The Bolkind (Bolkin) and Kassowsky Families

Elhanan (Greenburg) Bolkind (Bolkin) was born in Bialystock in the Grodno District in Russia in 1834. His father was Avraham David Greenburg. In order not to be drafted into the Russian army he was registered as the adopted son of a relative who was childless, as only children were exempt from the draft. Their name was Bolkin. Elhanan was given a religious education and studied in the yeshiva of Rabbi Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe Brozinoi together with Yechiel Michael Pines. When he reached adulthood he began to engage in industry and trade in textiles. Elhanan married Rivkah nee Bolenshtock, (1836) the daughter of Moshe Hacohen Meitzik from Slonim in Russia, which is also in the Grodno district. The couple had four children: Shmuel (a pharmacist in Quebec, Canada), Shlomo (a farmer in Rishon LeZion), Gitel (the wife of Chaim-Gershon Kassowsky) and Chana (the wife of Tzvi Shpiner). Elhanan joined the group 'Hibbat Zion" (Hovevei Zion), when they began their activity. In 1882 he moved to Israel with the First Aliyah, in the group of the 'Bialystocks'. The Ottoman Government refused to let them into Israel, therefore Elhanan and his oldest son, Yaakov, disembarked and entered illegally. His wife Rivka and his three other children were sent, with the other passengers, to Beirut, Lebanon. Rivka and the children joined the father and older brother later on, through legal means. Yehoshua Shtampeper, from Petach Tikvah helped them come to Israel. He went to Beirut and claimed that they were his family and they were therefore given legal status to enter Israel. The Bolkind family first settled in Petach Tikvah and then moved to Yehudia (Yehud). Rivkah helped her husband establish a spinning and weaving industry. Elhanan was the founder and manager of the "Arig Ivri" textile factory in Yehudia. He worked mostly with wool and was the owner of a factory that produced prayer shawls and caftans for Jews and abayas for Arabs. He bought the wool from Arab and Bedouin villages. The family began to have financial difficulties so in 1988 they moved to Rishon LeZion. Elhanan began working in a vineyard. Later he purchased some property. He brought the roof and wooden pieces of his house in Yehudia to Rishon LeZion. He first erected the roof, which according to Ottaman Law, enabled him to get permission to build a house. The walls were constructed later on. Elhanan continued working in the vineyard until one day when he fell and was injured. Elhanan Bolkind (Bolkin) passed away in 1905 and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. His wife, Rivkah, continued working in Rishon LeZion. She passed away in 1940. The Kassowsky Family Chaim Gershon Kassowsky was born in the city Drohytsin, Poland in 1869. His parents were Yitzchak-Izik and Tzipporah. He came to Israel at the age of 17 on the Russian ship, 'Tzertzia'. He settled in Jerusalem. He later moved to Petach Tikvah along with five other people who were the original founders of the settlement. He married Tova Gitel, the daughter of Elhanan and Rivkah Bolkind (Bolkin) and settled in Petach Tikvah. Chaim Gershon specialized in the creation of varieties of citrus fruit and was an expert in the planting of almond orchards and vineyards. Together with Ginsburg and Pascal, he ran the orchard at Belinson. In addition he was a member of the Moshav Committee between the years 1902-1930, alternately. In 1907 he was one of the younger members of the Moshav who 'rebelled' against the older generation. They fought to change the method of education, for health benefits and liberalizing the Moshav leadership. Chaim Gershon passed away in 1947. Chaim and Gitel had 4 children: Yitzchak, Tzipporah (Platnik) and her twin sister Esther (who married Tzvi David) and Mordechai. Yitzchak Kassowsky, the eldest child, was born in 1897. He went to the PICA school in Petach Tikvah and worked in the winery in Rishon LeZion. He was an agent of the Moshavot in Damascus and exported almonds and grapes from the vineyards and orchards of Petach Tikvah and Rishon LeZion. In the 1930's he started a company, Yitzchak Kassowsky & Co., to market the produce of the kibbutzim and to import food. Yitzchak was also one of the founders of the Office of Commerce in Tel Aviv and of the 'Kupat Am' Bank. Yitzchak married Ziva Elishvitz, born in Lithuania. They had two children: Elhanan Avidar (Kassowsky), born in 1932, (he became the director of the Meir and Zina Dizengoff Memorial and the Chairman of the Committee for the Children of Tel-Aviv-Yafo); and a daughter, Ilana (Zohar) born in 1936, involved in education and a social activist. The pictures in the album were given to the archives at Yad Ben-Zvi by Ilana Zohar Kassowsky. Read more