Moskovits was a very common name in the northeastern part of old Hungary. Some scholars say the surname is a patronymic derived from the Slovak name Mosko (i.e. son of Mosko) but the name may also mean son of Moses or Jew. My Moskovits files now includes several hundred individuals who lived in Ung Megye (county) during the 19th century, many of whom came to the United States. Some settled in the New York area, others travelled to Cleveland and milltowns in western Pennsylvania, usually following relatives and neighbors who had heard that a better life was to be found in these communities.

Avraham Moskovits, the oldest known Moskovits ancestor, was probably born in the early years of the 19th century in Galicia or somewhere close to that border.  In 1825, there were about 5,700 Jews in all of Ung megye, more than twice the number living in the county in 1787.  The 1828 Hungarian Land Census lists a Mosko among the tax-paying residents of Kereszt, a small place in Ung where my great-grandfather Miksa Neuman had a farm and not far from Kisosztro, where my paternal grandmother Hermina was born in 1876.  Avraham’s son Markusz (Mordche) my great-grandfather, was born about 1840, probably in Ung megye and very likely in or near Szobrancz, now Sobrance, Slovakia.  This area is close to the present border between the Slovak Republic and the Ukraine. 

Although some of his grandchildren identified him as a Levite, the monument marking Markusz’s grave in Michalovce, Slovakia, does not include any such indication.  Because this designation passes from father to son, it is a useful clue to distinguishing  possible relatives.  Some of the Moskovits families that I have found using family recollections, immigration records, and census records do self-identify as Levites.  I have located several branches of this family but at this point in my research, I can only speculate about their relationships. The Other Moskovits Families page has information about family members who may have arrived in the United States as early as 1882.

Most of the Moskovits family seemed to have found little reason to abandon their comfortable lives in pre-World War I Hungary. In many families, some of the younger generation left, and others remained.  Their decisions would profoundly effect their lives and the course of the family’s history.  

My great-grandparents Markusz Moskovits and Sali (Sara, Czili) Kohn had at least nine children. By the time the Nazis marched into eastern Slovakia in 1939 and Hungary in 1944 only two, my grandmother Hermina and her older brother Moricz, had emigrated to the United States. What happened to the other members of this branch of the Moskovits family is part of the tragic story of the Hungarian Jewish community.

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