Finally, I had a bit of time to return to a ‘real Jewish history’ post.
This one is a corker.
A few months ago, we started tying together how the RAFFLOVICH family seemed to be in the middle of a network that connected Frankists (aka outwardly ‘xtian’ Jews who were the next generation of believers in Shabtai Tzvi) with people like Aleister Crowley, Italian gentry, the Jesuits, the Prieure de Sion, the British evangelicals who really founded the State of Israel – and the early z-ist movement, here in Eretz Israel, and also in the UK.
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In the meantime, I got busy with a hundred different things, and all this research had to go onto the back burner again.
Today, I decided to eat breakfast while looking for that story of the Tzemach Tzedek talking about the Alter Rebbe’s snuff box, that makes an appearance in Elitzur’s latest video, HERE.
I girded my loins and started looking for references to that story.
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So I’m clicking around, trying to figure out if there’s more to this snuff box story, when I click on the following link on the derher.org site:
https://derher.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Derher-Nissan-5781-.pdf
I started scanning for mentions of the ‘Tzemach Tzedek’ – and that brings me to this article, that begins on page 17, talking about the last Rebbe’s roots that trace back to Nikolayev, in the Ukraine.
The last Lubavicher Rebbe was actually born in Nikolayev, and lived there for the first six years of his life.
So of course, i took a closer look.
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According to this article in DerHer magazine, in the year 5549 (1789) the Russian government decided to open a new shipyard close to Nikolayev, that would service the Russian fleet stationed in the Black Sea, near by.
The article doesn’t say who was ruling Russia at this point, but it was Empress Catherine the Great. Her advisors included Grigory Potemkin, and also NAME of Shklov, both of whom employed YEHOSHUA ZEITLIN as their court factor.
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Next, the article says that 20 years after it was founded (i.e. 1809) “Czar Nikolai I” approved the appointment of a ‘Reb Ephraim Zalman’ to be the city’s rav.
This is strange for a lot of reasons.
First of all, ‘Czar Nikolai I’ only came to the throne in 1825. It was his brother, the Tsar Alexander I, who was on the Russian throne at this point. And Tsar Alexander I was a born-again-evangelical who was being acclaimed as the ‘Second Cyrus’ across Europe, after his defeat of Napoleon.
Tsar Alexander I was trying very, very hard to ‘convert’ the two million Jews in his lands, and one of his big plans for doing this was to award land and many other privileges to any Jew who would convert to xtianity.
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Under Alexander I’s conversion program, any Jews who converted would be granted Russian land that would be held by them and their descendants in perpetuity, as ‘Israelite Christians’ – for as long as they stayed being xtians.
Part of the reason we never hear about Alexander I’s program for ‘Israelite Christians’ in Russia is because this is exactly the same time that certain ‘rebbes’ and their acolytes started acquiring large tracts of land across Russia.
It’s always puzzled me how this was the case, given that the Russian Imperial policy was that Jews were forbidden from owning land.
The more I’ve researched this subject, the more that it appears that the main exceptions to this rule was important contractors to the Russian government / military; and ‘Israelite Christians’ – Jews who’d agreed to be baptised, but who otherwise were permitted to live as proto ‘Jews-for-Jesus’, in these special settlements set aside by Tsar Alexander I.
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On March 25th, 1817, Easter Sunday, the Tsar issued a ukase concerning the converted Jews of Russia, that lifted civil disabilities off baptised Jews, and decreed they should henceforth be known as ‘Israeli Christians’.
This decree was published in Russian, German and Polish, and also announced the establishment of a new ‘Society of Israeli Christians’, to ensure the material well-being of baptised Jews who now found themselves cut off from their old support networks in the Jewish community, but still barred from being accepted as true Christians by their Russian neighbors.
The formal task of the society was essentially to encourage Jews to be baptized.
Another carrot that the Tsar tried to use to encourage more Russian Jews to convert was the promise of free land grants in the Crimea, which Russia had recently conquered, and was keen to colonise.[1]
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We will come back to Alexander I another time – he ‘died’ in December 1825.
But there are persistent rumours that he actually just abdicated the throne voluntarily (possibly, before he got bumped off the same way his father Paul I was assassinated…) – and became a wandering monk across Russia.
What’s even stranger about this tale is that almost the identical story is told about Moshe Shneuri, the Alter Rebbe’s son who converted to xtianity, but then is said to have regretted it, at some point, and became a ‘wandering tzaddik’ drifting from one shul to another, across Russia.
