ABSTRACTS of Issue 123
Pascal Faustini
Jacob Lasry (Rabat 1795 - Oran 1869). Career and Family of an Eminent Notable
The basis of this article is a genealogical research on the Lasry family we carried out in 2011. In order to understand the economical and genealogical links between the Jewish families from Morocco (Rabat, Tetuan), Gibraltar and Algeria (Oran) and estimate the important part played by Spain and France in the migrations of these families to Algeria we had to refer to numerous historical sources. The help of some ketuboth of the Lasry family allowed us to connect several branches and build a family tree that starts with Jacob Lasry's greatgrandfather.
Joseph Boumendil
Rosine Baumendil alias Elissa Rhaïs (Blida 1876-Blida 1940), an Algerian Jewish Writer
Elissa Rhaïs is the pseudonym of Rosine Baumendil, born on December 18th 1876 in Blida (Algeria) where she died on August 24th 1940.Her destiny was exceptional for a woman who came from a very modest family. She became famous for her books which she published in France but she fell into oblivion. Her works were quite noteworthy yet she suffered intrigues during her life and especially 40 years after her death.We deal here with her forebears and the somewhat complex links between her real life and the characters of her novels which can cast some light upon obscure aspects of her biography. Our research enables us for the first time better to know some of her relations.
Roland Smolar
In search of my Litvak grandparents
I knew nothing whatever about my paternal grandparents Meyer and Rachel. When my father Robert Smolar died the papers he kept taught me that Meyer and Rachel were born in Sakiai and Wladislawow in Lithuania. A postcard dating from 1945 (with its translation) indicated that a part of Rachel's family remained in Lithuania and was exterminated during the "Holocaust by bullets". With Bernard Tsirkmann, a great-nephew of Rachel, we decided to go in search of the places where our grandparents had lived their childhood.We relate here the journey done in July 2014.Bernard drove us from Vilnius, where we met the curators of the archives at Wladislawow (now called Kudirkos-Naumiestis), to Sakiai and Kaunas which was the capital city of Lithuania during the first period of independence between the two World Wars. Through our research at Wladislawo we found the place where Rachel spent her childhood and we met Isaac Glikas, the only Jewish survivor. Other meetings at Kudirkos-Naumiestis and Kaunas are described here. In Sakiai however – where lived a Jewish majority of people before the war – we almost found no trace of any Jewish life.
Gilles Boulu et Alain Nedjar
Two New Matrimonial Registers of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Tunis so-called Livornese or Granas in the 19th Century
After the publication of three matrimonial registers of the Portuguese Jewish community in Tunis by Robert Attal and Joseph Avivi the authors make us known the discovery of two additional registers containing marriage contracts of this community of Italian-Iberian Jews called "Granas”.Adding to the previous records these volumes number 3 (1812- 1844) and 6 (1872-1881) – including respectively 429 and 234 different ketuboth – now allow access to an exceptional corpus of files going continuously from 1788 to 1881. The authors present the contents of the two registers, collect statistics on this community and give some examples of genealogy now made possible in combination with other sources.