CEGLA FAMILY
The name of the Cegla family is a unique surname and traces back to Polish roots meaning brick in English.
David Mordechai Cegla, 1878 – 1959 married Rebecca, Rivka, 1884-1939, was born in Jedwabue a small town in Poland but settled in Fulda, Germany being the slaughterer (Shochet) of the Jewish community of Fulda. They had three sons:
Yehuda Cegla, 1907 – 1977, born in Fulda
Wolf (Willi) Cegla, 1909 – 2000, born in Jedwabue, during a family holiday
Abraham ( Aba) Cegla, born in Fulda
In April 1933, after the rise of the Nazis, David and two of his sons, Juda and Abraham, were arrested, but were released later on condition to leave Germany within a month. David and Rivka, Juda and Abraham immigrated to Palestine in the years 1933 and 1936, while the third son Willi was living and finishing his university studies as a lawyer under Polish citizenship. Before going to Palestine as well,. he married his first wife Ursula Glaser, the daughter of a Jewish fabricant from Frankfurt.
David's step brother Max came to Palestine and his sister Ida Plotzki immigrated to Argentine. All other members of the Cegla family were murdered in a pogrom in her home town Jedwabue in 1941 by Polish residents of the town under Nazi directions.
Rivka Cegla passed away in 1939 and a few years later David remarried Miriam Aleksandrov, a widow with a son Zvi.
In Palestine Juda Cegla founded and developed a company trading agricultural commodities, the company was licensed in 1937 as "J.Cegla Ltd".
In September 1936 he and Rachel Victor got married.
Between 1937 to 1939 the newly founded company was mainly involved in the so-called "Haavera" business, with Juda acting in Palestine and the brother Willi still being in Germany, organizing the relations there. "J.Cegla" as a result became sole representative of "Hominal"by BASF, the main manufactures of organic fertilizers.
With the beginning of World War Two in 1939, Wolf Cegla and his wife as well as her father left Germany and Europe and settled finally in Palestine.
Wolf joined "J.Cegla Ltd." in December 1941 as a partner and in 1943 Aba Cegla and Wolf's father in law Alfred Glaser joined as well. Alfred Glaser left the company in 1954 and his shares were equally split between Juda and Wolf.
The next generation:
Juda and Rachel Cegla: Uriel and Michal
Wolf and Elga Cegla: Michael, Elga was Wolf's second wife
Aba and Lucki Cegla: Gad and Ronit
OLIVEX
"J. Cegla Ltd" became one of the leading importers of animal fodder and other agricultural goods. One of her clients, "Olivex Ltd" bankrupted in 1947 and J, Cegla became the new owner. Olivex expended in the years to come concentrating on the manufacturing of vegetable oil based on soya beans and the production of soya meat and was one of the biggest manufacturers in Israel of the last century. After the death of Juda , Aba and Wolf Cegla the company was managed by Dr. Uriel Cegla and closed its activities in 2003.
