Carl with cousin Alex each holding photos of their grandfathers who were brothers: Chatskel and Isaac Kaplan
By Tasha Ackerman
According to Carl Kaplan, every Jewish family needs a “mishpachalogist.” In the Kaplan family, it’s Carl. Mishpacha (משפחה) is the Hebrew word for family, so mishpachalogist became Yiddish slang for someone researching their Jewish family ancestry.
When I started volunteering for The Together Plan, volunteer coordinator Gillian Gruder assigned me a mentor: Carl Kaplan. She explained to me how Carl has this amazing story, going from a client of The Together Plan’s archive services to becoming a volunteer case worker. When I began working with Carl, I could tell from the start that he was passionate about the work that we do with The Together Plan. So, it was surprising to me that when we sat down, virtually, to finally talk about his story, I still had so much to learn!
Since Carl retired from IBM as a software engineer, he began volunteering. He is head of the alumni for his school, is a historical tour guide in Boston, and volunteers with his dog as a therapy team. Through volunteering, Carl is able to serve his community. Surprisingly, his work as a tour guide led him down a rabbit hole that eventually inspired him to dig into his own family history, a project that turned into a family tree with around 2,500 people on it.
When Carl began giving tours of Boston’s North End, which during the end of the nineteenth century, had a sizable Jewish population, he discovered an early Jewish hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Lande in old newspapers from the 1890s. In the US, there have been approximately 113 Jewish hospitals founded, largely in response to antisemitism and to allow for observant patients to receive culturally appropriate care, be spoken to in Yiddish, and be served kosher food. When Carl found that one of these hospitals in his hometown had once been run by a woman, he wondered who she was and began a search to find out more. However, when Carl looked up Dr. Cecilia Lande online, he couldn’t find any information about her. This inspired him to search harder. A female doctor running a hospital in the 19th century seemed like someone who should have historical documentation, and Carl wanted to learn more.
So, Carl hit the archives. The more Carl researched Dr. Lande, the more he discovered how amazing a person she was. She immigrated to the US from Germany in 1893 to attend Tufts University, which was co-ed since its opening in 1892. She started the Jewish Dispensary for Women and Children and gave talks on Zionism and topics related to public health. The more he learned about her, the more stories started to take shape, and he could understand what kind of person she was. For example, a man broke into her apartment and stole from her. She pressed charges, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison. While he was in prison, he developed tuberculosis. It’s possible that this helped her see that he hadn’t deserved to spend so many years behind bars. She then went on a mission to address the issue of prison reform and pushed for the release of this man by sending letters and even meeting with politicians.
Once Carl had formed all of these narratives about Dr. Lande, he felt drawn to share his findings with her family. Since she had no children herself, he wasn’t sure that her legacy would have remained in the family. So, Carl began teaching himself about ancestry genealogy. Since Cecilia had been one of ten children, he hoped to track down her distant relatives. He eventually had a phone call with a great-granddaughter of Dr. Lande’s sister and shared the stories he had discovered. The family was excited to learn about them, as none of the information was easily available online.
Dr. Cecilia Lande was just Carl’s entrance into genealogy. With the new skill set he developed from researching Dr. Lande, he began digging into his own family’s heritage. During COVID-19 lockdowns, Carl was on a family Zoom call when someone brought up the family tree that his uncle had made on paper in the 1990s. They lamented that there wasn’t a digital version, and Carl volunteered to take on the task of uploading the tree to Ancestry.com
Using digital tools was far different from the original family tree on paper. When Carl’s uncle had typewritten the tree, he had been able to talk to several children of the family members who immigrated to the United States from Minsk. Carl’s grandfather, Chatskel Kaplan emigrated from Minsk in 1913, passing through Ellis Island. Even though the generation of immigrants had passed away, now with the internet, Carl could dig into databases through sites such as Ancestry, Jewish Gen, and Yad Vashem and he began to put the pieces together.
He found a hint for his grandfather stating there had been six other siblings, including twins, but there were no first names listed. Determined to uncover more, Carl delved further into the database. He knew his great-grandfather, Osher Kaplan, died in 1928, which made sense since Carl’s father had been named after Asher and was born in 1933. But Carl wondered if other grandchildren named after Asher/Osher had died in the Holocaust. Sure enough, he found an Osher Kaplan, born in 1940, and died in 1941. His mother was Mariasha Kaplan from Minsk, Carl’s grandfather’s sister – and Carl’s great aunt. This discovery led Carl to a woman named Anna Fishkin, who had submitted Mariasha’s testimony.