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So, to come back to Derher magazine.
We’ve already established some serious faults in its historical accuracy, as Alexander I was on the throne in 1809 and not his brother, Nicolai I.
And Alexander I is mainly giving land and privileges to Jews who become xtians, plus some land grants in places that Russia has newly conquered, like the Crimea, and important government contractors. I don’t know which category the Jews of Nikolaev fit into, still. Maybe, all of them.
Derher informs us:
“[The Tsar] personally met with Reb Efraim Zalman and commented that he was “razumne,” a shrewd person.”
The article continues by explaining that Reb Efraim Zalman is a follower of the Alter Rebbe of Chabad, Shneur Zalman, and apparently even writes the hanacha of a ma’amar delivered by the Alter Rebbe as part of the sheva brachot celebrations that accompany the Zhlobiner wedding.
In other words – he’s an important follower of the Alter Rebbe, and not just some random joe.
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Next, Derher says that this original ‘Jewish’ community in Nikolayev didn’t last very long.
In 5589 (1829), the Tsar issues and expulsion order for the community of ‘Jews’ living Nikoyalev. This is Tsar Nicolai I, who takes over from Alexander in December 1825. We can assume it takes him a little bit of time to get his feet under the table, and to start to figure out his own plans for destroying the Jewish community.
Remember, under the rules of his ukase, Alexander I grants land holdings to baptised Jews only as long as they continue to live as xtians.
If there is any backsliding – the grant of land will be taken away. At this point, I can’t help but wonder if this is at least one of the reasons for this expulsion order in Nikolayev.
As we continue to unpack the story in DerHer, you’ll see that’s not as crazy as it sounds.
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Derher says that while most Jews are finally forced out five years later, in 1834, there are a small group of Jews who manage to stay on in Nikoyalev, even after this date.
And here is where this story whooshes off into ‘incredible’, once again.
Derher says there is a woman called ‘Mume Leah’, a Jewess who married out of the faith and somehow managed to acquire “ADMIRAL ALEXSEY GREIG” as her husband.
Adm. Greig is apparently a Scot, who is serving in the Russian navy, and also advising the Tsars on how best to settle the new land they’ve just conquered.
Here are a few snippets that build a picture of someone who is very influential in the Russian government – and yet somehow, married to a Jewess called ‘Mume Leah’ who still brings her charity money to the Ruzhiner Rebbe (who the Russian government had made persona non grata and expelled from their realms.)
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From HERE:
“At that time, Admiral Aleksey Greig commanded the Black Sea Fleet. … For the successful command of the fleet, Greig was promoted to the rank of admiral.”
From HERE:
“One of them was Admiral Aleksey Greig who advised to go beyond only the sailors and to attract experienced farmers, herdsmen, and winemakers.”
From HERE:
“Figure 11A & B. Admiral Aleksey Greig (1775–1845), admiral of Scottish extraction in the Russian navy. A: portrait by Georg von Bothmann, 1877 (Hermitage Museum); B: lithograph by unknown artist.”
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That last source is probably the most important one, at this stage, because while it is pretty easy to ‘fake’ the written word, when you have an old portrait like this, with specific details, it’s much more likely to be an authentic historical artefact.
So, ‘Admiral Aleksey Greig’ apparently was a real person, was a real admiral in the Russian navy, was the governor of Nikolayev, and was a Scot.
How hard could it be, to track down ‘Mume Leah’, his apostate wife?!
Of course – almost impossible.
Because many of her descendants and relatives are still controlling and running the Jewish community.
But I went back to DerHer to see if I could gather any more clues, and yes, I did just that.
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The magazine explains that ‘Di Mume Leah’ had a nephew by the name of: SHOLOM YISHAYA RAFALOVITCH, who she’d manage to set up in the shipbuilding business for the Russian navy, where he’d become pretty rich.
When the expulsion order was handed down, Di Mume Leah – married to Alexsey Greig, the xtian governor of Nikoyalev – managed to get special permits that enabled her nephew, SHOLOM YISHAYA RAFALOVITCH, and this ‘Ephraim Zalman Razumne’ to stay on.
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Let’s unpack this.
A few months ago when I was tracking down the RAFFALOVICH family connections to Frankists and satanists like Aleister Crowley, I’d already done a lot of leg work on this particular family tree.
(See this post: https://thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/the-yismach-moshe-aleister-crowley-and-more-strange-connections/).
On the Russian Wiki site HERE, there is an entry for the MARSHALKOVITCH family.
