My late husband's grandfather, Feiwes Shraga Jacobsohn came from Bauska. Since he passed away in Zurich,
Switzerland in 1937 before I was born, I only know what I heard about him from my husband's close relatives.
He was a Kohen andTalmud Chocham, speaking Yiddish and German (Russian?), born around 1850. He had 2 daughters
and 1 son from his first marriage. Leaving his children with his mother, he moved westwards to Germany where
he was a gabbai, shochet etc. After Bismark rose to power, antisemitism forced him to move on. He travelled
southwards down the Rhine river, working in various communities. He had a sister, married in Zurich. He was
active in several small Swiss communities, Baden? and Rapperswil. I met an old gentile doctor in the Zurich
cantonal hospital in 1994 who remembered an active Jewish community in her youth. She carried the school books
of her fellow Jewish classmates to school on Shabat!
He met a widow from the Chernowitz area with 3 children and they married around 1891-2 in Zurich. From about
this time, he ran the strictly orthodox daily minyan in the main synagogue of Zurich, "The Israelitisches
Cultusgemeinde" whose members were of various degrees of religious observance. The Rabbi, Jacob Taubes told
me in 1964 that Fewes and he learnt Talmud daily together. He and his second wife had 3 children, a daughter
(my mother-in-law) and 2 sons.
He wrote thoughts on the Parashat Hashavuah in Yiddish ( I think my eldest daughter gave them to an archive).
He regularly sent money to his family in Bausk until World War II prevented further communication. When his
children were older they came to him in Zurich and married Swiss citizens. He and his second wife, Rosa Tauber
had close loving relationships with their stepchildren and their families as well as their own.
His grave is in the ICZ cemetery in Zurich-Friesenberg.
Ada Rahel Brodetsky