Carl was able to track down Anna Fishkin, Mariasha’s great-granddaughter, because as an aspiring comedian, she was easy to contact online. Carl sent a message to Anna, and about an hour later, he got a phone call from Anna’s mother Jana. As soon as he answered, Jana started screaming, “We found you after a hundred years!” She explained how they came to this country looking for Kaplans in New York, and then found out how many there were and gave up. They had only arrived in the US in 1990, which was quite surprising to Carl since so many of the new cousins he had connected with thus far had settled in New York in the early 1900s. Yet, here were his second cousins only having arrived in the past thirty years.
Jana connected Carl with more of his grandfather’s siblings’ grandchildren who are now in their seventies and live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Suddenly, Carl had relatives with names like Luba and Alexander. These typical Russian names that would have echoed his family’s heritage over 120 years ago were now brought into the present, showing him the connection to his family’s origin that persisted.
After initially speaking, Alex sent him some family photos, wondering if maybe Carl knew the people in the photos since Alex’s family wasn’t sure who they were. Carl recognised the photos right away since they had been hanging on the walls of his parent’s house in upstate New York for many years. This was his grandparents’ wedding photo from 1920, his father and three sisters, and his uncle, the one who had made the initial family tree, playing the violin as a child. It became clear that Carl and Alex’s grandfathers had stayed close, sending photos between New York and Minsk. Carl realised how these photos had been hidden from the Nazis, the Soviets, and somehow had made their way to Minneapolis, of all places.
Carl’s grandparents’ wedding photo
Carl’s uncle holding a violin
Connecting with Alex brought stories to life, helping Carl understand what his family had been through in a way more impactful than the documents he could find independently through ancestral research. Alex shared about his grandfather, Isaac, who had been high up in the Communist Party and volunteered to fight in Germany during the war, where he was killed as an artilleryman in the final months. Carl later investigated this further and with the help of a community member from Jewish Gen, found Isaac’s records with all his medals and postings.
Jana also shared many stories. She recounted how they managed to escape, but her great-grandfather wasn’t as fortunate as he was shot by Nazis when he returned for documents in Minsk during the Holocaust. Despite the horrors, they managed to get out. Carl’s great aunt, Mariasha, nearly died on the train because she refused to eat non-kosher meat, and they had to force-feed her. Carl had wondered where they had tried to flee, and Jana responded to the Jewish state. Carl assumed she meant Israel, but, Jana corrected him—she meant Birobidzhan. Carl was confused, never having heard of this place, but soon discovered how the Jewish Autonomous Republic still exists today in Siberia near the Chinese border.
Stunned by this history Carl delved deeper. Birobidzhan was planned by the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, and established in 1931 during the Stalin period as a homeland for Jews, or perhaps rather, a way to relocate them. Originally intended as a Jewish utopia, the reality was different and few Jews wanted to live there. Statues and signs in Yiddish remain there as remnants of a dream that never quite materialised. The way this history intertwined with Carl’s family’s journey felt surreal with similar stories having been told from his mother’s lineage of a cousin from his mother’s side, who escaped Nazi Germany and then died fighting in Israel’s War of Independence. The connections to history, both personal and global, were profound and gave him the sense that his ancestral journey was important.
For Carl, the process of uncovering his family history has been transformative. About two years ago, Carl tagged along on a trip to Minneapolis and met up with Alex and Luba. This was the first time their families had physically been together since 1913, the year Carl’s grandfather left Minsk to move to America. Alex and Carl took a photo together, both holding photos of their grandfathers. The encounter was so profound that Carl’s wife remarked during dinner how she was having a hard time because she noticed Alex and Carl having many of the same mannerisms. It made Carl understand how many of these characteristics go through a family, even when they have been separated for over 100 years.
