KLEIN Origin of surname

Samuel Klein (1886-1940), rabbi and professor of geography, born in Szilasbalhas, Veszprem county, Hungary (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany, received a Ph.D. degree at the latter, and was ordained at the Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin. In 1909 the Jewish congregation of Dolnja Tuzla, Bosnia, elected him rabbi, and in 1913 he became chief rabbi of Nove Zamky, Slovakia (then Ersekujvar, part of Austria-Hungary, later of Czechoslovakia). During World War I (1914-18) he served as a military chaplain.

Klein published numerous articles and essays in Hebrew, Hungarian, German, French and English periodicals on the history of Eretz Israel and he contributed to the Jewish weekly paper "Szombat". In 1924 he was invited to lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lectured there in 1925 and 1926, and then returned to his congregation at Nove Zamky, where he continued to minister until 1928 when he was appointed professor of historical geography at the Hebrew University.

Klein's greatest contribution to the study of the history and geography of Eretz Israel was his use of the Talmud and Midrash as primary sources for research concerning the country's topography and the history of its settlement ("Siedlungsgeschichte"). He branched out into biblical and apocryphal geography, using also Hellenistic (Josephus) and patristic (Eusebius, etc,) sources, and making important contributions to Jewish epigraphy.

Klein published in book form: "Beitrage zur Geographie und Geschichte Galilaeas" (1909); "Juedisch-palaestinisches Corpus Inscriptionum" (1920); "Eretz Israel" (1922); "Die Kuestenstrasse Palaestinas, "which was also published in Hebrew as "Derech Hof Hayam" (in "Scripta" of the Hebrew University, 1923); "Ever ha-Yarden ha-Yehudi" (1925); "Palestine Studies", also published in Hebrew as "Mehkarim Eretz-Ysraeliyyim" (vol. I, 1923-28; vol. 2, 1928-30; vol. 3, 1932); "Toledoth Hayishuv Hayehudi Be'eretz Ysrael" ("A History of the Jewish Settlement in Palestine"; 1935); "Toledot Hakirat Erez Yisrael" 1937); "Eretz Yehudah" (1939); and "Eretz ha-Galil" (1946). He also published maps of Palestine, "Mappath Eretz Yisrael" (1922), and was co-editor of "Zion", Hebrew Yearbook of the history and archeology of Palestine. Klein also contributed most of the articles on Eretz Israel in the German language "Encyclopaedia Judaica" and the "Juedische Lexikon". As president of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society, he edited the publication of this society.
Samuel Klein died in Jerusalem.

Salomon Klein (1845-1937), ophthalmologist born in Miskolc, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). After his graduation in Vienna, Austria, in 1870, he practiced in the Austrian capital and lectured from 1883 to 1916 in various capacities at the University of Vienna. From 1902 on he was apppinted associate professor of ophthalmology, Klein was also head of the ophthalmic department of the Rothschild Hospital at the Hohe Warte, near Vienna.
He was appointed Hofrat by Emperor Franz Joseph.

During his long life, Klein performed more than 5,000 glaucoma operations. He retired in 1916. His "Lehrbuch der Augenheilkunde" was first published in 1879, and was reprinted several times. It is still a standard work. He was also author of "Der Augenspiegel und seine Anwendung" (1876); "Augenspielstudien bei Geisterkranken" (1877), "Grundriss der Augenheilkunde" (1886), and "Das Auge und seine Diatetik" (1892). Klein published scores of articles in scientific magazines, and wrote special features for several encyclopedias and manuals, among them the results of research concerning the syphilitic disease of the eyes and the influx of mental illness on the eyesight.
Klein died in Vienna.

Philip Klein (1849-1926), Orthodox rabbi born in Baracska, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He studied at several yeshivot including that of Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia.) Concurrently he studied at the gymnasium at Pozsony. In Germany he attended the Universities of Berlin, and Jena and the the University of Vienna in Austria, and obtained a degree of doctor. As a rabbi he was ordained by the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary of Berlin in 1871.

