May The Schwartz Be With You

 

     Schwartz is a very common Jewish surname. It means black in German and Yiddish. There are not a lot of famous Schwartzes out there. Stephan Schwartz is an American lyricist and composer. Godspell, Pippin, and Wicked are among his most famous works. Jim Schwartz is the defensive coordinator for my Philadelphia Eagles. Allison Schwartz is a former congresswoman from my district in Pennsylvania. Mel Brooks used the line “May the Schwartz be with you” in his classic Star Wars parody, Spaceballs. None of these people are related to me or appear in my family tree. There are however, 20 people with the last name Schwartz that do make an appearance.                                                 Arlene’s great grandmother, Rose Rodman nee Kipnis married David Schwartz after her husband, Abraham Rodman passed away. Rose had three children with Abraham; Gittel, Bessie, and Hannah. David Schwartz had 8 children of his own; Celia, Benjamin, Harry, Anna, Israel, Herman, and Jacob with his wife Sarah Edelstein, and a daughter Rose with his wife, Ada Erlich. Here is a picture of Rose Rodman with daughters Hannah and Bessie. 

                                                                        

        Rose’s daughter, Hannah married David’s son Jacob, giving her a stepsister named Anna. This left Arlene with two aunt Anne’s. Aunt Anne Schwartz and Aunt Anne Schwartz who married a Collier.                                                                                                                                                                          There are a couple of other Schwartzes in my family tree. My father’s first cousin, Ted Levin married Esther Schwartz. My grandmother’s first cousin, Esther Rogell married somebody named Schwartz and had a son named Howard.                                                                                                             While researching this post I discovered a mistake in my tree and a couple of documents to be added to my family history. I had mistakenly listed Rose Kipnis as Rose Edelstein because I misread something that made me think that her mother was Sarah Edelstein. It turns out that Sarah Edelstein was David Schwartz’s second wife and the mother of 7 of his children. One of David Schwartz’s descendants has a public tree and somehow had the naturalization papers of Arlene’s grandfather, Philip Snyder. It shows that Philip had arrived at Ellis Island in January of 1908 on the ship Moskwa. A file card with the naturalization papers had his name listed as Hillel Schneider but he asked for a permanent name change to Philip Snyder. Here is a copy of those papers.   

                                                                                  

           I now had the arrival date and ship name so I was able to search for his ship manifest from Ellis Island and came across a Faivel Schneider who listed his occupation as a tailor and who’s mother, Esther met him when he arrived in New York. I have a source that says Esther was Philip’s mother’s name. Faivel Schneider is on line 22 of the manifest.   

                                                                                  

           The additions to my tree and the correction of the mistake I found were fortuitous events while writing this post. I guess you could say that “the Schwartz was with me.”