Carl with cousin Alex each holding photos of their grandfathers who were brothers: Chatskel and Isaac Kaplan
In addition to Alex and Jana, Carl’s genealogical research connected him to many cousins, several of whom he has met in real life. He explained the strangeness of meeting distant relatives who, while technically family, were strangers at first. Some he has built closer relationships with as a result of this work, and others have been just a meeting. He discovered a fourth cousin who, even though she grew up in New Jersey, now lives just down the road from Carl in Boston. They’ve now built a friendship, making this distant relationship feel more familial.
Carl eventually realised he needed expert guidance to navigate the complexities of Eastern European records, as most records in Belarus are inaccessible online and unavailable to the general public. Carl initially turned to The Together Plan (TTP) to see if they could locate an address he had found for his grandfather in Minsk. The address no longer existed, but when Carl did an official search, TTP archivists found records tracing Carl’s ancestral lineage stretching back to the 1740s.
Carl’s great grandparents in Minsk: Hirsch Kaplan and Hinda Lifshe Kaplan (nie. Kanufsky)
One of the most poignant discoveries was the criminal record of Carl’s great-grandfather Osher Kaplan, accused of illegally selling Lipski beer. Carl’s insistence on a thorough translation of the 36-page case records offered a profound glimpse into his ancestor’s struggles and resilience, as the file was filled with antisemitic comments and showed what his life was really like, stating his address and who he lived with as “Yankle, The Stovemaker, whose surname I don’t know” Before finding this document, Carl explained that Osher Kaplan had been just a name from Minsk. Now he has a whole narrative.
Pages copied from Osher Kaplan’s criminal case from 1903
Pages copied from Osher Kaplan’s criminal case from 1903
Through genealogy, Carl learned how family stories could personalise historical events. For example, he discovered how his grandmother witnessed firsthand the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in Greenwich Village of New York, a tragic event Carl had learned about in school for its legislative significance in inspiring workers’ rights after 146 workers, mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants, died in a factory fire since the door had been locked to prevent workers from taking breaks. It is one thing to learn about these events in history, but to place our ancestors at the scenes helps us understand how historical events are woven into our personal histories and identities. Carl explained: “It’s amazing how when you get into history and you connect history to your family, certain things are more emotional than you would have ever expected them to be.”
As a tour guide, Carl had to learn what it meant to be a good storyteller. He explains when you tell a story, the audience isn’t yourself, it’s the people around you. He’s learned not to get so caught up in the small details but to connect to others by sharing historical stories that show the humanity in history. After Carl’s search with TTP, he joined as a volunteer caseworker to assist others in their archival searches. His first-hand experience and deep interest in the topic make him a compassionate caseworker. He’s always seeking ways to improve the experience for clients.
Additionally, Carl has gone on the road to share about TTP’s archive services, teaming up with our archivist in Minsk to host virtual talks and even hopped across the pond to attend the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in London in 2023. This August, , Carl will join TTP’s CEO, Debra Brunner, at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies annual conference in Philadelphia. Carl brings these personal stories into presentations, showing us not only how stories teach us about our history, but that even in the present we can build new connections to our past, bringing us closer to once-distant family members and helping us understand ourselves.
As part of his ancestral journey, Carl decided to take a DNA test to help find out more about his past and connect with more potential familial matches. When he took the test, he was prepared that anything could happen or that buried secrets could be revealed. He explained he was prepared for anything within the family. However, if it had turned out that he wasn’t Jewish, he would have run to the Rabbi for guidance since being Jewish is such a central pillar of his identity. So many of the stories Carl shared about his relatives were intrinsically intertwined with their Jewish identity. Their stories help build a sense of appreciation. In the end, there were no surprises, Carl was in fact genetically Jewish, and now had a larger database of potential relatives who he continued to to reach out to and learn about.
Talking to Carl made me realise, for the first time, that I could have relatives around the world, family lineages that perhaps remained in Eastern Europe or that migrated around the world. Carl’s stories taught me how all the historical evidence forms the narratives of our ancestors and crafts our unique stories. So, while Carl’s story began as a quest for names, it continues to build a tapestry of stories spanning continents and generations. There are still two names of his grandfather’s siblings that Carl has yet to find. He is continuing to work with archivists from The Together Plan and is hopeful to find the names of two siblings that he remains uncertain about. So for now, he knows there’s more to come in his story. As both a client and volunteer of The Together Plan, he embodies the vision to preserve the past and provide for the present.
For more information about The Together Plan’s Archive Services, please click here.