Klein served as rabbi in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) (1874-1880), and in Libau, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire), 1880-1891. Russian anti-Semitism, exacerbated by the policies of Alexander III, caused Klein to leave Russia for the USA. in 1891. He served as rabbi of the first Hungarian Congregation Ohad Zedek, New York City, from 1891 until 1926. He was a leader of the 1914 US war-relief drive in the US, and was serving as president of the Agudat Israel movement. He was extremely active in New York City's Orthodox religious life, however, was not entirely separated from the Mizrahi Zionist ideal. Klein was one of the very few rabbis with an orthodox middle-class acculturated congregation. He was also honorary president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada.

Miksa Max Klein (1847-1908), sculptor born in Gonz, Abauj-Torna county, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He studied under Professor Szandhaz in Budapest. In 1863 he went to Berlin, Germany and subsequently to Munich and Rome, to continue his studies. He spent most of his life outside Hungary,having no influence on Hungarian sculpting.

Klein's group, "Ancient Germans in the Roman Circus", characterized by bold realism and vigor, was exhibited at the Paris Salon and awarded a medal by the Internationale Kunstausstellung at Munich (1878). The competition for statues of heroic size of the ancient Greek philosophers, held by the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium, Berlin, was won by Klein for his sculptured representations of Plato and Aristotle. He made two large busts of Field Marshal Manteufell and General Werder which are in the Ruemeshalle, Berlin. His portrait busts include also those of Nietzsche, Helmholtz, and the composer Popper.

Klein's most important plastic works are: a marble bust of his wife; two groups, (a) "Hagar and Ismael", and (b) "Centaur and Nymph", for which he won a gold medal; a larger group, "Der Besiegte". His statue of Theodor Fontane and one entitled "Lorelei" were exhibited in Berlin (1899). Among other works adorning public places in Germany are his statue of Emperor Wilhelm I on horseback, and that of Bismarck in the Grunewald.

Klein became a convert to Christianity. He died in Berlin

Shmuel "Shmelke" Klein (d. 1875), rabbi, after serving in Balkany, he was appointed rabbi of Huszt (now Khust, in Ukraine) with authority over a large region. There he founded a large yeshiva. In 1860 he moved to Szollos and established a broad reputation, many rabbis in Hungary turning to him with their problems. His inclination to Hasidism inspired his followers to relate unusual stories about him. Klein wrote novellae on the Talmud.  

Gideon Klein (1919-1945), composer, born in 1919 in Prerov, Czech Republic (then in Czechoslovakia). After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia during WW II, Klein was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin) in 1943. There he was remarkably active, giving piano recitals, participating in chamber music performances, accompanying, arranging and composing. He perished in 1945 in Fürstengrube a subcamp of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Samuel (Samy) Klein (1915-1944), rabbi and member of the French Resistance during WW II, born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the great-grandson of Rabbi Salomon Wolf Klein (1814-1867), a leader of the Orthodox Jews in Alsace. Following the death of his father in 1918, his mother moved to Strasbourg in France. Klein started to study at the Séminaire israélite de France in Paris and then at the Telz yeshiva in Telšiai, Lithuania, in 1936. He returned to France and was ordained a rabbi in 1939.

In 1939 he was drafted in the French army studying at the École nationale des sous-officiers d'active (ENSOA) and at the outbreak of WW II he served as a second lieutenant in an artillery unit.

In 1940 Klein was named by the Consistoire central israélite de France as rabbi for the Jewish youth in the Free Zone of France. He was responsible for all Jewish youth movements, the Jewish youths detained in various camps and the Jewish youth in Algeria. In 1941 he traveled along with is wife to Tlemcen, in Algeria, where he supervised the observing of kashrut and of Jewish holidays by the Jewish youth. The same year he was appointed rabbi of Aix-en-Provence, in addition to his previous positions. He settled in Marseille, where he established the Conseil directeur de la jeunesse juive (CDJJ).

