Rabbi Shlomo Arye Leib of Tyczyn (Weichselbaum)

A man named Tobias Weichselbaum was a guest at my great-grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration. He was accompanied by Miss Anna Weichselbaum.

I didn't know if these people were related to the Kreiniks, but I had a hint from a copy of  The Kreinikle, the newsletter of the Kreinik Family Circle that Stanley Kreinik showed me.

Anna Weichselbaum is in the list of people who were given "An Orchid" for volunteering: Chairlady - Anna Weichselbaum.

I decided to try to track these people down. So I put them into Geni, the collaborative genealogical web site.

Tobias Weichselbaum

A Tobias Weichselbaum showed up in the records of passport applications that I saw from Ancestry.com. You could see Tobias' passport photo and the rest of his application, in which he showed a letter from his brother Solomon Leib of Tyczyn.

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"The following is an exact translation  of a letter received by me from my brother in Tyczyn, Poland.  Tobias Weichselbaum."

April 26th 1920

I received your letter and money but was uable to answer sooner on account of the many troubles I have had. Today I took enough time to answer.

Your 400 guilder I gave to our cousin Moses Leib with which he can scarcely buy two loaves of bread. Brother David received his share of the money you sent.

Although the massacring has practically ceased, there is a great famine on.

I pray and hope to be able to see you before I pass from this world, for I'm already advanced in years and feel the end is near.  ...........................................

With love and best wishes

Your brother,

(Signed) Solomon Leib.

Rabbi Shlomo Leib of Tyczyn 

I inferred that Tobias had a brother named Solomon Weichselbaum and a brother named David Weichselbaum.

Recently (February, 2014) I got an email from Nachum Kornfeld of Brooklyn, who noticed the Weichselbaum name in my blog posts. He asked how the Kreiniks were related to the Weichselbaums, in particular  R. Shlomo Leib of Tyczyn.  

I explained that I did not know, but I was hoping to find out. Nachum told me that the Rabbi's mother was Mirel Kreinik. This was news to me. And that she had a brother named Yaakov/Jacob:

"The rebbe's mother was Mirel Kreinik. She had a brother named Yaakov who lived to be 103 and attributed his long life to the fact that he carried the young R. Shlomo Leib on his shoulders to Cheder so he would not have to step in the muddy puddles."

I checked with Andrew Kreinik and Stanley Kreinik who confirmed that their ancestor Tuyve Kreinik had a father who lived to 103. This must be Jacob.  So I created a profile for Mirel Kreinik and connected her to my profile of Solomon Weichselbaum, which I merged that with  R. Shlomo Leib of Tyczyn, which was managed by Rabbi Shlomo Leib Mund. 

I found a record from "Galicia, Ukraine, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1789-1905 about Arje Leib Weichselbaum Name: Arje Leib Weichselbaum Event Type: Birth Birth Year: 1894 Birth City: Krakovets." So I wrote to R. Shlomo Leib Mund asking if this was the right person.

R. Shlomo Leib Mund wrote back and asked that I call him. This was on Saturday afternoon and the area code was in the States, so I figured it would be OK to call even though it was still Shabbos, since he had asked. It turns out that R. Shlomo Leib Mund was in Israel with a US phone. It was 11 pm, but he was happy to chat.

R. Shlomo Leib Mund is our fourth cousin, and R. Shlomo Leib of Tyczyn is his Great Uncle, after whom he must likely is named. Mirel married Volf Weichselbaum and they had six children, the youngest of whom is Tobias W.

We are all descended from Chaim Kreinik, including Mirel's brothers Zvie Chaim (Harry), who is father to my great-grandfather S. Josef Kreinik, Zalmon/Soloman Kreinik of the Wright branch,  and to Jacob/Yaakov Kreinik also father of Tuyve Tobias Kreinik, the progenitor of the West Virginia Kreiniks and the Sternlicht family. You will have to ask me to send you a tree if you don't want to use Geni.  

By the way, Mirel is a lovely name, and if any children were to be named Mirel, they could come here to find out the history of people with the name Mirel. There are several.