Leaves $30,000 to Newark and New York Charities; Died in Palestine (Jewish Daily Bulletin)
A Jewish family tragedy, bearing on the ancient conflict between fathers and sons, came to light here when Herman Distler, attorney, filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office the will of the late Morris Plaplinger, Newark tailor, who died in Palestine on October 18.
His estate, valued at about $30,000, he willed to various Jewish charities in Newark and New York. The residue was left to the town in Palestine in which he died. His wife, Emma, was left $1, and $1 each was left to his daughters, Mrs. Augusta Silverman Sills of Boston and Mrs. Fredericka K. Kay of San Francisco and a son. Milton Plant. To another son and daughter, Eugene Plaut and Miss Selma Plaplinger, he left $1.50 each.
The attorney in explaining the terms of the will traced the cause for disinheriting his family to a conflict based on the failure of the children to adhere to Orthodox Jewish religious laws and customs. Their Americanization, including the change of the family name from Plaplinger to Plaut and Plant by the sons and modern ways followed by the daughters, went too far in the view of the father who came to the United States in 1881 from Russia. The conflict between the father and the sons did not, in this case, include the mother, Emma, who was inclined to side with the children. This inclination of hers resulted in a suit for separate maintenance. She and her unmarried daughter left the home of Plaplinger, who in 1925 sold his tailot shop and left for Palestine alone at the age of 60.
To his brother, William Plaplinger, who retained his affection, he bequeathed $5,000 and to Selma Biebel berg, his niece, he gave $1,000. The remainder he bequeathed to the Jewish Home for the Aged, National Hebrew Consumptive Home, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, American Jewish Association for the Blind, Beth Israel Hospital, Hebrew Free Loan, Home for the Crippled Children, Talmud Torah, Jewish Sisterhood Day Nursery, Congregation Adas Israel, all of Newark, and the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind.
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