Olga Leontiewna Raffalovich

Note: Abraham Raffalovich the father of Hermann, Annissim and Leon Raffalovich was married to Olga Lowensohn (the daughter of Leon Lowensohn). Olga's sister Bella Lowensohn was married to Charles Joachim Ephrussi of Odessa. The Ephrussi family were related to the Rothschilds. from a blog post http://aronbengilad.blogspot.com/2011/04/raffalovich-and-catholic-t... accessed 4/20/2011 by Anita Rudy

http://wiki.tricolors.com/index.php/Histoire_de_la_famille_Raffalovich

"In 1837 Abraham Raffalovich founded with his sons the Trading House “Fedor Raffalovich and Co” and was awarded by Tzar Alexander II hereditary honorary citizenship for his services to the Crown by Supreme Decree on 24 May, 1857. He was considered to be Odessa’s wealthiest Jewish member of the Russian merchant guild.95 In 1811 he married his first-degree cousin Olga Lowensohn (1792-1872), daughter of Leon and Lea Segal, who begot him thirteen children. Three of these children died in their infancy and one, Mark (1820-1842), perished in his early twenties while swimming in the Dniestr. Olga was related to the famous maskil Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788-1860) and belonged to an illustrious line of rabbis.96 Her sister Bella Lowensohn was the wife of Charles Joachim Ephrussi (1792 Odessa-1864 Vienna).97" "It is noteworthy that five of their six surviving sons married women related to the mother’s family, the Lowensohns, members of the narrow circle of the big merchants of Odessa. This is in line with the well-known endogamic practice among the Jewish mercantile elite, in Russia and elsewhere, intended to preserve intact the family endowment.98 Leon, Elena’s father, married Rosette Lowensohn (1807-1895 Parigi), Theodor (also Fedor) married Ljuba Lowensohn, Anissim (Onesime) (1822-1883 Odessa) in 1844 married Nadine Lowensohn (1827-1891 Frankfurt),99 David (1824-1877 Vienna) after his first marriage to Emilia Morpurgo from Trieste, who died in Odessa in 1848 shortly after the wedding,100 in 1855 married Therese Lowensohn (1840-1912 Odessa). In one case this endogamy even violates the civil law’s prohibition in most European countries forbidding the marriage of an uncle and his niece, but permitted and in some instances even encouraged in the Jewish tradition.101 Hermann Raffalovich married Marie, who was his brother Leon’s daughter and the sister of Elena Raffalovich in a set apparently dominated by a strong matriarchy.102 [Fig. 4] " from http://primolevicenter.org/printed-matter/from-odessa-to-florence/