A sad tale was told to Sara Plen during her 1992 visit to Hadera.  She asked Moshe Eisenberg why his father came to Palestine.  Sara is the daughter of Leah (Eisenberg) Marder and Moshe, is the son of (Shmuel) Chiam and Liba.

Moshe reported that his parents never wanted to come to Palestine.  They wanted to go to the United States, but Dov Berel refused to take them.  Moshe recounted the pitiful scene of his father, Chiam walking behind the wagon in which Dov Berel, his mother Elka, sister Leah and nephew Mowsza left Telechan in 1921, pleading with his father to take him to America.  Dov Berel rejected his plea.

Allegedly Dov Berel was angry with his son because of his marriage to Liba.  Chiam had married Liba Belkin against his father's wishes.  It had been an acceptable match for Chiam's older brother Azriel to marry Liba's sister Minka.  Azriel had an infirmity; he was a mute.  Minka was an orphan, very poor, had no dowry, nor prestige.  Apparently my two grandparents ‘handicaps’ offset each other so it was considered a tolerable pairing.

Chiam, on the other hand, was in perfect health; good looking, had family and ‘yiches’.  He fell in love with Liba, who like her sister, was an orphan with no assets.  Dov Berel forbade Chiam to marry her, but he did anyhow.  Dov Berel felt that it was beneath the family's dignity, and would not accept the marriage, nor forgive his son.

Sad to report, according to Moshe, his father next wanted to immigrate to Australia rather than Palestine.  Again he was rejected, this time by his brother Motol who allegedly refused to assist him.  If this scenario is true, Chiam and Liba were already in Palestine at the time of his request to go to Australia.  They had arrived in Palestine in 1922. Motol did not settle in Australia until 1925.

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