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Note: This researcher has decided that Rosa Silberstein's father was Joseph Silverstein, NOT her uncle Harry Cypress as every document states. The evidence is overwhelming. Joseph Silverstein had three children as listed on a census (1910?), but one was not named, apparently Rosa Silberstein born 1863.
Abraham's wife and this researcher's great-grandmother. ‘Siberez’ would have been the Spanish pronunciation of Cypress, her sister's father's name borrowed to obfuscate her granddaughter's Jewish origins, as Cypress did not sound obviously Jewish. Rosa went on to have ten children, the seventh being the prodigy child Dorothy Frooks (1893-1997). This explains Rachel Silverstein “bat Yosef” on her gravestone, daughter of Joseph Silverstein. It was a paternity she must have been proud of despite being born out of wedlock, unwanted and estranged from her father's strict religious family. A righteous woman. In the same way, a strongly liberal Dorothy Frooks held onto the photograph of her aunt Dora Silverstein, even though it could have proven her to have a Russian communist background during the threat of anticommunist purging that might have ruined Dorothy's liberal political career. Likewise the falsified death certificate nicely hid Dorothy's mother's Russian Jewish background. The likely perpetrator was the youngest son 9 years younger than Dorothy, age 23 at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Frooks
Abraham Silverstein, Avraham Dov bar Yosef on the gravestone, was born 1858. Rosa Siberez Silberstein was born 1863, so the dates match up. Abraham was 5 years older than his sister Rosa.
Rosa Silberstein's name on her gravestone is “Esther bat Yosef” (see photo Frooks_Rose_gravestone.jpg), which directly contradicts her documented paternity of Harry Tzvi Cypress (Siberez, see Frooks_Rose_death.jpg).
A clue is in a photograph dated 1907 sent by Abraham's daughter Dora Silverstein to Rosa's daughter Dorothy Frooks, in which Russian handwriting calls her niece “Dear Family” (see scan Silverstein_Dora.jpg), meaning they were related through the father. However the picture was personal and the evidence of Russian Jew was handwritten in Russian, so nobody ever noticed. The picture was in essence Dorothy Frook's connection to her true grandfather. And since she was a liberal political celebrity in the era of communist hunting the truth must remain a personal secret.
https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=silverstein&id=I146
Rosa's daughter Dorothy's birth name was also Dora (New York City certificate 16320 has her born Dora Fruchs), so the cousins shared the same name, which only enhanced the familial connection. It seems likely then, that Dora was a name that came from the Silverstein lineage. It was apparently later as Dorothy became a political celebrity that she changed her name to Dorothy to distance herself from her Russian Communist origins.
We know her mother Rosa Silberstein's real name because it is clearly written on at least four of the children's birth certificates. Evidently the mother was more proud of the Silverstein name than the children. More suspicious is her death certificate, where items 9 through 13 are written in a masculine juvenile script, while the rest is written in the educated script of a doctor. The forged lines describe her as born in Argentina SA, misspelled ‘Argentine’, which ironically means ‘silver’. It says her mother Rosa Simpson and father Johonn Siberez were both born in ‘Argentine’. Rosa died in a Manhattan hospital, with the doctor listing his address as a hotel. If he was the family doctor from the Frooks' home town of Saugerties, and tending her death, that would have made it easy for a son to falsify the death certificate. There are no words or names on the death certificate that suggest a Jewish background, it seems by then the family was well on its way to assimilation. At the time of her death the youngest brother was 23 and the next youngest was 27. It seems likely one of these sons, probably the youngest, went to the trouble of covering up his deceased mother's illegitimacy for the benefit of his celebrity sister.
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