Top Semi circle: In the cleft of the rock (Isaiah
Translation of and Information about the Gravestone and Origins of
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky
(AKA Naviasky, Naviazski, and other variants)
TRANSLATION
- Top Semi circle: In the cleft of the rock (Isaiah 2:21) Look and observe!
- Avraham (Abraham) will be happy and Yitzchak (Isaac) will rejoice (from the Shabbat afternoon ‘Amidah prayer)
- With his pure soul. He hovered (went up) to the skies to establish a domain
- With a pure/innocent heart. Never straying from the path of the Torah,
- His dedication to Torah was total (literally: His Torah was complete.) studying day and night.
- So "who cries, Woe!, who Alas"? (Proverbs 23:29) It is to us
- Our father cries out, to comfort us in our loss.
- And you, with Torah and fear of G-d, went up (to the heavens) in a storm.
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- The truly G-d fearing luminary Gaon (a title meaning brilliant and extremely well-learned) and Teacher Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak
- Son of Rabbi Gaon Shlomo Zalman, may his righteous soul be blessed, (NOTE: This means that Shlomo Zalman had previously died.) NAVIAZSKI
- Who passed away on the 10th of Kislev (the year being numerically equivalent in Hebrew to the numerical value of the words: a righteous soul)
- (5) 634 (i.e., Sunday 30 November, 1873). May his soul be bound up with the souls of the living.
INFORMATION ON LOCATION, CONDITION ETC. of the GRAVESTONE
Grave Location: The Green Hills Cemetery of Kovna (Kaunas) Lithuania, next to the destroyed mausoleum of Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor.
Condition of the Stone: When I found it (by accident) on 27 July 1997, the gravestone was standing, and covered with plants, small trees, and dirt. We removed the overgrowth and cleaned the stone.
Translation Note: The wording is filled with Biblical citations and illusions, the sources of which are noted in parenthesis.
FAMILY ORIGINS
RABBI AVRAHAM YITZCHAK NEVIAZSHKY’s family appears to have been originally registered in Rassein, Vilna/Kovna Guberniia before 1815. In the 1816 Kovna city census, some family members then are registered in Rassein, and others transferred to Kovna.
Two of RABBI AVRAHAM YITZCHAK NEVIAZSHKY's sons - Eliezer Kalman and Yosef - were registered in Kelme in the early 1870s. They are then transferred to Kovna later.
A third son - Hirsh Aaron is registered in Ponevezh, Kovna Guberniia in the mid-1870s. He was married to two sisters, first Chana Gitel and after she died in ca. 1876, Sheitel, the daughters of Avraham and Shaina Dushkin Tsemakhovich.
One of his daughters was – Leah – was married to Barukh Broide, also registered in the mid-1870’s in Kelme, Kovna Guebrniia.
HOW RELATED:
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky (Avraham Isaac Naviasky) was the father of Hirsh Aharon Neviazhsky, grandfather of Yetta Naviasky Hillman, great-grandfather of Sarah Hillman Rhode, great-great-grandfather of Albert Rhode, great-great-great-grandfather of Harold & James Rhode.