The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941 9780804785020

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The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941

Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture E d i ted by

Aron Rodrigue and Steven J. Zipperstein

The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941 Azriel Shohet Edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman translated by faigie tropper and moshe rosman with an afterword by zvi gitelman

stan f ord u n iversit y press stanf o rd, calif o rn ia

Stanford University Press Stanford, California English translation © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941 was originally published in Hebrew in 1977 under the title Toledot Kehillat Pinsk-Karlin: 1881–1941. © 1977, the Association of the Jews of Pinsk in Israel. Preface and Afterword © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. This book has been published with the assistance of the Littauer Foundation; its translation was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Shepard Broad. The editors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of The City College of New York and Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford University. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shohet, ‘Azri’el, author. [Toledot kehilat Pinsk 641/1881-701/1941. English] The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941 / Azriel Shohet ; edited by Mark Jay Mirsky and Moshe Rosman ; translated by Faigie Tropper and Moshe Rosman ; with an afterword by Zvi Gitelman. pages cm “Originally published in Hebrew in 1977 under the title Toledot Kehillat Pinsk-Karlin: 1881-1941.” This is the second part of a major undertaking carried out by scholars in Israel to recover and narrate the history of the important Jewish community in Pinsk. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8047-4158-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jews—Belarus—Pinsk—History. 2. Jews—Belarus—Pinsk—Social conditions. 3. Jews—Belarus—Pinsk—Economic conditions. 4. Jews— Education—Belarus—Pinsk—History. 5. Pinsk (Belarus)—Ethnic relations. I. Mirsky, Mark, editor. II. Rosman, Murray Jay, editor. III. Title. DS135.B382P567 2011 305.892'404789—dc23 2011030062 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10.5/14 Galliard.

Dedicated to the Memory of Azriel Shohet Israel and Devorah Mirsky Jacob Chimerinsky and Eva Rimland Chimerinsky Majer and Esther Baruch

Contents

xi

List of Figures, Tables, and Maps Preface Mark Jay Mirsky

xiii

Acknowledgments

xxxiii xxxv

Abbreviations and Shortened Forms 1.

Pinsk (1881–1914) Formative Factors  1 Demography  2 Emigration  3 The Political Situation 9 The Economic Crisis 15 Economic Transition—Industry

2.

1

18

Political Trends (Up to 1906)

38

Hibbat Zion  39 In the Period of the Odessa Committee and Benei Moshe  51 In Herzl’s Time  56 The Bund  70 Poalei Zion  94 During the First Revolution (1905)  96

3.

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

126

4.

Education and Culture (1881–1914)

145

The Traditional Heder  149 The Pinsk Talmud Torah  152 The Karlin Talmud Torah  159 The Hadarim Metukanim  165

viii

Contents Ivrit Be-Ivrit in the Heder Ha-Metukan  174 Russian-Jewish Schools for Boys  178 The Education of Girls  183 Secondary Education  185 Vocational Training  191 The Beginnings of Kindergartens  195 Adult Education  196

5.

Changes in Lifestyle and Culture (1881–1914)

202

6.

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare (1881–1914)

227

7.

Suppression and Reaction (1906–1914)

240

8.

In the Period of the First World War

288

Until the German Conquest (August 1, 1914– September 17, 1915)  288 The Beginning of German Rule  295 Hunger Pangs and Hard Labor  302 Expulsions  321 Forced Labor  326 Citizens’ Committee  334 Organizations and Political Parties  342 Economic Life  348 Education and Culture  350 Support for the Needy  357

9.

Interregnum (1918–1920) The German-Ukrainian Condominium and Ukrainian Rule, following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, until February 1, 1919  359 First Bolshevik Occupation (February 1–March 5, 1919)  364 First Polish Regime (March 5, 1919–July 26, 1920)  368 The Second Bolshevik Occupation (July 26–September 26, 1920)  441 Invasion and Rioting by Balakhovich’s Troops and the Second Polish Regime (September 26, 1920– March 18, 1921) (Treaty of Riga)  444

358

Contents

10. Between Two World Wars

459

Character of the City  459 Jewish Public Affairs  495 Zionism  502 The General Zionists  511 Wizo [Woman’s International Zionist Organization]  513 The Revisionist Party and the New Zionist Organization  515 Zeirei Zion and Poalei Zion-Z. S.  516 Hitahdut  522 Left Poalei Zion  523 The Bund  524 The Communists  529 Zionist Orthodoxy: The Mizrahi  535 Non-Zionist Orthodoxy  536 The He-Halutz Movement, He-Halutz Ha-Kelali  539 He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi  547 He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi  549 He-Halutz Ha-Betari  550 The Political Situation in the Municipality  551 Anti-Semitic Attacks and Preparation for Self-Defense  562 The Kehillah—the Jewish Autonomous Community  564 Education and Culture  583 Kindergartens  584 Elementary Schools  585 The Tarbut Schools  595 High School Education  596 Vocational Education  605 Adult Education  610 Welfare and Mutual Assistance Institutions  617 Orphanages  617 Old-Age Homes  624 Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia (TOZ)  626 The Tomkhei Aniyim Society  628 Linat Tzedek Society  630 Women’s Society for Welfare Work  631 Hospitals  631 Gemilut Hesed (Free Loan) Societies  635

ix

x

Contents

11. The Second World War up to the Nazi Occupation (September 16, 1939–July 4, 1941)

638



652

Afterword: Pinsk in Wartime and from 1945 to the Present Zvi Gitelman The Holocaust  654 Post-War Pinsk  655 After the Soviets  657

Notes

661

Bibliography

731

Index

739

Figures, Tables, and Maps

Figures: The photographs follow page 280

1. Polish parliament members and soldiers in Pinsk. 2. Devorah Mirsky and children, 1919. 3. Monastery by the Pina and church. 4. Church, market, central street. 5. Pina River, cathedral, seminary. 6. View across rooftops, synagogue. 7. Fire brigade and band. 8. Diamond Anniversary, Luria. 9. Inscription for gravestone. Collection of Zvi Gitelman. Tables

1.1. Natural increase in population, 1890–96  3 8.1. Contributions and pledges to “Aid to Jewish Pinsk Society, 1917”  317 9.1. JDC Funds (in Polish marks) distributed February–May 1920  437 10.1. Natural increase of the Pinsk Jewish population, 1927–30, 1934, 1937  460 10.2. Workshops and workers, 1937  493 10.3. Businesses concerns, 1937  494 10.4. Professional practitioners, 1937  495 10.5. Vote totals and percentages, 1927, 1930  501 10.6. Contributions to Keren Ha-Yesod, 1929  509

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Figures, Tables, and Maps

10.7. Contributions to the Jewish National Fund  510 10.8. Alternative contributions to the Jewish National Fund  511 10.9. Kehillah budgets and wojewoda authorizations, 1934  575 10.10. Kehillah budgets and wojewoda authorizations, 1935  576 10.11. Tarbut (Hebrew) gymnasium enrollment, 1922–30  600 10.12. Tarbut (Hebrew) gymnasium enrollment, 1930–37  602 Maps

1. Pinsk under the tsars, 1815  xxxvi 2. Pinsk under Polish dominion, 1919  xxxvii

Preface Mark Jay Mirsky

This past year, I spoke about The Jews of Pinsk to a group of painters, sculptors, and intellectuals who meet to read the twentieth-century literature of Central and Eastern Europe. I was surprised by their enthusiasm about this exhaustive study of a small town in Eastern Europe. I might have expected it from academic historians of Europe or professors of Jewish Studies, but not contemporaries busy as creative artists. I explained my own fascination with Pinsk in a preface to The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880. My father was born there, in 1905 or 1906; the discrepancy in record keeping speaks to a drama of nationalities: Russian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, as well as religions and cultures. Its plot begins in 1506 on the first page of Mordechai Nadav’s history of the Jews of Pinsk but does not end in 1941 when the last page of this second volume, Azriel Shohet’s [also spelled Shohat, Shochat], is turned. The city’s extinction as a vital Jewish community lies a year beyond. Nadav’s volume starts with a privilege signed by the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Prince Feodor Ivanovych Yaroslavich, in 1506, though there were Jews in Pinsk before. It grants permission to build a synagogue, establish a cemetery, and confirms their rights. The document corroborates the Jewish presence at this point of loading and unloading of goods. Pinsk lies at the juncture of a river system that stretches east and west, north and south. Long before 1506 its waters brought the goods of faraway worlds from the kingdoms of the Vikings to the courts of Byzantium through its muddy streets. The waters of the Pina and Pripet linked this small town to the Baltic and the Black Sea in an international trade that girded the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. Pinsk seems to be in a forlorn backwater of Eastern Europe, stranded in the

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swamps of southern Belarus, until one realizes that it lies along the trading routes that join the worlds of distant seas and countries. The record of Jews in Pinsk begins not in medieval Europe but in the Renaissance, yet Jews felt that they had lived there much longer. A bulky Yiddish town book, which preceded the two histories, was called Toyzent Yor Pinsk or in English, Pinsk, a Thousand Years. Before the Holocaust destroyed the Jewish character of Pinsk, the romance of its long existence as an important center where Jews were in the majority, generated affection even for the blottes or swamps, in which the city sits. The atmosphere of intellectual excitement and the civic generosity—despite the tumult and violence that often broke out among its factions—made it a point of pride to cite as a birthplace. In 1941—the year that the Pinsker Branch 210 of the Workmen’s Circle brought out Toyzent Yor Pinsk— emigrants from the city who had spread to the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Palestine must have hoped—despite the hostile attitude of the Polish state, a brutal Soviet occupation since 1939, and the imminent Nazi invasion—that the city of their childhood would rise, as it had for over half a millennium, would remain an important center of Jewish life. In a Messianic era a volume called Pinsk, Two Thousand Years might still include this town in Belarus as one of its mother cities. The bustling Pinsk of crowded synagogues and Hebrew schools and speakers now lies in a storied past. Thanks to Nadav’s history, we can walk its streets in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and much of the nineteenth centuries and imagine ourselves there: hear their rabbis, businessmen, teachers, and even secular “intellectuals,” the early proponents of a new Jewish culture and the first Zionists. Shohet’s history brings us closer to our own reality so that the voices of Pinsk’s tailors, factory workers, and revolutionaries are recorded—particularly those of the men and women who suffered through the violence of the late nineteenth and early and mid-twentieth century. Moshe Rosman, in his introduction to Nadav’s volume, explains the importance of both these volumes in setting the historical record straight in regard to the truth of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. ­Although surrounded by villages and backward hamlets, Pinsk was a vital urban center. Readers who wish to understand what is unique about the present volume from that perspective should refer to Rosman’s introduction where he discusses Shohet’s achievement and his career as a historian as

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

well. Moshe summed it up, however, in a few sentences for the present volume, “Shohet’s book carefully pieces together thousands of historical fragments, both published and unpublished, to create a holistic view of this important, and in many ways representative, Eastern European Jewish community. This is the most detailed, comprehensive study of a single Jewish community over several centuries. It empowers readers to arrive at a profound understanding of the structures, processes, and contexts of life in Eastern Europe—for Jews as well as their neighbors—in ways that are simply unavailable elsewhere.” The Jews of Pinsk, 1881 to 1941 may seem at times like a welter of dry statistics about immigration, Zionism, Socialist factions, and town institutions, but jumping between endnotes and text, it rewards us with a glimpse into a Jewish world that is changing rapidly. Stories about averting cholera by avoiding vegetables and marrying couples in graveyards, are succeeded by struggles to modernize school curriculums, industrialize, and the pell-mell rush to immigrate, which spread Pinskers to every corner of the world. If the array of strange names can bewilder those who are unfamiliar with the Zionist and labor movements in Eastern Europe, be assured that in the course of the book, you will learn the difference between Hovevei Zion, S.S., Poalei Zion, and the Bund. The Shohet and Nadav volumes, like Ferdinand Braudel’s majestic history of the Mediterranean, speak to broader issues than their impressive marshaling of details. They forced me to revise ideas about the world of my grandfathers and grandmothers. In my preface to the earlier volume, I spoke about events that might properly introduce Shohet’s pages. Born within the time span of this second volume, my father’s stories of Pinsk (recorded in my unpublished manuscript From Pinsk to Beacon Hill) reached back into the 1820s and 1830s of Nadav’s history. Sulya, my father’s great-grandmother, in her mid-eighties, was still alive when he was a boy, and literally was holding the keys to his mother’s family wealth in her hands. Her husband, my great-great-grandfather Baruch, lived on into the storm of the First World War. My father was domiciled in his mother’s grandparents’ house and lived to an extent in the world of the early nineteenth century. His father had fled to America in 1910, leaving a pregnant wife and two children, dependent on an irascible father-in-law’s munificence or perhaps the charity of my father’s great-grandmother Sulya. Among

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my father’s first memories is this powerful matriarch born in 1825 and still active. Known as Sulya the Shopkeeper, she sold brides trousseaus, advised dressmakers, quoting an extensive knowledge of Bible and Talmud in her business dealings. Sulya had hidden Jewish boys in the monastery yard across the street when the authorities of Nicholas I, in the early 1800s, corralled children as young as ten years old for service in the Tsar’s army. . . . [Her room was] the mysterious center of the strength of the household. . . . Nine feet in width, fifteen in depth, it was small yet crammed with stuff, ­Sulya’s bed, cabinets, boxes in the corner filled with brasses, candlesticks, silver, coins. . . . When I was in there, it was just for a moment because I was immediately rushed out. . . . just allowed to say hello to greatgrandmother and not allowed to fiddle around with the content. . . .

My father’s voice continued to wax rhapsodic as he began to recall his childhood at my request. All the wealth of the Liebermans [his mother’s family] seemed to be in that corner . . . silver of all kinds, pieces, Napoleonic coins, silver spoons, silver cups in abundance with carvings and inscriptions. Such would be given in turn in Pinsk to the children upon marriage. It came out of an inexhaustible supply in that room. Some of the cups bedecked the big table in the parlor on Friday nights. There was a different cup for Elijah every Passover. The Lieberman family believed in never having the same dishes or cups for the Passover seder. Hanging on the wall were silver pointers used to follow the words in the holy scrolls, and in a little cabinet above the large closet, which went threequarters of the way up the wall, was a Torah scroll, which meant that services could be held in the house. In Sulya’s room was a closet with linens of all kinds, silk kerchiefs, blankets—moth-eaten and otherwise—sheets, pillowcases. None of the children or grandchildren was allowed in. Sulya, confined to her bed most of the time, supervised the distribution of linens and monies, paper, silver, and gold coins.

For critical years of Shohet’s history, 1910 to 1920, I have a separate track running through my head—memories I gathered from my family. It is enriched by the story Shohet tells here. His narrative is not always easy to follow for a layman. Shohet interrupts his history’s drama with detailed lists: board members of institutions; visiting dignitaries of leftwing labor unions; and the Bund, Communists, and Zionist factions

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

with their leading personalities. We are given the specifics of monies expended for the schools that offered classes in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, and Polish. Contributions during the First World War from America and Russia and what the Polish authorities allotted to institutions are reckoned up alongside funds collected from the townspeople. One reaches the violent events of 1905 in Chapter 2, but the history does not return to its strikes and tumult until Chapter 7. I would not surrender this wealth of detail, however, for it buttresses the whole in the narrative’s march to its grim finale in 1941. Shohet’s lists, tables, figures, and sometimes bewildering number of names passing on and off committees are not quite the same as Melville’s chapters on whaling statistics in Moby-Dick, another text carrying such a freight of technical detail that the plot goes wandering at times. In the case of both writers, however, attention to detail is integral to the work’s machinery. When Shohet chooses to write the drama of Pinsk: the emigration at the turn of the century, the passion for reform and revolution that leads up to the violence in 1905–07 with riots in the city streets, the great rout of the Russian armies in 1915, refugees fleeing through the city eastward, the entry of the Germans, and the awful starvation through the First World War—we are in the presence of a skilled story teller. His detective work uncovers the conspiracy that led to the massacre of the thirty-five innocent Jewish town leaders by the Poles in 1919, an event that shook the Versailles conference. His pages crackle with anger at the cruelty of the Polish military in the aftermath. In Chapter 10, the historian reconstructing the world of the city in the 1920s and 1930s, gives us a plethora of statistics but makes vivid its struggle to modernize in a Polish state more and more hostile to its Jewish population. In the final chapter, as Poland collapses under the twin invasions of Russia and Germany, every moment is chilling. Many unexpected details of life in Pinsk caught my attention. The Rabbi of Pinsk, Elazar Moshe Horowitz, about whom Nadav speaks of at some length, passed away in 1890. In his first chapter, Shohet records a religious ruling whose intelligence and humor speaks to how these characteristics were often embodied in the meeting of the modern and traditional in Pinsk. Rabbi Horowitz, whose scholarly reputation was legendary, tried to lighten the anxieties of parents and soldiers about observance under exigent circumstances. One of the nightmares for Jews under the Tsars was the military service law, which discriminated

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against them. In 1880, rather than serving close to their homes, Jewish recruits were sent to the Russian interior, to places far from other Jews. The soldiers’ parents approached the rabbi and informed him that they wished to send matzot for Pesah to their sons. They wanted to bake the matzot approximately two months in advance and asked that Rabbi Horowitz take charge of the ritual preparation of the mill at this time. [Rabbi Horowitz answered] “Why send just matzot? Why not send clothing, too—don’t they wear shatnez [a prohibited combination of wool and linen]? And why not send food all year round—are you so sure that they do not eat pigul [food considered unfit for eating]? Don’t bother me with nonsense! Right now your sons are slaves of the Tsar. They must obey his orders regarding clothing and food. When they complete their years of service, they will be able to be observant Jews.” (Chapter 1)

In the twentieth century, the traditional and the modern, more often come into violent opposition. A former Zionist enthusiast, the rabbi of Karlin David Friedman, an important supporter of the first settlers who came to work the land of Israel in settlements like Petah Tikvah, turns away from the movement (and finds his windows broken). Secular Zion­ists emerge; new battle lines will be drawn. Some wish to assimilate into the wider world of Russia and insist that their children be taught its language. Others want Yiddish, the common tongue spoken by Jews in Russia and Poland, to be the language of instruction in the schools being established. Yiddish will find a home in the militant Jewish labor movement, the Bund, as its members begin to organize Pinsk’s factories, but the Bund will find itself battling the left-wing Zion­ists and, eventually, the Communists for the workers’ allegiance. The Zionists will insist that Hebrew is the real language of the Jews and its instruction the paramount duty of Jewish schools. The first six chapters chart the efforts of the city’s wealthy to employ the poor buffeted by economic ups and downs by industrializing and innovating, trying to maintain charitable and educational institutions and create new ones as old sources of the city’s prosperity disappeared. In the opening chapter, Chaim Weizmann, in 1904, seeing the hopeless multiplication of small shopkeepers, exclaims: Whenever I walk in the city streets I return home dejected. There are no happy faces, not a single smile—all around the people are lifeless,

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

and I wonder what they live on. Here is a tiny shop with merchandise worth three rubles, and a family must subsist on the income from this “business” . . . and I am certain that most of Pinsk’s Jewish population does not know what to use in place of the Passover bread which ran out today. The poverty never struck me as blatantly as today.

On another page, however, one reads about the increase in factory jobs, the plywood factories, corking facilities, and a new class of wealthy middle-class citizens. Pinsk is in pain, the ratio of its Jewish population to its non-Jewish, shrinking, but its actual size growing. It is in the seventh chapter with the Russo-Japanese War that Pinsk explodes. No one circumstance can explain the mood of riot and murder in its streets, but the reader can find events in Shohet’s pages that have a resonance throughout Russia, particularly for the Jews, who had to serve in the army of a government that treated them as second-class citizens: denied them places in the university, promotion in the military, and rights of residence. It fueled a constant emigration to Western Europe and to America. Between Shohet’s columns of statistics, the city’s intellectuals cry out in despair. A reader who is not interested in the fine points of Zionist ideology at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century might imagine that some pages of Chapter 2, which begins with these materials, could be skipped. One would miss, however, the struggles as violence breaks out in Pinsk among Jewish factions, some based on class and wealth, others on ideology. Zionism leaves its conservative leadership behind, finding new ideologies in the twentieth century. The Socialist parties, espousing or not espousing Zionism, attack each other with beatings, then pistol shots. What began as a tale of meetings becomes an epic of revolutionary warfare: informers assassinated in the forest, attacks on Jewish factory owners and policemen, and the Russian police chief trying to ward off his own murder—one of the bombs intended for him exploding in the hands of his assailants. The Socialist parties teeter back and forth. They act as guardians of the Jewish population in the face of attempts by the government to foment anti-Jewish riots, then terrorize their own. Shohet catalogues a “horrible incident” in the Pinsk of 1905. “Bundists led by a bricklayer named Tzavke, broke into an S.S. committee meeting. Hana Sokolovsky was shot dead on the spot; H. Friedman was struck on the hand with an iron bar.” The

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historian quotes with a sardonic sense of the issues that “the Tsar was considered to be the private property of each party and the struggle against him—each party’s sole prerogative.” Chapter 7, which begins with Cossacks galloping through the streets, initiates a narrative that will not stop to catch its breath until Chapter 10. Pinsk was beset by continuous tension starting late in 1905. On December 22, Governor Korlov imposed “the strictest level of control.” Cossacks galloped through the city, raining murderous blows on anyone who crossed their path. A long series of searches and arrests began. Forty people were arrested that first week of “strictest control.” Hardly any of the seven Jews among them belonged to any radical party. They were either Zionists or liberals, members of The Society for Full Civil Rights for Jews. . . . In the final days of 1905, there was “chaos in the city and many young people fled.” Searches and arrests persisted. A letter sent to America by the Bund (apparently early in January) reports that “more than fifty of our people were arrested.” The vengeful and repressive impulses of the “guardians of law and order” were intensified as a result of several episodes. On Saturday, January 7, following an exchange of shots, officials of the government bank were robbed of a satchel containing 1,100 rubles in cash and 3,400 rubles in securities. A rumor spread that Bundists were responsible. On January 8, an attempt was made on the life of a police officer. . . . [The Russian authorities] were distributing circulars among the peasants that called upon them to beat up the Jews and the intelligentsia on May 14, the anniversary of the coronation of [Tsar] Nicholas II]. . . . The peasants were being called upon to arm themselves with “homemade arms” for any eventuality and to come into the city on May 14. Local hooligans known as laboznikes (apparently a reference to Jewish informers) were “cooperating” with the “Real Russians.” The entire population—the Poles included—was terrified, and many of the Jews and the intelligentsia were leaving the city.

Wealthy Jewish factory owners in the city were threatened with violence unless they yielded to workers’ demands. Radical factions among the union organizers, some of them former criminals, extorted money as well. The government planted informers among Bundists and Communists. Once discovered, they were lured to meetings in the forest and shot. According to family rumor, my grandmother Devorah’s cousin Yette was one of the execution squad and had to escape to America.

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

Shohet’s volume truly grips me as “story” with the epic that begins with the First World War and the German invasion of Poland, gathering force from vivid narratives left by first-hand witnesses. It continues with starvation of the city and a massacre in 1919, extending into the last invasion of Pinsk by the criminal gangs of Balakhovich in 1920. Here I must fulfill a promise I made to Azriel Shohet when he winked at me mischievously in his dark living room, shades drawn against the bright light of northern Israel, inviting me to add to his history from materials I gleaned from my own family. My father recalled the flood of refugees streaming by his house during the retreat of the Russian army in 1915: A detachment of Cossacks came into town. Horses, gear, and all! They were immediately quartered in the center of the town. They helped themselves to free vodka in the monopoly store and instead of maintaining peace or going along en route to fight the Germans, they began to cause trouble in town. . . . Day by day the town’s population was alienated more and more. Meanwhile along the city’s streets toward Russia came streaming thousands and thousands of peasants, loaded, with cattle following. The peasants were begging to sell the cattle for fifty cents or a dollar apiece. Grandfather had a yard full of cows, sheep, horses, chickens, and geese. Food was plenty. The old little cube of one inch of meat that used to be fed to us once or twice a week gave way to large hunks of meat and chicken twice a day. Cheese and butter were in abundance for the first time in my lifetime. It seemed to me that it was like the seven years of plenty. It was Pharaoh’s day in Egypt. The hours went into days; the days went into weeks. The Cossacks kept driving the peasants with their horses, their cows, their possessions, into the heart of Russia. With these cows, chickens, and horses came lice and vermin. Children on the peasants’ carts became sick. You could see the children lying on top of the carts, rolling in pain. They were wrapped in white flaxen blankets—not even bark shoes on their feet. Typhoid fever spread through the town, and I was sick for two weeks. People were dying like flies and from flies. People were dying despite the cool weather, which by that time had set in. The black funeral hearse, which was dragged by a horse and onto which the bodies were laid could only get to the cemetery by the side streets because the main streets were covered by the peasants and their litter. In front of 26 Lahishinergasse, the sight was extremely pretty whenever the Marshal went out of his house and entered his touring car. His chauffeur

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cranked the motor and got it started. The horses would go mad, jump over the carts, breaking carts, killing children and women and causing a tie-up that would last for several hours. The Cossacks, who never looked for a reason but with their whips beat the peasants as often as not and drew their sabers to cut up a peasant who would give them lip, came on horseback. It took time but the caravan moved on.

The scene remained vivid for my father’s younger sister Hilda, as well. ’Twas a wild period. There were so many pounds of butter around, you know, just bucketsful. Animals were being slaughtered in our backyard. . . . They had a shochet, a kosher slaughterer, there and rabbis coming to supervise. I remember tremendous pieces of meat being hung. . . . Oh, that period we had plenty. . . . They used to butter their boots because there was so much of it around. There were no refrigerators. And eggs, and milk, there was just so much. That was the period of greatest plenty. But it just lasted a few weeks. The Germans came and then it was all over.

The Germans’ orderly arrival and quick dispatch of the drunken, chaotic vanguard of Russians impressed Pinsk. My father rushed to follow the parades: “—those German bands were really something, I marched miles and miles following those bands!” His voice tingled with the awe he had felt, watching General August von Mackensen, who had “broken the back of the Russian army,” on a white horse, reviewing his troops in the market square, squads of soldiers in dress uniforms galloping up to salute. Yiddish, the first language of the Jewish majority and German were close enough for the occupied and the occupiers to quickly understand each other. The lines of combat, however, between the opposing armies, remained close to Pinsk; its streets were subject to shelling. All of my great-grandfather’s stores went up in flames in one bombardment. When a sympathetic commander was replaced by a harsh one, the good will of the inhabitants evaporated. As the German war effort stalled, almost everything useful to the army was confiscated; not only gold, silver, and valuables but food stocks. The city was reduced to starvation. In Chapter 8 Shohet quotes A. A. Feinstein, who recalls that in 1916, “Hundreds of people began to pick nettles and other such plants from along the fences: they would cook them and eat them. . . . The numbers of the starving multiplied and epidemics broke out. . . . You would

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

meet a person whose face and hands were thick and full: he looked robust and hearty. . . . [Actually] he was swollen with hunger and on the verge of death. . . . Several times I found myself on the verge of fainting from weakness.” My father’s anecdotes of his “swollen belly” are verified in the text’s specifics. “The annual mortality rate was approximately three thousand people, or one-third of the population, as opposed to the normal mortality, which was approximately five hundred people annually out of a population of more than twenty thousand.” Shohet catalogues an even more ominous development, “a new term was coined in Pinsk, Freiwillige Zwangsarbeiter (volunteers for forced labor).” This oxymoron was the euphemism of a military command that formed labor gangs of young men and women, subjecting them to starvation wages. It seems to forebode the slogan over the gates of Nazi death camps, “Arbeit macht frei, Work makes free.” The German occupation remains paradoxical. Jewish soldiers among the Germans were at liberty to associate with Pinsk’s Jews. The Germans encouraged schools and allowed a lively intellectual life to continue, but the population was exploited as a source of labor, starved, and at one point the authorities tried to conscript the young women of Pinsk to service the troops as prostitutes. When the Tsar’s regime collapsed, shelling stopped; but its occupiers remained, turning the city over to a government formed in Ukraine only in December of 1918. In February, it gave way to the Bolsheviks; and in March, troops of the new Poland entered Pinsk. At this point Shohet’s narrative begins to tick day by day. The forces of Ukraine and Germany retreat, but the random murders and robbery of opposing armies turns into a campaign of deliberate intimidation. On the fifth of April, 1919, the Polish commander in the city, Major Luczynski, orders thirty-five Jewish men to be shot, relying on the testimony of two Jewish renegades with criminal records among the Polish troops. Some victims are dragged from their houses or seized in the street, but most of them had gathered in the Jewish Community House to arrange for the distribution of baskets of Passover food to the poor. The claim will be made that they were communists plotting a conspiracy against Polish authority. Shohet makes clear that there is not a shred of evidence in this regard. One of the murdered was my great-uncle Menachem Lieberman, who had served as my father and his sisters’ guardian for nine years

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because their father, Israel, had fled to the United States in 1910. The violent death threw their home into an agony of grief. It still agitated my father forty years later, and Jewish Pinsk never forgot that “massacre.” I gathered details from firsthand witnesses who always recalled it with pain. They remembered how the victims, just before they were shot, recited the “Shema” (Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is One) and that the sound of the voices echoed through the nearby streets, then the rattle of machine guns. Moshe Kol, an Israeli cabinet minister, told me he could still hear their patter. Men in their seventies and eighties burst into tears as they relived it. Yeruham Meshel, head of Israel’s labor organization, the Histadrut, fixed a smile on his face, belied by his words. One of the murdered, Fishman, was in business with Yeruham’s father. Suddenly there were rumors. Something had happened in the Beit Ha’am. . . . Then, we heard a great storm, marching on the street, cries and running. And Fishman’s wife was very anxious. We didn’t know what happened. Suddenly one man is running, near us, “Osher,” my father’s name is Asher, “Osher, metich menshen tsu deh kir [they are taking men to the wall]. There is something wrong. They were arrested in Beit Ha’am. And they are moving them. They will be killed perhaps.” My father didn’t want to explain to Fishman’s wife. But she had a strong feeling that something would happen. It was too late for him not to have come back. . . . Around our house were people running. His wife started to cry, “He is there.” He was in the Beit Ha’am. And we see people moving together with soldiers to this wall . . . moving step by step to this wall of the monastyr [monastery]. . . . And then we see that automobiles are running, and we see a very strong light in this place near the monastyr, and we heard shooting, shooting and crying, and this was the end. . . . “You saw the lights?” “Yes. I saw the lights.” “And you heard the machine guns?” Afterward, we realized the extent of the tragedy. Some of them were taken to the prison. The prison was also in the same street, but far away from us. And you cannot imagine what it was like to listen: the cries and the pistols and the hand grenades. . . . But I can never forget this. . . . I was five years old. . . . I can [still] hear it. . . . It happened as we started whispering. When she was—her husband was not back in

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

time. And all the time we were talking, and she was also very agitated and then she whispered and suddenly when she heard shooting—she started crying hysterically.

My aunt Hilda tells me, “It’s always been with me. . . . Oh, it was a terrible night. It’s as if everything just went black. . . . [My sister] Sonya said there was crying and I have the feeling there was an awful lot of that prayer, the Shema Yisroel, Hear O Israel. And whenever that came up it was a terrible thing. Then we knew that the worst. . . .” My father, the last of the family to see his uncle alive, whacked away with a rifle butt, makes light of the blow but adds, “Next morning is when you saw the wagons with the bodies all pushed together, eight, ten . . . on top [of each other]. Ordinary wagons, you know—Russian wagons with sticks. Bodies—still in their clothing were taken not along Lahishinergasse, but the first street to the right, Zavalnya, from the market square and then through a side street to the cemetery . . . instead of going down the main street. . . . And even then our family didn’t believe it. Why in the world would the Poles take Lieberman’s son?” The scope of the Holocaust twenty-five years later has blunted human capacity to respond. In 1919, however, the brazen lying and random brutality on the part of the new Polish leadership shocked Jews in Pinsk and abroad. And for a brief moment, the eyes of the world fastened on Pinsk. Shohet clearly fixes the responsibility for the murders on Listowski, the commander of the Eastern Front in the area of Pinsk, and Major Luczynski, the commander of the local company, tracing evidence of a telephone call to Listowski just before the order was given. Brailsford, a  British journalist, testifies to the attitude of the Polish commander in the city, just days before, and the cynical indifference of Marshal ­Pilsudski. Other historians, for instance, Pawel Korzec (Juifs en Pologne, Paris, 1980) catalogue a number of pogroms, as deliberate incitements of local populations to murder Jews by Polish army commanders. Some historians have offered the excuse of battlefield confusion to explain the shooting of the thirty-five. Just recently Caroline Fink, in Defending the Rights of Others (Cambridge, 2004) devotes an entire chapter to the massacre in Pinsk. She describes how the abrogation of the minority rights articles agreed upon in the borders set for the “new” nations, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, at Versailles led to tensions that helped set the stage

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for the Second World War. She is amazed, however, that the killings on April 5, 1919, should have disrupted the Versailles Conference. Why did the summary shooting of thirty-four Jews [thirty-five counting Moshe Glieberman, who was shot during the roundup at the Beit Ha’am] in an obscure town of Belorussia reverberate in Paris and outside? The event was scarcely unanticipated, and the loss of life was small compared with the 31,000 Jews killed in all the pogroms during and after World War I. What happened in Pinsk on April 5, 1919 was not literally a “pogrom”—an organized, officially tolerated or inspired massacre of a minority such as had occurred in Lemberg—but rather a military execution of a small, suspect group of civilians. To be sure, all these civilians were Jewish. The entry into the Bet Am, the capture of its occupants, and the order to shoot were done precisely because they were Jews, giving the incident its macabre slant. The misnamed “Pinsk pogrom,” a plain, powerful alliterative phrase, entered history in April 1919. Its importance lay not only in its timing, during the tensest moments of the Paris Peace Conference and the most crucial deliberations over Poland’s political future: The reports of Pinsk once more demonstrated the swift transmission of local violence to world notice and the disfiguring process of rumor and prejudice on every level. (p. 185)

There was no “disfiguring process” on the part of the Jews in the city, or abroad, but rather a need to set the record straight before the military went on a worse rampage. There is a condescending coldness in language like “scarcely unanticipated.” Shohet explains why the cry went up. The murder was “organized” and “officially tolerated.” Having extended their borders to include many non-Poles, the government wanted to intimidate the large Jewish minority in the new territory. Contrasting what happened in Pinsk with Lemberg, it is obvious that the Polish military could not provoke a pogrom in Pinsk—the Polish population was too small and on the whole at peace with the Jewish majority. The Pole appointed as mayor and Pinsk’s Catholic priest would refuse to go along with the fiction of a Jewish conspiracy. Without the outcry and influence of representatives of the British and American Jewish communities present at Versailles, there might well have been a more widespread pogrom throughout Poland. The journals of Hugh Gibson, the first American consul to Warsaw (which Shohet did not have access

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

to), reveal the consul’s ugly, anti-semitic views. They explain Gibson’s sympathy for the anti-semitic right-wing Polish attitudes. Shohet quotes the cables of the acting American Secretary of State, William Phillips—­ Phillips, scolding Gibson for his dilatory replies as the American government tried to ascertain the truth of what was happening in Pinsk and throughout Poland. Gibson seems to have been an arch deceiver. In the fall of 1919, my father, with his mother, met the consul at the American embassy to receive monies forwarded to assist their coming to America. He recalled Gibson as kind and thoughtful. Boris Bogen, who had come to distribute Jewish aid in Poland, describes the American consul’s playful side, with no suspicion of the double game he was engaged in. The nightmare in Pinsk did not culminate on April 5, 1919. The Polish military continued to harass the city. On April 26, Pinsk’s rabbis and civic leadership issued a “Plea to the Jewish World” cited by Shohet in Chapter 9. The city is dying of starvation. Charitable institutions are closed for lack of funds. Those institutions still open will close down shortly. There is no trade, the factories are shut; there is no work and no way to make a living. . . . People are shadow-like, half dead, bowed and bent. Dozens of people die every day. Disease stalks the city. Sick are found in every house. Do not let our city die of hunger. Pinsk was always at the forefront of charitable activity. Do not allow this venerable community to be destroyed.

Only with the arrival of Hans Morgenthau months later, as an emissary of President Wilson, did the situation improve. As I go over the catalogue of the recovery, each time different facts strike me. Material on the struggle to form Jewish banks, since the Polish ones were closed to Jews, anticipates the idea of micro-banking in stimulating an economy. The narrative is not as dramatic as in previous chapters, but the statistics of poverty through the 1920s and early 1930s are. There is an underlying pathos as Jewish Pinsk tries to return to normal. Jewish workers in the city struggle to find work and feed their families. Many Jews try to assimilate. Chapter 10 records: A 1928 article states that children of all social classes were rushing to the government schools “because of the need to know Polish.” In line with its policy of Polonization of the eastern border areas, the government spared no expense and set up a school wherever there were pupils to

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fill it. In 1929, a new government school was opened; by late February 1928, seventy Jewish children had registered to study there.

As the economic situation improves, increased pressure from the Polish government with its policy of discrimination against Jewish businesses drains resources, jobs, and opportunities from the Jews of Pinsk. A new Polish constitution was published in 1935; sections guaranteeing equal rights to national minorities had been excised, and anti-semitism became the official policy of the central government. The gains that had been made in the municipal government by the Jews were effectively wiped out; now it was no longer necessary to find excuses for depriving them. (Chapter 10)

Shohet sums up the period between the wars in Chapter 10: All over Poland, circumstances were becoming more tragic as Jews became trapped, politically and economically. The Jews in Pinsk were forced to demonstrate patriotism for a state whose chief spokesmen considered them “superfluous” and disastrous to the Polish people. Jews had no choice but to be good citizens because they considered their situation in Poland a lesser evil than the circumstances of the German Jews under Hitler. They could not hope for aid from Soviet Russia as they were aware of its persecution of Zionists, nor were they, or the majority of Polish Jews, attracted to the prospect of life under Soviet rule.

Despite the growing prejudice, there are Jewish deputies in Poland’s parliament, Jewish intellectual life and culture is not inhibited, and nothing resembles the purges to the east, some of which specifically target its Yiddish speaking elite. Jewish officers serve in the Polish army. During this period, Bruno Schulz, a Jew, writes one brilliant story after another in Polish and corresponds with Warsaw’s intellectuals. In Pinsk, at least, attempts to implement the boycott against Jewish businesses seem to have fallen flat. However, one can feel the horror approaching. It overwhelms the statistics. In Chapter 10 Shohet quotes a letter of May 20, 1939: Recent world events [the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia and Danzig] and especially our own troubles and misery, have deprived us . . . of interest in anything. . . . You are fortunate in blessed America, you are secure for tomorrow at least . . . and we know what is in store for us here. The Middle Ages are returning. They want to purify the world

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

with our blood. . . . We are filled with despair and resignation. . . . The main concern is for the future of the children. Our son is fifteen and our daughter is twelve; they both study at the Tarbut gymnasium. One doesn’t even consider pursuing studies in Poland. You probably read the newspapers and know what is going on in the Polish universities. ✻

Nachman Tamir Mirski was my guide to interviews with the men and women who had become prominent in Israel after their emigration from Pinsk: Moshe Kol, who was in the Israeli cabinet; Yeruham Meshel; and Fanny Solomian-Loc, who fought as partisans in the forests against the Nazis. Nachman hoped that there would be a whole shelf of books on Pinsk in the libraries of the English-speaking world. The two histories of the city, Nadav’s and Shohet’s, are massive, but they are only a portion of the three Yizkor volumes, poems, photographs, reminiscences, and the detailed histories of prominent families and the Lithuanian Hasidic dynasties of Pinsk. In turn, beyond these pages, there are books of poetry, memoirs, and original rabbinic scholarship to be translated if the world that was lost is to be recovered and understood. Many books and manuscripts have deepened my understanding of Pinsk. Nadav, for instance, drew heavily on Miriam Shomer Zunser’s Yesterday for details of life in a wealthy Pinsk household in the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the most powerful pages, including the description of the sadness that arranged marriages caused and what happened to the emigrants when they came to the United States, are not part of the general histories; the story of the city’s emigrants begs another volume. When, over thirty years ago, I began this project, in the wake of the manuscript about my father and grandfather’s emigration to Boston, I became aware of two organizations in New York City. One had lapsed into a burial society but was extremely helpful to me. The other had absorbed Pinskers who came to the United States after the Second World War. It had annual meetings and I began to attend them, meeting a few of the pre-war generation. One Pinsker, Doctor Hrushovsky, burst into tears as he returned to his memories of the massacre in 1919. A retired Hebrew teacher from upstate New York had known my greatgrandfather’s brother Alter Mirsky, a blind man who played the flute and who won the Russian lottery. He told me how Alter had taken back

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the ticket when the wife of his customer begged him to refund its price. The Hebrew teacher laughed about Rabbi Borukh Epstein, the author of Torah Temimah, on a bench, merrily reading the socialist newspapers. From others, I heard eyewitness accounts of the murders in Belarus and tales of escape. Marianne Lourie Goldstick, translated the memoirs of her father, Paul Lourie, whose uncle Alexander Luria, the Pinsk plutocrat, had moved to Vienna. Marianne read us pages of Lourie’s portrait of aristocratic Polesie. Just before Hitler came to Austria, I made one of my frequent visits to Pinsk. For the first time I accepted an invitation from Prince Karol Radziwill to visit his estates on which were some of our most important timber sources. Before the Russian Revolution his holdings had covered an area as large as Holland. Two-thirds of his former lands were now on the Russian side; the remainder were in Poland where the prince lived. When I visited him in February 1938, I took the train to the tiny railway depot near the Russian border. A princely sleigh awaited me and took me on a ride of several hours, through primeval forests and swamps to the castle. Here they enjoyed the good life, with liveried servants, silk tapestries, antique furniture and thick carpets—an intriguing contrast to the world outside. This was where the prince lived. The princess, a cousin of the last Spanish king, Alphonso XIII, was rarely there, preferring Paris. The prince’s companions were his elderly, unmarried daughter, an old gentleman who was said to be Tsar Alexander II’s illegitimate son, and a one-armed, one-eyed English general, Carton de Wiart . . . there for the hunt, [who] would later play a colorful role in the Second World War. Waiting for me at the castle was the prince’s Hausjude who ran the prince’s businesses. He was the one I dealt with. When the prince sat down with me in one of the drawing rooms, the Hausjude respectfully withdrew. I felt as if I had been transported back into the eighteenth century. The prince had no idea about our business and left it to his Hausjude to make all arrangements. With me he wanted to discuss Vienna. He invited me to dinner and wanted to put me up for the night. I felt very much out of place and preferred to go to the little village of Stolin to spend the night at the Jewish inn there. Stolin had a famous Wunder­rabbi whom the prince often consulted as he might have consulted an oracle.

Preface by Mark Jay Mirsky

The next morning when we left Stolin, we ran into a long caravan of sleighs. The prince was sitting in the first sleigh taking the large group to the hunt. The Hausjude who was sitting with me, looked at me and smiled. “One of my business deals,” he said. I did not understand right away. “These are paying guests. They pay for the honor of being permitted to hunt with the prince.” It didn’t seem very princely to me.

The Pinskers who commissioned the Shohet and Nadav histories wanted to memorialize the town that they had grown up in and loved. They were proud of their industrialists—the Levins, Lurias, and Eisenbergs, just as they were of their poets, rabbis, labor leaders, and those who made a mark in world politics, such as Chaim Weizmann and Golda Meir. They also wanted the details of how the Nazis exterminated the Jewish population never to be forgotten. Nahum Boneh’s “The Holocaust and the Revolt” is a companion to the Shohet and Nadav histories. A story of how some who escaped fought back can be read in Fanny Solomian-Loc’s Woman Facing the Gallows. At my request, Zvi Gitelman, the distinguished scholar of Soviet Jewry, has added a few pages as an afterword that briefly take us through the nightmares of the Second World War and its aftermath and brings us closer to contemporary Pinsk. In my father’s voice, I heard his admiration for the rabbinic learning of my grandfather Israel. I heard my father dissolve the Massachusetts House of Representatives in laughter with the wit of the Talmud when he served there. I wanted to know more about the generation who gave this tradition new life in America. I wrote in the preface to The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880 of two great rabbis of Pinsk. When I interviewed Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (the Rav) at Yeshiva University, asking him about my grandfather, he remarked on what a good listener Israel was, how as a boy he had listened to these scholars, Lazar Horowitz and Friedman, and could detail their disagreements. I leave the task of editing the two histories with a sense of what still remains to be done. The dictum of the rabbis in regard to one’s way through life is, “It’s not given to you to complete the work. Neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot, chapter 2). Here, two names not usually associated with one another come to mind. The first is Charles Dickens, who was a favorite of my father. He observed: “Memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between

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this world and a better.” The second is Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who said about my grandfather: “Many people came from abroad. They did not cherish their memories. Israel did cherish his memory of Pinsk. Whenever he told me these stories, his face would shine.” In my preface to the first volume, I thanked many individuals who made these volumes possible, but I must mention two former deans of The City College of New York, Fred Reynolds and Geraldine Murphy. I correct here an error in the spelling of the philanthropist Shepard Broad’s name. Looking over the photographs, I recall how my kinsman Nachman Tamir solicited them for me, tireless in his support of the project. Yana Joseph and Rosaymi Santos, of the English Department at The City College of New York, without stint gave of their time and skills. Without the constant encouragement of my wife, Inger, I would have long ago thrown up my hands. In addition, I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for providing a translation matching grant that facilitated the first stages of this project, translating both Pinsk volumes, back in 1984. Finally, my father, Wilfred S. Mirsky, and his father, Israel Mirsky, both proud of being born in Pinsk have been “affable familiar” spirits at my elbow throughout my work on the two volumes of this history. This translation is dedicated to the author of the original text, Professor Azriel Shohet, as well as to my own Pinsk grandparents, Moshe Rosman’s Pinsk grandparents and Faigie Tropper’s grandparents from Dubiecko.

Acknowledgments

The historian recording recent times faces a special obstacle when he seeks to describe—in the presence of its survivors—the last stage of an entity, whose existence was brutally and horribly terminated. The writer is aware that the fruits of his labor will be appraised not by his conscience alone, but by many judges for whom every detail lives on in vivid memory, and who are liable to claim, justifiably or not, that it was otherwise. I thus submit my work with deference and with love for much time and energy have been invested in it. It is my pleasant obligation to express appreciation to various individuals in New York: Mr. Yehezkel Lifshitz, Director of the YIVO Archives, and Ms. Dina Abramowitz, the librarian in the YIVO Library, for their obliging assistance; the management of the Archives of the Joint Distribution Committee for graciously making available the data relating to Pinsk; to Mr. Hillel Kempinski, director of the Kursky Library, for collating and photocopying material from the unique collection of newspapers in the library under his direction. I offer my gratitude to the Pinskers in New York, Dr. A. D. Rochotsky and Mr. M. Kolodny, for their labors in the aforementioned libraries, and to Mr. Kolodny also for the copies of valuable material that he provided me. Substantial assistance was rendered by Pinskers living in Israel. Minister Moshe Kol made accessible important material from his archives. Mr. Isser Brisky recorded interesting and comprehensive accounts, based on his recollections for me, and replied promptly to my questions. I am sincerely grateful to both of them. I would also like to thank Mr. Yitzhak Boneh, who provided material from the Hebrew and Yiddish press and many other sources, and was ever ready to come

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to my assistance. Finally, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, initiator and editor of this book. He examined the manuscript and went to great lengths to ensure its accuracy; he devoted much time to preparing the volume for publication.

Abbreviations and Shortened Forms

CAHJP  Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem CYShO  Isentrale Yiddishe Shul Organization H  Hebrew ICA  Jewish Colonization Association JDC  American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee MS (pl. MSS)  manuscript NLI  National Library of Israel, Jerusalem PHebI, PHebII  Pinsk: Sefer Edut Ve-Zikaron Le-Kehillah Yehudit, Ze’ev Rabinowitsch (ed.), vol. 1, parts 1 and 2 PI  Posledniye Izvestiya Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2  Pinsk: Sefer Edut Ve-Zikaron Le-Kehillah Yehudit, Nahum Tamir (ed.), vol. 2 PL  Pinskii Listok PS  Pinsker Shtyme PSL  Pinsk Shtodt Luakh PZ  Pinsker Zeitung (1930–33) Reb  Mr. SG  Slownik geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego SR  Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party Sh. P. R.  Shaul Pinhas Rabinowitz SS  Sionisty Socialisty [Zionist Socialist party] Talpiot  Ma’asaf Talpiot Tidhar  Encyclopedia Le-Halutzei Ha-Yishuv U-Bonav TY  Toyzent Yohr Pinsk Y  Yiddish

Map 1. Pinsk under the Tsars, 1815. Data from a map in Toyzent Yohr Pinsk. Redrawn by Inger Grytting.

Map 2. Pinsk under Polish Dominion, 1919. Data from a map in Toyzent Yohr Pinsk. Redrawn by Inger Grytting.

O n e   Pinsk (1881–1914)

Formative Factors In this period, Pinsk was a relatively small city. The Jewish population did not increase as it did in Minsk, Bialystok, Brest, and many other cities. Pinsk nevertheless earned a place of honor on the Jewish map— because of the intensity of its communal life, the city’s pronounced awareness of the needs of Jews in general, as well as its own, and the development of civic institutions. Pinsk was notable for its responsiveness to the continual changing rhythms of the times and for its nationalistic, democratic, and revolutionary agitation. Pinsk retained, to an extent, its heritage of leadership in the Lithuanian  Jewish Council, [autonomous central organization of Lithuanian Jewry] alongside the tradition of fervor and confidence characteristic of the Karlin Hasidim. Many factors, old and new, coalesced to shape Pinsk’s special character: The city’s growth came essentially from within, not from largescale immigration. This led to the formation of close-knit associations despite class tensions between different groups. Karlin Hasidism had a definite democratizing effect upon the nature of the city and quickened its propensity for unity and action where social welfare was concerned.1 Pinsk was, for the most part, a Jewish city. The Haskalah [movement for spreading modern European culture among Jews], which pervaded Pinsk, was predominantly Hebraist and nationalistic in character, whereas the influence of the Russian Haskalah penetrated primarily after the liberal period of Alexander II (died 1881). After the pogroms of

1

2

Pinsk (1881–1914)

1648, the city had suffered no disturbances. Because of its geographical location, Pinsk became a center for trade and industry. As a result the number of laborers in the city increased.

Demography Authoritative demographic data about Russian Jewry is available only from the late 1870s on. In the eighteenth century, large numbers of people “vanished” from official view to evade the tax burden; these numbers rose because of Tsar Nikolai I’s calamitous edict imposing compulsory military service on the Jews. The “disappearances” ceased after the 1874 publication of a manifesto that pledged not to punish the missing if they would reveal themselves.2 In 1879 the Jewish population of Pinsk was said to number sixteen thousand souls. According to the demographic data of 1887, there were 19,017 Jews in the city out of a total population of 22,967 (82.8 percent). In subsequent years the percentage of Jews decreased significantly. In 1897 there were 21,065 Jews out of a total population of 28,368 (74.6 percent). In the years following, the Jewish population continued to increase, but the proportion decreased further. In 1905 the total population of Pinsk was 34,174 people, including 25,136 Jews (73.5 percent). Even so, Pinsk was second among the Jewish communities of Russia in its percentage of Jews. Only Berdichev, whose population according to the 1910 statistics was 78 percent Jewish, ranked higher. In other cities the percentage of Jews was much smaller. By 1913 the population of Pinsk numbered 38,686, among them 28,063 Jews (72.2 percent).3 Even with this decreased ratio, the Jews composed nearly three-fourths of the total population, and the city had a decidedly Jewish character. The decrease in the percentage of Jews in Pinsk was caused by emigration from the city and by the growth in non-Jewish settlement. The population of non-Jews rose from 3,950 in 1887, to 10,623 in 1914. This cannot be attributed to natural increase alone. The fifteen hundred Christian workers at the railway yards, who were imported from Russia in the 1880s, may be considered new settlers. Many of them doubtlessly arrived with their families. This implies that in the city proper the

Pinsk (1881–1914)

proportion of Jews was higher than the official statistical data indicates, and at the outbreak of the First World War, the Pinsk population was approximately 80 percent Jewish.

Emigration Until 1887 emigration from Pinsk was small compared to the exodus from other places; in any case there is little evidence for it. But from 1887 onward, a fairly high rate of departure is evident. We can estimate the numbers of Jews who left the city between 1887 and 1897. Official figures of natural increase are available for 1890, 1891, 1892, and 1896. It is difficult to explain the odd variations in the data and the wide disparity between males and females in births and deaths. The data may be inaccurate because a significant number of female births went unregistered, no permit being required to name a female child in the synagogue. Information from the year 1900 shows that the birth rate exceeded the death rate by 787. That year the total population numbered 30,339.4 Accordingly, the rate of natural increase was twenty-five per thousand;5 the annual natural increase among the Jews was at least five hundred people. According to the birth registry and the death registry(metryki), there were 974 births and 410 deaths (220 males and 190 females) in 1900 among the Jewish population; in other words, the natural increase was 564.5. We may assume that if the population had table 1.1 Natural increase in the Pinsk Jewish population, 1890–96 Births

Deaths

Males

Females

Males

Females

Natural Increase

1890

481

246

307

70

350

1891

405

191

234

117

245

1892

410

233

310

263

70

1896

524

389

288

263

362

3

4

Pinsk (1881–1914)

been stable, it would have grown by five thousand people in the decade from 1887 to 1897. In actuality, it increased by only 2,048, despite the fact that Jews came from elsewhere to settle in the city. Epidemics were rare occurrences, and to the extent that various diseases broke out, they did not claim many victims. In 1893 there was an outbreak of cholera, but in the period from August 1 until January 1, 1894, there were no more than 320 deaths in the entire Minsk district.6 “It is known that in the months of Av and Elul [months of the Jewish calendar, corresponding to July and August], there is an increase in the numbers of the sick among the poor and the children as a result of eating unripe fruit and a surfeit of vegetables and fruits.”7 But these factors could not significantly influence the extent of natural increase. Emigration prior to 1887 fell into three categories. The first category included people with initiative and practical talents who headed for the larger commercial centers like Kiev and Moscow. The second group, intellectuals living in poverty, headed mainly for various cities in southeastern Russia, where they tried their luck as Hebrew teachers or businessmen. Among this class, some also left for America and Palestine. Most of the emigrants, however, were simply impoverished, and they turned toward America. The Jews of Pinsk were spared the frenzy characteristic of the flight from Russia in the early 1880s because they had not undergone the calamities of the sufot banegev [the pogroms of 1881–1884]. In the latter half of the decade, however, a severe economic crisis buffeted the city. This reached its peak in 1891 and caused progressively increasing emigration to America. An article from 1887 states: “The number of our brothers who leave for America grows with every passing day in our city, too; not only the young make the journey to the New World but families as well.”8 Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch wrote an article in 1891 describing the plight of travelers on their way west who reached Pinsk by the river route and had to camp temporarily by the railway station. Rabinowitsch’s opinion was that the emigrants did not leave their homes for lack of livelihood but that many had been seized by a kind of mass psychosis. “We see members of our community in the town pick up knapsacks and exile themselves to faraway lands.”9 Relying upon Ha-Maggid ’s [Hebrew weekly, influential both in Haskalah and Orthodox circles] description of the miseries of travel reported by a

Pinsk (1881–1914)

Pinsker, Yisrael Gatsman, Rabinowitsch cautions against emigration to America, remonstrating, “Brothers, you should know it is not only one report which has reached us but hundreds, from all the many wanderers who have left our city.”10 In 1893 the writer again describes the migrants’ camps alongside the river and near the railway, where “more wanderers from our city join them.”11 Wealthy people also left the city. One writer appeals to the “notables of Karlin,” seeking aid for the old-age home. “It is clear to all of us that many of the well-to-do have moved to other cities and the income of the home has declined.”12 The official demographic data from 1890, 1891, 1892, and 1896 show a pronounced decrease in the Jewish population between 1892 and 1896. In 1890 there had been 26,635 Jews in the city (13,456 males and 13,179 females). In 1891 there were 26,070 Jews (13,213 males and 12,857 females). In 1892 there were 26,796 Jews (13,582 males and 13,214 females). And by 1896 there were only 21,819 Jews (10,375 males and 11,444 females). In the course of the four years from 1892 to 1896, the Jewish population of Pinsk had decreased by 4,975 persons. The 1880s had been years of continued growth of the Jewish population in the city; in the early 1890s, the situation remained stable; in the mid-1890s, the Jewish population decreased dramatically. On the eve of the First World War, the situation returned to that of the early 1890s. The population had again increased and stood at approximately twenty-eight thousand. The flow of emigration in the first fourteen years of this century, that is up to the First World War, was not insignificant, although in 1902 one source notes that “there are not many emigrants from Pinsk.”13 No doubt the fear of military conscription during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) prompted many to flee to America. In April 1904 Chaim Weizmann writes from Pinsk: “People speak of nothing but emigration; it is discussed in all strata of society, everyone longs to leave.” The reason for this, he believes, is the great poverty and the fear of pogroms.14 An article from October 1904 states: It is difficult to describe our situation today. Women part from their husbands who go off to war; half a year has gone by, and mothers and sisters wait weeping at the post office, in vain, for a letter from their sons and brothers. Others stand there and wait for a letter from “theirs” in America and for nothing. The agents [travel agents] swindle ruth-

5

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

lessly and suck the poor dry. On Saturday, October 16, a crowd assembled—women whose husbands were returned from the border—and broke all the window panes in the agent’s house.15

A 1905 news item from Pinsk reports that many Jewish families are about to emigrate.16 An article from March 1906 states: “Emigration from Pinsk is very high; not a day goes by that several families do not leave for America or England; apparently the emigration will increase after Pesah [Passover].”17 In 1905 Grigory Luria took it upon himself to serve as an unofficial Pinsk representative for the information office of the ICA [Jewish Colonization Association, founded in 1891 by Baron Maurice de Hirsch] center in Petersburg, to provide information to prospective emigrants.18 ICA established an emigration information office in Pinsk in mid-1909. During the first eighteen months of its existence, that is, until the end of 1910, 969 people applied to the office, approximately one-third of them people with families. Ya’acov Kantor, reporting on this, is of the opinion that 90 percent of the applicants, whose number reached at least 1,350 individuals, emigrated from the city. Kantor also points out that many others, who had not made inquiry at the office, emigrated; he assumes that within that eighteenmonth period, eighteen hundred people left the city, in other words, twelve hundred people per year.19 All departed for North and South America. Many Bund [General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia] and Sionisty Sotsialisty [movement combining Zionism and Socialism; see Chapter Two] activists fled from Pinsk, as from other revolutionary centers, after the failure of the 1905 revolution. The biographies of Pinskers in America attest to this.20 Emigration had many causes and was a problem of broad dimensions. In Pinsk it now became a public question as well. On October  20, 1909, a meeting was held to prepare for a Jewish congress, dealing with issues of emigration, which was to take place in Vienna in 1910. The meeting resolved to send delegates to the congress at the community’s expense. A decision was made to form emigration societies in the city and its vicinity to implement resolutions passed at the congress. A nine-member committee was selected.21 Many of the emigrants were young people, who were of course more mobile. There were some who fled for fear of the police and others to avoid induc-

Pinsk (1881–1914)

tion for four years of army service, leaving their parents to pay a fine of three hundred rubles as punishment for their failure to report. The migration of the young people left its mark in the marriage and birth registries. Two hundred fifty-three marriages, 974 births, and a natural increase of 564 individuals were registered in 1900. But in 1910 only 176 marriages, 749 births, and a natural increase of 419 were registered; and in 1914, only 162 marriages, 630 births, and a natural increase of 240 individuals.22 Although the reliability of the birth data is dubious, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the marriage registrations, which show a real decline. Surely one factor in the decrease in the number of weddings in 1914 was the outbreak of war that year. Despite these factors—emigration, escaping revolutionaries, and young men fleeing for fear of induction into the army—the Jewish population in Pinsk increased between 1897 and 1914, from 21,065 to 28,063 people. The explanation lies in the relocation of many Jews from the towns and villages in the vicinity to the city. A large network of villages with Jewish residents existed in the countryside around Pinsk. Sixtytwo villages are listed in the document, which records the sale of hametz [foodstuffs forbidden for Jews to possess during Passover] in Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Volk’s rabbinical court in 1909. The residents of the hamlets may have been drawn to Pinsk by fear of pogroms or perhaps by the possibility of proper education for their children to enable them to grow up with Torah and general knowledge. In late 1912 the authorities in the Pinsk district began a calculated campaign to expel Jews from the villages. They were more persistent here than in other districts of the Minsk region: Because the administration in this district, in contrast to Bobruisk and Slutsk, was not content to expel only Jews with defective permits for residence in the villages, but also found excuses to expel Jews having rights of residence as well. They [the administrators] decided: it was permissible to live in the village, but forbidden to do business there. . . . They confiscated the merchandise of shopkeepers and traders, leaving them penniless.23 The expulsions in the Pinsk district took on a mass character. Even those born in the villages were expelled; hundreds of families were broken up; their property was sold to the farmers for next to nothing. In many villages that had had substantial Jewish settlements, not a single Jew remained.24

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

Even Jews who settled in the villages before the year 1882 did not have the right to engage in commerce.25 The expulsions from the villages were not yet completed, when a series of dismissals of Jewish lessees began.26 Jews who had leased gardens for as many as fifty to sixty years were ousted, as well as clerks in sawmills and other industries in the villages.27 In the Pinsk district [in 1910] the police have begun to expel monopoly lessees, who were not disturbed until now.28

Pinsk was aroused to public activity for the defense of Jewish villagers threatened by expulsion. Several leading citizens traveled to the provincial capital, Minsk, where they assembled the heads of the community for deliberations about “the danger looming over Jewish villagers in the district of Pinsk” and met with lawyers. On January 7, 1913, Gyrs, the regional governor met with a delegation of Jews. The members of the delegation—Moshe Pollak, a banker; Dr. Y. Lunz; and S. Nafakh, a lawyer—described the situation of the village Jews to him. Gyrs suggested that they submit a memorandum, and he promised to look into the matter.29 Shortly thereafter a group of wholesalers from Pinsk set out for Minsk. They had provided merchandise on consignment to village shopkeepers and were liable to lose money because of the seizure of stocks from Jewish shops in the villages. The wholesalers wanted to appeal to the governor to revoke the confiscation; he refused to see them. Meanwhile a group of lawyers was organized to provide legal protection for the indicted villagers, and it was decided that a lawyer would be summoned from Petersburg if necessary.30 The governor ordered a halt to the expulsions, “until the spring.”31 The trial of eighteen village Jews who had been accused of engaging in commerce was held in November 1913. Three of them, who were found guilty of trading in villages neighboring their own, were sentenced to expulsion and expropriation of their merchandise.32 From January 11 to 18, 1914, a trial was held in Pinsk of ninety-two village Jews “whose sole offense was their desire to earn a living. In one woman’s store, for example, goods worth ten rubles were found.” The basic question, which came up at the start of the trial was, “whether a Jew who was permitted to reside in a village, was allowed to engage in business in that village as well.” A dispute on the

Pinsk (1881–1914)

matter broke out between the defense and the prosecution. The judges found in favor of the defendants—it was permissible to engage in business. A second question was: “whether the same Jew was allowed to engage in business in a village other than his place of residence.” On this issue the judges took a negative stand and “summoned witnesses for each case.” Since the suspected Jews “denied culpability,” all ninety-two defendants were released, and the confiscation of their merchandise was canceled.33 In any event, some of those expelled and some of those who lost their monopoly leasing rights relocated in Pinsk. After requests by synagogue officials, the governor permitted the opening of a guest hostel in Pinsk;34 this request may have been related to the need to shelter new inhabitants of the city.

The Political Situation The political-legal status of Russian Jewry influenced the lives of the Jews in Pinsk. Since the abolition of the kahal [the organized Jewish community], and particularly after the reform of taxation and the reform of the military draft laws of 1874, there had not been an umbrella Jewish community organization in Pinsk, (not even a camouflaged one, as there was in Vilna, where it was called Zedaka Gedola [Great Charity Fund]).35 Only at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth were officially recognized, charitable associations formed. Few people regretted either the dissolution of the kahal or the abandoned kahal room (see note 35), which had been the source of abuse in their time and become symbols of evil. Russian regulations about alien religions, which set limitations upon the existence of synagogues and houses of study, made their mark in Pinsk and Karlin as well. In an article from 1887, we read, “that the governor ordered an inspection of the synagogue permits,” and “the Jews became alarmed, because even the synagogues that were authorized had lost their documents.” After some pleading, the inspection was postponed for three weeks so that the Jews could submit applications for authorization to the governor.36 The only vestige of Jewish autonomy remaining in the Pale of Settlement [twenty-five provinces of Russia where Jews were permitted per-

9

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

manent residence] was the institution of “spiritual leadership,” selected once every three years by the “prayer association.” By law the “spiritual leadership” of each synagogue was supposed to consist of three members—a scholar, who could adjudicate halakha [Jewish law] in matters of prayer and religious custom, a synagogue official, and a treasurer. Its sole function was to deal with the “internal structure and administration of the synagogue or the study house.”37 This regulation applied to the synagogues and shtiebls [prayer halls] of Pinsk and Karlin. An article from 1896 lists the officials of nine Pinsk shtiebls and the synagogue: David Moshe Bergman, Shtiebl of the Nimtzovitz Gevirim Shimon Feldman, Shtiebl on Brest Street Yitzhak Eisenberg, Shtiebl of Rabbi Zerah Mordekhai Kolodny, Shtiebl of Rabbi Yisrael Eger Ze’ev Wolf Berman, Shtiebl of the Lubieszow Hasidim Sh. Gleiberman, Shtiebl of Homa Avraham Haim Kerman, Shtiebl on Siver Street Haim Ziselman, “Haye Adam” Shtiebl on Monastyrsczina Street Yitzhak, son of Rabbi Shelomoh Katzinovsky, “Shiva Kruim” Shtiebl Simhah, son of Rabbi Yosef Heller, the Great Synagogue of Pinsk

There were, however, during that period sixteen shtiebls in Pinsk alone, in addition to the Great Synagogue and the shtiebls and synagogue of Karlin.38 The seven shtiebls whose officials were not mentioned in the list must have functioned without authorization. During this period, Eliyahu Beilin and Michael Samzhovsky served as Crown rabbis [appointed as government officials]; according to law, they were the heads of the religious associations. Beilin served from 1876 to 1891. His predecessors had been Neischuler, the first Crown rabbi, Berl Fialkov, and Avraham Haim Rosenberg. The law of 1901 placed the selection of the rabbis in the hands of those authorized by the religious associations. In Pinsk there was no tension between the people and the Crown rabbis; in fact, there were some Crown rabbis who were highly regarded. Prior to 1892 Jews had the right to participate in elections for the municipal council, and Jews chose their own delegates to the municipalities. There was, however, a law that limited the number of Jews on the council, not to exceed one-third of the

Pinsk (1881–1914)

members, even in localities where the Jewish population constituted a majority. This was the norm in Pinsk as well. An article from February 1890 relates: “Our city is in ferment on the occasion of the second elections . . . for the municipal council. . . . Elections were already held at the proper time, at the end of the summer, but . . . they were annulled.”39 A law published on June 11, 1892, limited Jewish representation in the municipalities further, to no more than one-tenth of the total membership. According to this law, moreover, Jewish members of the municipality were not elected by the Jews but appointed by the municipal court. They were selected from a list, compiled by the Christian mayor of the city, of eligible individuals. There were two Jewish “appointees” to the municipal council in Pinsk. In the early twentieth century, Alexander Luria and P. Volia (perhaps, actually Wohl) served in this capacity. They resigned in 1905.40 The korobka (tax on ritually slaughtered meat), whose proceeds were reserved for the needs of Jewish institutions and government educational institutions for Jews, was franchised by the authorities. Distribution of the funds was also carried out by the authorities; although several Jewish notables joined them, final say belonged to the officials. The “Army Service” law of 1874 was a disaster for Russian Jewry in general and for the Jews of Pinsk as well. The law obligated all men from the age of twenty-one to report to the draft board. First, the deformed, the chronically ill, and those disqualified because of physical size were eliminated. (To be qualified for service, one’s chest measurement had to be at least half one’s height.) Then the required number of draftees were selected from among the remaining candidates. In addition, the law determined a deferment system (legota) based upon the family status of those reporting for induction; there were three categories of deferments. During the first draft season under the new law, the “city was in turmoil.” But after a short time, matters calmed down. The Pinsk inductees served in Vilna, Minsk, Grodno, Brest, and ­Kobryn. According to M. Kerman’s memoirs, the draftees, particularly those who had previously worked hard as craftsmen, porters, and the like, were pleased with their lot. Compared to their former toil, the soldiers’ life was far easier. Their self-esteem rose. On the Sabbath they dined at the tables of the rich, and the homes of the wealthy were open

11

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

to them. In 1880 the situation changed. That year the inductees were sent to the Russian interior, to localities where there were no Jews. In this connection Kerman tells an instructive anecdote showing the character of Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the rabbi of Pinsk. The soldiers’ parents approached the rabbi and informed him that they wished to send matzot for Pesah to their sons. They wanted to bake the matzot approximately two months in advance and asked that Rabbi Horowitz take charge of the ritual preparation of the mill at this time. According to Kerman, the rabbi replied: Why send just matzot? Why not send clothing too—don’t they wear shatnez [prohibited combination of wool and linen]? And why not send food all year round—are you so sure that they do not eat pigul [food considered unfit for eating]? Don’t bother me with nonsense! Right now your sons are slaves of the Tsar. They must obey his orders regarding clothing and food. When they complete their years of service, they will be able to be observant Jews.41

During 1881–83 the annual quota of Pinsk and Karlin Jews obligated to serve in the army was thirty-three. The number increased, so that in 1889, seventy-nine were obliged to serve, and in 1891, eighty-five.42 With the change in the soldiers’ conditions, those who did not have deferments began to hide, either before reporting for the draft or afterward. Men who had deferments of various sorts were taken in their place according to the regulation that stated that “If there should be a shortage of men of the Israelite religion who do not have deferments for family status, then those having deferments of categories C and B, and even A, are to be inducted in their stead.”43 This legal situation, which placed collective responsibility on those subject to the draft, caused tension between those who had deferments and those who did not. The latter demanded financial compensation from the former, who acquiesced, by choice or otherwise. In an article from mid-December 1881, we read that many of those who lacked deferments hid, and twenty men of categories A and B were taken in their stead; those in hiding made it known that when money was collected from those with deferments, they would appear in their place.44 In another article from that very same period, we read that “our sage Rabbi” has already collected the sum of two thousand rubles from those pos-

Pinsk (1881–1914)

sessing deferments, but there were still many “who had not brought their contribution.”45 This tension recurred each year during the induction period from October to January. In 1883 all those who lacked deferments took refuge, and various categories of those possessing deferments were drafted. The matter caused bitterness among the families of the draftees. Their parents “delayed” the prayers on the Sabbath, and at the conclusion of the Sabbath, they assembled and decided to spread the word among the farmers of the vicinity that “for each man lacking an exemption the farmers seized and brought into town, they would receive ten rubles.” The police posted announcements stating that whoever concealed a runaway and did not turn him in by December 10, would be severely punished. It seems that this brought no results at all. On December 22, 1882, when the draftees were taken from the city, there was mourning, especially “since the Jews did not benefit from the law of deferments according to classification.”46 In 1886 a law was published, according to which the family of a draft evader was fined three hundred rubles. In the first year of its implementation, many still rushed to “escape the city or to hide in nooks and crannies, as had been the custom from time immemorial.” In the end, however, “[the punishment] had its effect. . . . All those who were obligated to serve appeared on the appointed day, not one was missing . . . and those who had deferments, were excused.”47 But the next year only one hundred out of 140 young men appeared. The others had fled abroad, most likely to America. The whole scene was repeated, twice as vigorously. There were quarrels between those who had no deferments and those who had. The former set up night-time ambushes, forcing those with deferments to come to one of the synagogues and pay a certain amount of money based upon their “assessment.” Those who refused “were punched in the nose, and the house of God was turned into a battlefield.”48 Starting in 1889 a sum of money from the korobka was allotted for the ­inductees.49 This practice must have gone on for just a few years; the expenditure does not appear in the budgets of 1900 and after. Evasion of army service was not unique to Pinsk. The maskilim used the press to exhort against draft-dodging, but Russian Jews did not care to waste four years of their lives in an army serving an anti-semitic re-

13

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

gime that organized pogroms against Jews. The authorities, however, completely filled their quota. If one person avoided the draft, another was taken in his place. And in practice the three hundred-ruble fines constituted an additional source of income for the Russian treasury. In 1891, 155 young men lacking deferments and another sixty or more having deferments were to report for the draft. Fifty-eight men without deferments and twenty-one with deferments were inducted, in other words, approximately 36 percent of all those eligible for induction.50 It is unlikely that the Russian army needed larger numbers during peacetime. This presumption is based upon the fact that a lottery system was practiced during induction, and those who picked a low number were immediately released. The Jews evidently did not benefit from this system from 1881 on. The loss to the army was only in the event of escape following induction. The authorities therefore concentrated all the draftees in barracks until their transfer from Pinsk. This may be deduced from an article written in 1891 that states that after the intercession of the Crown Rabbi Samzhovsky, permission was given “to that year’s inductees to reside at home until they were sent off.”51 There is no information on the immediate effect of the May Laws of 1882 [laws prohibiting Jews from acquiring rural property] on the Pinsk economy; long-term consequences are described later. Developments in secondary school education as a reaction to the numerus clausus are discussed in the chapter on education and culture. The limitations inherent in the Pale of Settlement were a significant aspect of the political-legal situation of Russian Jewry. Alexander II allowed several categories of Jews, however, to settle in areas of Russia outside the Pale. Among them were the craftsmen. In his memoirs, M. Kerman relates that a “crafts office” was set up in Pinsk in the 1870s, thanks to the efforts of the well-known activist Gad Asher Levin and the assistance of the “marshalek,” the crown official in charge of craft guilds. The office was authorized to grant certification of craftsmanship following an examination. Craft guilds (cech) were also organized. According to Kerman’s memoirs both the office and the system of guilds were dismantled in 1885.52 The administration of the guilds had hardly been flawless. Kerman describes how the powerful master craftsmen (meister) dominated the guilds and squeezed money out of hired workers who wished to become independent craftsmen. This led

Pinsk (1881–1914)

to disputes and Kerman expresses his satisfaction with the abolition of the guild system. But with the abrogation of their authority, a Pinsk workman’s chance to achieve the status of a craftsman and the right to settle in interior Russia as an independent worker, was almost ruled out.

The Economic Crisis In the beginning of the period under discussion, a railway line was built in Polesie. In 1882 trains began to roll in certain areas, and in 1887 work was completed on the lines from Pinsk to Zabinka. As a result Pinsk lost its pride of place as a central trade depot. Previously, loads of wheat, fat, and salt from Ukraine had been transported via the Dnieper and Pripyat rivers to Pinsk, there to be transferred from the boats and barges, which sailed the broad rivers, to smaller boats and narrower barges. The smaller craft plied the artificial canals leading to Brest, and then the Bug and Vistula rivers or the Oginski Canal that flowed to the Szczara and Nieman rivers. Now all merchandise was transported by railway cars from the site of purchase in Ukraine. The switch to rail transport harmed not only merchants of wheat, fat, and salt but also middlemen, porters, wagoners—everyone who made his living from the river transit trade. Lumber trade began to develop in the 1860s as a consequence of the freeing of the serfs; many working hands became available for chopping trees and for all sorts of labor related to moving barges. The Polish revolution of 1863 resulted in the downfall of the noblemen, who now began to sell off their forests. This kept forest-based commerce viable even during the period under discussion because dense forests extended all around Pinsk. Nevertheless, the lumber trade involved a constant element of risk: sometimes the barges broke up because of high water, and sometimes they ran aground in the shallow channels.53 In the late 1880s and early 1890s a severe depression hit the city. An 1891 article in Ha-Melitz [influential Hebrew periodical appearing first weekly, then daily from 1860 to 1904] states: It has been several years since the wheel of fortune has turned against the residents of our city, and the circumstances of the inhabitants have seriously deteriorated. Everywhere, the cry is heard that there is no

15

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

way to make a living. Shopkeepers sit at the doors of their shops all day long waiting for customers who do not appear. Workmen go idle, and even those who earn something, make no profit; for seven men grab hold of one and say: You have work, I’ll gladly do it for you, if only to earn some food for myself. . . . Hundreds of people in our city moan silently in their cramped homes, since shame would break their hearts were they to reveal their duress to others or give vent to their misery.54

In 1887 merchandise valued at millions of rubles was still being unloaded in Pinsk: 100,000 pud [one pud is the equivalent of approximately thirty-five pounds] of goat fat, worth half a million rubles; 540,000 pud of wheat, worth 540,000 rubles; 800,000 pud of barley, worth 480,000 rubles; 1,200,000 pud of salt, worth 720,000 rubles; similarly, lumber worth 600,000 rubles. Exports from Pinsk included: 484,651 pud of barley, 931,308 pud of wheat, 182,308 pud of fodder, 4,491 pud of stearin candles—evidently from the candle factory in the city— 28,572 pud of tobacco, 27,300 pud of flour—from the city’s mills—7,865 pud of salt, and lumber and lumber products valued at 97,000 rubles. Despite all of this, the source of the data notes that the poverty in the city was extensive.55 An account written in 1895 describes the economic crisis that followed the change in the mode of transportation: There used to be times when fortune smiled on the Pinsk community and trade was stimulated by the rush of the waterways surrounding the city. . . . In those days we found delight and deliverance in the whirring of the taut masts of every sailing ship which filled the far-flowing waterways. First among the waterways were the rivers of Pinsk, and between their banks our country sent . . . its grains, and its forest wood, the fats of its sheep, and their wool and flax. . . . How abundant then the work and the stir on the banks of the river. . . . Hundreds of our less affluent Israelite brothers were busy loading and unloading ships. . . . Commerce grew daily and businessmen, large and small, found great reward, while even day-laborers and porters ate their bread in tranquility, free from sorrow. . . . But, prosperity is not eternal. . . . The railway lines built in our country blazed new trails for commerce; the wheat trade, breath of life for our way of life, was gone. The wheat dealers changed their method of doing business and now send wheat by rail. . . . Now merchants and sailors stand and mourn; the trade routes are forlorn, the

Pinsk (1881–1914)

river banks desolate. . . . All the means of livelihood are utterly depleted and hundreds of people go idle for lack of work.

The writer goes on to say that because of the crisis, shops and shopkeepers have multiplied: The majority of the people who have not been totally ruined have found another way to earn a living, and shops have sprouted like weeds. There is scarcely a building without two or three shops, [and thus] sellers outnumber buyers; from morning to night, the shopkeeper crouches in the doorway of his store, and there are no customers.56

The great Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopedia of the late nineteenth century also emphasizes the decline of commerce in Pinsk: Pinsk enterprise, so important in the 1870s, has declined since the construction of the railway line in Polesie. The elevator [a primitive pulley machine for lifting loads] is not in use at present, and is slowly falling apart.57

The crisis was exacerbated in 1891–92; 1891 was a year of drought. Not only did the farmers of the vicinity have nothing with which to buy from the Jewish shopkeepers, but prices rose as well. According to newspaper reports at the time, more than 15 percent of the Jews of Pinsk were actually starving for bread. The article of November 1891, cited above, states: At this time of inflation even bread is not to be had.58

In January 1892 a Pinsk correspondent reports: Seven hundred families, that is, approximately three thousand people have no food; in addition to those who have foregone pride and unabashedly request assistance, there are another hundred families, considered among the respected people of the city, who now moan bitterly in their cramped quarters.59

Because of the distress of the times, several thefts and murder, committed by gentile robbers, took place in Pinsk and its vicinity.60 The situation was so dire that it became necessary to organize a special relief campaign. By 1887, “Moshe and David Luria, witnessing the suffering of their poor brothers in the city, were moved to distribute sixty pud of flour from their mill each week.”61 An article from November 1891

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reports that one Sabbath, the Torah reading in all the synagogues and shtiebls was delayed, while representatives were sent to the Great Synagogue, “to confer about what should be done to save our poor from hunger.” At a gathering held after the Sabbath, forty people were chosen to establish a “bread fund for the poor.” Well-to-do citizens were required by the committee to show up with contributions, and many did not wait to be asked but brought donations of their own accord. A similar campaign took place in Karlin. The heads of that rescue effort were the rabbi, Rabbi David Friedman, Yisrael Rokah, Moshe Soloveitchik, David Goldberg, and Yosef Shaies.62 In the first two weeks of the campaign, they collected three thousand rubles. The committee selected four men—Yehuda Friedberg, Nahum Eisenstein, Shmuel Harol, and Shmuel Luria—to make inquiry to ascertain whether all who requested assistance were indeed in need, and to determine how much to grant to each person. Notices on behalf of the committee were posted in the synagogues: Anyone who wishes to receive assistance from the committee should write his full name and the number of people in his household on a slip of paper. He should put the paper . . . in the box designated for that purpose, in the new Beit Tamhui [soup kitchen].63

A soup kitchen was opened at the initiative of Nahum Eisenstein, and a second story was added “as a gathering place for the elderly and the weakened poor.” Ze’ev Lifshitz donated one thousand rubles for its establishment.64 The committee organized the sale of bread and potatoes at reduced prices. In January 1892, however, it was forced to revoke the reduction in the price of bread for lack of funds and only potatoes were sold cheap.65 Moshe Luria “volunteered to sell 5,000 pud of rye flour to the poor at the original purchase price, with no charge for the grinding.”66

Economic Transition—Industry This catastrophic period did not last long. The exorbitant bread prices dropped in succeeding years, and emigration in the 1890s mitigated the economic problem. A significant portion of the Jewish population nevertheless remained in a state of poverty.

Pinsk (1881–1914)

In addition to the transition from wheat trade to shopkeeping, there was a more important transformation: Pinsk became an industrial city. Something took place in Pinsk unknown in the famous production centers of Bialystok and Lodz. From the start it was clear to the Pinsk industrialists that they should employ Jews in their enterprises. At the beginning of the century, more than two thousand Jewish workers were employed in Pinsk manufacturing. Y. Lestschinsky theorizes that Pinsk Jewish businessmen employed Jewish workers in order to utilize the cheap labor of women and children; it was not profitable to employ nonJewish men.67 But this hypothesis does not entirely explain the facts. The city’s industry was built primarily by the Luria family and families affiliated with it. They were the aristocracy of Pinsk, a distinctive and exclusive “caste.” This elite, however, which traced its lineage through the ages, from Rabbi Eleazar Rokeah of Worms [legal codifier and liturgical poet, 1160–1238] on one side, and Rabbi Shelomoh Luria [leading early Polish rabbi, 1510–1573] and preceding generations of rabbis on the other side, also preserved the spirit of former generations. The family was involved in civic affairs and was cognizant of the needs of the poorer classes. This awareness had been a tradition since the days of the “queenly” Haya Luria, and Gad Asher (Rokeah) Levin, the “unconventional” enlightened aristocrat. These families demonstrated real concern for the needs of their poor brothers, over and above the consideration that Jewish workers could be depended on in the event of pogroms(as maintained by Moshe Luria).68 Later incidents may shed light upon earlier times. When George Halpern (George Gad, namesake of Gad Asher Levin) was forced to sell his match factory to a Swedish trust headed by Krieger, he stipulated two conditions: that Jews continue to work in the Pinsk factory, and that the Nur match factory, set up in Acre in 1924, by Gershon Weizman, not be ruined by the competition. Similarly Ya’acov Eliasberg, manager of the plywood factory, tenaciously fought the demands of the Polish authorities that he bring non-Jewish workers into his factory; he stood firm in his refusal and won the fight.69 In 1883 a young Pinsker, Yitzhak Asher Neidich, realized the need to “establish factories in our area” to give work to “our hundreds and thousands of poor.”70 Manufacturers had other reasons for preferring Jewish workers. Pinsk was a predominantly Jewish city, and the non-

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Jewish minority did not need factory jobs. They were primarily civil service workers for the Russian government and the municipality, petitbourgeois, or railroad workmen imported from the interior regions of Russia. There was no shortage of potential workers among the farmers of the vicinity. But though “these people knew how to work, they were unreliable because of their drunkenness.” The Jewish industrialist elected to hire Jews because of their quick grasp of the work routine and their honesty. “Jewish workers proved themselves to be diligent and intelligent.”71 The aristocracy realized that Pinsk was an ideal site for the lumber industry. Raw material in the area was abundant and avenues of transportation, river or rail, excellent. They also sensed the general economic trend in Russia and the changes taking place in their own region, and they made the transition from wheat and lumber trade to industry. Primitive manufacturing had existed in Pinsk and its environs for years before this period. Scores of liquor distilleries had existed, and twenty of them were still in operation in 1884.72 In the mid-nineteenth century, a stearin candle factory was established in Albrechtowo, a suburb of Pinsk, by two non-Jews, Fisher and Robert Buta; in 1872 it was acquired by Jews—Eliasberg, Rabinowitsch, and Sheinfinkel.73 Fats brought from southern Russia served as the raw material for production. Moshe Luria was the first to introduce steam engines into industry in Pinsk. The impetus came from his and his family’s experience with steamships dating from the 1860s.74 He purchased steam engines for his flour mill and oil press. The first had forty horsepower, enabling the mill to process 245,000 pud of grain kernels a year. The engine at the press had fifteen horsepower and processed 155,000 pud of oil kernels.75 In the early years of their existence, non-Jewish laborers worked at the mill and the press because Jews did not want to work as hired hands (hired labor was still thought to be demeaning, and Jews had to be convinced to engage in it). Of the twenty to thirty Jews who started working in the factories, approximately five stayed on, but in time Jewish attitudes toward hired labor changed.76 Foremost among the great factories to provide large-scale employment was the one producing wooden nails for shoemakers, which was also the first of its kind in all of Russia. This enterprise was also estab-

Pinsk (1881–1914)

lished by Moshe Luria and then transferred to his sons Leopold and ­Alexander Luria. Lipa (Leopold) Luria, Moshe’s son, who was studying engineering in Karlsruhe in 1881, purchased machinery for the factory in Germany. Forests in the area provided raw material for the factory. The brothers Leopold and Alexander Luria set up a large sawmill, which was run by steam engine. Instead of exporting raw lumber they began to ship out beams, ties, and planks. In the mid-1890s, they also established a plywood factory, which was the only one of its kind in Russia at the time. In its early years, the factory produced laths of a single layer in various dimensions as they came out of the stripping machine. These were used to make crates for packaging various goods. The factory also produced boards on which bolts of fabric were wound. The demand for these planks, within Russia and elsewhere, was great. Subsequently, the factory began to fabricate plywood, that is, planking pasted together, which was more durable. This industry was of great importance for the Russian economy, first of all, because the plywood constituted export merchandise on a large scale, and secondly, because as a survey scientifically conducted by Lipa Luria, the factory owner, showed, the alder tree, ubiquitous in the Polesie forests and previously not put to commercial use, was especially suitable for plywood production. Grigory Luria established a small chemical plant. In 1892 Louis Hirshman, a Jew who arrived from Kurland, founded a match factory, which was sold to Yosef Halpern several years later. Two factories for cork production (one Christian-owned) and a distillery (Basevitz) were set up in the city. Besides these large factories, there were several other industrial enterprises in the city in the 1890s and afterwards: tanneries, factories for flax-beating, a candy factory. There were as many as twenty-seven companies, and almost all were under Jewish ownership. One source states that at the beginning of this century there were eighteen industrial enterprises in the city.77 Another trebles the number and puts the figure at fifty-four.78 The lower estimate may not include the smaller factories as industrial enterprises. The number of known manufacturing concerns is as follows: tobacco—three; soap—two; straw coverings—two; one each for ropes, casting, halvah, honey, glue, tarpaper, cigarette wrappers; as well as factories for lamps, ink, and soda; and ten grist mills, six flour mills, three tanneries, four distilleries—­approximately fifty-four

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enterprises in all, of which forty-nine were under Jewish ownership. The railway workshops, one cork factory, and the shipbuilding yard were among the five concerns that were under non-Jewish ownership.79 Additional industrial enterprises were established between the turn of the century and the First World War. One large saw mill was constructed by Berl Levin near the river, a second by the Brodsky brothers alongside the marshland, and a third by the Pole, Zakiewicz. More flour mills were built, one of them belonging to Yisrael Levin; and a factory for nails was set up, its raw materials brought by steamship from Ukraine.80 The Torok-Gelberg glass factory was founded. The establishment of the first cork factory attests to the spirit of industrial initiative of Pinsk Jewry. The factory was founded by a young man from a poor family, Haim Zakheim, who started out with a handsaw and a knife; after a short while he set up a factory and became the supplier for the government liquor monopoly. He built cork factories at other sites in Russia and abroad and became the chairman of the international organization of cork manufacturers. In Pinsk he was known by the name of “Haim the cork.”81 Pinsk was second only to Bialystok in industrial advancement in Russia. The large factories in Pinsk developed and expanded within a few short years. In 1896 production at the match factory was valued at 149,000 rubles and in 1900, at a quarter of a million rubles. A thirty-six horsepower steam engine and two steam boilers were used at the factory. For 1896 the output of the wooden nail factory totaled 110,000 rubles and for 1900, the output of this factory, of the plywood factories, and the sawmill reached a sum of half a million rubles. These factories already employed two steam engines: one with seventy-five horsepower and the other with thirty-five horsepower. The increase in the number of workers is also indicative of the rapid development of industry. In its early years, the factory for wooden nails employed only forty workers; by the mid-1890s about 250 people worked there and in the sawmill. In 1898, 420 employees worked there and in the plywood factory. In 1900 all the Luria family enterprises had approximately seven hundred workers, and a similar number in 1913. In 1901 there were six hundred workers in the Halpern match factory. By 1913 the number had declined to 340. In the tobacco factories, there were about two hundred workers.82

Pinsk (1881–1914)

These large undertakings and another twenty or so small industries employed approximately 1,800 Jewish workers at the beginning of the twentieth century. There is no data on the other factories, but presumably the number of hired workers there was small. In any event, it is clear that more than two thousand Jewish laborers were employed in Jewish-owned industry. Approximately two thousand others worked in enterprises owned by non-Jews as the railway workshops alone employed 1,500 non-Jewish laborers. Manufacturing probably furnished a direct livelihood for approximately one-third of the Jewish population. More than half of the workers in the factories, however, were girls whose wages were not enough to support their households. Among the workers there were also boys, and their wages did not exceed the girls’ salaries. In 1901 out of six hundred workers in the match factory, 350 were girls, whose weekly wages ranged from seventy kopeks to 2.5 rubles. Salary was determined by age and, probably, also by output or proficiency. Among the five hundred workers in the plywood and wooden nail factory were 250 girls, whose payment was similar to that in the match factory. By 1913 this number had increased to 320, paid between 180 kopeks and 3 rubles a week. Among the ninety employees of the candle factory, there were fifty girls, whose average weekly wage was 1.80 rubles. Of the sixty laborers at the cork factory where Jews worked, fifty girls were paid weekly salaries ranging from 1.20 rubles to 2.09 rubles. The girls’ earnings constituted no more than a supplementary income for their families or savings for their dowries. Married women did not work in the factories. Not all the men employed in the factories netted enough to support their families without hardship. Sh. M. Rabinowitsch notes that the Luria family entrepreneurs did pay their Jewish workers more than their non-Jewish workers, “so that they could support their families in comfort, rather than in scarcity.” 83 The weekly wage of a worker in one of the Luria factories ranged from 3 to 7 rubles and in the match factory, from 3 to 5 rubles. In the candle factory, the average wage was 3.60 rubles and in the cork factory, the average wage was 4 rubles.84 But, only a man who earned 25 rubles a month was able to support his family without great strain. It is doubtful if in all the industrial enterprises, there were five hundred workers and officials who reached this level,

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although the Lurias encouraged their workers to develop skills and increase the level of their pay. There were indeed administrators who earned more than 25 rubles each month. Berl Genihov, for instance, rose from worker to supervisor and then to production manager. He was able to provide higher education for two of his sons. One became an engineer, the other a surgeon.85 The economic crisis of the late 1880s was mitigated by the presence of industry, which powered the Pinsk economy to an ever greater extent. The great manufacturers felt that they “provided the city’s livelihood,”86 and this feeling was partly justified. Whereas in 1891 there was talk of seven hundred families literally starving for bread, in 1902 the Jewish Charitable Association distributed kimha de-pis’ha (Passover alms to the poor) to a total of 496 people (this probably refers to that number of families). 87 A comparison of the percentage of recipients of kimha ­de-pis’ha in Pinsk, where they composed about 10 percent of the total Jewish population, to the number of such recipients in other places, shows that Pinsk was far more prosperous. In 1898, 17.5 percent of the Jewish population in the Wolhynia district received kimha ­de-pis’ha compared to 24.5 percent of the population in the Poltava district, 16.6 percent in White Russia, and 22 percent in Lithuania.88 Nevertheless, in 1901 a reporter wrote that of the seven thousand families in the city, “2,000 were poverty-stricken.”89 The number of families reported is inflated, but the figure for the impoverished is probably not far off. At the turn of the century, there was a world-wide crisis in the lumber business, attributable to the Boer War (1899–1902). This article was written about a month after the great fire that broke out in the city on April 30, 1901, in which more than three hundred homes and warehouses and four hundred stores had gone up in flames. The damage was estimated at more than one million rubles.90 Within a year or two, however, with the help of loans, the burned houses were replaced with new and larger multi-storied ones. The many fires that plagued the city, built mostly of wooden houses, played a role in its impoverishment. On January 10, 1887, twenty-seven shops and “all their contents” burned down. On February 8, 1889, a hotel and two other homes were consumed, and one youth met his death in the fire.91 A report from August 16 of that year mentions a

Pinsk (1881–1914)

blaze in which twenty-seven stores on the market street were burned.92 On January 25, 1892, “a fire broke out in Karlin and destroyed thirty houses and shops and all their contents.” The damage was estimated at one hundred thousand rubles.93 Whenever one of the factories caught fire, its workers were hurt. In 1894 the flour mill and oil press of the Luria family were reduced to ashes; and according to the news article, three hundred workers, millers, porters, sack sewers, and others were left without a means of livelihood.94 In 1896 the match factory and all the raw material in and around it were consumed, and “the cry of the men and wailing of the women [workers] encompassed the entire city . . . for the food was taken from their mouths.”95 The great fire of 1901 destroyed “almost all the homes in Karlin, as most of them were constructed of wood, including the residences of the middle-class businessmen, the smaller businessmen, and craftsmen, and the hotels.” The fire spread to the various streets—Tyuremnaya, Naverzenaya (the street along the waterfront), Bolshaya (Kiev Street, the main street)—where the great factories and warehouses were located. The post office and Skyrmunt’s palace also went up in flames. According to the reports, more than one thousand families were left naked and totally destitute, “and hundreds of people from the merchant class, were transformed into poverty-stricken beggars of bread.” One description cites 290 residences and four hundred shops, warehouses, and stables destroyed, and one woman and a boy were killed. According to a different account, three hundred homes were burned, while a third article states that 330 buildings, among them six studyhouses were destroyed, “and more than 1,000 families are out on the street.”96 The large numbers cited here may include the homes of Christians as well. Tsar Nikolai II donated 10,000 rubles for the welfare of the fire victims. A relief committee was set up in the city, headed by Aharon and Alexander Luria and the Christian Eliashanko. But, the wealthy “were stingy in their assistance.”97 Moshe Luria contributed 800 rubles, ­Aharon Luria 300 rubles, Grigory Luria 100, the Luria company 800, Yosef Halpern 400, the bank in Pinsk 150 rubles. Others among the upper class donated less than 100 rubles each. Governor Trovetskoy contributed 100 rubles. A group of women organized a soup kitchen

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and tea house, where free meals were distributed to the needy, thus providing immediate assistance for the fire victims. Foremost among the activists were the Weizmann family and Ya’acov Eliasberg, the student.98 The committee assisting those affected by the fire continued its activities for several months. In September of that year, the committee still “worked diligently on behalf of the unfortunate. Each Thursday appropriate portions were distributed to individuals,” but “the needy were numerous and the flow of contributions was diminishing.”99 About five months after the fire, there were still many in need of donations. By December, however, about 50 percent of the fire victims were rebuilding their ruined homes; this time they built in stone and, by order of the authorities, each house was built a distance of twelve arshin (approximately nine yards) from the next. To facilitate construction and aid the poor, the fire victims were given permission, at the behest of Tsar Nikolai II, to travel by train free of charge; discounts were granted them for transporting by rail such goods as clothing, food, and building materials.100 These discounts also applied to those in Brest, who were victims of the great fire that same year. But, according to the reporter, “Most of the victims of the fire do not have the money necessary for construction,” and they hope “that the bank for real estate loans will make up the difference.”101 The reference is to the mortgage bank in Vilna. Fires broke out in subsequent years, too, but on a smaller scale, and since people had learned to insure their homes, damage was not as serious. With respect to the Jewish sector of the city’s economy, the great workshops at the railway and the non-Jewish factories, which employed non-Jews, were an important factor. The Christian laborers were customers in the Jewish shops and provided work for Jewish workmen. In the railway workshops, there were also Jewish artisans, such as carpenters, tinsmiths, locksmiths, and the like. Most of the crafts in the city were in Jewish hands. In addition, hundreds of Jewish furriers worked during the summer months in the preparation of furs for sale at the fairs, like the one at Nizhni-Novgorod; although this was seasonal work, it easily supported those who engaged in it. Craftsmen who earned a living from their trade constituted about 30 percent of all wage earners. It is difficult, however, to determine the number of craftsmen in the city and their distribution in specific crafts. There is data from 1887 or

Pinsk (1881–1914)

thereabouts on the following craftsmen: sixty-four bakers (all Jews), thirty-three butchers, ninety tailors with eighty-two assistants, eighty shoemakers with ninety assistants, seven seamstresses, seven haberdashers with twelve apprentices, fifteen chimney sweeps, thirty painters with nineteen assistants, forty-three blacksmiths and locksmiths with twentyfive assistants, ten bookbinders with fourteen assistants, six watchmakers and ten assistants, eight glaziers, nineteen harness-makers, and four producers of cotton wool. There were also eighty-one wagoners and coachmen and fifteen fishermen in the city.102 There is no data about other trades people in the city, such as bricklayers, masons, goldsmiths, barbers, and printers. In 1906 there were 1,003 craftsmen in the city, with 948 assistants and 792 apprentices.103 In 1908 there were approximately two hundred shoemakers with fifty workers, and there were already two mechanized workshops for making shoes. (This information was collected in connection with the mobilization of the shoemakers against the import of shoes “made by machine.” The shoemakers’ decision was not to repair such shoes.)104 The standard of living rose for all: the aristocracy, the nouveau aristocracy105 who made their money in forest and other commodity brokering, the middle-class lumber merchants and large shop owners, and even the craftsmen and the hired laborers.106 This consistent improvement can be traced to a process fostered by the influence of young people returning from studies outside the city and the effects of vocational training in the trades school and the girls’ workshop in the city. The surge in the peasants’ standard of living, which began with the abolition of serfdom to the nobles in 1861, was accelerated by the cancellation of collective ownership of village land and the parceling and distribution of land to the private ownership of the individual peasant (1907). As a result, the peasants’ significance as marketers of agricultural produce increased, and their connection to Jewish shops and trades intensified as well. In this period, the numbers of peasants who wore shoes made from strips of bark (posteles) decreased, as those who wore leather boots increased. The peasant women already wore leather shoes. Shoemaking, tanning, and sewing of the peasants’ fur coats were Jewish occupations. Peasant women, especially their daughters, were no longer content with homemade materials, but began to dress in factory-produced fab-

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rics and to wrap their heads in colored kerchiefs. This increased their dependence on the fabric shops. We have noted the multiplication of shops in the city in the late 1880s as a result of the economic crisis and that in the 1890s, the shopkeepers were left without a means of livelihood. During Pesah 1904, Chaim Weizmann wrote: Whenever I walk in the city streets I return home dejected. There are no happy faces, not a single smile—all around the people are lifeless, and I wonder what they live on. Here is a tiny shop with merchandise worth three rubles, and a family must subsist on the income from this “business” . . . and I am certain that most of Pinsk’s Jewish population does not know what to use in place of the Passover bread which ran out today. The poverty never struck me as blatantly as today.107

Beggars, hardly absent before, increased. But the general situation continued to improve. Many small stores turned into large concerns, which employed hired workers whose ranks rose to 150 or more.108 Pinsk became a commercial center for fabrics brought from Warsaw, for groceries, notions, metal products, and furniture. The railway, which had ruined the wheat trade, became a critical economic factor at the beginning of the century. Various factory-made products from western Russia became staples in the city and its surrounding towns and villages within a radius of several dozen kilometers—and increased the city’s internal trade, which reached a peak during the fair seasons. There were six fairs in Pinsk each year. Since rail transport was more expensive than river transport, Pinsk once again served an important function in the transit trade. The merchandise brought by rail from the west was unloaded in Pinsk and then stowed onto ships on the Pina River. Goods were brought from the south and the east on barges and boats, unloaded to be put aboard the trains. This provided a livelihood for Jewish porters and wagoners and for various commercial agents. The stevedores who worked at unloading wheat from the boats and reloading it on the railway cars were all Jewish. The only mixed Jewish-Christian union was that of the stevedores who loaded cargo on the boats. The Jews did not work on Saturday, and the Christians did not work on Sunday; they divided the wages equally. In the winter months, when the river froze over and work stopped, these stevedores supplied blocks of ice to the liquor distilleries and the hospitals. There

Pinsk (1881–1914)

was also a closed shop of Jewish and gentile porters near the railway station. Haulage of merchandise from the train or the shore to wholesale warehouses in the city was entirely in the hands of Jewish wagon drivers, who were organized into a cooperative group, which did not allow anyone “new” to compete with them for a livelihood. Dragging of logs from the lake and transferring them to the Luria factories by horse-drawn trolleys on rails was done by Jews under a contractor, Shimshon Gleiberman.109 The timber trade was facilitated both by canal barges and railroad cars. It provided a livelihood for the larger merchants and the owners of tug boats, which towed the barges at the river rise. This industry also supported small merchants, middlemen and clerks (“brokers”), and various contractors: contractors for the horses who dragged the barges; contractors for the peasants who worked felling and lugging trees, building barges and sailing them; and food suppliers, primarily bakers, who baked the bread to feed the peasants who sailed the barges. The lumber business employed the sawmills and their workers. An entire neighborhood in the city, called “the new lots” (die neie pletser) was populated by “the water people,” those who engaged in lumber and forestry, some of whom left for Kiev each year for the contractin (contract) season, when the big deals, especially lumber deals, were made. “Merchants’ Street” (Kupechesky) was the neighborhood of the great merchants. Because of the railroad, trade in cattle and fish also developed. Herds of thousands of head of cattle, bought in the villages of Polesie, were transported westward by rail. Pinsk Jews apparently engaged in this business only as representatives of the major traders in the west. Large loads of live fish in barrels filled with water were brought by train. This business was also under Jewish control, although many fisherman were not Jewish. Despite emigration, the Jewish population of the city increased between 1897 and 1914 by 6,998 individuals or 33 percent. This growth led to a further shortage of sources of livelihood. On the one hand, the aristocracy expanded and now included the “nouveau aristocracy.” The middle-class, well-to-do people, whose livelihood was secure, expanded alongside the increasing number of poor who toiled and struggled to earn a living. Proletarianization intensified.

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Older occupations were developed and augmented—new trades came into being. The Jews were not newcomers to the building trades—both in wood and brick—but in this period the number of those engaged in construction rose because the need for housing grew constantly. The great fire in 1901, the population growth in the city, and the general rise in the standard of living all added to the demand. People were no longer content with a one-room apartment divided by partitions in a low house whose sloped roof reached almost to the ground. They wanted larger apartments and real houses. Contractors carried out private and government construction, employing Jewish brick­layers and carpenters. The painting trade also flourished. This was in part a consequence of the annual summer moving season, when people of means would hire workers to paint and whitewash their new flat prior to their moving in. It was also due to the new custom of using wallpaper (tapeten), a job done by painters. Under pressure from the authorities, people began to cover the roofs of their houses with tin to prevent fires; these roofs had to be painted periodically. The painters were also busy on the sides of an increasing number of steamships (one of these was called Herzl). Jewish carpenters in the city also multiplied. Approximately one hundred journeymen carpenters found occupation in the carpenters’ studios. Fifty of these worked in Shelomoh Bankovsky’s workshop, at the precision task of preparing mounting boards and chests for Singer sewing machines and gramophones, some of which were exported internationally. With the increase in the standard of living and the demand for handsome furniture, Jewish carpenters fashioned pieces of furniture, which were “works of art,” in the Viennese style. These were also sold outside the city. Hundreds of Jewish workers earned a living from furniture making and the decorative carving related to it, as well as from construction carpentry. Tinsmithing was a Jewish trade. This profession expanded as the custom of covering houses with tin roofs became widespread. Production of wooden roof shingles was also in Jewish hands. Heavy metal work such as machinery repair, production of spare parts for boats and machines, and production of steam boilers was dominated by nonJews, although certain metal enterprises were under Jewish owner-

Pinsk (1881–1914)

ship. The metal factories of Mednik and Sidelman were well-known in Pinsk. Jewish technicians worked for Luria and Halpern in repairing machinery and the like. Several printing shops, all under Jewish ownership, were opened in the city. Scores of workers were employed, all Jews. The important firms were the Volubelsky printers, Glauberman and Vilkovitz. The printing trade expanded, not because of any increase in the writing of books, but primarily because a demand developed at this time for printed notices and tickets for parties, the theater, and movies. It was also the outgrowth of the printing done for various banks and for regional and municipal government offices. In 1912 the Glauberman press published the important biographical work on rabbis in Russia and other countries, Oholei Shem by S. N. Gottlieb. The job of the water carriers—who transported barrels of water on wagons harnessed to scrawny horses through the deep mudholes of unpaved streets or over the protruding pointed stones of the few paved streets—was gradually abandoned as wells and pumps were built. But this work was also done by Jews. The ranks of teachers swelled because of enthusiasm for the Haskalah. Many people gave private lessons in addition to classes in the various schools, in the Talmud Torah [publicly supported elementary school for the teaching of Judaism], in the traditional hadarim [sing.: heder; old fashioned one-room schoolhouse, supported by the parents of the students], and the hadarim metukanim [modernized school with improved teaching methods, mixing Judaism and secular subjects]. They tutored students of the general schools, who wished to supplement their Hebrew studies privately, or youngsters who were preparing for entrance examinations to the Realschule or for external matriculation examinations [see Chapter Four]. About two hundred melamdim [old-fashioned heder teachers] and more modern-style teachers earned their livelihood from pedagogy. From a letter written by Yosef Bregman to Ussishkin in 1913, in which Bregman asks Ussishkin to recommend a good teacher for the girls’ school (Leah Feigele’s School, see below), it seems that teachers’ circumstances were relatively good. Bregman promises the teacher an annual salary of 600 rubles, “We pay 600 rubles for a twenty-nine-hour work week, and provide a

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two-month vacation.” He adds that in addition, the teacher would be able to teach Jewish history in the vocational school for boys, and for a daily hour of instruction there, his salary would be 150 rubles per year. Bregman assures the teacher of private lessons as well, at a salary of 200–250 rubles a year.110 This implies that a good teacher earned about 1,000 rubles a year or approximately three times the wages of a factory worker. (It is not known to what extent the workers’ wages rose after the strikes of 1903–05. In Luria’s factory, a worker then earned up to 8 rubles a week.) The klezmerim [folk musicians of the Jewish community] also multi­ plied at this time, for in addition to playing at weddings, they now found employment at the theaters and cinema halls. Music was only a side occupation for some. Violinists at times made a living from music lessons. Organ-grinders (katarinshchikes) who strolled about with music boxes still existed. Bookkeepers, as well as clerks in the offices of the factories and the banks, increased as did petition-writers ( p­ roshenies). But Jews were completely excluded from the ranks of the government clerks, and even from private clerical jobs for notaries.111 A thin stratum of Jewish doctors and pharmacists appeared as a few people overcame the obstacles to university study. The feldshers (medical practitioners without university training), however, had not disappeared, and their number was still larger than that of the “doktors.” The poorer classes had recourse to them, for the price of a visit to a feldsher was considerably lower than the price for treatment by a “doktor,” who was more “distinguished,” spoke Russian, and demanded proper reverence. Thanks to their personal experience and the knowledge, which they gained in the course of their day-to-day work alongside the doctors, the feldshers filled an important medical role. Among those who served the population faithfully, the more well-known were Moshe Wein (“Moshe’ke the Doctor”), Pikman the pharmacist from Pinsk, and “Motel the Doctor” from Karlin. The numbers of barbers burgeoned too, both because of population growth and because more and more men were willing to shave their beards and sidelocks. [Biblical law prohibits the shaving of the beard and the sidelocks, with a knife or razor, though not with a scissors or depilatory.] Since morning trade was usually slow, the barbers would

Pinsk (1881–1914)

“devour” books. One of the barbers, named Moshe’le Liftshuk, rose to the rank of professor in Soviet Russia until in Stalin’s purges, he was charged with Trotskyism and shot.112 Jewish farming on the outskirts of the city—which provided Jews and non-Jews alike with vegetables, milk, and dairy products—had its origins in earlier times but expanded in this period. Besides Iwanik, a Jewish agricultural village about seven kilometers from the city, three large areas adjacent to Pinsk were leased by Jews from noblemen (one area near Albrechtovo, another behind the “Pereiezd,” that is the railroad tracks on Lohishin Street, and the third at the “Wigodka,” beyond the railroad tracks on Brest Street). The Shub family, which worked extensive acreage, was particularly well-known. The work in the vegetable gardens was done by hired village girls. Another flourishing profession was that of the tailors, which was under­going modernization. Pinsk tailors traveled to Odessa to gain proficiency in their field. They returned as experts in fashioning clothes, especially women’s garments, for which the demand grew far beyond the borders of the city. Brides from far and near came to Pinsk to have their dresses and coats sewn by Pinsk tailors. Signs appeared of a definite change in women’s attitudes to earning a living. There had been women previously who supported households, not only as helpers to their husbands in the shop, or managers of the store’s affairs, but with actual manual labor: baking breads and cakes, bagels and various sweets, and laundering for others. But in this period the number of working women increased. Women toiled at laundering and rolling out matzot for Passover, two exhausting jobs. Some women prepared baked goods; their customers were primarily children in the schools, the Talmud Torah, and the hadarim. Others baked for seudot mitzvah [meals which accompany a religious celebration such as a wedding, circumcision, the redemption of the first-born]; some were known as experts in preparing the traditional wedding foods. Needy widows or other poor women baked bread and were willing to deliver it to the houses of their customers. Others provided home delivery of milk and kerosene. Those called zugerins earned a living performing ritual purification of the women’s corpses at the cemeteries. Women now began to engage in new professions as well. First of all, young women without

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

any special training worked, until they married, in the mills and in the production of candies and sweetmeats (e.g., R. Leibe had such a factory) or served as salesgirls in the sewing supplies shops, stationers, and some of the fabric stores. Women also began to study for permanent professions. The principal one was the sewing of women’s undergarments and women’s and children’s clothing (on their training, see the chapter below: “Education and Culture: 1881–1914—Vocational Training”). There were women engaged in corset-making, in millinery (madistkes), and in knitting socks by machine. Women entered the teaching field. In the girls’ school, the administration was in the hands of women as was most of the instruction. As the “fashion” of teaching their daughters to play piano spread among those who could afford it, the numbers of female piano teachers grew, too. Teaching and midwifery were the two “intellectual” professions, which girls could aspire to after finishing the girls’ gymnasium or taking the external matriculation examinations. Licensed midwives took the place of the popular midwives (bobes). There were a considerable number of midwives in the city, and they would seek out their clients long before they were due to give birth. Women became experts in “cupping glasses [used to draw blood for medicinal purposes].” Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s [distinguished Talmudic scholar, author of Torah Temimah] younger daughter, Fania, learned shorthand and worked as a stenographer for the second Duma and for the Morgenthau commission, which came to Pinsk to investigate the episode of the murder of the thirty-five martyrs (see Chapter 9). More and more agencies and branches of commercial firms from the larger commercial centers were set up in Pinsk.113 At the beginning of this period, one had to go to Warsaw to buy a watch, and the daughters of the aristocracy traveled to Germany to purchase clothes and fine furniture. By its end, experts in many branches of trade and technology were to be found in Pinsk. Two later incidents can be cited. In the Luria plywood factory, the technician Zalman Burstein designed a hydraulic press that was more sophisticated than the one invented in the hydraulic press factory in Vienna. Burstein was invited to the Vienna factory and participated in the development of a new design. In the Halpern match factory, the workers dismantled one of the machines

Pinsk (1881–1914)

and assembled a new machine along the same lines so successfully that the engineer at the German factory where the machine had originally been bought thought that Halpern had purchased the machine from another firm.114 Important financial changes took place as well. Toward the end of this period, the vokher’s (short-term money lender) practice of extortionary interest rates nearly ceased. In this system of loans, the borrower would repay the loan and its interest, in weekly installments, calculated so that the interest ordinarily reached 40 percent of the original loan.115 The vokher sucked the poor dry when they needed loans to marry off a daughter or in case of illness. He preyed on small businessmen and tradesmen who did not have operating capital of their own. The vokher was superseded by modern-style banking, whose foundations in Pinsk were laid by the Luria family. Idel and Shmuel, Moshe Luria’s nephews, were the first to open a kantor, a private bank. Subsequently, in 1880, Aharon Luria founded the Mutual Credit Union, which was known as the Pinsk Bank. In that year there were no more than seventy-three such associations in all of Russia. When the credit union was established, it had fifty-six members; by 1909 the number rose to 405. It opened with capital assets of 11,300 rubles, and by 1909 its assets totaled 75,730 rubles. The turnover in 1880 was 2,600,000 rubles, and by 1909 reached 32,900,000. ­Aharon Luria was the chairman of the company; the directors of the bank, his son Grigory and Shmuel Rabinowitz, the son of Alexander Rabinowitz. Rabbi Borukh Epstein served as the bookkeeper. From 1892 on, Mordekhai Strick, the son of Nisan Strick, was the teller. David Greenberg, the son of Efraim Greenberg, served as correspondent. In 1891 Peter Sultz, the son of Leib Sultz, was the teller.116 In 1890 a group of eighty-five “owners of masted ships” organized an association “to support their fellow in times of need, to lend money for specific periods, so that he should not cease to work.”117 Since the principal beneficiaries of the Mutual Credit Union were the owners of large businesses, a second bank called the Savings and Credit Association was established at the initiative of Aharon Luria in 1901. After a struggle by the Zionists, who sought to democratize its operations, Pinhas Mandelbaum, the Zionist activist, was elected bank director. Yosef Bregman, also a Zionist activist, succeeded him. This

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Pinsk (1881–1914)

bank served the general public.118 Several other banks functioned in the city, including a branch of the Mercantile Bank, which was converted in 1907 to a branch of the Azov Bank.119 According to a 1910 account, the following banks existed in Pinsk: two banks by the name of Mutual Credit Union, a commercial bank, the Bank for Savings and Credit, and other private banks. Two more Mutual Credit Unions were about to be established.120 In 1911 a Mutual Credit Union was set up at the initiative of Shmuel Sultz, a lumber trader and insurance agent, and the Savings and Credit Association was established, under the direction of the Zion­ist Ya’akov-Avigdor Minkovitz. There was also a non-Jewish bank, the Mutual Credit Union of Polesie.121 Pinsk probably did not need so many banks, but on the whole they made an important contribution to the economic life of the city. In spite of the expansion of business, commerce, and trades, reports speak of widespread poverty; many went hungry for bread and begged in the streets. The memoir of a Pinsk childhood recalls: “To this day the words of the maggid [popular preacher] in the Synagogue of the Tailors resound in my ears: ‘Rise up, Jews, fill bags with bread and herring; go to the needy and feed them.’”122 Rabbi Yitzhak (Itcha) Berlin would pound the pavement, making the rounds of bakeries, butcher shops, and private homes to gather bread and meat for the poor; in the winter he would pull a sled after him to collect wood for the destitute.123 One Pinsker begins his account with an enumeration of the prosperous: The social circumstances of the Pinsk Jewish community were better than those of Jewish communities in small towns surrounding Pinsk on all sides; for besides the number of wealthy families such as the Lurias, Pinsk boasted a distinct stratum of prosperous lumber merchants—and a wider class of people of some means, engaged in the lumber export trade to eastern Germany.

(There was also a significant group of affluent owners of industrial enterprises, stores, and warehouses.) But the writer goes on to say: Alongside the appreciable middle class, which lived more or less comfortably, the majority of the community endured poverty and distress, living in overcrowded miserable conditions, supporting themselves with difficulty.124

Pinsk (1881–1914)

Business was depressed in 1911–12, a panic spreading in the wake of a wave of bankruptcies.125 The poet, Yehoshua Rabinov, penned these lines in 1912:126 “Happy Purim” to the Jews of Pinsk, heartily extended, “Happy Purim” to friends forever faithful. Arise and make merry, rejoice and revel, For this day is a holiday. Alas, the entire city is as a cemetery in repose. Awesome the desolation, all barren and empty. The masses sit idly, For not even a crust of bread is to be earned. Alas, livelihoods and businesses, Sunken eighteen cubits deep into the ground. And who cares? Is anyone worried? Tell me, who cares about the next man’s troubles? Rejoice, Pinsk worthies, and make merry, Today is Purim. Tomorrow is nothing.

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Tw o   Political Trends (Up to 1906)

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The stirring of Russian Jewry to communal activism was prompted by the 1881 pogroms, known as sufot banegev. The first fruit of this awakening was the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) nationalist movement. Although weak at its inception and limited in the number of branches and active members, Hibbat Zion reached a segment of the middleclass intelligentsia and its enlightened young people. The movement encouraged a rebellion against the accepted philosophy of waiting for the Messiah to bring the redemption of the people of Israel. It was also, in part, a revolt against the recognized leadership (which from a legal standpoint did not exist in Russia) of rabbis and influential rich people. It was not long before political Zionism took the stage and attracted new and wider circles of the youth. In rallying to the slogan proclaimed by Herzl at the Second Zionist Congress (1898), “Conquer the Communities,” the Zionists launched a struggle to infiltrate various community institutions, and a process of democratization of community leadership began. Meanwhile, Ahad Ha’am [Jewish essayist who advocated cultural Zionism] appeared with his demand for “preparing the hearts,” which found expression at the Minsk Congress (1902) in the slogan, “Conquer the Schools.” Public activity was initiated in the educational-national sphere; in response to the resolution of the Fifth Zionist Congress (1901) to engage in “cultural” work, the Mizrahi (merkaz ruhani—spiritual center) organization was founded (1902). The “uprising” of working class youngsters began in the same period under the leadership of the Bund, founded in 1897. In reaction to the Bund, which was opposed to Zionism and saw the solution to the Jewish question in terms of a political-social revolution, the Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion) party was established; their ideology combined

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national salvation with correction of the social order. The Sionisty Socialisty (S.S.) party was formed in response to the doctrine of autonomism espoused by [Simon] Dubnow, who maintained that the solution to the Jewish question lay in securing autonomy in [individual countries of] the Diaspora—a point that the Bundists incorporated in their ideology. The S.S. identified with the territorialists, who claimed that the Jews needed a territory in which to concentrate in some land—not necessarily in the Land of Israel. The Zionist movement, in its various permutations, and the Bund both served to stimulate and energize the Pinsk Jewish community to an intense degree.

Hibbat Zion A Hovevei Zion [Lovers of Zion, appellation of people and groups affiliated with the Hibbat Zion movement] society was organized in Pinsk in 1882, immediately after the birth of the movement. Echoes of events taking place elsewhere reached Pinsk, but actually there was no need for urging from without. In Pinsk the time was ripe for a change in orientation, and Pinsk influenced the entire movement. This was because the Haskalah, in its Hebrew form, had already penetrated the city by the 1860s. Study of the Bible and the Hebrew language was both widespread and intense, and the influence of the Hebrew press, Ha-Maggid, Ha-Melitz, and particularly Ha-Shahar, upon the maskilim was significant. The biographies of famous Pinskers show a characteristic educational pattern. All studied the Bible and the Hebrew language and read modern Hebrew literature. The Crown Rabbi Avraham Haim Rosenberg learned Hebrew and Hebrew grammar from his father Rabbi Uziel Yaffe the dayyan [a rabbinic judge]. When Rosenberg was appointed Crown rabbi in 1872, he established a school in which Hebrew studies played an important role. Zvi Maslansky served as teacher for Hebrew studies, that is the Bible and the Hebrew language, in this school and in the Talmud Torah as well. Supposedly, at the age of seven, Maslansky knew the Bible by heart.1 He was the founding father of the Pinsk ­Hibbat Zion movement, and his contribution as evangelizer for the movement in general is well known.

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It was said of Yitzhak Asher Neidich, born in 1866 and one of the young members of the Pinsk Hovevei Zion, that at the heder “he particularly loved to delve into the Bible . . . his heart and soul belonged to the Bible. . . . He memorized the poetry of the Hebrew poets . . . at an early age [he] became attached to Hebrew literature.”2 The influence of Peretz Smolenskin, editor of Ha-Shahar, on Zvi Hiller, first chairman of Hovevei Zion in Pinsk, is clear. One incident is indicative. In 1886 Hiller requested of his wife, who was traveling to Tyrol, that she visit Smolenskin’s grave on the way. Hiller writes: “When she informed me that no sign or monument marked his grave, only a scrap of paper bearing the inscription: No. 132, the disgrace broke my heart.”3 Rabbi David Friedman, rabbi of Karlin, was one of the few rabbis who helped the Hovevei Zion movement and took part in its activities. Rabbi Friedman had already expressed his favorable opinion of “settling the Land of Israel” in the 1860s. In his objections to Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer’s [Prussian Zionist, 1795–1874] idea of instituting ritual sacrifices “at this time,” Rabbi Friedman writes: As for the other ideas of the society for settling the Land of Israel, were I to see them give up the notion of building an altar in Zion and offering sacrifices, I would readily join them in fulfilling this commandment [settling the land].4

Even before the establishment of the Hibbat Zion movement, Rabbi Friedman saw that Jerusalem was “ultimately the religious and national center of Judaism.” He suggested to the wealthy Moshe Aryeh Leib Friedland that he transfer his library to Jerusalem. Rabbi Friedman drew up general plans, as well, for tending and utilizing the collection, with the aim of making Jerusalem a center for Jewish literature.5 When zealots in Jerusalem imposed a herem [ban] on the study of languages, which resulted in the persecution of his brother-in-law Yehiel Mikhel Pines [1842–1912, Zionist pioneer], Friedman wrote (in 1881) that the herem was not valid, at least not with regard to new settlers, for “those who reside there [in the Land of Israel] cannot enact important regulations applicable to all who come to live there afterwards, without their agreement.” His principal reason for annulling the herem was concern lest “many refrain from ascending to the Holy Land [because of this].”6

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Rabbi Kalischer also exchanged letters with Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the rabbi of Pinsk, that probably dealt with the settlement of the land. This correspondence has not survived. But in a letter dating from 1890, Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz expressed his opinion in favor of the idea of settling the Land of Israel.7 The notion of emigration to Palestine had gained currency in Pinsk well before the advent of the Hibbat Zion movement. As early as 1876, when word spread of the plan of an English Jew, Haim Gedalia, to purchase the Land of Israel from the Sultan, there were Pinsk Jews who were ready to sell their belongings and make aliyah[emigration to the land of Israel].8 A number of members of the yishuv ha-yashan [pre-Zionist settlers in the Land of Israel] were originally Pinskers: among them Rabbi ­Yeshaya Bardeki, who served as Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem (he emigrated from Pinsk ca. 1810); Rabbi Borukh, the son of Rabbi ­Shmuel (emigrated in 1819), who left in 1830 for the Arab countries on a mission on behalf of the Ashkenazi community of Safed—among his tasks was to search for the Ten Lost Tribes and deliver a letter to them; Rabbi Avraham Dayyan Wolfson, who undertook missions on behalf of the Ashkenazi community of Safed in 1835 and the Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem in 1847; Rabbi Haim, son of the gaon [scholar par excellence] from Karlin; Rabbi Avraham, son of Rabbi Zvi Eisenstein of Drohiczyn (a small village near Pinsk—he left for Safed with his fatherin-law, Rabbi Haim of Pinsk, in 1823); Rabbi Shmuel Muni Zilberman (born in Pinsk in 1824, emigrated in 1832); Rabbi Haim, the rabbi of Pinsk, the son of Peretz the Kohen, one of the heads of the Perushim [Jerusalem community settled in 1816 by disciples of the Vilna Gaon, opponents of Hasidism]; Ya’acov Mordekhai Hirshenson (emigrated in 1848) and his son Haim Hirshenson, who was one of the maskilim among the yishuv ha-yashan; Yitzhak Lipkin (Pelez) who emigrated in 1847; and Haim Dov, the son of Rabbi Shelomoh Kantor who emigrated with his parents in 1871. Rabbi Borukh Mandelbaum from Torov (a small town near Pinsk), patriarch of the noted Jerusalem family for whom the Mandelbaum Gate [crossing point between Israel and Jordan before the Six-Day War] was named, emigrated in 1874. ­Lipman Yehoshua Zuckerman emigrated in 1876 as a child (probably with his parents). Rabbi Avraham Federman, a sofer stam [religious scribe] emigrated with his family in 1877; Pinhas Globman, with his grandmother

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in 1877; Aharon Leib Makhnes, in 1881; and Moshe Holzman from Pinsk, one of the three activists who founded a tearoom for the poor of Jerusalem in 1878. The Pinsk colony in Palestine thus existed before the era of Hibbat Zion and had two kolelim [sub-communities divided according to their land of origin, distributing funds received from the Jewish community in their mother country]: Kolel Pinsk and Kolel Karlin. There was also Kolel Livshei (in Lubieszow, a small town near Pinsk, many of whose Hasidim lived in the city). Gravestones erected for Pinskers at the Mount of Olives cemetery between 1840 and 1908 were far more numerous than for emigrants from other Russian cities, even though their Jewish populations outnumbered that of Pinsk. The Pinsk monuments numbered 179 and the Karlin markers, 40, a total of 219. The monuments of former residents of Minsk numbered only ninety-nine, of Brest—ninety-eight, Vilna—ninety-four, Grodno—seventy-eight, Bialy­ stok—seventy-six, Warsaw—seventy-three, and Kovno—sixty-five.9 Mordekhai Meir Strick, the first secretary of the Pinsk Hovevei Zion society, tells of its founding: As in other places during those turbulent times, several of the Pinsk maskilim banded together and became the first supporters of settlement in Eretz Israel. . . . Young and old would gather for discussion, reading, and debate about the issue. . . . Maslansky, who was a Hebrew teacher in Pinsk at the time, was seized by the new idea. . . . His fiery speeches reinforced the links between the first lovers of Zion, and a group was formed, albeit without name or program.

According to Strick, the association was formed after a meeting on one of the intermediate days of Passover, in the home of Wolf Rabino­ witz, “one of the earliest ardent ‘lovers of Zion.’”10 No date is mentioned here, but other sources indicate that the organization was founded in 1882. Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, in his article on Pinsk, Karlin, and their inhabitants, probably written in 1893, writes: Thirteen years ago when the idea arose . . . in all the far corners of the world, of settling Eretz Israel, this idea was advanced in our city and an organization of Hovevei Zion was founded here, too.11

In 1932 on Lag Ba-Omer [minor Jewish festival in the spring, falling on May 24 in 1932], the fiftieth anniversary of Hovevei Zion in Pinsk was

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celebrated. Maslansky sent greetings for the anniversary celebration. 12 Strick’s account gives details about the founders of the society: The intelligentsia of the city, maskilim with liberal ideas, assembled for the founding meeting. There were also some learned religious people present; among these Aharon Eisenberg, the son of the pious Avraham Moshe the Kabbalist, Ya’acov Zvi Zisselman, a religious Jew, owner of a tavern, and Efraim Grover, the Hasid, who had already visited Palestine. Enthusiastic letters from Shaul Pinhas Rabinowitz (Sh. P. R.) were read. The air was electrified and there was a feeling that Redemption was “just around the corner” and people should pack their bags and leave. At the meeting Eisenberg voiced his decision to make aliyah. Zisselman described the idyllic existence of the farmers in Palestine compared to the cursed commercial lives led in Pinsk. Grover conjured up vignettes of life in Eretz Israel.13

The prime mover in establishing the group was Maslansky, “who was the one who had fired up hearts for the founding of the Hovevei Zion society.”14 Zvi Hiller was chairman, Mordekhai Meir Strick was secretary, and Yitzhak Neidich served as acting secretary.15 In the first two years the members of Hovevei Zion met to talk or read about settling the Land of Israel and deliberate about practical means for doing so. The committee assembled in the attic of Rabbi David Friedman’s house. Sometimes Rabbi Friedman himself joined in sessions of the committee, whose members were Aharon Rubenstein and Maslansky in addition to those mentioned above. The rabbi would cite the Talmud to show that the dawn of redemption had arrived.16 There is still extant a proposal made by Rabbi David Friedman for a stock company for the Palestine Bank for the Settlement of the Land of Israel. It opens: Settlement of the Holy Land is to be based upon the establishment of a shareholding corporation, to which end it is imperative to suggest to the London Mazkeret Moshe Committee (see below) to take this business upon itself. Each Hovevei Zion society will obligate itself to accept a fixed number of shares to distribute among its members.

Several sections of the proposal are of interest: The Palestine Bank for the Settlement of the Land of Israel, will be constituted by the sale of shares, and its business will concern: 1) purchase

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of land in the Land of Israel and its sale to Jews only, either for cash or on long-term payment; 2) loan of money against property, as is common in mortgage banks; 3) rental of bank-owned lands to Jews.

Rabbi Friedman emphasized that “the shares will be sold only to Jews, not to members of other religions, or even to Karaites.”17 Rabbi Friedman’s program was prepared in advance of his trip to the Kattowitz Conference [first conference of the Hibbat Zion movement, November 1884]. The phrase “imperative to suggest to the London Mazkeret Moshe Committee” serves as a proof of this, for at the Kattowitz Conference, “The entire Hibbat Zion movement [was given] the name Mazkeret Moshe Montefiore.” By 1884 the Pinsk branch of Hovevei Zion was considered one of the strongest. On April 23, 1884, Levanda the poet wrote to Y. L. ­Pinsker [author of Auto-emancipation, convener of the Kattowitz Conference] about sending one “of our own” people to Palestine to evaluate the situation there. He suggested that expenses in the amount of six hundred rubles be covered by the societies in Odessa, Vilna, Warsaw, and Petersburg, each of which would pay one hundred rubles, and the societies in Bialystok, Rostov, Poltava, and Pinsk, each of which would pay fifty rubles.18 Pinsk was included among the approximately thirty localities that sent greetings (adrisos) for the album presented to Montefiore.19 Solicitation of members began in the spring of 1884. Financial accounts arrived in Warsaw only from that period on. Two manuscript pages, “Account of Income and Expenditure from Hovevei Zion in Pinsk from spring 1884 until winter 1885” and from “winter 1885 until winter 1886,” were preserved in the estate of Sh. P. R. in Warsaw.20 The first account contains interesting details. One income item lists 321.47 rubles as monthly payments by members, excluding outstanding debts; this figure attests to a sizeable membership. The sum of 43.50 rubles represented “advance money” and temporary donations. It is not clear what this “advance money” was. It may refer to entrance fees for new members or money paid by members before it came due. A revenue item of 42.55 rubles was Purim contributions by students of the Realschule, an item that we do not find in other cities. This source of income had been introduced in Pinsk at the initiative of Rabbi David Friedman. Two years later a student at the Realschule named Chaim

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Weizmann began to participate in the collection of Purim contributions for the benefit of the settlement of the Land of Israel. Another listing under income is the 50 rubles “from the sale of citrons from the Holy Land, by the Rabbi of Karlin.” This was another of Rabbi David Friedman’s initiatives. He was apparently the first rabbi to think of acquiring citrons [fruit used in the rituals of the Sukkot (Tabernacles) festival] from the Holy Land rather than Corfu. In the late 1860s he already began to propagandize for citrons from Palestine, and if he did not have a citron from the Holy Land and was forced to use a Corfu citron, he would not recite the appropriate blessings. In 1891 he approached Rabbi Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor [a major scholar of Jewish law, whose rulings were widely recognized] proposing a ban on the use of Corfu citrons and “authorizing only citrons that come from our Holy Land.”21 Other items of income were 27.30 rubles for the Mi ­She-Berakh [blessings recited in the synagogue] for Sir Moses Montefiore on Simhat Torah [holiday celebrating the completion of the annual cycle of Torah portions] and 69.33 rubles from the “Second Jubilee of our lord, Moses Montefiore,” which took place on October 27, 1884. “Montefiore’s hundredth birthday was celebrated with great festivity in Pinsk,” writes Strick. They earned 145.85 rubles from ninety pictures of Montefiore and 12 rubles profit from frames for the pictures. In addition, 7.35 rubles profit was made from money that the society had given on loan. All told, the income in these ten months reached 719.35 rubles. Comparing this sum to the 1,572.66 rubles collected in Vilna between spring 1885 and fall 1886,22 over a period of sixteen months, shows that Pinsk contributed proportionately more than Vilna, an important Hibbat Zion center, and with a Jewish population three times the size of Pinsk. The expenditures in this period were: 50 rubles to Petah Tikvah [one of the first Jewish agricultural settlements] through the intervention of Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Pines, 50 rubles to Warsaw for the pictures, 30 rubles “for the album for Sir Moses—25 rubles for the parchment and 5 ­rubles for the writing,” 35 rubles for Yesud Hama’alah [village settled by Russian Jews in the Upper Jordan Valley], 15 rubles for Ezrat ­Nidahim (these two sums via the publishers of Ha-Melitz), 43.50 rubles for frames and affixing the frames to the pictures, 24 rubles for the celebration honoring Montefiore (payment to the singers, expenses for candles and

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kerosene, printing of tickets and of prayers), 75 rubles for travel expenses to Kattowitz, 4.85 for a telegram to Montefiore, 20 for the man who collected the pledges, 16.50 for office expenses: letters, telegrams, and stationary, and finally, 16 rubles to the central committee in Warsaw as oifgov, downpayment, for a parcel of land. A total of 209.50 rubles remained in the account. Certain expenditures require explanation: Ezrat Nidahim was established in Jerusalem in 1884 to counteract missionary activity by offering assistance to the needy and teaching a trade to youths. The organization also assisted Yemenites in founding Kfar Hashiloah [village of Silwan, next to the Jerusalem Old City walls].23 The travel expenses to Katto­ witz were for Rabbi David Friedman’s trip, which testifies to his attachment to the movement. Beside Rabbi Friedman and Rabbi Shmuel Mohilewer, there were no rabbis at the conference. (Four other rabbis were supposed to attend, but were detained along the way for various reasons.) The trip to Kattowitz also attests to the activity of the Pinsk society, since in total only twenty-two individuals from all of Russia attended the conference.24 Maslansky confirms this in his memoirs: “Our society took an important place in the larger movement in those days,” and he happily recalls the “stormy meetings” that preceded the Kattowitz Conference.25 The advance for the plot of land was apparently Pinsk’s share in the fund for the foundation of Mazkeret Moshe, which had been decided upon at the Kattowitz Conference. From winter 1885 to winter 1886, membership dues reached the sum of 320.50 rubles, and a new method of subscription, common in other places, was introduced. Collection plates were placed in the synagogues on the Eve of the Day of Atonement for the benefit of the settlement in Palestine. Income from these plates was 40.16 rubles. The income from these plates on the Day of Atonement in 1885 in Vilna was 124.07 rubles. Revenues were also received from the sale of pictures of the Kattowitz Conference, from raffles, and even from the Tefilat Hashkavah [memorial prayer for the dead] said upon the death of Sir Moses Montefiore. Total income was 865.50 rubles, an increase over the preceding year. Following the Kattowitz Conference, the ranks of the members swelled. The Pinsk committee wrote to Y. L. Pinsker in the winter of

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1885, recommending that Maslansky “be chosen to promote the movement in various cities” because he had accomplished a great deal in Pinsk and surely “would be active in disseminating and extending these holy and lofty ideas.” The letter declares that membership in the Pinsk Hovevei Zion society approaches “four hundred people.” This may be exaggerated, for a letter written by the organization a few weeks later states that the society numbers 250 members.26 An article sent from Pinsk a few months afterward, relates the visit of the “noted maggid [preacher] Birut,” who roused “even the pious to lend a hand to the Hovevei Zion here.” As a result of his exhortations, “distinguished members of this community have become involved. . . . From day to day the numbers of Hovevei Zion in our city increase.”27 In addition to collecting funds, one of the foremost matters occupying the association was the aliyah of Aharon Eisenberg and his establishment as a “colonist.” In 1885 Rothschild had proposed sending six young people to Palestine, intending to train them in agriculture so that they could serve as instructors in the new moshavim [agricultural villages of privately owned land] to be founded. The Pinsk committee tried to have Eisenberg included among the six. They did not succeed, but the Warsaw center promised to work toward his aliyah. The promise is referred to in a letter from the committee written in the fall of 1885, requesting the center to affiliate Eisenberg to the Benei Bilu [first modern Zionist movement whose vision of social reform antagonized some circles of Hovevei Zion] “and settle him on a plot of land that he will be able to cultivate and defend.” The “plot of land” referred to was in Gederah, where land had been purchased for the Biluim by the Hovevei Zion through the mediation of Pines. The committee justifies its request for Eisenberg declaring that he is one of the first “to devote all his efforts, and his spiritual existence, as well, to the holy idea,” that his family is small, and “he makes do with little.”28 Eisenberg finally emigrated on December 17, 1886, with the help of the Pinsk society, which according to Strick, purchased a piece of property for him for 500 hundred rubles.29 This land was located in Wadi Hanin (Nes Ziyyonah) [semiurban settlement on the Judean coastal plain]. In 1886 a crisis in the Hovevei Zion society decreased revenues. Receipts totaled only 442.49 rubles in 1886 and in the following year, only 97.04 rubles; in 1888 no money at all was collected. Pinsk’s economic

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problems in those years, and the difficulties that affected the Hibbat Zion movement in general, account for the decline.30 Eliezer Ben-­ Yehuda [pioneer of the renaissance of Hebrew as a spoken language], who visited Pinsk in the summer of 1886 together with Ya’acov Chertok (Shertok), did awaken renewed enthusiasm, attracting fresh forces to the Hovevei Zion camp and encouraging old ones,31 but the activities of the group gradually dwindled. Early in 1887 Ha-Melitz speaks of increased emigration to America. On the other hand, we see, to our distress, that love for the land of our forefathers has not found a niche in the hearts of our townsfolk, and those who depart do not head there. Nor does the Hovevei Zion society have much success; it does not stir itself to awaken love for the Holy Land in the hearts of our Pinsk brethren.32

Chaim Weizmann’s statements refer to the same period of time: Organized activity, by current standards, was totally non-existent. There were haphazard meetings; our financial resources were primitive to the point of being ludicrous; we were dealing in rubles and kopeks. Most householders contributed modestly, and not all of them gave, surely not all, not the aristocracy, such as the Luria family. Our supporters were the members of the middle class and the poor.33

In the early fall of 1886, another attempt was made by the Pinsk society to intervene in the general affairs of the movement. When libels were spread against the Warsaw leadership, specifically against Sh. P. Rabin­ owitz, the Pinsk society wrote to Pinsker. This letter, dated September 1, 1886, was signed by Zvi Hiller, chairman of the committee; Shaul Friedman, a member of the committee; and Yitzhak Asher ­Neidich, acting secretary, and asked Pinsker [to hold] a meeting which would define and clarify all the complaints and see if there were anything to them, a meeting which would confirm the enthusiasm of all current Hovevei Zion members, and build a committee on a strong foundation, ensuring that the various societies would be firmly bound to it, a meeting which would determine method and order for the expedition of funds.34

As a result of this and similar demands from other societies, Pinsker decided to accept a suggestion that came from Moscow and hold regional meetings prior to an international conference.35 Pinsk sent a delegate to

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Minsk, and Aharon Eisenberg, on his way to Palestine, participated in a small gathering that took place in Odessa at the end of October 1886.36 Pinsk also demanded that some of “the great rabbis” be included in the international “large conference.” Pinsker opposed this, on the grounds that it was inadvisable to have many participants at the conference, since the movement was illegal and a large number of participants was liable to cause trouble.37 This controversy may have been a factor in the cooling of Rabbi David Friedman’s attitude, although he never disavowed the “holy ideal” of love for Zion. For a period of several years, there is no word of Pinsk involvement in general Zionist affairs. Maslansky was a participant at the Drusknik Conference (1887),38 though it is not clear whether he attended as a Pinsk representative. No one from Pinsk participated in the Vilna Conference (1889). At the start of the First Aliyah [first wave of Zionist immigration] in 1882, a re-awakening of interest in emigration was felt in Pinsk as in other places. Moshe Katzinovsky attests that: [W]hen the numbers of those wishing to leave the country increased, some of them from our city, I penned a letter to Sir Oliphant [English proto-Zionist] to ask him whether there was hope that the last of the wanderers could find refuge.

On June 2, 1882, Sir Oliphant replied from Constantinople: For political reasons the Sultan has forbidden settlement in the Land of Israel, and the political disputes in Egypt . . . prevent talking to the Sultan about permission at this time. Let us hope that the political situation will change quickly, and that with the assistance of important people in whose hands our matter rests, we will not delay in attaining our goal. For the time being I do not advise anyone to move.39

Oliphant’s reply had its effect and reduced the pressure for emigration. Jews nevertheless left to settle in Palestine, both as an extension of previous emigrations and as a result of the new movement. The following emigrants are known: Ya’acov Chertok, the father of Moshe Sharett [served in the Israeli cabinet and was briefly prime minister], who was the first of the Biluim to emigrate, and Yosef Vinograd left in 1883. ­Yosef ’s brother, Yitzhak Vinograd, emigrated later, in 1886; he was a “lover of Zion with all his heart and soul,” and he established

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the Torat Haim Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Rabbi Zerah Epstein (1883) and Yisrael Nimtzovitz (he founded a printing press in Lod in 1886) were also among the emigrants. Nimtzovitz’s mother lived in Pinsk. He was elected in 1887 as a member of the Hovevei Zion executive committee in Yafo and traveled to petition Baron Rothschild in Paris on behalf of Rishon Le-Zion [town on the Judean coast, founded by Biluim in 1882]. In the mid-1880s, one Harbovsky went to Palestine, as did Ya’acov Zvi Zisselman (1886), Yisrael Mayer Katz, and Asher Levin.40 In a letter dated July 17, 1891, the secretary of the society attributes the fluctuations in Hovevei Zion activity in Pinsk to emigration of activists among the members to the Land of Israel. We have been unable to ascertain exactly how many members we have had up to the present, since our society has not stood still. Sometimes the number of members has risen, sometimes decreased. There were times when the society was destroyed altogether, the main cause being the emigration of our leadership to Zion; right now this is the reason our situation is difficult.41

Despite this statement we do not know of any Hovevei Zion activists besides Aharon Eisenberg and Ya’acov Avigdor Minkovitz who had emigrated to Israel. Others such as Maslansky and Yitzhak Asher Neidich, left the city but did not make aliyah. On the other hand, it was no exaggeration that “approximately two hundred individuals from our city have emigrated, from 1882 to the present day,” (1891). Kolel Pinsk in Jerusalem was well populated and included “merchants and craftsmen,” who were removed from the list of “recipients” because of the penury suffered by the rest of the kolel members.42 An exact date cannot be assigned to this information. By 1911, however, the Karlin Kolel numbered 470 members.43 According to the secretary’s letter, many of the emigrants were bachelors, and ten of them were “generously” supported, “and had attained a state of tranquility and security.” This language probably means that they were supported by Baron Rothschild. The writer knew of six Pinsk families “whose vines numbered more than 70,000.” He writes that Asher Levin “became wealthy due to his great industry. His lands extend over 300 dunam [a dunam is approximately one quarter of an acre] and his vines number 15,000.”44

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In the Period of the Odessa Committee and Benei Moshe The Russian Hibbat Zion movement was revived when the government authorized the establishment of a “society to support Jewish farmers and artisans in Syria and in the Land of Israel” (1890). The central committee was reorganized under the name of the Odessa Committee. This was an opportunity to take action in almost legitimate fashion. At this time Benei Moshe was established. This secret order greatly influenced the Zionist movement in education, in culture, and in settlement of Palestine. The general reawakening did not miss Pinsk. In the late 1880s ­Yehuda Leib Berger moved to Pinsk; this was a major factor in revitalizing the movement. Berger devoted all of his energy to Hibbat Zion affairs and, later, to the Zionist movement. He had been among the Benei Bilu and then among the first in Minsk to join the secret society Nes Ziyyonah. This group, formed in 1885 by students of the Volozhin Yeshiva, had as its goal: to increase the faithful advocates of the ideal of settling Eretz Israel, and to disperse them among our Jewish brethren . . . and [produce] permanent men of valor to stand guard, to supervise, and to give wide currency to this idea wherever our brethren live.45

Chaim Weizmann speaks of Berger with respect: “Berger is totally given over to the concept [of settlement] and takes advantage of every opportunity to imbue the people with the idea.”46 He refers to him as “a great maskil and one who possesses true leadership qualities.”47 Berger participated in the founding meeting of the Odessa Committee.48 The sermons of the maggid Zvi Hirsch Orlanski of Skidel, who stayed in Pinsk in the spring of 1890, were also inspiring.49 At the beginning of this period, Rabbi David Friedman and Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz published letters in praise of “settlement of the Land of Israel” in answer to an appeal by A. Y. Slucki, the author, and by the Nes Ziyyonah society of Volozhin. In a brief letter to Slucki, Rabbi David Friedman writes that his attitude to settling the land is well-known and that he had spoken of the matter as far back as 1863. “It is superfluous to discuss it, since there is general agreement regarding the commandment of settling the land, the sanctity of the land at this time, and the primacy

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of the idea in general.” However, certain reservations about the leadership, “the heads of those who espouse this idea and the notion of improvement of society,”50 are hinted at in the letter. Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz writes: Concerning the valuable association which you have been moved to establish—[it is] a holy society which serves as support and bulwark for our Israelite brethren doing holy work in the hills of our holy land. Their spirits have recently fallen upon hearing from spies that their work is in vain, and that it is a good deed, which comes by way of evildoing; they are thus greatly perplexed. . . . The very act of settling the land is a great and noble deed that should not be considered suspect . . . and Heaven forbid such repugnant thoughts; these societies are not new. One must only conduct oneself properly and justly, with open eyes, in order that strangers should not, Heaven forbid, enter the fold, so that the meritorious act will be complete and acceptable, et cetera, and may you perform a good deed and great charity by supporting our Israelite brethren who work the Holy Land and are deserving of assistance.51

The ongoing debate between the pious Hovevei Zion and the “free” Hovevei Zion with regard to showing priority to settlers who “observed the Torah and the commandments” is reflected in the final sentence. Moshe Haim Eliasberg was the representative of the Odessa Society in Pinsk.52 According to Kerman, Eliasberg was drawn into the movement by Eliezer ben Yehuda during his visit to the city and participated in the founding meeting of the society.53 In keeping with the by-laws of the association, only those who had paid at least 3 rubles in annual membership dues were eligible to be counted as members. Data from 1896 shows that sixty-nine Pinsk members paid a total of 652 rubles that year.54 Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch notes, however, “considering the number of citizens, very few are counted among the membership of the aforementioned association.”55 Nevertheless the data shows that only “about thirty [places] have completely come up to the mark in their love of Zion,” and submitted “no less than 100 rubles per year” to the Odessa Committee from the time of its inception; Pinsk was one of the thirty.56 The receipts increased almost yearly. From 1884 until the summer of 1891, the income was 2,704.19 rubles,57 that is, an average of about 360 rubles each year. In the two-and-a-half years between 1889 and the spring of 1891, a total of 563.21 rubles was raised. In all of 1891, only 244.23

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rubles was received, in spite of the fact that the Purim collection that year brought in far more than in previous years (thanks to the activities of Chaim Weizmann, who had been greatly influenced by the letters of A. Eisenberg from the Land of Israel).58 In 1892, 280.32 rubles was collected, in 1893—505.95 rubles, in 1894—550.98 rubles, in 1895—772.44 rubles, in 1896—712.41 rubles, and in 1897—807.49 rubles. The receipts were drawn from membership dues, Purim donations, contribution plates put out on the eve of the Day of Atonement, solicitations for the benefit of workers in the moshavot in Palestine and the school in Yafo, with other assorted revenues.59 An 1896 article mentions “an accounting of income and expenditures for Hovevei Zion of Pinsk, from spring of 1895 until spring of 1896, sent last Purim as mishloah manot [Purim gifts] to the residents of our city.” This source states that the income in that period of time reached 857.43 rubles and that Purim contributions were donated by five hundred people “of all parties, . . . Hasidim and scholars” as well. “This is a sign that the noble idea is acceptable to all parties and everyone acknowledges its lofty purpose.” Rabbi David Friedman was the “initiator of Purim contributions for the benefit of the settlement in Eretz Israel . . . his golden words . . . which praised the land and the merit of supporters of its settlement and its laborers,” were printed at the head of the booklets (the receipt books).60 The renaissance, which began with the founding of the Odessa Committee for the acquisition of lands in Palestine, did not bypass Pinsk. On March 19, 1890, Zvi Hiller sent the following letter to Avraham Greenberg in Odessa: In our search for methods to increase the revenues of our society, so that we may soon send an appropriate sum to the general committee of Hovevei Zion in Russia, we have deemed it advisable to buy a plot of land in the Holy Land and raffle it off among the residents of Pinsk, [and since] we have received word from the Holy Land that it is now possible to purchase tracts in Moshav Doran [Rehovot], which has been redeemed by the Goalei Zion society in Yafo and will be sold by you, we are therefore sending the sum of 500 rubles, and ask to purchase 150 dunam of property in Moshav Doran for our membership, land which is good for planting and sowing, in proximity to the wells . . . and let us know the price and we will send the balance of the money to you.61

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Nothing came of this appeal. On the other hand, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch writes in August of the same year: Three Rabinowitsch families bought thirty desiatin [a desiatin is the equivalent of ten dunam, approximately two and a half acres] of land . . . in Moshav Doran, and hired people to plant vineyards and build homes for them. . . . Several weeks ago twenty men, all of them fairly wealthy, pooled their resources and collected approximately ten thousand rubles. Rumor has it that they are prepared to send a man to Eretz Israel this week to find them a good spot.62

Five months later another correspondent, Yeshayah Haim Grosberg, writes that: Thirty dignified and affluent men, of the noble and prosperous class in our city, [decided to purchase] 400 desiatin in Eretz Israel, and they are about to send a man to buy land and plant vines.

According to the calculations cited here, each desiatin should have cost 150 rubles, until such time as it would bear fruit.63 Whether the “thirty” [men] included the “twenty” cited above is not clear. In March 1891 Sh. M. Rabinowitsch states: It is a pleasure to announce that this important idea continues to spread from day to day: in addition to those who have bought land in the Holy Land before, three more people have recently purchased tracts in the moshav Mishmar Ha-Yarden [founded in 1890 in a malarial tract], and they are: Avraham Verier—100 dunam, Shelomoh Basevitz—50 dunam, Levin—50 dunam.64

The above letter from July 17, 1891, says that: Forty wealthy local families joined together and sent emissaries to tour the Holy Land and purchase property in Eden, which should cost them each up to 5,000 rubles,

and that “seventy people from Pinsk” had joined the Agudat Ha-Elef in Minsk.65 A letter written by M. Ussishkin to Y. Eisenstadt-Barzilai during hol ha-moed Sukkot 1891, speaks of Pinskers who had purchased land that summer. I was informed by Dalnik [the representative of the Yekatrinoslav society formed to establish a moshavah in the Land of Israel] that hardly any

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purchases had been made since the day I left, except for his own and the sale for the people of Brest and Pinsk.

Ussishkin adds, “this purchase was also very shaky.”66 Ussishkin had left the country early in the spring of 1891, so the reference to “his own” was to an additional purchase. That summer, organization of an agudat elef in Pinsk, along the lines of the Agudat Ha-Elef in Minsk, began. Yeshayah Haim Grosberg writes: We, the Hovevei Zion in the city, have reached a decision to found an agudat elef in our city also. For this project we have all gathered together . . . and chosen a special committee. . . . The illustrious Rabbi David Friedman heads the committee.

