Al Jarvis – the original disc jockey

The first radio disc jockey was Hollywood music store owner Al Jarvis, born Eliyash Yavois in Birzai,  Lithuania in 1909 to Shleyme Yavois and Nechama Zelbovitz. Nechama’s father Lipman Zakharia is the earliest known ancestor of that branch of the Zelbovich family; he and his wife are buried in Winnipeg.  Walter Winchell invented the term […]

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the Industrial Removal Office

In the early 1900’s large amounts of Romanian Jews fled to New York. The Rumanian Committee was organized in New York City as a result of this. The Committee’s aim was to help relocate the immigrants to other cities and help them find employment. The Rumanian Committee soon became the Industrial Removal Office (IRO), under […]

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What’s in a Name? – Feivel Nosson

Feivel Nosson Zelbovitz (1871-1906) was born in Ponedel. Upon attempting to immigrate to the US with family, he was turned back after a medical inspection showed that he had conjunctivitis. His daughter Elka went back on the boat with her father. Feivel Nosson died on the boat back to the Old Country at age 34. […]

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A Zelbovitz descendant in the Civil Rights movement

Eugene Feldman (1915-1987) The basis for this story is an obituary of Eugene Feldman in the Chicago Tribune in 1987… Eugene Pieter Romayn Feldman (1915-1987), one of the founders in the early 1960s of the Du Sable Museum of African American History, served as its director of development and planning for many years. He also […]

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