Mordechai Elazar Klein · The Feig Family Archive

3rd great-grandfather (Laci's paternal great-grandfather). The Klein patriarch, source of Zeidy's Hebrew name — Zeidy (Mordechai Elazar HaKohen) was named for him. His name is preserved on the granite memorial plaque set into Zeidy's matzeiva. His son Yitzchok Yosef Klein was a rebbi at the Mád Yeshiva.

Previously rendered on this site as “Menachem HaKohen” based on a misreading of the inscription on Yitzchok Yosef's kiddush becher; the becher in fact reads only יצחק יוסף כ“ץ קליין (Yitzchok Yosef K“Z Klein) and does not preserve the patronym. Corrected v4.37.

The earliest documented Klein. His son Yitzchok Yosef was the Mád Yeshiva Rebbi. His name is preserved on the granite memorial plaque at the base of Zeidy's matzeiva — Zeidy (Mordechai Elazar ben Menachem HaKohen) was named for him, his great-great-grandfather. Earlier readings of the family's silver kiddush becher as "Yitzchok Yosef ben Menachem HaKohen" were a misreading; the becher reads only "Yitzchok Yosef K\"Z Klein" without a patronym (v4.37 correction per Yitz Feig). Source: Chapter 3.

— Side note · From the family chapters · The family chapters —

The Kleins are also Kohanim. The earliest documented Klein is Mordechai Elazar Klein, born somewhere in the Tiszadob region in the early 1800s — HaKohen in the family name says everything about the lineage. His son Yitzchok Yosef Klein was a rebbi at the Mád Yeshiva in Zemplén County, fifty kilometers southwest of Tiszadob, in the Tokaj wine country. Mád was a serious node of Hungarian-Hasidic learning in the years before the Holocaust, and the Klein line into it makes the Klein side — even with its smaller paper trail — one of the more genealogically anchored Tiszadob Kohen families. The patriarch's name was preserved on the granite memorial plaque set into the base of Zeidy Laci's matzeiva — Zeidy (Mordechai Elazar HaKohen) was named for him. (v4.37 correction per Yitz Feig: earlier versions of this archive read the patriarch's name as “Menachem HaKohen” from the becher inscription, but the becher in fact only says יצחק יוסף כ“ץ קליין — Yitzchok Yosef K"Z Klein — without a patronym. The patriarch is identified by name on the plaque, not on the cup.)

— Side note · From the family chapters · The family chapters (2) —

Yitzchok Yosef K"Z (Kohen Tzedek) Klein.
The cup identifies Yitzchok Yosef by name and Kohen status but does not preserve a patronym. (v4.37 correction per Yitz Feig: earlier readings of this inscription as “Yitzchok Yosef ben Menachem HaKohen” were a misreading.) The patriarch's name is preserved on the granite plaque on Zeidy's matzeiva, not on the becher: Mordechai Elazar Klein. Zeidy (Mordechai Elazar HaKohen) was named for him. Tatty's eldest son, Yitzchak Yosef Feig, is named for the Mád Rebbi whose cup this was. By family account, the becher reached Zeidy through his first cousin — the childless son of Menachem’s sister and her husband (surname Guttman), a grandson of Yitzchok Yosef just as Zeidy was. The cousin settled in Israel; having no son of his own to carry it, he gave the Kohen cup to Zeidy, who did. From Zeidy it passed to Tatty (Menachem Feig), and on. The cousin’s given name, his mother’s name, and the Guttman given name are not yet documented.

— Side note · From the family chapters · Chapter ELEVEN —

The six children's names are a complete map of who came before them. Yitzchak Yosef — for Yitzchok Yosef Klein, the Mád Yeshiva Rebbi, Emanuel's father (see Chapter Three). Yehudah Leib — carrying his Stefansky-side grandfather's name forward. Eliyahu Shaul reaches back two generations on Bobby's side: Eliyahu for Elias Feldman of Jákó (Bobby's maternal grandfather), Shaul for Samuel Weisz the Kohen of Nyírbogát (Bobby's paternal grandfather), whose grave still stands. Mordechai Elazar carries Zeidy's own name forward — Mordechai Elazar ben Menachem HaKohen, as the memorial plaque records. Michal — fifth of the six. Aryeh Refael — for Lipot Weisz, Aryeh Refael ben Shaul HaKohen, the father Bobby lost at Ebensee eighty days before liberation. In 2014, Michal sat her father down and recorded what he remembered about his mother. Without that conversation most of Chapter Two would not be on this page. And Eli, third of the six, is gathering the rest — so his own children, and the generations that come after, will know what the names were and who stood behind the dates.

— THE FACTS WE’VE GATHERED —

The shape of their life

From civil records, family memory, and primary sources. Empty rows are research targets.