The goal was to gather five or six hundred interested parties, each obligating himself to submit annual payments over a five-year period (fifty rubles a year), and to make a “contract with one of our great kinsman abroad [probably Baron Rothschild], as the other societies do.” The idea was to “purchase property on the east bank of the Jordan, rather than in Judea or the Galil, because land there was cheaper. . . . We will accept members from all countries and anyone who is interested can apply by mail to the illustrious Rabbi David Friedman.”67 By that summer, 150 people were already registered as members of the society.68 In the early 1890s, at the suggestion of M. A. Eisenstadt, a letter signed by Rabbi David Friedman and the rest of the Hovevei Zion in the city, was sent to “the conference of our Western brothers which will take place shortly in Berlin,” containing the request, “that they should give their attention to Zion.”69 There was again some interest in aliyah. Shmuel Yitzhak Hurgin emigrated to Israel in 1890, and “two of our townsfolk, one a blacksmith and one a carpenter, left with the intention of working on the railroad being laid from Yafo to Jerusalem.” The maskila Elka (Elisheva) Basevitz also emigrated in 1891 “to found a school there;” Leah Neiman emigrated in 1894, and Rabbi Mayer Nahman Ostrovsky in 1897.70 In 1890 the Zerubavel Lodge was founded in the city as a chapter of the Benei Moshe.71 Yehoshua Eisenstadt (Barzilai), who was among the founders of the Benei Moshe order, visited the city. The first members of the Zerubavel Lodge were: Yehudah Leib Berger; Pinhas Bergman; Eliezer Blumenkrantz; the poet Efraim Dov Lifshitz; Moshe

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Ya’acov Lifshitz; Ya’acov Avigdor Minkovitz, who served as director of the lodge; and Zvi Maslansky,72 who returned to Pinsk in 1892 and remained there until 1895. M. M. Strick joined the lodge later on,73 as did Chaim Weizmann (1896).74 In a later chapter the contributions of the Zerubavel Lodge and the Hovevei Zion to education and culture will be described in detail. In Pinsk, as elsewhere, Hovevei Zion created a new ambience around various national and communal celebrations. They began the practice of organizing parties for the “Holiday of the Maccabees” [Hanukkah]. This seems to have started in Pinsk in 1896, and “Benot Zion [young women] who also longed to join in the festivities participated in this party.”75 They held a celebration on Shabbat Nahamu [Sabbath following the Tisha Be-av fast in mid-summer that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples] and arranged jubilees and farewell parties, like the jubilee for Moshe Montefiore and the bon voyage party for Maslansky on his departure for America [in 1895]. They also established the custom of canvassing for funds on festive occasions— for the school in Yafo76 and for the benefit of workers in Palestine.77 They arranged eulogies for important participants in the movement, such as Montefiore, Michael Erlanger, and the famous maskil Reb Shmuel Yosef Fuenn. Hovevei Zion filled an important role in shaping the social and spiritual life of the city and introduced new social forms in place of, or alongside of, the old ones. Fresh ideas were also introduced by the maggidim in their sermons. Besides Maslansky, who was known in the movement as a preacher par excellence, other sermonizers in the city were Aryeh David Feinstein and Rabbi Ya’acov Lieber­man, who “volunteered to speak each Saturday . . . about Hovevei Zion matters as well.”78

In Herzl’s Time The Hibbat Zion movement was relatively weak at the time that political Zionism was launched. Chaim Weizmann wrote from Pinsk in 1895: “There is an entire legion of ‘Israelites’ (that is, Hovevei Zion) here.”79 Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch, however, wrote at the same time that in comparison to previous years, “there are very few members now.”80

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Besides those already mentioned in the Zerubavel Lodge, the following were known as members of the movement: M. Romm, M. Lieberman, Dr. L. Hazanowich, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, Y. A. Andrinovsky, Aharon Rubenstein, Zvi Hiller, and Pinhas Mandelbaum. Weizmann praised Hiller, Strick, and Berger, alone, as being “totally immersed in the Hibbat Zion movement.”81 For all its organizational weaknesses and in spite of the opposition (especially by the Karlin Hasidim), the movement did constitute an important public force in the city. The middle class was imbued with a sense of its significance, and the movement began to speak up on the subject of the city’s needs. The Hovevim were activists and activators in various fields. Programs related to the hadarim metukanim (more detail is given in Chapter 4 on education and culture) definitely invigorated the movement. Political Zionism attracted new and wider circles. Workers (and a few aristocrats) joined the movement. Besides Moshe Haim Eliasberg, who had already served as local representative of the Odessa Committee, Grigory Luria and George Halpern (who began his activity as a student in Germany) became involved and took on important roles in the central Zionist institutions. Moshe Luria, the patriarch of the Lurias, favored the movement, and the Zionists used to celebrate the Hanukkah holiday in his home.82 Women, too, became active in the movement. All this was part of a general trend evident among Russian Jewry: the extension of Zionism across broad segments of the population. In Pinsk, as elsewhere, the Zionists turned their attention to current needs, worked on behalf of the general public, tending to the Association for Savings and Credit (see above), providing for schooling and adult education, transferring the lease for the meat tax from the private to the public domain (see below). These activities gained the Zionists general support. The Weizmann household, as a “democratic home,” appears to have served as an example, inculcating Zionist consciousness among the young intellectuals and the public at large.83 Strong opposition to Zionism arose from two opposite poles at this point. On one flank the religious did battle, instigated by The Black ­Bureau [a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis, opposed to Zionism] founded by Ya’acov Lifshitz in Kovno. At the other extreme was the Bund, which had been organized in Vilna in 1897. The Bund saw Zionism as a utopian affair and a tool of the Jewish bourgeoisie to divert

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Jewish workers from class war and the “true” solution to the Jewish problem. Fierce struggles were waged on both fronts. The establishment of the hadarim metukanim, the teaching of ivrit be-ivrit [teaching Hebrew by speaking it], and especially Y. L. Berger’s attempt to print an abridged version of the Bible as a textbook for children, aroused protests, demonstrations, and sharp attacks by the Orthodox. Rabbi David Friedman, a veteran leader of Hovevei Zion, who although dedicated to settling the Land of Israel, citing how “passion for our Holy Land burns in my heart,”84 became a strong opponent of Zionism. Rabbi Friedman’s right-hand man in opposition to Zionism was the ritual slaughterer Rabbi Shmuel Noah Gottlieb, author of the famous biographical work, Oholei Shem. In 1889 Rabbi Friedman wrote in reply to a question about his attitude to Zionism: “My opinion on this matter is known; I consider this scheme like that of Shabbetai Zvi, may his evil name rot [a Jewish pseudo-Messiah who converted to Islam], and a desecration of all that is holy.” Rabbi Friedman noted that he did not advise fighting against Zionism, like the men of The Black Bureau. He was of the opinion that one should “heed the advice of the prophet: ‘At such a time the prudent man keeps silent.’” [Amos 5:13] Rabbi Friedman managed, however, to express himself sharply: May the Master of the vineyard come to excise the thorns, or remove the vines from among the thistles, for who are we. . . . And may the Holy One Blessed be He have mercy on His people and demonstrate zealousness, for His land and His Torah, which have been defiled by strangers; may He repair the sanctuary of religion which has been destroyed by these machinations.85

The gematria (numerology) of the altered citation from Isaiah 3:5 noted in the date of the letter has a wry twist. [Isaiah reads: “The young shall bully the old, and the despised—the honored.” Rabbi Friedman adjusted it to “the despised shall bully the old and honored,” for apparently, the resulting numerology better matched the date while still retaining the original criticism.] This was Rabbi Friedman’s way of venting his fury at the machinations of callow youths who suddenly became “spokesmen of the people.”86 It was far more difficult for the Zionists to combat the Bund, as intelligent young people were attracted to this movement, and workers

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“in large part leaned” toward it. In this struggle the Zionists were practically helpless. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein writes: Since the inception of political Zionism, the most difficult issue for us was the issue of the Bund. One should remember that at the time the horizons of Zionism were rather hazy, and only the unconscious longings of the people for independent lives, for lives like all other nations, and the mythic appearance of Herzl . . . furnished early Zionists with the spiritual stamina to stand up to the heavy guns that the Bund arrayed against us. The Bund portrayed us as vessels empty of content, as idealists detached from reality, as dreamers of a distant dream, insensitive to what was happening around us. I recall a proclamation circulated by the Bund center, in which a comparison was drawn between their work and the Zionist idea. They emphasized that, while we amused ourselves with the notion of reviving a dead land, which had stood desolate for thousands of years, the Bund involved its members in efforts to create conditions for a revolution, and in attempts to elevate the understanding of the Jewish worker, who was destined to become the central pillar of socialist society. The proclamation stressed that the idealism of the Biluim had dissipated, and they were dependent upon the charity of nobles and barons; only with the release of the Russian people would the Redeemer appear for the Jewish nation as well. . . . We, the Zionists, were considered standard bearers of bourgeoisie and capitalism, conservatism and compromise.87

In anticipation of the first Zionist Congress (1897), Yehoshua Buch­ mil visited Pinsk, among other places. Buchmil lectured about “The Jewish State” and the congress at a gathering of the Hovevim, and other public figures convened in Rubenstein’s (probably Aharon Rubenstein) home. Problems about joining the new movement were raised along with the business of sending delegates to the congress. According to Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, “all the assembled, virtually without exception, signed up for the new organization.”88 Some had reservations about joining the new movement for fear that Zionism was liable to harm the young settlement project. The new organization had to engage in an information and propaganda effort. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Y. L. Berger, and Grigory Luria were nominated as delegates to the congress. If opinion was divided regarding the latter two candidates, Berger and Luria (the first received a majority of votes and the second somewhat

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less), Dr. Weizmann’s candidacy was unanimously accepted. And if Weizmann did not participate in the first congress, the reason was simple: Grigory Luria was a man of means and capable of funding his own trip; Weizmann and Berger needed the assistance of the Hovevei Zion to help them defray the cost of their trips. Here two truths must be revealed: We had neither the boldness nor the ability to solicit travel expenses for two delegates. So, the question arose: Which of the two would attend? Weizmann or Berger? Weizmann yielded to Berger, reasoning thus: I, said Weizmann, will remain abroad after the congress; therefore priority should go to Berger, who will return to Pinsk and continue with the great mission that the congress will impose upon us.89

The congress protocol mentions Sh. Luria in addition to Berger and Grigory Luria. Shaul Luria (son of Idel Luria) was then a student in Darmstadt; he came to Basel for the congress and was, by chance, given the “mandate” of a community in Southern Rhodesia, on condition that he send the Rhodesians an account of the congress.90 The year’s interval between the first and second congress “was a year of propaganda and organization,” and in Weizmann’s opinion, “The situation in Pinsk is good. Vigorous propaganda is being conducted, most successfully.”91 The Zion­ist youth group Benei Zion was already organized in 1896 before the first Zionist Congress. Among its members were Motel (Mordekhai) Eisenberg, Yosef Bregman, the poet Yehudah Volovelsky (Karni), Zelig Tir, and Motel Yashfe, the youngest of the group. This group appears to have been composed of both boys and girls (kavaleren un barishnies).92 Perhaps, Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein organized the Benot Zion society for girls in that year, since the Benot Zion participated in the Hanukkah party which took place in 1896.93 The year 1898 was a year of maximum income for the Odessa Committee. The sum of 1,211.88 rubles was collected. Of this amount, 108.74 rubles were for Gan Shmuel,94 a citron orchard named in 1898 at the Bialystok congress. The Bialystok congress was held on November 17–18, 1897, for the purpose of coordinating the Russian Zionist effort; Y. L. Berger and Grigory Luria participated.95 The circulation of the stocks of the Colonial Bank (Jewish Colonial Trust) began at the same time. An article from July 1898 states that: Pinsk lovers of the Holy Land will neither rest nor repose [from their efforts] on behalf of the great and precious ideal of settling Eretz Israel. They strive to expand membership of the Odessa Committee and Gan

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Shmuel, and after the license is granted they will increase the sale of shares in the bank.

A correspondent reports that the Zionists decided “to demand citrons from the Holy Land instead of citrons from Corfu, and try to sell them in the city and small neighboring villages.”96 Y. L. Berger, Grigory Luria, and Moshe Haim Eliasberg participated in the second Zionist Congress..97 According to Haya Lichtenstein, Chaim Weizmann also received a mandate from Pinsk.98 Immediately after the second congress, Grigory Luria was appointed general manager for distribution of shares in the Jewish Colonial Trust in Russia. This made him an important figure in the Zionist leadership. He was among the first to be informed of Herzl’s meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm II in Constantinople.99 Pinsk became the center of activity for distribution of bank stocks. Avraham Asher Feinstein writes: The task was illegal and fraught with danger. The prospectives of the Colonial Bank were sent to all of Russia’s cities from Pinsk, to addresses furnished by London or Warsaw. We would write the addresses on bundles of prospectives, in a sort of inner sanctum. We were afraid to deliver the packages to the post office in the normal way, lest we attract the attention of the secret police, so we brought them to the post office at night in sacks. A clerk (who received bribes from us) was waiting there to take the bundles. The shares from London were not sent by mail, but by special messenger, who received them at the border and brought them to us. Despite our caution, the matter became known to the city chief of police. Searches began and, at the recommendation of the chief of police, the police department in Petersburg sentenced ten Zionists to Siberian exile as punishment—myself among them. The trial file was removed from the department only because of the intervention of the late Yehiel Chlenov, and the sentence was not carried out.100

By 1904, 2,150 shares worth 21,000 rubles had been sold in Pinsk alone.101 Considering the populations of Jews in each city, Pinsk matched Vilna, where 6,127 shares were sold.102 In 1899 and 1900, there was a decline in revenues, and no Pinskers participated in the third Zion­ist Congress.103 This decline was the result of opposition to Zionism, which had flared up because of Berger’s abridged version of the Bible and because of the new heder metukan that was founded in 1900.104 Rabbi Reines’ visit (in early 1900) may have warded off the outbursts of the pious. Rabbi

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Reines, born in Pinsk, “inspired even the coldest hearts to Zionist activity.”105 [For information on Reines, one of the first rabbis to join the Zionist movement, see The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880, henceforth referred to as Nadav.] The synagogues and study houses of Karlin nevertheless remained closed to Zionist orators, for the Stolin Hasidim had a totally negative attitude to Zionism. It is said that they mentioned Herzl’s name only with a curse appended. “He is clean-shaven,” the Hasidim, who had not seen his picture, gossiped; once corrected, they claimed, “but, he is hatless.”106 The battles against the Hasidim reinforced the activities of the study circles and the information campaign of the Benei Zion members. The Benei Zion approached Jewish workers in an effort to halt penetration of Bund influence, which had begun in 1899.107 Motel Yashfe (known years later in America as Max Jasper), for instance, taught Bible at a Sabbath study group of laborers in the Neishtot Shul (synagogue). Yosef Bregman suggested that the group join the Benei Zion society. The proposal was accepted but did not meet with success since the workers felt uncomfortable among the intellectuals.108 This workingmen’s group formed the nucleus of the Poalei Zion society, which did not yet have a socialist cast. In early 1901 a group by the name of Poalei Zion existed in the city. A farewell party for Y. L. Berger, who left Pinsk in March 1901, was organized jointly by the three Zionist associations: Kadimah (which was the name of the general Zionist society following the founding of the Benei Zion group; it changed its name to Zion after the fifth Zionist Congress), Benei Zion, and Poalei Zion.109 The affiliation of the workers and laborers with Zionism is reflected in the composition of revenues for Palestine in 1900–1901. The income from annual and monthly donations, that is, dues to the Odessa Committee, consistently decreased, from 429 rubles in 1899, to 307 in 1900, to 283 in 1901, to 259 in 1902. Purim contributions also declined from 175 in 1899 to 143 in 1900, and by similar sums in 1901 and 1902. On the other hand, there was a large increase in receipts for the benefit of workers in Palestine—from 37 rubles in 1899, to 344 in 1900, and 461 in 1901; total income in 1901 reached 1,063 rubles, a definite gain as compared to the two preceding years despite the great fire in Pinsk that year. 110 Pinsk Zionists participated in various movement conferences. ­Avraham Asher Feinstein and Yosef Bregman took part in the Zion-

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ist conference of the Minsk district.111 Chaim Weizmann attended the fourth Zionist Congress as a Pinsk delegate. M. Romm, G. Luria, and Y. L. Berkowitz were chosen as delegates to the fifth congress.112 Grigory Luria left the Congress hall together with Chaim Weizmann and other members of the “democratic bloc” when it became apparent that their proposal concerning nationalist education was about to be defeated.113 At the Minsk conference (1902), the only legal Zionist conference in Russia, the participants were Chaim Weizmann, whose remarks on the issue of “culture” made a great impression, and Grigory Luria, who proposed motions about the Jewish Settlement Fund and was elected a member of the financial control board. Other members included Yosef Bregman, Pinhas Mandelbaum, Dr. A. Lichtenstein, and Y. L. Berger (who no longer lived in Pinsk). Moshe Weizmann was present as a delegate from Kiev.114 In the city, new Zionist groups were constantly being formed. Several members of these new groups were Zionists already and had previously belonged to other groups. In 1902 the Mizrahi association was established by Rabbi Gliksberg, Pinhas Eisenberg, Binyamin Mordekhai Epstein, Rabbi Perflutsky, M. Zilberkweit, and the teacher Boshes; members numbered ninety-six. An organization named ­Rehovot was founded, whose twenty-five members were all teachers and melamdim. Ozerei Zion was formed by salespeople (prikaychikes); it had thirty-eight members. Together with the Benei Zion, whose members numbered seventy-two, and Agudat Zion, with thirty-three members, there were two hundred sixty-four organization members in 1903.115 In accordance with its by-laws, the Minsk conference resolved that membership in an association depended upon payment of dues and participation in the group’s meetings. Members could not be younger than the age of eighteen.116 The 1903 source does not provide a membership figure for the Poalei Zion organization. Poalei Zion is noted only as “an organization (­verein) of workers . . . founded not long ago, and at present one cannot tell what will become of it and where it is heading.”117 This society is not the Poalei Zion organization mentioned earlier. The organizers apparently had a socialist bent already. The new Poalei Zion was founded by Hershel Yashfe and Yosef Shulman, young men from poor families in the Linishches district, under the influence of the Minsk Poalei Zion. ­Yitzhak Bromberg,

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Aharon Friedman, Avraham Beizer, Y. Kofer, ­Shmuel Neidich, Ya’acov Kantor, Hunia Sokolovsky, Nunia Buniuk, Hunia Gutshabs, and Borukh (Bunia) Rubenstein, the son of Aharon Rubenstein, a student in the Realschule, were among its first members.118 The organization took no part in Zionist activities in the city. Only the Zion group (originally called Kadimah) engaged in collecting funds for the Odessa Committee in 1903. The other associations—Benei Zion, Mizrahi, Rehovot, and Ozerei Zion—cooperated with the Zion group in distributing shekalim [a Biblical silver coin, revived as a symbol of affiliation with Zionism] and soliciting contributions for the Jewish National Fund [an institution of the World Zionist Organization responsible for the acquisition, development, and afforestation of land in Palestine, founded in 1901].119 The first Zionist youth group for teenagers, Shoresh Zion, was organized among the students of the Drunzik and Kleinman schools in early 1903. Yehiel Weizmann, Aryeh Kolodny, and Yosef Herman were among the organizers. Shoresh Zion was founded primarily to further general knowledge and Zionist education. Yosef Herman reports that: We used to hear lectures from prominent Zionists, such as Lieberman, the accountant at the stearin candle factory of Eliasberg, R ­ abinowitsch, and Co. He would lecture to us about the doctrines of political economics found in the books of the Russian scholars Shechoprov, Skvortsov, and others. He also lectured about Kant. P. Mandelbaum used to lecture about economics, philosophy, and sociology. Dr. Lichten­stein, Haya Lichtenstein, and Moshe and Shmuel Weizmann lectured on Zionist topics.120

In advance of the sixth Zionist Congress, which followed the traumatic Kishinev pogroms, 849 shekalim were sold in the city. This was quite a large number considering that in Vilna 1,400 shekalim were distributed before the seventh congress. Donations to the Jewish National Fund, established in 1901 at the fifth congress, were also substantial. In the eighteen months between January 1902 and July 1903, five entries were made in its “Golden Book”: David Strashun, Moshe Soloveitchik, Ya’acov Reigrodsky, Shabbetai Rosota, and the Mizrahi organization. In this eighteen-month period, approximately 1,200 rubles were collected for the Jewish National Fund from registrations, solicitations of contributions, and the sale of stamps. “The Zionist organization

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in Pinsk found it necessary to set up Jewish National Fund collection boxes in shops and private homes.” The boxes may have been a Pinsk innovation.121 The question of cooperation between the societies arose as soon as they were formed. A January 1902 article complains: Zionist matters in our city limped along until now: there were three parties in the city—Kadimah, Poalei Zion, and Benei Zion. . . . But, the activities of all were limited . . . because the groups didn’t unite for any project and so apathy characterized all their activities.

At a meeting about the fifth congress, at which M. Romm lectured, the decision was made “to unite all the societies and not dissipate talents.” The problem of inter-organizational cooperation was common in large cities with several Zionist associations, and at the Minsk convention one of the resolutions passed stated: in localities with several societies, a central committee composed of representatives of all the organizations should be formed.122 A central committee established in Pinsk consisted of two delegates from each of the five parties.123 In compliance with the decision of the Minsk convention, the committee engaged in coordinating the activities of the groups and concentrating the monies that were collected. At the initiative of the poet A. D. Lifshitz, the Zion society put out the Pinsker Shtodt Luakh (town calendar) for 1903–04; it was widely distributed. Lifshitz intended to continue publication in succeeding years, but the enterprise came to a halt for fear of the authorities. Zionism was banned in Russia. The war with Japan made 1904 a year of heightened revolutionary fervor; from then on the authorities were more stringent. The Zionists invested Hanukkah with a new heroic character appropriate to a celebration of valor, and they celebrated the Simhat Beit HaSho’eva [reenactment of the festival of the water-drawing in the ancient Temple] in the Great Synagogue.124 The Pinsk delegates to the sixth congress were: M. H. Eliasberg, Rabbi Gliksberg, Dr. A. Lichtenstein, and Y. L. Berger. Dr. H. D. Horowitz and Sh. A. Levin are also mentioned as Pinsk delegates.125 Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein says that her father, Ozer Weizmann, and two brothers Chaim and Moshe, were also delegates to this Congress.126 [The question of the hour was Uganda— whether or not the Zionists would accept the offer of the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, to settle Jews in the African territory

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instead of Palestine.] Rabbi Gliksberg abstained from voting on the Uganda question, while Dr. Avraham Lichtenstein and Leopold Luria from Lodz voted in favor.127 Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein reports that Ozer Weizmann also voted in favor of Uganda, but Chaim and Moshe voted against. Contradicting her assertion, Berger—who is said to have called Herzl “traitor” to his face—claimed that Chaim Weizmann was the only one in the family to vote in the negative. Weizmann’s father, brothers, and brother-in-law all voted in favor of Uganda. A letter from Yosef Bregman to Ussishkin, dated March 21, 1904, is revealing of the status of Zionism in Pinsk after the sixth congress (the Uganda Congress). Bregman reports the existence of five Zionist associations but provides data on only three of them. Of the Zion society he relates that “its members number fifteen.” It was reported above that it had thirty-three members; most of its members had presumably deserted it. Probably they did not leave the Zionist camp altogether but simply moved on to another group. Many may have abandoned Zion out of opposition to the Uganda proposal, for Bregman describes the Zion constituents as follows: All are older men of stature, with solid knowledge of our literature and general subjects. The vast majority are active Zionists of long standing, the essence of the middle class. They are all followers of Herzl and his bloc. As a party they are political Zionists and involved in the cultural work of the city.

Bregman speaks of an organization called Kadimah, whose membership numbers fifteen. This is not the Kadimah mentioned previously, since that society had changed its name to Zion. Bregman writes about this [second] Kadimah society: Its members are young, with various ideas, some of them faktsionerim [factioners, that is, supporters of the ideals of the democratic bloc (faction) founded by Weizmann]. Some are simply prospective Zionists with an affinity for our Zionist world. A few have consistently taken part in our work for many years.128

According to Bregman’s letter, the Poalei Zion society numbers 150 members, “all workers, men and women,” and “these people have been part of our organization for only one year.” This indicates that the society was founded in 1903. Bregman goes on to say that the members

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of the group “are not good Zionists because they disparage anything that existed before they [the Poalei Zion] appeared as a separate organization,” and that “they are not close to our literature, language and other national treasures.” This was presumably a comment on the level of their education and not a description of their attitude toward these values. Bregman’s letter suggests that many Pinsk Zionists remained loyal to Herzl even after the Uganda Congress and that the “ultimatum” regarding the annulment of the Uganda proposal, sent to Herzl from the Kharkov conference organized by Ussishkin, was not to their liking. Bregman was one of Ussishkin’s most faithful aides in the battle against the Uganda proposal, and he states that it is not worth “working among these ‘clients’ of ours, because they are absolute slaves, subservient to Herzl.” In answer to Ussishkin’s inquiry about Shimshon Rosenbaum’s success in propagandizing against Uganda, Bregman replies that “until the Kharkov conference, the Pinsk Zionists had great affection and respect for Rosenbaum as a very fine Zionist and philosopher.” After the Kharkov conference that attitude changed. Bregman relates that Rosenbaum, a native Pinsker, had visited Pinsk on Zionist matters four times during the previous year. He gives a detailed account of one visit, which took place shortly before the letter was written. On Friday night Rosenbaum lectured for the Poalei Zion society, and Bregman had the impression that “ninety percent of the listeners did not understand him” because they lacked information on current Zionism and Zionist history. “For most of the listeners know nothing about our congresses, about the prevailing winds in the movement, about our institutions,” and all they know is “Zionism vs Bund” and not “Zionism as Zionism.” Their knowledge begins and ends with recognition of the difference between Zionism and the Bund. Bregman nevertheless believes “that Poalei Zion is the only element which is capable of fighting for our ideals”—that is, against Uganda. He feels that Poalei Zion leaders asked him to address the membership because “they think that I am the most extreme opponent of any country other than Eretz Israel, and my opinions conform to theirs.” Bregman agreed to speak and “at a small gathering of thirty members of Poalei Zion he clarified several matters for them and answered questions.” Bregman emphasizes that “if we were to work among [these people], they would be good Zionists” and adds, “In a way Shimshon ben Ya’acov [Rosenbaum] made a good

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impression on the Poalei Zion and others regarding Eretz Israel and the battle with Vienna,” meaning the conflict with Herzl over Uganda. In his letter Bregman remarks that Friday night after Rosenbaum’s lecture to the Poalei Zion, “We went to a meeting of Zionah [apparently referring to the Zion society] which invited the heads of the other organizations.” Rosenbaum spoke for about three hours, and the discussions continued until morning. “Here we found Herzl’s supporters and his opponents.” Saturday afternoon Rosenbaum addressed the members of Kadimah “and fifteen of the finest members of Poalei Zion and approximately ten other people who came as guests.” The debate continued into the night.129 The state of Zionism in Pinsk at the time is reflected in Chaim Weizmann’s letter of Passover 1904: In my letter one can sense the sadness . . . first of all, because the life, which I see around me is most oppressive and depressing. Everything moves as if lacking rudder or sail; in the present—there is nothing; the future—is without a ray of light. The frightful destitution and helplessness sow disunity everywhere, and unifying factors are diminishing and disappearing. Against one’s will one is influenced by what one sees all around. Also, Pinsk possesses a unique characteristic: Side-by-side with the blatant poverty is a caste of very wealthy and very arrogant people; in their ephemeral prominence and their crudeness, they consider themselves the city fathers; in the local affluent class, the haughty attitude of western European magnates to their “poorer brethren” has fused with the absence of culture of the Pale of Settlement. All this is most detestable, and one can understand the ferment among the young people. But, I have no hope that the agitated young people are likely to create something constructively Jewish; the youth is destructive, outstanding in its destructive self-sacrifice, but neither creative, nor capable of being creative, for it has no leader and teacher; in the spiritual sense it lives from whatever comes to hand, and is continually strangulated for lack of light and air to breathe. Understandably, the human Zionist material cannot accomplish much under such circumstances. Zionism here withers and takes the form of “trivialities” such as the Mizrahi on the one hand, and provincial political knavery on the other; it is all “for effects” but has no effect.130

Weizmann is alluding to battles conducted by the Zionists in the name of democracy—for the leasing of the meat tax, for control over the

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Mutual Savings Bank and the Talmud Torah [schools]. He sees this as political scheming, although he does not negate it, for his sympathies do not lie with the aristocrats. But he does not value these activities because they divert attention from the Zionist goal. The zeal for revolution among the circles of young people particularly saddens him for he foresees that the young sacrifice themselves in vain. Revolutionary fervor that intensified in Russia starting in 1901 affected the young with a Zionist consciousness. We have already discussed the organization of the Poalei Zion. The ardor for revolution of the Zionist young increased after the Kishinev pogroms (1903). By Passover 1902 Pinsk witnessed the first sign of rebelliousness—the slap across the cheek that Peter (Pinhas) Dashevsky gave a Russian officer for addressing him disparagingly: “Zhid, make way!”131 The young Zion­ists especially were faced with the new task of organizing defense although, in fact, Pinsk did not suffer rioting either at this moment or later. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein and Moshe Weizmann were active in the self-defense group. The finest Zionist householders formed a committee to provide necessary funds. Ya’acov Reigrodsky, Ozer Weizmann, Feivel Weizmann, and apparently Grigory Luria were among the activists for self-defense. They would meet in the “intelligentsia club” on “the Great Street,” and when this club was shut down by the gendarmerie following the assassination of Plehve [Russian director of the police department, Deputy Minister of the Interior, author of a systematic anti-Jewish policy] on July 15, 1904, the “commercial club” was used for gatherings since Reigrodsky had a permit to open it.132 Herzl’s death cast a heavy pall over Pinsk, as in other Russian Jewish settlements. Special authorization to arrange a eulogy was received from the Minister of Interior. Work in the factories stopped at five o’clock, and all the shops were closed on the day of the eulogy. A crowd of thousands assembled in the synagogue, which was draped in black, and after the cantor and choir sang Psalm 137 “Al Naharos Bavel” [by the waters of Babylon], Y. L. Berger who had been invited to Pinsk specially for this purpose, gave the eulogy. “The weeping and wailing were great . . . and the Zionists decided to keep a thirty-day mourning period, and establish a fitting institution in memory of the deceased.”133 However, according to Nissel Forman’s memoirs, an unfortunate incident occurred on the day of the eulogy. Rabbi David Friedman had

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been asked to participate in the service, but he begged off. Some youngsters, apparently members of the Shoresh Zion Zionist youth group, broke the windows of his home because of a rumor that the rabbi had voiced disparaging remarks about Herzl. The damage aroused general anger in the city, particularly among the opponents of Zionism, and when the rabbi’s wife died not long afterward, rumor had it that she took ill because of this incident.134 Despite his objections to Zionism, Rabbi David Friedman was one of the first to serve notice that he would not attend a meeting of rabbis scheduled to take place in Grodno in 1903 at the initiative of rabbis opposed to Zionism, presumably spurred on by the Russian authorities. This gathering was due to publicize a protest or herem against “those who slight the honor of the government and lend a hand to offenders and rebels against government law and order.” Rabbi David Friedman: [s]tated openly and explicitly that his name was affixed without his knowledge or consent, and his great rabbinical colleagues likewise knew nothing of the meeting. In his opinion there was no point to a meeting of rabbis at that time, and therefore he would not have any part of it.135

Meanwhile, years of uprising and revolution overwhelmed Russia.

The Bund The Bund was founded in 1897; it established a chapter in Pinsk in 1899 and by 1905 constituted a decisive force in the city’s Jewish communal life. Pinsk was a city of industry and labor, populated mostly by Jews. The functionaries who served the regime, a few policemen, frequented Jewish homes, taking pleasure in “having their palms greased.” At least until mid-1903, therefore, the Bund found a setting conducive to its activities. Salaried laborers worked under trying conditions, which would be considered unbearable by current standards. The day for laborers and apprentices in the workshops was fourteen to sixteen hours long (the proprietors, it must be added, worked no less, possibly even more). The factory workday was somewhat shorter, but lasted twelve hours, including time off for meals. According to the official law

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ratified by Tsar Nikolai II on June 13, 1897, the workday was to consist of eleven-and-a-half hours136 and the night shift, of ten hours. In the factories run by the Luria family, employees worked on Saturday nights because they left early on Fridays. Grigory Luria, was unique in introducing an eight-hour day at the chemical plant, a step unparalleled in all of Russia. Social benefits covering industrial accidents and providing old-age benefits were nonexistent. The Lurias, however, did assure their workers treatment in the event of illness and even gave them bonuses on special occasions. Provided she had worked five years, a woman was entitled to a 25–ruble stipend upon marriage. In honor of a son’s birth, a worker received 3 rubles and for the birth of a daughter, 1.5 rubles. An employee who reached the ten-year mark received a 25–ruble bonus.137 In other factories and shops no one thought of emulating these practices. As noted previously, the salaries of young people were meager. Only clerks and the most important workers earned respectable wages. In the Luria factories Jewish workers were recompensed at a higher rate than non-Jews. Despite these factors, revolutionary ferment in Pinsk tended to be a “foreign import.” In the 1880s a group of Narodnaya Volya (Peoples Freedom—a student revolutionary group) existed but after the police discovered them, most of them fled abroad.138 Pinsk introduced nothing of significance to the Bund movement, although there were activists known as “the Pinsk boys” (Pinsker yaten) renowned for their courage and daring. The movement came to life belatedly, in 1899 at the earliest, two years after the founding of the Bund.139 But it was ineffectual, and its organization was run by outside agitators until 1902. They succeeded in recruiting small numbers of student youth, pupils of the Realschule, others who saw no future for themselves under prevailing political conditions, and a few politically conscious laborers who had absorbed socialist doctrine. In 1901 it was not easy to persuade working-class young people that they had the right to impose conditions upon their employers.140 The Marxist doctrines of “exploitation” and “surplus profit” were remote from their sensibilities and outlook. The young, especially needy girls, were all too happy at the opportunity to earn anything.141 It was also unlikely that Bund ideology, which disavowed hopes of redemption in the Land of Israel, would readily attract Pinsk Jewish youth, even sons of the working class. Although

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their education in the heder and the Talmud Torah might have been limited and flawed, they had all been raised in observant and traditional homes. The secret of the Bund’s success lay in the fact that it provided a focus and, especially, a “community” for underprivileged youngsters who regarded themselves as isolated and inferior. One of the girls said to A. Litvak: What do you think the movement means to us? Till now we sat alone, each on her own stool. We were downcast. Now we have put all the stools together and we sit on a single bench.

Litvak adds: In Pinsk or in Bobruisk, the movement was all: culture, economic struggle, politics. Besides the movement, the better workers had nowhere to go.142

The Bund also gave a new sense of meaning to those who had been hoodlums and thieves.143 The consciousness of participation in a struggle for the creation of a “new world” was shared by only a few, but the sensation of “relief,” the liberation from feelings of inferiority affected everyone. This was brought about by the Bund’s emphasis on the worth of the individual, as well as a posture of boldness, which had been the mark of the affluent. The Bund succeeded in undermining the automatic respect accorded the aristocracy, which had already been shaken by the Zionists. An emotional upheaval was necessary to do this. Some of the agitators did not shrink from demagoguery. The stipends granted by the Luria family were explained away—the Lurias were merely interested in a higher birth rate, in order to provide a new generation of slaves.144 (The propagandists ignored the fact that each Luria worker who emigrated received ten rubles toward travel expenses.)145 One of the first aims of the propaganda effort was vilification of the upper classes. A. Mukdoni provides a very instructive description: Initially, the relationship between the female workers and the masters, the Luria family, was truly idyllic. Such was the gossip. Although the Lurias paid exploitative wages and the girls worked under poor sanitary conditions, they and more so their parents, were overjoyed when they earned money for a pair of shoes or a dress and an extra ruble for household expenses. When I left Pinsk this idyll had been largely

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destroyed. Organizers appeared to enlighten the poor and prove that that they were being taken advantage of. “Inadvertently,” rumors were spread about tragedies. A machine chopped off a young girl’s finger; another lost two fingers; a third, her entire hand. . . . The machinery, especially that of the Lurias, lopped off fingers of young girls and amputated their hands. Angry looks were aimed at the factories and turned in the direction of the Lurias. The reverence began to dissipate. . . . The masses began to smash their idols, and the first to be shattered were the rich Lurias. Awe of the rich turned to burning hatred; pride in the wealthy changed to open warfare against them.146

(As there is only isolated information about such mishaps in the factories, it is hard to determine the truth of the rumors about work accidents.)147 Mukdoni goes on to relate the part that the intellectuals, who were not laborers at all, took in the propaganda: I saw with my own eyes, how these changes took place. . . . The revolutionary movement gained ground with tremendous speed. . . . All of a sudden a fiery revolutionary materialized at your side. I knew him as a youth . . . quiet, his father’s son, great things were foretold for him, and he prepared for a calm, dignified life, like all “the good and pious people.” Now, that same quiet fellow—suddenly, his eyes were aflame, his speech was impassioned, and you sensed in him a terrifying fanaticism capable of leading him through fire and water. Suddenly, literally overnight, many of my friends became—someone else. Here I sat, talking with one of them, fooling around, joking, and he raised hopes of a nice career, a career of studies, travel abroad to learn, devotion to building a Jewish life on new foundations. Then, literally within a few weeks he was transformed. He hid, disappeared, and no one knew where. Shortly thereafter his attire changed, a black shirt topped his pants, a mane of hair flowed across his forehead, his eyes regarded everything with suspicion, his lips were sealed. And when his mouth did open, it was like a volcano, fiery lava erupting to consume everything, which only yesterday had been precious, holy, beautiful and lofty. I was in the forest and heard an impassioned speech. The orator spoke with absolute confidence. He had arrived at the great truth, he had found it, and whoever did not recognize this great truth was an enemy of the people and a traitor to the workers. The laborers, those poor folk who worked the hardest, whose lives were the most difficult, who bore their heavy burden in silence, in submission, as taken for granted— they were to bring the great and true redemption to the ­entire world.148

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An ironic feuilleton written by the Zionist poet A. D. Lifshitz in 1902 sketches the fresh ambitions for “new lives” of young members of the working class, together with their hatred for the gentry and for Jewish religious and national traditions, all implanted by the “leaders.” Here we had one group running to work, and another running from work, meeting with joy and greeting each other as “brothers and sisters.” I swear, I envy them. They are riding high right now. To be an aristocrat today is to be beneath notice, good-for-nothing. To be a gentleman nowadays is a stigma, a downright tragedy. He can never fulfill his obligations. He is always in the wrong. His wisdom—is foolishness. The old days are gone. Today—pawn your pants and you are a democrat. Democracy is transcendent. A looking-glass world, upheaval, everything topsy-turvy . . . the lowest rung has become the elite. May God have mercy. Money—they have no less an affinity for it than do the aristocrats; it’s just that they have unbridled hatred for the gentleman. The doctrine teaches how to be a philanthropist at the expense of the next fellow, how to change the system, how to run a “world revolution” at the other’s expense. . . . I don’t mean the laborers, heaven forbid, I refer to the organizers, the redelfirers [derogatory terminology for the communal activists]. The workers are not to blame at all; they want to work by the sweat of their brow and earn their piece of bread. But, the others bedazzle them with rosy dreams and ringing phrases. . . . They cultivate the beast in man. Worst of all, they estrange them from their own people. All the fine Jewish traits, all the religious and national sensibilities, are becoming repugnant to the Jewish masses, and the large and healthy part of the nation is dying a slow death.149

Middle class youngsters joined the Bund as well. Since they saw no chance of advancing within the existing system, they were open to ideas for destroying it. A feuilleton written in 1903 mocked parents who made great efforts to get their sons into secondary school: Two paths lie before a young bourgeois Pinsker: either to penetrate the “buttoned” greatcoat (that is, to learn in the secondary school) or to be accepted to some kantor (banking house—in other words, to get a job as a clerk). . . . And since “penetrating the overcoat” is very difficult, and breaking into a kantor equally so . . . the boy becomes an idealist, a Marxist, a Bundist . . . to take revenge, once and for all, for the “button” and for the kantor . . . . He begins to sense the burden of the

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whole world on his shoulders. He has no time to read a book. But, he becomes an expert on the proclamations, of which there are enough to pave over all the marshes of Pinsk.150

The 1893 strike of Russian workers in the railway workshops was the first revolutionary act in Pinsk.151 In 1897 a youth group met in the home of the brothers Motel and Shmuel Greenfeld to read socialist literature. The members of the group, in addition to the two brothers, were Abba Kavzal (“Gabz”), Shmerl Shreibman, and Shmuel Pushka (“Klapokh”). Each paid five kopeks per week or per month to the communal kitty.152 That same year another circle was formed, made up of intellectuals with a socialist outlook. The members of this group were Avraham Ber Garbuz, a student named Lyola Eisenberg, Pesia Eisenberg, Shmuel Lyov, Ya’acov Gorin, Heckelman, and Boroshok. The last three were to be Pinsk’s first political prisoners.153 About a year later, the Bundist, A. Litvak (Haim Ya’acov Helfand) began his activities in Pinsk. Heckelman’s attic (salka) on Bernardine Street in Karlin became the socialists’ classroom. Here Litvak trained several activists, among them Pesia Eisenberg, Ya’acov Gorin, and Fishel Holtzman. Pesia Eisenberg organized a society for reading illegal literature.154 The year 1899 is when the Pinsk Bund is said to have been established.155 In that year a strike, apparently the first by Jewish laborers, broke out in Gewirtzman’s tobacco factory. Two years later a work stoppage took place at the match factory. The strikers demanded a shortened workday: a reduction from twelve to eleven hours. The police intervened and arrested the workers, which caused a commotion in the city. The prisoners’ mothers broke into the home of Yosef Halpern, the factory owner, and categorically demanded their children’s release.156 In 1901 the young Pinsker, Vitali Aronovitz Segelevitz, returned home after graduating from the government teacher’s seminary in Vilna and received a teaching appointment in the Drunzik school. Segelevitz was a fervent Bundist and did a great deal to disseminate Bund ideology. At the end of the summer, he was arrested and transferred to the Minsk jail, where he was incarcerated for nearly a year.157 Meanwhile Bund influence continued. Reading circles for illegal literature multiplied. Lectures on issues of “political economics” became fashionable even in Zionist youth circles. The first Bund members were Ya’acov Gorin, Litvak’s disciple, Leah Gleiberman, Yankel Hanger, one

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Leizer from Brest, and someone by the name of Zabel. The last three were active among the painters. During the summer of 1901, the Bund grew rapidly. In May of that year only sixty members had participated in the first general convention of the Bund; three months later, on July 25, 1901, 350 people took part in a second convention.158 During the fall, Marc Liber (Michael Goldman), one of the most important Bund leaders, came to Pinsk. Of all the Bund leaders who participated in the May 1900 convention, Liber had the most positive view of Jewish nationalism. He was in favor of autonomy, and demanded education of the Jewish masses towards a national consciousness, in addition to training in the economic and political spheres. He felt that such awareness would not hamper class warfare.159 He may have been sent to Pinsk, a Zionist stronghold, precisely because of these opinions. Liber remained for several weeks. His aim was to attract the intelligentsia to the Bund. Upon his arrival, he lectured in Russian to a select audience of about sixty intellectuals and educated workers. He succeeded in drawing in several of the Realschule and Gymnasium students, including Aharon Hiller (Giller), son of Zvi Hiller the Zion­ ist; Fanny Rabinowitz, a graduate of the girls’ Gymnasium; and Lena Broder­son, who became one of the important instructors for the Bund.160 At that time Bund membership numbered about 450. Enthusiastic preparations were made for a general meeting in the Zapolia forest at which Liber was slated to address the assembly. But the night before the meeting, all the local committee members were arrested. The gathering was cancelled, and Liber left the city immediately.161 (Liber was to collapse with a nervous breakdown during the expulsions of the G. P. U. [Communist secret police].162) The Pinsk Bund underwent a severe crisis. The blow came like a bolt from the blue . . . we were left leaderless. It was imperative to bring in outside forces . . . but, not only were we without guidance, we were also without funds.

Funds must have been needed to finance the outside forces the Bund wished to summon. An appeal for help, signed by the Bund committee, was sent to Pinsk sympathizers who had recently arrived in New York, relating that a mass arrest had taken place and the detainees were

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liable to be sent to Siberia; money was needed to save them. This letter was brought to the Pinsker synagogue on a holiday, apparently on Simhat Torah. The words “mass arrest” and “Siberia” alarmed those to whom the recipients showed the letter. Seven dollars was collected on the spot [in the synagogue on the holy day]. A few days later, a benefit party was held. The proceeds were dedicated to the assistance of the “freedom fighters” in Pinsk, and one hundred dollars was dispatched. As a result of the benefit, the “Pinsker Radikale” organization was founded in New York, its main purpose being to aid the Bund in the homeland, and it forwarded financial assistance on several occasions.163 Early in 1902, Virgili (Borukh Mordekhai Cohen) and Aspiz, “professional” organizers, arrived from Homel. Niakhke came from Bobruisk, and other organizers also arrived in the city. Virgili and Aspiz set the organizational tone for the Bund. They founded a central committee. In place of meetings for activists from specific professions (tsekhave skhadkes) and various circles, they organized groups of twenty, based upon intellectual capacities. A committee member led each group. In this way, all members of the Bund were united, guided, and supervised by the committee. The separate accounts of the different groups were combined. The Pinsk movement was raised one grade from the level of “group” to the level of “organization.”164 The committee took charge of organizing strikes, which, if they took place at all, had been haphazard until now. The Bursa (literally: exchange) on Kiev Street (the main street) was set up—workers began to congregate on the street on Saturdays and after work on weekdays to get acquainted, reinforce ties, talk, and exchange information on what was happening, as well as make an impression on the public and attract new members. The organizers’ lodgings, in the restaurant building on Lake Street in Karlin, served as the “command post”; the proprietress knew how to “oblige” the police with a jigger of whiskey, so they did not pay too much attention to her boarders and their visitors. The tearoom at the Bronstein Hotel, not far from the river, served as a meeting place for the committee and the activists. From time to time the committee arranged meetings for workers in the same occupations and also organized groups of instructors from among the intellectual youth. On May 1, 1902, posters calling on the

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workers to demonstrate were circulated throughout the city, and the Bund made its presence felt in Pinsk that day. The workers did not strike, and the Bund did not even dare suggest it, for the police were on the alert, patrols standing by the large factories. But at the appointed time, the Bursa filled with strolling workers dressed in holiday finery, wearing red flowers in the lapels of their clothes.165 A gathering was also held that attracted two hundred people.166 In the early years, Bund influence was felt primarily among laborers in the small workshops rather than factory laborers. The few strikes organized in 1901 took place mostly in the workshops. Working conditions in the shops were worse than in the factories. The official work rules were more or less adhered to in the factories but not in the ­workshops. One strike against Daniel Paprotzky’s shoe shop, demanding a shortened workday and a raise in pay, led to the imprisonment of twelve employees; in reprisal a worker splashed acid on Paprotzky’s face and burned both his eyes. The employers of Pinsk were terrified. (Daniel ­Paprotzky had moved to Pinsk from the long-since forgotten community of Jakow­low, located between neighboring Janowa and Drohiczyn.) In the same year the wood engravers organized a strike. This work stoppage was joined by all the employees of the engraving shops, except for three men employed by an engraver called Berl. These men were natives of Brest and did not want to aggravate relations with their boss; therefore, they asked that their fellow workers remove them “forcibly” from their shop. Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov (Selnick), who came with several friends to do the job, was met by the screams of Berl’s wife. Zhelezni­kov was arrested, but since Berl, when summoned by the police to identify him, pretended not to know him, he was released and placed under “police supervision.”167 After frequent strikes, the workday in some of the trades was shortened to ten to twelve hours. A walkout at the match factory, in which more than nine hundred workers participated, ended after the government supervisor promised to meet some of their demands, including paid sick leave and a permanent doctor on the factory premises.168 In the fall of 1902, the Bund committee accelerated its revolutionary propaganda efforts. During the October induction season, a circular attacking the authorities was distributed among the recruits. Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov driven by an impulse to read the circular aloud

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near the draft office was seized and transferred to the Minsk prison. ­Zheleznikov’s trial was held nine months later. He was sentenced to only four months imprisonment since the testimony against him did not establish beyond a doubt that he had actually read a revolutionary document. He was released after the trial because he had already served a term longer than that to which he had been sentenced.169 A circular from late 1902 called upon the workers to “unite and form a force, so that we can, like other laborers, engage in public strikes and protests.” The committee did not yet consider itself strong enough to engage in activities liable to result in a clash with the police force (which was in fact insubstantial). The circular was published after a strike by Russian railroad workers in Rostow in November 1902, where soldiers fired at strikers causing deaths and injuries. This may have served as the first statement as a battle to rout the political regime with the class struggle converged: “Let us combine this spark with the great flame of revolution in Russia, and reduce the barbarous autocracy and the ancient capitalistic world to ashes.”170 A. D. Lifshitz’s feuilleton demonstrates that by 1902, the Bund was already a force in the city.171 Meanwhile the chasm between the Zionists, who were also turning progressively more radical in their political and social perspectives, and the Bundists widened. Bund influence on young people grew stronger. In March 1903, Kolia Tepper arrived in Pinsk. Originally a follower of Ahad Ha’am and subsequently a Bund leader, Tepper apparently had come to deal the final blow to Zionism, or perhaps to impede the activities of the Poalei Zion party. The Poalei Zion had begun to organize in the city and posed a threat to the Bund’s hope to dominate the Jewish worker. According to Weizmann-Lichtenstein, it was Tepper’s habit to follow in Weizmann’s footsteps to counteract his impression upon the young people; this was the purpose of Tepper’s visit to Pinsk. A debate was held between Weizmann, the Zionist, and Tepper, the Bundist. Rubenchik from Minsk also participated on behalf of the Poalei Zion. Hirsch Abramowich writes that the idea for an “evening of clarification” (diskusiye ovent) originated among the intelligentsia and the workers. The debate took place on a Friday night in the home of a factory owner outside the city. Hundreds attended—intelligentsia, teachers, youth, and workers whose consciousness had been raised.

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The gathering was illegal, and guards were posted to direct the flow of traffic. Tepper spoke for three hours. He attacked Zionism as the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie, Zionist literature as literature for lay-abouts; he proposed taking the only path, joining the Russian revolutionaries against the autocracy. Weizmann followed Tepper and spoke for about two hours. He referred sarcastically to the Bund’s lack of a realistic foundation, its blindness to the anti-semitism of the masses, and the implausibility of Jews penetrating heavy industry and agriculture. Ruben­chik spoke as well. The debate lasted till dawn without coming to a conclusion and resumed on Saturday night when Tepper spoke for four hours. According to Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Weizmann had the advantage over Tepper. She does not mention Rubenchik’s participation in the debate.172 Tepper unnecessarily embroiled the Bund in a heroic exploit, which ended with the imprisonment of six Bundists. At Tepper’s request the committee arranged for a “mass meeting” in the Alewe forest on the fourth night of the intermediate days of Passover. Tepper spoke before several hundred people. A. Mukdoni, who was present and heard Tepper, describes his rhetorical style: He opened in a whisper, but slowly worked himself up. His voice roared when he spoke of the savage Tsar, of the exploiters, of the rich. His voice became lyrical when he spoke of the travail of the laborers and all the oppressed, and he raged when he argued against the other parties, especially the Zionists among the Jews and the social revolutionaries among the Russians; he ended his speech with tremendous pathos. . . . He literally electrified his audience, and when he concluded, the listeners broke out in hysterical shouts; the organizers were able to calm them down only with difficulty.173

The following night, the seventh night of Passover, which fell on the Sabbath, Kolia Tepper and his fiancée, Genesia Shapira, and also ­Zabel Feinstein and someone by the name of Sasha, were imprisoned. On the next morning, an attempt was made to free them. According to the memoirs of Weizmann-Lichtenstein, the members of the Bund organized a demonstration at the hour when people were leaving the synagogues. The demonstration was to serve as a diversion, and it was planned for a time when the demonstrators could mingle with the synagogue crowds and make the work of the police more difficult.

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Meanwhile about two hundred workers armed with axes, knives, and poles surrounded the police station where the prisoners were detained. They broke in forcibly and freed the prisoners. At the start of the action, Sultz, proprietor of a printing press, and Dr. Hazanowich, manager of the candle factory, were wounded. When the police began to chase the crowd, stones, iron bars, and poles were thrown at them. Pistol shots were fired from both sides. Several people were injured, including a woman named Shaindel Korz. The prisoners meanwhile fled. The police began to search. They apprehended eight people that night and another thirty the following day.174 It was the habit of the police to beat captives brutally. Golda Meir, whose grandfather’s house was near the police station, retained a traumatic childhood impression of the prisoners’ shouts.175 Eleven of the prisoners stood trial in Vilna on September 27, 1903. Moshe Sherman and Sender Kushner were sentenced to one-and-a-half years of hard labor, Shaindel Korz was sentenced to one year in prison, Aharon Hoikh­man, Yehoshua Begun, and Yankel Goldberg were sentenced to eight months in prison. The remaining five were acquitted. Eight lawyers from Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and Minsk came to the defense of the accused. These were Farberzev-Pomerantz, Ginzberg, Stahl, Shiska, Shinman, Slutzky, and Yeintes.176 The defense must have been organized by the Jewish community, either by Pinsk itself or by a broader Jewish organization. The break-in at the police station and the clash with the police caused panic in the city. The Jewish community was in an uproar. The populace felt that had this taken place on Sunday, the peasants converging on the city would have carried out a pogrom, and there was apprehension lest they do so during the Easter holiday. Meanwhile the Kishinev pogrom broke out (on the last day of Passover). According to Hirsch Abramowich’s memoirs, tempestuous protests were organized.177 A fast day was decreed, and a collection was taken up for the casualties of the pogrom.178 A few days before the first of May (April 18 according to the Russian calendar), a meeting was held in the Aye forest. It was attended by approximately three hundred people, among them students of the Real­ schule. The police were aware of the event but were afraid to approach the site. As the group was returning, however, the police and peasants from

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the neighboring village seized eighty-four people, including forty-four women. Most were released after the first of May had passed. A painter named Ya’acov Moshe Tzinovich, a worker named Leah Fokhsman, and David Aronson and Reizin, two intellectuals, remained in detention. Six other Bundists were placed under police supervision. All were slated to stand trial for resisting the police, but apparently they were released. The first of May was not celebrated. It became a day of panic for the entire Jewish population of Pinsk, because of a manifesto disseminated by a “secret society of monarchists.” The proclamation called upon the Orthodox Christians and the Catholics to teach the Zhids a lesson, as they had in Kishinev, and also to smite the Zionists, “who want to establish a filthy republic in Palestine” where “the filthy Zhids” would live.179 The night before the first of May, approximately two hundred Jewish families left the city, and even afterward many continued to leave, because a rumor circulated that a pogrom was liable to break out on Wednesday, May 6 (April 23 according to the Russian calendar), a market day. Fear intensified when the vice-governor of the region, who had been summoned to Pinsk by the chief of police to “calm the Jews,” received the Jewish delegation very coolly and promised nothing. The Bund organized about three hundred men for self-defense. An article from May 10 states: Friday and yesterday we were busy arranging self-defense. We succeeded in organizing three hundred strong men: carpenters, butchers, wagoners. . . . Anyone who could, acquired a revolver, and we are ready to defend ourselves to the end.

An attempt was also made to stage a form of blood libel that summer. The newspaper Pravitlstavni Vestnik published “news” from Pinsk claiming that on August 30, three Jews had assaulted Jozef Kisilev, a boy of eleven, as he was returning from church via Lohishin Street. They beat him, wounded him with a knife, and threw him into the Pina River. The boy was pulled out by sailors on a steamboat, and “when he regained consciousness, he related that the Jews had attacked him for no reason; one of them was a man named Shmuel Pomerantz; the matter was under investigation.” Because of this story, the governor Count Musin-Pushkin, arrived in the city on September 6. He soon found out that the chief of police

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knew nothing about the Kisilev matter. “The victim was summoned to the governor’s residence and the governor expressed his astonishment that such a commotion had been raised.” The matter was not yet closed. A week later it became clear that the event had been fabricated, on the basis of a quarrel between a Jewish boy and Kisilev over a pocketknife. In the course of the row, Kisilev was wounded in his hand. His brother revealed the story of the fight. That very day Grigory Luria rushed off a telegram to the newspaper Ha-Zeman relating the truth as it had been uncovered, and later a letter recounting the whole incident was sent to Ha-Zeman. The matter was transmitted to Petersburg as well, probably to Plehve, the minister of the interior. The “victim’s” brother, after divulging the truth, also sent a telegram to Petersburg relating the facts. As a result, the district police commissioner was ordered to conduct an investigation into the instigation of the libel.180 This inquiry seems to have discovered nothing. There is some vague information from the same period about a letter signed by sixty workers at the railroad workshops, sent to Minister Plehve with the intent of inciting Christian residents against the Jews.181 These were days of terror and heightened public activity for the Jews of Pinsk. Grigory Luria took the lead, and by virtue of his influence, with the help of a “gift” perhaps, the “victim’s” brother revealed the truth. The Bund was left without authoritative guidance that summer, since Virigli and Aspiz left the city immediately after the Tepper incident. The new leaders, Zalman and Aronson, apparently departed after the calamity in the Aye forest. An article sent from Pinsk in September 1904 reports: Since last year’s arrests, the movement has become progressively weaker. In the late summer and early winter of last year, it still functioned to some extent. Afterwards, activities ceased altogether and they were renewed only in June.182

Although there were still strikes, it is doubtful if the Bund had anything to do with them. They may have erupted as a consequence of Minister Zubatov’s policy of non-interference in strikes limited to demands for improvement of working conditions. In January 1903, as Zionist young people began to organize self-­ defense,183 a strike broke out in the candle factory of Eliasberg and

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Rabino­witsch. Girls sweeping the factory yard swept some candles into the garbage. Baskin, the manager, fined them ten kopeks. When the girls voiced their objections, seasoned with curses, they were fired and told that they could return to work only if they apologized to Baskin and kissed his hand. At that, all the workers, approximately seventy girls, stopped work and drew up a list of demands: to reinstate those who were fired, to fire the foreman Ya’acov Lieberman, to shorten the workday from thirteen hours to twelve, to lessen the workload, to institute paid sick leave and doctor’s visits to the factory. After a three-day walkout, the police and the government factory inspector became involved, along with the Crown Rabbi Samzhovsky. Samzhovsky served as intermediary between the authorities and the girls, who did not speak Russian. The factory owners acceded to nearly all the demands. During the same period, twelve laborers in the straw factory also struck; a similar list was presented. After Passover, construction workers and carpenters staged a strike, asking for a shortened workday of twelve hours and regular salary payments. These workers also had the upper hand, and their day was shortened. “The summer months were quiet.” At the end of the summer the needle workers received a pay raise and an abbreviated day of twelve hours after an eight-day work stoppage. The women’s tailors also struck, and their demand for a twelve-hour workday was accepted. But employees in other workshops had their demands refused. In September 1903 a circular was published, calling upon the workers to unite in the struggle against the regime, to demand a ten-hour workday and a raise in salary.184 In this declaration, composed at the same time that the Kisilev libel was being concocted, and probably a few days after the riots in Homel, there is no mention of general Jewish issues and no hint of the need to organize for self-defense, although the Russian Social-Democratic party [S.D., a non-Marxist, populist party, focused on the redistribution of land] favored assisting Jews during riots and in several instances tendered substantial aid.185 The Bund’s impotence during the winter of 1903–1904 and the early summer months thereafter was the outcome of the following “affair”: Arnadsky, a young man from Riga, was staying in Pinsk; “a goodlooking fellow, polished and well-dressed, well-educated and a talented orator.” Arnadsky came ostensibly to seek work as a private tutor of Russian and Hebrew. As an “intellectual” he wished to gain entrance

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to the circles of the intelligentsia first, and so he paid a call to the Weizmann household. He proposed to pay a second visit and read “something from the illegal literature,” but his suggestion was not accepted.186 Arnadsky gravitated toward the Bund, wrote manifestos, made moving speeches, and even aspired to raise the level of the Pinsk Bund movement from “organization” to “committee,” since only a “committee” had the right to maintain direct contact with the central Bund committee.187 By virtue of his charisma, he attracted hundreds of youngsters, especially girls, to the movement. Presently Grigory Luria received word from his brother in Homel that a young man active in one of the parties in Pinsk was suspected by the people in Homel of being an agent provocateur. All the parties were notified. It was impossible to point a finger in suspicion, although Grigory Luria, and some others among the intelligentsia who frequented the Weizmann household, distrusted Arnadsky. According to Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, however, they were afraid to reveal their speculations to the Bund leaders, “for they would have been stoned had they uttered a word against him.” Soon the police became morethan-usually active; in their searches, the gendarmes “went from place to place, as if following a marked map,” finding illegal literature. Ten individuals were apprehended. In the course of their interrogations, the investigators demonstrated inside knowledge of the Bund, facts known only to a handful of people.188 Arnadsky was one of the most dangerous provocateurs for the Bund party. According to B. Mikhaelevich (Yosef Izbitzki), Arnadsky had been planted by the Pinsk secret police as early as 1902. His task was not merely to uncover information on what was going on in the city, but to attempt to rise in the ranks of its leadership and uncover the secrets of the entire Bund. He traveled to the Minsk “committee” to link up with the central committee of the Bund, and he was a candidate for delegate to the fifth Bund convention. Arnadsky actually submitted the Bund’s “secret code” to the Tsarist police, who would intercept letters and decode confidential Bund matters.189 At length it became apparent to the Bund in Pinsk that a secret agent was in their midst. It was soon clear that he was none other than the fiery revolutionary. According to Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov’s memoirs, there was turmoil in the ranks. Suspicions were cast upon loyal members. Although the local Bund committee was already aware that

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­ rnadsky was the undercover agent, and confirmation had arrived from A the central committee, it had not seen fit to inform more than a “select few” of this development.190 The committee proceeded with caution in its contacts with the suspect. Arnadsky “became furious” and proposed organizing a group of the finest yatim (firebrands) to combat “moles,” but his suggestion, obviously, was not accepted. According to the memoirs of Morris Goldav­sky (Golodny), a Social-Democrat [the S.D. party, which preached class struggle based on Marxist ideals; its Bolshevik faction favored a tight-knit set of directors; the Menshivik, a looser democratic structure] sent to Pinsk at his party’s behest with a letter of recommendation to ­Arnadsky, the Pinsk Bund committee notified the central committee of the Social Democrats about Arnadsky. In reply, the local committee was asked to wait for Goldavsky near the “mole’s” apartment. When Goldav­sky arrived, a young girl named Shifra immediately approached him and led him to the back room of a bakery, where he found the members of the committee.191 Thus did the Pinsk Bund disclose the dangerous operative. When Goldavsky was sent to Pinsk, the central committee of the ­Social-Democrats may already have been aware of the agent’s identity, but for some reason did not find it necessary to inform Goldavsky. The letter of recommendation to Arnadsky may have been simply a ruse. Goldavsky says that after consulting with the committee members, he went to see Arnadsky. They agreed that Goldavsky would come to Arnad­sky again the following day. That very night all the committee members, Arnadsky among them, were arrested.192 According to both Shelom’oke Zheleznikov and Haya WeizmannLichtenstein, “ordinary fellows” with no connection to revolutionary activity were also arrested. There may be some substance to the explanation that the secret police acted shrewdly to ensure that Arnadsky would not be released alone, so that suspicion would not fall upon him.193 The secret police were probably aware that Arnadsky was suspected by the revolutionaries. Because of this, presumably, they did not apprehend Goldavsky. The following day, Goldavsky reports, a messenger came from the Minsk Bund with instructions to meet with him. They discussed how to eliminate Arnadsky, who they knew would be released shortly.

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The decision was to call a meeting of railroad workers; Arnadsky would be conducted to the meeting, and along the way, pushed off the track. From Goldavsky’s writings it is not clear whether the meeting was actually arranged or whether this was just a pretext to snare Arnad­ sky, who was released two days later, that is, on the third or fourth day after he was imprisoned. Goldavsky writes that he visited Arnadsky and congratulated him upon his release. Goldavsky informed Arnadsky of the meeting due to take place in two days, and they agreed to go together. They set out for the meeting, between eight and nine at night and, along the way, Arnadsky was liquidated.194 Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov, who was “among the three” who did the “job,” has a different version. According to Zheleznikov’s account, Arnad­sky turned to the organization immediately after his release and demanded that measures be taken to uncover the agent. For this purpose, a meeting (schodka) was scheduled for Friday night of that week. While returning from the schodka—at 11 p.m.—the three cracked his skull and stabbed him with knives.195 Some maintain that after his release, Arnadsky wanted to leave town, but people pleaded with him to remain one more day and attend a meeting to encourage the members, who had been left leaderless. Arnadsky showed no interest in doing so because he sensed that he was being tailed; nevertheless, he agreed. A schodka was scheduled, and Arnadsky was compelled to speak. At the appointed time, Aharon Hiller (son of Zvi Hiller, the Zionist) took him to the meeting place and, on the way back, he was beaten to death. The killing took place on the night of October 17–18, 1903.196 According to Goldavsky, however, Arnadsky came to Pinsk early in 1904, and according to Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, the episode took place “early in the spring of 1904.” Weizmann-Lichtenstein furnishes additional details: [Along with the arrest of] the entire Bund leadership, all the illegal literature and the Bund press were confiscated. . . . And, from the moment of their arrest, the prisoners began looking at their idol Arnadsky not only with suspicion . . . but also with contempt . . . although he ranted and raved and demanded a roll call of the entire party in order to eradicate the evil in their midst. After a short while, Arnadsky was supposedly summoned for interrogation; he returned to the cell and announced

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that he had been very harshly treated. He proposed seeking a way to escape from jail, but his fellow inmates regarded his statements warily. About a week after the investigation, Arnadsky disappeared. It was announced that he had left the prison and promised to appear before the police twice a day. After his departure from prison, his colleagues maintained surveillance over him . . . and one Sabbath morning he was found dead in a vegetable garden outside the city. Before murdering him, three members came to him at night and demanded an admission of guilt. Arnadsky attempted to evade the issue and fabricated all sorts of lies, but they forced him to confess and provide them with clues, which led to the disclosure of other secret agents in several places.

Mikhaelevich writes: [Arnadsky] decided to leave Pinsk, but before his departure, they invited him to the forest to address a meeting. When he returned from the gathering, someone attacked him, and wounded him twenty-six times with an axe, until he was dead.197

This “someone” was Moshe Tzitrin. The preceeding narrative juxtaposes three excerpts from memoirs. Two of these were written by people who actually participated in the mission (Goldavsky, Zheleznikov). Another report was based upon “remembered hearsay” (Weizmann-Lichtenstein); yet another was provided by a person who had met with the perpetrator (Mikhaelevich); and finally, a summary by a historian was consulted (Toyznt Yor Pinsk, see note 196). This is a striking example of why memoirs cannot be relied upon for details. In addition to the inconsistencies about the date, of which there is corroborating information, there is a sharp contradiction between the versions of Goldavsky, who accompanied Arnadsky to the meeting, and the historian, who says that Aharon Hiller led Arnadsky to the meeting. Goldavsky asserts that the mission was accomplished on the way to the meeting, but the memoirs of Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov and Mikhaelevich, as well as the historian report that it was carried out on the way back. The latter version is the accurate one. The mission was carried out at 11 p.m., not between 8 and 9 p.m. The police tracked down the participants in the affair and imprisoned Shelomo’ke Zheleznikov, Moshe Tzitrin, and Sender Dvorkin. Later Nahum Mendel Tzeilingold was also arrested as a suspect. B. Mikhaele­

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vich gives information about Moshe Tzitrin’s imprisonment—perhaps told to him by Tzitrin, for they were imprisoned together for a time in the Minsk jail. A Jew saw that his son, a butcher, was washing bloodstains from his clothes; he went and informed the police. The son was arrested and taken to Minsk to the jail as part of a large group.

This report indicates how great was the gap between fathers and sons by 1903, so much so that the father denied his emotions and betrayed his son to the police. The father probably had had no cause to take pride in him previously either. Mikhaelevich describes the son’s appearance: Short stature, coarse and expressionless face, yellowish, flaxen-colored hair, piercing eyes, and upon first meeting, makes a very harsh impression. . . . That same “butcher boy” (katzav-yung) had a large measure of idealism and unusual tenacity. I asked him what proof he had that Arnadsky was the agent. He answered indifferently: I had no proof. I persevered: Why did you murder him? His reply: They told me and I believed them. . . . When the renowned lawyers, Stahl, Zarodny, and others, who had been summoned to defend him [unfortunately Mikhaelevich does not write who hired them] came to him, they pointed to the place for his signature on the document, and he asked them to read aloud what was written. As soon as he heard the word gosudar (His Majesty) he stopped them and said: I will have nothing to do with the gosudar, the Tsar, and I will not sign. . . . Only after returning to his cell and learning from his more educated cellmates that this was not a plea for clemency from the Tsar, but a power of attorney for the lawyers, did he sign.

That a simple “butcher boy” was ready to hang rather than humble himself before the Tsar, is a token of the courage and devotion that the “Pinsker yaten” displayed in their struggle for a better world. Goldavsky reports that immediately after the “event,” he escaped and spent the night in the home of the Erdmann family, where illegal Bund activists met; he was arrested when he tried to board a railroad car to leave the city. While in jail he received news from the outside by way of notes that Erdmann’s little girl passed under the prison fence. He was informed that at the time when the prisoners were led to the bathhouse, a procession of demonstrators would set out toward them so that they could escape. And so it happened. But he and another es-

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capee were caught. Goldavsky does not say what happened to the other prisoners. Those who had participated in the Arnadsky affair were not among the escapees. Mrs. Erdmann passed herself off as Goldavsky’s aunt and received permission to visit him in his cell. Within earshot of the prison super­ visor she cursed and abused her “nephew,” but when the warden moved away for a moment, she passed Goldavsky a note assuring him that the best lawyers would defend him and advising him how to comport himself during the interrogation. Goldavsky was transferred to the Minsk prison where he was in the next cell to Kolia Tepper and Vladek (Charny), brother of S. Niger of the Poalei Zion. There he learned that the Bund had retained the services of the lawyer Kopernik for the three defendants in the murder of Arnadsky. When arrested and questioned, Shelomoh Zheleznikov gave no cause for suspicion. His shoes were sent to the laboratory in Petersburg to be checked for bloody footprints on the soles. He was transferred to the Minsk prison. Nine months later his shoes were returned to him, and he was sent back to Pinsk and released, but was still subject to “police supervision.” On September 7, 1904, the three other defendants stood trial in Minsk before a military court headed by Major-General Konoveyev. The defense attorneys were Kopernik from Kiev, Margalit from Petersburg, and Anshtein and Yeintes from Minsk. After two days of deliberations, the hearing was postponed and resumed on March 16, 1905. The charge sheet included perjured testimony by two witnesses: ­Yitzhak Elianov—who had been apprehended in connection with ­Tepper’s release from prison, and freed on condition that he would work for the police, and a certain Lampert—who took this service upon himself after the mass arrest at the Aye forest. But Lampert did not show up in court, and Elianov circulated the truth about his testimony, that Nartov, head of the gendarmerie, had him sign the protocol without knowing its contents. The trial was apparently deferred once again. The prisoners were released as part of the general amnesty granted in October 1905, but only after the political prisoners refused to leave jail without them.198 On October 4, 1906, after being arrested a second time in Warsaw, Tzitrin stood trial. He was sentenced to ten years of hard labor in the Arnadsky case but discharged after four years.199

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The Arnadsky affair provoked a crisis in the Pinsk Bund. It “wreaked havoc in the party,” because many were imprisoned as a consequence of Arnadsky’s divulgences.200 In view of the surprising fact that the secret police had been able to track down Arnadsky’s assailants, the membership was in terror of agents and informers. Aharon David Prukhodnik, who was suspected of being an informer, was shot although he was probably totally innocent.201 Suspicion had been cast upon Prukhodnik after thirteen girls who had gathered for a meeting on February 14, 1904 (according to the Russian calendar), as he stood guard, were arrested. In December 1903 four people were seized while they wandered about near the jail to pass information to the detainees. Two were extricated from the hands of the police, and two—Rubakha and Nahum Mendel Tzeilingold—were imprisoned. Rubakha was freed ten days later, and Tzeilingold was liberated with the other political prisoners in October 1905. Parents redoubled their efforts to keep their children away from the Bund by coaxing and by scolding. Pious anti-Zionist circles turned their propaganda against the “insurrectionists.”202 Bund activities were nearly paralyzed, although indoctrination and information meetings were held. In December 1903, relations with the Russian Social-Democratic party were clarified, and it was decided to approve the resolution adopted at the fifth Bund conference, which had convened in Zurich in June 1903. When the Minsk maggid spoke in the synagogue on Saturday, December 26 of the need to consolidate the Jewish nation’s forces, the Bundists were still able to display their might, with blows. They interrupted him with cries of “Long live the unity of workers of all nations.” The Zionists and the Poalei Zion became irked by the disturbances, fistfights broke out, and a few people were seriously injured.203 In 1904 the first of May was celebrated in many cities by workers’ strikes, but there is no information on strikes in Pinsk. Organizational forces were absent as in 1904 no Bund activists arrived from Homel, to whose leadership the Pinsk Bund was subject. The weakness of the Bund and of revolutionary spirit in general, was demonstrated in the November strike of sixty sewing workers for a twelve-hour working day—it failed.204 The meetings and the Bursa did not stop; however, and the authorities often ignored the “revolutionaries’” activities. The government returned to its tough policy only after the July 15, 1904, attempt on

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Plehve’s life. The gendarmerie ranted and raved; whoever looked the least bit suspicious was imprisoned.205 In August 1904 the Minsk regional governor proclaimed an order banning any assemblies and bearing arms; he also required hostel owners to notify the police of all their guests, under penalty of a five-hundred–ruble fine or two-month imprisonment.206 The order about weapons may have been related to the question of self-defense, for which Zionist young people now prepared. The second prohibition was due to the fact that proletarian Pinsk attracted youngsters of various ideological stripes, fiery speakers intent upon saving the world and the Jews; Ozer Weizmann’s home served as lodging and meeting place for the intellectuals among them.207 The revolutionary agitation, which was gaining momentum all over Russia because of the Russo-Japanese war, affected Pinsk as well. The Bund quickened in June 1904. An article written on July 16 reports: In early June work began anew. We organized two meetings of propagandists. It became clear that they all wanted to work, but not as before. . . . We dealt with organizational matters for about three or four hours. . . . In time we managed to get together a meeting of sixty sympathizers, where we spoke about the principles of the organization. . . . There are between fifteen and seventeen workers’ unions in the factories and workshops of the city representing the 2,500–3,000 Jewish workers (and unemployed). They are divided into twelve districts, between fifty and five hundred workers, mostly women, in each. The larger unions are: in the wooden nail factory—five hundred girls; plywood factory—about 250 workers, among them more than one hundred girls; and the match factory—four hundred girls from among 450 workers; in the candle and cork factories and in tailoring—all women. In the past three weeks, we have organized three large gatherings, two of them organizational meetings. At one meeting there were 145 participants; we discussed the difference between the Social Democrats (SD) and the other parties, particularly the ­Poalei Zion and the Social Revolutionaries (SR) and our attitude toward them. [Dov Ber Borochov, founder of Poalei Zion, had originally joined the Russian S.D., but later became a Zionist.] It was necessary to clarify this. There were between 165 and 170 in attendance at the second meeting, where we spoke about Herzl’s death and about Zionism, because there had been lectures about these topics here. Unfortunately this meeting did not end very well, because police and peasants came from the city to

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surround the forest. But our guards managed to warn us. The organization’s representative asked us whether to disperse or to continue. . . . It was unanimously decided to remain. But the organization did not want to take a chance, and the chairman disbanded the gathering. . . . It was a good thing we did not remain; no one would have escaped. There was [also] a propaganda meeting in which sixty people took part. The war was discussed. That meeting was successful. In addition, small organizational meetings were held (of ten or fifteen people), scheduled by each activist in his area. . . . Initially we had from 140 to 150 organized members, now between 190 and 200. . . . We have a problem here, which must be solved. That is the Poalei Zion. Before our activities stopped they had no influence. As we became weaker they became more arrogant and when we ceased functioning altogether—opportunity knocked—they caught more than a few fish in the troubled waters. Those previously among our ranks remained loyal to us. But the masses who had no political consciousness, were influenced. . . . Steps were taken to prevent their expansion—they have very few forces. . . . There are more Christian workers here than Jews—approximately 3,500 men: railway workers, ship-builders, technicians and others, but we have no access to them. It is doubtful whether we have the strength to do anything. . . . Eight days ago four hundred shipbuilders struck. They broke a machine, and cut belts.208

On August 31, 1904, the Bundist Nota Pogoralsky died, and his comrades accompanied the body to the cemetery. Since the plot designated by the hevrah kaddisha [burial society] did not suit them, they dug another grave in a different place. When the cemetery officials tried to object, they threatened to bury Nota next to the grave of the saint (tzadik) [it’s not clear to whom this refers]. Beside the open grave, a friend eulogized Pogarolsky and closed with the cry, till now heard only at forest meetings, “Down with autocracy!”Long live political liberty!” Those present broke out with shouts of “Hurrah!” When they started to leave through the cemetery gates and encountered the police, a rout ensued. The police arrested 105 people, among them boys of ten or twelve years old, and lined them up and marched them through the city streets. ­After three days most were released, except for two or three who did not have passports. On the eve of October 9, 1904, the Pinsk Bund organized a protest meeting at the Bursa because shots had been fired into a work-

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ers’ crowd in Bialystok on September 12, 1904. About 350 workers of both sexes participated in the protest, although there were only about two hundred organized Bund members at the time. Approximately 225 people participated in a preparatory meeting for the sixth congress of the Socialist International (convened in Amsterdam on August 14–20, 1904).209 At one point during the October 9 meeting, cries of daloi (down with), and similar rallying calls, were heard, but the police did not react at all, and the gathering went off peacefully.210 A story told about Iliasuk (Lisiuk), chief of police, may pertain to this meeting, or to this meeting as well as others. It was reported that he would turn to demonstrators calling daloi and ask them to disperse while saying in fatherly fashion: Nu, daloi, daloi, iditiye domoi, that is, “[down with, shmown with;] go home.” Because of this, Iliasuk was known in the city as “Grandma.”211 Toward the end of 1904, a new organizer named Binyamin was sent from the central Bund. With this the Pinsk Bund was raised from its organizational subordination to Minsk and then Homel, to the level of direct links with the Bund central committee. The representative from the central committee had veto power over the decisions of the local committee. The Pinsk movement was growing stronger and there was more regard for it. Binyamin organized a group of activists (agitatorn ­farzamlung [agitators forum]) as a permanent institution. Membership rose to more than one hundred. At this juncture youngsters below the age of fifteen organized a group called Bund Ha-tza’ir, Young Bundists.212

Poalei Zion The growth of the Pinsk Poalei Zion movement paralleled that of the Bund. The organization of a branch of Poalei Zion in 1903, founded on a Zionist-Socialist basis, was mentioned in an earlier chapter. By the spring of 1904, it had 150 members. The movement expanded during the summer months when the Bund was paralyzed. In the spring of 1905, two hundred Poalei Zion members made preparations to hear a lecture by Ber Borochov,213 and this number may not

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have included all Poalei Zion members in the city. The first committee, consisting of Hershel Yashfe, Yosef Shulman, and Bunia Rubenstein was elected at a general membership meeting in the summer of 1904 in the Starokoni forest. Membership was divided into smaller units according to the Bund model of twenty people to a group.214 There is no information about Poalei Zion activities that year, except that they refused to participate in the demonstration that the Bund organized on October 9, 1904.215 They apparently did not take part in Zionist projects either. Chaim Weizmann arrived in Pinsk in late March 1904 and remained in and around the city for approximately three weeks. He wrote of the Poalei Zion that, of all the Zionists, only they “worked, held meetings, deliberated and discussed,” although, “for the most part—but for a few blessed exceptions—they were territorialists.” “The Poalei Zion movement, which used to serve as a good starting point for converting souls among the workers infected by the Bund, has become muddled and factionalized; territorialism has replaced Zionism.” “The Zionist masses withdrew, and only the Poalei Zion, who are not to be considered Zion­ists, work.” “The Poalei Zion—in so far as I got to know them—were mired in a state of mind which made any ideological collaboration impossible.” Weizmann made these statements on the basis of direct contact with the Pinsk Poalei Zion. He had conducted lengthy discussions with them, as he writes from Pinsk on April 18: “Yesterday I had another exchange with the Poalei Zion; we sat till four a.m. These people were completely befuddled.”216 Yosef Bregman, on the other hand, had hopes of recruiting Poalei Zion to the ranks of fighters against the Uganda proposal in the spring of 1904. He was close to the group and saw that they could constitute a useful Zionist element. He also maintained good ties with the ­Poalei Zion in the following year. When, at the initiative of Zelig Tir, Ber Borochov came to Pinsk in the spring of 1904 to address the Shoresh Zion group, the Poalei Zion, under Bregman’s influence, prepared to sponsor a lecture of their own by Borochov, and it was arranged that two hundred members would attend. The lecture did not take place, and Bregman blamed Tir. Not much time elapsed, however, before the Poalei Zion in the city transferred to a new party, the S.S. (Zionist-­ Socialist party, founded in Odessa in January 1905), which was Zionist in the “territorialist” sense, that is, in favor of seeking any country, not

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necessarily the Land of Israel, for Jewish settlement. A workers’ party, the S.S. favored political struggle in Russia. Ya’acov Beizer states that his brother, Avraham Isaac Beizer, was a founder of the S.S. in Pinsk.217 Bunia Rubenstein became one of the party’s chief activists. Shmuel Weizmann was active during his stay in the city.

During the First Revolution (1905) In 1905 there were two revolutionary parties in the city, the S.S., to which the Poalei Zion had transferred its allegiance, and the Bund, which was the decisive force. In addition to its revolutionary warfare on the economic and political fronts, the Bund waged a second battle, with the S.S. party, for the monopoly on revolutionary activity and “exclusive control of the workers,” just as it had previously done with the Zionists. The S.S. tried to emphasize its socialist “legitimacy” and vied with the Bund in revolutionary ideology. Besides the members of these two parties, there were adherents of the Russian S.R. and S.D. parties. We know that the Jewish S.R. members prepared homemade bombs and practiced tossing them. In his memoirs, Yosef Rakow relates that on his return to Pinsk in the spring of 1905, he found that one of his relatives had been torn apart by an explosion, and a second girl had been seriously injured and lay in the hospital. To his surprise, he found Aharon Yudel Shlakman with his left sleeve hanging empty and was told that Shlakman had gone to the forest with friends to try out a bomb, which exploded. One Moshe Kolodny had been completely dismembered by the bomb, and Shlakman’s left arm had been severed. Moshe Kolodny’s friends buried him secretly, to the accompaniment of revolutionary songs and pistol shots.218 Both parties, Bund and S.S., kept the city in an uproar with their economic and political strikes, demonstrations, and clashes with “agents of the law.” To suppress the Jews’ rebelliousness, the “agents of the law” attempted to employ the pogrom tactic; a group that called itself The Real Russian People (also known as the Black Hundreds, see below and p. 241) churned out propaganda to this end. The urgency of organizing for self-defense was obvious, but each party elected to act on a partisan basis. The Zionists on their own, Poalei Zion—and then the S.S.—on

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its own, and the Bund on its own. The S.S. party organized an independent haganah [defense]. The three groups did not think it necessary to unite. Each party may have been unaware of what the other was doing, given factional hatred in the city. Pinsk was lucky, however, and the instigators of riots were unable to carry out their plot. Nor did they even attempt to, perhaps because the Jews constituted a decisive majority of the population. The propaganda also may have failed to organize a significant force of neighboring peasants because their agitation against the landowners was on the rise.219 The non-Jewish minority in the city included Poles also dissatisfied with the prevailing situation, and there were revolutionaries among the Russian working class. The year 1905 closed with the political failure of the revolutionaries. The manifesto announcing the convening of the Duma (Russian parliament) left the Tsar’s opponents with the wind taken out of their sails. The terror and repression that followed dispersed most of the worker-revolutionaries. The situation in Pinsk was much the same as elsewhere. The general improvement in working conditions and the rise in salaries did not bypass Pinsk. But the clock was turned back during the three years of repression and economic crisis that followed the revolution so that only in 1910, after new struggles, were the gains of 1903–1905 restored. In Pinsk there was a special development that year: the consummation of the “quiet revolution” within Jewish society itself. The aristocracy had lost its place of honor and forfeited its custodianship. Luria family members had left the city even earlier. The 1905 revolution served to hasten the departure of the class in general. The stagnation in Pinsk’s industrial development may have been a result of this exodus. No new large factories were added to the existing ones; instead, Leopold and Alexander Luria established factories in Vienna. In 1895 they had founded a wooden-box factory and in 1905, a plywood factory.220 The economic situation certainly did not benefit from the migration of the Jewish gentry. The year 1905 accelerated the secularization process, which had begun in the previous generation. The city’s new character took shape at this point. Pinsk was a city in which two camps, religious and freethinking, lived side-by side and reached a modus vivendi. After January 9, 1905, when shots were fired in Petersburg at a workers’ procession headed by the priest, Gapon, the Bund central com-

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mittee published a leaflet called “Tzum Kampf ” (to battle), calling for protest strikes and political demonstrations. In Pinsk preparations for a general strike were made even before delivery of the pamphlet, but the strike failed. When it broke out on January 22 (according to the Russian calendar), the police and the Cossacks, who had been brought to the city in December 1904 to replace the soldiers, were on the alert. They took up positions near the large factories and in other locations. Nineteen people who had come to remove workers from their places of work were arrested and brutally beaten. After a few days all but two were released. The police and the Cossacks ensured that businesses and shops remained open. Non-Jewish workers, except for a few individuals, did not join in the strike. The explanatory circulars aimed specifically at them were ineffective.221 The  Bund meeting, which took place in the new beit midrash (study house) on Plaveska Street, was stormy, mainly because of the cruel treatment of the detainees. Some of the meeting participants demanded revenge. A decision to that effect was taken at a secret meeting attended by a small group, including members of the local committee. Bondarchuk, outstanding among the brutish gendarmerie, was shot that night. The following morning an officer named Moroz was shot and wounded. Another policeman had acid poured on him as he stood watch. Among the perpetrators of revenge were a shoemaker named Moshe, a salesman called Notke, one Grisha (Lieberman?), Haim Boroshok, and a man named Zabel. The prisoners were released without standing trial, perhaps for fear of additional reprisals.222 Independent of Bund influence, a strike of workers in the railway workshops erupted on January 20. Their demands were solely economic, and the strike had no political character. The Bund correspondent expresses his disappointment at their lack of interest in politics and notes that “our” efforts to influence them by disseminating circulars were of no help. The “social-revolutionary group” had no influence on the railway workers either. A manifesto addressed to workers in the large factories was circulated by the Bund on January 25th. It was written by Binyamin, the central committee representative with veto power. The manifesto depicts the dangerous sanitary conditions in the factories, placing the onus on the capitalists who don’t care that their workers take ill and die young or

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that their machines chop off children’s fingers. Yosef Halpern, owner of the match factory, is described sardonically: Sure, Reb Yosef Halpern is a sheiner yid (fine Jew, said sarcastically), a merciful son of merciful fathers [conventional cliché describing the Jews as a compassionate people], who possesses all the most admirable qualities. But, what really interests him is the possibility of trading workers in for children between ten and fourteen. . . . Reb Yosef ­Halpern makes this calculation: If a child loses his fingers, I’ll get another in his place . . . and in such a case, Reb Yosef Halpern would become a man of compassion; he would give a handsome donation and remain the proper gentleman.

The circular ridicules the beneficence of Alexander Luria, “the friend of the workers,” and the grant of twenty-five rubles that he gave to employees who had worked for him for ten years. The document describes the exploitation of the workers and the employers’ disregard for existing laws. It accuses them of firing workers without notice and without the two-week severance pay stipulated by law. When “the workers go to the government inspector to appeal for justice, Alexander Luria is not pleased. He is offended that the workers do not turn to him.” The document denounces Yankel and Chertok, Alexander Luria’s supervisors, charging them with beating and humiliating the workers, male and female alike. The supervisors and the factory owners shout that the women workers appear disheveled, as if they care.223 It is difficult to confirm or contradict the denunciations. Clearly, relations between supervisors and workers, especially women workers, had become tense. On February 7 a strike began in the match factory, and that day the employees in the two tanneries of Chertok and Kotok staged a walkout. All the employees in the painting trade struck, demanding that they be engaged five or six months of the year (in the winter months there was no painting to be done). The hat makers (­madistkes), workers in the needle trades, tailors and furriers, also struck.224 The Poalei Zion started to organize strikes, and the Bund opened a second front against the Poalei Zion at this point. According to information provided by the Poalei Zion, on Saturday, March 26 (on the Russian calendar), a group of more than twenty Bundists assaulted “three male members and one female” and

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wounded one of them with three pistol shots. Running to call a doctor for the wounded, another person “was chased and engulfed by a hail of bullets;” the Bundists even wanted to kill the wounded Poalei Zion member. The narrator may have exaggerated. Bund spokesmen claimed that the incident was the work of a single individual. Another source had it that the episode was the outcome of an impassioned debate, during which a Bundist whipped out his pistol and fired. According to the ­Poalei Zion account, speakers on behalf of “the sole representatives of the Jewish proletariat” voiced threats: “We will lay low eight (!) of the best Poalei Zion, and then there won’t be any more Poalei Zion in the city.” The ­Poalei Zion were extremely agitated, and had they engaged in reprisal, civil war would have broken out. The following Saturday the Poalei Zion arranged a demonstration on the Great Street, and these cries were heard: “Down with tyranny! Down with Bundist tactics! Down with Bundist militarism! Down with the Bund!” Pistol shots were fired in the air. This demonstration passed peaceably; the authorities looked the other way, perhaps because the demonstration was not aimed at them. They may have been pleased that the Jews were fighting among themselves. Describing the anti-Bund demonstration, the correspondent adds: “with difficulty, we restrained our members from exacting revenge.” He continues that, at a meeting in which “four hundred members took part,” the Poalei Zion decided that “we, politically conscious workers, are prohibited from spilling workers’ blood.” The Bund published a pamphlet accusing the Poalei Zion and claiming that proclamations like “Down with the Bund” really meant “Down with the Jewish proletariat!” They reproached the Poalei Zion both for distorting the intent of the Bund and failing to reveal any “revolutionary spirit.” The Poalei Zion in turn published a reply to the Bund. Finally, a committee of inquiry was appointed, which decided that each side must publish another leaflet to calm the infuriated populace. The Bund was supposed to publicize the fact that it opposed terrorist acts, but it did not adhere to the committee’s decision.225 To demonstrate their legitimacy, meanwhile, the Poalei Zion increased their displays of revolutionary activity. They took an active part in strikes and demonstrations in the city, but it was difficult to tell which action was taken by the Bund and which by the Poalei Zion.

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A Poalei Zion reporter writes that on a Saturday night in the middle of Passover (April 9 on the Russian calendar), a “wildcat” demonstration took place (the participants are not known). “Our members were conspicuous. . . . One of our activists, who encouraged the crowd not to disperse, was wounded by a bullet.” Although wounded, the speaker continued to exhort the crowd for another quarter hour, and the police searched for him, but “he was in a secure place.” The reporter notes that on the anniversary of the Kishinev pogrom (probably the last day of Passover, April 14, on the Russian calendar), another spontaneous demonstration took place, which lasted for about three-quarters of an hour. It opened with a worker’s description of the significance of the day and went up and back the Great Street. Several participants were armed, and shots were fired into the air. Later the demonstrators assembled in the synagogue, where protests were expressed. Policemen and Cossacks conducted a search of the crowd in the synagogue. They found a pistol but made no arrests. The writer adds that the demonstration made a great impression in the city.226 A Bundist account supplements the description of April 9: Workers strolled along Kiev Street (the Great Street); from there they headed for the meeting. They numbered approximately 1,500 people. Cossacks appeared and began to disperse the mass of strollers and trample them with their horses’ hooves. Shouts were heard, and several pistol shots were fired into the air. The Cossacks started to fire into the crowd. First they shot blanks and then bullets. Meanwhile the crowd scattered into the side streets. Shouts of “Hurrah!” were heard. And then, calls of: “Brothers, build barricades!” They broke a fence and dismantled it, took signs and flung them at the Cossacks. Five people were wounded in the legs.

The Cossacks were apparently under orders to aim for the legs, and that is why only a few people were wounded. Among the injured were Grisha (Lieberman?) and Rubakha, who was a maximalist S.R. One Cossack was wounded in the head. None of the wounded demonstrators were arrested.227 Tension mounted for another reason. In anticipation of the Easter holiday (which fell on April 17–19) and of the first of May (which fell on April 18, according to the Russian calendar), inflammatory propaganda was distributed among the Christians, to the effect that the Jews

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were preparing to throw bombs into churches.228 The Bund published leaflets counteracting this incitement in Russian, Polish, and Yiddish.229 Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein’s account may refer to this period: The “trade club,” opened under Ya’acov Reigrodsky’s license, stayed open twenty-four hours a day; someone was on duty all the time and stayed in telephone contact with the members responsible for self-defense (nearly all of their homes had telephones). One Saturday night a wagoner named Mendel rang up Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein to say that he was coming to take her to a meeting of the wagoners. When he arrived he informed her that “tomorrow there would be a ritual procession from the main Orthodox church to another church” and that there was danger of a pogrom. Mendel took her to the butchers’ synagogue, where she found a large crowd of men and women who asked her advice. She recommended that the butchers stand, axes and knives in hand, at specific locations throughout the city; the wagoners should be ready to ride off on their horses to the neighboring villages; in the event of a pogrom, they were to set fire to the villages so that the villagers would return home. Her advice was accepted, but the procession passed peacefully.230 Preparations for a general strike on the first of May were made by both the Bund and the Poalei Zion, which had meanwhile gone over to the S.S. The Poalei Zion started preparations a month in advance. They held explanatory meetings attended by hundreds of workers in private homes and on the street. On April 30 they received “declaration” forms from the S.S. party, (that is, the “red declaration” constituting the platform of the new party) and placards for the first of May. Avraham Beizer sent a postcard to Hershel Yashfe saying: “Right now (April 30) it is merry here in Pinsk. We received the merchandise we have long been waiting for, and it is excellent. All the members of the family are enthusiastic.” “Merchandise” may allude either to weapons, or to “declaration” forms and posters. (The source does not directly imply anything about arms.) On the eve of May first, a gathering of S.S. members took place on the Great Street; according to the reporter, approximately eight hundred friends and supporters attended. At the close of the meeting, there were cries of: “Long live the Zionist-­Socialist workers party! Long live democracy! Long live Zionism! Long live socialism!” Policemen and Cossacks clashed with the crowd. One person was arrested but released afterward. The reporter notes: “None of our

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members was wounded, although some other people were injured.”231 A Bund announcement states: On the eve of the holiday there was a small squabble with the Cossacks. A drunken Cossack attacked a worker with his sword and the worker wounded him with a bullet. A drunken policeman injured a worker’s hand.232

That evening the S.S. gained control of the Great Street and gave out the “declaration” and the posters. Chief of Police Zakharov, who had replaced the good Veichorka, was wounded that evening.233 Members of the Bund or the Bund Ha-Tza’ir [youth division of the Bund] tore up the S.S. placards.234 But both parties worked for the success of the strike, which began on the eve of the first of May. Neither the night shift at the Luria factory nor the bakers showed up for work that night. No one worked on the first of May itself. Even the water carriers, the wagoners, the salespeople and the bank clerks were on strike. The larger shops, the ones who employed ­salesclerks, were closed. The workers strolled along the Bursa [that is, the Great Street], dressed in holiday attire. . . . [Demonstrations were not held] because the policemen and Cossacks were on the alert.

That night rockets and Bengal lights illuminated the city. The day passed peacefully, “no one was arrested,”235 and “it was a rare sight, of a magnitude which Pinsk had never witnessed. Our pamphlets made a strong impression.”236 The Bund Ha-Tza’ir celebrated the first of May separately with rocket flares on the street of the synagogue.237 On May 2 (April 19, on the Russian calendar), a strike broke out in the Luria wooden nail factory because a woman worker had been fired. The day shift, which numbered sixty workers, walked out insisting on the worker’s reinstatement. The night shift immediately joined the strike. Two hundred fifty people struck.238 Workers at the other Luria plants joined the walkout, demanding improved working conditions. This was the largest strike so far in the city, in both its scope and its duration. The number of strikers reached seven hundred, and the strike lasted for about ten weeks. Alexander Luria refused to conduct negotiations; he left the city for Vienna. Cossacks loaded the factory’s products for export. The police did not intervene in the strike because government policy at the time was not to interfere in economic strikes. “The

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Tsarist government virtually disregarded what was going on among the workers.”239 The Bund was responsible for this strike so when it dragged on and the workers were in difficult straits, the Bund central committee dispatched a new “veto power” to Pinsk: Y. M. Pesahzon, who used the pseudonyms David and an alter bakanter [old acquaintance]. The Bund also sent two “professional” organizers: Yankele prost poshet [plain and simple] from Rovne and a student named Efraim from Berditchev. Refael Rein-Abramovich showed up as well, his main task—to arrange material support for the strikers. In his memoirs, Pesahzon describes the situation: A strike had erupted in the plywood and wooden nail factories of the Luria brothers before I arrived. Several hundred workers walked out, nearly all of them family men whose dependents began to starve immediately. The struggle was fierce. On one side—the stubbornness of wretched workers, on the other—the hurt ambition of the wealthy. . . . who were willing to bear any loss, so long as they did not yield. As the strike continued, our main task was to organize assistance for the strikers. Fortunately, the entire population sympathized with the workers; otherwise our situation would have been desperate. . . . The mood of the workers, particularly the younger ones, became edgy, and they began to speak of “intimidation” and employing “a little terrorism.” They started to claim that although the platform forbade this, it would “help”. . . . The committee decided against terrorism, but in spite of that, a few days later there was an explosion under the window of the factory owner and part of the building was destroyed. The factory owners fled abroad in fear and refused to relent.240

According to another description, rumors were circulating that ­Alexander Luria was willing to compromise but Aharon Luria was not. A homemade bomb was placed next to the porch of Aharon Luria’s home. The porch was demolished. Negotiations then began. The employers promised various measures of relief, and the strikers returned to work; but perhaps because promises were not kept, the strike broke out again. The strikers now resorted to actual terrorism. They conducted a “pogrom” in the home of one of the supervisors, Rubenstein. Other foremen were beaten. No one, neither clerks nor administrators, was permitted to enter the factory.241 The strike ended in failure, and many workers were fired.242 Meanwhile, a strike had begun in the match fac-

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tory. Strikes were simultaneously conducted in other workplaces, and these were more successful. In certain trades the workday was reduced to eight or nine hours. The S.S organized some of the strikes. An article written by an S.S. member on May 10 reports: Two strikes have just been concluded here: one in the sawmill and one in the brewery. The first strike had two stages. It began in support of a maimed worker who was demanding 235 rubles in order to maintain himself. When this demand was met a claim for a pay raise was presented. The strike lasted eight days, and salaries were raised by fifteen percent. The brewery workers demanded a twelve-hour working day, a raise in wages, and more reasonable treatment. After a two-day strike, they won everything. Now there is a strike at the so-called “trade school.” This is actually a capitalist enterprise, which executes large scale projects with the help of its students. Under the guise of a school they exploit about fifty workers, who are called “trainees” (lerneinglekh). The strikers demands were weekly wages and decent treatment.243

The activities of the two parties in indoctrination and information became more and more intensive. In the evenings and on Saturdays, the Bursa was filled with strollers. Spokesmen for the parties came to the city frequently. A debate was held between R. Abramovich and one of the leaders of the Poalei Zion in the large dance hall in Ogolnick’s yard; entry was by ticket only.244 The brothers Ya’acov and Yosef Leshchinsky, who were inclined to territorialism, were then staying in Pinsk, and that year Yosef Leshchinsky had already gone over to the Bund. At the end of the summer, ­Yehudah Novakovsky arrived in Pinsk to organize a branch of the Sejmist movement, whose platform included struggle for autonomy for Russian Jewry and establishment of a sejm [parliament] as its supreme authority. Because of surveillance by the secret police, Novakovsky was unable to accomplish anything, and he was arrested in the synagogue on Sukkot just as he was about to deliver an address.245 The S.S. central committee meanwhile sent in a “professional” activist named Boris, and the party’s informational and organizational activities increased. Meetings were held in the basement of the Basevitz brewery and in the synagogue.246 There was some improvement in relations [between the Jewish labor parties] during the great strike in the Luria factories. The Cossacks in

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the city did no harm either. “[The strikers] grew accustomed to them and got to know them,”247 and it was possible to win them over with small gifts. The Bund focused its attention on the struggle against the S.S. One horrible incident took place in which Bundists, led by a bricklayer named Tzavke, broke into an S.S. committee meeting. Hana Sokolovsky was shot dead on the spot; H. Friedman was struck on the hand with an iron bar. Friedman speaks sarcastically of the relationship between the two parties: When one party arranged a demonstration, the members of the other party had to distance themselves from the site, lest an S.S. member be arrested at a Bund demonstration, and this be construed as a sign of cooperation in the battle to overthrow autocracy. The parties were unwilling to grant each other this courtesy, for the Tsar was considered to be the private property of each party and the struggle against him—each party’s sole prerogative.248 On Sunday, July 24 (according to the Russian calendar) toward evening, policemen showed up on the Bursa. According to Yosef Herman’s memoirs, an S.S. demonstration was in progress at the time and someone fired a pistol toward the police or into the air.249 Suddenly running began, and shouting was heard. A group of girls reached a corner where a police officer and several of his men were standing. The officer blocked their path and insulted them. One of the girls slapped him across the cheek. The policemen began to beat her. Workers rushed to her aid and chased off the officer and the men. At once, Cossacks on horseback burst out of the side alleys and began to shoot. Screams of the beaten and wounded were heard on all sides. One person, attempting to climb over a fence in his flight from the Cossacks, was attacked and killed by a policeman wielding a saber; his body was left hanging on the fence and moved to the hospital before dawn, surrounded by a police guard. Two people were shot to death and furtively buried by the police.250 That night was a night of terror. Cossacks and policemen broke into homes and dragged people off to prison, beating them as they went. In the morning, rumors spread that the prisoners were being thrashed, and mothers started streaming toward the jail to inquire about the fate of their sons. There was deep depression. Work in all factories and workshops came to a halt. Searches, detentions, and brutalities continued through the day. At the same time, negotiations were being con-

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ducted between the authorities and a Bund committee member (with a mediator, whose name is not known) for the release of the body of the murdered man. The authorities finally agreed, on condition that the request come from the parents of the victim. The dead man was discovered to be Hershel Stern, a bricklayer by trade. His father was rushed to the police station, and the body was moved to his home. On the day of the funeral, the entire city expressed its fury at the murder and the terrorism of the Cossacks and police. All the stores were closed, factories and workshops were struck, travel by carriage and wagon ceased, and even the Christian workers in De Lasey’s shipyard went on strike. Thousands of people participated in the funeral. ­Eulogies were delivered by representatives of all the parties: everyone spoke of revenge. On the way back from the cemetery, the crowd sang revolutionary songs. The Bursa was crowded again that evening, and acts of vengeance were not long in coming. Tiranko, the policeman who had murdered Stern, was shot to death by Bund members known as Grisha and Notka. Asherka fired at Zakharov, the police chief, but missed his mark. From then on, Zakharov feared for his life and traveled by carriage with Cossack horsemen to guard him. Melekh Dolinko, an S.R. member, was assigned by his party to carry out Zakharov’s death sentence. Rabbi Mordekhai Gimpel Volk, the son of Rabbi Zvi Volk, who served in the rabbinate in Pinsk from 1894–1906, says that one day the Cossacks guarding the chief of police surrounded his father’s home. Zakharov had come to speak to the rabbi; he told him that he had received notice from the S.R. that he had been sentenced to death, and he demanded that the rabbi annul the sentence or else Jewish blood would flow. The rabbi replied that rabbis had no influence over the revolutionaries; that in his opinion, the chief of police should make some conciliatory gesture toward the Jewish populace and send the Cossacks, at whose hands the Jews had suffered so much, away from the city. If Zakharov would do so, presumably the death sentence would not be carried out. Of course, the Cossacks were not removed, and the S.R. did everything it could to exact vengeance. But the bomb slipped out of Melekh Dolinko’s hands a few minutes before the attempt on Zakharov’s life and Dolinko himself was killed; a woman, a young man, and a young girl were seriously wounded.251

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A tailor named Shimon fired at Lisiuk, one of the most sadistic policemen, and wounded him severely. A Bundist shot a policeman by the name of Provalchuk. Another attempt on Zakharov’s life was made by five Bundists, including Moshe Adler, Shelomoh Zheleznikov’s righthand man, and Notka, but this too failed. None of the assailants were caught because all homes were open to them.252 The day after the last attempt on Zakharov’s life, however, two innocent people were arrested—Haim Ladni and Yoel David Kolodny. They stood trial after almost two years of imprisonment. According to the charge sheet, “Zakharov and his wagoner recognized them.” Jews testified that the accused were in their homes at the time of the assault, but the prosecutor claimed that the testimony of the Jews could not be accepted because they were of the same religion as the accused. One of the defendants was sentenced to four years of hard labor and the other to two-and-ahalf years.253 An attempt was also made on the life of Nartov, an officer of the gendarmerie, and the police hung a price of three hundred rubles on Moshe Derbansky’s head.254 In the wake of these attacks, the police published notices stating that a householder or tenant caught offering asylum to anyone who disturbed the public peace or disobeyed police orders would be punished as severely as the criminals. The doors of houses and courtyard gates had to be shut at eight o’clock and not opened to rioters. Troublemakers must be handed over to the police for legal punishment. From now on, half-measures would not be taken against lawbreakers. In order that innocent people should not suffer, “those who are not involved in the activities of young Jews who deal in politics should not attend meetings and should follow police orders.”255 These warnings had no effect whatsoever. Some people tore up the notices, and a young man caught doing so was promptly sentenced to seven days in jail.256 The sense of rebellion, which welled up among Russian Jewry in the aftermath of the pogroms, affected classes remote from socialist ideas. In Pinsk, Alexander Luria, who had conducted a bitter battle against his employees, resigned from his position as advisor (glasni) in the municipality. By doing so he complied with a call by the Society for the Achievement of Full Equal Rights for Jews in Russia to Jewish advisors to resign since they had not been chosen by the Jewish community but appointed by the authorities. P. Volia tendered his resignation together with Luria.257

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The August 6, 1905, constitution granted voting rights for the Duma only to the affluent. According to the criteria only 609 Pinsk residents, among them 509 Jews, were entitled to vote.258 Since the document also limited the Duma to an advisory role, revolutionary agitation throughout Russia increased. Counter-revolutionary forces in return intensified their activities to repress the revolutionists, turning to the time-honored tactic of organizing riots against the Jews. A chapter of The Real Russian People, also known as the Black Hundreds [gangs organized by a government-sponsored party called the Union of the Russian people, which killed more than three thousand Jews in the first week after the issuance of the October Manifesto, see p. 241], existed in Pinsk. The members were mostly supervisors and clerks in the railway workshops. The head of the branch was Cosmo Topoleyev, who was manager of a teahouse which apparently served as the hub of Pinsk anti-semitism.259 Pesahzon reports on the situation in Pinsk: Dark forces acted stealthily. Under the direction of the police supervisor, they organized Black Hundreds and prepared for a pogrom. . . . We received the first reports of this by way of our spies, who penetrated all gatherings.

Pesahzon describes one spy who wore a torn, short fur jacket and posteles (sandals made of tree bark) on his feet. He dressed as a Polishuk (Polesian peasant) and was able to infiltrate the most secret places. According to Pesahzon, the children of the Bund Ha-katan [Junior Bund] were of great assistance in following people suspected of belonging to the Black Hundreds.260 During the last week of August, preparations for the pogrom became obvious. The “patriots” distributed a circular calling upon the Christian masses “to unite beneath the flag, and stamp out Judaism.” The circular closed with the words: “Death to the Jews! Down with social democracy!”261 The Don Cossacks were replaced by Circassians from the Kuban region of the northern ­Caucasus, who were “semi-barbarians, true Asiatics.” They became boisterous and attacked women at night; apparently there were incidents of rape. “There was panic in the city, people were afraid to go out at night. . . . Rumors were rife that the Cossacks [!] seized young girls near the match factory, dragged them to their barracks, and held them there for weeks at a time.262

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The need for self-defense was underscored. The first to organize were the Zionists, or more precisely, the members of Benei Zion. They began training in the winter of 1904–05 after the Homel riots; leading citizens provided money for purchasing weapons. A small shoe shop on Lohishin Street served as a secret weapons depot early in the summer of 1904.263 In the early summer of 1905, the Poalei Zion developed a new method of organizing for resistance. The defenders were divided into a “fighting division” (boyevoi otriad) and a “flying division” (letochi otriad); the task of the flying division was to deploy explosives when needed. By the fall, the fighting division numbered seventy-five members under the command of Hershel Molovich, Asher Finkelstein, Michel Shlakman, and Shlakman’s brother.264 The principal mission of these divisions is not known. They may have been meant to serve revolutionary purposes—such as confrontation with representatives of the authorities during demonstrations—or they may have been intended for protection of the Jewish populace during times of rioting. Ya’akov Beizer who was, by his own account, responsible for arms for a period of time, points out the importance of the self-defense organized by the S.S. in Pinsk. He writes: “When there was reason to fear rioting in Brest, we transferred a package of pistols there, since Brest was under the Pinsk command. Some of our members moved there too.”265 The Bund also organized a “fighting division.” It is first mentioned when the unit walked alongside the bricklayer Hershel Stern’s coffin. Before May 1 in many places, the Bund local committees were the principal defense organizers in anticipation of pogroms; arrangements were concentrated in the hands of Bund committees in various locations.266 In Pinsk the Bund began to deal with defense matters rather late. There were two or three separate defense organizations in the city. Haya ­Weizmann-Lichtenstein writes: “Fortunately, defense in Pinsk was not centrally organized, and the reins of power were concentrated in the hands of the Zionists and not the Bund.”267 She says this in connection with her narration of the Arnadsky incident; at that time the Bund did not yet have any defense organization, so her statement may refer to a later period. There was a Zionist defense organization in existence at that time. Weizmann-Lichtenstein’s account relates that after her return from Drosknik, where she had spent the

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summer, “she continued with all the difficult work brought on by the times,” and she was forced to leave the city because in the meantime “there were several searches in connection with defense and a number of suspicious matters were disclosed. My parents and friends demanded that I immediately move elsewhere.”268 Pesahzon’s reservations about the organization of defense are enlightening. He writes: The urgency of organizing self-defense in the event of a pogrom became more and more evident. But there was concern that such an undertaking might endanger the organization itself. It was necessary to train people in the use of weapons . . . and there was apprehension lest some members start to make light of the organization and run terrorist politics of their own accord, or become robbers, something that had happened occasionally among the anarchistic groups, which cropped up in Russia at the time. . . . One had to be cautious in selecting members and to choose people who were fearless, physically able, politically conscious, and constant in their party affiliation. . . . There was only one solution: to place completely trustworthy people at the head of the self-defense effort, to assert severe military discipline, and to maintain vigilance so that the defense apparatus could do nothing without the consent of the committee. . . . We found such commanders. One was Shelomo’ke [Zheleznikov] who had been a professional thief before joining the organization—if he is still living, may he forgive me for telling the historical truth—but I will always cherish his integrity in my heart and in my memory—he was from a family of thieves but I can swear by all that is holy to me that in my entire life I have never met a more honest man, in all respects. . . . The second officer was an “intellectual,” a fellow with high school education, named Volodka. When I met him, he had trouble walking because he had been shot in both legs during a demonstration. He did not know the meaning of fear either. . . . They were disciplined, and the committee’s word was law to them. . . . They were appointed as commanders.

Pesahzon does not mention that there had been an earlier Bund defense unit. He writes: “We obtained some pistols (shpeiers) from abroad, and fashioned home-made grenades. The members learned to shoot, deep in the forest.”269 According to one source, the Bund defense unit numbered about two hundred members; its core was the fighting division, which numbered fifty-two people, all armed with pistols. The organization was

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military in nature, organized in units of tens under sub-commanders. Permission to possess pistols on a permanent basis was granted only to the “actives,” the members of the fighting division. Pistols were distributed to other members solely for training or when there was reason to believe that they would be needed.270 The strict disciplinary measures applied to Bund members may have been the result of a dangerous plan that had been hatched by these members. Pesahzon tells that: We began to sense that our defense members were hiding something from us. . . . One day Volodka came and told me that they had decided to take revenge on the wild Cossacks. The plan was very simple. One night they would stretch barbed wire across a narrow, dark street and then arouse panic by firing pistols. The Cossacks would come galloping on their horses, trip and fall. Our fellows would rush out of the nearby streets and open fire. . . . The plan was simple, but had it succeeded, the next day the Cossacks would have slaughtered half the Jews in the city. Obviously, I vetoed the idea.

The group instead found an outlet by shooting a policeman in broad daylight who had made trouble for the Jews.271 Meanwhile strikes, which broke out again in various workplaces, ended with the fulfillment of the workers’ demands. An article published on September 1 states: A short while ago there were several labor disputes in the workshops, all of which ended in the workers’ favor. On Friday the seamstresses struck. Their demands: shortening of the workday by an hour, raise in pay and decent treatment. The workers are striking in many workshops. Some of the bosses are stubborn.272

Nearly all the Jewish factories were “unionized,” and the mood of the Polish and Russian workers in the railway workshops was becoming revolutionary. “Mass meetings (masuveks) took place on the Bursa several times a week; every evening the street was black with crowds of laborers.” There were many clashes between workers and policemen. On Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish new year] late in the afternoon, when the “brothers and sisters” went out to the Bursa on the Great Street (Kiev Street), a policeman by the name of Anton Polishchuk stood there slashing at passers-by with his whip. Shelomo’ke ­Zheleznikov and Moshe Adler walked by. Before the policeman was able to lash

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out at them, the whip was in Shelomo’ke’s hands. The policeman started to draw his pistol from its holster and at that very instant a bullet from Adler’s pistol hit him. Needless to say, the two immediately made off. The next day, Ya’acov Zheleznikov, Shelomo’ke’s brother, was seized, charged with the murder of the policeman, and sentenced to four years at hard labor, although he had not taken part in the action. ­Tiranko, the policeman who had killed Hershel Stern, was shot a few days later.273 A few days before Yom Kippur [Jewish day of atonement] of 1905, September 22 (according to the Russian calendar), Zakharov, the chief of police, summoned the members of the municipal council and the heads of the Jewish community for a discussion about measures to end the turmoil in the city. The chief of police complained that in the last few days “incidents of attempts on the lives of employees of the police” had increased, and he assumed that the perpetrators were Jews although they had not been caught. Zakharov therefore demanded that “the heads of the Jewish community exert their moral influence upon their younger brothers,” or else—“he himself [Zakharov] would stand at the forefront” and “wipe out the Jews.” The Jews (and some of the Christians) replied that hatred for the police was rampant in Russia and connecting it to nationality was futile. They placed the onus on the police and the Cossacks, who treated the public brutally, and related incidents of robbery and violence perpetrated by Cossacks in the homes of peaceable citizens. The article concludes with a list of the decisions that were taken: (1) to raise the salaries of the police, (2) to accept Jews to the police force, (3) to try to remove the Cossacks from the city, (4) to instruct the rank-and-file policemen to behave civilly toward the inhabitants, [and] (5) the municipality should try to ensure that Jews and Poles be given the same rights as other residents.274 One resolution was carried out—the pay raise for policemen, because as a consequence of the acts of revenge on the policemen, many wished to resign, and six did indeed leave the force.275 Zakharov’s complaint about “attempts on the lives of employees of the police” apparently hinted as well at cases of “expropriations”; in other words, thefts of cash. The S.R., for instance, had stolen a sum of money from a government bank messenger who was on his way to the plywood factory.276

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According to another source, there was yet a further outcome of this meeting: the rabbi of Pinsk began to deliver sermons opposing the “rebels” and supposedly claimed that parents should hand rebellious sons over to the police.277 A new party came into being at this time. According to Nissel Forman’s memoirs, this party published a manifesto calling itself The Pinsk Group of Anarchists-Communists. Its stated platform was destruction of capital by dynamite and explosives and imposition of anarchy. According to Forman, people in the city recognized the party members and knew who its founders and ideologues were. The members were wretched laborers, including some from the underworld, and “what drew attention to them were the instances of robbery, which increased from one day to the next, for they didn’t pass up a single aristocrat’s home.” Forman also tells of the episode known in the city as the “anarchistic assault on Grigory Luria’s kantor.” One September day Luria received a demand to give the anarchists three hundred rubles; they also specified a time for handing over the money. Luria summoned Pinia the cooper and disclosed the matter to him. Toward evening Pinia went to look for the anarchists and found them—young men and women—in the Linishches quarter of the city. Negotiations with them were of no avail. The next day, at the specified time, two of the anarchists came to Luria to take what “was coming to them.” During the bargaining, policemen came out of the adjoining room and arrested the two. Forman says that Luria suffered as a consequence of their arrest because they were liable to capital punishment; he was saved by the general pardon granted on October 17, the day of the manifesto (see below).278 Prior to the establishment of the Anarchist-Communist party, the “plague of the strongmen” (die shtarke), thieves and thugs, who harassed women and others, spread. The “fighting divisions” of the S.S. and the Bund had to deal with them,279 and they did succeed in putting an end to their activities. The Bundists also engaged in “expropriations.” At the start they refrained from robbing private citizens and contented themselves with funds from the government treasury. The leader was, once again, Shelomo’ke. He was the “expert” in the field. He and seven yaten had previously purloined a printing machine and its accessories from the Vilkovitz press.280 Following the attack on

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­ olishchuk, ­Shelomo’ke was in Slonim. With Pesahzon’s consent he P planned a “special operation.” Pesahzon dispatched Moshe Adler and Nota, a salesclerk, to assist him. The Slonim venture was unsuccessful, and they escaped by the skin of their teeth. A young man from Slonim, innocent of any wrongdoing, took their punishment and was sentenced to several years in prison. When Moshe and Nota returned empty-handed to Pinsk, they managed to steal four thousand rubles from the government treasury. Two people were arrested in the aftermath of this action. One was innocent, and the other, Mosheleh, a stitcher, was an accomplice to the crime. A few weeks later he managed to escape from prison dressed as a woman; after visiting hours, he left with the visitors and the party smuggled him off to America. (It is no wonder that the Pinsk rabbi sermonized as he did against rebellious children.) Meanwhile: The chief of police went berserk. Not a single night went by without the sound of shooting in the streets. On the Day of Atonement . . . soldiers and Circassians rushed about the streets. The soldiers laid siege to the Great Synagogue and searched everyone who left the building.281

When the general strike of Russian railroad workers began at the beginning of October, rail transportation in Pinsk came to a halt. Postal and telegraph services were discontinued as well. During the strike, work in the factories and the large business firms reached a standstill. Laborers in the railway workshops struck, too. They were infected by revolutionary fervor since Bund representatives had previously conducted vigorous propaganda campaigns in their midst. A small group of S.R. was in existence and, with the assistance of the Bund, a group of social democrats was organized. Mass meetings took place near the train station. Spokesmen for all the parties appeared there and lectured in Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian. S.R. speakers Boris, Aharon Singa­lovsky, and Hershel Eisenshtadt were among them.282 The policemen and Cossacks “went on strike,” too, but the chief of police tried to suppress any “brotherhood” between the railway workers and the “laborers,” that is, Jewish workers. The area leading from the city to the railway workshops was declared a military area and an announcement on behalf of the railway workers was published, signed by the chief of police, the chief of the gendarmerie, and the Cossack commander,

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stating that the railway workers did not wish to unite with the workers in the city. An attempt was also made to instigate the railway workers against the Jews, but the instigator was “eliminated.”283 When the October manifesto was declared, the joy in Pinsk was abundant, as in all Jewish communities. The manifesto promised freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and association and specified that the Duma would have legislative rights and be elected by democratic elections. “Platforms were set up in the streets of the city, and various speakers, among them some engineers from the railway factories, got up and delivered fiery revolutionary speeches.”284 But the exhilaration dissipated all too soon. One day after the publication of the manifesto, a wave of rioting broke out in many areas and continued for an entire week. This time, too, Pinsk escaped safely. Nevertheless, a huge open-air mass meeting, which took place on October 17 or 19 in front of the railway workshops, dispersed in “indescribable panic.” When the Kuban Cossacks unexpectedly appeared, “people began to scatter in all directions . . . and seemingly the laborers and watchmen in the workshops were immediately transformed into anti-revolutionaries who denied sanctuary [within the workshops] to those who were fleeing.”285 The issue of defense was now most pressing,286 and negotiations were conducted by the Bund and the S.S. about consolidation of the two defense groups or cooperation between them. They did not reach agreement. A Bund letter printed in the New York Forverts (Forward) on May 3, 1906, which was probably written at the end of December 1905 in a mood of disappointment, included the following: “We organized a very disciplined self-defense system. To our disappointment, our Jewish community exhibited its usual slavish tendencies, and gave very little assistance.”287 Perhaps householders more willingly gave support to the haganah [armed force] of the S.S. and the Benei Zion (which worked together). Nissel Forman writes in his memoirs that the S.R. and the IskrobatzimS.D. promised aid in time of need, and their “armed groups were in contact with the self-defense of these parties; the rumor was that the carters, porters, fishermen and butchers were on the alert.” Forman also reports that the mood in the city improved once provision was made for self-defense, and “when the aristocrats Moshe Soloveitchik and Grigory Luria donated large sums for the benefit of self-defense, this improved

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our state of mind greatly.”288 The city was divided up into districts. The S.S. was responsible for three districts,289 and the balance were in the hands of the Bund and the Zionists. “At night, one would meet small groups of armed young men guarding the streets.”290 In times of special tension, the men would lodge in pre-arranged homes. All homes were open to the defenders. No pogrom was attempted in Pinsk, perhaps because it was known that a defense system existed; the police were also aware of this. But the haganah served another function, too. It restrained the anarchists: who shamelessly initiated nighttime assaults on private individuals in their homes. They used to tie people up and rob them, and at the least sign of opposition they would shoot. The wife of the wealthy Azriel the vokhernik (usurer) was shot in the hand.291

A Bund group of six or seven members, led by Moshe Tzitrin (who had been released from prison in October), also made an attempt at “expropriations” for a while but failed to extract money from this gentleman.292 The Russian Jewish community, agitated and aroused by the pogroms, agonized over the question of elections to the Duma and whether or not to participate. The October manifesto did not promise equal rights to Jews, and it was quite clear that Nikolai II had no intention of doing so. The Jewish Left, like the non-Jewish Left, opposed the elections because it hoped for a real revolution. The influence of the Bund and the S.S. was reinforced because the people needed them for defense and because the manifesto did promise freedom of association, assembly, and speech; in late October and November harassment and raids by the police ceased. The Great Synagogue was opened to Bund meetings and speeches in November. A [Bund] letter published in the Forverts states: At the end of 1905 we became the strongest force in the city. We came out with propaganda opposing the government’s Duma plan. In the revolution we achieved freedom of assembly and the Great Synagogue became the Bund forum. We had some wonderful weeks at the end of the year. Once or twice a week thousands of people streamed to the Great Synagogue for meetings arranged under the Bund’s direct supervision.293

With the enhancement of Bund influence that November, the S.S. was weakened. The Bund fought with the S.S. and disrupted its at-

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tempts to organize trade unions. The two parties differed in their approach to the unions. The Bund organized its societies on a party basis, and only Bund members were accepted to the unions; whereas, the S.S. yielded on the matter of party affiliation. This factor increased Bund membership. The Christian railway workers were not affected by the partisan rancor of the Bund. On November 26 the S.S. arranged a demonstration on the Bursa. The police and the army did not interfere. However, the gendarme Morozov wounded two S.S. members with his pistol. In response, representatives of the railway workers assembled for a special meeting and adopted the following resolution: We, the representatives of all the professions at the Pinsk railway depot and workshops, find that Morozov acted contrary to law, and since this is liable to lead to rioting, we have decided, on behalf of more than two thousand workers that Morozov must publicly account for his actions at a trial, and members of the Pinsk populace should be summoned as witnesses.

In view of the revolutionary agitation, the regional governor Korozov appealed to the Ministry of the Interior with a proposal to enact a state of emergency in the city, for only in this way would it be possible to keep the situation under control.294 December arrived. An army insurrection took place in Moscow. A representative of the Pinsk railway workers, who had participated in the convention of railway workers in Moscow, brought word on December 7 of a general political strike that was due to begin. The following day the Bund received a proclamation from the “central office” of the railway workers calling for a universal strike. The general political strike was announced on Saturday, December 10. The next day rail transport came to a standstill, and laborers in the shops stopped work. Meanwhile a joint committee was formed, composed of representatives of the Bund, S.R., S.D., and the railway workers. Representatives of the S.S. were not included because of Bund opposition. On the first day of the strike, the joint committee published leaflets in Russian and Yiddish, calling upon the laborers to stop work. All factories and workshops shut down immediately. Since it was a market day and many peasants came from the villages to buy merchandise, shop-

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keepers were permitted to postpone closing their stores until five in the afternoon. Carriage traffic also came to a halt.295 Stores and workshops were shuttered. In the Great Synagogue and other synagogues and study houses, meetings were held and lectures delivered. There was no shortage of speakers. Besides Pesahzon and Sergei Baron from Riga (who was stranded in Pinsk because of the train strike), the intellectuals—Ya’acov Gorin, Genia Luria, Shmuel (Samuel) Liyov (Liaw)—delivered addresses. Munia (a tailor), Aharon Yankel Begun (a carpenter), and others lectured as well. The fighting division was responsible for guarding the gatherings. The haganah members and nurses with first aid materials remained in their appointed places day and night. The general public was not pleased with the commotion surrounding the assemblies. In one of his articles, Pesahzon writes somewhat derisively about “our liberals.” The allusion is to a new group, which had been organized as an outgrowth of the founding of The Society for Full Equal Rights for Russian Jews in March 1905. The “liberals” publicized a proclamation in which they expressed sympathy for the strike but requested the strikers to refrain from holding gatherings because they were superfluous. “The liberal representative” attended one of the Bund meetings and asked to read a “resolution.” For some reason he left the meeting without reading it, and the “resolution” was subsequently sent out in hectographic copy. It contained a demand not to hold assemblies in the synagogues, for this was liable to result in edicts against the Jews. An attempt was made to close the synagogue to Bund meetings, but the doors were broken down. Pesahzon notes that “a lodging place was nowhere to be had.” He concludes his remarks about the liberals with this sardonic sentence: “And these people want to be the representatives of Jewry as a whole and fight for its rights.”296 The Bund’s attitude toward the S.S. is made clear in Pesahzon’s writing. The S.S. party was not allowed to enlist in the joint committee. Pesahzon writes mockingly: Our Zionist Socialists aroused “pity” during the strike. They were not accepted to the joint committee and they did whatever they could to prove that they were “alive” and “active”; they did everything possible in order to be accepted to the committee. Their committee came to the joint committee with “documents” in hand (several proclamations)

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to prove that the S.S. was also a socialist-revolutionary party. They demanded that the committee hear their claims that they were not weaker than the Bund, but that “they could not cross the street” without youngsters running after them shouting, “the joint committee, without the S.S.!” . . . Nevertheless, they received a negative reply—for the third time.297

On the fifth day of the strike, Thursday, December 15, the joint committee held a mass rally under open skies in the Karlin marketplace. The gathering was designed to display its strength and to encourage people who saw no purpose to the strike, especially since there were signs of a tendency to return to work among the Christian laborers. The outdoor gathering ran the risk of intervention by the police and the Cossacks. A day earlier, rumors had spread that the chief of police had declared that he would disperse the assembly and that the Cossacks and the police were planning a pogrom. It was also bruited about that the S.R. would throw explosives at the police and the Cossacks should they make an appearance.298 About an hour before the meeting, an S.S delegation came to the Bund with a proposal: if they were accepted on the joint committee, they would send their “masses” to the rally, and the fighting division of the S.S. would cooperate in case of need. But, again, the Bund rejected their demand.299 The haganah members of the S.S., including their fighting division and flying division, bearing their pistols and explosives, were concentrated in the synagogue in the Linishches quarter. They were dispatched for the defense of the inhabitants to strategic points throughout the city.300 The fighting division of the Bund, on the other hand, augmented by the S.R., was concentrated at the place of the assembly and on the Great Street and the river bank to prevent, if necessary, any sudden assault by Cossacks on the assembly.301 The Bund and S.R. were apparently not concerned about residents who did not participate in the meeting. The assembly went off peacefully. The chief of police arrived with a large party of officers and Cossacks and demanded that the meeting move from the marketplace to another site along the river. The request aroused suspicion and was rejected. The chief of police and his men withdrew.302 Government liquor stores were closed by strikers and all government clerical work ceased.303 Sergei [Baron] spoke at the assembly. He described a future of “freedom and

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happiness” in lyric terms and closed his speech with the line: “Not only will we have bread, but also flowers, flowers, flowers.”304 On Monday, December 19, the joint committee served notice that the strike was ended.305 It had been terminated because rebellions and walkouts all over Russia had been suppressed and had failed; the workers could no longer tolerate the situation and there was privation in their homes. The Bund and the S.S. had been forced to set up cheap kitchens, which also distributed free meals. The only thing Pesahzon could say about the strike was: “The political strike, which lasted nine days, proved that the broad masses were open to Bund influence, and the people were organized and disciplined and had revolutionary energy.” Pesahzon’s evaluation, however, was not to prevail. A Soviet author writing about Pinsk speaks of the Bolsheviks as the principal activists in the strike and claims that the joint committee was composed of Bolsheviks. He does not mention the S.R. at all and writes that the Bolsheviks organized gatherings, disseminated proclamations, distributed weapons to workers, and organized first aid stations. They wished to bring matters to the point of armed uprising. But the Mensheviks and the Bundists of the joint committee prevented this, and they brought about the end of the strike. They were the ones who decided by majority vote to stop it. After the general strike ended, the railway workers walked out under the leadership of the Bolsheviks until December 23 when a punishment detail arrived in the city.306 During this tumultuous year, the Zionists continued with their efforts. One Zionist society was called Matityahu [that is, Theodore] Herzl. This was probably not a new organization but rather the Zion society by a different name for there were veteran Zionists among the constituents. The following were members: Grigory Luria; A. Rubenstein; Meir Lieberman, who was the “chairman of the central committee” (in other words, the joint committee of all the Zionist societies in the city) and chairman of this society as well; and Mordekhai (Motel) Eisenberg, who had been active since the first Zionist congress, and a member of the central committee and the society committee as well.307 Yosef Bregman and Leib Shapira represented Pinsk at the Vilna conference, which was organized by Ussishkin during the first four days of January 1905. The conference enjoyed the participation of forty-seven Zionist activists from twenty-one cities.308 The resolutions passed at

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this conference were in the spirit of the Zionei Zion platform adopted before the elections to the seventh Zionist congress and known as the Vilna Platform. It opposed the Uganda project and territorialism and sought to deny Ugandists and territorialists the right to contribute their shekel and participate in the congress. The platform also included a resolution demanding that the congress begin “practical work” in Palestine and listed several matters that the Zionist organization should undertake there.309 The Zionei Zion clearly saw an increase in Zionist propaganda as urgent, along with an increase in the number of shekel donors and loyal Zionist representatives to the congress. Yosef Bregman, who was a devoted member of Zionei Zion, became a prominent worker in the struggle against Uganda and territorialism. Zelig Tir was also active in this direction. Bregman, who kept up regular correspondence with Ussishkin, informed him that he had obtained the agreement of committee members—Meir Lieberman, Ruben­stein, and Mordekhai Eisenberg—to the Vilna Platform and that he had spoken to Grigory Luria and found him to be “a good Zionist and in agreement with all the Vilna resolutions. He opposes the Uganda proposal in some fashion, [and] he supports work in Palestine and is willing to fight for the Vilna Platform.” Shortly afterward Bregman informed Ussishkin that the Matityahu Herzl society had arrived at the following decisions: (a) It is “of one mind with the Vilna Platform,” (b) it supports the Zionei Zion center and also sends it funds, (c) it has been decided to “affiliate two hundred shekel donors who would elect a representative who supports the Platform to the congress.” Bregman informed Ussishkin that S. Luria—most probably Shaul Luria, the son of Idel—was a guest at that meeting of the Matityahu Herzl society, and he was given the task of formulating the resolutions in German so that they could be published in the newspaper Die Welt [the official organ of the Zionist Organization]. S. Luria was also ready to give money to the Agitation Fund [special fund for the purpose of Zionist agitprop] whose establishment was discussed in the Platform. Bregman urged Ussishkin to send letters to S. Luria and Grigory Luria, Rubenstein, and others, regarding money. Grigory Luria was about to donate twenty-five rubles. Bregman was not satisfied and demanded that the other members of the society contribute more. He hoped that the society would remit three hundred to four hundred rubles. (Only two

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members gave thirty-five rubles; sixty rubles were received from four other members.)310 As noted, Ber Borochov had arrived in Pinsk during his campaign against territorialism at the invitation of Zelig Tir to lecture before Shoresh Zion (in his letters Bregman writes Shorshei Zion). Borochov “caused a ruckus [because] he had debates with the Bund and came out ahead.” Bregman was angry with Tir because Tir opposed Borochov’s appearance before the Poalei Zion. Bregman claimed that “this strange tactic was incomprehensible to him [since] a great power like Borochov could do big things among the local Poalei Zion.” Borochov was due to visit Pinsk a second time, and Bregman hoped that the “tactic” would not be repeated. (It is not clear whether a second visit took place.)311 Yosef Bregman and Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch were participants in the Zionist Congress of the Minsk region, which convened on May 5, 1905, under the leadership of Shimshon Rosenbaum. Rabinowitsch was chosen as Hebrew language secretary of the congress.312 Before the elections to the congress, heightened propaganda efforts were made, and Shimshon Rosenbaum came to the city for this purpose.313 At least 600 shekalim were sold and Bregman informed Ussishkin that: Pinsk has the right to select three delegates: Grigory Luria and Zelig Tir will attend; with regard to the third, there is fear that a member of the Mizrahi who leans somewhat toward Uganda will attend. . . . Our Zionei Zion will fight against him. And, if a different Mizrahi member, one of “ours,” does not replace him, then they will choose Dr. Kokosh or Suskin.

(In other words, the mandate would be given to an outsider.) Later, Bregman informed Ussishkin that the third delegate would be Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch, who was “of the Mizrahi but, one of ours,” that is, an opponent of Uganda and territorialism. Chaim Weizmann, Sh(aul) Luria, and Vartsman were chosen as “candidates,” (alternates). He also noted that “the local Poalei Zion sold 400 shekalim and were about to elect two territorialist delegates.314 Besides the three delegates cited above, Yosef Shulman, a member of the Poalei Zion committee, participated in the congress. The second mandate may have been given to a delegate from outside the city. Yosef Bregman also served as a representative to the congress,315 but he received his mandate from Minsk, just as Chaim Weizmann received his from Torov.

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After the congress Sh. M. Rabinowitsch submitted a report at a Zion­ ist gathering, concluding with these words: Wolfson closed the congress with the oath taken by Herzl, of blessed memory: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.” The oath was repeated by Wolfson at Herzl’s grave. . . . With this oath I wish to pledge you, the assembled, to work for the good of the ideal . . . broaden the Zionist concept, increase the number of shekel donors, expand the National Fund, and sell bank shares. The situation is difficult in view of economic circumstances, in view of old and new opponents, but an historic movement such as ours need not fear obstacles.316

The agitation and the ideological debate between various segments of the Jewish community led middle-class Zionist youth to open their eyes to social problems and stimulated the need of taking stands on Zion­ism’s burning questions. The Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah [rebirth] movement arose as a result. Zionist organizations by the name of Ha-Tehiyah had existed before; the innovation of the Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah was its intention of creating a national movement based upon a specific program. The initiators and primary organizers of the movement were Zelig Tir and Leib Shapira.317 According to the memoirs of Yosef Herman, an active member of the movement, the group was formed mainly at the initiative of Yosef Shprintzak, Ya’acov Kalivnov, and Zelig Tir.318 Although a youth movement by the name of Ha-Tehiyah was founded in Warsaw in 1903,319 there is no reason to believe that the Warsaw group had any influence at all on the Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah, even though the Pinsk group was founded later, in 1905. The Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah seems to have been a new name for Shoresh Zion. This may have been a result of Ber ­Borochov’s visit to Pinsk; he was invited by Tir, the director of the Shoresh Zion society. That year a “temporary office” had already been formed. It engaged in explanation of the movement’s ideology, publication of flyers, dispatch of emissaries, and exchange of letters with various personages. A regional meeting of representatives of the organizations that had been founded at the behest of the Pinsk society or representatives of existing organizations that had joined the Pinsk movement also took place.320 According to Sh. Eisenshtat, the members of the “temporary office” were: Yehezkel Eisenbod (who later joined the Poalei Zion Left), Zhokov­ski, Tir, Eliezer Teitelbaum, Moshe Mednik, Pinhas Papish, and

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Eliezer Kantorovitz.321 According to an extant photograph, the members of the “temporary office” were: Yosef Herman, Mikhle Tir, Dov Makhlis, Moshe Mednik, and Bilha Kostyokovski.322 Within a short while, changes took place in the composition of the “temporary office” as a result of opposition to Zelig Tir. In his memoirs, Yosef Herman reports on the conflict. He writes that the Bursa of the Ha-Tehiyah movement was located on the river bank until July 24, 1905, the day of the Cossack attack on the demonstration. Afterward Yisrael Rokah’s apartment, in Haim Lutsky’s house on Kupechesky [Merchant’s] Street was put at their disposal. Herman and two other friends moved there, and the flat served as the movement’s center. After the quarrel with Tir, the center was left in their hands. Tir nicknamed it the monastery “because we were all bachelors there.”323 Tir presumably set up another locus for himself. According to Herman, the differences of opinion between himself and Tir were not ideological, “but purely practical.” Zelig Tir wanted to create a professional apparatus to work for the party. He set a high salary for himself and also hired a secretary. I was opposed to this and demanded volunteer workers. . . . In spite of all this, everyone agreed to Zelig Tir as the ideological creator of Ha-Tehiyah, its philosophical platform, and doctrine. We all went willingly to listen to his lectures; he wanted to create a party based entirely upon Biblical ideology in all that concerned social questions.324

Yosef Herman and others seemed to have worked in the movement as volunteers.325 In addition to the members of Ha-Tehiyah who were mentioned previously, the following are known by name: Reuven Lifshitz, Sheneur Aharonov, Haim Friedman, Aharon Goldin, Mina Ilivitzky, Shelomoh Muchnik, Aryeh Kolodny, and Yisrael Gottlieb.326 According to Eisenshtat, Haya and Fruma Weizmann were also members of Ha-Tehiyah.327

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T h r e e  The Hebrew Language Movement

in Pinsk

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In the Palestine of the early 1880s, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda began to realize the idea of resurrecting spoken Hebrew. Rabbi Yehuda Hai Alkalai [1798–1878, advocate for natural redemption before spiritual redemption and for the colonization of Palestine] had already stressed the national need for spoken Hebrew. Now the notion gained currency among Russian nationalist maskilim. Shalom Ha-Levi Epstein of ­Sevnetziani writes that when he and his friends were students at the Vilna government teachers’ institute (from 1881 to 1883), they took a vow to speak Hebrew and to spread the idea among the young people of the city. In 1884 Epstein began to conduct a campaign for spoken Hebrew in the circle of his acquaintances in Zhitomir, among them Y. L. Dovidovitz. Here, as in Vilna, he was unsuccessful.1 Reuven Brainin [1862–1939, born in Belarus, lived in Vienna and Berlin, devoted himself in his later years to Yiddish and Hebrew criticism and journalism] claims to have founded the first society of Hebrew speakers in Russia in Moscow in 1888; but Brainin makes no mention of the matter in his letters to Yehudah Leib Gordon that year, and it is unlikely that he would not have mentioned a subject of such consequence.2 Brainin states that Leon Rabinowitz and Dr. A. Kaminka from Paris, who had already spoken Hebrew among themselves there, joined his society,3 named Safah Berurah (Hebrew for “plain language”). The claim to the earliest Hebrew-speaking society probably belongs to Y. L. Dovidovitz. Early in 1889 Dovidovitz (Ben-David), an Odessa teacher and a writer for Ha-Melitz, proposed founding an organization of Hebrew-speakers. He brought together a group of young people who were in agreement with his ideas; but they did not achieve

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

any concrete results. Meanwhile, Eliezer Ben Yehuda and Dr. Yitzhak d’Arabela (director of the Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem) founded a Safah Berurah society in Jerusalem in the fall of 1889.4 This occasioned renewed fervor in Odessa and in November 1889, Ben-David established a Hebrew-speaking circle named Sefatenu Itanu (our own language).5 In January 1890 a second Odessa group, the first branch of the Safah Berurah society of Jerusalem, was organized. An account was published in Ha-Zefirah on January 25, 1890. The reporter, Nahum Slostsh (Slushch), noted that according to the society’s bylaws, members were to assemble several times a week for Hebrew conversations, and: All societies which may be founded in our country, should they wish to enter into correspondence with us, must affirm the name of Zion, go by the name of “a branch of the Safah Berurah society of Jerusalem,” and subscribe to the newspaper Ha-Zevi (the stag) published in Jerusalem.

No further information about this organization is available. A dispute apparently arose between Safah Berurah and Ben-David’s group regarding ties to Safah Berurah in Jerusalem. Ben-David claimed that “the form spoken Hebrew would take in Eretz Israel would be of no value to us, living abroad in Europe. We Jews living in Russia must develop a new style for our language, European rather than Arabic.”6 Apparently this belief led him to call his organization Sefatenu Itanu (our own language) rather than Safah Berurah. In the spring of 1890, Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch of Pinsk wrote to Ben-David to clarify matters.7 Rabinowitsch, then a correspondent for Safah Berurah, eventually became a prominent Zionist activist and also published an important essay on the history of Pinsk. His letter to BenDavid has not been preserved, but its contents can be deduced from Ben-David’s reply, written during Passover 1890: To the honored distinguished maskilim, true lovers of the Hebrew language, Mr. Shaul Rabinowitsch and his associates. . . . The name of our society is Sefatenu Itanu, and our purpose is to accustom ourselves to speaking Hebrew. Our members include people who really know how to use the language. . . . The duties of the members . . . [:] 1) To speak with one another in Hebrew, in every place and at every hour.

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2) To assemble each and every Sabbath at our meeting place to converse in Hebrew publicly and learn from each other. 3) Whoever is able to discuss, in Hebrew, any topic pertinent to Judaism or the Hebrew language, or any issue of knowledge and science, must address the group no less than once a month; the men must speak before the group orally but the women, if they wish, may make written presentations. 4) Each member must select a topic of study and share with his colleagues whatever is necessary and applicable for expanding the language. During meetings we address one another in orderly, methodic fashion, without interrupting each other, and the chairman is in charge of order; only during recesses may people speak to each other at will. At the moment, regular members number approximately thirty men and three women, and occasional participants number about twice as many. We even have a maggid [an itinerant preacher or evangelist], who addresses the masses in the synagogues in Hebrew. . . . [And] we are now involved in opening a school where Hebrew will be taught free of charge, to all who want to learn. [As to the form of spoken Hebrew they embrace] the language of the periodicals, that is the language of the Bible, with the addition of Mishnaic [post-Biblical Hebrew used in the early Rabbinic commentaries] words and idioms; and where it is impossible to represent foreign terms common to European languages in Hebrew, we use the words in their original form.

Meanwhile, a Pinsk society using the name Safah Berurah was founded on March 30, 1890. According to S. N. Gitelman’s memoirs, he and A. A. Feinstein took the initiative in establishing this society. But Gitelman was mistaken, for Sh. M. Rabinowitsch actually founded the society.8 (Gitelman was one of the best-known Hebrew teachers in the city and a founder of the Hebrew teachers federation of Russia; Feinstein was a noted Hebrew teacher, author, and community activist.) After the slogan, “Speak Hebrew,” came to them from Odessa, the group published a proclamation “about the establishment of the society, and young members surged towards them like the tide in their desire to register.”9 Gitelman goes on to explain why the name Safah Berurah, rather than Sefatenu Itanu was chosen: When we became affiliated with the branch . . . in Odessa, we thought of calling our society by the name of the main organization, Sefatenu

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

Itanu, but among those who attended the meetings was a teacher known as “the Slutsker melammed ” [the teacher from Slutsk] who knew Hebrew well. He was a Torah scholar, a good mathematician, a researcher in several subjects, an expert chess player, and a sophisticated man.

He objected to the name Sefatenu Itanu, because this expression originated in a biblical verse (Psalms 12:5) that continued: “Who is lord over us?” The name thus had a connotation of rebellion. A heated argument broke out between him and the poet Efraim Dov Lifshitz, composer of the well-known lullaby “Numa Perah, Beni Mahmadi” [sleep my blossom, my dear son]. A vote was taken, and the majority favored the name Safah Berurah.10 The fact that the Jerusalem society was called Safah Berurah probably influenced the majority decision. Meetings took place in the attic of the lumber merchant, Reb Isaac Freinkel, whose daughter Feigel: A girl of about twenty . . . made the spacious attic of her father’s home, which could hold about sixty people, available to us . . . [and] she herself took part in our meetings, because she knew a great deal of Hebrew and was absolutely devoted to the nationalist ideal.

Gatherings took place there “on Saturdays as well as weekdays.”11 Following are the main resolutions decided upon at the March 30 meeting (a Saturday night) for the purpose of “promoting the importance of our holy language, which was all but forgotten, and bringing it back to life”: 1) Members must speak only Hebrew at their meetings. 2) Gatherings are to take place each Saturday afternoon (and once a month on a Saturday night, apparently so that minutes could be taken [without breaking the Sabbath prohibition of writing]). 3–4) Members must donate money to the society for the purchase of Hebrew books. 5) “Any words for which the members don’t know the Hebrew equivalent should be reported to the committee heads who would decide. 6) New words accepted by the committee heads must be recorded by the secretary in the word-book of the society.”

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A committee was selected and tasks divided among its five members. Meir Freinkel, the administrator, was in charge of the treasury and the library; Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch, the inspector, was to correct mistakes in speech and evaluate the level of Hebrew knowledge of new applicants; Yeshayah Haim Grosberg, the secretary, was to manage the society’s books (the book of bylaws, the accounts, and the word-book, in which new terms and expressions would be recorded); Yosef Yozpe Volovelsky was the comptroller; and Yehudah Leib Vintz the treasurer, was responsible for collecting members’ contributions. Volovelsky was the brother of the poet Yehuda Karni, and Yehuda Leib Vintz was one of the “boys” who studied in a Pinsk synagogue and afterward at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. In Berlin he became a correspondent for Ha-Zefirah (the dawn) and several years later published the Judeo-German monthly Ost und West. On April 21, 1890, the Pinsk branch of Safah Berurah sent two letters to Odessa, one to the Safah Berurah chapter, and one to the Sefatenu Itanu society. The letter to Safah Berurah opens: The sparks of love for our ancient language which you have ignited in the hearts of our Hebrew brothers in all Jewish communities, have already become a holy flame . . . these sparks have fallen in our city of Pinsk as well.

Clearly the renaissance of spoken Hebrew was spreading rapidly and widely. Information exists on Safah Berurah societies in Vilna, Minsk, Soroki, and the town of Motele.12 The Pinsk letter states that “our membership has grown to twenty-five, and we hope that our group will expand and develop.” An appeal is made for direction, [For] just as you were our inspiration for this holy ideal, so you can be our source of certification, since our knowledge is still limited and we cannot locate and utilize new words, which we need; in general, we do not know what must be done and how to proceed.

The writers ask the Odessa society to send them its bylaws. They ask, “if Ha-Zevi will appear on schedule, and who the agent is, since we wish to support it.” In the letter to Ben-David, the Pinsk group tells of their Saturday meetings, at which time “we converse in Hebrew” (the meetings were

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

held from three in the afternoon until evening).13 It has also been the practice for members to lecture, by turn, in “living Hebrew . . . the language of the periodicals,” on several chapters of the early ­Prophets; in this manner they have already managed to complete the book of Joshua. They hope to find an issue, which would “force us to seek new words and expressions and avoid using the same small vocabulary without progress.” They inform Ben-David of the number of members in the society, pointing out that they “are mostly young people, because for the time being the older and more prominent citizens keep their distance.” They also write: We will not rally round the flag of the great “purists” of the language, who want to mummify it, by preventing adaptations which suit the vitality of the times and the natural rules of the language, for we know that otherwise we will be completely lost.

The letter ends with a request “to let us know the way to translate a few words.” There follows a list of Russian words that are difficult to translate into Hebrew. No reply was received from Safah Berurah in Odessa. An answer from Ben-David arrived on May 7, 1890. He expresses pleasure over the  situation of the Pinsk society and offers encouragement: “Keep up the good work, brothers, and do not lose heart when you encounter obstacles, for the lot of all who pave new roads, is to straighten twists and turns in roads and remove the stones that block them.” Ben-David notes that: Our membership grows from week to week, so much that my home is too small for all who arrive, [and therefore] at recent meetings we decided to relocate our center to the synagogue, where all the members may get together; in my home only a few members would gather (along with women members who would have been out of place in the synagogue). [They resolved] that every member would pay a minimum of six rubles annually to the society’s coffers [to enable a] Talmud lesson in Hebrew [to take place in the synagogue].

Ben-David approves of the Pinsk practice of lecturing on a variety of topics. He suggests tenaya (stipulation) as the equivalent of the Russian word razskaz. He also recommends that they conduct exercises in writ-

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ten Hebrew by writing abstracts of books without prior preparation. As to style, Ben-David writes, “It is preferable to use talmudic vocabulary; so see to it that there are always people at your meetings who are adept in the language of the Talmud.” He continues: Right now we are obligated to disseminate our small amount of material to the public; to speak Hebrew in all places and at all times, to each other, to our wives and children, and then we will live to merit seeing our spoken language become the height of fashion. Let us speak—and all will be well.

Ben-David also replies to inquiries about specific words: Lamp, lantern, light, candelabrum, neck-opening [of a shirt, for example] as a better derivative of the Hebrew word for neck, rather than neckpiece, which implies the diminutive of neck [modern Hebrew usage differs], necklace, flask. As for timepiece, and all related items, I wish to consult the writers in the periodicals and Ha-Zefirah, for there Mr. Sokolow will accede to my request and fling open the gate to revival of the language.

The letter closes with this request: [Since] I am now preparing a special article on the new movement for revival of the language, I am corresponding with all the societies known to me, and requesting that they each send me their reports and inform me of the following: 1. The size of their membership and its characteristics. 2. What issues they deal with. 3. The gist of their opponents’ objections. 4. The measures which, in their opinion, will best lead to attaining the broad goal of all the societies. I hope that you, too, will quickly send me your report.

A response, dated June 3, 1890, came back from Pinsk, which shows the intellectual standard and ambitions of its writers: We have long since resolved to work with all our ability and all our might . . . for the sake of this holy ideal. . . . Our society will march forward and succeed; we now have about fifty members, [among them] important and respected people. . . . Several prominent members of the city’s intelligentsia have also promised to join our group. . . . The

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

young people, both those who knew the language and have forgotten it, or who do not know it at all, have turned to us, and they study most attentively. [Teachers have reported] that since the founding of the society in our city students are studying Hebrew with particular diligence.

The writers go on to say they have begun to speak Hebrew, not only at meetings, but in public as well: We have followed your advice about moving the language out of doors, to the marketplace, and we speak Hebrew everywhere, outside and in the streets. . . . People who were initially afraid to open their mouths, now speak freely. At first our townspeople were amazed at what they heard, [but] now they receive us joyfully and regard the speakers with awe, and even the Orthodox are also happy about this. . . . [Following the enlistment of] the “distinguished members” . . . [the custom began] that every person who was able [lectured] in Hebrew every Sabbath, on a topical issue of Jewish history or some other educational subject, each as he saw fit, [in addition to the teniyot, or the summaries of chapters of the early Prophets, since] this was much needed by the young people.

One of their members is preparing a play, to be performed “so that their ears can become attuned to hearing literary Hebrew spoken,” and improve their style; furthermore: The thought has occurred to us that we should encourage the girls of the city to found a society of Hebrew-speakers for themselves, since it is impossible to accept them in our society; the atmosphere of Pinsk is not like Odessa’s, and the few girls who did apply for membership were rejected, for fear of slander.

The following suggestions are proposed to “nurture the Hebrew language and make it as vibrant as the European tongues”: 1. All the organizations should unite around a common center and accept its decisions about terms and idioms. The Safah Berurah society of Jerusalem should serve as focal point since “famous people and linguists such as Ben-Yehuda, Pines, Yavetz, and others stand at its head.” The branch societies should assist the central organization to publish dictionaries of “all the expressions and words, which they coin, at the discretion of the society and the Russian language experts.”

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The writers attempt to convince Ben-David to acknowledge the need for one center: “It is incumbent upon you, dear brothers, to bring to the attention of all the societies known to you . . . that without a center and without discipline, we will not be able to survive . . . and if we do not join forces, then our groups will collapse one by one [and,] brothers in spirit and conviction, you must realize that they [the leaders of the center] seek only the goal and not the honor.” 2. All societies must make an effort to broaden knowledge of the language among the people, by making teachers available to the poor, “but, not to other youngsters [who are able to pay] so as not to deprive the Hebrew teachers of their livelihood.”

The Pinsk writers report that they are planning to implement this idea in the near future. 3. The societies should try to recruit “distinguished people” as members so that others will follow their example. 4. Economic provisions are to be made to support Hebrew literature and “good writers,” because the publication of good literature is the surest way to endear the language to those who know Hebrew and to strengthen the desire to learn the language. Without fine literature there will be no future for a renascence of the language; even the limited revival of spoken Hebrew is the result of the new Hebrew literature. “Our limited literature has caused a modest success, combining to make the Hebrew language a spoken language. . . . We must work at producing more good books, so that those who know the language will respect it and not pursue other literature.”

