The Story of Chuts: How Cigars Saved My Family

In the 19th century my Dutch Jewish ancestors decided to move from Amsterdam to London. My first ancestors to make the move were my 4th great grandparents Abraham Moscou and Schoontje Veerjong in 1867 (although it is disputed if Abraham was around for this move). Most of the family moved to London, including my 3rd great-grandfather Morris Moscou. Morris' future wife's family, the De Haan family, also made the move around this time as they appear in the 1871 England Census living in Spitalfield. By 1881 another set of my 3rd great-grandparents, the Nunes Vaz and Robles family, had made their move to London from Amsterdam.

I had always wondered what caused my ancestors and their siblings to move to London from Amsterdam, a city in which Jews were seemingly able to thrive with very little anti-semitism for hundreds of years. Through the House of Orange and the Napoleonic Emancipation, Jews in Amsterdam were treated better than most other Jews throughout the World. One of the things I noticed about most of my Dutch Jewish ancestors was the fact that they were almost all cigar makers. There were even stories that my Nunes Vaz ancestors worked on the same bench as Samuel Gompers, who helped set the 8-hour workday.

I soon found that while Jews were treated better in Amsterdam than in most other places there were still some anti-semitic laws. Jews were not allowed to join guilds, which would have been something extremely useful to cigar makers, nor were they allowed to own their shops. Seeking better opportunities in their trade my ancestors made the move to London which was a major center for cigar making during the 19th century. These Dutch Jewish immigrants gained the nickname of Chuts, which is often attributed to the Dutch word 'Goed' which means good. They mostly settled in Spitalfields in the East End of London in an area nickname 'The Tenterground', an area originally established by Huguenot refugees.

Many of these Chuts established small workshops and factories for cigar and cigarette making. Many of the shops were situated in Bethnal Green, White Chapel, and Spitalfields, areas that are all close to the Tobacco Dock in Wapping. Tobacco would come in from the United States and sold to the jews who then treated, stripped, and processed into cigars and cigarettes. The cigars the chuts made were known as "British Cigars" and were considered of high quality.

With the progression of technology and machinery in the late 19th century the cigar making jobs in London became less available and caused many Dutch Jewish families to immigrate once again around the turn of the century. While some of these Jewish families went back to Amsterdam many either stayed in England or immigrated to the United States, Australia, or New Zealand. The United States was going through a golden-age of cigar making and there was a lot of available work. My family decided to move to the United States for stability but they were also bringing safety to their descendants. My family's decision to pursue the cigar making industry in the United States ultimately led to the safety of my family. Not only did this decision to officially move to the United states save them from enduring the bombing of London, which so many of our English relatives suffered through, but it also saved the family from the fate of the many relatives in Amsterdam who were murdered in the Shoah.

There is a family story which comes from the early 20th century when my 2nd-great grandparents were trying to decide whether to stay in London or move to Boston. My 2nd-great grandfather had been pursuing a career in London as a vaudevillian actor and dancer under the name William H Macknay and liked it much better in London. The family had already been to the United States, having lived in Michigan and Boston, but went back to England because my 2nd-great grandfather didn't really like it in America. During an argument about where to live my 2nd-great grandmother told her husband "In England we starved, this is the country that gave us something to eat." They went to America where the family flourished, safe from the horrors so many of their relatives endured. 

Origins of the Nunes Vaz Family of Amsterdam

The Nunes Vaz family of Amsterdam traces it's documented roots back to Livorno, Italy in the late 17th century. Jacob Nunes Vaz is the patriarch of the Nunes Vaz family of Amsterdam and was born in 1697 in Livorno, Italy to Abraham Nunes Vaz. Jacob's father Abraham was born around 1670 but there have been no records found on Abraham. It is believed the family originally hailed from Portugal and there is even a family story that there were originally 4 Nunes Vaz brothers who left Portugal and all went to different parts of the World.