I had to machine translate what I’m bringing below, but you get the picture – and there’s a lot of interesting details here, so I’m going to bring the whole thing:
Marshalkovich (Маршלקאויץ, formerly Марш) is a Jewish surname in Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, whose representatives played a prominent role in Jewish public life. Many well-born Jewish surnames, such as Parnes, Rafalovich, etc., branched out from it.
Especially famous was the branch of this surname, which originates from Dubna (Volyn province). An early representative of Moslemism is R. Avraham B.-Zeev Wolf, whose epitaph is dated “תנ ״ ט ד ׳ אלול” and who, according to legend, was the son-in-law of Taz (R. David Halevi).
His grandson, R. Avigdor M., was a regional syndic, דאש מדינה since 1753. The latter’s grandson, R. Chaim Nachman Parnes from Vilna, son-in-law of R. Efraim Zalman Margaliot, was the head of the Vilna community, where he died in 1854.
Another grandson of R. Avraham Zeev-Wolf, R. Moses Parnes (died in 1764 G.), was a well-known Talmudist and philanthropist. His grandson, Aaron R. Parnes, founded in Dubna Beth ha-Midrash, bears still the name “המרדש בית של ד׳אהדן פדנם”, and established with him a valuable library.
Another grandson of R. Moses, R. Zadok Maršalkovič, was a philanthropist and was built in Dubna many charitable institutions and the synagogue, which bears to this day the name “בית של המרדש מאדשאלקװיטא” or קלואז של” בד״ץ”.
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Notice, the links between the RAFFALOVICH / RAFALOVICH and PARNES family of Vilna.
The Rafalovichs were closely connected to the Vilna parnessim who were running that city, and also, running the charity for ‘Eretz Yisrael’ that functioned as a secret society under the name ‘the Nobles of Vilna’.
Also, notice that this family stems from AVRAHAM BEN ZEEV WOLF, the son in law of the TAZ – who had become a follower of Shabtai Tzvi in the year before he died. The TAZ’s son and adopted son were both big believers in Shabtai Tzvi.
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Lastly, notice the reference to EFRAIM ZALMAN MARGALIOT, who is the super-wealthy coral merchant who signs an approbation for Rebbe Nachman’s Likutey Moharan – and happens to be one of the main funders for the ‘chassidic aliya’.
(And who is connected to the ‘Nobles of Vilna’ via marriage.)
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Let’s see if we can dig up more connections, to try to pin down who ‘Di Muma Leah’ really was, and which family she actually belonged to.
Here is the geni page for one ‘MOSES RAFFALOVICH’:
Moses Raffalovich (deceased) – Genealogy (geni.com)
And here is some of what you find there:
[K]nown as Moses Rafalovich of Mohilev (Mogilev Podolski) on the Dniester River, where he and his brother built warships for the Czar.
“The first to bear this surname was Moshe Parnes, son of Rafael, ship builder for the Russian Army, when in 1783 during a visit of Catherine the Great, the empress would have bestowed upon him his patronymic Raffalovich, replacing the surname Parnes that was used till then.”
Reference: Asher Salah, Quest 2106 https://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/from-odessa-to-florence/ who referenced Comparetti, In memoria di Elena Raffalovich, 15-16.
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This is the right family.
Here’s another snippet:
“Two strong legs formed the foundation of the Raffalovich fortune – ship building and banking.
Moses and Solomon were responsible for developing the ship building. Solomon came to Nikolayev in 1825 and by 1836 won bids for two ships for the Russian Navy. Several more (about 20 in total) followed and essentially they built the entire Black Sea Fleet over the next 20 years.”
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At this stage, Hashem had mercy on me, and I found the Wikipedia page for Admiral Aleksey Greig, HERE.
This is is his picture:

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And even more importantly, this is his Jewish wife, ‘Di Muma Leah’, aka JULIA STALINSKAYA:

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Wiki says this about the happy couple:
Aleksey Greig married Julia Stalinskaya, who was Jewish. This created social problems for them, when the family moved to St.Petersburg. They had five children, and their sons all served in the navy, achieving prominence. Greig’s grandfather Charles was an emigrant from Scotland. His father Samuil was an admiral in the Russian Imperial Navy.
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So once I had ‘Di Mama Leah’s’ name in the real world, I could track down her family tree, a little more, on Geni, HERE.
And HERE, you’ll find a whole bunch of real details about where she and her husband some of her kids were buried, with real gravestones, in real graveyards.
