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Fwd: Faust family kapelye



Here's some information from Kurt Bjorling on the Faust family.
-Peter Rushefsky 
  Note: forwarded message attached. 



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Dear Pete,
The subject of the famous photo of the Faust family came up recently and the 
result was that someone forwarded to me a message by you off the Jewish music 
mailing list.

I don't know the whole context of the discussion, but I have some information 
about this photo - if you think this is news to anyone there, please forward 
it on to the list:

A few years ago I met a woman who lives in Highland Park, Illinois who is the 
granddaughter of the younger fiddle player in the photo.  She has an original 
copy of this photo handed down to her as a family keepsake.  On the back of 
the photo are written the names of the people and their relationship.
The two seated fiddlers are (L to R) Moses Faust, leader, and his 
brother-in-law, Wolf Schwartz
The standing figures are: Mordkhe-Shmiel (son of Moses), an unnamed cousin, 
Yankl (son) Alter Brandwein -  badkhn, Itzik-Hersh (son) and David (son).
David had a son named Max who died in 1982 and it was Max's daughter, Annette 
whom I met and who has the photo.  Annette explained to me that her name is 
derived from the name Tanya:  Tanya -> Antoinette -> Annette.

In a similar vein:
A few years ago I met a woman who lived just half a block from me here in 
Evanston whose grandfather is in another famous photo of klezmorim.  This 
photo appears, among other places, in the notes to the CD Klezmer Pioneers on 
the center spread.  The younger trumpet player, 3rd from left, is named 
Benjamin Frank (1857-1916) and my neighbor was his granddaughter.  As before, 
she had an original copy of this photo which showed much more than the 
portion reproduced in the Forverts and preserved at YIVO.  Above the 
musicians is a bevy of children gathered on a balcony of the building in the 
background.  She had a later photo of her grandfather which was unmistakably 
the same person, now with a grey beard.  it is interesting that thephoto was 
printed in the Forverts in 1923 when Ben Frank was already dead.  The man in 
the photo looks no older than 40, maybe significantly younger, and since he 
was born in 1857 the photo is clearly considerably older than its publication 
date in the Forverts .  The caption says that it's from "Russia" but the 
granddaughter was more specific, saying that it was taken in Lithuania.  This 
gibes with the information tha Zev Feldman got from an old Lithuanian klezmer 
he met in Israel that large Jewish brass-bands were typical in Lithuania.

Kurt Bjorling

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