Leavitt, Isadore / Cooper, Jack

Isadore Levitt, April 1938 / ALBA Photo number 11-0147. Tamiment Library/ Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

• Leavitt, Isadore; Cooper, Jack and Levitt, Isidore
• Born on 8th (10th) December, 1910, Riga (Latvia). Jewish
• Latvian immigrant. Ohio (USA). US citizen since 1931
• Profession: Painter
• Arrival in Spain: June 18, 1937
• Units: XVth International Brigade. Machine gun company,            Head Staff.
• Battlefronts: Brunete, Aragón, Ebro
• Rank:Liutenant promoted to Captain.
• Departure: Returned to the US on December 15, 1938 aboard the Paris
• United States Army during WWII between 1944 and 1946
• Died on February 6, 1979, in Florida.

Isadore Leavitt (commonly known as Jack Cooper since the 30’s) was another Latvian Jewish immigrant in North America who fled with his parents from their hometown, Riga, during the end of the Tsarist rule.

Elias Biegelman: a Latvian American in Spain

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives /        RA Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 862.

• Elias Begelman aka Biegelman, Eli; ”Sims”; ”Beal”
• Born on 24th August, 1912, Riga (Latvia).
• Profession: Metal Worker and Mechanic
• Arrival: Sailed December 26, 1936 aboard the Normandie; Arrived in Spain on January 2, 1937;
• Units: XV International Brigade, Lincoln battalion.
• Battlefronts: Jarama, Quinto
• Rank: translator and interpreter for the IB headquarters (8 languages);
• Departure: Returned to the US on October 1, 1938 aboard the Paris.
• United States Army during WWII.
• Died in 1959.

Elias Begelman (1912-1959) was born into a Jewish family in  Riga, from where he immigrated with his family and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. By the end of 1936, telling his mother he was going to Chicago for job reasons, Begelman joined the first group of American volunteers that departed from the United States in December 1936. It was composed