Moses Rosenbloom

Moshe may have had six children from his first wife in Lithuania. I couldn't find her name and can only track two of the children, who came to the US with his second wife, Rachel/Rae, in 1900. Morris came to America in 1899 from Grodna, embarking from Liverpool on Oct 29 and landing in Quebec on Nov 5, preceding his wife by 5 months, possibly with his first daughter, 18 yr old Feige (who may have died in 1902), and had six more kids with Rae, all born in the US. His grave lists his father as David HaKohen. He was a weaver in Russia.He became a junk man and later peddler in the US. His sons grew up to found fine clothing boutiques in California.

The principal traditional sources of income of Grodno Jews were commerce (principally in agricultural and timber products) and crafts, and more recently, industry. In 1887, 88% of commercial undertakings, 76% of factories and workshops, and 65.2% of real estate in Grodno were Jewish owned. The situation did not alter appreciably before World War I, but after Grodno's reversion to Poland the Jews were systematically ousted from their economic positions and from the middle of the 1930s a stringent anti-Jewish economic boycott was imposed. In 1921 there were 1,273 industrial enterprises and workshops in Jewish ownership, employing 3,719 persons (2,341 of them hired workers, of whom 83.2% were Jews), 34.6% for food processing (and tobacco), and 29% garment manufacturing. In the 1930s there were 938 Jewish artisans: 364 were tailors and 168 cobblers. Jewish doctors and lawyers constituted half the professional people in Grodno. In 1937 there were 65 Jewish-owned large or medium-sized factories employing 2,181 workers, of whom 895 (41%) were Jews, as against 51 state-owned or non-Jewish enterprises employing 2,262 workers. Among the other main enterprises then owned by Jews were a large bicycle factory, a factory for artistic leather products, a glass factory, a lithographic plant, foundries, and breweries. Some of the plants proved good training grounds for potential immigrants to Palestine during the 1930s. The huge Y. Shereshevsky tobacco factory in Grodno employed, before World War I, some 1,800 workers and provided a livelihood for hundreds of families in subsidiary activities, nearly all Jewish. Work stopped on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals and it maintained a school for the children of the employees. The Polish government nationalized it in the 1920s, making it conform to the official pattern and the majority of the Jewish workers were forced out.

In 1897, there were 13,147 Jewish providers in Grodno: Clothing and textiles 3,563 Commerce and agricultural produce 2,408 Construction 1,771 Domestic service and day work 1,320 Timber products 1,170 Transportation 1,148 Manufacture of fabrics 109 Tobacco industry 1,658

In the 1890s, Jewish labor movements, led by the Bund, conducted political and trade-union activity among the workers of the tobacco factory.