Identity

Civil name

Mordechai Elazar Klein

Hebrew name

מרדכי אלעזר הכהן

Hungarian / nickname

— not yet documented — +

Religious lineage

Kohen — Klein patriarch · the earliest documented Klein in the family

Birth

Born (civil)

early 1800s · approximate

Born (Hebrew)

— not yet documented — +

Place of birth

Tiszadob region, Hungary

Time of birth

— not yet documented — +

Birth-order

— not yet documented — +

Family

Father

— not yet documented — +

Mother

— not yet documented — +

Married

— not yet documented — +

Spouse

— not yet documented — +

Years married

— not yet documented — +

Children

Yitzchok Yosef Klein (the Mád Yeshiva Rebbi) — confirmed by Zeidy's matzeivah plaque

Life

Trade / occupation

— not yet documented — +

Lived in

Tiszadob region, Hungary

Immigration

Arrived NYC

— not yet documented — +

Naturalized

— not yet documented — +

Petition number

— not yet documented — +

Alien Reg. No.

— not yet documented — +

Shoah

Camp survival

— not yet documented — +

Liberated

— not yet documented — +

Death

Died (civil)

— not yet documented — +

Time of death

— not yet documented — +

Yahrzeit (Hebrew)

— not yet documented — +

Place of death

— not yet documented — +

Cause of death

— not yet documented — +

Age at death

— not yet documented — +

Place of burial

— not yet documented — +

Grave inscription

Patriarch's name preserved on the granite memorial plaque set into the base of Zeidy Laci's matzeiva (Deans, NJ). His great-great-grandson Zeidy was named for him: Mordechai Elazar ben Menachem HaKohen.

Photographed

— not yet documented — +

Sources

Source

Granite memorial plaque at the base of Zeidy Laci Klein's matzeivah at Washington Cemetery, Deans NJ — reads: וזקנו ר' יצחק יוסף ב"ר מרדכי אלעזר הכהן ע"ה ("his grandfather R' Yitzchak Yosef son of R' Mordechai Elazar HaKohen, peace upon him"). Zeidy (Mordechai Elazar) is named for this great-grandfather — classic frum naming pattern of skipping a generation.

— PHOTOGRAPHS —

Photographs

F · family record Lajos (Avrohom Chaim) Klein · birth record, 1914 — final entry of the year Zeidy's older brother, born. He would die in the Hungarian forced-labor battalions in the USSR around 1942–1943. Hebrew name Mordechai Elazar HaKohen.

F · family photograph Tatty's wedding — Bobby and Zeidy with their son Tatty (Menachem Feig) in the center, on the day o. This is the wedding that produced Eli and his six siblings: Yitzchak Yosef, Yehudah Leib, Eliyahu Shaul, Mordechai, Michal, and Aryeh. The chuppah that continued both broken lines — Tiszadob through Zeidy, Apagy through Bobby — into the next generation.

F · family photograph Bobby and Zeidy at Menachem and Frumie's wedding Bobby (Irene Weisz Feig) and Zeidy (Sam · Laci ·. Bobby was the surviving daughter of Apagy — born to Lipot and Regina in 1926, taken to Auschwitz at 18, Bergen-Belsen after, recovery in Sweden, Brooklyn in 1950. Zeidy was the surviving son of Tiszadob — born to Emanuel and Lina (Milkah bas Pinchas) HaKohen on 25 December 1922, survived Auschwitz; his parents and his older sister Ilona were murdered on 6 Sivan 1944, married Bobby in Brooklyn in 1952. Their son's wedding. The second generation past the rupture, beginning a third.

F · family record Laci and Irene · the memorial plaque Laci Klein Feig (Zeidy) — Mordechai Elazar ben Menachem HaKohen —. His wife Bobby followed twenty-three years later, on 7 Iyar 5773 (17 April 2013). They are remembered together on this plaque.

F · family record Zeidy's matzeiva · with the memorial for those without graves The matzeiva of Zeidy Laci Klein — Morde. The granite plaque set into the base of the matzeiva names the members of his family from Hungary who were murdered in the Holocaust and have no grave: his father Emanuel (Menachem ben Yitzchak Yosef HaKohen), his mother Lina (Milkah bas Pinchas HaKohen), his brother Avrohom Chaim (lost on the Don River), and his sister Ilona — Devorah bas Menachem HaKohen — who never married. Their names rest at the base of his stone.

F · family photograph Rivky and Lieby · November 23, 2014 Rivka "Rivky" Feig — Rivka Rochel bas Mordechai Elazar HaKohen. From this marriage came the seven Schwartz children — the next generation carrying the names of those who came before. Rivka died on 28 Cheshvan 5785 (29 November 2024), ten years almost to the week after this photograph was taken.