Marriage Record for Jacob Nunes Vaz (1697-1746)
and Judith Falcao (1703-????) - Dec 23rd, 1723

Back in Italy the name also was spelled as Nunes Vais and some records in Amsterdam even spell it as Nunes Vaes. It doesn't seem like anyone else from the Nunes Vaz family came with Jacob to Amsterdam, although there is a possible sister named Lea who is listed in the cemetery records at Beth Haim as Lea Nunes Vaes of Esther and died in 1748, 2 years after Jacob. I haven't found any records of an Esther but I suspect it's possible Esther is the wife of Abraham Nunes Vaz, which if so would make Lea the sister of Jacob and Esther his mother. The family left back in Italy became quite prominent with many Rabbis and famous artists including Italo Nunes Vais and Mario Nunes Vais. The patriarch of the branch that stayed in Livorno is Isaac Joseph Nunes Vais who died in 1768 and was most likely born around the same time as our Jacob Nunes Vaz. It is my belief that Isaac Nunes Vais and Jacob Nunes Vaz were 1st cousins who shared Nunes Vaz grandparents, making their fathers brothers (but this is all speculation). Even more interesting is the fact that both Isaac and Jacob were printers, making it possible that printing was a family trade.

Record for Raphael Nunes Vaz (1734-1802) at
Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel

Jacob Nunes Vaz married Judith Falcao on December 23rd, 1723 in Amsterdam and they had two known sons; Aaron (1733-1745) and Raphael Nunes Vaz (1734-1802). Jacob worked as a printer and it is believed his father also worked as printer, most likely gaining their skills in Livorno which was considered the center of Hebrew printing in Italy. Jacob died in 1746 at the age of 49. Jacob's son Raphael Married Simcha Querido on November 10th, 1758 and had a lot of children but because Jacob's other son Aaron died at the age of 12 all members of the Amsterdam Nunes Vaz family trace their roots back to Raphael.

Of Raphael's descendants all of them come from two of his son's; Jacob Nunes Vaz (1759-1813) or Abraham Nunes Vaz (1769-1832), both of whom marred women from the Senior Coronel family. Between these two brothers there are more than 3000 known direct descendants with about 1000 living descendants scattered all over the World. The number seems to constantly go up as more descendants are found but because of the horrors of the Holocaust, especially in Amsterdam, many branches in the Nunes Vaz tree end in the 1940s.

A portrait of Jaap Nunes Vaz
painted by his friend Meijer Bleekrode

One famous figure in the family is Jaap Nunes Vaz, a co-founder of the newspaper Het Parool and a member of the Dutch resistance. He was arrested by the Gestapo on October 25th, 1942 and deported via Westerbork to Sobibor where he was murdered on March 13th, 1943. He has a street named after him in Amsterdam. 

The Race Debate: Is there a Jewish race?

When I was in college I took a class called Jews in The United States. Obviously the class was focused around how Jews lived in the USA, but early on our professor Barbara Burstin brought up a question I had barely thought about; Who is a Jew? The class discussed multiple ideas of defining who is a Jew; someone born to a Jewish mother, one who practices the Jewish religion, one who descends from the 'Jewish People' (a.k.a. a Jewish race). What really stuck out with me is the idea of Jews as a race. At that point of the class I was a year into my serious genealogy research and had just begun to trace out my Ashkenazi roots in Holland, something I thought I'd never find from my Dutch Sephardic line. As well I had just learned about the Joods Monument, which I wrote about here. I was slowly realizing how connected the Jewish population around the world truly were, so the idea of the Jewish race just made sense to me.

When the class discussed this idea further I realized that many other Jews and non-Jews were quite against this idea. Some discussed how this was just anti-semitic and could lead to another Holocaust because the idea of Jews as a race is used by anti-semites in their propaganda. What the anti-semites do is use the argument of a Jewish race to say Jews have been bred to be evil and manipulative. I could understand why this would lead to many rational people saying the idea of Jews as a race is not only wrong but is morally wrong, especially when you read articles like this, but I think if you look at it with fears aside (there will always be crazy people in the World) you can see the proof in genetics. Another argument that was difficult to counter is the idea that Judaism is a religion and people leave or convert Judaism all throughout history, thus Jews couldn't be a race. While this argument is valid in a way, if you look at it in a different way it makes more sense why this is wrong (at least in my humble opinion).

The first thing you need to do is think of Judaism in two lights; the religion and the race. Yes, as two different things. To make this easier I will refer to the religion as Judaism and the race as Israelites. Judaism is just a religion anyone can enter or leave based on their personal beliefs. Israelites are those who descend from the people who lived in the Middle East who practiced the Jewish faith. So to be an Israelite would be your genetics consisting of mostly Israelite markers. What kept the Israelite DNA flowing throughout it's own community was the Jewish faith, a societal barrier which kept marriages within the Jewish community. Even after hundreds of years apart many people from around the world who claim themselves to be Jewish share a common descent which has been shown through DNA.

