The Chrabolowski family originated in an area of Eastern Europe whose identity bounced back and forth between Lithuania, Poland and Russia during different political settings. In the 19th Century, this area was called Grodno Gubernia, a province in the Russian Pale of Settlement where Jews were permitted to live.

Chraboly and Bielsk

Legislation passed in 1844 required Jewish residents once and for all to take surnames rather than just being referred to as the son or daughter of one's father. The family name, Chrabolowski, translates as originating from the town of Chraboly. In the 19th Century and on today's maps, two small settlements or crossroads are named Chraboly. The family name came from the Chraboly located just 10 km north of Bielsk along the main highway to Bialystok. In both Polish and Russian, the root chrobry or chrabry means courageous.

In the early 19th Century, some family members lived in a small village Ryboly and the smaller hamlet Chraboly mentioned above. The surname Chrabolowski may have been first written down in the 1817 Revision List when it was misspelled “Chrabolski”. In this census, Jews living in rural areas located between Bialystok and Bielsk appear to have been given surnames based on their location. Some Christians in these areas also took identical names.

Many members of the Chrabolowski family lived in Bielsk during the latter part of the 19th Century before some began to emigrate to the USA.

Bielsk's history first records a synagogue in 1542. A well known blood libel trial took place in 1564 when a Bielsk Jew, Isaac Borodovka (the bearded one), was falsely accused of making ritual use of a Christian's blood. He was put to death, but then the King intervened to save the Jewish community from further persecution.

In the early part of the 19th Century, the Jews of Bielsk were under the communal jurisdiction of the nearby town of Orla. Jews from Bielsk were buried in Orla until a cemetery was established in Bielsk. During the 19th Century, the railroad came to Bielsk and brought substantial population growth which caused Bielsk to surpass Orla as a regional center. Jewish population in Bielsk was recorded at 94 in 1816; 298 in 1847; 1256 in 1861 and 4079 in 1897. In the last quarter of the 19th Century, the town's population was over one-half Jewish.

After World War I, Bielsk became part of Poland. Since there is another Bielsk in Poland northwest of Warsaw, the hometown of the Chrabolowski family became known as Bielsk Podlaski in the 1920s.

Beginnings of the Chrabolowski Family

Eli Yankel (Hebrew: Eliyahu Ya’akov) Chrabolowski (born in 1830) was a kosher butcher who also painted the interiors of churches on the side. Eli Yankel and his wife Chaya Mindel had six sons and one daughter, a biological bias which selectively continues to occur in the offspring of later generations. He lived a long life, a pattern recurring elsewhere in the family. At his death in about 1909, Eli Yankel had approximately 75 descendants.

Most of the narrative in this history focuses on the descendants of Eli Yankel Chrabolowski, the descendants of his sister Pearl Chrabolowska Uzycka, and the descendants of his second cousin Tzvi Hirsh Chrabolowski (1823-1913). These are the primary family branches known during the 1993 family reunion. However, since then, research primarily from the Belarus Archives in Grodno has significantly broadened our understanding of the family. The overview family tree summarizing this new knowledge is available on the Family Tree tab of this website.

We now know that Eli Yankel’s parents were Yosel Chrabolowski (born 1784) and Leah who had three sons: Boruch (born in 1817), Sender (born in 1822) and Eli Yankel (born in 1830). He also had a daughter Pearl and a likely daughter Fruma. Yosel arrived in Bielsk by 1845.

Yosel’s father was Boruch Chrabolowski (who had the same name as his grandson born in 1817). We believe Boruch’s father was Mendel Chrabolowski, also the great grandfather of Tzvi Hirsh Chrabolowski as noted in the overview family tree.

In recent years, we have learned more about the descendants of Boruch Chrabolowski (born 1817). Boruch had a son Moishe Yudel Chrabolowski, born in 1849 and who lived in Bielsk for a short time in 1868. Moishe Yudel had at least ten children including Joseph the shoemaker who was the patriarch of our Argentinean cousins now living in Mendoza and Buenos Aires. Many of Moishe’s other children moved to Pittsburgh, PA. Some of these spelled the name “Carbolofsky” later shorted to “Carb”. Boruch (born 1817) also fathered three other sons, Abraham, Benjamin, and Louis “Chabelovsky”, the latter who lived in Brooklyn​, and two daughters, Genendlya and Sophie (Tzippe). Sophie married Joseph (Zavel) Karchmar, and both relocated to Newark, NJ.

History Chapters:  This Family History tab provides a chapter on each of the seven children of Eli Yankel. Next, it presents chapters​ on the Uzycki Family, the Tzvi Hirsh branch, and the Krook branch (descended from Fruma, Eli Yankel's likely sister).

The information is derived from oral history passed on to the authors and is supported by government documents, photographs and cemetery records. Many more family stories remain to be told.