You know, the sorts of details that are nearly always totally absent when I look into the families of most of the ‘tzaddikim’, and especially the ‘tzaddikim’ connected to Chabad and Ruzhin.
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Here’s a pertinent snippet:
Yulia Mikhailovna Greig (nee Liya Moyshevna Stalinskaya), the daughter of a Mogilev innkeeper, a Jew.
In her youth, she served in her father’s tavern. She married a Polish officer, Captain Kulchinsky, but soon divorced. In 1820, she arrived in Nikolaev with deliveries of ship timber, obtained an audience with the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ports, Admiral A. S. Greig, and soon became his common-law wife. In 1827, they were secretly married. Being an energetic and strong-willed woman,
Liya Moishevna had a huge influence on Greig.
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Next, that Geni entry led me to a Russian-language genealogical site which had more details about ‘Di Mama Leah Greig’, and her children and husband, that you can see HERE.
But nothing telling me how Yulia Liya Greig directly connected up to the Rafalovich / Marshalkovitch family.
(We’ll start to see more of why that information has been carefully hidden in a moment.)
But clicking around, I got to another Russian-language historical site, HERE, with a page devoted to the RAFALOVICH family that brought more of the real story, together with a whole bunch of verifiable, first-hand evidence.
Here’s a couple of machine-translated snippets:
The head of the family, the Mogilev merchant Shlema Moshkovich (Moiseevich) Rafalovich (ca. 1790 – 1846), moved to Nikolaev from Mogilev in 1825 at the invitation of his sister-in-law Y.M. Greig, the wife of the Nikolaev military governor.
A close relative of the founder of the Odessa dynasty of Rafalovich, Abram Rafalovich.
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It continues:
In view of the eviction of Jews from the city of Nikolaev, by the decree of Nicholas I of November 20, 1829, he filed a petition to move with his family to Odessa, however, in the 30s – 40s he continued to live in Nikolaev.
In 1836, he won the first tender for the construction of two ships. He built ships in the Spassky Admiralty, the boathouses of which he restored at his own expense. Until 1846, he built five 84-gun battleships: “Gabriel”, “Uriel”, “Yagudiil”, “Rostislav”, “Svyatoslav”.
On the eve of his death in 1846, he won a contract for the construction of the 120-gun ship “Paris”, the obligations for the performance of which were transferred to his heirs – his son Alexander Shlemovich (Solomonovich) (about 1820 – after 1890) and wife Rebekka (Ryvka, Rivka) (about 1800 – about 1860) Rafalovich.
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On June 22, 1864, by the decision of the Governing Senate, A.Sh. Rafalovich was awarded the status of a hereditary honorary citizen, about which the Emperor’s Decree of September 18, 1864 was issued.
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Let’s make the point again, clearly, that Imperial Russia didn’t just give Jews land and ‘hereditary honorary citizen status’ for nothing. Just because they were a ‘tzaddik’, or had a bunch of chassids.
Imperial Russia rewarded service to the State.
And just as Russia = Edom, you can be sure that nothing the State was up to, especially in the 19th century, was actually good for the Jews.
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So, now we learn that Shlema Moshkovich (Moiseevich) Rafalovich’s sister-in-law is ‘Di Muma Liya / Julia Grieg’.
My best guess is that Shlema’s wife, Rebekah (1800-1866) and ‘Di Muma Liya’ were sisters.
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It won’t shock you to learn to that so many of this family’s descendants were senior communist revolutionaries and Bolshevik activists, with one, FELIX YAKOVLEVICH KON (1864-1941) apparently friends with Lenin.
But that’s not where I want to go, in the rest of this post.
I want to try and figure out more of which family Rebekah and Liya (Julia) Stalinsky (Grieg) link us back to, and how the RAFALOVICH family have continued to play a very important role in the State of Israel, even up to our days.
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SHLEMA MOSHKOVICH RAFALOVICH (1790 – 1846) has at least two brothers, and we’ve written about both of them here before.
The one we wrote about HERE was the brother called KALMAN MOSHE RAFFALOVICH of Odessa.
He’s the grandpa of the founder of the ACHAVA society (who was behind the publication of the Kol HaTor), ISAIAH RAFFALOVICH.
Isaiah’s maternal grandpa was apparently that same NISSAN BAK who was the agent of ‘R ISRAEL OF RUZHIN’ (aka MOSHE TZVI of SAVRAN, main persecutor of R NATAN of BRESLOV) in Eretz Israel.
