Litvak Roots: Michael and Kirk Douglas

Left image: Chausy/Чаусы - Detail from a 1926 Russian Military map, sourced from Indiana University Bloomington's collection: https://digitalcollections.iu.edu/collections/n8710x07k?locale=en

Right image: Herschel Danilovich and his son, Kirk Douglas: https://www.myheritage.com/research?s=-2&action=query&formId=master&formMode=1&qname=Name+fn.Herschel+fnmo.1+fnmsvos.1+fnmsmi.1+ln.Danielovitch+lnmo.3+lnmsdm.1+lnmsmf3.1+lnmsrs.1&qbirth=Event+et.birth+ey.1883+me.1+epmo.similar&qdeath=Event+et.death+ey.1954+me.1+epmo.similar

On a recent episode of PBS's "Finding your Roots" featuring Michael Douglas, it was confirmed that his paternal Grandfather: Herschel Danilovich, Kirk Douglas's father, had roots in today's Чавусы Chavusy/Chausy, a town in Eastern Belarus's Mogilev Region that was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for nearly 400 years: 1377-1772. It became a part of the Empire of Russia after the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Known in Lithuanian as Čãvusai, the ancestral town of the Danilovich family is within both the cultural and dialect (the Litvish dialect of Yiddish) boundaries of Jewish Lithuania, as defined by the 2009 map by Dovid Katz (linguist/creator) and Giedrė Beconytė (cartographer): "The Territory of Jewish Lithuania," at www.dovidkatz.net

Detail: 2009 Katz-Beconytė "The Territory of Jewish Lithuania, with transliterated from Litvish town names

The boundaries of "Jewish Lithuania" closely follow those of the Pale of Settlement, an area within the Russian Empire that existed from 1791 to 1917 within which Jews were allowed to live. Outside of the Pale, Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. Even so, most Jews were excluded from residency in a number of cities within the Pale. Jews allowed to live outside this area included those with a university education, members of the most affluent of the merchant guilds, some military personnel, their dependents and sometimes servants. Outside the Pale, Jews were also allowed to settle in colonies such as in Siberia.

An often-reproduced 1884 map on wikipedia supposedly showing the Pale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement#/media/File:Pale-of-settlement-1884.jpg) is actually a map of Southwestern Russia showing the percentage of Jewish population by area. Boundaries of the Pale changed over time, and the best and most accurate depiction of the Pale is one at EastEuroTopo.org It shows, in selectable layers, hand-drawn changing boundaries superimposed over an 1893 base map by Keith Johnston:

https://easteurotopo.org/maps/pale-of-settlement/

Base map: 1893 Keith Johnston: "South-West Russia" www.davidrumsey.com