Monday, 3 August 2026

Reflections - by Avram Chaim Davidovitz (written 1897)

 


Our Grandfather Avram Chaim Davidovitz died 101 years ago today. In the next few days I will circulate to the family the complete first draft of the translation of his famous diary – full of unexpected events. Meanwhile, as a taster, I offer this extract in which on 19th May 1897, he is summing up his life (he was 31).

“I am reminiscing today. It comes back to me as if it happened just yesterday, everything. In the beginning, I was just a cheder boy (a Jewish schoolboy]. I ran away from my parents because I was ruled by an unyielding, despotic melamed (Hebrew school teacher). I remember the places, and I regret it all. Hunger forced me to steal bread. I returned to my parents after being away for 6 weeks in the fields. I didn’t stay long at home because I wanted to be free.

I became an itinerant, working in a nearby village, and then in Tluste. I was in Warsaw, an operator for the lithographer Shimon Krumhorn. I was a clerk in the Lipiny forest, a sawyer in  Muravanka, and after being released as a sawyer, I became a teacher in Rejowiec . I got engaged in Hordzieska, and then left for America. I became a machine operator and lived there for 5 years, and then I became a customer peddler, and now I have come to Paris, once again I was a machine operator. until I got sick. This is my fate. God gives me everything, because who else would help me like this? How many more times will I have to wander? Today he told me… I will endure until I die.

Sunday, 8 March 2026

Wedding invite....

 Here's one from 1933 (93 years ago)

Thanks to Timna and Danny for this (oh, and Sophie and Ziggie Noble as well)


and the banquet...
check out the music








Wednesday, 11 February 2026

Happy Birthday Judy and He-Atid

Davnob wishes Judy a very happy birthday. Whilst exploring family archives on her birthday in Bet Shemesh, together with Martin,  they came across the following documents from the He-atid ('the future') Zionist group in Brixton from the 1930s. 





Incidentally, many years later, many of the younger Davnobs also joined a youth club (then not a Zionist group) at the Liberal Synagogue in Streatham - also called He-Atid. 

Monday, 26 January 2026

We remember - the Salits of Vilna

 


Grandma Davidson’s brother, his wife and family - a chemist, a doctor, an actor and an agronomist. (also Daniel Aleksandrovitch, Emilia's husband)


Never again! Anywhere. Anyone.









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Friday, 9 January 2026

A Day in the Life of Davnob (from 1991)

 In 2020 we posted a 'reprint' of the 1991 Day in the 'Life of Davnob'. 35 years on it's time for a second look!



Check it out here: twentytwentysite.blogspot.com