Third Generation

3. Moses Kaplan^1,2 was born estimated 1800 in Russia.² He was a tax collector in 1861 in Cheveidany (Kvedarna), Lithuania. He wrote that the box tax collections were small because the shtetl "is quite small, it has no commerce nor any trade going, it is far removed from the Gubernia's center (184 miles), and from the main town of the uezd (district) (100 miles). There are no major traveling routes or even a postal road nearby. Therefore the inhabitants. . .survive just by renting a few houses, menial jobs, and get by with just meager provisions." from the Russian Historical Archives, St. Petersburg, Fond 1287, Opis 39, Case 2089, pages 1-2, as quoted by Anatolij Chayesh in "Box-Tax Paperwork Records as a Source of Information About the Life of Jewish Communities and their Personal Structure," On-Line Journal of LitvakSIG. He died before 1873. From Phil Barak in an e-mail dated 6/7/2000:
Jonah wrote that the family was known before as Kalana or Kolon, and his father name appears in one inscription to be Moshe Kaplan "known formerly as Kalana". The Kaplan cup, very ornate and said to be many generations old, when given by Solomon Kaplan to my grandfather, Abe Lew (Ari Lev) in 1924, was incribed to "Ari Lev ben Shlomo ibn Daoudi haMechuneh Kaplan"; the closest translation to the phrase "haMechuneh Kaplan" that I can get is "who is called Kaplan". In short, we may be unrelated to any other Kaplans in the world--especially since the Kalana/Kolon line had resided in Nice, Italy (so wrote Jonah; i.e., before annexation by France) and before that in Oran, North Africa (now Algeria.) My grandfather told me that the old family names were changed to conceal the family's true identity, although I don't think he knew the details.

Moses Kaplan and Raisal (Rayzel) Brill were married. Raisal (Rayzel) Brill was born in Russia.³ Moses Kaplan and Raisal (Rayzel) Brill had the following children:

+4

i.

Jonah Kaplan.