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Rēzekne Families Stories and Pictures

The BROZGEL Family

This material was submitted by
Judy Simon

My maternal grandparents were from Rezekne. The surnames of my Rezekne ancestors are BROZGOL, KAPELUSHNIK, SKUTELSKY, MIRANSKY, BAILENSON, PASSMAN, RAPPAPORT.

There is a strong oral history that my BROZGOL ancestors were Sephardim who fled the inquisition. Their descendants eventually migrated to Rezekne by the late 18th century, most likely by way of the Ottoman Empire. We have confirmed the oral Sephardic history using Y-DNA testing. It appears that a few other families from Rezekne may also have Sephardic roots.

I wonder if I can put together a small article or bio that might attract attention of others looking for other Rezekne Jews with Sephardic ancestry.

Someone had mentioned to me that some Jews from Turkey were sent to what is now Latvia for "slave labor." I have no idea if this is true or not. I googled it but could not find any information. But I did find info from Joel Davidi that poor Turkish Jews (probably Sephardic) were sent or attracted to various places in Eastern Europe to work (not as slaves, though). I don't have any of this documented, but I hope that as time allows, I can find more information about how Sephardic Jews wound up in Rezekne.

We know that at least one BROZGOL family (related to mine, as a Dniepropetrovsk BROZGOL is a Y-DNA match to my BROZGOL cousin) left Rezekne in the mid 19th century to settle on an agricultural colony in the Ukraine (they are on the list of settlers that Chaim Freedman compiled).

Another tidbit I learned from genetic genealogy is that my KAPELUSHNIK ancestors are on the same Y-DNA line as the OPPENHEIM(ER) financier and rabbinic family from southern Germany. I should let Dave Howard know about that, since his HOROWITZ ancestors are also on that Y-haplogroup Q1b1a line, as are a few others from Rezekne.

Comments from Dave Howard. We will follow up with Judy's offer to write an article about the Sephardic ancestry of some Rezekne Jewish people. When the article is written we will add it to this site and link it here as well. - I plan to add DNA information about Rezekne. On the To-Do List. Also, please note that Judy has been a contributor of other interesting information relating to Rezekne including: NY Cemetery Photos and The B'ne Resitza Cemetery Association information


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