After the German army took over the Free Zone in southern France in November 1942, Klein became the target of the French gendarmerie and of the Gestapo. In May 1943, Klein joined the France d'abord resistance movement becoming the head of a group based in Lyon. He managed to escape arrest a number of times during 1943-1944. After the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, Klein joined the Maquis resistance fighters. Klein was arrested in Saint-Etienne in July 1944. Two days later, on July 7, 1944, he was executed along with another two Jews on a field at the edge of the village of Étrat à la Fouillouse near Saint-Etienne.

Snina

In Hungarian: Szinna

A small town in east Slovakia.

Snina is situated near the frontier with Ukraine, near the town of Humenne. The residents of Snina earn their living mostly from the forests in the area. Until 1918 Snina was part of Hungary and then, until 1993, part of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
 

21st Century

There are no longer any Jews living in Snina.

 

History

It is not known exactly when Jewish settlement began in Snina. In 1750, 19 Jews were recorded among the 206 inhabitants of the place, most of whom were Greek-Catholics. A tombstone dated  1843 at the local Jewish cemetery and the community register of 1851 are the first tangible testimonies to organized Jewish life at Snina. A synagogue was built in 1842.  In the 19th century Jews from Galicia settled in Snina and their numbers steadily increased. Most of them made their living from small businesses, peddling, and some from craftsmanship and agriculture

When the Hungarian Jewish communities split in 1869, Snina defined itself as Orthodox and joined the Organization of Orthodox Kehilot.  Rabbi Shmuel Segal Krauss, served until 1912, and after him, Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein author of  “Mateh Reuven”, was elected to lead. He opened a small yeshiva in Snina.  Rabbi Moshe Halberstam, the dayan and teacher, presided at his side.  In 1893 a new synagogue opened which conducted  services in the Ashkenazi nusach (rite), and a few years later a second synagogue was established for Hasidim in the Sephardic nusach. Next to the synagogue a community center was built with apartments for the community's workers (chazzan (cantor), shochet (ritual slaughter), and melamdim (teachers).

In the first 60 years, the kehila opened a basic school in which the languages of instruction were in German and Hungarian, and it was managed by the teacher Manheim from Budapest.

With the outbreak of World War I, 37 of Snina's Jews were drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and 7 fell in battle.  Many Jews fled the village because of the threat of a Russian invasion.

When the Republic of Czechoslovakia was established, in October 1918,  Jews were recognized as a national minority with appropriate rights and this brought about an awakening of social and political activity in the community

After the war, many Jews returned but it was quite a while until life in the town returned to its regular routine. The kehila  returned and reorganized.  In 1922 it consisted of 190 families, its yearly budget was 38,000 Kronen and Moritz Srulovitz was its head. The kehila  was comprised of a synagogue, a kloyz (a small synagogue or place for study), beth-midrash (study hall), community center, ritual bath, a chicken, slaughterhouse, a butcher shop and a cemetery, and it employed three full-time employees and some temporary ones. Rabbi Klein continued to administer the yeshiva in which some dozens of young men studied. Rav Simcha Goldberger served as the instructor. The yeshiva boys came mostly from poor families.  In addition to the established Chevra Kadisha (burial society) Snina had other charitable groups such as, the “Jewish Women's Association”, the gemach (acts of charity and kindness group) and the “Talmud Torah group”, that supported it (the Talmud Torah). In this period, the kehila no longer maintained it own school, and the children learned in the local public school. Most of them also studied religious subjects with the teacher Moshe Weil in the Talmud Torah.

