Post-Covid Coodin Family reunion being planned
As published in the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News
By MYRON LOVE May 28, 2021
A group of cousins who are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Nesanel, Miriam, Hershel and Judah Kudinsky (Coodin) have been working steadily over the past eight months to create a comprehensive web-based family history, including an ancestral home story, and connect with as many Coodin relatives as they can – with the ultimate goal of organizing a family reunion at some point after this Covid emergency has come to an end.
The ambitious project was sparked by a meeting of Winnipegger Martin Itzkow and his second cousin, Colleen Cohen, from Toronto. The second cousins met at a family gathering three years ago, kept in touch and started talking about bringing the extended family together to get to know each other.
“The Coodin Family is very large,” says Itzkow. “With this pandemic, some of us cousins began to seek out and re-engage with each other from across North America.”
The Kudinsky Family is originally from Belilovka, a shtetl in Ukraine. According to data collected by the Coodin cousins thus far, Belilovka in 1900 had a Jewish population of 2,223. The Jewish community was served by nine Jewish schools and a couple of synagogues. Most Jews worked in trades or professions.
Nesanel Kudinsky – one of the sons of Isiah and Pinze operated a mill and grain farm –a vocation he also pursued later in Winnipeg. He also had farm animals and he and his family enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle.
That changed with the Bolshevik revolution. The prosperous Kudinsky family was forced to leave their farmland and work in agricultural colonies close to Moscow. They became poor peasants living in a house built with straw and mud, working the land with a plough. While they had enough food for themselves, they were required to provide a portion of their harvest and pay a heavy tax to the government.
They also experienced a number of pogroms during which a number of family members were physically assaulted and wounded.
Fortunately, one of the younger Kudinskys had left Russia in 1908 – having deserted the Russian army after being conscripted – and came to Winnipeg. Louis (Leib) Coodin was the eldest son of Hershel and his wife, Elka. Louis’s parents and his brother and sister followed in 1913. Herschel’s sister Miriam, and brothers Judah, Raful and Nesanel, and their children arrived between 1924 and 1928. Another sister, Feiga, did not leave Russia.
“We are still searching for descendants of Raful,” Itzkow says.
Itzkow reports that a group of 20 of the cousins are working on the project – and that about 78 Coodin mishpocha from across Canada so far have been contacted. He notes that Mike Cunningham – a descendant of Nesanel – from Guelph, Ontario, is serving as the group archivist and genealogist while Torontonian Mark Kreger- a descendant of Hershel – is looking into ships’ passenger lists, grave markers and other vital statistics.
“My brother, Jeff (who also lives in Winnipeg), is also collecting source material, documents and photos,” says Itzkow.
(The Itzkow brothers – also among them Arthur in Kingston – are greatgrandchildren of Nesanel.)
“We have been having Zoom meetings and have been talking to the older generation,” says Martin Itzkow. “Although there aren’t many left from our parents’ generation. Now we are trying to reach out to the younger generation of Coodin descendants.”
Ideally, what the Coodin cousins would like to do is plan a family reunion – a picnic perhaps – hopefully for the spring or summer of 2022 in Winnipeg.
Reunion organizers are encouraging readers who may also be descendants of the Kudinsky (Coodin) family to contact, for further information, Martin Itzkow at martinitzcan@gmail.com.