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Leo Lipson was born in Jerusalem on March 31, 1909. His parents were Isak Jacob Lipson and Peske (Pauline) Levy Lipson. He had 4 sisters (Celia, Bella, Libe and Tsivia). The family emigrated to Minneapolis in around 1920 and finally settled in Los Angeles. Leo married Bertha Salter in 1934. They had 2 daughters. He was very knowledgeable about Judaism, he could braid a Lulav out of date palm fronds. He was very soft spoken. He had a grocery store in East LA. Bertha was murdered in 1958. In 1970 he married Selma Sobel. Leo died in Los Angeles, August 2, 1990.
Here is a ship manifest (below) for May 5 1920, the ship SS Noordam, sailing from Boulogne Sur Mer to NY. I want to take you through some of the interesting information that come to the surface. There are two families of interest on this manifest, 2 women traveling with their children: Sarah Levi and Peche (Pauline) Lipson. Peche is Libe Lipson’s mother, ie my great grandmother. Sarah Levi is her sister-in-law.
Sarah Hinde Cohen married Peske Levy’s brother Zvi Arye Levy, and is traveling with 5 of her 7 daughters. One daughter Dina, who was born in 1905 may have died before 1920 and therefore was not present, Naomi (Nachama) had not been born yet, she was born in New York about a year and a half after Sarah had been united with her husband Harris Zvi Levi.
Peche Levy Lipson was traveling with all of her 5 children: Simei (Celia), Libe, Bayle (Bella), Lebe (Leo) (although he is marked as female!), and Siria (Tsivia or Sylvia).
You will note that in the case for both families they are traveling as US citizens. How was that accomplished? Pesche’s father and Sarah Hinda’s father-in-law, was Reb Shmuel Levy (he went by Simon Levi in the US) had arrived in the US in February of 1881 and was naturalized April 3 of 1893. But his children, all of whom were born in Jerusalem were not naturalized. So he did what he had to do…he claimed they were all born in Chicago. The story handed down to me was that the mayor of Chicago called for all those with birth records destroyed by the fire, to claim new ones. Supposedly that is why Shmuel did for all of his children. You can see on many documents that their birthplace was Chicago, rather than Jerusalem.
Also look to the far right of the document and you can see who they were coming to stay with in the U.S. In Sarah’s case…she is coming to stay with her husband, Mr. Harris Levy, living at 623-27 Stone Ave in Brooklyn. In Pesche’s case she is going to her brother-in-law, Mr. A. Lipson 2035 Berger Street in Brooklyn. This was most likely because her husband, Isak J. Lipson was living in Minneapolis at the time. They would eventually join him there but were staying for a bit in New York with Isak’s brother Alex (Elias) Lipson.
