Klogay, Reuveni and Mazor Families

This photo collection tells the story of 3 families, the brother and sisters of President Yitzchak Ben-Zvi (Shimshilevitz): the sister Shlomit (Klogay), the brother Aharon Reuveni and the sister Dina (Mazor). Yitzchak Klogay (Klojsky) Yitzchak was born in September 1888 in Kremenchuk in the Ukraine. His parents were Zvi and Chana nee Yurovsky. His siblings were: Leah, Esther, Moshe (later Kale), Nachman and Rachel. In his youth he studied at the Classical Gymnasia in Poltava near the town of his birth. He completed his studies at the University of Kiev in 1912. He studied Sciences and Chemistry. In 1913 he moved to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. He took a Hebrew family name Klogay (klug in Yiddish means wise). He taught chemistry at the Hebrew Gymnasia in Rehavia, Jerusalem and that is where he met Shulamit Shimshelevitz. They married in 1914. With the outbreak of World War I he received Ottoman citizenship and was drafted into the army. He edited health and sanitation records for the army, first in Be'er Sheva and afterwards in Damascus, Syria. At the end of the war, he and his wife went to the United States where he completed his studies at the University of Pittsburgh. When they returned Klogay taught at the Technion and at the Re'ali High School in Haifa. He wrote a chemistry text book. He received a professorship at the Technion, working there until his retirement in 1958. After his retirement, he and his wife returned to live in Jerusalem where he researched the history of chemistry. He continued to publish in professional journals, writing text books and more. He moved into an old age home after the death of his wife. Yitzchak Klogay passed away in 1988 at the age of 100. Shulamit Klogay nee Shimshelevitz She was born in Poltava, Ukraine in 1891. Her parent were, Kreina (Atara), the daughter of Rabbi Yisrael Leib Kopilevitch, and Zvi Shimshelevitz (1862) (later Shimshi).She was the sister of Yitzchak (1884) who later became the President of the State of Israel, (Yitzchak Ben-Zvi), the author Aharon Reuveni (1886), and Dina (1904) (later the wife of the archeologist Binyamin Mazor). Shulamit completed her studies in the Government Gymnasia High School, with honors, at the age of 15 (1906). During the 1905 pogroms she and her brother Aharon organized self-defense groups. They were arrested when the slick they had hidden in their home was discovered. Shulamit was imprisoned for 3 months and was let out on bail until her trial, a year and a half later, in which she was acquitted. Her father, Zvi, and her brother Aharon were sentenced to permanent exile in Siberia. Her father's wife Devorah (the sister of her mother, who joined the family when the mother Kreina (Atara) passed away) went with her husband. She also took the youngest daughter, Dina. After her release, Shulamit went to study humanities at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1910 she came to Israel and started teaching French at the Hebrew Gymnasia in Jerusalem. At the same time she joined the "New Jerusalem Movement" (a movement of young socialist-Zionist artists who aspired to build a new and modern social order in Jerusalem). Some of the other members of the group were: Rachel Yanait and her sister Batya Lishnesky, the artist Ira Yan and Hanna Weiss. In 1914 she married Yitzchak Klogay. When her husband was drafted into the Ottoman Army and the Gymnasia in Jerusalem was closed, she moved to Haifa and taught at the Re'ali School. She returned to Jerusalem in 1918 and continued teaching at the Gymnasia. In 1920 she and her husband went to the University of Pittsburgh to complete her studies in English Literature. They returned to Jerusalem in 1924 and she taught English in the elementary school. From 1927 until her retirement she taught French at the Re'ali High School in Haifa. She received an award, "Academic Officer" from the French government. In 1936 she published poems and stories in children's newspapers and literary journals. In 1958 she returned to Jerusalem and was busy writing poems, literature and translating from various languages. Shulamit Klogay was a childhood friend of the poetess Rachel Blobstein whom she knew from Poltava. They re-connected when Shulamit came to Israel. Shulamit passed away in 1972. In 2013, on the anniversary of the death of the poetess Rachel, the government archives published the letters of Rachel to her friend Shulamit Klogay. Aharon Reuveni (Shimshilevitz) Aharon was born in 1886 in Poltava, Ukraine. His parents were, Kreina (Atara), the daughter of Rabbi Yisrael Leib Kopilevitch, and Zvi Shimshelevich (1862) (later Shimshi); the brother of Yitzchak (who later became the President of the State of Israel, Yitzchak Ben-Zvi); Shulamit (later Klogay) and Dina (later Mazor). In 1903 he left school and travelled to the United States to look for a better life. He worked in a factory and suffered hunger and often slept in the streets. In 1905 he returned to Poltava hoping to join the revolution that was taking place in Russia at the time. He was arrested, together with his sister Shulamit because of a 'slick' in their house. After two years in prison he was sent to exile in Siberia. After one year he succeeded in escaping with forged papers and made his way to Harbin in north-east China. After working in an American army camp in Hawaii, he began his journey back to Israel. After two months working as a translator Reuveni returned to Shanghai and from there began his journey back to Israel. The journey had an anthropological twist- taking one year and passing through Singapore, Ceylon, India, Port Said and Istanbul. He reached Israel in 1910, settled in Jerusalem and made a living writing. He wrote for the "Achdut" newspaper that belonged to the Poalei Zion Party. His close friend, the author Yosef Brenner translated some of his stories from Yiddish to Hebrew and assisted in the publication of other stories. Aharon changed his family name to Reuveni after his grandfather, Reuven Shimshelevitz. (his brother Yitzchak change his family name from Shimshi to Ben-Zvi after his father). In 1916 he married Sarah (Sophie) Yirmans (1890). After the 1920 pogroms he participated in the delegation of the 'City Council for the Jews of Jerusalem' which travelled to London to demand the arrangement of the political status of Jerusalem and Israel. He left the Poalei Zion Party in 1929 and bitterly attacked the leader Berl Katznelson. A rift formed between himself and the Left. He was left isolated both politically-socially and culturally-literarily. During the 1940's Reuveni wrote a trilogy, "Until Jerusalem" which described Jerusalem during WWI. He received the Israel Prize in 1955 for his literary works. He also received the Bialik Prize for his writings in 1969. Aharon Reuveni passed away in 1971. His wife, Sarah (Sophie) died in 1975. Dina Mazor (Shimshilevitz) Dina Mazor is the daughter of Zvi and Atara (Kreina) Shimshilevitz and the younger sister of Yitzchak (later Yitzchak Ben-Zvi the President of the State of Israel), Aharon Reuveni and Shulamit Klogay. She married the archeologist Binyamin Mazor (Meizler) in 1932. Before the establishment of the State she worked as a clerk in the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem. Dina and Binyamin had a son, Uri (1933). He married Esther Scharf from Germany. They had two daughters: Avital (1954) and Ayelet (1956). Ayelet was an archeologist like her grandfather. Uri researched Biblical history. Read more