Beginnings.

Few Jews can trace their ancestry back more than a couple of generations. The Holocaust and pogroms erased much of our collective and individual histories.

My great, great, great, great grandfather, Avraham Zalman Tsoref Solomon, was born in Kedainiai, Lithuania, in 1786 – three years before the storming of the Bastille in Paris and three years before George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. Sensing, perhaps, the widespread fervor for identity and homeland, Rabbi Avraham Zalman Tsoref Solomon began an extraordinary journey when he was about 25 years old, determined to reach Jerusalem and restore an ancient synagogue known as the Hurva. This place of Jewish worship dates to 800-600 BCE. Mikvehs (ritual baths) carved out of bedrock date to the first century CE and have been excavated here. Over the centuries, synagogues have been repeatedly erected, destroyed, and erected again at this very spot, hence the name “hurva” or “ruin.”

With his wife, three children, and a horse and cart, Avraham completed a dangerous five-month journey to Jerusalem that began by walking from Lithuania to Constantinople. They went by boat from Constantinople to Akko, the port just north of Haifa, then part of the Ottoman Empire, arriving in 1811. To obtain building permits, Avraham later traveled to Cairo and subsequently to France, where he secured financial backing from the Rothschild family to rebuild the Hurva Synagogue. By 1837, a small synagogue was erected where the ancient synagogue had stood. In 1864, a larger synagogue was dedicated. Avraham, however, was murdered in 1851 in the wake of violent disagreements between him and his followers, with Arab creditors who had financial claims on members of the Ashkenazi community.

Note about my ancestor’s names: Avraham’s family name is Solomon; Tsoref means “silversmith.” He added tsoref to his name to establish his reputation as an expert silversmith. Some of his creations are in the collection of The Isaac Kaplan Old Yishuv Court Museum in Jerusalem. According to Wikipedia, Avraham was also known as Ibrahim Salomon. Salomon and Solomon are two different English spellings of the same name.

The Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Zalman_Zoref entry is incomplete and not entirely accurate.

Jerusalem is one of the most ancient cities in the world. It has been inhabited for over 6,000 years. Jerusalem was still ruled by the Ottomans when my grandfather, Shlomo Zalman Solomon, was born in 1895. This is a 1901 photograph made in Jerusalem when my grandfather was five or six years old. He is seen on the lower left wearing a hat, holding his left side with his hand. To his immediate left are his brother, his sister, and his parents, who ran this soup kitchen at the center of the table. Like many of Avraham Solomon’s descendants and predecessors, his father was a rabbi. His family was poor; the people around them were more so. Zalman Solomon was the 5th generation of Solomons living in Jerusalem since the family’s return to Jerusalem in 1811 from Diaspora Europe.

Shlomo Zalman Solomon in German military hospital 1918 recuperating from self-inflicted wound (top row, mustache, cap, with hand on shoulder of another patient to his right)

Tilla (Roth) Solomon, my bubbe (grandmother), posing with her arm around my father, Emanuel Solomon, and her older son, Louis Solomon. The boys are wearing costumes provided by the studio photographer. The photograph was made in 1922 or 1923.

Zalman Solomon married Tilla Roth, in 1913. She was born in Budapest, Hungary. A few years after getting married, and as mentioned on the About Solomon page, Zalman Solomon, my father’s father, was conscripted into the Ottoman army and sent from Jerusalem to Europe, to fight for Germany and Austria in World War I. My grandfather however, had no intention of fighting for the Central Powers, as they were called. When he reached the front and was given a weapon, he intentionally shot himself in the leg. After convalescing in a hospital, he somehow escaped and made his way all the way back to his home and family in Jerusalem.

When the war ended, British forces occupied Jerusalem. During the British occupation, the Jewish and Arab people were pitted against one another. Jerusalem was in chaos. Seeing the growing violence in his city, and by now, the father of two little boys, Zalman Solomon was ready to make another journey. In 1922, he said goodbye to his hundreds of relatives, and promised his wife that he would send for her and their sons.

Zalman arrived safely at Ellis Island. Tilla and the two boys followed soon thereafter. After some time in New York City, the family settled in Philadelphia. Making a living during the Great Depression was hard, especially for a religiously observant immigrant. My grandfather was indeed a rabbi, but also worked as a cantor (someone ordained to lead services and sing in synagogues); a shochet (a slaughterer certified to kill animals according to laws of kashrut); and was a labor union organizer. Like so many immigrant families, Zalman and Tilla’s children had to help support the family. They had four children. Three boys, and a girl. There were struggles, but many simchas or happy occasions.

My grandparents dancing at the wedding of my parents, Miriam (Bressen) and Emanuel Solomon on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1949.

Avraham Zalman Tsoref and Zalman Solomon both made epic journeys, at great risk. Each of them created a life for themselves and their families in a new land, and had lives they couldn’t have imagined. When Avraham was a teenager in Kedainiai, Lithuania, the city had recently come under rule of the Russians. Life for Jews had become harsh. A few years before he left and his family left , a cholera pandemic decimated the Jewish community. His adventurous life in Jerusalem, his travels to Egypt and France, and his death are mythic. 10,000 of his descendants live today, mostly in Israel, but in many other countries, from the United States to Australia.

Zalman and Tilla Solomon with children and grandchildren, 1953

Zalman too, left his home and could not have imagined his fate in Europe during the Great War, and could not have foreseen his life in the United States. Without question, both Avraham and Zalman were intimately familiar with the story of Abraham leaving his home at the behest of God, seeking a better life.

About 30 years after Zalman and Tilla and their two little boys settled in Philadelphia, they had become proud parents and grandparents of a rapidly expanding family. In this photograph, my mother, pregnant with me when the picture was made, is seated on the stone wall, dressed in an elegant sailor’s outfit.

My father, born in Jerusalem in 1920, revered the traditions of his family, but sought a different life. Below is the street where my father was born. Roman columns with Corinthian capitals proudly march along the part of the city known as the ‘cardo’ or heart of the ancient city.

As a boy growing up in Philadelphia, my father studied Torah and Talmud at a yeshivah (Jewish school). My father also attended public school and had a sign painting business with his brother Lou. He won a city-wide scholarship that enabled him to be the first in his family to earn a college degree. When World War II began, he volunteered for the U.S. Army. Initially he was turned down because of a slight hearing problem. In 1944 he was inducted and like his father, boarded a ship that took him to battle. On the About Solomon page, is a photograph of him working in Linz, Austria, after Germany surrendered. His job in Linz, was to figure out who the rightful owners of art and other treasures stolen by the Nazis in that area. The G.I. bill enabled my father to go on to earn a graduate degree in art at Tyler School of Art (Temple University).

Solomon cousins (from left to right), Tania, Lliana, and Orna Bird, introducing the documentary film, **In the Footsteps of Zalman Tzoref**, made by Orna Bird and Omri Lior about Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref and his journey from Lithuania to Jerusalem.

My father’s story in during World War II, from 1943 to 1946, is told in a play I wrote between 2001 and 2004, called Aching to Go Home, here.

In 2011, my son Ari Solomon accompanied me to Jerusalem where we joined 900 of our Solomon cousins, aunts, and uncles, in celebrations marking 200 years of the Solomon family’s life in Jerusalem. It was thrilling to meet family we knew, and many more we met for the first time.

A remarkable concert and film commemorated the return of Avraham and his family, from the Diaspora in 1811.

An additional page about my family and its meaning for me, is here.