Max Rosenberg

Meet Hillary Clinton's Grandmother, Della Rosenberg --

The Feisty Wife of a Yiddish-Speaking Jewish Immigrant

Family Secret's a Boost For Her Senate Chances

By SETH GITELL

FORWARD STAFF

WASHINGTON -- As she embarks on her campaign to represent New

York in the Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton will be able to tap

a little-known aspect of her family background -- her maternal

grandmother was married to a Russian-born Jew named Max

Rosenberg, and Mrs. Clinton's half-aunt, Adeline Friedman,

was a Jew who was interred at a Jewish mortuary.

While Mrs. Clinton has been the subject of at least three

book-length biographies and numerous newspaper and magazine

profiles, the colorful story of the first lady's grandmother, a

feisty woman who carried the name Della Rosenberg, has until now

been unknown even to many of Mrs. Clinton's closest friends.

After the Forward asked about the matter this week, Mrs. Clinton

said through a spokesman that she had "very fond memories" of Max

Rosenberg. Two members of the Rosenberg family told the Forward

this week that Mrs. Clinton remained in contact with her

half-aunt Adeline until Adeline's death last year.

As Mrs. Clinton prepares to run for Senate in a state where

Jewish voters are an important swing vote, the fact that the

first lady had a grandmother named Rosenberg may provide a boost,

some political analysts say. To be sure, Mrs. Clinton is herself

a Methodist, and Jewish voters in New York have a record of

paying more attention at the ballot booth to policy than to

religion or cultural background. And no one is comparing Mrs.

Clinton's story to that of Secretary of State Albright, whose

parents hid their Jewish roots from their daughter. Still, the

Rosenberg story opens a window into Mrs. Clinton's warm relations

with the Jewish community and into the concern for family issues

that have marked her involvement in public policy.

"Jews will now feel that she's almost one of their own. It will

make it easier for Jews to connect with her," said a New York

political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, a Democrat. "People will

feel that she's more like them and they'll be more likely to

listen to what she has to say."

Mr. Sheinkopf cautioned that "the professional Hillary-haters

will say, 'why didn't she tell us sooner,' but it won't matter.

It will help her with the Jewish voters immensely. The overall

impact will be favorable."

The director of New York University's Taub Urban Research Center,

Mitchell Moss, said the news will have a positive effect on Mrs.

Clinton's campaign. "I think it humanizes her. Hillary's family

background is going to be both engaging and interesting to the

voters of New York," said Mr. Moss, speaking from Jerusalem.

"This new revelation humanizes Hillary and points out that she's

not only a wife and a mother, but also a granddaughter."

Asked about Max Rosenberg, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton's Senate

exploratory committee, Howard Wolfson, said the first lady "has

very fond memories of him. They spent a fair amount of time

together. He took her to a place called Kiddieland, which was an

amusement park in Chicago." As for Max Rosenberg's religious

background, Mr. Wolfson said, "her memories of him are not in a

religious context. I did not ask her if she remembered seeing the

Yiddish Forward around the house."

Mrs. Clinton's grandmother was born Della Murray in Aurora, Ill.,

on June 17, 1902, according to a copy of her birth certificate.

Census records show her parents were of French Canadian descent.

Della Murray and Edwin Howell were married by a Baptist minister

in 1918 in Chicago, according to a copy of the Cook County

marriage license. A year later, the couple's first child was

born: Dorothy Emma Howell, Mrs. Clinton's mother. The record of

that birth shows that Edwin Howell was working as a chauffeur,

while Della Murray was a housewife. A second child, Isabelle, was

born five years later. But the marriage did not last long. In

1926, Mr. Howell filed for divorce.

In her 1996 book, "It Takes a Village," Mrs. Clinton hints at the

trouble within her own family's background that prompted her

commitment to children's issues. "When my mother was only eight

years old and her sister barely three, her father sent them alone

by train to Los Angeles to live with his parents, who were

immigrants from England," Mrs. Clinton writes. "When my mother

first told me how she cared for her sister during the three-day

journey, I was incredulous. After I became a mother myself, I was

furious that any child, even in the safer 1920s, would be treated

like that." In an interview with Talk magazine published earlier

this week, Mrs. Clinton refers to the "terrible obstacles" her

own mother, Dorothy, faced, and she says, "My mother...vowed that

she would break the pattern of abandonment in her family and

did."

The story, as detailed in Cook County Superior Court documents,

is even darker than Mrs. Clinton suggests. In his divorce

petition, Edwin Howell said that when he came home from work one

day in January 1926, his wife "insisted on wanting to go out,

which she had been doing right up to date for a period of five or

six months ... I couldn't go. I worked most all the time. She

became abusive and angry, and scratched and bit me, flared up at

me." While claims of violence made in the context of divorce

cases can be questionable, especially since at the time they were

one of the only ways to win a divorce, the accusation was in this

case corroborated by two witnesses. Della Murray's own sister,

Frances Czeslawski, described Della Murray's "violent temper,"

and the confrontation on that day in January. "She wanted to go

some place, and I guess Mr. Howell didn't have the circumstances

to take her. She flew at him and scratched his face." An employer

also testified on Edwin Howell's behalf. The divorce was

finalized in 1927. Edwin Howell obtained custody of the two

girls, whom he sent to live with his parents in California.

Enter Max Rosenberg. Born in 1901 in Russia, the son of Joseph

and Mollie, by 1933 Max Rosenberg had made his way to Chicago,

where he married Della Murray. A city court judge performed the

ceremony, according to a copy of the marriage license. His

mother, Mollie, was a member of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

and the Sisterhood of Agudas Achim North Shore congregation,

according to a death notice published in The Chicago Tribune.