Anyone with a percentage of Jewish Diaspora genetic markers (what I previously referred to as Israelite markers) on Family Tree DNA could tell you how fascinating it is to see the thousands of Jews who are anywhere from 2nd cousins to 5th or 6th cousins. Most of whom rely on the chromosome browser to determine how they are related to the others. On Family Tree DNA in the My Origins section of Family Finder they talk about the Jewish Diaspora and say "While Judaism is a religion, the Jewish people are also a nation. Modern Jews have diversified into numerous branches, such as Ashekenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi, as well as odds and ends such as the Bene and Beta Israel. Unifying many of these populations are genetic commonalities, likely resulting from a common Middle Eastern Ancestry. This combination of Middle Eastern and European is found in many other groups, and many of them exhibit signatures of the Ashkenazi Diaspora, but it is not common descent."

Interestingly enough I see a correlation of this idea with a Muslim race but the World already refers to them as the Arab race. At this point some of you might say, "But there are a lot of Arabs who are Jewish, Christian, or other religions and a lot of Muslims who aren't Arabs." True but you can say the exact same thing about Israelites as there are hundreds of thousands who have converted to Christianity, Islam, and other religions over the past 5000 years as well as lots of Jews who aren't Israelite. I would even bet that many Christians with newly discovered Jewish ancestry are reading this, especially since it is more common for those with Sephardic ancestry.  I found out from my own DNA test that I am 6% Arab, meaning that one of my 2nd great-grandparents could be fully Arab (there are only three of my 2nd-great grandparents I don't know about, so possible) but at the very least I have a multiple 3rd great-grandparents and other ancestors further down with partial Arab blood.

In the end I think the main point I'm getting at is when it comes to "Is there a Jewish race?" the answer is Yes. If you look at it from a completely scientific standpoint based on genetic evidence you can see there is an abundance of proof that points in the affirmative.

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Dutch Jews Killed in the Holocaust

The Jews of the Netherlands were persecuted by the Nazis using the 

vast array of documents and records kept by the Dutch and Dutch Jews alike. Of the 140,000 recorded Jews living in the Netherlands 107,000 had been deported by Wars end. 30,000 Jews survived by hiding, escaping, or other means and only 5,000 of the deported Jews returned home.

You can find information on these people at the Joods Monument website. If you can research your lineage to Dutch Jews, Sephardic or Ashkenazi, I can almost guarantee you have relatives listed on the website. The basic information provided for each individual is their birth date, birth location, death date (sometimes deportation date which is the assumed death date), death location, and last recorded residence. As well there is very large community of people who add information to this website; things like pictures, documents, stories, if there are living relatives (they don’t give any info on living relatives), biographies, and links to other family members pages also on the website.

For an example we will use the profile of Leendert Nunes Vaz. He was born November 17th, 1906 in Amsterdam and died at the age of 38 on February 16th, 1945 at Westerbork. The left column shows the home address and lists everyone in the household. Right above Leendert’s name on the left you can see a blue bar. This blue bar is part of a color coded bar system the website uses to distinguish who was in the household. Tall blue bars are adult men; tall red bars are adult women. Half-length green bars are boys ages 6 to 21; half-length yellow bars are girls ages 6 to 21. Short light blue bars are boys 6 and under; short pink bars are girls 6 and under. A white bar indicates a member of the household survived the war and could still be alive.

For another example we will use the profile of Alida Lopes Dias. She was born in Amsterdam on Septermber 19th, 1929 and died at the age of 13 on June 11th, 1943 at Sobibor. We can see in her household she had an adult man (her father), an adult woman (her mother), a member who survived and could be living (a sibling), and a girl age 6 to 21 (Alida). Under the bars it says “Leendert Lopes Dias and his family” with a little i in a white box next the text. This is a link to information about the whole  household, with the i in a box indicating there is extra information on that page.

Underneath the link to the household information we see each family member listed (their name is a link to their page), their birth and death info, and their relationship to the head of household. Below that we see “One child living with it’s parent’s survived the war”. In the center column we see that she was on the children’s transport that went to Sobibor via Westerbork. It also lists where that information was obtained. In the right column we see a picture of Alida and underneath private collection. More than likely Alida’s surviving sibling sent this picture to the Joods Monument.

I suggest before you start searching the website to read the introduction, faq, and other subsequent pages to get a better feel for the website. They give a much better in-depth description of how the website works. Everything on the website is spelt the Dutch way; including Hebrew and Yiddish words. The search on the website is pretty straight-forward, just use keywords to narrow what you’re looking for if you are having trouble.