This letter demonstrates the extent of Smolenskin’s influence on that generation: “Who assembled the few devoted readers of Hebrew if not the late Smolenskin and the fine writers who rallied under his banner” (the writers associated with Ha-Shahar). After Smolenskin’s death “a large readership was lost, because they could no longer find reading matter in our language.” An analogy is made to the Russian language: “Until fifty years ago, before Russian stories were written properly, readers turned to French literature,” and the attitude of Russians to their literature changed only because of “good writers.” As for the Jews, “our sons and daughters are given over to another nation,”

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

and “as for the Hebrew language . . . the educated do not care to turn to it.” These few sentences illustrate the cultural transformation that had taken place in Pinsk in the 1880s, although the traditional Jewish way of life still reigned there in the 1890s. Because Hebrew literature does not feed its authors, they write Yiddish instead and “only a madman who cares nothing for his time and effort would write in Hebrew. . . . Fine books which would bring honor to the language and attract more people than all the societies would, languish for want of a publisher.” Since Ha-Shahar ceased to appear, there has been no other Hebrew monthly; the existence of the annual Ha-Asif (the harvest) is in danger. The desire to know Hebrew will disappear if there are no good books to read. As for the books now in existence, “Will these books make the language dear to its students?” Another question is introduced: “Do we have the right kind of textbooks? Do we have reading matter for young people, which proceeds from the simple to the more complex, as every other people does?” These lines were written in 1890; the writers are among the first to raise the question. They maintain that Hebrew-speaking societies are obligated to provide for Hebrew literature. “For one thing depends upon the other, and if the societies do not attend to this, then they will not succeed in their activities.” In their opinion, what must be done is not too heavy a burden. A mere twenty societies could collect four thousand rubles for this purpose. As the center for publication, perhaps: The Mefitzei Haskalah society should be chosen, for it started this project three years ago and established in its midst a circle of “lovers of the Hebrew language,” which was also silenced, like all the good things in our camp.14

The letter also expresses a nationalistic ideology: The revival of the language is . . . a reliable sign of the revival of the People of Israel for . . . the unique language will unite them and gather them together from their places of dispersion, serving as the tie that binds all the sons of the people together.

This ideology had its origins in Smolenskin’s works, but Smolenskin did not emphasize the speaking of Hebrew. At the end of the letter, the writers announce that “we have coined a new phrase in our society,

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‘Mah mi-sha’a’ [‘What of the hour?’], meaning, ‘What time is it?’ which is based upon the verse [in Isaiah 21:11] ‘Watchman, what of the night?’” Judging by his enthusiasm, the principal author of this letter may have been Yehuda Leib Berger. Berger was a native of Minsk, a member of the Bilu movement and of the Volozhin Nes Ziyyonah society. His friends in Minsk were Shemaryahu Levin [1867–1935, Hebrew and Yiddish writer, served in the Russian Duma, and was active in the promotion of Zionism], Shaul Ginsburg, [1866–1940, helped found the first Yiddish daily in Russia, Der Fraynd], and Dr. Nahman Syrkin [1868– 1924, a founder of socialist Zionism]. When Berger settled in Pinsk in the late 1880s, “he became the leader of all Zionist affairs in the city.” Here Berger joined the Benei Moshe society and subsequently founded the heder ha-metukan. He was one of the important organizers in the Zionist Federation.15 Berger had a special concern for appropriate textbooks for children. He was the first to prepare an “abridged Bible” to meet the needs of students, which caused an outcry among the pious of Pinsk. As a result of their influence, the rabbis of Vilna intervened, and the book, which was about to be printed at the Romm press, was not published. In his reply [to the missive from Pinsk], which was not long in coming, Ben-David expresses his thanks for “the great delight we had in reading your letter.” From the Pinsk letter and: the many other letters which reach us from various societies, we see a number of notable writers . . . springing up in the meadows of the Hebrew revival societies. [This] will bring glory to our language and assures the future of our literature.

Ben-David feels that the decline of literature “in recent years” is a consequence of: The narrow puritanical ideal of nationalism [that] has begun to restrict our authors’ talents, energy and intellect, to the four cubits of settlement of Eretz Israel, as if that ideal were not a single component of our renaissance, but the sum total of all our hopes for the future and our desires in the present.

Here is a hint of Ahad Ha’Am’s philosophy. Ben-David mentions Moshe Leib Lilienblum [1843–1910, Hebrew author, Zionist pioneer,

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

and ideological guide of Hibbat Zion] and Yehudah Leib Levin [1844– 1925, Hebrew and Yiddish poet and essayist], who had “begun to disavow our ancient tongue, saying that the language, like the law, was not integral to the ideal of nationalism.” But the last ten months give us new hope that a fresh spirit will permeate our literature, and new labors, the revival of our language, will attract many more than those who have already wearied of bearing the burdensome load that is carried on the shoulders of our Israelite brethren who are in our land; this in addition to the labor of settling the land, as has been the way of executing this mission until now. . . . We see in our midst, also, that the clique of Philistines, which so far has opposed us with all its might, now draws closer, and two of the ­Hovevei Zion have already lent a hand to our society. These two people are known for their integrity and for their activities on behalf of the community in Palestine. Even the writers who formerly shouted in unison, “Out with you, lepers!” are now ashamed of their deeds; they are looking for a way to repent for having despised us so mockingly and haughtily eight months ago.16

It is not clear whom Ben-David was referring to in the above lines; but we may assume that members of the Benei Moshe society, founded in 1889, had begun to look favorably on Ben-David’s Hebrew-language activities, even though neither his personality nor his position on Palestine settlement activity were popular. In 1890, Lilienblum had already stated that Ben-David should not be admitted to the Society for Support to Jewish Farmers and Craftsmen in Syria and the Land of Israel. Somewhat earlier Lilienblum had written that “the members of ­Sefatenu Itanu and the young ladies who associate with them, only want to draw attention to themselves and to be talked about.”17 As for Safah Berurah, Ben-David pronounces that “the number of members approaches 120 people,” among them permanent dues-paying members. They assemble for meetings in Ben-David’s home, and the: others come to the synagogue which we have rented every Saturday. . . . On Saturday, from four to seven, we learn Midrash Rabbah [a collection of Rabbinic stories, written in Hebrew and Aramaic] on the week’s Torah reading: One person reads the text of the midrash aloud and explains the language of the midrash in fluent Hebrew.

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The listeners come with their questions and listen to explanations and responses from one another. . . . The midrash supplies a wealth of material on all sorts of issues.

From the projected contributions of the members, five to six hundred rubles, Ben-David hoped to purchase a synagogue (shtiebl) from one of “the poor societies,” in order to arrange for study of “Hebrew language and grammar, as well as Mishnah and Gemara, for all who would come.” He goes on to describe how every festive family occasion among the members—a birthday, an engagement, a circumcision—was conducted in Hebrew, “from start to finish.” On his daughter’s birthday, for instance, “the guests amused themselves till five in the morning, and then showed, even while drunk, that their Hebrew had become natural . . . for throughout the night, no one spoke a word that was not Hebrew. In the balance of his letter, Ben-David deals with issues, which had been raised by the writers from Pinsk. He expresses his disappointment “that you deter the young women from joining your group . . . for without Hebrew-speaking women, we will never have children suckled on Hebrew along with their mothers’ milk.” As for the play—he asks them to send it to him “and we will perform it in Odessa, too.” About establishing a center for the movement, “there is no doubt that for lack of any other focal point, we must unite about the Safah Berurah society in Jerusalem.” But the distance is disturbing, “since for every letter that we write, we must wait five or six weeks for a reply. . . . Perhaps we should have two centers, as was once common among Jews: a Jerusalem center and a European center.” As for providing teachers for poor children, “we have already enacted a bylaw identical to yours, [and] besides that, we have made it mandatory for the teachers who belong to our group to teach their students to speak Hebrew.” (Here, and in the study of midrash and Bible in Pinsk, was the origin of the method of ivrit be-ivrit [Hebrew in Hebrew; see Chapter Two].) As for attracting “the prestigious [to the society], for the time being this is difficult for us, [since] most of the Hovevei Zion, like all the writers in our city, stand aloof.” [Concerning the] establishment of a fund for assisting authors, all your ideas are honest and straightforward, but for the time being their place is more on paper than in reality . . . since right now not one of our societies has completed its first year, and we should not count our chickens

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

before they are hatched. . . . Many groups, which marched vigorously in their early days, have since disbanded and no longer exist. Who knows what will befall us, so let us wait a year or two and not take on too much at once.

Ben-David ends his letter with replies to the linguistic queries: instead of asking: “Mah mi-sha’ah?” [“What of the hour?”] one should ask: “Mah ha-sha’ah?” [“What is the hour (time)?”] as in “Mah ha-davar?” [“What is the thing?”] In reply to such a question, one would answer briefly, “An hour and a half or one-thirty or two-fifteen, omitting the words hour, minute, et cetera.” This is the last letter that exists from this correspondence. Safah Berurah in Pinsk presumably realized that it had little to learn from Sefatenu Itanu. The relationship may have cooled because of Ben-­ David’s opposition to the center in Jerusalem, or because Hovevei Zion in Odessa regarded Sefatenu Itanu disparagingly. Meanwhile the Pinsk membership of Safah Berurah grew. Sixty-five names are recorded in the membership book, among them activists in the Hibbat Zion movement, members of the Zerubavel Lodge of the Benei Moshe movement, teachers, writers, authors, and correspondents for Safah Berurah and Ha-Zefirah. The Crown Rabbi [Eliyahu] Beilin, favored the movement. At the opposite pole [the traditional one], Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the rabbi of Pinsk praised the Hebrew speakers.”18 Rabbi Borukh Halevi Epstein, the son-in-law of Rabbi Horowitz, famous for his great works Torah Temimah and Mekor Borukh, called upon the people to transform the Hebrew language into a “mother tongue” literally by speaking Hebrew with their children from infancy: The man whose heart and hand are true, whose spirit and soul are truly given to his people, religion and language, who desires to build a true home in Israel—should try to accustom his sons and daughters, while still at their mother’s breasts, to think and speak in Hebrew, and afterwards he should plant feelings of a pure faith in their hearts, as our sages, men of experience, have taught us. . . . Their spirit and their reason, their amusement and their play, their waking and their sleeping, with their parents and among themselves, in sacred and every­day pursuits—everything will be expressed in Hebrew. . . . Then

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this language will be their mother tongue; so they will be raised and educated, grow up and raise their own children, and their homes will be models of blessing, grace and pride, and crowns of beauty. Zeal for the pure truth will multiply such homes among us and they will bring blessing on the land.

Rabbi Epstein also turned his attention to the Hebrew language movement: The societies which have recently been founded in many cities among Jewish communities, to immortalize and glorify our holy tongue, bear the name Safah Berurah, and it seems to me that . . . given the aims of the above societies it would be more appropriate to call them by their stated purpose: Sefatenu Itanu or Leshonenu Nagbir [let us strengthen our language] or Safah Le-Ne’emanim [language of the faithful].19

A. D. Feinstein delivered eulogies in “fluent and effortless Hebrew” for the well-known maskil Reb Sh. Y. Fuenn and the Pinsk Crown rabbi, Eliyahu Beilin. In the midst of the uproar over the venue of their delivery at an old-age home (rather than in one of the synagogues), Ya’acov Goldman writes [regarding the non-controversy regarding the language of their delivery]: “See! In our city, everyone is wholeheartedly for the idea [of spoken Hebrew]; there are no dissenters.”20 On June 15, 1890, the Pinsk Safah Berurah society elected a new administrative committee. The officers were: chairman—Aharon Ruben­ stein and his assistants, Alter Blumenkrantz and Ya’acov Gottlieb; inspector—Ya’acov Shulman and his assistants, Pinhas Bergman and Shelomoh Natan Gitelman; secretary—Efraim Dov Lifshitz and his assistants, Yeshayah Haim Grosberg and Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch; administrator—Alter Blumenkrantz and his assistants, Yehudah Leib Vintz and Meir Freinkel. New regulations were enacted: It is incumbent upon the members to speak only Hebrew in all places and at all times . . . to perfect their knowledge of the Hebrew language, its grammar and its usage . . . to learn all expressions and words found in all the forms of our literature, and the terms and phrases which are being introduced by the choicest of our writers in the Land of Judea. . . . The members must make the language serve even their private thoughts, so that even when they sit alone, they think in Hebrew.

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

A number of other decisions were made: The members must purchase dictionaries and support the central committee in issuing new dictionaries. At meetings there will be readings “from philosophy, history, biographies of famous Jews, and so on, but not from members’ manuscripts . . . one member will read and the others will listen.” We will have written practice in summarizing the contents of chapters from the Bible or other books, “each in his own style. . . . When the society is able to do so, it will hire teachers for poor youngsters.” As for supporting a center for the movement, “only the Holy Land, in whose lap the Hebrew language was born . . . is best suited to restore the language to its original splendor at the present time.” They also expressed the opinion that (in contrast to Ben-David’s): The writers in our Holy Land are capable of preserving the spirit of the language, of retaining its flavor, and warding off foreign influences. [Furthermore, among] the giants of our literature there are [those] fluent in Arabic, which is related to our language, and there is a good chance that we will be able to coin words and phrases from the Arabic, in the spirit of the Hebrew language. [This resolution follows:] The Jerusalem society is the center for all societies outside of Palestine and we will turn to that center to seek knowledge and advice on how to put our affairs in order.

In the course of time, the number of members in the Pinsk society grew and exceeded the sixty-five who were registered in the record book in June 1890. Sh. M. Rabinowitsch writes on August 13, 1890: “The distinguished Safah Berurah society, founded six months ago, is a success; it is making headway and its membership increases daily.” Safah Berurah was about to open “a school where youngsters would be taught Hebrew language and Jewish history free of charge.”21 S. N. Gitelman, the teacher, relates in his memoirs that: As soon as we founded the society we began Hebrew lessons for those youngsters to whom this was foreign. Approximately sixty students, in two groups, attended two hours of lessons in Hebrew language and literature each day.”22

In October 1890, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch writes: “The members of the society have convened the Hebrew-language teachers and suggested

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that they speak Hebrew with their students; several of them have agreed to do so.”23 The society set about founding a library. Toward the end of the year, Yeshayah Haim Grosberg made this announcement: “In the beginning of the civil year, the Safah Berurah society in our city will open a Hebrew library which will house periodicals in Hebrew and in the vernacular.”24 To help establish the library, Ha-Otzar by Sh. Y. Fuenn and other books would be distributed and a book campaign organized among the residents of the city. A committee was chosen to implement the project, and its members included M. Strick, who was chairman of the Zionist organization in the city and a member of Benei Moshe; Sh. M. Rabinowitsch; the Fried brothers; and another person who was not mentioned by name.25 As a gesture of support for Hebrew literature and authors: After consultation, the Hovevei Zion in the city decided to assist the author Ya’acov Goldman, to publish his book Yalkut Eretz Yisrael ­Ha-Shalem (the complete Israel anthology), which was a treasure trove of the ideal of Eretz Israel.”26

Safah Berurah probably provided the impetus for this. At the same meeting (March 23, 1891) in which a library was proposed, it was also decided “to publish a collection devoted entirely to the revival of the language and the revival of the land.” An eight-member committee was elected for this purpose: A. Rubenstein, M. Strick, A. D. Lifshitz, Shimon Cohen, Yehudah Leib Berger, Ya’acov Burstein, Y. A. Gottlieb, and D. Fried. A request to Jewish writers was circulated asking them: “to honor us with essays, stories and good poetry.”27 But the collection never appeared. The library may have opened, but it did not survive for long. In an article published in June 1893, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch suggests transferring the books that were collected to the library in Yafo.28 How long the Pinsk Safah Berurah society lasted is not known. According to Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, it “was very successful in its first two years, and young people could be heard speaking Hebrew all around town.”29 In 1892 the society was still in existence, as Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s summons confirms, but by 1895 nothing but the “concept” remained.30 One of the reasons for the disintegration of the society was probably the dissolution of Safah Berurah in Jerusalem in 1891. That center had been the focus of many hopes.

The Hebrew Language Movement in Pinsk

The ideal [of Safah Berurah] assumed concrete form a few years later as the educational method of ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew). In the early years of the twentieth century, adults once again formed groups for the purpose of speaking Hebrew. After Tevyov founded the Doverei Ivrit [Hebrew speakers] society in Riga in 1902, which according to his own testimony “was a model for many cities,”31 a group of Doverei Ivrit was founded in Pinsk, as well, which aimed “to turn Hebrew into a living language.”32 When the Hebrew movement became stronger and the Ivriah federation was established (in 1905, during the seventh Zionist congress), and the foundation was laid for the Histadrut La-Safah VeLa-Tarbut Ha-Ivrit [Organization for Hebrew Language and Culture] (1909),33 passionate speakers of Hebrew were immediately found in Pinsk. Shelomoh N. Gitelman writes: In our city, too, a ravenous hunger for speaking Hebrew appeared in 1909 among students attending the government school who were considered near adults. They swore allegiance to the Zionist flag. The leader of the group was Yehiel Weizmann, Professor Chaim Weizmann’s younger brother. They held meetings at set times, discussed Zionism from the national perspective and its economic aspects. . . . A few of the Hebrew teachers in the city also attended: Abba Garbuz . . . the teacher Volpovitz and the writer of these lines. . . . The society did not survive for long because the secret police kept up strict surveillance of all secret meetings, particularly of young people.34

An article from November 1910 announces: A branch of the Histadrut La-Safah Ve-La-Tarbut Ha-Ivrit was founded in Pinsk, and at its general meeting decided to establish evening classes in Jewish history and Hebrew language for adults. A committee was also appointed whose members will deal with the purchase and sale of new books in Hebrew. The members are obligated, to the best of their ability, to buy all these new books, to try to get all their acquaintances to buy them, to write as many of their private and public letters as possible, in Hebrew, and to speak with their friends and acquaintances only in Hebrew.35

Active contact was maintained between this branch and the organization for Hebrew language and culture center in Kiev. The principal activist in the Pinsk branch was Yosef Bregman, who was totally im-

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mersed in the Zionist ideal. A youth division was also organized, as elsewhere, to distribute Hebrew newspapers and literature. In one of his letters, Bregman declares “on behalf of the Pinsk branch of the Histadrut La-Safah Ve-La-Tarbut Ha-Ivrit . . . that the work continues to progress there.”36 We know of two organizations, Doverei Sefat Ever [speakers of the Hebrew language] and Pirhei Zion [youth of Zion], whose bylaws mandated speaking Hebrew. On the eve of the First World War, a large group of people in Pinsk knew Hebrew and listened to lectures and eulogies in Hebrew. Mosinzon, for instance, lectured about the Herzlia Gymnasium and its method of teaching the Bible, and “his lecture inspired several listeners to reply most successfully in Hebrew.”37 Eulogies for E. L. Levinsky and M. L. Lilienblum “were deliberately given in Hebrew.”38 When the Lodz Bamah Ha-Ivrit (Hebrew theater), whose director was the poet Yitzhak Katznelson, came to Pinsk and performed the drama Uriel Acosta in the municipal theater, “the hall completely filled up . . . and the bravos and clapping went on and on,” and “everyone in the house could see that the Hebrew language was alive.”39 The Hebrew-speaking public in the city included a significant proportion of women. The Jewish German army chaplain, the rabbi Dr. Tenzer, who visited Pinsk in November 1915, noted with surprise that in his host’s home he met women who not only spoke Hebrew fluently and flawlessly, but could even quote the words of the classical rabbis.40

F o u r  Education and Culture

(1881–1914)

During this period, and particularly from the 1890s on, traditional schooling in the hadarim was collapsing, while secular ­Enlightenment-inspired education gained strength. The instruction of daughters, which had been generally neglected, began to assume a status at parity with that of sons. All this was part of a general trend that had begun in Russian Jewish education in the 1860s on the heels of the expansion of the Haskalah and, later, the nationalist movement nourished by it. In one sense, however, Pinsk was unique. The city stood on the border between Lithuania, the center both of traditional Jewish scholarship and the Hebrew Haskalah, and western and southwestern Russia, where the Russifying countertendency of the Haskalah held sway. Merchants from Pinsk travelled to Western countries, as well as to cities in the eastern Pale of Settlement. An equilibrium was reached here between the Enlightenment and the Hebrew Haskalah. The development of commerce propelled the city toward the Haskalah. Seventy Pinskers paid pre-publication for a Hebrew accounting textbook published in Warsaw in 1866, compared to thirty-nine in Vilna, forty-eight in Bialystok, forty-seven in Brest, forty-two in Grodno, and twelve in Slonim. Only the Warsaw subscriptions were proportionally comparable to those of Pinsk.1 The spread of the Haskalah may have been abetted by the fact that the rabbis of Pinsk and Karlin at this time were two great men, famous throughout the rabbinic world, Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz and Rabbi David Friedman. They not only refused to oppose the Haskalah but took a positive stance. In 1881, when the ban (herem [see Chap-

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ter Two]) in Jerusalem against secular schools and the study of languages was renewed, Rabbi David Friedman wrote: The Babylonian Talmud did not forbid teaching one’s sons a foreign language at all. On the contrary it seems that this is even meritorious, like the commandment to teach him a craft. As Rabbi [Rabbi Judah, author of the Mishnah] said: What has the Syrian tongue to do in Palestine? Speak either Hebrew or Greek [implying that it was permissible to teach Greek]. . . . But the Jerusalem Talmud forbade it [teaching a foreign language] lest disciples of that man [that is, Christians] who persecuted the Jews, reveal to the authorities that the Israelites were observing the commandments in secret, as they warned: Do not become familiar with the authorities. But all this was a matter for concern in their time. In our day this is not the case, and therefore there is no prohibition against teaching one’s sons the languages of the world and knowledge of mathematics and other studies necessary for business and society, if under the supervision of proper, God-fearing, knowledgeable individuals, who know how to educate young people according to their needs and how to allot the study time properly.2

Rabbi Friedman felt that opposition to the Haskalah would result in the maskilim becoming “spiteful apostates.” And the unripe fruits of outside knowledge caused harm to the students, when the community of rabbis and the rest of the “godly” turned their faces away and left them to their downfall. Immature students overindulged in the unripe fruits of the tree of knowledge, and the fruits were transformed inside them into viper’s venom so that the majority disgraced themselves publicly.

Rabbi Friedman praises the community of the Orthodox [in Germany] who were zealous for God and His Torah and kept watch over education, finding a way to set bounds so that one could grasp a trade and secular learning in one hand, and extend the other hand to partake of eternal life from the tree of life [the Torah]. They were nourished by the fruits of the tree of life and the fruits of the tree of knowledge, both were actualized by them. A pious man does his duty to both.3

Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, a stern man who displayed favoritism to no one, not even to the upper classes, who knew how to judge

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matters of religious law in the spirit of the times, sent his grandson to study in the government school established at the initiative of Crown Rabbi Avraham Haim Rosenberg; this took place in the 1870s.4 Rabbi David Friedman describes the education given by people of means to their sons in the 1870s: Their sons are tutored privately at home in the national language and perhaps in another language needed either for business, or so they will understand the language and literature of the country, and another language besides. This way they can become merchants or attain positions in the factories, each according to his ability. Or like the middle class abroad they hand their sons over to the Talmud Torah or yeshivot ketanot where they learn mainly Talmud with Rashi and Tosafot [medieval Rabbinic commentary], and at the same time delegate several hours a day to study of reading and writing in the language of the country and to the mathematics needed by businessmen.

This description reflects the situation in Pinsk and Rabbi David Friedman regards it as proper “especially in our generation when the necessities of life are many and circumstances are changed.”5 A studious atmosphere prevailed in Pinsk and its people displayed enthusiasm and passion for the acquisition of knowledge. People studied Hebrew, Russian, and general topics alike with great pleasure. A. Mukdoni, who came to Pinsk in the 1890s, gives this description: Everyone studies; diligence flourished among all the young people, boys and girls. Everyone studied eagerly and willingly. . . . Study of Hebrew became fashionable: dozens of Hebrew teachers were busy from morning till late at night, dozens of Russian teachers rushed from house to house. I did not encounter a single young man or woman who was not holding a book under his arm.6

Ever Hadani writes in the same vein: The Hebrew press and literature have already created a generation of fathers and mothers, Hebrew maskilim, who see no goal more fitting and positive than to educate their children in Hebrew.7

Pinsk made a decisive contribution to Hebrew education with the hadarim metukanim [modernized Jewish schools], which served as a model everywhere; Pinsk teachers were taken to other locations to

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establish hadarim metukanim.8 A nationalist consciousness took root in the city’s Hebrew education. The Girls’ School, for instance, (established in 1908), devoted nine hours a week to the study of Hebrew subjects. This was a sizeable bloc of time compared to the two to seven hours given to Hebrew in schools for girls in other cities.9 The old-style heder remained the dominant educational institution in the city, but adjustments took place because of the influence of the hadarim metukanim. Many parents, moreover, were not content with the heder education and employed private tutors to expand their children’s Hebrew knowledge and teach them general subjects. The quotation from A. Mukdoni mentions the private instructors of Hebrew and Russian. Yehudah Haklai, who was born in 1891, tells about his parents’ education: My late father absorbed both Jewish sources and secular culture in private lessons until adolescence; from teachers who imparted to him some of their spirit and knowledge, he learned a little of this and a little of that. . . . He was fluent in the Holy Language and familiar with Hebrew literature and the Hebrew press. . . . My mother also learned to read and write Hebrew in her youth and for many years elegant Hebrew was the language of our correspondence.10

Ever Hadani elaborates on these private teachers: The school curriculum did not suffice, and a second stage became common—home tutoring by special expert tutors. No doubt the status of private tutors was higher than that of teachers and melamdim in the schools. . . . Even among the tutors themselves there were different levels. . . . I remember with great affection my first private tutor—Garbuz. . . . The home tutoring given to the boy formed the foundation of studies known as “external studies,” lessons in Hebrew and even in Talmud. Yudevitz was a private Talmud tutor who was famous in his own time. Private lessons in general subjects were given by teachers proficient in those fields—Jewish students from the university cities or students in the upper classes of the high school, that is, the few who were fortunate enough to study there. . . . The parents of a boy who had devoured Garbuz’s teachings began to seek additional tutors (Vilenchik was one of them) all the way up to A. A. Feinstein himself.11

Students who completed the hadarim metukanim continued their education with private tutors individually or in groups; some learned

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Gemara [Talmud] and others pursued general subjects. Some studied in the Drunzik night classes, and others took the external examinations of the Realschule and continued their education in Jewish high schools outside Pinsk; because of the numerus clausus only a very few individuals were accepted to the Realschule. Some did not want to study at the Realschule because there they were compelled to write on the Sabbath and the holidays. All this refers to the sons of middle-class people of means; a significant portion of poor children did not benefit from proper education in their youth. The intelligentsia, however, did see to it that those of meager means could complete their studies in adult education evening classes.

The Traditional Heder According to official (but not necessarily accurate) data from 1903, 1,001 students studied under sixty melamdim in the old-style hadarim.12 The total number of Jewish children then studying in various educational institutions was approximately 2,500.13 Forty percent, then, of all Jewish students studied in the hadarim. Until 1893, when the government mandate of a prescribed level of knowledge in general studies was annulled, the Pinsk melamdim were in a perpetual state of fear that they would be prosecuted and lose their livelihoods. In 1891 we read in Ha-Melitz that: Early in the summer, under the governor’s orders, the police went in search of all melamdim who were not authorized to teach Torah and mitzvot. . . . The teachers did not work for several days and their students roamed the streets. . . . The governor relented; he who had imposed the restriction now disposed of it. But a few weeks ago the police rushed out . . . to search for unqualified melamdim, and their names were noted. . . . The citizens are upset and don’t know what to do about their children, who must study Torah and mitzvot.14

Even before the advent of the hadarim metukanim, there were talented melamdim in Pinsk, and opinion had it “that in our city, generally speaking, there were always good melamdim.”15 Dr. Alexander Volovelsky, brother of the poet Yehudah Karni, recalls his teacher, the Slutzker

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melamed (Hirsch Zilberman), with love and respect. Zilberman was a talented goldsmith who left that craft to become a teacher. The Slutzker was Pinsk’s “most famous” melamed; not every father succeeded in having his son accepted to his heder. As was the custom among the ­melamdim of advanced students, he accepted only eight of the most talented students, aged nine to ten. Dr. Volovelsky relates: Besides Bible study the Slutzker gave lessons in Hebrew language and grammar and we took first steps in reading Hebrew newspapers, ­Ha-Melitz, Ha-Zefirah, and current Hebrew literature. . . . The Slutzker had a special system for teaching grammar. Each student had to order a pocket notebook from Shakhna the bookbinder . . . and the Slutzker himself would enter selected rules of Hebrew grammar which the student was obligated to learn perfectly. . . . A blackboard, just as in school, stood on its base in the corner, and several times a week we would move it to the center of the room and the Slutzker would give lessons in arithmetic. . . . We also had lessons in chess. He would play chess with each student in turn. . . . His excursions with students, in the city and outside, were known to all. These were revolutionary innovations in the annals of the heder and introduced variety and diversion into the studies. . . . He was respected and accepted by all and turned out hundreds of educated young men, who acquired strong foundations in Bible and a deep love of literature. They bore the seeds of the revival of the Hebrew language sown by the Slutzker to future generations.16

Ever Hadani, whose youth coincided with the period of the hadarim metukanim, notes “that the downtrodden soul so liberally portrayed in the literature of the previous generation was hardly known among us.” He recalls the melamed Feldman: Our melamed had his own special way of reconstructing the building of the Tabernacle. When we reached that reading he depicted the columns in their sockets and the other details with pieces of paper cut with great precision. This was a “gentle” learning atmosphere, where the rap of a ruler on the hand was unknown except on rare occasions. Even a page of Bava Kamma [tractate of the Talmud], written in obscure Aramaic with its format crowded by commentaries, could not cloud the atmosphere. We studied, derived verbs and nouns and conjugated them and knew them.17

Education and Culture

Feldman the melamed was probably the Avraham Feldman much revered by the congregants of the Talmud Torah Shul [synagogue]. Even the youngsters respectfully addressed him as “Rabbi” . . . . He won their hearts by his modesty, his pleasant voice and his easy-going manner. . . . The workingmen regarded him with love and reverence.18

Though not all melamdim were of this caliber, there were probably others like Feldman. In his memoirs Yosef Herman recalls a series of Karlin melamdim and hadarim. The beginners’ teacher, when Herman started his studies at the age of four, was Yankel, known as farfalakh (pasta pellets). The heder was in his home, an old, tumbledown house. The rebbe’s goat would often join the children indoors and the rebbe’s wife (the rebbetzin) would feed it in the house. Instruction was on an individual basis. “The children played outside or in the yard and the rebbe taught one or two at a time.” Later, Herman studied in the heder of Shmuel of Telechany. This heder was also located in the melamed’s living quarters, a single room divided by dilapidated partitions. There was no division at all between the heder and the kitchen, and the rebbetzin would cook and bake bread as the students watched. “The rebbetzin and their daughter, an older girl, were with us in the classroom.” The Telechany melamed taught ivri (mechanical reading). Herman went on to study with Yankel “the yellow,” who was also known as “brass-beard.” His heder, large and well-lit, did not adjoin his residence. This melamed taught the Pentateuch, explaining it word by word, as well as Rashi’s commentary on it and beginning Talmud. Herman relates that he was: An ardent Hasid . . . one of the first to join in the circle of dancers . . . one of those who sang on every occasion. . . . On Purim he would ride through the streets of the city on a wagon singing Shoshanat Ya’akov. . . . Every Rosh Hashanah he travelled to the Admor [an honorific, denoting a Hasidic leader, called rebbe or zaddik] in Stolin; if he lacked money for the trip he walked. . . . He was a fine sort, a devoted Hasid, an honest man of good character. . . . There are not many like him today.

According to Herman, the hadarim metukanim (see below) took away the melamed’s livelihood, and he left the city to earn a living in the neighboring small towns. Herman then proceeded to study with

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a melamed known as “the son-in-law of the Steipitzer” (the Stolbitsy). This melamed taught Talmud and Bible, as well as Hebrew writing and grammar. During the summer he would assemble his students on the Sabbath and teach them Ethics of the Fathers; he also taught them the megillot [the five Biblical books known as “the scrolls,” i.e., Esther, Ruth, The Song of Songs, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes] before they were to be read in the synagogue. “He did his holy work with great devotion, tirelessly and ceaselessly.” His heder was held in Herman’s parents’ home, which consisted of one room divided by three partitions, which did not reach the ceiling. Herman’s mother would rebuke the rebbe when he beat the children. Herman’s last melamed, in 1900, was Alter Leibkes “with whom all the important people’s sons studied.” He was also a fervent Hasid, the son of Leibke the clarinetist who (together with the musician Reb Asher on the trombone and Shalom, the son of Peretz the mute, on the drums) set the Hasidim dancing after Yom Kippur. This annual event took place in the Admor’s (the Hasidic leader’s) auditorium, which was the Holy of Holies in the “palace” of the Admor; it remained shut all year and was opened only after Yom Kippur and when the Admor came to Pinsk. Alter Leibkes taught Talmud and Psalms because “the Hasidim, especially his kind, did not study the whole Bible. They were content with the prophetic readings following the weekly Torah portion and the recital of Psalms.” Since this melamed was the public Torah reader and reviewed the week’s reading each Friday morning, he would order his students to keep busy by reciting Psalms at that time. Leibkes’ heder was also located in his home, a one-room apartment divided by a partition, and studies took place in a room, which also served as the kitchen.19 The melamdim and hadarim in Karlin and Pinsk were probably no different from those throughout the Pale of Settlement.

The Pinsk Talmud Torah The Pinsk Talmud Torah was recognized by the Russian authorities as a communal educational institution (though perhaps not in its early years). It was founded in 1862 at the initiative of the Pinsk rabbi, Rabbi

Education and Culture

Elazar Moshe Horowitz; a document in which the rabbi pledged his congregants to support the institution was preserved in the Talmud Torah archives.20 Rabbi Horowitz based his action upon the Jewish law that states that a man is obligated to teach his fellow’s son Torah. He explained this principle in the following fashion: although a private individual is not obliged to hire a melamed for his friend’s son, the community is required to do so. Rabbi Horowitz backed his argument with the story told about Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Gamla who was a high priest just before the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabbi Yehoshua was responsible for the regulation that “children’s teachers must be assigned in each and every province and each and every city.”(Bava Batra 21.1)21 (An explicit ruling like Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz’s is not to be found in Rabbinic literature.) There is conflicting information about the construction of the Talmud Torah building, which stood on a large lot together with other charitable institutions. According to Rabbi Aharon Begun, Feige Levin put up a building with thirteen rooms on that lot when the Talmud Torah was established.22 But in Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch’s 1895 description, we read that the edifice was built in 1880 with funds donated by Reb Isser Luria in memory of his wife Bayla.23 In 1895 there were approximately two hundred students in the Talmud Torah; in 1902, 280; and in 1910, 225.24 The Talmud Torah was changed and transformed in organization and curricula. There were seven classes in 1895: (1) beginners’ class; (2) beginning Pentateuch; (3) Pentateuch, Early Prophets, and Hebrew writing; (4) Bible, beginning Talmud, Hebrew writing, and beginning Russian reading and writing; (5) Talmud, Bible, Hebrew, Russian, and arithmetic; (6) as in 5, with the addition of Hebrew grammar; (7) Talmud with Tosafot (medieval commentaries), Hebrew letter-writing, and the rest as in 6 (Hebrew grammar, Russian, and arithmetic). The Talmud Torah staff consisted of seven melamdim in addition to two teachers for Bible and Hebrew and two teachers of Russian, who apparently taught arithmetic as well. By 1902 there were eight classes; by 1903, nine; and the curriculum was expanded: (1) beginners’ class and elementary Yiddish writing; (2)  beginning Pentateuch, grammar, and Yiddish writing; (3) Penta­ teuch, grammar, Yiddish writing, and Russian writing; (4) Bible,

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Hebrew, grammar, Yiddish, and Russian writing; (5) Bible, Hebrew, grammar, beginning Russian, Yiddish, and Russian writing; (6) Bible, Hebrew, grammar, beginning Talmud, Russian, and Yiddish and Russian penmanship; (7) Talmud, Bible, Hebrew, grammar, Russian, arithmetic, and penmanship as above; (8) Talmud with Tosafot, Bible, Hebrew, grammar, translation, and letter-writing; (9) Talmud with ­Tosafot, Bible, Hebrew, completion of grammar, translations and letterwriting, Russian, and arithmetic.25 According to Rabbi Begun, the changes were made because “the officials noted that the parents inclined toward secular studies.” At the time Pinsk was agitated by controversy over the Talmud Torah procedures and curricula. The attack came from the Zionists. By 1896 Weizmann had already written: “It appears that the Talmud Torah and other Jewish institutions may fall into our hands.” Weizmann knew in advance that the campaign would be difficult.26 There was a long and unsuccessful struggle over the selection of new officials and a new administration. The battle and the attitude of the Zionists toward the existing administration are described by A. D. Lifshitz: A considerable commotion was raised in Pinsk by the elections for the Talmud Torah and the city was very much shaken up. The epic of the Talmud Torah is not yet over; the controversy will surely continue and who can foretell the conclusion. . . . But the fact that the swamp was jolted is worthy of note. Imagine a deep bog in existence for ages, a quagmire covered by scum that doesn’t budge. . . . And suddenly it begins to convulse.27

Avraham Asher Feinstein writes of the struggle: In 1900 the Pinsk Zionists were at the point of “conquering the communities.” As a result of their intervention, the district governor arranged elections for Talmud Torah officials; the fossilized Orthodox had long since seized control of these positions. A stiff election campaign began. Aharon Luria led the Orthodox in an effort to subdue the Zionist rebels. He was assisted in this holy war by the Black Bureau [antiZionist; its center was in Kovno and its right-hand man in Pinsk was the ritual slaughterer Sh. N. Gottlieb, author of Oholei Shem]. Grigory Luria, Aharon’s son, a model Zionist, rebelled against his father and helped the Zionists. The battle was long and intense. The Jewish community was divided into two camps.28

Education and Culture

In the end, change in the Talmud Torah was accomplished by adding additional years of study to the curriculum, by strengthening the basics of Hebrew and general studies, and by deferring the start of Talmud study from the fourth year to the sixth. The expansion of Russian studies and the introduction of instruction in penmanship are particularly significant. These were “practical objectives.” According to the 1902 program, the school day up to the fifth grade was eight hours long; and from fifth grade on, nine hours, six of which were for Hebrew subjects, two for Russian and arithmetic, and one for penmanship.29 The addition of the ninth year of schooling may have been a consequence of the harsh criticism that students graduated without much knowledge. A. A. Feinstein writes: For we all know what our children take with them when they leave the Talmud Torah after spending the best years of their childhood there. The Prophets are a “closed book” for them, writing a few words in Hebrew is a great accomplishment, which would not occur to them, and the little bit of Pentateuch that they learn is quickly forgotten since they hardly know Hebrew. . . . Their knowledge of Russian is such that they can’t even address a letter properly. Of Jewish history, those chapters of suffering and torture, which our fathers bore courageously, they have no concept.30

Feinstein wrote this at the time when the Bund was beginning to dominate Pinsk society, and a sharp ideological battle raged between the Bund and the Zionists. It is not surprising that he adds this sentence to his attack on the Talmud Torah: When a student goes out into the world, enters the factory or becomes a shoemaker or a tailor, he encounters new and strange ideas, which alienate him from God, from the Torah and from his people simultaneously.31

Feinstein accuses the administration of not caring how studies are conducted; certainly not according to the printed syllabus. Every melamed does as he sees fit and pays no attention to what the children have learned in previous years under other melamdim. No one is particular about structuring relatively homogeneous classes of students who are somewhat at the same level of knowledge. There are no significant intermediate examinations between one grade and the next. Feinstein

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demands the establishment of two committees: one to deal with the material side, and another, whose members will be experts in education, to deal with intellectual aspects. Teachers should be accepted only after passing an examination. The language of instruction should be Hebrew rather than Yiddish, and general subjects should be taught in Russian, so that students will acquire both languages. Physical education classes should be conducted so that weaker students will develop physically and not remain thin, frail, and sickly all their lives.32 In 1905 another attempt was made to bring Zionist influence to bear on the Talmud Torahs of Pinsk and Karlin. At the end of January, a Mr.  Belanki visited Pinsk on behalf of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment in Petersburg. His mission was to ascertain whether the Society should support the Talmud Torahs. Mr. Belanki found many failings in the administration and in the educational system and he suggested adding five more people to the administration; these five would serve as representatives of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment, and then the Society would provide the necessary support to the Talmud Torahs.33

Grigory Luria, the Society’s agent in Pinsk, assembled its members for a meeting. Five people, all Zionists, were elected to the administration of the Talmud Torahs. They were M. Lieberman, A. D. Lifshitz, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, A. Rubenstein, and Y. Burstein.34 This endeavor apparently yielded no tangible results. At the board meeting of the Society, which took place in Petersburg in late 1902, Grigory Luria claimed that the Society should “take the Talmud Torahs under its spiritual wing” considering that “the Talmud Torah was the only school combining Hebrew and general studies to win the confidence of both the populace and the government.” He also suggested that the Society intercede with the government “to minimize somewhat at the moment the quantity of general knowledge required of Jewish subject ­teachers in the Talmud Torah, because there are very few teachers who have the general knowledge currently required by law.” The Society should also “intercede with the government to bring about reforms in the economic administration of the Talmud Torahs”: assist in the preparation of syllabi, send experienced teachers out to the field (to train teachers in the Talmud Torah), and set up libraries in the schools.

Education and Culture

Luria suggested (though it was not directly connected to the Talmud Torah) that evening classes in general studies be organized for the sons of wealthy householders studying in private hadarim and who would not be attending the Talmud Torah.35 Most of the students in the Pinsk Talmud Torah, as in all such institutions, were orphans and children of the poor. Some middle-class parents also sent their children to the Talmud Torah because they wanted them to have a measure of general education. There were 280 children who studied there in 1902; of these, one hundred received clothing from special donations. Expenditures that year reached 4,787 rubles, of which about 82 percent was spent on salaries for the teachers, principal, assistant principal, financial officials, and custodian. The sum was divided as follows: Teachers of Talmud Teachers of Hebrew and Bible Teachers of Russian, arithmetic, and penmanship Principal, assistant principal, financial officials, and custodian

790.32 rubles 1,520.00 916.80 793.00

Income was composed of the following items (some of which are not clear): Hodesh vokher (fixed contribution) Kop (?) Donations Tuition Korobka (meat tax) Purim donations Fasts Candles and collection plates on the eve of Yom Kippur Donations for clothing (besides those given through Mrs. Yakha Halpern)36

04.02 rubles 343.20 586.23 1,868.54 1,357.51 57.82 21.30 17.65 56.39

The proportion of the korobka in the maintenance of the Talmud Torah rose consistently. In 1900–1903 the korobka provided 1,500 rubles each year; in 1904–07—1,802.80 rubles; in 1908–11—2,425 rubles, and in 1912–15—2,785 rubles.37

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Rabbi Begun notes that Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz was the super­intendent of the Talmud Torah, and his son-in-law Rabbi Borukh Epstein succeeded him. After the first World War, the superintendents were Rabbi David Rabinsky and Rabbi Shaul Rozenzweig. Reb Shmuel Chernihov, Reb Shmuel Noah Shub Gottlieb, Reb Shmuel Rabino­ witz, and Reb Shmuel Harol, and later Pinhas Eliyahu (Alter) Kolodny, served on the Board of Directors. Rabbi Begun lists the melamdim: Reb Yehiel, Reb Mordecai’le, Reb Yehonatan, Reb Yissakhar, Reb Elimelekh, Reb Pinhas, and the teachers: Maslansky, Minkovitz, Yudlevitz, Meir Zilberman (penmanship teacher). One of the first assistant principals was Reb Shmuel Goldblatt of Wilkomir. Sh. M. Rabino­ witsch lists Shmuel the son of Reb Alexander Rabinowitz and Rabbi Borukh Halevi Epstein as members of the examination committee.38 Scholastic standards rose at the time of the First World War. I. Brisky writes: I transferred to the Pinsk Talmud Torah about 1912. There were more advanced classes there for Hebrew studies and secular studies than in the Karlin Talmud Torah. Reb Alter Kolodny was the head of the Talmud Torah then. He was also the only official who showed an interest in secular studies and he observed the lessons. We learned Talmud and Yoreh Deah [a section of the standard code of Jewish law, the Shulhan Arukh] from the assistant principal Abramovitz. Here we learned the lengthy Tosafot on Bava Batra [a Talmudic tractate], geometry, algebra, geography with maps, Russian history and more, with the teachers Schreiber and Levin.

Drunznik, Polonsky, and Ya’acov Lyov were on the Talmud Torah staff. S. N. Gitelman taught there, too, at the time. Brisky writes: Learning Bible and Hebrew from S. N. Gitelman was an unforgettable pleasure. Gitelman taught Hebrew subjects entirely in Hebrew. We learned the anthology Bikkurim (First Fruits) by Shifman and our nationalist consciousness was strengthened by the poetry of Yalag [Y.L. Gordon], Bialik, Tchernichowsky and others.39

In 1914 Gitelman asked Maslansky (who had meanwhile moved to the United States) to appeal to “Pinsk natives in New York to remember the Talmud Torah and send in an annual contribution,” especially those “who

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had received their education in the Talmud Torah and were then drawn to the New World.” He described the Talmud Torah’s circumstances, which “despite improvement in the intellectual realm, had seriously deteriorated materially,” reporting that “expenses have reached 12,000 a year, of which we have only 2,200; we are now operating at a deficit.”40

The Karlin Talmud Torah The Karlin Talmud Torah was established in 1862 in a building erected by Haya Luria at a cost of approximately three thousand rubles.41 M. Kerman states that he began to study at this Talmud Torah in 1864.42 In 1902 a new building was completed; at his sixtieth wedding anniversary celebration, in 1900, Moshe Luria had donated ten thousand rubles for its construction. The new building had two stories and fourteen rooms. The superintendents of the Talmud Torah were Moshe Luria, his brother-in-law Yosef Ettinger, and David Luria’s son-in-law, Yonah Simhovitz. The superintendents used to test the students and “those lacking aptitude . . . for the Talmud were allowed . . . to study a trade.”43 Changes were made in the curriculum over the years. Kerman relates that in his first two years, he studied the prayer book and the Pentateuch, and in the next five years, he studied Talmud. The Prophets were not taught at that time. Leviticus was the first book of the Pentateuch to be studied. Moshe Horonzes came to the two upper classes with a goose quill pen and taught penmanship, and Reb Itzile from Antopole taught Talmud in the sixth heder class.44 In the late 1870s the curriculum was apparently altered. Maslansky began to teach Bible and the principal of the government Jewish school, Mordecai Leib Horowitz, Russian. This description survives from 1880: The five consecutive days preceding the Passover holiday were examination days for students of the Karlin Talmud Torah. . . . Many know how to read and write clearly and pleasingly in our language and in the language of the country [Russian], and the older pupils know the Pentateuch and the Prophets very well, almost verbatim, and whatever Talmud the melamdim have taught them; they know Hebrew and Russian grammar properly, and they can write quickly and lucidly without errors, and are proficient in arithmetic as well.

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This account may be exaggerated. The school day at the time was six hours long.45 The change in curriculum and the institution of secular studies were probably carried out by Reb Michel Ettinger, who was assistant principal of the Talmud Torah until 1880. An article from that year states: After Ettinger, the “respected dignitary” left our city for business reasons—supervision of the school fell upon the shoulder of the maskil, a wise and intelligent man . . . Yehoshua Eliezer Ratin, and he became its head and chief superintendent of studies and of teachers alike.

Isidore Luria also had a share in changing the curriculum, for he “was involved in Talmud Torah affairs and the future of the boys was of great concern to him.” Yehoshua Ratin was a Hebrew maskil. “He set before us delicious little selections in our Hebrew language,” and he changed the curriculum once more: His first project was to prepare a program of studies for the seven classes of the Talmud Torah. [The program] was presented to knowledgeable and perceptive people[and they] authorized and executed it.46

Only at this time did the regional educational administration grant authorization to open a commercial school in conjunction with the Karlin Talmud Torah. The permit was received in 1881.47 An article from 1887 reports that studies were conducted from nine in the morning till eight in the evening, except for a lunch break between half past one and three o’clock. In the morning they [the upper classes] study Talmud, Rashi and ­Tosafot and in the afternoon they spend two hours studying Hebrew and Hebrew grammar. Afterwards, until eight o’clock, they study Russian and arithmetic.

The same source states that the Talmud Torah was under government supervision by the “Minsk school authorities.” The writer thought “the Talmud Torah in our city should be written about with the highest degree of approval in Jewish periodicals, for it was honestly and properly conducted.. . . . Twice a year the students were examined, their abilities tested before the distinguished Rabbi and the city’s leaders and scholars.” The officials of the Talmud Torah at this time were Aharon

Education and Culture

Luria, Moshe Haim Eliasberg, and Yonah Simhovitz. That year there were approximately two hundred students in the Talmud Torah; about seventy were orphans or indigent children who needed clothing and shoes. Forty children had to be provided with food; they were assigned “eating days” in various households.48 Sometimes the poor children ate lunch in the soup kitchen at the Karlin Old-Age Home. Yosef Herman, who studied in the Talmud Torah from 1899 to 1901, writes that: Many children would receive free winter coats. I remember how they would run happily to the tailor in order to be measured. . . . All the coats were of the same fabric and style, but it was not a uniform. [He also relates that] on various occasions and holidays, generally on ­Hanukkah, Rivkah Luria, Halpern, and Eliasberg, the philanthropists, would appear and they would give the children a brief examination, usually in Hebrew or Russian studies, and then distribute sweets, handkerchiefs and other presents.49

These three trustees, incidentally, were brought to trial on June 29, 1888, as the result of a complaint by the inspector, who had found that the Talmud Torah was located in two separate buildings. They were vindicated, but the “teachers’ assistants,” Leopold Luria (Aharon Luria’s son), Roza Sultz, and one other were fined three rubles for teaching without a license. The fine was small because they “did their work without pay.”50 Over the years, changes took place in the number of classes, along with changes in the syllabus. In 1880 there were seven classes and in the mid-1880s there were eight levels, but from the mid-1890s on, we know of only six grades. Later on there were higher grades but at this time “in the last class the boys studied Talmud on their own,” and no other subjects.51 Yosef Herman writes that there were eight grades in the Talmud Torah. In his memoirs he describes the studies and the melamdim and teachers in the Talmud Torah of those years. Children who already knew how to read were accepted to the first grade, and they were taught Pentateuch and Rashi by the melamed from Shevarshne. In the second grade, Shmuel Levin, who “was a more or less modern teacher,” began teaching Prophets. In the third grade, Arbuz taught Pentateuch, Rashi, and Prophets; in the fourth grade, Boshes taught Hebrew and arithmetic in addition to Bible. From the fifth grade on, the morning was devoted to study of Gemara and the afternoon, to study of Bible, Russian,

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and arithmetic. In the fifth grade, Gemara was taught by the melamed from Mir and in the sixth by Reb Shimon Moteles. In the afternoon Shmuel Levin taught this grade Bible, Rudik taught Russian, and Zaretzky taught arithmetic. In the seventh and eighth grades, Reb Nota, “the best teacher in the institution,” taught Talmud. His students would also prepare “lectures” in Talmud. Zaretzky continued to teach arithmetic, Horowitz taught Russian, and Lifshitz taught Bible and grammar. Although the Talmud Torah building stood in the Hasidic section of Karlin, its entire atmoshphere was mitnaggedic and its melamdim were mitnaggedim, [traditional religious Jews opposed to Hasidic practices] among them scholars from the Lithuanian yeshivot. The philanthropists who founded and supported the Talmud Torah were themselves mitnaggedim. Yosef Herman further notes that corporal punishment was practiced in the Talmud Torah, even though it was a progressive institution compared to the hadarim.52 Rabbi Begun states that when the Talmud Torah moved into the new building, built with the donation of Moshe Luria, “its exterior appearance improved, [it was] a new building with fine furnishings, but its interior form deteriorated and its inside did not match its outside.”53 He does not elaborate. It has already been noted that at the time the city was in turmoil over the issue of the Talmud Torahs,54 and the Zionists were seeking to impose their will on the Talmud Torahs, without success. Karlin showed its mettle and elected four benefactors from among its elite, learned and philanthropic Jews: Reb Isaac Basevitz, a Torah scholar and famous tzaddik [righteous man], sharp, erudite, with a clear and lucid grasp, Reb Yitzhak Berlin, a Torah scholar and famous t­ zaddik, Reb Ya’akov Shevas, a distinguished merchant, scholarly and God-­ fearing, and Reb Shalom Bernstein, who was both wise and wealthy.

These were charged with responsibility for the Talmud Torah.55 The academic standards of the Talmud Torah are evident from this article. The direction of Reb Shmuel Vilkomirer, who was assistant principal of both the Karlin and the Pinsk Talmud Torahs, was responsible. A later source also reports on the educational level: A correspondent for the Pinsky Listok (Pinsk Bulletin) notes a conversation that he had with an educational expert from Petersburg, who had visited the Karlin Talmud Torah and found several deficiencies: there was no pedagogic

Education and Culture

council, the principal was not a trained educator, and “all attention was devoted to study and no one was concerned about the students’ broader development.” The Board of Directors replied sharply: We are certainly guilty that students acquire essential and sufficient knowledge of the Russian language, grammar and arithmetic. . . . many of our graduates have good positions in various firms, and we hereby inform parents who want to see their children “developed” according to the latest formulas, that the Talmud Torah is no place for their children. We are primarily pleased with our failure to understand the meaning of the word “development,” for our boys know, besides the general subjects mentioned above, Hebrew subjects as well.

In the course of their reply, the board members point out that Crown Rabbi Samzhovsky, a graduate of the Realschule, supervises the Talmud Torah. This reply was countered by the following statements from the “experts”: Rabbi Samzhovsky doesn’t know a thing about pedagogy; if the institution is that good, why do so many students drop out before they finish their studies; why don’t the directors send their own grandchildren to study there; the talk about the positions held by graduates is idle boasting because those students finished their studies during the period that Reb Michel Ettinger and Reb Yonah Simhovitz were on the Board of Directors and Reb Shmuel Vilkomirer was principal.56 (The claims and counterclaims indicate a good educational atmosphere in the Talmud Torah.) I. Brisky, who studied in the Karlin Talmud Torah from 1909 to 1911, praises Yisrael Zaretzky, the arithmetic teacher, a famous mathematician who authored a book of charts and computations of cubic meters for the lumber trade. His book, printed in many editions, was a great success and won prizes from the Russian authorities. Brisky also cites the teacher Berkovsky and notes, “My teachers for Talmud and Hebrew were also of high caliber.”57 Kleinman was the teacher of Hebrew, Bible, and Hebrew grammar. The students’ expectations of receiving positions in the city’s businesses (especially those of the Lurias, which hired its clerks from among the outstanding students of the Talmud Torah) was an important factor in the atmosphere of serious learning. But this atmosphere prevailed above all because of the teachers. Rabbi Begun notes that Reb Shmuel Vilkomirer selected the finest

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instructors. Besides Maslansky and Horowitz, other teachers during Vilkomirer’s tenure were: Sidlik—arithmetic, Moshe-Dov Peretz—beginning Talmud, and Reb Peretz—advanced Talmud. During the period that Reb Isaac Basevitz was a director (Basevitz used to visit the Talmud Torah to see and hear how the students were learning Talmud), the teachers were, in addition to those mentioned by Brisky, Reb Yitzhak Hokhman—Talmud (one of his students wrote that he prided himself on having been Hokhman’s student),58 Dov Kushnir—also for Talmud, Yudevitz—Bible, and Levin, who was mentioned above. Secular studies—that is, Russian, arithmetic, penmanship, and gymnastics—were taught by Berkovsky, Rudik, and Bortnovsky. In the 1879–1880 fiscal year, the budget of the Karlin Talmud Torah had risen to 3,452.29 rubles. Since income that year was only 3,131.29 rubles, a meeting was held on October 6, 1880, in which “the aristocrats and distinguished men of the city participated, along with the distinguished Rabbi.” It was decided that everyone would donate a regular amount and pledge a contribution to the Talmud Torah when he was called up to the Torah on Sabbaths and holidays. In this budget the income from the korobka was only a few rubles. This may have been because the Talmud Torah had not been recognized by the authorities; its permit was granted only in 1881. The revenue category, adding up to 178.24 rubles, is worth noticing as indicative of the way of life of this period. This item was composed of receipts from the burial society, igra de-ta’anita(money donated in lieu of fasting), candles for the Day of Atonement, collection plates on the eve of the Day of Atonement, memorial candles, the Passover collection, the Purim collection, and the ­korobka, the meat tax. Other categorties of income were: tuition—1,347.6 and donations and bequests—1,606.99 rubles. Among the donors: ­Heshel Levin—183.80 rubles, Moshe Luria—110 rubles, David Luria— 107 rubles, Eliyahu Eliasberg—68.40 rubles, Zundel Eizenberg—59 rubles, the estate of the aristocratic Haya Luria—75 rubles.59 In 1887, expenditures also exceeded 3,000 rubles. The writer singles out for special mention “the noble brothers” Alexander and Ya’akov Barukhin, who contributed 375 rubles a year from the estate of their father.60 The 1902 budget shows that Karlin’s Talmud Torah was wealthier than Pinsk’s. In Karlin there were 180 students that year, one hundred

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fewer than in Pinsk, while the difference in expenditure for teachers’ salaries was 534 rubles, or only sixteen percent. The main sources of income that year were: hodesh vokher (fixed contribution)—653.23 rubles, donations—309.22 rubles, bequests—830.01 rubles, tuition—901.10 rubles, korobka—1,500 rubles, Purim collection—41.56 rubles, Passover collection—19.11 rubles, Day of Atonement candles and collection plates—21.51 rubles, fast days—1.24 rubles. The total income was 4,961 rubles, 350 rubles more than the income of the Pinsk Talmud Torah.61 From 1900 through 1907 the Talmud Torah received 1,500 rubles per year from the korobka; from 1908 to 1911, 1,745 rubles per year; and from 1912 to 1915, 2,000 rubles per year.62

The Hadarim Metukanim Pinsk was one of the first communities in Russia to see the need to transform the traditional heder to suit modern standards of education and health, to reinvigorate it by strengthening the study of Hebrew, and by infusing it with nationalist spirit. The initiative came from  the Safah Berurah society (see Chapter Three) and from members of the Zerubavel Lodge, that is, Benei Moshe (founded by Ahad Ha’am). In 1890, the year of its founding, Safah Berurah had already considered setting up a school for poor children to learn “Hebrew language and Jewish history.”63 The plan was not realized. Safah Berurah called the Hebrew teachers together for a meeting, however, and requested that they speak Hebrew with their students; a number of teachers agreed.64 Five years elapsed and in the fall of 1895, the Pinsk Zerubavel Lodge succeeded in opening a heder metukan, a “reformed heder.”65 In 1895 only three or four hadarim metukanim existed in all of Russia. In 1885 a heder metukan had been opened in Warsaw, and in 1890 Shemaryahu Levin attempted to establish a second there. Hadarim metukanim existed in Yekatrinoslav, in the village of Prezchefina near Yekatrinoslav, and apparently in Odessa as well.66 A school for girls was opened in Vilna, the center of the Hovevei Zion movement, but at the time no thought was given to founding a heder metukan for boys.67 It was a new idea and the heder metukan did not get a reputation until after it had been established in Pinsk. A letter from Chaim Weizmann to

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the Zionist leader Leo Motzkin (November 29, 1895) contains the first mention of it: I have told you about the heder metukan. I can now report that everything is proceeding very well. The children’s accomplishments are most favorable. By summer the number of pupils should reach forty, and the heder has the character of a model Jewish school.68

Six weeks later, Weizmann writes to Motzkin: You will recall that in Brest I told you about the model heder opened in Pinsk; its progress is phenomenal, and it is revolutionizing the entire educational system here.69

On February 26, 1896, Z. H. Hiller published an article describing the heder metukan. After much debate about the question of education, this winter the maskilim founded a new improved school in accord with the spirit of the times and the principles of health. Boys aged five and six study under one of the finest teachers, who knows something of educational method. He teaches the alphabet by the phonetic method to all the boys at once, not like the heder where the melamed teaches them one by one. . . . Here all the boys are taught together. They quietly sit at the table, their eyes on the board, so they can see, black on white[sic], large letters of the alphabet with their diacritical vocalization marks [in the Hebrew alphabet vowels are marked by diacritics]; the teacher stands there explaining the pronunciation of the letters with their vowels. . . . Now there is only a beginners’ class in the school, but another class will be opened by the summer.70

The first and most obvious innovation was a change in the method for teaching the alphabet but there were others. Who were these members of the Zerubavel Lodge who founded the heder metukan, and who was its first teacher? Chaim Weizmann was deeply involved in this matter. He notes in his memoirs that “another activity to which I was drawn—it had only an indirect connection to Zionism, was converting people to the idea of the improved heder in its modern form—the heder metukan.”71 M. Kerman and Haya ­Weizmann-Lichtenstein provide more detailed information in their memoirs. Kerman states that in the winter of 1895, as a result of Shimshon Rosenbaum’s activities, elections were held for the admin-

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istrative posts of the Karlin Talmud Torah. Rosenbaum’s aim was to bring Zionists into the administration to effect both organizational and educational changes; but the Zionists failed in this attempt. Yehudah Leib Berger then proposed establishing a new educational institution. Weizmann-Lichtenstein’s memoirs also suggest that Berger was the initiator: “Yehudah Leib Berger approached the question seriously and saw the heder metukan as the first step in transmitting Hebrew culture to the generation that would head the movement in the future.”72 Kerman then tells about the scene on Shabbat Nahamu (the Sabbath after the fast of Tish’a B’av). This Sabbath had become a Hovevei Zion holiday, when all the members gathered in the Great Synagogue, decorated for the occasion with pictures of the moshavot (agricultural cooperatives in Palestine) and placards bearing verses of comfort from the Prophets. According to Kerman, Berger announced that a meeting of the society would be held on Saturday night in Mokhe’s shul [synagogue]. At this gathering (presided over by Berger), Ya’akov Avigdor Minkovitz gave an account of a meeting called by the Odessa Committee; afterward the then student Chaim Weizmann spoke about the need for reform in Jewish education. Weizmann described both the state of neglect in the hadarim and the danger of assimilation facing students in the public schools. An education committee was selected, whose members were: Aharon Rubenstein, Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch, M. Strick, Y. A. Minkovitz, H. Hiller, Efraim Dov Lifshitz, and Nahum Rabino­ witz. Berger and Weizmann collected three hundred rubles to rent a room and purchase furniture for the new school and invited Yehezkel Orlansky to be its teacher. (Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein also states that Orlansky was the first teacher in the heder metukan.) The first children accepted to the heder were the children of Zionists. Zionists chose to serve as an example, to be the pioneers in this effort. According to Kerman’s report, the heder accomplished wonders in its first term (from fall 1895 to spring of 1896). The children had already begun the study of Pentateuch that term; for the summer term new registration was accepted, based upon the following principles: No children already studying with other melamdim (this was to forestall complaints of pupil poaching by such teachers), children under the age of six, or children without a doctor’s certificate, were to be admitted.

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An article from February 1896 confirms: “Right now only one beginners’ class was established in the school; toward summer another class will be added.”73 In Kerman’s article reference is made to a “new school”; Haya W­eizmann-Lichtenstein speaks of a “model school.” Why then is this new educational institution called by the name heder metukan [an “improved” heder]? The title heder metukan was actually an accommodation to the Russian authorities’ decrees against Jewish education. It was forbidden to open a “school” except under specific circumstances: teachers had to have obtained teachers’ licenses following either study in the teachers’ seminaries of Vilna or Zhitomir or external examinations, and Russian was to be the language of instruction. Different rules applied, however, to the hadarim: by an 1893 directive, a melamed or traditional teacher in a heder needed only a certificate of good behavior from the Crown rabbi and a yearly payment of three rubles for his teacher’s license. Instruction in secular subjects— even Russian—was prohibited (in Poland it was obligatory to learn Russian), and only one melamed was allowed to teach in a building. (In 1903, however, the Russian authorities began to be more lenient with regard to this last restriction.) The growth of the Pinsk heder metukan was rapid. By 1897 there were already three classes. The traditional term system was abolished, and studies in all grades extended throughout the year. The annual examinations proved “that the heder metukan was successful.” 74 Every year another, higher grade was added. The staff was made up of teachers who worked together “according to an accepted and appropriate syllabus,” even though classes were spread about in various homes because of the government regulations. Yehudah Haklai, who was among the first students in the heder metukan, recalls: This heder was different in a positive sense from the hadarim of other melamdim, in its internal arrangements and its curriculum: a spacious classroom with windows for light and air, proper benches—a bench for each two or three pupils—textbooks, notebooks, and leather satchels or briefcases, maps and pictures on the walls. The curriculum extended over five or six years, each year under a different teacher, in a different building, on a different street. . . . In Orlansky’s class we studied the

Education and Culture

alef-bet and read in the prayer book. The second year we moved on to a teacher named Bakaliar, in the third to the teacher Moshkovsky, in the fourth to Gitelman, in the fifth to Bergman, in the sixth, the Talmud class, to Ben-Zion.75

A detailed five-year program of study survives from 1900. The teachers formulated the syllabus in cooperation with the “Education Committee.” Berger, in practice the principal of the heder metukan, was the most active of the committee members. According to the 1900 program, children were accepted from the age of five. Whoever failed the final tests repeated the grade. In first grade the children studied from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon; in all other grades they studied from nine-thirty until three-thirty. On Friday, all studied until one o’clock. In the first grade an individual lesson lasted only for twenty minutes during the first three months and for a half hour thereafter; in the other grades, the lesson lasted fifty minutes. A ten-minute recess was allowed between lessons, and the hour between twelve and one o’clock was set aside for lunch. The syllabus for the first grade included: ivri [reading instruction]; blessings on fringed garments, on various foods, and on wine; the first six chapters of Genesis; grammar; Jewish history according to Beit Sefer Ivri (the Hebrew school), Part 1 by Yehudah Grozovsky; written work based upon the material studied in grammar according to Mikra Lefi Ha-Taf (a child’s reader) by David Yellin [1864–1941, distinguished Hebrew scholar and educator, deputy mayor of Jerusalem, and son in-law of Y. M. Pines]; and dictation twice a week. The second grade syllabus included: Pentateuch through Chapter 24 of Exodus; Jewish history according to Beit Sefer Ivri, Part 2; grammar; reading in Beit Sefer Ivri, Part 2; written exercises according to Mikra Lefi Ha-Taf; and dictation twice a week. The third grade syllabus included: the remainder of the Pentateuch (Leviticus was studied last) and Early Prophets (i.e., Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings); Jewish history until the period of the destruction of the Second Temple, according to Ze’ev Jawitz’s book; grammar; reading—continuation of Beit Sefer Ivri, Part 2, and Kol Agadot Yisrael (all the legends of Israel) by Y. B. Lerner; written exercises—stories and short translations, oral and written; and dictation twice a week.

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The fourth grade syllabus included: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor Prophets; Ezra and Nehemiah, Esther, and Proverbs; Jewish history from the destruction of the Temple until modern times as portrayed in Ze’ev Jawitz’s book; grammar; literature—Eden ­Ha-Yeladim (children’s garden of Eden) by Tevyov and stories published by ­Tushiyyah; written work—short stories based on history or the Bible (and translations); and dictation twice a week. The fifth grade syllabus included: Isaiah and Psalms; review of the Bible (omitting portions not suitable for young children, such as the  stories of Lot and his daughters and of Judah and Tamar); Jewish history from Toldot Yisrael (Jewish history) by Alexander Ziskind Rabinowitz; grammar from Moreh Ha-Lashon (the language teacher) by H. Tz. Lerner (this was the text in earlier grades, too); reading—Beit Sefer Ivri, Part 3, and stories written without diacritical vowel marks; writing—longer stories and more difficult translation exercises; dictation twice a week; and Mishna—Ethics of the Fathers as an introduction to the study of Talmud, which was planned for the sixth grade.76 In 1901 a seventh grade was opened.77 The program contained many innovations: study of Gemara was deferred until the sixth grade, that is, until the ages of ten to eleven. New texts were introduced, most of them written by teachers in Palestine. Bible was taught according to a logical plan, which took the children’s ages into consideration. A great deal of attention was devoted to instruction in Hebrew language and grammar. From the earliest grades on, the teaching methods prepared the children to read those books that were first being published for children in that period, like Olam Katan (small world) and the series of pamphlets Le-Yeladim (for children) and Le-Ne’arim (for older children) put out by Tushiyyah.78 The social status of the teachers in the hadarim metukanim was greatly improved.79 They played an important part in Pinsk society; S. N. Gitelman and A. A. Feinstein are notable examples. General studies were not taught in the hadarim metukanim because of the government rule limiting the heder curriculum. Instead, students of the hadarim metukanim studied these subjects in evening classes at the Drunzik school (see below) or with private tutors, for there was apprehension of potential informers among the ultra-Orthodox (members of

Education and Culture

the anti-Zionist Black Bureau) or among melamdim deprived of their subsistence. (There were in fact melamdim who left Pinsk at this time to seek a living in neighboring towns, or who were left unemployed.)80 A campaign was waged against the heder metukan from the time it was started. Weizmann wrote (in his letter to Motzkin): “Like all revolutions, this is also full of counterrevolutionary outbursts and crass protests on the part of the melamdim. All things considered, it is a spirited struggle.”81 In his memoirs Weizmann writes: “My enthusiastic support for the new type of heder brought me into conflict with zealots who threatened to inform on me to the police, as a heretic, a revolutionary and a disturber of the peace.”82 The conflict continued for a number of years and became very bitter during the winter of 1899 when it became known that Berger had taken the daring step of composing an abridged version of the Bible, called Torah Le-Yeladim (Pentateuch for children) or Mavo La-Mikra (introduction to Bible) for children in the lower grades. The Pinsk ritual slaughterer Sh. N. Gottlieb, who headed the Black Bureau in the city instigated the confrontation over Torah Le-Yeladim. He induced both Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin and Rabbi Haim Meir Levin (a Vilna maggid [preacher] and editor of the Romm press, to which Berger had presented his book for publication), to join him. The Vilna rabbis and dayyanim cautioned Berger “not to dare to commit such an abomination.” When Berger remained unmoved by their warning, and the Romm press refused to halt the printing “because of the strict terms of the contract” between Berger and the publishers, Berger’s father was enjoined to demand that his son cancel the contract, by force of the commandment to “honor one’s father.” Berger could not withstand this decree, and he forfeited his money.83 The battle in Pinsk intensified. At the behest of the Black Bureau, a preacher arrived and worked the pious camp into a fury with his descriptions of imminent danger: The hadarim metukanim would lead their children into apostasy. These were hadarim mesukanim [a play on words in Hebrew meaning “dangerous hadarim”] because “they teach that there is no God and no miracles.” The traditionalist rabbis cried “Save us!” from the pulpit. Slanderous information was reported to the authorities; a case of “informing” had results.

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In one of the hadarim metukanim, a teacher had been instructing girls during afternoon hours, something prohibited by government restrictions on the heder. The ban on a heder for girls was also based upon the Talmudic proscription: “Whoever teaches his daughter Torah, [it] is as if he teaches her frivolity.”[Sotah 20a] The instruction of girls was stopped and apparently the heder was also closed.84 As one report put it, “Pinsk was roiling” with the distribution of slanderous leaflets and plastering of notices about an outbreak of heresy. One Sabbath, hoodlums attacked Berger and threw rocks at him. “Meetings [opposing Berger were held] in the synagogues and he and his Hebrew bookshop were boycotted.” According to Kerman, the slander resulted in a search of Ya’acov Avigdor Minkovitz’s home and the arrest of a craftsman, Motel Ziselman, who was detained for twenty-two days until M. H. Eliasberg and Grigory Luria interceded for his release. Kerman does not say what Ziselman’s crime was. He does report that following the Berger affair, the police interrogated Moshe Soloveitchik, Dr. Bukshitzky, and himself. Kerman also relates a pertinent anecdote. The rabbi of Pinsk, Rabbi Zvi Volk, had nothing to do with the Black Bureau; broadsides were distributed in the synagogues demanding that parents remove their children from the hadarim metukanim. Hiller, Rubenstein, and Strick, the leading Zionists, turned to Rabbi Volk, who declared that he did not authorize the broadsides and that he did not view Berger’s abridged Bible as a “new Bible” (which would be heresy) but rather as a pedagogical device to lead the children, from the simple to the difficult.85 There should be no suspicion that Rabbi Zvi Volk’s stand was a result of his relations to Sh. N. Gottlieb, head of the city’s Black Bureau. Gottlieb had become a decided influence on Rabbi David Friedman and a leader among those who had tried to sabotage the appointment of Rabbi Volk as Rabbi of Pinsk in 1894. Gottlieb continued to be one of Rabbi Friedman’s followers after that and was allied with men who were anything but deeply Orthodox, such as Aharon Luria and Yosef Halpern, in an effort to drive Rabbi Volk out and appoint Rabbi David Friedman as Rabbi of Pinsk. According to our narrator, Rabbi Volk was a man of distinguished character who kept himself above the controversy.

Education and Culture

Soon after the establishment of the heder metukan, some melamdim discovered that the new heder was better than theirs. Some were happy with the reform, because it lightened their burden by shortening the study day to six and a half or seven and a half hours in the higher grades. Others probably realized that it would be best not to swim against the current. As a consequence, pressure to establish hadarim metukanim in Pinsk grew. Melamdim who preferred to teach a single class, rather than two or three grades at once, approached the principals of the hadarim metukanim for guidance and requested the establishment of a committee to organize and supervise education. “There was new mobility in the market for melamdim in our city.”86 Melamdim began to organize into teams in order to divide the children properly into grades; they started to improve the facilities of the hadarim and took more pains with their attire. They introduced new textbooks and new procedures and decided that they would henceforth be called mori [my teacher] rather than rabbi [my master].87 By 1903, nineteen melamdim had formed five groups, and 639 pupils studied in these nineteen hadarim metukanim.88 There were also other melamdim who independently turned their ­hadarim into hadarim metukanim. Within a few short years, a real revolution had taken place in Pinsk education. In terms of educational content, however, these hadarim metukanim did not develop in keeping with the original founders’ hopes because the parents interfered in the curriculum. Parents apparently complained about the surfeit of free time for teachers and students; in additional hours one could accomplish more. Competition for quantitative achievement began. The beginners’ heder metukan, opened a few years ago by hard work on the part of the Zionists, grew to seven classes, but did not lead to the expected results. The teachers were constrained to educate their pupils according to the wishes of the parents, who are mostly of the older generation.89

The poet A. D. Lifshitz criticized the studies in the hadarim metuka­ nim. He complained that too heavy a burden was placed on students who also studied in the Drunzik evening classes: they studied about ten hours a day—six and a half to seven hours in the heder metukan and another three or so in the evening. He demanded that the hadarim

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­ etukanim be removed from the private jurisdiction of the melamdim m and be transferred to communal authority. This would prevent exaggerated “force-feeding,” harmful to the physical and mental health of the children, which was a consequence of competition among the melamdim for achievement. Subjecting the hadarim metukanim to public supervision would also make it feasible to offer equal education to children of the poor and the rich, “as is common all over the world, but not among the Jews.” A. D. Lifshitz suggested changing the teaching method to allow a shortened study day while accomplishing the same goals.90 Meanwhile another change was taking place in Jewish nationalist education with the ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew) method.

Ivrit Be-Ivrit in the Heder Ha-Metukan At first translation into Yiddish was the accepted pedagogic method in the hadarim metukanim. In the higher grades the students began to speak Hebrew. In 1899 Yitzhak Epstein published an essay in Ha-Shiloah [Hebrew literary, scientific, and social monthly, published from 1896 to 1926 in 43 volumes] entitled “Ivrit Be-Ivrit” (“Hebrew in Hebrew”). As a teacher in Palestine, Epstein was able to prove from his experience that learning a language without recourse to translation was a more effective method. His article greatly impressed the teachers and melamdim in Russia, and they began to go over to the method of ivrit be-ivrit, or, as it was known, “the natural method.”91 According to one memoirist, Yishai Adler inaugurated the use of this method in David-Horodok, a town near Pinsk. Adler, a native of Janowa (also in the vicinity of Pinsk), had married a Pinsk woman and was involved in education and Zionism in the city. He was the chief organizer for this method among the Pinsk Zionists. The Bundist leader Helfand (alias: A. Litvak), who had been exiled by the Russian authorities to David-Horodok, was so impressed by the new system that he used to accompany Adler to pedagogical meetings in Pinsk to explain the method and served as his “advocate.”92 Early in 1901 the Pinsk Zionists decided to open a new heder and to invite Yishai Adler to employ the new method, but Adler moved to Homel and opened a heder metukan there. Simha Dubovsky was ap-

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pointed teacher in the new heder in Pinsk.93 Borukh Rubenstein details the events in the history of Pinsk education and Russian-Jewish education in general, which led to this arrangement. Rubenstein, a native of Pinsk who had settled in Homel, influenced the Homel Zionists to open a heder metukan in their town along the lines of the one in Pinsk. Following negotiations with the Pinsk “heder committee,” the teacher H. P. Bergman was sent to Homel to lecture on the significance of the heder metukan. It was agreed that by September 9, 1900, he would move to Homel to serve as teacher in the heder metukan scheduled to open then. The date passed, and Bergman did not show up. Rubenstein traveled to Pinsk and discovered that the staff of the heder metukan in Pinsk was preventing Bergman from leaving his post. On Rosh ­Hashanah, September 24, 1900, a meeting of the education committee took place. Chaim Weizmann, visiting in Pinsk for the holidays, was there. At this meeting Rubenstein claimed that “[i]f they would not relinquish Bergman—this would determine the fate of the enterprise, for we cannot find a suitable teacher outside of Pinsk.” Weizmann took the matter upon himself and convinced Yishai Adler to go. After Rosh Hashanah, Weizmann, Bergman, and Adler set out for Homel to arrange matters.94 The new heder in Pinsk was opened for children of the poor to obviate parental interference in the curriculum and the teaching method: About a year ago, when the founders saw that the hadarim [metukanim] did not achieve their goal, they opened a heder metukan for the children of the poor, to teach them Hebrew in Hebrew according to a syllabus fixed in advance.95

There were thirty students in this heder. Expenditures totaled 800 rubles: 300 for the teacher’s salary, 200 for rent, 100 for the custodian and the money collector, 95 for shoes and clothing for the children, and 105 for teaching aids and other expenses. The expenditure for each child was 26.6 rubles. Income was 240 rubles from tuition and 460 rubles from annual contributions by 95 individuals (probably members of the Zionist circle that founded the school) and occasional donations.96 The heder grew apace. In its second year there were seventy students, and in 1903 there were already four classes, with two teachers. The first grade in this heder metukan studied only three and a half hours a day, while

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in other hadarim metukanim, first graders studied for five or five-anda-half hours a day.97 The Pinsk experiment soon became widely known. In 1902 Simha Dubovsky published the syllabus of the first two grades in Ha-Melitz, “because many people are asking for the curriculum of our heder.” This syllabus demonstrates the changes that had taken place during the year or two since the earlier program of the hadarim metukanim had been made public. Study of Pentateuch was completely omitted from the first grade; nearly all the blessings were omitted; and time spent on the study of grammar was greatly reduced. Conversation, in the form of questions and answers (the basis of the ivrit be-ivrit method) was introduced, and more stories were read. The children studied the books Lefi Ha-Taf (an elementary reader and grammar) by David Yellin, Beit Sefer Ivri (reading and writing textbook) by Grozovsky, and She’elah ­U-Teshuvah (question and answer) by Rosenberg. In the second grade, the study of Pentateuch was begun, the portions difficult or unsuitable for young children, deleted. Ben Ami’s book Safah Hayah (living language) was introduced. Conversations were held on the topics: “man—his body and his clothes, the handicapped, artisans and their tools, the home, gardens and vegetables, the forest, forest animals and birds, domestic animals and birds, among others. Grammar—conjugation of nouns and verbs and some study of the vowel-pointing system; religious matters—explanation of the Shema (Hear O Israel) and Kiddush (sanctification over the wine), and religious aphorisms; and singing and the study of poetry (from various textbooks) rounded out the curriculum.98 In reply to “questions regarding the course of studies in the Hebrew school according to the ivrit be-ivrit method,” the curriculum published in Ha-Melitz was reprinted in Ha-Maggid. The editor of H ­ a-Maggid considered it imperative to publish the Pinsk syllabus because “it deserves to be used as a model.” He added that “the students speak Hebrew fluently to each other.”99 Pinsk, like Homel, gained a great reputation in the field of education, and people from all over came to see its hadarim and to try to hire teachers there. Pinsk took pride in this. Our city, which has outstanding hadarim metukanim . . . towered over other places. Communities that wish to introduce hadarim metukanim

Education and Culture

turn to us for advice. A leading Zionist of Berdichev came to inspect the new hadarim, and he selected one of the best teachers, H. P. Bergman, to found a school in Berdichev based upon our model.100

The source continues: Over a fifteen-year period Bergman turned out many students [boys and girls]; he did a great deal to spread knowledge of our holy language among young people and endear the Zionist ideal to them. His work served as a positive example to the children of maskilim who attend the public schools as well.

Besides teaching in the heder metukan, Bergman also gave private lessons. “The leading Zionist” mentioned in the above article was Sh. A. Horodetzky, who states in his memoirs that: I was a member of the committee that established a heder metukan in Berdichev, like those first established in Pinsk, where the language of instruction was ivrit be-ivrit. We brought in teachers from Pinsk and elsewhere, among them A. Y. [should be H. P.] Bergman and Shmuel Haim Barkuz.101

Barkuz did not go directly from Pinsk to Berdichev; Yishai Adler took him away to Homel first.102 Zionists from Volkovisk (in the Grodno district):103 [sent] for an expert teacher from Pinsk, whose hadarim metukanim and instructional methods are outstanding, and that wonderful teacher established proper educational order here too; pupils of the heder metukan did valiantly in their studies in a remarkably short time.104

News of the hadarim in Pinsk and Homel reached Bobruisk, and four melamdim from that city went to view the hadarim metukanim; in 1900 they founded a heder metukan in Bobruisk. The city of Motele, close to Pinsk, in turn imported a Pinsk teacher, Zvi Nun. Nun, next to Avraham Yitzhak Motolansky, was “the teacher” in Motele. (Motolansky, the famous “master” praised by the gifted author Reb Mordecai’le, was remembered with affection by Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein and her brother Dr. Chaim Weizmann.) Nun transplanted the procedures of the heder metukan to Motele; he gave to his pupils both love and mastery of the Biblical text, as well a command of the Hebrew language and its grammar.

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Although Pinsk was neither the first to found a heder metukan, nor the first to apply the method of ivrit be-ivrit, it became a prime mover in the great transformation of education within Russian Jewry. The ­hadarim metukanim, although they did not develop exactly according to the visions of their founders, did influence other hadarim and the Talmud Torahs. The hadarim metukanim were schools for Zionism. The teachers continued to have an influence on the students even after they completed formal studies. Dr. A. Ritterman (born in 1890) writes in his memoirs: The teachers from the heder metukan, Moshkovsky, Orlansky, Gitelman, invited us to visit them each Friday and Sabbath in the Zionist synagogue, [also known as] Mokhe’s synagogue. Every Sabbath one of us, by turns, would be called up to read from the Prophets, or stand to lead the prayers before the ark, if he was inclined to cantorial art. This appealed to us. One of the teachers would deliver a Zionist sermon. This was after we had graduated from the heder metukan and were attending other schools.105

The only teaching staff in Pinsk that taught Hebrew in Hebrew included Orlansky, who taught first grade; Bakalier, second grade; ­Aharon Borukh, third grade; Moshkovsky, fourth grade; and Gitelman, fifth grade. A. A. Feinstein may have belonged to the group as well.

Russian-Jewish Schools for Boys During the period presently under discussion [1881–1914] the popularity of the public schools and Russian Jewish schools increased,106 and new schools were opened. The primary reason was the 1874 law obligating all young men of twenty-one to report to the draft board (even merchants’ sons, who had been exempt until now), but allowed significant exemptions to high school graduates. The flow to these schools, of course, caused the deepening of Russification among the intelligentsia. Students opened their hearts to Russian literature, which had reached new heights in the second half of the previous century, and began speaking Russian among themselves.

Education and Culture

The teacher L. Horowitz, and the Jewish government-primary school, which he headed from 1859 until the 1890s, did a great deal to advance the Haskalah. In 1891 S. N. Gitelman writes: “It is thirty-two years now that L. G. has served honorably in the primary school.” The reference is to L. Horowitz (Gurevitz in Russian), whom Gitelman praises lavishly, saying that “he has turned out many students who are already well known lawyers, surveyors, doctors and pharmacists.”107 A. B. (Alexander Berkovitz) Drunzik succeeded Horowitz as principal. In 1887 forty-three students attended the school. Yisrael Abramowitz Schreiber served as assistant principal and Moshe Shmuelovitz Kurzmany was a teacher. Horowitz also taught religion at the government Realschule at the time. Moshe Haim Eliasberg, the son of Yeshayah Eliasberg, was cited as honorary superintendent (in 1891). In the latter half of the 1890s, Shelomoh Haimov Nemtzinsky replaced Kurzmany as teacher.108 In 1899 Drunzik received permission to convert the school into a private school.109 Yosef Herman, who studied there in the early twentieth century, describes it: Most of the day was devoted to Russian language: reading, grammar, dictation, composition, et cetera. A great deal of attention was also given to arithmetic. The language of instruction was, obviously, Russian. This institution no longer bore any resemblance to the traditional heder. Two spacious buildings in the center of Karlin, large rooms, modern benches attached to folding tables. Bare-headed children dressed in uniform . . . long black pants and a black shirt of cloth or leather, black hat . . . gleaming, and a leather belt over a shirt buttoned all the way up to the neck. In both its curriculum and its appearance this was a Russian school. . . . What distinguished it from the schools of the Russians were: a) Sabbath and Jewish holiday vacations, b) the study of Hebrew prayers and their Russian translations, and a little of the Bible, with Russian translation. This was the extent of Hebrew studies in the school.110

The standard of Hebrew studies had been no better before the school became a private institution. Gitelman states that: The government primary school does not see itself as having a role in teaching religious studies. The Bible is a closed book and Hebrew is a foreign tongue, for their study of the language twice a week from the book Mesilah Hadashah (new pathways) . . . is worthless.111

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Until 1900, as long as this was a government school, students studied for free. Afterward tuition came to between three and six rubles a year.112 Drunzik developed and expanded his school and opened an “evening school.” An 1899 article reports that: The supervisor of the primary school, Mr. A. B. Drunzik, recently received authorization to open a private school for Jewish children who spend most of the day studying in the hadarim. Their studies will extend from five until eight o’clock in the evening, following the syllabus of the first and second grades in the Realschule.113

Children studying in the hadarim metukanim attended these evening classes. Tuition for evening classes was higher than for the day school. Children of wealthy parents studied here, and children whose parents did not want them to spend the day studying Russian subjects sent them to learn Torah in the morning and to Drunzik’s classes in the afternoon.114

This school initially received more from the korobka than any other educational institution. From 1900 to 1903, it was allocated 1,570 rubles per year and from 1904 to 1907, 2,555 rubles (during this period it received extra money to expand the school). From 1908 to 1911 the annual allotment was decreased to 1,455, and from 1912 to 1915 the allowance was 1,700 per year.115 In 1881 Leib Rubakha reopened the private school founded by Crown Rabbi Avraham Haim Rosenberg, which had been closed when Rosenberg left for a post in Nikolayev.116 Beside the subjects currently required in the government supervised school, in which licensed teachers lecture before noon, the boys reassemble afterwards from two to six o’clock for lessons from teachers of the Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Jewish religion in Russian translation, also laws from the Shulhan Arukh [a code of practical Jewish observance] and oral declamations of faith in Russian.117

The day was divided in two: general studies were taught in the morning, and Jewish studies were deferred to the afternoon. In winter, when the days were short, the pupils recited the afternoon prayer together, and “the residents of Pinsk quickly realized that blessing resides in this building. So many are turning their sons over to be

Education and Culture

raised in this school, for a future of Torah and wisdom and good deeds.” The source of this information goes on to make a request for the Petersburg Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment to “take notice of this school, support it and sustain it as is its custom with all schools that are properly run and appropriately organized.” Kleinman’s was another private school founded around the turn of the century. This school was run in a Zionist-nationalist spirit. Hebrew studies were apparently taught by the ivrit be-ivrit method. A 1903 article states: Last Tu Be-Shevat, when a large audience had gathered to hear the children speaking correct and fluent Hebrew, we saw how Kleinman’s improved school is coming along and benefitting our children.118

But Dr. Ritterman, who studied in this school after graduating from the heder metukan, writes in his memoirs that he studied Russian, arithmetic, geography, German (the German teacher was Dr. Lichten­ stein, Haya Weizmann’s husband), and physical education under a Russian corporal (who was later fired after intervention by some of the Orthodox).119 He does not mention learning Hebrew at all. This school did not receive any appropriation from the korobka in its early years. Zionist circles complained about this and after numerous intercessions, the institution finally received an appropriation of three hundred rubles per year for the years 1904–07.120 The Zionists’ lobbying implies that in this school the Zionist spirit reigned, and Hebrew subjects were taught. In the korobka budget of later years, no figure is listed for the school. An appropriation for another school is mentioned: 340 rubles a year during 1908–11 for “Sidlik’s school.” No appropriation was noted for 1912–15 because the school committee announced that only a few parents had made requests for reductions in tuition. Sidlik complained about the minimal awareness of those involved in education and their indifference to educational matters, this being, in his opinion, the main reason “every school that opens in Pinsk eventually closes down.” His school stays alive, he maintains, because it does not need financial help, although support from the committee would raise the educational standard even higher.121

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Very few Jewish boys studied in the general Russian public elementary schools. In 1905 a municipal school (Gorodskoya Uchilishche) was opened, probably as a result of a twenty-five-thousand–ruble donation by the Pollack brothers of Nizhni-Novogrod. Jews did not study here in the school’s early years because classes were held on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and the school had a strong Russian Orthodox orientation. On March 25, 1910, a branch of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment was opened in Pinsk, and discussions were held regarding the most desirable type of boys’ school. Haim Fialkov, the Society’s supervisor of schools participated in these, but nothing came of the talk of a school. The teachers in the government schools held diplomas: they were either graduates of the Vilna government teachers’ institute or had passed the external examinations. Herman reports that the teachers in Drunzik’s school wore uniforms: blue coats with velvet collars, bearing brass buttons engraved with the Russian eagle. “They were considered the aristocracy of the city, and were free thinkers, to whom everything was permitted.” The Jews regarded them as important government functionaries and treated them with respect. When Jews entered the school building they removed their hats before the picture of His Majesty the Tsar, and some even stood bareheaded before the teachers when visiting their homes. In the early twentieth century, the teachers in the Drunzik school—besides Drunzik himself, who taught arithmetic and Russian in the higher grades—were Mark Abramovitz, ­Schreiber, Salomon Nimchisky, Ya’acov Akimovitz Berkovsky (who also taught in the Pinsk Talmud Torah), Vitaly Aronovitz Segelevitz (a native of Pinsk and a graduate of the Vilna teachers institute, he was later arrested as a Bundist and exiled to Siberia), Grigory Yefimovitz Shrager (who was also to be arrested and believed to be a member of the Social Revolutionaries). Segelevitz was probably the first teacher to take students for trips on the steamships on the Pina River and its tributaries, to Terevan (a small island in the Pina) and to Starokon (a village near the Pina). Zaretzky, Rudik, and Burtnovsky, who taught in the Talmud Torahs, were probably teachers in the Russian-Jewish schools as well.122

Education and Culture

The Education of Girls Jewish education for girls in Pinsk was as neglected as in other Jewish communities in Eastern European and the Islamic countries. Some girls did learn reading and writing from the primary teachers in the hadarim, but Russian law banned them from instruction in more advanced hadarim. The daughters of the wealthy continued Hebrew lessons at home with melamdim and private tutors. On the other hand, the teaching of girls in girls’ schools, whether or not they were Jewish schools, was not seen as improper even by the pious. Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s daughters attended such secular institutions.123 Abramovitz’s school for girls came into existence in the early 1880s; its founder was probably the Mark Abramovitz who taught later in Drunzik’s school. It was said that “very few students” studied here, “because the poverty of our people makes it difficult for them to pay the five or ten rubles tuition per year.” The Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment decided to award a grant of sixty rubles to this school “on condition that six poor girls study there without fees.”124 In 1887 three girls’ schools known as pensions existed in Pinsk. One had forty-eight students—all Jewish, another had forty-six—the majority Jewish, and the third had sixteen—most, or all, non-Jews.125 The pension for Jewish girls only was probably Mrs. E. Waller’s school. S. N. Gitelman first mentions it in his article of 1891: “The school for girls established by the maskelet [female maskil] Mrs. E. Waller has been successful for a number of years.”126 Gitelman’s article also reports “two other girls’ schools run by the members of the local population” (nonJews). Gitelman’s article tells that in Waller’s school, “Russian, German, and French, geography, history, arithmetic, penmanship, religion and crafts” were studied. The pupils were not necessarily daughters of the wealthy, “for the payment received from each girl was meager, and income was small compared to expenditures.” That year the korobka appropriation to the school was 300 rubles.127 In 1900–1903 the stipend was 700 rubles per year; in 1904–07—1,000 rubles per year; in 1908–11—775 rubles per year; in 1912–15—only 500 rubles per year.128 In the early 1900s the Waller school became known as a gymnasium [secondary school]; this probably took place after a law was issued on

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August 24, 1906, permitting Jews to establish gymnasiums. Mrs. Waller died in 1912, and the Pinsk government gymnasium decided to open classes for girls in order to serve pupils from the Waller gymnasium, which had now closed down.129 The Lubzovsky sisters founded a school for girls in 1891. Originally a primary school, it began with three grades and was intended for girls aged seven to ten.130 This school also developed into a gymnasium. In 1903, Ms. Lubzovsky received permission to present an award in honor of Minister Vita [the Minister of Finance] to an outstanding student.131 The Lubzovsky school began receiving support from the korobka in 1897, and until 1903 it benefited from distributions similar to those of the Waller school. From 1904 to 1907 it received 750 rubles per year; from 1908 to 1911—680 rubles per year; and from 1912 to 1915—only 500 rubles per year.132 As the movement for nationalist education began to gather strength, attention was also focused on Jewish education for girls. The maskilim, that is, the Zionists, succeeded in obtaining permits to open hadarim for girls. An 1896 article states: “Our maskilim founded another girls’ heder with government permission. Each day twenty girls come to study Hebrew; they have decided to accept young women too and to introduce a [female] teacher.” The school principal was Sonia Shteinshneider “because she is known as an unusually fine educator.”133 Earlier in this chapter, reference was made to a teacher in one of the hadarim metukanim who opened a girls’ school during afternoon hours, which closed down after the government was informed. In September 1908 the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association started a school for girls to provide education for the poor unable to pay the high tuition demanded by other institutions in the city. There was obviously a need. Many girls came knocking at its doors because there was no place for them elsewhere. This was Leah Feigele’s School, named for the owner of the building in which it was located. A great many hours were devoted to Hebrew studies compared to schools in other cities. In the four grades that existed in 1911, thirty-seven hours a week were spent on Hebrew, that is, an average of nine-and-a-­quarter hours for each class. In Elizabethgrad, for example, only a total of thirty-six hours was spent on Hebrew studies for six grades, and in

Education and Culture

Nikolayev—twenty-eight hours for four grades.134 Haim Fialkov, the noted educator who served as superintendent for the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment, spoke about the low level of education for girls at a conference of teachers and activists; but he excluded the Pinsk and Vilna schools from this general observation.135 In 1911, 250 girls attended Leah Feigele’s School. Seventy new students from over two hundred applicants were accepted for the 1912 school year.136 Tuition was six rubles a year, while expenditures on each girl totaled eighteen rubles.137 After a fierce campaign by the Zionist spokesmen,138 Grigory Luria, Pinhas Mandelbaum, and Zvi Hiller, 390 rubles were appropriated from the korobka.139 The language of general instruction was Russian, but Hebrew studies were apparently conducted in Hebrew.140 There was another municipal school for girls in Pinsk, Prihodskoya Uchilishche, but the Jews did not regard it highly. “Jews do not willingly send their daughters to the municipal school.” (The statement implies that some girls did learn there.) Others studied in the government gymnasium for girls although attending this gymnasium entailed unavoidable desecration of Sabbaths and holidays. Some girls also studied with private teachers, in order to take the “external exams” for one of the gymnasiums.141

Secondary Education The problem of providing secondary education for those girls whose parents were willing and had the means for it, was solved to a large extent by the Waller and Lubzovsky-Shapira gymnasiums and the government girls’ gymnasium. The very wealthy sent their daughters to study at the pension in Frankfurt-on-Main. There was only one secondary institution for boys in the city, the government Realschule. Secular high school education for boys had its beginnings in 1850. In a letter sent to Aharon Luria, YaLa”G [Y. L. Gordon] relates that the year he was in Pinsk, one young man dared to study secretly in the gymnasium. He would go to school dressed in his “Jewish” clothes with his sidelocks curling down his cheeks; once in school he would change into

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the official uniform and roll his sidelocks behind his ears.142 According to Kerman’s memoirs, in the early 1870s it was still necessary to propagandize to get Jewish boys to study in the Realschule143 that had opened in the gymnasium’s place.144 The barrier was broken, however, at that time. Kerman relates that Aharon Luria served as an example by sending his two sons to the school, and a total of between thirty and fifty boys began to attend the Realschule at that time.145 The matter of “rights” or privileges related to military service was surely a factor in the change of attitude. Jewish students from outside Pinsk also came to the Realschule; among them was Chaim Weizmann, who arrived from Motele in the mid-1880s. In 1887 when the numerus clausus imposed a 10 percent quota for Jewish pupils, the problem of secondary education became critical. The problem may have been more serious in Pinsk than elsewhere, for the majority of the population was Jewish, and very few non-Jews were interested in secondary education; thus the number of Jewish youngsters who could be admitted to the Realschule under the numerus clausus was very small. In 1887 the Realschule had 184 students,146 of whom a significant proportion were Jews. But in 1893, when Y. Eliasberg attended the second grade class, there were only three Jews in his class of twenty-seven. These three were from the city’s “notables,” the sons of Dr. Zimanovitz and Yonah Simhovitz and Eliasberg.147 In 1896 there were twenty-five Jewish students in the entire six-grade school;148 this figure was apparently slightly higher than usual, since in 1897 the total student enrollment was 221. 149 On the average, three new Jewish students were accepted each year. In 1901 that was the number admitted.150 Members of the large Luria family were admitted outside of the quota because they were “honorary citizens” (a title granted by the Tsar to people who had proven their loyalty and value to Russia). Haya Luria had merited this status, and her descendants inherited it. Jewish students were compelled to attend school on Sabbaths and Jewish holidays; beginning in the mid-1890s, a new principal also forced them to desecrate the holy days by writing, although government law forbade such coercion. The newspaper correspondent reporting this suggested an appeal to the official responsible for the Vilna district, to

Education and Culture

which Pinsk belonged;151 it is not clear if an appeal was made, but apparently the situation continued. Jewish pupils studied a special Jewish subject called zakon bozhi (Divine law). Horowitz was the instructor; he served as principal of the government Jewish school and was known as Lev Izralovitz Gurevitz. Tuition at the Realschule was low; non-Jews paid 17.5 rubles for a term, and Jews paid 20.5 rubles. Payment for the zakon bozhi teacher probably accounted for the difference.152 As a result of the economic policy of Finance Minister Vita, the establishment of commercial schools, where the quota for Jews was 40 percent, became possible. Pinsk selected a committee to deal with this issue in 1901. Pinhas Mandelbaum discussed the topic extensively in the Pinsker Shtodt-Luakh of 1903, and Agudat Zion, the editorial board of the Luakh, continued the discussion. Mandelbaum claimed that the problem of secondary education would not be resolved by establishing a commercial school for the following reasons: 1. In order to admit forty Jewish students to the school, sixty nonJewish students would have to be found; there was no assurance that this would be possible, for gentiles were not particularly interested in business. 2. As in all government schools, pupils would be compelled to desecrate Sabbaths and holidays and would always find themselves in a hostile environment. 3. As in all government schools, age limitations for admission would be enforced. Parents would be forced to cut their children off from Jewish studies at a young age to prepare them for entrance examinations; obviously there were no Jewish studies in the government school apart from the zakon bozhi. 4. Because of the quota, vacant places would probably be filled by the sons of the wealthy, and poor boys would be excluded. 5. The establishment of such a school would cost no less than thirty thousand rubles, and tuition would not suffice to maintain it. Monies from special taxes on business permits would be needed. Such taxes would affect the poor, as well, although they would not study in the school. Most of the students would be either the sons of those who have no need for business permits, such as physicians, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals or students from outside Pinsk. They would all study at the expense of the poor.

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6. The standard of education in the business schools was not high since a great deal of time was devoted to commercial subjects; so graduates would encounter difficulties should they wish to study in any institution of higher learning. 7. Privileges granted by the business school were of little importance. The title “honorary citizen” had no tangible value, for an “honorary citizen” was not permitted to live outside the Pale either. Nor did the business school prepare students for university study. There was only one real benefit—reduction in military service. The same reduction was granted to those who pass the regional school examinations, which follow the syllabus of three grades in the Realschule. The reduction in army service was eight months, and Mandelbaum asked: Is it worth spending so much money and wasting eight years of the boys’ lives?

Mandelbaum proposed instead establishing a private secondary school, gymnasium, or Realschule. A private secondary school would have many advantages: 1. It would have no quota. All the students would be Jews, and it would be simple to include Hebrew studies as zakon bozhi. 2. Classes on Sabbath and holidays could be avoided. 3. The problem of admission age would not be serious. It would be possible to keep children in Jewish schools until they had absorbed Jewish culture and transfer them afterward to the secondary school. 4. In the absence of a quota, the children of the poor could also find places in the private secondary school, and their tuition could be covered by the korobka as was done for poor girls in the Jewish schools. 5. The academic standard in the private secondary schools would be similar to that of the government secondary schools; there would be no difficulties in gaining entrance to schools of higher education (foreign universities). 6. Graduates of private schools had to pass government school examinations to earn “rights” [draft deferment]. An arrangement could be made for government schoolteachers to teach in the private school, so that they would not maliciously fail their own students [when examining them].

An Agudat Zion article made the following points: It was reported that approximately one hundred young Pinsk boys study in various

Education and Culture

schools outside Pinsk.153 It cost at least five hundred rubles a year to support a boy away from home. With the money spent to support one hundred boys for one year, a school for three hundred boys could be set up within the city. The boys now learning away from home would bene­fit greatly, for they would not have to live far from parental supervision. It should not be difficult to collect the necessary funds. Members of the upper class have an obligation to donate the major portion of the money, for their sons occupy the few places in the Realschule allotted to Jews, while the sons of the poor and the middle class are excluded. Poor and middle-class parents “strip the skin off their bones,” torment their children with preparations for the exams, only to see their sons rejected in the end. The strident tone of address to the aristocracy is decidedly new and speaks to the “revolutionary” outlook of the younger Zionist generation. The Agudat Zion writers maintain that the gentry must realize that they have taken undue advantage of their economic power, for their sons will have secure futures even if they don’t study in the Real­schule. They must remember that they save themselves five hundred rubles a year by sending their sons to study in the Realschule. Because of their sons, the talents of the poor go to waste. This last demonstrates the concern for preservation of Jewish talents voiced by the Zionists, particularly by the democratic faction of which Chaim Weizmann was chief spokesman. (As Bialik wrote in “Shirah Yetomah” [an orphan poem] in 1900: “Oh, how many millet flowers are already buried there! And how many futures—who knows and who can face us.”) The article continues: we know what the “gentry” will claim, that their factories support the city. But they must know, first, that they do this for their own good, not from altruistic motives, and second, they have surely learned the verse “Man does not live by bread alone.” To open a secondary school, a gentile authorized to open such an institution had to be found and promised a salary since Jews were forbidden to maintain a secondary school.154 The direct results of these demands are unknown; a gymnasium was opened by Chaikovsky, although it did not exist for long. According to Haklai’s memoirs, all the students were Jewish, that is, it was a private gymnasium. It existed from 1907 to 1909.155 Herman states that it was

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opened in 1906. Perhaps this was the commercial school referred to by Y. Eliasberg. Herman writes reports on the founding and the administration of the gymnasium: Chaikovsky owned property in the Pinsk area including a foundry on the shore of the Pina River in Albrekhtovo. He wanted to gain the sympathy of the city’s Jewish population and upon receiving authorization from the Minister of Education he decided to establish a gymnasium for young Jews. He rented a large courtyard with three buildings, adapted them for use as a school and summoned a teaching staff. . . . The success was phenomenal. Not only did Pinsk boys of all ages stream to this gymnasium, but boys from other cities as well. They rented rooms, and before long prices rose. Hundreds of uniformed boys roamed the city streets with girls at night. The teachers were all gentiles from central Russia. The inspector of the Realschule served as inspector of the gymnasium too; he also taught mathematics. The gymnasium was closed down when the Ministry supervisors found that it did not meet the appropriate standards, and did not recommend government recognition and “rights” for its graduates.156

In 1910 the question of opening a business school came up again, as well as the claim that “dozens of parents were forced to send their children to study far from home.”157 No commercial school was opened. Many of the middle class could not afford to study in a secondary school outside Pinsk but either were not accepted to the Realschule because of the numerus clausus or did not want to study there because of Sabbath desecration. Forced to study as “externals,” they took instruction from private teachers and were tested at the Realschule. Some earned a certificate stating that they had passed the exams in the curricula of one or more classes; others continued secondary school studies elsewhere, for example, in Cohen’s gymnasium in Vilna. There were those who passed examinations in all the material but were not granted matriculation certificates [because of discriminatory policies]; at best they received certification from the Realschule principal. Information exists from 1900 about a yeshivah in Pinsk: “Our yeshivah is small and its maintenance negligible so that outside help is not necessary.”158 This article was written in connection with a charlatan who was soliciting funds for the Pinsk “yeshivah.” There may have been no

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yeshivah per se but only young men who studied in the batei midrash (study houses), as Herman reports of the boys who studied in the Karlin Neishtat Synagogue.159

Vocational Training Work in the field of vocational education for the poorer classes in Pinsk began in the generation preceding the period under discussion. This was Gad Asher Levin’s (1815/16–77) accomplishment. His activity began in the 1860s when only the bare beginnings of organized vocational training existed anywhere in Russia. Levin took orphans and poor children and turned them over to craftsmen for three years to be taught a trade; in return for training and food, Levin would pay the craftsman a sum of thirty to fifty rubles. During his lifetime Levin educated 214 craftsmen at his own expense: tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, watchmakers, and so on. Levin’s students were nicknamed Gadye’s Folk or “Gad’s brigade,” either because of the uniforms that he provided or because they were obligated to appear at fixed times to be tested or to receive the two-kopek fee for the bathhouse. Levin attended to their religious education as well. He retained a special melamed to teach them on the Sabbath, and the boys were required to come to Dinele’s Shulkhen (Dina’s Synagogue) for Sabbath prayers.160 In 1881 officials of the Karlin Talmud Torah began working for the establishment of a vocational school to train Talmud Torah students unsuited for scholastic studies. A permit from the educational authorities was obtained through the intervention of Isidore Luria, but three years elapsed before the school was opened; the delay was caused by lack of a building and shortage of funds. In 1884 Aharon Luria was elected official of the Talmud Torah, and he influenced Haya Luria’s heirs to turn over “part of her rooms to the school for vocational study.” As a result of Luria’s intercessions, 1,900 rubles a year were allotted from the k­ orobka, and 300 rubles a year were allocated by ORT [Obshchestvo Rasprostraneniya Trudasredi Yevreyev, Society for Manual and Agricultural Work among Jews organized in 1880] for maintaining the school. The school opened in May 1885 as a joint project of the Karlin and Pinsk Talmud Torahs, under the name “Pinsk-Karlin Talmud Torah Training

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School for Builders and Smiths” (the name was translated from the Russian).161 According to an 1887 report, the vocational school had been founded “in honor of the hundredth birthday of Sir Moses Montefiore.” The teacher was “a blacksmith who had completed his studies in the Zhitomir trade school.” In addition to vocational training “it was decided to provide the students with other essential studies” and “for this purpose a suitable apartment was rented and several young people took it upon themselves to teach language and literature gratis, and some of the progressive young women took part in this crucial effort . . . at regular times they taught the students reading and writing.”162 (Probably reading and writing in Russian is meant.) The blacksmithing course took four years to complete. This particular occupation was chosen because with the growth of manufacturing, such workers were in demand, and graduates were likely to find jobs easily. Sh. M. Rabinowitsch notes that “the practical result of the school was very great.”163 On May 14, 1895, the vocational school celebrated its tenth anniversary. A report gives details characteristic of the period. The building was decorated with the tri-color (the Russian flag) and with “pictures of the Tsar and the Tsarina bedecked in greenery and crowned by a wreath of flowers and lilies. . . . On the walls were the crossed tools of the trades graced by wreaths of leaves and flowers and flags.” The history of the school was related, and its achievements recounted: Over a period of ten years more than two hundred young boys have entered the school (most of them students of the Talmud Torah) and seventy of them have completed the four-year course of study. Some are craftsmen and assistants in factories here in Pinsk, and others have opened workshops in other cities and eat their own bread. . . . Since the school had been opened during the reign of Tsar Alexander III (may his memory rest in peace), the cantor and choir began the ceremony with a prayer for his soul’s repose; and then Crown Rabbi Samzhovsky read appropriate chapters of Psalms. Afterwards the children’s choir from the government school sang various songs in honor of Tsar Nicholas II, may his majesty increase; following the prayer Ha-Noten Teshuah [He Who grants salvation to kings] . . . the pupils sang El Melekh Netzor [May God preserve the King] and closed with the song Slavasia [Be praised] and thus the festival ended.164

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The achievements of the school were recognized outside the city. In 1890 students’ handiwork was sent to an exhibition in Petersburg, in which six other Jewish vocational schools participated.165 A steamship built in the vocational school was brought down to the river.166 At another exhibition, apparently in 1903, a steam engine constructed by the Pinsk vocational school was displayed.167 An article about the student strike of 1905 reveals that fifty students were in attendance that year and executed “large and varied projects.”168 Every year fifteen students, “all children of the poor, many of them orphans,” who were assigned rotating “eating days” at the tables of various townspeople, were graduated from the school.169 From 1900 to 1903 an allotment of 1,200 rubles was made to the school from the korobka; from 1904 to 1907, 1,400 rubles. Between 1900 and 1907, a yearly sum of 1,500 rubles was appropriated for the purchase of a new building. During the years 1908–11, no appropriation was made, but from 1912 to 1915, 750 rubles was earmarked for the school.170 The lapse occurred because large sums had been given to purchase the building, and instruction was halted for approximately two years. In 1908, however, the school was functioning; the principal, Ya’acov ­Erlikh, participated in a conference of vocational school principals in Vilna at the end of that year.171 The construction of the building and its transfer to the “Jewish society” for the vocational school was not completed until 1911. In discussions in November 1910 about the division of the korobka monies for 1912–15, Y. Halpern argued that the school did not merit an allocation because it was not in operation. He did agree to providing a sum of money for the board of directors to transfer the building to communal ownership. Following counter­arguments by Grigory Luria, M. Polack, and P. Mandelbaum and promises that the school would reopen shortly, an allotment of 750 rubles a year was made.172 In late 1910 ICA (the Jewish Colonization Association) [see Chapter One] proposed to provide 3,500 rubles a year on condition that the building be transferred to its ownership and that the residents donate 1,500 rubles. A society for the benefit of the vocational school was therefore organized. Each member was to pay 3 rubles in dues annually. Forty members chose a temporary committee, which scheduled a general meeting for November 23, 1910. In anticipation of the meeting,

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the editor of Pinsky Listok appealed to the public to join the society. He observed that several thousand Pinsk residents were capable of contributing 3 rubles a year to an important institution that served hundreds of poor youngsters.173 A new supervisory committee composed of the following members was selected: P. Kolodny, M. Polack, G. (apparently Girsh Zvi) Burstein, Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, and D. Berman.174 In January 1911 H. L. Aranovitz arrived in Pinsk on behalf of the ICA central committee to expedite the opening of the school.175 In 1911 the school reopened in its new quarters, a two-story building on the banks of the river in Karlin, in a building originally intended as a bathhouse, but remodeled for the new purpose. Ya’acov Erlikh, the principal, was both an expert in his field and a devoted Zionist. In addition to blacksmithing, mechanics and carpentry were taught. The vocational school’s connection to the Talmud Torah had been severed. In 1900 the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association founded a sewing workshop for girls. By 1902 thirty-five girls were learning to sew underwear and children’s clothes; the Association supported six and the rest received free clothing, shoes, and textbooks. Girls between ten and twelve were accepted in the workshop; the first year they worked from nine to two o’clock and thereafter, from nine to five o’clock. From five to seven they took evening classes in Mrs. Lubzovsky-Shapira’s girls’ school. In 1902 the Association spent more than 1,200 rubles maintaining the school, part of this sum for evening classes.176 Some of this school’s handiwork was displayed at the Petersburg exhibit in 1903; only four Jewish workshops, from St. Petersburg, Simpropol, Warsaw, and Pinsk participated in the exhibit.177 ICA agreed to provide 2000 rubles a year for three years to expand and improve the school, on condition that the Association expended a similar sum. Whether the agreement was carried out is not known. The Association planned to expand the workshop to include sixty girls and to invite a professional seamstress (modistke) to teach the girls how to sew clothes and coats.178 From 1908 to 1911, 390 rubles were allocated to the school, now called a vocational school, and for 1912–15, 500 rubles, plus another 100 rubles for evening study, were allocated.179 The school’s patroness was Rivkah Luria, Grigory Luria’s wife. Grigory Luria represented the school at general conventions. He was also

Education and Culture

elected representative to the general Russian conference of artisans.180 In December 1909 Luria participated in a Vilna convention on the reorganization of Jewish vocational institutions for girls, and he was elected to the presidium of the convention. At his suggestion, greetings were telegraphed to L. Bramson, a leading activist in Russian vocational education. The main issue at this convention was whether to change workshops into vocational schools. To a large extent workshops had to support themselves by profits from the sale of their products; therefore they could not devote themselves completely to training students, whereas vocational schools could ensure their students’ professional expertise. The Pinsk representative, Mrs. Matulska, claimed, however, that the vocational school was a philanthropic project, but with no great advantage over the workshop.181

The Beginnings of Kindergartens The problems of education of very young children first became a matter of concern to Jewish educators and communal activists in the first decade of the twentieth century. The issue was raised in Pinsky Listok in 1911 by two writers, A. L. and a woman whose serialized article was signed only “Froebelichka.” In 1913, Berta Katz, a kindergarten teacher from Vilna, opened a private kindergarten for two small groups of children in two sessions without government authorization;182 the language used was probably Hebrew. About a month before the outbreak of the First World War, “a Froebel-style playground for children . . . was finally opened” by the Pinsk branch of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment. Moshe’le Gleiberman writes: The playground is set up in a large garden, and there are enough playthings. Admission [to the kindergarten] is free. Due to lack of space, however, only a small number of children have been admitted and they are divided into two groups. These children are primarily from the poorer classes; now they can enjoy a few hours of play in the fresh air. The Petersburg Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jews (OZE) was of great assistance; it obtained the permit and sent a teacher who is very devoted to her work.183

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Adult Education As in all Jewish cities there were numerous study circles for the devout who wished to study Torah. In this period, when the decline of tradition became acute, the will of the members of these groups to study Torah may even have intensified. In the mid-1890s the following study circles existed in Pinsk: Bible, Talmud, Mishnah, Ayn Ya’acov [a compendium of aggadah (stories) from the Talmud, begun by Rabbi Jacob (Ya’acov) ibn Haviv after his expulsion from Spain in 1492], and Psalms. In Karlin there were study societies for Talmud and Psalms, as well as a Shomerim La-Boker (morning guardians) society (a group for people who rose early and prayed at sunrise immediately after their regular study period). In 1899 a general Talmud society was founded at the initiative of Rabbi David Friedman and “several of the elders of the community who were both wealthy and wise.” Reb Ya’acov Goldman writes that “in the evening, at the arranged time, a crowd of people from all parties, including long-time Zionists, gather to hear a lesson in Gemara from the brilliant rabbi, and enlightened gentleman, Reb Shmuel Rabinowitz.” The group may not have lasted long. Reb Ya’acov Goldman relates that “they are undermining this society; hundreds of foolish notes containing warnings and reprimands are mailed to its members.” Complaints were voiced by the younger generation: Hiring a teacher to instruct “the masses” in Torah would be more productive than continuing with this collective of students each of whom could study independently without the help of the teacher, learned as he may be.

They were arguing against the salary paid to the teacher of the study group.184 In 1905 a Talmud society was founded; its record book has been preserved. The first members of the society were: Yeshayahu Gevirtzman, Moshe Lampert, Nahman Bas, Meir Eizenshtein, Shmuel Katzman, Mordecai Eizenshtein, Haim David Levin, Ze’ev Zhokhovitzky, ­Shmuel Meltzer, Yehudah Ackerman, Shelomo Zalman Lenburg, Yisrael Dov Eizenberg, Yehudah Zhokhovitzky, Meir Zhokhovitzky, Naftali Shabziz, Leib Shabziz, Ze’ev Lokhten, Yitzhak Boim, Nahman Kerman, Alter the son of Reb Kopel. Rabbi Aharon Begun was appointed “Rabbi

Education and Culture

and teacher of the study group.” The by-laws of the society are the conventional ones: The time for study is one hour a day, between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. Each member must pay at least one ruble a year, as salary for the “Rabbi and teacher.” New members may be accepted only with the agreement of a majority of the society’s members. Anyone missing a lesson without a good reason must pay a fine of eighteen grushim. On the Sabbath that the portion of Jethro (Exodus: 18–20) is read, members will meet for services, and each member will be called up to the Torah; after the service they will share a communal ­kiddush (collation). That Saturday night two officers will be elected, who have the right to change the time of study. Should a member of the group die, the study group will meet in his home during the entire week of mourning. On the anniversary of his death, they will study, and say Kaddish (memorial prayers) for him. A short while after its founding “the sage Borukh Epstein, an expert in Talmud and Shulkhan Arukh” and Rabbi David Rabinsky were accepted to the society.185 Study circles also functioned at many batei midrash, study houses, where men went to read in religious books or to gather for prayers. The melamed Reb Avraham Feldman taught a class on religious laws in the Talmud Torah Synagogue, probably from the Kitzur Shulkhan Arukh [a shortened version of the Shulkhan Arukh for Ashkenazi Jews issued in 1864].186 There was also a Shomerim La-Boker (morning guardians) society187 and a Mishnah society that operated alongside the gemilut hesed (deeds of kindness) association in Linishches (see below). The Safah Berurah society (see Chapter Three) was the first to engage in adult education of a new secular and nationalistic sort. Chaim Weizmann subsequently assisted in the founding of a “literary circle.” In 1895 he writes in a letter to Motzkin: “Thanks to these three people [Berger, Strick, and Hiller] and several student friends, we have been able to establish a literary society, which has attracted the best people in Pinsk.” In another letter, he wrote: “We are now busy organizing a series of lectures in Jewish history.”188 From this time on, more information becomes available about evening classes and various courses. “Going out to the masses” on the part of the intelligentsia had begun. An article from 1896 states: Fourteen of our progressives . . . founded a society called kra mikra [read as is written] whose aim is to teach young workers, who toil all

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day, Bible, Hebrew and grammar, writing, history and science. They study from seven to nine o’clock every evening [and] every young man who wants to join the group must pay two rubles a year; the leaders of the society must hire a teacher for them.189

An article from 1901 announces: The community of Israel here may with justice consider itself as standing in the front row of progressive communities, which have turned their attention to redeeming the masses, by teaching them language and literature, organizing classes, not only on Sabbath and holidays, but on weekdays as well. The evening school for the public . . . is open to all who seek knowledge, and the diligent Mr. Schneider, the teacher, does his job faithfully. . . . Most of those attending the school are young people, of both sexes, who work in various factories.190

A report from that same year states that “the Poalei Zion Society made it a practice to offer regular readings in Jewish history for the people in one of the synagogues.”191 Once “politicization” penetrated the lives of Jewish young people, various groups began political information activities; the younger Zion­ists played an important role. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, who was active in the organization of education for adults and children, tells about activities in the early twentieth century: We arranged evening classes twice a week, and like the zemstvo (regional authority), which opened Sunday schools everywhere, we organized Saturday schools; Saturday afternoons many people would come to listen to lectures in political economics, history, and the like.192

The following is known about the activities of various Zionist organizations in the city in 1903: Mizrahi established classes in Talmud, Ayn Ya’acov, and Bible. The Rehovot society organized lessons in Ayn Ya’acov and Bible. Ozerei Zion (helpers of Zion) organized lectures in Jewish history, Bible, and general sciences. The members of the Poalei Zion society studied Bible and Jewish history.193 Members of each society obviously propagandized for their particular ideologies as well. At the same time the Realschule began providing education in Russian for adults. An 1897 article announces: “With government authorization they have begun to preach in the Realschule about literature and history.

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The building will be full of people, most of them our fellow Jews.”194 A 1903 article, however, notes that the lectures in the Realschule did not have great drawing power—perhaps because they were reactionary in content, perhaps because of tensions within the Jewish community that year. In any event, the correspondent writes “that we did not see a single one of the Jewish ‘assistants’ (salesclerks) in the reading room.” He suggests organizing lectures in the history of Jewish literature; perhaps the “assistants” would find Jewish literature more relevant.195 The Realschule also provided advanced vocational study. In 1897 the principal opened evening classes in drafting and drawing for craftsmen and their apprentices, from the age of fourteen and above. Most participants were Jews. In 1898–99 fifty-two people studied there; 82 percent were Jewish. The municipality partially subsidized the courses because tuition of two rubles a year did not cover expenditures amounting to three hundred rubles a year. The demand for advanced vocational studies was great, and the number of those who wanted to study exceeded the number of those accepted to these courses. At the request of the students, the principal of the Realschule wanted to introduce evening classes in mechanics, chemistry, and technology. The principal, however, was transferred elsewhere, and his replacement was not as liberal.196 Vocational classes were opened near the railway workshops, but Jews had no access to these.197 In the reactionary period prior to the outbreak of the First World War, all political parties, including the Zionists, were harassed and assemblies forbidden. Courses and evening classes were banned, and new methods of instruction had to be devised. Poalei Zion and Zeirei Zion organized study groups of teens (boys and girls) in private homes. The party committees provided teachers for these groups. M. Manakhovsky reports on the work of the Poalei Zion in this area: In order to expand its activities the party committee decided to organize illegal courses for Jewish workers in Yiddish, arithmetic, history and Zionism. Young people aged sixteen to twenty would assemble in private homes with a teacher. Each group had between five and seven participants. . . . Poalei Zion had a large pool of gymnasium students who were drafted to serve as teachers in these groups. The primary objective was to attract those who came to learn to the party.198

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Ze’ev Livne-Lerman’s memoirs contain similar remarks about the activities of the Zeirei Zion, but their educational activity was Hebrew and nationalistic rather than political and socialist. Livne-Lerman writes: The Pinsk Zeirei Zion society devoted a great deal of attention to infusing the young people of the city with Hebrew language and literature. . . . They wanted to teach the Hebrew language to those who studied in the Russian gymnasium or who worked in the factories and workshops because of their economic predicament. . . . They had to fight against the feelings of national inferiority, which had developed among the young people (particularly the girls!) who received an alien [nonJewish] education and had no concept of the historical struggle of their nation and the works of its authors and poets. It was impossible to open evening classes in Hebrew and literature. The regime objected. So we organized groups of four or five students and sent a teacher to teach them for free. Most of our members who knew Hebrew volunteered to teach. . . . We also turned to Hebrew teachers and they agreed to our proposal, some for pay and some as volunteers. . . . A. A. Feinstein was one. The effort reached wide circles and attracted people to our ideas.199

The initiator of these study groups was Dr. Elazar Bregman. The Jewish Women’s Charitable Association arranged for evening classes to take place in Mrs. Lubzovsky-Shapira’s school; girls from the workshop, as well as an additional fifty girls, studied there—altogether eighty-five students. This number was probably fixed; the same figures are in an account of 1902 and an article of 1901. It seems that 150 girls had applied to the school, but space allowed only fifty to be accepted. At first, classes were conducted for two hours each day; later they met three times a week. The school had four classes. From 1912 to 1915, one hundred rubles a year were appropriated from the korobka for these classes.200 Menuhah Alperin wrote in the late 1930s that the S.S. [Sionisty Sotsial­isty] party organized evening classes for girls in 1906, with government permission; these took place in the vocational school building, under the direction of Ya’acov Kantor and his wife Jenia, who were S.S. members.201 These were probably the evening classes mentioned earlier; in 1906 they were transferred from Mrs. Lubzovsky-Shapira’s school to the vocational school. Undoubtedly the girls’ evening classes

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continued under the sponsorship of the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association afterward as well [see Chapter Seven]. Alperin’s article gives details about the students, the studies, and the teachers. Besides the girls who attended the vocational school by day, there were factory workers, seamstresses, sock-makers, hat-makers, salesgirls, and housemaids. Most were between fourteen and eighteen years of age; the majority were illiterate. In the evening classes they learned arithmetic and how to read and write Yiddish and Russian. In the third year (there were four grades in all), they also studied Jewish history, Yiddish and Russian literature, geography, and science. It was difficult for most students to take in a really broad education because lessons were held after a day’s work. Only a small proportion of the girls completed the entire course. Monthly tuition ranged from a ruble to a ruble and a half. Mrs. Kantor was the head teacher; she taught geography and science. Meltzer taught Yiddish literature. Etel Boniuk (Mrs. Kozlochinsky), Fania Zeitlin, and K. Skolnik and others taught there as well. There was a lending library for the students. On Saturdays Ya’acov Kantor would read to the girls from works by Yiddish writers. Occasionally, especially at Hanukkah time, evening parties were held with singing, recitations, and staged readings from Yiddish works. Sometimes Mrs. Kantor would go with the girls to the theater to see a play or to listen to literary readings. Alperin writes that ­Esther Rahel Kaminsky appeared in the Pinsk Theater and that Anokhi [­Zalman Aronsohn, Hebrew and Yiddish writer, 1878–1947] read his work Reb Abba there. Mrs. Kantor would encourage capable girls to join the workers’ parties—Bund, S.S., and others—by holding discussions on social topics.

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(1881–1914)

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During this period a significant change in lifestyle and in intellectual and cultural life took place. Broad segments of society were drawn into a new way of life and new perspectives. Changes took place in family relations, in use of leisure time, and in pleasures of the spirit although they did not displace the traditions of the Jewish home or much disturb the traditional forms that were thought to be markers of national identity. These permutations were a result of the growth of commerce, which gave rise to a significant business class that had adopted alien languages and customs because of contact with the outside world, with Kiev and Odessa in one direction and Danzig and Koenigsberg in the other. The innovations were also the result of the Haskalah or Enlightenment, which had gathered strength in the 1860s, both through the Russian secondary schools and the new Hebrew literature and press. The first circle of modern “Hebrew” intellectuals may have been the one centered around Nahum Meir Shaikevich (pen name: Shomer, see Nadav) the son-in-law of Michel Berchinsky. The writers Dov Ber Dovzhevitz, Avraham Haim Rosenberg, and Zvi Maslansky were part of this group. The predecessors of this circle were on the one hand, the “enlightened” authors Moshe Aharon Shatzkes and Zvi Hirsh Shereshevsky, and on the other hand, Gad Asher Levin and Aharon Luria, who in the early 1860s had already sent articles to Sion, the Russian newspaper that Y. L. Pinsker and Emanuel Soloveitchik edited in Odessa. The first visible change took place in relationships between the sexes. In the 1860s parents still married off their sons and daughters without consulting them, and they did not see their mates until they were led under the wedding canopy (or at least until the engagement

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was formalized).1 In the 1870s, however, it was commonly accepted that the couple should “have a look at one another” beforehand, and romantic love became a factor in marriage.2 If in the early 1870s Reb Michel Berchinsky was still able to prevent his daughter Haya’s love match to Eliyahu Beilin because of a blemish in Beilin’s family history (his aunt had converted),3 Berchinsky’s younger daughters chose their own bridegrooms.4 The 1880s saw the beginnings of purely social meetings between boys and girls; and by the last decade of the century, they were strolling down the street together. In 1890 the Pinsk Safah Berurah society could not accept young women as members for fear of slander: “Our city is not like Odessa.” Five years later Chaim Weizmann speaks ironically of the emptiness of the lives of “young intellectuals” in Pinsk; they play cards and take walks with the “intellectualesses.”5 In the 1880s the young daughters of Michel Berchinsky, an influential man in Pinsk, behaved with even greater freedom. One enjoyed a large circle of admirers and both smoked. In these years some radical young women even left their parents’ homes and moved to the large cities, to Warsaw or to Kiev, to seek a total change in their lives there. These maskilot [enlightened women] obviously did not cover their hair with wigs or kerchiefs after they married.6 Among the working class, the employment of both young men and women in the factories was a major cause of the destruction of the traditional relationship between the sexes, and the revolutionary movements accelerated the change. This change was tied to the rise in the standard of living and the formation of a recognized class of “gentry” consisting of both “old money” and nouveaux riches. The wealthy Luria, Levin, and Halpern families introduced a new manner of life in their households, in furnishings, and in their daughters’ dress; the education they provided for their children was absolutely at variance with the accepted middle-class norm. Their children were educated by Russian nursemaids and German or French governesses. Sons studied privately at home with religious and secular tutors and did not attend the heder. Daughters traveled to Germany to purchase “clothes in the latest styles.” The Luria boys were the first to travel to Germany to study.7 They also traveled in their own carriages and had their own wagoners, servants, and maids and, one

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may suppose, doorkeepers. They formed a separate caste, both in their manners and their marital alliances. The aspiration to pleasures in this world, however, spread to all classes. It found expression in the desire for things which “bring a person contentment: a pleasant home and pleasant furniture.” In the hundreds of years of its existence, Pinsk had never been noted for the beauty of its homes; they were—as a rule—low, wooden, overcrowded buildings; rents were high. The streets were unpaved and full of mud and puddles in which the gentiles’ pigs rolled about.8 Even though there were fires in abundance, and there had been one great fire in the 1850s,9 nonetheless, each time Pinsk was rebuilt its appearance was unchanged. But after the great fire of 1901, the face of Pinsk began to change. Twostory mansions replaced the wooden houses that had burned down. This caught the attention of a writer for the Pinsker Shtodt Luakh who described an imaginary balloon flight over the city. I dallied a bit above Karlin, over the location of the great fire, and inspected the new mansions there. I really liked them and one house particularly interested me. I recalled that a year and a half ago there was a tiny hut there, a low thing that stood as if it was built on chicken legs, and now there was a two-story villa.10

The writer adds that the owner of the new building had not a kopek to his name and that its construction had been accomplished by a variety of machinations. The lifestyle of the wealthy left its mark upon the classes below, who tended to emulate them in their dress and in furnishing their houses. The piece cited above reports that: The Pinsker yearns to “stand out”. . . . He directs all his powers to adorning himself and to looking like an important person, like a nobleman. A young couple marries: he is a shoemaker, she a seamstress. Their entire dowry amounts to three or four hundred rubles. They start with the purchase of furniture: fine and expensive beds, oak chairs, a soft sofa, an expensive sideboard—a ten gulden sideboard, one like their parents’ is beneath them—two beautiful lamps, and so on. In sum—they spend the entire dowry on this. . . . A Jew who labored all his life with blood and sweat, with every ounce of his strength, saved a few hundred rubles, and with God’s help managed to make a match

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for his eldest daughter. . . . One fine morning they walk into Boyarsky’s textile store and, like drunkards, spend the fruits of scores of years’ toil within minutes. . . . The notion has taken root that it is shameful to walk to the wedding canopy without a silk dress and a disgrace to wear a coat of anything but fur.

The root of all this was “the desire to stand out.”11 By the early 1870s, A. H. Rosenberg was already receiving “all the periodicals published in Hebrew and Russian, and several newspapers, each week,” and his home became a sort of reading room “for these lay open to all who wish to read them.” The first maskilim expressed themselves mostly in Hebrew, although they made use of non-Jewish literature and obviously knew how to write Russian to a greater or lesser degree. The Hebrew maskilim were the organizers of the Safah Berurah society but they were surely a thin stratum of the Pinsk Jewish community. In the 1880s the new universe of discourse of the middle class was structured by the Hebrew newspapers: Ha-Melitz (the advocate), ­Ha-Maggid (the preacher), Ha-Shahar (the dawn), Ha-Zofeh (the observer), and Ha-Zefirah (the clarion). The masses, to the extent that they were interested in books, clearly enjoyed Shomer’s Yiddish stories and novels. The process of Russification began in the 1870s, even though German was still considered the language of culture and some people read German literature. Ya’acov Eliasberg relates that in his childhood he did not know Yiddish because his parents spoke only Russian with their children, although they spoke Yiddish to each other; his father, Moshe Haim Eliasberg, was a Hovev Zion, an agent of the Odessa Committee, and an admirer of the Hebrew language. Undoubtedly the girls studying in the general schools and the Jewish-Russian gymnasium, and the boys attending the Realschule, contributed to this Russification process. In 1872 in Pinsk they numbered approximately thirty, and their number increased12 until the introduction of the numerus clausus in 1887. The boys received a Hebrew education, too, which was not the case with most of the girls. The first lending library in Pinsk, opened in the 1870s [and] had only books in Russian; it belonged to M. M. Strick, who was elected chairman of the Pinsk Hovevei Zion society a few years later. Indeed, at that time there were hardly any Hebrew books that could be offered to

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young people. In 1890 the Safah Berurah members wrote the following remarks (which, although they refer to Russian Jewry in general, definitely reflect the situation in Pinsk as well): There are many readers and many authors among us, but all devote their energies to other languages so that the Hebrew language is as it were concealed among its fellows, and our maskilim have no desire to turn to it; our sons and daughters are given up to another nation; we see this with great disappointment.13

The Pinsk members of Safah Berurah demanded assistance for Hebrew writers and pointed to the need for opportunities for the creation of new work in Hebrew, especially literature for young people. When girls whose education was in Russian became mothers, they no longer sang Toyreh iz di beste skhoyreh (Torah is the finest ware) to their babies, or even the lullaby by the Pinsk poet A. D. Lifshitz, Numah perah beni mahmadi (sleep my blossom, my precious son) despite its popularity in Zionist circles. Concern for takhlis [“the practical thing,” the “bottom line”] was paramount and in the eyes of the middle class, this meant some form of secondary school training. Education and piano lessons were assets when it came to matchmaking. Some parents did not view the ­Haskalah favorably and had their trepidations about it; their daughters had to fight them, but in cases where there were material motives, the girls had the upper hand.14 The value of secondary education for boys as the gateway to higher education with its benefits was obvious, but high school had an attraction of its own. The shiny buttons and the uniforms were blinding, and when the numerus clausus was instituted in 1887, the desire to overcome the obstacles only intensified in proportion to the difficulties. Children were taken out of the heder at a very young age to prepare for the entrance exams to the Realschule, though few were accepted. When the opportunity for secondary schooling in the commercial school became available, there was a stampede. Since Pinsk did not have its own school at that time, parents maintained their sons in institutions outside the city at a cost of forty rubles a month; this was the equivalent of the monthly wages of a high-level clerk in a Luria factory, and not all clerks earned this much. In 1903, one hundred young boys were said to be studying in commercial schools.15 In a feuilleton

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entitled “Playing with the Buttons,” Yosef Gottlieb mocks the general eagerness for the shiny buttons and uniform. Here is a story, if you like: The lad graduated from the hadarim metuk­ anim. He is altogether a boy of ten. His father feels that he has met his obligations to Yiddishkeit. . . . He starts to think about “buttons”; he ponders and deliberates and finally sends his son to a music school.16

The great rush to the secular schools, elementary and secondary, intensified the process of Russification. Y. Herman as a student in the Drunzik school (from 1901 to 1903) read “nearly all Jules Verne’s writings in Russian translation, and Pushkin and Lermontov, whose poems and works we learned by heart, and Turgenev and Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and the other Russian authors”; their books were available in the school library.17 Herman says nothing about Hebrew books that he read, though he was a member of Shoresh Zion (the root of Zion) and afterward an activist in the Ha-Tehiyah (rebirth) movement (noted above). He remarks sarcastically that when he was in the town of Shavli on behalf of Ha-Tehiyah, he served as a “Russifier,” since he earned his living by giving Russian-language lessons.18 In some circles real affection developed for literary Russian. Moshe Kol’s aunt relates that when she was in Paris with her husband, she was overcome by homesickness, not only because of her “ties to the homeland, but because of her love for the language of Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev and Tolstoy.”19 The process of Russification was checked to some extent by the renewal of Hebrew literature in the early 1890s; nationalist maskilim and young people educated in the Zionist-nationalist movement constituted its readers. Yiddish literature, whose audience consisted of those who did not know how to read Hebrew, also curtailed Russification. As early as the 1890s, Y. L. Berger opened an entirely Hebrew lending library. Berger sold the library in 1901 after leaving the city, and the purchaser, Dr. Lichtenstein, turned it into a book store.20 At that point Grigory Luria established another lending library (not as a business, but out of concern for public education), which was already heterogeneous: Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian.21 The intelligentsia was beginning to speak Russian “because at that time the language of society and the language of ordinary meetings was Russian,”22 even though most if

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not all the “intellectuals and intellectualesses” spoke Yiddish at home. They wished “to broaden their horizons,” and Russian literature was the means to do this. Until 1911 Grigory Luria’s library, run by Liza Papish, was the only library in the city. As time went by it became outdated, and the question of founding a new public library came up. A library was indeed established in 1911, but nothing is known of its nature.23 This may have been the library of the youth groups, Doverei Sefat Ever (Hebrew speakers) and Pirhei Zion (youth of Zion), which merged and later joined Zeirei Zion (young Zionists). It was located in the home of Ze’ev Livne-­ Lerman, and books were purchased with membership money. The following incident took place in 1884: A book-seller bearing various books came to the synagogue named for the late Rabbi Aharon. When the Hasidim set eyes upon him and saw that he had books written in a gentile tongue, they were infuriated that he had defiled their sanctuary with contaminated literature and they attacked him, beating and bruising him. . . . The attackers were punished with three months in prison and the synagogue was locked up by police officials.24

The wrath of the Karlin Hasidim was provoked primarily because the bookseller had dared to bring “impure books” to the synagogue of Rabbi Aharon the Great and Rabbi Aharon the Second. A parallel account exists of the closing of this synagogue, which is almost certainly the synagogue of the Karlin Hasidim in Karlin. A similar incident took place in the early 1900s. Yeshayah Pashkin, a student in the Drunzik school, entered the synagogue of the Karlin Hasidim in Karlin with his books and notebooks at the time for the afternoon prayer. When Fishel the Hasid noticed these “unfit” books, he attacked the boy, grabbed the books and notebooks and tore them up. Fishel was forced to pay compensation, for fear that the boy’s father would sue him.25 However, the attitude that foreign books were “unclean” was no longer current among the Hasidim at this point. There were already Hasidim whose sons studied in the general schools,26 though Hasidim were among the heads of the battles against the heder metukan and Y. L. Berger’s abridged Bible. Hasidim were the initiators of the protests against Sabbath study by students of the Realschule.27

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Not surprisingly they virtually excommunicated one of their number because his son attended a general school and was compelled to write on the Sabbath. They prevented the student’s father from participating in any “holy rituals,” like Torah reading or leading prayers. The distribution of newspapers in Pinsk on February 1, 1903, attests to its growing Russification. The following daily newspapers were received: Newspaper Novosti Birzhevyie Vedomosti Svet Minskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti Pravitelstvennyi Vestnik Novoye Vremia Kray Ruski Listok Ruskiye Vedomosti Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta Ruskoye Slovo Severo-Zapadnoye Slovo Severo-Zapadnyi Kray Birzhevyie Vedomosti Petersburski Gerold Peterburskiye Vedomosti Peterburskiy Listok Ruskiy Invalid Kievskoye Slovo

Copies 153 (second edition) 126 (second edition) 48 36 12 10 9 7 6 5 5 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

That same day the following German newspapers were received: Berliner Morgenzeitung Berliner Tageblatt Goldinger Anzeiger Rigaer Tageblatt Neue Freie Presse

6 1 1 1 1

The total distribution of Russian daily newspapers that day was 431 copies, and of German daily newspapers, ten copies. By contrast, the total

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distribution of Hebrew and Yiddish daily newspapers that day was only 193 copies: Der Fraynd (the friend)—sixty copies, Ha-Zofeh (the observer)—forty-nine, Ha-Zefirah (the clarion)—thirty-three, ­Ha-Zeman (the time)—fifty-one copies. In addition to daily newspapers, the following weeklies and periodicals were received: Niva Piroda i Lyudi Vokrug Sveta Vestnik Inostrannoy Literatury Zadushevnoye Slovo Mir Bozhiy Ruskiy Palomnik Vestnik Evropy Narodnoye Obrazovaniye Vek Pravo Ruskoye Bogatstvo Istoricheskiy Vestnik Senatskiye Vedomosti Ruskaya Mysl Vestnik Finansov Ruskiy Vestnik Zheleznodorozhnaya Nedelya Grazhdanin St. Petersburg Zhurnal dlya vsekh Selskiy Vestnik Sputnik Zdorovya Selskiy Khozyain Otdych Christian Vrach Ruskaya Biblioteka Detsoye Chteniye Strakhovoye Obozreniye Voskresenye

101 17 14 12 13 11 9 9 8 8 7 6 4 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1

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Veterinarnyi Feldsher Strekoza Oskolki Svet Vrachebnaya Gazeta Nablyudatel Rodnaya Rech Kurier Poranny Kurier Warszawski Gazeta Warszawska Ziarno

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 2 2

The total distribution of general Russian periodicals was 291 copies. As a comparison, the following Russian-Jewish periodicals were received: Evreyskaya Semeynaya Biblioteka Voskhod

18 13

According to this source, people received Die Welt, Ha-Shiloah, Olam Katan, and Yiddishe Folkszeitung, too, but there is no data on their distribution.28 Subscribers to Russian newspapers and periodicals were obviously far more numerous than subscribers to Jewish print media. There were some non-Jewish subscribers in the former group, but the compiler disregards them. In later years the numbers of Russian readers multiplied, and more and more young men and women were nurtured by Russian literature. The Russian-language newspaper Pinsky Listok (Pinsk bulletin) appeared from September 19, 1910, until March 13, 1911. Its editorial board consisted of Sasha Luria (son of Grigory Luria), Bunia Rubenstein (son of Aharon Rubenstein, the Zionist), and Asher Holtzman, the editor-in-chief. From 1911 to 1912 the newspaper Pinskaya Zhizn (Pinsk life) appeared under the editorship of Denenberg.29 These papers appeared in Russian because it was impossible to obtain authorization for a Yiddish or Hebrew newspaper. Pinsky Listok was a decidedly local endeavor; the reporters were mostly Pinsk residents, and it circulated within the city. One particularly enlightening article stresses the necessity of establishing a new club in the city, where editions of expensive art books and the great encyclopedias would be available, and not merely the newspapers and periodicals “that one finds everywhere.”30

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The process of Russification, however, did not diminish nationalist sensibilities. These persisted not only because of the overall political situation of Russian Jews and the unfulfilled hopes for equal rights, but primarily because the city’s leaders were men with strong nationalist and Zionist consciousness. This was a decisive factor in education (see preceding chapter on education and culture). Even the locally focused Pinsky Listok had a conspicuously nationalist tone. The Bund, which recognized Yiddish as the national tongue, fostered a positive attitude toward Yiddish literature. The extent of Jewish nationalism in Pinsk is confirmed by the following data: twenty-five copies of Sholem Aleichem’s Die Yiddishe Folks Bibliotek (the Jewish people’s library), which appeared in the year 1888–89, were sold in Pinsk, while in Minsk, with a Jewish population approximately three times as large, only seventeen copies were sold; in Brest, fifteen copies; and in Grodno, twelve copies.31 In 1907 there were thirty-seven Pinsk subscribers to Ha-Shiloah; and in Minsk, thirty-eight; in Grodno, seventeen; in Bobruisk, sixteen; in Homel, thirty-two; in Lodz, forty-three; in Bialystok, seventy-two; in Odessa, eighty; and in Warsaw, 108 subscribers.32 On August  8, 1909, the Pinsk agent Sh. Dolinko received 220 copies of the Yiddish news­paper Haynt; within a month distribution had risen to 250 copies.33 Thus Haynt readership alone was one hundred more than the combined readership of Ha-Zefirah, Ha-Zofeh, and Der Fraynd in 1903. Russification barely penetrated the working class. Another force was opposed to Russification—the young people studying in hadarim metukanim and Talmud Torahs who were beginning to speak Hebrew, as we have noted in earlier chapters. Changes took place in religious observance, too. But, in contrast to other industrial cities, the Sabbath in Pinsk was kept punctiliously throughout the public sector. The steam whistle of the Luria factory heralded its onset. Jewish factories ceased operations and only gentile workers fired the ovens on Saturdays and holidays. This state of affairs continued until the Second World War. No Jewish stores or restaurants were open. Transportation came to a halt, because the wagoners were Jews. In the private domain, however, the same standards did not necessarily apply. It was common knowledge that Realschule students wrote

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on the Sabbath. This began under duress. When a new principal arrived in 1894, he compelled the students to write; an article in one of the newspapers demanded efforts to annul the edict. There is no indication of a response to this demand.34 In Yehudah Haklai’s memoirs (he was born in 1891), we read how the pious fought against this Sabbath desecration: Shifts of Sabbath observers would station themselves at the street corners and harass the students, sometimes with rebukes and sometimes with sticks; it took a long time until the tension abated and the students could continue on their way without being disturbed.

That writing was not coerced outright is evident from Haklai’s succeeding remark, “there were many pupils who refrained from writing on the Sabbath.”35 A serious breach in Sabbath observance was made early in the twentieth century, when the Bund intensified its activities. The Safah Berurah society, whose meetings took place on Saturdays, had provided in its 1890 bylaws for one monthly meeting on a Saturday night, probably to provide an opportunity for record keeping. The Bund (founded 1897), on the other hand, generally organized gatherings in the forests on Friday nights, since there was no work the next day; clearly no effort was made to observe Sabbath laws at these gatherings. The Bund in fact taught negative attitudes toward religion, just as it opposed Zionism and the Hebrew language. In 1906 the Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah movement likewise declared that “in a democratic movement there is no place for religion.”36 In the 1890s some maskilim already smoked in their homes on the Sabbath, and some elementary school students, who behaved “like maskilim,” smoked on Saturday.37 But “no one would have thought of smoking in the street on the Sabbath” at that time, and it may have remained that way for years afterward. In the year 1910–11, plays and concerts were held on Saturday, not necessarily on Saturday night; most of the audience was probably Jewish.38 The audience for the Yiddish plays of Esther Rahel Kaminsky, Adler, and others, consisted of workers, salesclerks, and others who had no free time on weekdays; they did not desecrate the Sabbath out of spite, but it’s not likely they would have done so

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at all during the 1890s. For the intelligentsia who attended Russian plays and concerts, Sabbath observance was not a significant consideration. People nevertheless refrained from public desecration of the Sabbath in later years, too. At the meeting of the Zionist cooperative that took place in the Beit Ha’am on that fateful Sabbath, April 5, 1919, when the thirtyfive Pinsker martyrs were taken out to be killed [see Chapter Nine], no minutes were recorded in deference to the holiness of the day. In the Rokah household of the 1880s (Heshel Rokah was Haya Luria’s eldest son) the cat’s nails were clipped the day before Passover lest they harbor leaven, and Rokah had a special set of false teeth for the holiday [because the regular set was presumably tainted with forbidden leaven]; but in the 1890s some people were already no longer particular about eating kosher food. Yosef Halpern, George Halpern’s father, did not take care to avoid eating forbidden foods when he traveled, although at home in Pinsk he still took his turn as a cantor in the synagogue.39 From the late 1880s on, a circle of professionals formed in the city—doctors, pharmacists, Russian-language teachers. They were totally estranged from Judaism and the Jewish way of life, no doubt abandoned Sabbath and holiday observance, and even their kitchens could not be presumed to be kosher. These people, however, came from outside Pinsk and were an isolated group. A. D. Lifshitz considered them “atrophied limbs” of the Jewish body, which would be best served if they were severed completely.40 A significant change took place in attitudes toward the synagogues. In the mid-1890s there were nineteen synagogues in Pinsk besides the Great Synagogue, which had been constructed upon the foundations of the first Pinsk synagogue (built when the Jewish community was established in the sixteenth century). This is confirmed by the ketav rabbanut [rabbinical appointment] tendered to Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Volk during the intermediate days of Passover, 1895: “in the name of God, the Lord of Israel, and on behalf of the elected officials of the twenty synagogues and study houses here in Pinsk.”41 In Karlin [there] were fifteen synagogues or shtiebls (shtiebl: prayer hall or small synagogue), including the Great Synagogue which burned down in 1892 and was never rebuilt.42 In addition to the Great Synagogue in Pinsk, there was a kloyz [private synagogue/study hall] where the rabbis and the elite prayed,

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a goldsmiths and silversmiths’ synagogue, a furriers and hatters’ synagogue, a tailors’ synagogue, a butchers’ synagogue, and a synagogue of the hevrah kaddisha. In Chapter One, ten Pinsk synagogues (or shtiebls) are listed by name: that 1896 list is incomplete. The following is a list of synagogues as of 1929, in order of their income from the Yom Kippur Eve collection plates for gemilat hesed [note: the Hebrew term Beit ­Ha-Kneset means “synagogue”: 1. Beit Midrash shel Rabbi Yisrael Eger (Pinsk). Rabbi Yisrael Eger was the son of Rabbi Shelomo Eger and the grandson of the renowned sage, Rabbi Akiva Eger. 2. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Hasidei Stolin (Pinsk) on Shkolna Street (later, Butrimovitz Street), used by the Karlin-Stolin Hasidim. 3. Beit Ha-Keneset Monastirshchineh (Pinsk), so named for the neighborhood in which it was located, used mostly by the workers in the Luria and Halpern factories, previously called Haye Adam. 4. Brester Shulkhen (Pinsk), the synagogue on Brest Street. 5. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Rabbi Zerah (Pinsk) on Rabbi Zerah Street (Jasalda) near Brest Street. 6. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Berl Leib in the Biliavshchinah neighborhood, near the match factory. 7. The Kloyz. Alongside Beit Ha-Keneset Ha-Gadol (the great synagogue) in the Shulhoif (the Synagogue Square). 8. The Great Synagogue. 9. Beit Ha-Midrash Talmud Torah (Pinsk) on Zabalna Street. 10. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Peichik (Pinsk). 11. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Ha-Hayatim (Pinsk). The tailors’ study house, near the Great Synagogue, in the Synagogue Square. 12. The Kloyz (Karlin). 13. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Basevitz. 14. Beit Ha-Midrash on Honcharski Street (Pinsk). 15. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Hasidei Horodok (Karlin) on Zamkovsky Street. 16. Beit Ha-Keneset Volpe (Karlin) also known as Shomerim La-Boker. Tikun hatzot [midnight prayers mourning the destruction of the Holy Temple] took place there even in this period.43 17. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Hasidei Livshei (Pinsk), on Kiev Street, “Die Groise Gas” (the “Great Street”), later called Kosciuszko Street.

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18. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Sonia Nimtzovitz (Pinsk). 19. Beit Ha-Keneset Ha-Vokzalni (Pinsk), in the neighborhood of the railway station. 20. Beit Ha-Keneset Ha-Karlini (Karlin), used by the Karlin-Stolin Hasidim. 21. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Mokhe (Karlin) in a lane near Kiev Street. The Hovevei Zion meetings took place here, and afterward, the Zionists’ meetings. 22. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Fisher (?) 23. Beit Ha-Keneset Ha-Bernardini (Karlin). 24. Beit Ha-Keneset Leyad Pareiazd (the railway tracks), (Pinsk), on Lohishin Street. 25. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Dina (Karlin). Dina was the daughter of Rabbi Shaul Karliner (Levin) and the mother-in-law of Gad Asher Levin. On Siver Street, north, later Polnochna Street. 26. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Hevrah Ketana (Karlin), the synagogue of the smaller hevrah kaddisha (there were two hevrah kaddisha groups in the city). 27. Beit Ha-Keneset shel Hasidei Brezna (Karlin) near Rabbi David Friedman’s home. 28. Beit Ha-Keneset Ha-Konfedraki (Karlin). Hasidim of various dynasties prayed here. 29. Beit Ha-Keneset Beznos (?)

Even this list is incomplete because, according to the memoirs of Pinsk inhabitants, there were twenty-two synagogues in their city beside the Great Synagogue, and eighteen synagogues in Karlin. In addition to those listed here (except for those of Fisher and Beznos), the following batei midrash (beit ha-midrash = study hall) are named: 1. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Hevrat Mishnayot (the Mishnah study circle) in the loft of the Great Synagogue. 2. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Greenberg. 3. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Ravchik. 4. Beit Ha-Midrash Hakhnasat Orhim. 5. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Ha-Maggid, alongside the Great Synagogue, in the Synagogue Square. 6. Beit Ha-Midrash in the Vigodka neighborhood.

