Date: Mon, 24 May 1999 16:53:32 +0200

Last Monday, 17 May (election day here, therefore a holiday) a 
group of us Pickhol(t)z descendants got together at the Bet Gil Paz 
retirement home in Kefar Sava.  There were nineteen participants:

Ephraim Pickholz, our host, an eighty year old great-grandson of 
Rabbi Juda Gershon.  And his younger brother Zeev.

Jacob Laor, who is an active memebr of our group (including 
internet).  Jacob is Polish born and he and Ephraim have done 
quite a bit of work with archival material, particularly for Rozdol and 
Skalat.  Jacob's son Ophir joined us for part of the time.

Rita Margolies, visiting from Seattle, is the granddaughter of a 
Pikholz.

Dina Ostrover, born in Stryj, and a Pickholz on three sides.  Dina 
came with the Yehudit Shaham, one of the three daughters of 
Dina's late cousin Yitzhak the attorney.  It was my first successful 
contact with any of the three daughters, who are all attorneys.

Gershon Etzioni (formerly Pickholz) of Nahariyya, another great-
grandson (and namesake) of Rabbi Juda Gershon, but until now it 
was not clear how.  Also Gershon's nephew Benzi Etzion and 
cousin Miriam Levkovitz, both of Netanya.

Dalia and Menahem Kaplan.  Dalia is the daughter of the late Zvi 
Pickholz of Netanya and she and Menahem used to live in Arad.  
They now live near Jerusalem.  Her family comes from Bocec, 
south of Skalat.

Yaffa and Assaf Derori.  Yaffa's father was Eliezer Pickholz, a Levi, 
from Kolomiyya.  Yaffa and Dalia know of a connection between 
them, but don't know what it is.

Shufka Berger and several of her children.  Jacob found her in 
Herzeliyya after the best I could do was a Red Cross refugee card 
from 1947.  Shufka was born in Skalat and one of her four sisters 
wrote several articles in the Skalat yizkor book.  Shufka is a first 
cousin to David Pickholz, who lived in Farmingdale NJ.

Esther Solomon and her brother Prof Benny Ilan were not able to 
make it, not was Cila Fischer who lives in Bet Gil Paz.

Several others sent sincere apologies, but said they would try to 
make it "next time."

Much of the time was spent mixing, exchanging information etc.  
Among the discoveries of the day, two stand out.  Benzi brought a 
document showing the name of his great-grandmother, which 
until now had been an unknown.  Turns out that she (Gershon's 
grandmother) is the same as Ephraim's grandmother and that 
they are first cousins!  (Imagine these two eighty year olds who 
know each other finding out that they are first cousins.)  The 
grandmother was divorced and they had different grandfathers.  
She was the daughter of Rabbi JG and the Pickholz name came to 
both families through her.  (The gfs were Richter and Kostman.)

In another corner, Yehudit called Dina "Donia" (which I overheard) 
and I realized who the Donia from the Red Cross cards was.  Dina 
confirmed that the birth date on the RC card is in fact hers.  That 
would never have come up during a more formal interview.

For the more organized part of the evening, Ephraim welcomed 
everyone.  

Jacob presented a survey of Galicia itself, with a map (on an 
overhead projector), etc. discussing various theories on family 
dispersion etc.  (Both Jacob and I spoke in both Hebrew and 
English.)  I shall not try to reproduce his talk here, except to say 
that it gave all of us a clearer picture of the geography.  He aslo 
introduced the idea of a two-branch family - one in Rozdol-Stryj 
and one spreading out from Skalat.  At this point we have no real 
idea which branch came first, tho we tend to relate to the 
Easterners (Skalat) as the ones who moved on.

I presented a series of seven projections.  The first introduced my 
own branch - which we recently learned goes back to Skalat and 
has about 230 descendants.  The second showed the 
characteristics of the Eastern and Western branches.  The third 
and fourth gave some basic information on those two branches.  
the fifth noted the few families which give no indication of origin.  
The sixth was a survey of the sources we have used and the 
seventh a survey of the small (fewer than four generations) 
families and individuals, whom we cannot yet connect to the larger 
families.  (I have all this on an Excel file, if anyone wants it.)

We were there some three hours all told and I believe everyone 
enjoyed it.  Seeing the people makes it more real and we know we 
must do it again.

Israel P.

-- End --