In the inter-war period the “Agudas Yisroel” party was the largest in Snina. It provided extensive educational activities, and also ran the youth movement “Tseirey Agudas Yisroel” for boys and “Beis Yakov” for girls.  During these same years Zionist activities also began which included teaching Hebrew and raising money for Karen Kayemet and Keren Hayesod.   The active Zionist parties in Snina were the “Mizrachi,” “General Zionists,” “The League for Working Eretz-Yisrael,” and the “Beitar”. In the years 1922-1940 Hapoel Hamizrachi, the General Zionists and Betar joined together and became the United Zionist Movement, with Dr. Kornfeld at its head. In 1929, Snina's Jews collected 1,500 Kronen in donations for Keren Kayemet to plant a forest in Israel in the name of Czechoslovakia's president, Jan Masaryk. The National Jewish Party was also active in Snina and participated in local municipal elections. 

The Jews of Snina were very religious and did not mix much with  non-Jews, unlike their brethren in other places in Slovakia at that time. Only a few of them, mostly those with more open professions, served the general public – the district doctor, Ferdinand Kornfeld, district doctor Herman Hofman, and two senior clerks in the district government.

Despite the fact that the Jewish population of Snina was about 10%, they had a large part in the economy - principally in trade, business, and small industry. In the first two decades there were among them, 30 merchants, 11 business owners (5 shoemakers, 3 tailors, a butcher, tinker, and a baker), a few farmers, expert builders, two doctors, a lawyer, some clerks. A large factory for wood working, a factory for light drinks, and an “economy bank” were owned by Jews.

In 1930, 390 Jews were living at Snina.


The Holocaust

The Republic of Czechoslovakia disintegrated as a result of the Munich Agreement of September 1938, almost a year before World War I broke out. Slovakia declared its autonomy on October 6, 1938, and became an independent state and a satellite of Germany on March 14,1939.   At that time there were 420 Jews living in Snina. The head  of the kehila was Herman Dim and Rabbi Klein continued to lead it. New racist laws removed Jews from the social and economic life of the country, until they were totally deprived of civil rights and dispossessed of their property. Jewish children were banned from public schools in the 1940/1 school year. The community opened a Jewish school with eight classes. In 1941 Jewish businesses were closed or aryanized. Many Jews were drafted for hard labor.

In the spring of 1942 deportations from Snina began. On March 21 young Jewish men and women were rounded up. On March 22, about 50 young Jewish women from Snina and its environs were sent to the collection camp in Poprad  and on the 25th they were deported from there to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Dozens of young men were sent to the collection camp in Zilina  and deported from there to the Majdanek Nazi concentration camp in the Lublin region of Poland. On May 7, the authorities began to round up most of the remaining Jews with the intent of deportation. A non-Jewish local resident offered to hide Rabbi Klein, but the rabbi refused to cut himself off from his congregation and was deported with them. Most of the Jews of Snina and its environs were taken to the concentration center in Humenné and on May 11 joined the transport to the Chelm Ghetto in the Lublin region, and from there they were deported to the Nazi death camp in Sobibor.

In the fall of 1942, after the deportations stopped, eight Jewish families remained in Snina and two more in adjoining settlements, all of whom held exemption certificates and their deportations were deferred. In May 1944 the last of Snina's Jews were evacuated to western Slovakia. In September 1944,  as the Germans were entering Slovakia, some of them succeeded in escaping and hiding. But some fell into the hands of the Germans and were deported to extermination camps.

Postwar

In 1945, after the war, Jewish survivors who returned to Snina, were met with hostility and violence. Ten Jewish women, who had survived the camps, settled down in the village Koblasov, near Snina. One night they were murdered in their sleep by a band of banderists, a group of antisemitic Poles under the leadership of Stefan Bandera. One only of these women, who managed to hide, escaped death. She emigrated later to the USA.  In 1948 only five Jewish families lived there. Jews all left Snina within a few years of their return, most of them to Israel.  All the institutions of the community had been destroyed, the synagogue was turned into an apartment house and the abandoned cemetery alone remained as a memorial to the former Jewish life at Snina.