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7. Beit Ha-Midrash on Bolotna Street (mentioned by the writer, Y. L. Peretz, and this may have been the study house of Rabbi Yisrael Eger, cited above). 8. Beit Ha-Midrash on Bolotna Street, near the Linishches neighborhood. In Karlin: 1. The shtiebl alongside the Great Synagogue, which was burned down, as noted, in 1892. (Perhaps this was the Beit Ha- Keneset Ha-Karlini, noted above, where the Karlin-Stolin Hasidim prayed. In Pinsk and Karlin, the Hasidic synagogues were not known as shtiebls (Yiddish: shtieblakh), as was common elsewhere, but shulkhen.) 2. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Haya Luria, where yeshiva students studied between the two World Wars. 3. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Moshe Yitzhak, on Albrekhtovo-Kupechesky [Merchants] Street. Moshe Yitzhak was the son of Rabbi Shaul Karliner (Levin). 4. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Meir Levin (Meiches). Meir Levin was the eldest son of Moshe Yitzhak, above. 5. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Gemilut Hasadim. 6. Beit Ha-Midrash in Neishtat, in eastern Karlin. 7. Beit Ha-Midrash shel Efraim Itzele.

The summary shows forty-two synagogues and study houses in Pinsk and Karlin between the two World Wars. (This assumes that several study houses, such as Fisher, Beznos, and Pareiazd, had more than one name, and that the synagogues of the goldsmiths and the furriers and hat makers ceased to exist.) Seven synagogues were added from the mid-1890s until the Holocaust. Most were probably established before the First World War because after that time the Jewish population of Pinsk decreased, and means of support dwindled.44 The Zionist intelligentsia of the mid-1890s was no longer satisfied with the regular prayers offered by the then-famous cantor Yoel Zelig. In 1895 the Great Synagogue became a “chor-shul,” that is, the cantor’s prayers on the High Holy Days and festivals were accompanied by a choir led by a special conductor. A society called Shir U-Shevahah (song and praise) was formed to maintain the choir, creating an uproar in the

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city. In 1902, M. R. Adler (A. D. Lifshitz’s pseudonym) writing on the occasion of the election of synagogue officials (in accordance with government regulations), stated: We have approximately thirty synagogues in Pinsk and thus there are about one hundred members of the “spiritual leadership” (three from each synagogue, according to law). Were they all possessed of initiative, they would be able to do a great deal for our religion; they would be able to organize our synagogues better, so that our houses of prayer would not be so empty; on weekdays they have barely a minyan (quorum) and even on the Sabbath they are half empty. Existing arrangements have divested them of holiness. To our shame, the synagogue is a sort of inn. I hesitate to mention them in the same breath, where people come to lodge and to talk. . . . Young people educated in European fashion have a developing sense of aesthetics and the synagogue does not attract them. Even people educated in the old way find the synagogue boring, mundane; that is why the attendance continues to decrease.

The writer pins great hopes upon the improvement of synagogue aesthetics by furnishings, cleanliness, and the like. He is opposed to “reform,” and wishes to retain all the traditional customs, “even the Purim noisemakers,” although he would abolish the throwing of thorns (shishkes) on the Ninth of Av.45 A year later the synagogue question was raised by an author calling himself Aviyosef (another pseudonym of A. D. Lifshitz) in the context of the appointment of a new cantor to replace Yoel Zelig, who had died. It must surely seem comical to include the issue of a cantor among the matters worthy of discussion, when there are many who do not regard religious ministrants, particularly cantors, as significant. But we think otherwise. . . . We consider the cantor the guardian of our nationalreligious treasures. . . . That is, of the music of the synagogue. . . . We feel that our Jewish soul is embedded in every traditional melody. . . . In every tune there is a chapter of our history, in each tone, an echo of our troubles and our hopes. . . . The excitement of the people about a cantor is not for nothing. . . . We dare not forget that the masses are moving further and further from our ranks. They search elsewhere for values they do not find in our midst. If you do not provide the tailor’s apprentice with a good melody for Min Ha-Metzar (out of the depths, Psalm 118) he will find his pleasure in a chansontke (popular song); if

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you do not give the carpenter’s apprentice a sweet Uz-Be-Kol [part of the Kedushah (Sanctification) prayer], he will find his aesthetic satisfaction in the Marseillaise. . . . As long as the worker sits at his bench humming a snatch of the Kedushah, even though he sings a chansontke tune as well, he is still one of ours—but, if he stops singing fragments of prayers [while he works], he is no longer one of us and he is already across the threshold.46

Two groups of people were alienated from the synagogue; the younger generation of maskilim, which included the nationalists, and the younger generation of workers, who were increasingly influenced by the Bund. A dispute arose at the 1910 meeting of “notables” regarding appropriations to the Great Synagogue from the korobka. Zvi Hiller, an official of the Great Synagogue, made an attempt to have the annual appropriation raised to one thousand rubles; this had been the appropriation in 1900, but for various reasons the sum had been reduced in the interim to two hundred rubles. Hiller claimed that the expense of maintaining a cantor and choir alone amounted to more than 1,200 rubles. Y. Halpern and S. (apparently Shmuel) Luria were opposed to raising the appropriation because they felt that the cantor and choir were not essential; the congregants of the Great Synagogue were only a fraction of the Jewish population and they were capable of maintaining the cantor and choir at their own expense; the Great Synagogue, like all other synagogues was the “private property” of those who prayed there, and it did not make room for “outsiders.” Dr. Bukshitzky, Pinhas Mandelbaum, and M. Polak countered that the Great Synagogue was different from other synagogues and that it was open to anyone who wished to pray: of the 550 seats, only half were held by specific individuals. Mandelbaum argued that in Hebrew literature a synagogue is called a “minor Temple,” alluding to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, while other houses of prayer are called batei midrash (study halls). It was finally resolved to allocate five hundred rubles annually to the Great Synagogue.47 This was actually a struggle between Zionists who viewed the synagogue as a national asset and some of the notables, perhaps maskilim, for whom the synagogue was of little consequence. Perhaps the opponents included Hasidim who opposed the appropriation because they were op-

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posed in principle to cantors. Then there were also anti-Zionists who were opposed because the Great Synagogue was a Zionist stronghold. A similar dispute had been waged in 1902 when a Zionist demand for 1,500 rubles from the korobka for repairs to the synagogue had met with opposition.48 In traditional society, the synagogue served not only as a house of prayer and place for Torah study, but also as a community center. People congregated there to arrange everyday business (which generally had some religious aspect) and talk about current events. At this point in Pinsk, the masses’ spiritual life was centered in the batei ­midrash where men prayed and studied Talmud, En Ya’acov, and the like. Large audiences of men and women came to hear the maggidim (popular preachers) deliver sermons. Crowds would also gather to listen to the speeches and eulogies delivered by Rabbi David Rabinsky, the Pinsk maggid and rabbi of the neighborhood near the railway station (“Vakzalner Rav”).49 Zionist maskilim and Zionist young people, and the intelligentsia in general, on the other hand, were “holiday Jews” or “Sabbath Jews” at best, since their affiliations were not based upon religion and there evolved secular institutions that competed with the synagogue. The Hovevei Zion and the Zionists mostly gathered in the ownerless Mokhe Synagogue. They visited synagogues to preach Zionism. If they created a new lifestyle and celebrated Shabbat Nahamu [the Sabbath after the Tisha Be-Av fast] and Hanukkah, these holidays still remained within the framework of the synagogue and tradition. But new secular institutions did not. The Safah Berurah society was already meeting in the attic of a private home at this time, and a few years later Grigory Luria founded the first club in the city and a (secular) reading room. At the beginning of the twentieth century, clubs already existed with government permission. We know of the “club intelligentsia”; when this was closed down by the authorities, a “commercial club” was opened in its place.50 There was also a “firemen’s club” for Jews and non-Jews, frequented mainly by Jews. Educational institutions also served as meeting places—Talmud Torahs, the girls’ gymnasium, the girls’ elementary school—as did the cinemas and the theater. Illegal gatherings took place secretly in private homes.

Changes in Lifestyle and Culture

Traditional Jewish society knew no forms of recreation and entertainment other than those rooted in the sacred and festivities associated with religious celebrations. These might segue into conversation, and there was the gossip of twilight hours in the synagogue or visits with friends and relatives on Saturday nights and holidays. The Hasidim created their own atmosphere of festivity, which reached its peak on the Simhat Torah holiday. This ambience persisted. Mitnaggedim [those opposed to Hasidism] derived great spiritual pleasure from cantors and choirs. There were still scholars whose “entertainment” consisted of engaging in Torah-centered disputations. The early maskilim found their spiritual gratification in the newspapers­­—Ha-Maggid, HaMelitz, Ha-Shahar, and Ha-Zefirah—in the innovations of Biblical and historical research studies, and in the works of the early modern Hebrew writers, Mapu, Smolenskin, Gordon, and others. Ordinary people took pleasure in novels by Shomer, whose popularity was widespread because (as the son-in-law of Michel Berchinsky) he was considered a Pinsker. His story Mekhutonim fun Sonim (from enemies to in-laws) even described a scandal that took place in the city. Later on, the maskilim became interested in Hebrew and Yiddish literature, in Ha-Shiloah, and the works of Mendele, Sholem Aleichem, Bialik, and others. The new forms of entertainment were at odds with the perspectives of previous generations and of the contemporary pious. Young Pinskers spent their summer evenings on outings—they strolled on the promenade along the Pina River or cruised in rented boats; in winter they went skating on the rink across the river or walked along the promenade on Kiev Street. Some sailed on steamboats (many of which were owned by Jews) to Terevan and Starakon. These excursions took place even on the Sabbath. No one knows just when card games came to the city. The first players may have been members of the Luria family. According to George Halpern and Y. Eliasberg, every Monday afternoon some of the Lurias would ride over to Moshe (?) Luria’s house in their carriages to play cards. In the mid-1890s Chaim Weizmann was already making derisive remarks about card playing by “the intellectuals.” The firemen’s club served as the center for this pastime and when it was closed down in 1910, wives and mothers breathed a sigh of relief.51

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At the beginning of the century, “a new fashion came to town,”— ballroom dancing—and dance halls opened up. A. D. Lifshitz (using the pseudonym Aleichem Shalom) wrote in his “balloon fantasy” in 1902: Let us speak of happier things—the matter of dances. . . . Apparently they dance a great deal in Pinsk. Wherever I fly in my balloon I find dance halls. On Brest Street—a dance hall, on Theater Street—a dance hall, on Siver Street—a dance hall, they dance and dance without a stop. What’s the occasion? I do not know.52

According to I. Brisky’s memoirs, there was a dance hall in the building that, in 1908, housed Leah Feigele’s School for girls, and another dance hall was run by Hershel, a cafe owner (der kafenik) with a poor reputation who was suspected of improprieties. “Decent folk” did not attend dance studios, for this was liable to cause the annulment of a marriage match.53 Parents of means, or more correctly of the middle class, began to provide musical education for sons as well as daughters. Girls learned to play the piano and boys, the violin. Yehudah Haklai (born in 1891) relates that his father, a yeshiva student, was taught to play “as was the custom among sons of the respectable middle class, and the violin remained a hobby all his life.”54 In the summer of 1888, Pinsk enjoyed theater performances in Yiddish for the first time. Shomer (Nahum Meir Shaikewitz) was responsible, according to his daughter Rosa Shomer-Batshelis: The troupe which my father organized was large. It was composed mostly of actors he had met in Warsaw. Among them were Elia Rotshtein, who was a good singer, Shlifershtein, a comedian, Feinstein, Fishzon, Berman and others. The prima donna was Adela Zinger (later Pront) a young woman with a pleasant soprano voice. My father also put together a choir of young boys and girls; some of the boys sang in the Great Synagogue also. The plays performed were my father’s works, Der Ba’al Teshuva [the penitent], Yiddisher Poritz [a Jewish nobleman], A Klap Far a Klap [blow for blow], and Protzentnik [the usurer], and works by Goldfaden: Shulamis, Caledonia, and Doctor Almasada . . . . It made a great impression in Pinsk. Young and old rushed to the performances. This was the first time that the residents of Pinsk had seen Yiddish theater.55

Changes in Lifestyle and Culture

Pinsk’s Jewish populace probably never did attend theater productions before. Shomer’s plays took place in a building described by his daughter: The theater was located in a garden filled with tall trees and fruit trees. The building was constructed of wood, with boxes on either side of the stage. It had no rear wall, because the balcony was at that side, a sort of wooden bridge from which one had a view of the stage. There were no chairs or benches in the balcony.56

This was in the garden belonging to Lubetzky,57 probably Prince Drutzko-Lubetzky. The theater may have existed previously, for the use of non-Jewish entertainers, but it is unlikely that Jews attended their performances. In 1905 the Holtzman brothers opened a theater. The turning point came with the opening of the concert hall of Korzh­nevsky, a non-Jew, in 1910. The following is a list of performances in that hall and in others, from mid-December 1910 until midMarch 1911, based upon advertisements and notices in Pinsky Listok: Soholdol­sky’s Ukrainian ensemble performed almost daily from December 15 until January 23, even though the price of tickets was high and “the population of Pinsk was unaccustomed to them.”58 Nevertheless the “arts critic” regretted “the public’s indifference to performances of this uncommon group,” and complained that the public “prefers evenings of dancing and cafes.”59 The Ukrainian language may have been the reason for the “public’s indifference.” On January 6 a masked ball followed the performance of the Ukrainian troupe.60 Two days later, on January 8, the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association sponsored an evening party, and the Ukrainian ensemble performed part of its repertoire. Dancing followed, continuing until 4 a.m. The reporter added that, thanks to the new concert hall that had replaced the old theater (Holtzman’s), it was possible to maintain order and the “­ladies were able to shine in the latest fashions and hairdos and white evening dresses . . . no affair had attracted such a sizeable audience for a long time.”61 The names of the women who contributed to the success of the evening are significant because, except for Harol, the list does not include any of the well-known Pinsk families of the previous generation. Berta Semyonovna (daughter of Shimon) Volovel­sky, Yelizabet Yefimovna (Elisheva the daughter of Haim) Magaril, Maria Mikhaelovna (Miriam the daughter of Mikhael) Shvartz, Yoselva,

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Kagan, Kostelanetz, Lubashevsky, Sokgobinzon, and Harol.62 These women must have been graduates of the girls’ gymnasium or from the “new aristocracy” or the “new rich.” Of the same masked ball, one guest wrote sardonically: “Masquerade frenzy” (a new disease)is raging like a plague here this year. The illness is accompanied by the complication of “prize mania.”63 Concerts were held frequently. On January 27 R. S. Eisenberg, a student in her final year at the Neopolitan Conservatory gave a concert. On February 3, 1911, the first concert of popular Jewish song was given by Mrs. Rozovsky and Messrs. Medvediyev and Sopronov. This program attracted more of the Jewish public than the Ukrainian ensemble had, and the response was enthusiastic. On February 5, 1911, the violinist Ya’acov Gurevitz gave a recital.64 During the same period the Simonov troupe performed its version of Sanin, a novel by Artzibashev,65 and the audience was sizeable.66 On February 6 a benefit performance was held for needy students of the government gymnasium,67 probably organized by the non-Jewish administration of the gymnasium. On February 13 a play was performed in the “railroad theater,” and a masquerade was held there on February 17.68 On February 20 a play based upon a novel by ­Koprin was performed. Beginning on February 28 Gefner’s Jewish troupe presented performances. Their first play was A Mentsch Zul Men Zein [you’ve got to be decent]. Advertisements for Yiddish plays stated that they would be performed Na NiemetzkoYevreiskom Yazyka—that is, in ­Judeo-German, for it was forbidden to perform in Yiddish and the fact had to be concealed. (That same day, A. Goldstein lectured on “The Present Moment in Judaism” in Prince Drutzko-Lubetzky’s theater and attracted a large audience.) On March 2 Gefner’s troupe performed the play In Netz fun Zind [in the web of sin] and on March 3—Mirele Efros, March 6—Die Goldene Hokhtzeit [golden anniversary], March 9—Dos Pintele Yid [the Jewish point]. On March 11, a Saturday night, a second Ya’acov Gurevitz concert took place in the home of Prince Drutzko-Lubetzky. Tickets were expensive, ranging in price from sixty kopeks to 3.60 rubles.69 But a large part of the Jewish population looked askance at the theater—the word “actor” itself had a negative connotation. A performer was considered “outside the camp,” and looked upon as unstable, a

Changes in Lifestyle and Culture

drunkard, and worse.70 (Korzhnevsky’s theater burned down after two years in operation.71) By 1910, when Yosef Bregman showed pictures from Palestine “on the screen,”72 Pinsk already had a movie theater, known as an “electrobiograph.” It is not clear when it was founded but in 1910, authorities closed the building because they feared that tremors caused by the electrical generator would lead to its collapse. A short while later two other movie theaters opened, Boyarsky’s “Casino” and the “Chateau” in the DrutzkoLubetzky building. (There was a third cinema on the other side of the railroad tracks, but Jews did not venture there.) The owners of the cinemas brought in a wind ensemble to play during intermissions. Charity benefits were held from time to time, sometimes in the Lishche forest. These changes in lifestyle and culture did not apply in the world of the most pious Jews; they continued to live in their traditional way and even fought as best they could to preserve the tradition. It is unlikely, however, that there were many like Golda Meir’s great-grandmother Golda Neidich. She is said to have sought not only to have limited “worldly” pleasures, but even to mortify herself to compensate for the small measure of gratification that she did allow herself; she took her tea with salt, ate as little as possible, and drank castor oil.73 With political parties and movements, came meetings, assemblies, lectures, and speeches. New societies replaced the old study groups. The Safah Berurah society has been discussed at length in Chapter Three. Hovevei Sefat Ever (lovers of the Hebrew language), centered in Peters­ burg, opened a branch in Pinsk and was licensed by the authorities in 1906; there is no further information on this group. A society named Judaica functioned in Pinsk in the early 1900s; the Zionist Zvi Hiller was one of its members.74 These two groups may have been fronts, founded by the Zionists only to facilitate “legal” meetings during those years when Zionism was outlawed. When the Pinsk branch of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment opened in 1910, it served as a center for the intelligentsia, and the leaders of the various parties met there. Debate over the nature of an ideal school took place here, as well as the struggle by Bundists and the S.S. over the Yiddish school. Yehoshua Heshel Rozenkrantz, author of the book Orot Me-Ofel (lights from the darkness) lived in Pinsk at this time. By his own testi-

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mony, he was a “descendant of the Pinsk rabbi” (he does not say which rabbi) and a disciple of his fellow townsman Moshe Aharon Shatzkes, a Haskalah loyalist. Rozenkrantz was an anomaly in his society. His book shows him to be a great scholar, familiar with the literature of the Middle Ages and the Haskalah (such as the writings of Nachman Krochmal), as well as a peppery opponent of “the ‘geniuses’ whose pilpul [casuistry] darkens Judaism with a cloud as it has lain under a heavy burden ever since the Perushim [Pharisees].” He refused to ask for endorsements for his book from rabbis and wrote: “Why have I deprived my book of endorsements by the luminaries? I will tell you why: because I thought it superfluous to knock at their doorsteps and arouse their pity to support me with donations of the fruits of their pens.” The purpose of Rozenkrantz’s book was “to reveal the secrets of that wise rabbi, Rabbi Avraham ben Ezra” [11th century Spanish Jewish scholar], found in his commentary on the Torah. But Rozenkrantz himself employed the method of pilpul and derash [homily]. (Strange things were said in Pinsk about Rozenkrantz and his habits. His sons and daughters were known as learned individuals—one son, a scholar in France, returned to Pinsk at the end of his life—and several of his descendents went out of their minds.)

S i x  Institutions, Societies, and Associations

for Social Welfare (1881–1914)

The elimination of the kehillah [autonomous Jewish community administration] system in 1844 deprived the Russian-Jewish population of the formal, legal leadership authorized to levy taxes and provide for communal needs that had represented it as a community. Even before it was disbanded, however, the Jewish community ruling councils (sing.: kahal; plural: kehalim) were typically corrupt and their potential for benefiting the communities they ruled limited. Wherever possible, the diverse needs of the Jewish community were met by spontaneous initiatives of individuals who wanted to perform good deeds. They cared for the poor, created institutions and confraternities for education and welfare, and kept them going. It was possible to obtain permits for these societies, and recognized bodies were entitled to an appropriation from the korobka, the tax on kosher meat. In each city and town, the meat tax was franchised to the Jewish community and the revenues distributed to various Jewish institutions by the authorities, who often co-opted “wealthy and distinguished” Jews in order to increase the income.1 In many localities, particularly small towns lacking organizational capabilities and individuals on the lookout for the rights of the Jewish community, the korobka revenues were lost. In July 1895 Pinsk and Karlin were officially united by order of the Minister of the Interior.2 Both cities (especially Karlin) fortunately had a generous upper class, strong organizations, and talented organizers. A rivalry of sorts existed between the two. In 1872 the Eliasberg, ­Halpern, and Luria families (Moshe Luria in particular) founded a gemilut hesed [free loan] society. Aharon Luria and Gita Ettinger served as directors of the society and by 1895, approximately twenty thousand

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people had benefited from its assistance. In 1882 a gemilut hesed society was founded in the Pinsk Linishches quarter. An article (preserved in the YIVO archives in New York) by an anonymous writer studying the society’s record book enumerates the society’s bylaws. Annual dues were 1.5 rubles. Loans were granted until a specific date, the intermediate days of Passover or the intermediate days of Tabernacles. Society officials were allowed to sell unpaid notes. If one member took sick, other members were obliged to visit him. When a member died, the society was required to conduct communal prayers in the deceased’s home for four weeks. When a son was born to a member, he had to donate thrice hai (3¤18 = 54) kopeks to the fund, for a daughter— twice hai (36) kopeks. When his children were engaged to be married a member was to donate thrice hai (54) kopeks; when the wedding was celebrated, ½ of 1 percent of the dowry. On the first day of Nisan in the early spring, elections were held for four gaba’im, society officials. On the first of the intermediate days of Passover [approximately two weeks later], the new officials were inducted. On the Sabbath on which Chapters 21–24 of the book of Exodus [containing injunctions regarding loans to the poor] were read, the society would assemble in the Great Synagogue for prayers and then proceed to the gemilut hesed house for kiddush. The founders of the society were: (1) Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the Rabbi of Pinsk; (2) Reb Ze’ev, the son of Reb Aryeh Honig Kvetsher (honey renderer); (3) Reb Aharon Ze’ev, son of Reb Dov; (4) Reb Moshe Leib, the son of Reb Zundel; (5) Reb Elyakum, the son of Reb Yisrael Katz; (6) Reb Borukh, the son of Reb Yisrael Katz; (7) Reb Aharon, the son of Reb Yisrael Katz; (8) Reb Ya’acov, the son of Reb Yisrael Katz; (9) Reb Yosef Haim, the son of Reb Yisrael Katz; (10) Reb Yehiel, the son of Reb Yosef Ha-Levi; (11) Reb Mordecai, the son of Reb Yehoshua Haim; (12) Reb Yitzhak Leib, the son of Reb Yosef; (13)  Reb Nahum, the son of Reb Alexander; (14) Reb Aryeh David, the son of Reb Avraham Haim Feinstein; (15) Reb Eliyahu, the son of Reb Moshe; (16) Reb Yerahmiel, the son of Reb Avraham Yitzhak; (17) Reb Ze’ev, the son of Reb Shaul; (18) Reb Mordecai, the son of Reb Hillel; (19) Reb Yisrael Moshe, the son of Reb Fishel; (20) Reb Zvi, the son of Reb Zisman; and (21) Reb Meir Haim Fialkov.

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

A hevrah mishnayot, Mishnah study circle, was affiliated with the society. Reb Ze’ev, the son of Reb Aryeh Honig Kvetsher, served as Talmud teacher. Reb Ze’ev was a poor worker who earned his living from making honey and devoted a great deal of his time to collecting membership dues without pay. On the Sabbath when Chapters 21–24 of Exodus [see above] were read, Reb Aryeh David Feinstein (the son of Reb Avraham Haim Feinstein) preached in the kloyz in Pinsk on the topic of gemilut hesed. In 1884 the hevrat beit ha-bad, (society of oil-pressers) known as “aleiniks” (flax-oil makers) joined the society and brought their Torah scroll to the gemilut hesed house. In 1886 an auditing committee was chosen; the members were: Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz; Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz, the Pinsk dayyan; Rabbi Moshe Zakheim; Reb Leib Volovelsky (the son of Reb Yozpe Volovelsky); Reb Zvi Slutzker, the maskil (Reb Zvi ­Zilberman, known as the Slutzker melamed); Reb Moshe Menahem Solkovsky; and Ze’ev, the son of Reb Moshe David Pomerantz. The recording secretaries were: Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Volk, Reb Zvi Slutzker, and Reb Tuvia, the son of Reb Haim Ze’ev. Some people made special donations. Hanokh Katz (the son of Reb Isaac Katz) contributed 100 rubles prior to his emigration to the Land of Israel in 1888; in exchange for this, Reb Ze’ev, the son of Reb Aryeh, obligated himself to teach in the Mishnah study circle for a year after the donor’s death for “the elevation of his soul.” In 1897 Reb Lipa Pashkin donated 140 rubles, with the same stipulation. This society pursued its regular activities up to the German occupation in 1915.3 Information exists that a gemilut hesed society was founded by the Zeitlin family in 1882. It is unlikely that this was the Linishches society, even though they were founded in the same year.4 In 1887 another ­gemilut hesed society was organized. Its “office” was located in the synagogue on Brest Street.5 There may have been other gemilut hesed associations as well.6 In 1875 or thereabouts, Miriam Leah Luria (Moshe Luria’s wife) and Feigel Levin set up a society called Somekh Nofelim Ve-Yoledot (support for the distressed and for new mothers). The society’s purpose was “to help craftsmen and small businessmen revive failing shops or businesses” and “to assist poor mothers, provide for them financially and

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see to their needs until they regain their health.” In 1893 the society aided 109 needy breadwinners and 92 new mothers to the amount of 1,405 rubles. In 1902 it assisted 125 people to the amount of 2,528.50 rubles. In addition to Miriam Leah Luria, the administrators were Rushke Luria, Gita Ettinger, and Yosef Halpern.7 There was also a society called Honen Dalim [compassion for the poor] “to rescue the poverty-stricken and raise the fallen.” Tuvia Einbinder was the moving force behind this group, and he would “pound the pavement to collect money for the poor helped by the society.”8 In the mid-1880s a similar association called Agudat Ahim (brotherhood society) was established; its goal was to “assist all the wretched and to find a way to help the poor when they stretched out their hands.” The active members were Michel Berchinsky, Yissakhar Feldman, Samuel Yozef Finkelstein, and especially the merchant Shmid who would “make the rounds of the homes of the philanthropists” to solicit donations.9 There was also a Maskil El Dal society [consider the poor, based on Psalms 41:2: “Happy is he who considers the poor.”], which had a building adjacent to the Pinsk hospital.10 In the mid-1850s the Karlin Bikur Holim [visiting the sick] hospital was renovated and supported by the “distinguished gentlemen,” “the aristocrats of Karlin.” It then contained twenty beds. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new building with twenty-five beds was built for the Bikur Holim by Yosef Halpern. Since the hospital staff was limited, in 1891 Rabbi David Friedman’s daughter Tzipa organized a women’s league, which took it upon itself to care for the sick and supervise the hospital’s cleanliness on a rotating basis. Various tactics were employed to raise money for maintenance of the hospital. For instance, the “aristocrat” Kalman Lifshitz donated his steamboat for an excursion, and the receipts were donated to the hospital. (Most of the tickets were purchased by the Luria family.) In the period 1900–1903, 2,650 rubles were appropriated for the hospital annually from the korobka; in 1904–07—3,400 rubles; in 1908–11— 3,395 rubles; in 1912–15—3,895 rubles. The 1902 budget shows expenses in the sum of 6,996 rubles. Income from the korobka and from patients’ payments covered 62 percent of the expenses, and the balance was covered by donations and interest from an endowment of 3,000 rubles.

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

The composition of revenues is enlightening because it reveals a broad range of activities. There were weekly contributions, known as vokher; “candle-lighting” donations (money set aside by women before lighting the Sabbath and holiday candles); donations made at the circumcision celebrations of male infants; collections from the charity boxes in the cemeteries and from collection plates on the Eve of Yom ­Kippur and other fast-days; and also one-fifth of the income of the Hevrah ­Kaddisha. In 1902, 393 patients were admitted to the hospital, of whom 37 died. The hospital administrators were David Goldberg, Haim ­Bitkovsky, Yeshayah Gevirtzman, Yosef Sheves, and Aharon Luria.11 In the early 1890s, Dr. Leib Bukshitzky served as physician, and he was succeeded by Dr. Alexander Blumenthal. The Pinsk Bikur Holim was re-established in the early 1870s. In 1868 a large plot had been purchased by means of either a donation or a legacy from Betzalel Voloveler, at the price of 3,000 rubles, in memory of his wife Mina Floris; the house standing there was adapted for use as a hospital. A pharmacy was also set up to provide medications, free or at reduced prices, to poor people who lay ill in their homes. As in Karlin, the hospital had a resident male nurse; a doctor made daily rounds. Eventually buildings were constructed for the pharmacist, the hospital administrator, and the gardener, along with a laundry and a beit taharah [room used for the ritual washing of the corpse before burial]. In 1899–1901 the hospital was expanded. In 1903 a new brick building was erected to replace the old edifice, at a cost of 18,000 rubles. For this purpose, 7,000 rubles were received from the korobka and 8,000 rubles from donations. Alexander Luria made the largest single contribution—1,000 rubles. Mrs. Hishin of Moscow donated 600 rubles, Moshe Luria 500 rubles, and Yosef Halpern 300 rubles. A deficit of nearly 3,000 rubles remained. The construction of the new building on the most modern principles increased the number of beds from 25 to 50. Nahum Eizenstein, the trustee of Mina Floris’s estate, was the most active worker on the hospital’s behalf. In the mid-1890s the directors were Mordecai Gleiberzon, Motel Sarah-Peshes—he served for approximately thirty years—Ze’ev Feldman, and Yosef Halpern. According to an article (in manuscript) by D. Gleiberman, Yosef Halpern was the primary campaigner for the hospital from 1873 to 1913.

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The korobka allotments were as follows: 1900–1903—3,850 rubles annually, 1904–07—5,100 rubles annually (this sum apparently included a certain amount for building expenses), 1908–11—4,945 rubles, and 1912–15—5,695 rubles. In the early 1890s the members of the supervisory board were Yosef Halpern (the son of Reb Avraham Halpern), Nahum Eizenstein (the son of Reb Ber Eizenstein), Wolf Rabinowitsch, Wolf Feldman (the son of Reb Leib Feldman), and Shelomoh Eizenstein (the son of Reb Elia Eizenstein). The hospital doctor was Boleslav Andrevitz Dombrovsky. In the late 1890s the board was composed of Yosef ­Halpern, Yehezkel Basevitz, Moshe Soloveitchik, Wolf Rendel, Wolf Feldman, and David Gintzburg; the doctor was Leib Bukshitzky. In 1891, 362 patients were admitted to the hospital, of whom 25 died. In 1896 there were 65 beds in the two hospitals and a total of 1,570 patients of whom 128 died. Hospital expenses totaled 10,617 rubles.12 Mina Floris had willed the entire plot of land for public use, on condition that it not be sold or used as security, and with the stipulation that only charitable institutions be built there. At Nahum Eizenstein’s initiative, an old-age home, a beit hakhnassat orehim (hostel for travelers), and a soup kitchen were built there, along with the buildings for the Maskil El Dal society and the Pinsk Talmud Torah. Construction of the Pinsk old-age home, Beit Ha-Asaf Le-Zekenim Ve-Halashim [house for the aged and infirm], began in the late 1880s with funds from the estate of Betzalel Voloveler and his wife Mina ­Floris. Ze’ev Lifshitz donated an additional 1,000 rubles to complete construction. Sixteen old people could be accommodated in the home. The annual korobka appropriations were as follows: from 1900 to 1903—500 rubles, from 1904 to 1907—600 rubles, from 1908 to 1911— 485 rubles, from 1912 to 1915—555 rubles.13 The Karlin old-age home, Beit Mahse Le-Zekenim [shelter for the old], predated that of Pinsk. It was built around 1865 by Haya Luria and her relative Feigel Levin and was located between the Talmud Torah and the hospital. Nine old men and nine old women resided there. In 1898 the building was expanded and improved, and more residents were admitted. Poor youngsters studying in the Karlin Talmud Torah also ate their meals there. The director was Yosef Halpern, “at whose instruction old people were admitted, and who dealt faithfully with all

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

matters concerning the Home.” From 1900 to 1907 the Karlin Home received annual appropriations similar to those of the Pinsk Home; for 1908–11—290 rubles, 1912–15—555 rubles.14 The Pinsk beit hakhnassat orehim was founded in 1885. It was set up to keep travelers from lodging and taking up residence in the study houses. It also provided an alternative to the old practice, still common in the 1880s, of inviting travelers for Sabbath and holiday meals to the homes of members of the congregation (these invitations were assigned by the synagogue officials). According to the society’s bylaws, a “guest” was permitted to lodge in the hostel for three days without paying; afterward he was required to “deposit three kopeks per night in the society’s treasury.” Guests apparently received three meals a day as well. On Sabbaths and holidays, services were held in the hostel so that the guests “could easily receive meal invitations from congregants.” The building had five rooms plus a small room for the shamash (custodian). The directors were Zvi Hirsch Yayin(?), Simhah Gottlieb, Ya’acov Gamzu, Shelomoh Bergman, H. Z. Grazovitz, D. M. Bergman, M. B. Lifshitz, and Yosef Merkin.15 The Pinsk soup kitchen was established in 1891, at the worst point in the economic crisis, on the ground floor of the old-age home, and “the citizens contributed generously to this house.” Meals were provided “to all who requested them, regardless of religion,” at low prices, “six kopeks for a meal with meat and bread, three kopeks for a meatless meal.” This charitable project and others reportedly inspired the city bishop, Grodniki, to reprove his Christian parishioners: See what Israel has accomplished. . . . They attempt to ease the burden of high prices for their poor brothers, and care for our Christian brothers as well, by founding a general soup kitchen open to the unfortunate . . . without regard to religion, and what have we done?

The regional governor, Prince Trubetzkoy, visited the soup kitchen and other charitable institutions and paid the Jews a compliment: “See how open-hearted are the children of Israel.” From 1892 on, the soup kitchen dispensed tea free of charge. According to information from 1893, “six prominent women” and “eighty young girls” and “eight sons of Pinsk’s leading citizens” volunteered to wait on tables in the soup

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kitchen, on a rotating basis. In 1896 expenditures for the soup kitchen totaled 3,070 rubles and income [was] 2,853 rubles. The income was composed of the following items: 1,502 rubles in payments for meals; 636 rubles from regular and occasional contributions, such as Purim donations; and 120 rubles from the korobka. The municipality provided 333 rubles, income from the tabl (meaning unknown) was 400 rubles, and 12 rubles were received on the coronation day of Tsar Nicholas II. From 1900 to 1907, 500 rubles were appropriated annually from the korobka and 221 during 1908–15.16 Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah Ha-Yehudit (the Jewish charitable association) was founded with government authorization in the late 1890s. Aharon Luria and Crown Rabbi Samzhovsky requested the permit and served as its heads. The goal of the initiators was to consolidate all the charitable institutions so that “each person would bring his donation . . . to the treasury of the kahal (that is, the society)” and “take care of his communal obligations all at once.” The point was to do away with the “chaos and irregularities prevalent in the various societies due to all those . . . who rush ahead.” In 1902 the two old-age homes, the soup kitchen, and the Somekh Nofelim society, as well as distribution of me’ot hittim [Passover charity for the needy] and firewood, were under the aegis of the society; its budget was 9,852 rubles. The main sources of income were membership payments, korobka allotment, payment for meals in the soup kitchen, and certain payments from the old-age home. The society disbursed 590 rubles worth of Passover needs to 449 people and 105 rubles in cash to 47 people that year. It distributed potatoes (at a cost of 138 rubles) to 447 people, firewood to 102 people, and money for kindling to another 60. In the Pinsker Shtodt Luakh of 1904, a proposal was made that the society take the hospitals and the Talmud Torahs under its wing; it was also suggested that the Somekh Nofelim society’s procedures for giving assistance be changed to avoid delay and embarrassment to the needy. But the suggestions were not acted upon. In 1900 there were 309 members of the society, in 1901—157, in 1902—110, in 1910—101 members. Each member paid at least 5 rubles annually. By 1910 the budget had decreased by approximately 2,000 rubles from 1902.17 A parallel group called Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah shel Ha-Nashim Ha-­ Yehudiyot (Jewish women’s charitable association) was founded in

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

1898. In 1901 there were ninety-six female members and the following year, seventy-one members. Grigory Luria was also a member and served as the society’s representative and spokesman. This association apparently existed up to the German occupation in 1915. It established educational institutions (discussed in Chapter Four) and lent support to poor mothers and poor invalids. An earlier society, which had previously engaged in this work had been disbanded. The main sources of this organization’s income were membership dues, donations, and the korobka; there was also some income from parties and lotteries organized by the group. Each year a May Day celebration was arranged jointly with the non-Jewish aristocracy for the benefit of tuberculosis victims of all religions.18 The main organizers were Mrs. R. Sultz and Mrs. Kayla Golda Rubenstein. Others worthy of mention (not necessarily members of the association) were L. Kagan, R. Dukor, A. Rozenblit, Devora Harol, S. M. Zeitlin, R. Eizenstein,19 Rabbi Moshe Ostrovsky’s mother, and Regina Rabinowitsch, who began her work during and after the First World War. The Linat Tzedek (hospice for the poor) society was established in 1902, after receiving Ministry of Interior approval of its bylaws. Its purpose was “to assist poor invalids by providing free medical care—doctors, medicines and supervision.” According to its regulations, similar to those of other societies, there were three categories of members: (1) active members—who paid three rubles annually or sixty rubles for life membership—and the doctors and volunteers who did the work of the society; (2) auxiliary members—who paid less than three rubles, but at least one-half ruble annually; (3) distinguished members—who performed outstanding work for the society. The main task undertaken, as implied by the society’s [Hebrew] name, was the provision of nighttime care to the sick, granting the family of the patient a respite. People of means also made use of this service, for a fee. The society’s income was used to purchase ice for the sick during the summer months and medical necessities such as thermometers, hot-water bottles, and enemas, to be lent to patients in exchange for a deposit. The organization was directed by Shmuel Luria, chairman; A. Kolodny, vice-chairman; along with Avraham Friedman and Sh. Kerman.20 In a 1913 article in Haynt, Moshe’le Gleiberman wrote about a society called Linat Holim,

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stating that “the society earned public support within a short time” and “membership numbers 1,264, including 400 women” and “its budget is 2,000 rubles.” At the end of their own regular workday, members would visit the sick according to a roster determined by the directors.21 Shortly before the First World War, a society called Seudat Shabbat Le-Orehim (Sabbath meals for guests) was founded in Pinsk. Its purpose was to provide the needy with Sabbath and holiday meals to be eaten “on the society’s premises.” One of the officials was Hillel Lerman.22 The Mekhabei Esh Mitnadvim [volunteer fire brigade] was founded in 1892. This group was also composed of three categories of members: (1) distinguished members, who paid twenty-five rubles a year; (2) members who paid three rubles a year; (3) members who actually fought fires and paid no dues. During the years from 1900 to 1907, this society received an annual allotment of four hundred rubles from the korobka, and from 1908 to 1915, two hundred rubles. This group was a joint Jewish-Christian effort, but most of the income was provided by the Jewish population. In 1910–11 Chaikovsky, the Christian owner of the gymnasium, headed the society, and some Jews were very dissatisfied with the administrative arrangements and complained about waste of money.23 In addition to the general societies, specific occupations organized their own mutual support groups. Such “trade associations” had existed in Pinsk and other Jewish communities for years. The building of the Great Synagogue housed the beit midrash of the furriers and hat makers, the gold and silversmiths, and the fishmongers. The beit midrash of the tailors was alongside the Great Synagogue.24 In 1889 the Toferei Na’ala’im [cobblers] society was founded “to assist old weak cobblers who could not support their families.” The society’s income came from monthly dues and from collection plates placed in stores where leather was sold; “the shopkeeper or the purchaser deposited a donation for the society’s benefit.” The society had its own room in the Great Synagogue with a Torah scroll. The room was used for prayer in a minyan (quorum) and for meetings. A bylaw provided that anyone who failed to attend a meeting was fined five kopeks.25 Many societies had such a rule, but the fine was applicable only for absence without good cause from the group’s study hour.

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

The Agudat Ahim Sapanim (brotherhood of shippers) was formed at this time, its membership composed of “the owners of the ships that transported wheat.” The purpose of the group was “to support shippers in failing times by providing interest-free loans,” needed especially “in the winter months when it was difficult to earn a living.” Annual dues were 3 rubles (besides occasional donations). In 1890, about the time of its founding, membership numbered eighty-five; in 1894 membership had declined to sixty-eight. That year’s budget shows a balance of 1,547 rubles from dues and donations, including a donation from the Luria family. Interest-free loans totaled 663 rubles, and 825 rubles were loaned at reduced rates.26 Two more societies appeared in 1896: Ozerim Yehudim (Jewish supporters) in the factories and shops and Agudat Morim (teachers’ society); their purpose was “old-age insurance.” Membership in the teachers’ society carried annual dues of 3 rubles and a deposit of 1 ruble.27 These groups served as forerunners of the trade unions first established in 1905. The meat tax (korobka) was an important source of income for the educational and welfare institutions; the franchise to collect it was awarded once in four years. Until 1904 it was in the hands of Rabbi Ze’ev Wolf Neidich of the distinguished Karlin-Stolin Hasidim; according to a different report it was in the hands of Aharon Luria. During the years 1900 to 1903, the franchise price was 23,475 rubles annually.28 The Zionists campaigned to remove the meat tax from Neidich’s private domain to public authority, and a syndicate was formed to franchise it for 30,000 rubles a year. But instead it was franchised to M. ­Soloveitchik for that sum.29 In January 1906 Soloveitchik made a request to reduce the price from 30,000 rubles to 24,000 rubles.30 This angered the populace, which claimed that Soloveitchik wished to hurt the institutions under the pretext of straitened economic circumstances. During 1908–11 the tax was franchised for only 20,000 rubles, which testifies to the economic crisis that gripped Pinsk at that time. In 1912–15, 24,500 rubles were paid for the franchise. The sum had decreased to nearly the amount paid at the beginning of the century, although the Jewish population had increased in the interim. Specific appropriations were made for maintaining the uchony yevrey (an advisor on Jewish affairs) of the Minsk governor, for the mental health department of the Minsk

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hospital, for hiring wagons (for transporting criminals?), for sharing in the expenses of the Petersburg rabbinical congress, for the Vilna government teachers’ seminary, and for the fire brigade (which should have been provided by the municipality since the Jews paid taxes).31 The meat tax, a form of indirect taxation, in a sense constituted oppression of the poor, because they bore the burden equally with the rich. On the other hand, the poor usually ate meat only on the Sabbath. Taxes for slaughtering were as follows: a young chicken—2 kopeks, a duck or a hen-3.5 kopeks, a turkey or a goose—12 kopeks, a calf or a goat—20–40 kopeks, a cow—1.35 rubles, an ox—1.40 rubles. On a pound of meat with bones—the tax was 2 kopeks, on a pound of veal—1 kopek, on a pound of “small cattle,” that is, lamb, mutton, or goat—1.5 kopeks.32 Both Pinsk and Karlin had societies, known as Hevrah Kaddisha (holy brotherhood) and Hevrah Ketanah (little brotherhood), “to perform the final kindness for the dead.” The following statement was made about the Hevrah Kaddisha of Pinsk: From the books of this society it appears that it is very ancient, for when fire broke out in 1799 and consumed the city, the society’s record book was also destroyed, and in 1800 on the eve of the month of Kislev [a winter month] they started a new record book; therefore it seems that this society was founded long before 1799 (see record book of this confraternity, p. 50).33

One of the members of the Hevrah Kaddisha was Reb Menahem Neidich, known in Pinsk as “Golda’s Reb Menahem”. He was the maternal grandfather of Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel.34 The following is a list of charitable organizations and welfare and mutual aid associations existing in Pinsk and Karlin at the turn of the century: 1. Pinsk Gemilut Hesed [free loan]—two or three societies 2. Karlin Gemilut Hesed [free loan] 3. Somekh Nofelim Ve-Yoledot (support for the distressed and for new mothers) Society 4. Honen Dalim [compassion for the poor] Society 5. Agudat Ahim Society (brotherhood society)

Institutions, Societies, and Associations for Social Welfare

6. Beit Ha-Asaf Le-Zekenim Ve-Halashim [house for the aged and infirm, the Pinsk old-age home] 7. Beit Mahse Le-Zekenim [shelter for the old, the Karlin old-age home] 8. Hakhnassat Orehim [hostel for travelers] Society 9. Soup kitchen 10. Maskil El Dal [consider the poor] Society 11. Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah Ha-Yehudit [Jewish charitable association] 12. Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah shel Ha-Nashim Ha-Yehudiyot [Jewish women’s charitable association] 13. Linat Tzedek [hospice for the poor] Society 14. Hevrot Le-Ezrah Hadadit 15. Volunteer fire brigade 16. Ozerim Yehudim (Jewish supporters) Society 17. Agudat Morim Society [teachers society] 18. Agudat Ahim Sapanim (brotherhood of shippers) 19. Hevrat Toferei Na’ala’im (cobblers society) 20. Bikur Holim or Hekdesh [Pinsk Hospital] 21. Bikur Holim or Hekdesh [Karlin Hospital] 22. Seudat Shabbat Le-Orehim (Sabbath meals for guests) 23. Pinsk Hevrah Kaddisha (holy brotherhood) and Hevrah Ketanah (little brotherhood) 24. Karlin Hevrah Kaddisha (holy brotherhood) and Hevrah Ketanah (little brotherhood)

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(1906–1914)

Pinsk was beset by continuous tension starting late in 1905. On December 22, Governor Korlov imposed “the strictest level of control.” Cossacks galloped through the city raining murderous blows on anyone who crossed their path. A long series of searches and arrests began. Forty people were arrested that first week of “strictest control.” Only one or two of the seven Jews among them belonged to a radical party.1 They were either Zionists or “liberals,” members of “The Society for Full Civil Rights For Jews.” Moshe Soloveitchik,2 a member of the upper class, was arrested, and Grigory Luria was searched;3 both had donated large sums of money to the Pinsk Zionist defense organization known as the Haganah. Pinhas Mandelbaum and Zvi Hirsch Hiller 4 were arrested, too, but it cannot be determined how long they were detained. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein’s memoirs provide a basis for the assumption that the arrests were somehow connected to the Haganah. She writes: There were several searches connected to the Haganah [self-defense]; some suspicious matters were revealed. My parents and a few responsible friends insisted that I move at once to another place.5

Moshe Feinstein writes in his memoirs:

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During the Russian revolution of 1905, my father was imprisoned overnight; afterwards he and several other Zionist leaders in the city stood trial [before the governor in Minsk]. Attorney Grozenberg [defended them and they were acquitted].6

In the final days of 1905, there was “chaos in the city and many young people fled.”7 Searches and arrests persisted. A letter sent to America by

Suppression and Reaction

the Bund (apparently early in January) reports that “more than fifty of our people were arrested.”8 The vengeful and repressive impulses of the “guardians of law and order” were intensified as a result of several episodes. On Saturday, January 7, officials of the government bank were robbed, following an exchange of shots, of a satchel containing 1,100 rubles in cash and 3,400 rubles in securities. A rumor spread that Bundists were responsible. On January 8, an attempt was made on the life of a police officer. In anticipation of January 9, the anniversary of the Gapon procession [known as “Bloody Sunday” when a Russian priest, George Gapon, in January 1905, led a procession of workers to the Winter Palace, and the guards fired into the crowd], the officials in charge of security made careful preparations. The city’s administration was turned over to “the leader of the nobility,” Von Grabnitz, who was an anti-semite and a member of the Black Hundreds [the Party or Association of the Russian People; see p 109]. At his order posters were plastered around the city forbidding meetings and warning that the police would shoot at crowds; any building from which the authorities were attacked, would be demolished. An eight o’clock curfew was imposed, and notice was given that any proprietor who did not open his shop would be fined 3,000 rubles. There were no demonstrations that day, although the majority of the salesclerks and the workers in the factories and workshops struck. One hundred fifty of the activists in the railway workshops had been arrested earlier, so there was no strike there. Additional arrests took place. “Many people have been arrested and the population is terrorized by the searches and beatings.”9 The city teemed with Cossacks and policemen initiating searches, inflicting beatings, and making arrests. More than one hundred arrests were reported.10 (It is not clear if this was the total number or only those arrested on that day.) On January 20 a newspaper account states, “the prison is overflowing,” and on the night of January 20, “in one house, twenty people were arrested, including its owner.” 11 Meanwhile, another government bank official was assaulted and robbed of 1,800 rubles in cash and 18,000 rubles in securities. Two Jews, who seem to have been innocent, were arrested.12

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The terror of searches and imprisonments stopped temporarily during elections to the first Duma (Parliament) and throughout the Duma’s term (April 27–July 8, according to the Julian calendar). The police force “behaved itself ” apparently on instructions from higher up. A Sionisty Sotsialisty (S.S.) article reports that when there was a strike in some places of work on May 1, the police arrested “only three of our members.”13 Searches and arrests resumed toward the end of 1906. In November, twenty-five members of the left-wing parties were arrested.14 These arrests may have been related to the October 25 incident during which unknown assailants killed a policeman and wounded a watchman.15 On November 14, robbers attacked a Jew named Friedland and wounded him fatally.16 In mid-January the following telegram was sent: In Pinsk, searches are conducted continually. On a recent night a search of subscribers to the newspaper Tribuna, the Russian organ of the Bund, was held. One man, in whose possession the Bund account book was found, was arrested.17

In addition to the searches and arrests of members of the revolutionary parties and their families, which were irrespective of religion and nationality, the Jews of Pinsk were in danger of a pogrom throughout the summer of 1906. On May 10, notice was sent to the Duma representatives Skirmont and Drutzko-Lubetzky that the district official (Zemsky Nachalnik) Kazarinov and the leader of the nobility Baron Von Grabnitz, who had been authorized to take over administration of the city, were distributing circulars among the peasants that called upon them to beat up the Jews and the intelligentsia on May 14, the anniversary of the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. This report notes that the Jews of the city were in despair—many were forfeiting their property and fleeing; steps had to be taken immediately to prevent a catastrophe.18 Another article supplements this and states that Kazarinov was holding daily meetings for Real Russians (Echte Russishe Leit), a Black Hundreds’ organization formed in October 1905 to make war on Jews and revolutionaries. ­Kazarinov was making speeches about the role of Jews in history and the activities of the intelligentsia in the revolutionary movement. The Real Russians were receiving circulars and being instructed to distribute them to peasants in the district. The peasants were being called upon to arm themselves with “home-made arms” for any eventuality and to come

Suppression and Reaction

into the city on May 14. Local hooligans known as laboznikes (apparently a reference to Jewish informers) were “cooperating” with the Real Russians. “The entire population—the Poles included—was terrified, and many of the Jews and the intelligentsia were leaving the city.”19 May 14th, nevertheless, passed peacefully. Only small groups of peasants came into town, and gathered at Topoleyev’s teashop to listen to speeches about patriotism. They were told that the government wished to give them lands, but that Poles, Jews, and traitors made this impossible and that Skirmont wanted to be king (a reference to Polish desires for autonomy). That day Kazarinov sent patriotic greetings, apparently to Stolypin, [Peter Stolypin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia in 1906; assassinated, 1911] on behalf of “an audience of 2,000”; according to a published report of the meeting, no more than fifty people had actually gathered.20 An S.S. member wrote that the police wanted to organize a “patriotic demonstration” on May 23, in honor of the Tsarina’s birthday, but that in spite of freely poured liquor, patriots were not to be found, to the constabulary’s chagrin. The writer notes, “We made immediate preparations.” Y. Rakow writes in his memoirs that the S.R. decided to organize a self-defense force. Volunteers were divided into detachments of ten (boys and girls) who waited in specified houses, ready for trouble. It is not clear whether all the defenders were S.R. members or whether some were unaffiliated, and some, non-Jews. Rakow goes on to tell how tragedy befell one detachment. A bomb exploded in the home in which they sat, and two members, Moshe Finkelstein and Efraim Volintz, were seriously wounded. The Cossacks in the barracks across the way moved the wounded to the hospital, and the other defenders managed to disappear. According to Rakow, the pogrom was stymied, despite Topoleyev’s efforts, thanks to the organized self-defense operation.21 In the latter half of June, the fear of a pogrom was reawakened. Kazari­nov and Topoleyev, heads of the Party of the Russian People, presented themselves to Stolypin; they demanded that the Pinsk chief of police distribute weapons to their party members. The chief of police and Baron Von Grabnitz refused. (At the time the city was overrun by provocateurs, who were stirring up the Cossacks.22) A report written at the end of June states that Governor Korlov had sent out a circular to

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spread the “ideology” of the Association of the Russian People; the Black Hundreds had heightened their efforts to make trouble, and Topoleyev was propagandizing among the Cossacks. Topoleyev had appeared with some drunken Cossacks shouting, “Kill the Jews!” and begun to rob the home of a Jew; they had found no allies, however, and the police had confiscated Topoleyev’s pistol and arrested him. 23 Another article states that there was strong apprehension of pogroms in Pinsk, Bobruisk, and Borisuv on June 29, as a result of agitation by the Association of the Russian People; the Jews in these cities were in a panic, and many were fleeing.24 An article written two days later states that a delegation of Jews from Pinsk had presented itself to Korlov in Minsk to discuss the agitation of the Black Association, which was keeping them in a constant state of fear. Korolov set out for Pinsk and the surrounding district.25 On July 9, the first day of Korolov’s visit, rifles were distributed to the policemen and patrols were set up in the streets. This action was taken in the wake of adjournment of the first Duma on July 8 when the Jews once again were overcome with fear. Many Jews were reported to be leaving the city, and there was disquiet in neighboring towns, business was dwindling, and poverty had increased, and no one could tell what was likely to happen.26 On August 24, a fire broke out in the monastery, and immediately the rumor spread that Jews and Poles were responsible. The panic intensified when shots were heard near the monastery.27 There was anxiety that rioting might ensue, as it had in Bialystok, when a provocateur’s shot had served as the excuse for two days of pogroms.28 But the Black Hundreds again failed in their efforts. These attempts to instigate a pogrom were unsuccessful because revolutionary ideas were also fermenting among the rural poor; strikes of hired field hands on the estates had broken out during the harvest;29 they were not swayed by propaganda against the Jews. Neither did the police want a pogrom. The chief of police had denied arms to Kazarinov’s and Topoleyev’s men, and Topoleyev had been arrested. It was specifically stated that the chief of police and the army commander had taken steps to ensure quiet in the city at the time of the fire in the monastery.30 Orders may have been issued “from above” after the liberal representative Orosov revealed in the Duma that a secret press, operating next to the police department, was printing circulars calling for the de-

Suppression and Reaction

struction of the Jews.31 Or the chief of police and the commander of the army may have accepted “secret gifts” from the Jewish community. Probably the Poles in the city, particularly the owners of the estates, were also a factor in preventing the pogrom. Their spokesman had opposed granting weapons to Topoleyev’s men. At any rate, friction arose between the police and the Association of the Russian People. An August 1906 article states that the Association had sent a telegram to the new governor Arderly, who arrived in Minsk on August 4, protesting that the Pinsk branch of the Association and other small parties were not permitted to assemble to do business related to the Duma elections (for the second Duma) and asking for clarification of other matters. The chief of police and district police officer (stanovoy) Misvitz and the “old” (starshine) Hamartshany made particular difficulties. Those who sent the telegram ask the governor to order a halt to this pressure, on the grounds that it was even more harmful than “the activities of the revolutionaries.” The governor’s answer was: “No complaints have been received. Inform us which ‘association’ these branches belong to.”32 Arderly visited Pinsk in the last week of August. He demanded that the Jewish delegation appearing before him prevail upon the young Jews not to join revolutionary movements. When they replied that there was no way to do so, Arderly reiterated his 1903 proposal, that those who “rebel against the regime” should be placed under the Jewish ban (herem). The reporter commented: “Is the herem more effective than cannons and bayonets?”33 The attempts to provoke a pogrom were a response to the results of the elections to the first sovereign Duma. A Zionist lawyer from Pinsk, Shimshon Rosenbaum, was elected from the Minsk district; and two landowners, one a Pole, Skirmont, and the other, the leader of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, Count Drutzko-Lubetzky, were elected from the Pinsk region. The agitation after the fire in the monastery and Governor Arderly’s advocacy of banning of revolutionaries may have been related to the printing of copies of the “Vibourg Declaration” by the S.S. press in Pinsk. This proclamation had been made public by the liberal Duma representatives after the Duma disbanded. It called for withholding of taxes and refusal to be inducted into the army.34

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Searches and arrests by the police were renewed at the end of 1906. The leftist parties, Bund and S.S., which had boycotted elections to the first Duma on instructions from their central offices, had decided to take part in elections for the second Duma; but the police, wishing to minimize their participation, tore up the announcements for the S.S. elections, denying voting rights to a thousand Pinsk workers.35 Another incident stresses the degree of nervousness about a pogrom in this period. Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Volk, Rabbi of Pinsk, passed away on a Friday, December 21, 1906. To prevent local peasants, strolling in town on Sunday, from harassing Jews at the funeral, the rabbis, who had arrived from far and near to pay last respects, decided that Rabbi Volk should not be buried until Monday, three days later.36 With the intensification of reaction in 1907, members of the S.S. and the Poalei Zion also began to be persecuted. The Jews collectively suffered the wrath evoked by the Warburg Conference, in which nearly all twelve Jewish representatives to the first Duma had participated, among them the Zionist delegates. A July 1907 article reports that Porishkivitz’s secretary, Ostrovsky, fawned upon the town military representative in an effort to convince him to spark a pogrom and spread “literature.”37 Zionism was officially prohibited, although it was not hounded to the same extent as the parties of the left. The eyes of the local constables and the secret police kept strict watch over everything that went on. Every meeting and lecture required a permit and the presence of a police officer. At the end of 1909, the Minsk governor forbade Yiddish to be spoken at meetings because “it is impossible to send police officers who know Yiddish to follow the proceedings.”38 In 1913, lectures by Jewish speakers were banned in the Minsk district, even lectures in Russian and on neutral topics; Jewish performances were forbidden as well.39 They had previously been presented in Yiddish, although the advertisements had to say that they would be put on Na Niemcko-Yevreyskom Yazyka—in Judeo-German [see Chapter Five].40 (One of these advertisements is still in existence.) Only one of the freedoms promised in the October Manifesto remained—the right to form trade associations. This law was proclaimed on March 6, 1906. The police stopped interfering with workers’ strikes, but only in those cases where the strikes were intended to guarantee working conditions prescribed by government directives. No strikes

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took place in industry or in the workshops from 1908 to 1910 because economic circumstances in the city had so deteriorated that the workers were happy to be employed under any conditions. An S.S. article from October 1906, states that due to the dire situation in industry, it was impossible to wage economic warfare.41 Economic conditions worsened because of disturbances during the year of the revolution and the disorder of the following year. Also to blame were the wave of arrests and the consequent flight from the city by young members of the revolutionary movements. The well-to-do departed in fear of pogroms. Most of the young people who were arrested or who fled were children of the poor or of the laboring class. They had been a major source of support for their families, sometimes the sole source; and now their families’ conditions became very difficult. The overriding cause of distress, however, was unemployment. A 1906 article states: The distress of the working class is indescribable; the craftsmen lack work—their backs are against the wall in ever-increasing misery. Wherever one looks one sees heartbreaking scenes. Emigration increases with each passing day.42

Beginning from that year—1906—there was an appalling lack of jobs for salespeople.43 Every accident or mishap that happened in industry aggravated the poverty. A fire in the match factory, for instance, left most of the workers unemployed.44 Beggars multiplied on the streets; each had his own turf. Once or twice a week they appeared at the houses and requested their “due.”45 An anonymous writer to Pinsky Listok suggests organizing charity for the poor “who pound the pavement with the last ounce of their strength, their hands out perpetually”; finally “returning home at the end of a day of torment and hunger, unable to provide their starving children with a piece of bread.”46 Another writer proposes establishing a committee to organize a “united appeal” for all charitable institutions; the committee would levy an appropriate sum according to each householder’s means. The usual donors cannot bear the burden alone, “for not a day goes by without some sort of solicitation.”47 The various political parties continued their activities under these political and economic circumstances. The Zionists, almost silent during the revolution, became the influential force in the city once more,

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despite the severe crisis that struck the movement after Herzl’s death. The Zionists Zvi Hiller and Dr. Bukshitzky were selected as candidates for the first Duma, while the representatives of the “Octoberists” [a “rightist” organization formed in October 1905], Aharon Luria and M. N. Strick (?), lost. The match factory workers voted for a Zionist candidate. The workers in the Luria factories selected two independent candidates.48 Two Zionist candidates, Zvi Hiller and Pinhas Mandelbaum, were again chosen as candidates for the second Duma.49 Zionists had the final say in educational affairs during this period. They determined the curriculum of the girls’ school established earlier by the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association with the assistance of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment, and it was they who transferred the vocational school to the auspices of the Jewish Charitable Association. [See Chapter Four.] The Pinsk community’s decision to send greetings to a conference on emigration scheduled to take place in Vienna, with a note that “emigration is not a radical solution to the Jewish question” but only “an expedient task of the present,”50 was an expression of Zionist thinking. Zionists constituted a majority in the Pinsk branch of the Society for Promotion the of the Enlightenment (founded on March 25, 1910). In the September 5, 1910, elections for its executive, Aharon Rubenstein, Pinhas Mandelbaum, Polonsky the teacher, Dr. Bukshitzky, and a Mrs. Kagan were elected.51 The first two were well-known Zionist activists. Polonsky was said to have purposely arranged outings with his students in the Drunznik school to talk to them about Zionism and the Land of Israel.52 Another instance of Zion­ist activity was the 1907 acquisition of a plot of land in Hadera by the Pinsk Doreshei Zion society; an orchard was planted and turned over to the care and supervision of the agronomist Dr. Suskin.53 Yosef Bregman (known for his fervor and Hasidic origins as “Yosel the Hasid”) shouldered the burden of Zionist activity. Haya WeizmannLichtenstein writes: He was a volcano in his youth . . . [and] from the age of sixteen he devoted himself heart and soul to the Zionist ideal. Nothing was too difficult for him. Zionist leaders sent this young and devoted man wherever organizational work was needed. With his sharp tongue, he knew even as a boy how to take the offensive against opponents

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of Zion­ism; he spit fire, his words inspired belief and faith. He was among those who demanded Zionist activism in the affairs of the Jewish community in the Diaspora, cultural activity at all levels, as well as practical efforts in Eretz Israel.54

Bregman participated in a Russian Zionist conference in Minsk (1902) and was a member of the Odessa Committee and a delegate to the sixth Zionist congress (the Uganda Congress), at which he purportedly burst out and called Herzl a traitor. He was a member of the committee that investigated and gathered material about the pogroms, and he participated in a meeting of Zionist activists that was convened by the central committee of Russian Zionists in Vilna in late December 1906. Some participants in this meeting were arrested, among them Bregman, along with the poet Yehudah Volovelsky (later Karni), secretary of the Russian Zionist central office in Vilna, and Tir (probably Zelig Tir) from Pinsk.55 Bregman also took part in 1906 in the Helsingfors conference at which decisions were made on the “tasks of the present.” Other participants in this conference were Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein and Moshe Mednik, a Ha-Tehiyah activist56 who was fated to be one of the thirty-five martyrs [see Chapter Nine]. In 1907, Bregman served as a delegate to the eighth Zionist congress together with Moshe-Ya’akov Lifshitz and Makhlis, a member of the Ha-Tehiyah central committee.57 Bregman was the sole Pinsk delegate to the ninth Zionist congress in Hamburg in 1909,58 and he participated in discussions at the conference of Russian Zionists that took place there at the same time. He contended that the central committee of Russian Zionists had not taken advantage of “the propitious moment,” that “the public realized that all the dreams amounted to nothing,” and “we were the only [credible] party on the Jewish street.” Certainly Bregman had earned his title as “the perennial critic of the committee of Russian Zionists.”59 When Bregman returned from the Congress he rendered an account at a meeting of Zionists in Pinsk. As long as it was still possible to speak about Zionism publicly in Pinsk, lecturers came there to discuss Zionist topics. In late 1906 ­Pasmanik [1869–1930, theoretician of Poalei Zion, later estranged from Zionism] lectured on the economic basis for Zionism and spoke to students about the national foundations of Zionism. A few months later, he visited once more to speak on the assimilation of the Jews and on economics as the

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solution to the Jewish question. In the spring of 1907, Berger (probably Yehudah Leib Berger) came to Pinsk and “revived our efforts greatly.” The local Zionists arranged three meetings in which Berger participated; he also addressed a large crowd in the Great Synagogue and managed to garner eleven new members for the Geulah society. On July 14, 1907, Pinsk Zionists celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Rishon Le-Zion, which was the beginning of settlement in the Land of Israel. Greenberg and Galisky came from Vilna to lecture in the “Berlin” auditorium on “Aspirations for the Land of Israel through the History of Israel” and on “Means for Settlement in the Land of Israel.” At the end of 1907, a Zionist evening of music and literature, with Shimon Frug [1860–1916, popular poet and song writer, in Russian and Yiddish] and Leyb Yaffe [1876–1948, Russian-Hebrew poet, editor of Ha-Eretz], was held in the municipal theater. Reports of the event note “that the hall was packed,” and “enthusiasm was tremendous,” and “the evening showed us where the majority of the Jews are headed.”60 On August 30, 1908, Bregman asked Ussishkin to have “Mr. Sheinkin come by to lecture at the local club; receipts would belong to the committee,”61 (i.e., the Odessa Committee). In later years when permits were no longer granted for meetings and benefits like these, ruses had to be devised to fan the spark of Zionist hope, and Bregman worked at this energetically. In 1910 a small but instructive item appeared in a newspaper: a response to “a query from Pinsk: colored lithographs of landscapes of the Land of Israel may be ordered from D. Rokhimovitz in Jaffa.”62 Why does this Pinsker want pictures from the Land of Israel, and take such pains to acquire them? Another article clarifies the notice and testifies to the Zionist mood in the city: On January 31, 1910, an evening of literature and music took place under the auspices of the local Zionist Organization. Pictures of Jewish settlements in Eretz Israel and portraits of Zionist leaders appeared on the screen (of the cinema). Bregman’s commentary surveyed the history of the Zionist idea; he began with Pinsker and ended with Herzl. The pictures made a great impression. Enthusiasm reached a peak when the picture of the late leader [Herzl] appeared on the screen; the crowd rose as one as the band played a funeral march. At audience request, the Herzl picture reappeared on the screen and the

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band played H ­ a-Tikvah. The program of literature and music went off very well; works of Bialik, Frug, and Sholem Aleichem were read. . . . Mrs. Zaslavsky, the singer, performed in Hebrew and in Yiddish. The raffle of Bezalel [Jerusalem’s Academy of Art and Design, founded in 1903] objets d’art aroused great interest and was very successful.63

Bregman took advantage of every opportunity to talk about building the Land of Israel. At the memorial gathering for Shaul Pinhas Rabino­witz (Sh. P. R.) [held on the thirtieth day after his death], where Sh. M. Rabinowitsch and Sh. Vilenchik spoke about the man and his literary achievements, Bregman discussed all that had been accomplished in Palestine since Sh. P. R.’s earliest days in the Hibbat Zion movement.64 Bregman was the local contact for inquiries about business possibilities in Palestine. He turned to Ussishkin for accurate data relative to establishing an oil factory; a Pinsk Zionist who had twenty thousand rubles and technical training wanted to set up such a factory in the Land of Israel and needed precise information. When Yosef Halpern’s match factory handed over its concession in Constantinople to Jacobson, and its concession in Palestine to Posner, it was Bregman who dealt with the matter. He sent packages of Gofrit matches to Ussishkin and asked him to forward them from Odessa to Constantinople and Palestine.65 In addition to Bregman, Munia-Ber Rozman, Yehezkel Eisenbod, Shmuel Lifshitz, and Shelomoh Vilenchik (later Berav), who joined in 1910, were active members of the Zionist committee. Mordecai (Motel) Eisenberg was particularly active. He was a founding member of the Benei Zion society and, like Bregman, from a Hasidic family. He, too, devoted himself fervently to Zionist projects and was also arrested for these activities.66 Most of the activists were from the intelligentsia, the group of clerks in the factories and the banks, who had relatively more free time. Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch was the manager of the Luria factory (he died in an accident there on December 31, 1918). M. Eisenberg worked in Luria’s office (he died in Tel Aviv on August 24, 1933). Yosef Bregman was director of the Pinsk Savings and Loan Bank (he died in Tel Aviv on May 15, 1946). Pinhas Mandelbaum also served as a bank director (he died on October 11, 1933). The poet A. D. Lifshitz was the accountant in a branch of the Rovno Bank (the City Bank). M. M. Strick began as a teller of the Mutual Credit Bank.67

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Contributions for the Land of Israel decreased at this time. During 1908–09 Pinsk was not listed among the cities forwarding membership dues to the Odessa Committee.68 In 1908 donations to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) totaled 133 rubles and in 1909—166 rubles; in 1911—297 rubles.69 In subsequent years there was a slight increase in donations to the JNF; other contributions were made as well. Although a sum total of all contributions is not available, it may be assumed that they did not reach the amounts donated during Herzl’s lifetime. From the lists in Razsvet and Ha-Olam, it appears that Pinsk lagged behind other similar-sized, or even smaller, cities.70 For the most part, the decline was due to the deteriorating economic situation. In addition, the anti-Zionist Bund and S.S. maintained organized branches in Pinsk despite harassment by the authorities, while the ban by the Senate in Petersburg on Zionist societies (June 1, 1907) caused greater hardship. This prohibition had been enacted “because the purpose of Zionist Organization activities is nationalist isolation of the Jewish populace, which leads to exacerbation of hatred for the native inhabitants.”71 Zionist assemblies were forbidden, as were the sale of Zionist shekels and appeals for the JNF.72 Fear of the police and censorship were undoubtedly the reason that no mention of Zionist activities, except for those not conspicuously Zionist, like the memorial gathering for Shaul Pinhas Rabinowitz, was made in the weekly P ­ insky Listok. On the other hand, Razsvet, published in Petersburg, spoke openly of the Zionist movement and published details of donations made to the JNF and other Zionist funds in various cities. The police tried to eliminate Zionism by attacking active Zionists as individuals, even though the Senate ban was intended only to prevent the activities of the movement. The police led the governor to suspect the Zionists of being S.S. members, that is, revolutionaries. A November 25, 1911, letter from M. Eisenberg, Yosef Bregman, Sh.  Vilen­chik, and Y. Eisenberg, to the steering committee members of the Zionist Organization, states that: A few months ago, local police conducted searches of many of the city’s Zionists. Documents attesting to their leadership of the local Zionist Organization were found among the effects of several. About two weeks ago it became known to us that the Minsk governor sent a

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detailed account of the results of the searches to the Bureau of Police in Petersburg. We sent one of our members to Petersburg to clarify the situation and learned that the governor accuses us, not of being Zionists, but of being S.S. members. The consequence of this accusation may be that the twenty-two Pinsk Zionists will be punished by exile to Arkhangelsk, or, at best, will be subject to probation for three years. Friends in Petersburg all agree that Comrade Chlenov could help us, but they cannot decide whether the trouble of a trip to Peters­burg is warranted. We therefore appeal to you, dear friends, with an emphatic request that as members of the steering committee you turn to our friends in Petersburg and insist forcefully that they take note of the matter and try to help with all the means at their disposal, before it is too late. According to our information, time is limited and you must not remain silent at a time like this, leaving aside the personal circumstances of those involved, most of whom are poor fathers. . . . We must not forget that this affair is liable to destroy the entire Zionist organization in Russia, and no one will be able to do anything for Zionism for fear of the sword, dangling overhead. . . . Even if they are content merely to keep us under probation, this will have catastrophic effects on most of us, for we are nearly all people whose livelihoods depend upon constant travel, or are teachers in the schools.73

Danger hovered over Yosef Bregman in particular. On November 26, 1911 (a day after the letter quoted), he wrote to Ussishkin: I, and my wife, my son and my daughter, are in serious trouble and I ask you to come to my assistance. Whatever the relationship between you and Chlenov, I am certain that he will listen to you and go to Peters­burg, if you insist. . . . On Tuesday, November 28, I will travel to Petersburg again.74

According to the memoirs of Sh. Vilenchik (later Berav), who was also a party to these troubles, police shadowing of the Zionists had begun after Purim 1911. The sequence of events was as follows: The Zion­ist Committee had invited Dr. Alexander Goldstein of Petersburg to address the public. On the eve of Purim he gave a lecture on a relatively neutral subject, although with Zionist ramifications. The topic was “Estrangement from Judaism.” Goldstein spoke in Russian to a full house in one of the city’s cinemas. A police official was present at the

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lecture. The next day, Purim, members of the Zionist committee and several other active Zionists, among them Feivel Weizmann, met with the lecturer. Toward evening they all attended a Purim dinner at the Weizmann home. Earlier Feivel had called his mother and mentioned the names of the guests. The telephone operator had eavesdropped on the conversation and reported the names to the secret police; the name of one Bayla Sirota was misinterpreted and reported as “Bayla Sarah.” Three months later the Weizmann home was subjected to a search. A  condolence letter sent after the death of the patriarch Ozer Weizmann (May 31, 1911), and signed by the entire Zionist Committee, was found. Searches were then conducted of the homes of members of the committee and other Zionists. Among the objectionable items found were books by socialists like Katovsky and Plekhanov; these finds led to the accusation that their owners were not simply Zionists but S.S. members. Under examination the accused were called upon to reveal who the woman “Bayla Sarah” was. By chance, someone in Minsk told the Zionists that the governor had sent a brief about the Zionists to the Ministry of the Interior. Bregman traveled to Petersburg. In order to remain in Petersburg (the city was outside the Pale), Bregman received a certificate from a Pinsk merchant with the right of residence in Petersburg, stating that he had come on business for him. With the help of a Zionist-paid informant who worked in the Ministry of the Interior, Bregman confirmed that twenty-two men had been accused. Bregman consulted with the lawyers Grozenberg and Shlossberg, and Shlossberg composed a telegram to the Minister of the Interior. Bregman then returned to Pinsk, where the accused men signed the telegram and dispatched it to the Minister of the Interior. The telegram read: Your Honor, the Minister of the Interior: According to our information, the authorities of our city and the district have proposed that Your Honor exile us for five years for the crime of belonging to a Zionist-socialist organization. Your Honor, although our ideology does tend toward the Zionist ideal, we have never belonged to a Zionist-socialist organization, and we ask Your Honor to believe us and defend us against this accusation.75

From Bregman’s letters to Ussishkin, it appears that the offensive against Zionist activity and the searches of Bregman had begun even

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before the condolence letter was found in the Weizmann home. A letter dated April 2, 1911, reveals that the Pinsk chief of police had confiscated seventy rubles from the receipts of a benefit, probably a Purim party, and refused to return the money despite the claim of the local Zionist committee that the money belonged to the Odessa Committee, a legitimate organization. In the same letter Bregman stated that he had been searched and things of his had been confiscated (Bregman does not specify what items were confiscated; he sent an official letter on the matter to the Odessa Committee the same day). Correspondence from a London bank was returned to him, but books were not. Bregman reported that he had been warned by a police official not to dare to collect money for the Odessa Committee in the future. Two days later on April 4, Bregman informed Ussishkin that he had gone to Minsk to consult with Shimshon Rosenbaum “about the incident which took place before the [Passover] holiday.” Bregman realized already that his predicament was serious. He notified Ussishkin that in Rosenbaum’s opinion, Ussishkin, as head of the Odessa Committee, “should turn to the Minsk governor about the money confiscated by the chief of police.” About three weeks later Bregman wrote to Ussishkin that “the Pinsk chief of police has been ousted from his position; and if you do not demand the money in his possession now, it will surely be lost.” Bregman does not bring up the items of his own that were taken.76 The charges against the twenty-two Zionists were resolved. On December 14, 1911, Bregman sent a postcard to Ussishkin: “Today we received word from the capital that our case has been successfully closed.”77 One week later, a letter signed by Yosef Bregman and M. Eisenberg was sent to the members of the steering committee: We are pleased to notify you that we received a detailed message from Petersburg that our case has been successfully closed. With especial gratification we inform you that at a party of our Pinsk comrades yesterday, we stressed the will and confidence to pursue our work despite difficult conditions, forward on the road that leads to Zion.78

It is not clear whether the charge was dismissed because of Chlenov’s intervention or the telegram to the Minister of the Interior. The phrase “has been successfully closed” in the letter to the committee seems to

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imply a dismissal of charges. Moreover, the letter does not express appreciation either to Chlenov for using his good offices or to the Committee for prodding him to intervene. A. A. Feinstein tells of a similar case concerning the sale of shares of the Jewish Colonial Trust: Searches began, and on the advice of the chief of police, the police department in Petersburg imposed punishment, exile to Siberia, on ten Zionists—myself included. The trial file was removed from the department and the decree was not executed only because of the intervention of the late Yehiel Chlenov.79

A Bund article from 1912 relates the following about the case: Not long ago a young police official, who intended to rise in the ranks by battling the spirit of revolution in Pinsk, arrived in the city. To start with, he put twelve of the most dignified community figures on trial— industrialists and men of public standing—for the crime of belonging to the Zionist Organization. A special council in Petersburg sentenced them to five years of exile in eastern Siberia. This caused terrible consternation in the city. Someone immediately journeyed to Petersburg and managed to have the decree annulled.

The police continued to keep a watchful eye on the Zionists. In 1912 Sh. M. Rabinowitsch and Mordecai Eisenberg were kept under surveillance and forbidden to leave the city; they were also required to report to the police daily. Since both held responsible positions in the plywood factory, however—Rabinowitsch was manager and Eisenberg treasurer—they were relieved of the obligation to report, in return for a monthly bribe to the pristav, the local chief of police. The prohibition against leaving the city remained in force. The two were also forbidden to cross the railroad tracks. When Rabinowitsch left the city to convalesce in Slavuta, Volynia he was forced to return immediately because the police found out, apparently from the city informer. Among Rabinowitsch and Eisenberg’s offenses was selling Zionist shekels. The struggle between the police and the Zionists and Zionism continued until the outbreak of the First World War. So, for example, when Rabinowitsch went abroad and the police suspected that he had gone to a Zionist conference, they surrounded his house in preparation for a

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search; only when it was proved that he had gone away for reasons of health did they stop bothering his family.80 So far the situation of the “general” Zionists has been discussed. What of those Zionist groups that were influenced by socialist ideas? The Pinsk branch of the Ha-Tehiyah movement was founded in 1905 and a “temporary office” set up to organize a national organization. In late 1905 and early 1906, this temporary office worked on a Zionist-­socialist platform. Meanwhile the Ha-Tehiyah society in the city grew until the membership reached three hundred.81 Members of the board were ­Yehezkel Eisenbod, Mina Ilbitzky, Yosef Herman, Berl Makhlis, Moshe Mednik, Eliezer Teitelbaum, Zhakovsky, Yosef Ilbitzky, Zlata Hiller, Eliezer Kantrovitz, and two others (whose names are not given).82 On February 28, 1906, the editors of the weekly Khronika Yevreyskaya Zhizn [chronicle of Jewish life] announced that they had received the HaTehiyah platform; two weeks later the platform was published. In its introduction, the editorial board noted that it was quoting sections of various leaflets and pamphlets that it considered important.83 This subterfuge was apparently used for fear of the secret police. In fact, at least one section of the platform was not printed. The first chapter of the platform lists the authors’ basic philosophy and their position vis-à-vis other ideologies prevalent among the Jews. In contrast to Marxist doctrine, which sees nationalism as a secondary factor in the history of mankind, the platform sees nationalism as an end in itself. Nationalism not only does not hinder mankind’s development and progress but is a necessary condition for its advancement. Zionism, primarily a movement to revive the Jewish people, is therefore a progressive movement.

Rebirth would be feasible only with the concentration of the Jewish people in its own territory: In the Diaspora our national culture cannot be fulfilled, not only because we are a powerless minority in the midst of a ruling majority with its own developed culture, but also because we lack the means to provide our vital economic necessities, because of our perennial exclusion from the economic and social life of the ruling nation.

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This idea constituted a contradiction both of Dubnow’s autonomism and of Ahad Ha’am’s doctrine of a spiritual center. The only land in which the Jewish people can be rejuvenated is Eretz Israel. For we became a people there, and developed into an independent nation; our unique viewpoint and our individual character were formed and left their imprint upon our psyche. This land, in which we were free men, bound us to her. In the course of two thousand years of exile her attraction never waned, because we felt that she was ours. Only in the country where we spent our youth can the natural, unmediated development of our nationalism continue. Only the historic land can arouse the nation’s affinity for Zionism. The pull of the land and the yearning for it are capable of forging a strong will, a creative force, involving the entire Jewish people, which shall willingly sacrifice itself for its sake. Only the unfathomable emotions of the Jewish people and the historical and psychological ties rooted deep in our souls can generate the many sacrifices demanded for the realization of the Zionist ideal.

This passage clearly expressed the opposition of Ha-Tehiyah to the S.S. party, which had joined the territorialist confederation and enjoyed significant standing in Pinsk at the time. The platform’s second section addresses methods for realizing the Zionist ideal. A heated dispute was in progress between “political Zionists,” who opted for pursuing Herzl’s route of diplomatic negotiations to obtain a charter for Palestine/Eretz Israel, and “practical Zionists,” such as the Hovevei Zion, who demanded immediate settlement activity. Ha-Tehiyah took the stand later adopted by the eighth Zionist Congress (1907)—“synthetic Zionism.” The Ha-Tehiyah platform declares that “we must conduct Jewish diplomacy, establishing relations with all cultured nations for the sake of a solution to the Jewish problem,” and Zionism must be a “world problem.” The world’s statesmen must realize that with the return of Jews to their historic homeland, their [the Jews’] influence in other countries will cease. Turkish statesmen must be convinced that the settlement of the Land of Israel by a neutral, cultured nation would be a contribution to the stability of the Turkish empire and the development of its economy in Asia. A concerted effort must be made to influence European public opinion until it becomes

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clear that only Zionism is likely to cure mankind of the plague of antisemitism, and that “the Jewish question is a burning question, and its solution no less urgent and critical than the resolution of other international problems.” Along with political activity, We should immediately enter on practical work in Eretz Israel, and increase our presence there both quantitatively and qualitatively; we must fill our brothers already living there with the nationalist spirit and improve their social and economic conditions, transforming them from paupers and shnorrers [moochers] to people of action and capable colonists. We should support the growth of intellectual resources in Eretz Israel, and open institutions of secondary and higher learning. We must make an effort to concentrate the land in our hands by purchases and by acquiring concessions, and settle our brothers there. We should open factories and workshops and prepare the country to become a great center of emigration for our brothers in the Diaspora. . . . We must strengthen our position in Eretz Israel, and create a real Jewish presence there. Then it will be easier to obtain political guarantees.

Based upon the demands of the democratic faction, the Ha-Tehiyah platform emphasizes the necessity of conducting the affairs of the Zionist Organization in a democratic spirit, because “Zionism can be realized only through the participation of all the Jewish people,” by “the unified organized strength of the entire nation, not only that of one class which supposedly leads the organization and purports to conduct the entire movement.” So Ha-Tehiyah expresses its demand to bring fresh forces from the new Zionist parties to take part in the leadership of Zion. The program also demands settlement [in the Land of Israel]: on collective, communistic foundations, [because in the Land of Israel] a social-economic structure, [is lacking] just as the nation still lacks national wealth. . . . When we establish Jewish settlement founded on socialist theory, we will not be confronted by the impediments and obstacles that face all the social-democratic parties in civilized countries.

As for the “tasks of the present,” a subject of debate within the Zion­ ist movement, the platform took an explicitly positive stand. Work was presently needed in three areas. In the political arena—a struggle to achieve real and not only theoretical civil rights, and the maximum of

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national autonomy “to the extent possible in our Diaspora,” and struggle against manifestations of anti-semitism. In the economic sphere: We must labor without rest among the broad classes of our people in exile, to improve the economic situation of the Jewish masses, not only of the Jewish proletariat. . . . We do not have a proletariat in the Marxist sense, only a suffering mass driven out of all branches of production and life. Today’s worker is tomorrow’s dealer, a luftmensch purporting to be a bourgeois, but generally bereft of occupation or livelihood. The same thing will happen to merchants and craftsmen. The solution for the livelihood of each individual Jew is a haphazard matter of luck. . . . We must therefore organize all temporary and day workers, craftsmen and merchants, into trade cooperatives and attempt to the utmost to order their economic relationships, so they will stand on as firm ground as possible and not encroach upon each other.

In the realm of cultural work—“We must develop and disseminate Jewish culture, which will include universal culture as it has been assimilated by the Jewish spirit.” Two factors necessitate cultural activities among the Jewish public. First, Jewish culture will fill the people with: an awareness of the imperative of national freedom, so they will begin to clamor for their civil and national rights from society and the authorities. Second, they will then realize the necessity of the single road, the Zionist path, and start to fight for the realization of Zionist ideals.

In anticipating a new “culture” whose character was as yet unclear, the platform takes an extremely negative stand towards existing Jewish culture, and in its “negation of the Diaspora” repudiates Diaspora culture. These drastic expressions were new to Zionist circles: We must send a purifying revolutionary stream through the moldy ghetto, to uproot and expel the ghetto culture, the culture of exile, which is not the result of development of the Jewish spirit, but a condition of the abnormal life we lead, oppressed and repressed [both] materially and spiritually, ghettoized from without and from within.

The new culture must suit the Jewish milieu by “adopting those ideas which are positive, progressive and Jewish.” At the close of the platform come objections to the other parties. The territorialist movement is really anti-nationalist because coloniza-

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tion within the borders of a strong power will prevent the Jewish nation from developing economically and spiritually; the influence of the “metropolis” will be too pervasive. The territorialist movement is also “diseased” because it weakens the independent strengths of the people; it is a product of skepticism, and has no chance of success. The “territories” themselves are desert regions distant from “any cultural center,” and “without any psychological or historical ties; there is no reason to expect that the Jewish people will sacrifice itself for them.” The Poalei Zion party’s Marxist theory of “class warfare” has no place in Jewish life. “It is borrowed from normal industrialized nations in imitation of their socialists . . . and to blind young Jews with theory. . . . For every workers’ struggle which does not lead to socialism is not a class struggle.” In the struggle of Jewish workers against Jewish employers, there is no room for a class struggle since in practice “there are no opposing interests here.” Poalei Zion theory divides the Jewish masses, who lead a starving existence based upon insubstantial huckstering into imaginary classes; this leads to unnatural enmity between groups, which suffer without distinction and have more to unite than to divide them. Poalei Zion does not cultivate in its members that national sensibility that is both an end in itself and a means to institute the desire “to press forward untiringly toward the achievement of our primary goal.” The ­Poalei Zion platform is a combination of two different and contradictory ideologies: a mixture of Marxist theory and Zionist ideology, whose purpose is to acquire the national land and its factories, which do not as yet exist. Like the territorialists, the Poalei Zion see only the “Jewish workers” and not the Jewish people in its entirety. According to Ha-Tehiyah, as long as Zionism remains in the realm of aspiration, one cannot speak of poalei Zion [the workers of Zion] and ashirei Zion [the rich of Zion]. Zionism is an affair for all Jews, “since all of our hypothetical classes aspire by means of Zionism to achieve the nationalpolitical base that is common, and equally imperative, to all.” Ha-Tehiyah’s objection to the general Zionists [was that] in their Zion­ism there is no connection between the present and the future. “They could not rally broad sections of the Jewish people to their banner,” because they did not pay attention “to raising the economic and

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national and cultural status of our people in the lands of their dispersion.” The broad classes of the Jewish people aspire “to see in Zionism the sole defender of human and national interests in the present as well, for as long as they are in exile.” Ha-Tehiyah claims that the Mizrahi movement attempts to give Zion­ism a religious orientation, although in a “democratic-nationalist movement there is no room for religiosity.” Finally, the platform demands reorganization of the Zionist leadership along party-federated lines. “The regional-representative system is an anachronism. Leadership of the movement must be concentrated in the hands of the existing Zionist parties.” Other portions of the platform were not published. They dealt with “Jewish national terrorism” (called yente, an acronym for yiddisher natsionaler terror) to attain the wherewithal necessary for the realization of Zionism. On February 28, 1906, the weekly Khronika Yevreyskaya Zhizn announced that a convention of Ha-Tehiyah societies would take place shortly. In late February or early March, the Pinsk temporary office of Ha-Tehiyah distributed a flyer: Jews of the world, unite under the progressive-democratic Zionist flag of Ha-Tehiyah! . . . With pride and dignity we note that, in spite of the general chaos, our aspiration to assess Zionist principles and the events of the present more realistically and successfully has not been obscured or extinguished. This has earned us a special place in the Diaspora. We Jews must view every universal and political problem, and our role in their solution, from a primarily subjective point of view. A problem has no relevance for us unless its resolution is likely to improve the economic and political lives of the Jewish public, and unless it is of a practical nature. In other words, Ha-Tehiyah sees the “tasks of the present” only from the Jewish perspective, not from that of abstract theory or general progress. This is our categorical imperative, the path we must take without surrender or sidewise glances at what the various Kautskys and Bebels [socialist leaders] will say. . . . The job of Ha-Tehiyah is to come forth courageously and vigorously in kulturkampf against those Zionist societies known as Poalei Zion; in their program the national principle is supplanted by “class warfare,” at a time when no Jewishnational economy exists, when failing small businesses within the Pale

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of Settlement are not replaced by large wealthy businesses. Since we see Zionism as a popular-nationalist movement, we protest equally against the economic divisions within the Zionist Organization and against the formulation of Zionism as a method of transforming the Jewish public into a working proletariat, rather than, first and foremost, a movement whose ultimate aim is the national renaissance of Judaism. Ha-Tehiyah will do battle against those modern ideas in Judaism, that invest the Jewish question with a merely economic and political character. In place of radical healing they seek assorted palliatives, which can alter the situation but slightly; the chronic ailment, now resistant to the old medicines, will continue to eat away at the Jewish national body. Ha-Tehiyah considers departure from the Diaspora and the concentration of all or most of the Jewish people in its own territory, as the only salvation from the tragedies of exile. We do not need to search for such a territory. We have before us that very country in which the Jewish nation arose and grew, where its national character was made manifest and its unique worldview formed. This is the land preserved in the heart of the people. . . . The Jewish people did not disintegrate in the alien world, but retained the best of their ideals along with their instinctive hope and faith of return to the ancient homeland, to renew and sustain there the material and spiritual civilization, which had been dissevered, as befits its nature and its characteristics.84

Thus Ha-Tehiyah returned to the original Zionist point of departure, that is, “repudiation of the Diaspora,” in contradistinction to Ahad Ha’am’s “spiritual center” and Dubnow’s “autonomism.” Ha-Tehiyah rejected the Bund ideology and took exception to the “class struggle” theory of the Poalei Zion and the Russian political and revolutionary struggle, seeing no advantage for the Jews in them. Ha-Tehiyah considered “tasks of the present” only in terms of Jewish interests, unrelated to philosophy or general progress. They were “Zion Zionists” and not “territorialists.” Following the platform, the newspaper announced that a gathering of Ha-Tehiyah members would soon be held in Pinsk; Zeirei Zion groups from southern Russia would also take part. The agenda would consist of: 1. The state of official Zionism and Ha-Tehiyah’s position on it 2. Ha-Tehiyah’s position on various Zionist parties and trends

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3. Ha-Tehiyah’s position on the Society for Equal Rights, the national assembly, and Sejmism [an ideology of national Jewish political autonomy within non-Jewish countries such as Poland] 4. Ratification of the Ha-Tehiyah platform 5. Technical questions 6. Party organ 7. Election of the executive committee

The newspaper adds that the Ha-Tehiyah society of Vilna, after examining the Pinsk society’s platform, decided to affiliate itself with the Pinsk central office and work together with it, to combine the forces of young people who would otherwise be lost; the Vilna society calls upon other societies to do the same.85 The conference took place on June 16–20. A photograph shows forty-four participants, representing thirty-five societies.86 An executive committee composed of five members was elected at the conference. Three were from Vilna, one from Bialystok, and one, Berl Makhlis, from Pinsk. According to one source the executive committee moved to Vilna.87 Z. Tir states in his memoirs, however, that “comrade” G. was invited to Pinsk from Vilna to publish a party organ in Yiddish;88 this implies that the executive committee sat in Pinsk. Fifteen years later Tir wrote about this conference in his memoirs: After everything was clarified, it became obvious that Ha-Tehiyah was a socialist party, opposed to capitalist regimes, which prevent the majority from enjoying material and spiritual resources. But our opinion is that the Jewish economy, lacking territory, and peculiar in its anemic social state, cannot serve as the basis for a social-class struggle89. . . . Therefore the Jewish worker, who suffers directly from economic inequity more than the Christian proletariat, must link his socialist desires and class struggles to that land which we wish to build according to the principles of universal socialism. The conference expressed the opinion that founding a society based upon communal principles in Eretz Israel is realistic, because the Jewish worker will not encounter serious opposition there, since the weak bourgeoisie would not be able to stand up against our wish to nationalize the land and socialize the “nerve center” of the country.90

The Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah movement did not last long; it collapsed at the end of 1907. Under politically repressive conditions, which sup-

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pressed the activities of revolutionary organizations, it was difficult to continue a movement, which had anything of a revolutionary nature. Yosef Herman relates an incident that occurred (in 1906 or 1907) when he was a student in Chaikovsky’s gymnasium (see Chapter Four): One night the police of the Tsar’s Okhrana [political secret police] conducted a search of our home and arrested me. I sat in jail for two days and two nights. In the course of the search they took all the documents, which they found in my father’s possession. These [documents] were copies of bills of lading for merchandise sent to various businessmen in Pinsk, my father’s customers. He was an expediter, who used to collect the merchandise from the railway station and send it off to his customers’ warehouses. . . . Each time a consignment of goods arrived a policeman would go to check for suspicious items. . . . When he failed to find anything questionable he allowed the merchandise to be forwarded to its destination. This [harassment] went on for about two weeks. It was all on my account for it was inconceivable that Father would be suspected of belonging to a political or revolutionary party.91

There were other reasons for the demise of the movement. Its members were young people dependent upon their parents for support, who were faced by the problem of earning a living. As time went by the situation worsened. Yosef Herman notes that most of his classmates from the Drunzik school and from Kleinman’s school (see Chapter Four) went off to America. Many were probably members of Ha-Tehiyah. Others acted upon their principles and made aliyah. They were among the first of the Second Aliyah [emigration of young people during the years 1905–1914, many with socialist ideals, to Palestine from Russia-Poland in the wake of the Russian pogroms]. Reuven Lifshitz was one of the original students of the Bezalel School, which was founded in 1906. Aryeh Kolodny was one of the first to respond to the call, published in the newspaper Kadimah and the weekly K ­ hronika Yevreyskaya Zhizn, following publication of Ussishkin’s Hatokhnit Shelanu (“our program”), which called upon young people to make aliyah as pioneers. He went as the first “neo-Bilu” [after the 1882 Bilu pioneer group] in 1906. Kolodny worked for farmers in Metula and then became a farmer on Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) land in Mas’ha. His brother Yosef Kolodny also went to Israel, as did

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Pinhas Papish, Eliezer Kantrovitz, Shelomoh Mochnik, and Moshe ­Mednik. They intended to study at the University of Beirut, but it is reported that Kantrovitz also worked in Metula. Shelomoh Rozman and (Meir?) Zhokovsky also went to Israel.92 Z. Tir regards the disintegration of the movement as the result of opposition “rooted in personal conflicts,” which led to “the neglect of organizational work and weakening of ties between the branches.”93 Perhaps Z. Tir, as leader of the Pinsk Ha-Tehiyah, lacked the strength and ability to continue the movement. According to Tir, Ha-Tehiyah gave up on its platform and even before it ceased to exist, its members became convinced that Zionism required a concentration of all forces under one organization and that they must compromise somewhat on principles and narrow the distance between Ha-Tehiyah and middleclass Zionism.94 Ha-Tehiyah cooperated with the rank-and-file Zionists in the elections for the eighth Zionist congress (1907) and did not campaign for delegates of its own.95 Berl Makhlis, however, was elected as the Pinsk delegate. (He made aliyah shortly afterward in 1908.) The vast majority of the Pinskers who arrived in Palestine with the Second Aliyah left it in the subsequent wave of emigration; some traveled to America. Among those who returned and remained in Pinsk were Zhokovsky, Rozman, Mednik, Arye Kolodny and his wife Hana (née Kartsinal) also from Pinsk, and Yosef Kolodny. They served as a connecting element to the Land of Israel. Those who could, spread songs of pioneer Israel in the Sephardic pronunciation. Thanks to Rozman and Zhokovsky, these songs from the Land of Israel reigned at ­Hanukkah parties and other affairs. They passed on some of the strength and spirit of the Land. Meanwhile the younger population of Pinsk was increasing. Influenced by teachers, by Zionist activists, by the atmosphere of the Hebrew language movement, and by impressions of the renewal of life in Palestine (see Chapter Three), these youngsters began to organize youth groups under various names. The first group was formed in 1909 by students from the Realschule; it was headed by Yehiel Weizmann. Its members set aside times for conversations and discussions on Zionist and national topics with the participation of several of the city’s Hebrew teachers: Abba Garbuz, Volpovitz, and Gitelman. The group did not

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last long, for it fell under the eye of the secret police.96 A society called Doverei Sefat Ever was organized in Karlin, and a society for Zionist boys was formed in Pinsk about the same time. Doverei Sefat Ever had primarily a cultural platform; its name testifies that its members were Hebrew speakers. The society of Zionist boys in Pinsk had a basically “practical” program; for example, they sold stamps for the JNF. These two groups combined, adopted a joint platform; agreeing to spend incomes on both books and contributions to the JNF. The founders of Zeirei Zion (youth of Zion) came from this unified society. Until the German occupation they did not have a specific program and differed only in age from the veteran Zionists of the city. Members of other societies, which had disbanded, and girls studying in the gymnasium, joined the Zeirei Zion. Under the influence of Ya’acov Yisrael Finkelstein, a student at the Cohen Gymnasium in Vilna who came to Pinsk about 1911, the Pinsk Zeirei Zion joined the larger Russian Zeirei Zion movement. A youth group named Pirhei Zion (flowers of Zion) was formed about 1912. It was intended for those aged thirteen to sixteen who spoke Hebrew; anyone who uttered a Yiddish word was fined one kopek. The money was used to purchase Hebrew books; the society’s program “obligated” its members to read Hebrew works. The group also distributed JNF stamps and collected funds for the Odessa Committee. The Benei Ha-Tehiyah (Sons of Ha-Tehiyah) society, also originating about 1912, was apparently connected in some fashion to Ha-Tehiyah. According to Haim Gevati the group was founded by Hershel Pinsky, and its members were aged twelve to thirteen. It existed through the period of the First World War until 1917. Gevati writes: This society arose with hardly any assistance or direction from older members; its goals were spreading the Hebrew language, advancing in its literature, study of Zionism and practical work for Eretz Israel. . . . We followed with awe the activities of the older members of Zeirei Zion and happily executed all sorts of technical work and errands, distributing JNF stamps, postcards of life in Eretz Israel and pamphlets for the “public” that arrived from Israel. We saved a coin at a time and purchased the best Zionist literature, which, incidentally, was almost all written in Russian. We subscribed to Ha-Shiloah and Ha-Olam. We read and reread Herzl’s Der Judenstaat [the Jewish state]. We studied Ahad Ha’am’s four volumes and pamphlets of Zionist polemic by

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­Idelson [Abraham, 1865–1921, Zionist editor, publicist, and theoretician], Pasmanik, Jabotinsky [Ze’ev, 1880–1940, helped create the Jewish Legion in the First World War and in 1925 founded the Zionist Revisionist Party], and others. A rift developed between the followers of Ahad Ha’am and the followers of Herzl. Stormy debates between the two factions took up entire evenings.97

There were really no substantial differences between the activities of the various societies. They had been organized individually at the initiative of active “leaders” from among the young people simply because appropriate means did not exist for consolidating them. The youth groups enjoyed the encouragement and support of Hebrew teachers and Zionist activists. Yosef Bregman was especially attentive. The homes of Bregman, Aharon Rubenstein, and Andronovsky were used as meeting places. Other homes, such as the teacher Yosef Puterman’s, which housed a Hebrew library, and Reb Yehudah Leib Alter Friedman’s (whose son Mordecai Ish-Shalom was one of the Pirhei Zion) probably served this function, too. The active boys in these youth groups were students in the Drunzik and Sidlik schools, the Talmud Torah and the hadarim metukanim. In addition to Hershel Pinsky, the founder of Benei Ha-Tehiyah, other leaders were Arka Weiner (later Yisraeli), Isser Brisky, Haim Gevati, and Dr. Elazar Bregman, who was one of the first organizers of Hebrew language study circles.98 After the February 1906 Poltava conference, at which the Social Democratic Party of Jewish Workers—Poalei Zion was established, a Pinsk society of Poalei Zion (Marxist-pioneer Israeli) was formed. According to M. Manakhovsky’s memoirs, the members were young people who had previously belonged to Shoresh Zion (root of Zion).99 The Pinsk branch of Poalei Zion instructed its delegates not to secede from the Zionist Organization and the Zionist Congress. However, at the Poalei Zion assembly that took place in Vienna in September 1909, the representative of the Pinsk branch, “Shimshon” (Y. Zerubabel), voted to secede, contrary to the wishes of those who had selected him as a delegate.100 A 1910 article states: We in Pinsk have fifty organized members, divided into six groups. . . . The executive is chosen at a general membership meeting. There are three committees. The first is a practical committee, which takes care

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of technical organization of meetings, and prints and distributes announcements. The second, a propaganda committee, which organizes lectures, distributes literature and the like. The third, the financial committee, takes care of collection of funds for the party. In addition, we cooperate with the Bund and the S.S in the Red Cross committee. Under our direction, groups of young workers receive basic education. . . . For the first of May we distributed a stenciled proclamation. . . . About fifty workers came to our meeting. Several members spoke about the import of the holiday. . . . Since they were unable to strike this year, the workers donated a day’s salary to the party; some donated two days’ salary. A strike of shoemakers and harness-makers, who had previously been under Bund influence, broke out; now their union is unaffiliated. We gave their union some money and published an announcement supporting the strike; we demanded from the workers that they support the strikers and establish an inter-party strike fund. . . . A trade union of hatters and furriers was organized at our initiative.101

The first Poalei Zion activists in the city were Yankel Briskman, Yankel Manakhovsky, Ya’akov Ha-katan, and Rivka Nun; subsequently Kopel Busel, Elia Briskman, Zavel Tziperstein, Shaike Lev, Reuben Pelavkin, Asher Kotikov, Shalom Lifshitz, Yosef London, Yehezkel Eisenbod, Yankel (the tailor) Goldberg, and Moshe’le Manakhovsky were active. Members of the Poalei Zion central committee sometimes visited the city—A. Revutzky, Meir Ger, A. Kivin, and A. Tannenbaum.102 Between 1911 and 1913 the number of Poalei Zion party members steadily increased. One hundred twenty-six members signed the greetings sent to the Poalei Zion weekly Dos Vort, which began to appear in Petersburg on May 16 (29), 1914.103 Of the seven hundred rubles collected for Dos Vort, fifty rubles came from Pinsk.104 A gathering of seventy-one “organized workers” decided to support a bill proposed to the Duma by the Social Democratic (S.D.) party proposing equal rights for Jews.105 According to Moshe’le Manakhovsky, the entire ­Poalei Zion membership never assembled for the super-secret meetings, in order to ensure that some members would remain free in the event of arrests. Manakhovsky relates that many activists were arrested in 1912; soon freed on bail, most ran away to America. Poalei Zion organized a self-defense organization (apparently in 1906) and, in cooperation with other parties, prevented a pogrom.106

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During this period the influence of the Bund decreased sharply. In early January 1906 the Pinsk branch was in a fighting mood. Bundists dreamed of armed uprising against the “white terror” [police terrorism].107 But this spirit quickly dissipated in the wake of arrests. Because of persecution, Bund activists went off in all directions, especially to America. Activists who were not from Pinsk fled for their lives. On January 9, 1906, the anniversary of the Gapon procession, the Bund was still capable of organizing a general strike, and the Pinsk Bund sent a delegate to the seventh Bund congress (August 28–September 8, 1906). At that point there were 325 official members in the city.108 It was the S.S., however, which organized the nearly total strike that took place on the first of May 1906.109 That year and the next, Bund activists remaining in the city worked at organizing the unions, but without much success. One reason may have been the Bund’s insistence that unions be party-affiliated; at this point Jewish workers were not rushing to join the Bund. The Bund did, however, organize non-party unions, on condition that they accept its influence. Against this background, friction between the Bund and the S.S. continued, as did squabbles between the Bund Ha-katan (junior Bund) and the S.S. Ha-katan (junior S.S.).110 The Bund was active in elections for the second sovereign Duma and put up candidates for its constituency, apparently in conjunction with the Social Democrats. They were not elected. The Bund sent a delegate, whose pseudonym was “Ya’acovlev,” to the Russian Social-Democratic Congress in London (May 13–June 1, 1907).111 In elections for the third Duma, Bundists in the match factory and another factory succeeded in electing two of their candidates (according to electoral procedure, workers chose their representatives separately). The S.S., however, accused the Bund of violence and fraud in elections at the match factory. Bundists purportedly tore up ballots cast for the S.S. candidate.112 After these elections, which took place in September 1907, the Bund left the public stage altogether. The execution of Haim Levin on November 17, 1907, may have been a contributing factor. Levin was the only Pinsker to suffer this fate. He was seized after a clash with an officer and two policemen one night while he was walking with two non-Jews from Lunintz and another man known as Nikanor to an un-

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specified activity,113 perhaps an “expropriation.” (After the 1905 revolution, gangs of robbers had multiplied, and incidents of robbery and theft were frequent.114) Levin wounded two policemen with pistol shots. His plea for clemency was rejected. In his final moments Levin behaved courageously: He took the Bible from the Crown rabbi and kissed it but refused to recite the Viddui [confession of sins]. He asked for a farewell to be conveyed to his parents and requested that they refrain from mourning him.115 Among the remaining Bund activists were: Moshe Adler (he escaped to America in 1912); Shmuel Dovzovitz, who had returned from America in 1907, was active in Pinsk for a short while, and then left for ­America again in 1908; Shaika “the seamstress”; and Hershel Denenberg the furrier.116 Denenberg sustained the Bund branch in the city, one of six more or less organized branches existing in Russia between 1909 and 1910. In January 1909 a gathering of twenty people took place; they decided to form a committee (kolektiv) of six comrades. At other meetings that year there were generally about forty people in attendance. At only one were there as many as 114 participants. A Bund delegate named Mikhle (perhaps a pseudonym) nevertheless participated in the eighth Bund congress in Lemberg in the fall of 1910. Altogether twelve delegates from ten cities—Warsaw, Vilna, Lodz, Bialystok, Grodno, Bobriusk, Dvinsk, Homel, Pinsk, and Riga—came to take part in the congress.117 Twentyfive Bund activists were then members of the branch, which conducted study circles in socialist ideology and spread illegal literature. In 1911 Hershel the furrier was sentenced to two years of exile in Siberia when correspondence with the Bund central committee was found in his possession. When Hershel returned from exile, he fled from the police who were in hot pursuit of him, and went to America.118 From 1911 to 1913 a committee of seven members headed the Pinsk Bund, among them Gedaliah Katz, Y. Toizner, Mera Mishuk, ­Nehemiah Kass, and Fridel Rasok.119 From time to time representatives of the Bund central committee, such as Litvak, Esther, and Olgin, visited the city. The following article describes the Bund situation in late 1911 and early 1912: At a meeting in the end of January attended by thirty people a new kolektiv of seven members was elected. During the three-month tenure

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of the old committee, study circles [apparently lectures or discussions] took place in which fifteen to nineteen people participated. These groups dealt with the question of Jewish nationality; similarly there were eight groups that dealt with basics of Marxism, in which ten to fifteen people participated. Eight to twelve people attended each of six groups in which Arport’s program was taught. Four meetings were held recently for discussion of current issues. The first, with fifty-one participants, dealt with insurance for workers. The second considered the activities of the Social-Democratic party in the second Duma. The third discussed the victory of the German Social-Democratic party in the Reichstag elections, and sent congratulations on behalf of fifty-eight people. The fourth was concerned with elections for the fourth Duma. . . . Party literature was distributed regularly. Pamphlets are sold, an average of 150 copies each. There is a library. Three study groups take place every week. Our platform is studied at two of them, and at the third, day-to-day issues are discussed. Trade unions do not exist except for the union of women’s tailors, which is not active because of the police situation; we have decided to revive that union, and also to begin organizing unions among the shoemakers and the carpenters.120

In 1913 a union numbering sixty members was organized for tailors of women’s clothing. Most of the tailors, however, did not join.121 Subsequently a union of shoemakers working in the mechanized workshops was organized. Several stitchers joined as well. A craft union of workers engaged in producing chairs was also formed. Bund activity expanded somewhat in 1913. The Bund sent greetings to the Social-Democratic bloc in the fourth Duma, along with a request that a member of the bloc come to the Pale of Settlement to see the circumstances of the Jews first hand, for “there is no one [else] to defend our interests.” The reference is apparently to general Jewish interests. The Bund also sent greetings on the occasion of International Women’s Day. On September 25, 1913, the Bund organized strikes in sixteen cities, to protest against the Beilis trial [Menahem Beilis, a Jewish superintendent at a brick factory, brought to trial in Kiev in 1913 on a blood libel accusation, i.e., of murdering a Christian child for ritual purposes]. In Pinsk the strike took place a day later. An article reports: On the night of September 25, thirty-five people met to discuss the matter of the strike. Debate began over whether or not to strike. . . . It was

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finally decided in the affirmative. On the 26th, at six in the morning, activists were already at the factories to propose to the workers that they not enter. The employees at the match factory (340 people) agreed and did not enter the factory, disregarding the supervisors and foremen who shouted that these measures would not help Beilis, that it would be better to assemble after work in the synagogues and recite Psalms and declare a fast day. Fifty people crossed the picket line. When the foremen saw that their work was pointless, they sent them home. The workers in the Luria brothers’ factory did not agree to strike. . . . At nine in the morning several [activists] burst into the factory yard and shouted, “Stop working.” Some employees agreed and went home. The machinery was shut down and the remaining workers started to disperse, too. Then the police came and returned them under threat of arrest. They also noted the names of those absent. At the same time the police wrote down the names of the strikers at the match factory. At eight in the morning [we] began to pull away the workers in the workshops, the women’s tailors, the men’s tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, chair-makers, employees in the cork factory (sixty women) and the printing shops.

Nehemiah Kass, a member of the Bund committee tells that when he tried to enter the Luria factory to distribute circulars, he encountered the opposition of Shmuel’ke the watchman. With difficulty, he managed to get inside. When the police arrived, he tried to stand alongside a machine, looking like one of the workers. But the older workers would not allow it. Kass escaped through a back door. He was miraculously saved from the hands of a policeman. That same night he fled to Slonim, and from there to America. The Bund had little influence on most workers who had long forgotten the trade unions. Mostly young women and old men remained as factory workers; the old men had resigned themselves to the situation and did not have the strength or the will to work for changes and innovations. They were apathetic during elections for the fourth Duma and unconcerned about the issue of health insurance for which a law had been passed in 1912.122 Originally, members of the S.S. were not persecuted, perhaps because they had not been part of the “United Committee” and had not participated in the mass meeting of December 15, 1905. On the first of May 1906, the S.S. had organized a workers’ strike, and throughout

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1906, S.S. members had dealt with the organization of trade unions. An S.S. article from May 1906 announces: “The entire economy is in our hands. The neutral public turns to us on such matters.” The article discusses the decline of the Bund and cites the following examples: In the leather factory, under our influence, the Bund organized a union of four members from the Bund Ha-gadol and six members from the Junior Bund. The Bund has an eight-member union among the tanners and a four-member union among the old-timers. . . . The neutral majority. . . . organizes in unaligned unions, where we have begun developing extensive activity. Under our direct influence a salespeople’s union was organized with membership exceeding 150, and other unions are in the organizing stages.123

At the time of the S.S. congress of February 1906, there were 1,100 S.S. members in the Pinsk district, and in the summer of 1906, there were 700 members in Pinsk alone. In Minsk there were 1,450 members, and in Vilna, 1,830.124 From June 1, 1906, until October 10, 1906, the S.S. committee’s income was 1,520 rubles. This sum apparently included contributions for self-defense, solicited when a pogrom was feared after the fire in the monastery during August (see the beginning of the chapter). Aharon Luria donated 500 rubles for this purpose after he had quarreled with Mikhel’ke and Hunia when they came to solicit, and after members of the Junior S.S. had attacked and beaten him on the first day of Rosh Ha-Shanah on his way home from the synagogue. Between March 13 and December 1, 1906, Pinsk remitted a total of 485 rubles to the S.S. Central Committee and ranked sixth among the approximately one hundred localities that did so.125 But, by the end of 1906, the S.S. also began to decline. At the second S.S. congress (December 5–11, 1906), there was no representative from Pinsk nor did a regional conference take place in Pinsk beforehand.126 Moshe Katz, the “professional” organizer who had been in Pinsk since late July trying to ease the tension between the Bund and the S.S., was forced to flee at the end of the year because the police were looking for him.127 An S.S. article from that period announces: The dreadful crisis and the severe reaction have weakened the revolutionary spirit in our midst. . . . The difficult situation in industry does not permit us to conduct a vigorous economic struggle or broad

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professional activity. . . . [Organization of trade unions is conducted with difficulty because] it is impossible to obtain legal authorization for them. . . . Trade unions exist in the match factory and the wooden nail factory, two unions in each, party-affiliated and non-affiliated. . . . Only the union of the salespeople is strong. . . . It holds meetings and organizes strikes.

The office (“bureau”) of the salesclerks’ union decided, “considering the terrible unemployment among the salesclerks,” to place clerks in shops, in consultation with the clerks already working in them, and when necessary with all the workers of that economic sector.128 A 1907 article announces “that activity in the city and the area has weakened,” because of depression among the Jewish population, the inability to function publicly, the need to meet in “dark cellars,” the emigration of good members, the lack of intelligent cadres capable of running activities, the dearth of activists, and the difficult financial situation.129 Another article states that the decline was brought about by the absence of “professionals.” The article notes some signs of recovery during elections for the third Duma, and some activity in organizing trade unions, which had broken up in the factories and other places of work because of squabbling between party unions and non-affiliated unions. According to this article, the S.S. then played “an important, even primary, role, in the economic life of the city.” The economic skhodka (the committee composed of representatives of the local party branch, party members, and representatives of workers in various sectors and of trade unions under S.S. influence) increased in importance. Several strikes ended successfully, and new unions were organized for barbers, blacksmiths, locksmiths, tailors, and stitchers in the factories; photographers; and others.130 This revival may have been due to the “professional” Nahum Singalovsky, who worked in Pinsk at the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908.131 But, in 1908 the S.S. suffered an almost total decline. This did not happen just in Pinsk. Of the seven hundred Pinsk members in the summer of 1906, only a handful remained, who occasionally met Ya’acov Kantor, a member of the local committee.132 Parts of the illegal press which the S.S. had operated since 1905 were “buried” in the old cemetery by the printers Shelomoh Zeldin and V. Ostrovsky.133 The

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S.S. spokesmen such as Moshe and Yosef Litvakov sometimes visited the city and gave public lectures on non-political topics. Berl Gutman visited several times during 1909 and started sending flyers from the central office, but he was arrested in Lodz in the spring of 1910. In anticipation of the first of May 1910, there was a revival of interest in the Junior S.S., whose earlier members had grown up. In anticipation of the first of May, they scribbled proclamations on the white walls of buildings in honor of the workers’ holiday and distributed a flyer, which had somehow been printed; at the close of the “holiday,” they set off fireworks. The police did not arrest anyone that day, but, afterward arrests were made as a result of “informants.” Most of those imprisoned were released after a few days. Bunia Rubenstein and V. Ostrovsky and a few others were expelled from Pinsk after sitting in jail for a month.134 It should be noted that Pinsk was one of the few places in which an S.S. branch continued to exist. The S.S. was also responsible for the evening classes for girls conducted by Ya’acov Kantor and his wife Jenia from 1906 on (see Chapter Four). A socialist revolutionary cell existed in Pinsk for several years after the failure of the revolution. Rakow was arrested on September 28, 1908, as a result of the wiles of one Hershel Prizant, a young Jewish detective. While in prison, during “exercises,” Rakow made the acquaintance of “tens of new members,” among them Sarah Braindel Begun, who passed food parcels to him through a small window while singing songs of the revolution. When Rakow fell ill with typhus, which was rampant in prison, he was transferred to the Karlin hospital, where he met a Comrade Salatkin. He mentions another prisoner, a gymnasium student named Nota Elstein. Rakow lists those sentenced to exile in February 1909: himself, the brothers Kozshinovsky, Solomon Schreibman, Semion Mazertshuk, and Pavel Trashka (the names indicate that the latter two were not Jewish). Sonia Begun (apparently the formerly mentioned Sarah Braindel Begun) and Frieda Altman were sentenced to exile in Arkhangelsk; a comrade named Minka had already been “sitting” in Arkhangelsk for two-and-a-half years.135 Shortly after the founding of a much more conservative organization, Agudat Yisrael (1912), a branch was established in Pinsk, probably by Rabbi David Friedman. A letter from Rabbi David Friedman to

Suppression and Reaction

a certain “distinguished gentleman” (no date or address given) shows that he was active in the establishment of branches of Agudat Yisrael in other places. With greetings and best wishes to his honor, may I call his honor’s attention to the noble society, Agudat Yisrael, founded by the greatest of our God-fearing Ashkenazic brothers, whose purpose is to unify and unite the House of Israel under the banner of Torah. It is superfluous to discuss the necessity of this society, for every son of Moses[!] understands on his own how, in these terrible times, we are in need of united forces and a broad center which will, with God’s help, confer great benefit upon all Jewish affairs, general and individual. I shall only note that our dear brothers, the founders of this society, are very experienced and are great experts in organizing community organizations; all their actions are based upon the proper foundations. We have great hope that with God’s help this society will prosper and finally heal the nation’s despair. A sacred and urgent obligation rests upon each God-fearing person to be of assistance in his city and country in arousing sympathy to found branches of the society, with the permission of the government, may its majesty increase. I appeal to his honor to arouse him and request of him that he accept upon himself this holy work, to found a branch for assembling the righteous in his city . . . and may his honor be among the blessed first . . . to erect this lofty, exalted edifice which is the House of Israel.136

A woman’s branch of Agudat Yisrael was also founded.137 Agudat ­Yisrael was regarded by the government as trustworthy, and there was no need to conduct activities surreptitiously. During the years of reaction, the workers had lost the benefits they had gained prior to and during the 1905 revolution. The workday was extended, and wages did not rise despite an increase in prices of foodstuffs. In 1907 the municipal Duma fixed the salespeople’s workday at fourteen hours. Opposition by the government supervisor for municipal matters, however, resulted in a reduction to twelve hours.138 Never­ theless, the salesclerks apparently worked more than twelve hours. At the end of the winter of 1909, the wages of male workers in the match factory were reduced by fifty kopeks a week.139 The workers did not strike, probably for fear of losing their jobs. Unemployment was severe; because of the fire that had broken out in the factory a short while

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before, approximately five hundred workers remained jobless until the end of that summer (some were accepted to the Luria brothers’ factory in the interim).140 On the other hand, during the winter of 1910 to 1911, wages in the Luria factory were raised by fifty kopeks a week for ten weeks because of the high cost of living.141 This raise was apparently a result of “good will” on the part of the factory owners, not a consequence of pressure by the employees. Here, perhaps in other factories as well, workers received half-salary when ill and full salary in case of work accidents. These facts emerge from the record of the factory workers’ questions about which benefits to demand from their employers when the health insurance law took effect. The workers’ circumstances were dire, especially during the years 1908 and 1909. No notable strikes were held during that period. The workers’ renewed their struggle for improved conditions only in 1910.142 Even then the battle was waged not in the factories but in the craft workshops. A strike by fifty workers in the shoemakers’ workshops, with a lockout by the employers, lasted more than two months. The workers in the carpentry shops and the hatters and tailors struck also. Their main demand was a return to the conditions of 1905 to 1906; that is, a twelve-hour workday, in accord with the regulations of the Minsk governor and the city administration. Until 1907 the working day for salesclerks in shops selling textiles, stationery, notions, and the like was eleven hours, with a one-and-a-half hour break for lunch. In 1910 the clerks submitted a request to the chief of police to tighten enforcement so that stores would close at eight o’clock, ensuring that their workday would not exceed twelve hours (this apparently included a lunch break). It is not clear whether the request was met. Approximately fifty tailors and seamstresses in the women’s clothing workshops struck and won conditions comparatively better than those in other sectors. Their workday was fixed at nine hours; a tailor’s salary was ten rubles per week and a seamstress’s was five to six rubles per week.143 These were apparently tailors and seamstresses who sewed mostly trousseaus. They had abundant business from Pinsk, as well as from the surrounding towns. The tailors of men’s clothing suffered poor working conditions in comparison. One of the main employers in this field used to proclaim “1905 is

Suppression and Reaction

gone” (i.e., the revolution with its empowerment of the workers is over, and conventional labor relations reign). Some of these tailors worked eighteen hours a day (they may have been paid extra for the overtime). In 1914 the workday in all branches was nine hours, and wages rose. Only lingerie seamstresses continued to work fourteen hours a day; their maximum wage was fourteen rubles a month. That year, however, the seamstresses began to strike, too.144 In 1914 a health plan was set up for workers in the plywood factory at the initiative of the Poalei Zion, harassed by the Bund, which prided itself on being “the sole representative of the workers” (a title that was used sarcastically later on). The sick fund was established by government regulation, but in fact workers in the Luria factories were already receiving some sick benefits.145 The situation of workers in the match factory improved as well. An article from 1914 discusses the insulting attitude of the supervisors toward girls working in the packing plant and the duty-stamps building (banderal-shtub). This article reports on the new packing machine, which was a cause of work accidents. Sometimes when a young girl touches the machine, the matchbox catches fire in her hands and the flames spread to her face or her clothes. In the past two weeks this has happened to fifteen girls. The girls refuse to do this dangerous job. What does the foreman do? A girl who doesn’t want to work on the machine is sent home.146

Clearly the writer is exaggerating intentionally. Had the fire spread to the girls’ faces or clothes, there would have been serious burns, which are not mentioned (neither are any other working conditions). The improvement in working conditions, apparently in 1910, attests to the ­improvement in the city’s economy during the years leading up to the First World War. Economic progress was made all over Russia, but the amelioration in Pinsk was related in a significant degree to financial support sent from America by emigrants to their families. Emigration to the Land of Israel was renewed. Zionist education in the youth groups began to show results and among the older members there was agitation to make aliyah. Some went to settle and to work the land, and others were sent by their parents to study in the Herzlia Gymnasium. The following emigrants are known by name. Kalman ben Yosef Cohen and his wife Rachel Cohen—Cohen was mukhtar (village head)

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and defender of Tel Hai [Zionist settlement in the Hula valley, founded in 1913, attacked in 1920 by Arab villagers, resulting in a number of Jewish deaths] and served as Tel Hai’s representative to the government authorities, to PICA [Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, which drained swamps, developed electrical companies, etc.], and to the Zionist Organization. Cohen subsequently moved to Be’er Toviyyah [a moshav (agricultural settlement) in the south of Israel, founded in 1896] and established an extensive family of farmers there and in neighboring Kefar Warburg [large moshav in central Israel, founded in 1939]. Hillel Cohen was one of the heads of Solel Boneh [a construction company]. Moshe Denenberg emigrated in 1909 and Yehiel Weizmann in 1913. Yosef Graiver (Efrati), Yosef Gurshtal (Gurion), Mordecai Friedman (Ish-Shalom), and ­Zalman Eisenberg (Peled) emigrated in 1913 to study farming at the Petah ­Tikvah agricultural school directed by Dr. Pikholtz. They planned to prepare themselves for a life of farming. Ya’acov Eisenberg (Barzilai), Haim ­Puterman, the brothers Shmuel and Moshe Ya’acovson, Tuvia Levin (his literary name was Tal), Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, Aryeh Guzhani, Aharon Feldman (Ever Hadani), Bezalel Basevitz, and Gleiberman left Pinsk that year or the next to study at the Herzlia Gymnasium.147 Many people left Pinsk in the period preceding the First World War to settle in the cities of Palestine. In 1912, Kolel Pinsk [see Chapter Two] numbered 1,500 members, and Kolel Karlin, 450 people.148 Not all kolel members may have come originally from Pinsk; some were probably newcomers who associated themselves with the group. The income of Kolel Pinsk was then 1,200 rubles, and of Kolel Karlin, 1,500 rubles. A young couple, members of Poalei Zion, were married in Jerusalem; the Pinsk branch of Poalei Zion sent them its blessings.149 The First World War halted these developments. Some of the young emigrants, who had come home for a vacation from their studies, were forced to remain in Pinsk; others were expelled from Palestine when Turkey entered the war.

Collection of Nachman Tamir (Mirski).

Figure 1. Polish parliament members and soldiers in Pinsk.

Figure 2. Devorah Mirsky and children, 1919. Collection of Mark Jay Mirsky.

Figure 3. Monastery by the Pina and church. Collection of Mark Jay Mirsky.

Figure 4. Church, market, central street. Collection of Mark Jay Mirsky.

Figure 5. Pina River, cathedral, seminary. Collection of Mark Jay Mirsky.

Figure 6. View across rooftops, synagogue. Collection of Mark Jay Mirsky.

Collection of Nachman Tamir (Mirski).

Figure 7. Fire brigade and band.

Figure 8. Diamond Anniversary, Luria. Collection of Nachman Tamir (Mirski).

Figure 9. Inscription for gravestone. Collection of Zvi Gitelman.

E i g h t   In the Period of the First World War

Until the German Conquest (August 1, 1914–September 17, 1915)

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The fear of events to come, which gripped Europe after the assassination in Sarajevo, did not bypass the Jews of Pinsk. Interest in “the news” and the demand for newspapers kept growing. Rumors passed from person to person. Early evening discussion groups multiplied. Russia announced a general mobilization; and only a few days later, August 1, 1914, news came that Germany had declared war on Russia. Placards announcing the general mobilization were posted around Pinsk on Tishah Be’Av [the ninth of the Hebrew month Av, a fast day that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem; in 1914 it fell on August 1], the day appointed for national tragedies, and pious Jews saw in this coincidence the hand of God. The families whose sons were eligible for conscription (twenty to thirty years of age) felt the calamity at once; and the families of all the holders of “red cards” were terror stricken. The draft began on Tishah Be’Av, and the number of draftees was large because the city commander, Ilyusha, who headed the draft, was an anti-semite. In a brief conversation with Zundel Lifshitz, the lessee of Ilyusha’s estate Urkovo, near Pinsk, the commander had boasted, “What do you think, Lifshitz? Will I let the Zydki [Jew-boys] off? Never. Tomorrow the draft begins. First we send the Jew-boys, then the Orthodox Christians. Our Orthodox are loyal, but your Jew-boys are pals of the Germans and Austrians.”1 Of course, many evaded the draft. Zundel Lifshitz, for example, fled immediately to America.

In the Period of the First World War

As the draftees were sent out of town, the city filled with the sound of crying. Some Jews, however, saw the war as the dawn of redemption. In the preceding year, during the Balkan War and the Italo-Turkish War, there were those who had read the verse, “Like a hind crying for water [lit. water courses], my soul cries for You, O God;” [Psalms 42:2; the numerology of the word for crying/cries is the Hebrew equivalent of 1913], as an intimation that 1913 would be the year of redemption. Others hoped to see revenge taken upon “His Majesty the Tsar,” who had embittered the Jews’ lives with the expulsions from the villages, the “numerus clausus,” the forced desecration of the Sabbath and Jewish holidays in the government schools, and the persecution of the Zionists. It had gone on and on, culminating in the Beilis trial, which was used to justify to the world the treatment of the Jews and the new restrictions devised. No one, however, imagined that the war would last more than several months. The tragedy of Jewish life in Russia was apparent in Pinsk as well, and there were some who looked forward to the defeats of the Russian army and rejoiced in them. But in general the Jews were patriotic—hoping that attitudes toward them would change and they would no longer be discriminated against by the “native citizens.” The Jewish Russianlanguage newspapers (newspapers in Yiddish and Hebrew were prohibited) preached loftily about love of the motherland “as they prophesied a happy future for the Jews of Russia, after the enemy’s defeat.”2 No patriotic circular was published in Pinsk comparable to the Vilna one, which declared, “We must worry in equal measure about all soldiers of our glorious, enlightened army, without distinction of religion or nationality, and we must be concerned about all brothers, sons of the great Russian land, our common motherland.”3 But there were demonstrations of Jewish patriotism in Pinsk. In the patriotic parades that were periodically organized, Jews took part with rabbis at their head, and “Torah scrolls were borne together with images of the Christian saints.” In the synagogue on the Sabbath and holidays, a Mi she-­berakh [benediction] for the health of the Tsar and his family was recited over and above the usual prayer, “He Who grants salvation to kings.”4 A Jewish committee was formed to provide tea and baked goods for the crowds of soldiers who passed through the city by train, and around

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the clock shifts were organized to serve them day and night. Young people volunteered to work in the Red Cross and to transfer wounded soldiers brought by train from the front to the hospitals set up in the school and in specially built huts. Economic life was widely dislocated: many families were left without breadwinners; large-scale commerce in lumber and grain was paralyzed because of the loss of the German market; and transport routes were disrupted. But shipments of flour, sugar, and salt continued while factories operated as usual. The movement of troops and equipment to the front monopolized the rails, so goods were carried by water only, and riverfront work was plentiful. The artisans—especially shoemakers, furriers, tailors, and hatters—had their hands full. There was ample work for carpenters building barracks for the troops concentrated in the city and hospitals for the wounded, who were brought late in 1914 to the Pinsk train station by the thousands from the Chelm-­ Lublin front. The serious casualties were carried on stretchers into the city; Jewish students volunteered to carry them. Soldiers with minor wounds were shipped eastward, while classification and preliminary treatment of the wounded was done in the workers’ cinema next to the railway station. Jewish teamsters were often busy ferrying officers and nurses. Traffic was heavy in the restaurants, taverns, and coffee houses. The hotels were always full. The local garrison brought a great deal of business into the stores. Some people became rich from various supply contracts: provisions for horses (they were also conscripted) or provisions for the troops and for the hospitals, although because Army officers were not particularly honest, the merchants and storekeepers were often cheated. Education suffered. The Pinsk Talmud Torah [primary school] was closed; some schools had been turned into hospitals, and several synagogues became convalescent homes for recuperating soldiers. In 1915, high school examinations were scheduled early and completed in May.5 The sight of the masses of wounded Russian soldiers, as well as the Austrian and Czech prisoners, made the horrors of the war palpable in Pinsk. It heightened fears in the town about the fate of its conscripted sons. Tension was lightened when families began to receive letters, via the Red Cross, from German prison camps. The draft-

In the Period of the First World War

ees from Pinsk, like those of the entire Vilna military district, were in the army of General Rennenkampf, which had been trapped and taken captive in East Prussia.6 At the end of 1914, reports began to arrive concerning the murder, robbery, and rape suffered by Jews at the hands of Russian soldiers in the cities of Galicia after the conquest of Lwow and Przemysl. After this, with few exceptions, Jews no longer participated in the victory parades held in the city, even though Torah scrolls were still carried, alongside images of the Christian saints, in these processions.7 The fear and hardships engendered by the war were felt most keenly in the summer of 1915 as the Russian army was repulsed and then, retreated. In addition to the masses of casualties brought to the military hospitals, a multitude of Jews who had left or been driven from their homes and turned eastward began to pass through the railway station. Soon the city was filled with refugees, who thought that in Pinsk they would find a way station in their wanderings. Many young people also arrived seeking refuge from the draft, for “the common people among the Jews . . . feared that Jewish blood . . . [shed] . . . for the motherland and the Tsar was shed in vain . . . and that all means of protecting the lives of their sons were legitimate.”8 When the draft of eighteen-year-olds began, the city once again heard the crying of mothers and sisters. At the end of August, thousands of refugees from Brest also came to Pinsk in the wake of a decree issued on August 14, which ordered all the Jews of Brest to leave by the 16th—that is, within three days. As in other places from which the Jews were ordered out, the expulsion from Brest had been executed with cruelty. The city was divided into three sections. Residents of the first section were to leave on the day of the decree; residents of the second, the day after, and the remainder on the third. Dr. Tenzer, the German-Jewish military chaplain who was in Pinsk in November 1915, speaks of thousands of exiles from Brest who were in Pinsk when it fell to the Germans.9 As in all the other towns where caravans of refugees passed through, Pinsk’s Jewish community made a great effort to help their suffering fellow Jews. The first to become involved were the young people. The kindergarten teacher Hasia Dudiuk, who graduated from Madame

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Lubzovsky-Shapira’s Girls’ gymnasium that summer, tells how she was called away on the night of the last graduation party to “go with my girlfriends and boyfriends to the train station to distribute food to the Jewish expellees from the west who were moving eastward via Pinsk.” She adds that this night’s project (it must have happened subsequently as well) was sponsored by the Organization of Russian Cities. “The Russian cadets gave each of us two gigantic baskets full of white bread and other food. We passed out food baskets on many trains until morning. We worked like lightning.” Once the expellees and refugees began to stream into the city itself, the question of aid no longer concerned only young people. A committee was organized to house the refugees and to provide for their basic needs. Financial support came from the Refugee Board set up in St. Petersburg, and collections were taken up in Pinsk. Soup kitchens opened where the refugees, after days and weeks of wandering, could eat free hot meals, three times a day. Hasia Dudiuk continues: The young people threw themselves into the work with real generosity to the point where they forgot their own needs. . . . The whole city was divided into zones. The refugees were housed in the Talmud Torah, the upper schools, the study houses, and other public places. A kitchen was opened for each zone. The kitchen where Alter Bobrow and I worked was on Zawolna [Zavalna] Street in an old age home. We served three meals a day to 120 people. We set up shifts for the refugee women to help the cook and keep the building clean.

A committee of the local chapter of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment [founded in 1863, to promulgate secular education in the Russian language among the Jews, organized Jewish schools with Russian as the language of instruction] saw to it that the children of the refugees received as much education as possible. A certified kinder­garten teacher was sent by the Jewish Colonization Association or by the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment in St. Peters­ burg to take care of the small children. In the mornings the courtyard of Aaron Holtzman’s theatre was turned into a children’s center. Five older girls under the direction of a kindergarten teacher supervised 125 children. Mordekhai Zaretzky, a teacher, the son of Israel Zaretzky, taught the children crafts twice a week.10

In the Period of the First World War

A day care center called Beit Mahseh was also set up. Here, too, the children were attended by teachers and trained supervisors. Some of the refugees rented apartments either because they wished to end their wanderings in Pinsk or did not want to shift about in public shelters. Since there was a severe housing shortage in the city already, the overcrowding became unbearable. Various diseases broke out, and the prices of certain food items rose. Because everyone’s attention was focused on the refugees, the suffering of the city’s native poor worsened. To relieve the local distress, the committee tried to help the refugees leave and travel eastward. An information office was set up to provide information about where to go and how to get there. It is probable that this was the same information office that had existed in Pinsk since 1909 but had stopped functioning after war broke out and the emigration routes were disrupted. Beginning in late August, as the Brest exiles filled Pinsk and told how their property had been destroyed and looted, panic and confusion intensified. Every person, and the community as a whole, was faced with the same question: What will we do? Should we flee or remain? And if we stay—how do we respond to the troubles we can expect when the Russian army retreats: Cossack rioting and burning of the city? Only those of means, however—not the poor who lived in the city, or the destitute refugees who had wandered there—could entertain thoughts of leaving. Some of the rich and substantial left the city; their owners removed the stock of the Boyarsky textile works and the assets of the private banks from the town. According to Dr. Tenzer, the example of the wealthy Luria family served to deter many from departing;11 still there were those who went east. Among the rest, there began feverish nighttime activity, digging pits in which to hide bundles of clothing and household effects in safekeeping against the anticipated fires and looting. Owners of shops and warehouses made an effort to conceal their merchandise in storerooms hidden from view and protected against fire. As a hedge against possible trouble, some of the well-todo packed bags and prepared supplies of food—which was plentiful. (The large riverfront storehouses were not able to hold the tremendous quantity of flour that arrived by steamship and could not be transported any farther.) People dried bread into hardtack and bought horses

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and wagons to be ready at the hour of need. Such vehicles and animals could be purchased for next to nothing from farmers and loaded onto railroad cars in Pinsk. The farmers, evacuated from their villages, were not able to take their livestock with them. In the first week of September 1914, the signs became obvious that the Russian authorities were about to evacuate. Government offices closed. To prevent the Germans from using the metal, the copper bells were lowered and removed from the church steeples. Copper vats were taken from the distilleries and sent out of the city. An order was issued that all transients had to leave. The wounded were evacuated from the hospitals; the machines from the railroad workshops, along with the workers and their families, were taken away. The government schools, including Madame Lubzovsky-Shapira’s Russian-Jewish gymnasium, were also evacuated. At the same time a stream of wayfarers passing through Pinsk poured through the streets day and night. These were people trekking out of the villages and towns between Kobryn and Pinsk. The civilian municipality was dissolved and administration of the city passed to a military commander. Before the dissolution of the municipality, a Citizen’s Committee was established, consisting of seven Jews and three Poles. The Jewish members were: Dr. Alexander Luria, Samuel Wohl, M. Soloveitchik, Y. Levin, P. Boroshuk, Y. Kantorovich, and Vikterovich. The Poles were Dr. Skupiewski, Borisewicz, and Zakowicz. The committee took over the administration of the hospitals and the care of the growing number of sick people housed in the special hospital barracks that had been constructed. The mass of refugees had left sick people behind; when they died, the committee was responsible for their burial. It was probably the committee that collected the large sum to be used when necessary for bribes.12 For there was fear that the retreating Cossacks would plunder and burn the city. In 1915 during the period between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement, September 9th to the 18th, German warplanes began to appear in the skies over Pinsk to bomb the railway. On September 15 after a battle in Dumashits, twelve kilometers west of Pinsk, the flight of the Russian army began and lasted the entire night. Toward morning policemen went around taking young men from their homes and bring-

In the Period of the First World War

ing them to the village of Kozalyakovich to work at making barbed wire fences. That evening the Russians burned down the train station, the large railroad workshops, the oil storage dump, the Luria family’s factories, the Halpern match factory, and the alcohol factory near Honcharsky Street. Thousands upon thousands of bottles of vodka were broken so that they would not become enemy booty, and retreating Russian soldiers kneeled to lap up the vodka puddles. That day the police force abandoned the city. At the last minute, the police chief confirmed the appointment of the Citizen’s Committee, in a slightly altered configuration. He appointed Dr. Alexander Luria as chairman and suggested setting up a citizen’s militia for the transition period. Up until the final night of the retreat, the city was quiet. The military commander issued a strong statement: “Criminals will be punished by death.” Rumor had it that he had received a “gift,” and as pointed out, a fund was established for such purposes. But on the last night, the Cossacks looted Jewish homes and screams filled the city. The Cossacks went wild in the Wigodka neighborhood and sacked the warehouses and stores on Kiev Street. It seemed they would set the whole city aflame. But the pressure of the advancing Germans gave them no opportunity. Even in those troubled hours, there were Jews who stepped forward to help others although during the days of the retreat, the streets were empty because the retreating soldiers had taken a fancy to Jewish watches. One woman recalls how her father, Joseph Meir Barzak, a mechanic in the Luria factory, worked to contain the fire at the burning alcohol factory, pouring water on the adjacent houses. That same night, as the Cossacks were running amok in the city, a patrol of householders was organized on Honcharsky Street. Joseph Meir Barzak together with his neighbor, Meir Zisselman, tied up two Cossacks who were trying to set the street on fire. Later they handed these Cossacks over to the Germans.

The Beginning of German Rule After the decisive battle fought near Dumashits, the German advance guard entered Pinsk on the morning of September 17, 1915. The infantry followed a few hours later and bivouacked next to the Orthodox church.

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With the entry of the Germans, the terror that had reigned in the city passed. Slowly the Jews began to leave their homes and appear on the streets. Their hesitation turned to obvious joy—much to the consternation of the Russians left in the city.13 There was a rumor that in Wigodka the Jews had even greeted the Germans with bread and salt. At one stroke, the anxiety about conscription into the army was removed. Jewish soldiers serving in the Russian army who had found refuge in the city during the Russian retreat were freed from the prospect of having to fight at the side of pogrom makers. Jews began to remove from hiding the possessions they had placed in cellars and in holes in the ground. A feeling of relative security set in. “The storekeepers opened their shops that had been closed out of fear of robbery and business began to pick up.”14 On the intermediate days of the holiday of Sukkot [seven-day festival of Tabernacles, beginning in the week after Yom Kippur], the quiet was disturbed by a strong Russian attack, and the fear arose that the Germans would leave the city. Once again Jews started “to dig pits and holes in order to hide their property” and sought out hiding places for themselves from the Cossacks who were apt to vent their anger on the Jews. “For when they return, the Cossacks will take revenge on the Jews because they welcomed the Germans.”15 This fear was not realized, but unfortunately for Pinsk and for the entire area, the German advance was stopped. The front stabilized near the river Pina and the Styr and Struman tributaries south and southeast of the city, and on the Yasolda [Jaselda] estuary leading to the Pina and the Oginski Canal. Pinsk was thus surrounded on almost three sides by Russian positions. Pinsk and the entire region west of it were placed under military rule. The Germans considered this area a military zone and treated its inhabitants almost like prisoners of war. The Germans disingenuously called these citizens “volunteers” and forced them to work on military projects in violation of the conventions of warfare. A new term was coined in Pinsk: “voluntary forced laborers.” While an abundance of grain and other foodstuffs was transferred both to Germany and to the military fronts, the Germans starved the civilian population of Pinsk and its environs. Whenever an army officer appeared, people were expected to step aside and make way.

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The anti-semitism of the soldiers and officers, particularly those who came from Poznan, affected the situation of the Jew. On the other hand, German soldiers relieved the hunger of many Jewish families by providing them with bread and other food, either out of genuine neighborly feelings or in exchange for various services. While the Germans suspected the Russian-Polishuks of being hostile and dealt with them accordingly, the Jews were not viewed as antagonistic. An article, which appeared in November 1915, written by Lindemann, the first German commander of the city, describes the situation during the initial weeks of occupation. The battle of September 15, which occurred twelve kilometers to the west of Pinsk, ended. Towards evening our infantry captured the last Russian position near Dumashits . . . a sea of fire visible in the direction of Pinsk demonstrated to us that the Russians were preparing to retreat. As we later learned, they burned an oil storage depot, a match factory, and a liquor distillery. They intended to set fire to the city from all four sides so that the rich and overflowing warehouses would not fall into our hands. They could not carry out their plans, however, because we conquered the city more quickly than they expected. . . . On the same day I was called to division headquarters at the ­Storhorovichi estate. There I learned that I was to be appointed commander of the city after the conquest. . . . The advance to Pinsk proceeded almost without a stop. Physically, the city had not suffered extensively. The match factory, the largest one, was burned and we passed its smoldering ruins. In the other factories the vats had been exploded and the buildings of the railroad station were totally destroyed. . . . In the market square next to the principal church was a very friendly crowd. Among them I found a Russian-Jewish student who spoke fluent German. He informed me that the Russians, who had left the city four hours earlier, took with them the municipal administration, the police, the monies in the town treasury and more. The student singled out, L., a PhD and a factory owner [i.e., Dr. Alexander Luria] as the most respected person in the city, and one who enjoyed the trust of the public. Dr. L., a Jew, was summoned to me and from him I learned about the circumstances of the city. . . . The number of inhabitants is 40,000– 50,000, and with the addition of the refugees totals approximately 55,000. Eighty percent of the inhabitants are Jews. Since most of them speak “Yiddish-Deutsch” they have no difficulty communicating with

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our soldiers. Most of the houses are wooden, one story, structures. The majority of the streets are paved, but not well. When it rains many of them can be crossed only by people wearing rubber boots. In the center of the unpaved streets there are narrow walkways made out of boards, mostly in disrepair with more boards missing than in place. I gave Dr. L. the task of finding seven other well-respected citizens, four Christians and three Jews, and bringing them to headquarters, located in city hall, for the first joint meeting of the military and civil administrations . . . The second meeting was held that same afternoon. The hours between the two meetings I used to give orders to the officers and clerks serving under me as well as to members of the civil administration and to issue the first proclamation to the general population. The proclamation was published in German, Russian, Polish and Hebrew. The opening section included the usual routine announcements (the names of the members of the city civil administration, the rules governing the activity of the administration, threats of punishment according to the rules of war in case of resistance, etc.). The second section included special instructions concerning the turning in of weapons and Russian soldiers in hiding, and with regard to street cleaning, establishing a local police force and fire brigade, the 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, the rate of exchange of the ruble, the adoption of the Central European dating system, and more. In the first weeks we concentrated on transporting the prisoners and driving off thousands of refugees arriving on foot or by wagon; on determining who between the ages of seventeen and forty-three was obligated to serve in the army; on taking stock of the available quantities of food, raw material, horses, cattle and vehicles; on making arrangements for the maintenance of sanitary conditions and the feeding of the civilian population; and on opening the schools. After a few days had passed the first issue of Pinsker Zeitung appeared, and from then on it was published daily in German and Russian. The newspaper included two regular supplements; orders from headquarters for both soldiers and civilians, and a list of maximum allowable prices. The latter was necessary because the shopkeepers demanded unjustifiably high prices. Examples of maximum prices are: a pound of butter 1.11 marks a pound of pork .59 Kosher beef .30

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non-Kosher beef .18 Kosher veal .22 non-Kosher veal .13 ¾ liter milk .18 16 kilo potatoes .25 an egg .12 a chicken 1.18 a goose 2.22 Commercial life developed rapidly, and cultural life also became more active. At the end of September the cinema theater opened its auditorium to performances and lectures in Yiddish, which attracted large audiences. After the fear and worry of the first days—intensified by the “panic element,” the refugees—quiet returned. Now, when artillery thunders a few kilometers from Pinsk, owners of businesses no longer pack up their merchandise or hide it in cellars and courtyards. People no longer ask: “Will the Cossacks return?” a question that was constantly on the lips of the nervous inhabitants during the first days after our entry. With German thoroughness, German organizing skill, and German patience, the military administration succeeded in establishing order in a short time, and the life of the residents became peaceful. The artificial fear of the German “barbarians,” implanted in the hearts of the unfortunate population on the strength of all sorts of false reports of fictional acts of cruelty, quickly dissolved in the face of the reality people could see for themselves. Between victor and vanquished, trust and friendship sprung up immediately. Our task was eased by the excellent cooperation we received from the members of the civil administration whose number increased from eight to twelve.16

From this description it appears that Commander Lindemann was well aware that the Germans had brought salvation to the Jews by capturing the city. Lindemann was interested in an amicable relationship with the Jews. Nevertheless, while the first proclamation was published, as noted, in Polish and Hebrew, the next was published in German, the language of “the victors,” and in Russian, the language of “the vanquished,” even though the remnants of the Russian population present in the city at the time of the German conquest had already been expelled. By now, only Jews and a handful of Poles remained in the city. This decision was made at the political level, no doubt to avoid any inference of

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recognition of Jewish nationalism. Although Lindemann knew that the Jews represented 80 percent of the population, the initial appointment of equal numbers of Jews and Christians to the Citizens’ Committee indicates neither a democratic tendency nor a respectful attitude toward the Jews. The Citizens’ Committee had no mandate for independent activity and was formed merely to serve as a tool in the hands of the military command. According to Lindemann it was “an excellent co-operator.” It is not clear if the same ratio of half Jews, half non-Jews, was retained when the committee was enlarged by four new members. Lindemann did allow the Jews to stage theater performances and arrange lectures in Yiddish, activities that had been forbidden under Russian rule. Jews were granted permission to organize holiday prayers in the synagogue after nightfall despite the curfew. These exemptions remained in force during the entire period of the German conquest. In the early years the Germans also refrained from offending the religious sensibilities of the Jews. The Jews engaged in forced labor instituted by the Germans were not compelled to desecrate the Sabbath or holidays. Within the municipal jurisdiction, Jews did not work on the Sabbath or holidays until late 1917. It was only within the bounds of the regional jurisdiction, headquartered in Janowa, near Pinsk, that the Jews were forced to work on the Sabbath. But, the authorities turned a blind eye to pious Jews who did not report for work on the Sabbath.17 The Germans did not, as a rule, show disrespect for the sanctity of the synagogues, and they seemed to have had more regard for the synagogues than for the Pravoslav churches. (I recall that in my own town of Motele, near Pinsk, the Pravoslav church was the site for the smallpox vaccination and other inoculations, which the German command ordered a few days after their entry into the town. Synagogues were not defiled.) In Pinsk, Feinstein writes: All the public buildings were seized, with no exceptions made for the Russian and Polish places of worship. The holy images were removed and flung into stables and barns, and the Germans set up their offices within the houses of worship.18

They did make one Jewish house of prayer into a stable for horses.19 In March 1918 after the conclusion of the war and the signing of peace

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with the Bolsheviks, the Germans desecrated the Great Synagogue, converting it into a detention center for prisoners—in doing so, vandalizing and smashing the furnishings. They desecrated and tore apart Torah scrolls belonging to the Brest community, which had been stored in chests for safekeeping.20 This may have resulted from the progressive deterioration of relations as the Jews became bitterly disenchanted with the Germans. They saw the Germans as the cause of their distress and were loathe to carry out orders and instructions, frequently motivated by cruelty or stupidity. Under such conditions, Germans who were in any position of authority over the Jews did not hesitate to brandish the whip or order detentions or fines for minor matters, whenever they could detect signs of disobedience. The supervisors of the forced labor from Poznan were particularly cruel. They were steeped in anti-­semitism, and their human sensibilities had been dulled by years of warfare. Commander Hauptmann Freier Von Bissing, who replaced Linde­ mann approximately two months after the conquest, did not share Linde­mann’s affinity for the Jews. A change in policy and attitude toward the Jews possibly accounted for the change in command. Even in the first days of the conquest, the Jews discovered that life under German rule would not be easy. Stocks of various goods were confiscated. Lindemann was correct when he said that: “Merchants no longer pack up their merchandise and stash it away in their cellars,” for most of the stocks of iron, textiles, leather, paper, and kerosene had been appropriated on various occasions without any cash reimbursement. The Germans issued pro forma “receipts” for the confiscated merchandise. On one of the Fridays of October in 1915, all men from the age of twenty-one (to age forty-three) were ordered to report to the market square. There they were interrogated about their military history, and those regarded with suspicion were segregated. Because chaos reigned during the selection process, many of the “suspects” were able to mingle among the rest of the crowd, and only about sixty men remained separated. They were arrested and taken in the direction of the railway station. Shortly afterwards it became known that they had been transferred to a concentration camp in Germany.21 Lindemann does not say why he personally dealt with the determination of army service obliga-

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tion of men between the ages of seventeen and forty-three; but it was clear to the German command, from the start, that they would employ the men of this age group in the war effort. The nighttime curfew may not have weighed heavily upon the population at first. Nor was the evacuation of streets or parts of streets near the waterfront, where the Germans were garrisoned and dug their fortifications, an overly oppressive measure since there were abandoned houses in other parts of the city. The homes of Jews and Russians who had moved eastward to Russia, and those of Russians evacuated by the Germans immediately after the conquest, were available. Places were vacated by the thousands of Jewish refugees who had arrived in Pinsk and then been expelled by the Germans in the early weeks of the conquest. What did put hardship on the population was that ties to the world were suddenly severed, and there was no possibility of leaving the city. Many became penniless overnight. Their savings accounts, in the banks evacuated by the Russians, were forfeit. Others were pauperized when the Germans expropriated their stocks of merchandise. The wives, parents, and children, whose husbands, sons, and fathers, were serving, somewhere, in the Russian army were frantic with worry. Yet, there was the chance of information from soldiers who had fallen captive to the Germans and Austrians. The dark houses lit solely by tallow candles, were oppressive. So was the absence of any newspaper besides the official Pinsker Zeitung. The recurrent thunder of the cannons from the front jangled nerves, house walls frequently trembled, and occasionally shells from the Russian side exploded within the city, destroying and killing. Above all, people were made anxious by the endless battle of wits to obtain the minimum amount of food they needed to stave off death by starvation.

