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Yoshe was apprenticed-out by his father Yitzchak the Melamed to learn the trade of carpentry. He became a skilled carpenter, but apparently a poor businessman.

Yoshe's journey to America began in the city of Minsk, not far from his home town of Radoshkowitz, where he went deeply into debt while doing the carpentry work and furnishings for a new synagogue in Minsk.

The word of his skill as a stoller (carpenter) began to spread beyond Radoshkovitz. One fine afternoon while his wife Rashe Gitte was out, he was visited by a delegation from Minsk. The visitors had heard of his fine carpentry work. They were looking for a carpenter to furnish the interior of a new synagogue in Minsk. The construction of a new synagogue was a rare event and an exciting opportunity, speculated his son Phillip.

Apparently, upon being offerred the job for what seemed like a considerable sum, and not calculating the even more considerable expenses required to complete it, he agreed on the spot to the offer.

His wife Rashe Gitte returned home and was horrified to learn what he had agreed to, but his word was his bond, and so he set off for Minsk and completed the work within a year. After adding up their expenses, Rashe Gitte and Yoshe found themselves deeply in debt.

I was recently alerted by J.M. (thank you!) to the Minsk Yizkor book which contains the story of the Choral Synagogue, the Chor-Shul (Choir Synagogue) that opened in 1906

I'm investigating the possibility that this synagogue is the very one which Yoshe Hochstein contracted to build the interior furnishings for, and which sent him into debt and off to America.

There is a problem with dates. Yoshe's son Sam came to America in 1904, as indicated by Ellis Island records, and Yoshe therefore came some time before. His son Phillip Hochstein says Yoshe came to America in 1901 after completing a synagogue job and going deeply into debt. To quote Phillip:

"In the winter of 1901, only a few months after Rashe Gitte had borne his youngest son, Reb Yoshe arrived at Castle Garden in New York Harbor and was met by his younger brother, Zelig, who took him to his home in Bayonne, New Jersey."

Phillip, writing in 1985 above is giving his own birthdate as late 1900 or early 1901.

But Ellis Island data (below) shows that if Phillip was indeed Yoshe's biological son (and it's hard to imagine he was not) and if the Ellis Island age for Phillip is correct in August 1907 (3 years, 6 months), then Yoshe could not have left much earlier than April of 1903. (Unless of course Yoshe had returned, which surely would have been prohibitively expensive in that day and age and given their economic circumstances.)

Furthermore our (possibly biased) family legend, related by Phillip Hochstein, holds that he completed the synagouge job. Yet the story below suggests that some part of the job was not completed until after the opening in 1906.

In a conversation with my mother (May 2005) she thought that Phillip had described to her Yoshe working on the ark that holds the Torah, and was surprised at the mention of the chairs which she hadn't heard about. This provides one possible explanation for the discrepancy between the Yizkor story and the Phillip Hochstein story.

There are any number of imaginable circumstances which might reconcile this fact set.

The most persuasive fact that suggests that Yoshe Hochstein's synagogue carpentry job involved the Choral Synagogue of Minsk, is the simple fact that the building of a synagogue and its furnishing was not a common event. Unless another Minsk synagogue was built in the 1900 to 1906 period, this must be the one for which he worked on the furnishings. The fact that our family legend says there was trouble with it, and the text below says the job wasn't completed, suggests that we could be talking about the same synagogue and job.

Maybe he completed the ark (my mother's rememberance of Phillip's story) but was unable to complete the chairs. It does seem odd that he could have completed the ark by 1901 (Phillips date for his immigration), yet the chairs were still unfinished in 1906. The Ellis Island records suggest he might have left as late as April of 1903. If that were the case then it is perhaps more possible that some 3 years and about 3 months later (High Holidays, 1906, as described in document below) the job was still unfinished.

The next step in tracking down the story would be to seek out letters from the individuals mentioned in the Minsk Yizkor book below and at the listed web address. If somewhere there survive angry letters and complaints of delays I may yet uncover additional, and almost surely unflattering, information about my great grandfather Yoshe Hochstein. But somehow the years purify such matters, and every fragment of his life, whether good or bad, is just as precious. There is a human drama to understand, and Reb Yoshe's God is a God of rachmanus (mercy) too.

The fixed pews were not ready in 1906. Was this delay the responsibility of stoller Reb Yoshe Hochstein, who purportedly left for America in 1901, or at most a year or 2 later?

Phillip wrote that he had completed the synagogue job, but Phillip was a baby at the time and his report is reflected through childhood memories and stories told by his parents. Perhaps he completed only what he was able to complete, perhaps he did not wish to admit to failure to his son or family. There are many possibilities. What is certain is that he suffered a great setback associated with synagogue furnishings, and that a related problem is reflected in other sources.

From Phillip's document we know that at the age of about 40, somewhere between 1901 and 1904, his health declining, he set off for Bayonne, New Jersey to earn the money to pay back his debts.

As I relate in the story of Sam Hochstein, that debt set off a chain of events which brought him, his eldest son Sam, and eventually his entire family to America. 

As his son Phillip Hochtein noted wryly, Yoshe Hochstein's poor business skills would save his immediate family from mass slaughter by the invading German army in 1942.

Ellis Island Records of Family Members

These are the Ellis Island transit records that suggest an April 1903 immigration date for Yoshe Hochstein.

I have found no record of Yoshe Hochstein, the husband of Rashe Gitte, in the Ellis Island database. My great uncle Phillip gave Yoshe's immigration date as 1901 in his memoir, but the Ellis Island data would would suggest that would be a mistake. Phillip's age of 3 years and 6 months on 26 August 1907 would suggest that his father Yoshe left Radoshkovitz and Phillip's mother no earlier than four years and 3 months prior, or in about April 1903. Additional search for his immigration records could therefore focus on a very narrow window from about April 1903 to summer of 1904, with a high probability that he would have arrived closer to the beginning of this period. It is odd that Phillip himself is the source of the 1901 immigration date, suggesting that his father left Radoshkovitz years before he was conceived, but his memoir was based on his memory, not the careful checking of immigration records. There are of course other possibilities. For example, did the family lie about Phillip's age for some reason to assure that he gained entry? Was Phillip small for his age? This would alllow for Yoshe to have indeed left Radoshkovitz earlier than April 1903, and perhaps even as early as 1901 as Phillip later claimed.

Above and Left: Reb Yoshe late in life, 1920s or early 1930s. He never deviated, according to his youngest son Phillip, from his traditional Jewish faith and practice, and remained a Radoskovitcher at heart to his last day.  To quote his son Phillip Hochstein, in his later years "Mom...ran the store while pop sat at the cash register over a tome, grudging to interrupt himself if a customer insisted on speaking to him..."