Mollie was a subscriber to the Yiddish Forward, according to

court records of her estate. (A Chicago attorney and genealogist,

Charles Bernstein, assisted the Forward with the documentary

research for this article.)

In 1936, Della Rosenberg petitioned the Cook County Superior

Court for custody of her two daughters, who had visited Chicago

from their home in California two years earlier. Max Rosenberg,

she contended, wanted to adopt the two girls. Della Rosenberg

alleged that her ex-husband, Edwin Howell, "failed, neglected and

refused to make suitable provision for herself and their two

children." According to the documents, daughter Dorothy -- who

would become Hillary Clinton's mother -- was working as a

domestic in California at the age of 16. Della Rosenberg argued

that she could now take better care of the daughters, and that

she and her husband were "abundantly able to support, maintain

and educate" the two children. Court papers filed on her behalf

said, "she has remarried; that her husband with whom she is

living ... in the city of Chicago is Max Rosenberg; and he is as

much interested in the welfare of said children as if they were

his own; and he is desirous if such a result could be legally

consummated, to adopt them as his own." The attempt failed. The

court ruled that the girls remain in custody of Edwin Howell.

Mrs. Clinton writes in her book that a family for whom her mother

worked encouraged Dorothy Howell to finish high school. A year

after the custody dispute, Dorothy, who would become Mrs.

Clinton's mother, moved from California to Chicago and promptly

met Hugh Rodham. They married in 1942, and Hillary was born five

years later -- into what numerous accounts have described as a

solidly middle class, Park Ridge, Ill., upbringing as the

daughter of the owner of drapery company.

In the meantime, Max and Della Rosenberg and their daughter

Adeline, who had been born in 1934, lived at 6341 North Campbell

in Chicago until 1960. Sometime after then, Max Rosenberg moved

his family to Los Angeles. Max Rosenberg died there in 1984 after

a career in real estate.

Max Rosenberg's youngest sister, Revell Hoffberg, is still alive

and living in a suburb of Chicago. Although reluctant to talk,

she said she remembers the pairing between Max and Della. "I'm

the last of the family," Mrs. Hoffberg said. "Della died a long

time ago." She had heard that her niece Adeline had recently

passed away. Asked if she had ever had any contact with the first

lady, Mrs. Hoffberg said, "No, Adeline did." Della Rosenberg

never converted to Judaism, Mrs. Hoffberg said.

Adeline Rosenberg's step-son, David Friedman, said that Adeline

converted to Judaism, married Clarence Friedman and became a

lawyer late in life. David Friedman, who works at Verisurf

Software in Anaheim, Calif., said he and his children, who

referred to Adeline Rosenberg as "Grandma Addie," spent secular

and Jewish holidays at her house. He recalled that Adeline was in

contact with both Mrs. Clinton and her mother, Dorothy Rodham.

Adeline "was quite a gal. She was constantly helping others," Mr.

Friedman said. Mr. Friedman also recalled that Adeline served as

a delegate to state political conventions. Adeline died in 1998

and was interred at Mount Sinai Mortuary.

The accounts of Mr. Friedman and Mrs. Hoffberg suggest that Mrs.

Clinton is familiar with her family history. The backdrop of Max

and Della Rosenberg's life puts some aspects of the first lady's

relationship with Jews into a new light. Some of her oldest and

closest friends and associates include Jewish women -- Sara

Ehrman, Ann Lewis, Patty Kenner.

During the 1992 presidential campaign, an aide to Bill Clinton,

Steve Rabinowitz, was known by the nickname "Rabbi." The use of

that nickname stretched from Mr. Rabinowitz's work on the

campaign into the White House. On one occasion, Mrs. Clinton

began to follow the common practice and refer to Mr. Rabinowitz

as "Rabbi," then stopped herself and called him Steve. Mrs.

Clinton is the only person Mr. Rabinowitz can ever recall doing

this. "I always assumed she didn't know if it was appropriate,

ethnically pejorative or somehow not right. I always respected

her for it, because she cared enough to wonder if it was right.

I assumed it was somebody trying to do the right thing," Mr.

Rabinowitz said.

Another interesting episode involves the first lady's involvement

with the historic Breed Street Shul in Los Angeles. The Breed

Street Shul is the last remaining synagogue in Los Angeles's

Boyle Heights neighborhood. Mrs. Clinton designated the shul a

"Save America's Treasures" site and visited the synagogue at the

height of the impeachment struggle last December. The Los Angeles

Jewish Federation and the Getty Trust have provided $30,000 to

preserve the building.

The president of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern

California, Stephen Sass, said he was impressed by the first

lady's knowledge at the ceremony. The Jewish Historical Society

has been spearheading the effort to save the shul. "She was very

much aware of the community and the Jewish history of the

neighborhood. She seemed very much aware of it. I can't speak to

how she got the information," Mr. Sass said. "She very much

understood the significance of the shul and what it meant to the

Jewish community."

Mrs. Clinton spoke with "really great empathy and connection and

as someone who was undergoing great personal difficulties," Mr.

Sass said. Following Mrs. Clinton's speech she was swarmed by a

group of elderly members of Temple Beth Am, a Beverly Hills

synagogue.

Speaking on a platform in front of the synagogue, Mrs. Clinton

said, "We believe there must be continuity between generations.

Boyle Heights immigrants can think back to those immigrants 60 to

70 years ago who did not speak English -- they spoke Yiddish."

She added, "In honoring this particular building, we honor the

past."

Little did the audience know that Mrs. Clinton's grandmother,

Della Rosenberg, was married to one of those Yiddish-speaking

immigrants.

* Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Sep 19 2015, 4:12:19 UTC