This is the same ‘R ISRAEL of RUZHIN’ who ‘Di Muma Liya’ Greig was apparently paying her tzedaka money to… All of this was kept very much in the family.
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This branch of RAFFALOVICHs descend from Rebbe Nachman’s uncle, R BARUCH of MEDZHEBOZH – and also, R YECHIEL MICHAL of ZLOTCHOV.
Like this: BARUCH OF MEDZHIBOZH m SIME CHUSHE > CHANA CHAYE (1769-1869) m R YITZCHOK RABINOWITZ OF YAMPOLA (ABD VILKOVISK, SON OF YECHIEL MICHEL OF ZLOCHOV) > RIVA, RIVALE RABINOWITZ (1810-1877) m ABRAHAM KALMAN RAFFALOVICH (1761-1879) > MOSES RAFFALOVICH (1830 – 1890) m SARA DOCTOROVICH (daughter of NISSAN BAK) > R’ DR YESHAYAHU RAFFALOVICH, founder of ACHAVA, rabbi of British Army in Palestine.
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And then, we wrote about SHLEMA’s other brother, ABRAHAM MOSES RAFFOLOVICH, HERE, in the post called: The Mystery Daughter of the Alter Rebbe.
He marries OLGA LOWENSOHN, and has 13 kids – most of them are interesting, and either marry non-Jews or Frankists, or are openly gay Dominican priests. Go take a look, I’m not going to rehash all this.
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OK, let’s see if we can pin down a bit more which family JULIA (LIYA) GRIEG actually belonged to.
Back in the ‘fake Jewish genealogy’ world that doesn’t include people like ADM. ALEKSEY GREIG, governor of Nikolayev, you’ll remember that this RAFFALOVICH family of Russian ship-building wealthy Frankists are called ‘MARSHALKOVITCH’.
This tree on Geni is curated by (who else?) Kevin Lawrence Hanit. You can see it HERE.
It’s of course a huge mess – of course. Because they have had to scramble to hide all these non-Jewish spouses like ALEKSEY GREIG, of people who are close family of our ‘tzaddikim’ and ‘big rabbis’.
But there are a ton of ‘PARNAS’-surnamed people here, and we remember from above that ‘PARNAS’ was the original name of the RAFFALOVICH family of shipbuilders, before Catherine the Great changed it for them.
So, who else is here in this family tree – and who might ‘JULIA (LIYA) GREIG’ actually be, in this alternative, faked, genealogical alternative universe?
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My best guess is that JULIA LIYA STALINSKAYA (GREIG) got given the pseudonym of BREINDEL HOROWITZ ‘HaGVIRA’ (or vice-versa), who is said to have married MORDECHAI ZADOK MARSHALKOVITCH of DUBNO.
(I don’t know if this is ‘instead of’ or ‘as well as’ Adm. Aleksey Greig, who predeceased his younger wife by quite a few years.
‘BREINDEL HAGVIRA’s’ yichus links us straight back to ‘Jewish royalty’, including the NODAH B’YEHUDA and a bunch of Landaus, R’ ITZIKEL ‘HAMBURGER’ HOROWITZ, Segals, Babads, Lurias, Schors and Halberstadts – and nearly all the main funders of the ‘Nobles of Vilna’, who were paying for both the chassidic yishuv, and the settlement of the Vilna Gaon’s Perushim, in Eretz Yisrael.
Of course, there are no real details for ‘BREINDEL HAGVIRA’ that prove that she, or her husband, actually every existed.
No pictures, documents, burials, graves – nothing.
Just some nice stories to disguise who she really was, and who she really married – and who her offspring really were, and what they really did, as they moved between their ‘Jewish’ and non-Jewish personas.
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Two more details, for now, and then we’ll wrap this up for today.
Over HERE, I tripped over the archives for Nikoyalev, in Russian, on the WayBack Machine. Baruch Hashem for machine translation – it was actually pretty readable in English, all 250+ pages of it.
Here’s a few snippets that caught my eye:
The 24 [Jewish] merchant families [living in Nikolaev as] indicated by A. S. Greig also do not coincide with the data of the magistrate [23], but they are more accurate, since A. S. Greig writes about two merchants of the first guild in Nikolaev: Sh. Rafalovich and M. Serebryany.
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The bolded reference is to Shlema Rafalovich, brother-in-law of ‘Di Muma Liya’ Greig.
He’s a real person, and so is she.