Hunger Pangs and Hard Labor We know from Lindemann’s report that among the objects of his supervision was the inventory and supply of foodstuffs. He does not tell us, however, that he had confiscated this inventory. Included in the sequestered merchandise were also “grains and fruits, all the necessities

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of life.”22 These appropriations may have begun as early as September 1915 since it was immediately after the Sukkot holiday that the people began to worry about provisions for the future. In those autumn days, entire families, rich and poor, young and old, spread out over the potato patches sown by their owners for liquor production, and across the fields of farmers who had gone east with the Russian retreat. From Sukkot through late October, they worked day after day with spades and hoes, digging potatoes out of the ground. They carried their harvest home on their shoulders, or trundled it in handcarts. They worked even when the fields were covered with frost. This work was overseen by German supervisors, whose job it was to maintain order, a fact that gives an idea of how great the panic was that had gripped the civilian population.23 The supervisors had an additional task—to guard against people wandering into “forbidden” places. Permission to benefit from ownerless property may have served as a measure of compensation for the expropriations. The German command did not, however, allow the harvesting for solely humanitarian reasons. They had no other way to organize the potato harvest and take advantage of the crop to benefit the “war effort,” while avoiding additional supply worries. The project served to ease significantly the distress of the population in the early months of the occupation. The situation was further ameliorated by the distribution of sacks of flour, which while transportation links with Ukraine still existed had piled up on the waterfront because difficulties in transport to the west prevented their being forwarded to their destination. The sacks were partially (in some cases, totally) saturated by the rains; apparently that was why the German command saw fit to distribute the flour. From Lindemann’s account, quoted earlier, it is clear that basic foodstuffs rose in price immediately after Sukkot and by October of that year, at the latest, Lindemann had published the maximum prices for various necessities. These guidelines were not observed in practice. The stores closed shortly after they opened, and the shopkeepers, if they had any stock at all, refrained from selling. If they did sell, they disregarded the official price list. Lindemann’s report states that he was in charge of arrangements for provisions, and undoubtedly he meant arrangements for distribution of food rations. By the month of October, then, the population was

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queuing up to receive its ration, which was one-quarter pound (!) of flour per person per day.24 The Germans figured that the population would not starve to death on this meager allotment since the people undoubtedly had other food supplies available. Many of the citizens had stockpiled stores of food against an uncertain future, prior to the Russian retreat. The German command may have taken into account the potatoes, which the civilians had gathered in the fields and the sacks of wet flour that had been distributed. From November on, however, there are already clear references to the dire circumstances prevalent in the city. These appear in an article written by Dr. Tenzer, published on January 7 in the newspaper, Allgemeine Zeitung Des Judenthums [general journal of Jewry, a German-Jewish periodical published between 1837 and 1922]. Dr. Tenzer was a German Jewish army chaplain who came to Pinsk in November 1915 and remained in the city for several weeks. His article is interesting for a number of reasons, particularly from the point of view of relations between “West-Juden” (Jews of the West) and “OstJuden” (Jews of the East). Dr. Tenzer, along with Dr. Felix Rosenblit (aka: Pinhas Rosen), was among the first of the German Jewish intelligentsia to come in contact during the First World War with Lithuanian Jews on their home territory. Judging from his article, Dr. Tenzer’s experience aroused his respect for Lithuanian Jewry; he went so far as to see in Lithuanian Jewry the guarantor of Judaism’s spiritual survival. His article probably stimulated the German-Jewish intelligentsia to work with Lithuanian Jewry and take action on its behalf. A number of sentences in the article are pertinent to the situation in Pinsk: Toward evening it is most depressing in Pinsk. Not a ray of light falls in the streets except for the Russian searchlights, which rake the ground, and the flickering lights of our flares. After seven o’clock no citizen is allowed on the streets. Not only are foodstuffs of all sorts extremely scarce, but means of lighting as well. In all government offices work is done by candlelight.

Dr. Tenzer goes on to tell that he found Rabbi Borukh Epstein [an eminent scholar who made his living as a bank officer] writing his autobiography, Mekor Borukh, by the dim light of a candle. He speaks of how he (Dr. Tenzer) established the Jewish soup kitchen (Beit Tamhui Yehudi) in Pinsk, run in strict conformity with the rules of kashrut;

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one thousand people received breakfast and lunch there. The city commander, Hauptmann Frier Von Bissing, Major Lindemann’s replacement, promised to set aside a sum of money for the soup kitchen from the taxes that were levied on the city.25 By November 1915 the state of provisions in the city was already extremely difficult. Feinstein in describing this period says: Grains were not to be found in the marketplace; they could not be purchased anywhere. If a person was fortunate enough to find a bit of grain he was forced to pay more than triple the price. Buying and selling was done secretly, hidden from the eyes of the authorities, lest they confiscate the food. To go outside the city walls was absolutely forbidden.26

By this time, that is the end of 1915, there were deaths from starvation especially among the members of the “liberal professions . . . fastidious gentlemen” by nature, who didn’t know how to cope with the new conditions. The famine may not have been that severe, but those who were weak were most affected. Rachel Stillerman writes of the fate of the violinist David Pinsky, as follows: I remember that he used to come to us at the beginning of the occupation. . . . We still had a few months’ supply of food. . . . When he sat with us at lunchtime he refused to join us in the meal. He refused to eat while his wife and child remained hungry. I told him that I would give him some potatoes to take home with him. To this he agreed . . . even though he felt that he had humiliated himself by stooping to take a handout. . . . David Pinsky, a man of great talent, sank lower and lower, and died of the disgrace.27

We know, too, that the noted maggid Rabbi Zvi Moshe Halevi Dworkin, passed away in 1915, “during the great famine in Pinsk.”28 Early in 1916 the ration of flour was increased from one-quarter pound to one-half pound (about 200 grams) a day. Clergymen, both Jewish and Christian, were allotted a double ration of flour.29 This increase occurred after the start of the evacuation of the civilian population from the city (see below). Shortly afterward the ration of flour was changed to a ration of bread. Feinstein writes about this bread: It contained potato peels and other foreign matter. . . . We would divide the bread into portions, one portion per person. Each member of the

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family would divide his share into three parts, one for each meal of the day, and he would be careful not to eat more than the amount set aside for that meal.30

Occasionally rations of potatoes would be distributed as well. Sometimes these were frostbitten and not fit for consumption. At intervals of several weeks, a ration of meat, one-half pound per person, was also distributed. Other commodities were distributed as well: barley, salt, and yellow sugar. The German command was aware that “it is very difficult to live on such allotments,” but maintained that “it is impossible to die on them.”31 Yet by the end of that winter and the beginning of the summer, many were “swollen with hunger.” Feinstein’s description of the situation appears to be about this period, summer 1916: Hundreds of people began to pick nettles and other such plants from along the fences; they would cook them and eat them. . . . The numbers of the starving multiplied and epidemics broke out. . . . You would meet a person whose face and hands were thick and full; he looked robust and hearty. . . . [actually] he was swollen with hunger and on the verge of death.

Feinstein writes: “Several times I found myself on the verge of fainting from weakness.”32 The situation would have been far worse if many families had not received loaves of bread and other foodstuffs from German soldiers billeted in their homes, or with whom they were acquainted, in return for services, like laundering and mending. Craftsmen, like tailors and shoemakers, also received food from soldiers in payment. Those families did not suffer greatly from hunger because generally the soldiers were not anti-semitic and gave generously of whatever they could. At that point (1916) the soldiers were not in need. Their canteen was well stocked, and the meals they received in their mess halls were filling. Many children eased their hunger pangs with leftovers from the military kitchens.33 A further concession became available to people with money around March 1916 when the German command began to grant “import” licenses in return for a payment of five rubles in gold.34 A new class of grain merchants sprang up, importing rye in cooperation with German junior officers. Most of the grain was brought from Janowa and

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from the area near Pinsk. Horse-and-wagon teams, purchased shortly before the Russian retreat, transported it. (According to the memoirs of I. Brisky, there were even instances of “passes” mistakenly granted to villages in Russian hands.) The poor could not benefit from these “imports” because prices were inflated. If in November 1915, a pud (thirtysix pounds) of rye cost three times the normal price, then by March 1916 its price was thirty rubles, or approximately fifteen times the normal price. In that same period the price of a pud of potatoes was four rubles and a pound (about 400 grams) of meat cost two rubles. Additional relief came in mid-summer 1916 when everyone who had a piece of land around his house turned it into a vegetable garden. People who had been gardeners before the war sowed and planted even larger areas. Pinhas Eliyahu (Alter) Kolodny writes in his pamphlet Practical Gardening (Praktische Gartnerei), which was published in Pinsk in 1917: There was great interest in planting gardens among us last summer in Pinsk. Throughout the city hardly a patch of land in any yard or small garden, was left unplanted. Every single plot, even one merely 4 ¤ 4, was planted with vegetables. . . . Due to lack of knowledge about vegetable growing, the actual results of the work were not substantial.35

Many, though, succeeded in their efforts. Those who did “voluntary forced labor” in the forests found other relief. They were able to gather mushrooms, blackberries, and various seeds to complement the bread, which was in short supply. Workers, at logging in the sawmills operated by the Germans or in the various workshops of the engineering corps, received, besides money, six hundred grams of bread each day plus soup and coffee. These people did not suffer the pangs of hunger. The German employers treated Jewish professionals with respect. Some of the poor, who were accustomed to keeping poultry, raised a hen or rooster. But those who kept a hen were obliged to supply a quota of eggs to the Germans. There is a satiric description by Kolodny, in which he describes a woman carrying a rooster who had to prove that the fowl was not a hen. Another of his stories describes the period when roosters were confiscated—forcing people to think of ways of ensuring that their concealed fowls were not heard crowing.36 During the first autumn of their occupation, the Germans were unable to organize the sowing of abandoned fields with rye (ordinar-

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ily done in the autumn). This must have further aggravated the food situation in the winter of 1916–17. Bread grains virtually disappeared from the black market. Supervision of food imports to the city became stricter. On November 7, 1916, Von Bissing published this announcement for the second time: Each instance of import of commodities or foodstuffs requires a permit from headquarters. Permits previously issued are invalid and must be returned immediately. Offenders will be fined by confiscation of the commodities.

An order published on December 21, 1916, by Von Sturk, Lieutenant General and Divisional Commander, transferred all wheat in the area to the military authority. All grains (rye, wheat, barley, oats) found in the area belong to the military authorities. Residents of the city and its surroundings have the option of exchanging grains in their possession for flour. Details will be determined by local headquarters. Whoever retains grains in his possession after this date, will be punished, and his grains confiscated. Buying and selling of grain is forbidden. Flour will be sold at locations determined by the command. Taking grain or flour out of the vicinity, and all importation of grain and flour into the city of Pinsk, is forbidden. Such grain and flour will be confiscated. It is forbidden to buy or receive foodstuffs from army personnel. Any such attempt will be punished. Offenders will be punished by imprisonment for periods up to two years, or fines of 10,000 marks, or both. Local commands have the authority to impose punishments of up to two weeks imprisonment and 50 marks. The Pinsk command has the authority to impose a punishment of up to six months imprisonment and 3,000 marks. More severe punishments are left to my authority or to the military courts. . . . The residents of Pinsk are required to report their stores of grain during the period of January 1–4, 1917. The date of exchange of grain for flour will be announced later.

The order seriously curtailed the black market operations. On the other hand, the Germans did a great deal to get the fields sown with summer crops and potatoes. The harvest was stored in their warehouses; however, and the civilian population benefited from it only as rations. People working the fields were able to pilfer a small bag

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of grain or a few potatoes while gathering. They concealed them from the German supervisors, who were harvesting the fields with machinery, by a variety of tactics. For this purpose, even the daughters of those who had been rich and former gymnasium students went to work the fields willingly. Nearly all the young people of the city, school children, gymnasium and university students went to work the fields for the Germans, in order to steal potatoes. Those who were able to work at threshing were considered most fortunate, for they were able to steal the threshed grain.37

Various tactics were used to fool the German watchmen. They used to tie the ends of their trousers near the soles of their feet with a thin string, and put the potatoes into the trousers around their legs. The long coats which they wore on purpose as they walked home, concealed their elephantine legs.38

People would enlarge and expand the pockets of their pants, till they were like huge satchels. Or they would rip open the seams of the coat pockets and fill the space between the fabric and the lining of the garment with grain or potatoes. There were other techniques as well. After the harvest the Germans allowed the population to gather the gleanings, and groups of “young and old would go out to the fields to gather the ears of rye, wheat and barley which had fallen behind the harvesters. They spread out in unplanted fields as well, to collect anything which might have sprouted by itself.” Since meats and fats were distributed only sporadically, businessmen began to slaughter horses and make sausages from their meat. An order dated October 13, 1916, reads: Merchants have recently begun to market sausages made from horse meat. The seller must inform the buyer of this. Maximum price for a Russian pound is 1.20 marks. Offenders will be punished by imprisonment and forced labor and their businesses closed down.

In the winter of 1916–17, black market food prices soared higher, but the numbers of people who could take advantage of the market dwindled. People began to sell and pawn their valuables, even expensive clothes, to the new rich, who had become wealthy on the black mar-

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ket, and to the German soldiers. In January 1917 a pud of rye cost forty rubles in spite of the great ban proclaimed in the synagogue against profiteers.39 The situation that winter is best described by the prayer written down by Kolodny. Herewith is a portion: Look down from heaven and see, how the Germans enslave us with labor no easier than that which we suffered in Egypt, and even so they starve us. We have no bread to eat; ¼ pound of bread a soul—that is our ration. Meat—the scent has long since left our nostrils. Fish—who ever sees it? In order to get a few small fry, the sort that used to be thrown in the trash, you have to stand in line for several days. And in the end, some come home empty-handed, and some the Germans beat up. Garlic—that is already sold by the gram in the pharmacies. Other vegetables—potatoes, onions, beets, turnips—who can afford to buy them? Three or four guilden for a single beet; fifteen or twenty kopeks for a pound of potatoes; four or five guilden for a pound of onions; a ruble or eight guilden for a single turnip. And where can they be found? They are hidden, buried in the ground, to fetch an even higher price later. . . . Look down from heaven and see; our feet are swollen. Where are our clothes and our shoes? We are dressed in sacks, and walk barefoot; our bodies are emaciated, our faces blacker than black. Look down from heaven and see, how many upstanding citizens, men who commanded respect, beg weakly from door to door. . . . Look down from heaven and see the cemetery, where graves sprout overnight like mushrooms. How many hundreds of Jews have dropped like flies, from hunger and poverty and cold.40

That winter was extremely bitter and many could not heat their homes, because the kindling distributed by the Citizens’ Committee was insufficient. Those who had sons working in the forests were fortunate, because they were allowed to take logs home with them. People who had previously dealt in timberland-rafting timber or the lumber trade, dragged logs on their backs, for distances of kilometers, to warm their homes and cook the rations or food they had found by other means. In the winter of 1916–17 many were wearing threadbare clothes and worn-out shoes. Men who had been respectable began to be seen in the streets dressed in patched clothing, their shoes worn and torn. People made shoes from any sort of fabric attached to wooden soles, and they

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sewed clothing from sacks. There were householders whose homes were already bare, with nothing left to sell or pawn. They kept themselves alive with great difficulty. Kolodny describes the home of an acquaintance who had been wealthy and distinguished before the war, comparing what he saw in this man’s home on Purim 1917 with what he had seen there in days gone by: I recall the mirrors, the expensive draperies, the table with its two leaves covered with a white cloth, the brass chandelier (blitz-lamp) shaded in pale blue. . . . Various drinks were set out on the table: wine, liqueur, vodka . . . a variety of fruits: apples, pears, oranges, large and small nuts, and candies of many kinds . . . the large braided hallah placed at the head of the table, and the oznei haman filled with poppy seeds simmered in honey [triangular shaped pastries especially for Purim]. . . . My acquaintance sat at the head of the table, dressed splendidly. At his side, his sixteen-year-old son, a student in the business school, and next to him, the younger son, a first-year student at the Realschule. . . . Across the table was the lady of the house, [dressed] in the latest style, with diamonds in her ears, and rings on her fingers. Next to her sat their daughter in the Gymnasium uniform. . . . People came and went, poor people who asked alms, men in pairs who came to receive donations for charitable institutions, groups of performers who came to dance and act merry. . . . All left satisfied. . . . But, now, when I entered their home, my heart sank . . . gloom, poverty, hunger, misery and woe. Where were the mirrors? Where were the draperies? Where were the silver vessels? Where were the ornaments, and the earrings and the rings? On the table, an old tablecloth, and upon it a piece of bread, and the bread was black and burnt . . . it smelled of animal fodder. No doubt it had been baked from a mixture of flour and fodder. Beside the bread was a dish and in it the remains of some roasted potatoes. . . . The lady of the house was bent over the oven, tending a fire of smoking twigs, which would not burn because they were damp. . . . The former Gymnasium student, pale as a ghost, stood near the table and tended to the wick of a black candle, which sputtered and gave no light.

Kolodny continues that as he left the house with a heavy heart, the daughter ran after him and poured out her bitter story. Until a short time ago, the family had run a cafe and were able to subsist. But when

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she realized that soldiers were drawn to the cafe because of her, she began to avoid the place. The soldiers stopped coming, and the family was left without any means of livelihood. She was, therefore, faced by a terrible dilemma: Should she allow her parents to die of hunger, or should she reopen the cafe, even though she was really afraid that she would not be able to withstand temptation and keep her chastity because one of the patrons had been eying her.41 Kolodny implies that the household ornaments and the jewelry had been sold or pawned. Clearly the girls of Pinsk were caught in a tragic predicament, brought about by the miseries of starvation. According to Feinstein, that winter “hundreds of families died of hunger.”42 (Feinstein may not have meant this literally, but wanted to convey how much they suffered from the distress of hunger.) The situation would have deteriorated further if it had not been for the assistance that arrived from America via the Ezra Society, or Hilfsverein, of Germany [a German-Jewish relief organization founded in 1901 to benefit Jews in Eastern Europe and the Middle East that assisted in interdenominational relief work in the occupied territories in Eastern Europe and distributed American relief funds]. The two soup kitchens in Pinsk were maintained by the Citizens’ Committee using this money, transferred from Germany by a German-Jewish officer named Gutman. One of the soup kitchens(noted earlier) was established in November 1915 by Dr. Tenzer, and it provided meals for one thousand people. The second kitchen was apparently established in the winter of 1916–17. During that period the Poalei Zion together with the Sionisty Sotsialisty (S.S.) opened a soup kitchen for workers. After the visit of Professor Hermann Struck, who looked after Jewish affairs on behalf of the Supreme Military Command on the Eastern Front, flour for matzah was sent from Germany; but the matzah prepared from this flour was black. Occasionally the Citizens’ Committee was able to bring in other foodstuffs—a wagonload of flour or a few loads of potatoes, cooking fats, jam, sugar—or kerosene, candles, and the like. In view of the catastrophic conditions, the command increased the rations in May 1917. The hardships of the cold weather passed with the coming of spring. Because spring sowing and planting was stepped up in the gardens and surrounding fields, the pangs of hunger were notice-

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ably eased. The phenomena of the previous summer recurred. Boys and girls volunteered to work the fields for the Germans in order to pilfer something to take home. The harvest was greater than that of the previous year since the Germans had sown and planted all the fields. The farmers in the vicinity increased the areas under cultivation, attracted by the high prices for produce. But the Germans stockpiled this year’s harvest as well and transferred it wherever they wished. Once more orders were issued obligating everyone who had his own harvest to hand over most of it in exchange for payment. The following was promulgated on July 22, 1917: In order to ensure the just distribution of foodstuffs to the citizens of Pinsk, this year’s entire crop is garnished. Any owner of produce is required to hand over seventy-five percent of the crop. He is permitted to retain only twenty-five percent for sowing. The amounts and dates for handing over the crop will be published. . . . Whoever does not turn over the amount levied upon him in its entirety, sells his crop, or does not gather his crop—will be punished, and his produce confiscated.

On August 15, 1917, it was announced: Between September 12 and October 19, all wheat in the amounts determined must be brought to the city storehouse on Kupechesky [Merchants] Street. . . . Payment will be made no later than December 1. Residents who do not bring their share will have the deeds to their land taken away. Their stocks will be confiscated, and they will be punished by imprisonment and fine. All residents who hand over rye will be allowed to retain their plots. Those who intend to plant rye and have no seed, should inform us of this, in order to receive approval for the plot and to receive seed, between September 3–7, at the accounting office of the Citizens’ Committee.

(By the fall of 1916, evidently there were Jews who received plots of land for winter planting.) Quotas of potatoes and other vegetables were also requisitioned. An announcement of September 22, 1917, reads: Requests concerning the crop should be submitted . . . to headquarters by September 25. . . . As to potatoes and vegetables, they are to be delivered by October 20. Payment will be made in cash by December 1.

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Whoever does not hand over what is required of him, will have his entire harvest confiscated and be punished.

The rationale given for the appropriations was “to ensure just distribution of food to the citizens.” But, as previously stated, the Germans transferred the greater portion of the harvest of the surrounding fields to Germany. They took all measures to ensure that the civilian population did not “overeat.” On August 25, 1917, the following was publicized: It has recently become known that workers who travel to their jobs by rail, have been bringing various foodstuffs back with them to Pinsk. . . . Without a special permit from the command it is prohibited to take any food into or out of the city. This prohibition applies to exchanges and purchases within the city as well. Offenders will be fined.

As to the “just distribution of food” one announcement reads: In the near future and continuing until the end of March 1918, residents will be allotted according to their ration booklets, a ration of potatoes in the amount of three hundred grams per person per day. Inhabitants who have stores of potatoes and vegetables will not receive potatoes until further notice. They are permitted to consume three hundred grams per person a day from their crop. . . . There will be no additional distribution of potatoes.

German supervision was strict from the start of the sowing. On October  30 an order was issued that all landowners or lessees who had planted rye, wheat, or barley, were obligated “to inform the command . . . of the size of the area sown. Whoever fails to obey this order or gives false information will be fined and his property seized.”43 Conditions in Pinsk during this period are described in a memorandum sent to the Central Jewish Committee, which was set up in Copen­ hagen to assist Jews suffering the hardships of war. Its author was a German-Jewish soldier who was in Pinsk from August 1916, possibly the officer Gutman, who transferred the assistance funds from Germany to Pinsk. The writer states that in the course of the three years of war, he took an interest in the conditions of the residents of those places affected by the war, and he found that, “in no other place was the hardship felt as severely as by the Jews in Pinsk.” The distress that he saw upon his

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arrival in the city in August 1916, could not be imagined, and he has no words to adequately describe the situation of the Jews of Pinsk. He was told “the Jews of Pinsk rejoiced when the Germans entered the city,” but “the Jews expected the coming of the Messiah, and in his stead, came the whip.” Penury followed the German confiscations. All attempts to receive payment, even partial payment, for the confiscated merchandise, were in vain. In any case, at the time the memorandum was written, all the Jews of the city were on equal footing: beggary. The author emphasizes that since there was no source of livelihood, Pinsk was actually a prison camp, dependent on outside assistance. Until two months previously (the copy of the memorandum is not dated, but it was written late in the summer of 1917), Pinsk had been receiving 2,600 marks per month in assistance from America, which had been transferred via the Hilfsverein of German Jewry. This money helped support the two soup kitchens, for whose upkeep the Jews of the city had contributed an even larger sum. Three thousand people were fed in the two soup kitchens each day, although, under the circumstances, it was impossible to provide more than diluted barley soup. Since it had been two months since funds last came from America, however, two weeks before the memorandum was written, one of the soup kitchens had closed. There was serious apprehension about whether the other soup kitchen would be able to remain open much longer. There were nine thousand Jews in the city, of whom seven thousand needed assistance; only two thousand were able to survive independently. The German authorities were capable of providing work, even for the children, but the payment for a ten-hour working day was between 96 and 112 pfennig. By the time winter began, the price of a pound of bread would surely rise to 2 marks and 50 pfennigs (judging by the prices of the previous winter). Accordingly, for a day’s work, the worker could buy less than half a pound of bread. To ensure the survival of the Jewish population of the city, outside support in the amount of no less than 10,000 marks per month was needed because, in addition to the expenses of supporting the soup kitchens, many families needed assistance. He notes that the mortality rate in the city was between five and twelve people per day. The author suggests approaching Jews in Russia with a request for assistance and appends a list of people worth turning to. The list is not

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extant; according to the memorandum it included primarily names of (former) Pinskers or people who had some connection to Pinsk. 44 It must have been compiled by a Pinsker since this German Jew would not have known anything about such people. According to Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, the officer Gutman was a frequent visitor to his family’s home. If Gutman authored the memorandum, the list was probably compiled by Rabinowitsch’s father, Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch. It closes with a reference to the state of clothes and shoes in Pinsk, remarking how people wore torn and patched clothes and the majority of the people bound their feet up in rags. This memorandum, or its contents, was relayed from Copenhagen to Russia, and a document exists that is an appeal to former Pinskers. Twenty people assembled in the home of Yitzhak Asher Neidich, a former Pinsker, on December 2, 1917. The memorandum about Pinsk, which had been sent from Copenhagen, was read to them. Those present decided to establish an “Aid to Jewish Pinsk Society,” which would help Jews in Pinsk and its vicinity as well as those expelled from Pinsk. A ten-man committee was selected. The members were: Weinstein, Weizmann, F. O. (Faivel ben Ozer), German, I. I. (Isaiah ben Isaac) Grossberg, I. I. Luria, I. A. (Isak Yitzhak ben Adolf Yudel) Neidich, M. S. Raskin, I. L. Friedman, D. M. Strick. The group decided to solicit contributions on both a one-time and a monthly basis. An appeal was addressed to former Pinskers in Russia, asking them to send their contributions to the committee. At the first meeting a total of 19,418 rubles was collected, in addition to monthly pledges of 1,310 rubles. The list of donors appears in table 8.1. There is no information about the effect of these decisions or if monies from Russia were transferred via Copenhagen to Pinsk. The memorandum was apparently printed in one of the Russian newspapers and came to the attention of the socialist bloc in the German Reichstag, which submitted a parliamentary question about the situation of the Jews of Pinsk. As a result of this official inquiry, representatives of the Citizen’s Committee, along with religious judges and officials of the synagogues, were summoned to the commander of the city. They were forced to sign a document stating that the description of difficult circumstances in Pinsk was based upon lies.45

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This was a period of political upheaval in Russia: the February Revolution and the October Revolution; the declaration of an independent Ukrainian Republic (November 20, 1917); the German invasion of Ukraine (and the resultant distancing of the front from the borders of Pinsk); the capture of Kiev, Odessa, Nikolaev, and Kharkov by the Germans (March–April 1918); and the appointment of Skoropadsky by the Germans as Hetman of Ukraine (April 29, 1918). But none of these events did anything to alter the food situation in Pinsk. In terms of setable 8.1 Contributions and monthly pledges (rubles) to “Aid to Jewish Pinsk Society”, 1917 Donor

Contribution

Pledge

Luria, A. A. (Asir ben Aharon?)

200

25

Sultz

100

25

3,000

300

Pesahin Kronenberg, T. M.

500

180

Friedman, I. L.

200

25

Rozhansky

500

50

Strick

100

25

Weizmann, P.

300

25

Weinstein

50

15

Brinberg, L. I.

1,000

100

Grossberg, Y. I.

218

25

German, Z. Neidich Grossberg, A. I. Luria, I. A. (Isak Yitzhak ben Aharon?) Raskin, M. S. Arkin, E. A. together with Mrs. Vinitsky, B. A. Ozhansky, M. S. Bamdas, S. Y. Total

500

50

10,000

300

300

30

1,000

100

50

20

200

25

1,000

50

200

20

19,418

1,390

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curity, its predicament in the summer of 1917 was grave. That summer the city was subjected to heavier Russian bombardment than in previous years. There was bombardment when Kerensky’s forces attacked and when a truce was declared between the Bolsheviks and the Germans in December 1917. A number of casualties occurred in Pinsk at that time. After the peace treaty was signed in Brest-Litovsk (February 9, 1918), the price of food went down considerably; but before long it rose once more. At the end of March, a pud of rye again cost forty rubles and the price of a pud of potatoes was seven rubles. “The dread of war passed; however, it was possible to travel to Poland without too much difficulty . . . and people came to the city from Ukraine to do business.” By December 1917 people in Pinsk had begun to receive messages from family members in Russia. But the problem of food remained unsolved.46 The command reduced the rations of bread and potatoes. Late in the summer of 1918 even the soldiers’ bread ration was cut. The Germans had stripped the area of foodstuffs and transferred them to Germany, which was also starving. At the end of that summer, an attempt was made to fix the ration of bread for those employed by the Germans at one hundred grams per day instead of six hundred grams. But the command discovered that there was a limit to what people could tolerate. One group of men who chopped wood for heating army installations summoned up courage and dared to strike. The strike demonstrated that the workers felt bolder because they sensed that the German collapse was imminent and that the morale of the soldiers was sinking. I. Brisky writes: After stormy debate we decided to report for work, and then disband, as a protest over the cutting of the bread ration. . . . I had not yet rested from the walk back, when a Jewish policeman presented me with an order to report to headquarters. I was “requested” to descend to the cellar, which served as a temporary detention area, and there I found my fellow strikers, approximately twenty men. We stood trial before a German officer, a judge by profession. One of his Jewish assistants and translators advised us to plead that we had left our place of work for lack of strength and not to claim that we had been exploited, so that the Germans would not suspect us of Bolshevism. We were punished; working without pay for a week, and “lodging” in the prison for that period of time. But, they did reinstate the previous bread ration, for us and for all the workers in the city and its surroundings. The Germans

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may have feared Bolshevik agitation because the prison was filled with farmers and railroad workers who sang songs of the Revolution.47

Loggers in the Zapolia forest, who ordinarily received three hundred grams of bread and horsemeat soup, also stopped working, in protest over the reduction of their bread ration, but that strike ended differently. The German supervisors beat them to force them to return to work. At that time (August 1918), the German command ceased to provide food rations for the population on the pretext that the city now officially belonged to Ukraine and that the Ukrainian authorities were responsible for the nutritional needs of the residents. The Ukrainian authorities, on the other hand, claimed that as long as the city remained in German hands, the Germans were obliged to feed the residents. Feivel Boroshuk, who was then chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, traveled to Kiev and submitted a memorandum to the Ukrainian deputy minister of the economy on August 15, 1918. In the memorandum he described the situation in Pinsk and requested an allotment of wheat, or flour, and barley. He also requested a permit for the import of five thousand pud of wheat from the area surrounding Pinsk. This intercession did not accomplish very much. The Citizens’ Committee did buy two wagon loads of rye at one of the estates. But they were able to bring only one wagon load into Pinsk as the Ukrainians forbade passage of the second.48 The Germans took ration booklets away from the families of those who evaded forced labor. On October 19, 1918, the command returned booklets taken from Feinstein as punishment when his son Efraim left the city and went to Kiev.49 Apparently, then, the Germans did reinstitute the distribution of food. Conditions worsened considerably in the beginning of the winter of 1918–19, when throngs of evacuees began to return to the city. The situation had improved in one sense during the summer of 1918. Pinsk was no longer on the front line, and young people began to slip away to Ukraine—to Kiev and Odessa—either to study or to find some means of support. Young people also arrived from Ukraine, and newspapers from Warsaw appeared. The horizon began to clear. In July of 1918, the Ukrainian government, which wished to gain the sympathy of the Jewish population, allowed the opening of the Community Center (Beit Ha’am). The dedication of the Center on the border of Pinsk-Kar-

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lin, at the junction of Kupechesky-Horowitz-Zabalna-­Soborna-Plabeska streets, took place during Hanukkah (1918). Shaul Mendel Rabino­ witsch delivered the opening address to an audience, which included both remnants of the generation of Safah Berurah and the new members of Zeirei Zion. A few letters exist from Yisrael (Lola) Bregman to Ze’ev Lerman (later Livne), who had left with his family for Chomsk in 1916, and to Ben-Zion (Eisenstadt) who was in one of the villages. The letters are not dated, but clearly they were written at the end of the summer of 1918. From one letter, it appears that Ze’ev Lerman wished to come to Pinsk. To do so he required a permit from the German command. He had stated (in the permit application) that he needed to retrieve his books from Joseph (Chesler). Joseph had been summoned to the command and questioned regarding the books. But he knew nothing. In this letter Bregman remarks: Many of our friends [that is Zeirei Zion] come to us for a period of time; they come and then travel on. At this time of the ingathering of the exiles [people had started to return to the city from the surrounding towns and villages] and the time of the new exile [leaving Pinsk for Ukraine] everyone must pass through Pinsk. . . . Perhaps you will be able to find a way to come here illegally; so many come!

Finally Bregman asks: “What of your trip to Russia? How will you travel, via Pinsk or via Motele?” In another letter he writes to Lerman: According to the inquiries we have conducted about the possibilities of getting along in Ukraine, you should travel there and will surely be able to manage well. There is a seminary in Odessa, and we hope that you will be accepted in the second or third level. Until classes begin you will find more than enough opportunities to give lessons [to support yourself]. If you can travel via Motele, it would be better because it is difficult to travel via Pinsk right now.

In a letter to Ben-Zion, Bregman writes: “Many of our friends have left, Elazar [his brother], Mikhel Mordekhai, Roza, Jacobson, Meisel, Feldman, Eisenbod, and others. . . . They are all in Kiev or the vicinity.” As to Max (that is, Moses Eisenstadt), he writes that he is already in Kiev and working there in the office of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

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After three years of life in the “prison camp” of Pinsk, the young people virtually burst out of the city, heading for Ukraine, in spite of the risk that the Germans would catch and punish them with several weeks imprisonment. Bregman writes about “our friend Machnes” that “she and others sat in prison for three weeks for this.” Bregman also planned to leave Pinsk, but, for some reason he did not, and a half year later, he would be among the thirty-five murdered by the Poles.50 Hershel Pinsky also left for Russia but returned after a short time. Leaving Pinsk was illegal. The Germans wanted to take full advantage of the labor force in the city. To prevent the escape of workers, they began to punish the members of the “escapee’s” family by depriving them of their food allotment. The ration booklets of Feinstein and his family were confiscated because Feinstein’s son “fled” the city after he was sentenced to ten days in the “cellar” for not reporting to work one day. In October 1918 Feinstein presented the German command with a petition, claiming, inter alia that “no announcement was made that an entire family would be deprived of its food allotment if one member of the family left.” The petition and successive intercessions resulted in the return of the ration booklets. This was the situation until the revolution in Germany on November 9, 1918, and the truce, which followed two days later. The German army, however, remained in Pinsk for approximately two more months, until January 1919, when the Bolsheviks conquered the city. The Germans did leave behind one positive achievement: they installed electricity in Pinsk, apparently at the end of 1916. For on November 2 of that year, an announcement was published, noting that additional requests for electrical lighting would not be accepted, and requests already submitted would be considered during the winter.51

Expulsions Conditions in Pinsk would have been far worse if the city had not been emptied of most of its inhabitants. By the summer of 1917, there were only about nine thousand Jews in the city. In the first weeks of the occupation, Commander Lindemann had evicted “the thousands of

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refugees” from the city. According to Dr. Tenzer, “the many thousands of homeless” were transferred to supply depots.52 Some were evacuated in wagons, and some were forced to go by foot because the trains were not yet operating. “The homeless” surely left the city in the hopes of returning to their native locales, but they wandered from place to place and suffered hunger and cold. Some Jews from Brest settled in Ostrolenko. During the same period, the Pravoslavs who lived in Pinsk, and had not left with the Russians, were also evacuated: apparently the Germans feared espionage activities on their part. The Poles, on the other hand, were allowed to remain in the city. In December 1915 when the food situation deteriorated, the Citizens’ Committee was ordered to compile a list of ten thousand people who would have to leave. There were additional reasons (beyond the food shortage) for the expulsion. Since the city was on the front line, it was necessary to build fortifications, dig trenches, and billet troops. The civilian population was evacuated from the streets along the river (in some cases entire streets, in some cases segments of streets). The Germans may have been concerned with overcrowding and resulting disease even though they had inoculated the entire civilian population within a few days of entering the city. In the military area many buildings were demolished; the Germans transported some houses to Germany, just as they transported machinery from the factories. The Citizens’ Committee appointed a subcommittee to compile the list of evacuees. Initially there were people who volunteered to leave the city, people who hoped that somewhere else circumstances would be better. But once word arrived about the condition of the refugees evacuated from the city, no one volunteered any longer, and the Evacuation Committee could not fill the quotas. As punishment, Commander Hauptmann Freier Von Bissing gave orders on February 6, 1916, to fine the Evacuation Committee three thousand marks, payable at headquarters by February 13. If the fine were not paid, the members of the Evacuation Committee would be expelled from the city the following day.53 The expulsion of the population took place according to the quota. In editions of the Pinsker Zeitung, the following notices appear: (1) “On March 6th at seven o’clock a refugee train will be on the track. . . . All who have tickets for this train must leave the city. Those who do not

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obey the order will be jailed immediately and will be evacuated without their baggage.” (2) On March 8th an announcement in the name of the Evacuation Committee was published: “People designated to leave, who have medical certificates, must report to the Evacuation Committee on the 12th and 13th of the month.” (3) “On March 14th at seven o’clock, train number 8 will be available to transport 400 residents who wish to leave the city voluntarily. Those who did not leave the city on trains 6 and 7, but who held tickets for those trains, must report on Sunday, the 12th of the month, to the Citizens’ Committee with their vaccination certificates.” (4) “On Monday, the 20th of the month [March] . . . train number 9 will be available to transport 550 people. Those who wish to leave the city voluntarily, and have tickets for trains 8 and 9, must report on the 19th of the month to the Citizens’ Committee with their vaccination certificates.” “Today, the 29th of March, train number 11 will leave, transporting 650 residents. People with tickets for trains 7–11 must depart, else they will be expelled without baggage.” (5) On April 4th the following notice was published: “Whoever has been designated for evacuation and does not leave, will be punished with a steep fine and will not receive food. Whoever gives food to these persons will be severely punished.” (6) On April 16th this notice was published: “On the 27th another refugee train will depart. All families and individuals who wish to leave the city voluntarily, must report to the Evacuation Committee, at 10 Kiev Street, by the 22nd of the month. They will receive train tickets there. People who have already received tickets for train number 14 and have not left, must also register by that date. Otherwise they will be forcibly expelled. . . . Upon departure people must turn in their ration booklets. Otherwise, they will be expelled without baggage, which will be confiscated.” (7) “On May 5th train number 17 will depart. All wagoners in the city must report to the Citizens’ Committee at 9:00 a.m. for the purpose of transporting the baggage of departing passengers. Whoever does not obey this order will be punished.” (8) On May 7th this notice was published: “On the 8th of May refugee train number 18 will depart. All private wagoners in the city must come to the market square at 9:00 a.m. to be at the service of the Citizens’ Committee for transporting the baggage of those departing. Whoever does not appear will be severely punished.”

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These notices refer to “refugee trains,” although according to Linde­ mann and Dr. Tenzer, by November the refugees had already been evacuated from the city. The term “refugee trains” was used as camouflage because according to the rules of warfare, a conqueror was forbidden to uproot the population except as punishment for hostile activities. The threats of punishment testify that not everyone left voluntarily, even though the announcements speak of people who “volunteered” to leave. The required list was finally compiled. For the most part, the list comprised the poorer families, a fact substantiated by the collection taken up for the benefit of the evacuees and the clothing donated for them. Dr. E. Bregman writes that the evacuees received gold coins from the people remaining in the city. When this became known to the Germans, they took half of the coins for themselves. Some Poles were also expelled from the city but in a smaller proportion than the Jews. A few years later, during the investigation of the murder of the thirty-five (see below), antisemitic Poles claimed that Jews chased Poles out of the city during the period of German occupation. Some people who attempted to remain in the city were willing to bribe the Evacuation Committee or other influential people. In one of Kolodny’s vignettes, he writes of a cripple who rebukes his daughter for being incapable of “fixing” anything, while other girls can reach “even as far as the Governor.” The father demands of his daughter that she take ten marks “ransom money” and go free her brother from the “cellar” where he is detained for being on the street in the evening without his identity card. The father awakens old memories, reminding his daughter that she never attempted to retrieve the fifty rubles she gave to a member of the Evacuation Committee to erase his (the father’s) sister’s name from the list of evacuees. The sister was evacuated anyway, and the fifty rubles remained in the possession of the komisnik (member of the Evacuation Committee) who was “a real big shot” and one of the “upper crust . . . always up front, but a swindler.”54 Those who refused to leave the city were taken forcibly to the railway station. Children were rounded up and imprisoned as hostages. It bears mention that the Jewish police force, which had been formed with the establishment of the Citizens’ Committee, participated in these actions. This “evacuation” was completed only in mid-May 1916. Of 9,828 evacuees, 4,228 were evacuated against their will.55

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In 1916 the command imprisoned Alexander Luria, the head of the Citizens’ Committee, because he dared to oppose German demands. This may have been related to the subject of evacuations from the city. Some say that he was imprisoned because he opposed the German demand that Jewish girls be taken for prostitution. Luria and four other notables were seized as hostages. A short while later the evacuations resumed, but they stopped in the summer of 1917. By that time, the entire Jewish population was ready to flee the city because, in addition to hunger pangs, they were suffering from Russian bombardment, which had become frequent. The German command, however, did not wish to be left without any civilians and no longer allowed anyone to leave. People who were transferred to towns and villages near Pinsk, that is, Janowa, Chomsk, Drohiczyn, and the smaller villages in the vicinity, lodged by the Germans in the houses of farmers who had left for Russia during the Russian retreat, did not suffer hunger. Some of them even did business in food. The fate of those who were transferred to the interior of Poland (Warsaw, Szydlice, Ostrolenko, and the surrounding area) was far worse, as was that of the 150 Pinsk evacuees who were transferred, apparently by the Germans, to the Jewish agricultural settlement Czestoniow. They were placed in unfamiliar surroundings, without any apparent means of earning a living. In Ostrolenko, there were evacuees from Pinsk and Brest. “The poor among them” received a monthly stipend and from time to time, especially for the holidays, they received additional support. For the Passover holiday of 1918, “underwear, clothing, and shoes” arrived. A committee to assist the Pinsk evacuees was established in Warsaw. On October 6, 1917, an appeal was published by this committee in Haynt [leading Yiddish daily in Warsaw before World War II, founded in 1908, and by 1914 its circulation over one hundred thousand], requesting that localities that had not yet forwarded accurate lists of Pinsk evacuees should do so promptly. Support appears to have come from the Central Committee for Assistance to Refugees and Sufferers from War, which was organized in Copenhagen, and, which probably received funds from the “Joint” [the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as the JDC, created in 1914 as American Jewry’s overseas relief and rehabilitation agency]. The article in Haynt

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relates that in Ostrolenko, there were committees of Pinskers and Bresters. The committee of the Pinskers was elected by the evacuees themselves and distributed items in orderly and equitable fashion. The Brest committee was not elected, and the distribution of items was improper; as a result of personal quarrels, some people received nothing. The democratic spirit that reigned in Pinsk in earlier times left its mark in the evacuee camps as well. Nina Medem speaks of Pinskers who were exiled to Germany and the Baltic countries: Where were Pinsk laborers not to be found? They were in the deep, dark coal mines of Germany, to which the conquerors deported them, forcing them to work under difficult conditions as if they had been sentenced to hard labor. They were threatened with military trials if they tried to escape. Pinsk laborers were in the wide and wild stretches of Kurland, in the Baltic region. There the Germans goaded them on stormy and snowy days, in the frigid Russian winter, to pave roads for the German army. They died by the hundreds, of pneumonia and influenza.56

If the description is true, it must refer to the Pravoslav Christians, who were evacuated immediately after the conquest of the city because there is no other information about this.

Forced Labor German policy was to evacuate the families whose labor could not contribute to the war effort and those liable, because of poverty, to become a burden to the Germans or the civilian population. The Citizens’ Committee also favored this arrangement. By such standards, numerous families were “expendable” since the German conquest had sealed off many sources of livelihood. The Jewish proletariat, the laborers in the factories and workshops, quickly joined the ranks of the poor who were already substantial in number. At the same time, some of the wealthy left the city and moved to Russia; those who remained, lost their wealth, either through the transfer of the banks to Russia or through the German confiscations. Before long, throngs of unemployed besieged

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the Citizens’ Committee demanding work. The German command intervened and levied a tax to provide for the needs of the poor and the requirements of the community. Dr. Tenzer, the German-Jewish military chaplain writes in his article, quoted above: Exorbitant taxes have been levied upon the city twice. But the monies have been utilized on behalf of the poorest segments of the population. The most recent tax levied, during my stay in the city, was 18,000 rubles. This was expended, as stated in the Pinsker Zeitung in the following manner: 9,000 rubles on make-work projects for the unemployed; 3,000 rubles for charity for the poor; 1,500 rubles for assistance to the families of soldiers (we may assume that this refers to the families of those scores of young men who were transported to Germany and put in camps there); 1,500 rubles for hospitals and communal institutions; 2,000 rubles for the fire department, police department and internal administration; 1,000 rubles for schools and unforeseen expenditures.57

The order announcing the tax was published on November 29, 1915, by the new commander, Von Bissing. One assumes (from the mention of the earlier tax) that previous taxes were levied by Lindemann. The work projects were the beginning of “voluntary” forced labor and served merely as a pretext for it. According to Lindemann, a census was taken of the men between the ages of seventeen and forty-three, almost certainly for this purpose. The following notice was published on April 28, 1916, declaring the obligation to work for all men of seventeen and over: Because it has been ascertained that false statements have been made about the ages of young men called to work, in order to gain exemptions, from now on young men of seventeen will also be obligated to work. A certain progression was involved in the forced labor. In the early months, when the full population of Pinsk still lived there and the Germans had not yet established themselves in the city, the burden was not especially oppressive—one workday every two weeks. For many of the poor this was an opportunity to earn money by substituting for people who paid them to work in their stead. The labor involved the real needs of the city: street cleaning, fixing sidewalks, and similar tasks. Eventually, all those of working age (apparently 17–45) were forced to work every day of the year—and occasionally on the Sabbath and holidays as well—except for Sundays and Christian holidays. The change in policy

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was due to the changed circumstances: the gradual evacuation of the city; the increased need for working hands in the great German military enterprises (e.g., the construction of the bridge over the swamps near Pinsk, a span of ten kilometers); the desire to transfer anything moveable to Germany, like machinery, houses, and especially wood and wood products, and agricultural produce; and in addition, various services to the soldiers. Ultimately, the working population expanded to include fifteen-year-olds and people up to the age of fifty. We learn this last from a notice published by Commander Hauptmann Von Und Zu Gilze at the end of October 1916, stating that workers (male and female) from the ages of seventeen to fifty who wish to eat in the workers’ restaurant must register at Kupechesky Street, in the building formerly occupied by the Drunzik elementary school. Ostensibly, people were required to “volunteer” for work, perhaps because according to international law, it was forbidden to employ the conquered population in labor related to the “war effort.” In fact, the work was compulsory. As stated previously, a new term was coined in Pinsk, Freiwillige Zwangsarbeiter (“volunteers for forced labor”). An announcement of October 19, 1916, reads: “Another 150 laborers are needed for tree-cutting in the Zapolia forest. . . . In the event that the quota is not met, we will be obliged to draft laborers by force.” The German command began to reap direct monetary profits as a result of the forced labor. As noted above, there were people of means who hired others to substitute for them in forced labor. On October 20, 1916, Commander Gilze, who had replaced Von Bissing, published this order: Residents who have received red summonses are personally obligated to work. It is forbidden to transfer these summonses to substitutes. Whoever cannot work or does not want to work, for a specific reason, is permitted to free himself from work by a payment of 1.5 marks per day. Whoever does not pay this sum prior to the day of work, is not exempt and must work himself. Violation of this order is punishable by imprisonment and forced labor.

These payments enriched the German coffers, while the duty to work was easily reassigned. The laborers received much less than 1.5 marks per day. As a result of this order, the poor were denied the opportu-

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nity to earn a meager wage by substituting for others—though the edict did not remain valid for long (see below). Eventually, boys who had not yet reached the age of obligatory labor volunteered for work, simply to relieve their hunger and earn some money. Once they volunteered for work, however, they were forced to continue. Those who attempted to shirk were sentenced to imprisonment in the “cellar” for several days. Initially the attitude of the Germans to the “weaker sex” was “gentlemanly”; women were exempt from forced labor. The situation changed in the summer of 1916 when girls volunteered for work in the fields hoping to bring home a few kilograms of grain or potatoes. The command then began to impose forced labor on girls as well. At the end of that summer, the Citizens’ Committee was ordered to draft two hundred young women for work in the fields bordering the villages in the district. But the girls rebelled against the Citizens’ Committee’s instructions to do so and did not report at the appointed time. Their parents demanded that the Citizens’ Committee try to annul this dangerous edict for the girls were liable to be abused by the Germans. Indeed, the order was not carried out. The command avenged itself upon the families of these girls by depriving them of their ration booklets and declaring a two-week curfew from 6:00 p.m. in the city.58 In February 1917 the command organized a census of all girls and women from the ages of sixteen to twenty-five who did not have husbands and children. On March 29, 460 girls received notices to report to headquarters. There they were informed that they would be sent to work in Baranowicz. The following day they were taken to the bathhouse where their clothing was sterilized. Afterward they were imprisoned in a study house and then conveyed under heavy guard through streets, which had been sealed off to passers-by. Members of the families of the girls who did not comply—parents, brothers—were seized and held prisoner for several days, even after the “rebels” finally reported. Some of the girls who received notices were only-children, but the intercession of the Citizens’ Committee on their behalf did not help. On April 10, 1917, another 350 girls received departure notices for the following day. When only fifty girls showed up, the Citizens’ Committee was ordered to see to it that the

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entire group presented itself. With the threat of death hovering over the heads of the committee members in the event that the order was not discharged, their pleas to the Jewish public had an effect, and this conscription, too, was carried out. Once again, collective punishment was imposed on the city for this attempt at “disobedience”— a 6:00 p.m. curfew, lasting from April 13 until April 20. By order of the command, cafes were also closed on those days. On April 21 another group of girls was sent to work, and on July 10 sixty girls were dispatched to Kozalijakowice, near Pinsk.59 Some girls, assigned to men’s groups that were cutting trees, had the task of gathering the cut branches into piles. Wages for a ten-hour working day were a pittance. In the beginning the Germans paid just a few pfennig a day. In the summer of 1917, a day’s salary was 96 pfennig for a woman and 122 pfennig for a man. The value of this salary can be calculated in relation to the price of bread in Pinsk at that time. A pound of bread, ordinarily cost 250 pfennig. Craftsmen, such as builders and carpenters, may have received higher wages. It was noted that workers in the forest were permitted to take home as many logs as they could carry on their shoulders. In general, the soldiers supervising the laborers behaved with stupidity, cruelty, and brutality. They “ruled the workers with the stick and the switch, showing no mercy for the weak or respect for the aged.”60 The supervisors cruelly demanded obedience, precision, and alertness from people who were regularly underfed. They employed a system of intimidation, and no one dared stand up to them. On one occasion a group of young men was sent to cut down a forest near the village of Wizun on the other side of the Pina River, towards Lubieszow. They had been promised good accommodations and plenty of food but were starved so badly that they ate grass. A young man named Burstein, fell ill from this diet and died. The news created a commotion. Crowds besieged the Citizens’ Committee and demanded that it act to have the men returned from this assignment. The protest in fact succeeded, and the command brought them back.61 This may be the tragedy reported in a different source concerning 270 boys who were sent to work outside Pinsk on June 22, 1917. Word was spread in the city by some of the boys who managed to escape that they were being fed leaves and grass,

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that two of the boys had died, and others had fallen ill from hunger and exhausting labor.62 Feinstein describes the departure for work on a winter morning in 1916: A piercing, searing northern wind rises. It makes our flesh shudder and our blood freeze. The slave drivers appear. Each carries a four-thonged leather whip in his hand. With a cynical look, full of scorn and contempt, they review the work force. Each one selects the number of men he requires and orders them to stand in pairs. Whoever dares to leave the line is immediately whipped; whoever is a little slow to come forward receives a double blow. The lines are formed. “Forward,” orders the slave driver. . . . God help those who lag behind; the lash plows into their backs without mercy.63

The summer workday began at 6:00 a.m. A notice regarding this was published on May 12, 1916: In order to take advantage of the cooler hours of the day, starting May 14, the workday will begin at 6:00 a.m. All workers are required to be at the market square at that time. Latecomers will be punished by imprisonment and forced labor; repeat offenders—by expulsion.64

The Germans generally wielded an iron fist. Barzak’s daughter relates what happened to her father: There was a time when the Germans granted travel permits to the villages to procure food. About fifty people left, and father was one of them. . . . Among the fifty there were ten people who were carrying letters to their relatives. . . . They were arrested and imprisoned in the cellar. Who can forget the cellar on Kosciuszko Street? It was dangerous to come near them, and we did not know why they were detained. We were not allowed to bring them food. They remained imprisoned for about three months and were in great danger. After tremendous effort the letters were retrieved from Brest, and their contents made clear that there was nothing about spying in them. Meanwhile, the men in the cellar had fallen ill. With the help of the doctors, I was able to have father released, and afterwards they let the others go.65

Passing letters fell into the category of “serious crime.” The Germans were apparently fearful lest the situation in Pinsk become known to the

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outside world. On August 24, 1917, the following announcement was published, restating an announcement of January 9, 1916: It has become necessary to reiterate the contents of the order of January 9, 1916, that correspondence by residents is prohibited . . . as is any transfer of information in writing. Correspondence with prisoners or civilian workers must be done via headquarters. It is absolutely forbidden to give soldiers or civilians—for example, civilian laborers on furlough— any written information for further transfer. Whoever receives such information is required to submit the letter to headquarters immediately. Violators will be punished with a severe prison sentence or fine.66

Even for the most minor of infractions people were thrown into prison: a dank and fetid cellar, where one weak gleam of light entered through a tiny window. In this dark vault, prisoners sometimes suffered for weeks on end. In the morning they were brought up from the cellar and ordered to sweep the streets.67 As noted, entire families were deprived of food rations because one member had evaded work. Sometimes, for the sin of buying articles from soldiers, “exile” to Poland was imposed for many months. (The author remembers the case of a man from his hometown of Motele who was exiled for a full year for such a crime. There was also a Pinsker who was exiled and spent weeks trudging back to Motele after the termination of his months of exile. This man was a butcher: his offense might have been slaughtering a calf that he had secretly obtained from a neighboring farmer, or at worst, possession of an army blanket that he had purchased or received as a gift from a soldier.) People were bound to their places of work. On July 17, 1917, the following announcement was made: Since the orders pertaining to work, which citizens are required to perform, are not consistently adhered to, and in order to prevent punishments, we reiterate: Those who work in the service of military units are forbidden to leave their place of work or obtain work elsewhere without a permit from the military authorities concerned. Whoever thinks that, due to illness, he is unable to fulfill his work obligations, must report that day, between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m., to the garrison physician at Military Hospital 199, and receive a certificate attesting to the state of his health, to be submitted to the command by 5:00 p.m. Whoever is

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unable to work for some other reason, must report to the market square or headquarters, Department 5, before noon, to give notification of his delay and to apologize. A member of the family may report in his stead if he is unable to appear personally because of illness. Whoever fails to obey these orders is liable to punishment by fine or imprisonment.68

In October 1917, workers in military enterprises were required to work on the Sabbath as well. An order on the subject of Sabbath labor was published on October 6, threatening punishment for failure to report to work. The first Sabbath designated for work was October 13.69 In the budget of the Citizens’ Committee for the month of September 1917,70 we find a sum of 2,200 marks listed as “income” received from those exempted from forced labor and an “expenditure” of 6,000 marks paid to forced laborers. The Citizens’ Committee evidently had the prerogative of exempting people from work, in return for an indemnity, and hiring others in their place. The Committee lost a considerable sum by doing so. The confiscations of stocks of foods, kerosene, and other necessities that took place in the early months of the conquest have already been referred to. As time passed, however, people were frequently ordered to submit utensils, clothing, and possessions of various sorts. The following is a list, by date, of official orders relating to the confiscations as recorded in the Pinsker Zeitung. It is not a complete list. “Whoever has raw hides of slaughtered animals, must report them to the command (25.12.1915). . . . Metal articles must be brought to the building of the Polish Bank (12.3.1916). . . . Whoever has fishing nets and other fishing implements must submit them to the command, by April 2. Their value will be paid in cash by the military administration (30.3.1916). . . . Whoever has a supply of soda must report this by May 4. It must not be sold or used for personal purposes. Whoever reports false information will be fined and expelled from the city, and the merchandise will be confiscated without payment (1.5.1916). . . . Supplies of paper and cardboard, except for envelopes and stationery the size of cards, must not be sold, cut, or transferred. A small quantity may be obtained with a permit from the command. Violators will be punished by a fine of 300 marks and appropriation of stock without payment (13.10.1916).” A second notification was published on the subject of turning in photographic equipment, excluding photographers who were permitted to photograph individu-

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als, in their studios only (13.11.1916). “All supplies of ready-made clothing, outerwear and underwear, of wool and cotton, must be reported by Friday, July 8. Clothing that has not been reported will be confiscated without payment. Clothing may not be sold or utilized for personal needs (9.7.1917). . . . Leather belts for machinery, even segments, must be reported to the command by July 27. . . . All processed leather is hereby garnisheed and all sales are hereby forbidden. Violators will be fined or imprisoned (25.7.1917). . . . Brass door or window handles, weights of brass or other metals, must be brought in by August 2, 1917. The payment will be in cash. Handles not submitted by August 9 will be expropriated without payment (28.8.1917). . . . It is henceforth forbidden to use leather to make or repair shoes (6.8.1917).” The following articles were to be reported: (1) Raw and processed leather; (2) leather processing and tanning materials; (3) chemicals of all sorts; (4) rubber of all sorts; (5) oils and fats of all sorts; (6) oil seeds: flax, sesame, sunflower, cotton, peanut; (7) Carpenters’ glue and furniture polishes; (8) threads of all sorts, ropes, fabrics, cloths, packaging materials, sacks; (9) wool of all types, yarn, pieces of wool fabric, and remnants of wool, old woolen clothing; (10) raw and processed cotton, cotton fabric and remnants of all sorts, cotton thread, absorbent cotton; (11) bristles and animal hair of all sorts; (12) benzine and benzol; (13) iron and steel of all sorts, iron cans, nails, screws and the like; (14) paper of all sorts, including even waste paper (8.10. 1917). “By the 20th of November (1917) a written report must be submitted of stocks of silk, half-silk, fabrics of various kinds, farmers’ felt. As of today, these materials are garnisheed. Without the agreement of the command, they may not be sold, distributed, or utilized for personal needs. Whoever submits incorrect information will be punished. Materials not reported will be expropriated without reimbursement (15.11.1917).” By 1917, however, most of the Jews of Pinsk had none of the requested items to report.

Citizens’ Committee The institution called the Citizens’ Committee was established by Lindemann. Its name was changed as time went on. Lindemann had called it Stadtverwaltung, “civil municipal administration.” Dr. Tenzer,

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the army chaplain, addressed A. Luria and S. Wohl as Burgermeister, “heads of the city.” The name Stadtverwaltung, however, ceases to appear in official documents and in its place, we find Burgerkomitee, “citizens’ committee.” The change of name was not coincidental but was devised when Von Bissing replaced Lindemann. The shift may have reflected an unwillingness to recognize the status and the authority of a municipal administration, as opposed to a committee of citizens whose role and authority would always remain subject to the discretion of the military command. Even during Lindemann’s tenure, the Citizens’ Committee had no voice in the city administration. The German command imposed the monthly taxes and collected and expended them for public necessities. A report written in 1921 by Raskin, a member of the JDC, specifically states that the authority of the municipal committee was limited to executing the orders of the conquerors. For approximately two years, the office of the Citizens’ Committee was actually located in a room at German headquarters. The Citizens’ Committee was probably assigned the task of apportioning the tax levied upon the population, based upon the estimate of the command, and may have had a role in the distribution of funds to various institutions. The Committee functioned primarily as the command’s agent in allocating the burden of forced labor and in organizing the expulsions from the city, a task it delegated to a subcommittee.71 After the expulsions began, the monthly tax was set at 10,000 rubles. On April 17, 1916, the following order was published: A new tax of 10,000 rubles has been levied upon Pinsk for the month of April. The tax will be apportioned according to the ratio of February and March. Every citizen is obligated to submit the tax levied upon him, at the proper time. . . . to the treasury of the command. Whoever is not punctual in his payments will be expelled from the city.

Another notice was published that same day, threatening expulsion for those who had not yet paid their taxes for the months of February and March. On May 10, 1916, a notice was published stating that all those who had not paid taxes for the month of April by May 12th would be liable for a surcharge of 25 percent, and would be expelled from the city in the next transport. The tax was lowered to 6,000 rubles upon the termination of the expulsions. On May 13, 1916, a notice was pub-

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lished regarding a tax of 6,000 rubles, but the announcement continues that the balance of the money needed for administrative costs would be covered by an increase in the prices of food. The notice reiterates that arrears in payment would be punished by a 25 percent fine.72 The Citizens’ Committee gradually assumed the right to impose taxes and draw up a budget. This was the result of express permission, or silent acquiescence, on the part of the German command and may have been related to the distribution of food. Initially the residents were required to pay for their rations, but eventually rations were supplied without charge since for all practical purposes, the residents were prisoners.73 It would have been the ultimate in cruelty to demand forced labor, albeit “voluntary,” and payment for the meager rations as well (in the ghettoes of the Second World War, the Nazis also distributed the rations free of charge). The command presumably allowed the Citizens’ Committee to accept payment in exchange for the rations. The Committee was permitted to levy direct and indirect taxes. With this revenue and other forms of income, it became possible to maintain or aid several public institutions and also to provide a measure of support for the most indigent. The Citizens’ Committee was thus transformed into an institution that both served the German command and bore the burden of sustaining the civilian population with the limited means at its disposal. This assessment is based upon information gleaned from the only budget extant, that of the Citizens’ Committee for September 1917. It was itemized in marks: INCOME Previous balance Sale of commodities Direct taxes Exemptions from labor Court fees Export and import of merchandise Fields Slaughterhouse Dog tax   Total

1,823.16 marks and pfennigs 20,400.00 6,000.00 2,200.00 250.00 50.00 50.00 10.00 20.00 30,803.16 marks and pfennigs

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EXPENDITURES Pinsk Hospital 4,500.00 marks and pfennigs Karlin Hospital 2,000.00 Talmud Torah 850.00 Girls’ School 200.00 Polish School 200.00 Children’s Home 100.00 Pinsk Old Age Home 400.00 Karlin Old Age Home 400.00 Polish Old Age Home 200.00 Pinsk Soup Kitchen and   Karlin Soup Kitchen 2,500.00 Charity and food for the needy 4,000.00 Assistance to evacuees 1,500.00 Employees in forced labor 6,000.00 Employees of the Citizens’ Committee 3,000.00 Employees of the Command   and repairs 2,600.00 Police Department 1,250.00 Fire Department 300.00 Officer housing 300.00 Unforeseen expenses 353.16 Housing for cholera patients 150.00   Total 30,803.16 marks and pfennigs (thirty thousand, eight hundred and three marks and sixteen pfennig)

The item “sale of commodities” must refer to the income from payments for rations. The fact that purchase of commodities is not listed as an expenditure, indicates that the command gave the rations free of charge. The item “direct taxes” is clear. The direct tax was levied upon families who “got along.” (Even under these trying circumstances, there were people who became wealthy through profiteering in wheat.) The item “exemptions from labor” confirms the fact, noted above, that the Citizens’ Committee had the authority to apportion the forced labor dues; the Committee sent out paid workers—there is an expenditure of 6,000 marks listed for the item “workers in forced labor,”—and exempted people from forced labor in exchange for payment. The income

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from “court fees” indicates some form of judicial authority. (The Nazis also allowed judicial autonomy in the ghettoes.) The income from “fields” must have come from the leasing of municipal lands for vegetable gardens. The income of 2,600 marks per month from the Ezra society is not listed here, verifying the memorandum mentioned earlier that says that this assistance had ended. The list of expenditures shows that in spite of their desperate straits, the Jewish community maintained two hospitals. A cholera epidemic had broken out at this time, and a special structure was constructed for the patients. Support was given to three old-age homes, one of them Polish. (The soup kitchens have already been described.) There is no distinction made between the expenditures for the soup kitchen in Pinsk and the one in Karlin, but reference is made to two soup kitchens. The memorandum stating that one of the soup kitchens closed may have been written after September 1917. There is no record of a Polish old-age home prior to the German conquest. Their home may have been established because there were two Jewish old-age homes. The soup kitchens were open to the Poles, without discrimination, and the same was true of the hospitals. The item “assistance to evacuees” indicates that residents were still being expelled from Pinsk as late as September 1917. The expenditure for the Police Department requires an explanation. At this time there were twenty policemen (there were originally 120, but their number was gradually reduced).74 Each policeman received an average of sixtytwo marks per month, at a time when those engaged in forced labor for the Germans received, at most, fifty marks per month. The policemen had ample opportunity to obtain food in addition to the rations, and they also took food forcibly, independent of the queues. The same observation could be made of the expenditure for officials of the German command. Given the special circumstances under which the Citizens’ Committee functioned it could not possibly enjoy complete public acceptance. The members of the Committee were not, however, accused of favoritism, nor of deriving unjust benefits from their positions. They did not wish to domineer over the stricken populace; they appointed various other people in the sub-committees that they formed. The taxation commit-

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tee, for example, was composed of seven members of the Citizens’ Committee and twenty people who were not members of the Committee. The committee that dealt with expulsions also had people on it who were not members of the Committee. What did anger the public was primarily the failure of the Citizens’ Committee to restrain the impudent behavior of the Jewish policemen, who were not generally noted for moral rectitude. Nor did the Committee have the courage to stand up and protect the population from the policy of violence and looting practiced by the German authorities. The weakness shown by the Committee toward the policemen probably stemmed from the fear that the policemen, if fired, were liable to cause even greater damage since they were aware of many matters best not disclosed at German headquarters. The original eight members of the Citizens’ Committee were Dr. Alexander Luria, Chairman; the engineer Z. Morgentaler (a Pole); Dr. Skupiewski (a Pole); K. Zakewicz (a Pole); Feivel Boroshuk; Y. Levin; A. Krainok; V. Victorovich. A short while later, more members were added, and they were S. Wohl, who served as the second chairman; Miller; M. Moravkin; Narisewicz (a Pole); and V. Sztaszycz (a Pole). (Some say that the Zionist maskil Zvi Hirsch Hiller was temporarily a member as well.) Alexander Luria was imprisoned (see above section: “Expulsions”). Upon his release, he received permission to leave Pinsk and in the summer of 1916, he moved to Vienna. S. Wohl was arrested on July 12, 1916, for an unknown reason and dispatched to a concentration camp in Germany. This could have been a consequence of the “girls’ revolt,”—the refusal of the girls to work in the fields of the surrounding villages. Y. Levin was appointed in S. Wohl’s place as the chairman of the committee. Ten members remained on the committee. At first the German authorities did not allow members of the committee to resign, although some of the membership changed from time to time. In October 1917 the Citizens’ Committee tendered its resignation en masse to the German authorities on the grounds that the members could no longer continue in their role because of their own financial problems. The committee was then reduced to seven members, and they were allocated a salary: the chairman of the committee Y. Levin—

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three hundred marks per month; and the other members of the Committee—Boroshuk, Borisewicz, Krainok, Miller, Moravkin, and Dr. Skupiewski—one hundred marks. They were to receive double rations as well. Feinstein’s version differs: in late 1917 the Zionists succeeded in obtaining permission from the command to elect a citizens’ committee, because the Zionists were displeased with the composition and performance of the current committee. Since it was impossible to hold democratic elections, they decided that each synagogue would send two delegates to a convention of electors, whose job it would be to elect the committee. The Bundists, who had no delegates to the convention, showed up and caused an uproar. A new Citizens’ Committee was elected, with the participation of the Bund. Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch was chosen as the chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, renamed as the Municipal Committee. Feinstein adds: The head of the previous committee was an aggressive man, whose arrogance matched his wealth, and was exceeded only by his stupidity. He refused to give up his seat, and with no consideration for public opinion wheedled the Commandant into nullifying the new committee. He remained the official leader of the community and its spokesman.75

Feinstein’s version is clearly accurate, but so is the fact that the members of the committee were allocated a salary and double food rations. Relations between the populace and the Citizens’ Committee were exacerbated. The Zionists’ attitude toward the committee was disparaging, and Zvi Hirsch Hiller, one of the most distinguished Zion­ists of the city, resigned his position on the committee. Feinstein sizes up the members of the Citizens’ Committee as “slavish functionaries who knew only how to bow their heads and bend their knees.” Feinstein judged them by his own standard, for he was soon to show himself to be a devoted public figure. One ought not assess the Citizens’ Committee harshly, for under the prevailing circumstances, it was impossible to do very much. As a result of the committee’s intercessions, many people were released from the “cellar,” and more than once the committee was able to obtain permits to purchase food and

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distributed it to the populace to supplement the starvation rations allocated by the command. The student of the German method of rule in Pinsk cannot help comparing it to Nazi rule, later on, in the ghettoes, in spite of the vast difference in intentions. Pinsk was fenced in, just as the ghettoes were. The lot of the citizens of Pinsk (not only Jews) was forced labor and starvation rations, like that of ghetto residents during the Holocaust. The families allowed to remain in the ghettoes until the end were those that could provide “working hands.” There were expulsions from Pinsk also. As for internal institutions—in both instances “autonomy” was granted. Both had their own police force and independent legal jurisdiction in specific matters. With regard to the quality of life, again the situations were analogous. A. Weiner (Yisraeli) writes: Our existence was paralyzed and dominated by the search for bread. Demoralization ate up all of us, young and old together. It was a mass phenomenon that excluded virtually no one. A community of thousands was confronted by conditions of famine and deterioration.76

There may be an element of exaggeration in Weiner’s description, for if the situation was so dire, it would have been impossible to maintain the institutions of education and social welfare that existed in the city. It is worth noting that there were ghettoes under the Nazis where the police force did maintain a very high moral standard, for example, in the Kovno ghetto. In contrast, Feivel Boroshuk, the last chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, writes that some of the policemen in Pinsk during the first war’s occupation had criminal backgrounds; they did as they pleased, took bribes, and ransacked the apartments of the evacuees, removing even the doors and windows.77 In his memoirs, S. N. Gitelman recalls the image of a policeman barging into a butcher shop, with a long line of women stretching past the entrance, and ordering the butcher to weigh out a nice hunk of meat for him.78 The policemen’s job was primarily to distribute the announcements of the command about work and expulsions from the city; they may have had a role in assigning the labor. They were also responsible for keeping order in the long ration queues. People complained that the policemen were not above taking bribes and beating up those waiting in line at the distribution points.

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Organizations and Political Parties Upon the outbreak of hostilities, and especially after Turkey entered the war, regular Zionist activity in Russia, illegal in any case, was brought to a halt. This happened in Pinsk as well. Activities on behalf of the JNF and other such efforts ceased. Precisely because of the war, however, the “Land of Israel” consciousness in the city was heightened. Students of Gymnasia Herzlia and the Agricultural School in Petah Tikva, who had come home for the summer vacation, and were unable to return to Palestine brought with them something of the “fruits of the land,” along with the Hebrew language in its modernist, Sephardicstyle pronunciation. The Zionist young people—particularly those of Zeirei Zion and Benei Ha-Tehiyah [junior members of the Ha-Tehiyah movement] were deeply impressed by the students from the Land of Israel. At the same time, the horrors of war, viscerally witnessed by the members of the youth groups as they cared for the hundreds and thousands of wounded whom they transported from the railway station to the hospitals, had their impact as well. The crying of the draftees’ mothers, wives, and sisters reinforced their feeling that Jewish blood was being spilled to no purpose. The younger generation considered the patriotism dispensed by the Russian Jewish press artificial and was not impressed by the prospect that the Tsarist government would grant the Jews equal rights in return for patriotism. The realization that they must tie their personal fate to the Land of Israel increasingly took hold of younger Zionists who continued, as much as possible, to study Hebrew literature and problems of world and Jewish history. The members of Zeirei Zion continued with the illegal dissemination of the Hebrew language and literature by instructing small groups of youngsters. The forced labor and hunger of the period of the German occupation inured these “intellectual” youngsters to a life of toil and drudgery. The attitude toward manual labor changed completely, for here were former Gymnasium students volunteering to work in the fields and forests. The mentality of the “bourgeois” youth was thus radically changed. All this served as preparation for life in the Land of Israel, in the practical as well as the psychological sense. When householders began to utilize every available patch of land for planting vegetables,

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these youngsters worked in the gardens, with the intention of grooming themselves for life in Palestine. Feinstein remarks in passing: After the Passover holiday in 1916, I dug up my large yard and planted a variety of vegetables. The digging was done by a group of Zionist youngsters who dreamed of aliyah and wished to train their hands to work in the earth.79

During the German occupation, political activity came to life even though the conduct of party business was illegal. The parties began to engage in strengthening their ranks and converting others to their ideologies. There was really no scope for tangible activity. All activity in the trade unions, over which the Bund, Poalei Zion, and S.S. vied, was brought to a halt by the circumstances. Debates and lectures were reinstituted. The Poalei Zion party held a convention in Pinsk in the summer of 1915 (see below). At this convention it was decided, among other things, that members would participate in the committees assisting refugees and help them in their mission.80 The very existence of deliberations on this matter points to the severity of party divisiveness, which nearly caused the feeling of common Jewish destiny to dissipate. In 1916 Poalei Zion, in conjunction with the S.S., opened a soup kitchen that distributed free meals of soup for workers. They received support from the Citizens’ Committee and from the Poalei Zion central committee in The Hague,81 presumably funded by the Pinsker Assistance Committee, which was organized by the Pinsk branch of Arbeter Ring [Workmen’s Circle, founded 1900, in the United States, a socialist Jewish fraternal organization].82 As early as 1916, and perhaps even prior to that, they had begun to collect and forward monies to support the needy in their hometown. (Our source of information hints that the money did not reach the intended recipients. Their intention was obviously to support the Bund in Pinsk.) In 1917 Poalei Zion opened reading rooms and even began to set up a library.83 The S.S. party held a convention in Pinsk in the summer of 1915 and also cooperated with the Poalei Zion.84 After the union of the S.S. and the Sejmists [Jewish Socialist Workers’ Party, founded in 1906 and based upon a synthesis of nationalist and socialist ideas] in Russia in

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1917, the S.S. ceased to exist in Pinsk as well. The new united party, Der Fareynigte (The United Jewish Socialist Workers Party) was apparently active in the city for some time [formed in June 1917, stressing the unity of the Jewish working class as an organic part of both the ex-territorial Jewish nation and the international proletariat]. Borukh Zuckerman mentions it in an account of his visit to Pinsk in April 1919.85 Besides this reference there is no information about it. Some of the members of Der Fareynigte joined the political parties of the left, and some moved to the Soviet Union when the way opened up.86 The Bund gained some strength. Feinstein mentions the Bundists as causing the commotion at the election meeting for the Municipal Committee.87 Together with the Poalei Zion they opened up a Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim (Children’s Home), a Yiddishist school. The General Zionists [Zionists who did not join any faction or draw up a program of their own within the Zion­ ist Congress] and the Mizrahi [founded 1902 as a religious faction in the World Zionist Organization] were apparently dormant during the first two years of the German occupation. General Zionist activity was probably centered on working with the Girls’ School (Leah Feigele’s school), which had been converted into a school in which all subjects were taught in Hebrew. There must have been Zionists who participated in the various subcommittees of the Citizens’ Committee. But, as noted, it was the Zionists who rebelled against the Citizens’ Committee and obtained permission to select a new Citizens’ Committee. Although its numbers never exceeded a few score, the Zeirei Zion movement dominated the cultural life of the city. Despite the forced labor and the hunger, many of these young people studied and interested themselves in Hebrew literature. They were imbued with love of the language and were engaged in its dissemination, many of them as educational and cultural activists. As early as 1916 they organized night classes in Hebrew, lectures, and soirées and put out a newspaper using a hectograph copy machine. Responsibility for the Girls’ School was handed over to them, and they established a Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim which also served as a school. Reports of the February Revolution and the October Revolution undoubtedly strengthened the Bundists’ confidence in the legitimacy of their course and the truth of their ideology, increasing their chances

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of success among the Jewish population. The news of the Balfour Declaration, which arrived simultaneously with news of the October Revolution, served as a counterweight. The revolutions served to radicalize young people. The Pinsk Zeirei Zion was initially a group of Zionist teenagers who saw their primary role as spreading knowledge of the Hebrew language and literature, collecting money for the JNF and similar organizations, and acting on behalf of Hebrew education. They now coalesced as a party with a Zionist-socialist program. Dr. Pinhas Rosen(a former Israeli Minister of Justice) tells the following anecdote about their zeal for the Hebrew language. As a German officer on the Eastern Front, Rosen came to Pinsk on a number of occasions. For one of the holidays, apparently in 1917, he brought a group of soldiers to the city. Since he was acquainted with Yosef Bregman, he turned to the Zeirei Zion to arrange a party for the soldiers. Rosen, a Zionist, wished to introduce the soldiers, who were alienated from Jewish nationalism and Zionism, to the Zionist youth of the city. The question of the agenda for the evening arose. The Zeirei Zion stubbornly insisted that the entire program be conducted in Hebrew. Rosen’s claim that the soldiers would not understand a thing, influenced them only to the extent that they allotted ten percent of the program to recitations and singing in Yiddish. The party went off very successfully. The German-Jewish soldiers received a lesson in Jewish nationalism. Rosen spoke of the unity of the Jewish nation, a subject that was new to these men. Rosen himself caused astonishment in the bookshop when he picked up a Hebrew book and held it properly. [Hebrew is read right to left, and the first page of a book in Hebrew is located where the last page of a book in English or German would be located.] Zeirei Zion started to blaze its own trail. In addition to the issues raised in the essays of Ahad Ha’am and the questions of autonomy and languages, they anticipated other problems: how to realize socialism and how to build a socialist way of life in the Land of Israel. In 1918, a committee of Zeirei Zion, among whose members was Dr. Elazar Bregman, drew up a program, which was to serve as the platform for the establishment of the Popular Zionist Socialist Party.88 The program was a mix of materialism with belief in development and progress. It affirmed that “a life of free labor devoid of exploitation” was the prerequisite “for

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complete and comprehensive development of the creative powers of the individual and society in the physical, spiritual and ethical sense.” The authors of the program did not specifically outline the path to “a life of free labor devoid of exploitation.” They did state that “total independence for all nations, in their natural surroundings” was the condition for “free and comprehensive development of the nations.” The writers were clearly familiar with the desire for independence on the part of Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. They adopted Ber Borochov’s [1881-1917, Marxist Zionist leader of Poalei Zion,] explanation “of the abnormal national and socio-economic existence” of the “Hebrew nation,” to wit, “estrangement from nature and primary production.” This was also the reason for the bleak situation of the Jewish “working classes,” which, in any case, were “oppressed both directly and indirectly.” Those who drew up the program saw the party that they were about to establish as “Popular Zionist Socialism,” a term drawn from Nachman Syrkin [1867–1924, Zionist-Socialist leader and theoretician]. The Popular Zionist Socialist program differed from the ideology of the Borochovist Poalei Zion, which held that Zionism would become a reality as a result of a stychic (i.e., natural, organic) process, which would bring the various dispossessed classes of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. The platform resolved: that “Popular Zionist Socialism sets as its goal to introduce normalization into the body of the Jewish people, in its social, economic, and national-cultural conceptions.” The strategy was twofold: first, “freeing the enslaved laborer” and then, “returning the Jewish people to a life of creativity in its historic homeland.” Syrkin’s influence is apparent. The architects of the platform obviously felt that Zionism and autonomism were complementary. They did not believe that Palestine was the sole solution to the Jewish question and adopted the principle of autonomism, declaring: “Popular Zion­ist Socialism strives to organize the various sectors of the people on the basis of national and individual autonomy and to unite them in one universal Jewish federation.” In this fashion they would be able to reestablish their defensive powers and rejuvenate national creativity. Unlike Syrkin, who saw the Jewish “masses” as the “bearers of Zionism,” the authors of the program saw the “Jewish laboring classes, who exist by virtue of their own labor and do not exploit their fellow man” as the

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bearers of “Popular Zionist Socialism.” In contrast to the Bund, S.S., and the Poalei Zion, they stated that the “Jewish laboring classes do not wage political battle with the universal bourgeoisie or economic battle with their direct oppressors.” This path alone, however, would not lead to the “realization of social justice.” At one and the same time, one must take action to “enhance the productivity of society by way of economic cooperation in various areas,” which would form “the economic basis for a socialist regime” and also serve as an “educational medium for the laborers.” The Land of Israel must be built “by settlement methods that lead to nationalization of the land and its resources, to socialization of public enterprises and monopolies, and establishment of the principle of cooperation in the production process,” with the goal of “transferring all property and productive resources in the national-territorial center to the public domain.” Settlement must be carried out “primarily with the help of national capital and other resources,” and “by means of those segments of the Hebrew people who are workers and becoming workers, led by the active-pioneering elements.” As to the language question, the platform contains a compromise. On the one hand it states, “We aspire to establish the Hebrew language in Jewish life,” while on the other, it speaks of “the continuation of our cultural-spiritual creativity in Yiddish, which has absorbed our popular culture.” As to the place of this party in the World Zionist Organization, the platform states that the party, designated also as the Labor movement, should be, in organizational terms, “an independent federated part of the World Zionist Organization,” the implication being that Zeirei Zion should sever its close connection to the General Zionists and stand as an independent party. This last idea was not new. As early as 1913, at the eleventh Zionist congress, the Zeirei Zion of Russia had selected its own delegates. On Sukkot 1918 when the founding convention of Zeirei Zion took place in Poland, differences of opinion concerning the political-social direction of the party became apparent, and a socialist faction began to take form within the Zeirei Zion. The platform of Zeirei Zion of Pinsk was formulated independently, and by 1918 its socialist tendency had already become obvious. Ideas were taking shape, which eventually caused the Zeirei Zion of Pinsk to join the Eastern Farband of Zeirei Zion [founded 1919; led by Yisrael Marminsy;

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moderate Zionist, socialist, non-Marxist international organization]. The compromise about language was also a step in the direction of a concession to Yiddish, something which irked some of the Zeirei Zion members who immigrated to Israel during the Third Aliyah [1919–1923, a period of immigration given impetus by the Balfour Declaration and consisting primarily of youthful pioneers]. The difference in perspectives is expressed in the letters written from Palestine by David Barzilai, who clashed with Herschel Pinsky and others on this topic. In the period of the First World War, Zionism emerged in its diverse forms and gained the upper hand—in the struggle for the allegiance of the coming generation—over the proponents of other solutions. During those years the primary expression of Zionism could only be the education of the younger generation, and it was then that Zionist education shed its clandestine character. The Girls’ School, already under Zionist influence before the war and supervised by Yosef Bregman, now freed itself from instruction in the Russian language and shifted to Hebrew as the language of instruction in all subjects. It was one of the first schools to do so. Only now perhaps was it possible to fulfill one of the demands made by Yosef Witkin at the founding meeting of the “Hebrew Teachers’ Federation,” on Hanukkah in 1907, that every Hebrew School be provided with a map of the Land of Israel. S. N. Gitelman, who was among the founders of the Federation, or Yosef Bregman, undoubtedly saw to it that such a map was made available to the Girls’ School. Now it could be permanently displayed.89

Economic Life How did the Jews of Pinsk survive the three years of German occupation? The factories were not operating, and most workshops were idle for lack of raw materials and demand for products other than foodstuffs. The question pertains especially to that part of the population that remained in the city following the “evacuations,” since the burden fell upon them for three or more consecutive years. Many did not survive. The German-Jewish soldier probably did not exaggerate at the end of the summer of 1917 in his memorandum about twelve deaths per

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day in Pinsk, out of a Jewish population of nine thousand. The annual mortality rate was approximately three thousand people, or one-third of the population, as opposed to the normal mortality, which was approximately five hundred people annually out of a population of more than twenty thousand. Nor did this writer exaggerate about only two thousand people (approximately 450 families) who were able to fend for themselves. Yet how could these few hundred families endure, or the remaining seven thousand people, in need of assistance, make a living? With the first reverses of the Russian army in the spring of 1915, Jews began to accumulate ready cash. Many made sure that at least part of the money was in the form of gold coins. Gold coins were donated to the evacuees, and the command at one point dispensed travel permits to the villages in order to bring back food, in return for gold coins. The German authorities did not invalidate the Russian currency or remove it from circulation. Dr. Tenzer’s report says that the wealthy remained in the city. Although his statement is only partially correct, and the number of rich people remaining in the city was small, the well-to-do class was noticeable. They were able to supply enough work to provide a livelihood for shoemakers, tailors, and their children’s teachers. The German soldiers in the city also constituted an important economic factor in that difficult period. Coffee shops and restaurants multiplied, with the German soldiers serving as the clientele. Some people distilled the vodka, which the retreating Russians had spilled into cisterns, and this alcohol became a saleable commodity. Shop owners were able to salvage something from the merchandise confiscated by the Germans, primarily sewing supplies for which the Germans had no use. In exchange for this merchandise, they were able to obtain food from the neighboring farmers. Although the farmers in the vicinity were also subject to forced labor, their standard of living rose during the years of the German occupation because they abstained from heavy drinking. For a pud of grain or a sack of potatoes or a pound of butter, they now received several times the former price, to say nothing of what they received for a calf sold on the sly. The paralysis of normal economic life led to a search for new liveli­ hoods, even those involving great danger. In the summer of 1916, commerce developed with friendly soldiers who were also interested

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in earning money acting as intermediaries. The soldiers would travel to Warsaw and return with their rucksacks full of merchandise, medications, and various sewing supplies.90 The last were intended for the wives and daughters of the farmers. The Jews of Pinsk, who had been agents expert at trading lumber and wheat, now became agents of a different sort. Whoever had this sort of contact with a soldier but had no money, or didn’t want to jeopardize his money, would make a deal with some “entrepreneur” and make the merchandise available to him for a profit of at least 100 percent. Extensive trade developed in commodities, which the soldiers took from army supply crates. But these dealings were extremely dangerous. The amount of money, which was present in the city upon the German conquest, could be said to have remained undiminished, except for the cash that the evacuees took with them, the donations they received when they left, and the money paid to farmers of the vicinity for foodstuffs. Even this deficit was partially covered by the marks spent by the German soldiers in the city and the salary for forced labor, meager though it was. But the money was now concentrated in the hands of profiteers with initiative, and its buying power was at most 5 percent of its value prior to the German invasion.

Education and Culture Despite hunger and cold, forced labor, and the alarming thunder of cannons from the front, which was just a few kilometers from the city, educational and cultural life in Pinsk were not suspended. This was so even though shells often exploded in Pinsk, killing or wounding men, women, and children. Within a few days of the German invasion, the hadarim and the schools reopened. Major Lindemann lists the opening of the schools among the matters that he had to take care of. A portion of the 18,000-ruble tax levied by Commander Von Bissing was allocated for the schools. Dr. Tenzer, the army chaplain who was in Pinsk in November 1915, reports that “Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s younger daughter, who was a stenographer for the second Duma, was now the principal of the Girls’ Gymnasium in Pinsk.” This gymnasium was established

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after Sukkot 1915, at the initiative of the teachers Fania Zeitlin and Fania Epstein, with the approval of Rabbi Borukh Epstein, and existed during the entire period of the German occupation. The gymnasium eventually included eight grades, and the number of students rose to three hundred. It filled an educational gap in the city: there was no instruction for girls that followed the program of the Russian high school. Until the second conquest by the Poles, the language of instruction was Russian. Afterward the administration changed (under Chechick), and the language of instruction was Polish. (Incidentally, Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s second daughter, Cecilia Bukshtansky [Bakst] had graduated from the Institute of Commercial Sciences in Kiev before the war, with the degree of Engineer of Commercial Science. Before the war she was manager of a bank in Samara,91 and in 1928 she published the third edition of her father’s famous work, Torah Temimah, in the United States.) Dr. Tenzer continues in his essay: I would like to briefly mention a phenomenon unique to Pinsk, which is deserving of praise. At the request of the community leaders [apparently the Citizens’ Committee], I paid a short visit to one of the many schools, the Girls’ School. The six classes—each with 40 to 60 students—were clean and neat and the study was well-ordered. But most impressive of all was the fact that all the studies were conducted fluently and flawlessly, in spoken Hebrew. There were no hesitancies of expression. The teaching staff and the students had such a fine command of the language, it seemed to be their mother tongue. I can still see the wide-eyed, surprised expression of the girls—in the fifth grade—when I spoke my admiration in a few Hebrew sentences. A Hebrew-speaking German officer was an unbelievable sight. Their cries of “thank you” escorted me as I left.92

Dr. Tenzer visited the Girls’ School (known as Leah Feigele’s School), which had been founded, as already noted, in 1908 by the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association of Pinsk. During the period of the First World War, this was the most stable of the schools, and it was the crown jewel of the city’s educational facilities. It was shown to all the VIPs. Professor Hermann Struck, who was in Pinsk in the winter of 1917, was also brought there to visit. It was one of the few educational institutions to receive support from the Citizens’ Committee; the committee’s

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budget of September 1917 lists an expenditure of two hundred marks. Responsibility for this institution was given to the members of Zeirei Zion in cooperation with the General Zionists. The school had previously been sponsored and supervised by the General Zionists alone, but now, due to straitened financial circumstances, they could no longer bear the entire burden. Russian was eliminated and Hebrew installed as the language of instruction in all subjects; this school was one of the first in Russia and Poland to do so. A. Weiner (Yisraeli), Melzer, Vilenchik, Abraham Meyerowich, Miriam German, Bakalchuk, and others were among its teachers. Zeirei Zion attempted to establish a school for boys as well. Dr. Elazar Bregman writes: At that time we assembled the boys and set up a second school for them. It was during the cold of winter, and the building was an unplastered wooden structure. The poverty and hunger in the city were unbearable—and there was no money. The teachers became hewers of wood and carriers of water for the school. During recess the teacher used to chop the wood and stoke the stove.

This school, however, did not last.93 Another was established by the General Zionists in 1916, at the initiative of a veterinarian who was the representative of the Hilfsverein (Ezra) in the city, and who helped support the school, as did the army officer Gutman. This Beit Mahse for Children did survive. The Beit Mahse for Children was essentially an educational institution for war orphans, where the children spent their days, studied, and ate. Shortly afterward the Zeirei Zion was put in charge, and they provided the teachers. Originally the language of instruction had been Yiddish but after a brief period, it was changed to Hebrew.94 An article about Pinsk from early 1917 announces: A children’s home for the children of workers cares for ninety children, ages five to twelve. They are taught reading and writing in Yiddish, arithmetic, nature study and Jewish history. The children’s home is lodged in six rooms, and receives 150 marks in support from the local assistance committee. Studies suffer for lack of textbooks, which cannot be obtained at the moment.95

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This article refers to the institution established by the Bund in the summer of 1916. That summer the institution, called The Children’s Home, was situated under the open skies, in the yard and garden of the Holtzman Theater. Toward winter it moved to a building on Zabalna Street. Moshe’le Gleiberman was particularly devoted to this institution. It closed at the end of the summer of 1917 but was reopened in the spring of 1918. This was the beginning of a school that was among the first Yiddishist institutions in Russia and Poland, which later was called Moshe’le Gleiberman’s School. The children here also received a light meal. The first workers in the school, besides Moshe’le Gleiberman, were Elka ­Kaplan, Lula Halprin and his wife, Benjamin the shoemaker, Birman, and others. Briskman (Elya?), a member of Poalei Zion, opened, or continued to support, a school conducted in Russian, and people wondered at the fact that a member of Poalei Zion maintained it.96 The Talmud Torah in Pinsk was not open, probably for lack of funds to maintain it; the Talmud Torah of Karlin had to struggle hard to survive. The Germans took over its premises, and the school was forced to wander from place to place. The Citizens’ Committee budget of September 1917 lists an expenditure of 850 marks for the Talmud Torah. A few of the hadarim managed to survive, among them some hadarim metukanim. The teacher Y. Orlansky published a notice in March 1916, announcing the opening of registration for new students. Registration took place in the school, which was located in the home of Shelomoh Gamzu. The teachers Abramowitz, Goldstein, and Feigelman published a notice in April 1916, announcing the opening of a beginners’ class for girls aged six to eight at 20 Kupechesky Street. Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s daughter Fania, the principal of the Girls’ Gymnasium and its other founders, Fania Zeitlin and S. Chechik, published a notice in April 1916, announcing the opening of summer classes for young children and preparatory classes to include four grades of the Girls’ Gymnasium. There was another Gymnasium for girls at the time, which was established by Luba Bruk-Friedson and Ya’acov Berlin. In October 1916 a notice was published in their name, stating: “Under the auspices of the Pinsk Gymnasium, a third class for girls will be opened; monthly tuition to be 2 rubles.” By April 1916 Dr. Fanny Greenberg had publicized an account of a benefit held for needy students studying in the Pinsk Gymna-

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sium. It seems that there was only one Pinsk Gymnasium. Lipman did open a coeducational gymnasium, but it did not remain in existence for long. Lipman also began evening classes for adults. Students of Gymnasia Herzlia [established in Jaffa in 1906, first Hebrew secondary school in Palestine], who returned to Pinsk, announced that they were starting classes for students who had graduated from elementary school.97 The most active workers in the realm of adult education were Zeirei Zion. They mobilized under the guise of “evening classes in Hebrew language.” The German authorities issued a permit for this in the names of Yosef Bregman and Zvi Hiller. Forty-six members of Zeirei Zion appear in a photograph from 1916. They organized evening classes in Hebrew language and literature and in Jewish history for large groups of students; dozens of young men and women to a class. The fortysix members inscribed a souvenir album “For Ze’ev Lerman, upon his departure from Pinsk, from his Zeirei Zion friends, 6th of Nisan, 5676 (April 9, 1916).”98 In these evening classes, or under the guise of classes, where the numbers of students sometimes reached five hundred, a wide range of Zionist education was undertaken. The teachers were: ­Avraham Asher Feinstein; M. Gleiberman; Melzer, who was a teacher in the Girls’ School; Ze’ev Bakalchuk (Ben Yishai); Gershon Gleiberman; Ze’ev Lerman; Moshe Eisenstadt; and others.99 On July 21 Zeirei Zion published a small pamphlet, “In commemoration of the twelfth anniversary of the death of the great leader Dr. Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl,” which contained a fable by Yehoshua Barzilai in Hebrew and in Yiddish translation; Herzl’s picture was printed on the first page of the pamphlet.100 Interest in learning at this time was as strong as ever, perhaps even greater. Course upon course was started for the study of language and other subjects. . . . Large numbers of “erudite” teachers were to be found in a single course, and tens of young people, workers as well as students, filled the big building that had formerly housed the Waller Gymnasium. . . . Particular attention was given to lectures on literature. . . . The teacher for literature was M. H. Resnick.101 People walked about like shadows, enfeebled by hunger and swollen by famine, enslaved by forced labor . . . but, on the other hand, this period was a period of study and learning . . . and development of ideologies for the future.102

In the Period of the First World War

A photograph from 1917 shows a group of young women with a teacher in the center; the inscription reads “Evening classes—level three—for Hebrew language.” The achievements were significant. In letters sent to Ze’ev Lerman in 1917, Asher Chertok and Yisrael (Lola) Bregman, inform him: “Our heart bursts with joy, students in courses at level one already chat in Hebrew, an audience of more than two hundred fifty people attends the lectures in Hebrew . . . crowds attend the Sabbath lectures on the history of our people.” Another photograph, dated June 12, 1916, is of a group surrounding a picture of Sholem Aleichem. The inscription reads, “The Hebrew National Group, on the anniversary of thirty days after his death.” Zeirei Zion participated in the founding of the Beit Ha’am (Community Center), the only public building to be heated. Logs for heating were carried back on the shoulders of young people who did their forced labor in the forests. In the Beit Ha’am one could find Jewish and German newspapers, brought in by German soldiers and railroad workers. The building also contained a rudimentary library.103 Poalei Zion also developed extensive cultural activities. At the initiative of the party members Gershenson, Shaike Lyov, and Hana Rubenstein, a public reading center was founded—it had a number of rooms and was lit by electricity. They, too, began to establish a library, which was later named for Hantcha Burstein, a cultured and inspiring woman who died in the prime of life. The Poalei Zion organized evening classes,104 probably in Yiddish, as well as lectures in Yiddish for the general public. The phenomenon of children’s organizations continued even during the privations of hunger. In 1916, inspired by the activities of Zeirei Zion, a group of boys, aged ten and eleven, founded a youth group called Pirhei Zion (not to be confused with an earlier Pirhei Zion Zionist youth organization of 1912). Among the members were Borukh Eisenstadt (later Borukh Aznia), the son of Kaminsky, director of the Jewish hospital; and the son of the teacher David Moshkovsky. Members of the club were students in the hadarim metukanim and students in Briskman’s school, whose studies were augmented by Hebrew lessons. Their primary goal was to speak Hebrew and spend time together. This group organized a performance in Kaminsky’s garden

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on Shavuot in 1916 [Jewish spring harvest festival of Pentecost]. The program, which was entirely in Hebrew, included songs and recitations. It attracted a large audience,105 as cultural events usually did in those days, since people wished to forget the gnawing hunger and the troubles at home. Parties, plays, and concerts were held for charitable purposes, as well as to provide income for the performers. Because of the nighttime curfews, performances took place in the afternoon—the Germans may have initiated this. The first concert, it seems, was given by musicians of the German army on Tuesday, March 13, 1916, for civilians (or, for soldiers and civilians) in the Casino hall at 4:00 p.m., and for soldiers in the Holtzman Theater at 8:00 p.m. On March 18, 1916, at the benefit held for needy students of the Pinsk Gymnasium, the gross receipts were 1,107.80 marks. This figure reflects the large number of ticket purchasers. No tickets cost more than one mark, and many tickets were sold at much lower prices. The net profit was 589.28 marks. On May 1, 1916, a musical-drama benefit was held under the auspices of The Society for Support to Needy Patients. On October 13, 1916 (a Friday, the second day of Sukkot), the concert included the soloist Chertok who performed Kol Nidre [the annulment of vows, chanted at the onset of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)] as one of his selections. A concert took place in the Casino garden on October 10, 1917, and on December 2, a benefit for the workers in the Ohovo forest, who put on the performance themselves presenting comic skits. Afterward there was Russian folk dancing; music was played between the acts, with a refreshment stand and a raffle.106 Tuvia Levin, known by his pseudonym Tal, was a teacher who lived in Pinsk at this time. He was the son of Shmuel Avigdor Levin, who had been a delegate to the sixth Zionist Congress. Before the First World War, his father had sent him to study at Gymnasia Herzlia in Tel Aviv. While he was home for a visit, war broke out, and he remained in Pinsk. During the frenzied days of the German conquest, he sat and translated Leo Tolstoy’s book The Kreutzer Sonata into Hebrew, which he published in Pinsk in 1916. Such an accomplishment, in these conditions, is remarkable and characteristic of the man.107

In the Period of the First World War

Support for the Needy Under Russian rule, assistance to the needy was primarily a voluntary effort, although certain welfare institutions were subsidized out of the meat tax. Various charitable institutions were formed spontaneously. Now, a significant change took place. The German command included charity for the poor among the expenditures financed by the taxes levied on the population. From 18,000 rubles levied on the city at the end of 1915, the command spent 3,000 rubles on charity for the poor or 16 ⅔ percent of the budget. The budget of the Citizens’ Committee for September 1917 is similar. From a total budget of 30,800 marks, 5,500 marks were earmarked for charity, in other words 17.8 percent. In absolute terms, however, the amounts were very small, and it was impossible to meet the minimal needs of the indigent. At the same time, the direct tax totaling 6,000 marks imposed that month was surely a tremendous burden for some families. The Citizens’ Committee, as previously mentioned, maintained two soup kitchens and two hospitals. Poalei Zion also opened a soup kitchen for workers. These soup kitchens were able to provide little more than a diluted barley soup. In addition to other charitable projects mentioned in previous sections, there were women who continued the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association aid to starving families. Despite the hardships of the Jews in Pinsk during the First World War, the period was characterized by stability of the ruling authority. True that anarchy reigned with respect to property and existence was made unbearably difficult, but human life was not forfeit. There was still a measure of regard for the dignity of the human being. With the conclusion of the war, came chaotic times when life was devalued. The city was captured alternately from the east and west, and Jews were always prey to the conqueror’s voracity. The lawlessness typical of interregna made its appearance.108

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With the distancing of the front from Pinsk late in the summer of 1917, the material and social aspects of life improved, but political pandemonium ensued. The city passed from hand to hand, from one regime to another. Seven changes of regime took place during the two-year period 1918–20. Rule of the German-Ukrainian Condominium, following the peace treaty at Brest: February 9, 1918–December 15, 1918 Ukrainian Rule: December 15, 1918–February 1, 1919 First Bolshevik Occupation: February 1, 1919–March 5, 1919 First Polish Regime: March 5, 1919–July 26, 1920 Murder of the “thirty-five”: April 5, 1919 Second Bolshevik Occupation: July 26, 1920–September 26, 1920 Invasion and rioting by Balakhovich’s “White” (anti-Bolshevik) forces: September 26, 1920–September 29, 1920 Second Polish Regime: September 29, 1920

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Political turmoil repeatedly upset the security of life. The murder of the thirty-five (noted above) left an enduring impression. The Balakho­ vich pogrom followed, its like unknown in Pinsk since the pogroms of 1648 (see Nadav). The Russian revolution, on the one hand, and the Balfour Declaration [the November 2, 1917 declaration that the British government “view[s] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”], on the other, inspired young Jews to think of new worlds. Some had great hopes of altering the course of Jewish history and worked toward the realization of the Zionist ideal of the nation’s renaissance in its homeland. Others turned to events in

Interregnum

Russia and heard the footsteps of redemption approaching. There were still others whose thoughts of national redemption and the liberation of man were one. Public excitement was great, and more tangible in Pinsk than in many other Polish cities, because of the suffering the city had undergone during and following the German conquest. The difficult circumstances that had led to depression, also led to redoubled efforts to escape the quagmire. These attempts met with some measure of success thanks to assistance, which arrived from America in the form of individual support to relatives in the city and general aid tendered by Jewish relief organizations. The process of rehabilitation of the economy, however, was frequently interrupted by the political upheavals that followed one another with lightning speed. Because former residents of Pinsk, who had been expelled by the Germans or left of their own accord, kept streaming back into the city for the next two years, totally destitute, the conditions of poverty and penury were aggravated. If the first returnees were able to find ruined buildings, suitable after some repairs for shelter, those who came later were forced to live for long periods of time in the synagogues and study houses and other communal buildings, even though not all the Jews who had left Pinsk returned. (The city’s population was significantly diminished.) Despite the difficult times, a spirit of public awareness and a willingness to ameliorate the situation were apparent, augmented by the material support from America.

The German-Ukrainian Condominium and Ukrainian Rule, following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, until February 1, 1919 Nissel Forman, who came back from exile in August 1918 among the earliest returnees, describes what he witnessed on the way back to Pinsk and during the first days after his arrival in the city: We approached Janowa and stopped near some long wooden huts. The people inside . . . told us that they were on their way back from Szydlice, and had been here for several days. . . . Suddenly a workers’ train, carrying teenage boys and girls, arrived from Pinsk. We knew many of them. Most were dressed in clothes made from tent cloth. . . .

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They told us that life in Pinsk was very hard. . . . The train moved on to the city. In the surrounding forests we saw only the trunks of cut down trees. . . . In the Aye forest a few lonely trees remained. . . . [Our]train came to a halt alongside the ruined station. . . . We walked into the city. . . . The houses were empty and lacked doors and windows. . . . Here and there we saw signs on the fences: “vegetable garden of. . . .” The number of signs grew as we approached the center of the city, for every patch of land had been used for growing vegetables. . . . On the way we met teenagers hurrying to the workers’ train . . . and old men walking to the synagogue. They told us that we would have no trouble finding apartments, for there were many empty houses. We also discovered that the sole employer was the military command. . . . It was August . . . in the fields and gardens there was frenzied activity, as everyone gathered the potatoes and vegetables. . . . Everywhere people were drying the after growth that cropped up by itself (samosiejka), threshing by hand. . . . They pounded the seeds with mortar and pestle or ground them with a hand-mill. After the years of starvation, when the population had subsisted on nettles and mallow, the black bread was like food for kings. . . . We were notified to appear at the command the following morning . . . for each morning all healthy men went out to work. They had to work. Many bought horses and wagons and fulfilled their work obligation by bringing trees from the forest.

Forman looked for work with private employers and found a job gathering potatoes from the fields. For a day’s labor he earned three rubles, “and a good employer provided a few potatoes for supper, as well,” which were cooked “over a fire made of sticks of furniture and wallpaper.” Business life began to revive at this time, and he describes the activity near the railway station: Adjacent to the Ukrainian railway station was a veritable fairground. . . . This was the hub of trade in goods brought by the Germans from Ukraine. Here was a motley crew of profiteers and smugglers whose business was transporting people who wished to escape to Ukraine. Here too were merchants and dealers who came to trade with the German soldiers, the watchmen on the freight cars laden with merchandise and raw materials, which the Germans had looted from rich Ukraine. Other businesses operated here, too, money changers, who exchanged marks and krona, the Tsar’s rubles, Kerensky’s rubles and other curren-

Interregnum

cies. Next to the station were tables set up with different kinds of food, sold by Jewish women and girls.1

The western route also opened up to some extent, and commercial traffic with Warsaw began. The city’s plight, however, worsened because with pressure from the Poles in December 1918, the transports of returnees increased. They arrived home in the middle of the winter, penniless and absolutely destitute. Many exiles, the elderly and children, had already died in the railroad cars on the way to Pinsk. Since numerous buildings had been destroyed by the Germans, or were still occupied by them, groups of returnees rattled about in the ruins of various structures without doors and windows, or in the synagogues, hungry and awash in filth. Diseases broke out—dysentery and typhus. The number of returning Jews was equal to those who had stayed, and the latter could do little to assist the returnees. Perhaps sensitivity to the suffering of others had been dimmed by the years of poverty and starvation. The Citizens’ Committee was disintegrating and was unable to do much to aid the existing poor—even less for the new arrivals. The hospitals were overcrowded, neglect common; they were simply unequipped to absorb the multitudes of sick people. Residents of the old-age home starved. The soup kitchen, which had still functioned in late 1917, was no longer in operation. The hundreds of families who lived in the synagogues and in the ruins did not taste a hot meal for days on end. Except for the elderly Polish physician, Dr. Skupiewski, doctors refused to care for the sick without payment.2 Yet due to the efforts of Eliyahu Holtzman and Alter Boborov, an orphanage was set up in the building of the Karlin Talmud Torah, which the Germans had turned into a stable. One hundred orphans found refuge there. Women and girls demonstrated energy and initiative in maintaining this orphanage, doing what they could to ease the suffering. Regina Rabinowitsch began her social work here, and Elka Miletzky displayed outstanding devotion. All assistance, however, was a drop in the ocean of troubles.3 The political change, which accompanied the revolution in Germany and the ceasefire of November 11, 1918, drastically altered the material circumstances of Pinsk. Many people’s livelihood was affected when work for the Germans stopped. The German command tried to rein-

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stitute labor in the Volodkovitz forest on November 24, but the workers demanded a raise in their pay to fifteen marks per day, and when their condition was not met, they did not go out to work.4 After the distribution of rations was discontinued, suffering was widespread. Feinstein describes this period: “Then we started to long for the old days, the days of German rule. We endured more than a little suffering and pain, but at least our bread—pitiful and meager as it was—was provided and now?”5 There were, nevertheless, people who conducted a very profit­able business with the German soldiers who were transferring the wealth of Ukraine to Germany via Pinsk. One of the German evacuation routes from Ukraine was Bachmatz-Homel-Pinsk, and, since the Poles had blocked the roads near Miedzyrzecz west of Brest, carloads of merchandise were sold in Pinsk at cut-rate prices. Many became wealthy from this enterprise, and others made profits as middlemen in the food business. The new business opportunities that opened up eased the situation tremendously, even though they involved many difficulties—the train traffic to Warsaw and Ukraine was extremely irregular and in order to travel, one had to obtain a permit or be disguised in a soldier’s overcoat. The S.S. member of the Fareynigte party, Yitzhak Gordin, who made his way after the German revolution from Russia to Poland, was able, when he stayed with comrades in Pinsk, to “clothe himself decently” and acquire a pair of good shoes. When he departed from Pinsk, his friends bade him farewell over a glass of spirits. In other words, for at least a portion of the population, the trying times had passed. Gordin mentions that he lectured several times and helped to set up a Yiddish school; he is presumably referring to the Children’s Beit Mahse, which was reorganized by the leftist parties. He was also invited to a gathering of German soldiers that took place in the Boyarsky cinema and asked to speak. He addressed an appeal to the soldiers to go home and prevent the Junkers and industrialists from reaping the profits of the revolution; he received tumultuous applause for his speech. According to his account, Gordin was asked by the soldiers to help organize a soldiers’ committee in the city.6 He mentions appreciatively two people who assisted him: Libshtik the barber and David Shlossberg. (By Libshtik he probably means Liftshuk, who is referred to in Chapter One.)

Interregnum

It was advantageous to both the economy and to public safety that, following the official transfer of power to Dushanovsky, the representative of the Ukrainian Directory, on December 15, 1918, the Germans were in no hurry to leave the city. A municipal council was selected in place of the Citizens’ Committee. The council was composed of fifteen members, representing the various political parties, the unaffiliated, and the Polish population as well. Gavrilkovitz, probably a Russian, was chosen as mayor. Public ferment about economic matters found expression in the establishment of cooperative shops. The General Zion­ists were the first to open a shop, the Zionist Cooperative, to which the Ukrainian authorities gave their authorization. The cooperative was organized on the basis of money and shares. Feinstein, who may have initiated the project, writes with regard to its establishment: “We obtained cash loans from individuals, purchased large stocks of foods, and sold to members at a reasonable price.”7 The money supply in the city increased as a consequence of the various business dealings already described and as a result of newly opened trade with Ukraine. One of the items imported from Ukraine was saccharin. The Bundists and the Christians opened cooperatives as well. At this time, or earlier, the Central Committee for Assistance to Pinsk Evacuees, established in Warsaw in 1917, reopened the soup kitchens to ease the hunger of the returnees.8 If the situation changed for the better in economic and nutritional terms, it worsened in terms of security. During the period of German rule, there were no robberies in Pinsk. When the Ukrainians took over, brazen holdups occurred. People were afraid to leave their homes in the evening. The darkness in the streets increased the fear.9 The robbers were “exiles” from the vicinity. One consequence was the establishment of a Civil Guard, headed by a few members of the municipal council.10 Interest in the Civil Guard may have been aroused by news of the activities of the Petlyurovchiks [pogrom-makers named for Symon Petliura (1880–1926) head of the nascent Ukrainian state (1919–1920), under whose regime tens of thousands of Jews were killed in hundreds of pogroms perpetrated by Ukrainian troops] in Ukrainian Jewish communities, which began in late December 1918.

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First Bolshevik Occupation (February 1–March 5, 1919) Ukrainian rule lasted only seven weeks. We have conflicting reports about the Bolsheviks’ entry into the city. An article in Haynt on Monday, February 3, 1919, reports: Last Wednesday morning the Bolsheviks advanced towards Pinsk and began to wage a fierce battle for the city. The Ukrainians resisted. Shells fell in the city. After a brief skirmish the Ukrainians retreated and the Bolsheviks captured the city. They suffered fifty casualties between dead and wounded. Two Germans were also killed. The number of Ukrainian casualties was unknown, but significant. The last train from Pinsk to Brest departed the same day, on Wednesday evening. Additional trains from Pinsk did not reach Brest.

According to this article the Bolsheviks entered the city on January 29th. A second piece, written by Z. Katz, a Haynt correspondent,11 gives a conflicting report: This past Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the Pinsk theatre when some actors entered and anxiously told us that there was talk of the Bolsheviks entering the city that day. We should, therefore, escape on the earliest train, which left at 11:30 that night. We heard meanwhile that the Ukrainians had published notices that the city was in a state of emergency, and that from 10 p.m. on (German time; 9 p.m. Russian time) no one should be found on the streets. . . . We provided ourselves with street passes. The Ukrainian town commander told us that as of yesterday, the authorities had already begun to flee. When we set out by train, we were told that we were in danger of assault, robbery or murder. . . . We took along some Ukrainians with rifles for protection. . . . At the train we met many Russians, who worked in the town’s administration, fleeing together with us, among them was the town commander. . . . At 5 in the morning we reached Kobryn, where we were greeted with surprise: how had we arrived from Pinsk, which had already been in Bolshevik hands for three days? Apparently the Bolshevik panic in the vicinity was that great.12

This article’s version is probably the correct one, that the Bolsheviks entered the city on Saturday, not on Wednesday.

Interregnum

In the memoirs of Nissel Forman, there may be a partial explanation for the discrepancy between the two accounts. He writes: One January morning the city was shaken by the shooting of cannons and rifles. The thought that the Bolsheviks had entered the city came to mind. . . . The Germans “lent a hand” by shooting at the inhabitants. Afterwards they subdued the shooters, lest they deter the evacuations. Thanks to German mediation the Bolsheviks agreed to a two-day ceasefire. The Germans promised that they would depart from the city, and that the Ukrainians would remain concentrated in the western part of the city. Meantime the Bolsheviks were “boarded,” as it were, for the municipal committee, made up of socialists and democrats, was obliged to provide them with food. There was some anxiety lest the Haidemaks (that is, the Ukrainians) riot. The Germans were therefore paid to increase the guard. The guard headquarters was in the city hall, which was located in Miller’s house at that time. The headquarters of the Civil Guard, composed of a few members of the municipal council, was also located there. . . . Reinforcements were there as well. By the third day of the accord there wasn’t a single German or Ukrainian soldier remaining in the city.13

There are additional details in the testimony of Jozef Konarski, Chief of Police during the Polish conquest, before the committee of the Polish Sejm, which came to investigate the murder of the thirty-five (see below). He testified: The Germans and the Ukrainians fought against the Bolsheviks the entire day. A big battle took place next to the Realschule. Several residents were executed, without trial. The Ukrainians murdered them.

Konarski bore witness that eight casualties, among them three Jewish civilians, were buried opposite the Realschule. The Jewish youth and the Bund and Poalei Zion parties took part in the funeral ceremony. “A red flag with a blue and white stripe, Hebrew writing and a Zionist star [the six-pointed Magen David, or Jewish star], was borne aloft.”14 The funeral ceremony took place after the welcoming ceremony organized by “the workers’ parties of the city, with a large crowd in their wake: communists, Bund, Poalei Zion, Zeirei Zion, and the flags of all the parties flying in front.” Yisraeli describes the flag of the Zeirei Zion

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as “blue and white, adorned with a red stripe,” and reports, “A representative of the Zeirei Zion gave a speech about the future, about freedom, and about the role of the Bolsheviks at this point. Eretz Israel was the climax of the speech.”15 According to Dr. Elazar Bregman, the speaker was Zadok Riklin, the son of “Melakhovich, the melamed (teacher),” who met a tragic death two months later, by the wall of the monastery, among the thirty-five martyrs. His friends considered him a walking library, a teacher who possessed deep understanding of literature. When the procession reached the Beit Ha’am (Community Center) the Zeirei Zion flag was raised on the roof railing of the building and someone proclaimed: “Whoever is with us—join us,” and most of the crowd . . . entered the Beit Ha’am where speeches about Eretz Israel began afresh.16

This took place on Saturday, February 1, 1919. In those days the Jews were not yet persecuted. The Bolsheviks did not bother the Zionist Cooperative, treating it in fairly friendly fashion, even authorizing its existence.17 It may have been this procession that prompted Rasta, the Russian telegraphic agency, to express the hope that “the workers of Pinsk will join the ranks of the Russian communist proletariat.”18 The procession and the funeral ceremony were factors in the Polish suspicion of the Jews as Bolsheviks. According to Konarski’s testimony, the ceremony had a negative influence on the attitude of the Poles toward the Jews, because the Jews demonstrated sympathy toward the Bolsheviks. Any Jewish sympathy for the Bolsheviks evaporated quickly for a number of reasons: confiscation of property, imprisonment, extortion from merchants accused of profiteering. There were also “unsavory characters who went from house to house looting whatever they could lay their hands on.”19 These “characters” were simply thieves, almost all gentiles. Konarski testified that a group of sixty to seventy men, among them three Jews, led by someone named Lutzky, searched the church, with the intention of robbing it, and Lutzky was thereupon executed by the Bolshevik authorities. The Bolsheviks promptly and ruthlessly put a stop to the theft and robbery. In an article in Haynt, based upon the account of a Jewish merchant from Lodz, who had left the city approximately four weeks after the

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Bolsheviks entered, we read: “Order in the city is maintained by an exemplary unit of the Red Guard. . . . New rules are not yet in force.” But in the same article we also learn that “Meanwhile they energetically expropriate all merchandise.” As to the economic situation and nutrition, we read: Starvation and want reign in the city. White bread is not to be had. The price of a pound of black bread is 6 rubles, a pound of butter—25 rubles, a pound of sugar—30 rubles. Clothes and shoes are altogether unavailable. Most of the populace wear overcoats of the previous Russian soldiers, and their feet are bound up in rags. The Central Committee for Assistance to Pinsk Evacuees, in existence for two years, continues its range of activities. The soup kitchens, which it established are functioning.20

Commerce was dead. All links with the west were severed, and departure to the east was possible only by permit. Individuals continued to trade in saccharin, but whoever was caught doing so was severely punished.21 A. Yisraeli’s description may be attributed to this period in Pinsk: This is no longer the same town that it was during the Tsar’s rule . . . nor are these the same people, the same society . . . the same panorama of life. Wherever one turns there are posters and placards and wall newspapers proclaiming “Long Live . . .” and “Down with. . . .” Creatures “deck themselves out” in tatters and rags as protection against suspicion, investigation and demands. Bread is running out; shortages grow from day to day. The sounds of shooting and explosions are heard day and night. Tension hangs in the air; festivity and melancholy tangled together. . . . Open elections for an autonomous administration—the Revakom—the revolutionary council in the parlance of the day . . . tensions of a hectic existence, in which neither the masters nor the masses know what to make of life. And, on the other hand, ruthless and all-pervasive speculation, necessary and unnecessary confiscations, fears of expropriation, vengeance carried out “so they will hear and fear.” A barter system: a fur coat for a loaf of bread, silver utensils for a few potatoes, furniture for a handful of barley. In the thick of this, gangs of robbers with various names and nicknames and without names at all. The Jews had “light and joy” intermingled with economic and social collapse.22

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As to internal government, according to Konarski’s testimony before the committee of the Sejm, elections were held for a “Soviet of National Workers and Craftsmen Unions.” For these elections the ­Zionist-socialist parties formed a bloc called the United Zionist-­Socialist Party. The Bund was not included in this bloc. The soviet constituted as a result of these elections was dispersed by the authorities because it became evident that the majority of the electors and the elected were middle class. In place of this soviet, a Department of Laborers was established, headed by a Mr. Litwin and Mr. Povish(?), the pharmacist. Their main task was to draft people for the Red Army. A Mr. Gottleib was appointed as head of the militia. A Mr. Rubakhe was appointed to organize the municipal economy. But the chairman of the Executive Committee was Gurglatt, a Russian. According to the same testimony, there was a Communist Club in the city, the majority of its members, Jews; and the first commandant of the city was a Mr. Meilnitzky.23 The commandants were frequently replaced. On the basis of sixty-seven posters and notices, signed by various “heads,” Feinstein was able to prove that the non-Jewish heads greatly outnumbered the Jewish ones.24 Bolshevik rule lasted only six weeks. In heavy street fighting between the Bolsheviks and the Poles, several civilians were killed, among them one named Gulov.25 Feinstein’s nephew was mortally wounded by Polish soldiers.26 The Bolsheviks finally retreated via the market to the river. Before their withdrawal they managed to levy a fine of half-a-million rubles on the city as punishment for the inadequate assistance given them; apparently they were able to collect only a portion of the sum. Their chief collaborators fled together with them. On March 5, 1919, the city was captured by the Poles.

First Polish Regime (March 5, 1919–July 26, 1920) The Polish army, which entered Pinsk on March 5, 1919, was already practiced in stirring up anti-Jewish disturbances. By November 1918 there had been pogroms in various places in Galicia. Now, with the invasion of Polesia, the pretexts were ready-at-hand: the Jews were Bolsheviks and enemies of Poland; the Jews wanted Greater Russia

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whole and were opposed to Polish independence. Hatred intensified because of the demands made by world Jewry that Polish Jews be granted the rights of a national minority with the aim, supposedly, of creating a “state within a state” in Poland.27 From the moment they entered the city, the Polish soldiers began to rob and murder. In the memorandum presented to Morgenthau by the Pinsk Zionist Federation, we find some details of these incidents: Within an hour of their entry into the city, two Polish legionnaires burst into Mrs. Finkel’s home. They fired at the window panes with their pistols, shouting, “They shot at us from here.” They assembled all the members of the household in one room and announced that they would blow up the house with its inhabitants. Besides the members of the family . . . Ogolnik, the teacher, was present as well, and he was also confined to the room. . . . A second officer entered and announced that for 5,000 rubles he would release them. . . . After weeping and wailing . . . the imprisoned were freed. Others suffered similar experiences. . . . On that day . . . there were also two fatalities . . . the first, Yitzhak Prizant, an elderly man of about seventy and the second, Aharon Karlinsky, an orphan of about eighteen. The former was attacked in his home by three legionnaires demanding money. When he ran outside and called for help, the soldiers grabbed him and dragged him back inside. They murdered him in front of his family. The latter was killed for no reason at all when he left his house. A soldier shot at him . . . and when he fell, wounded, the soldier stabbed him with his bayonet. . . . A series of violent acts and thefts began and continued unabated. The very first night, detachments of soldiers went from house to house, looting whatever they could find, from ready cash to utensils and ornaments, clothing and other articles. . . . The looters carried on their activities in broad daylight as well. . . . On March 6 a Polish soldier on horseback approached Dov Pinsker’s home and rapped on the window. Pinsker came over and asked what the soldier wanted. He ordered Pinsker to come outside. . . . The cavalryman grabbed Pinsker by the arm and spurred his horse. Pinsker was forced to run along, with the soldier steadily lashing at him with his whip. On Kiev Street a second rider approached. “Who is this Zhid?” he asked. “A Bolshevik,” came the reply. The second horseman hit Pinsker with the butt of his sword. . . . Doubled over in excruciating pain, Pinsker was forced to run after his captor. Mrs. Halpern, a relative of Pinsker, saw him like

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this. . . . The Polish priest, Bukrawa, happened by. . . . He wrote a note for her, testifying that Pinsker was not a Bolshevik. . . . When she reached the market square, she found Pinsker standing against the wall of a building, a soldier taking aim with his rifle. The woman’s shouts stopped him momentarily. After the soldiers read the note, permission was given for Pinsker to speak up. He showed them an order that he had received from the Bolsheviks during their regime, demanding that he pay a large sum of money as a fine, by which he proved that he was not a Bolshevik and they released him. That day two legionnaires entered Efraim Lifshitz’s apartment in a search for weapons. . . . Of course they found nothing. The soldiers ordered Lifshitz to follow them. They brought him to the bank of the river, where they informed him that for a ransom of 10,000 rubles he would be released. When Lifshitz replied that he had no money, they stood him against the wall of a house and aimed a rifle at him. Lifshitz began to cry and said that he had 3,000 rubles at home. . . . They took him home, took the money and left. Soldiers entered Aharon Minkovitz’s house. . . . They tried to take his gold ring from his finger. . . . It was difficult to remove; they wanted to chop off his finger. Minkovitz’s wife began to scream. A soldier hit her in the stomach. . . . The soldiers finally succeeded in removing the ring. They ransacked the house, then went to Minkovitz’s store and looted that as well. The merchandise was presented to Polish residents of Pinsk, who came to divide the booty with the soldiers. On March 20 . . . soldiers seized four young men at the Switzerland Hotel, because one soldier claimed that the men wanted to cross the river. With no further investigation, they murdered them. Their bodies were thrown on the ice, and only on the following day were they buried on the shore on the other side of the river.28

A. A. Feinstein returned to Pinsk on March 21, after a dangerous trip through Bolshevik territory on a food-purchasing mission for the Zionist Cooperative. He describes the situation in Pinsk upon his return: I met my friends and they were all despondent, afraid of shadows, reluctant to go out during the day and, needless to say, at night. They told me of the innocent blood shed by the Polish soldiers the day they entered the city. . . . That week I saw for myself that they had not exaggerated. The theft and looting are appalling; the soldiers rifle and loot in broad daylight. In the evening, we shut the doors, close the shutters, and hide in our homes. Those who have been robbed suffer in silence, afraid to

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complain, for fear they will arouse the anger of the oppressors against them. . . . The soldiers remove the good shoes and boots of the Jews whom they meet in the streets. . . . They make no distinction between young and old. . . . They pull at their beards and spit in their faces.

A report by Raskin, a member of the JDC [the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee], written in 1921, and based upon hearsay, says: The Polish soldiers robbed and confiscated whatever the Germans had left behind. They stripped clothes and shoes off men and women, on the street. Sometimes they left Jews standing on the street without their pants. Under officers’ orders they looted homes.

Official and unofficial taxes were levied. According to Raskin’s account, Notices were published stating that all Jews were Bolsheviks; it was sufficient for a gentile child to say of a Jew that he was a Bolshevik, and the Jew was immediately imprisoned. The military authorities laid their hands upon all Jews who had worked in the municipality during the Bolshevik reign, and not only upon them. By contrast, not a single Pole who had worked in the civil service under Bolshevik rule was arrested. Furthermore, some of those Poles were accepted as clerks in the new Polish state.

An account by Stuart Samuel (see below) states: The attitude towards ostensibly Bolshevik Jews is the opposite of the attitude towards the Bolshevik Poles. Gavrilkovitz was Commissar or Mayor, during the Bolshevik period. Now he is a salaried clerk, working in the election department. M. Maltesh was an administrator in the food department during the Bolshevik period, and now he is a municipal clerk.29

For its part, the city command did nothing to forestall such occurrences, for it itself was riddled with anti-semitism. Brailsford, a leader of the English Labor party, passed through Pinsk approximately two weeks after the conquest and spoke with the commander of the city and with other officers. Approximately two months later Brailsford wrote: The general in command told me that he might have to evacuate it [Pinsk] at any moment. “What,” he said, “are you to do, with a Jewish spy in every house?” This belief that all Jews are Bolsheviks was held by

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every Polish officer. It is true that some of the Jewish socialist youth had actively helped the Bolsheviks. It is also true that all Jews dreaded the Polish occupation, and with good reason. But the average Orthodox long-robed Jews of the Pale, at least nine in ten of the Jewish population, regarded any revolutionary doctrine with horror. The Poles acted on their suspicions and prejudices. The Jewish houses in Pinsk were thoroughly pillaged by the troops on their entry. The practice prevailed of forcing Jews to do menial tasks for the troops without pay. . . . The Commandant of Pinsk said in my presence: “We know very well that the population is hostile to us. We propose to make an example. We burn down some villages and shoot one in ten of the population.”30

At a later date, Brailsford wrote in a similar vein, In the winter of 1919, when I traveled on the border between Poland and Russia, I came to Pinsk, a town dying of starvation. The young military commander of the city matter-of-factly told me that he would not be able to stabilize the situation until he had slaughtered some of the Jews, and reduced the Ukrainian population in the villages.

Brailsford adds that following this conversation he hurried to Warsaw, met with Pilsudski, and reported what he had heard from the commander of Pinsk. He received the following reply: “You civilians have no understanding of the military mentality.”31 The soldiers were given license to rob and murder. A military commander named Landsberg was assigned to Pinsk. He appointed a municipal council composed of twelve members—eight Poles, two Russians, and two Jews. Of the seventy clerks appointed to the municipality, not one was a Jew.32 A militia was organized, and there too, not a single Jew served. This attitude on the part of the new conquerors, certain to “endear” them to the Jews, served as a harbinger of the equal rights to be anticipated from the Poles. The municipal council announced a loan to provide for the city’s needs, and the Jews immediately mobilized 12,500 rubles. Another soup kitchen was opened in addition to the soup kitchen maintained by the Jews. But, while the Jewish soup kitchen, despite its penury and distress, made no distinction between races and religions, the new soup kitchen served only Poles. Equal supplies were provided to both soup kitchens, one thousand portions for each, although the Polish soup kitchen served only six hundred people,

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while the number of Jews dependent on the Jewish soup kitchen was more than five thousand, and the daily distribution of rations reached three thousand.33 The Poles immediately set about giving the city a Polish character. “All Hebrew inscriptions were removed, even from the schools and hospitals.”34 The experience of Pinsk was not exceptional, for the same thing was done elsewhere. On March 20 the city commandant published an order that included this statement: The directive concerning the removal of signs in Russian, German, and Yiddish has not been completely carried out. All proprietors of restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses are ordered to change their signs for new ones, written in correct Polish. These signs should be submitted to the command for inspection to ensure that they contain no errors.

Assemblies, meetings, and organizations “of a political nature” were also forbidden by this directive.35 After a relatively quiet time, preceding the Polish conquest and which lasted approximately two months, a new wave of pogroms against Polish Jewry broke out on March 12, 1919.36 This wave was apparently an organized response on the part of the anti-semitic Polish National Democratic party [so-called Endeks] to a news item published one day earlier. P.A.T. [Polska Agencja Telegraficzna], the government press agency, had published an article about a delegation from the Jewish National Committee in Poland, which included A. Pudlyszewski, H. Farbstein, and L. Levita. The group arrived in Paris and publicly announced that Polish Jewry, with the exception of a few assimilationists, was united in its demand for national rights, and that N. Sokolow had been delegated to bring this demand before the Peace Conference.37 The pogroms were also meant “to liberate Poland from the Jews.”38 Antisemitic propaganda was conducted among the legionnaires. An item in the news­paper Robotnik, from early April, reports that “pogrom leaflets” were sent to soldiers at the front “freely, by mail, without postage.”39 As to areas of Polish occupation within the region of historical Lithuania, anti-semites evidently thought that it would be advisable to teach the Jews there a lesson so that they would not dare to lift their heads or voice political demands opposing annexation of the area to Poland. The argument advanced by the Pinsk commander to Brailsford, “that

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all Jews are Bolsheviks,” was more a comment on the Jews’ political leanings than their social ideology. The Poles felt that the Jews favored Russia and did not want the city annexed to Poland. The legionnaires’ behavior obviously did not increase the Jews’ fondness for them, and this enmity alone served Luczynski, the military commander, as sufficient proof that the Jews were Bolsheviks. Luczynski was also infuriated when the Jews did not participate in a gala that he had organized.40 In this atmosphere of animosity and suspicion, an event took place that dealt the Jews of Pinsk a severe wound not to heal for many years. The episode traumatized the Jewish leadership, not merely in Poland, but in the United States and England as well, and occupied the statesmen of many countries. The event symbolized the plight of the Jews in renascent Poland and strengthened the cause of Jewish activists in the western world in their efforts to stop the wave of rioting and ensure Polish Jewry’s right to survival. American Jewish spokesmen applied intense pressure on their government to influence the Polish government to halt its anti-semitic policy. A chain of events led up to the massacre. On Tuesday, April 1, 1919, toward evening, Borukh Zuckerman, a member of the JDC delegation to Poland, arrived in Pinsk. Since an eight o’clock curfew was in force, he began his activities on the following morning. He met with several heads of the Jewish community, among them the Dayan Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz, (who events would reveal as a man not to be deterred by danger,) and also Rabbi Borukh Epstein, Avraham Asher Feinstein, and Shimon Baizer. Zuckerman stipulated that they establish a committee, which would be authorized to receive the support money from the JDC. He required that the committee include representatives of the various parties and social classes. A meeting was scheduled for five o’clock that afternoon. According to Zuckerman’s suggestion, fifteen non-aligned members and three representatives from each party were to participate. The parties included were the General Zionists, Zeirei Zion, Poalei Zion, the Bund, and the United (Der Fareynigte or S.S.) Party, which had united with the Sejmists in 1917. Zuckerman relates that he raised the question of obtaining a permit for the gathering, but he was told that it was not worth doing so because the authorities would demand that the meeting be conducted

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in Polish, which only a few of the Jews could speak.41 In his memoirs Zuckerman gives a slightly different version: He asked whether he should notify the authorities of his arrival, and the consensus was that there was no need to do so since the authorities knew of his arrival in any case, and since his mission was not political. Another reason was given for this decision: no good for the Jewish community would come of ties with the authorities, who would undoubtedly wish to exercise control over the aid monies. One version does not necessarily exclude the other. A further reason: Brailsford’s calling card, which he had left with Rabbi Horowitz, contained a warning to outside visitors not to speak to the Jews about their situation in the presence of the Poles.42 The gathering took place in the home of Rabbi Horowitz. Members of the United Party did not participate; they are not mentioned in A. A. Feinstein’s writings nor in the testimony of Rabbi Horowitz before the Sejm commission [which is discussed below]. Perhaps there were no members of that party in Pinsk at the time. At the meeting a committee of twenty-one was chosen. On Thursday (April 3), Zucker­ man visited the city’s [welfare] institutions, accompanied by Pinsk residents Eliyahu Holtzman and Yehezkel Eisenbod. During his tour, he visited the Children’s Home (Kinder Heim), while white hallot [festive loaves of bread] were being distributed. The hallot were made with flour sent from America to Poland, which was sold by the authorities at a nominal price. Outside the building, starving children pressed against the windows, jealously peering in; the curtains were drawn and one of the teachers went out to chase the children away.43 The secret police were following Zuckerman, and later Polish circles claimed that Zuckerman had delivered a Bolshevik address at the Home. The issue of the [drawn] curtains in fact drew the attention of Louis Marshall [president of the American Jewish Committee and head of the American Jewish delegation to the Versailles Conference], and he raised the matter when he questioned Zuckerman about his activities in Pinsk.44 At four o’clock on Thursday, Zuckerman met with the committee, and officers were elected. Avraham Kazh was chosen as treasurer, and Zuckerman gave him 59,000 marks, out of a monthly sum of 100,000 marks, for the maintenance of public institutions, support for the poor, salaries for the rabbis, and aid for one of the erstwhile rich whose fam-

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ily now suffered from hunger.45 It was decided that Zuckerman would remain in Pinsk a day longer in order to receive authorization for the committee from the authorities. On Friday morning the members of the executive assembled and worked out with Zuckerman a plan to distribute flour for matzot in the cooperative stores in exchange for coupons. To facilitate the distribution of the coupons—which were of two sorts, one for the totally destitute, and the second for those with some means—a resolution was taken to conduct a census of the Jewish inhabitants and classify them according to circumstances. Moshe’le Gleiberman prepared the plan for the census, the text of the registration forms, and the wording of the coupons, which were printed the same day. The city was divided into thirty districts, and approximately one hundred young people were to carry out the census. The committee decided that the results of the census would determine the size of the flour ration.46 After this, Zuckerman went with Dr. Feldman to Rabbi Horowitz, with whom he intended to go to the authorities to request authorization for the committee. The rabbi told them that he had met with Bukrawa, the Catholic priest, who had promised to accompany him to the authorities for that purpose, on Monday. Bukrawa felt that the committee would be approved and that it could function in the interim. Zuckerman, therefore, did not meet with the Polish authorities this time either. Toward evening he called another meeting of the committee in the Basevitz Hotel, where he was staying. At this meeting the decisions of the executive were ratified. It was decided to allocate matzot for the Jews of Telechany and to rabbis in the surrounding towns. The following morning, Zuckerman left Pinsk and travelled to Brest.47 Meanwhile, on Thursday (April 3), Shimon Rykwert had arrived. Sent by the Warsaw Zionist Federation, he brought funds, or information about funds, forwarded by individuals to their relatives in Pinsk. A list of the families for whom Rykwert had brought money was posted on the exterior of the Beit Ha’am, and later, on Saturday, it was posted in one of the rooms. The Beit Ha’am had been opened in the summer of 1918 during the period of the German conquest. It had been recognized by the Germans as a legitimate place of assembly and was similarly sanctioned by the Ukrainians and the Bolsheviks. The Beit Ha’am was closed only on the day that the Poles entered the city. It reopened

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the following day, after Gershon Koznitz, the director of the library and reading room, received permission from the mayor, at the time, Gavrilkovitz.48 A meeting of the members of the Zionist Cooperative was scheduled for four o’clock Saturday afternoon at the Beit Ha’am to discuss a union with the other cooperatives in the city to prevent competition between them in the purchase of necessities. According to the testimony of the military commander of the city, Landsberg, given on April 8 or 9, Konstantin Tropimowicz, advisor to the cooperatives, had approached him on April 2 with a request for a permit to hold meetings of the Jewish and Polish cooperatives on April 5 (that is, Saturday). Tropimowicz received permission, on condition that he submit an account of the discussions at the meetings. From the reports that he received on April 6, Landsberg concluded that the meetings had been conducted precisely according to the agenda submitted to him and that they had ended at the prescribed time. He also testified that on April 3 or 4, Shimon Rykwert came to him, “introducing himself as a member of a Zionist organization and representative of the American delegation in Warsaw, and requested permission to hold a meeting for the purpose of distributing money— ten thousand marks—which he had brought with him for the poor.” Landsberg did not grant a permit, “due to the military situation.”49 Rykwert’s request for legal authorization of the Zionist Federation in the city, presented at that time, has been preserved, and reads as follows: To the Pinsk Municipal Administration—from the Committee of the Pinsk Zionist Federation, 72 Kupechesky [Merchants] Street. The Committee hereby requests legal authorization of our Federation, which is a branch of the Warsaw Zionist Federation that has been in existence for many years. The purpose of our Federation is the dissemination of culture among the poorer classes of the city, and organization of schools and asylums for children, and of libraries and reading rooms. The principal activity of the Zionist Federation is the distribution of funds, which arrive from relatives in America, to local residents who are in dire economic straits.

Besides Rykwert, the following members of the executive signed the request: Avraham Asher Feinstein, chairman; Lifshitz, secretary; and Max Segalevich (apparently Mordechai Yosef Segalevich); Yitzhak Boxer;

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and Shimon Basok.50 Since Rykwert was in contact with the Polish authorities, they could have easily learned from him of events taking place in the city on that Saturday. In any case, a permit was granted for the meeting of the Zionist Cooperative in the Beit Ha’am, and further permits were granted for the meetings of the other cooperatives on that day. Tropimowicz testified at the Sejm commission of inquiry that he had taken out permits for the meetings of all the cooperatives and that he participated in three of these meetings. At three o’clock he attended the meeting of the Workers’ Cooperative at the Casino. He was invited to the meeting of the Zion­ist Cooperative at four o’clock and the meeting of the Samopomosc Cooperative (Adat Yeshurun) in the synagogue at five o’clock. According to the testimony of the chairman of the Zionist Cooperative meeting Yudel Eisenberg, before the Polish commission of inquiry headed by Officer Staszminski (see below), the meeting began at four o’clock, and Tropimowicz came and announced that the gathering was legal.51 Before the Sejm commission, Tropimowicz testified that the meeting was scheduled to begin at four o’clock but actually started at five. During the meeting of the Zionist Cooperative, Feinstein, who was director of the Cooperative, asked that anyone who was not a member leave the hall, and a large number of young people moved into an adjacent room. (The Beit Ha’am had three rooms—a hall, a cafeteria, and an additional room.) According to Yudel Eisenberg’s testimony, the meeting concluded a few minutes after five o’clock (there was a one-hour difference between Warsaw time, accepted by the Poles, and Pinsk time; this may account for the discrepancy in testimonies) without reaching any decisions. Some of the participants maintained that the meeting was illegal because minutes would not be recorded [Jewish law forbids writing on the Sabbath]. In the permit for the meeting, no concluding time was set. But according to the report of the investigating commission of the Socialist International in Brussels (see below), an order from the city commander had been published two days earlier, forbidding any assemblies after six o’clock.52 None of the statements made before the Staszminski investigating commission and the Sejm commission, however, mentioned this order. The entire inquiry hinged upon the question of whether or not there was a permit for this meet-

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ing. The perpetrators of the murder claimed that beside the meeting of the Zionist Cooperative, taking place in the hall, there was a meeting of Bolshevik youth in another room of the Beit Ha’am. An order had been published on March 20, 1919, stating that: “Assemblies, meetings, and organizations of a political nature are strictly forbidden.” Landsberg showed this order to the two Jewish correspondents who were allowed to attend the Sejm commission of inquiry. They pointed out that the order forbade only meetings “of a political nature.”53 According to Shimon Rykwert’s report of April 8, three days after the massacre, the murders happened as follows: On April 5 Polish soldiers seized Jews for forced labor—cleaning the barracks, chopping wood, peeling potatoes, and so forth. About five o’clock [in the afternoon] two Jewish young men walking on the street saw Polish soldiers approaching. The boys turned toward the Beit Ha’am, and the soldiers followed them and entered the building. At first the soldiers wanted to take all those present in the community center for labor but after they received a bribe, they left. About a half hour later, a group of soldiers from the nearby barracks in the Realschule broke into the Beit Ha’am. The building was surrounded on all sides. The soldiers’ entrance into the hall caused a panic. Aharon Gleiberman headed for a side exit. A soldier noticed his move and killed him with a single shot. When the soldiers outside the building heard the shot, they began to fire into the air. Within a few minutes they removed everyone in the building, lined them up by fours, and marched them over to headquarters.54 Feinstein was sitting in a side room when the soldiers first entered the Beit Ha’am. He slipped out immediately, went down to the courtyard of the building and entered an acquaintance’s apartment on the floor below the Beit Ha’am. According to him, “no more than a few minutes elapsed” between the time the first group of soldiers burst into the building, and the encirclement of the Beit Ha’am by bicycle riders. 55 This may explain why the young people did not leave in the interim. They had come to the center either to hand in results of the census that was under way for the purpose of distributing coupons for flour for matzot, or to receive instructions and registration forms for continuing the census the following day. Some had come to see the list, posted in the small room of the Beit Ha’am, of people for whom Rykwert had brought funds from America.

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A. Goldberg, a Haynt correspondent, who was in Pinsk at the end of April, gives a slightly different account. He writes that a soldier entered the home of Moshe Eizik Friedman and seized his son for forced labor. The soldier then went to find other workers. On the way, they reached the vicinity of the Beit Ha’am. The soldier grabbed some young men, and in the meantime, Friedman slipped away. The young men made an attempt to escape to the Beit Ha’am, and the soldier chased them. When he saw the gathering in the community center, he left and returned with reinforcements.56 Among the soldiers who entered the Beit Ha’am was a Jewish soldier by the name of Daniel Kozak. He was reportedly a native of Brest, who had moved to Kobryn with the retreat of the Russian army. He was known in both Brest and Kobryn as a thief and pickpocket. After Kobryn fell to the Poles, Kozak volunteered for the Polish legion. He appeared before the Sejm commission of inquiry with a cross on his neck and announced that he was about to accept the “Polish religion.” Among the fabrications in Kozak’s testimony was the malicious libel that he had been in the synagogue that Sabbath when Jews approached him suggesting that he join the Bolshevik underground in the city. This Kozak apparently notified Corporal Czybusz about a Bolshevik meeting due to take place in the Beit Ha’am, for according to the testimony of the Corporal before the Staszminski commission, he “checked out” the Beit Ha’am that Saturday at 7:30 in the morning. That same morning, a Jewish soldier had “informed on” two young men, Prizant and Fialkov, claiming that they were Bolsheviks. The informer was either Kozak or another Jewish legionnaire named Mordecai Kolkar. Kolkar was also among the soldiers who entered the Beit Ha’am, and he, too, testified that the Jews wanted to bribe him to switch to the Bolshevik camp. Prizant and Fialkov had been seized for compulsory labor and forced to collect garbage with their hands, while dressed in their Sabbath clothes. The two young men were indignant and, bitterly, let slip a sentence something like: “Would that God would redeem us from these torments.” The Jewish soldier who heard this, took them to an officer, presumably Landsberg, and informed him that he had heard the Jews say: “The Bolsheviks are garrisoned across the river; they will soon come and free us.” The youths were immediately sentenced to death and sent to jail, accompanied by Officer Franczak.

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But Franczak freed them on the way to prison, after Ya’acov Gleiberman, a relative of Prizant, who was in Harbuz’s house at the time, paid him a ransom of five hundred rubles. The following day Franczak and another officer named Bilecki came and demanded an additional one thousand rubles, saying that the lives of two Jews were worth more than five hundred rubles. Their demand was met.57 About six o’clock at the Beit Ha’am, according to Goldberg’s report, some soldiers burst into the building, and others surrounded it from outside. They beat whomever they found there viciously and robbed them of money and valuables. Feinstein says that more than fifty thousand rubles were stolen at the time. One soldier aimed his rifle at the ceiling and started to shout, “The Jews are shooting at us!” According to Feinstein there were some teenagers taking a walk outside the Beit Ha’am just then, who ran into the courtyard of the building and hid in a small cubicle on the first floor, locking the door behind them. A soldier fired into the room and hit Aharon Gleiberman, who was in there (not by the exit as in Shimon Rykwert’s version).58 When the soldiers lined up the people they had taken from the community center, they broke into neighboring homes as well, and seized young men, added them to the lines, and took them along to headquarters. Fishel Feldman, for instance, was taken from his home. His father, Avraham Feldman, testified to this before the Sejm commission. According to the testimony of Elka Miletzky before this commission, Avraham Feldman and his son Fishel were brought to the market square after the massacre. ­Ziskind Palachny was also taken from his home. Moshe Mednik was taken from his home or caught in the street. According to the account of Y. Gruenbaum, who was a member of the Sejm commission, Gottlieb, Shulman, and Poritzky were also seized in their homes or on the street and added to the ranks. When those arrested passed through Palevsky Street, Bukrawa, the military physician (the brother of Bukrawa, the priest), kicked a young woman named Gluzman and said: “If they are Jews, these Bolsheviks, kill them all.”59 The letter which Feinstein sent to Warsaw has been preserved, although it is torn: Vilkovitz, the printer’s son (torn), was walking on Palevsky Street and was detained by (torn) of the priest—(probably “brother of the priest,”

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i.e., Bukrawa)—and he told him: “You are a Bolshevik (torn). Your father’s press is for the Bolsheviks (torn), and he ordered the soldier to put Vilkovitz into (torn).”

The letter states that Basevitz, the electrician, either passed by Dr. Bukrawa’s house at that time, or was marched by among those being brought to the command. Basevitz said to Bukrawa: “I’m going to fix the electric light in your house right now.” Bukrawa removed him from the group and took him to his house. Basevitz was thus saved from death.60 According to a secondhand report, Dr. Bukrawa slapped Basevitz across the cheek and berated him for not coming to fix the electricity in his home, intending to get him out of the line by doing so. When the detainees, badly beaten, were brought to headquarters, their pockets were searched once again. Shimon Rykwert was at headquarters at the time, apparently to request authorization for the Pinsk Zionist Federation. He relates that he saw the prisoners being searched, and that in the course of the search the soldiers “tortured them,” and took away watches, money, and other valuables. Rykwert asked an officer: “Why do you torture the prisoners so?” The reply was: “Because they are Bolsheviks; they killed an officer and a soldier, and there was a machine gun in the Beit Ha’am.”61 Meanwhile, Major Luczynski, who was the commander of the company in the city, and the supreme authority, arrived at headquarters. He hastily convened a drumhead field court martial. The Sejm commission of inquiry (see below) was unable to ascertain who the members of this “court” were. Landsberg testified before the commission that “Luczynski came, with a few officers,” but he was not present personally when judgment was passed since he had been called to the telephone in the interim. In Luczynski’s testimony before the Polish commission of inquiry, chaired by Staszminski, he says that the verdict was given “following a brief consultation with officers.” According to the testimony of the policeman Staromejski, before the Sejm commission, only one other officer participated in the trial besides Luczynski and Landsberg. There was no investigation or interrogation, and sentence was passed within minutes. Shayna Slivka, the cafeteria attendant at the Beit Ha’am, who was among the detainees, testified that “the soldiers conferred for three minutes and decided—straight to the wall.”

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The captives were taken from headquarters to the market square. Here Pinhas Krasilshchik, seized on a nearby street while walking with the teacher Berta Pollack, was added to the group.62 At the market square Yisrael (Lola) Bregman showed one of the guards a permit that Landsberg had given him allowing him to travel to Warsaw to bring back the money sent to Pinskers from America, and JDC aid money; he was also to exchange the one-thousand-mark bills brought by Zuckerman and Rykwert and other large bills given him by Pinsk residents. But the captors paid no attention to this permit, nor to an official document that Katzman (or perhaps Avraham Holtzman) displayed, attesting to the fact that he was not a party member and that he was an honorable man.63 The captives were taken to the brick wall of the Catholic monastery. An officer approached Rykwert, who stood nearby, and questioned his presence there. When Rykwert proffered his documents, the officer advised him to move off to a side street. As he crossed the street, he saw a military vehicle passing, filled with soldiers and lit by reflectors. At the command of two officers, the prisoners were lined up along the wall. According to the testimony of the policeman Casimir Staromejski before the Sejm commission, Luczynski ordered them to shoot every second person. But he promptly reconsidered, for then “the most guilty” would remain alive. Instead Luczynski ordered the women and old people removed from the line. Miletzky and the soldier Gonsarowski testified that the women and aged were taken beyond where the soldiers stood, a distance of about thirty paces, and they witnessed the massacre. The line of captives faced their attackers and were fired at by machine gun from the car and by soldiers’ rifles. When the victims realized what awaited them, “terrible screams broke out.” A young woman, Fruma Eisenberg, pushed through the ranks of soldiers and fell upon Zvi Liebman’s neck shrieking, “I will die with you!” The soldiers beat her and returned her to her place. David Moshkovsky, the teacher, was not allowed to leave, despite his age, nor were two others, the teacher Simha Shulman and Moshe Leib Friedman. Moshkovsky called out to his fellow sufferers: “Brothers, let us die as martyrs! Say the Viddui [deathbed confession] with me!” And he recited, “We have sinned, we have transgressed, we have stolen,” until the conclusion, and the others repeated it

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after him, word for word. The shouting and wailing and screaming, together with the recitation of the Viddui were heard in the nearby streets. Someone apparently lost his mind and began to sing the Kol Nidre, breathing his last with the prayer on his lips.64 These are the names of those who were murdered at the monastery wall:65 1. Bankovsky, Avraham, 17, unaffiliated. 2. Bregman, Yisrael (Lola), 23, member of Zeirei Zion. 3. Elstein, Leib, 22, Zeirei Zion. 4. Feldman, Fishel, 28, unaffiliated. 5. Fidelman, Nohum Yitzhak, 23, Zeirei Zion. 6. Fishman, Yosef, 35, unaffiliated. 7. Friedman, Asher Ze’ev, 20, unaffiliated. 8. Friedman, Haim, 29, Zeirei Zion. 9. Friedman, Moshe Leib, 47, General Zionist. 10. Gleiberman, Moshe, 27, Bundist. 11. Gottlieb, Yeshayahu, 22, Zeirei Zion. 12. Gottlieb, Zvi, 23, Zeirei Zion. 13. Hekelman, Yosef, 20, General Zionist. 14. Hitelman, Pinhas, 24, Zeirei Zion. 15. Hotsman, Avraham, 26, Bundist. 16. Kleinman, Shelomoh, 18, unaffiliated. 17. Kotok, Daniel, 16, unaffiliated. 18. Kotok, Moshe, 14, unaffiliated. 19. Koznitz, Gershon David, 23, Zeirei Zion. 20. Krasilshchik, Pinhas, 25, Poalei Zion. 21. Lieberman, Menahem, 35, unaffiliated. 22. Liebman, Zvi, 24, Zeirei Zion. 23. Mednik, Moshe, 30, Zeirei Zion. 24. Moshkovsky, David, 50, General Zionist. 25. Natanzon, Moshe, 37, General Zionist. 26. Poritzky, Simha, 28, Zeirei Zion. 27. Riklin, Zadok, 28, Zeirei Zion 28. Rolnik, David, 20, unaffiliated. 29. Shifmanovitz, Zelig, 52, unaffiliated. 30. Shulman, Simha, 48, General Zionist.

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31. 32. 33. 34.

Steinberg, Yitzhak, 23, Zeirei Zion. Yudevitz, Moshe, 21, Zeirei Zion. Zilberman, Moshe, 21, Zeirei Zion. Ziskind, Palachny, 17, unaffiliated.

