The one who moved from the Baltic to the south
David Zmud
Born in Ludza, died in Andreyevka. He left the Baltic in 1846 and settled as an agricultural colonist in Novy Zlatopol. The 1858 census records him with his whole household.
Documentedc. 1818 – 1880
He was the one who made the journey. In 1846 he left Ludza together with other Jewish families from the same area and moved south, to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine. By about 1850 he was settled in Novy Zlatopol.
In the 1858 census he is 40, with three sons in the household. The document records him as “David Falikov Zmud”: thanks to that single word we know, with a document in hand, what his father was called.
He married Khana Reizel. The 1858 census calls her Khana, daughter of Zalka. For years Chaim Freedman identified her as Khana Reizel Komisaruk, daughter of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and Ester and a great-granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon, a version that census contradicts; he later proposed that she was a daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, but that identification is his proposal: no known document names the parents of David’s wife.
In the timeline
- c. 1818
David Zmud is born in Ludza
David Zmud is born in Ludza. He is the one who will make the journey south.
- 1846
David leaves Ludza
David leaves Ludza (Lutzin). With other Jewish families from the same area he moves to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine.
- c. 1850
The family settles in the colony
The family is now settled in Novy Zlatopol, a Jewish agricultural colony in Ekaterinoslav province.
- 1858
The colony census
On 26 May the colony census is taken. It records David, aged 40, and his whole household: his sons —among them Koppel, aged 20— and Koppel's wife, Dvorka. It is the oldest document we have.
- 1880
David dies
David dies in Andreyevka.