When my parents came to visit last month, I asked my mother to bring as much family history material as she could fit in her luggage. At first she said it wasn't a problem but when she saw the amount of photos and albums she started to get worried. Eventually we agreed that she would bring the best of the best, including my sister's entire roots project.

So it's been some time since I scanned everything and I am finally starting to get around to sorting everything and getting organized. I thought I would share some of these treasures with my readers.

First is probably the oldest photograph I have from my mother's side of the family. The photo below is in very bad shape. It was printed on cardboard and is severely deteriorating. It is the picture of my great grandfather, Moshe Zinberg, probably in his 20's, which would date the photo back to around 1920:



On the back of the photo is something that I believe to be a Russian newspaper. I am not sure how the cardboard photograph ended up glued to a piece of newspaper. You can also see my grandmother's handwriting, where she wrote her father's name in Hebrew:



Next up is my father side of the family and once again, a very old photo. In this photo of the Smorgonski family you can see my great grandfather Avraham Smorgonski and his second wife, Henia Segalchik. Henia was the sister of Avraham's first wife, Esther Segalchik, who died between 1917-1918. You can also see 6 of Avraham's 7 children:



Top row (left to right): Zipora (my grandmother), Shlomo and Pesia
Bottom row (left to right): Ida (Ita), Joseph Haim and Haya

Everyone in the picture except for the top row of older siblings perished in the holocaust. They were murdered by the Polish villagers in their town of Dolhinov by being herded into a barn that was then set on fire.

Staying a while longer with my grandmother, Zipora, we have some truly incredible identity cards for her and her husband, my grandfather, Avraham Kilchevsky, from Israel in 1939-1940:



But who issued identity cards in Israel nine years prior to it gaining Independence? See below:



The Government of Palestine? But hold on one second before you jump to conclusions and we start another 5000 year war. Palestine at the time was not an independent country. It was a British Colony. Like half the world at the time.

Now back to my mother's parents. I have never seen these photos from their wedding before. These were taken in Beltz, USSR (now Beltsy, Moldova) on October 6th 1945:



Aren't they a beautiful couple? Here's a close-up:



I loved my grandfather very much. He was a cool guy and always fun to hang out with. He was always taking things apart, fixing them and putting them back together. He had a tool shed inside his apartment. He once made a guy sell him a toy that he bought for his son so that he could give it to me. It was an elliptical race track and had these little cars that had rechargeable batteries. They were always breaking down and we would take them apart and fix them.

I know this has been a long post full of big images, but I will leave you with two more. The first is a typical pose for my grandfather. I call it the "What's the Problem?" pose:



That's him on the beach at the Dead Sea in Israel where he and my grandmother used to vacation often with their friends. I remember going out there with them several times.

And here's how you relax on your Dead Sea vacation. You just get in the water and float your troubles away: