Binyamin and Hana-Rivka
Gorodenzik
Neve Zedek, Palestine
cir 1930
The
Family of Shlomo Gorodenzik
location unknown
circa 1910
Seated: Hana Riva (mother).
Standing from right to left: her children
Sara-Faigel, Zvi, Rachel, Shlomo,
Frieda (Kazurin). Seated: Yael (Krupik).
The seated man is unidentified. |
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Neve Zedek (today’s Tel
Aviv)
and the Gorodenzik Family Era
The branch of the Benderly family that is the
Bashan family originated from the brother Yosef (1822-1870) who
immigrated to Palestine as a teenager. One of his five children,
Nisan-Zvi (1845-1911) had also five children. One was Yosef
Benderly, Jr. (1870-1933), who lived mostly in Zafed and, in his
late years, in Neve Zedek, (buried in Zafed) and his wife
Soshana-Reizel, an orphan from Galicia who came to Palestine in
search of a husband. They were the parents of Mina Benderly who
married Shlomo Gorodenzik and was the mother of Sara Bashan.
Yosef Benderly (the younger) was an
ultra-religious Hasid, as is obvious from photographs of his late
years, including typical Hasidic dress he wore most of his life.
His sole occupation was to study in religious school (Yeshiva); he
was a useless businessman. Because the family received no Haluka
funding (donations from Jewish European communities), no support
from other Benderlys who were rich merchants in town, and produced
eight children, they were extremely and continuously poor. They
had a small grocery store in Zafed that hardly supported them.
During the WWI, they frequently went hungry. This bleak economic
situation improved somewhat after the arrival of Australian
soldiers to Zafed with the Egyptian (British) Expeditionary Force
of General Allenby, who were willing to pay well for salt.
Shlomo
Gorodenzik was probably born in the village of Ekron, between Jaffa
and Jerusalem, in 1887. (His son, Avram Gorodenzik, the last person
still having the original family name, says that his father was
borne in Jaffa). He was the son of Binyamin Gorodenzik and Hana-Rivka
Shkolnik, who had immigrated to Palestine from Grodna, Byelorussia
in 1883.
Of the
ancestral branches of the Bashan family, the roots of the Gorodenzik
family are less clear. From bits and pieces of information, a
general picture can be seen. Bynyamin Gorodenzik immigrated to
Palestine with his father Avraham-Yosef Gorodenzik and five
brothers; all were carpenters. These brothers were
extraordinarily-skilled furniture carpenters, apparently wealthy
from their trade, and, as a donation, built the Tabernacle that
contains the Torah scrolls of the synagogue in Neve Zedek. Bynyamin
Gorodenzik arrived first to Jaffa and sometimes lived there.
Eventually, he moved to Neve Zedek and built a large home that still
stands. Their father, Avraham built another historic large house
nearby. The brothers were very religious people and part of they
holdings were donated to religious charities. Normally (with
information available only on the activities of Bynyamin and his
father Avraham), they did not help their children, who were left to
their own initiative to advance their personal economic welfare.
Binyamin travel frequently to South Africa to earn more money. He
died in 1946 in Tel Aviv. He is buried in the Olive Mountain
Cemetery in Jerusalem, together with all his brothers in the family
“mausoleum.”
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