The thirty-fifth person murdered was Aharon Gleiberman, 19, who was killed by the bullet that pierced his skull when one of the soldiers fired into the small room under the steps in the yard of the Beit Ha’am, where he was hiding. Moshe Kerman, Yisrael Velman, Yosef Shabziz, and Yeshaya Gottlieb were also hiding in that room, and Gottlieb was caught when he ran to bring a doctor for Aharon Gleiberman.66 The fact that they had locked the door behind them provided the perpetrators of the massacre with the argument that during the meeting of the cooperative in the Beit Ha’am hall, a Bolshevik meeting was taking place on a lower floor, behind locked doors.67 Later, Kerman, Velman, and Shabziz were also taken to the monastery wall. But for some reason they were left alive, after being brutally beaten from nine o’clock at night until after midnight, when they were brought to the jail. They were sick for a long time as a result of the beatings.68 From the time of the round up at the community center, to the actual murder, which took place at nightfall, no more than seventy minutes elapsed.69 The bodies of the victims were left lying on the ground. The women, children, and old people, twenty-six in all, were taken to jail. Along the way they were sadistically taunted and threatened that they, too, would be killed.70 About eleven o’clock that night, “a thorough search was made of the Beit Ha’am.” Soldiers smashed cabinets and tore up the floor. Presumably, Luczynski sought “evidence” to justify his crime. A. A. Feinstein heard the noise of the searches as he sat in the apartment of his acquaintance below the Beit Ha’am, under guard, along with the other members of the household. The search continued till three in the morning and according to the testimony of Staromejski, the policeman, turned up nothing.71 That night Feinstein heard Kozak’s libel directly from the Jewish legionnaire who had come with another soldier to take Feinstein away. Kozak claimed that on Friday afternoon, he had heard two young men saying: “We have to attack the Poles with armed force and chase them out. The Bolsheviks are nearby, and they will help us. . . . Tomorrow we will have a meeting to discuss what to

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do.” The meeting was to take place in the Beit Ha’am, and Kozak had come and caught all the traitors.72 Feinstein was saved in exchange for ransom. With the corpses left lying on the ground where they had fallen, that night soldiers came, Kolkar among them, and removed the shoes of the dead, stripped off their clothes, and rummaged through their pockets.73 At dawn five wagons and wagoners were mobilized to transport the dead for burial. Ya’acov Kushner testified before the Sejm commission that he was roused from his sleep; and since he had previously sold his horse, he was told to take along a shovel. “We put seven bodies” on each wagon.74 During the loading, it was discovered that three of those shot were still alive. Avraham Bankovsky was wounded in the foot, Nahum Yitzhak Fidelman had a serious wound in his stomach, and Ziskind Palachny was unharmed. As the wagoners loaded the first wagon they placed Fidelman atop the corpses. They planned to do the same with the other two, in the hope of saving them by setting them down along the way. But an officer came along and ordered them to unload the wagon because they had no permit to transport the bodies. Meanwhile Palachny got up and pleaded with the officer to allow him to go home. The officer commanded a soldier to shoot him; the soldier missed. Palachny fled, but he encountered a second legionnaire who stood him against a wall where his pursuers shot him. Two Jewish boys who happened by were ordered to drag his body to where the corpses were. The officer checked the other bodies and when he found Bankovsky alive, killed him. (According to a different source, Bankovsky was attempting to escape.) Another account has it that a fourth—David Rolnik was stabbed in the stomach with a dagger. Fidelman was not detected. After the necessary papers arrived, the bodies were loaded on the wagons and brought to the old cemetery, not the new one, because the authorities intended to forbid Jews to approach the graves. The wagoners and the gravediggers had dug the graves, and begun the burials, when Fidelman raised his head and whispered for water. A police official who was there heard him. He ordered those engaged in the burials to enter the hadar taharah [room used for ritual washing of the corpse]. Immediately, two shots were heard and when the men emerged from the room, they found Fidelman cast into the mass grave.75

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In the morning, the victims’ shoes and clothes were put out in the street for sale.76 That same day, April 6, Landsberg published the following order: In defiance of the ban on assemblies, two political gatherings were held under the guise of meetings of cooperative members. When legionnaires attempted to disperse the gatherings, they met with armed resistance, which resulted in the wounding of two soldiers. This occurred on a day of heightened activity at the front, when the local garrison in Pinsk was reduced. These individuals had assembled with the intent of taking advantage of this situation and carrying out their hostile plot. The army therefore was forced to apply wartime regulations and, following a military trial, punish the thirty-seven who had participated in the meetings.

The order warned the populace that any assembly was certain to be punished with death by shooting. It also banned any gathering at the graves of the victims, forbade any meetings of members of the cooperatives, and ordered the closing of all but two synagogues. The order forbade any conversation between people coming to official institutions, such as the municipality, the police, the militia, and the like.77 In addition Landsberg demanded that Rabbi Horowitz sign a document stating that a Bolshevik meeting had taken place at the Beit Ha’am. The rabbi refused. Since the rabbis were charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the “Pinsk episode” not be mentioned in the synagogues, they decided to shut down the two synagogues in which services were permitted. That day a search for weapons began, and household articles and foodstuffs were stolen. People caught speaking Yiddish in the street were imprisoned. Men were afraid to leave their homes. The night of the massacre was a night of terror. Because of the curfew, only those living near the market square were aware of what was happening. Those living farther away thought that the shots came from a clash with Bolsheviks. The families of anyone who had not come home had a sleepless night. In the morning grief encompassed the entire city. Men, women, and children raced about trying to ascertain the fate of sons, daughters, husbands, and fathers. The city was gripped by fear of the future and by grave concern about the fate of the imprisoned. For several days it was unclear who had been shot and who was in prison, and the number of those seized was unknown.78

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The fate of the prisoners, and particularly of the girls, was grim. According to a report by Dr. Bogen, the head of the JDC delegation, two of the girls went out of their minds. One girl disappeared from the city, and the second remained in shock for months afterwards.79 Sunday morning fourteen of the prisoners were taken to the burial place at the cemetery. They were ordered to open the mass grave and stand alongside it, and they were told that they would be shot. The prisoners had already recited the Viddui when a policeman arrived, and the rifles were lowered. The prisoners were commanded to cover the grave again and returned to jail.80 There is no way to know what happened, whether this was a sadistic prank, or whether the Poles really intended to liquidate the prisoners as well, but didn’t. According to Gruenbaum’s report, a woman by the name of Sonia Rabinowitz pleaded with the policeman to save Gitelman (Shmuel Natan Gitelman, the teacher), who was among the prisoners, and, because of her intervention, all the prisoners were saved from death. A Pinsker who came to Warsaw on April 9, says: When the affair of the prisoners being led [to the cemetery] became known, some women who were acquainted with a senior soldier (apparently the same policeman), began to intercede to save Gitelman, and Gitelman was in fact freed from prison that day.81

After the prisoners were returned to jail, they were shown no mercy, not even the girls or the old men. The men were whipped while totally naked, and the girls while covered only by their shifts. They were lashed till they bled. Many remained ill for months afterward. The prisoners were beaten either to exact a confession or to satisfy an anti-semitic appetite. Sunday a delegation left Pinsk to go to Borukh Zuckerman, who was then in Brest. The delegation arrived in Brest at dusk while Zuckerman was attending a meeting with the heads of the Jewish community. Zucker­man cut the meeting short to leave at once for Warsaw; he arrived there Monday morning (April 7). According to a letter, which he wrote that day to Dr. Bogen, the head of the JDC delegation, Zuckerman went to Colonel Grove, who headed the delegation of Americans extending assistance to Poland. Zuckerman told Grove what had happened in Pinsk. Grove gave him permission to relate the “Pinsk episode” to the Jewish members of the Sejm and to the central committee of the

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Zionist Federation in Warsaw.82 In his memoirs, Zuckerman reverses the order of events. He says that first he went to Yitzhak Gruenbaum and then to Colonel Grove. But in his letter to Dr. Bogen, Zuckerman had changed the order, perhaps afraid that Bogen would be angered by his taking political action on his own.83 In fact, by the time Zuckerman met with Grove, the Colonel knew about the massacre, although he didn’t tell him so until later on. Gruenbaum apparently transmitted a copy of Zuckerman’s letter to Pilsudski that same day and informed Liszniewski, the Minister of War, and Wojciachowski, the Minister of the Interior, of the matter. The affair may have become known because Rykwert had left Pinsk on Sunday and arrived in Warsaw before Zuckerman did. On Monday, the officer Staszminski left Warsaw for Pinsk, as a replacement for Luczynski, who was responsible for the murder. On the way he stopped in Brest. There he met with General Listowski, the Commander in Chief of the Polesie front. Following a telephoned directive from the Polish Minister of War to appoint a commission of inquiry into the Pinsk episode, Listowski appointed Staszminski as chairman of the commission. Staszminski arrived in Pinsk that same day with several other officers and managed to interrogate five of the prisoners.84 The Polish news agency (P. A. T.) published General Listowski’s order: On the day of the Polish capture of Pinsk, shots were fired near dusk at the Polish army from windows in various parts of the city, and one cavalryman was killed. A substantial number of Bolshevik residents with a large quantity of arms in their possession were known to remain in the city. The vigorous measures and state of emergency immediately enacted ensured relative quiet and security for the Polish army. The repeated disruptions of the trains and the telephone lines, however, and the detention of spies sent by the Bolsheviks, strengthened the impression that a network of Bolsheviks was operating in the city. Contrary to the declarations of good intentions by the populace, the majority of whom were Jews, and, despite the gratitude that they expressed for their release from the Bolsheviks, and in spite of the food and medicines brought and distributed among the inhabitants irrespective of religion—the Jewish population demonstrated infuriating ingratitude. In early April, the attack on the Eastern front began, with the aim of capturing crucial strategic points, and dispersing the Bolshevik bands roaming the vicinity of Glanitshin-Pachasovsk. When our soldiers advanced

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to the east of the Jasolda, leaving behind a diminished force in Pinsk, it became evident that the Polish companies were encircled by treachery. Lieutenant Zamczak’s platoon was betrayed and suffered severe losses, and the lieutenant himself was killed. This piece of news, which reached Pinsk by way of the secret Bolshevik network, was enough to arouse a Bolshevik uprising in the city. The purpose of the insurrection was to wipe out the small garrison in the city, destroy the railway line, seize the train station, and preclude the possibility of retreat, leaving our companies open to fire on both flanks. An armed and organized Bolshevik gang already attacked the Polish army on April 5, and wounded our soldiers. Only the quick thinking of Major Luczynski and the proper maintenance of crucial locations in the city, prevented the consolidation of the gangs of rebels, and made it possible to promptly stifle their traitorous plots. The rapid disarming of the gang and the trial of its members before a military court, which sentenced thirty Bolsheviks to death by shooting, swiftly repressed the revolt and prevented horrible bloodshed. The majority of the Bolsheviks fled in terror, or hid in the city. I issue this final order to relinquish all arms and to reveal the hidden members of the underground, within three days. I am very pleased that the representatives of the [American] delegation were witness to this conspicuous ingratitude. I command this order to be immediately transmitted to the city of Pinsk.85

Listowski also levied a fine of one hundred thousand rubles on the Jews of the city. This document is obviously a farrago of misstatements. Why did Listowski hasten to promulgate the order at all? Why did the Polish government act with such alacrity to appoint a commission of inquiry? Why did the Polish authorities expedite the departure of Luczynski, who was responsible for the massacre, from the city? There is no doubt that the murder was premeditated; Brailsford’s previously cited remarks attest to this. According to Brailsford’s report, the Pinsk commander told him: “We plan to take action to make an example.” It is reasonable to postulate that the proposal was announced in advance at least to Listowski, who granted Luczynski a free hand. We saw above that Zuckerman was shadowed as early as Thursday. The trumped-up charges, such as the claim that a machine gun was found in the community center, were also prepared in advance. The persecutors accumulated “proof ”

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and “corroboration” of the fact that the Jews were Bolsheviks, prior to the massacre. They used a photograph of Bund members holding arms, which they had in their possession before the killings, as evidence of the Bolshevism of the city’s youth. With good will it would have been possible to clarify the import of this picture beforehand. It can be assumed that General Listowski was asked, by phone, how to deal with the “Bolsheviks” seized in the Beit Ha’am. Landsberg testified that he was called to the telephone during the “trial,” so that when sentence was passed, he was not present.86 One can presume that Landsberg went to telephone Listowski. Listowski himself stated on one occasion that he was responsible for Luczynski’s action.87 The government’s haste in appointing a commission of inquiry and the defensive apologetics of Listowski’s order imply that the Polish authorities immediately realized that their “action” had been rash. By Monday, April 7, foreign legations operating in Warsaw began to take an interest in the matter. A telegram was sent that day from Warsaw to the New Herald Tribune, which was published in Paris, and on Wednesday it was printed under the headline: “How should one deal with Bolsheviks? Shoot them! That is the Polish method.” The subtitle read: “Thirty-three conspirators were collectively put to death in the market square.” The article stated that a joint commission of American, British, and French delegates was conducting a rigorous investigation. The telegram sought to give an impression of objectivity, but its real purpose was to obscure the events. It was written from the Polish perspective and relied upon the remarks of Colonel Francis Franczak, an American present in Pinsk, on behalf of the American Red Cross. (He is not to be confused with the policeman Franczak who was mentioned previously.) A blatant lie was incorporated into the telegram as well: “Colonel Franczak said that, according to the military authorities, two hundred Bolsheviks were exposed in the midst of their intrigue, in a hall in one of the city’s suburbs.” And no mention is made that these supposed Bolsheviks were Jews. In the archives of the JDC in New York, there is an article, published on April 8 by a reporter named Zarnitzky (see below) which states: Colonel Francis Franczak of the United States Army, who arrived in Poland as a member of the Red Cross delegation and who recently

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returned from Pinsk, has informed us that thirty-three Bolsheviks were put to death after they wounded two Polish soldiers and attempted to take control of the city and destroy the Polish garrison there. Franczak swore that no harm was done to property, and homes were not raided. The death sentence was discharged in orderly fashion; it was the consequence of noncompliance with military orders, in a city near the front. In the past two weeks, while the American delegation was busy allaying the hunger and suffering in the city, the military authorities detected Bolshevik activity and propaganda carried out with large sums of Bolshevik money. A Polish-Jewish soldier informed the military commander that an attempt at rebellion was to take place Saturday night. Thereupon the authorities published a notice, which forbade public or private assemblies, and ordered all arms to be relinquished. However, in defiance of this order, a gathering was held on Saturday morning, and the authorities reiterated the ban on holding meetings. Nevertheless, another gathering was held that afternoon at 72 Kupechesky Street. At 6 o’clock Major George Luczynski sent several soldiers to disperse the assembly, but the soldiers came under fire; two soldiers were injured and one died of his wounds. Approximately two hundred Bolsheviks were present at the meeting. After the shooting they began to disperse. Additional forces rushed to the site, where sixty people remained. The soldiers found Bolshevik weapons and a machine gun. After they were caught, the Bolsheviks proceeded to destroy their documents and papers. Thirty-three Bolsheviks were shot, and the women and a number of men were transferred to prison. The dead were buried the next day, following identification. General Listowski, commander of the area, and Major Luczynski, released official announcements. . . . Colonel Franczak was present in Pinsk at the time of the event and on the following day, as well. Other eyewitnesses gave similar accounts. . . . Several American officers are currently in Pinsk for the purpose of conducting an investigation. The population of Pinsk is primarily Jewish. Borukh Zuckerman, of the American-Jewish support group, has left for Pinsk to investigate the episode. The Polish soldiers were saved from the Bolshevik conspiracy, thanks to the prior warning of a PolishJewish soldier who alerted the military commander of the city.

There is no point in dwelling on the misstatements in this or the other pronouncements. Yet the article was published as an “official announcement,” on behalf of the “Polish National Council,” which was rec-

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ognized by the allied powers as the representative of Poland; the Council was headed by Paderewski and Dmowski, the leader of the anti-semitic National Democratic party. Franczak wove a web of additional fabrications. Dr. Bogen writes in a letter dated April 9 that he met (apparently in Brest) with Major Taylor, the head of the American Red Cross delegation in Poland. Taylor told Bogen that Franczak had reported the following: The main purpose of the meeting [in the Beit Ha’am] was to scheme against him [that is Franczak], a member of the American Red Cross delegation. The Jews particularly objected to the Americans who brought food into the country, for as a result, they could not maintain high prices for food. In recent weeks large quantities of wheat had been brought to the market, and prices had plummeted. The Jews began to hoard foodstuffs. The military authorities published an announcement forbidding hoarding. . . . Nevertheless, the meeting took place. The building was then surrounded by soldiers, and hidden weapons and suspicious documents were uncovered.

In addition Franczak told Taylor it would not be advisable for anyone from the Red Cross to go to Pinsk because the Jews were terribly angry at the Americans. Taylor replied that if he thought it necessary to go to Pinsk, he would spare no effort to do so; and in such a case, he would not obey the Polish authorities. The descriptions of Rykwert and Zuckerman made an impression upon the heads of the American delegations. As early as April 6, Zucker­ man met in Brest with the American officer, Novak. Novak, who was sympathetic to the Jews, apparently left immediately either for Pinsk or Warsaw.88 By April 7, Zuckerman seems to have met with Foster, a member of the American political delegation, and Foster left for Pinsk but stopped along the way in Brest. Zuckerman, who returned to Brest on April 10, wanted to join Foster but instead returned to Warsaw immediately. Foster then proposed to Bogen, who was in Warsaw at this time, that he accompany him, but Bogen rejected the suggestion, saying that he was forbidden to act without permission from the head of the delegation for American relief to Poland. When Bogen came to Warsaw, he had found Grove most depressed “because of the catastrophe.” Bogen proposed that they should discontinue their activities in Poland

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and return home. Grove, however, felt that they should not take such a step. That day, Foster left for Pinsk with Listowski.89 Staszminski interrogated five prisoners on the day of his arrival in Pinsk, that is, on Monday (April 7). These prisoners were released the following day, “because they had been in another room, not in the assembly hall.”90 The testimony of Sonia Rozman, Yitzhak Papish, and Kuba Kobrynski appears in the minutes of this “commission of inquiry,” which began its work on Wednesday (April 9). They were among the first five to be released. According to Feinstein, only two girls were discharged that day, and they were released on doctor’s orders. Feinstein continues that the prisoners’ relatives sought ways to free them. They found a way to gain access to the chief of police, at whose orders and in whose presence the prisoners had been whipped. In exchange for two thousand rubles and an assortment of gifts, he promised to put an end to the torture. That night was a night of terror for the girls, despite his promise. Ten soldiers burst into their room and ordered them to be prepared to die. When the male prisoners heard the girls’ screams they tried with all their might to break down the door of the girls’ room. The soldiers went away. But the girls were hysterical throughout the night. The prison watchman promised to guard their room all night and not allow anyone to enter. He kept his word.91 Luczynski, who was responsible for the massacre, gave the following testimony before the commission of inquiry. Several days before April  5, he saw large groups of Jewish youth congregating about the military headquarters, police installations, and the municipal command. He discussed the matter with his officers (he mentions among them an officer named Franczak, apparently referring to the Franczak who took the bribe, mentioned previously) and with the mayor. When Luczynski received information about plans to attack the army, he published regulations concerning assemblies. Luczynski also spoke of the disruption of the telephone lines, and Franczak confirmed his statements that seventy meters of lines had been severed. On April 5 Luczynski received word of the failure of a partisan action by Polish forces. The news spread through the city and caused excitement (among the Jews). Several days before April 5, farmers had been caught transporting armaments from the other side of the river in the direction of the area under Polish control.

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Luczynski further testified that he had in his possession a photograph of a Jewish fighting unit, bearing arms. The flags in the photograph seemed to bear revolutionary slogans. It was established that several of the people in the photograph were among the groups that offered opposition to the entry of the Polish army into Pinsk, and they had not relinquished their weapons. On April 5, at 8:00 p.m., Luczynski heard shots and commotion in the marketplace. “Nine soldiers guarded a crowd of Jews. . . . I saw that they [the Jews] were tearing up papers.” The duty officer told him that meetings of the cooperatives were taking place in a number of locations, as stated. These meetings continued past the permissible time. When the military intervened, they were fired at and two soldiers were injured. Luczynski was told that soldiers had kept an eye on these meetings, for Jewish soldiers of the same unit had warned of surprises. The soldiers reported that in the Beit Ha’am, the older people were on the upper floor and the young people on the lower floor. The doors were barricades. The people immediately demonstrated opposition to the soldiers. Luczynski had been informed of several meetings, and soldiers reported that people had fled, holding a machine gun and other weapons. Since he had been told that everyone who came to the meeting wore a little red flag beneath their coat lapels and since he had at his disposal only a limited number of forces, he decided to act as he did. The next day one Bolshevik was taken prisoner. He admitted that the Bolsheviks were aware of the preparations for an uprising in Pinsk. Luczynski gave this information to the American officer Franczak. On April 7 Luczynski left for Biala to take advantage of the vacation time due him. There he received the order to testify before the commission.92 The testimony of Corporal Czybusz, according to which he “checked out” the Beit Ha’am that Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m., was mentioned. He testified that just as he arrived with four soldiers, nine soldiers on motorcycles rode by. Apparently they frightened the Jews. Czybusz was fired upon twice. His soldiers started shooting and entered the hall. The Jews present began to rip up papers written in Russian; several of them had little red flags under their coat lapels.93 The soldier Mielajko testified that he arrived from Warsaw that Saturday at 4:00 p.m. When he reached the barracks, Czybusz took him,

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along with five other soldiers, and told him that they were going to apprehend Jews who had assembled for a Bolshevik meeting. When they got there, a shot was fired. Mielajko was hit on the head and called to his fellow soldiers for help. The Jews did not want to obey them and proceeded to flee; they even escaped through the windows. On the table were many papers, which they started to tear up. The soldiers found two pistols and a large box of empty shells in the Jews’ possession.94 Kozak also told his tale, as did two other Polish military men. One reported how the “judicial verdict” was carried out at Luczyn­ ski’s order and that thirty-four Jews between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five were shot. One Franciszek Sel, of the police, testified that “the investigation didn’t turn up anything; they did not find suspicious material.”95 And others among the prisoners, whose names we have mentioned, also testified. Thus was the substance of some of the evidence given by the primary Polish witnesses, most of it misstatement. Neither weapons nor a machine gun were found in the Beit Ha’am. The Jews did not fire at Czybusz, and, obviously, they did not kill a Polish soldier and a Polish officer. This was a fabrication that was spread about immediately on the night of the massacre. But the testimonies suggest that those responsible for the murders knew that there was to be a meeting in the Beit Ha’am. They were aware that permits had been granted for the gathering, and this gave them the opportunity to implement a scheme they had plotted long before. The reply of Landsberg, the military commander of the city, to Gavrilkovitz, the mayor, confirms this conclusion. The morning after the murder, when Gavrilkovitz asserted that those shot had been Zionists and not Bolsheviks and demanded that Landsberg show him the policemen injured by the Jews, Landsberg retorted: “This is a military matter, and none of your business.”96 What the “military matter” was can be inferred from Staszminski’s account. This was written on April 9, that is, before the conclusion of the inquiry of which he was chairman. The contents of Staszminski’s account follows: A Jewish Bolshevik organization existed in Pinsk, and it was in constant contact with Bolsheviks beyond the front. This organization plotted an attack on the Polish army, to which end it organized several secret meet-

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ings. One of the gatherings was discovered, thanks to a soldier whom the Jews had attempted to persuade to cross over to their side (Kozak). The assault was planned by the Jewish Bolsheviks, because of the reduced military presence in the city, and on the occasion of “good” news from the front. The attack was thwarted due to the radical measures promptly taken under orders of the commander, Major Luczynski. These steps were mandatory and the only ones which could avert the attack, because the Jewish population of Pinsk sympathized with the Jewish-Bolshevik movement, and took a hostile stand against the Polish army and the idea of Polish statehood in general.97

The last claim gives everything away. Despite the incidents of robbery and murder, which they had engaged in upon their entry into the city, the new Polish rulers still wanted the Jews to show enthusiasm for the “idea of Polish statehood,” that is, the idea of “Greater Poland,” and the annexation of Pinsk to Poland. (This, after the Jews were ordered to remove signs written in Hebrew letters, [and] after the Jews were cheated of their rights as citizens by the method in which the council was composed, clerks appointed, and food distributed.) Actually, at this time the Jews of Pinsk were preoccupied with problems of daily survival and not interested in political issues. B. Zuckerman speculated that the murder was undertaken to show the Western world that the Poles were worthy of support in their battle against Bolshevism; in other words, the massacre was an act staged for the benefit of the outside world.98 This theory is difficult to support, as is the assumption that was expressed in a resolution passed on April 17 by the Workers’ Council in Warsaw: This massacre of unarmed persons was not committed by hooligans or by individual soldiers incited by ignorant provocateurs, as was the case in Lemberg and other Polish cities. Nor was it performed by an anonymous murderer, as happened to the delegation of the Russian Red Army. It was undertaken by official military authorities protected by the government responsible for them. This massacre was the most cynical expression of a contrived and consistent government policy, to suppress the revolutionary movement, by means of anti-semitic and nationalistic propaganda, and by incitement against socialists and communists.99

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This resolution viewed the pogroms against the Jews as a method of repressing the revolutionary movement, and instigation against the Jews as a way of distracting the masses from fomenting social revolution. While it is true that the riots were executed under the banner of “Jews are Bolsheviks,” this was not the reason for the anti-semitism, but its expression. The opinion expressed in this resolution does support our assumption that Luczynski acted as he did with the sanction of his superiors. On Tuesday April 8, a women’s delegation set out for Listowski to plead with him on the prisoners’ behalf. Listowski refused to receive them, but he announced that no harm would come to the prisoners. On Wednesday his order came to release the captives, presumably because Foster, the American, planned to leave with him for Pinsk on the following day. In fact, the prisoners were freed on Thursday April 10, before Listowski and Foster arrived. But they gained their liberty only after Rabbi Horowitz, M. Rabinowitz, and A. Tonger (actually, Toyzner) signed the following statement: “We vouch that they [the prisoners whose names were listed] did not belong to an organization fighting against the Polish army and will never belong to such an organization.” The prisoners were also warned not to relate anything about what they had undergone.100 Listowski and his colleagues wanted to hide the truth. But it caused a storm in the Jewish community. The Yiddish press—Haynt, Moment, Lebens Fragen—and the Polish-Jewish press published all the information that reached them. In response to the publication by P.A.T. [the Polish news agency] of Listowski’s order of April 7, S. Y. Yatzkan replied forcefully in Haynt of April 9: “P.A.T. can print whatever reports it likes, about Bolshevik Pinskers who were shot. Lies! That is all we can say about it.” The Bundist newspaper Lebens Fragen published an editorial entitled Zamd in Moil (sand in the mouth): Our bones cry out in humiliation, but we cannot speak; we are buried alive in a dark grave, with sand in our mouths. Our voices are unheard. No one listens to us. . . . A myth has been hastily fabricated. Innocent people, middle-class Zionists transformed into Bolsheviks. . . . a horrible massacre turned into an act of “self-defense”; they took action against “rebellious ingrates;” and the Polish press, well-schooled in

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such matters, cultivates and disseminates this propaganda. . . . They have poured the blood of the guiltless as fuel into the machinery of anti-semitism. . . . We want to raise our voices in accusation, to point out the guilty parties, but—our mouths are filled with sand.

The editor may have known the names of the guilty parties at the higher levels, but could not print them for fear that the paper would be censored, closed, or fined. The newspaper Dziennik Nowy was shut down, and its manager, Shmuel Velkovich, was arraigned for writing, on April 9, that “the Polish army carried out a massacre in Pinsk, under the pretext of fighting communism . . . without a shred of proof, absolutely arbitrarily, to set an example and to intimidate the inhabitants.” 101 In the April 9 issue of Haynt was an article entitled “Kleiner Feuilleton-Pinsk,” which stated, among other things: This is what it will be like. We will be granted equal rights in Poland and national rights and political rights and all sorts of rights, but there will be pogroms, and there will be massacres and there will be robberies, at the same time. They [the Poles] will take charge, they will push us out of the way, they will lay the groundwork, so that it can be said: There are hardly any Jews left in Poland; there is no one to grant these rights to.

This article thus connected the pogroms in general, and the pogrom in Pinsk specifically, with the struggle for equal rights and national rights conducted by Jewish delegations to the Peace Conference. The Polish-Americans who were in Pinsk and Warsaw at the time did all they could to justify the massacre because American policy, which was of course anti-Bolshevik, was pro-Polish. But the pressure of Jewish demonstrations in New York opposing the riots against Polish Jews, the activities of the American Jewish Committee, and especially the work of Louis Marshall, mitigated this policy somewhat.102 The American Consulate in Warsaw published the following announcement with respect to the massacre in Pinsk: A member of the American delegation, Pulkownik [Colonel] Franczak, has arrived in Warsaw. He was present in Pinsk when the forty-four Bolsheviks were shot. . . . In his report to the American military authorities in Warsaw, he related the following: in spite of a prohibition

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by the military authorities, a meeting of approximately two hundred Bolsheviks took place at 72 Kupechesky Street. Weapons were found upon those assembled at the meeting. When the building was surrounded, sixty-six people were arrested, and they were taken to the marketplace, where every second one was shot. When this happened the Pulkownik was at the hospital. When he heard the shots he went out to the market square, and there he found the thirty-three dead.103

In a private conversation with an American major (his name is unknown), Franczak said that the word “Bolsheviks” did not pass his lips.104 There is evidence, however, that Franczak testified under oath that the meeting to arrange assistance, in which Borukh Zuckerman participated, was nothing less than a Bolshevik conspiracy; but it’s not clear if he was referring to the meeting in the Beit Ha’m on Saturday or not. A Polish-American agent by the name of Zarnicki played “dirty tricks” behind the scenes. He may have been instrumental in issuing the above announcement from the Warsaw consulate.105 It was Zarnicki who had relayed the previously cited telegram to the New Herald Tribune, which was published under the headline: “How should one deal with Bolsheviks? Shoot them! That is the Polish method.” He had also tried to influence Colonel Grove to accept the official version.106 The central Polish authorities did all they could to squelch any testimony likely to confute the claim that the dead were Bolsheviks. Gavrilkovitz, the mayor of Pinsk, was deposed and placed in a detention camp.107 The priest Bukrawa, who expressed his shock at the massacre the next morning, was summoned to Warsaw and apparently warned by the authorities to hold his tongue.108 Borukh Zuckerman met, on Monday April 7, with Yitzhak Gruenbaum and at Gruenbaum’s suggestion, Zuckerman wrote a letter to the Jewish representatives to the Sejm. He spoke briefly about his visit to Pinsk, telling what he knew about the pogrom, and closing with these words: I consider it my duty to call these matters to the attention of the appropriate people of influence, so that action may be taken without delay. The soldiers traveling on the train with the Pinsk Jews [coming to Brest], who informed me of the massacre, boasted that what had happened in Pinsk was as nothing compared to what would soon take

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place. They spoke all the while of how they would make things even hotter for the Jews of Pinsk.109

A copy of this letter was sent to the central committee of the Warsaw Zionist Federation, apparently to be relayed to the Zionist office in Copen­hagen, and from there to the Jewish delegations attending the Paris Peace Conference. Copies were sent by Gruenbaum to the Minister of War and the Minister of the Interior. The next day a parliamentary question, signed by N. Prylucki, Y. Gruenbaum and the other Jewish representatives to the Sejm, and by the members of the P.P.S. (Polish Socialist Party), was addressed to the chairman of the Sejm. The question included Zuckerman’s letter and Rykwert’s account of what he had heard and seen in Pinsk. It concluded: Are the Prime Minister and the Minister of War aware of the pogroms and murders, which the Polish army perpetrated on the 5th of this month against the residents of Pinsk, and do they plan to communicate these events to the Sejm? What measures do the Prime Minister and the Minister of War propose to enact, in order to find the murderers and see that they are severely punished, so as to ensure that such events do not recur in the future?110

On April 10 the Minister of War, General Liszniewski, replied to the parliamentary question. His response, based upon Listowski’s order and upon the pronouncement of the American envoy Franczak, included additional fabrications. The reply was occasionally interrupted by interjections of agreement on the part of the right-wing members of the Sejm, and there were even shouts of, “They should have killed them all, all of them, not just the young ones!” Only one voice of protest was heard in the chamber, the voice of a member of the P.P.S., who, in the midst of the Minister’s reply and in the clamor of agreement expressed by the Center, shouted, “One doesn’t mete out capital punishment for that!” The Minister of War concluded his reply with the announcement that a commission that included members of the American delegation had left for Pinsk. A legal inquiry had been started as well. When the investigations were completed, he would present the findings to the Sejm and submit the appropriate documents to the Sejm as necessary.111 On Monday, April 7, indeed Novak had already left for Pinsk at Grove’s

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request.112 But even in this case the Minister distorted the facts. In addition to Staszminski, the chairman, the other members of the commission were Captain Wiszniewski and Lieutenant Holbo; they were all Poles, and not one was from the American delegation. Foster arrived in Pinsk with Listowski on April 10, but they did not participate in the inquiry and did not solicit testimony. In closing, the Speaker of the Sejm announced that a motion had been raised by a large number of representatives (without mentioning that the motion was brought up by the Jewish representatives led by Gruenbaum, and apparently the P.P.S. bloc, as well) to send a commission of inquiry to Pinsk, on behalf of the Sejm. The motion was approved in spite of complaints and protests on the part of the centrist representatives, the farmers. This decision was a result of the Sejm’s estimation of the power of American Jewry.113 On Wednesday, April 9, Grove told Zuckerman that he had assembled a committee of three ranking officers, an American, an Englishman and an Italian, and that they “would visit Pinsk in a few days time.” Zuckerman remarks that Grove had a difficult time with the Polish authorities. Initially they refused to recognize this commission and denied permission for the group to enter Pinsk. However, they relented when Grove threatened to leave Poland together with all the members of the American relief mission.114 Feinstein’s description may refer to this commission, although he tells of only two officers who arrived, one American and one Frenchman. Feinstein relates that on the first of the intermediate days of Passover, April 16, he was called to the home of the Pinsk Rabbi, that is the Dayan Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz. Rabbi Horowitz showed him a note from Borukh Zuckerman, which read as follows: “Honorable Rabbi, the two officials bearing this letter are individuals of great integrity. They may be trusted. They wish to know what took place in Pinsk. Reveal everything to them. Bring the people stricken by the tragedy to them.”115 Feinstein continues that after great effort, in danger and in fear of the Polish authorities in the city, he succeeded in gathering four witnesses from among the prisoners. Their wounds had not yet healed from the lashings they had suffered. The officers managed to hear only two of the witnesses and Feinstein. A guard with “the eyes of

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a murderer” recorded the names and addresses of those who testified. The rest of the witnesses, alarmed, left without making any statements. Feinstein succeeded in persuading Mrs. Koifman-Slivka to come and testify. But the guard at the entrance to the command, where the questioning took place, did not allow her to enter because “the officers had already left.” Fearful of Polish retaliation for the testimony, Feinstein wrote a note to the officers, in which he explained the peril in store for the Jews of Pinsk because of their testimony. “We sense the imminence of a new tragedy. We are all in jeopardy. We look to you. Our lives are in your hands. Have mercy. Save us.” But Mrs. Basevitz, the proprietor of the hotel in which the officers were staying, was afraid to take the note and deliver it to the officers. For lack of an alternative, Feinstein put the note into an envelope, on which he wrote “For the Officers.” The hotel attendant left the note on the table in their room. And since there were many officers in the hotel at the time, Polish and French, the note was read aloud in the presence of all. The Commander of Pinsk, Landsberg, was asked by the officers to invite several of those who had been imprisoned to the hotel. Shayna Koifman-Slivka, the teacher Ze’ev Boshes, and Avraham Zvi Elstein testified and were cross-examined. At the conclusion of their testimony, shouts filled the room. A serious fight broke out between the Polish officers and the officers of the commission. At the end, the two officers of the commission snatched up their baggage and returned to Warsaw.116 We have no information about the outcome of this commission. We do know that on April 17 the city commander published an order, which contained the following: Since we have received complaints from the residents of the city and the vicinity, I hereby order the soldiers, once again, to cease searching homes, confiscating goods, and seizing residents for forced labor without orders from the appropriate authorities.117

This order, published because the Sejm commission was due to arrive in Pinsk that day, did not stop the brutality and robberies. The political representatives of the American State Department in Poland continued their efforts to cloud the issue of pogroms against the Jews, in general, and the “Pinsk episode” in particular. Major Foster,

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who was a member of the Polish-American Friendship Organization, and responsible for the political affairs of the United States in Poland, stated that the shootings of April 5, were not to be classified as a “pogrom,” and the action taken by Commander Luczynski “was deserving of pardon.” He did add that, “on the basis of the available evidence, one might reach a different conclusion.” He did not wish Poland to be discredited at the Paris Peace Conference as a country that organized riots against Jews. Defense of Poland was the political policy of many officials at the State Department in Washington, and of Gibson, the United States envoy to Poland. In a conversation, which Bogen had with Foster, Bogen pointed out that Zarnicki and Franczak were due to leave for Paris and that they would surely distort the truth; the consequences were liable to be severe. Bogen apparently wanted Foster to publicize the whole truth. To this, Foster replied that he had taken measures to ensure that nothing would be done before the Sejm commission submitted its account. The Polish press proclaimed that Foster had stated his conviction that events in Pinsk took place exactly as described by the Minister of War in his official reply to the parliamentary question of the Jewish members of the Sejm. On April 18, however, the Polish Foreign Ministry published a notice saying that Foster had never made any statement with regard to the events, which took place in Pinsk on April 5, and that he repudiated any statements on this topic made in his name, and reported by the newspapers.118 Since American public opinion accepted it as axiomatic that Bolshevism should be given no quarter, the basic question was whether those slain in Pinsk were Bolsheviks. Should the official version of the Polish authorities and those who spoke in their behalf be accepted or not? America’s political representatives in Poland and Colonel Grove, who headed the American relief mission to Poland, took opposing stands. Grove’s immediate inclination was to accept Zuckerman’s account as authentic, and the report of the commission of inquiry, which he [Grove] appointed served to support his position. Zuckerman relates that after he became involved in the “troublesome affair” and called Zarnicki, who was an American citizen, a “Polish spy,” Washington was subjected to considerable pressure to recall the JDC delegation from Poland.119 This pressure was probably exerted by pro-Polish groups,

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wishing to oust American-Jewish citizens from Poland, who could shed light on the condition of Jews in Poland and its captured territories. But Jewish spokesmen in the United States intensified their efforts to uncover the truth. By April 14, Bogen had received a telegram from Lewis Strauss, asking: “Are you conducting an inquiry into the Pinsk matter?” On April 25, Phillips, the acting Secretary of State in Washington, sent the following telegram to Gibson, the United States envoy in Poland: “Jews have submitted reports to the Department stating that on April 5 Jews were murdered, by Poles, while distributing matzot. Another report that was received states that those murdered were Bolsheviks who attempted to stage an uprising.” Gibson was ordered to conduct, immediately upon arriving in Warsaw, a rigorous investigation aimed at revealing the truth and to inform the Department forthwith. When Gibson tried to evade a reply, claiming that he was waiting for the report of the Sejm commission of inquiry, Phillips sent a second telegram on May 21, demanding that he be apprised of the truth without delay. Meanwhile, it became clear that Zarnicki really was a Polish spy; at that point, Grove allowed Zuckerman and Isidore Hirshfeld, who was also serving in Poland on behalf of the JDC, to leave for Paris. They departed on May 5. In Paris, Zuckerman was questioned at length by Louis Marshall, head of the American-Jewish delegation to the Peace Conference, and by his assistant, Judge Julian Mack. Marshall emerged from the questioning assured of the veracity of Zuckerman’s version.120 Marshall’s subsequent actions influenced both the United States position regarding the question of Polish Jewry and the conclusions of the Sejm commission of inquiry, which began its investigation in Pinsk on April 17. Eight members of the Sejm—six Poles and two Jews—participated in this commission of inquiry. The Jews were Noah Prylucki, in the role of secretary, and Yitzhak Gruenbaum. Newspaper correspondents, who wished to accompany the commission, were detained in Brest by Listowski. In a speech delivered to the commission members and reporters, Listowski remonstrated about the multiplicity of commissions and complained that this irked the soldiers. Why all the commotion anyway? Had thirty Ukrainians been killed, no one would have opened his mouth. It is possible that not all those executed were Bolsheviks,

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but, “when trees are felled, chips will fly.” Listowski accepted responsibility for Luczynski’s actions.121 The newspaper Robotnik published a rejoinder, expressing the opinion that barring the press would cast doubts upon the accuracy of the conclusions that the commission was to draw. Robotnik also pointed out that Listowski had not cited precise facts to confirm that those shot were indeed Bolsheviks, nor had Listowski mentioned in his speech that a military trial was conducted, as if it were permissible to shoot Bolsheviks without trial, and as if any officer or ranking soldier were allowed to conduct arbitrary executions.122 During the investigation, the Jewish delegates concentrated primarily on these two questions: the political identity of the murdered, and whether there had been a trial. After two days of hearing and questioning witnesses, April 17 and 18, the commission adjourned for the Easter holiday, and the members left Pinsk. The legal inquiry, which had been announced in the Sejm on April 10 by the Minister of War, was conducted in the interim. On the seventh day of Passover, Feinstein was summoned to testify before a judicial investigator named Gerger. This investigator showed Feinstein the picture in which youngsters bearing arms had been photographed. Feinstein was able to respond immediately, “the picture was from the year 1905, and those photographed were members of the Bund.” According to Feinstein, the investigator uttered these words: “There was a miscarriage of justice.”123 But nothing further is known about the results of this investigation. On April 25 the Sejm commission set out for Pinsk again. This time Listowski gave permission for reporters to travel to Pinsk, but correspondents of the Polish newspapers did not come. Only A. Goldberg, a reporter for Haynt, and Zibert, a writer for Lebens Fragen, arrived. They were warned by Listowksi to “maintain discretion.”124 Once in Pinsk, they were subjected to the close supervision of a policeman. They were barred from visiting private homes and even from holding conversations. They were permitted to deliver letters and greetings from Warsaw, but only in Polish or Russian, so that the accompanying policeman could understand what was being said.125 Prylucki and Gruenbaum also behaved cautiously and did not come in contact with the Jewish population aside from hearing witnesses during inquiry sessions. They lodged in the railroad car made available to the members of the com-

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mission. Goldberg, the reporter, criticized them for this behavior. But they acted wisely, for despite their precautions, complaints were voiced afterwards that the testimony of the Jews was overly uniform, “someone had coached them.” The strict supervision of the correspondents was relaxed the day after their arrival, and Goldberg was able to receive detailed information about what was going on in Pinsk. Whatever he heard and saw, was published in Haynt.126 The Sejm commission continued hearing witnesses from April 27 until May 2. The investigations were conducted primarily by Wroblew­ ski and Gruenbaum. Landsberg’s testimony included this: that among the scraps of paper, which the detainees ripped up in the Beit Ha’am, a paper was found with the inscription: “Popular Young Zionist-Socialist Party.” 127 This was obviously the cachet of the Zeirei Zion party, but several of the commission members, along with anti-semitic reporters, latched onto this inscription afterwards and claimed that Zeirei Zion was a Bolshevik party. The Jewish delegates had to prove that this was not true. The dayan, Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz, swore that none of the victims belonged to an anti-Polish organization and that the meeting with Zuckerman took place without a permit because they were sure that none was necessary.128 Pesia Shulman testified that her husband had gone to exchange German passports for Polish ones. “He stood in line from 11 in the morning, and was still there at 4:00 p.m. He was arrested while walking in the street.”129 Luczynski had claimed before the Staszminksi commission (see above) that the Jews congregated about the command offices. That was true, but they had come there for the purpose of exchanging documents; Luczynski should have been aware of that (and probably was). Shayna Slivka and Elka Miletzky represented in their testimony that Officer Bukrawa, the brother of Father Bukrawa, was largely responsible for the fate of the detained. As the prisoners passed near the hospital, he had called out: “If they are Jews, these Bolsheviks, kill them all.” It was after this that the soldiers began to beat the prisoners more violently.130 Among the witnesses who testified against those killed was Bukrawa’s mother. She said that after the Bolshevik conquest, the (Catholic?) church was defiled under the direction of Lutzky the Jew,

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and that the Jews had a hostile attitude to the Christians. She related that under German rule, when the city was administered by the Citizens’ Committee composed mainly of Jews, the majority of those expelled from the city were Orthodox. As the Bolsheviks retreated from the city, they hid in the Jews’ homes and fired at the Poles. But she was forced to admit that on their first night [in the city], the Polish soldiers took “very great” liberties and that she knew the pharmacist Friedman who was shot, and he was not a Bolshevik.131 Sonia Rabinowitz testified about herself that “they don’t like us [referring to herself and her sister] very much in the city, because we go out with the officers and participate in their parties.” She related that she and her sister had taken part in a dance for the benefit of Polish orphans “the previous week,” and it did not occur to her that she would be looked upon with disapproval because “she was out dancing while the city was in mourning.” She attested that “Luczynski was angry” that the theater hall was empty when parties were organized for the benefit of the police or the orphans, while it was full when the Zionists performed plays for the benefit of the Jewish orphanage. She stated in her testimony that the Poles stole one hundred thousand rubles from her brother-in-law and that the Jews had suffered during Bolshevik rule. “The Bolsheviks coerced laborers, promised one thousand rubles a month, and gave nothing. Prices were high, and people died of hunger.”132 Jozef Bat, the head of the gendarmerie in the city, made the following statements: All [the Jews of] Pinsk went around with their noses in the air, because of the decrease in army forces, but on April 5th they received a blow that will surely have an effect. . . . My business is the elimination of banditry. The bandits are farmers, Jews. It’s one big mess. The soldiers plunder because they have nothing.133

The soldier Mielajko testified that he arrived from Warsaw that Saturday, with four friends. Messengers came in a panic, to take them, “because the Bolshevik meeting was already dispersing.” Meanwhile two ulanis (Ukrainian soldiers) joined the searchers, and “they found two pistols, and left. They looked for the ulanis and did not find them.”134 Staromejski the policeman said that a Russian poster of “The Union (Soyuz) of Bolshevik Russia” had been found, with an appeal to “kill all

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the Poles.” He testified that he was directed to shoot every other person, but the order was then revised, and the women, children, and old people were taken away.135 When the witness Jozef Konarski was interrogated, it became apparent that during Bolshevik rule there was no sympathy between the majority of the Jewish population and the Bolsheviks. Feinstein confirmed this in his testimony.136 During the commission’s investigation, the Polish command realized that it had no knowledge at all of the names and number of the dead. Landsberg submitted a list of twenty-seven names, some of which were incorrect. The militia started going from house to house to find out who was missing in order to compile a list of the dead. Feinstein writes that he immediately understood the purpose of this investigation on the part of the militia, and he spoke to the bereaved families and told them not to reveal a thing. One day Feinstein was summoned to Landsberg, who tried to extract precise information from him about the names of the dead, but instead Feinstein got Landsberg to give him a copy of his list. He was thus able to present the commission with Landsberg’s list and his own, and to prove that the perpetrators of the massacre did not know the names of those put to death, nor even their exact number. One of the Polish members of the commission, who took an anti-semitic stance (apparently Zagorski), claimed in his interrogation of Feinstein that the Jews were all Bolsheviks and that the Jews hated the Poles, the proof being that during the German conquest, the Citizens’ Committee expelled all the Poles from the city. Feinstein was easily able to refute this claim and similar ones.137 The Polish members of the commission also made much of a card, which bore the Yiddish inscription, “Fraktsia fun de Folks Sotsialistin” (Faction of the Folk Socialists)—if they are socialists, they must surely be Bolsheviks. On their side, the Jewish delegates managed to obtain a poster circulated in Pinsk by the Bolsheviks, in which all the leaders of the Jewish workers’ parties were called traitors to working class interests, who should not be elected to any institutions.138 To ascertain the number of dead, the grave was opened. Landsberg testified that thirty-four people were shot at the site, and three others were killed while trying to escape, that is thirty-seven, in all. Feinstein knew of thirty-five murdered, including Aharon Gleiberman. When the grave was opened, it was discovered that several people had been stabbed

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with bayonets. P.A.T. reported that it had been proved that the correct figure was thirty-four dead and not thirty-seven, as stated by the Jews; hence all the facts presented by the authorities were accurate.139 The newspaper Kurier Polski published the fact that most of the dead were members of the Zeirei Zion party, considered “Socialist Bolsheviks.”140 Feinstein checked how Landsberg had arrived at the number thirty-seven and theorized that he had added Prizant and Fialkov (the two youths freed by bribing Officer Franczak) to the number of those executed.141 Meantime, an investigation was conducted, perhaps at the initiative of Gruenbaum and Prylucki, to reveal the past of Kozak and Kolkar. A woman testified that Kolkar had spoken about removing gold watches and inlaid rings from the dead; he had likewise taken a large number of bills from the pockets of four Jews who had been killed. Kolkar had said that the Jews of Pinsk “were being picked clean.” He related that he had persuaded one of the residents of Biala Podlaska to join the Polish legion and boasted that by Shavuot he would have accumulated one hundred thousand marks. Another witness made similar statements. According to the testimony of one witness, a Jew from Biala Podlaska, Kolkar was a native of this town and known as a hoodlum and a thief. The Jews of Brest and Kobryn testified against Kozak. He was a notorious thief and pickpocket.142 The testimonies completely contradicted official accounts, and the whole truth was now bared to the commission. Even the anti-semites among the commission members were shaken by the testimony of a mother who became hysterical while making her statement and began screaming: Yosel, Yosel!143 This was probably Yosef Hekelman’s mother. Notwithstanding, the anti-semitic newspaper Dwa Grosze printed the report of a correspondent from Pinsk, which stated that the Pinsk Jews were hostile to Poland, and their sympathies lay with Bolshevism. For fear of Polish might, the Jews sometimes acted in order to dupe others as if they were friends of the Poles. The Jews were not liked by their neighbors because they took advantage of them. The ‘Zydowstwo’ (Jewry) went crazy when it saw Prylucki, the leader of the ‘Litwaczestwo’ (Lithuanian Jewry) and made unfounded accusations against the Polish army. Among other things the Jews claimed that the number of “Bolsheviks” killed was higher than the official tally.

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The Jewish delegates relied on this information, but were disappointed when the grave was opened.

The Dwa Grosze article closed with aspersions on the objectivity of the Jewish members of the commission, who were not “capable of rising to the level of delegates of the sovereign Sejm since they sought ‘corroboration’ for the legitimacy of their claims.”144 This article was written to obscure the impression that the truth about the crime was likely to make on the Western world, while “Polish statesmen, with the assistance of American statesmen operating in Warsaw, were trying to prove that there were no pogroms in Poland, merely soldiers’ brawls.”145 Even as the Sejm commission was hearing testimony, soldiers were pulling shoes off Jews walking in the street and replacing them with torn ones. One youngster burst into the commission, wailing about this. The Jewish delegates appealed to the commander regarding the matter and received a reply that he had orders to supply fifty pairs of shoes for soldiers at the front; he had no recourse but to permit his soldiers to seize Jews on the street and remove their shoes.146 The rationale given for this was as follows: the Germans, before retreating, had sold warehouses of machines, clothes, and shoes; all this had been declared by the Polish authorities to be state property.147 Listowski acceded to the commission’s request to defer payment of the one-hundred-thousand–mark fine until May 5.148 The commission left Pinsk on May 3. A British emissary arrived the next day with the monthly support from the JDC, in the sum of one hundred thousand marks. Late that same day, the Polish secret police appeared and confiscated the sum from Avraham Kazh, the treasurer, along with approximately thirty thousand rubles of his personal funds.149 Without going into details about the impression that the pogroms in Poland, and the “Pinsk episode,” made on the Jews of the West, or the protest meeting held on May 21 in Madison Square Garden in New York, it is noteworthy that Pinsk was given special emphasis in the resolutions that were passed and then addressed to President Wilson. Similar protest gatherings were held in various cities in the United States and England. A broad range of activities was undertaken by individuals and Jewish public bodies in their attempt to expose the lies of the Polish government. The soldiers’ harassment of Jews did not stop. Not only

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did the Polish members of the commission of inquiry do nothing to improve the attitude toward the Jews, they intensified the hatred. The soldiers were able to take a lesson from Wroblewski’s remarks: the chairman of the commission of inquiry of the sovereign Sejm of Poland stated that Jews were the “internal enemy” of Poland.150

Feinstein wrote on May 7: The situation in the city has not improved. It is still an everyday occurrence for innocent Jews to be whipped without mercy . . . even the elderly are not exempt. They stretch them out on a bench and lash them with no shame whatsoever. . . . Last week the following event took place: A soldier entered a Jewish home under pretext of conducting a search. In the course of the search, he stole 800 rubles, and after that he found a bit of oats in a sack. Since the commandant had plastered up notices a few days earlier saying that the soldiers were not allowed to confiscate anything without his permission, the Jew refused to give up the oats. The soldier began to beat the Jew with a whip. . . . An honest wachtmeister (supervising officer) happened by . . . took the whip from the soldier, lashed him several times, and advised the Jew to report the incident to the police. . . . The soldier showed up as well, and declared that the Jew and his father-in-law (a man of seventy-five) beat him. The Jewish family was immediately locked up. . . . The day before yesterday they brought the poor fellows to the police station and whipped them. The way they shouted while they were beaten was awful. Even the old man was forced to stretch out on the bench and take the lashing. . . . Yesterday another terrible thing happened. A Jewish cooperative purchased food from a Pole. . . . When they told the Pole that the weight was short, he was furious. . . . Right away they locked up the members of the cooperative committee. Last night a search of Weintraub’s photography studio was conducted; they were looking for pictures of Bolsheviks.151

Feinstein records additional details in a memorandum that he presented to Morgenthau during his visit to the city (see below): “Haim Lederman was arrested seven weeks ago because his features resemble those of one of the men photographed with pistols in their hands. . . . He was sent away to some unknown place.” This, happened even though the picture dated from 1905. When his wife turned to the po-

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lice to inquire about her husband, she and her sons were also imprisoned. Dr. Bukshitzky was “nearly condemned to death” because “his face vaguely resembled one of those in the photograph.” Wlodawski was apprehended and viciously beaten because he discussed the “Pinsk episode” while traveling on the train. He was released only after paying a bribe. One night soldiers conducted a search of Eliezer Giller’s house. They ordered his two sons and his son-in-law to get dressed and accompany them. They were released only after paying one hundred marks. On July 23 soldiers arrested Borukh Kaplan and demanded that he tell them where they could get wine. When he replied that he didn’t know, they ordered him to remove his shoes and beat him on the soles of his feet. They returned to the Kaplan home, and the elder Kaplan told them that there was wine in his store. Beside the wine, they stole fabric, paint, and a bicycle. When Kaplan demanded a receipt for the items, they beat him and imprisoned him together with his two sons. The father was also beaten on the soles of his feet and whipped besides. They wrung a confession from him that he had another forty-three bottles of wine and that his son and son-in-law had gold and silver. They then set upon one of the sons and finally robbed the store of merchandise worth three thousand rubles. But they didn’t leave the elder Kaplan alone and continued to torture him and hit him. The Kaplans were released only after a bribe of two thousand rubles was paid to the police. The same memorandum includes details of the tortures suffered by one old man, Shelomoh Haim Goldman of Snitowa (a town near Pinsk) because the Poles wished to pry information from him about the whereabouts of his son. The son had been a member of the municipal committee in Janowa during the Bolshevik rule. The memorandum continues: “We are abused by the soldiers, by the police, and by little shkutzim [derogatory term for non-Jews] who serve as the ‘reserves’ of the Polish legion.”152 The final proceedings of the Sejm commission were conducted at a leisurely pace. Luczynski, and a number of officers and soldiers who had carried out the massacre, needed to be interrogated further but they were not to be found. On June 25 the commission held a session, at which Wroblewski announced that the soldiers invited to testify were not present; some could not be found, and some could not leave their

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posts at the front.153 In early July a parliamentary question was posed in the Sejm by the Jewish delegate Rosenblatt: Why doesn’t the commission present its conclusions? Wroblewski was able to reply that material from the Staszminski commission had just been submitted to the Sejm commission and that it was difficult to locate certain individuals whom members of the commission wished to question.154 In a series of sessions, which the commission conducted during July and August, fundamental differences of opinion arose between the Jewish delegates and the Polish delegates. These were in addition to the dissension among the Polish delegates themselves. Gruenbaum prepared a comprehensive report with conclusions, which reveals the misstatements and contradictions in the testimonies of the witnesses who appeared before the Staszminski commission. Gruenbaum emphasizes that there had been no trial at all; he also gives a true picture of the characters of Kozak and Kolkar and stresses the fact that the meeting in the Beit Ha’am was held with a permit. He speaks about the brutality toward the prisoners and accuses Listowski and Staszminski of making unfounded statements. Gruenbaum concludes that the following should be brought to trial: Major Luczynski; Officer Drowik; Second-Lieutenant Sel; the policemen Kiwicki, Shultz, and Staromej­ ski; Sergeant Czybusz; and Kozak and Kolkar. He also recommended that General Listowski and Officer Staszminski be reprimanded for the manner in which they handled the affair, that the levy submitted by the Jews be returned to them, and that the families of the murdered be compensated.155 Of course Wroblewski formulated an entirely different account. According to his version, Luczynski was constrained to act as he did. There was an anti-Polish mood in Pinsk; the Jews had placed wreaths on the graves of Bolsheviks killed when the Poles entered the city; there were demonstrations against the Poles. Besides the legitimate assembly in the Beit Ha’am there was also an illegal meeting taking place. The Jews did not obey the orders of the authorities and held meetings with Zuckerman without a permit. It was true that the murdered were not Bolsheviks, but they were enemies of Poland. Kozak and Kolkar acted properly, for had they not informed as they did, they would have been considered traitors and held responsible.

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In the debate that ensued, Draszer, a member of the P.P.S., maintained that it was true that there was no need to take drastic measures, and unlawful acts had been committed; innocent people had been shot, and it was forbidden to whip. Nevertheless, in his opinion, there were probably Bolsheviks in the Bund and the Poalei Zion, and, therefore, one should be understanding of Luczynski.156 In his reply to Draszer, Gruenbaum claimed that the Bund had no influence in the city. At the time of the German conquest, there was no Bundist organization in the city. It was organized during the Bolshevik period but was distinctly opposed to Bolshevism and its ways. The proof is that the Pinsker Bund was persecuted by the Bolsheviks and that its members had fled the city; to this day not a single copy of the Bundist newspaper Lebens Fragen was sold in the city. Nor was there an organized party of Poalei Zion in the city. The only organized group in the city was the Zionists, which engaged solely in philanthropic activities. The flowers placed on the Bolshevik graves were put there not as an anti-Polish act but because the Bolsheviks fought against Denikin—against the Tsars. Yitzhak Schiper, who replaced Prylucki as a delegate to the Sejm and a member of the commission, maintained that the slander by Kozak and Kolkar was committed after they had plotted to take money from the Jews and failed. Despite all the claims and rebuttals, Wroblewski still insisted that there had been preparations for an uprising in Pinsk. He based his assertion on the fact that large sums of money were found on the people who were shot and on the prisoners.157 Months passed before the commission drew up its report and conclusions. These were formulated along the lines of Gruenbaum’s report, albeit with some variations. And approximately a year went by before the report was presented to the Sejm. On May 24, 1921, Wroblewski read the conclusions of the inquiry from the podium of the Sejm and recommended accepting resolutions, approximating the demands made by Gruenbaum, mentioned earlier. The Sejm passed the resolutions, and on September 31, 1921, Premier Paniekowski informed the speaker of the Sejm that the military authorities had begun an investigation of the events, and the results would be presented to the speaker of the Sejm. He also announced that the fines paid by the Jews would be returned to them. As far as compensation for the bereaved families

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went, they were to submit their claims, along with documentation.158 The Jews refused to accept the refund of the fine since the ruble no longer had any value. With regard to the reparation money, the Zionist Committee persuaded the families not to submit claims so that the non-Jews could not say that the Jews had sold their martyrs for money. A statement relinquishing compensation was signed by the heads of the families; emphasizing that the crime could be expiated, only if those responsible were punished. But, the Polish government obfuscated, and the murderers went unpunished.159 Why did Wroblewski finally publish the commission’s report and, specifically, this version? The Poles on the commission were forced to agree to this formulation because they did not want the Jewish “minority” to publish a separate report. They wished to avoid the outbreak of controversy from the rostrum of the Sejm since Louis Marshall was simultaneously trying, by rigorous investigation, to refute the lies spread by the Poles and their American friends.160 The account submitted by Borukh Zuckerman to the press in Copenhagen was published concurrently, and it also reached official circles in Washington. The Polish Committee in the United States did everything possible to obscure the impression made by his statement.161 But Henry Morgenthau’s report, despite the Jews’ dissatisfaction with it, demolished the “house of cards” that Wroblewski wished to construct and the web of lies woven by friends of Poland in the United States. Morgenthau had been appointed chairman of a commission on behalf of the United States after Lewis Strauss, Cyrus Adler, and Harriet E. Lowenstein—members of the Jewish delegation from the United States to the Paris Peace Conference—demanded that Herbert Hoover (the director of American relief for Poland) send a commission of inquiry. At first Hoover had considered this pointless because there was no assurance that an investigation in Pinsk would discover anything further. Neither side would reveal the whole truth, and, in any case, “no investigation could revive the dead.” But he changed his mind. Hoover, Paderewski (the head of the Polish delegation to the Peace Conference), and Gibson (the American envoy to Poland) then requested President Wilson to appoint such a commission. They expected the commission to make plain that the rumors of pogroms in Poland were exaggerated.162

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Zionists and Jewish communal leaders in the United States were not at all pleased that Morgenthau, neither a Zionist nor a recognized Jewish leader, was to assume the role of chairman. Louis Marshall and Cyrus Adler advised Morgenthau to decline the appointment. They believed that it would be preferable for Jews not to participate in this inquiry, in order that the truth be revealed by “objective” investigation. But Wilson pressed Morgenthau to accept, reasoning that the Jews would be able to express whatever they had to say to a fellow Jew.163 There was no need to explore the facts; they were known. From the directives that Robert Lansing, the Secretary of State, addressed to the members of the delegation, written on June 30, it is clear that he saw the primary purpose of the delegation as disclosing the causes of the tense relationship between the Poles and the Jews. The confirmation of the facts was not to serve as a goal in and of itself. The investigation was to be conducted “along the lines of finding a remedy” for the situation. Lansing reminded Morgenthau that he was surely aware that “the American government was imbued with friendly aspirations of assisting all elements of the new Poland—Christians and Jews alike.” This was a blunt hint that Morgenthau was not to concentrate on the Jewish aspect alone. He was also to bear in mind the good of Poland. Lansing saw the problem as exclusively social and economic: I am convinced that any measure that may be taken to ameliorate the conditions of the Jews will also benefit the rest of the population and that, conversely, anything done for the community benefit of Poland as a whole, will be of advantage to the Jewish race.164

Morgenthau sent a commission of inquiry to Pinsk; the members were Major Otto, Captain Cross, and Major Foster, and they arrived in Pinsk on August 6 and 7. According to Cross, they were cordially received by the military authorities, although the Polish press did not welcome Morgenthau with great enthusiasm. The commission interrogated approximately twenty-five witnesses. But this commission did not find those responsible for the murder either. Elka Miletzky made the strongest impression. It became apparent to the commission that neither Bolshevism nor socialism had been discussed in the Beit Ha’am, and the perpetrators of the massacre did not know even the names of

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those whom they shot, much less their political affiliation. The commission submitted a report on this to Morgenthau. On August 17, Morgenthau himself arrived in Pinsk with another commission member, Homer H. Johnson, and with Cross, although he had expected to content himself with the investigation by the commission he had sent.165 Perhaps the change of mind came because Johnson had decided to travel to Pinsk, with or without Morgenthau, and Morgenthau thought a visit by Johnson alone undesirable. Or perhaps Morgenthau changed his mind because his suspicions were aroused when the chairman of the Sejm did not provide the account of the Sejm commission that Cross had requested.166 The Polish authorities in Pinsk received the Americans with the honor befitting emissaries of a great nation whose support the Poles desperately needed. They arranged for accommodations at the Victoria Hotel. The Jewish population in Pinsk knew nothing of the Americans’ scheduled arrival. Coincidentally, the Pinsk physician, Dr. Feldman, was traveling in the same railway car as Morgenthau and Johnson, and they became acquainted along the way. To show the Polish rulers that he was a Jew, sharing in the suffering of his brothers, Morgenthau declined to go to the hotel as arranged and chose to lodge in Dr. Feldman’s home. The news spread swiftly through the city: “Morgenthau has come!” The Jews hoped to find in him a “redeemer,” who would liberate them from persecution, searches, confiscations, imprisonment, and whippings.167 Immediately after their arrival, Morgenthau and his escorts went to the martyrs’ grave, and crowds of Jews, men and women, followed them. This was the first time the Jews of the city had been allowed to enter the old cemetery. The scene which ensued—the weeping of the bereaved families, able to mourn their tragedy at the graves of their loved ones for the first time—left not only Morgenthau, but the two non-Jewish members of the delegation, shaken. Afterward they went to the wall, the “ventel ” (Yiddish for small wall) of the monastery, as it was known among the Jews of the city. At Morgenthau’s request, a gathering was held in the Great Synagogue toward evening. The synagogue was filled to capacity. Crowds remained outside. Feinstein, Dr. Feldman, and an officer from Polish headquarters arrived along with the guests. Rabbi Horowitz, Gitelman,

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and Feinstein welcomed the commissioners. When the cantor began to recite El Male Rahamim [God, full of Mercy, recited at memorial services for the dead]—this was the first occasion on which the Jews had been permitted to refer to the souls of the thirty-five dead—­sobbing began that overcame all those inside the synagogue and out. Some fainted. Even the gentile Johnson could not hold back his tears.168 In Morgenthau’s first statements about the Pinsk episode, he writes: I wish that I could adequately describe the scene that I witnessed in Pinsk. It has haunted me ever since, and has seemed a complete expression of the misery and injustice which is prevalent over such a large part of the world today.

After a terse but vivid description of the Pinsk episode Morgenthau continues: Up to the time that our Commission came, not a single Jew had been permitted to visit that cemetery; but I was allowed to inspect the scene of this martyrdom, and, when I entered, a great crowd of Jews, who had followed me, also went in. As soon as they reached the burial place of their relatives, they all threw themselves upon the ground, and set up a wailing that still rings in my ears; it expressed the misery of centuries. That same evening I attended divine service at the Pinsk synagogue. The building was crowded to its capacity, the men wedged into almost a solid mass. Those that could not enter were gathered outside. All the Jews of Pinsk were there. This was their first opportunity since April to express their grief in their house of worship. This huge mass cried and screamed until it seemed that the heavens would burst. I had read of such public expression of agony in the Old Testament, but this was the first time that I ever completely realized what the collective grief of a persecuted people was like.169

Johnson and Morgenthau spoke. The Jews wished to see a savior in Morgenthau, but he disappointed them. He spoke of the struggle for equal rights, and the Jews did not hear in his speech any redeeming words,170 although they did feel a sense of relief. Morgenthau and Johnson spent the evening in the company of a small group of youth and community activists and engaged in discussions of what had happened. The next day they listened to testimony and visited Jewish institutions. The testimony included the disclosure

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that naked prisoners were bludgeoned with iron bars. One soldier or policeman would straddle the neck of the person to be tortured, and another would hold down his legs, while the third beat him till he fainted. Then they would revive the prisoner and beat him again. Many, months later, were still ill. Elka Miletzky, the principal of the school, testified about the humiliations she had been forced to endure in picking up the supplies sent from America for the children of her school and other Zionist schools. She related that the finer foodstuffs, such as biscuits and cocoa, were hardly given to the Jewish children: Because we Jews are not accustomed to such things. We are used to other things, the “ventel of the monastery.” I have to stand like a beggar at the door of the Polish department, even though the items are sent for us just as for the others.

Yitzhak Harbuz testified how he had rescued Prizant and Fialkov, whom the Polish authorities counted among the dead, thus putting the number at thirty-seven killed, as noted above. Feinstein and two members of Zeirei Zion wrote a memorandum to Morgenthau. (Parts of it were cited above.) When Feinstein expressed the fear that the Polish authorities would take revenge on the Jews for their behavior during the time that the commission remained in the city, Morgenthau assigned a Polish officer to protect the Jews, and told Feinstein that in the event of any offence, he or Dr. Feldman should turn to this officer. He was certain that the officer would discharge his duty. After a two-day stay, Morgenthau left the city on August 18.171 On October 3, 1919, he sent his report to the United States delegation to the Peace Conference. His account aroused criticism in the Jewish press, but, as far as Pinsk was concerned, the whole truth was now revealed to the American statesmen. It has been asserted officially by the Polish authorities, that there was reason to suspect this assemblage of bolshevist allegiance. This mission is convinced that no arguments of bolshevist nature were mentioned in the meeting in question. While it is recognized that certain information of bolshevist activities in Pinsk had been received by two Jewish soldiers, the undersigned is convinced that Maj. Luczynski, the town commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous readiness to place cre-

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dence upon such untested assertions, and on this insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately established by a consultation with any well known non-Jewish inhabitant. The statements made officially by Gen. Listowski, the Polish group commander, that the Jewish population on April 5 attacked the Polish troops, are regarded by this mission as devoid of foundation. The undersigned is further of the opinion that the consultation prior to executing the thirty-five Jews, alleged by Maj. Luczynski to have had the character of a court-martial, was by the very nature of the case a most casual affair with no judicial nature whatever, since less than an hour elapsed between the arrest and the execution. It is further found that no conscientious effort was made at the time either to investigate the charges against the prisoners or even sufficiently to identify them. Though there have been official investigations of this case, none of the offenders answerable for this summary execution have been punished or even tried, nor has the Diet commission published its findings.172

Morgenthau’s report was released, after prolonged delay on the part of the American authorities, on January 19, 1920. Concerning Pinsk, it included a demand for prosecution of those responsible for the deed as Gruenbaum had previously urged. It also pressed for publication of the conclusions of the Sejm commission. Shortly after Morgenthau’s visit, Stuart Samuel arrived in Pinsk to clarify the issue of the disturbances on behalf of the British government. Feinstein describes his visit with great disappointment. However, Feinstein is not correct in writing that “Samuel did not inquire or investigate, or discuss the matter with the tortured victims, or summon any witness to him.” Samuel’s report shows that he did solicit testimony. In his account he describes the episode of the murder, without shielding the criminals. He specifically states that a permit had been given for the meeting at the Beit Ha’am (Community Center), and by doing so he contradicts the principal claim of those who covered up for the murderers.173 The Jews of Pinsk were especially impressed by Stuart Samuel’s visit to the synagogue and participation in prayers there. When he was given an aliyah [the honor of being called up to recite the blessings before a portion of the Torah is read], he recited the blessings with the Sephardic pronunciation. Excerpts from the report of the investigating

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committee of the Socialist International were cited above. This commission was composed of four members, appointed by the socialist parties in England, Germany, France, and Holland. Nina Medem, a Bundist, joined them as translator. A Warsaw member of the P.P.S. (Polish Socialist Party) served as secretary. The commission visited the various sites of pogroms against the Jews and arrived in Pinsk early in May 1920. Their account adds little. Among the members of the commission was the noted Socialist and Zionist Oskar Cohen from Berlin.175 The massacre overshadowed the relations between the Jews of Pinsk and the Polish authorities for many years. The latter wished to obliterate any record of the deed and tried to prevent publication of any material dedicated to the memories of the murdered.176 In the late 1930s when anti-semitism was on the rise, the authorities planned to expropriate the old cemetery, which contained the common grave, on the pretext that it was dirty, filled with garbage, and should be converted into a municipal park. When the Jews expressed their objections, a Polish journalist maliciously interpreted this as a desire on the part of the Jews to immortalize the “traitors”—with whom they sympathized—as saints.177 In Pinsk, the murder brought together a group of people who emigrated to Palestine in the Third Aliyah, with the aim of establishing a memorial to their murdered comrades in the national homeland. After years of hardship and wandering they realized their goal, with the establishment of Kibbutz Gevat in the Jezreel Valley. The political atmosphere in the summer of 1919 was tense. The Jewish population was still in a state of shock over the murders. The policy of the military authorities was to pretend that there had been justification for the killings. All the synagogues were closed. It was forbidden to assemble without a permit, and permits were not granted, even for the cooperatives. The curfew was still in force. This may have been because the battlefront remained stabilized near Pinsk for most of the summer months. Only in early July, when Polish forces captured Luniniec, did the front begin to move further away from the city. When Dr. Boris D. Bogen, the emissary of the JDC, arrived in the city that July, the Jews were afraid to accept his invitation to a meeting. A few of the most daring alone attended, and the meeting took place under the supervision of a soldier armed with a machine gun.178

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Only the arrival of Morgenthau improved the security situation slightly. The central authorities’ drive for conciliation became discernible at the end of the summer. General Listowski found it necessary to take his leave from the Jewish populace of Pinsk in public. He requested a gathering in the Great Synagogue and delivered a farewell speech. Among other remarks, he stated that he had never been an enemy of the Jews and that some of his best friends were Jews. He also spoke of the future of Polish Jewry: the Jews would have to reside in Poland for a long time because the Land of Israel was still deserted, and he claimed that “we suggest to the Jews that they continue to reside in Poland.” It was clear to him “that the relations between Jews and Poles would improve.” As to Pinsk, “It was and will be a Polish city,” and “under the aegis of the Polish government things would be better for the Jews than under the Russians.”179 This speech was not necessarily prompted by honorable intentions, that is, the man’s desire to atone for his crime. There was a political objective here, to mollify Jewish public opinion—not only in Pinsk—at a time when the question of Polish borders was being debated in international political forums. Listowski was no doubt aware that Feinstein had avoided participating in the presentation of a request to the Sejm that Pinsk be annexed to Poland.180 The directive to hold democratic elections for a municipal council, which took place in August of that year, may have been part of this conciliatory trend. Although Miszwycz, a priest, was the chairman of the central electoral committee, the other two members of the committee were Luria (probably Shmuel Luria, a member of Agudat Yisrael [founded in 1912, worldwide organization of Orthodox Jews, anti-Zionist], and Katz (apparently Abraham Kazh).181 In the municipal council, which was composed of twenty-five members, the General Zion­ists, along with the Zeirei Zion, constituted a decisive majority. The Russians and the progressive Poles formed a bloc together with them. With the consent of the Jewish delegates, the mayoralty was granted to Morgentaler, a Pole who was an honest and liberal individual. The Jews won two seats on the executive (as Lawniks), one of which went to Feinstein. The Russians also won a seat on the executive; and the conservative Poles, who went to elections with a separate list and were supported by certain Jews with whom they had business dealings, gained

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one member of the executive. Jewish clerks were now accepted for civil service. In the agreement made between the Zionists, the Russians, and the progressive Poles prior to the elections, was a paragraph specifying that the number of Jews serving in the municipal bureaucracy should be proportional to their percentage of the Pinsk population. According to Feinstein, however, the militia members, who were salaried by the city and received their pay from Jewish tax monies, took their cue from the army and insulted and offended the Jews. Feinstein had to fight to ensure that Jews were not discriminated against, and he notes that the fair-minded mayor assisted him in his struggles. But municipal affairs were onerous since the military authorities refused to authorize the taxes, which the council wished to levy. In Feinstein’s opinion the Poles intended to make life difficult for the council because most of its members were Jews.182 Despite the conciliatory attitude of the central authorities, the local officials in Pinsk pursued their policy of oppression and exploitation. At the end of the summer of 1919, a policeman shot to death the son of Joshua Friedman when the young man tried to stop the police from confiscating merchandise. The military commander of the city promised that the murderer would be brought to justice, but he was not. The police tortured and beat a young man named Giller on the pretext that he had bribed one of them not to confiscate a piece of fabric. This Giller was freed from jail upon payment of an additional bribe of three thousand marks. These were the last incidents of robbery and murder in this period. The offenses may have been brought to a halt following Feinstein’s report to the national council of the caucus of the Jewish representatives to the Sejm, of the cases of murder and subjugation; his report was translated by Hartglas and sent to the Defense Minister.183 Yet, a year after the massacre of the thirty-five, when news arrived of the ratification of the British Mandate for Palestine at San Remo, the Jewish inhabitants of the city were unable to express their joy publicly. One source states that “for obvious reasons, they could not have a large public gathering,” and they settled for assemblies in the Zionist schools and other institutions. A particularly festive gathering was held in the Zionist dining hall. All the Zionists assembled there, and speeches were delivered by A. A. Feinstein; M. H. Toyzner (who was secretary of the

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Warsaw Committee for Assistance to Exiles of Pinsk); S. N. Gitelman; Pinhas Eisenberg; the engineer, A. Friedman; A. Y. Dvitzky; and ­others. At that meeting the Zionists decided to register Chaim Weizmann in the Golden Book of the Jewish National Fund and send a telegram of congratulations and encouragement to him and to the Zionist Executive. Donations for the Jewish National Fund were collected. This event became the topic of discussion in the study houses.184 ❊

The economy had begun to revive in 1918. There were opportunities for commerce with Ukraine and Warsaw, and there was trade in merchandise-filled railway cars conducted with the German soldiers before their retreat. All this stopped abruptly when the Bolsheviks entered the city. Under Bolshevik rule, although the cooperatives managed to obtain the most indispensable foodstuffs, there were people who suffered real hunger. These may have been primarily those returning from Poland, who arrived destitute in the final weeks or days before the Bolshevik entry. The incidents of robbery and murder by Polish legionnaires in the early months of Polish rule hardly helped to rehabilitate the economy. On March 20, 1919, Lewis Strauss, then in Paris, forwarded excerpts from the account of a lieutenant sent to investigate the situation in the Brest area, to Felix Warburg in New York. The lieutenant wrote the following about the situation in Pinsk: A kilo of bread costs 12 marks; this says it all. Most of the population has no bread at all. The cooperative shops are bare. I met with the mayor and with Jewish representatives and with Christians. The elderly priest of the Catholic Orthodox Church complained that nearly all his time was devoted to arranging burials. . . . We visited the kitchen, which had previously distributed soup portions to 1,000 people daily; now it was closed. Alongside this kitchen was another, which had provided soup to friendless orphans and to children who didn’t know the whereabouts of their parents. This too was closed down. We visited a Jewish orphanage housing two hundred children, ages 2 to 12. They were well cared for, but it had been two weeks since there was any bread in the institution. The children ate a gruel made of barley flour. We visited the prison; it was three days since the prisoners had any food except for frozen potatoes. The refugees live in the synagogues

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and churches. In one we found two hundred people. Among them were people ill with typhus and other diseases, and they were not isolated from the rest.

A few days after the entry of the Poles, white flour from the American relief aid to Poland was brought to the city; this was sold to whoever could afford it. But there were many who were too poor to buy and their recourse was the soup kitchen where a gruel made from the flour was doled out. The Polish authorities apparently provided this free of charge. According to Borukh Zuckerman, an allotment of flour for one thousand portions was made to the soup kitchen, and three thousand portions were actually distributed each day. The number of people in need of this soup was even greater. They would queue up near the soup kitchen early in the morning. Zuckerman writes that quarreling and shouting used to break out among the starving people as they stood in line waiting for the soup. This happened despite its bad taste—it was seasoned with black salt since white salt was nowhere to be found. The American flour lowered the price of bread, but a significant portion of the Jewish population was still in real distress. Zuckerman’s depiction of the circumstances is probably exaggerated since his writing is based on what he heard, as well as what he saw. He was dependent upon what his guides chose to show him: the homes of those dying of hunger and disease. His account, and the letters to his wife in which he outlined the situation, were intended to elicit urgent relief. The most shocking impression was made by his visits to seven private homes. In each home, consisting of a room or a room and a half, he found between four and nine people, young and old, all voicing a single request: “A piece of bread!” Yet it is difficult to accept his statement that typhus was rampant in the city, for if so, the schools would not have been open at the time, and he visited all the educational institutions. Still it was no overstatement when he was told “each day a score of people die.”185 In the memorandum of the German soldier, written in 1917, the daily mortality rate was set at seven to twelve people, out of a population of nine thousand Jews; and at the time of Zuckerman’s visit, the Jewish population was approximately double that. It hardly seems accurate to say, as Zuckerman did, that out of a Jewish population of twenty-two thousand, fifteen thousand were starving, seven thousand of whom lay

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at home, too weak to walk about. This data is not based upon any census. The census in progress on the day of the massacre, for the purpose of distributing flour for matzot, was not concluded or summarized. But many in the city were starving and dying of hunger. Political tension in the aftermath of the murders resulted in the continuation of economic distress for a long time. On April 26, 1919, a “Plea to the Jewish World” went out, signed by Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Halevi Horowitz, the dayan; Pinhas son of Rabbi Avraham Eisenberg; Shimon Beizer; Nahum Guzanski; Alexander Paleiev; Avraham Asher Feinstein (on behalf of the Zionist Council); and Dov, son of Rabbi Ze’ev Lifshitz. The city is dying of starvation. Charitable institutions are closed for lack of funds. Those institutions still open will close down shortly. There is no trade, the factories are shut; there is no work and no way to make a living. The promised support from America has not yet arrived. The situation, which was woeful enough during the five years of war, has now reached a nadir of poverty and penury. A live person is not to be seen on the streets. People are shadow-like, half dead, bowed and bent. Dozens of people die every day. Disease stalks the city. Sick are found in every house. Do not let our city die of hunger. Pinsk was always at the forefront of charitable activity. Do not allow this venerable community to be destroyed.186

The distress appears in Feinstein’s letters to an anonymous reader: The list of women who received money from their husbands in America, which was posted in the Beit Ha’am, was lost or torn. . . . Now we do not know how to distribute the funds we have received. In addition, Rykwert did not deliver all the monies that were sent from America. . . . He promised to send the balance, but he did not. . . . Therefore, please . . . insist at once that Rykwert send the rest of the money . . . with a new, exact list. . . . The hunger and the poverty in the city are frightful. There is no business and there is no work; prices rise by the hour. People walk about despondently. They collapse and faint from hunger on the street. . . . . Please be good enough to send the money to Mr. Shimon Bashuk.

Feinstein wrote that the 59,000 marks that Zuckerman gave to the committee he established, “have already been distributed, and it is three

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weeks since there was any cash in the treasury.” It has been mentioned that on May 4 an Englishman brought 100,000 marks and a letter in English from Dr. B. Bogen. The secret police came and searched Kazh, the treasurer’s home, confiscating the 100,000 marks and an additional 30,000 rubles belonging to him. The money is in their hands to this day. . . . The poor knock at our doors . . . and the charitable institutions are about to close. . . . Among the members of the committee there are no men of action willing to risk a little danger in order to do something to relieve the unfortunate. . . . The poor and the impoverished are literally dying, and no one is moved to pity. . . . For God’s sake and for the sake of the hundreds dying of hunger, they must act quickly, for if they delay, then the 100,000 marks may be lost as well.

In another letter written about the time of Shavuot, Feinstein writes: The situation is absolutely dreadful. People are collapsing and fainting on the street. . . . Charitable institutions are about to close. . . . I made a motion to the committee to address an appeal to the Command, demanding the confiscated funds and requesting authorization of the Committee, as well. But the Committee members are all cowards and aren’t even willing to sign the appeal. Circumstances become worse from day to day. . . . I don’t know how the members of the American commission feel about the lives of their brothers who are dying of hunger! Please take care of the matter; hurry and send the balance of the money. . . . Whoever will expedite these affairs, is as one who saves a world from destruction. He will preserve many souls . . . for entire families are literally dying of starvation.187

In the first weeks after the murder, the situation was critical. Besides the shock of the event itself, the Jews of the city were deprived of their right to use the railroad line from Pinsk to Brest, opened by order of Listowski on April 28, for citizens and for transport of merchandise. The Jews were denied permission to travel, on the pretext that they had not yet paid the fine of 100,000 rubles that Listowski had levied.188 This matter was one of the issues raised in the interview that Prylucki had with Pilsudski. It is likely that after their conversation, the situation changed for the better. There is no doubt that Pinsk was saved from devastation thanks only to aid that arrived from America, from relatives

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of inhabitants, and from the JDC. Dr. Bogen, who visited Pinsk in late July, writes the following about the economic situation: The Jewish population numbers about 18,000 individuals. Very few are people of means; the majority are destitute. There is a dining hall for children, where 4,000 youngsters receive meals. The amount of food in the city is limited. One can hardly buy anything in the market. The problems of lodging and heating were most serious. . . . I got in touch with the Red Cross in Kobryn and managed to secure a batch of fabric for the hospital. A significant quantity was sent from our supplies . . . but there are still children, women and men dressed in tatters. . . . The only consolation is the excellent organization of the schools, thanks to a young woman named Miletzky.

When Dr. Bogen visited Pinsk early in August 1919, he apparently took care of arrangements for the JDC support to Pinsk and its environs and reorganized the JDC relief committee in the city. He appointed Dr. Friedman as treasurer of the committee and left 200,000 marks in his hands. In the late summer months of 1919, Pinsk and its vicinity received 552,000 marks per month in aid from the JDC. ­Although [the author] has no criterion for measuring the value of the mark at that point, this figure was much greater than the sum granted to Brest and its vicinity and comparable to the amount allotted to Warsaw (575,000 marks). Vilna and the area surrounding, which suffered from severe rioting, received only 54 percent more than Pinsk (850,000).189 In August of this year, more than 2,300 Pinsk families received financial assistance. According to a detailed account, the JDC support to Pinsk and the surroundings for the months of June–December 1919, was as follows: June 100,000 marks (confiscated by the Poles and returned following Dr. Bogen’s intervention) August 380,946 September 344,500 October 660,000 November 250,000 December 265,000   Total 2,000,446 marks

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Of this sum the district of Pinsk received 378,000 marks (Stolin—10,000; Lachva—3,000; Horodok—7,000; Telechany—12,000; Iwanik—3,000, besides an additional 343,000 marks for the area distributed without itemization). Most of the money was expended for the maintenance of welfare and educational institutions: 50,000.00 marks 8,784.00 50,300.00 50,300.00 62,167.00 43,526.40 39,905.45 30,599.70 46,573.11 27,847.00 106,027.00 68,452.05 89,997.20 49,057.37 39,812.90 2,155.00 101,455.49

550,138.36



27,214.00 25,779.00



31,939.63

100,141.00

Children’s Dining Hall Old-Age Home Pinsk Hospital Karlin Hospital Talmud Torah Girls’ School, probably Leah Feigele’s school Children’s Nursery I Children’s Nursery II Beit Mahse Shelter for Children I (Kinder Hart) Beit Mahse Shelter Children II (Kinder Hart) Orphanage I Orphanage II Kinder Platz (Children’s Place) Boys’ Trade School Girls’ Trade School Municipal Dining Hall Payment to Rada Opiekuncza (Supervisory Council), for supplies for institutions Assistance to the poor, in cash, flour, potatoes, and kindling Assistance to 11 rabbinical families Miscellaneous aid (soldiers’ holiday meals, expenses related to clothing distribution, registration) Office expenses (clerks’ salaries, rent, furnishings, travel, money-changing, Pinsk Committee in Warsaw) Loan Fund

After deduction of office expenses, Pinsk received more than 1,500,000 marks during this period.

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Pinsk Branch 210 of the Arbeter Ring had begun to collect funds for the city in 1915. The impetus for this was the awakening of American Jewry to the task of rescuing Jews suffering the horrors of war. On October 4, 1914, the Orthodox founded the Central Relief Committee, which collected funds from synagogue members. On October 25 of that year, the American Jewish Relief Committee was established at the initiative of Louis Marshall, the chairman of the American Jewish Committee, to work among the wealthy Jewish population. Other branches of the Arbeter Ring followed their example by soliciting their members, as did other workers’ organizations and the various landsmanshaften [fraternal societies consisting of emigrants hailing from the same town]. Pinsk Branch 210 of the Arbeter Ring was one of the most active. In June 1915 the Folks Hilfs Komiteh (People’s Help Committee) was established. The various popular groups coalesced about this organization, particularly after it began to participate in the activities of the JDC,190 whose job it was to allocate funds to specific countries. Thereafter, the ability of the smaller groups to function unilaterally in assisting the institutions and individuals of their choice was limited. Pinsk received 2,600 marks in support from the JDC, by way of the Hilfsverein in Berlin. Although the Pinsker Branch apparently transferred specific sums to the city on occasion, presumably these were the monies that the Bund and the Poalei Zion received from The Hague. Now, as a consequence of the aforementioned “Plea to the Jewish World,” which went forth from Pinsk, Pinskers in America started a separate campaign to save their city. At the initiative of Zvi Hirsch Maslansky, Dr. Ratnoff, and Avraham Shomer, the son of the author Shomer, representatives of all the Pinsk organizations in New York convened, and the Pinsk Joint Relief Committee was founded. Avraham Shomer was chosen as chairman and Maslansky as treasurer. They set as their goal the collection of a quarter of a million dollars for Pinsk. To this end they addressed a proclamation in the American press to former Pinskers in the United States and Canada.191 The first funds were delivered to Pinsk by Julius Kugel, who was a member of the association of Pinsk Benefactors. He brought the sum of thirtyfive thousand dollars, which included monies sent to individuals by their relatives.192

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All the assistance notwithstanding, Pinsk did not recover. In late September 1919, a correspondent described the situation as follows: The many factories and the port are silent. . . . Hundreds of exiles return every day, but only rarely do they find their former niche, because the neighborhoods belonging to the poor were destroyed. . . . [T]he restoration of the city has yet to begin. There is a severe lack of employment. The educated and the members of the liberal professions are also in difficult straits. Their only possibilities for employment are the schools, which are maintained by the Pinsk Committee responsible for distributing the American aid. Jews are not accepted as clerks in the government offices. All told, only four policemen are employed by the municipal police force. Young Gentile girls, who can barely spell, serve as typists in the offices, while Jewish girls are not accepted. Poverty is widespread. Hundreds of families live in ruins and in the study houses, in terribly unsanitary conditions. Many families have not a pillow, nor shoes, nor even a shirt to their name. People are swollen with hunger— a common sight in Pinsk, which surprises no one. . . . Jewish public affairs have not recovered since the 5th of Nisan [April 5, 1919, the day of the murder of the thirty-five]. Community responsibility develops slowly and feebly. The sole realm of activity is the school system. More than 1,500 children, mostly street urchins, are educated in the children’s homes and the orphanages. . . . The center of public affairs is the American committee. . . . The committee wanted to open cheap bakeries for the famished people, but in these desolate parts one cannot obtain wheat. To purchase wheat in Poland one needs a permit, which is difficult to secure. Hunger and disease are rampant. There was a cheap dining hall, maintained by the Rada Opiekuncza (Supervisory Council), that is, by the authorities, but it has been closed for the past two months. Winter is approaching and if the children do not receive shoes and clothes, the schools will all be closed, and the poor will freeze to death in the forest areas. The Pinsk committee has turned to Isidore Hirschfeld, who replaced Dr. Bogen as head of the JDC in Poland, for financial assistance for the purchase of kindling and clothing. Similarly it has appealed for permission to bring several carloads of flour from Poland. So far only promises have been received.

This description must have been written before Kugel’s arrival in Pinsk. In the final months of 1919, the JDC dispensed 350,000 marks per month to Pinsk. These funds were expended primarily for welfare

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and educational institutions, and only one-third of the amount was distributed to needy families. In February 1920 members of the local committee, Dr. Feldman, Brodsky, and Dr. Bukshitzky, addressed a request to the JDC for the provision of one million marks each month. Dr. I. Meier was sent to investigate the situation in Pinsk. His report was not favorable. In his opinion, monies were not being properly spent. They were being used for political and party purposes. He probably meant the educational institutions established by each of the parties. Meier asserted that the committee was preoccupied, for the most part, with party squabbles and was not doing enough to ameliorate poverty. He writes that he attempted to reorganize the committee along new lines, in order to do away with frictions once and for all. But his attempts were unacceptable to the leftist parties. He formed a temporary central relief committee, composed of five representatives from the Orthodox Jews, five representatives from the non-Orthodox, reserving five places for the leftist parties, if and when they should decide to join the committee. He suggested uniting the Pinsk and Brest districts and appointing a permanent worker on behalf of the JDC to supervise activities and execute the reorganization. There was already talk at JDC headquarters about directing the support primarily toward economic rehabilitation. The contents of Dr. Meier’s report are known from a letter that Bogen sent to the JDC in New York on March 11, 1920. In that letter Bogen wrote that he would go to Pinsk to rectify matters. But Bogen did not go to Pinsk; he sent Y. M. Kowalski, who succeeded in convincing the leftist parties to join the local committee and in reorganizing the regional committee. He also set up a third forum called the Central Committee. The composition of the local committee was then as follows: Dr. A. Feldman—chairman, Z. Katuk—vice chairman, (Bernard) Halpern—treasurer, A. Kazh, and Y. Holtzman. These five were from the centrist parties. The representatives of the Orthodox were: Y. Slutzky, A. A. Feinstein, A. Stillerman, and A. Levin. And from the leftist parties the representatives were: D. Prochansky, S. Posnitzky, M. Fishov, S. Eisenbaum, and K. Busel. The regional committee was composed of three members, who were Luria (Shmuel or Gershon)— chairman, Rudiakov—vice chairman, and B. Halpern—treasurer. The Central Committee, elected at a regional convention, was composed of

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five members, who were: Dr. A. Feldman—chairman, Rudiakov—vice chairman, Borukh Epstein—bookkeeper, B. Halpern—treasurer, and Rabinowitz—treasurer. On May 18 a conference of those active in the JDC took place (in Warsaw ?). Dr. Feldman was the participant from Pinsk. In the minutes of the conference, we read Dr. Feldman’s claim that the sum of 2,207,476 marks was insufficient. Kowalski, who had in the interim been put in charge of the entire region, including Brest, suggested allotting Pinsk and its surroundings a total of 3,460,000 marks. Dr. Bogen claimed that he had instructions to decrease the aid money in favor of reconstruction activities, such as support to farmers, assistance for medical care, and support of orphans—in other words, to end the support to educational and charitable institutions. The amount allotted seems to have been a final sum, divided according to the original criteria. At the conference Dr. Feldman also gave an account of the distribution of the JDC funds to various institutions in the city, referring apparently to the month of April 1920, as noted. According to this account, the following was received: Schools Vocational Schools Orphanages Hospitals Old-Age Homes and Kitchens Loan Fund   Total

211,305 marks 70,500 800,000 72,000 195,000 50,000 1,398,805 marks

An additional 75,000 rubles was allocated for medicines and medical care. At the same conference it was decided that Pinsk would receive only 40 percent of the funds allotted to the district and that 60 percent would go to towns in the locality, whereas the previous division had been fifty-fifty. The reason given was that Pinsk received money from the landsmanshaften in America and “has attained a decent economic standard.” After Kugel returned to New York, the United Rescue Committee for Pinsk decided to send someone to investigate how best to provide constructive assistance for the city. At a meeting held in the Pinsker syn-

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agogue in New York, Shmuel Davitch was chosen. Although Davitch was a Bundist and an activist of the “Pinsker Branch,” the Orthodox groups also agreed to his selection. On the eve of Davitch’s departure, an appeal went out to Pinskers in the United States and Canada, asking them to respond to the distress of their relatives and to use this opportunity to send money to them using Davitch as their courier. The response was considerable: more than 3,500 people lined up with money at the committee offices. On March 4, 1920, Albert Lucas, secretary of the JDC, wrote to Dr. Bogen in Warsaw concerning Davitch’s mission. Lucas informed Bogen that Davitch was the envoy of a committee of “Pinskers from the East Broadway neighborhood.” Members were: Avraham Elman—chairman, Dr. Avraham Ratnoff—vice-chairman, and Reb Hirsch Maslansky— treasurer. Davitch carried a check for $175,000 of which $150,000 was sent by relatives and friends to 2,882 individuals, and $25,000 was intended for communal purposes. This last sum included $1,000 donated by Dr. Ratnoff for the orphanage and $500 contributed by the Ezrat Ahim Benei Pinsk (Pinsker Mutual Assistance) society for the old-age home. Davitch was to distribute the balance of the money in consultation with the Pinsk committee, “which deals with our [JDC] funds.” According to a report written two years later by M. Kahen, who served as committee secretary at the time, the support brought for relatives totaled a quarter of a million dollars. Thirty-eight years later Davitch wrote that the amount was $150,000. The larger sum (cited by Kahen) may have included the monies for towns in the vicinity. In addition, approximately $40,000 was collected for public purposes. Davitch arrived in Pinsk at the end of March 1920, carrying more than twenty million Polish marks for individuals and six million marks for constructive assistance and public institutions. He also brought affidavits (documents) for several dozen perhaps hundreds, of families, so that they might emigrate to the United States.193 These sums revived the city. Judging by the number of contributors, approximately 3,500 families received an average of fifty dollars, or six thousand Polish marks, apiece. In Pinsk, Davitch found “hundreds of Jews with their feet wrapped in rags and their clothes in tatters.” It was said of that period that there were wagoners so impoverished, they had no money to

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buy horses; to earn something, they banded together into teams of four or five and dragged the wagons themselves. In distributing the funds for general use, Davitch encountered numerous difficulties because relations between the various political parties and communal activists were strained. Each party worker considered himself the authentic representative of the public, and every party requested a larger share for its institutions. Davitch was, nevertheless, able to establish a committee “that included proportional representation of the parties and their social projects.”194 This committee was in addition to the JDC committee. The majority of the committee members or those in roles of responsibility belonged to the Bund or the Poalei Zion. D. Prochansky was appointed secretary-treasurer. Prochansky was apparently a Bundist, or in any case, a leftist, because when the Bolsheviks invaded Pinsk for the second time, he joined the Communist party and was appointed financial commissar of Pinsk.195 Feinstein’s charge, however, that Davitch appointed only Bund and Poalei Zion196 members to the committee, was not accurate; A[vraham] Meir­ ovitz of the Zeirei Zion and A[haron] Stillerman of the General Zionists were also members of the committee.197 Meirovitz states that “all groups participating in social projects in the city were represented on the rescue committee; representatives were chosen by their backers, and important decisions were made only with the agreement of committee members.” Meirovitz notes, however, that day-to-day work was carried out by two members appointed by the committee.198 One was D. Prochansky, and the other may have also been from a leftist party; this would explain Feinstein’s anger. Of the assistance funds brought by Davitch, six hundred thousand marks were disbursed to the needy and five hundred thousand to various institutions. The balance was channeled to constructive aid projects. A loan fund for shopkeepers and artisans was established to enable them to reconstruct stores and workshops. There was a rush of applicants for loans to open stores. The loans were apparently interest-free, granted in exchange for notes of some kind. A currency-exchange office was set up so that recipients of dollars from America could receive their full value. An emigration information office was founded. Several producer cooperatives of carpenters, tailors, and bricklayers were started, and money was allotted for a brick factory.199

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Besides the money brought by Davitch, Pinsk received funds from the JDC via Hirschfeld or Bogen. Information from early June 1920 concerning JDC activities during February–May 1920 is shown in table 9.1. The Pinsk economy revived; at least there were no longer people starving. A few dozen families were brought over to America by their relatives. When Davitch returned to America after his three-month stay, he brought twenty-eight families.200 Several young people emigrated to the Land of Israel. Among the first Pinskers to make aliyah were Yehudah Leib Alter Friedman (Ish-Shalom) and his family. Friedman may have found the courage to take this step because his son Mordecai had settled in Palestine before the war. The American monetary assistance reinforced existing communal institutions and facilitated the establishment of new ones. When Borukh Zuckerman visited Pinsk in early April 1919, he toured all the institutions in the city. His report describes them: 1. The Beit Hakhnassat Orehim (hostel for travelers) housed fifteen people recuperating after hospital stays. 2. The Pinsk hospital housed thirty-eight patients. Zuckerman was told that each patient was receiving three-quarters of a pound of bread and soup every day. The hospital was not heated because there was no money for fuel, and the patients were filthy because it was too cold to clean them. 3. The Karlin hospital stood empty because there were no workers or funds to keep it going. 4. In the old-age home were twenty-three old people. Zuckerman mentions only one old-age home, apparently the one in Pinsk. table 9.1 JDC funds (in Polish marks) distributed February –May 1920 Pinsk

Brest

Rovno

February

1,600,000

1,400,000

1,000,000

March

1,400,000

2,000,000

1,400,000

April

1,795,000

1,900,000

1,210,000

May

1,620,000

1,950,000

1,140,000

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Zuckerman visited these educational institutions: 1. The Talmud Torah, with 197 students. The students were receiving soup and one hundred grams of white bread daily from the American flour. 2. The girls’ school known as Leah Feigele’s school, with two hundred girls studying in five classes. Zuckerman found the Talmud Torah neglected but had nothing but praise for the girls’ institution, particularly for the devotion displayed by the teachers, who were half-starved and paid a pittance. Zuckerman tells, incidentally, that prior to the Polish conquest, under German and Ukrainian rule, the school had had an income from concerts and evening programs in which the students participated. At the time of Zuckerman’s visit, Polish was already being taught in this school. His remarks on this topic are not clear. He writes: “The Hebrew and Yiddish classes (die klassen) are on the finest, highest level. The Polish class seems to be of the same standard, except that at the time of my visit to this class I understood very little.” Perhaps Zuckerman uses “classes” to mean “lessons.” It is doubtful that subjects were taught in Yiddish then, for the Zeirei Zion, who were responsible for the school, had transformed it into a completely Hebrew school, and all subjects were taught in Hebrew. 3. The Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim of the Poalei Zion and the Bund. Here, too, there were two hundred students. According to Zuckerman, the syllabus was almost identical to that of the girls’ school. (This statement, however, does not make sense. Hebrew may have been taught here, but it was certainly not the language of instruction.) Zuckerman notes that these teachers were also very devoted. The students were from the poorer classes and received a daily ration of white bread and soup. 4. Zuckerman mentions another institution called Kinder Platz; perhaps the reference is to the Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim of the Zeirei Zion. He adds nothing about this place other than, “Its appearance is like that of the Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim.” 5. The orphanage, with seventy-five orphans; Zuckerman estimated the number of orphans in the city at three to four times as many, but the institution was unable to absorb them.

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These were the communal and educational institutions in Pinsk before the advent of JDC assistance. When the aid began, the Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim, under the auspices of the Bund and the Poalei Zion, became “Moshe’le Gleiberman’s School.” A second elementary school was apparently opened. The Bund also opened an evening school with four classes for boys, as well as a school for workers in the match factory, which had resumed production, and a vocational school for girls where sewing was taught. The General Zionists resumed their classes in the vocational school, with the Jewish Colonization Association (Chapter One) assuming responsibility for the lion’s share of the budget; classes were given in locksmithing and blacksmithing. Before long the General Zionists and the Zeirei Zion opened a second vocational school, with JDC support, for tailoring, carpentry, and shoemaking. The Zeirei Zion kept up Leah Feigele’s school, which was called Tel Hai after the death of Trumpeldor and his comrades there [Chapter Seven]. A branch of Zeirei Zion under the leadership of Z. Tir opened a second Beit Mahse Le-Yeladim in 1919; after his murder during the 1921 riots in Jaffa, it was named in memory of Yosef Haim Brenner [1881–1921, a pioneer of modern Hebrew literature]. The Poalei Zion also opened two educational institutions, of which one was called The Borochov School [Chapter Two]. Studies in the Bund and Poalei Zion schools were conducted in Yiddish. The Pinsk Poalei Zion were all to the left, and following the 1920 rift in the Berit Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion Compact), they moved over to Poalei Zion Semol (Left Poalei Zion). In Dr. Bogen’s report to the JDC, he notes, “In Pinsk, the sole consolation is the fine school system, thanks to the young woman Miletzky.” He adds that approximately four thousand children are receiving food in the various institutions, whereas the adults are suffering from lack of food.201 The political parties were reawakening, and problems of platforms and organization arose. The Bund underwent a severe crisis because a significant portion of Bundists had become Communists, and the newer leaders had fled with the Bolsheviks. The Bund failed to win over the young people, except for those studying in its schools. Notwithstanding, the Bund was a strong party in the city and was renewing its activity in organizing trade unions.

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The most active of the parties was the Zeirei Zion despite the fact that it had lost its finest members in the massacre of the thirty-five. The Zeirei Zion were young people, most without family responsibilities. The Pinsk Zeirei Zion included socialist ideas in its platform and joined the Eastern Farband of Zeirei Zion [see Chapter Eight]. Dr. Elazar Bregman took an active role in the Eastern Farband congress, which took place June 18–23, 1920. He was elected to the central committee of this society together with Y. Marminski, Y. Shweiger (Damiel), Natan Shewalwe (all from Congress Poland), Yehiel Halpern from Cracow, Eliyahu Rudnicki from Vilna, and N. Kantrovitz from Minsk. The Zeirei Zion of Pinsk thus became Zeirei Zion—Z[ionim] S[otsialistim] [Zionist socialists]. Pinsk contributed the sum of 2,960 marks to the “newspaper fund” of the Eastern Farband.202 Hershel Pinsky now began to figure prominently. Pinsky later became known as an important activist in the Halutz movement in Poland and served as secretary of the Haifa [Israel] labor council. His initial activism found expression in the training of the next generation of educators. One summer day in 1919, Pinsky drew Borukh Eisenstadt (Aznia) and several other friends away from their play in the yard of the teacher Moshkovsky (who had been shot at the monastery wall) and proposed that they join a society named Tikvat Zion (the hope of Zion); their counselor would be David Barzilai. Barzilai states that Hershel Pinsky approached him and pleaded with him to assume leadership of these boys.203 Pinsky similarly organized a group for girls, led by Yisroel Welman (Bar-Ratzon). They all studied Zionist history and Hebrew and Yiddish literature and also discussed social and economic problems. The two groups merged under the name Mishmeret Hadashah (new guard) on Saturday, October 18, 1919; their combined number was about thirty members. On May 18, 1920, the members of the Mishmeret Hadashah presented their comrade Mikhael Ish-Shalom with a souvenir album on the occasion of his emigration with his parents to the Land of Israel. The following members inscribed verses and greetings in the album: Borukh Eisenstadt (Aznia), Elazar Lalchok, Yeshayahu Lifshitz, Yehoshua Telechansky, Aharon Rozman, Moshe Rabinov, Yehoshua Rabinov (the poet), Yehoshua Gleiberman, B. Kaplan, Sarah Forman, Sarah Gleiberman, Rivka Katznelson, Haya Brimberg, Haya Shifman,

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Haya Gottlieb, Tsvia Pinsker, Bodiyah Goldman, H. Pasternak, Brakha Gloverman, Hasia Goldman (?), Etel Gottlieb, Sh. Vakhser, Hana Minkovitz, Rivka Feldman, Malyah Goldman, (?) Tantzman, and M. Burstein.204 Mishmeret Hadashah developed extensive educational activities. They held communal readings, gave lectures, and organized a large Hanukkah party that year. Members’ homes served as meeting places. At that point the Mishmeret Hadashah was completely Hebrew; they spoke Hebrew among themselves and lectured in Hebrew. Only after some two years had passed since its founding, when the Poalei Zion—(Z.S.) had gone over to Yiddish (see below), did the Mishmeret Hadashah change over to Yiddish. But by this time the transition could not harm its Hebrew foundation. Mishmeret Hadashah sustained its members for many years, and they formed a nucleus of the “Pinsk collective” in Israel. Once again a crisis occurred and halted the process of rehabilitating the city. In late June 1920, the Red Army defeated the Polish army near Kiev and began a rapid advance toward Warsaw. Early in July, a state of emergency was declared, and on July 26 Pinsk fell to the Red Army. The following day, Polish army headquarters announced, “Our Polesian army received orders to leave Pinsk. Our exit was made in perfect order.”205 But the period of retreat was anything but a time of order for the Jews. There was some looting by retreating soldiers seeking to relieve their hunger. The City Council was forced to provide thirty horses and forty oxen. Since the Council had no money, it borrowed from the American Relief Committee. “Firemen” were assigned to guard duty that night on the alert against arson. Incidents occurred where soldiers sheared off half of the beards of Jewish men. On the final night of the retreat, four Jews were killed.206

The Second Bolshevik Occupation (July 26–September 26, 1920) The Bolsheviks second regime in Pinsk lasted for two months, from July 26 until September 26, 1920. This time the revolution was felt in its full intensity. Once again a painful change occurred in daily life. Business activity that had begun to develop came to a halt. Commerce

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was forbidden, and stores were closed. Merchandise was expropriated, and what­ever was not confiscated was hidden away. Commodity prices soared, and hunger returned yet again. The Polish mark was banned, and the Soviet ruble came into circulation; its real value was approximately one-seventieth of that of the Tsarist ruble. Many people lost a significant portion of their money. Besides merchandise and foodstuffs, homes and furniture were also expropriated to set up all the various offices of the regime. The finest homes and best furnishings of the “haute bourgeoisie” were chosen for this purpose, though some of this property had been abandoned when the owners fled to Poland for fear of the Bolsheviks. Jewish institutions were suddenly faced by the question of survival because the JDC assistance had been cut off. Prochansky, the secretarytreasurer of the American Relief Committee, had joined the Communist party and was appointed fiscal commissar of the city; he transferred the assistance money under his control to a different account with other objectives. A special expropriation committee confiscated merchandise that had been purchased by the Relief Committee as a hedge against devaluation of the Polish mark. This merchandise, about 380 pounds of shoe soles and about one hundred pounds of soft leather, had originally been purchased to make shoes for the poor and was worth a great deal. A substantial portion of the money brought by Shmuel Davitch was therefore lost. According to Feinstein, the leather had been well-hidden and could not have been discovered, had the cache not been revealed to the authorities. Feinstein accuses the Bundist members of the Assistance Committee of this deed. (Perhaps Prochansky was the culprit.) The pharmacies were closed and locked, apparently in order to expropriate their contents. A single government pharmacy was opened instead but stood empty for several weeks, so it was difficult to obtain medicines. The day the Bolsheviks entered the city, many peasants from the vicinity were arrested for political reasons or theft. Feinstein was also taken into custody on political suspicions and saved from shooting only by the mayor’s intercession. Feinstein wrote that many people were taken out of the city and shot, though he does not specify names. “Young people not considered Communists could not be sure of their lives; it was enough for any hooligan to inform on an individual to the revolutionary tribunal and he was straightaway sentenced to death.”

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For the young men and women who were children of paupers or of the proletariat, the period of Bolshevik rule was a time of high spirits, of assemblies and meetings. Together with middle-class boys and girls, many became active in the numerous offices that were set up as secretaries and as organizers of propaganda and expropriation efforts. Some rushed about arrogantly with pistols strapped to their hips. Now they had found the opportunity to take revenge on the “bourgeoisie.” They expropriated merchandise from shopkeepers and businessmen; as “locals,” they knew secrets and it was difficult to elude them. If they were aware of a merchant or shopkeeper who had hidden his wares, they did not hesitate to arrest him and put his life in danger. Rumor spread that they divided the goods among themselves. Most knew little about communist ideology but devoted themselves totally to its promulgation and led propaganda campaigns against religion, the Zionist parties, and the Hebrew language. The leaders of the propagandists obviously came from outside Pinsk. The Hebrew language was, nevertheless, not supplanted in the schools, either for lack of time or because the Bolshevik takeover fell during the vacation period. Nor did they have time to effect the division of the populace into working class and middle class (the former, for whom red cards were prepared, were to receive a full food ration, and the latter, with green cards, were to receive only half a ration). Most of the Jewish public was either non-communist or anti-communist. The reasons included not only the confiscations and interruption of their connections to the West and America, but the very fact that “[t]hey were governed by children” (Isaiah 3:4). The populace was aware that Bolshevik rule meant that their lives were secure, without the danger of anti-semitic attacks and pogroms to which they had grown accustomed during the first months of Polish rule, and which the Ukrainian Jews were said to be suffering at the hands of Petlyura’s men. As for the Bundists, they were not elated. They were rejected by the communists, who did not consider them partners in the revolution (some of the Bundists and the Poalei Zion, however, did manage to find work as clerks in the various offices). Severe tension prevailed during the final weeks of Soviet rule. Men were seized for work on fortifications and for other services. Even earlier, when the Bolshevik retreat from Warsaw began, a draft of twenty- to

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thirty-one-year olds (according to Feinstein, eighteen- to forty-five-yearolds) had been announced. Because of the general chaos, only a small number of those liable for the draft were actually taken. Even Bund and Poalei Zion members evaded the draft by various means. Apparently those who were inducted managed to return home during the Bolshevik retreat from the city. The Pinsk religious were mortified to be taken from the synagogues on the fast of the Day of Atonement for digging trenches, while the young communists enjoyed a public meal and demonstrated their revolutionary spirit to everyone. Perhaps the communists’ intuition foretold that within a few days they would be forced to flee the city.207 On September 26, on the eve of the Sukkot holiday, after an attack to the south of Pinsk and Janowa by the Polish army under the command of General Krajewski, the Soviet Fourth Army was destroyed. That afternoon the Bolsheviks fled the city in confusion and panic. The staff of the Fourth Army in Pinsk was taken prisoner.208

Invasion and Rioting by Balakhovich’s Troops and the Second Polish Regime (September 26, 1920–March 18, 1921) (Treaty of Riga) On September 26, 1920, the eve of Sukkot, toward dusk, a company of Balakhovist horsemen under the command of Bolak Balakhovich’s brother entered the city. Boris Balakhovich was one of the last “White” [Russian anti-Bolshevik] regiment commanders to fight alongside the Poles against the Bolsheviks. It is surprising that the Poles allowed the Balakhovists to enter the city before them, for the official announcement stated that the Polish army had trounced the Bolshevik Fourth Army; (perhaps malice led the victors to abandon the city to thieves and murderers, so they could take revenge on the “Bolshevik” Jews and still pose afterward as well-wishers and guarantors of order, as “saviors?”). The Jews of Pinsk certainly had not ever imagined that Balakhovists would follow on the heels of the retreating Bolsheviks. As they entered, Jews stood along Lohishin Street, innocently observing the strangely-attired horsemen,209 even though rumors of atrocities committed in the vicinity, particularly in the town of Kamin-Kashirsk had already reached the

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city.210 The gentiles of Pinsk were aware of the Balakhovist attitude to the Jews: at the firemen’s building on Lohishin Street, they were the ones to point out to the Jews that these cavalrymen were “murderers of Jews.”211 Jews immediately rushed to disappear and hide behind locked doors and closed shutters, in cellars and attics, or with gentile neighbors. Whether from caution or duplicitous tactics, the Balakhovists did not swing into action immediately upon entering the city, but waited until the evening. Thus, when one of the Balakhovists stole a watch from Botkovsky who was standing at the side of the street, an officer immediately ordered him to return it. However, that Sukkot holiday night was transformed into a night of terror. Robbery, murder, and rape continued through the two following nights. Five people were murdered viciously on the first night, among them Nahum Lipa Zhokhovitzky, Mordecai Yehudah Tyokal, and Senderovitz the “millionaire.”212 Several other people were killed in and around Pinsk during the days of Balakhovist frenzy. Tuvia Rabinov and a friend were murdered by Balakhovists in the town of ­Dobrovoliya near Pinsk. They had left Pinsk the morning before the holiday to hire gentile women workers to dig potatoes from a field leased by Tuvia’s parents. Unable to return home that day because all the roads were filled with streams of retreating Bolsheviks, they hid from the Balakhovists in Dobrovoliya. On the third day they left their hiding place, and the Balakhovists murdered them near the town.213 Wolf Schmidt had been employed by the Bolsheviks to build a bridge over the river, either near Lubieszow or near the town of Liubiez; he was killed with four other Jews.214 Feinstein was told that: On Shabbat Shuvah [the Sabbath before the Day of Atonement] before dawn, the Balakhovists entered Liubiez for the second time. . . . A legion of 800 Bolsheviks who had come to fix the bridges was lodged there. . . . The Bolsheviks panicked and laid down their arms. . . . There were a few Jews among the captured Bolsheviks; all were put to death. Among them was a young man from Pinsk, whose last name was Schmid[t].215

A few months later Schmidt’s father transferred his body and those of four other Jews to Lubieszow for burial in the common grave of the Lubieszow cemetery. Schmidt was murdered before the Balakhovists entered Pinsk. The second night of the [Sukkot] holiday, a Jewish shoe-

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maker and his wife who lived on Tyormana Street were beaten to death; a young man from Brest staying in the same house was shot.216 At sunset on the eve of Sukkot, seven people were murdered on the road from Dobrovoliya to Pinsk. One was a beggar on his way home with a load of potatoes on his shoulder. The others, two young men and four young women, were found naked the next day.217 Three young men visiting in Pinsk were caught near the river crossing as they tried to return home. Two of them, from Brest, were shot immediately and their bodies thrown into the marsh. The third, Yisrael Burstein, a native of Zhabinka near Kobryn, was taken back to Nissan Lifshitz’s hotel where he was staying and robbed of thirty thousand rubles that he had borrowed from Lifshitz and from other Jews. In the end, they led him behind the bathhouse on the river bank, removed his boots, emptied his pockets, cut off his finger when they had difficulty removing his ring, and “smashed his skull” with their rifle butts. His body was buried four days after his murder.218 Feinstein notes that: Fatalities within the city were many, and it was impossible to name a figure. At that time there were many transients without relatives in the city and surrounding villages. When they were lost no one felt their absence or searched for them. A full year after these bloody events . . . corpses would be found between the thorns and bushes in the swamps and ditches. In the spring the plows turned up several Jewish bodies.219

A letter written from Pinsk by a Jewish soldier serving in the Polish army during those days reports: Our army entered Pinsk on September 29 (our division was among the first), a few days after the entry of Balakhovich’s army on September 26 at 5:00 p.m. The city is in a terrible state. All the homes of the Jews were looted, more than ten people were killed, sixty women, among them the rabbi’s widow, were raped.

The writer noted that the pogrom was still going on, but to a lesser extent, because the Polish army’s presence was deterring Balakhovich’s men from doing as they pleased; the Polish army was treating the Jews agreeably and making an attempt to restore order. At the army’s command, all stores had been opened; since they had been looted, however, they were nearly empty “because the Balakhovists destroyed whatever

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the Bolsheviks left behind.” This portion of the letter, accompanied by a piece of parchment from a burnt Torah Scroll, was presented to the Sejm by the representative Hirschorn, along with a parliamentary question addressed to the Minister of War: Is the minister aware that on September 26 with the entry of General Balakhovich’s army into Pinsk, rape and robbery of the Jewish population began by this army, and all this continued until October 2nd of this year? What does the Minister of War intend to do, in order to punish the culprits and in order to prevent recurrence of such incidents?220

From the letter and the question, it is evident that during those three days, from September 26 until September 29, the Balakhovists were sole masters of the city. The Polish army entered only after three days of mayhem. The Balakhovists continued their activities even after the Poles entered the city but on a more moderate scale. The number of Pinskers murdered by the Balakhovists was actually higher than stated in the above letter. This became clear only afterward; rumor was that more than twenty citizens had been killed.221 One source states that October 2 was a night of terror and that eight people were murdered, but other sources do not confirm this detail. Synagogues were defiled, and Torah scrolls were burned. 222 Despite his promise to a Jewish delegation, the Balakhovist commandant, Ger, delayed for three days the posting of notices warning that looters would be severely punished.223 This timetable may have been the outcome of prior agreement between the Polish command and General Bolak Balakhovich to abandon the city to three days of pillage. It should be noted, however, that in Pinsk the Balakhovists did not behave as they did in the small towns and villages; they refrained from outrageous acts during the daytime. Here, too, they may have been following orders to avoid arousing world opinion. Feinstein relates that on the first day of the rioting, he and the other Jewish lawnik (member of the city administration), the Polish lawnik, and the city clerk, also a Pole, appeared before Commandant Ger and the brother of Bolak Balakhovich and asked them to stop the rioting. Negotiations were opened. The commandant demanded 500,000 marks as the price for restoring order. The Jewish lawniks succeeded in lowering the sum to 200,000 marks, finally submitting only 150,000 marks in three pay-

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ments.224 The money was wasted though since the city quieted down after three days of rioting elapsed and the Poles entered. The initial payment did, however, accomplish one thing: Ger sent soldiers to disperse the crowd of gentile women from the villages who had gathered in the market square hoping to stuff their sacks with loot from Jewish stores (surely bare, for commerce was somnolent under the Bolsheviks).225 Ger also listened to Feinstein’s requests. Most of the Balakhovists left Pinsk on October 1. Their belongings were transported by twenty-two Jewish wagoners, whose horses had been discovered after a search by the Balakhovists. At Feinstein’s request, Ger provided the wagoners with documents stating that it was forbidden to harm them, and he promised to allow them to return with their horses and wagons when replacements were found. Feinstein adds that after Ger agreed to give the wagoners these documents, he further suggested to him that the Jewish notables give Ger a recommendation to Jews elsewhere along his route of march, suggesting that they placate him with all they had so that he would forbid his soldiers to rob and murder. Ger agreed. Feinstein composed the following testimonial: To Rabbis and prominent members of the community everywhere, the eminent authority bearing this letter is magnanimous and extremely generous. He has greatly assisted us in saving the Jews of our city Pinsk from harm. We advise applying to him immediately with the prayer of our forefather Ya’acov [Jacob], appealing for his protection from abuse. Dear brothers, have mercy on yourselves and follow our advice and may God take pity on the remnants of our survivors and save us from evil and misfortune. Amen. Pinsk, third of the intermediate Days of Sukkot, 5681 [1 October, 1920].

The letter was signed by: Shmuel Michel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of Karlin; Shalom Goldberg; an illegible signature; Shmuel Tzernihow; Avraham Asher Feinstein; Yitzhak Hindin, Rabbi of Pinsk; illegible signature; M. Gleiberson; illegible signature; Binyamin Bukshtansky; Ya’acov Slutzky illegible signature; Ya’acov Lubzevsky; Moshe Bregman; Pinhas Eizenberg; and Yitzhak Butkovsky.226 A different account of how the “recommendation” was given is found in the report of an emissary of the People’s Relief of the United States. He was a member of the JDC delegation that arrived in Kobryn

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on September 29, 1920, and must have visited Pinsk as well. He did not recount the facts precisely since his intention was to stir emotions and intensify aid. His claim, however, that “more than twenty Jews” were murdered by the Balakhovists in Pinsk is no exaggeration. But his account of the letter of recommendation differs from Feinstein’s. According to his report, General Balakhovich summoned the rabbi and the Jewish leaders and informed them that to prevent further slaughter of Jews, they had to sign a document stating that the Balakhovists had not harmed the Jews. The Jews were stunned by the demand. Balakho­ vich insisted and threatened that if they did not sign, the bloodbath would be renewed.227 Feinstein reports that Ger kept his word. The wagoners returned home safely, and the Jews of Stolin, Turov, and elsewhere were saved from robbery and murder because of the letter of recommendation. “For wherever he [Ger] passed with his troops after leaving Pinsk, his soldiers refrained from harming Jews.” Rabbi Yisrael Perlow [the rabbi of Stolin, known as] the Yanuka added his signature to the letter after the Jews of Stolin appeased Ger with 150,000 marks.228 Feinstein may have been careless in his generalizations. His statement that “[t]he murders and rioting in the Pinsk vicinity were committed earlier by other troops,”229 cannot be confirmed. From the evidence in his own book, it is clear that terrible murders were committed in the Pinsk area not only “earlier” but also “later.” It is not certain that they were carried out by “other troops.” The horrible killing in Plotnica was committed on Saturday—the fourth of the intermediate days of Sukkot, the murder in Stachow—on Hoshanah Rabbah [seventh day of the Sukkot holidays], and in Rowela—on Simhat Torah [holiday following the seven days of Sukkot] and on the day after the festival.230 A newspaper account reports that the Balakhovists murdered one thousand people in the Pinsk district.231 A few days after Sukkot, refugees from the vicinity began to arrive in Pinsk and to tell hair-raising tales of Balakhovist deeds. According to the memoirs of Eliyahu Katzman of Stachow, he and his brother were sent by the Jews of the village to request assistance for survivors. That same day a committee was set up, and a collection of bread and clothing was organized. The next day boats laden with clothes and bread set out accompanied by six policemen. Katzman returned with his brother

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in these boats after passing through all the towns along the river as far as Stachow and distributing their load (the bread was transported to Plotnica by wagon). They also collected the survivors they found along the way and brought them by boat to Pinsk.232 Feinstein’s version is different. On October 20 the priest from Stachow came to Pinsk. He had fled from the Balakhovists who wanted to kill him for hiding several Jews in his home. After hearing the priest’s account, several of the city’s notables were aroused and went to the Polish authorities to request help. Five policemen left with a few refugees from Stachow to bring the remaining Jews hiding in the woods to Pinsk. But the delegation returned empty-handed. “They didn’t bring a single refugee,” because “the Balakhovists attacked them . . . and they barely escaped.”233 The two stories clearly refer to the same event, and it is difficult to determine whose recollection is more faithful. It seems more appropriate to rely on Katzman’s, for as a resident of Stachow, the event would have been etched in his memory. Feinstein was then pre­ occupied with many other matters. It is also difficult to accept the date given by Feinstein (October 20), for at that very time Feinstein was engaged in an extensive rescue campaign, and by then the policy was to rehabilitate the refugees in their hometowns. Meanwhile, the flow of refugees increased, reaching twelve hundred. The survivors were traumatized by what they had seen. When Jacques Reier of the JDC arrived in the city in the first half of October, he found a committee taking care of the refugees who were lodged in the synagogues and study houses. Each received a pound of bread per day, and a kitchen was set up in the yard of the synagogue to distribute portions of soup. On October 17 Reier called a meeting of several members of the former JDC committee: G[ershon] Luria, A. Levin, Sh. Greenberg, A[haron] Stillerman, Y[a’acov] Holtzman, Y[a’acov] Slutzky, and A[vraham Asher] Feinstein. They discussed the question of rescuing Jewish refugees of the Balakhovist riots; the campaign to save survivors hiding in the forests was apparently the result of this meeting. About a half year later, Y. M. Raskin of the JDC wrote of this project: “It will forever be recorded to the credit of the Pinsk community that it fulfilled its obligations at that critical time.” When the American representative arrived in the city, a committee had already been organized on behalf of

Interregnum

the refugees, and “the primary concern of the Jewish community in the city was to save the remnants of the Jews who were hiding in the forests and the swamps.” Prior to the rescue campaign fifteen hundred refugees had already come to Pinsk. On November 18 three JDC representatives arrived in Pinsk—Shifman, Lewis, and Field. Three days later they reported: There are two thousand refugees in the city, including approximately 150 orphans. A committee has been set up to feed, clothe, and attend to the many sick among them. Two soup kitchens have been opened. A short while later, the JDC workers came bringing quantities of clothing and shoes, as well as a large sum of money for the refugees and the poor and needy of the city.234 On October 18 (or earlier), Bolak Balakhovich arrived, together with Boris Victorovich Sabinkov, who was a social revolutionary and Deputy Minister of War in Kerensky’s cabinet, and subsequently “one of the leaders in the struggle against the Bolsheviks.” The day after their arrival, a Jewish delegation presented itself to Balakhovich and described his soldiers’ actions in the city. Feinstein, a member of the delegation, began to plead for the remaining Jews of the vicinity who were still hiding in the forests and swamps. But Balakhovich, who gave them only a standing audience, said nothing, and the group left disappointed. Feinstein and another member of the delegation then turned to Sab­ inkov, who was lodged in a different house. Since Feinstein had been appointed head of the Refugee Assistance Committee, he was able to introduce himself as a representative of the JDC and therefore found a listening ear. Sabinkov gave Feinstein a letter to Bolak Balakhovich that recommended that Balakhovich send a company of soldiers under the command of a certain major, known as a liberal individual, to accompany a JDC representative who wished to provide help to Jews in the vicinity. The letter was presented to Balakhovich, and Sabinkov explained to him that it was politically important to show the world that they were fighting the Bolsheviks and not the Jews. Balakhovich agreed to this proposal. The rescue effort was scheduled for October 24, and feverish preparations were made in anticipation. As noted, the JDC decided to rehabilitate the survivors in their hometowns rather than to bring them to Pinsk, where there was no place to accommodate them. To ensure

451

452

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the refugees’ survival, Feinstein turned to Balakhovich and requested an order forbidding harm to the Jews and their property. Balakhovich provided a document censuring acts of murder and robbery in sharp language and threatening severe punishment for those who disobeyed; Feinstein assumes that this order was written by Sabinkov. In return, Balakhovich and Sabinkov demanded from Feinstein (summoned especially for this purpose) that the Jews of Pinsk hand over the Bolsheviks in their midst and form an army unit to fight against the Bolsheviks. The demand was accompanied by a harsh threat: Balakhovich would destroy all Jews who fell into his hands if his dictates were not carried out. According to Feinstein, Balakhovich said with contempt: I wanted to make peace with the Jews, and if the Jews don’t want to make peace with me, and persist in hiding their Bolshevik brothers . . . My plan is all worked out: murder and blood! . . . We will put to the sword all Jews who fall into our hands. . . . Then there will be commotion among the Jews. . . . The stream of fleeing Jews will increase continually, and will be a burden to the Bolsheviks. Thousands of corpses will be abandoned on every road. . . . The Bolsheviks will retreat under difficult conditions. . . . The Bolsheviks and tens of thousands of Jews will be wiped out. . . . And I will achieve my goal. Maybe my name will go down in history in disgrace—they will call me a murderer and assassin—but I will save Russia, I will liberate her from the yoke of the Jewish Bolsheviks.

The contents of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion [notorious work of anti-semitic propaganda, purporting to be a document detailing a Jewish world conspiracy] seem to have been familiar to Balakhovich for he claimed that the Jews “have very deep politics. . . . They want to take over the entire world and they took Bolshevism as their weapon to carry out their plot.” Balakhovich claimed that he had heard a sermon from a rabbi named Levin in Petrograd, who said, “We Jews must uproot the faith from the hearts of the Christians by means of Bolshevism; after their belief is destroyed, we will be able to plant the faith of Israel in their hearts.” Sabinkov attempted to soften Balakhovich’s venom, but he also asserted, “The Jews must cleanse themselves of the charge that they in-

Interregnum

cline to the Bolsheviks.” After some argument, Feinstein was ordered to assemble the Jewish leadership to inform them of the demands; he was to appear the following evening to submit their decision. Feinstein did so, but the people he consulted could not agree on what to do, so he returned without a reply. Luck was with him. Balakhovich and Sabinkov were occupied at the time and could not hear what he had to say. The following day Feinstein left on the rescue mission. The campaign was accelerated, for fear that Balakhovich would reconsider and hinder the departure. A group of soldiers under the command of a liberal major named Ivanov joined the expedition. There is no information on subsequent developments. Balakhovich apparently forgot his demands and left the city a few days later.235 Tension and depression, a feeling of helplessness and misgiving about the future, were heightened by the Balakhovist pogroms and the standoff between Soviet Russia and Poland (which lasted until the treaty at Riga, signed on March 18, 1921). More and more of the population thought of escape. Those with close family were brought to America. Young men and women who had been raised in Zeirei Zion and had absorbed the pioneer ideology left for the Land of Israel hoping to found a kibbutz [collective settlement] in memory of the thirty-five martyrs. Most of the Jews, however, remained, without the means or the courage to take risks. They began to reconstruct their economic, spiritual, and cultural lives once more, and, again, the JDC came to their assistance. In May 1920 the JDC had thought of terminating the support and rescue campaign, limiting itself to furthering economic rehabilitation. Now it was forced to continue giving assistance to survivors of the Balakhovist pogrom and to Pinsk residents who had been despoiled by the Bolshevik confiscations and the Balakhovists. Reier had already brought a significant sum of money with him—three million marks in aid for Pinsk and the vicinity, along with checks in the sum of five million marks for individuals from relatives in the United States. He distributed 800 coats, 400 blankets, 2,800 pounds of soap, 111 sacks of flour, 23 sacks of barley, 75 cases of milk, and 10 cases of oil. Reier used part of his funds to feed the refugees; the balance was devoted to feeding 414 poor Pinsk families (1,809 adults and 666 children).236 But the money Reier carried ran out quickly. When Shifman,

453

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Interregnum

Lewis, and Field arrived, they found three hundred refugees—men, women, and children—in the synagogue, ragged, tattered, and starving. They said that they had not eaten anything for two days. [Gershon] Luria (son of Shmuel Luria, a leading Orthodox Jew), a member of the JDC committee, confirmed this. The three note in their report that they were infuriated by the neglect shown by the townspeople. Shifman nevertheless notes that “they had troubles of their own.” This JDC delegation also brought funds, and a portion was set aside for feeding and lodging the refugees. They set up a special kitchen for feeding the children of the city as well. According to a May 1921 account, 2,400 boys and girls below the age of sixteen ate there; the number was afterward reduced to one thousand. The kitchen, like other educational and welfare institutions, received foodstuffs from the Rada Opiekuncza, that is from necessities sent as American aid to Poland. Those who could, paid something for the meals. The manager of the kitchen was a man named Kugler, who was assisted by thirteen people, among them four young boys. Shifman remained in Pinsk as the permanent JDC appointee for aid to the city and the vicinity. He began sending the refugees back to their homes and met with some resistance on their part. Shifman felt that they preferred to remain in Pinsk “because they became accustomed to the bread and soup” dispensed free of charge, so he was forced to halt distribution. Instead he reached an agreement with the municipality to employ refugees in public works at a salary of eighty marks a day, plus another twenty marks from JDC funds. The relocation project was concluded at the end of the winter. A district orphanage, in addition to the two already in existence, was set up for children orphaned by the Balakhovist rioting. In December 1920 a mobile clinic was established to provide regular supervision of children in the orphanages and schools and to provide medical help for the poor. Dr. Rapoport, a refugee from the Balakhovist pogrom in Petrikov, served as physician but when he died a few months later, apparently no replacement was found. The Loan Fund, established in July 1919, was reactivated and built up. Through January 1921 the Fund provided 186 loans for a total of 240,000 marks. Recipients of the loans included wagoners who bought horses, shopkeepers whose stores had been robbed, small merchants,

Interregnum

and craftsmen.237 Aharon Stillerman and Ya’acov Holtzman were put in charge of the Loan Fund. JDC allocations to Pinsk: October 1920 1,222,470 marks November 1920 1,305,290 December 1920 2,033,956 January 1921 2,575,059

It is not clear if these figures include the support for the refugees, whose number as of November reached two thousand. In February the JDC greatly decreased its support as it renewed its goal of supporting only rehabilitation projects. In subsequent months JDC allocations were: February 1921 March 1921 April 1921 May 1921 June 1921

454,290 marks 727,620 364,137 401,170 376,358

It should be noted that the value of the mark decreased from seven to eight hundred marks per dollar in February to thirteen hundred marks per dollar in June.238 Help provided by relatives in the United States to their kin in Pinsk was, however, several times greater than that furnished by the JDC. Reier had previously brought five million marks to private individuals. He had collected this money even before the Bolshevik retreat. As soon as word of the Balakhovist rioting reached the United States, Pinskers in Chicago organized funds for their relatives and for communal needs. The Pinsk Rescue Committee, already in existence, moved into high gear. As early as mid-October, it sought a way to transfer sums. The JDC center in New York accepted responsibility for distribution of monies sent to individuals. The JDC workers in Pinsk would perform the task. In Chicago Yosef Brin was chosen as envoy to Pinsk. He would receive the money earmarked for communal use upon his arrival in Poland, on condition that he consult with a committee to be organized with local JDC officials as to its disposition.

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By November sixty thousand dollars had been collected for approximately 450 individuals. The sum was amassed from donations of five dollars to one thousand dollars. The large amounts were to be used for emigration to the United States. A total of ten thousand dollars, of which six thousand dollars was a 10 percent “levy” on transfers to individuals, was collected for communal purposes. Two thousand dollars was allocated for Brin’s travel expenses, and the rescue committee in Chicago undertook to provide Brin’s family with forty dollars a week for the duration of his trip.239 By the time of Brin’s departure for Poland, $187,650 had been relayed from Chicago to the JDC in New York for Pinsk and the vicinity, of which $16,002 was for travel expenses and “general purposes.”240 Brin arrived in Pinsk in February 1921. The monies for individuals were dispensed without any difficulty, but in distributing the funds for public institutions, he encountered several problems. Brin writes that according to his instructions he was supposed to spend the money on constructive projects. But he could not do so because just as he arrived, the JDC had ceased its support of educational and welfare institutions and opened an appeal for rehabilitation projects. (Perhaps the JDC suddenly reduced its allotment to Pinsk when it found out about the funds brought by Brin.) The situation in the city’s institutions was critical, and Brin had no choice but to provide from the funds he had brought. With the help of the JDC representative Lewis, who had replaced Shifman, he attempted to organize a committee according to the instructions he had received, but he was unable to do so. Brin did not want to deal with the committee already in existence perhaps because it was unable to control the situation. In any case, JDC people who visited the city had a negative attitude toward this committee and handled matters on their own. Raskin, the JDC representative in charge of dissolving JDC activities in the city, stated that the difficulty in forming a new committee stemmed from the refusal of the parties and organizations to work within the framework of a comprehensive committee. They thought that it was preferable to maintain direct contact with the sources of support. Almost certainly it was the left-wing parties that were creating obstacles to forming a new committee as they had done previously.

Interregnum

They already received support for their educational institutions from the “Dineson committee,” which supported the Yiddishist schools. The Mizrahi party may have also declined to join the committee since it received support for the Talmud Torahs from the Mizrahi center. Raskin therefore advised Brin to stop trying to form a new committee and to distribute money to the various institutions directly. Brin assigned to Hirsch Zilberblat the task of conducting a survey of all the educational and welfare institutions to ascertain the extent of their needs. He distributed about eleven million marks, which he received in exchange for $14,953, accordingly: Schools Vocational schools Orphanages Hospitals Old-Age homes Health facilities Library Support for needy individuals   Total:

1,400,000 marks 200,000 2,500,000 425,000 400,000 1,000,000 500,000 365,525 6,790,525 marks

Brin distributed the following for economic rehabilitation: Loan to three cooperative shops to buy flour for Passover; money to be returned to Loan Fund To Loan Fund in the agricultural village of Iwanic (Brin’s birthplace) Loan to a carpenters’ cooperative Loan to bricklayers   Total:

3,000,000 marks 415,000 500,000 100,000 4,015,000 marks241

After Brin’s visit, Kugel came to Pinsk for a second time. There is no information on his mission, other than that he gave two million marks to the orphanage and a sum of money to the old-age homes.242 On July 1, 1921, Raskin concluded the JDC activities in Pinsk. Local residents employed by the JDC were given three months’ wages in severance pay. The stocks of food and clothing in the JDC warehouse were parceled out among the institutions. JDC assistance was now

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limited primarily to support for the three orphanages; a committee was set up to represent them. The members were apparently the Bundist Gershon Luria—chairman, Goldman of Stolin—treasurer, and Briskman—secretary. Raskin summed up the situation in Pinsk: The stream of funds sent by Americans to their relatives greatly influenced the economic development of the city. Hundreds of families were rehabilitated. Approximately three-quarters of a million dollars reached the city by various means, through the JDC, by way of private banks and via the four emissaries sent from the United States.243

The treaty signed by Russia and Poland in Riga on March 18, 1921, included Pinsk within the borders of Poland. The “Polish period” lasted for eighteen years until the partition of Poland between Russia and Germany in 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War, when the city passed into Soviet hands.

Te n   Between Two World Wars

Character of the City The demography of Pinsk changed significantly after the First World War. Many Jews who had been expelled from the city did not return. The prevailing hunger during the German occupation had raised the mortality rate and reduced the population. The major changes in demographic character, however, were a result of the policy of the Polish central authority: Polish residents were resettled in Pinsk to give a Polish character to the border city situated among White Russians or Polishuks [residents of Polesie]. According to the official census of September 30, 1921, the population of Pinsk totaled 23,391: 71.2 percent Jews, 16.7 percent Poles, 9.9 percent White Russians, and 2.2 percent others.1 This indicates a population of approximately 16,700 Jews, a little over half the number of Jews there on the eve of the First World War. In April 1927 the percentages were 73 percent Jews, 14.7 percent Poles, and 12.3 percent Russians.2 In August 1928 Jews in Pinsk numbered 17,513—74 percent of the population.3 According to the 1931 census, however, Jews constituted only 63.4 percent of the population or 20,220, while Poles composed 19.8 percent, with the balance Russians and others.4 In the decade between the 1921 and 1931 census, the Jewish population had increased by approximately 3,500. (The census area of 1931 included the suburb of Biljiawszczyna, not included in the 1921 census, where only a small number of Jews lived.) The primary reason for this increase was probably that Jews were still continuing to return from Russia and Poland in the early 1920s. And Jewish immigrants, members of the free profes-

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sions—doctors, engineers, lawyers, and teachers—were coming from Galicia. Emigration from Pinsk was undoubtedly higher than the rate of natural increase despite the obstacles of entry to the United States and aliyah to the Land of Israel. Table 10.1 provides statistics of the natural increase of the Pinsk Jewish population for 1927–1930, 1934, and 1937.5 The data shows that the rate of natural increase was on the rise until 1929 and decreased from that point on, although the number of marriages had increased. Some of the weddings were actually fictitious; girls married men who had permits to emigrate to the Land of Israel or who were legal residents there, in order to go with them. During the fouryear period from 1927 to 1930, the natural increase in the city was 1,496, an average of 374 people per annum. Had the yearly average from 1921 to 1926 been the same as the 1927 increase, the Jewish population would have risen by 2,052 individuals in those six years, and by about 3,548 individuals in the ten-year period between one census and the next. From 1930 on, the birth rate decreased noticeably. This was likely a consequence of the beginning of the acceptance of family planning. The exodus from the city was emptying it faster than natural increase could replenish it as many families were brought to the United States by their relatives, and young people made their own way to the United States, Latin America, and Palestine. The young were rushing to leave Poland. There was no future for them either because they were unwilling to table 10.1 Natural increase of the Pinsk Jewish population 1927–30, 1934, 1937 Births

Males

Females

Deaths

Natural Increase

Marriages

1927

590

340

250

248

342

142

1928

622

330

292

224

398

187

1929

635

326

309

225

410

201

1930

567

326

241

221

346

320

1934

486

261

225

116

370

210

1937

427

267

160

258

169

220

Between Two World Wars

serve in the Polish army or were imbued with Zionist idealism. Without the returnees, the new immigrants from Galicia, and those attracted by the establishment of the Beit Yosef yeshivah (see below), there would have been no increase. According to an article in a manuscript at the YIVO Archives in New York, in early January 1937, the city’s population was 35,098, of whom only 60 percent or 21,000 were Jews. During the six years since the 1931 census, the population had grown by only 700. Emigration during the same period totalled more than 2,000.6 By the end of the 1930s, the Jewish population of Pinsk had reverted to its size at the beginning of the century, but in proportion to the other groups, it had decreased significantly. (This data may be imprecise because in the late 1930s many Jews from the surrounding towns and villages moved to Pinsk, for fear of pogroms, to find work, or to educate their children.) As Pinsk came under Polish rule a second time, the Jews began to renew the economic activity that had been suppressed by the Bolsheviks. Everything had to be built from scratch. As a result of the war, borders between renascent Poland and Soviet Russia came into being; tense relations existed between Poland and Lithuania and even between Poland and Germany. These developments negated the inherent economic advantage of the city, which straddled the junction of waterways that are linked to southern Russia by way of the Dnieper and to the Baltic Sea and to Germany via the Vistula and the Niemen. Transit trade declined. The timber business diminished greatly when compared to the pre-war period. Barge traffic was reduced. Commercial activity on the Pina and within the port was renewed on a small scale only. Of the large factories, only the match factory—reopened in 1919—was active in these early years. Adapting to new conditions was not easy for people who had earned a living in the forest and transit trades. There were few entrepreneurs since most of the larger merchants had fled to Russia on the eve of the German conquest and did not return. The situation of former factory workers was difficult, for there was no one to whom they could sell their labor. The craftsmen’s circumstances were comparatively better: bricklayers and carpenters were employed rebuilding ruins in the city and villages in the vicinity; tailors and shoemakers were busy clothing

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and shoeing the population whose apparel had worn out during the war years. The numbers of those scratching a living from anything that came to hand grew under pressure of circumstance. Shopkeepers and shops multiplied, as did traders in raw materials, haberdashery products, foodstuffs, and the like. At first there was significant commercial activity and plentiful work for craftsmen. Two cooperatives were set up—one for carpenters, another for shoemakers—with the help of American support funds. These cooperatives supplied craftsmen with raw materials and relieved them of the need for personal capital. ­Hotels, coffee shops, teahouses, and printing firms were opened or continued in operation. Economic progress was not achieved without help. The assistance of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC or Joint) and of relatives abroad from 1919 to 1921 has already been described. Sons and brothers in America considered it their duty “to set their families on their feet,” and either continued to support them or brought them to America. From the start, sources of livelihood were meager and not sufficient for the entire Jewish population. This situation persisted even though several industrial enterprises, new and old, were activated. The early years of Polish rule were “the good years,” relatively speaking. Yet the opinion was voiced that “[there is] terrible public apathy toward all communal work, apathy arising from the poverty and privations of the Jewish worker,” and “our young people have no place in life and are miserable, ailing in body and spirit.”7 Polish Jewry’s economic circumstances worsened under the rule of Wladislaw Grabski (1924–1925). Grabski reorganized the state economy, minted a new, stable currency, and established the federal tax system—an income tax and a turnover tax on business revenues. The Jews felt these innovations the most. Many, including Pinskers, were pauperized. “Grabski’s wagon,” which bore the confiscated property of those unable to pay taxes, continued to cruise the streets and was remembered long after the man himself fell from power. The years 1926–1929 brought relief. The worldwide crisis of 1929, however, affected the Jews in general and the Jews of Pinsk in particular, though Poland itself was not especially hurt. The depression in the United States all but terminated the funds sent by relatives to support some of the city’s Jews or to supplement their budgets. Even after

Between Two World Wars

the economic crisis had passed, the distress was only partially alleviated because Nazi-influenced anti-semitism was growing progressively stronger, and the national policy was to push Jews out of their jobs and replace them with Poles. Cooperative stores in the villages multiplied, and shopkeepers in the city were deprived of many customers. The Polish slogan “Buy from your own kind!” was heard in Pinsk, too. Pinsk, nevertheless, did not suffer pogroms, as Pshitik, Minsk-Mazowieck, Brest, and other cities did. Just as the city was returning to a normal way of life, a fire broke out. The blaze started on August 7, 1921, at ten in the morning on Domin­ kanska (Soborna) Street, in the apartment of a shoemaker named Kot, and spread rapidly to Lohishin Street and then to the city center as far as Karlin. The flames were contained only at nine in the evening after concentrated efforts by firemen from Brest, Luninets, and elsewhere and with the help of the military. Lives were lost, and approximately six hundred houses and 75 percent of the city’s stores were reduced to ashes along with their contents. The Great Synagogue, the orphanages, the schools, the government buildings, and the police station were among the sites consumed. Those “burned out” were members of the middle class, merchants, hotel owners, print-shop owners and craftsmen, and a few workers. Most of the victims found temporary shelter with relatives and friends, but several hundred roamed about, sleeping in sheds and open fields. In those first years after the war, homes were not insured, and there was no mortgage bank to grant loans. Information on the rehabilitation process is unavailable; all that is known is that the JDC immediately extended emergency help. The JDC official in Warsaw, Levenstein, brought two hundred sacks of flour, one hundred food parcels, tinned milk, and soap, as well as blankets and linens. Later on, he sent a second shipment of clothing, shoes, and underwear. An assistance committee was set up in Warsaw, composed of members of the main committee for Pinsk. This committee was a recognized organization. The JDC maintained contact with it, as well as with other Pinskers in Warsaw. Its members were Kantzik; the dentist, Bravda; Dr. Yehoshua Gottlieb; Dr. Nemtzik; Dr. Moshe Weizmann; Sh. Banshik; Eisenberg; A. Brozawsky; Leib Tennenbaum; Eliyahu Holtzman; M. Gleiberman; Solomon; and Levin. A collec-

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tion was taken up. The “Pina” society contributed ten thousand marks. Dr. Bravda donated 5 percent of his gross income for the month. Clothing and underwear were contributed, and depots were set up to collect the items. The committee published an appeal to the Jewish public soliciting contributions for the benefit of the “burned out.” A few days later, Dr. Vandkas, as the JDC representative, and Dr. Y. Gottlieb, as the representative of the Warsaw aid committee, arrived in Pinsk. A meeting of the inhabitants was held, and a steering committee was formed composed of A. A. Feinstein, Y. Lachin, Zvi Miller, Leib Papish, and Ya’acov Slutzky, as representative of the municipality. The committee dispatched Feinstein and Rabbi Rabinsky to Warsaw to intercede with the Polish authorities for aid. The workers (probably meaning the Bund), refused to join the central assistance committee and formed a separate committee that sent its own delegation to Warsaw. Bundists in Pinsk apparently assumed that the anticipated American assistance would be organized, as it had been previously by the Pinsker Branch 210 Arbeter Ring, which was under Bund influence. They may have hoped to obtain more by operating independently. Bund representatives demanded funds from JDC officials in Warsaw to set up their educational institutions and rebuild the carpenters’ cooperative. The outcome is unknown. An account of postwar Branch 210 activities on behalf of Pinsk contains no mention of assistance rendered in those difficult days. In any case, the JDC extended its benevolence in the form of clothes, underwear, shoes, and foodstuffs and apparently cooperated in rehabilitating the fire victims as well.8 A letter from Ya’acov Beizer contains a reference to JDC assistance in rehabilitating those “burned out.” He relates the differences of opinion between his father, Shimon Beizer, and Shmuel Luria (not a member of the famous Luria family but the son-in-law of the well-known Neidich family) regarding the utilization of support money for the victims. According to the poet Leib Morgentoi, his parents received no aid from the JDC although they were among those whose property was destroyed. Of the 3,585 dwellings in the city as of 1930, approximately 900 had been constructed between 1922 and 1924, and 758 from 1925 on. Nearly half the city (46 percent) had been built between 1922 and 1930. ­Altogether the residential buildings in Pinsk contained 6,827 apartments:

Between Two World Wars

1,069 of them, one-room apartments; 1,522 two-room apartments; and the remainder three rooms or more. Only 512 of the buildings were constructed of brick; the rest were wooden structures.9 Although sources of livelihood had diminished compared to the prewar period, the Jews of Pinsk nevertheless managed to adapt to the new circumstances. The match factory, inherited from Yosef Halpern by his son Bernard (Benny), who invested great efforts in its restoration, employed four hundred workers in 1921 and subsequently increased production and employed approximately eight hundred workers.10 The Luria plywood factory was rehabilitated and resumed operation in 1922 when Alexander Luria finally succeeded in retrieving some of the machinery taken by the Germans.11 According to a spring of 1921 JDC census, 1,258 Jews in the city were working in forty-three different trades, as follows: Number of Workshops 80 11 18 2 5 21 7 45 18 58 5 44 19 19 11 10 5 3 2 4 4

Enterprises Number of Workers tailor 315 furrier 13 hatmaker 26 corsetmaker 2 sack-sewing 6 weaving 34 laundry 10 shoemaker 223 sewing 27 carpenter 103 glazier 5 construction 46 painter (of wood and metal) 21 tinsmith 23 blacksmith 19 locksmith 60 hoop-maker 5 wagon-maker 6 engraver (of metal) 2 woodcarver 6 goldsmith 4

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4 9 8 4 3 2 30 23 12 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 5 7 4

mechanic watchmaker photographer dental (technician) chemical painter ropemaker butcher baker flour mill grist mill oil press soda factory candy factory candle factory shoe polish (factory) sausage factory chemical plant soap factory printing shop

4 15 19 5 5 3 63 78 37 4 4 11 8 4 1 5 6 7 18

There were also three chimney sweeps, one well-digger, and one person who mended pottery with iron wires. In the free professions there were: 1 physician (6 Christian physicians) 6 paramedics, known as feldshers (2 Christians) 9 dentists 7 midwives (2 Christians) 2 nurses (4 Christians) 4 pharmacies (in addition to one owned by the municipality)

Teachers in the Zionist schools, including that of the Zeirei Zion, numbered thirty-eight, and in the Dinzon, or Yiddish, schools, they numbered nineteen.12 According to another census taken toward the end of the same year [1921], there were 665 workshops in which 1,524 people found employment. All the workshops were apparently owned by Jews, and of 305 salaried employees in 140 workshops, 99.3 percent were Jewish.13 Not

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included in this census were those whose trades were not conducted in shop premises, such as bricklayers, painters, wagoners, and porters. Jewish bricklayers, incidentally, were given official permission to work on Sundays.14 Jews worked in the military port, which had been established prior to 1923, although there were anti-semites among the sailors anchoring there. In 1922 they had murdered the Torah reader of the Great Synagogue (an old man named Yudovitz) and his grandson.15 An iron foundry was built in 1922. A newspaper advertisement notes that the foundry accepted orders for all sorts of cast-iron products and purchased scrap cast iron.16 In 1923 a merchants’ society—a branch of the Warsaw merchants’ society—was formed in Pinsk. Its membership reached 250. The first chairman was Pavel Rakovchik, a merchant from Minsk who owned the concession for the sale of liquor in the city and its environs. When he relocated to Warsaw in 1926, Haim Monish Prizant was elected and served as chairman until the outbreak of the Second World War. Members of the board were Ya’acov Yacovson, Motel Minsky, Yekutiel Lubart, Ya’acov Holtzman, Moshe Dobryshin, and others. The lawyer Dr. Hokh was active in the group; he met his death on the Struma which sunk on its way to Palestine. [The Struma set sail from Romania for Palestine with 769 Jewish refugees. It sank in the Marmora Sea (with all but one of the passengers) in 1942 after the British mandatory government refused it entry.] The board of the society represented the merchants to the authorities and interceded on their behalf particularly on the matter of the tax on turnover, which was levied on all merchants as a group. The board attempted to have this total reduced and then, on the basis of estimates made by local committees in various branches of commerce, set the tax for each one. The Polish Bank, the sole bank in the city capable of extending business credit, dealt only with Polish farmers and refused to assist Jewish merchants. In 1924 at Prizant’s initiative, the merchant society founded the Bank of Industry and Commerce. Prizant and Yitzhak Bodankin served as the bank’s directors, Y. Eliasberg was chosen as chairman of the board, and Bernard Halpern agreed to be chairman of the executive. The Pinsk bank was able to receive credit from Warsaw banks, in particular from the Central Cooperative Bank, thanks to Halpern—a resident of Warsaw. He was one of the important directors of the Swedish match

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concern, well-known in financial circles and active in the Central Cooperative Bank. The 250 members of the society did not all have firms or businesses of their own; for lack of capital, many arranged partnerships, and there were apparently only fifty large concerns all told. With JDC assistance, a credit bank for small merchants and craftsmen was opened in 1922 to provide small loans for purchase of merchandise and raw material. Those active in this bank were Zionists; it was managed by Avraham Feldman. In 1925, a popular bank was opened to provide low-interest loans to the general public.17 It was run by David Prochansky; the chairman of the board was Moshe Psakhin. The timber trade was revived to some extent even though barge traffic had now disappeared from the Pina and the canals. Logs were now replaced by building materials prepared in the saw mills and exported by rail. Goods were now sold by boxcar dimensions. A 1923 newspaper reports that the Polish government has “made large purchases in Pinsk” of both narrow and wide railway ties and that the price of timber was on the rise.18 Wood was exported to Danzig, that is, it was sold outside Poland. The sawmills functioned at full capacity. Once again, Pinsk was becoming the commercial center for the neighboring towns and villages. It was not worthwhile for local shopkeepers to travel to Warsaw on buying trips since railway freight charges had been raised.19 Coffee shops and tea shops multiplied and there were twenty-three Jewish hotels in the city. (In April 1927, however, the authorities closed down seven hotels for sanitary violations.) Dry cleaners made their appearance. There is a surviving advertisement for such a dry cleaners, which also did dyeing and was owned by Golandsky. The fact that the intelligentsia—educated people—were attracted to the city attests to its economic potential. The engineer Yisrael Reikh held a permanent position as manager of the match factory. There were physicians—Dr. Y. Mandelbaum, Dr. Yacobson (a native of Chomsk, in the vicinity of Pinsk), Dr. Nurkin, and Dr. Prager—and lawyers, such as Badian and Bernard Yankelevich—and many teachers of Polish and Hebrew and other subjects. The recent settlers formed a significant group, and the X-ray laboratory of Dr. Andrei Spira was a new development. (Dr. Spira, however, resided in Pinsk only briefly.) Dr. Yegerman, who also arrived from outside the city, was its best known X-ray radiologist.

