Rabbi Eliyahu (Elya) Harkavy

The official records for Grodno were destroyed during WWII, creating gaps in the lineage information available for certain branches of the Harkavy tree, especially for the crucial 19th century. Unfortunately this branch falls into that category, and we are searching for other sources to fill in that information.

In October, 2013, I was finally able to fill in some of the gaps with the aid of Belarus researcher Yuri Dorn. We were able to establish that Eliyahu Harkavy had at least 3 children, not one, as commonly reported. It's possible that Gita was Eliyahu's second wife, since she was only 12 years older than Elya's first child, Khaya, born around 1797. However, the 1816 Revision list states that Elya's wife was Itka, age 28, born about 1788. It's unclear whether Itka is the name of Elya's first wife, or is an endearing form of Gittel, Elya's second wife, who was apparently already married to him in 1811. To further confuse the situation, the 1816 Revision lists a daughter of Elya as Khana, age 13, and therefore born around 1803. Are Khana and Khaya two different daughters?

Fortunately I was able to find my missing link. Leizer Harkavy, Eliyahu's son, born 1816, was my grandfather's paternal grandfather. I am now able to connect my family officially to the branch of R' Eliyahu Harkavy.

                                                                                                                                                --- Shirley Portnoy ________________________________________________________________________________________

R' Eliyahu was the first son of Gershon and Badana Harkavy.

There is conflicting info about the date of birth- whether it was 1778 or 1784.

--for the text of his tombstone in Novogrodek go to:

http://yizkor.nypl.org/index.php?id=2479

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=44158&hilite=02d35d53-5f24...

See Overview for Chonon/Chana Harkavy profile for notes on Badana's name. (Shirley Portnoy)