is "tachliss". In tod ay's Yiddish parlance it usually connotes "marriage", and s ometimes "career". This may be the letter-writers intent , or else the father may be referring to an objective tha t he had discussed previously with the son.
10. "Matters of Heaven" is a Talmudic term, meaning Torah a nd its Precepts.
11. "Xxx" is this translator's notation for words that he w as unable to decipher. Each "xxx" stands for one word.
12. "This is my consolation" - Psalms 119:50
13. "Rejoice, O young man" - Ecclesiastes 11:9
14. "If not now, when?" - from Talmud, Mishna Avot.
15. "Hirtz". I am not sure of this word. It looks to m e more like "Hirch".
16. "One rt". Some kind of money-unit
17. "Moshe Brch's" . The Hebrew text has the four letters , B, R, Ch and S with an abbreviation sign on top. I specu late that it stands for "Bracha's", i.e. "the son of Bracha ". (It was common for renowned men in those days to be re ferred to as the son of his mother. For instance, the grea t Rabbi Moshe Isserla's,)
18. "of blessed memory". - I am not really sure of this tr anslation.
19. Issachar. This was the given Hebrew name of Yehuda-Lei b-Lion's brother, who later called himself Zachary.
20. Jacob. For some reason, this Hebrew name is spelled us ing the letter Aleph instead of Ayin.
21. ".May he receive his reward" - paraphrased from Rut h 2:12
22. " He who begins" is the start of a Talmudic dictum: "H e who begins a good deed, we tell him: Finish it!" Here th e father probably means that, since Zelig has begun to do k ind deeds to Lion, he will assuredly continue to do them
Further notes:
1. I was wrong the first time when I said that the fat her was writing from Altuna. After careful inspection I de termined that the letter was sent TO Altuna FROM Kratsch en. (I know that today it is referred-to as "Altona," bu t I think Jews called it "Altuna". Altuna was in the 18th
century the seat of the renowned Jewish "Council of the Thr ee Communities" - Altuna, Hamburg and Wandsbeck.)
2. Where was Kratschen? (or perhaps Kratchen, or Krats chin). My guess is that it was somewhere in eastern German y - either to the east or to the east of the Oder. (Silesia , on the East side of the Oder, is today within Poland). M y guess is based on the following: a) In another letter i n your bundle, the father relates that his son-in-law is do ing business in the markets of Leipzig and Frankfurt-on-Ode r. b) In the same letter he says that he had received the n ewspaper from Hamburg. Now, Hamburg was a principal Germa n city (although for a time it was under Denmark) and a hu b of commerce and world-travel, so it is reasonable that it s newspaper was read all over Germany. It is harder to con ceive that it was also disseminated in Poland. b) The fath er's Yiddish (in which he wrote parts of the first and mos t of the second letter) was much closer to German than to t hat of the Jews of Poland.
3. To date, I have read, but not yet completely decip hered another letter from the father in Kratschen to Lion i n America, written in 1799. Also a letter from Zelig to L ion at about the same time, in which he scolds him for caus ing anxiety to his parents by not writing to them in much d etail, and in which he inquires whether the woman that Lio n married was Jewish or Gentile. He also mentions that h e includes a letter to Lion's brother Issachar (Zachary).
Sincerely,
Sam Gurkov
Additional Notes for the above letter, provided by Neil Ros enstein (2001):
"Based on the document. . . addressed to Judah Leib [Lyons ] - the address states he was Judah Leib SEGAL ben Moshe B" R"K"S". This is very important as it indicates this famil y was of levite origin - segal means segan levya - vice-lev ite. People with levite origin are accorded special privil eges in the Jewish religion. There is no doubt from the He brew that the city was Krotoschin, which is easily read . I have checked out Hebrew books on that community but no ne mention the family name Mussina among the rabbinical lea ders."
r"t refers to Reichtsthaler, the customary unit of money o f the time.
B"R"K"S" (not Brch's): "The acronym of B"R"K"S" is typica l of preserved documents of the Krotoschin Jewish community . These acronyms are not as was supposed by Sam Gurkov, i.e ., referring to a female matriarch BUT rather to the patern al line, In this case the unique given name starting wit h the "K" (chaf in Hebrew) gives a major clue. The fact i s there was a man by the name of Katriel living there who i s recorded by virtue of other family members also calling t hemselves B"R"K"S", i.e., Ben = son of, Reb = mister Katrie l Segal. It must be stressed that this is a unique and con clusive finding in Krotoschin.
"It should be pointed out that the use of surnames in the c ommunity records cited above is extremely rare. Thus the n ame Mussina does NOT appear. Nevertheless, this does not m inimize the postulated tree."
Neil Rosenstein, April 24, 2001:
1812 - entry #760 - The exalted upright eminent in Torah an d awe (of Heaven) all his days beloved Moses HaLevi son o f the deceased (note: the language style of this entire ma nuscript from which this comes does not necessarily indicat e that the father actually predeceased the son) exalted wea lthy Katriel HaLevi B"R"M"S (-Ben/Son of Reb/Rabbi Moshe/Mo ses Segal), who was ill and bedridden five weeks and died o n Wednesday towards evening after the evening service whic h belongs to Thursday (note: the Jewish day begins at sund own the day prior), 8th Tamuz, 1812 and was buried with a g ood name on Thursday. To his right was buried Rabbi Zalman , Head of the Rabbinical Court (Beth Din) of our communit y (=Krotoschin).
To his left was buried his wife, Keila, daughter of the dec eased, famous, wealthy Issachar HaLevi (note: both husban d and wife were levites--a small chance they were related ) of Kalisz.
At his feet was buried the upright Phineas, son of Menache m Mann and at his head the old virtuous important woman Rac hel, daughter of the exalted Solomon HaKohen.
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(Unknown) - 1812