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Even at this time, many lacked employment and bread; need was common “on the street of the Jewish worker.”20 The situation worsened in 1925 as a result of the tax system imposed by the Grabski government, even though (according to Y. Eliasberg) the city tax assessor Reismiller was an honest man and, unlike officials elsewhere, did not impose the tax burden arbitrarily from anti-semitic motives.21 Many people were pauperized by the transition from Polish marks to zlotys and the valuation of the zloty against the dollar (the dollar was equivalent to eight zlotys and eighty-three grosze). The high exchange rate severely limited export trade and caused an economic crisis in Poland. A 1925 article in Haynt states that many stores had closed in the course of that year; at a meeting of the merchants’ society, it was noted that Pinsk in particular was suffering from the economic crisis because commerce had been completely destroyed. Former merchants were living in penury and starvation. Businesses and shops that were still in operation were struggling for existence because of the tax burden and the dearth of credit. This description may be exaggerated, but the association did resolve to set up a loan fund and a “rescue fund” for merchants who had become destitute, to appeal to Pinskers in America for help, and to the government for a reduction of taxes and extension of credit. A committee of seven was elected, as was a delegation to America.22 An article by A. H. Rizshei, the secretary of the Pinsk branch of the Warsaw merchants’ association, notes that the branch had organized a “rescue committee” composed of merchants, shopkeepers, and craftsmen.23 As a result of the intercession of this rescue committee, a sum of money was forwarded by the JDC and divided among the small businessmen and the craftsmen.24 A November 1926 Haynt article reports that the JDC representative, Mr. Shneerson, was exasperated by the committee’s negligence in debt collection and sent 1,200 dollars intended for Pinsk back to Warsaw. A meeting was called, and a collector appointed to retrieve outstanding loans; two representatives were dispatched to Warsaw to have Shneerson’s decision overturned.25 Y. Friedman inspected some of the city’s institutions on behalf of the JDC and submitted a report on the rescue committee on December 19, 1926. He stated that the rescue committee had been founded in March 1926 to assist merchants, craftsmen, and small shopkeepers;

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it was composed of seven representatives from these three categories but extended aid to others as well. The chairman of the committee was B.  Bukshtansky, a member of the municipality. Ya’acov Slutzky had served originally as the treasurer and was succeeded by M. Minsky. The committee’s capital consisted of: 29,318 zlotys from the JDC, 9,619 zlotys donated by Pinsk residents (this included 6,298 zlotys collected for ma’ot hitim [Passover assistance]), and a “summer campaign” that netted 2,650 zlotys. The committee distributed 9,951 zlotys in grants and the balance in interest-free-loans. Up to the end of October, 380 persons out of 919 applicants received loans, and 104 people received grants. Friedman’s account also states that, in response to a request made by the JDC representative Gitterman, steps were taken to convert the rescue campaign to a “free-loan fund,” and the bylaws of the fund were sent to the authorities for approval.26 In early January 1927 a gemilut hesed (benevolent) society was set up. At the opening ceremony, well-attended with many members of the rabbinate present, there was talk of merging the two projects: the gemilut hesed and the free-loan fund.27 Many were jobless and went hungry. One incident highlights the extent of the distress and the ruthlessness of the tax collectors. Four brass candlesticks confiscated from David Rasiuk for failure to pay a tax of ten zlotys and four grosze [a little over a dollar at the official exchange rate] were put up for public auction. By chance, a Warsaw merchant named Moshe Goldin was present, purchased the candlesticks for eight zlotys and ten grosze, and restored them to their owner. The editors of the Pinsker Shtyme appealed to the public to assist a prominent family of nine persons that until recently had maintained itself respectably and was now facing starvation.28 On the other hand, building was taking place in the city even at this time, and not everyone was suffering. An article from late 1926 states that: Recently the city has been experiencing a revival of the trade unions, especially the carpenters’ union, organized by our friend [that is, one of the Poalei Zion Z. S.] and run by him. In the bricklayers’ union there are virtually no unemployed. Business is good for owners [of the workshops] and they aren’t hurt by the crisis. The union is taking advantage of this opportunity and has begun to negotiate wages and working

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hours. In one of the larger carpenters’ shops, where approximately forty elderly workers—family men—are employed, a strike broke out and lasted ten days. Their weekly wages are 25–40 zlotys. They demanded a 50 percent increase, and received a raise of 20 to 30 percent, according to their specialties and classifications, and a further raise was promised commensurate with expertise.

The writer tells of the “class struggle” of the employers. They, too, organized themselves at the time of the strike. The owner of the carpentry shop made attempts to influence his workers to give up union membership. He even turned to the foreman and denounced the workers’ spokesmen as having political intentions. Special ire was reserved for one Fishel Wasserman, who was the union organizer and primary activist. The employers’ committee demanded his dismissal. In his wrath, the owner of the carpentry shop announced that he would no longer contribute to the Keren Ha-Yesod [Foundation Fund, founded in 1920 as the financial arm of the Zionist Organization] and that he would demand that the Palestine Office deny “that awful Bolshevik” (Wasserman) an immigration certificate. The writer adds, “An awakening is felt in the commerce workers union, and regular work hours are the norm in all the “new firms.”29 The managers and the clerks in the industrial enterprises and the bank clerks earned between three hundred and one thousand zlotys monthly.30 Important merchants and hotel owners, owners of agricultural enterprises and truck gardens, and certain teachers were able to live comfortably. Otherwise it would be difficult to account for the lively and well-developed intellectual and communal existence that prevailed. The Pinsk community’s efforts to sustain itself and the JDC assistance mitigated the economic crisis. When Pilsudski seized power in May 1926, he displayed a fairer attitude toward the Jews. In November 1926 representatives of merchants from Polesie convened in Brest. They demanded that the tax burden be reduced and that the government make credit available. Indeed, the government bank of Poland began to offer aid, and not in trifling amounts, to the Jewish populace. In early 1927 the government bank allotted support to the bank of the small merchants and craftsmen in the sum of seventeen thousand zlotys and, in February of that year, dispatched twelve thousand zlotys on account.

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The bank also allocated 116,700 zlotys for construction purposes,31 most likely for government buildings. Loans were also given for private construction.32 On the other hand, the turnover tax for 1926 was raised by 50 percent over the previous year,33 and a delegation of merchants left for Warsaw to plead their case against it. The Sejm representative Wiszlecki accompanied the delegation to its audience with the Finance Minister,34 but the outcome of the interview is unknown. The tax was apparently fixed at 2.5 percent of total transactions. Besides the increase in construction, 1927 saw a revival of the timber trade although, “so far, nothing of moment has taken place. But the situation is better than it was in previous years.”35 On June 1, 1927, construction of the Mercier plywood factory was begun. 36 The authorities scheduled three additional fairs: for April 8, September 21, and December 19.37 The Cooperative Bank for Industry and Trade received permission to trade in foreign currencies, permission previously granted to only two (Jewish) banks in all of Poland.38 The various cooperative banks made efforts to grant credit to their members. In 1927 the Small Merchants and Craftsmen’s Bank boasted nine hundred members.39 A  cooperative bank for farmers and truck gardeners was also founded. A 1927 announcement states that the bank was granting loans and serving as purchasing agent for seed and agricultural machinery. This bank was established with ORT [Organization for Rehabilitation through Training] assistance and was a joint venture of farmers in Pinsk and the agricultural village of Iwanik. Credit was granted by the Jewish Reconstruction Fund [established in 1924 by the JDC and ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) for economic rehabilitation of European Jewry]. At the end of June 1936, the cooperative owed the Fund a total of 5,997 zlotys.40 At the beginning of 1928, authorization was received for the Cooperative Bank for Household Finance and at its inception, the bank already had 150 shareholders.41 Cooperatives in various branches of production were opened: a shoemakers’ cooperative, Surmash, for the purchase of raw materials; a construction cooperative Ahdut; a cooperative of carpenters; and a cooperative of butchers (who tried to take over the city slaughterhouse).42 All these cooperatives, however, were short lived. They disbanded either through lack of trust or scarcity of managerial talent.

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The improved circumstances of the intelligentsia or of the middle class is hinted at in the Tarbut gymnasium’s organization of a threeweek trip to the Carpathians in which twenty students participated.43 The situation of the workers in the match factory, on the other hand, had worsened. In early 1928 the municipality decided to allot two thousand zlotys in support for unemployed former workers of the match factory, but the wojewoda (provincial governor) rejected the resolution.44 On April 21, 1928, the factory workers gathered in the Holtzman theater. They claimed that “since [the advent of] the monopoly, the situation had deteriorated.” In some departments wages had been reduced by a third. The assembly decided to strike unless the original salaries were restored and a cost-of-living increment of 30 percent granted.45 When the factory management rejected these claims, some workers suggested working a sixth day, that is, on the Sabbath.46 (The implication is that the match factory was closed on Sundays.) But the older workers were opposed. Factory workers earned between twenty and thirty zlotys a week—barely enough to support a family.47 A strike was declared on June 16,48 and it was a prolonged one. On August 10, A. Weiner (­Yisraeli) reported that he had delivered two Palestinian pounds and seven hundred mils to the striker’s committee; the money had been sent by the Histadrut Ha-Poalim in Palestine. On October 12 it was announced that the strikers had received fourteen dollars from workers at the Nur match factory in Acre.49 Those without jobs were even worse off, though the proportion of poor people was not much greater than before the war.50 In 1928 six hundred families received loans from the free-loan fund, and in anticipation of Passover 1929, 258 applications were made to the gemilut hesed.51 At the opening session of the municipality in July 1927, ­Volovel­sky, the representative of the craftsmen, claimed that the city must provide the unemployed with opportunities to earn their living and must act first on behalf of the poor Jewish neighborhoods.52 There were unemployed among the hired barbers, and their union decided that every working barber would donate one workday a month on which those who were laid off would substitute. When barbershop owners refused to accept this resolution, the barbers declared a strike and opened their own shop, forcing the owners to capitulate.53

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The situation, however, progressively improved. In 1929 the harvest was bountiful.54 That summer the wages of clerks or salespeople in the wholesale concerns were raised. In several of the wholesale iron enterprises, the sales staff struck because the owners did not agree to demands for a raise.55 The bakery workers also walked out, demanding an increase of five zlotys a week. Their strike lasted about five weeks, and they gained a supplement to their salaries plus a week’s wages for the days of the strike.56 At the end of 1929, nevertheless, the beginnings of the world economic crisis were felt in Pinsk. In October 1929 Ya’acov Holtzman wrote that the timber trade was nearing its end. Merchants were left unemployed, along with their employees.57 The depression in this area was the result of local factors as well. After the Germans had depleted the forests during the three years of their occupation, little timberland was left in the Pinsk vicinity. The important timber merchants eventually moved to the big cities or to locales where there were still forests to be cut down. The timber business became limited to supplying the city with firewood and wood for building purposes and for the plywood factories. Holtzman suggested that by mechanizing, it would be possible to create employment for carpenters in producing furniture for export.58 M. Basevitz, an engineer, made a similar claim. He noted that there were thirty Jewishowned carpentry shops in Pinsk, some of which produced ready-made furniture from various kinds of wood, following foreign-made patterns. Were the carpenters to organize among themselves and cooperate in the purchase of machinery and raw materials, they could double their output and increase shipments at home and abroad.59 (Holtzman and Basevitz were seemingly unaware that the world was on the threshold of a dreadful economic crisis.) These suggestions were made after non-Jewish firms had located in Pinsk and set up mechanized workshops for use by the city’s carpenters. An advertisement for a Polish factory states that their mechanized workshops house machines for plywood, planing machinery, finishing machines, and others [and] accept job orders and rent machinery by the hour. There was one other such workshop in the city.60 Jewish carpenters availed themselves of the machinery for a short while and then reverted to their manual labor because it was not worth the trouble to transport raw materials to a workshop far from the center of town.

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The Depression became severe in the winter of 1929–1930 and worsened over the next three years. Hershel Pinsky, who arrived from Palestine at the end of 1929 and was familiar with the penury of the workers there, writes that [the] first impression [was] grim and depressing [because] on the one hand there was perpetual economic crisis and abject poverty, and on the other, a longing for a life of luxury. . . . Life is harsh, a livelihood is not to be had. Menahem-Mendelism [Menahem-Mendel, a character invented by Sholem Aleichem; the expression connotes a dreamer or unrealistic individual] exists in the worst way.61

M. G—n wrote in the same period: Terrible times, stagnation in all sorts of business. They say there hasn’t been a winter like this for the longest time. Firms have been forced to stop honoring their obligations because they do not make a profit and there is no money. Loans from the banks are hard to come by, and few private individuals have money to lend, nor do they choose to. . . . This past month it was necessary to purchase permits, and to pay income and turnover taxes. This absolutely destroyed the Jewish merchants, craftsmen and factory owners. . . . [In the writer’s opinion the grave situation was the result of] Russian competition in the lumber trade [and] the monopolistic policy of the government. . . . This is the situation. All the merchants are suffering. . . . Factory workers are being fired, stores are empty of customers, the peasant who comes in from the village buys very little because he has no cash. When there is no timber trade, he has no place to work. . . . Very little lumber is exported. Because of the freeze in the timber trade, the peasant comes to the city to seek work and settles for low wages. The peasant bringing a wagonload of wood or fodder, purchases only the most basic necessities, such as kerosene and salt. But he can buy that in his village, too, either in the Jewish store or in the new cooperative shop.62

A. Druyanov, who was in Poland from the end of 1931 until May 1932, describes the economic situation of Polish Jewry on the basis of his impressions in Pinsk: The impoverishment of commerce grew worse from one day to the next. In the past, for instance, timber merchants were among the rulers of the kingdom of commerce and wealth; now they say: “So-and-so

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deals in forests—he has plenty of trees to hang himself.” Once, the Pina River would fill up with rafts from logs as soon as the ice melted; the city used to hum with crowds of timber dealers. Now going down to the river—it slept the sleep of the dead. I walked through the city—the silence of the graveyard was everywhere.63

Ya’acov Holtzman watched the growth of poverty and sought ways to ease the distress. He wrote that: Whereas in 1928 the free-loan fund granted loans to 600 families, in 1929 it had to give loans to 902 families, and in small sums . . . 100–200 zlotys.

Accordingly, Holtzman claimed that poverty had risen by 50 percent and were a census of unemployed young people to be taken, the deprivation would be revealed in all its horror.64 He calculated that in the fiscal year 1929–30 unpaid promissory notes totaled four million zlotys. He based his assessment on the fact that the municipality received one-and-one-fifth percent of each such note filed for collection (“protested”). In the fiscal year of 1928–29, the municipality received 9,255 zlotys from notes totaling 1,850,000 zlotys. In the budget for the following year, this income was estimated at 10,000 zlotys. In the first nine months of the year, however, the city took in 14,885 zlotys; through the end of the year, the sum would reach 20,000 zlotys.65 In fact, the protested notes that year totaled 3,324,434 zlotys and in 1930, they reached 4,869,188 zlotys. Although there were fewer notes than in previous years,66 the numbers of borrowers who could not repay their debts on time had increased. To his description of conditions in early 1931, Holtzman added: “In 1929, when the Depression began, the merchants still had some savings. Now they no longer do.” As proof he cited the fact that “Requests reached the gemilut hesed from hundreds of people who, just a year earlier, had donated to others.” Before Passover 1930, 364 loan applications were received, 106 more than in 1929.67 Holtzman maintained that the Depression was especially severe in Pinsk because the core of its economy was the lumber business, which had previously exported merchandise worth hundreds of thousands of zlotys each year. There were [now] approximately one thousand unemployed and despite the crisis, “Grabski’s wagon” was still roaming the streets, confiscating possessions from those unable to pay their taxes.68

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A December 1930 article notes the disillusionment of merchants who had hoped that profits from the Christian holiday season would enable them to acquire business licenses for the coming year.69 Another article announces that: Factories have reduced the number of workers and the ranks of the unemployed have grown. . . . The circumstances of the traders are difficult. . . . Stores have closed down and others are about to close. . . . Compared to last year, 300 fewer business permits were purchased. . . . Applications to the free-loan fund for loans to purchase licenses have multiplied . . . and the fund has granted 5,000 zlotys more in loans for this purpose than last year.70

Work in industrial enterprises had dwindled, and the Mercier plywood factory was idle. This factory, incidentally, had been founded in order to pressure the Jews out of the plywood business. It was built by the Konopacki brothers and then transferred to Mercier. In the summer of 1932, it was nationalized, and in August 1933 it burned down. The match factory automated its operations at the end of 1931, and many workers were laid off. An article in Pinsker Stymmer notes that as a consequence of the introduction of new machinery, fifty-nine workers had already been laid off, and it was rumored that another hundred would also be discharged.71 The Luria factory lost eighty thousand zlotys that year, brought about by commitments undertaken by its representatives in Western Poland. (This article indicates that a male worker in the factory earned six zlotys a day and a female—three zlotys a day.) In addition to these factors, the penetration of Western Polish firms into the commercial sector worked against the local economy, as did the central government’s monopolistic policy and the policy of local government institutions that preferred to order office supplies from non-Jewish concerns in Warsaw. When the Mercier plywood factory reopened in the summer of 1932, of a total of 119 workers, only fourteen (among them ten women) were Jews.72 Production of sugar and its sale to wholesalers was controlled by a Warsaw-based Polish concern; the Pinsk branch now ousted Jewish porters and carters. The porters and carters’ circumstances—approximately 100 families—has deteriorated because the [Pinsk] branch of the company

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has decided that from now on only Christians would have the job of transporting the sugar from the trains to the dealers. . . . When the bank truck with the Christian workers ready for loading arrived at the railway station. . . . the Jewish porters threw themselves on the ground next to the railway car and the truck. . . . The policemen were at a loss and telephoned the police chief. . . . He arrived together with the bank manager, Kupechesky . . . and gave the order: “Bayonets at the ready.” The porters had no choice but to capitulate. . . . Four porters were arrested and later released. . . . A delegation of porters’ wives appeared before the starosta [district official] that day, and he promised to deal with the matter.73

There is no information on the results of his intervention. The municipality, however, took away the porters and carters’ riverside lot. They had leased the lot and used it to store timber and building materials brought by merchants via the Pina, later transferring materials from the lot to their destination. “Fifty to sixty families earn their livelihood from this lot. . . . Entreaties were to no avail.”74 In 1930 or 1931, the government nationalized the timber export trade. The Rolnik company—a farmers’ cooperative set up by the government to market agricultural produce—coordinated the dairy business, collecting milk from local farmers and selling milk and dairy products in the city. National and municipal institutions in Pinsk were placing their orders with concerns outside the city. At a meeting of craftsmen, Dr. Gleiberson complained that government and local offices sent their orders elsewhere, even though there were local workers capable of providing the necessary products. The group decided: 1. To ask that the city authorities contract with Pinsk workshops for all carpentry and other wood work; 2. To appeal to the military authorities to order uniforms through the local tailors’ organization; 3. To ask the authorities to put a stop to confiscations and re-examine the tax burden; 4. To demand that the Polesie office for trade shops obtain better credit terms for tradesmen; 5. To ask the starosta not to impose penalties for the “crime” of working past seven in the evening;

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6. To postpone requiring examinations for master craftsmen and contracts for their journeymen by three years.75

As for this last request, a craftsman could not legally engage workers unless he had passed certain examinations. The craftsmen were probably not concerned about the tests per se but about the expense entailed—one hundred zlotys, and at least another fifty zlotys for the diploma from the city.76 This was a significant sum for a Pinsk craftsman. The examination apparently required knowledge of the Polish language. Licensed Polish master craftsmen pressed for enforcement of the law in order to exclude Jewish artisans who could not meet the requirements.77 In February 1932 the organization of manufacturers and merchants submitted a memorandum on “The Economic Crisis in Pinsk” to the minister of finance on behalf of all the city’s businessmen, including non-Jews. They claimed that Pinsk had been hardest hit by the crisis because it was remote from commercial centers and adjoined the eastern border. Pinsk’s economy was forced to rely primarily on the timber industry, which had been destroyed (along with related branches of commerce) by the suspension of exports. Of the four factories in the area, Mercier had discontinued production altogether, the Horodishitz plywood factory was struggling for its existence, while the Luria plywood factory and the Progress Vulcan match factory (founded by Hal­ pern) had repeatedly reduced their output. The number of production permits for 1932 decreased by 57 percent—compared to 1930, when 686 permits had been purchased. In 1932 there were only 282. The operating concerns were consuming only the balance of their inventory; no one was developing new forest areas. According to the turnover tax law, it was permissible to employ 4,961 workers in 1930; in practice, the numbers had dwindled to 3,436 by 1931 and to 2,982 by 1932. The catastrophic decline of the timber trade brought a decline in all related branches of production and as a consequence, the entire economy was suffering. “The smoke was disappearing from the smokestacks of the sawmills,” and the timber clerks were being fired. Because of the cessation of work in the forests, the peasants’ buying power was limited. Within the city, consumption was concentrated in the hands of a thin stratum of officials, which was also diminishing as the ranks of the

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unemployed grew. In December 1931, 3,240 unemployed (the figure probably includes their families) had received relief, and in January the number rose to 4,058. These statistics do not even include all the jobless, but only those who receive relief in the form of basic foodstuffs. Some people from the municipality were receiving support in other forms, and there were also impoverished merchants and eight hundred intellectual workers whose support depended on the community. The memorandum expresses the economic decline in terms of the reduction in trade: compared to 1929, exports in 1931 had decreased by 38 percent and imports by 40 percent. Municipal income from fees on uncollectible notes had risen from 21,000 zlotys in 1929–30 to 34,232 zlotys in 1930–31. The memorandum concludes with the observation that in previous years, tax assessments had been too high, and expropriations had destroyed new enterprises and a plea that these should be considerations in determining the upcoming assessment. The memorandum may have exaggerated, for, according to Y. Eliasberg, production at the plywood factory had grown during this period and reached a peak in 1934.78 As for the unemployed receiving relief, the social welfare committee of the municipality received only 395 requests for assistance at the beginning of 1930; 380 grants to individuals or families were approved. The amount of relief allowed was fifteen to thirty zlotys per month for individuals, thirty to sixty zlotys for small families, and sixty zlotys for families of more than five people. Assistance was disbursed in the form of foodstuffs obtainable at specific stores.79 Another article reports that the monthly salaries of clerks in the two to three hundred-zloty range had been reduced by forty to fifty zlotys.80 Descriptions of escalating poverty are unending. “Incomes have sunk to the minimum, so that it is impossible to even pay the rent.” This writer demands that landlords reduce the rent proportionate to the decline in prices of necessities. This partially explains how the poor managed to survive somehow—prices of necessities went down because purchasing power was limited. Ya’acov Holtzman describes the situation in the summer of 1932: Merchants, shopkeepers and workshop owners didn’t earn a living this past year. The price of merchandise in stock went down by 50 percent. Not only could the shopkeeper not make a profit, he even took a loss.

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Merchandise purchased this year also declined in price. The majority of angeshtelte (clerks), whose wages were reduced, and the unemployed, whose ranks increased, didn’t pay for goods. They took credit from the shopkeepers. That is why the shelves of stores are empty or half empty, yet merchandise is offered for sale at 50 percent less than in 1930. The craftsmen’s situation is no better. They have already eaten up their savings and their workshops are idle. They have no money to buy materials.

Yudel Trashinsky writes at this time: There has never been such a freeze in business. Nothing is moving in construction. Workers earn 3 to 4 zloty a day, if there is someone building a home; in previous years they made 15 to 20 zloty a day. The peasants’ purchasing power has plummeted because of the price of agricultural products. Wages of industrial workers and tailors and shoemakers, when they have work, are minimal. The shopkeepers are screaming that they are standing on the edge of the abyss. . . . Every evening some small merchant comes to his organization to ask for help. One had his meager stock confiscated [apparently in lieu of taxes], another had his scales expropriated, a third—his cupboard, and so on. . . . Soon there will be an auction and one has no money to retrieve these items.

The article’s complaint was that no one cared about small businessmen. Collections were taken up for the unemployed, and farmers received loans from the government and a moratorium on their debts.81 Holtzman writes that: The situation in Pinsk is worse than in other cities. That is what the traveling salesmen report. . . . The facts: in comparison to 1931, in 1933 sales of yeast went down by 40 percent and cigarette sales by 40 percent. Sales of kerosene in our area were reduced by 50 percent compared to 1932, and the same was true for matches.82

The crisis was also felt by members of the “intellectual professions” ( geistike arbeter, no doubt teachers, melamdim, community functionaries, folk musicians, writers of official letters, etc.), and they became door-to-door peddlers. An article notes: The crisis has hit “intellectual workers” too. . . . They are taking up new “livelihoods” . . . . They sell tea, cocoa, pencils, stamps. . . . Each day they trudge from door to door and floor to floor with kitchen wares. . . . Some have become notions salesmen, carrying ties, sweaters and the like.83

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These venders were able to compete with the shopkeepers because they did not pay for permits, neither did they pay income tax or turnover tax. An article that appeared in the fall of 1933 reports: In the “good years” hundreds of workers were engaged in the timber trade, some transporting timber and bringing it up from the river and some in the sawmills. It has been several years since the timber business failed almost entirely and hundreds of workers are left without a piece of bread. They roam the streets, “besieging” the municipality in order to get at least one day of work a week and earn a zloty-and-a-half (the city pays no more). We have no trade unions now. There used to be a trade union board, but it was broken up. Against great odds, the commercial workers managed to organize themselves. . . . Their union is developing nicely and numbers about 170 members. It tries to organize workers in related occupations, but . . . they encounter numerous obstacles. Their own circumstances are also difficult. An eight-hour workday doesn’t exist in any business. A large portion of the commercial workers in trade toil from eight in the morning—in the summer from seven—until nine or ten at night and earn nothing. Their salaries range from 70 to 80 zlotys a month, and in some places are even less, 50 to 60 zlotys a month. . . . In the match factory, the largest in Poland, approximately 400 Jewish workers were [once] employed. But when the factory was turned over to the government the situation changed altogether. The factory was “modernized” and as a result more than 300 workers were fired. Now only about 70 workers are employed there, and even they are being replaced; they [the management] let the Jewish workers go and in their stead hire non-Jews who have never done factory work. . . . Every morning dozens of workers line up at the factory gate, hoping for a “miracle”—maybe someone will be accepted for some unforeseen job. This habit remains from the time when all the former workers were employed in the factory and it sometimes happened that they were short a worker. Nowadays, however, there are no miracles and after waiting by the gate for seven or eight hours the men return to town hungry and bitter. The situation in the Lishche plywood factory is no better. The owners of the factory are “nouveaux riche” and the exploitation there is terrible. For a hard day’s work, a family man receives 2.20 zlotys; for outside work, only 1.35 zlotys. A little while ago the workers declared a strike because the management wanted to reduce the meager pay by ten percent. The

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workers won the strike and salaries were not cut, but the members of the strike committee were fired and now the owners are trying to lower the wages again.84

The principal of the gymnasium David Alper wrote to Misha Kolodny (Moshe Kol) in early January 1933: Nowadays no man is master of himself or his time, especially here where the cries of the afflicted and the moans of the wretched are overwhelming. The crisis has yet to lose its edge. It walks down the middle of the street as if it owned it. . . . The helpless masses creep along feebly, without a spark of hope or comfort in their eyes.

P. Pkach discusses the plight of the teachers: The situation in the Jewish schools is really tragic, especially in the Tel Hai school. . . . Most of the students are from the lower class and tuition is 2 or 3 zlotys a month, but the parents don’t pay even that. The staff receives scant wages.85

The majority of the Jewish population was enduring hard material circumstances and had to struggle to come up with the money for the barest existence. Many subsisted on charity. Some of the unemployed received necessities from the municipality and performed public works, or “make-work,” in exchange. In the beginning of 1935, the starosta set up an “Employment Fund for the Idle” that distributed necessities to the unemployed in return for a pledge to work during the summer. Some people were supported by other charitable institutions or by the Jewish community. Missionary activity was intensified in the hope that the crisis would lead to success. In 1932 missionaries established a large library near the bridge over the Pina; some young people frequented it.86 Matters improved somewhat in the mid-1930s. The local press contains no descriptions or complaints about the difficult economic situation. The change for the better is hard to account for. The end of the crisis phase of the Depression (particularly in the United States) was a contributing factor. Relatives in America were able to come to the assistance of their families—in 1936 Pinsk newspapers carried information about new government arrangements for transferring used clothing from abroad; the announcements relate particularly to clothes parcels from American relatives.87 Eliasberg states in his memoirs that the end

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of the worldwide crisis improved the business climate and thus influenced the economy of Pinsk.88 New enterprise seems to have sprung up in response to economic pressures and alleviated the situation somewhat. By 1934 boats belonging to Pinsk merchants were already transporting flour, oil, and linens from Wolhynia via the rivers because that method was cheaper than rail. One article suggests using steamships in preference to ordinary boats because there had been incidents in which the wooden boats had capsized, hitting the remnants of water mills. Most of these mills had already been removed (by the government), however, and the river route between Wolhynia and Pinsk was opened up.89 The opening of the route intensified the links between Pinsk and the villages in the area. On June 16 the Feldman company opened a line to carry passengers and goods to Lutsk. An article announcing the service states: This route, via the Styr, has great importance for Pinsk merchants . . . . Until now shopkeepers in the villages have purchased their goods in Sarny, Kovel and Lutsk. . . . From now on it will be worth their while to buy merchandise in Pinsk because it will cost less.

The article urges Pinsk merchants to make use of the new route.90 It seems that they did so; the next year the Nahmanovitz-Feldman firm operated two steamships between Pinsk and Lutsk.91 A boat also began to ply the Oginski canals between Pinsk and Telechany three times a week.92 The Polesie Fair opened in Pinsk on August 15, 1936, and ran until August 31. This fair had been organized by the Polish government to expand economic opportunities in the area and to give the region an occasion to display its wares to Polish merchants.93 The Polesie Fair continued to be held in Pinsk in later years. In 1937 there were 220 exhibits and thousands of visitors; “[t]here wasn’t a home without guests. . . . The shopkeepers have nothing to complain about, especially hotel owners and proprietors of places of entertainment.”94 Another article announces that “Pinsk merchants have started to wake up. They’ve begun to rally.”95 The match factory employed approximately two hundred Jewish workers once again. But in 1936 bricklayers and carpenters were still

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willing to work for only two zlotys a day. Some small shopkeepers in the market, partners in a single stall, could tie up all their merchandise in one basket. After a fire on July 15, 1937, in which twenty-five stores were burned, the shopkeepers resumed “business” in the same premises. “It is sad to see them closing for the night, packing the entire store into one basket and taking it home.” Fifty or sixty families were affected by the fire, for each stall also housed “tenants” and workshops.96 As economic circumstances began to improve after the 1930–35 crisis, competitors for positions held by Jews intensified their activities. Poles opened a number of large business concerns. The anti-semitic policies of the central authorities and the local officials made life difficult for Jewish businessmen and craftsmen. In 1936 Premier Skladkowski publicly declared economic warfare against the Jews. A May 16th speech stated: “Economic warfare, yes, but no injustice.” Tangible expression of this policy was found in Pinsk. The 1931 census had shown 6,324 Catholics in the city; additional Poles arrived in subsequent years. Although most found work as national government and municipal clerks or in the professions, their entry into business proceeded apace. In 1933 the anti-semitic organization Rowoj posted placards calling for a boycott of Jewish shops (the implication is that there were already Polish-owned shops and concerns in the city), but the starosta [district governor] Waclaw Boldok, a liberal, ordered the announcements removed.97 The situation was exacerbated by the revival of anti-semitism because of the Nazi domination of Germany and its intensification after Pilsudski’s death on May 12, 1935. The liberal starosta Boldok was replaced that year by Zygmunt Rabakowicz. Rabakowicz was “a limited person, a former army officer, without a very broad education.”98 He faithfully executed the central government’s anti-semitic policy. A new chief of police Kazar Jozef instituted strict supervision of hygienic conditions in bakeries and stores and closed down several.99 Public health was not his sole consideration. When the law restricting shehita (Jewish ritual slaughter of livestock) to what was required to satisfy local Jewish needs went into effect in January 1937, the livelihoods of butchers, slaughterers, and merchants were severely limited; previously, kosher meat from large and small ani-

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mals had been exported to Warsaw.100 Letters and postcards, from the wife of a slaughterer named Goldman to her daughter Zelda in Palestine, portray the economic damage and suffering caused by these limitations. On December 20, 1936, Mrs. Goldman writes in a postcard: “It will soon be 1937 and with the new year the decree on slaughtering will take effect; all the butchers and slaughterers are looking for a solution and we are all in a flutter.” In an undated letter, she writes: “We are broken and depressed, we are not making a living because of the harsh edicts pressing down on us.” On March 10, 1937, the father writes: “We are dizzy from the burden and the worry of making a living; because of this decree, our earnings are very meager.” The mother writes: “The slaughtering decree is strictly enforced and if they catch a shohet (slaughterer) butchering a calf or a cow he is fined 200 zlotys or sentenced to prison. There are no chickens for slaughter.” Mrs. Goldman is referring to “illegal” slaughter because the community had only two officially appointed slaughterers.101 A meeting was held in the hall of the municipality for the purpose of setting up a committee for reconstructive assistance to people harmed by this edict. Rabbis and representatives of the economic, political, and communal institutions participated. The chairman, H. Gleiberman, pointed out that prior to the edict, there had been sixty kosher butchers, whereas now permits had been granted to only thirty-eight; twenty-two shops had been closed down. Many families of men who had worked in the trade or served as brokers were left penniless. The authorities had set a quota of 240 tons of fresh meat for three months, but this quantity was likely to last for only four or five weeks. At the meeting, a committee of twenty was elected;102 their accomplishments are unknown. The meat supply, however, was exhausted in less than three months, and there was no kosher meat in the city for about two weeks.103 The price of kosher meat rose, and it became a luxury for broad segments of the population.104 Five kosher butchers whose stores had been closed down received permits to sell non-kosher meat in addition to the existing ten non-kosher butchers in the city. As early as 1935 the wojewoda Kostak Biernacki began to pressure Eliasberg to fire a certain number of Jewish workers and hire non-Jews in their stead, but Eliasberg managed to postpone this with various

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tactics.105 The new starosta was scrupulous about keeping barbershops and all stores (except fruit stores) closed on Sundays and Christian holidays. He also made sure that on Sunday mornings, no transactions took place, not even in vegetables in the market.106 Jews particularly were forced to refrain from business two days a week now. Jewish shopkeepers also were fined heavily for not posting price lists.107 There is reason to believe that non-Jewish shopkeepers were not subject to comparable surveillance. An article that sought to arouse Jewish merchants to take steps “to stand up to the competition” affirmed that “[t]he distance between [anti-semitic] Poznan and Pinsk has decreased of late. . . . The Jewish commercial base is collapsing because of people who see the takeover of commerce as a national mission. . . . The takeover is being conducted methodically and systematically by certain parties; with sufficient financial resources and support, they are able to remove Jews from business positions. . . . It is worth passing by and looking at the display windows of those stores” to realize how far behind the Jewish merchants and shopkeepers are lagging. The writer urges businessmen to put aside their disputes and work together to ensure their existence. He proposes expanding the capital of the Bank of Industry and Commerce to increase and ease credit, and opening a business school.108 The Polish Society for the Development of the Eastern Districts was engaged in the transfer of Poles from the west (particularly Poznan and Pomerania) to the east. This society supported the emigrants and helped them establish themselves in their new homes. An organization report from the summer of 1938 stated that more than ten chapters were being formed in Pinsk. The organization created anti-semitic societies, which pressured non-Jews not to patronize Jewish shops or tradesmen.109 These did not, however, have a significant impact. In 1938 approximately one-quarter of the business permits were held by non-Jews. This may be deduced from the results of a joint collection by Jews and non-Jews to benefit the unemployed, which raised 3,256 zlotys from the business licenses, 846 zlotys from Christians, and 2,410 zlotys from Jews.110 Overall, Jews contributed the sum of 21,434 zlotys to this appeal, and non-Jews contributed 8,245 zlotys. A total of 2,378 people, or 825 families, were assisted from this fund—674 Christian families and 151 Jewish families; 1,401 Christian children and

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1,330 Jewish children also received assistance.111 The distribution was patently unfair, for approximately 700 Jewish families were in need of help. In 1936 the Jewish community had provided assistance to 691 families and ma’ot hitim to 682 individuals, and the community had been able to allot only the most meager sums.112 The Bundist Y. H. Stoliar describes the situation of the needy: Could there be anything more ludicrous than giving a family between 2 and 4 zlotys for firewood for the entire winter? This is after the children literally froze at home and refused to return from school because it was warmer there than at home. The poor lie sick in bed because of the cold.113

The facts indicate how the Jews were being pushed out of business during these years. The number of permits for the sale of cigarettes and tobacco by Jewish shopkeepers was severely reduced—only four permits were given for the sale of tobacco and seventeen for the sale of cigarettes. Storekeepers who had not been granted permits met and selected a committee of five—Leibel Graz, Yudel Garbuz, Shelomo Feldman, Yehoshua Barenboim, and Esther Gleiberman—to travel to Brest and Warsaw and plead their case.114 Two letters in Yiddish written in 1939 by a Pinsk couple tell that the starosta did not renew their permit for writing “petitions.” The woman writes: After sixteen years of running our “petition” office at which we made a decent living, we are left with nothing. Our permit expired two months ago—every three years one must submit an application to the starosta for an extension—but we did not receive the permit. And don’t think, heaven forbid, that we had done something wrong. No. They denied our request because we are Jews!

The husband writes: In 1933 a law was enacted requiring a permit for an office for “petitions” and our office was closed down. The following year I opened the office in my wife’s name and received a permit for only three years. At the end of that time they took away my permit. . . . They summoned me to a particular place and told me to become a . . . (the three dots indicate their demand that he become a government agent).

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Since he would not agree, his license was not renewed. The husband gives some examples of anti-semitic discrimination in Pinsk: 1. That week, a Jew who had served as a volunteer in the Polish army, a man with six children, had appealed to the starosta for help in finding work. The starosta replied that he had no jobs. Immediately afterwards, two non-Jews, who had not served in the army, made the same request. The starosta promptly noted their names on his pad and promised them employment. 2. He [the husband] came across the text of a law saying that only Christians by birth (even apostates are disqualified) would be accepted as members [he does not specify of what]. 3. In governmental and municipal agencies there are several thousand [an exaggeration] clerks, all non-Jews, except for four municipal workers, even though the overwhelming majority of the population is Jewish. 4. Stores have been opened by newly-arrived Christians and the boycott is rough. In comparison to other cities, however, the situation in Pinsk is still good. 5. When sanitary inspections are conducted (of the courtyards, apparently), primarily the Jews are inspected and issued summonses while the non-Jews are skipped almost completely. In any case, they are not served with summonses. 6. A few months earlier people were afraid to go out in the street in the evening for fear of being assaulted by hooligans who came from outside the city. Recently, the disturbances have ceased. 7. In another two or three years there will be no kosher meat [because of the restrictions on kosher slaughtering and sales].

These two letters are notable for their tone of bewilderment and despondency. The woman’s letter, dated from May 20, 1939, says that Recent world events [the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia and Danzig] and especially our own troubles and misery, have deprived us . . . of interest in anything. . . . You are fortunate in blessed America, you are secure for tomorrow at least . . . and we know what is in store for us here. The Middle Ages are returning. They want to purify the world with our blood. . . . We are filled with despair and resignation. . . . The main concern is for the future of the children. Our son is fifteen and

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our daughter is twelve; they both study at the Tarbut gymnasium. One doesn’t even consider pursuing further studies in Poland. You probably read the newspapers and know what is going on in the Polish universities.

The husband writes: They’ve already removed the kid gloves from anti-semitism and are following Hitler’s lead; all their intrigues are just schemes to dispossess us. In this predicament, what is our hope? I have come to the conclusion that we must wrest what we can from the fire, because we are now heading for a great conflagration, and my only desire is to rescue my children from the blaze. . . . Our real tragedy is that there is nowhere to send them.

Preparations for self-defense were being made, for there was fear of rioting. The Luria plywood factory served as the center of a defense organization, whose members were primarily military reservists and firemen. Poalei Zion Z. S., in 1937, began to organize the carters, porters, butchers, and tanners to prepare them to act against rioters. There were no actual riots but in 1937 and the fall of 1938, there were violent outbreaks by Polish hoodlums who would stab Jews with knives. That fall a group of youngsters, based in the Great Synagogue, organized to protect passersby at night and accompanied worshipers home from the synagogues. In the final months before the beginning of the Second World War, pressure was exerted on the Swedish-American trust to fire some of the Jewish employees of the match factory and replace them with nonJews, even though the factory management and the authorities had no complaints against the Jewish workers. When the management informed workers of the imminent firing, a delegation left for Warsaw to intercede with the Departments of Labor, Commerce, Industry, and Interior; they were promised an “inquiry into the matter.” When the delegation returned home, however, it found that “some of the workers were already on the other side of the gate”; and the list of thirty workers about to be dismissed had already been replaced by a much longer list. It is not clear how many workers were actually fired. The article from which this information was extracted appeals to “Jewish and Polish-

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Democratic public opinion” saying, “Help us to annul the evil decree!” and noting that destruction is imminent for two hundred workers and their families.115 The portrayal of the economic situation of the Pinsk Jews is bleak. How did they subsist? Even the poor did not die of starvation, and if they received aid and support, there must have been people capable of conferring it. As in the period before the First World War, the factories again served as the city’s most important economic base. There were approximately 350 workers in the match factory prior to mechanization in the early 1930s. The Luria plywood factory employed 300 Jews and 100 non-Jews. The Lishche factory of Kunda and the brothers Feldman and Schneider, small by comparison to the Luria brothers’ factory, engaged about 200 people. Bukshtansky owned a tar paper factory, and a glass factory functioned intermittently.116 Shelomoh Bankovsky’s carpentry manufactured plywood furniture for export and wooden parts for sewing machines. It employed forty or fifty workers. Drozhinsky’s carpentry manufactured toilets; about ten people worked there. In 1938 Prizant and Dobroshin set up a door factory and exported plywood doors to Africa; twenty-five workers were employed there. Trade in timber did not come to a total halt even in the years of crisis. Timber merchants continued to purchase portions of the forests, and they sold the trees to plywood factories and sawmills or for firewood. The forests also provided business for the “brokers,” experts at assessing the quality and quantity of a forest about to be sold. There were about fifty brokers in the city. In 1929 they united and chose a committee composed of A.  Hamburg, V. Hirshman, M. Rabinov, and L. Fialkov.117 There were also small industrial enterprises such as the steam turbine plant of Berzer and Gribov, apparently set up in 1928.118 The Feldman brothers owned an oil factory and a flour mill that burned down in 1932 but were restored on a larger scale.119 The Kunda family had owned a flour mill. Moshe Makhnes and David Rimar owned another mill powered by steam turbine that burned down.120 This was a large plant—for the damages were assessed at six thousand dollars. Presumably the plant was insured and restored. Export of meat and fish continued under Jewish control during most of this period, as before the First World War.

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In spite of the poverty that prevailed in the surrounding villages, the peasants constituted the clientele of stores selling textiles and foodstuffs. The association of merchants and industrialists numbered approximately 250 members, among the city’s well-to-do.121 Clerks in the Jewish communal institutions and in the large industrial enterprises enjoyed a steady income. In normal times, when anti-semitism was subdued, the Polish clerks in national and municipal institutions, sailors of the river fleet (numbering about one thousand), employees in the workshops of the military port on the Pina, and the two thousandstrong army regiment based in Pinsk, also served as customers for the Jewish stores and workmen. Even the family of the slaughterer cited earlier, whose letters reflect the misery of privation, hoped that by sending their young daughter to the Tarbut gymnasium she might emigrate to Palestine and study at the Hebrew University. Data exists on the sources of livelihood of Pinsk Jews at the end of the interwar period. In 1937 the city had 902 workshops, of which 854 had Jewish proprietors; the number of shops had increased since 1921. Assuming that all 665 workshops operating in 1921 were owned by Jews, by 1937 the number of Jewish shops had increased by 189, or 28 percent. In 1921 salaried workers and apprentices numbered only 305, whereas in 1937, they totaled 883. In 1937 the composition of workshops and workers was as shown in table 10.2. The figures for butchers and their assistants applies to the situation prior to the “slaughterer’s edict.” In 1937 there were 763 business concerns in the city, of which 676 were owned by Jews and 87, by non-Jews. No distinction is made between members of the association of industrialists and merchants and members of the association of small merchants and workmen. Division according to type of business is as shown in table 10.3, and the professions were as shown in table 10.4. All told, there were 67 Jewish professionals and 63 non-Jewish professionals. These statistics do not reflect the economic configuration of the entire Jewish community. The three tables represent only 2,498 families altogether, even if we assume that all the salaried workers and apprentices in the workshops had families—which is unlikely. There were approximately 4,500 Jewish families in the city at the time, given the number

table 10.2 Workshops and workers, 1937 Non-Jewish Ownership

Jewish Ownership

Salaried Jewish Workers and Apprentices

Men’s tailors

4

120

140

Women’s tailors

3

40

60

Women’s seamstresses

–

40

45

Lingerie seamstresses

–

25

24

Occupation

Hat makers

–

37

29

Shoemakers

3

210

40

Sewing workshops

–

19

20

Furriers

–

10

10

Harness-makers

1

12

–

Tinsmiths

–

22

6

Blacksmiths

2

14

15

Locksmiths

2

21

30

Painters

–

35

35

Construction firms

3

5

110

Carpenters

–

25

87

Engravers

–

8

25

Wood engravers

–

2

–

Wagon makers

–

6

3

Coopers

–

3

–

Glaziers

–

10

–

Upholsterers

–

6

7

Rope-makers

–

2

6

Brush-makers

–

3

1

Foundries

–

2

13

Watchmakers, Jewelers

–

15

–

Photographers

–

8

12

Printers

–

6

?

Binderies

–

3

3

Barbershops

3

41

65

Bakeries

5

30

60

Sausage-makers

12

4

?

–

70

35

Butchers

table 10.3 Business concerns, 1937 Concern

Non-Jewish Ownership

Jewish Ownership

Pharmaceuticals

1

17

Building materials

–

13

Lumber

–

18

Paints

–

6

Notions

3

57

Haberdashers

–

13

Furriers

–

9

Textiles

1

65

Shoes

–

30

Leather

–

11

Iron

–

23

Grain

–

5

Fish

–

7

Fruit

–

15

Dairy

4

8

Groceries

26

225

Wholesale groceries

5

18

Coffee shops

8

5

Tea houses “China”

2

9

Restaurants

7

7

Hotels

–

11

Sheep and goats

–

7

Housewares

–

8

Booksellers, stationers

2

9

Sewing machines

1

4

Authorized liquor sales

8

4

Authorized tobacco sales

13

25

Insurance

–

6

Steamship owners

2

6

Miscellaneous

4

35

Between Two World Wars table 10.4 Professional practitioners, 1937 Profession

Non-Jewish Practitioners

Jewish Practitioners

Physicians

22

20

Engineers

18

12

Dentists

1

16

Lawyers

20

8

Pharmacists

3

4

Midwives

5

7

Veterinarians

4

–

of apartments in 1930 and the proportion of Jews in the city. Clerks and salaried workers in offices and shops numbered approximately two hundred. Data for teachers, religious workers—rabbis, cantors, synagogue officials, slaughterers—and employees of communal institutions are missing. The figure of eight hundred “intellectual” workers seems inflated. There is no precise information on the number of factory workers and their division according to sex and age; also lacking are figures for the employees in the sawmills, which engaged approximately two hundred people in the 1920s. There were then twelve sawmills in the city, among them Ya’acov Lubashevsky’s sawmill in Albrechtowo; the Pina sawmill owned by the brothers Finkel and Gottlieb; the sawmill of Rafael Levin from Kovno; and the sawmills of the Levin brothers, Brodsky, Melamed in Kozliakowice, and others. According to information for 1938, however, only two sawmills were in operation.122

Jewish Public Affairs The new political realities and altered economic circumstances brought profound change to the world of Polish Jewry; changes that were strongly reflected in Pinsk. The pre-war optimism of the Jewish city that had suffered no pogroms and whose livelihood had been secure was gone. Disillusionment had set in, a feeling of helplessness and futility:

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in 1924 the United States had closed its doors to immigrants, and the British Mandate authorities were heaping difficulties upon would-be emigrants to Palestine, even as that country was unable to absorb all who chose to come, and many were falling by the wayside. Malaise weighed heavily upon Pinsk residents, especially on the younger generation, which could look forward only to a life of economic hardship. Despair intensified in the mid-1930s when anti-semitism became official government policy. With political and economic changes, came a shift in the composition of the social classes. The “aristocratic” stratum disappeared; the wealthy class of important merchants and dealers in forests (the socalled “water people,” whose trade was connected to the rivers), had declined. With the decrease in the number of factories and banks, the tally of their managers and clerks who had earned a comfortable living dwindled. These together with several Hebrew teachers, whose opportunities had been abundant, had formed the city’s intelligentsia and involved themselves with its present needs and troubled themselves about the future of the nation. The “distinguished citizenry” had been decimated—some had left to settle in Warsaw, some had emigrated to Palestine, some had died. Only remnants were left. The city’s population, shrunken and impoverished, now numbered a little over twenty thousand. What force now regenerated community activists, party spokesmen, and founders of educational and welfare institutions, who immersed themselves in public affairs, often for no personal benefit? Was this an outgrowth of a heritage of community activism transmitted through the generations since the time that Pinsk had been one of the premier Lithuanian communities? Or, was it a consequence of the desire to find meaning in a life nearly devoid of content and significance? Perhaps this was only a natural extension of the idealism of young people who, amid the dehumanizing and dispiriting German occupation of the First World War, were inspired by the echoes of the Russian revolution to dream of an ideal world. They had done their best to educate children and adults, if only to subdue somewhat the pangs of empty stomachs by dealing with matters of the spirit. In the period of “recovery,” begun with American aid, one motivation for public activity—then primarily educational work in schools and orphanages—

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was a sense of duty toward the children who had spent their formative years suffering from hunger, poor health, and epidemics, in the city and in refugee camps; along with a desire to prevent their moral degeneration and to prepare them to lead worthy lives. Community work was also a way of clinging to life; whoever became involved found it difficult to detach himself. Nevertheless only the Bund and the Left ­Poalei Zion party enjoyed consistent leadership. This accounted for their wide influence, compared to the Zionist parties, which suffered from frequent turnover of personnel as their spokesmen left for Palestine. Whatever the impetus, public activity in Pinsk was vigorous. The deepening of ideological and organizational divisions was characteristic of communal life. Although these divisions had been pronounced even in the preceding generation, the leftist parties exhibited strength only in the period of the 1905 revolution when restrictions enforced by the ­Tsarist regime were eased. The moving force in public life had been the Zionist intellectuals. In the interwar period, when party activity (except for the communists) became permissible, political parties and organizations under their influence multiplied, and Jewish society was fragmented into organized cliques. Heightened activity by party spokesmen, either for the benefit of their supporters or to attract the unaffiliated, had frequent repercussions. The Bund’s antipathy toward Zionism and the Hebrew language, the passivity of the leftist Poalei Zion and of Agudat Yisrael (the Agudah) hindered work abroad in the Land of Israel, as well as local institutions. Money and energy were wasted on the establishment of party-affiliated educational institutions—deficient in facilities and instructional talent—which only increased the estrangement between various sectors of the younger generation. The democratization that formed the basis for party affiliation was liable to turn into vulgarization and in the early years of the period, there were indeed signs of this. Instincts of party and selfishness were restrained to some extent, which may have been due to the democratization of study and education. The aspiration for knowledge, which had previously characterized middle-class young men and women, was passed on to the poorer classes. Illiteracy, once rife among the lower class as the proliferation of proxy signatures in the account book listing the 1909 sale of hametz shows, was greatly reduced.123 The delinquency heretofore prevalent

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among young people of these classes also disappeared, thanks to the leftist parties, Zionist and non-Zionist, which worked with the “masses.” Education was, however, fragmented—old-fashioned religious education of the hadarim, on the one hand, and equally fragmented secular education on the other. All the educational institutions—except perhaps for the Bund, which received American assistance money from time to time—struggled for survival. The common factor was that, in their idealistic zeal, all the parties inculcated their charges with a yearning for knowledge and for “the good” as each saw it, even as relations between the parties led more than once to acts that did not bring honor to their perpetrators. Social welfare effort was distinguished by private initiative on the part of men and women motivated by concern for others and an inner compulsion to ease the plight of the suffering. Most public activity was undertaken by remnants of the former intelligentsia together with a new younger intelligentsia that was quite heterogeneous. People with higher education came from outside Pinsk—doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers. Some were assimilated Jews, and some struck roots in the community and took an active part in its affairs, such as Yisrael Reikh, an engineer, manager of the match factory. A few young, native Pinskers had acquired higher education and constituted an important public force, because of their professional expertise or their social standing, such as Dr. Elazar Bregman, who accomplished a great deal as a member of the municipal council (1926–35), vice-mayor, and acting mayor. Alongside these were several self-taught citizens; they had completed their formal education on the eve of the First World War and then acquired extensive knowledge in literature and the social sciences. Hershel Pinsky, Arka Weiner (Yisraeli), and others like them began their community activities in education during the war years and carried on afterwards. In time a new intelligentsia was formed, composed of students at the Tarbut Hebrew gymnasium who played a considerable role in the city’s youth movements and became involved in public service. The interwar period may be divided into two distinct intervals: the first extended until 1927–28, and the second from 1927–28 to the Soviet conquest of 1939. In the earlier period there was no overall framework for communal activity, since the City Council was appointed by the au-

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thorities; the Jews had a total of two representatives and no influence. The Jewish kehillah was established only in 1928. Until then, communal affairs rested either upon volunteers, mostly party regulars functioning in specific areas and within particular circles, or on other people of initiative who had founded economic and welfare institutions. Only the Zionist parties had anything to do at this point since the Jewish role in public affairs was very limited, and Zionist activity could provide content and tangible interest, both for surviving veteran activists, who now became known as General Zionists, and for socialist Zion­ists, who coalesced as the Zeirei Zion party. (After that party united with the right Poalei Zion it became known as Poalei Zion Z. S.) Pinsk had more of a Zionist character than ever, despite the fact that the Bund and its followers had the advantage of numbers, and the Left Poalei Zion even outnumbered the Poalei Zion Z. S. occasionally. The Agudah party also had significant power. Emigration to Palestine was proportionately greater than from other similar communities, and the influence of the Pinsk Zeirei Zion was felt from the start of the Third Aliyah (1919–23). Some of the emigrants organized as Kevutzat Pinsk [The Pinsk Collective], hoping to realize an idea they had conceived while still in Pinsk and clung to over the years under difficult circumstances. They sought to immortalize the memory of the thirty-five martyrs murdered by the Poles [see Chapter Nine], in a settlement that would bear their name, and finally succeeded with the establishment of Kevutzat [Kibbutz] Gevat in 1926. Strong ties developed between the early settlers and their colleagues back in Pinsk since the former retained the “home atmosphere” even in Palestine and the latter lived the spirit of the Land of Israel in Pinsk. The Pinskers, particularly Hershel Pinsky, took pains to strengthen Kevutzat Pinsk in Palestine by dispatching additional young men and women, often illegally.124 With the continuation of emigration, the atmosphere in Pinsk became even more Zionist and Eretz Israel-like in tone. It was only natural for a family with a representative in Palestine to become Zionist in orientation. There were, moreover, few Pinskers who left Palestine, even during the exigencies of the Fourth Aliyah [1924–31; many of the other new arrivals left during the 1926 recession]. That crisis was nonetheless felt in Pinsk, and Bund power was augmented for several years. In the 1930s the Bund lost its

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footing; the Revisionist party [right-wing party founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in 1925; in 1935, withdrew from the World Zionist Organization], later the New Zionist Organization, gained strength. The following statistics give us some idea of the rerlative strength of political forces in the community: In the 1927 municipal elections, more than fifteen Jewish party slates contested for power. Twenty Jews were elected to the municipal government, of a total of twenty-five members. They were divided as follows: Bund—3; Right Poalei Zion—2; Left Poalei Zion—2; unaffiliated—3; craftsmen—1; Arbeter Einheit (Jewish and non-Jewish communists)—1; Orthodox (Agudah)—1; industrialists, merchants, and small businessmen—7.125 The General Zionists and the Mizrahi did not win even a single place although they had put up slates of their own. They may have canceled their candidacies at the last minute for fear of failure due to the crisis of the Fourth Aliyah.126 In the 1928 elections for the Sejm, there were only five slates—three party slates and two coalition slates. The minority coalition received 3,328 votes; the Bund—1,247; Left Poalei Zion—735; the Jewish National bloc—594; the Arbeter Einheit—494.127 In the 1930 municipal elections the Right Poalei Zion gained in strength and received 1,421 votes. The Bund received a similar number—1,462; the Left Poalei Zion—1,110; the Jewish bloc—3,005; the Arbeter Solidaritat (Jewish and non-Jewish communists)—575. Each of the three parties received three seats, the communists received one, and the Jewish bloc—eight. The craftsmen received 405 votes and also gained a single seat.128 Table 10.5 compares the vote totals and percentages for the municipal elections of 1927 and 1930. The gain made by the left-wing parties is obvious129 and is attributable to the critical economic situation. The kehillah (Jewish community) elections provide a clearer picture of the Jewish community’s relative forces. Suffrage was granted only to males above the age of twenty-five. The first elections took place in 1928, and there were ten lists in Pinsk itself, besides those of the villages associated with the kehillah. A total of 2,230 votes was cast, divided as follows: Bund—438 or 19.6 percent of the votes; General Zionists—377 or 16.5 percent; Agudah—252 or 11.3 percent; Left Poalei Zion—212 or 9.5 percent; Right Poalei Zion—150 or 6.7 percent; Mizrahi—fifty-nine

Between Two World Wars table 10.5 Municipal election vote totals and percentages, 1927, 1930 1927

1930

Right-wing parties (including non-Jews)

4,870 votes or 62.5% of the voters

6,442 votes or 56.5% of the voters

Right-wing parties (Jews only)

3,431 votes or 44% of the voters

3,795 votes or 33.5% of the voters

Left-wing parties (including non-Jews)

2,906 votes or 37.5% of the voters

4,694 votes or 43.5% of the voters

Left-wing parties (Jews only)

?

4,568 votes or 40% of the voters

or 2.6 percent; unaffiliated—299 or 13.5 percent; merchants and shopkeepers—165 or 7.4 percent; unaffiliated craftsmen—163 or 7.4 percent; leftist craftsmen—115 or 5.2 percent.130 In the 1936 kehillah elections, 4,454 out of 6,063 eligible voters cast votes, that is, twice the number of 1928. The distribution was as follows: Ligah Le-ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet [Land of Israel workers’ league]—381 votes, 8.5 percent; unaffiliated democratic-economic bloc—1,033 votes, 23.3 percent; Bund—866, 19.4 percent; General Zion­ists—562, 12.6 percent; Revisionists—386, 8.7 percent; unaffiliated Orthodox—266, 6 percent; Left Poalei Zion—186, 4.2 percent; unaffiliated bloc from the batei midrash [study houses]—175,  4  percent; ­M izrahi—160, 3 percent; Orthodox Election Committee—152, 3.5 percent; unaffiliated of the batei midrash—41, 0.9 percent; Combatantn [veterans]—80, 1.8 percent; He-Halutz [pioneer craftsman]—66,  1.4  percent; Ihud shel Ba’alei Melakhah [union of craftsmen]—56, 1 percent; Ba’alei Melakhah [craftsmen]—20.131 The results show that the Bund was the largest of the parties. The General Zion­ists, although greater in number, saw a decrease in percentage of 3.8 percent; the Left Poalei Zion lost 5.3 percent; the Mizrahi increased by 1 percent; the Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet, a union of the Right Poalei Zion and various other groups, rose. There was a noticeable increase in the strength of the non-Mizrahi Orthodox (i.e., members of the Agudah), the unaffiliated Orthodox and the voters of the

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batei midrash. Their four lists together received 14.3 percent. If all the Zionist parties, including the Left Poalei Zion, are combined, they won 39.1 percent of the vote, in comparison to the previous elections in which they had won only 33.3 percent.

Zionism In 1920 shortly after the second Polish conquest, the remaining Zionists reorganized the Pinsk Zionist Federation, which was to become the center for the entire region. In 1921 a regional Land of Israel office was set up; it functioned until 1926. Offices of the Jewish National Fund and the Keren Ha-Yesod were also established. Aliyah had begun again by 1920; not only were the young members of the Zeirei Zion party emigrating, but also family men. As the aliyah movement reawakened, many who had been remote from Zionism rushed to emigrate. The certificate system and restrictions imposed by the Mandate authorities in 1921, however, prevented their departure. The Israel Office was careful to grant authorizations only to family men who had a chance of being successfully absorbed. But in spite of the constraints, a relatively large number of families emigrated from Pinsk. Avraham Asher Feinstein, the director of the Israel Office saw to it that suitable persons who wished to make aliyah received permission to do so.132 On May 24, 1924, greetings were extended to Feinstein on the occasion of his own emigration to the Land of Israel, and it was noted that “as director of the Israel Office . . . [he had made it] possible for scores of families from Pinsk and the vicinity to leave the Diaspora and emigrate to the Land of Israel.”133 These words pertained to the Third Aliyah. The absence of opportunities for economic rehabilitation within the city was the major factor in the families’ decisions to leave for Palestine. Young people left because they were unwilling to serve in the Polish army, particularly loathed since the murder of the thirty-five [see Chapter Nine]. As noted, the number of “drop outs” during the crisis of the Fourth Aliyah was small even though Pinskers constituted a significant portion of that wave of emigration. A. Weiner (Yisraeli) attributes this to the scrupulous selection process of the district Land of Israel office in Pinsk.134

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Pinsk Zionists were, nevertheless, no longer a major factor in the larger Zionist movement. Their participation in the Zionist congresses following the First World War was minor since the number of dues payers required to elect a representative had increased, but, mainly, because Zionist energies had dwindled. Dr. Elazar Bregman did participate in the twelfth congress, which took place in Carlsbad in September 1921, but he may have been sent by the Zeirei Zion-Mizrah Farband. He also took part in the eighteenth congress, held in Prague in August 1933, but apparently not as a Pinsk delegate.135 A. Meirovitz was a Zeirei Zion candidate for delegate to the twelfth congress, but it is not clear whether he actually attended. Natan Dobrovsky was a candidate of the Et Livnot party [the middle-class faction of the General Zionists] for the thirteenth congress; again it is not known whether he was actually present. Representatives from Pinsk did take part in liberated Poland’s nationwide Zionist conferences that preceded the Zionist congresses. Five Pinskers attended the conference in Lodz in August 1921.136 Pinsk representatives joined in other national Zionist conferences and in gatherings on behalf of the Keren Ha-Yesod. Yosef Bregman attended the February 1923 assembly of the Keren Ha-Yesod in Warsaw, in which Nahum Sokolow participated. Aharon Sherer attended a national Zion­ist conference, which took place in Warsaw that June. Ze’ev ­Elstein and Yosef Skolnik participated in a Zionist conference in Warsaw on June 19, 1927. Mordekhai Eisenberg took part in an assembly for the Keren Ha-Yesod at the end of January that year. He and Mordekhai Kerman participated in a conference of the Keren ­Ha-Yesod held there on November 5–6, 1928. Kerman reported that in 1925 a society had been formed in Pinsk to purchase land in Palestine, and members had invested a great deal of money, but for some reason the goal was not realized, and the money was lost. Kerman stated that he had come to the conference to ascertain the reason for the failure and asserted that he could no longer dare to boldly demand financial contributions for rebuilding the land. In January 1930 a national conference was called for the purpose of establishing Ahdut Zionit [Zionist unity], a coalition of the non-socialist Zionist parties. M. Eisenberg, Y. ­Skolnik, and A. H. Neiman were selected on behalf of the General

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Zionists; Y. Galtzki on behalf of He-Halutz ­Ha-Merkazi; E. Epstein on behalf of Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi; and the engineer M. Basevitz on behalf of the Revisionists.137 Pinsk was more significant as the regional center of the Zionist movement. The Pinsk Zionist Federation served as the address for Zion­ist activity in the region, such as distribution of shekalim [dues] and solicitations for the various funds. District Zionist conferences took place in Pinsk in advance of elections for the congresses and were attended by Polish Zionist leadership of all persuasions. Other gatherings were held to organize collections for the funds, with the participation of emissaries from Palestine, some of them pivotal figures in the Zionist movement. Sojourns by such personages left a deep impression on the city. Exhilaration replaced the monotony of everyday routine, even though it was common knowledge that the visits would entail financial loss. These meetings showed that the city had a Zionist atmosphere. Many who were not official members of the movement and who for practical purposes cast their votes for non-Zionist lists in the municipal or kehillah elections, were Zionists at heart. Leib Yaffe visited the city early in 1924 on Keren Ha-Yesod business. His reception is described: A festive atmosphere reigned on Friday, April 4, the day of his arrival. Crowds waited for the guest at the railway station, delegations from all the Zionist organizations and public institutions. Rabbis, merchants, craftsmen came to meet him. Even the municipality sent representatives. A column of fancy carriages, Polish and Zionist flags flapping, stretched all the way to the Great Synagogue. A large crowd of shomerim [honor guards] and Hebrew gymnasium students awaited him. The band played “Ha-Tikvah” [the Hebrew national anthem] and the Polish anthem. The audience greeted the beloved guest . . . with the greeting barukh ha-ba [blessed is he who arrives]. . . . Sunday, April 6, the day of the reception for Leib Yaffe at the theater, was a real holiday in our city. The auditorium was packed. Representatives of various organizations and institutions sat on the stage. . . . [The principal of the Tarbut gynmasium, A.] Mazur, opened the proceedings. . . . Yaffe gave the closing speech. For two hours the audience was transported, and they cheered the speaker enthusiastically.138

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Zalman Rubashov (Shazar) [1889–1974, born in Russia and settled in Palestine in 1924, elected Israel’s third president in 1963] had visited Pinsk about two months earlier to organize the sale of shares in Bank Ha-Poalim [Workers’ Bank established in 1921 by the Histadrut (the Israel federation of trade unions) and the World Zionist Organization as a central credit institution for its cooperative and settlement enterprises]. A. Weiner (Yisraeli) writes: The appearance of an emissary of the movement and the great success of the enterprise were an impressive event for the members in Pinsk, a never-to-be-forgotten experience.139

The experience was shared not only by members of the Poalei Zion Z. S. but by other Zionists as well. This was expressed in the sale of 150 shares within three days as many Jews opened their hearts and pockets. Weiner reports that Shazar commenced his Polish tour in Pinsk, probably on the assumption that he had a good chance of success there. Bialik’s visit to Pinsk in December of 1931 turned into one of the city’s most festive events. Kerman writes with touching simplicity: “The days he spent in Pinsk were great days, unforgettable days, such as a man is granted only rarely in a lifetime.”140 On the evening that Bialik lectured, the theatre was filled to overflowing. In May 1932, a jubilee celebration for the Hibbat Zion movement was held in Pinsk. Kerman and Druyanov both recorded their impressions. (Druyanov speaks of “one of the cities of Lithuanian Poland” without specifically mentioning Pinsk; however a comparison of his account with Kerman’s shows many similarities, and Kerman notes that Druyanov was present at the celebrations in Pinsk.) Druyanov writes: In early May of this year, one of the cities of Lithuanian Poland arranged a lovely, large procession in honor of our two jubilees—the fiftieth anniversary of Hibbat Zion and the thirtieth anniversary of the Keren Kayemet [Jewish National Fund]—planned to publicize the anniversary project of the Jewish National Fund. Even though the city is deep in crisis, the parade succeeded, carried out with taste before a large crowd. Thousands of people participated and, from start to finish, nothing marred the fine order. As they marched from street to street the aura of Zionism pervaded the city.

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Kerman writes: On Sunday at ten o’clock, a tremendous procession preceded by a band left the gymnasium. Twelve thousand people took part in the parade. The older Zionists, Druyanov and myself among them, led the march as far as the Great Synagogue. Druyanov said a few words. . . . The procession continued to the Great Street. The Revisionists kept order, astride horses and bicycles. . . . We reached our Zionist mother, the place where she was accepted [reference to the Mokhe synagogue] when no other synagogue would permit her to enter—and here we paused. The Jewish National Fund representative, Ya’acov Eisenberg [Barzilai] handed me a plaque with a memorial inscription saying that the first meeting of Zionism’s finest sons took place in this synagogue in 1882. . . . The entire massive crowd continued its march through Kupechesky [Merchants] Street. People left their homes and joined the ranks. . . . A day like this remains in one’s memory. It is unforgettable. The following day a project was organized for the Keren Ha-Yesod.141

It is not hard to understand then that there was great apprehension in Pinsk when news arrived of the riots that had broken out in Palestine on August 23, 1929. [Attacks on Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Hebron, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Safed, and several small settlements left about one hundred dead. The mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini had accused the Jews of designs upon Moslem holy places.] The dreadful riots in Eretz Israel aroused panic in the city. People forgot their business problems and their worries about earning a living. . . . Pinsk, which had sent the finest of its sons to Eretz Israel . . . is filled with alarm. The tension and anxieties are most obvious near the newspaper stands. People stand and wait for the newspapers for hours. It has reached the point that on Wednesday night the police interfered and dispersed a crowd waiting for news from Palestine. On Tuesday, August 27, a committee was formed of representatives of the parties. They decided to organize a memorial service the next day (Wednesday) in the afternoon at the Great Synagogue and to call a public meeting on Saturday, August 31, 1929, at the Ha-Koah field. The committee also asked the Jewish populace to refrain from social gatherings and celebrations and donate the money saved to the casualties in Palestine. . . . The speakers at the Great Synagogue were: S. N. Gitelman, A. Mazur, P. Eisenberg, P. Greenberg, the rabbi of Domachvo, [Rabbi]

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Dubitzky, Y. Eisenberg, Sh. H. Burshtein, R. Bokser, Y. Chesler. The cantor conducted a memorial service and the Mandate authorities were enjoined to open the gates of the country to Jewish immigration. During the memorial service, all shops were closed even though it was one of the days of the annual fair. The craftsmen and many of the factory workers stopped work. . . . At two-thirty on Saturday, a rally took place at the Ha-Koah field. Dr. E. Bregman, A. Mazur, Dr. A. M. Feldman, M. Kerman and others spoke.

A few days later, a meeting of the leading citizens of the city was held, and a committee was elected to act on behalf of the riot victims; (the committee was later called The Committee for the Defense of the Jewish Community [in Palestine]). Besides the representatives of the Zionist parties—the lawyer P. Boroshok, Dr. E. Bregman, A. Mazur, Dr. Y. Feldman, Dr. Gleiberson—the committee included non-Zionist members: Y. Eliasberg, Yelankevitz the lawyer, Rabbi Y. Y. Hindin, Rabbi Y. Perplochik, Rabbi Shmuel Mikhel Rabinowitz, the rebbe from Lyubeshov— Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon Weingarten—and the Karliner Rebbe—Rabbi Avraham Elimelekh Perlov. The Hasidic rebbes probably did not join to show support for Zionism but to protest the rioting in general and in particular the vicious massacre of the students of the Hebron yeshivah [successor to the Lithuanian yeshivah of Slobodka]. Memorial meetings were organized for the thirtieth day after the riot­ing. The Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet arranged a mass meeting at the Casino Theater. Katzman, David Alper, Dr. E. Bregman, Sheinbaum, and H. Alter spoke. The Jewish National Fund organized a memorial service in the Tarbut gymnasium; S. N. Gitelman, P. Ginsburg, and Y. Eisenberg addressed the gathering.142 By the middle of October, 10,400 zlotys had been collected for the Defense of the Jewish Community Fund; a total of 750,000 zlotys was collected in all of Poland. The Jews of Pinsk contributed 1.4 percent of the entire appeal, almost double their proportion of Poland’s Jewish population. By the end of March 1930, 11,353.50 zlotys and 119 dollars had been sent from the city for this project.143 A festive procession had marched through the streets following the San Remo Conference, which ratified the Balfour Declaration and authorized the British mandate over Palestine (April 24, 1920). In 1921 a campaign to collect tools

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for laborers in Palestine was conducted in Pinsk, and implements were willingly and happily donated. In anticipation of Leib Yaffe’s visit (see above), a booklet called Unzer Tzukunft (our future) was published that extolled the importance of the Keren Ha-Yesod in building the land. An appeal was proclaimed by the rabbis of Pinsk and Karlin, the merchants’ association, the landlords’ association, the tenants’ association, the craftsmen’s association, the Tarbut committee, the Zionist Federation, Mizrahi, Halutz, Poalei Zion, the women’s committee for the Keren Ha-Yesod, and the young people’s committee for the Keren Ha-Yesod.144 At one of the meetings in which Leib Yaffe participated, a committee composed of the city’s dignitaries was chosen to work for the Keren HaYesod. Bernard Halpern, the owner of the match factory, was elected chairman; A. A. Feinstein and A. Mazur—vice chairmen; Sh. Eisenshtein and M. Y. Segalevich—treasurers; A. M. Feldman and I. Brisky— secretaries. The other members of the committee were: Y. Eisenberg, M. Eisenberg, P. Ginsburg, B. Eingemakhtes, S. N. Gitelman, Moshe Golovitzky, L. Vartzavitzky, N. L. Feldman, L. Papish, Shelomoh Karlin, Y. Skolnik, M. Shmidt, Mrs. M[ania] Rubin, and Mrs. R[egina] Rabinowitsch. The following were elected to the supervisory committee: Y. M. Briskman, Yonah Volovelsky, Z. Lieberman, L. Papish, and A. Stillerman. Fifteen groups of three individuals made the rounds of the homes to solicit funds. A tremendous Eretz Israel atmosphere was created. The solicitors were warmly received everywhere. Considerable sums were collected in cash; some of the donors made pledges and signed notes. . . . On Sunday, April 13, a farewell party for the guest took place. All the participants emphasized the importance of the visit, which created a festive mood and imbued everyone with love and dedication to the sacred work of building up the land. Everyone promised to continue working for the Keren Ha-Yesod and to prove that Pinsk Jews would fulfill their commitments to the Land.145

In anticipation of the thirteenth Zionist Congress (1923), Zionist shekalim valued in excess of one million marks were purchased in Pinsk—this may include the surrounding area. In all of Poland only three other cities could boast of such revenues. During the crisis of the

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Fourth Aliyah, Zionist intensity waned everywhere in Poland. Nevertheless, in anticipation of the fifteenth congress (1927), approximately 700 shekalim were sold in Pinsk, and the figures rose from one congress to the next. Before the sixteenth congress (1929), 1,038 shekalim were sold; before the eighteenth (1933), 2,955. The numbers were similar for the nineteenth congress (1935) despite the fact that the Revisionists had seceded from the Zionist Federation—they had constituted a significant force in the city. The totals were approximately the same for the twentieth congress (1937).146 Pinsk donated proportionately more than other cities to the various funds. Table 10.6 shows the 1929 contributions to the Keren Ha-Yesod (from October 1, 1928, to September 30, 1929).147 Pinsk exceeded Brest in both the number of pledges and the sums collected, even though their Jewish populations were approximately equal. Pinsk boasted more donors than Lublin and Vilna and more or less matched them in the sums pledged despite the fact that its Jewish population was much smaller than that of either city. Bialystok counted sixty-four more pledges than Pinsk and 50 percent more in the sums pledged and collected, but its Jewish population was twice that of Pinsk—forty-seven thousand Jews in 1932. Vilna had fewer donors than Pinsk, but nearly all its pledges were fulfilled, exceeding the sum collected in Pinsk by 60 percent; in 1931 the Vilna Jewish population totaled fifty-five thousand. table 10.6 Contributions to Keren Ha-Yesod, 1929 Number of Pledges

Total Pledged in Zlotys (Guilden)

Brest

151

12,760.80

9,207.12

Lublin

211

24,179.35

19,057.34

Pinsk

300

26,393.10

16,674.16

Bialystok

364

39,261.80

24,432.88

Vilna

226

27,729.75

26,575.09

Lodz

521

229,045.30

99,862.33

City

Collected

509

510

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In spite of the great Depression of 1930–35—and the secession of the Revisionists from the Zionist Organization to found the New Zionist Organization and their boycott of the funds in 1938—there were 284 donors to the Keren Ha-Yesod, only 16 less than in 1929, although the sums were smaller. The total pledged was 11,801 zlotys, of which 10,810.68 zlotys were paid.148 Larger sums were raised for the Jewish National Fund. In 1930 more than 26,000 zlotys were collected. The riots of 1929, just a year before, may have been a factor but in 1931, 17,905 zlotys were collected despite the severe financial crisis of that year. The circle that contributed to the Jewish National Fund was much wider than that which donated to the Keren Ha-Yesod. All Zionist organizations, large and small, as well as school children, made donations and solicited on behalf of the Jewish National Fund. Table 10.7 indicates the participation of various organizations in activities for the Jewish National Fund.149 Table 10.8 shows the alternatives for soliciting funds. It is not clear whether the incomes listed in these two tables are included in the previous table or not. Pinsk took part in the funds’ special campaigns, such as the Arlozorov project, the project for the sick, and the Bitzaron moshav settlement project.150 table 10.7 Contributions to the Jewish National Fund (in zlotys) Party or Organization

Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair

1930

1931

2,875.40

1,920.00

Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi

2,697.55

1,981.00

General Zionists

2,703.91

505.00

He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi

1,499.53

868.00

Betar

1,319.15

988.00

Leibel Kahn (individual)

1,002.00

717.00

WIZO

898.50

2,328.00

He-Halutz Ha-Tzair

380.17

205.00

Ha-Mizrahi

308.63

373.00

Poalei Zion

267.90

–

Freiheit

255.34

286.00

Between Two World Wars table 10.8 Alternative Contributions to the Jewish National Fund (in zlotys) 1930

1931

Collection boxes

5,373.85

3,612.63

Yizkor [memorial] campaign

2,731.10

1,712.00

Registration in Golden Book

1,898.90

–

–

2,000.00

1,015.25

–

Bazaar Miscellaneous Contributions by school children: Tarbut Gymnasium

631.20

Tarbut Midrashah

157.02

–

59.09

–

Gitelman’s Yavneh School

37.85

–

Chichik Gymnasia

30.80

–

Talmud Torah

10.00

Tel Hai School

410.00

10.00

The General Zionists The General Zionists constituted the central bloc of the World Zionist Organization. The Pinsk Zionist Federation later changed its name to the Polish Zionist Federation, Pinsk Branch, a branch of the General Zionists. However, in certain matters, such as the Zionist funds and the administration of the Palestine Office in the city, all the Zionist groups worked together. Education was the premier activity of the General Zionists. Toward the end of the First World War, they restored the technical school building and succeeded in reopening it. In the face of efforts by the Bund to evict them, and threats by representatives of ICA, which supported the school, they taught both Hebrew and general subjects in the Hebrew language except for Polish language instruction.151 But when the Zeirei Zion workshop was annexed to the school, an administration representing the various parties was set up. Yiddish superseded Hebrew as the language of instruction.

511

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The second floor of the school building housed the Zionist institutions—the Zionist Federation, the Jewish National Fund, the Keren Ha-Yesod, the Palestine Office, and Tarbut—until the General Zionists erected a building for the Zionist Federation. This was “a beautiful, splendid building, large and spacious, pleasing to the eye inside and out . . . the first and only building in Polesie that was actually owned by the Federation.” Constructed in 1930, the building “cost approximately four thousand gold dollars.” In 1934 two-thirds of this sum was still owed to “local banks and private individuals,” and the creditors threatened to “put the building on the auction block.” Zionist leaders therefore appealed to Pinskers in the Land of Israel to participate in raising the sum of three hundred pounds sterling toward repayment of the debt.152 The high point of the General Zionists’ creativity was the Hebrew gymnasium, Tarbut (see below). In the rift between Et Livnot and Al Ha-Mishmar [the middle-class faction and the progressive-labor faction, respectively, of the General Zionists], the majority of the General Zionists initially belonged to the Et Livnot faction. In elections for the fifteenth Zionist Congress (1927), 152 people voted for Et Livnot and only 12 for Al Ha-Mishmar; prior to the sixteenth congress (1929), 286 votes were cast for Et Livnot and 28 for Al Ha-Mishmar. Subsequently, their fortunes were reversed: in elections for the eighteenth congress (1933), only 78 people voted for Et Livnot compared to 247 for Al Ha-Mishmar. This change followed the Polesie conference of the Zionist Federation that was held in Pinsk in January 1933, with the participation of Yitzhak Gruenbaum and Moshe Kleinbaum (Sneh).153 Attempts to establish a unified Zionist federation of all the nonsocialist Zionist organizations and parties in Poland had reverberations in Pinsk. A national conference was scheduled for this purpose in January 1930. The Pinsk delegates were M. Eisenberg; Y. Skolnik; A. H. Neiman, General Zionists; Y. Galetzky, He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi; E. Epstein, Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi; and the engineer M. Basevitz, Revisionists. Early in 1934 the Zionist Federation in the city initiated the establishment of a bloc of right-wing Zionist parties to cooperate in municipal and Zionist matters. A committee of nine members was formed: Y. Skolnik, M. Eisenberg, M. Y. Segalevich—General Zion-

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ists; B. M. Epstein, Volk, Y. Lerman—Mizrahi; the engineer Hokhstein, Dr. Akht, and M. Bass—Revisionists.154 The group did not last long because the Revisionists (see below) left the Zionist Federation to found the New Zionist Organization in 1935; relations between the two groups were extremely strained throughout Poland. The Mifleget Ha-Medinah Ha-Ivrit founded at the initiative of Meir Grossman in 1933 enjoyed little support in Pinsk. In the 1933 elections for the eighteenth congress, it attracted only four votes; in elections for the nineteenth congress (1935)—thirty-five votes; for the twentieth congress (1937)—forty votes.155 In elections for the nineteenth congress (1935), the General Zionists’ B faction (Et Livnot) won 44 votes, while the General Zionists A faction (Al Ha-Mishmar) won 441 votes. In elections for the twentieth congress, the General Zionists B won only 21 votes, while the General Zionists A drew 624 votes.156 These figures depict the growth of the General Zionists despite the fact that the Revisionists no longer took part in elections for the nineteenth and subsequent congresses. The middle class of Pinsk had become more Zionist in its orientation as a consequence of the increasing anti-semitism. The growth of the General Zionists may have also been an expression of disappointment with the settlement policy of the Zionist leadership and came at the expense of the left-wing parties, whose influence had diminished during these years.

WIZO [Women’s International Zionist Organization] This organization of Zionist women was a reincarnation of the Benot Zion [daughters of Zion] society that had existed in Pinsk in the 1890s and of the Hevrat Tzedakah shel Ha-Nashim Ha-Yehudiyot [charity organization of Jewish women] that had began to function at the turn of the century and persisted until the German occupation in 1915. The tradition of women’s involvement in communal affairs, particularly in education, intensified at the end of the First World War and in the following years. There were two causes for this: orphaned children were roaming the city in need of education and care, and activities on behalf of Palestine and the realization of Zionism had become the raison d’être for much of the Jewish community. The women successfully executed

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their educational and social welfare tasks, and this strengthened their conviction that they deserved a voice in the affairs of the community. This phenomenon was common in Jewish society, but what occurred in Pinsk was certainly unparalleled in larger, more populous communities. The women presented their own slate of candidates in anticipation of the 1927 municipal elections: Regina Rabinowitsch, E. Burstein, Sh. Kahan, and H. Bodkovsky. Their posters proclaimed: Jewish Woman of Pinsk! If you wish to seize a place in the life of the city you must ensure that your representatives sit on the municipal council, to make your voice heard in favor of the things the Jewish public deserves and social questions, which pertain to us, the women, more than to others. Jewish Woman! If you want the pressing issues of the day attended to as befits the cultural and social milieu of our city, for instance: a maternity hospital for the poor, kindergartens, three meals for poor children in the schools and Talmud Torahs, proper care for orphans, old-age home residents, and hospital patients, support for the Jewish-Hebrew school system, establishment of a city library, vocational courses and evening classes, you must vote for the Women’s Committee list, No. 11.

But the list did not succeed. Approximately two years later, a WIZO branch was organized in the city by Mrs. Pevzner who had arrived as the representative of the Jewish National Fund. Mrs. Regina Rabinowitsch served as chairwoman of the branch until her emigration to Palestine in 1934. Since the women who were active in the Pinsk branch knew Hebrew or Russian, and not the Polish that was used by the WIZO center in Warsaw, ties between the two were weak, at least in the early years. The Pinsk branch worked on behalf of the Zionist funds and other matters listed in its 1927 election platform, that is, on behalf of needy children in the Zionist schools, and in the organization of benefits and performances whose proceeds were used for these purposes. Hebrew courses for young women planning to emigrate to Palestine were conducted by one of the WIZO members, and lectures on Zionism were given from time to time, particularly for newer members. From 1931 on, WIZO organized an annual bazaar, generally held during Hanukkah, for the benefit of the Jewish National Fund.157

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The Revisionist Party and the New Zionist Organization In 1925 Ze’ev [Vladimir] Jabotinsky organized the Revisionist party (Ha-Tzohar). In elections for the fifteenth congress (1927), thirty-one people cast their votes for this party; in elections for the sixteenth congress (1929), eighty-seven votes were cast for the party. At the end of 1929 a branch was set up in Pinsk; Jabotinsky visited the city at the end of December 1930, and the party then went on to expand rapidly. In elections for the eighteenth congress (1933), it won 932 votes, nearly three times the total votes for the General Zionists. In June 1933 Jabotinsky visited Pinsk again. When he spoke at the Holtzman theater, the auditorium was packed and crowds gathered outside.158 Many of the voters were probably young people, which would explain the discrepancy between the number of votes cast for the Revisionist list in the congress and in the kehillah elections of 1936. Only citizens over the age of twenty-five could vote in the kehillah elections, whereas eighteenyear-olds were eligible to vote in the congress elections. Some General Zionists leaned toward Revisionism and may have voted accordingly, but these distanced themselves after Jabotinsky founded Ha-Tzah (the New Zionist Organization) in 1935. In Pinsk, as elsewhere in Poland, arguments that occasionally led to fistfights broke out between Revisionists and adherents of the Ligah ­Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet. There was “fighting” tension in the city in the latter half of April 1933 when Pinsk hosted the first regional conference of the Liga and the movement’s representative Melekh Neishtat spoke. Blows were exchanged between the members of rival parties when Neishtat spoke in the theater auditorium and also on the days following. The campaign conducted by the Revisionists and Betar against the national funds, however, was not especially rough. The only information extant is that Betar members caused a commotion at a gathering in the Holtzman theater on the occasion of Dr. N. M. Gelber’s 1937 visit to organize an appeal for the Keren Ha-Yesod. The Betar members were demanding certificates [for emigration to Palestine]. The meeting proceeded only after the police had removed the troublemakers.159 The Revisionist party attracted some of the intelligentsia who were disillusioned with official Zionist policy. But Betar, perhaps in part because of its militaristic style, drew primarily young men and women

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from the poor and middle class. Young people from the left-wing parties were apparently transferring their allegiance to Betar for the late 1930s showed a sharp decline in leftist Zionist parties. One of the constituent organizations of the New Zionist Organization was Berit Ha-Hayal [the soldier’s covenant] whose members were former Polish army soldiers, most of them from poor neighborhoods; carters; and porters. Together with members of Betar and other organizations, they did a great deal to dissuade anti-semitic gangs, Polish students, and just plain hooligans from the urge to assault Jews.160

Zeirei Zion and Poalei Zion-Z. S. The Pinsk Zeirei Zion party had been established on the basis of Zionistsocialist principles at a time when the city was cut off from centers of the movement in Poland and in Russia. In 1919 Pinsk was captured by the Poles, and Polish armies penetrated to White Russia and Ukraine, releasing the branch from its isolation. Ties were formed with Kiev, Minsk, and Warsaw. Sharp differences of opinion about the party’s direction caused a split. At the 1920 Warsaw conference, advocates of Zionistsocialist ideology founded the Mizrah Farband (eastern federation) of the Zeirei Zion. Dr. Elazar Bregman, chairman of the Warsaw conference, was among the founders of the new organization, and was elected a member of its administration. In 1918 he had served as secretary of the central office of the Ukrainian Zeirei Zion in Kiev. Zelig Tir had already left the party in 1919 to form a second organization of Zeirei Zion that espoused popular Jewish socialism and repudiated class struggle. In this period there was turmoil among the Pinsk Zeirei Zion. Some had been blinded by the Bolshevik revolution; when the Bolsheviks entered the city for the second time, they had been convinced by the communist cultural representative to replace Hebrew and Yiddish with Russian as the language of instruction in the schools.161 Shortly afterward the Bolsheviks were chased out of the city by the Balakhovists and the Poles (September 26, 1920) and after a pause in party activity, most of the Zeirei Zion joined the Mizrah Farband. After a lengthy interval we renewed our work. The first task we set for ourselves was to build up the Befreiung [the Mizrah Farband periodical]. . . . To that end we transferred 100,000 marks to the Mizrah Farband.162

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Representatives left for neighboring villages to organize branches of the party. In Homsk, it was noted: “The comrade Welman [Volman] visited us and organized a chapter of Zeirei Zion.” In Janowa: “The visit by the Pinsk comrade aroused enthusiasm and energy. . . . We are about to establish a public school and evening classes and we have decided to collect 10,000 marks for the Befreiung.” Some Pinsk members opposed the Mizrah Farband platform and did not join the federation because of its socialist ideology. Various points of view were voiced in the resulting disputes—“general Zionist,” “petite bourgeoisie,” along with “socialist principles.”163 The Mizrah Farband now came to be known as Z.S. (Zionist Socialist) Zeirei Zion; its regional conference was held in Pinsk on October 20–22, 1921, with the participation of delegates from Janowa, Drohiczyn, Homsk, Antopol, and Luninec. Dov Malkhin attended on behalf of the party central office. Dr. Elazar Bregman was in Vilna at the time, serving as the Zeirei Zion representative in the central Land of Israel office there. At this conference, Avraham Meirovitz, Hershel Pinsky, and (Zvi?) Rabinowitz were elected members of the new center to be founded in Brest, the regional capital, for the Pinsk, Brest, Baranovitz, and Grodno districts.164 Party membership was not large; after some emigrated to Palestine and others departed for Vilna to pursue their studies, only a handful of activists remained in the city. The burden rested primarily upon Hershel Pinsky, Welman, Arka (Aharon) Weiner (Yisraeli), and a few others. They managed to retain the positions they had acquired previously. At the beginning of 1921, they controlled two of the batei mahse (the all-day schools where students also received meals), the school once known as Leah Feigele’s school—now called Tel Hai (in memory of Trumpeldor and his comrades who had fallen on February 11, 1919)— and the vocational school, which included departments of carpentry, tailoring, and shoemaking. In the great fire of 1921, the vocational school and one of the batei mahse burned down. The other beit mahse was shut when the JDC discontinued its support of educational institutions. With ORT assistance, the vocational school was reestablished in rented premises and provided with new equipment; shortly afterward ICA began to cover its maintenance expenses. Various changes took place in the vocational school. The shoemaking department was closed, and a department was set up

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to teach girls to sew lingerie. Finally only the carpentry department remained. In 1923 it was transfered to the vocational school under General Zionist auspices; an administration composed equally of General Zionists and Zeirei Zion was instituted.165 Early in 1922, the party set up evening classes for adults; approximately two hundred people from age sixteen and up attended. Most were workers and trade union members. Some had studied previously at Bund or Left Poalei Zion classes.166 Party policy and activity were dictated by the goal of extending influence among the workers’ ranks and of drawing them, especially the lower-class youngsters, from the Bund and the Left Poalei Zion. After a heated internal debate, the members adopted Marxism and the issue of class warfare as part of the “current agenda.” A critical change took place in the Tel Hai school: “Study of Yiddish as an integral part of the educational and academic curriculum” was introduced, supplanting Hebrew as the sole language of instruction. Before long, Yiddish became the language of instruction in the first three grades with Hebrew taught as a “foreign language.” In the higher grades, Hebrew was “the language of instruction for basic subjects . . . while Yiddish continued as one of the most important subjects of study.” The language issue provoked arguments among Pinsk party members. David Barzilai, a party member already living in Palestine was one who fiercely contested these changes as opposed to Hershel Pinsky, one of the main party activists in Pinsk. Pinsky was the decisive force in the local party and set its tone—a synthesis of Zionism and socialism based on Borochovist foundations, without the determinist ideology. He believed in allegiance to socialism as a whole and participation in the struggle for reform of the social system as prerequisites for liberating the Jewish worker. Pinsky felt that Jewish society harbored class differences and conflicting interests. The Zionist Federation was actually a middle-class party. One should, nevertheless, work to rebuild the Land of Israel, for the younger generation could be saved from degeneration only by aliyah. In Palestine it would be possible, by a life of healthy, normal labor, to cure the Jewish people. “They would be able, together with all of persecuted mankind,” to fight “for the realization of the socialist ideal.” As for language, Pinsky’s position was that since people spoke Yiddish and did not understand Hebrew (which was still “solely

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the language of intellectuals”), they should be addressed “in the language they understand,” for “the Socialist-Zionist ideal and efforts on its behalf are dearer to me than the language fetishism.” Hebrew should be taught in the schools since “revival of Hebrew culture” was important and it was good “that the Hebrew language has become a living tongue among some of our workers in the Land of Israel.” Pinsky’s willingness to compromise on the matter of languages, and the adoption of Borochovist ideas, no doubt stemmed from the conflict with the Bund and the Left Poalei Zion. In a letter dated August 15, 1922, Pinsky writes: We want to be the workers’ party in Pinsk . . . and to draw the worker from the ranks of the Bund and the Left Poalei Zion. . . . Over two hundred young workingmen and workingwomen have rallied around our organization.167

The party did not have much success among older workers. It managed to organize only “the trade union of the shop assistants.”168 By the spring of 1922, Pinsky had already begun to press for a merger with the Right Poalei Zion: “I demand union with the Poalei Zion because I seek the creation of a strong Zionist-socialist party.”169 The consolidation took place in Pinsk and Polesie in December 1922, before the unification of the two parties in Poland as a whole in 1925, at which point the new party was called Poalei Zion-Z.S. In Pinsk, however, the new party did not gain much strength because the numbers of the Right Poalei Zion in the city were small. One of the early Zeirei Zion activities for the Land of Israel was the “work fund” campaign—collecting tools for workers in Palestine—which took place in the spring of 1921. An article in the Befreiung told how “Our efforts for the ‘work fund’ began in Pinsk and the vicinity. We have never seen such heartfelt expressions on the part of the public as in this project for rebuilding the country.” The article notes that Avraham Meiro­vitz set out for Stolin and Luninec; Hershel Pinsky went to Janowa and Motele; and Eisenberg to Drohiczyn, Homsk, and Antopol.170 The tools they accumulated were destroyed in the great fire, but others were collected to replace them (the article noted “We have another ten crates of assorted tools.”).171 On the Purim holiday of 1922, an appeal was made “for the benefit of the work fund,” to forward the crates to Warsaw.172

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Party members pledged their salaries of March 3, 1922, for “the benefit of the aliyah fund,” as requested by Pinsk party members in the Land of Israel.173 By 1922 they were already distributing Bank Hapoalim shares, collecting pledges, and soliciting for the Keren Ha-Yesod. One thousand people made pledges to the fund that year, for a total of 11.5 million marks.174 At the same time, attempts were made to organize the Oved [a periodical] but apparently without success.175 Ratification of the Mandate by The League of Nations did not arouse great joy in the party. While the General Zionists held celebrations “and plastered copies of telegrams announcing ratification in large letters everywhere,” the Zeirei Zion party members met and evaluated “the event judiciously.” Hershel Pinsky writes about the party’s mood at the time: How could we celebrate and dance when, on the very same day that the mandate was ratified, our friends returned from the Land of Israel office in Warsaw without receiving visas to the Land of Israel, nor can “greetings” from Palestine be relayed. Every day the English clerks add new interpretations to Churchill’s declaration of June 3, 1922. . . . to which the Zionist leadership answers “Amen.” Arrangements for immigration will remain in the hands of the legislative council, and with such limitations, can one make a big noise over the new liberation? [Proclamations have no value.] Only by independent work and exertion of the people’s healthy capacities will the country be built.176

During Shazar’s visit to Pinsk (see above), a regional committee called Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet was formed. Members sold Bank Hapoalim shares in the neighboring towns. By April 11, 1924, forty shares had been sold in Luninec and seventeen in Motele.177 Aharon Weiner (­Yisraeli) confirms that the first Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet committee was set up in the city at this time. The active members were Isser Brisky, Arka Weiner (Yisraeli), Haim Switatz (Gevati), and Hershel Pinsky, who also served as members of the district committee of the Right Poalei Zion. At their initiative, committees of the Ligah were set up in the towns of Polesie, and appeals were conducted for Kupat ­Poalei Eretz Yisrael [fund for the workers of Palestine]. In 1924 a campaign was held in the towns of the district on the fifth of Nisan (April 9), the anniversary of the murder of the thirty-five martyrs (see Chapter Nine); in Pinsk itself, the project was postponed

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by one day so as not to hinder collections for the Keren Ha-Yesod that were taking place during Leib Yaffe’s visit. In July 1924 Pinsky wrote that he had begun “visiting the committees of Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet and organizing societies called Farbanden far das Arbetende Eretz Yisrael (organizations for the workers of the Land of Israel).”178 On October 30, 1925, a regional conference of the Ligah took place in Pinsk, with delegates from fourteen locales. The Poalei Zion sent fourteen representatives, the Hitahdut (see below) sent three, and there was one non-affiliated delegate. It was resolved to work toward acquiring one thousand members for the Ligah, and to collect two thousand zlotys, or two zlotys per member, for the Kupat Poalei Eretz Yisrael over the next three months. A district committee was elected; six of its members were from Poalei Zion-Z.S., two from Hitahdut, and one from Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair. The Pinsk Ligah pledged to raise eight hundred zlotys, and two hundred people promised to contribute to the project. This figure may indicate the number of adults belonging to the Ligah, which in Pinsk included the Poalei Zion-Z.S., the Hitahdut, the Halutz, the Yiddishe Sotsialistishe Arbeter Yugent, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, and the Halutz Ha-Tzair.179 In a later period six hundred youngsters were associated with the Ligah.180 D. Cohen, of the party center, attended the conference and delivered two lectures in the theater auditorium. The first dealt with “the politics of the Jewish worker in Palestine.” (The Bundists disrupted the lecturer.) The day after the conference, October 31, Poalei Zion-Z.S. held a meeting and chose a party regional committee: A. Weiner, Y. Klurfein, A. Feigelman, Yosef Lifshitz, Gadl Zolir, and Moshe Weiss. A regional convention of the Ligah took place in the city on April 21–22, 1933, with the participation of M. Neishtat. Members from the following places took part: Antonovka, Breznitz, Dombrovitz, ­David-Horodok, Hantzvitz, Horodniyah, Visotzk, Telechany, Janowa, Homsk, Lubieszow, Lenin, Luninec, Lachva Motele, Mikashevitz, ­Stolin, Sarny, Stepan, Pinsk, Plotnitza, Pohost-Zagorodski, KozanHorodok, Rokintah.181 One key role of the party was to ensure the existence of Kevutzat Pinsk in Palestine. In the early days of the Third Aliyah, thirteen Zeirei Zion members had emigrated. They formed a group within

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Trumpeldor’s Gedud Ha-Avodah [labor battalion: collective founded in Palestine in 1920 for pioneering work], and their ideal was to live a communal life that would serve as a memorial to the Pinsk martyrs. This group suffered adversities, uncertainties, and defections. The party in Pinsk, though unable to assist materially, lent moral support and saw to the perpetuation and expansion of the group by preparing additional members and sending them off to the Land of Israel. The Pinsk chapter was the most active in its concern for its members’ emigration. Hershel Pinsky writes to David Barzilai in Palestine: Be assured that you will receive in the coming weeks . . . the best young people. . . . I am now very confident in the future of our group in the country.

In another letter Pinsky writes: I waited impatiently to hear your opinion of the new members who emigrated. Surely you know with what effort we cultivated them here.182

The Pinsk party was rather small and won only 151 votes for the fifteenth Zionist Congress (1927), similar to the number cast for the General Zionists (164). For the sixteenth congress, it won 200 votes, together with Halutz, while the General Zionists garnered 314 votes. The party subsequently gained strength. In voting for the eighteenth congress the Ligah won 1,247 votes, for the nineteenth—1,704 votes, and the twentieth—937;183 however, there is no way to determine what role the Poalei Zion-Z.S. per se played among the voters.

Hitahdut At the Prague conference in early 1920, the Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair and the non-socialist Zeirei Zion merged; the Mizrah Farband refused to join, and a new party called Hitahdut (union) began to form in Poland. The Pinsk branch was set up on March 10, 1922,184 composed primarily of the Zeirei Zion faction under Zelig Tir’s leadership. On July 1, 1922, the new party held a regional conference attended by representatives from Pohost, Divin, Lenin, Homsk, Prozhani, Stolin, Lachva, Kobryn, and elsewhere. Goldveitz and Briskman of Pinsk participated in the discussions, and Frankel served as chairman. Briskman was chosen as

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Hitahdut representative to the Keren Ha-Yesod regional committee of Polesie.185 The Hitahdut party did not succeed in drawing many members. Its ideology was similar to that of the General Zionists, and it did not participate in May Day celebrations nor attempt to seize a place among the trade unions; it was for the hegemony of the Hebrew language in the schools, and [it] cooperated with the Ligah. It did not, however, send its members to Halutz claiming that Halutz in Polesie, and in particular its communal groups, were controlled by the Right Poalei Zion who made them into “their party’s local outlet.” Halutz, furthermore, was said to foster hatred for the Hebrew language; and the Polesie Halutz were constantly harassing Hitahdut members.186 Hitahdut ran a separate slate for the congresses. It won twenty-four votes for the fifteenth congress (1927), forty-nine for the sixteenth (1929), and forty for the eighteenth (1933), but did not appear separately for the nineteenth and twentieth, apparently joining the Ligah.187 Although a small party, the Hitahdut had its own club quarters and in 1925 assisted in the organization of a chapter of the Gordonia youth movement [a pioneer scouting movement, named for A. D. Gordon; founded in Galicia in 1923, its ideology stressed education in humanistic values and labor Zionism], whose founding members numbered twenty-five. On June 25, 1933, a Hitahdut regional conference took place in Pinsk.188

Left Poalei Zion The Left Poalei Zion was one of the largest parties in Poland and in Pinsk. In the 1920s, its size was second only to the Bund. In the kehillah elections, 212 people cast their votes for the party; it had two representatives on the community council, Haim Kopel Busel and Yerahmiel Aronovitz (the alternates were Yehoshua Leib Lieberman and Mendel Kishpat). In 1927 they were elected to the municipal council as well. The party won 735 votes in the 1928 Sejm elections and 1,110 votes in the 1930 municipal elections, thus winning a third representative on the municipal council—Yehudit Toptshe, a teacher.189 In subsequent years the party’s influence declined. In the 1934 municipal elections, only fifteen Jews were elected, rather than the nineteen and twenty of previous

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elections; and only one, Y. Aronovitz, was a member of the Left Poalei Zion. In the 1936 kehillah elections, 186 votes were cast for the Left Poalei Zion, and it did not earn even one seat.190 The party’s main strength appears to have come from the influence it had gained in the match factory during the economic revival of the early 1920s. In the Passover 1922 elections for the workers’ committee, four members of the Left Poalei Zion were elected to only three of the Bund.191 The Bund remained in the minority despite its tactics. The party was also influential among the needleworkers and the metalworkers, in opposition to the communists.192 The Left Poalei Zion had some influence in the newly rehabilitated plywood factory, but here the Bund was more powerful. The efforts of Left Poalei Zion to improve working conditions in the match factory heightened its authority. In the beginning of August 1922, the new committee began negotiations with Bernard Halpern for a 50 percent raise in wages. Halpern acceded only to 15 percent, and a strike broke out on August 21. The outcome is unknown, but it may be assumed to have been positive for a general assembly of the factory workers decided to vote for List Eleven, the Left Poalei Zion slate, in the Sejm elections that year, along with the needleworkers and metalworkers.193 The Left Poalei Zion took no action on behalf of Zionism. In other cities it cooperated with the Ligah, but in Pinsk, not even that: in the 1936 kehillah elections, the two groups ran separately. In the 1920s the Left Poalei Zion established a library and evening courses in memory of Borochov and supported a Yiddish school named for him, whose first class graduated during the year 1924–25.

The Bund The Bund was the largest organized force in Pinsk. Its growth was a consequence of the disbandment of the Meuhadim party (i.e., the Sionisty Sotsialisty and the Sejmists), which apparently continued to exist through 1919 and then disappeared. Some of the members of the Meuhadim left for Soviet Russia, and others joined the Left Poalei Zion, but most moved over to the Bund. In 1918 the Bund set up a

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cooperative and when Borukh Zuckerman visited the city’s educational institutions [in April 1919], he found a children’s shelter, with about two hundred children, run by the Bund and the Poalei Zion. In the summer of 1919, the school came under the sole direction of the Bund and was named in memory of Moshe’le Gleiberman. Gleiberman, among the founders and developers of the school, was one of the thirtyfive martyrs. Elections for the municipal council late in the summer of 1919 were characterized by a fierce struggle between the Bund and the Zionists; the latter prevailed. The great hopes that the Jewish world pinned on the Balfour Declaration were undoubtedly a factor in the Bund’s failure. Bund aggressiveness increased with the arrival of Shmuel ­Davitch from America; he was either a Bundist or simply a socialist and brought with him a large sum of money. The Pinsk Bundists had discovered that those responsible for raising the money for the city were former Bundists, or radicals, and maintained that they deserved the lion’s share of the American aid. At this same time, the Bundists opened a girls’ vocational school and took over one of the three orphanages in the city. One night, however, the children in the home fled to an orphanage run by the Zionists. When Bund threats to the Zionists and admonitions by the JDC central office in Warsaw proved ineffective, the Bundists confiscated the contents of the orphanage. “The Bundists removed seven wagonloads from the orphanage”: foodstuffs, beds and bedding, and clothing and shoes. The Bundists even terrorized the JDC representatives, who had arrived from the central office in Warsaw. When one of these representatives ousted a Bund member from the JDC’s local council, the Bundists put their own locks on the storehouses that contained food and clothes.194 The Bund’s prestige rose in 1921. The events in Palestine on the first of May made it apparent that the British reigned supreme and had sealed the gates to would-be immigrants. The Land of Israel was unable and unlikely to serve as the solution for the Jewish masses. [Winston Churchill, then the British colonial secretary, issued a White Paper in May 1922. While reaffirming the Balfour Declaration, it introduced limitations on Jewish immigration based on the “economic absorptive capacity” of the country.]

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The Bund’s stronghold was the match factory; it had organized the trade union there. The Bund’s power was contested, however, by the Left Poalei Zion and the communists. When the Bund ran on its own in the 1922 Sejm elections as List Number 4, its showing was merely respectable, with one thousand votes. During the same period, the Bund, which considered itself the “sole representative of the Jewish workers,” succeeded in organizing the woodworkers, leather workers, and bakery workers into trade unions. In the plywood factory, as mentioned previously, the Bund was more influential. In other unions, the Bund fought the Left Poalei Zion and the communists for supremacy. The Bund ranks split in 1923 and some of the young Bundists joined the communists and the communist youth. Despite its activity, the Bund constituted a minority in the Pinsk council of trade unions. Isser Brisky, a member of the council, was appointed delegate to the congress of Polish trade unions even though there were fewer trade unions under the Poalei Zion-Z.S. jurisdiction than under the Bund. Representatives of the Left Poalei Zion, communist, and P.P.S. [Polish socialist party] trade unions also cast their votes for him.195 The crisis of the Fourth Aliyah definitely strengthened the Bund’s influence. In the 1927 municipal elections, the Bund had received three seats; in the 1928 kehillah elections, it had received 19.6 percent of the vote, and the 1936 election results were similar. The Bund had but slight success among the young people. As of 1926, only about one hundred young men and women belonged to the Bund youth movement, Tzukunft, as opposed to the Poalei Zion-Z.S. youth movement, Freiheit, which numbered more than two hundred young people in 1927–28.196 Not all Bundists sent their children to the Bund school and for that reason, they did not raise a second generation. The 1928 picture of the first graduating class (which had received seven years of schooling in the Moshe’le Gleiberman school) shows only 16 girls and not a single boy. According to Toyzent Yohr Pinsk, 255 students (apparently all girls) were studying in the school that year. In 1936, the school had 280 girls and 37 boys.197 The boys probably studied in the Talmud Torahs, the hadarim, the technical school, or the government schools. (The Poalei

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Zion-Z.S. Tel Hai school was apparently a girls’ school, too, and its first class picture, from 1925, shows only eleven girls.198) The Poalei Zion-Z.S., the Left Poalei Zion, and the Bund participated in the first of May procession of 1932, and the role of the Poalei Zion-Z.S. was particularly noticeable. Although this suggests that the Bund’s influence may have declined, the 1936 kehillah election results show that the Bund received the same percentage of the vote as it did in 1928. The Bund did not draw many young people, certainly not in proportion to its influence and power among adults. The majority were attracted to the Zionist youth movements, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi (later known as Ha-Noar Ha-Zioni), Freiheit, and Betar. The left was attracted to communism. The main Bund spokesmen were Aharon Yudel Shlakman, Leizer Levin, Y. Posnitzky, [and] Y. Freind. The Pinsk Bund’s attitude toward Zionism and building the Land of Israel were identical with the party’s basic principles. Bundists rejoiced at the events of 1929 in Palestine. On the eve of the 1930 municipal elections, a right Poalei Zion poster attacked the Bund saying: You, Bundist creatures, danced a devil’s dance with the mufti and the Arab effendis around the victims in the Land of Israel. You degenerates rubbed your hands in glee after each failure and tragedy of the working community in Eretz Israel.

These remarks were probably not far from the truth even though in the heat of election propaganda, the rival parties, particularly the ones on the left, besmirched each other recklessly. A Bund proclamation from this campaign entitled Unzerer Kegner (our rival) includes the following among other choice passages: Creeping along behind the tar-black company [the Orthodox] are the Zionists and their P.Z. [the right Poalei Zion] lackeys, the men of the Western Wall, and Rahab the prostitute. They are the arch-enemies of the working people and have set out to destroy any impulse, any sign, any iota, of the struggle for a better tomorrow, for rights and freedom, for a cultural-secular school in the mother-tongue; in place of all this they offer the dream of the desert of Zion, desolation, a fantasy born in the midst of the tragic confusion of the soul of Menahem-Mendel, the son of the decaying small town. They are a band of yeshivah stu-

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dents, a purulent abscess clinging to the body of the Jewish public and sucking the last of its juices, in order to enrich the Arab tyrants in the barren deserts of Palestine. They sowed the wind and reaped a storm in the sands of their “kingdom,” finally meriting a pogrom last year [the riots of 1929] and the end of all their miserable hopes this year. [Passfield’s White Paper, issued by the British Colonial Office in 1930, considered pro-Arab and anti-Zionist in tone, proposed limits to Jewish immigration based on limits of arable land].

As for religion, it was reported that on Yom Kippur, the Bund had opened a restaurant for “toiling comrades” across from Rabbi Walkin’s home. Approximately ninety young boys and girls from Pinsk took part in a Tzukunft (Bundist youth) meeting in Stolin on the Shavuot holiday of 1930. They walked through the streets preceded by a band, arousing a great deal of bitterness in the town. The Stolin rebbe Rabbi Moshe Perlov and others saw to it that the police sent the outside “guests” out-of-town.199 Obviously, anti-semitism, Fascism, and Hitlerism were threats to Bund ideology, and the party was therefore especially sensitive to these phenomena. A movement opposed to Hitler’s Germany arose among Polish Jewry, and an anti-Hitler committee was formed in Pinsk with representation from various parties. The Bund was most active; it organized protest meetings and published appeals for an “anti-Hitler boycott.” The Bund wanted to organize a protest march but was denied a permit. Following the riots in Pshitik, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Bund came to Pinsk and addressed a gathering of the trade unions about the need to oppose the pogroms with a protest demonstration. The next day a Bundist named Freind read a statement in the municipal council, and the council decided to donate one hundred zlotys to the Pshitik victims. A committee, apparently composed of representatives of different groups, was formed to organize a demonstration. One afternoon in late March 1936, the siren at the plywood factory sounded. Work in the factories and workshops ceased, and all places of business were closed. A procession set out along the length of Kosciuszko Street (the main street). Most of the participants were factory workers. The “custodians of order” were displeased and when the procession formally ended, they dispersed the demonstrators.200

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The Communists In 1918 enthusiastic advocates of the October Revolution were to be found in the city; a communist group was organized, its membership composed of former Bundists and members of Meuhadim and Poalei Zion. Prominent in this group were the barber Moshe Liftshuk; Ya’acov Kantor, once an S.S. member, a writer for Pinski Listok, and director of evening classes in Yiddish; Haim Mishok; a printing worker named Avraham Karagasky; Velvel Skliarnik; and a carpenter-engraver named Yisrael Fridenreikh. Most of these fled to Soviet Russia with the Bolshevik retreat of February 1919. Skliarnik, Fridenreikh, and two other young men—Hanokh Kolodny and a bookbinder named David Shlossberg—remained in the city. The latter two headed the communist youth group at the end of the summer of 1920 while the Bolsheviks occupied the city for the second time. When the Red Army had been expelled once again by the Poles and the Balakhovists, only a handful of communists lingered on in the city. They soon formed a clandestine group, whose members were David Shlossberg, Velvel Skliarnik, Feigel Feldman, and two women who had not managed to flee to Russia with their husbands—Etyl Liftshuk (Moshe’s wife) and Sloika Feldman (Haim Mishok’s wife). They missed no opportunity to sow sympathy for the revolution. By emphasizing the differences between the Bund and the Poalei Zion, Shlossberg was elected—with Poalei Zion support—as a director of the workers’ cooperative; he served together with four Bundists and one unaffiliated member. Shlossberg was also chosen as one of two directors of the workers’ kitchen; the other was Kopel Bussel, secretary of the Left Poalei Zion. The seamstress, Sloika Feldman-Mishok, who was an effective speaker, was elected to the board of the needleworkers’ union. Before long, Aharon Feldman, chairman of the union and a member of the Poalei Zion, joined the secret organization along with other Poalei Zion members. A committee of three was chosen: Shlossberg—chairman, Aharon Feldman—secretary, and the tailor Hershel Hochstein, formerly of the Meuhadim. Hochstein transmitted his revolutionary ideas to his apprentice Haim Kot, who disseminated them among the young people of the leatherworkers’ union. At the time, there was another communist in the union, a sala-

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ried shoemaker by the name of Yitzhak Zilberglik the “Mezricher.” The two were shortly elected to the union’s board. The Bund, however, retained decisive influence in this union. Even though Bernard Halpern, owner of the match factory, and Yisrael Reikh, an engineer and its director, were liberal men and flexible about the worker demands, their enterprise served as a convenient focus for revolutionary propaganda as large discrepancies existed between the salaries of senior workers and newer workers, and between skilled and unskilled workers. When Shlossberg infiltrated the factory as a worker, a group came together to agitate for equal wages; (its members were Nisel Wagman, Alter Einshter, Ya’acov Kaplan, and the young people Yudel Koznitz, Kopel Shmukler, Liba Yaksher, and Sima Wagman). Under their influence, a committee was elected by the workers’ assembly to negotiate with Yisrael Reikh. (The members were Alter Sertshuk, a Bundist communist-sympathizer who served as a director of the trade union in the factory; Nisel Forman, later a correspondent for the Pinsker Shtyme who wrote about “the events of the past”; Berl Dolinko, a Bundist; and Shlossberg and Nisel Wagman, the communists.) When bargaining resulted in raises for those who had once been discriminated against, the prestige of the “Red Faction” rose among the factory workers. The communists in the city, nevertheless, numbered only about twenty, divided into four cells. The communist youth group Komsomol, had no more than thirty members, mostly defectors from the Bund youth movement Tzukunft, which now was in decline. At Shlossberg’s initiative and with Sertshuk’s support, elections were held for a new administration of the factory’s trade union. Those chosen were Shlossberg and Nisel Wagman—communists; Motel Fishko, Berl Dolinko, and Alter Sertshuk—Bundists; Pinhas Gurnshpitz and Chaim Beiliak—Left Poalei Zion. Shlossberg was chosen as chairman. During the period of tension between Soviet Russia and Poland, communist literature had been smuggled across the border. When the Riga treaty was signed in January 1921, both sides pledged to cease mutual sabotage efforts, and the Pinsk communists were cut off from the communist world. Shortly afterward, Rivas arrived on behalf of the central office of the Polish Communist Party, and the “Red Faction” became part of the Polish Communist Party. The chapter got orga-

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nized. A new local committee was elected, and a regional committee was formed, with the participation of peasants from the vicinity who hoped for distribution of the property of the Pans (Polish landowners). The barbershop of Hillel Krasilchik, a left-wing Bundist; the cellar of ­Yisrael Fridenreikh’s workshop; and the workshop of Hokhstein, a tailor; served as meeting places. For the 1922 Sejm elections, the communists came out with their own slate called Ha-Reshimah Ha-Meuhedet shel Ha-Ir Ve-Ha-Kefar [the united list of city and village]. All the parties conducted vigorous election propaganda. Arthur Zygelboim and Erlich, the Bund leaders, and Berl Zelikovitz-Gutman, now a communist, attended the communists’ election rallies. Yitzhak Gordin arrived from the communist party center. (In 1918 he had passed through Pinsk on his way from Russia and stirred revolutionary ferment among the German soldiers in the city.) Agitation in the match factory intensified in 1923 when rumors spread that the new owners, a Swedish concern headed by Krieger, were about to install modern machinery and cut the work force in half. Preparations were made for a strike, but meanwhile the factory went up in flames. Several of the Left Poalei Zion, led by Nyumkah Tzadok, moved over to the communists at this point, and Tzadok was added to the local party committee. A few of the Borochovist young people joined the Komsomol. The communist party center also sent in a professional organizer named Hirsh Gruenbaum-Herman. After the match factory was rebuilt, a strike broke out and lasted over six weeks. This ended with some concessions by the new owners, apparently as a result of Bernard Halpern’s intercession. David Shlossberg (whose writings serve as practically the only source on the communist movement from its beginnings up to 1924–25) attributes the success of the strike to the “Red Faction” and “his own activities” in particular. Unlike the plywood factory, originally founded by Zionists and staffed by a Zionist foreman and clerks, the match factory was a bastion of the extreme left-wing parties and the scene of scuffles between Bundist, Left Poalei Zion, and communists. When word came of Lenin’s death in January 1924, work in the match factory ceased for an hour, and the workers gathered for a “mourning meeting.” Nisel Forman and Alter Sertshuk spoke on behalf of the Bund and Avraham Puterman on behalf

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of the Left Poalei Zion. Work was stopped in the plywood factory, too, but for only ten minutes, and no memorial words were spoken. In spite of their strict secrecy, the Red Faction was uncovered by the secret police acting with the help of an agent, and most of the members were arrested in the spring of 1924. Among the detainees were David Shlossberg, Nisel Wagman, Yudel Koznitz and Haim Kot, Avraham Puterman, Nisel Forman, Alter Sertshuk, and someone by the name of Avraham Fredman. The last four were released after a few days; the others remained in prison until the trial. From the indictment it became clear to the prisoners that it was Fredman, ostensibly a communist, who had revealed their secrets. Fredman paid for this with his life—he was shot one night in August 1925. First-class investigators were dispatched from Warsaw, and a reward was offered for revealing the identity of the assassin. Nisel Braverman was suspected but apparently managed to flee. On September 4, 1925, the trial of the Red Faction began in the Casino theater. Eight of the best lawyers, some of them from Warsaw, defended the accused. A verdict was pronounced on September 14. David Shlossberg was sentenced to six years of severe imprisonment, twenty men were sentenced to four years of severe imprisonment, twelve men were sentenced to two-and-a-half years, and the rest were released.201 The detentions did not put an end to communist activities. According to Natilkin, the communist historian of Pinsk, in 1926 there were over 110 regular members of the communist party, besides dozens of sympathizers among the workers and the intelligentsia. Not all were Jewish. In the 1927 municipal elections, the communists ran a separate slate called Arbeter Einheit (workers’ union) and won a single slot. Isaac Portnoy, an engraver employed at the match factory, became a member of the municipal council. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment for an “anti-government” diatribe at the council. ­Others were arrested at the same time: Mina Prizant, Zamartshuk—the secretary of the chemists’ union (an employee in the match factory), Michael Mashtashuk—a candidate on the Arbeter Einheit list (along with Hirsh Friedman, also a communist activist), and another twenty individuals.202 In the 1928 Sejm elections, the Arbeter Einheit list won 494 votes. In the 1930 municipal elections, the communist list was called the Arbeter

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Solidaritet. The candidates, Josef Biltzky, Y. Makhlin, and M. Shumkah, won 575 votes. Biltzky was chosen to serve as a member of the municipal council.203 Arrests and trials of communists were a regular occurrence. On September 2, 1928, communist youngsters staged a procession, and one was arrested. On October 24, 1928, a trial of four young people was conducted: the defendants were Haim Koznitz—for disseminating communist propaganda; Reuven Yaksher—for distributing proclamations against the “white terror,” Tzipah Sherman and Pesheh Skliarnik— for singing the “Internationale” in Russian. All four were released. Prior to the first of May 1930, mass arrests, probably of communists, took place. In October 1931 twenty-seven communists were put on trial in Pinsk. Two of them were sentenced to six years imprisonment, three— to four years imprisonment, two—to two years imprisonment, and the other twenty were freed. It is not clear whether all were Jews nor if all were from Pinsk. In January 1933 a young man was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, and six others were acquitted. A political trial of thirteen peasants and one Jew took place during the same period. In December 1933 forty-nine communists stood trial, but, again it is unclear how many were Jews and whether all were from Pinsk. According to Natilkin, about two hundred people were arrested on August 9, 1935.204 Communist influence was limited primarily to the young workers in the factories and workshops. According to Ya’acov Eliasberg, however, there were few communists in the plywood factory under his management. A report seized from a Soviet agent stated: “It is not worth investing even a penny in the Luria factory, since the familial-type, patriarchal relationships between the workers and the management leave us no opening.”205 It seems, nevertheless, that there were active communists there. Eliasberg writes about Pesah Baranchuk, a dynamic and influential factory worker who was sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Eliasberg mentions Genia Hendler as an active communist and states that a worker Moshe Yaksher had stood trial, but that in his [Eliasberg’s] opinion, “he had no connection to revolutionary activity.”206 There were communists among the students as well. Anyak Eisenberg, for instance, was a well-known communist, and when the Bolsheviks entered the city in 1939, he was appointed as one of the principals

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of the Tarbut gymnasium, whose curriculum and character were modified. In the spring of 1938, the Polish secret police shut down the Poalei Zion-Z.S. Brenner library because of communist books and propaganda leaflets found there. The public security officer had admonished the library management, which, in turn, warned the librarian Nahum Samurin. Samurin did not remove the offending literature from the shelves. He himself may have had communist leanings, for the communists advised their members to register as readers in this library. The matter did not end with the closing of the library. Samurin was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, and the entire library administration, although composed of Poalei Zion-Z.S. members, was arrested and interrogated by the judge assigned to “the most important cases.” Among the detainees were Pesah Pkach, Neiman, and Moshe’le Papish. Pkach’s father Yehudah Pkach interceded, and the men were released on bail subject to police supervision. They were forbidden to leave the city and had to report to the police every day.207 The neighboring settlement of Iwanik also was home to young communist zealots, who harassed the police and the Polish secret police. (Iwanik was a Jewish agricultural settlement that served as a vacation and convalescent spot for Pinsk Jews. Tradition had it that Iwanik had been established by Wolf Levin of Pinsk in the mid-nineteenth century in the period of Jewish agricultural settlement.) Iwanik communists such as Haim, the son of the village melamed, who had served as apprentice to a Pinsk tailor, were tortured in the prisons and the detention camp of Kartoz-Breza.208 Jews in New York had established “sponsorship” committees to assist “political prisoners” in their home towns. Former Pinskers also set up such a group with S. Glieber serving as secretary. In 1936 the Pinsk “political prisoners” sent a letter to “Pinskers in America,” which was published in the newsletter of the sponsor organization Tzu Hilf: It is impossible to describe the tortures in the prisons, and after being released the [prisoners’] situation is even worse. They cannot obtain apartments and work because of persecution by the police. Pneumonia and similar ailments are not regarded as illnesses by the prison directors, and doctors are not permitted to attend on tuberculosis cases. There are many tuberculosis patients among us. After “sitting” [in

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prison] for four, six, ten years, these are broken people. . . . Some are arrested again immediately after they are released. Not long ago a young worker was freed after he had “sat” for several years, and he was just sentenced again for fifteen years.

(The writers close with appreciation for past assistance and express hope for future help.) This appeal is addressed “to all who understand them and recognize the significance of their struggle against the fascist anti-semitic Polish murderers.” In 1938 the Pinsk sponsorship published an “appeal to all Pinsk organizations and to all former residents of Pinsk and the vicinity,” which included a letter from Pinsk. About half a year ago we wrote to you about all the Pinsk political prisoners suffering abuse in the prisons. . . . Since then their numbers have increased. . . . The following have been arrested recently: Avraham Hendler—previously sentenced to four years in jail, now to another eight years; Feigel Gitelman—she has already “sat” four years, must now “sit” another six years and is scheduled for an additional trial; Gitel Rosenbaum from Iwanik—sentenced to six years; Blidovsky and his sister from Iwanik—sentenced to three years and two years; Havah Greitzer has already “sat” six years and anticipates additional years. A strike has just broken out in the Lishche factory, and the police detained several workers and sent them to jail.

The appeal also reports that the Pinsk and Vilna sponsors committees, in cooperation with the central board of all the committees, were now involved in trying to save the life of a Pinsker who had already served eight years in a Vilna prison and was due to spend another four years there; he was fatally ill, and there was a chance that he would be released.209

Zionist Orthodoxy—the Mizrahi All over Poland, including Pinsk, religious orthodoxy was more prominent now than it had been at the time of the First World War. The observant succeeded in consolidating themselves and increasing their strength through organizational activity and educational work. The Mizrahi’s role in the Orthodox world, however, was minimal, both in Poland and

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in Pinsk. In the 1927 municipal elections, it did not win a single seat. The results of the 1928 kehillah elections were similar, as the party received only fifty-nine votes. In the 1936 kehillah elections, the Mizrahi did manage to win one representative.210 The Pinsk Mizrahi party was not particularly enterprising in either communal or educational affairs. In 1930 the Mizrahi and the Zeirei Mizrahi [young Mizrahi] opened a club. In June 1934 they conducted the city’s first oneg Shabbat [Sabbath social gathering]. The speakers were Rabbi Borukh Epstein, Y. Neidich, and S. N. Gitelman.211 ­He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi was founded in 1924. That year, students of the Beit Yosef yeshivah formed a group called Yosef Ha-Kana’i [Joseph the zealot], and several members left to receive pioneer training; they had no organizational connection, however, to He-Halutz ­Ha-Mizrahi. Two private religious schools were conducted in the Mizrahi spirit: the Yavneh boys’ school, an outgrowth of the hadarim metukanium, run by Simha Dobowsky, and the Tushiyyah co-ed school where the Hebrew language was taught in Sephardic pronunciation, along with Polish and mathematics.212

Non-Zionist Orthodoxy The Pinsk branch of the Agudah party had been founded before the First World War and increased in size and strength between the wars although not all the non-Zionist Orthodox were Agudah members. Rabbi Avraham Walkin, Rabbi David Rabinsky, and Rabbi Shmuel Mikhel Rabinowitz were surely close to the party, if not actually members. In Pinsk, as elsewhere in Poland, education was the movement’s primary focus. In 1924 the Merkaz Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot was established in Vilna to organize and centralize contributions to the yeshivot (and abolish the system whereby each yeshivah dispatched its own emissaries and preachers). Rabbi Shimon Shkop—head of the Telz yeshivah until the First World War, and thereafter of the Grodno yeshivah—and Rabbi P. Pruskin came to Pinsk to organize pledges for this “yeshivah tax.” They spoke in the Great Synagogue and in the Hasidic synagogues

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of Karlin and Pinsk. A committee was formed, and hundreds signed pledges. Rabbi Walkin was active in this effort; he traveled through the neighboring villages on behalf of the project and over a thousand collection boxes were distributed at his initiative. A convention of rabbis was scheduled to take place in Pinsk on January 23, 1925, apparently to drum up support for the undertaking. Except for the Rabbi of Kobryn, however, no rabbis showed up, and Rabbi Walkin informed the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot that because an appeal for orphans was being held on the same day, he had decided “with a large assembly of the community’s dignitaries . . . to postpone the matter for another occasion.” Rabbi Walkin requested that “they make sure to send influential people in keeping with the community’s prestige.” Pinsk contributions to the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot were nevertheless small, or perhaps they dwindled due to the great economic crisis. The Beit Yosef yeshivah, which had been transplanted to the city by refugees from the musar yeshivah of Novaredok (Novogrudok) [Rabbi Yosef Yozel Hurwitz, a prominent disciple of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, founded a musar yeshiva in the Lithuanian city of Novaredok in 1896, which emphasized the ethical and devotional aspects of Judaism], and the elementary yeshivah were always financially strapped. The head of Beit Yosef, Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub, claimed frequently that the Merkaz Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot was depriving his institution and was not giving its fair share of the American aid money. On one occasion, Rabbi Weintraub complained that five months had gone by, and he had not yet received his (paltry) salary; he had no money to pay the rent and his possessions were liable to be seized “for nonpayment of a thirty-five zloty tax.” One individual wrote to the Merkaz Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot that “the main reason for its lack of success here,” was that the few community activists were too busy worrying about the survival of the city’s yeshivah students “since the local yeshivah students are dreadfully needy and many are going naked and barefoot.”213 The Pinsk chapter of Tiferet Bahurim, an organization for the promotion of Torah and religious education, was founded in 1926 at the initiative of Rabbi Moshe Bernstein and Rabbi Shmaryah Weingarten, son of the Hasidic rabbi of Lyubeshov, Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon Weingarten. In 1929 the group sent a letter to Horev, the educational arm of

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the Agudah in Vilna, informing it that the society now numbered about two hundred young people drawn from the ranks of laborers and commercial employees. Because the organization had branched out, it now needed a salaried director, and the writer was requesting suggestions for a suitable candidate. To qualify, a candidate needed to be a pious Jew, a good popular speaker, capable of writing newspaper articles, possessed of organizational talent and familiarity with the “complicated organizational machinery,” a man with broad perspectives, willing to increase the institution’s scope. The proposed salary was approximately three hundred guilden a month. The final, crucial note: the candidate had to be antipathetic to Zionism in all its forms, even the Mizrahi. The attitude of the Agudah leaders to Zion­ism is clear. (The writer requests that a reply be sent to Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon Weingarten, the rebbe of Lyubeshov, who was living in Pinsk, directed to the “Honorary Secretary Shmerl,” the rabbi’s son.) On June 27, 1927, Horev held a regional conference in the Karlin Talmud Torah. The participants were Rabbi Rabinowitz from Karlin; Rabbi Avraham Elimelekh Perlov, the Hasidic Rabbi of Karlin; Rabbi Moshe Reiz, head of the Beit Yosef yeshivah; Alter Kolodny; Shmuel Chernihov; Berl Levin; and others. They decided to form a Horev district committee in Pinsk.214 A Horev school already existed, and now a Bais Yaakov school for girls was founded, and its building was completed in 1930.215 In April 1930 Rebbitzin Rabinowitz of Karlin founded a committee to organize a federation of Orthodox women. The committee members were: Bat-Sheva Gevirtzman—chairwoman, Sheineh Rahel Friedman—vice chairwoman, Esther Holtzman—treasurer, Tziporah Gershonovitz—secretary.216 The organization was probably set up to provide assistance to the Bais Yaakov school. Agudah strength was concentrated in the Hasidic circles of Karlin. On November 18, 1935, a regional conference was held in the city, with the participation of the leader of the Agudah in Poland, Rabbi Itche Meir Levin.217 In the 1927 municipal elections, the Agudah won one delegate. On the kehillah council, formed in 1928, they had three representatives: Denenberg, Leib Tennenbaum, and Yeshayahu Gevirtzman. Gevirtzman was also elected to the kehillah executive. The 1936 kehillah elections show a decrease in the number of Agudah voters. The three

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Orthodox lists formed one bloc but won only two members on the kehillah council, Leib Tennenbaum and Z. Zingman. No one was chosen for the executive.

The He-Halutz Movement, He-Halutz Ha-Kelali During the German occupation of Pinsk, young people were already preparing themselves for aliyah by doing agricultural work,218 unaware of the He-Halutz [pioneer] movement forming in Russia. In 1920–21, pioneers from Russia arrived in Pinsk, having crossed the border with difficulty. The Zeirei Zion took charge of their lodging and board and arranged employment for them in the sawmills, all in strict secrecy for fear of the special border police who suspected everyone of Bolshevism who crossed the border without a permit. The pioneers were transferred to Vilna and then to the Land of Israel. At the same time, members of Maccabi [Jewish scouting movement, whose members began to settle in Palestine in 1932–33] and other young Zionists formed a branch of He-Halutz in Pinsk. Zeirei Zion did not consider it necessary to join He-Halutz because its own party was also involved in education toward pioneering.219 This attitude changed, however, in 1923 after the merger with the Right Poalei Zion. Since the Poalei Zion-Z.S. in Poland had taken He-Halutz under its wing and linked it to the general workers’ federation in the Land of Israel, the Pinsk party leaders could not stand on the sidelines if they wanted either to influence the direction of the pioneering movement or to share in the privileges of He-Halutz with regard to receiving Palestine immigration certificates. Party members planning to emigrate organized within the He-Halutz framework, and remnants of the earlier He-Halutz joined them. The He-Halutz chapter in Pinsk was revived and numbered about one hundred members, mostly from YSAY (Yiddishe Sotsialistishe Arbeter Yungt, Jewish socialist worker youth). The issue of training was now pertinent. An employment office was set up to find jobs in the sawmills and other such places. In the summer of 1923, a group left to do harvesting in the agricultural settlement of Iwanik. In 1924 thirty young men and thirty young women emigrated

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to the Land of Israel; some joining Kevutzat Pinsk there. With the wave of the Fourth Aliyah, young men and women from various circles all over Poland, including Pinsk and Polesie, joined He-Halutz. Party spokesmen primed themselves for educational and informational work in the socialist-Zionist spirit. They hoped that all the pioneers of Pinsk and Polesie would join Kevutzat Pinsk in Palestine. Initially, they paid no attention to equipping people for a life of labor. The young men and women of Pinsk were already used to that, and the question of expertise in a specific trade was not yet relevant. As to readying people for communal life— Pinsk pioneers were apparently not so inclined. Meanwhile, regional He-Halutz councils were formed and received authorization to distribute aliyah permits. The Polesie regional council was located in Pinsk. Hershel Pinsky, head of the council, accomplished a great deal in the towns of Polesie, visiting existing He-Halutz chapters and organizing new ones. He continued his activities in Polesie even after his election to the He-Halutz center in Warsaw and served as the center’s representative to Polesie. After Pinsky emigrated to Palestine at the end of 1925, Arka Weiner (Yisraeli) was most active in He-Halutz. Weiner and several members of YSAY, among them members of Mishmeret Hadashah, ran the information and training activities in the district He-Halutz groups through visits or pamphlets. They set the tone of the Polesie He-Halutz, which in effect was a double of the Right Poalei Zion. Young people in the villages of Polesie were generally backward in political-party orientation and knowledge of socialist doctrine, so it was not difficult to train and influence them. Socialist dogma, including the principle of class warfare, was the main topic of theoretical training. Pioneers who had regular jobs were required to join trade unions, for He-Halutz needed to engage in “current practical work,” even though its real focus was the Land of Israel. Their intention was to prepare for life in Palestine through their jobs in Pinsk, even though the leadership hoped that the pioneers would ultimately join Kevutzat Pinsk, whose aim was to settle on the land. This position of straddling the fence, working “here” in Pinsk, while hoping to settle “there” in Palestine, was reflected in their position on the language issue as well. The Right Poalei Zion position of support for both Hebrew and Yiddish was transferred to He-Halutz. A. Weiner suggests that they did not wish to break the spiritual bond between

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Palestine and the Diaspora by eradicating the values inherent in Yiddish literature. The movement spokesmen, however, did not realize that the impulse to flee and forget the Diaspora, present in every emigrant and potential emigrant, was crucial to the process of building the Land and worthy of being nurtured. The “prosperity” at the beginning of the Fourth Aliyah perhaps kept the leadership from imagining a period when pioneers would be faced with the harsh reality of life in the Land of Israel. Many He-Halutz members were among those who left when the going got tough. That very ideological and practical bridge between here and there, “between the affirmation of the Diaspora and the establishment of Zionism,” which was at the foundation of He-Halutz education, may have been a contributory factor to their departure from the Land. The He-Halutz position was nevertheless not modified even after the crisis of the Fourth Aliyah began. Educational and informational activities, letter-writing, and speeches were all conducted in Yiddish, in part out of consideration for members who did not yet know Hebrew, but in part in the name of respect for “the folk.” At the fourth He-Halutz conference in October 1925, Hershel Pinsky, the arbiter of party affairs (in Polesie at least), made the following statements: It is impossible to be a plain pioneer, [one must be] a pioneer of the workers’ movement. Political maturity and empathy for the organization of the workers’ movement—this is what we must cultivate. In the course of their work in the communal settlements, our workers have encountered the questions of class solidarity and class consciousness. . . . Our information efforts must ensure, among other things, that our comrades should not hate the language of the masses. . . . Why is there no understanding of [the need for] a Yiddish newspaper for the He-Halutz organization in Poland? The international office of He-Halutz can publish a monthly in Hebrew, but the Polish organization must put out a paper in Yiddish.220

Pinsky wished to transplant the class struggle between Pinsk workers and employers to Tel Aviv, where industry was yet in its infancy: The pioneer must be the linchpin upon which the workers’ federation rests. If we wish to create understanding between the city and the village, our comrade who goes to the village must feel a connection to the struggle of the city.221

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The cultural work of the Polesie He-Halutz did in fact emphasize “political maturity.” The “culture” brought by Etyl Gottlieb—a product of Mishmeret Hadashah—and others, to branches in the district, consisted of political economy and Marxist doctrine.222 At the same time, they hoped that He-Halutz would serve as the “pioneer of the workers’ movement,” closely aligned with the Histadrut Ha-Klalit shel Ha-Ovdim Ha-Ivri’im be’Eretz Yisra’el (general federation of Hebrew workers in the Land of Israel), subject to its authority, and complying with its instructions; the Histadrut was open to all workers who were not exploiters of labor, regardless of their political views and class consciousness. It was probably no coincidence, therefore, that no thought was given to the need for relaying information about events in Palestine, even if not about the Histadrut. This and similar cases had been resolved in 1923 at the third He-Halutz conference in Poland.223 Hitahdut party members refused to participate in training communes of the Polesie He-Halutz, claiming that it had been transformed into a private Poalei Zion “shop.”224 On the other hand, at that point there was no force except for the Right Poalei Zion that was capable of dealing with the heavy organizational and educational burden of He-Halutz in Polesie. According to Hershel Pinsky’s report at a meeting of the He-Halutz center in the spring of 1925, there were forty-five chapters, with nine hundred male and five hundred female members. In the training communes, there were 260 people. Pinsk itself had a forty-member commune (later on, fifty members) lodged in Beit He-Halutz. The young men were employed in construction or paving city streets, and the young women worked at gardening.225 The commune members were from the towns of Polesie, however, and not from Pinsk itself. An employment office was set up to arrange jobs for the Pinsk pioneers, because so many were unemployed at the time. In 1923 He-Halutz Ha-Tzair (the young pioneer) was organized; Pinsky reported that these branches were developing better than the ones for adults. The establishment of HeHalutz Ha-Tzair in Pinsk met with difficulties. The Poalei Zion-Z.S. was not enthusiastic about the new group since they already had a youth organization, organized by age into cells, with a Zionist-socialist educational framework. They feared that their party structure would

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be hurt by the new organization. In practice, He-Halutz Ha-Tzair also turned into a duplicate of the party youth movement; in Polesie it bore the burden of pioneering work and was tied into the party’s political efforts as well.226 The crisis of the Fourth Aliyah was reflected in the He-Halutz movement. The Pinsk commune disintegrated, as did many others in Poland. After numerous members had left, activities continued without enthusiasm. On the other hand, during the period of prosperity at the start of the Fourth Aliyah, the pioneers had disappointed the Histadrut Ha-Klalit shel Ha-Ovdim Ha-Ivri’im be’Eretz Yisra’el when they settled in the city as individuals without making themselves available to the Histadrut for “taking over labor” in the agricultural settlements. A new idea was then formulated: the founding of kibbutzei aliyah, that is, the consolidation of groups of pioneers prior to their immigration, in hope that members would not set off on their own when they arrived in the Land of Israel. A resolution to this effect was adopted at the Danzig Conference of March 1926.227 In the summer of 1926, a meeting of the Polesie region was held to organize a kibbutz aliyah to be associated with Kevutzat Pinsk in Palestine. A. Weiner, the main speaker expounded on the situation of Kevutzat Pinsk and what it needed from He-Halutz in Polesie. After meetings and discussions about the nature and purpose of a kibbutz aliyah, a group was founded, as Weiner proposed, with one hundred members from twenty chapters.228 The general sluggishness in the Zionist movement caused by the departures of the Fourth Aliyah and the economic crisis in Palestine— along with other factors—led to decreased aliyah and serious weakening of He-Halutz. In 1926 the Pinsk branch of He-Halutz suffered a grave crisis. Whereas in 1925 Kevutzat Pinsk had absorbed young people from Pinsk, in the summer of 1926, new arrivals were “mostly He-Halutz members from the Polesie district,”229 not from Pinsk itself. A somewhat vague news item of December 1926 notes that He-Halutz activity had been renewed and that a meeting had been held with the participation of four hundred people; Y. Eisenberg and A. Weiner had addressed the group. “Fifty people volunteered for a ‘Flower Day’ project on behalf of He-Halutz.”230 (This collection may have been for the benefit of needy pioneers about to emigrate.)

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He-Halutz’s recovery followed the 1929 Palestine riots and came as a result of the activities of Hershel Pinsky who arrived as an emissary to He-Halutz and remained in Poland from the beginning of 1930 until the end of 1931. Expansion in Polesie was, nonetheless, not significant. Fifty-seven delegates from thirty-seven locales attended the Polesie He-Halutz conference in Pinsk on July 4, 1930. In 1934 there were twenty-eight branches in Polesie, as compared to sixty-two in the Bialystok district, fifty-three in the Wohlynia district, and seventy-one in the Vilna district. At the counselors’ sessions that year, participation was as follows: Polesie—37 male, 56 female; Bialystok and vicinity—130 men, 170 women; Wohlynia—91 men, 143 women; Vilna and vicinity—200 men and 323 women.231 The prospect of emigration was evidently more critical for the women than for the men. Nor did He-Halutz Ha-Tzair, for those below the age of eighteen, develop as well in Polesie as in other districts of Poland. Initially it was viewed as superfluous by party spokesmen. The YSAY and Freiheit youth groups, particularly, questioned it since at the first He-Halutz Ha-Tzair conference at the end of 1927, a resolution was adopted forbidding members to join any other youth organizations.232 In 1927 the Vilna district had thirty-seven branches of He-Halutz Ha-Tzair while the Polesie district had only eight.233 The Pinsk group was a “small chapter, more like a circle.”234 In 1933 in contravention of the resolution, Freiheit absorbed He-Halutz Ha-Tzair. A delegation arrived from the He-Halutz Ha-Tzair central committee to restore the original situation. Party spokesmen objected to this, and a special emissary was dispatched by the central committee to organize a new chapter of ­He-Halutz Ha-Tzair.235 (In 1938, however, He-Halutz Ha-Tzair of Poland merged with Freiheit.) Life and work in the Land of Israel had changed Hershel Pinsky’s perspectives on the sort of education required for young pioneers. He complained that the Brenner library had no “new Hebrew books . . . only Yiddish books had been added.”236 He notes with satisfaction that the second national conference of He-Halutz Ha-Tzair, held in Domachvo in May 1931, was conducted entirely in Hebrew, “except for a few who spoke Yiddish.”237 Pinsky, who years earlier had vigorously rejected David Barzilai’s assertions against speaking in Yiddish, began

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to wonder whether his position had been correct. Pinsky’s speeches in the branches and the communes revolved about life in the Land.238 The situation of the worker in the city, the village, the farming settlements. . . . Our relations with the Arabs. . . . Family life in the kevutzah [communal settlement].

Even Pinsky’s Socialist-Marxist orthodoxy was waning as he witnessed the decline of Polish Jewry. He ceased his vacillation between here and there. He hints at this: There is a real difference between my work then and my work now. Now there is authority and assurance in our words, and I am also more confident when I speak of Zionist loyalty, pioneering devotion, a life of work and creativity.239

Pinsky, who had pressed the Pinsk Zeirei Zion to merge with the Right Poalei Zion, would now have chosen a union in the opposite direction and asked: “What is the justification for the separate existence of two youth movements, He-Halutz Ha-Tzair and Gordonia, now that the parties have been consolidated?” that is, after the founding of Mapai [(acronym for the Hebrew Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael, Israel workers’ party) resulting from the union of Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair and Ahdut ­Ha-Avodah in 1930, paralleled by the 1931 merger of Poalei Zion and Zeirei Zion in the Diaspora].240 Pinsky’s personal opinions apparently had little influence on HeHalutz. Groups of He-Halutz and He-Halutz Ha-Tzair existed in Pinsk up to the Second World War but were not very active. Pinsk pioneers left to receive training in other kibbutzim. Frumka Plotnitzky, for instance, left for the Tel Hai commune in Bialystok in 1935; her sister Hankhah left for the Branovitz commune in 1936. Some of the pioneers remained in training for five or six years, under very difficult conditions.241 In 1935 a seminar for He-Halutz was held in Pinsk. It was run by Yisrael Sheinbaum and G. Kot. Lecturers at the seminar were: Benari from Palestine, who spoke about the workers’ movement; Zamkovsky, who spoke about historic materialism; D. Alper—Hebrew literature; ­Weitzel—the Jewish workers’ movement; Professor Axelrod—Zionism; Hanokh Levin—Hebrew literature; Kanat, the principal of Medrashah Tarbut in Pinsk—geography of the Land of Israel.

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In 1931 a group from the training kibbutz, Shahariah, whose members were not Pinskers, settled itself in the city with help from HeHalutz and Poalei Zion. This group numbered forty people in 1932; in 1935, seventy. During the crisis years, it struggled because of the attitude of other parties. “Contractors” who ran private “employment services” for workers (while ensuring their personal benefit on the side), did not flinch from fistfights with Shahariah members.242 “More than once the fellows drifted around the city with their axes over their shoulders [looking for work], but returned as they had set out.” Some of the Poalei Zion activists, Pesah Pkach in particular, took care of them and arranged a few regular jobs in the Kunda and Levin sawmills and the match and plywood factories. Dr. Elazar Bregman, vice-mayor of Pinsk, made sure that they received free medical help; those working in the factories received medical care from the government sick-fund.243 Pinsker Sztyme carried this advertisement: Kibbutz Shahariah accepts work in carpentry, tailoring, sewing, shoemaking, linen repair, wood-cutting, well-digging, laundering, housecleaning, etc.244

A January 1935 article states: The Shahariah group in the city numbers seventy members, mostly craftsmen, who are forced to work at various jobs. . . . A few are employed temporarily in the factories. . . . Some pioneers have permanent jobs in the Schneider-Feldman Lische plywood factory and the KundaWeinberg plywood factory, but for the most part they are treated like stepchildren.

This article adds that the “Committee for Kibbutz Shahariah” has been formed to find work. A pioneer who arrived in 1936 attested: A sponsor committee for the kibbutz was activated, with the participation of prominent citizens, and they did their best to assist and ameliorate the situation. With their help, we entered the factories.245

Another group from Shahariah was located in Horodishitz, near Pinsk, in 1931; in 1936 the members, including non-Pinskers, numbered 120. They worked in the Union plywood factory, had a sounder economic base, and were alert to cultural matters. Anti-semitism was first

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felt in Horodishitz in 1936. An emissary of the Z.Z.Z. (a Polish youth movement) set up a Society for Christian Workers and demanded that Shahariah join the group. Since they refused, the society members attacked a group preparing for a Tel Hai evening (apparently a memorial evening for the fallen at Tel Hai) and wounded twelve. The factory management fired the attackers, but they were reinstated when the government applied pressure.246

He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi When the Right Poalei Zion party took over He-Halutz Ha-Kelali, the general-Zionist and religious young people had no choice but to organize their own pioneer movements in order to obtain immigration certificates. A branch of He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi, the General Zionist He-Halutz [pioneers], was formed in 1923. At first it had to fight for its existence and for recognition as a pioneering movement, not only with the central institutions of the Zionist Organization, but with the local Zionist Federation as well. This conflict was apparently a result of opposition by Yitzhak Gruenbaum, founder of the Al Ha-Mishmar faction [see above, this chapter].247 Gruenbaum had misgivings about the “pioneering” of these pioneers. In addition, whereas He-Halutz Ha-Kelali had strong backing from the Right Poalei Zion party and the Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet, as well as representatives of the Histadrut who came to Poland to work with it, He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi had to be self-sufficient. There was hardly any difference between the viewpoints and opinions of Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi and He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi, just as there was no intrinsic distinction between Freiheit and He-Halutz Ha-Tzair nor between the Right Poalei Zion party and He-Halutz Ha-Kelali under its jurisdiction. There was, however, a difference between the political parties and their corresponding youth movements. The parties dealt with national politics: with the policy of working to ameliorate the circumstances of the Jews in the Diaspora (Gegenwart-arbeit), elections for the congresses, and competition over mandates. Because of the members’ age and family status, they did not consider themselves suitable candi-

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dates for immediate immigration and awaited the appropriate opportunity. The Freiheit’s situation was similar. In addition to its Zionist orientation, it was part of the international socialist movement and was concerned with the struggle for realizing world socialism. Only those who wholeheartedly aspired to uproot themselves from exile joined HeHalutz Ha-Tzair. Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi and He-Halutz ­Ha-Merkazi were almost identical. Both movements were oriented toward the Land of Israel; the only difference was a social one. Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi was composed primarily of students at the Tarbut gymnasium whereas He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi was composed of young working people, as was He-Halutz Ha-Kelali—“common folk”—workers in the Halpern and Luria factories, craftsmen who worked for wages, tillers of the soil whose fathers before them had worked in agriculture and supplied vegetables to Pinsk residents, as well as former Bund members. They may have been attracted to He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi because it did not require the lengthy training of He-Halutz Ha-Kelali.248 Later on, some students from the Tarbut gymnasium joined this group. It is illuminating that when the Pinsk He-Halutz Ha-Kelali was at a low point, He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi was flourishing. The fates of the two were most probably intertwined. At its inception He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi counted some thirty-odd; not long afterward, it numbered over eighty members.249 In the summer of 1929, when He-Halutz Ha-Kelali activities were non-existent, members of Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi and He-Halutz ­Ha-Merkazi left for the estate of Zamoshe, near Motele, for agricultural training. The same year a He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi youth group was organized. In May 1930 another group of Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi left for six months’ training, apparently at the same site, and a group of He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi went to the Tverdovsky estate near Pinsk. Members of various chapters in Poland were part of the latter group.250 In 1931 there was a crisis in the He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi movement. This may have been a result of the He-Halutz Ha-Kelali revival that followed Hershel Pinsky’s visit or a consequence of the growing tension between the Revisionists and Betar and the General Zionists. A 1931 article reports that because of internal squabbles, He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi was flagging and left with only thirty members.251 The movement over-

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came its weakness. On August 21 a movement convention took place in Pinsk with the participation of Y. Haftman of the central committee. In the early 1930s, the city had a regional committee in addition to the local committee. Yehoshua Begun served as chairman, but he left He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi and founded the Pinsk branch of Ha-Miflaga Ha-­Medinatit (party in favor of a sovereign Jewish state) in 1934. Sh. Rabinsky seems to have taken over as chairman.252 In November 1933 He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi of Polesie held a conference in the city. In 1932 He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi had followed in the footsteps of He-Halutz Ha-Kelali and founded its own training kibbutz named Polesie. Its members, as had been the case with the Shahariah group, were not Pinskers. A photograph from January 14, 1933, showing twenty-eight young men and women, bears the caption: “Kibbutz Polesie of Pinsk, memento of the emigration of the members to the Land of Israel.”253 Polesie, like Shahariah, lasted up to the outbreak of the Second World War. A 1937 article states: There are two kibbutzim in our city, one with many members, the other smaller. . . . We must understand that they live here among us— for our sakes . . . for our future . . . Let us help them.254

He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi had a clubhouse. Cultural activity in the chapter and in the kibbutz consisted of unadulterated Zionism and study of the Hebrew language and the history of the Jewish people. Members also solicited for the Jewish National Fund, like all the Zionist youth movements.

