Ari’s earliest known Mendelsohn ancestor is Louis, his 5x great-grandfather. Louis was the father of Moses Mendelsohn (see Family stories: the inn-keeper in Memel), but unfortunately I haven’t found a single document relating to his life. Passport card of a part of the Baltic Sea with the coast of Poland and Latvia, with insert cards of the arrivals of Riga, Danzig, Koningsbergen and the river Memel, with three compass roses. North is on the left. The title is flanked by Cere

Moses Mendelsohn was Ari’s 4x great-grandfather, born in 1856 in Memel. Memel is on the Baltic coast and was part of Prussia until 1923, which is why the family spoke German. It is now called Klaipeda and is in Lithuania. A history of Memel tells us that: “In 1815 there were 35 Jews in Memel among a population of about 10,000 people. Russian Jews, who came to Memel for their businesses, could not settle there because of lack of prayer houses and other religious institutions w