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Here’s another interesting snippet:
The attraction of Jewish merchants to supply the Black Sea Fleet began under G. A. Potemkin and I. I. de Traverse. The largest volumes of supplies fell during the governorship of Admiral A. S. Greig.
When the rapid development of the fleet, shipbuilding and the city began in the first half of the nineteenth century, many Jews moved to Nikolaev, occupying almost the entire sphere of intra-city trade (ousting the Greeks from this sphere), as well as supplies to the Black Sea Fleet.
From 1813 to 1830, of the 52 suppliers to the navy, 30 were Jews, or 58%.
Among them were: Abram Peretz, Favel Isakov, Samuel Bertanzon, Markus Varshavsky, Michael Serebryany, Faibish Blank, Anna Brigerova, Solomon Briger, Shlema Dobrovensky (Dubrovensky), Shifrin, Moisey Dubensky, Nusin Peretz, Leib Seltzer, Shavel Rabinovich, Michael Shlemov, Shlema Rafalovich, Halanay, Auslander, Natanzon Berko Baranovsky, Leiba Eisenstock, Peisich Begun, Feldser, Shtulkarts, Rovensky, Nachman Berkov, Halper, Itska Finkelstein, and others .
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These are all real people, very influential in Russian military / government circles – and we haven’t really heard about any of them, except ABRAM PERETZ, also bolded above.
He’s the SIL of JOSHUA ZEITLIN, that I’ve written about so many times here before. He also ended up converting and marrying a xtian woman. We’re told he was ‘business partners’ with NATAN NETA NOTKIN (d.1804), in-law of the ‘Sha’agat Aryeh’ and shtadlan who apparently arranges for the release of the Alter Rebbe under Tsar Paul I.
See this post for more info:
https://thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/russias-first-modern-jews-part-2-baruch-shick-the-freemason/
There is a ‘NUSIN PERETZ’ in this list, it would not surprise me if ABRAM and NUSIN / NATAN NOTA are brothers, and in business together.
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And what happened to SHLEMA RAFALOVICH, ship builder to the Tsars?
Here’s a couple more snippets:
Mogilev merchant of the second guild Shlema Rafalovich (circa 1853) was the nephew of Yulia. M. Greig, the wife of Admiral A. S. Greig. She invited him to Nikolaev to supply quartermaster supplies and various materials to the Black Sea Fleet.
In 1825, Rafalovich moved to Nikolaev, where he became the head (rebbe) of the local Jews. Together with him came his wife Rebekah (ca. after 1857) and son Alexander (ca. g.)
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Then, after a few years, he moves to Chisinau / Kishinev – and converts to Russian Orthodox xtianity:
Subsequently, S. Rafalovich was forced to leave for Chisinau. He founded one of the largest banking houses.
At the end of his life, he converted to Orthodoxy under the name of Fyodor.
He died in Odessa around 1853. S. Y. Witte’s memoirs about Sh. Rafalovich and his descendants: “I knew very well Rafalovich’s father, old Fyodor Rafalovich, who converted to Orthodoxy and was a very zealous Orthodox. He was a highly respectable man, his firm was one of the largest and best firms in Odessa. When he died, his business passed to his sons. The main son is Alexander Rafalovich.”
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This ‘RAFALOVICH’ / MARSHALKOVITCH family gave us a lot of converted ‘new-xtian’ bankers and government officials in Russia.
A whole bunch of Jesuit priests, with an interest in buying property in Eretz Yisrael.
And last, but not least, Dr YISHAYA RAFAELOVICH, chaplain for the British Army, and not coincidentally, founder of the ‘WORLD ACHaVA’ brotherhood that got Rav Kook his job as the first ‘Chief Rabbi’ of Israal, and arranged for the publication of (and propaganda around) the ‘Kol haTor’.
Kol HaTor is a key ‘brainwashing’ text in the Modern Orthodox world and its yeshivas, as we already started to unpick in many posts here on the blog, including this one:
https://thinkforyourselfpublishing.com/agudat-achva-part-1-the-xtian-connection-to-kol-hator/
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The next time we come back to this story, I hope to tell you more about the STEIGLITZ family of Russian ‘new-xtian’ bankers, that connects us back to Adm, GREIG and ‘Di Muma Liya’ via their daughter, JULIA VON STEIGLITZ.
(And also, the group of Jewish bankers from Berdichev, that were clustered around the TZEMACH TZEDEK.)
Until then.
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FOOTNOTE:
[1] Ibid.. p. 32.