Born: 1852, Warsaw, Poland.
Died: 1927, Providence, R.I., U.S.A.
Father:
Mother:
Name change: Kalman Hirsch, c. 1892.
Married: Brondell Rothenburg, c. 1872, Warsaw, Poland.
Children:
Samuel, b. 1878, Warsaw, Poland. d. New York,
U.S.A., 1972.
Minnie, b. 1882, Warsaw, Poland. d. Miami,
Fl., U.S.A., 1973.
Education:
Was a yeshiva student in Warsaw.
Career:
Had a shoe business in Warsaw, initially on his own, and then with his mother-in-law. This did not work out, and he emigrated to New York about 1890, working in the shoe business there. He was also an inventor.
Other information:
Great-grandson John Anthony Marlin writes (25 January 1970):
Herschel Malinberg was born in the mid-19th century in Warsaw. He married Brondell Rothenberg, a wealthy widow whose parents operated a successful shoe manufacturing business in Warsaw. He had two children by Brondell, Samuel and Minnie, the first when he was 26, the second when he was 32. In his late 30s, Herschel speculated and lost, and his successful business was also lost. Rather than endure the shame of admitting to his friends that he had lost all of his money, and working for someone else, Herschel left Warsaw and emigrated to New York. His two children followed later. The other members of the family remained in Warsaw. The children by Brondell's first marriage were thriving and prosperous in the 1920s and 1930s. The entire family was, however, killed in the Second World War.
In order to symbolize his effort to start a new life, Herschel changed his name to Kalman Hirsch, after Baron Hirsch, a currently prominent leader of world Jewry, whom Herschel admired very much. He settled in New York and opened a shoe store at Park Avenue and about 112th Street, which was then heavily populated by Irish and Jewish immigrants but is now part of Harlem. When Samuel and Minnie followed their father to New York they also changed their names to Hirsch. Kalman was a scholarly man and an inventor. He invented a device for automatically activating a meter for horse-drawn taxis, and a meter for gas mains to be installed on the outside of a house. The former device is currently used in New York taxis, and the latter is almost universal---because of the serious fires that have resulted from the absence of external methods of cutting off gas mains almost all homes have such controls. Kalman also submitted an entry for the Nobel Peace Prize. Another aspect of the Malinberg-Hirsch pacifism tradition is the fact that Samuel left Poland largely because of the imminence of the draft. Of Kalman's 32 descendents, most of them are on Samuel's side. Both Samuel and Minnie are still alive, the former (aged 92) in New York, the latter (aged 86) in Miami Beach. Their spouses both passed away within the last 7 years. Four of Kalman's grandchildren have had children: Ervin Ross Marlin, Maurice Hirsch, Saul Goldstein and Herman Goldstein. Interestingly, all of Samuel's children and grandchildren who have married---nine in all at present---have married gentiles. Irving Hirsch continued what had become a family tradition by changing his name to Ervin Ross (after Rothenberg) Marlin (contraction of Malinberg) before leaving New York when he was 20 to start a new life by entering Trinity College, Dublin. He thus became the third successive generation to change its name. In Dublin he met Hilda van Stockum, from a Dutch Protestant family; she converted to Catholicism shortly after her marriage and all of the Marlin children were raised as Catholics. All of the Marlin grandchildren are now being raised as Catholics, albeit of the free-thinking British variety.
Grand-daughter Ruth Hirsch writes: My grandparents, Brondell and Herschel Malinberg, taken after they first arrived in the United States, about 1898. Herschel was an inventor. Soon after they arrived they took the name of Baron Hirsch, a prominent German banker. Herschel sought anonymity in order to avoid controversy. He had invented a taxi meter which began when the passenger's weight descended on the seat. The patent was being challenged in a Warsaw court. A quiet, peace-loving person, Herschel turned his back on the dispute and his face to the New World. His son Sam stayed with his grandparents in Warsaw for a few years but then followed his father to New York and took his parents' new name.