He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi According to a native of Pinsk (A. Z. Tarshish), by 1924 a chapter of He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi had already been organized in the city. A. Druyanov, who was in Pinsk in the spring of 1932, however, mentions only “the leftist He-Halutz,” the “rightist He-Halutz,” and Zeirei Ha-Mizrahi (young Mizrahi). Perhaps He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi (the Mizrachi pioneers) did not have any impact in the city. Its members were primarily yeshivah students whose motto was “Torah and Labor”; it is doubtful whether they ever exceeded thirty in number.

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There was also an independent pioneering group in the Beit Yosef yeshivah in Pinsk, some of whose members left for training and emigrated to Palestine.255

He-Halutz Ha-Betari For a short period, He-Halutz Ha-Betari existed in the city, too. A 1930 article notes that two groups of Betar members left for training in Luninec on May 4 and May 6 and that a third group was preparing to set out.256 In 1934, a special pioneering group named He-Halutz Ba’al Melakhah [pioneer craftsmen] was active in the city.257 Pinsk’s young Zionists, of all persuasions, were vigorous and dedicated themselves ardently to their activities, which were not limited to local projects. Pinsk furnished party activists and spokesmen who made their mark on the larger movements to which they belonged. With these efforts, the young people gave meaning to otherwise empty lives; they discovered hope for a better life and developed a sense of self-worth. It is, however, questionable whether the divisions and fragmentations were necessary or beneficial to their common cause and whether tensions between the various camps were justifiable. A. Druyanov comments on these relationships: Zeirei Mizrahi despises the left [Zionist] federations, especially HaShomer Ha-Tzair, and these loathe Zeirei Mizrahi—I think the verbs used here define the relationship between the two. Were the leftist federations able to devour Betar, they would do so and consider it a celebratory feast (seudah shel mitzvah); if they could annihilate them altogether, they would leap for joy. Even within the bounds of Zionist work, to which all the youth federations subscribe and for which they all toil—the various legions cannot pitch their tents alongside one another and form a single camp.

On May 24, 1932, when Hibbat Zion and the Jewish National Fund celebrated their anniversaries: The leftist He-Halutz and the Poalei Zion did not join [in the procession], not because they found the slightest thing offensive about the jubilee itself, but because they could not take part in a parade together

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with Betar, which had just disgraced itself publicly: Betar had not gone along with the demonstration of the first of May but had participated in the demonstration of May third [the day on which the Polish constitution, currently breached by the authorities, had been declared]. Even Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair which did participate—partially—in the procession, made a point of not setting out from the building of the Zionist Federation, but joined mid-way. Betar, along with Zeirei Mizrahi, Ha-Shomer Ha-Leumi, the rightist He-Halutz, regular Zionists and old-time Mizrahi members, evened the score—they didn’t give the left He-Halutz and Poalei Zion members a place on the “presidium of the academy” (the Polish term for the festival assembly) held in the theater in honor of the two anniversaries. They also claimed: “It is beneath our dignity to sit together with them, they have publicly shamed themselves.” So, they [the left He-Halutz and the Poalei Zion] disavowed participation in the Zionist procession. . . . In the same Polish Lithuanian town [that is, Pinsk] the Zionist emissary spoke to pupils in the elementary school founded by Shul-kult [the Tel Hai school, see below], and when he finished, the boys and girls rose and sang [the] “Tehezaknah” anthem. He asked that they sing “Ha-Tikvah” [the Zionist anthem] as well and was refused. The secretary of the school—an intelligent young man and a loyal Zionist—innocently explained to me: It is inappropriate for a school in which most of the students are aligned with Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair and He-Halutz Ha-Tzair, for “Ha-Tikvah,” the anthem of the bourgeoisie, to be sung.258

This took place before the split in the Zionist Federation caused by the departure of the Revisionists and the founding of Ha-Histadrut HaTzionit Ha-Hadashah [Hebrew acronym: Tzah; the separate Zionist organization founded by the Revisionists in 1935].

The Political Situation in the Municipality At the Versailles Peace Conference, Poland obligated itself to grant national minorities within its borders special rights in matters of religion, education, and language; the Polish constitution affirmed equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion and nationality. In practice, equality did not exist except for matters concerned with the Sejm

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elections. There was no basic change in the situation that had existed in Russia since the granting of the 1905 constitution. Pinsk Jews took part in the Sejm elections, but not a single Jew was ever chosen from the Pinsk region. Jews did, however, acquire active and passive election rights for the municipal government, which they had not had at the end of Tsarist Russia’s rule. Although Pinsk was the city with the highest percentage of Jews in all of Poland, the mayor was Polish because the law stated that only Poles could serve in that capacity. In 1919, the first time that the municipal council was constituted on the basis of democratic elections, the Jews won and made up a majority of the council members. The Zionists—who had agreed prior to the elections to form a coalition with the Russian minority and the Progressive Poles—proposed that a Pole serve as mayor. He was “an old Pole and very honest.” Two Jews (one was Avraham Asher Feinstein) were chosen to serve as lawniks (city administrative officials), along with one Pole and one Russian.259 Before the elections, the Jews had been able to dictate their terms to the progressive Poles of their coalition, the main ones being: a. All Pinsk civil service positions, as well as work contracted by the city, would be allotted proportionately, by nationality; b. All religious and cultural institutions would receive municipal assistance in proportion to their constituencies; c. Jews would be permitted to engage in business on Sundays and work in city institutions on Sunday instead of on their Sabbath; d. The Hebrew and Yiddish languages would have the same prerogatives as the official language, in speech and in writing, in all city institutions, meetings, and so forth.260

However, even then, when the Polish government wanted to subdue the fury of the Jews over the murder of the thirty-five, non-Jews in the city administration and in the municipal council tried to disavow these obligations and deprive the Jews of their rights. The city did, nonetheless, accept a large number of Jewish clerks, but local authorities did all they could to frustrate the municipal council.261 The situation changed decisively following the second temporary Bolshevik occupation and the Treaty of Riga between Poland and Soviet Russia (March 18, 1921). An avowed Endek (member of the rightwing, anti-semitic National Democratic Party) was appointed starosta

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of Pinsk, and he took every opportunity to harass the Jews.262 Feinstein was forced to resign from the city administration because of the open antipathy of the starosta. Before long the elected administration was replaced by an administration appointed by the regime: Two Jewish appointees represented the Jewish community [Binyamin Bukshtansky and Ya’acov Slutzky]. One was a sort of rabbiner (stateappointed rabbi), recorder of births, deaths and marriages, and the other was a salaried member of the council, director of several departments and representative for Jewish affairs. . . . The network of Jewish schools, vocational institutions and orphanages . . . were not supported by the municipality at all, though some may have received a few pennies. On the other hand, the city allotted huge sums for the establishment of Polish public schools, allocated lots, constructed buildings and furnished them with materials for study and writing.263

As for the clerks, There were a number of Jewish clerks among the municipal workers.264

In the institutions of the national government, there was not a single Jewish clerk, nor was there a Jewish judge in the courts, or a Jewish notary. The Polish schools apparently had no Jewish teachers. Municipal elections took place in March 1927. The wojewoda (provincial governor) appointed the district judge Jan Raut as chairman of the central election committee. Four non-Jews and two Jews were appointed members of the committee: (Bronislaw Boriewicz, Tadeusz Mosinski, Jan Dzorawski, Wasili Golow, Felix Badiman, and Mendel Treibusz). On the local election committees, there were twelve Jews and eighteen non-Jews.265 The election committee refused to pay for printing voting instructions in the Yiddish press.266 Hundreds of Jews were somehow not included in the voting lists, and many more faced difficulties because of discrepancies between their names as they appeared on the voting lists and their own documents.267 When the Jews nonetheless won decisively—this was predictable—and elected twenty out of twenty-five council members, “It was unthinkable that a Jew would be chosen as mayor, but it was clear that the vice-mayor should be a Jew.”268 As for the number of members of the city executive, “equal rights” for Jewish majority and Polish minority were declared, so that

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one Jew and one Pole were selected.269 In fact, on the basis of the city’s population, the council should have consisted of thirty members and the executive of three, in addition to the mayor and vice-mayor. The authorities set the number of councilors at twenty-five so that only two people would serve in the executive. The Jews ought to have held both seats, but the authorities did whatever they could to prevent them from forming a majority.270 The Jews themselves may have been at fault. Disunity prevailed among the factions or blocs. The “Citizens’ Bloc” of Jewish delegates—which numbered eleven in the following distribution: seven from the list of merchants and small shopkeepers, three unaffiliated and one Orthodox—acquiesced in this discrimination for fear of angering the authorities.271

The Pole Morgentaler was chosen as mayor; his vice-mayor was Binyamin Bukshtansky, who had previously served as a salaried administrative official—the “Citizens’ Bloc” did not want to deprive him of his livelihood. Ya’acov Slutzky, the “Citizens’ Bloc” representative, was chosen as a member of the administration. The left-wing parties demanded that one of their camp be the second member of the administration, and the Bund proposed Tanhum Leib Freint, but the wojewoda rejected his name272 and confirmed Slutzky and the Pole Pawlowski.273 A newspaper article reports that the wojewoda agreed to the selection of a third lawnik as compensation for rejecting Freint. It is not clear why no one was chosen; perhaps the left-wing factions, to whom the position belonged, could not reach an agreement on a candidate.274 The Jews elected to the municipal council were:

1. Aronovitz, Yerahmiel—owner of a petition-writing bureau 2. Bukshtansky, Binyamin—vice-mayor 3. Boroshok, Feivel—lawyer 4. Bregman, Dr. Elazar—PhD (chemistry) 5. Busel, Haim Kopel—bookkeeper 6. Gleiberman, Mordekhai (?)Leizer—merchant 7. Holtzman, Ya’acov—merchant 8. Volovelsky, Shmuel—printer 9. Weiner, Aharon—teacher 10. Tennenbaum, Leib—merchant

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11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Lahchin, Ovsei—merchant Levin, Leizer Moshe—bookkeeper Liubart, Yekutiel—merchant Pinsky, Hirsch—shopkeeper Pomerantz, Nahman Portnoy, Isaac—engraver Posnitzky, Shaul—dental technician Reikh, Yisrael—engineer, manager of the match factory Slutzky, Ya’acov—merchant Shlakman, Aharon Yudel—clerk275

Yisrael Reikh was elected chairman of the municipal council. One of the first questions raised at the council’s opening session concerned the prerogatives of the Yiddish language, that is, would it be possible to conduct the council deliberations in Yiddish. This was not only a matter of principle but a practical issue since “the great majority of the Jewish members did not know Polish well enough to appear in public.”276 Whether the municipality would print its announcements in Yiddish was another question. The council, which consisted of twenty Jews and five non-Jews, decided in the affirmative, even though some of the Jewish delegates from the “Citizens’ Bloc” thought the demand excessive or dangerous.277 The wojewoda revoked these resolutions and two others: 1. That the municipality would erect a monument on the grave of the thirty-five martyrs at its own expense; 2. That Listowski Street—named for the general who had conquered Pinsk in 1919, who was largely responsible for the massacre and had certainly justified it—would be renamed for the Polish author Slowacki.278

Dr. Elazar Bregman writes that in an effort to grant official standing to Yiddish, at the first public working forum of the council, he began to read “part of our faction [that is, Poalei Zion-Z.S.] platform in Yiddish. . . . However, the council president stopped me several times until I was forced, like the other left-wing spokesmen, to continue in Polish.”279 According to A. Weiner (Yisraeli), the chairman threatened to close the session if the speaker continued in Yiddish and excused himself, say-

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ing “that this was against the law and he could not change it.”280 As for erecting a monument, a proposal raised in Bregman’s speech, the council decided—since it was impossible to oppose the wojewoda’s verdict— to appeal to the Polish High Court. This appeal was delayed, however, until the deadline for its filing had passed. There were grounds to suspect that the Jewish vice-mayor Bukshtansky—who acted as mayor when Morgentaler resigned—delayed sending the appeal at the order of the vice-starosta.281 We need not dwell here upon the accomplishments of the Jewish council members in correcting injustices against Jewish educational and welfare institutions. In the 1928–29 fiscal year, the wojewoda curtailed appropriations to Jewish institutions more sharply than to Polish ones. The allotment to the Jewish old-age home was cut from seven thousand to three thousand zlotys, while the sum to the Polish old-age home was reduced from ten thousand to seven thousand zlotys.282 The w ­ ojewoda objected to one thousand zlotys in support for unemployed match factory workers.283 Appropriations to Jewish welfare institutions were completely expunged from the 1929–30 budget, and appropriations to Jewish schools greatly reduced. The attitude of the government administration to the council was probably affected by the internal conflict among various factions. The left and the right were especially fractious, and there was feuding even within the left. The council was composed of a Polish coalition of four delegates, the Jewish right—twelve delegates, and the left-wing bloc—nine delegates: three Bundists, two Left Poalei Zion, two Poalei Zion-Z.S., one Pole from the P.P.S. party, and one Ihud Poali, apparently a communist. The right and the left differed sharply on matters of general policy, on tax management, on the extent to which the municipality had the right to impose taxes, and on the division of names among various institutions. Because of the squabbling, there were frequent “resignations.” In July and August of 1928, Bukshtansky, Slutzky, Reikh the engineer, and General Zlacki (Morgentaler’s replacement as mayor) all resigned. In January 1929 the Pole, Dr. Matszynski, and Dr. Elazar Bregman were confirmed as mayor and vice-mayor, respectively. Slutzky and Pavlovsky were authorized to serve on the executive once again, along with a third representative, the Bundist Aharon Yudel Shlakman. The Jew-

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ish right wanted to make voting for Dr. Bregman conditional upon his promise to vote with them on economic issues. A scandalous scene ensued and blows were exchanged at the council session.284 Dr. Bregman was elected with some votes of the right, and the result was a split among the members of the socialist bloc. The Bund and the Left Poalei Zion went on the attack against the Poalei Zion-Z.S.; this scene gave government officials a further excuse (not that they needed any) to treat council resolutions with contempt. Under these circumstances, a reporter wrote: For months now the municipality has been plagued by resignations, and our affairs are suffering, our institutions don’t receive a penny. . . . The Council is powerless to assist. . . . The right wing is completely passive, incapable of communicating. . . . The left wing, which had been active in the municipality, has also failed. . . . The municipality disregards the Council completely. Thousands of zlotys are spent and no one knows what for. . . . There is no sense of responsibility. The fragmentation is incredible.285

Matszynski outlined his plan for the city in a pragmatic speech that included the following points: 1. He would act to have the wojewodstwo (the provincial headquarters) moved to Pinsk. 2. He would assist industrial development. 3. He would take steps to increase business activity in the city. 4. He would remove the electricity plant from the jurisdiction of the railway administration and make it a permanent source of income for the municipality. 5. Trees would be planted along the streets. 6. Social welfare would be provided by creating jobs rather than by handouts. 7. The municipality would set up a savings fund that could grant loans. 8. Pure water would be supplied to the city, and a sewer system built. 9. All night medical help would be made available. 10. Sanitary inspection would be attended to. 11. A new slaughterhouse and a modern refrigeration plant would be built to serve the Pinsk meat export trade and to make the city a center for cattle commerce and meat export.286

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Like his predecessors, however, Matszynski was suddenly fired in late October 1929 by the minister of the interior. His dismissal may have been the result of accusations leveled against him from the left by a Polish member of the council named Dzgilewski, who was also a Sejm delegate. The main charges were: 1. Matszynski does not permit discussion of items on the agenda; he talks during most of the session. 2. He does not put other people’s proposals to a vote. 3. He doctors the minutes. 4. He announces Council sessions on the day they are to take place, preventing members from attending. He wants to prove that the council cannot function, that it should be disbanded, and he should be appointed as a “commissar.”287

For a short period after the dismissal of Matszynski, the vice-mayor Dr. E. Bregman took over as mayor. In November, a series of elections for mayor took place. After fourteen ballots, the engineer S. Krzanowski was elected by the right and the Poles. The wojewoda did not confirm the choice and appointed the Colonel Stefan Karol Jordan from Warsaw as mayor of Pinsk.288 On June 28, 1930, the city council was disbanded. New elections were held in September 1930. This time nineteen Jews and five nonJews were elected. The left won ten places instead of nine even though the P.P.S. (socialist) party had lost its representative. (The left bloc was composed as follows: Right Poalei Zion, three—Dr. E. Bregman, B. Katzman, Y. Ritterman; Bund, three—A. Y. Shlakman, Freint, L.  Levin; Left Poalei Zion, three—H. K. Busel, Y. Aronovitz, Yehudit Toptshe; craftsmen’s list, one—Dr. Gleiberson. The Workers’ Solidarity slate (apparently communists) took one seat for Yozef Bilcki (a Pole). The eight members of the right bloc were: A. Mazur (principal of the Tarbut gymnasium), L. Tennenbaum (merchant), S. Goldberg (shopkeeper), Y. Holtzman, B. Pomerantz, M. Gleiberman (butcher), A. H. Neiman (merchant), D. Buniuk (merchant). Four council members represented the United Christian faction: Asmolowski, W. Iwicki (a priest), Y. Abuchowski (teacher), and Markewicz (lawyer); one council member was from the Russian list—B. Geikhrakh.289

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In February 1931 Piotr Olwinski was elected mayor, and two Jews, Yerahmiel Aronovitz of the Left Poalei Zion and Slutzky, were chosen as members of the city executive.290 But the position of vice-mayor was taken away from the Jews: in the summer of 1932, the engineer Krzanowski was appointed vice-mayor in place of Dr. E. Bregman.291 A writer assessed this development: “By virtue of intrigues and slander we managed to lose the crucial spot—the vice-mayoralty. . . . Dr. Bregman.”292 Bregman had managed to survive as vice-mayor for over three years in a period when mayors were being replaced every other day. Bregman’s party colleague A. Weiner describes his achievements: He managed to dispel the atmosphere of bureaucracy that reigned in municipal offices. Additional Jewish clerks were employed, Jewish doctors began to serve in the city clinic. Jewish teachers were accepted for advanced study of crafts in the school opened by the authorities as prescribed by law. A significant number of students from Jewish schools were sent to summer camps at the city’s expense. Orphanages and the old-age home received support equivalent to that of Christian institutions. A science laboratory was opened for use by the elementary schools, and Jewish institutions utilized it, too. Various municipal announcements were published in Yiddish.293

In spite of all this, at the end of 1931, there were only eight Jews among the sixty-one permanent clerks serving in the municipality, and only one Jew among the seventeen temporary clerks. A decision was made at that time to accept more Jews for city jobs,294 but it is not clear if it was carried out. As for support for Jewish schools, the Jews did not argue with the authorities over payment of teachers’ salaries “since our elementary schools, where the language of instruction was Yiddish or Hebrew, were not recognized as government schools and did not enjoy rights.”295 The struggle was over the portion of the school budget that was the municipality’s legal responsibility (premises, furniture, textbooks, heating, etc.). The wojewoda customarily reduced even these appropriations. “Of the sums we requested, the government usually authorized only a small part.”296 The conflict over support for residents of the old-age home and for orphans was not so serious because “Polish law obligated municipal authorities to provide for orphans and the

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abandoned elderly.” Until 1928, however, those received only “scraps of support, while the maintenance of Christian children and old people was fully funded by the city.”297 According to Bregman, the causes for this discrimination were: On the one hand—negligence on the part of the representatives of the Jewish community and ignorance of the law, and on the other hand— refusal by the district authorities to regard Jewish orphans as citizens of the state. . . . The clerks claimed that the citizenship of the orphans had not been proven.298

In January 1928 the council decided to allot 70 grosze per day for each child in an orphanage;299 it is not clear if the appropriation was confirmed and paid. Discrimination against the Jewish elderly has been noted above: only 3,000 zlotys was authorized for the Jewish old-age home at the same time that 7,000 zlotys was authorized for the Polish old-age home;300 it should not be assumed that there were more elderly Poles than Jews. Bregman succeeded in minimizing the disparity somewhat. (The left, incidentally, raised the request to turn the old-age home and the orphanages over to the city. The right agreed, on condition that the administration remain in Jewish hands.301 The transfer did not take place, and in January 1931, the Jewish old-age homes received an allotment of 45 grosze per person per day,302 while the non-Jewish old-age home received 1.65 zlotys per person per day.)303 The city did pay compensation to the unemployed, probably as a result of pressure exerted by Jewish council members. Whereas in early 1928 the wojewoda had canceled this stipend, from 1929 on the city began to assist the unemployed and budgeted 3,000 zlotys for this purpose.304 In 1930 a social welfare committee was added to the list of city committees—auditing, education and culture, labor and health, technical, judiciary, and fiscal committees. The primary function of the social welfare committee was to allocate unemployment assistance, based upon investigation of the applicant’s circumstances. At the beginning of 1930, assistance was granted to 380 of 395 applicants. In the form of commodities, this stipend was equivalent to between 15 and 30 zlotys a month for a single person (this gives us an indication of the minimum living expenses for an individual during that period), between 30 and 60 zlotys for a small family, and 60 zlotys for a family of more than five

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people.305 The following year, commodities to the value of 10 zlotys were distributed to a single person (for one month?), 20 zlotys to a couple, 25 zlotys to a family of three, and 30 zlotys to a family of four or more.306 The ranks of the jobless were swelling. Beginning in 1933 when they lost control of the vice-mayoralty, the standing and influence of the Jews in the municipality seriously declined. In early January 1934, the wojewoda announced that “appropriations to the institutions of the Jews have been completely terminated.”307 New municipal elections were held on June 10, 1934. Because of a procedural change, Jews became a minority on the municipal council, constituting only fifteen of the thirty-two members.308 In the May 1939 municipal elections, various tactics were employed to limit the number of Jewish councilors. Many eligible voters were not included in the voters’ lists. Jewish representatives were removed from several ballot committees. In consequence, only six Jews, two of them Bundists, were elected to the thirty-two member council.309 A new Polish constitution was published in 1935; sections guaranteeing equal rights to national minorities had been excised, and anti-­ semitism became the official policy of the central government. The gains that had been made in the municipal government by the Jews were effectively wiped out; now it was no longer necessary to find excuses for depriving them. Only four Jewish clerks remained. When the 1935–36 budget, which totaled 563,300 zlotys, was submitted, Dr. Akht noted that there was no point in debating the line items since Jewish institutions were to receive hardly anything; if they were allotted something, payment was held up, so that in the end the Polish institutions received everything. The Jews no longer had a reason or motive for participation in municipal affairs.310 One writer affirms this: We used to ask our representatives in the municipal government for explanations of what was happening there. . . . Now they have a ready explanation and say to us: Don’t ask, because they don’t ask us either, and we don’t know what is going on in the City Council.

Another writer asks: Has the city done anything to heat the apartments of the poor in the winter. . . . And has the city fulfilled its obligation, even half of its obligation, toward the Jewish orphans?311

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The situation certainly did not improve in subsequent years. If the municipality showed concern for improving the city, it was out of broad political considerations—to grant the city a Polish character.

Anti-Semitic Attacks and Preparation for Self-Defense In the summer of 1932, students came to Pinsk to conduct an antisemitic propaganda campaign.312 Anti-semitism, fostered by teachers in the government schools, was felt in the city even before the rise of Hitler. The wojewoda’s policy was to win the favor of the peasants in the vicinity. This explains the 1935 cancelation of the rogatka (a tax on wagons coming into the city), which had provided the city with an income of twenty-two thousand zlotys a year.313 Both Jews and Russians were suspected of “spying on behalf of the Soviets,” as the wife of one Captain Reus, blurted out “in innocent excitement.”314 The Jew was always “guilty of everything.” Pinsk, nevertheless, did not feel anti-semitism as much as other Polish cities, such as Brest, which endured rioting that persisted for as long as sixteen hours at a time. Nighttime assaults on Jews, the work of Polish soldiers or sailors, however became more frequent occurrences. An August 1935 account states that: “At 8:30 Friday night, on Brest Street, they shot Moshe Goldfarb and he died. A worker named Yosef Begun was shot on Albrekhtov Street.”315 At the end of December 1936, there were further reports of attacks on Jews.316 (This was no doubt the argument against extinguishing street lights after 1:00 a.m.; indeed the reason given was that “arms and legs are broken in the dark.”317 This was written about the same time that assaults were being reported.) A personal letter, apparently written in May 1939, notes: For several months it had been dangerous to go outside in the evening, because bones would be broken. But these last few months, it has been quiet.

All over Poland circumstances were becoming more tragic as Jews became trapped, politically and economically. The Jews in Pinsk were forced to demonstrate patriotism for a state whose chief spokesmen considered them “superfluous” and disastrous to the Polish people. Jews

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had no choice but to be good citizens because they considered their situation in Poland a lesser evil than the circumstances of the German Jews under Hitler. They could not hope for aid from Soviet Russia as they were aware of its persecution of Zionists, nor were they, or the majority of Polish Jews, attracted to the prospect of life under Soviet rule. In late 1933 a “Jewish Club for the Idea of the State” (Yiddisher Klub Fun Melukhah Gedank), was founded. M. Goldberg (head of the small merchants’ association) served as chairman, Dr. Nurkin as his assistant, the engineer Mordekhai Basevitz as secretary, and M. Kagan as treasurer. At the first session, on December 5, 1933, they resolved to begin social and cultural activities and encourage the unions to affiliate with the club. All the craftsmen’s unions joined: carpenters; bricklayers; locksmiths; shoemakers; a tailors, butchers, and bakers union; the gardeners cooperative; as well as merchants and the intelligentsia. Representatives were sent to the club by “those who cared for the orphans,” by the old-age home, the burial society, Linat Tzedek (the shelter society), and groups supporting the poor, the hotel association, and the handicapped.318 The club’s name attests to its mission of endearing the Polish government to the Jews; its material goal was to donate an airplane to the Polish army. It may be assumed that patriotism flagged after the pogroms in Pshitik and Brest. (The municipality did make the gesture of contributing one hundred zlotys to the Pshitik casualties.) During these years of oppression, the younger generation changed its attitude toward military service; they stopped seeking ways to avoid induction. After the First World War, fear of army service diminished, and phenomena common in the Tsarist period—young men dieting or injuring themselves to gain exemptions—ceased. The factors promoting change were the pre-military training in the gymnasium and an appreciation of the wisdom of teaching young people to use arms, propounded by the youth groups, particularly Betar. A highly practical objective for combat training existed then, too: self-protection in the event of pogroms. A defense organization was established in Pinsk; according to Y. Eliasberg, the Luria plywood factory served as its center. Ex-soldiers formed the nucleus of the group. Eighty men were organized in a reserve force, besides another thirty “firemen” who were prepared to act against rioters.319 The group probably encompassed many others.

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The Kehillah—the Jewish Autonomous Community The right of Jews to establish their own community structure was renewed in the new states that arose within the boundaries of the Russian empire. Russian Jews had not had this privilege since 1844 (when the kehillot had been abolished by Tsar Nicholas I). The prerogative persisted later in Congress Poland. The Polish government publicized a directive on the question of establishing a kehillah in Pinsk as late as 1928. In practice, the kehillah could have been formed unofficially at an earlier point had the public bodies consulted and organized to that end, but they showed no great eagerness to do so. The Jewish political parties wrangled with one another, each retaining, supporting, and cultivating the educational institutions that it had founded or that had passed into its hands. The Talmud ­Torahs and charitable institutions were administered one way or another by “officials” whom no one had appointed. The old and new cemeteries were controlled by the two hevrah kaddisha [burial societies] in Pinsk called Hesed shel Emet and Karlin. The hevrah were their own masters and determined prices for plots and dispensed monies as they saw fit. One private individual had completely taken over the bathhouse that had been built with public funds. After the deaths of Rabbi Volk, the Rabbi of Pinsk, in 1906, and of Rabbi David Friedman, the Rabbi of Karlin, in 1915, no official rabbi or religious judge was appointed in either city. There were rabbis—Rabbi Ya’acov Meir Horowitz in the center of Pinsk, Rabbi David Rabinsky in the neighborhood near the railway station (“the Vakzalner rabbi”), Rabbi Ya’acov Yitzhak Hindin in the western part of the city near the Luria and Halpern factories, and Rabbi Rabinowitz in Karlin—but none functioned as the official rabbi of the entire city. Attention to the community’s general needs had declined from the pre-war era. The Jewish charitable associations, which had been authorized by the Russian authorities, had ceased to exist with the German occupation, and public life was concentrated in the hands of the political parties. The secular parties did not share a common language with the religious population. The legal basis for the establishment of the kehillah was the kehillah legislation of February 7, 1919, which stated that the kehillot were solely

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religious institutions. As such, their primary purpose was to make arrangements for rabbinical posts; tend to synagogues and study houses, ritual baths, and cemeteries; supervise religious education; and ensure the supply of kosher meat. The kehillot had the authority to hold property and create philanthropic societies for the benefit of the poor.320 This law was enacted even before Poland pledged autonomy for its national minorities, but government directives regarding “regulation of the legal circumstances of the Jewish religious kehillot in the Polish republic, excluding Poznan, Pomerania and Silesia,” were delayed until 1927. The July 1927 order of the minister of the interior stated that the communities were to be established on a regional basis, making the city kehillah, the kehillah of the Pinsk district.321 This was a return to the structure of the Council of Lithuania and of the period following its abolition in 1764. The area included in the district, however, was far more limited and included Lohishin, Brodnitze, Kaina, Dobroslavska, Lemsvitz, Pinkovitz, Pohost-Zagorodski, Poriche, Stavk, [and] Zhavtzitze,322 in addition to areas actually abutting the city, such as Iwanik, the Jewish agricultural settlement. On January 24, 1928, official notice was given concerning elections for the Pinsk kehillah. On May 8 the secular parties composed an election committee. (Its members were: the lawyer Bernard Yelankevitz, Dr. Feldman, Avraham Meir Feldman—General Zionist, city councilman Haim Kopel Busel—Left Poalei Zion, City Councilman Ya’acov Eisenberg— Right Poalei Zion, Eliyahu Holtzman, and Motel Gleiberman.323) The religious parties elected their own election committee headed by Shmuel Luria (apparently from Agudat Yisrael).324 The starosta made the final appointment of the members of the election committee: lawyer B. Yelankevitz—chairman, A. M. Feldman—vice chairman, engineer Yisrael Reikh, engineer M. Basevitz, David ­Buniuk, lawyer Feivel Boroshok, Shmuel Chernihov, Dr. Isaac Feldman, Avraham Kaz, and Aharon Yudel Shlakman. Others were added afterward: Aharon Stillerman, H.  K. Busel, Sh. Luria, Shmuel Goldberg, David Friedman, Ze’ev Elstein, Yudel Pritika, Aharon Meir Dubovsky (from Lohishin), Shalom Krigli (Pohost-­Zagorodski), Menahem Posnitzky (Iwanik). The alternates were: L. Vartzawitzky, B. Katzman, K. Levin, Isaac Kliternik (Lohishin), and Yudel Oksman. The municipality granted a loan of 3,500 zlotys.325

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Membership in the kehillah was up to the individual Jew, and some secular parties deliberated whether to lend a hand to the establishment of a kehillah as determined by law. In the end, all but the communists decided to send representatives to the election committee. The leftwing parties hoped to change the kehillah from within and transform it into a secular kehillah that would promote economic and educational activity for the benefit of the general public.326 Since membership in the kehillah was free, and only men above the age of twenty-five were eligible to vote, anyone wishing to be a member was required to submit a declaration to that effect. The numbers of declarations submitted by the various parties were as follows: Orthodox—1,000, Bund—500, Left Poalei Zion—375, General Zionist—350, Right Poalei Zion—175, unaffiliated—400, craftsmen—150, small merchants (shopkeepers)—150, from Pohost—162, from Lohishin—79, and from Iwanik—28. Twelve lists were submitted to stand in the election: 1. The Orthodox (Agudat Yisrael) from Pinsk and Karlin and their candidates were: Yeshayahu Gevirtzman, Yosef Denenberg, Leib Tennenbaum, Sh. Luria, Pinhas Kolodny; 2. Craftsmen (left): Leizer Kolton, Nahum Berl Rubakha, H. Feldman; 3. Unaffiliated: D. Buniuk, Binyamin Bukshtansky, D. Friedman; 4. Bund: A. Y. Shlakman, Tanhum Leib Freint, Berl Dolinko; 5. Left Poalei Zion: H. K. Busel, Yerahmiel Aronovitz, Yehoshua Leib Lieberman; 6. General Zionists: Avraham Meir Feldman, Avraham Mazur, Sh. M. (Motel) Eisenberg, Y. Bodankin; 7. Craftsmen (second list): Sh. Volovelsky, Kapavi, Y. Pritika; 8. Right Poalei Zion: Dr. Elazar Bregman, Aharon Weiner, M. Bakalchok; 9. Unaffiliated: engineer Y. Reikh, Shelomoh Eisenstein, Wolf Kroyitz, Ya’acov Holtzman; 10. Mizrahi: A. Dubitzky, A. Zilberkviat, Sh. Levin; 11. Small merchants; 12. Pohost.

The parties formed three coalitions: Orthodox, unaffiliated, and small merchants; Zionists, Mizrahi, and Pohost; and Bund, Left Poalei Zion, and Right Poalei Zion.

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According to official regulations, Pinsk was one of nine large kehillot established at the time in areas outside Congress Poland; the number of their kehillah council members was fixed at twenty, and the kehillah executive at ten. Cracow, Lemberg, Bialystok, and Vilna each elected twenty-five council members and twelve administration members. Elections for the kehillah council took place on August 19, 1928. Votes were cast by 2,417 people, slightly over 73 percent of those who had submitted declarations. The following were elected: 1. Orthodox: Yeshayahu Gevirtzman, Y. Denenberg, L. Tenenbaum, and their deputies—Sh. Luria, Yekutiel Liubart, P. Kolodny; 2. Craftsmen: L. Kolton and his deputy—N. B. Rubakha; 3. Unaffiliated: D. Buniuk; 4. Bund: A. Y. Shlakman, T. L. Freint, B. Dolinko, Yisrael Getzel Shlossberg, and their deputies—Shelomoh Begon, Avraham Nisel Forman, Yisrael Haim Stoliar; 5. Left Poalei Zion: H. K. Busel, Y. Aronovitz, and their deputies— Y. L. Lieberman, Mendel Kishpet; 6. General Zionists: A. M. Feldman, A. Mazur, Sh. M. Eisenberg, Y. Bodankin, and their deputies—A. Stillerman, Yosef Skolnik, Feivel Ginzburg, Mordekhai Kerman; 7. Right Poalei Zion: Dr. E. Bregman and his deputy—A. Weiner; 8. Merchants and small merchants: lawyer B. Yelankevitz and his deputy—A. Kaz; 9. Unaffiliated: engineer Y. Reikh, Sh. Eisenstein, and their deputies— W. Kroyitz, Y. Holtzman; 10. Pohost: Yeruham Wolf Tziperstein and his deputy—Wolf Mekhnik.

Inexplicably, only 252 of the 1,000 individuals who had declared for the Orthodox list actually voted, giving rise to a ludicrous situation: most of the council members of the kehillah, intended by law to be a religious communal organization, were secularists. The left-wing bloc (Bund, Leftist Poalei Zion, Right Poalei Zion, and the second craftsmen’s list) had eight representatives; the General Zionists won four mandates and the Mizrahi, none.

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Elections for the kehillah executive took place on September 12, 1928, and the individuals elected were: 1. Zionists: Y. Skolnik, Sh. M. Eisenberg, Y. Pkach, and their deputies—Pinhas Eisenberg, Shmuel Lifshitz, Aharon Shelomoh Muchnik; 2. Right Poalei Zion: Dr. E. Bregman and his deputy—Ya’acov Ritterman; 3. Left Poalei Zion: H. K. Busel; 4. Bund: D. Gleiberman, Leizer Levin, and their deputies—Y. H. Stoliar, Avraham Nisel Forman; 5. Unaffiliated (Y. Reikh’s group): engineer Y. Goldberg and his deputy—W. Kroyitz; 6. Unaffiliated: D. Buniuk and his deputy—B. Bukshtansky.

The Bundist Aharon Yudel Shlakman was elected chairman of the kehillah council by a vote of eight (the left-wing parties) to seven. The Agudah did not take part in the vote and left the session at the start of discussions, claiming that they could not “get along” with the right. Yerahmiel Aronovitz, from the Left Poalei Zion, was chosen vice chairman of the kehillah council. Shalom Mordekhai (Motel) Eisenberg (Zionist) was elected chairman and David Buniuk (unaffiliated), vice chairman of the kehillah executive.327 For some reason, the first working session of the kehillah council took place approximately seven months after the elections in mid-May 1929. The agenda was determined by the regional authorities and included selection of an official rabbi. Council chairman Aharon Yudel Shlakman sent invitations (in Yiddish—he was a Bundist) to the council members on the stationary of the “Great Religious Kehillah of Pinsk.” He informed them that “In accordance with the requirements of the regional authority . . . we invite you to attend the session of the kehillah council. On the agenda: Expression of an opinion as to the rabbi suitable for the Pinsk kehillah.”328 Shlakman opened with a brief announcement: “As long as I am chairman of the kehillah, we will not discuss religious matters” and closed the session.329 Shlakman was not a satisfactory chairman as far as the authorities were concerned, and they dismissed the heads of the council

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and the administration and demanded elections for replacements. On September 8, 1929, the engineer Yisrael Reikh (unaffiliated) was chosen as Council chairman, with Shmuel Luria (Agudah) as his vice chairman. Yosef Skolnik, chairman of the Pinsk Zionist Federation, was elected chairman of the administration. Shalom Mordekhai Eisenberg, vice chairman of the Pinsk Zionist Federation, was elected vice chairman of the administration.330 The left was effectively removed from leadership positions in the kehillah, a natural consequence of its refusal to tend to the kehillah’s responsibilities. (In private life, Shlakman was not a fanatical fighter against religion. According to Eliasberg, when Shlakman was appointed director of the Karlin hospital, he took it upon himself to supervise the kashrut of the institution. Upon Eliasberg’s recommendation, the hospital administration agreed; Eliasberg had endorsed Shlakman on the assumption that he would keep his word and not mislead people. Eliasberg adds: “I was informed that during the Bundist’s tenure, the [hospital] kitchen was strictly kosher.”331) The kehillah remained paralyzed even after the change in leadership mainly because of political discord. Council sessions broke off on more than one occasion when members of one faction or another found it necessary to leave in protest. On October 30, 1929, at a session chaired by Reikh, discussion revolved about the selection of a rabbi. The leftists proposed postponing the deliberations; the Agudah voted with the leftists, and the meeting was closed.332 Another Council meeting, about two weeks later, dealt with the same topic and dispersed without arriving at any resolution because the left-wing parties and Kolton, the craftsmen’s representative, had walked out in the middle.333 The composition of the kehillah leadership was confirmed by the authorities in May 1930,334 two years after the official directive was issued on the establishment of the kehillah. The festive public opening of the kehillah was held on June 29, 1930, in the presence of many guests. Council chairman, Yisrael Reikh opened the meeting in Hebrew and continued in Polish and in Yiddish. He briefly surveyed the history of Jewish autonomy in Poland and expressed the hope that the kehillah would be not solely a religious entity, but enjoy national and cultural autonomy as well. Reikh mentioned the thirty-five martyrs murdered on the “Black Sabbath,” and expounded on the greatness of Pinsk that

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had produced Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the noted Jewish leader, and finished with the blessing, “Blessed art Thou, who has kept us alive . . . to reach this day (Shehehiyanu). At that point Shlakman rose and asked: Why are the Polish and the Zionist flags the only ones flying in this hall?335 He was questioning the affront to the red flag. According to S. Hamerman, Shlakman demanded the removal of the Zionist flag, and the Bund and Left Poalei Zion left the hall in protest.336 At the chairman’s suggestion, a resolution was taken to express the loyalty of the Pinsk kehillah to the Polish state via a telegram to the President of the Republic, Professor Moszczycki, and to Pilsudski: The council and the executive of the great Jewish kehillah of Pinsk, gathered for the first time in the auditorium of the Casino Cinema for a festive opening session, express their esteem for the supreme representatives of the glorious, the most sublime Polish Republic, to the Lord President Ignacy Moszczycki and to the first Marshal of Poland, Jozef Pilsudski, and approach [their] task with the cry: Long live the most enlightened Republic.337

The telegram in its obsequiousness, was typical of Reikh, an immigrant from Galicia, who must have been part of the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia. Now, however, he was among those who “had the sense to understand that an ancient national Jewish culture existed in Pinsk, and attached themselves to local organizations and found a field of activity in productive communal work.”338 The title of the kehillah was changed. It was no longer “the great religious kehillah” but “the great Jewish kehillah,” a title that expressed the desire to grant it a broader character. Kehillah activities remained limited, as they did elsewhere in Poland, largely because of dissension among the political parties. Council sessions were infrequent. In July 1930 two committees were chosen. The first was to examine the situation in the hospitals; (its members were Dr. E. Bregman; D. Gleiberman; Goldberg, an engineer; and Y. Skolnik.) The second committee was to determine a code of regulations for the administration of the kehillah.339 At a September 1930 meeting, the kehillah executive decided to set up a single administrative system for the hospitals in Pinsk and Karlin.340 On October 18, 1930, it decided to

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take the cemeteries and the Hakhnassat Orehim [visitors’] hostel under its control.341 Council sessions seem to have taken place only once a month during this period. Until the beginning of 1934, when the authorities ordered the kehillah to become active and provided government backing for its activities, affairs were conducted lackadaisically. The government may not have recognized the kehillah until a chief rabbi had been chosen; this took place on July 30, 1933. S. Luria of the Agudah had been vice chairman of the kehillah administration and, from 1932 on, when Reikh left Pinsk, served as chairman. Luria was generally disappointed in the constitution of the kehillah administration and opposed to the candidate for the Chief Rabbinate, Rabbi Walkin. He, therefore, did whatever he could to postpone the elections. But the matter was finally concluded and, from among the four city rabbis—Rabbi Walkin, Rabbi Rabinsky, Rabbi Hindin, and Rabbi Weintraub—Rabbi Walkin was elected.342 By that time the kehillah had taken the Pinsk old-age home under its jurisdiction and selected a supervisory committee for it: Y. Pkach, N. Melnik, P. Tzaposnik, S. L. Garbuz, and S. Wolinetz, with S. Hamer­ man as secretary.343 The question of administration of the hospitals met with opposition from the doctors. The committee apparently wanted to bring additional physicians into the hospitals, and the doctors were opposed. The main point of contention was the appointment of a surgeon for the Karlin hospital. Dr. Yevsenko (a non-Jew), “a brilliant surgeon,” had come to Pinsk from Moscow and was practicing at the Pinsk hospital.344 He wanted to serve as surgeon in the Karlin facility as well.345 But there were complaints that he was impoverishing the Pinsk hospital since he was transferring wealthy patients to a private clinic that he had opened.346 The hospital doctors declared a strike that lasted several days until January 6, 1931, and a compromise was reached—outside doctors would not be invited except upon consultation with the physicians’ union.347 Control of the burial societies was even more problematic. In 1926 by order of the authorities, the Pinsk hevrah kaddisha had forfeited its command over income from the sale of plots. Feivel Tzaposnik was appointed trustee of the Pinsk cemetery, and ownership was transferred

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to the kehillah. Until the kehillah actually gained control of the hevrah ­kaddisha, however, there were quarrels and even blows. The kehillah could not seize control of the Karlin hevrah kaddisha. An article notes: “The Karlin cemetery refused to surrender itself to the kehillah.”348 Another item states: “The Jewish kehillah is a live corpse; there is an incomprehensible war between Pinsk and Karlin that symbolizes irremediable degeneracy.”349 The kehillah submitted the affair of the Karlin cemetery to the general court for judgment.350 In another case, this time of the Karlin bathhouse, the court ruled that ownership belonged to the kehillah.351 The kehillah was able to do very little in this period. It did not yet have the authority to levy taxes, and its only income was from communal institutions under its control, particularly the cemetery. In 1931 it was able to distribute 1,635 zlotys to institutions:352 Pinsk Old-Age Home Pinsk Hospital Pinsk Orphanage Pinsk Talmud Torah Tomekhei Ani’im Society Linat Tzedek Society Yeshivah Girls’ Vocational School Boys’ Vocational School Moshe’le Gleiberman School Borochov School Tel Hai School Midrashah Tarbut Gemilut Hesed A Gemilut Hesed B

225 zlotys 180 100 200 50 50 50 75 75 120 120 120 120 50 50

Karlin’s welfare and educational institutions were not included because Karlin was apparently waging war against the kehillah. Kehillah affairs continued to lag in 1932–33. At a meeting of the kehillah committee early in 1933, Shalom Mordekhai Eisenberg announced that the Zionist representatives were about to resign from the administration because the authorities had not granted the rights pro-

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vided by law; as a result, and also because of internal squabbles, the kehillah had been unable to transfer the communal institutions to its jurisdiction. He noted one more reason for their resignations—the decision to establish another hospital in Pinsk. In the opinion of his faction, this was absolutely unnecessary.353 The legal situation of the kehillah changed, however, in the beginning of 1934: kehillot were permitted to levy direct and indirect taxes, such as a tax on slaughter, and were able to take over all Jewish communal institutions. The kehillah was also required to prepare a budget to be submitted to the starosta for confirmation.354 Because at last there was a chance that the kehillah would emerge from its problematic condition, Yosef Skolnik and Shalom Mordekhai Eisenberg announced that they were retracting their resignations.355 A committee headed by Eisenberg was formed to determine the budget; a second committee, headed by Skolnik, was formed to receive community property from various groups.356 The budget committee decided to collect 65,000 zlotys in direct taxes from members of the kehillah, ranging from a minimum of 5 zlotys up to a maximum of 1,500 zlotys.357 The total budget was set at 224,000 zlotys.358 The committee hoped to raise the sum from the direct tax, from cemetery income (after the transfer of the Karlin cemetery to the kehillah), and, mainly, from  the transfer of shehita (slaughtering) to kehillah jurisdiction and the appointment of the slaughterers as kehillah functionaries. As in other instances, however, the Bund and the Agudah joined forces and voted against the transfer of shehita to the kehillah,359 perhaps out of a desire to prevent the “Zionist kehillah” from gaining strength. The council yielded and left the situation as it was. This decision was, however, contrary to the kehillah law; at the behest of the authorities, the Pinsk ­kehillah accepted jurisdiction over shehita at the end of February 1935.360 Details are not available on all the budget items, but the facts that survive are interesting. The direct tax was paid by 3,013 individuals in the city and the surrounding area. One assumes that this figure represents the number of families capable of bearing any tax at all. Since the number of those who had declared their intention of joining the kehillah and had the right to vote (that is, above the age of twenty-five) was 4,020, approximately 1,000 families in Pinsk and the vicinity, or

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25 percent of the population, could not pay any tax whatsoever. This corresponds to other information, which indicates that in early 1936, the kehillah distributed ma’ot hitim [Passover assistance] to 682 families and financial aid to 691 families.361 Of the 3,013 taxpayers, 1,000 lodged appeals of assessments. In Brest half the taxpayers had filed protests, which led the reporter to conclude that the Pinsk leadership had acted fairly.362 It is interesting to compare the budget proposed by the kehillah with that authorized by the wojewoda (table 10.9).363 The kehillah council clearly preferred to grant equal support to all educational institutions, but the wojewoda found fault with the Gleiberman and Borochov schools because they were under the aegis of the Bund and the Left Poalei Zion. The kehillah decided to contribute to the university in Jerusalem, undoubtedly because Pinsk students were enrolled there; but in the wojewoda’s opinion, this was an extraneous expense. The wojewoda also thought that there were too many rabbis in the city; while raising the salary of the chief rabbi, he canceled appropriations to some of the others. He greatly reduced the wages of the slaughterers as well and assumed that two men could handle all this work. The 1934 account does not indicate the amounts the kehillah earmarked for the old-age homes, the hospitals, or the orphanage. It is known, however, that the kehillah leadership had appointed a committee to deal with the issue of the municipality’s debts to Jewish institutions: eleven thousand zlotys owed to the old-age home, ten thousand to the Jewish hospital, and twenty thousand to the orphanage. The city was obligated by law to provide for the elderly and orphans but discriminated against the Jewish aged and orphaned. The municipality’s debt to the Jewish hospital had accumulated because it had referred patients to the hospital and was supposed to pay for their care.364 The 1935 partial budget we have provides more details, although still not a full picture. It indicates the total budget proposed by the Kehillah and the total income and expenditures approved by the wojewoda, but does not give anywhere near full itemization. (table 10.10).

table 10.9 Kehillah budget and wojewoda authorizations (in zlotys), 1934 Kehillah Proposed

Wojewoda Approved

Rabbi Walkin

3,000

6,000

Rabbi Rabinksy

1,800

1,250

Rabbi Hindin

1,800

1,250

Rabbi Weintraub

900

1,200

Rabbi Grushka

600

?

Rabbi Ptashnik

480

–

Rabbi Margolin

300

–

Rabbi Lerman (Pohost)

900

?

9,600

3,000

11,000

?

Salaries to slaughterers Administrative expenses Poor gravediggers

1,200

?

Hospital

?

5,000

Summer camps for poor children

?

3,500?

Soup kitchen for the poor

?

5,000

Pinsk Talmud Torah

?

2,000

Karlin Talmud Torah

?

2,000

Tarbut Midrashah

2,000 (?)

1,000

Tel Hai school

2,000 (?)

1,000

Vocational school

2,000

700

Yeshivah ketanah

?

130

Setting up an eruv

?

50

2,000

–

M. Gleiberman School Borochov School

2,000

–

University in Jerusalem

2,000

–

Kehillah library

2,000

–

Academicians (?)

2,000

–

table 10.10 Kehillah budget and wojewoda authorizations (partial), 1935 Kehillah proposed

Budget

360,000 zlotys

Wojewoda approved

287,653.51 zlotys income

Income: Municipality debts

47,531.47

Slaughtering

40,535

38,715

Cemeteries

10,000

?

Bathhouses

200

?

Office payments

1,000

?

Donations and contributions to the old-age home

9,735

?

Real estate

?

455

?

Tax

48,100

40,000

Hospital income in 1934

70,716

?

Hospital income in 1935

70,500

?

Expenditures: Rabbi Rabinsky

1,800

Rabbi Walkin

4,800

Note: These rabbis should begin to be paid after approval; other rabbis were removed from budget. ?

Rabbi Hindin

1,800

?

Rabbi Weintraub

1,800

?

Rabbi Lerman (Pohost)

900

?

Rabbi Berkovitz (Lohishin)

720

?

Aronovitz, the clerk

?

Instead of Aronovitz, to Gliksberg in charge of the slaughter of fowl Slaughterers—Rikhter, Levin

1,920 3,600

2,700

Representative

900

1,200

Slaughterhouse collector

600

Instead of collector, to man in charge of slaughterhouse

1,000

Director of the old-age home, Shlakman

1,440

1,880

Holiday assistance

4,000

2,000

Assistance to emigrants to Land of Israel

1,000

500

table 10.10 (continued) Kehillah proposed

Wojewoda approved

Jewish National Fund

500

200

Keren Ha-Yesod (United Jewish Appeal)

500

200

Linat Tzedek Society

600

500

Firewood for the poor

4,000

?

One-time assistance

4,000

?

Health care for the poor

4,000

?

Children’s summer camps

3,000

?

Food for poor school children

2,000

?

Lap (?)

200

?

Food for prisoners for the holidays

200

?

Rabbi Grushka, for aliyah

1,500

?

Rabbi Ptashnik, for aliyah

1,000

?

240

?

3,000

?

Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia (TOZ, a public health society)

500

?

Gemilut Hesed A (Charity fund)

500

?

Gemilut Hesed B (Charity fund)

500

?

100

?

Rabbi Margalit, support Orphanage

Gemilut Hesed Pohost (Charity fund) Pinsk Talmud Torah

2,000

?

Karlin Talmud Torah

1,500

?

Four elementary schools

6,000

4,000

?

1,000

Tarbut Midrashah (Tarbut School) Boys’ vocational school

1,200

?

Girls’ vocational school

800

300

Yeshivah

800

500

Yeshivah ketanah

200

150

50

?

Libraries of the government schools

400

?

Libraries: Brenner, Kultur Lige, Tarbut, and supporters of workers in Palestine

400

?

Sports’ clubs: Maccabi, Hapoel, Stern, Morgenstern

400

?

Society for the handicapped

200

?

?

1,500

Eruv maintenance

Repairs for Great Synagogue

578

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The actual figures for the 1935 financial report and summary provide a completely different, if imprecise, picture. Total income was 97,000.35 zlotys, composed of the following items: Taxes Slaughtering Cemetery Donations to old-age home Contribution by Luria

41,383.35 zlotys 38,105.00 5,650.00 7,830.00 3,362.00

The budget ended with a deficit of 3,000 zlotys since expenditures had totaled 100,304 zlotys, as follows: Orphanage

Linat Tzedek TOZ (health organization) Tel Hai school Vocational school Pinsk Talmud Torah Karlin Talmud Torah Yeshivot Libraries: Brenner, Kultur,   Lige, Tarbut and Pohost Rabbinate Administrative expenses Slaughtering Great Synagogue Old-age home Support for 691 poor families Passover assistance for 682 families One-time aid (5–100 zlotys) Children’s summer camp Children’s maintenance Emigrants to Palestine

5 ,000 zlotys (3,000 of it was a debt from 1934) 500 498 371 (debt from 1934) 766 2,200 1,500 558 117 5,199 14,400 24,572 2 ,736 (cantor’s salary and renovations) 15,199 3,945 3,025 2,518 1,650 1,000 200

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Jewish National Fund Keren Ha-Yesod (United Israel Appeal) Hospital allocation

256 197 4,780365

The large discrepancy between the proposed budget and the statement of actual income and expenses was probably a function of the original intent of the kehillah to take the Jewish hospital under its control, citing its income of 141,416 zlotys. Shehita was transferred to the jurisdiction of the kehillah, and slaughterers became kehillah officials. Only two continued at their jobs, receiving a fixed salary; the kehillah collected the charges for slaughtering through an official at the abattoir or by some other means. The fees were: 15 grosze for a chicken, 35 grosze for a turkey or duck, 10 grosze for a young chicken or pigeon. The fee for an ox was 4 zlotys and for a calf, 1.50 zlotys.366 The sum of 24,572 zlotys was apparently expended not only on slaughterers’ salaries but also on setting up facilities to butcher fowl in various parts of the city. The proposed budget for the kehillah for 1936 was 146,075.22 zlotys. The wojewoda reduced this to 134,015.22 zlotys. Here and there, he curtailed allocations but added a new item called fundusz pracy (“work fund”), support for the unemployed. This was really the municipality’s responsibility, and the kehillah had not handled it until now.367 In spite of the difficulties that it encountered initially—party dissension and opposing interests, obstacles planted by officialdom, limited resources to satisfy a great many needs—the kehillah managed to establish itself and become an important factor in Jewish communal life. The original religious kehillah, with limited authority, extended its influence to all educational and welfare institutions. Its policy was to combine duplicate welfare facilities. The Karlin hospital was merged with the Pinsk hospital. The Pinsk and Karlin old-age homes were consolidated and located in the pleasant building of the former Karlin hospital. Because of a fire that broke out in the new old-age home on July 12, 1936, however, the residents were returned to their previous quarters which were badly dilapidated. Five people were killed in the fire: Moshe Hirsh Bargman (aged 75), Nehamah Vatman (86), Hannah Sarah Warman (69), Devorah Holtzman (31), and Raizel Zilberman (20).368

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A 1936 article sums up: The very creation of a system, the introduction of order into chaotic public affairs, acquisition of public institutions and giving them some form—this is in itself an accomplishment. . . . The kehillah administration suffered a great deal from the duplication in Pinsk and Karlin. . . . There was quite a struggle with parties and civic groups before they reached this point. . . . This is only the second year that the kehillah is functioning according to a budget. . . . The hospital and the old-age home are maintained directly by the kehillah. Now they are tackling a basic renovation of the hospital. The kehillah has organized various welfare projects, a firewood project, Passover funds, camps for poor sick children, individual assistance. . . . In general, the kehillah has attempted to satisfy all the religious and social needs of the Jewish populace and even arranged the matter of taxation in democratic fashion. It may be said that the [Pinsk] kehillah is the only one of the large border kehillot to conduct affairs rationally. . . . Those of Brest and Kobryn, despite their policy of fawning [on the authorities], have ceased to exist.369

New kehillah elections were held in November 1936. A total of 4,454 people voted, out of the 6,063 people with the right to do so. The contest between parties, factions, and public institutions was keen testimony to the fact that public concern was spirited, in spite of difficult economic circumstances and a depressing political situation that could have led to apathy and despair. In anticipation of the elections, outsiders were brought in (as in earlier kehillah and municipal elections)—Ya’acov Pat for the Bund, M. Kleinbaum (Moshe Sneh) for the Zionists. Sixteen lists were compiled: 1. Revisionists: Dr. Akht, Dubroshin, engineer Basevitz, engineer Hokhstein, Gurfinkel. 2. Unaffiliated of the batei midrash: Y. Slutzky, David Friedman, Zvi Pollack, M. Sheves. 3. Bund: Y. H. Stoliar, T. L. Freint, D. Dolinko, A. Fishko, Y. Shlossberg. 4. Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet: Y. Ritterman, M. Papish, H. Neiman, Z. Makhnik, T. Briksman.

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5. Left Poalei Zion: K. Busel, Y. Aronovitz, H. M. Golandsky, A. Buniuk, L. Gleiberman. 6. Craftsmen: H. Feldman, L. Feldman, Goldfarb, Y. Kuperman, Y. Portnoy. 7. Mizrahi: B. M. Epstein, Y. Niedich, Y. Kolodny, M. Tennenbaum, Yissakhar Lieberman. 8. Unaffiliated bloc of the batei midrash: Binyamin Gottlieb, B. Kundah, M. Feldman, B. M. Skolnik. 9. Unaffiliated Orthodox, Karlin: Leib Tennenbaum, David Buniuk, B. Bukshtansky, M. Bergman, M. Shemi. 10. Orthodox—Agudah: Z. Zingman, A. Meshel, M. Gurfinkel. 11. Unaffiliated democratic-economic bloc: M. Goldberg, M. Gleiberman, Nahman Pomerantz, M. Sh. Eisenberg. 12. He-Halutz and craftsmen: M. Veitzel, A. Moliar, Sh. Gutdiner, Sh. Epstein, M. Vinik. 13. Zionist Federation: Y. Skolnik; P. Ginsburg; A. Stillerman; Fas, a lawyer. 14. Jewish veterans: Badian, a lawyer; Dr. A. Mandelbaum; P. Mandelbaum; Dr. Prager. 15. Pohost: Sh. Krogli, Y. Kozishnik. 16. General craftsmen: Sh. Wolowelsky, Ilya Rubakha, Sh. Shapira, A. Burman.370

Lists 2, 6, 7, 12, 14, 15, and 16 failed completely. The nine winning lists were represented as follows: Revisionists Bund Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet Left Poalei Zion Unaffiliated bloc Orthodox, Karlin Orthodox—Agudah Democratic-economic bloc Zionist Federation

2 delegate(s) 4 2 1 1 1 1 5 3

The members of the kehillah administration were chosen in March 1937: M. Goldberg, Sh. Garinovsky, D. Feldman of the Revisionists and small merchants; Y. H. Stoliar, T. L. Freint of the Bund; D. ­Buniuk of

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the United Karlin bloc; Y. Skolnik, Y. Ritterman, A. Friedman, A. H. Neiman of the Zionists. Y. Skolnik was again elected chairman of the kehillah administration, and engineer A. Friedman, also a Zionist, vice chairman. Dr. Y. Shneider, proposed by the Zionists, was chosen as chairman of the kehillah council and P. Ginsburg, also a Zionist, as vice chairman of the council. The Zionists racked up a decisive victory. The fact that Nahman Pomerantz voted for the Zionists rather than for candidates on his own list (small merchants and Revisionists) was crucial.371 The authorized budget for 1937, totaled 99,168 zlotys, but complete details are unavailable. Receipts decreased, as did expenditures. Income from taxes was set at 33,000 zlotys. Slaughtering fees were raised by order of the ministry—it now cost 8 zlotys to butcher an ox and 3 zlotys to butcher a calf—to provide the kehillah with the means to support its institutions. Certain expenditures are known: Support for institutions Slaughterers’ monthly salaries hadarim, yeshivot, schools Renovation of the Great Synagogue,   to be transferred to the kehillah Orphanage TOZ (health organization) Linat Tzedek Gemilut Hesed Pinsk Talmud Torah Karlin Talmud Torah Payment of debts

11,950 zlotys 150 (?) 1,000 2,500 250 250 100 1,500 1,000 3,548

Salaries for the assistant rabbis—Hindin, Rozenzweig, Ptashnik, Weintraub, and Lerman—were subtracted from the list of expenditures. An item of 1,800 zlotys was reserved for two assistant rabbis, to be confirmed.372 In these financial straits the kehillah could not respond to the most pressing needs, neither support for educational and welfare institutions nor assistance for poor families. For example, a Bundist, Y.H. Stoliar, wrote of how pitifully inadequate the firewood subsidy was.373 The following year, the kehillah was also unable to provide more than two zlotys apiece in winter assistance to needy families.374 When

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the kehillah raised taxes, the population expressed great bitterness.375 There do not appear to have been, however, claims that the kehillah administration was not doing its job faithfully and honestly. A September 1938 article reports that the kehillah had recently been granted authority over the Great Synagogue and selected a synagogue committee headed by the official Garinovsky.376

Education and Culture In the period between the two world wars, definitive changes took place in Jewish education in Poland, especially in the recently annexed border region of White Russia (Belarus). As a consequence of Poland’s pledge to the League of Nations to grant its minorities national rights, many educational barriers dating from the Tsarist period were removed, but true freedom was non-existent. Polish authorities intervened in the curriculum and scrutinized educational institutions of the “left” in particular. Their main concern was to hasten the ascendancy of the Polish ­language and culture. The government opened a network of Polish schools offering free education and supported and encouraged schools in the Polish language that had been set up by private individuals; it was grudging toward schools in which the language of instruction was a tongue of the minorities. These schools did not receive material assistance from the government or, in most cases, from the municipalities, in spite of the equality promised by the Polish constitution. Minority schools that did include a certain amount of Polish language, literature, and history in their curricula were recognized as institutions in which the students could complete the norm of compulsory education. Their teachers, however, were harassed by a law forbidding them “to engage in instruction, if, by the 1927–28 school year, they could not pass examinations according to a curriculum determined by the government.” The majority of Jewish teachers could not meet this demand. It was deferred to 1930 due to the intercession of Y. Gruenbaum.377 Ideological and political dissension led to increased fragmentation of Polish-Jewish education along party lines since each party operated or attempted to operate a school of its own. The school network was

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extended as girls were granted equal educational rights and as interest in early childhood education increased. All these developments were relevant to Pinsk. If, previously, education in the city had been divided into traditional learning in old-style hadarim, Talmud Torahs, and the hadarim metukanim and secular education in Jewish and non-Jewish schools, now education became the affair of the political parties. The process, which had begun at the end of the First World War, was accelerated with the arrival of American aid. These monies provided the leftist parties with the opportunity to open their own institutions, some of which collapsed when the stream of funds dried up. The continued existence of Bund and Left Poalei Zion schools depended upon the ongoing assistance, which they alone received. The “city committee,” set up at the initiative of JDC emissaries to arrange the distribution of resources, disbanded because of the attitude of the left-wing parties. When Brin, the representative of the Pinskers in Chicago, arrived and tried to set up a new committee to distribute the monies that he had brought, he encountered a refusal by the left to take part in a committee, and it did not come into being. The JDC official decided not to waste time, and the funds were distributed at Brin’s discretion on the basis of individual negotiations with each party and representatives of the institutions.378 By then, it was clear that JDC assistance would soon end; those on the left were aware that support for their institutions would continue, so it was not worth their while to participate in a general committee. The Pinsk Zeirei Zion party (later known as the Right Poalei Zion) ran its own school, Tel Hai, and did not join the Central Yiddish School Organization (CYShO) as the Right Poalei Zion of Poland had done even though it could have thereby eased its financial burden. Pinsk party members were not willing to turn their school into a Yiddishist institution and reserved a large part of the curriculum for study of the Hebrew language and literature. This led to the formation of a new bilingual (Yiddish-Hebrew and, of course, also Polish) organization called Shul-kult.

Kindergartens A Hebrew kindergarten was founded in 1921 at the initiative of Zionist mothers. The first teachers were Havah Ettinger-Papish and Hasia

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Dudiuk. When the Hebrew gymnasium opened, the kindergarten was transferred to its control, and the connection was retained until 1926– 27. Eventually some other Hebrew kindergartens were opened within the Tarbut educational network. The parties of the left had no particular need for kindergartens since pre-school education was not essential to later education in Yiddish. Polish assimilation intensified with the passage of time. In 1936–37, two new kindergartens opened—according to the announcements of their openings, one was a Hebrew kindergarten in which Polish was also studied, and the second was conducted in both Polish and Hebrew.379

Elementary Schools The Polish authorities established several elementary schools specifically for Jewish children. Classes were not held on the Sabbath or holidays, and the schools were popularly known as Shabbesuvki. These schools attracted many students because they offered free tuition. A 1928 article states that children of all social classes were rushing to the government schools “because of the need to know Polish.” In line with its policy of Polonization of the eastern border areas, the government spared no expense and set up a school wherever there were pupils to fill it. A new government school was to open in 1929; by late February 1928, seventy Jewish children had registered to study there.380 Many of the children enrolled in government schools apparently did not study in Jewish institutions; a 1933 article remonstrates that there is no one to ensure that students in government schools receive any Jewish education whatsoever.381 The “religious lessons” that were provided in 1928 may no longer have been conducted on a regular basis. 382 There were, however, Jewish teachers in these schools. The majority of Jewish youngsters were, nevertheless, still educated in Jewish institutions. The traditional, old-fashioned hadarim still existed as did the Talmud Torahs of Pinsk and Karlin. According to a report filed by a JDC official in January 1921, the Pinsk Talmud Torah had 536 students and was then maintained by 40,000 marks a month in JDC support. Later, it received a measure of support from the Mizrahi party. The Pinsk Talmud Torah received 160,000 marks for

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March–June 1921 from aid sent via Brin by Chicago Pinskers. In early 1921, monthly expenses amounted to 66,000 marks. According to a report filed by a JDC official in May 1921, there were then 520 pupils in the Pinsk Talmud Torah, of whom 183 were orphans. The Talmud Torah kitchen provided free or reduced-price meals to 415 students. The rest of the children ate in the orphanages. Foodstuffs were bought cheaply or given gratis from the shipments of American aid to Poland. The Talmud Torah had seven grades, with two classes in each of the lower grades. In addition to Bible and other Jewish studies, the children were taught Russian, Polish, and arithmetic. By mid-1921 the monthly budget was 190,000 marks (the value of the mark had declined in the interim; in 1924 it was replaced by the zloty). Income from tuition was 30,000 marks. The budget deficit was 418,688 marks. The school employed a staff of eight—principal, secretary, kitchen supervisor, four cooks, and a custodian—in addition to its fourteen teachers. Pinhas Alter Ha-Levi Kolodny served as chairman of the supervisory board.383 As outside support dwindled or ceased, the Talmud Torah shrank in size. In 1923 it had eight classes and by 1930, only five. (Graduates of the five classes could be accepted to the third grade of the government elementary school.) In 1930 the Talmud Torah enrolled 160 students between the ages of six and twelve. They studied reading, Hebrew language and grammar, Bible and Torah cantillation, Talmud, Polish language, Polish history, geography, arithmetic, and draftsmanship. Studies lasted seven hours a day—Jewish studies from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., secular studies from 1:00 p.m. to 3 p.m. Expenditures were then 2,000 zlotys a month; income was 500 zlotys, from 2,000 charity boxes distributed to householders, and 400 zlotys from tuition. The annual deficit was 1,100 zlotys; together with deficits from preceding years, the total debt amounted to 8,000 zlotys. Until 1927 the Talmud Torah received 300–400 zlotys a month from the Ezrat Torah society in the United States and, up to 1929, it received 250 zlotys a month from the Pinsk municipality.384 Afterward it derived some support from the kehillah. In January 1921, 448 children were students at the Karlin Talmud Torah. Expenses totaled 91,000 marks per month, of which the JDC contributed 40,000. According to the May 1921 report cited above, 458 students were then attending the Karlin Talmud Torah; 109 were

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orphans. The Talmud Torah kitchen provided meals for 302 students, and 44 orphans ate at the orphanages. Foodstuffs were received from the same American shipments. At the Karlin Talmud Torah, too, great attention was given to secular subjects. History and geography were taught in addition to Jewish subjects and Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and arithmetic. The teaching staff comprised eleven people, and there were eight other employees—principal, secretary, two kitchen supervisors, two cooks, and two custodians. Monthly expenditures were 70,000 marks. Income from tuition was approximately 40,000 marks a month. The Karlin Talmud Torah was also supported by the Mizrahi and received 140,000 marks from the funds brought by Brin. On June 1, 1921, the Karlin Talmud Torah showed a deficit of 209,060 marks.385 The institution declined progressively. In 1937 only 120 students were enrolled but in 1939, following the 1938 fire in the building of the Pinsk Talmud Torah, 600 (?) students reportedly attended.386 The hadarim metukanim continued to function as well, but the teaching staff changed the name to “the Yavneh school.” Classes were spread out in different homes and were concentrated in one building only in 1937. Some of the founders of the hadarim metukanim—Simhah Dubovsky, Tuviah Ogolnik, and Steinman—were still serving as teachers.387 Several new schools were opened, such as the Horev and Tushiyyah religious schools. The former may have been part of the Horev network of the Agudah party. The second was co-educational and had six grades, the sixth having been opened in 1937.388 Hebrew was taught in the Sephardic pronunciation. A school with seven grades was scheduled to open in 1936–37. Mrs. Appel was principal of its lower grades. The language of instruction was Polish, and the announcement of the opening stated that “Hebrew will also be studied.”389 The tone of Pinsk elementary education was set by schools affiliated with political organizations. The oldest of the institutions was the Girls’ School, later called Tel Hai, established in 1908 with the help of the Society for the Promotion of the Enlightenment. This institution under­went a number of metamorphoses. During the First World War, it became a Hebrew school and was one of the first secular schools in Poland in which the language of instruction was Hebrew. It passed

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from the Zionists into the hands of the Zeirei Zion and became coeducational. After the war, when the controversy over the language of instruction was renewed, the left-wing parties decided in favor of Yiddish, and the Pinsk Zeirei Zion were faced with a dilemma. They could not disavow their Hebrew heritage; but they did not have the audacity to counter the trend as Hebrew came to be considered “middle class” [bourgeois], and Yiddish [came to be] the symbol of populism and progress. After heated disputes within the Pinsk party, and especially after the Zeirei Zion veered to the left and became Poalei Zion-Z.S., a compromise was reached; and both Hebrew and Yiddish were taught in the school. Since the school had historically been a Russian school with Hebrew supplementation, it was not very difficult to switch over from Russian to Yiddish, with the addition of Hebrew and Polish. There was no burdensome legacy of Jewish studies. Due to the bilingual (actually trilingual) nature of the school, it could not join either the Tarbut network or CYShO. The Pinsk Zeirei Zion had left Tarbut and would have liked to affiliate (with CYShO) on condition that it enjoy educational autonomy, but CYShO did not agree. The school was rather isolated except that as time went by, other institutions followed its example. Ultimately this led to the formation of the new educational network called Shul-kult. In January 1931, a committee was elected for the Pinsk branch of Shul-kult: Dr. Elazar Bregman, Dr. Mandelbaum, Dr. German, Y. Tennenbaum, M. Bulin, M. Eisenberg, and M. Bakalchuk. Teachers and activists of the Right Poalei Zion party had to chart an independent educational path and did so with a sense of mission. A. Weiner (Yisraeli), a central supporter of the school until his emigration to Palestine in 1930, noted with satisfaction that the students were among the founders of the Polish Freiheit-Deror youth movement and He-Halutz Ha-Tzair and were some of the earliest settlers of Kibbutz Gevat in Palestine. Tel Hai’s education was oriented toward the Land of Israel and pioneering and brought about a change of values in other ways as well. The revolutionary spirit of the teachers—mostly young and inexperienced and without pedagogic training—led them to seek novel teaching methods and educational values. They adopted a methodology based upon practical experience; their goal was not only to impart knowledge but

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to allow for the expression of the students’ innate abilities. The education was “nationalist-Zionist-pioneering-socialist and geared toward the struggle for national and social liberation of the Jewish nation.” If donations or solicitations for the Jewish National Fund serve as a measure of Zionist-Land of Israel education, it cannot be said that the Tel Hai school excelled. The school does not appear on the list of institutions contributing to the Jewish National Fund; perhaps it contributed to the Kupat Poalei Eretz Yisra’el (Land of Israel Workers’ Fund). Deliberations over the composition of the curriculum were arduous; the question of the balance between Yiddish and Hebrew was particularly troublesome. At the beginning, Yiddish language and literature were taught as a subject in all grades. Later on, a demarcation was made: in the three earliest grades, classes were conducted in Yiddish, and Hebrew was taught as a foreign language. In the higher grades, Hebrew was the language of instruction for all subjects, except the Polish language, literature, and history, which were taught in Polish, and Yiddish language and literature, which were taught as a separate lesson. In the 1930s, however, the school reverted to its earlier system, and Hebrew became the language of instruction in all grades, with Yiddish taught as a separate subject. This last shift may have been related to the more emphatic preparation of the young people for emigration to Palestine. In January 1921, 252 girls attended the Tel Hai school. The JDC provided monthly support of 30,000 marks. Monthly expenditures added up to 50,000 marks. The school received an allotment from the Brin funds, greater than that of the Talmud Torahs: from March through June 1921, it received 65,000 marks per month. Brin’s rationale was that the Zeirei Zion had no other source of income, whereas the Talmud ­Torahs received help from the Mizrahi and the Yiddishist schools from the “Dinzon committee for the schools.” The school provided food for 178 pupils from foodstuffs furnished by the American aid shipments. The May 1921 report states that 237 girls and 15 boys studied in the school, 40 percent of them orphans. In 1921 the school had four grades. The first grade studied Hebrew, Bible, Yiddish, arithmetic, and nature; the second grade was taught the same subjects, all in Hebrew. The third and fourth grades also studied Russian, Polish, geography, and Jewish

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and general history. All grades had classes in physical education, singing, and crafts (sewing and embroidery).390 Within a few years, the school had expanded to seven grades. Starting with the 1922 school year, however, hardly any outside assistance was available. From the late 1920s on, it acquired some support from the kehillah, like other educational institutions. Tel Hai did not have a building of its own. After the fire of 1921, it used the technical school building for a while and then engineer Basevitz’s building, which was not suitable for an educational establishment. When Basevitz joined the Revisionists and became one of their spokesmen, he succeeded in ousting the school from his property by means of a court eviction order. The institution then moved to a structure that Miller, a Zionist, had designated for the Jewish National Fund. The school supervisory board, appointed by the party, stayed vigilant against attempts by the authorities to close the institution on some pretext, for instance, sanitary conditions. A letter from the school administration—undated but probably written in 1938—states that the educational authorities: wanted to close the institution last year, because of the unsuitability of the building in which it was situated. There is imminent danger that the authorities will finally carry out their scheme.

The letter, noting that the school enrolled “more than 250 students,” appeals to an unidentified addressee, apparently an American organization, to award it funds to enable the school to purchase a lot and erect a building of its own. It is not clear whether the request was granted. In 1938 Tel Hai’s permit was rescinded because communist literature had been found in the Brenner library belonging to the Poalei ZionZ. S. party. The school carried on illegally until the Soviet conquest. The enrollment remained stable, approximately the same as in 1921. In the 1923–24 school year, there were 270 pupils in six grades. Afterward, there were seven grades. On its twentieth anniversary in 1928, the school had approximately 300 students and housed a physics laboratory and a young adult library.391 The Beit Mahse, founded by the Zeirei Zion in December 1917, had an enrollment of 186 children aged 7 to 12, including 36 orphans, in 1921. These children were from the poorest classes and paid no tuition;

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the school was maintained by the JDC and local contributions. The children ate for free in the institution’s kitchen. In March 1921 the principal Elka Miletzky sent a telegram to Henry Morgenthau, requesting aid for the institution since “it was in critical straits.” On March 21 Morgenthau wrote to Albert Lucas, a JDC activist, about this, asking him to pass on the contents of the telegram to [Boris] Bogen. Morgenthau noted that he intended to make a personal donation to the school because “it is a very important institution.” On March 29 Morgenthau’s secretary wrote a letter to a JDC worker in Paris, stating that even though a JDC official, Kowalsky, had notified him that the school was receiving JDC aid and the emissary of the Pinsk landsmanshaft, Brin, had brought a large sum of money to Pinsk, Morgenthau had dispatched his personal contribution because “Mr. Morgenthau knows Mrs. Miletzky and her work in the school,” and he had heard that “this institution is the finest in all of Poland.” The Beit Mahse school received 240,000 marks from Brin for March through June 1921. In the first of the four grades, the children studied Hebrew reading and writing and arithmetic and discussed nature in Yiddish. The second grade program was: Hebrew, Bible stories, arithmetic (in Hebrew), nature discussions (in Yiddish), and crafts. In the third grade, Jewish history and geography were added, along with Yiddish, Russian, and Polish; the fourth grade program was identical to that of the third grade. All grades were taught singing, drawing, and physical education. Six teachers taught a combined twenty-one hours a day. The first grade studied four hours a day; the second grade, five hours; and the third and fourth grades, six hours each. (Other schools with four grades had a similar arrangement.) The monthly budget was then eightyseven thousand marks. Teachers’ salaries totaled forty-two thousand marks, and the principal’s salary was twelve thousand marks. The cook and custodian together earned ten thousand marks. Other expenditures totaled twenty-three thousand marks.392 (Based upon the current value of the mark, the monthly salary of a teacher who worked five hours a day was about eleven dollars.) Dr. Elazar Bregman, A. Meirovitz, Hannah ­Kushner-Rabinowitz, Alter Bobrov, Zvi Hizhin, and others taught there. The school did not survive because JDC aid to educational institutions progressively diminished and ceased altogether in 1922 as the JDC

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switched to reconstructive projects, assisting businesses in an effort to rehabilitate the ruined economy. In November 1921 Hershel Pinsky wrote: The financial situation is becoming more and more difficult. Until January and February we will still receive support from the JDC. What the future will bring, we don’t know.

Pinsky also complained “that the institution has been left without any teachers at all.” After the great fire of August 1921, there were no suitable quarters either. In May 1922 Pinsky wrote: “The Beit Mahse still has no facilities and is undergoing a terrible crisis.”393 A short while later it closed down. A second Beit Mahse had been founded by Zelig Tir in September 1919 and named in honor of Y. H. Brenner. This school had four grades, but its curriculum differed slightly from that of the other Beit Mahse. It did not include Yiddish conversations on nature; nature and geography were taught in Hebrew. In 1921, 120 boys and girls attended the school; 105 received reduced-price meals in school. Fifteen others, orphans, ate in the orphanage. Foodstuffs were received from the American shipments. Monthly expenses totaled eighty-six thousand marks. Eight teachers taught a total of eighteen hours a day in four grades and were paid a total of thirty-six thousand marks a month or an average of two thousand marks per month for each hour. The principal’s salary was fifteen thousand marks, and the cook’s and custodian’s—twelve thousand marks. Expenditures for premises, foodstuffs, heating, and so forth were twenty-three thousand marks. The institution received 240,000 marks from the Brin funds. The administrative committee had five members: Zelig Tir—director, R. Eizenshtat, Hershel Zvi Rabinowitz, A. Flaksman, and S. Trivman. This Beit Mahse also closed down when JDC assistance came to an end.394 Two Bund schools and two Left Poalei Zion schools were also functioning. By the end of 1922, two had already closed even though the parties received support for their institutions from the People’s Relief, the Dinzon Committee, and CYShO when JDC aid ceased. In 1921 the Bund school named for Moshe’le Gleiberman (also known as Kinder Heim I) had 168 children, 53 of them orphans; it provided food for 123 of the children. The school had four grades, and the language of

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instruction was Yiddish; surprisingly, Hebrew was studied, too. The first grade studied Yiddish and arithmetic and had discussions, probably about nature. The second grade studied Yiddish, Russian, Hebrew, arithmetic, nature, and crafts. The third grade studied Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, arithmetic, nature, geography, and crafts. The fourth grade also studied Jewish and general history. From August 1920 until January 1921, the school received a monthly stipend from the JDC. From January 1921 on, it was supported by the Dinzon committee. The Gleiberman school, as well as the three others, received a relatively small portion of the Brin funds since they had other sources of support. (The four Bund and Left Poalei Zion schools received a total of 400,000 marks from Brin.) Nine teachers taught twenty-one class hours a day. The other staff consisted of a principal, cook, and custodian. The monthly budget was then 103,000 marks. In the 1927–28 school year, 253 pupils were enrolled in seven grades. In 1936, 280 girls and 37 boys studied there. The majority of the students at the Gleiberman were children of workers and craftsmen. Twenty-five were children of workers in the match factory; forty-six, children of workers in the plywood factory; eight, children of workers in the sawmills; thirty children of shoemakers, fifteen of seamstresses, thirty-eight of transport workers, eight of porters, four of painters, seventeen of carpenters, nine of bricklayers, two of barbers, twenty-four of small merchants, twelve of day laborers; sixty-six were children of people without a trade; and fifteen were orphans. The discrepancy between the numbers of boys and girls indicates that even the radical leftists could not bring themselves to educate their sons in a school that provided hardly any Jewish studies. The school apparently had high academic standards. A surviving photograph shows a mandolin and wind instrument orchestra. The Pinsker branch of the Arbeter Ring in America sent a contribution of one hundred dollars, and in 1925 the school built itself a building; it was no longer necessary to roam from one location to another or to pay rent. The Gleiberman school carried on until the Soviet conquest even though the Polish authorities were hostile to it.395 An institution first known as Kinder Platz and later as the Dinzon School had been founded in 1919 by the Meuhadim and the Bund. In

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1921, 242 children between the ages of three and twelve (118 of them orphans) studied there. The school kitchen fed 192 children, and thirtythree orphans ate in their own orphanages. The school had five grades, along with a kindergarten. Kindergarten children attended for three hours a day; other grades studied for twenty-five hours a week. The curriculum here differed slightly from that of the Gleiberman school; history, for example, was not taught. Bible was not taught in either establishment. The school had seven teachers, a principal, two cooks, and a custodian. It was maintained by the usual sources396 and closed along with many other post-war educational institutions set up for orphans. In 1919 the Poalei Zion, at the initiative of Dora Feiner, established the Kinder Heim, called the Borochov School. In 1921, 180 students aged seven to sixteen were enrolled; 20 percent were orphans. This institution was also supported by the JDC, the Dinzon committee, the People’s Relief, and CYShO. The school had four grades and taught Yiddish, Polish, Hebrew, Russian, arithmetic, nature, geography, history, crafts and art, singing and physical education, but not Bible. The school also provided evening classes for eighty working youngsters aged fourteen to sixteen. The staff consisted of a principal, nine teachers, two cooks, and a custodian. The monthly budget was 125,000 marks.397 A second Poalei Zion school—founded in February 1920 with party money from Poland or from America—received a monthly stipend from the JDC like the other Yiddishist schools until February 1921 and thereafter, from the Dinzon Committee. This school had four grades with 150 children between the ages of seven and thirteen, of whom 20 percent were orphans. It employed a staff of a principal, nine teachers, a cook, and a custodian. The curriculum was the same as in the other Yiddishist schools, including night sessions for thirty youngsters aged eleven to seventeen. One Poalei Zion school closed with the closing of the other schools. The other developed into an institution with seven grades and kept going even during the 1930s although it is dubious whether it lasted until the Second World War.398 The Pinsk Yiddishist schools did not have much drawing power. Although they were suppported by CYShO, which even contributed toward lunch programs during the worst years, it is doubtful whether there were as many as five hundred children in these institutions in the

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early 1930s. In 1926 the Bund and Left Poalei Zion schools had a total of 408 pupils.399 At the initiative of the Orthodox Horev educational center, ultraOrthodox rabbis and organizers of the Polesie district held a conference in June 1927. The ultra-Orthodox founded a Bais Yaakov school for girls in 1930.400

The Tarbut Schools The best of Pinsk’s educational institutions were the Tarbut schools. This network of schools derived its values from traditional Jewish culture and hope for national renewal. The first Tarbut institution in Pinsk was apparently the school founded by Z. Tir [the Beit Mahse named in honor of Y. H. Brenner] discussed above. In 1922 the Hebrew gymnasium was started (see below); its early grades paralleled the grades of the elementary school. Many children from the Tel Hai school were accepted to the gymnasium. During its first year of operation, most of the 425 students of the gymnasium were students in its elementary grades. In 1925, a Tarbut elementary school called Midrashah Tarbut was set up. In the early years it was run by K. Manievitz. Later, starting with the 1930–31 school year, it was headed by Y. Kobrynchuk, who continued as principal until his death in 1936. During his tenure the school developed rapidly. In the 1930–31 school year, it had 132 students; in 1931–32—236 students; in 1932–33—259 students; and in 1933–34—323 students. Unlike the Yiddishist schools and the Tel Hai school, most of the students in the primary grades of the gymnasium and the Midrashah were boys. The Midrashah students were from the poorer classes. A 1934 article states that 80 percent of the pupils were children of the poor; 42 were on full scholarship, and many others paid reduced tuitions. TOZ provided milk and rolls for 130 children, and some students received free lunches. Some children enjoyed sugar and coffee through the Fund for the Unemployed. All this applies to one of the depression years. Nevertheless, the Midrashah was able to collect 237 zlotys for the Jewish National Fund during the 1932–33 school year and in the first half of the following school year, 234 zlotys. Education was Zionist, oriented to the Land of Israel, and the pupils corresponded with children in Palestine.401

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Before the start of the 1926–27 school year, some parents took their children out of the Midrashah and set up a school named Herzliah. In 1927, eleven children completed their studies in the Herzliah school. D.  Nehari—who attended the Bund Kinder Heim known as the Moshe’le Gleiberman school, the Talmud Torah, the Midrashah Tarbut, the Talmud Torah again, and finally the Herzliah school—has nothing but praise for this last institution. “Pedagogues of the highest order, lovely quarters, and it was conducted on a cooperative basis.” Nehari’s class put out a pamphlet called Darkenu [our way], and when he met a teacher from the school, they “fell upon each other affectionately.”402 This school, however, survived for only one year. In 1936 the Midrashah Tarbut in Karlin opened. It had only about fifty students that first year but in the second year, more than two hundred were enrolled, and in 1938, there were three hundred.403

High School Education The Russian Realschule continued to function in the interval between the wars, but in 1922, the Polish authorities barred Jewish children from attending, so that the school served only the Russian minority. Jewish youngsters who had begun their studies there completed them. Polish officials opened a government gymnasium. In its early years, it did not attract Jewish children. In 1928 five girls and four boys took the matriculation exams and in 1929, eight students graduated; in 1930 four girls and six boys graduated.404 A Polish-language gymnasium for girls was founded at the private initiative of Fania Epstein (the daughter of Rabbi Borukh Epstein) and Fania Zeitlin. This gymnasium became known as the Chichik gymnasium, because Mrs. Chichik had joined the founders and served as the institution’s administrative head.405 In 1928 this school became co-­ educational. Since the language of instruction was Polish, the school enjoyed the goodwill of the Polish authorities and support from the municipality; in 1927 it won official recognition. After changes were made in the Polish educational system (the grade division became: six elementary grades, two high school grades, and two lycée grades), the gymnasium received permission to open a lycée for arts and science studies in 1937.

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Even Zionists sent their daughters to the gymnasium though Hebrew study was limited to “religious lessons” for about two hours a week, which consisted of classes in Jewish and Zionist history, taught at one point by Ya’acov Eisenberg (Barzilai). The concept of the previous era that “distinction” for girls rested with knowledge of the language, culture, and literature of the country, was still prevalent. The government-recognized matriculation certificate, granted from 1930 on, was not an important factor, for only a handful of girls could aspire to academic studies. This may have been a consideration in the 1930s, however, when it was possible to register for the Hebrew University and the Haifa Technion on the basis of the certificate, and thereby emigrate to the Land of Israel. But according to one gymnasium graduate who had attended when the school became co-educational, only a small proportion of the graduates made aliyah. Elementary grades for girls starting at the age of seven were associated with the gymnasium; these classes were based strictly upon Polish language and literature. Only in 1936 was Hebrew taught in “full measure” in this elementary school. In 1927 eighteen girls were graduated from the gymnasium with matriculation certificates, in 1928, sixteen; in 1929, seventeen; in 1930, twenty-two; and in 1935, ten students, of whom seven were boys.406 The pride of the Pinsk Zionists was the Tarbut Hebrew gymnasium. The Yiddishists and the ultra-Orthodox were unhappy with the institution and would have been delighted had it disappeared. Even Poalei Zion, on the right, disapproved, for it was a “bourgeois” establishment. Within the world of Polish-Jewish education, however, it brought honor to the city and aroused the interest of visiting writers and public figures. In the seventeen years of its existence, it imparted Hebrew culture and general culture to hundreds of young men and women, developed their self-expression, and in large measure determined Pinsk’s cultural image. Thanks to its gymnasium and the Midrashah, the sound of the Hebrew language in Pinsk was not completely silenced; Pinsk was one of only a few such cities in Poland. A. Druyanov, who visited the city in 1932, confirms this I think that of all the cities, which I have visited in Poland, only in Grodno and Pinsk did I hear the sound of Hebrew conversation by students in the streets.407

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Yehudit Poshko, a student in the Midrashah, writes in 1937: A few years ago, groups of Benei Yehudah were organized in our school. The purpose of the groups was to speak only Hebrew, everywhere, always. At first, it was very difficult to get used to this. . . . But we were persistent. . . . Many people laughed at us. . . . In time, the Hebrew language became the only language of the students in class, at home and on the street. Now the Hebrew language proceeds to spread.408

In 1926–27, there were fifteen Hebrew gymnasiums in all of Poland; by the mid-1930s, six had been closed, and the Pinsk gymnasium was among the surviving nine.409 Moreover, it excelled pedagogically and in the numbers of students and was one of the finest Hebrew gymnasiums. Dr. Yehoshua Gottleib, a native of Pinsk, wrote not merely figuratively in the gymnasium guestbook: “I derived great spiritual satisfaction from seeing the Hebrew school of my native city on such a high level, and I am proud of the Pinskers who succeeded in establishing this wonderful institution.”410 Gottleib wrote this in 1927 when the gymnasium was still undergoing great difficulties.411 Druyanov writes about the gymnasium’s accomplishments in Hebrew language and literature: I wonder if among gentile gymnasium students, there are graduates who know their own language much better than graduates of the Pinsk Tarbut gymnasium know the Hebrew language, who have published the pamphlet Gedolei tarbut [cultural giants] in honor of Bialik’s arrival in Poland.412

The gymnasium had been founded at the initiative of Yosef Bregman, A. H. Neiman, M. Y. Segalevich, Ze’ev Segalevich, and especially by virtue of Aryeh Leib Papish’s activities. Some were fathers concerned with their children’s high school education. Several Hebrew gymnasiums already existed in Poland, and Zionists zealous for the Hebrew language—their own Tel Hai Hebrew school had been transferred to the Zeirei Zion, who made it half Yiddishist—had no choice but to set up a new Hebrew school. Since the Russian gymnasium was forbidden to accept Jewish students, and they did not want to send their children to the Polish government gymnasium (it is doubtful whether it still existed in the early 1920s), they decided to establish a Hebrew gymnasium. They had to start from the very beginning. There was already a Hebrew kin-

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dergarten, but the city didn’t have Hebrew teachers for all the Hebrew subjects, surely not teachers with university educations. Tarbut headquarters took care of this matter, and teachers were sent from Galicia and Poland. Expert teachers had to be provided with full-time positions so it was essential to open not only the lower grades but all the grades at once. To ensure the basic expenses of the gymnasium—rent, furnishings, equipment, and teachers’ salaries—an enrollment project was undertaken, along with a campaign for contributions or advance tuition payments. In this manner, a total of about 500 dollars (2,870,000 Polish marks) was raised from 478 parents and other donors. In 1922–23, the gymnasium’s first year of operation, 425 students (250 boys and 175 girls) were enrolled in its kindergarten, six elementary grades, and one high school grade. (At that time the Polish education system featured a division into six elementary grades and six high school grades.) An additional grade was opened each succeeding year. At the end of the 1926–27 school year, the authorities granted permission for a complete gymnasium. One year later the school received accreditation as “a government school from first to third grade.” This came about after intercession by Jewish friends in the Polish Sejm and the Tarbut headquarter’s application to the minister of education, Professor Mikolowski-Pomorski. The Pinsk gymnasium was the first to merit recognition of the “lower three grades,”413 after “two thorough inspections had been conducted for the ministry,” and following special interventions on its behalf. This was apparently a signal accomplishment in the struggle for equal rights, and “the club of the Sejm delegates and the senators of the Jewish National Council” deemed it proper to dispatch an announcement to this effect “to the Hebrew gymnasium in Pinsk.” The first five graduating classes did not yet have government accreditation, but graduates were accepted to foreign universities. Starting with the sixth class, in 1933, graduates were given the opportunity to take examinations before the government board and to earn official matriculation certificates. Few, however, chose to do so or succeeded in the examinations. Of the thirty-five 1933 graduates, only five received matriculation certificates, in 1934—only seven, and in 1935—only two. It may be that in years of heightened anti-semitism, gymnasium graduates were not interested in Polish certification.

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At the start of the 1926–27 school year, the gymnasium moved to its own premises, built “through the initiative and boundless energy of the principal Mr. Avraham Mazur, by the parent body, [but] without any other support.” Mazur took out a loan to purchase the skeleton of a building standing on a lot belonging to the Russian Orthodox church, and parents assisted in erecting the structure. This was “the first gymnasium in the Diaspora to merit its own building.” The building, constructed according to an outstanding, modern plan, includes a large, eight hundred seat auditorium on the first floor; surrounding the auditorium are ten classrooms for the ten grades, two offices, one teachers’ room and two corridors. Beneath the first floor are the cafeteria and the cloakroom. There is a sizable, spacious yard alongside the gymnasium. Its total area is twenty-five by twenty-five meters.414

The classes previously located in two buildings a great distance from one another, were now concentrated, and a certain reorganization took place. The gymnasium was divested of the kindergarten and the two lowest grades. (The kindergarten became a private enterprise, and the first and second grades were transferred to the Midrashah.415) Until 1930–31, there were wide fluctuations in the number of students attending the gymnasium; later, the figures rose almost continuously. The number of boys varied more than the number of girls (table 10.11). table 10.11 Tarbut gymnasium enrollment 1922–30 School Year

Boys

Girls

1922–23 1923–24

Total

425 277

162

439

1924–25

204

160

364

1925–26

244

172

416

1926–27

218

143

361

1927–28

231

144

375

1928–29

215

131

346

1929–30

199

117

316

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The 1924–25 decline was apparently connected to the opening of the Midrashah Tarbut, and that of 1926–27, to the departure of the kindergarten and two primary grades. In 1928–29 and 1929–30, students may have left for the government gymnasium or the Chichik gymnasium because the Tarbut high school did not have government accreditation, or else they may have stopped their studies to help their families earn a living. The 1928–29 school year would have been altogether disastrous, had not the Hebrew gymnasium in Branovitz switched to Polish as the language of instruction, leading a portion of its student body to transfer to the Hebrew gymnasium in Pinsk. Since the gymnasium subsisted on tuition alone, with no outside support, the cost was quite high. According to the Tarbut organization’s 1926 account, the monthly fee in its schools generally ranged from 20 zlotys in the lower grades to 60 zlotys in the higher grades (the equivalent then of $2.50 to $7.50), a sum that the average breadwinner could not sustain. The account notes that 35–40 percent of the pupils paid no tuition.416 This was probably the situation in Pinsk as well, resulting in increased pressure on those deemed capable of paying. In 1927–28, students in one class went on strike in support of classmates who could not continue studying for failure to pay tuition.417 There was, incidentally, a large difference between the salaries of teachers in the gymnasium and the wages or profits of even the best craftsmen and workers. A teacher earned between 330 and 350 zlotys a month, over 40 dollars, whereas a craftsman or worker was pleased if he had regular work to net him a dollar a day. Mazur, the principal, emigrated to Palestine in April 1931, and David Alper was appointed to replace him. Alper continued to develop the institution and maintained its scholastic level, which critics had already judged satisfactory. Enrollment increased from year to year. Because the early graduates had been accepted at foreign universities, parents outdid themselves to send their sons and daughters to the Hebrew gymnasium, even during periods of severe economic crisis. A significant factor in the increased enrollment was the fact that gymnasium graduates found it easier to obtain aliyah certificates by registering for the Hebrew University and the Technion. Data on the student population is given in table 10.12.

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Between Two World Wars table 10.12 Tarbut (Hebrew) gymnasium enrollment 1930–37 School Year

Boys

Girls

Total

1930–31

184

145

329

1931–32

184

150

334

1932–33

223

171

394

1933–34

253

182

435

1934–35

234

191

425

1935–36

239

219

458

1936–37

288

241

529

During this period, students came from the towns and settlements of Polesie and from north of Wolhynia and the Novogrudok (Novaredok) district. Because of the growth of the student body, a second story was added to the gymnasium building in 1935. Through 1935 the gymnasium graduated eight classes, 152 boys and 93 girls. By 1937, 79 boys and 54 girls (55 percent and 58 percent of the graduates, respectively) had emigrated to Palestine. During the 1931–32 school year, a number of gymnasium graduates attended institutions of higher education: 5 in Palestine, 13 in Belgium, 13 in France, 2 in Germany, and 1 in Poland.418 Twenty-two members of the other four graduating classes continued their higher education, 16 in Palestine, 5 in Poland, 1 abroad. The Pinsk gymnasium had a scientific orientation, on the model of the Russian realschule, which suited the practical nature of the Jewish populace. This orientation was given particular emphasis after the school’s second floor was built. The floor housed a chemistry and  physics laboratory, a laboratory for the study of botany/­ zoology, and workshops for wood, metal, and glass workshops, with a girls’ sewing class. The establishment of the laboratories, or their improvement—they had started in the basement—was apparently a consequence of the new organization of the Polish secondary school system as of 1932. Official permission for the establishment of a lycée with a curriculum in the humanities and in the natural sciences was received only in 1937.419

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Pesah Pkach, an activist for the Right Poalei Zion and the Tel Hai school, wrote about the gymnasium in its final years: The Tarbut gymnasium was especially well-known in the period immediately preceding the Second World War. The academic level was higher than that of the government gymnasium. The large, beautiful building could not hold all the students who streamed there from Pinsk and the surrounding cities and towns. The teaching staff was superior. . . . They were planning to build another story. . . . Mordekhai-Yosef Segalevich and Yehudah Pkach headed the planning committee.420

In 1931 Arthur Asher founded a private commercial school that existed until 1939. This was a three-year, Polish-language school, with a one-year course and night classes for adults and had government accreditation. Besides the permanent teaching staff, teachers from the government gymnasium and the Chichik gymnasium taught there. Non-Jews were also enrolled. In 1934 fourteen students took the matriculation examinations and thirteen passed; the following year, eleven passed. Fifteen other such schools were run by Jews in Poland.421 A summer 1936 article notes the approaching opening of a coeducational commercial school that would offer four years of study and accept students who had completed the six grades of the government elementary school.422 During the period between the two world wars, a musar yeshivah, which had originated with the Novaredok yeshivah founded by Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz, took root in the city.423 After the demarcation of the border between Poland and Russia (after World War One), Jews began to slip surreptitiously into Poland to escape from the Bolshevik government. The rabbi (Yosef Horowitz), his staff, and students were determined to flee to escape religious harassment. The Poles considered them political émigrés and after intercessions by the Jewish Sejm delegates, they received Nansen passports [issued by the League of Nations from the 1920s to stateless refugees that established their identity and enabled them to travel internationally]. They were, however, forbidden to live near the border without special permission, granted only to refugees who had arrived by a certain date. At the beginning of World War One, part of the Novaredok yeshivah (named Beit Yosef for its founder) had fled before the Germans to Homel and then found

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temporary quarters in Siemiatycze under the leadership of the head of its yeshivah, Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub. In the wake of persecution by the Bolshevik government, Rabbi Horowitz ordered his students to move again, this time from Russia to Poland. Several young men led by Rabbi Moshe Reiz, one of Rabbi Yosef Yozel Horowitz’s closest disciples, settled in Pinsk and studied there. Community workers saw to it that they were provided with food, arranged “days” (invitations to eat at people’s homes) for them, and so forth. In 1925–26, “Pinsk opened its doors” to the Siemiatycze branch. According to the brother of the rosh yeshivah, the institution comprised approximately two hundred people (including the rabbi and the staff). At the initiative of rabbis Walkin and Rabinsky of Pinsk and Rabinowitz of Karlin, a committee was formed under the leadership of Yeshayahu Tennenbaum to arrange for feeding and lodging the students among the city’s residents. The synagogue of Haya’leh Luria was turned over to the yeshivah, which was divided into a yeshivah ketanah (high school age students) and a yeshivah ­gedolah (for older students). The head of the yeshivah ketanah was Rabbi Yitzhak Dov Barkovsky. As time passed, local students were accepted from Pinsk and the vicinity, and the student body grew to more than three hundred individuals. In 1935, however, there were fewer than one hundred young men.424 The yeshivot received some support from the Vilna center of the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot but were always in straitened circumstances. Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub’s personal situation improved after he was appointed Rabbi of Karlin, replacing Rabbi Shmuel Mikhel Rabinowitz who had died in late 1929. Rabbi Weintraub complained to the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot center, claiming that it had deprived the Pinsk yeshivah of its share of the American support funds on the pretext that all the branches of the Novaredok yeshivah constituted a single institution. Weintraub maintained that other yeshivot ketanot were receiving more support than the one in Pinsk and were also allowed to send out fundraisers, while the Pinsk yeshivah ketanah was not permitted to do so. The attitude of the Va’ad Ha-­Yeshivot to the Pinsk yeshivah may have stemmed from fundamental opposition to the musar tendency of Novaredok. In any case, the head of the yeshivah ketanah, Rabbi Yitzhak Dov Barkovsky, literally went hungry, and the yeshivah students were dressed in rags—while some wore

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shoes dilapidated beyond repair. Their situation during the depression of the early 1930s was extremely difficult. In August 1930 the foundation was laid for a building for the Beit Yosef yeshivah on a lot on Bernardin Street that had been purchased by active members of the city’s Orthodox population.425 A campaign was organized for the donation of “bricks.” Fundraisers, preachers, and speakers traveled through the neighboring towns as well. Years passed before the frame of the two-story building was erected. Late in October 1935, Rabbi Weintraub called a meeting to seek means to raise the roof of the structure and finish its interior. The building was only completed, however, by the Soviet authorities when they invaded the city in September 1939 and located one of their offices there. In this period, a daily Talmud shi’ur (class) was held between the afternoon and evening prayers in the Pinsker Kloyz synagogue, which had served as a center for Talmudic study for two generations. The Talmudic scholar Rabbi Sender Rabinowitz held forth in the Lithuanian style (emphasizing analysis of text and study of its plain meaning as opposed to the casuistry popular in the Polish yeshivot), and the city’s Talmud scholars came to learn from him. Rabbi Yitzhak Dov (Beryl) Kushiner held a parallel class in the Magid’s Shulkhen (the “preacher’s” synagogue), which also served as a center of learning.

Vocational Education The Zeirei Zion opened a vocational school jointly with the General Zionists in September 1919; this was subsequently transferred to the sole administration of the Zeirei Zion. In 1921, 110 boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, 70 percent of them orphans, learned tailoring, shoemaking, and carpentry. In addition to the trades, they studied Hebrew, Yiddish, arithmetic, nature, cultural history, general history, and art. The language of instruction was Yiddish. Most students received meals at the school, supplied from the American shipments. The school used materials provided by the JDC, and it received 300,000 marks from the funds brought by Brin from Chicago. In 1921 a department for sewing linens was set up with 90 (female) students. In May 1922 the tailoring department was closed “for lack of funds and

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a suitable teacher.” The shoemaking department had been closed before that time. In 1922, 28 boys were learning carpentry, and 28 girls were learning sewing. A delegation from the Polish Committee on Vocational Education found that the school was “generally good” even though its practical instruction was not systematic. The delegation proposed funding to purchase a building and to supply the school with necessary tools and machinery and recommended giving the principals the opportunity for extension studies in Germany. On the basis of a suggestion by Dr. Vitales of the JDC, the Committee advised combining the carpentry department with the technical school (see below).426 The school seems to have been completely disbanded as result of this proposal. A vocational school for girls continued to exist until the Second World War. This school had been founded in September 1919 by the Bund and the Meuhadim but shortly afterward, upon the disbanding of the Meuhadim, was transferred to the sole administration of the Bund. This school enjoyed a special relationship with the JDC, perhaps because of the influence of the Pinsk branch of the Arbeter Ring in New York. Until July 1920 its entire budget was covered by the JDC. From July until October 1920, it received a monthly stipend of 30,000 marks. From October 1920 until January 15, 1921, it received 55,000 marks a month. It was subsequently funded by the Dinzon committee. In 1921, 120 girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen attended the school, divided into four groups. Two learned to sew children’s clothing; one, dresses; and one, all sorts of women’s wear. Besides learning a trade, the girls had two hours of lessons each day in Yiddish, arithmetic, nature, drawing, and singing. They also received meals at school. The staff was composed of the teachers, principal, accountant, supervisor, cook, and watchman. Dr. Vitelis, who considered the school one of the finest Jewish schools of its type, reports that between 85 and 90 girls were enrolled in 1922.427 In 1927 the school was officially recognized by the ministry of education, and girls had to complete at least five years of elementary education to be accepted. Graduates were permitted to take official examinations to receive certification as craftsmen. A 1929 article notes that this was the only school in Poland using Yiddish as the language of instruction that had the right to official examinations. The same article reports that thirteen girls had traveled to Luck

Between Two World Wars

to be tested and had received certification as artisans. The municipality, which bore some of the school’s expenditures, had allotted 160 zlotys toward the expense of the examinations. In 1930 sixty-eight girls were enrolled, and sixteen completed the official examinations. An exhibit of the students’ handiwork was held; the items were both complex and attractive. The pictures that remain from 1936 (apparently from an exhibit held that year) show that the school produced excellent seamstresses who turned out very sophisticated work. In 1930–31, 73 girls attended. The economic crisis was eventually felt as the municipality decreased its allocation by 50 percent, and ICA reduced its support, too. Another source reports that from the end of the First World War to 1931, the school graduated 157 girls. At the initiative of the Society for the Support of Crafts (see below), the school conducted a sewing course in 1937 and a fashion course in 1939. Thirty-two girls from Pinsk and the vicinity participated in the special course; that year the school had 115 regular students.428 In early 1930 the municipality opened a supplementary vocational school for young people working in industry, commerce, and crafts. Approximately seventy boys attended, but the craftsmen’s apprentices showed no interest in extending their knowledge.429 The revolution in transportation sparked by the automobile was first felt in Pinsk on the eve of the 1930s when driving became a technique to master. The first driving course was given in late 1929 by car owners who came from Warsaw. Although the price was steep—250 zlotys—122 men registered for the course. Most were members of the intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers, and clerks, who were studying in the hopes of acquiring a private car. (Many were not Jewish.) Some workers also registered for the course, probably planning to parlay their skill into an occupation. In 1935 there was only one car in the city that was used to transport passengers.430 The showpiece of vocational education in Pinsk was the technical school. It had been founded in 1906 and during the German occupation, was located “outside the bounds” of the civilian residential area. The General Zionists renovated the school in the summer of 1920, with a committee of seven charged with reactivating it. About two months after the Balakhovist pogroms, the school administration sent a memorandum to the JDC center in Warsaw, reporting that metal engraving,

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blacksmithing, and locksmithing were being taught. The administration would have liked to open a carpentry department as well. They lacked equipment, however, and the Pinsker Relief opposed the suggestion. (The Zeirei Zion vocational school already had a carpentry department.) The memorandum notes that two hundred students had applied to the school, and only eighty were accepted. A large proportion were orphans; the rest were sons of the poor. All studied for free and ate two free meals a day at the school. The memorandum writers requested the provision of implements, kitchen utensils, and schoolbooks. Among the texts required: Ha-Lashon (language), parts B and C, by Shelomoh Loeb Gordon [(1865–1933) Hebrew author and Bible commentator, among the first to introduce spoken Hebrew into Diaspora schools], Korot HaIvrim (Jewish history) by Simon Dubnow reworked by Luboshitzky, Vereshchagin’s arithmetic text, and a Hebrew-English dictionary. The school obtained a rather small grant from the JDC and subsisted mostly on profits from orders for student work, support from the Zionist Federation, and contributions from local residents. In 1921 enrollment was seventy-four, the boys attending age thirteen to sixteen. They learned locksmithing and blacksmithing, along with Hebrew, Russian, English, arithmetic (in Russian), and nature and geography (in Yiddish). Five teachers worked approximately thirty hours a month, and there were two professional teaching assistants, plus a principal, supervisor, cook, and custodian. The school received two hundred thousand marks from the Brin funds. In 1922, however, only forty-one boys were studying in the school. Dr. Vitelis, who wrote an account of the city’s vocational schools in May 1922, stressed that a grant was urgently needed to purchase tools and recommended consolidating the Zeirei Zion carpentry school and the technical. Professor Sandtruk and Dr. Orenstein, who visited the city that month, made the same recommendation.431 The merger was effected, and the administration was composed of representatives of the General Zionists and the Zeirei Zion (and later the Right Poalei Zion). In 1926 the administration was enlarged by the addition of people from industry and commerce. Eventually it became customary, as in the girls’ vocational school, to accept only students who had completed five grades of elementary school. Academic studies were expanded to

Between Two World Wars

include drafting, mechanics, properties of materials, technology, and basic machinery. Other subjects were Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish language and literature, history and geography, arithmetic, algebra and geometry, art and singing. Talmud Torah students, for whose benefit the first craft school had been opened, were not accepted to the technical school because their mastery of general subjects was not at the level of children who had completed the five elementary grades and was not recognized by the educational authorities as equivalent. The technical school was maintained by the Pinsk Zionist Federation and also received support from ORT, ICA, the Luria sons, and the manager of the Luria plywood factory, Ya’acov Eliasberg.432 In 1927 ten students graduated—three as carpenters, seven as locksmiths. In 1929, two carpenters and five locksmiths became certified artisans; they were probably some of the students who had graduated two years earlier. In 1930, only five students passed the examinations. At that point, the school had fifty-eight pupils—forty studied carpentry and eighteen, locksmithing.433 A total of 1,575 Jewish youngsters were then studying carpentry and locksmithing in Polish vocational schools. The Pinsk student body constituted 3.7 percent of the total, although the Jewish population of Pinsk composed no more than 2.3 percent of the total Jewish population of Poland.434 The student body quadrupled within four years and reached 114, thirty of whom studied carpentry and eighty-four, locksmithing.435 The change was brought about by the severe economic crisis and by the young people’s hopes of emigrating to Palestine. The increase was also related to the establishment of a Society to Support Vocational Education, organized in Pinsk in September 1932. Members of the committee were: Dr. Elazar Bregman, Dr. Yegerman, the attorney Serlin, Polak, Fial­kov, Plotnitzky, Katzman. Y. Eisenberg served as chairman and Friedman, an engineer, as vice chairman.436 The group was formed because ICA did not provide its share of the school budget that year. Outstanding graduates were hired by Y. Eliasberg, the manager of the plywood factory, who affirms that “in this way, a staff of excellent Jewish metal workers was eventually built up [in the factory].”437 Metal workers in the factory previously were Russians who had once worked in the railway workshops.

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According to Pesah Pkach, differences of opinion arose between ICA and the school administration about the “Zionism” of the institution. ICA apparently demanded that study of the Hebrew language, Jewish history, and Zionist history be deleted from the curriculum; they called for the dismissal of the school principal Basevitz, an engineer, so that they could appoint one of their own men. In 1936 they succeeded—perhaps Basevitz’s supporters deserted him when he moved over to the New Zionist Federation and became one of its spokesmen. Another engineer, Shvergold, a Galician Jew who enjoyed the favor of the authorities, was appointed in his stead. Shvergold wanted to fire several teachers, claiming that they were too left-wing, and intended to appoint non-Jewish teachers. The administration decided to get rid of Shvergold, but the Polish educational authorities were opposed. The engineer who served as school supervisor on behalf of ICA finally took the side of the administration. Despite a threat by the educational authorities to rescind the school’s permit, Yehudah Pkach, in whose name the permit was issued, notified Shvergold that he was fired. Notice was sent to Shvergold in April 1939, but the real end to this episode came in September 1939: the Soviets invaded the city.438

Adult Education Between the two world wars, adult education assumed greater importance. Under the influence of newly arrived intellectuals, both its content and its form were diversified. As long as there were young people who had grown up during the war years deprived of elementary education, evening classes teaching basic skills still existed. The Zeirei Zion, the Bund, and the Poalei Zion saw to that.439 Once children had entered the regular school system, basic courses in reading, writing, and the fundamentals of arithmetic were no longer necessary. Language sessions were now devoted to teaching either Hebrew (especially to young people about to make aliyah), or Polish, to adults for whom it was a new language. Lectures on scientific or literary topics were on the increase. The number of people with education, academic or not, who were willing and able to share their knowledge with the public, was far greater than it had

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been. In addition to regular lectures by local residents and visitors, new organizational frameworks arose, metamorphoses of the practice of preceding generations of setting regular times for Torah study. Zeirei Zion, and then the Right Poalei Zion , were the first to organize a “popular university.” Lectures on various topics were delivered on the Sabbath at the Brenner Library. On Saturday, November 27, 1926, A. Weiner (Yisraeli) lectured on Mazzini, and on another occasion, M. Bakalchuk spoke about “Socialist Motifs in Rosenfeld, Reizin and Einhorn.”440 At the popular university organized by Tarbut in 1928, lectures were offered every Friday evening,441 but this forum was apparently short lived. Three years later, a writer again suggests the establishment of a popular university since not everyone completes elementary school and only a third of the young people are attending secondary school. This writer does not mention the Tarbut university.442 In 1932 Shul-kult—the Right Poalei Zion— opened a popular university.443 This university may have lapsed and then been reopened. By 1927 the Zionist Federation was conducting Sabbath courses, and they continued (with some interruptions), up to the Second World War. Tarbut teachers delivered these lectures: D. Alper, for example, spoke about Ahad Ha’am and Herzl; Axelrod, a teacher, discussed the languages spoken by Jews; Professor Levy lectured on Tolstoy.444 In 1934, the Mizrahi instituted oneg Shabbat parties [festive Sabbath gatherings]. Rabbi Borukh Epstein was one of the speakers; he used to devise “Torah gems,” ingenious expositions of verses of the weekly Torah readings.445 Starting in 1935, evening classes in Hebrew language and literature were held in the Tarbut gymnasium.446 In 1929 religious young people organized the Tiferet Banim society to study religious subjects in the evenings. That year, “after several months of activity,” 180 people had joined.447 From time to time, academiot—festive evening lectures—were arranged on the occasion of anniversaries of people or events. In 1929, for instance, academiot were organized on the twentyfifth anniversary of Herzl’s death; in 1932, on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Hibbat Zion movement; in 1936, on the hundredth anniversary of Mendele’s birth. These affairs were coordinated by the Tarbut teachers and held in the gymnasium auditorium.448 The Yiddishists, of course, “made their own Shabbes” and held a separate Mendele evening at the Holtzman theatre, featuring Noah Prylucki.449

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Nearly every party founded its own library and reading room. The Left Poalei Zion ran the Borochov library, the Right Poalei Zion had the Brenner library, and Tarbut had the Ahad Ha’am library. There were private lending libraries, too, such as Cohen’s “Renaissance” library and Klotshanovitz’s (Jewish?) library. The Tarbut library was intended for teachers and students, and the Brenner and Borochov libraries were open to the general public. The Brenner facility expanded from 2,750 volumes in 1931 to 4,000 in 1934, and in all likelihood, continued to grow in later years.450 Various groups opened clubhouses and reading rooms. The Jewish merchants’ association ran a club, and there was also a club of “Jewish citizens.” The academic circle (University Graduates’ Club) opened a center and reading room in 1928; it probably contained professional literature. Chess competitions were held there as well. The members of this group organized lectures, for example, Dr. Elazar Bregman’s discourse on chemical and bacteriological tests. A Hebrew club was opened in 1929 at 38 Zavalna Street. In 1933 Tarbut opened a reading hall, and in 1936 it opened a reading room for its gymnasium graduates. During the Palestine riots of 1929, a question was raised at the Academic Circle meeting: whether to publish a resolution condemning the rioting. For fear of prejudicing their apolitical status, twelve people voted against the resolution; eleven voted for it.451 In 1936 a group was formed to found a municipal (i.e., non-party) reading room. David Alper was the leader of this group, and in 1937 the project was carried out. The reading room at 19 Brest Street, with an adjoining room for chess and other games, was run by an elected administration. Zygmunt Funk, a teacher, served as chairman; B. Graubart, another teacher, was secretary; and B. Kimel was treasurer. All three were newcomers to Pinsk. The intellectuals arriving from outside the city, unable or unwilling to penetrate existing political life but interested in public activity, seemed to have turned to general culture. Funk also acted as chairman of the Nature Study Society (Land Kentnish), which organized outings in the Polesian countryside. Dr. Prager, another recent arrival, was vice chairman of the society.452 The Polish language was superseding Russian and, to some extent, Yiddish. On the basis of his 1931–32 visit to Poland, Druyanov noted that

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in the Polish border zone—Vilna, Grodno, Bialystok, Pinsk, et cetera— “they still speak Yiddish and some Russian.” Less than four years later, Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein was impressed by “changes” which had taken place in the city: The young men kiss the ladies’ hands [a Polish custom]; young mothers, even Zionists, speak to their tots in Polish; in the office of the Tarbut gymnasium questions and replies are in Polish.453

The democratization of education had greatly enlarged the reading public, but the demand for Hebrew books had dwindled to a circle. In 1937 it was noted (with some hyperbole), that there was no “Hebrew library and no library on Jewish affairs and one cannot find a book on the Jewish question.”454 There were no Hebrew dailies in the municipal library—no such paper was published in Poland at the time. The advertisement that proclaimed the opening of the reading room promised Yiddish and Polish newspapers and Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, German, English, and French weeklies and monthlies. A writer who signed himself “Ben Haim” requested that instead of the four Polish daily papers, there should be some Hebrew newspapers, such as Ha-Aretz, Davar, and Ha-Olam, or a Jewish-Polish paper like Nash Przeglad and the periodical Literarishe Bleter, in addition to the Polish Wiadomosci Literackie.455 Pinsk became avid for entertainment. The city attracted theatrical troupes and singers, male and female. Not a month went by without a performance. One of the actors of David Herman’s Warsaw troupe remembered that they had come to Pinsk at the invitation of Holtzman, who owned the theater building. Intending to play for one week at most, they remained for six. The Nehamah-Kadish-Hash trio gave thirteen performances between November 8 and December 21, 1929. During 1936 a troupe from Bialystok made seventy appearances over a four-month period. A number of famous actors visited the city, including Morris Schwartz and Ida Kaminska.456 An amateur theatrical society of Pinskers had been started in the early 1920s. In 1923 it offered a comedy called Dolarn (dollars) written by the Pinsker A. M. Feldman; the actors were local young people, among them Yosele Kolodny and his wife Ulia Rabinowitsch—who became well-known outside of

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Pinsk for their appearances.457 In 1933 a drama club already existed as part of the Kultur Lige of the Bund and the Left Poalei Zion. In 1936 Dr. Axelrod, a teacher in the Hebrew gymnasium, and Hanokh Levin, a teacher in the Midrashah Tarbut organized a Hebrew drama studio.458 An amateur wind ensemble and a mandolin ensemble were also active. This thirst for entertainment was used to advantage by charitable and welfare institutions and other organizations that arranged benefits. The 1923 performance of the comedy Dolarn was “for the benefit of the orphanage.” The announcement of the performance noted that dancing (tentz) and a raffle would follow. Pinsk was indeed dancing—not the laborers of the Linishches section, nor their sons and daughters, and not a pioneer-style horah either. The dancers were the intellectuals of the city. Dance halls had existed since the beginning of the twentieth century, but they had not yet advertised evenings devoted to the activity. Now the newspapers were full of such notices. The Yiddish word, tentz, disappeared, replaced by the English “a dancing.” As early as 1927, one Aharon Goldin posed the question: “Should ‘dancings’ also be added to the cultural events of the city?” Ten years later, the Pinsker Shtyme remarks: We wish to discuss a painful local problem, noted by many. . . . Every week or two ‘dancings’ take place. . . . Anyone who needs money, a cultural organization or a literary organization or a sports organization, etc., organizes a “dancing” in a public place. . . . These recreations in community sites are not moral, are not a Jewish custom and are not even nice.. . . . We have no influence over young men and women who feel the need to spend three times a week dancing jazz and listening to dubious singers.

The writer closes with a demand that academic and literary circles provide the public with good theater and good lectures, so that receipts would not be inferior to those of the “dancings.” 459 A new custom developed: “Jews began to participate in the Sylvester holiday.” A 1934 article relates: “The Sylvester holiday was nicely celebrated in the Auaza, Adria and other restaurants. Most of the patrons were Jewish. They celebrated at the Jewish Citizens’ Club, too.”460 Eagerness for dancing and theater was matched by the young people’s enthusiasm for sports, also broken down according to organiza-

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tion and party lines. With twenty thousand Jewish inhabitants, Pinsk had five large sports associations (besides smaller clubs) over the years. Sports activity began in 1920 when the Maccabi group, complete with a paid trainer, was organized. A photograph shows A. Meirovitz, one of the most talented Zeirei Zion teachers, with a group of boys and girls called Maccabi. This society disbanded after 1924, and A. Feldman, Nahman Zhokhovitzky, and Sh. Fialkov organized Koah (strength) in its stead. They set up a soccer field that was the finest in Polesie.461 In 1928 the Koah tennis court was opened, as well as a sports club of the Right Poalei Zion named Kraft (strength).462 Towards the end of 1929, Koah—which was apolitical but close to the General Zionists—started to break up. After some reorganization, another sports league by the name of Maccabi was formed. Maccabi gained fame for its successes in competitions in the cities of Polesie and Poland. Dr. A. Rosenfeld, vice chairman of the World Federation of Maccabi, visited Pinsk in connection with the plan to set up a Maccabi village in Palestine.463 In 1934 there were 250 Maccabi members, male and female, in Pinsk, two hundrred of whom were active members. Besides a sports field, they had a gymnasium with modern equipment and male and female trainers. In 1935 Kraft changed its name to Ha-Poel (the worker), probably influenced by Ha-Poel in Palestine, and numbered one hundred members.464 The other parties set up their own sports groups. The Revisionists and Betar had Nordia; the Bund—Morgenshtern (morning star); the Left Poalei Zion—Shtern (stars). In 1933 a sports club named Eva (Havah) was opened with a membership of two hundred women. Dr. (Mrs.) Elshtein and Mrs. Eliasberg headed the club.465 The population was turning to entertainment, “dancings,” and sports to pass the time because the period was characterized by despair and melancholy. This was a “time of sorrow, of frustrated and dismal lives.” Literary works reflected this as well. No one was writing anything that could compare to Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s Torah Temimah, composed in the previous period. There were many authors, but no major writer emerged. Two exceptions stand out in prose production confined in general to short articles: Rabbi Borukh Epstein’s opus Mekor Borukh (Barukh’s origins or blessed fountain, meant to be a play on words),

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which provided “a faithful picture of the lives of our fathers in the years past to teach us how great a loss we have sustained”466 and Avraham Asher Feinstein’s book Megilat Puranuyot (a scroll of calamities), written after his move to Palestine, which describes the suffering and oppression of Pinsk during the First World War and the traumatic years that followed. Most of that period’s prose would never have been published, or even penned, but for the local press that “grew like weeds.” No fewer than three weekly Yiddish newspapers were published in Pinsk. In 1927 Pinsker Shtyme (Pinsk voice) first came out. In 1931 a second weekly by the name of Pinsker Vort (Pinsk word) appeared. And in 1932 the Pinkser Vokh (Pinsk week) was published, changing its title to Unzer Pinsker Lebn (our Pinsk life) as of 1933. These three papers existed until the city fell to the Soviets in September 1939. Other weeklies did not last as long. Natzionale Vokhenschrift (national weekly) was put out by Berit Tzohar in 1935–1936. The city lacked a single newspaper on a level worthy of serving as a forum for its citizens of culture. All the newspapers that appeared steadily were in Yiddish, and attempts to put out a regular publication in Hebrew were unsuccessful. In 1934 Pesi’ot, (steps) a Hebrew supplement to Pinsker Shtyme appeared, and in 1937 Netivenu (our way) appeared on behalf of Ha-Tenuah Ha-Meuhedet shel Ha-Noar Ha-Zioni ­ve-­He-Halutz Ha-Kelal Zioni (united movement of Zionist youth and general Zionist pioneers) of Polesie. In this period the Yiddish poet Leib Morgentoi was growing up in Pinsk. He chose the lives of Pinsk Jews and the panorama of Polesie as his subject matter and was dubbed “the poet of Polesie.” The New York Yiddish author, Haim Leib Fuchs wrote of him: Leib Morgentoi immortalized Jewish Polesie in his Yiddish poems. The reading public will enjoy his works for a long time for they stand out among Yiddish poetry for their unique tone and variety.

After the Holocaust, Morgentoi wrote elegies, lamentations on the Shoah. Eventually settling in Israel, his poems were published there under the title Tzar un Freid (sorrow and joy). Menuhah Alperin, a native of the city, described life in and around Pinsk in Yiddish newspaper essays. She also emigrated to the Land of

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Israel and published her essays in two volumes entitled Unter Fremde un Eigene Himeln (under foreign and native skies) [Tel Aviv] in 1972. Mordechai Kerman’s activity in Pinsk spanned the period from the middle of the nineteenth century through the Hibbat Zion and Zionist eras until his aliyah in 1935. He lived to see the founding of the State of Israel and died in Haifa in 1954 at the age of ninety-five. By profession, Kerman was a tailor, and when he emigrated, he recorded his recollections of persons and events in a mimeographed booklet, Mayne Zikhronos: Hundert Yor Pinsk (5600–5700) [my memories: a hundred years of Pinsk: 1840–1940] [Haifa: 1950]. His recollections, from the generations following Shaul (Levin) Karliner until Kerman’s emigration, served as source material for the present book.

Welfare and Mutual Assistance Institutions Despite widespread privation, Pinsk upheld its tradition of sustaining welfare institutions and established new ones as well. The Jews continued to support the two old-age homes and the two hospitals; they reestablished the gemilut hesed and linat tzedek facilities and founded new orphanages and the TOZ society. Conditions were not the same, however, as before the war. Institutions had been maintained then by local residents. Now they required outside support and, in most cases, depended upon it for their very existence. Were it not for the initiative and volunteer spirit of Pinsk’s citizens, nevertheless, outside aid would not have been forthcoming. Many families subsisted only because they were employed in these institutions.

Orphanages Prior to the First World War, orphans were not a significant problem. When people who had been expelled from the city by the Germans began to return, however, it became apparent that many children were without one or both parents. These youngsters had no homes and no one to care for them; they would have been doomed to abandon-

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ment, delinquency, or starvation. Early in 1918 Alter Holtzman, Alter Boborov, and several others founded an orphanage in the recently renovated Karlin Talmud Torah. Their resources were meager, consisting of donations and clothing gathered from individuals.467 Borukh Zuckerman’s report of his visit in the spring of 1919 states: There are seventy-five children in the institution; their appearance is dreadful and frightening. The city has three or four times this number of orphans, but the institution cannot take them in. Undoubtedly the home has saved many of the orphans from death, but what kind of existence is this? Life seems contemptible when you look at some of these children although they are human beings created in the Divine image.468

When the American aid—money, clothes, and foodstuffs—began to arrive, the situation changed. In 1919 Genia Luria, Kanchuk, and engineer Eizel Friedman founded a second orphanage with funds provided by Pinsk residents. Regina Rabinowitsch evinced special concern for this home. From mid-summer 1919 until August 1920, the JDC covered the budgets of both orphanages. Following a brief interruption because of the Bolshevik invasion, they received monthly stipends. A June 1, 1921, report by Raskin, the JDC official, described the orphanages. The first was housed in two buildings, with nine large rooms for living quarters, three sickrooms, kitchen and office facilities, and storerooms. There were 178 orphans—85 boys and 93 girls—from 18 months to 16 years. Seventy percent had neither father nor mother. Twentytwo had fathers in the United States, and 45 had brothers, sisters or other kin there. Children above the age of 4 studied in various schools and vocational schools, 18 of them in private workshops. The younger children received 4 meals a day; the older ones—3. The staff consisted of 17 people, of whom 14 were full-time employees: a principal, a secretary, 2 kitchen supervisors, 3 nurses, 1 feldsher (paramedic), 2 cooks, 2 laundresses, 2 housemaids. The monthly budget was 400,000 marks; expenses for each child amounted to 2,240 marks. From October 1, 1920, until May 1, 1921, income totaled 1,695,390 marks and expenditures—1,860,177 marks, leading to a deficit of 164,787 marks. The orphanage was administered by a twelve-member board of General Zion­ists and Zeirei Zion. In 1921 the institution moved from the Karlin

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Talmud Torah building to two houses that were part of the late Gad Asher (Gudye) Levin’s estate and were donated to the orphanage by Bernard Halpern.469 The second orphanage housed 133 orphans—63 girls and 70 boys— between the ages of 3 and 15. Eighty had lost both father and mother. Children between 7 and 12 studied in elementary school, the older ones at vocational schools. The orphanage staff consisted of 13 people: a principal, a secretary, a kitchen supervisor, 5 nurses, 2 cooks, a seamstress, a laundress, and a custodian. The monthly budget was 275,000 marks. Raskin noted that the orphanage was in need of better facilities, and the children should be provided with more clothing.470 The institution was originally administered by Zionists and Bundists, but once the Bundists (with their anti-Zionist and anti-religious educational outlook) took it over, the children ran away to the third orphanage.471 The third orphanage was founded after the Balakhovist pogroms. Among the refugees from the rioting in the countryside around Pinsk were many orphans, who fled or were brought to the city. The “regional orphanage” was set up for their benefit. In the summer of 1921, it had 156 children (the three institutions accommodated 467 children at that point) and was run mainly by women who were not affiliated with any of the political parties. This institution would not have come into existence were it not for JDC assistance. A joint committee was set up to coordinate the activities of the three homes and represent them to the outside world. This committee received 2,500,000 marks from the Brin funds, and another 200,000 marks from monies brought by Kugel from America, covering the budget until October 1, 1921. In line with Raskin’s plan, many orphans were provided for in private homes, where expenses were two dollars a month, compared to five dollars per child in the orphanages.472 Other children were sent to parents and relatives in America. In 1922, the remaining children were consolidated in the first orphanage. A year later, the “regional orphanage” was also closed down. When the JDC renounced rescue activity to concentrate on economic rehabilitation and ceased to support educational and cultural institutions, it did not discontinue its support of the orphanage. But its position was that the local Jewish community had to maintain forty percent of the orphans

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on its own. Consequently, the Polish Society for Orphan Care (Centus) was established. In 1923, a Polesie Centus central committee was established in Pinsk. The central committee had eight members, including the Pinsk representative Z. Lyov. The executive was also composed of eight members, three of them Pinskers: Avraham Mazor, chairman; Eliyahu Holtzman; and A. Goldin, director. The Centus dealt with orphanages and orphans all over Polesie and received funding from the national Society in Warsaw, most of whose support came from the JDC. The Pinsk center succeeded in interesting the Jewish community of Capetown in the fate of the orphans; forty-six children were sent to Capetown to be cared for by the community. In 1924 and 1926, fifty-six children were sent to London for adoption by individuals. Since the orphanages’ quarters were old and unsuitable, a special committee was set up to erect a new building. The members were Ya’acov Eliasberg, chairman; Eliyahu Holtzman, vice chairman; Moshe Psahin, Ya’acov Boyarsky, Yonah Buxbaum, and Shmuel Garinovsky. The new edifice, one of the finest in the city, cost approximately 110,000 zlotys. Bernard Halpern donated about 25,000 zlotys in material and cash, Ya’acov Eliasberg—about 13,000 zlotys, the JDC—more than 30,000 zlotys, Pinskers in London—9,000 zlotys, and the local Jewish community—approximately 5,000 zlotys. At Eliasberg’s initiative, enterprises outside Pinsk also made contributions.473 An inspector for the JDC, Y. Friedman, submitted reports on the activities of the Polesie Central Committee for Orphans and the Local Committee for Orphanages and Orphans in Pinsk. The first report states that the central committee had purchased a “settlement” in Domachevo (several homes that served for the recreation and convalescence of orphans) and a “trachoma” station, which itself cost 4,600 zlotys. The monies were from “termination funds.” (The meaning of this expression is unclear.) A certain sum was received from the national society, which transferred 77,470 zlotys to the Pinsk Central Committee between January and June, in addition to providing its medical supplies. According to the second report, at the time there were 66 orphans in the home, 21 with neither father nor mother. Fifty-seven children

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attended regular schools, and 9 were learning a trade. In October 1926 the Local Committee was also caring for 254 orphans in foster homes, 35 with neither father or mother. While 109 were learning a trade, the rest attended regular schools. Maintaining a child in the orphanage cost between 55 and 60 zlotys a month; the cost in a private home was 30 zlotys, plus 8 zlotys for educational and administrative expenses. From January through September 1926, income came from the following sources: Government Municipality Membership dues Payment for miscellaneous work Contributions Aid from abroad Central Committee   Total

5,206.84 zlotys 6,330.00 3,057.03 3,140.95 2,740.80 8,111.22 37,285.16 65,872.00 zlotys

In other words, 56.6 percent of the income was provided by the central committee from monies that it received from the national society, which were in fact JDC funds. The other percentages were as follows: Government Municipality Local Membership and Contributions Aid from abroad, namely, Pinskers   in America and elsewhere   Total

7.8% 9.6% 8.8% 12.6% 95.4%

The origin of the remaining 4.6 percent is not clear. Salaries totaled 4,736.95 zlotys for employees of the local committee and 6,553.19 zlotys for the orphanage staff. Income from local sources did not cover even these salaries. The local committee also received 3,000 zlotys from the central committee for building repairs and to cover the deficit. Mrs. Burstein was in charge of the finances; at the time of the report the orphanage’s balance was 13.01 zlotys, 175 dollars, and two pounds sterling.474

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During 1927 the local committee cared for 337 orphans in the orphanage and in private homes; 160 children were attending regular schools, 120 were learning a trade, 20 were sick or handicapped, and 32 were below school age. In 1930 there were 78 orphans in the orphanage; 41 were attending regular schools, 22 were learning a trade, 2 were handicapped, and 13 were below school age. The figures for subsequent years were similar. In 1937, 81 children lived in the orphanage, and more than 100 orphans lived in private homes.475 After the JDC had decreased its subsidies in 1927, attempts were made to increase contributions by the local population. Following repeated efforts, particularly by vice-mayor Dr. Elazar Bregman, the municipality accepted responsibility for maintaining fifty-six Pinsk orphans and appropriated 21,000 zlotys for that purpose. In the 1932–33 fiscal year, however, the wojewoda reduced the sum to 10,000 zlotys, and the following year he reduced it by half once more. In 1937 the income was as follows: Membership tax and contributions Grant by the municipality Kehillah participation Centus Women’s Committee of Chicago Pinskers Contributions from London and elsewhere   Total

10,000 zlotys 5,000 3,000 2,000 3,500 1,500 25,000 zlotys

The annual deficit was 6,500 zlotys.476 The last existing documentation on the orphanage is a letter sent by its administration to the Women’s Committee of Chicago Pinskers on September 6, 1938. Its writers noted that due to the difficult economic situation, a significant number of children were not receiving any care. The local orphanage committee was caring for 83 orphans with neither father nor mother and supporting 150 children living with a mother or other relative (this final figure is probably exaggerated because a 1937 article spoke of only 94 children who had such private arrangements). The orphanage committee was attending to the children’s general and vocational education. In the summer months, more than 300 children were sent to camps, about 150 to

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Zastzank near Pinsk and the remainder to camps in the city. (Children were also taken to camps in Shershov and Domachevo.) The orphanage had a library that served about 500 children. Expenditures in 1937–38 had totaled about 52,000 zlotys, and the deficit reached 16,000 zlotys. The government was requiring improvement of the institution’s appearance and sanitary conditions: the orphanage must erect a new laundry, connect two buildings by a corridor, construct a new structure for children of kindergarten age, and paint all the buildings white; the estimated cost: 25,200 zlotys. Construction materials valued at 5,000 zlotys would be donated by the city’s residents. The writers were asking the Women’s Committee of Chicago Pinskers to donate 20,000 zlotys through the JDC, which the JDC would match. This letter was signed by A[khsah] Burstein, R. Kovner-Val, M. Gottlieb, N. Garinovsky, A. Margolin, Elka Tyokal, B. Feldman, M. Shalishevsky, and F[ania] Zeitlin.477 Residents of Chicago began to organize assistance for the orphanage. A letter from the JDC in New York to the Women’s Committee of Chicago Pinskers in Chicago, Illinois, informs them that the JDC did not usually match sums, except in cases of reconstruction activities. The outcome of this matter is not known. The Chicago women’s group sent twenty-five dollars early in 1939; a New York committee for support to Pinsk sent one hundred dollars in February 1939, over the signature of one A. Eizenman, secretary of the committee.478 The orphanages succeeded in guiding more than a thousand children to becoming independent adults thanks to the general and vocational education that they received. Over three hundred emigrated to America, London, South Africa, and Argentina; and some made aliyah to Palestine.479 The local committee undertook another project on behalf of Centus—providing girls from the surrounding towns with the opportunity to study a trade at the Pinsk girls’ vocational school. With JDC help, a building acquired to serve as boarding school was opened on February 9, 1930.480 Girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen were accepted after completing at least six elementary grades. (The girls also received free meals.) The school opened with seventeen students; two years later, when a second story was built, the number doubled. Up

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to 1937, 117 girls attended the school, and seventy-three completed the examinations in their crafts.481 The Centus activists in the city were N. Holtzman, A. Holtzman, Dr. L. Yacobson, Aharon Rubin, K. Shulman, V. Eizenberg, A. Nisht, H. Hotz, Y. Glazer, Y. Krugman, Avraham Mazur, and Z. Lyov. Women were particularly active on behalf of the orphanages: Regina Rabinowitsch (until her aliyah in 1934), Akhsah Burstein, Rahel Kovner-Val, Fania Tzeitlin, Sarah Kagan, Elka Tyokal, Bat-Sheva Gevirtzman. Men who were active were: L. Boyarsky, R. Buxbaum, D. Gleiberman, Dr. Margolin, R. Maran, G. Lev, B. Nisenbaum, R. Garinovsky, M. Gutler, B. Feldman, Pesah Fodokholsky, Yosef Feldman (who organized a mandolin ensemble in the orphanage), Yudel Basevitz, Y. Katz, Aharon Rubin, Yitzhak Eizenberg, Yitzhak Krugman, L. Feldman, and Y. Psahin.482

Old-Age Homes When Borukh Zuckerman visited the city early in April 1919, only the old-age home in Pinsk accommodating twenty-three senior citizens was in operation. Due to the city’s circumstances, the old people were living in wretched conditions. They received a daily ration of half a pound of bread483 and probably some amount of cooked food. This situation improved with the arrival of the American aid. Initially, the JDC covered the home’s budget, as it did those of other institutions; afterward, it provided a monthly allotment that met only part of the home’s expenditures. The old-age home received two hundred thousand marks from the Brin funds. According to Raskin’s report, there were twentyseven women and five men in the old-age home in the summer of 1921. At that point meals were served only twice a day, and the menu consisted of one pound of bread, a meatless soup, coffee, and tea. The monthly budget was eighty-five thousand marks. The staff comprised five people: director, supervisor, cook, custodian, and watchman.484 By the time of Raskin’s report, the Karlin old-age home was already housing nine men and twenty women. It operated like its Pinsk counterpart—was supported by the same source, received two hundred thousand marks from Brin, and had a similar staff and monthly budget. On May 1, 1921, the deficit totaled 79,097 marks.485

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When the JDC discontinued support for educational and welfare institutions, the old-age homes were forced to subsist on local and foreign contributions. A report on the Karlin old-age home from April 15, 1926, to May 3, 1927, states that it accommodated twenty-nine old people as in 1921. The budget totaled 7,651 zlotys and 198 dollars. Income from contributions was 1,665 zlotys and 87 dollars. Some of the dollars arriving from America were payments for caring for relatives, and some were donations. The Karlin old-age home was generally solvent, and the following year recorded a positive balance of 537 zlotys. In 1927 expenditures totaled 8,936 zlotys; the following year the budget rose further and reached 12,298 zlotys. In 1928 the budget of the Pinsk oldage home was 13,027 zlotys.486 The increases may be accounted for by support from the municipality. According to Polish law, the city was obligated to maintain old people who had no one to support them as in the case of orphans. In general, however, the city provided the Jewish old-age homes with meager sums. After the 1927 democratic elections for the city council resulted in a Jewish majority on the council, the administration was forced to increase its allocation. For 1928 the wojewoda authorized 3,000 zlotys for the old-age homes.487 The budget proposed for 1929–30 listed 12,647 zlotys for the Jewish old-age homes; the sum actually appropriated was probably lower. For 1930– 31, 0.45 zlotys [per day] were allotted for each person in the Jewish oldage homes, as opposed to apparently almost four times as much—1.65 zlotys per person—in the Christian old-age home.488 The small subsidy nevertheless eased the burden; it is not clear whether it was continued in subsequent years. After the Karlin hospital had been closed down by the kehillah in 1934 (see below), the two old-age homes were transferred to its premises. The fire that broke out on Karlin Street on July 12, 1936, and spread to the old-age home, had disastrous consequences—five people were killed.489 The home was moved to another building and in 1937 had sixty residents.490 The director of the united old-age home was the city’s leading Bundist, Aharon Yudel Shlakman, who had served as director of the Karlin hospital. Yeshayahu Gevirtzman had preceded him as director of the Karlin old-age home.491

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Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia (TOZ) In 1923 a Pinsk branch of the TOZ society [society for safeguarding the health of the Jewish population, founded 1921, Warsaw] was established to attend to the health of children and young adults. A 1927 article states: In the four years of its existence, the society has cured about 150 children of scalp conditions, sent approximately 150 children to summer camps each year, and through the Tipat Halav [well-baby clinic, literally, “a drop of milk”], which it organized, provided milk for about 100 infants.

In 1927 TOZ cared for 1,600 children, 200 of whom were in need of convalescent care.492 At the end of 1926, the JDC inspector Y. Friedman reported that from May to July of that year, the association had received 1,200 zlotys a month from the central committee (probably the TOZ central committee in Warsaw) for nutrition programs for poor school children. The food was distributed as follows: Seventy children in the Moshe’le Gleiberman school Seventy children in the Left Poalei Zion Yiddish elementary school Fifty-four children in the Tel Hai school Forty-three children in the (girls?) vocational school Forty-seven children in the technical school Seventy-two children in the Pinsk Talmud Torah Forty-four children in the Karlin Talmud Torah

Food was also provided to children in the “playground,” probably a reference to the kindergarten. Between April and November 15, 1926, the Yiddishist schools received 8,509 zlotys from CYShO toward providing light meals for 408 children. Some of the children paid for their meals. According to Friedman’s account of the CYShO support, Aronovitz, the principal of the (Gleiberman?) school, exceeded the allotted sum and incurred a deficit of 12,804 zlotys; furthermore, the money the children paid for meals had not been entered into the account book. Aronovitz attempted to justify this by pointing out that the children’s payments had been collected just a few days earlier, but the inspector did not accept his explanation.

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Friedman’s record of the TOZ activities covers the period January through November 1926 and provides information on the TOZ income and expenditures in general. Income Central Committee Municipality Membership dues Imprezen (benefit performances) X-rays, etc. Tipat Halav Summer camps   Total

15,268.50 zlotys 800.00 78.60 560.00 1,672.10 2,114.50 2,379 23,072.70 zlotys

Expenditures Nutrition programs Hygiene in the schools Clinic and quartz lamps Tipat Halav Summer camps Administration, organization   Total

3,165.10 zlotys 2,622.60 3,628.94 7,067.00 4,042.13 2,540.52 493 23,066.29 zlotys

It is clear that TOZ activities in Pinsk were extensive and were made possible primarily by foreign funding. The municipality subsequently granted some funds—in 1928–29, it allocated 1,500 zlotys and in 1929–30, it allocated 3,000 zlotys;494 later on, the wojewoda decreased these amounts. The kehillah provided very small sums, 498 zlotys in 1936.495 Additional income was derived from benefit “dancings.” The TOZ building served as an important public health center. “Milk rations” were distributed to children below the age of two and fish oil to elementary school children. The center’s laboratories performed blood tests and other analyses for residents of all ages. The center housed a ward for treatment of tuberculosis patients; clinics for ear, nose, and throat, eyes, teeth; and infant care; and provided consultations for pregnant women.496 In the mid-1930s, TOZ built houses in the Sosnowka forest, west of Pinsk, to serve as a summer camp for children.

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TOZ activities had further ramifications. Y. Eliasberg opened a Tipat Halav branch for children of workers in the plywood factory and, influenced by the engineer Yeselevitz, Bernard Halpern opened a similar facility near the match factory. In its early years this facility cared for about 250 children; because of budgetary constraints, it handled only about 104 children in 1934. Each week in 1934 the center used 75 lemons and 15 kilograms of butter; during the winter months it distributed 50 grams of fish oil a week per person. Children between the ages of seven and fourteen were sent to the Sosnowka camp. The yearly expenditures of this branch amounted to 12,000 zlotys. Dr. Elstein served as pediatrician in both Tipat Halav branches, as well as at the TOZ center in the city. A nurse named Mandelbaum assisted her.497 Other doctors worked in the TOZ center—Dr. Unger, Dr. Bienenstock, Dr. Nurkin, Dr. Prager, and Dr. Avraham Ritterman— with nurses Bak and Roza Pliskinah. Mrs. Aronson, one of the dedicated TOZ workers used to visit workers’ homes and offer instruction in cleanliness and hygiene.498

The Tomkhei Aniyim Society In 1927 the society called Seudat Shabbat Le-Orehim resumed its activities, but rather than furnishing meals for travelers passing through Pinsk as it had done before the war, it now attended to the local poor.499 In 1930 it was reorganized under the name of Tomekhei Aniyim with a government-authorized charter. Its goal was to assist the needy with anonymous donations, ma’ot hitim [Passover necessities], medical care, and clothing. There were twelve directors, including Treibush— chairman, Dov Turkenitz—vice chairman, S. L. Garbuz—treasurer, Burstein—secretary.500 The group’s income derived from dues, donations in honor of weddings, births and such, and occasional appeals. The record of April 1, 1936–March 31, 1937, gives a picture of the sources of income and the items of expenditures.501 Income Balance Dues collected by H. Pomerantz

110.41 zlotys 1,133.03

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Ma’ot hittim collection 835.30 Collection for firewood 432.21 Holiday collection 252.80 Shavuot collection 157.06 Purim collection 135.10 Collection plates in study houses and cemeteries on   the Ninth of Av and Eve of Day of Atonement 30.08 Affair on January 9, 1937 512.03 Affair on March 6, 1937 297.71 Four flower days 285.26 Donations by vacationers at Iwanic,   collected by Pritika-Pollak 223.53 Deaths, anniversaries of deaths 62.53 Weddings and births 43.00 Slutzky and Mordekhai Shevas 18.00 Vilkovitz (box) 17.50 Various donations 27.30 Miscellaneous 8.65 JDC through Gemilut Hesed II 1,054.00   Total 5,635.50 zlotys Expenditures Passover assistance for 319 families Mid-year support for 269 families Firewood for 184 families Necessities for 283 families Bathhouse expenses for 50 people Secretary’s wages Collector Printing expenses, flowers Office expenses, announcements,   office renovation Expenses for affairs and flower days Miscellaneous Balance   Total

1,944.35 zlotys 1,056.75 873.93 768.05 15.50 360.00 274.71 22.00 46.97 293.61 25.26 139.03 5,820.16 zlotys

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In its early years the society’s receipts were almost twice as large as they were later, and the assistance it was able to grant was correspondingly greater. Its income decreased either because of the economic crisis or because the kehillah had begun to levy taxes and provide similar services. The society sometimes received funds from Pinskers in America; in March 1939, fifty dollars from New York.502 In March 1938 a new eighteen-man board was elected: Motl Pintchuk, Feivel Minkovsky, Zvi Golandsky, Shaul Elazar Garbuz (one of the first activists), Ya’acov Goldberg, David Matzevnik, Nahum Bronstein, Braverman, Ilivitzky, Shalom Goldfarb, Shalom Ber Tantzman, Zalman Pollak, Eliyahu Levin, Hershel Pinsky, Asher Lutzky, Leib Feld, Hershel Feldman, [and] Ya’acov Bovrin. Berl Abramovitz, Feivel Margolin, and Mendel Treibman were elected to the executive.503 That the population elected so many directors attests to the society’s importance and interest in its activities.

Linat Tzedek Society The original Linat Tzedek association had disintegrated during the German occupation. Its charter was renewed late in 1926 under the name of its chairman Ya’acov Holtzman.504 With the development of new medical techniques, this organization expanded its activities. It now provided blood tests and X-rays in addition to its former services of nighttime attendance on needy invalids, loans of medical equipment, and medicines, either free or at discounted prices. As of September 1, 1933, the society had its own daily clinic staffed by skilled physicians.505 It also ran a dental clinic for a while. Income came from membership dues and donations, as well as occasional small appropriations by the municipality and the kehillah. A campaign known as “the ice project” was conducted every year. In 1926 the budget totaled 14,178 zlotys; in 1927—13,812 zlotys; and in 1928—15,454 zlotys.506 Members of the board in 1928 were the engineer Ya’acov Goldberg—chairman, Meir Ratenovsky—vice chairman, Shemaryahu Neidich—secretary, Moshe Mendel Pritika—treasurer.507 In 1934, the administration was “inadvertently” composed of Revisionists and a complaint was voiced that “the organization was mired in mud” and incapable of functioning.508

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Women’s Society for Welfare Work In late 1935 a women’s group led by Mrs. Pelzon was formed for the purpose of helping hungry children and poor families. In December 1935 the society opened a restaurant at Zabalna-Pilsudski Street to provide free lunches, first to 50 children, shortly afterward to 240. The women also provided the schools with milk for poor children. In early 1936 a restaurant on Soborna-Dominikanska Street offered meals for adults at a cost of 20 grosze (approximately 40 meals for one dollar). Every day, 150 meals were distributed, particularly to families in which the mothers were breadwinners. To fund their projects, the women solicited from citizens of means and also received support from the London Committee for Polish Jewry, which helped to set up kitchens for lowpriced meals.509

Hospitals The Pinsk hospital remained open during the war and was partially supported by the Citizens’ Committee. When Borukh Zuckerman visited the city early in April 1919, the institution housed thirty-eight patients. It was in a state of neglect and lacked necessary medications and minimal food; there was no heating, and clothes and linens were in short supply. No surgery had been performed since the German occupation. The state of the Karlin hospital was totally unacceptable. Dr. Feldman told Zuckerman at the time that if the hospital did not open soon, the Polish authorities would turn it into a stable.510 When JDC funds began to arrive soon after, the Karlin hospital building was renovated and made suitable for its purpose. Thanks to JDC aid, the city’s older Jewish institutions recovered, and new ones were set up. The Pinsk hospital was maintained by the JDC and by the People’s Relief; it also received 225,000 marks from the Brin funds. The Karlin hospital received 200,000 marks. These institutions were partially supported by the municipality, which paid the salaries of the personnel. Raskin’s May 1921 report offers this information, along with data on all the other Jewish institutions in Pinsk. He describes the Pinsk hospital: There were nine rooms for patients, an operating room, pharmacy, bathroom, storeroom, two rooms for personnel, kitchen, and corridor.

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A second building had rooms for the doctor and feldsher (paramedic), the watchman and custodians, along with the laundry, the morgue, and the storeroom for firewood. The hospital had been designed for forty patients but, in fact, housed fifty-five. It comprised three wards— surgical, internal medicine, and maternity. The establishment was administered by a five-member board: S.(?) Goldberg—chairman, Miller—treasurer, A. Kazh, L. Slozberg, A. Stillerman; and the staff numbered twenty-four: doctor, paramedic, pharmacist, midwife, eleven nurses, plus an orderly, director, kitchen supervisor, assistant to the supervisor, cook, maid, and three custodians. Raskin notes that on May 1, 1921, the books showed that income from payments by patients and other sources had exceeded expenditures by 58,163 marks and 1,991 rubles. The hospital was, however, in need of foodstuffs and medicines, clothes, linens, and surgical instruments; it also required renovations. Raskin writes that the budget of the Karlin hospital was covered by the JDC until August 1, 1920 (the date of the second Bolshevik invasion). Afterward, the hospital received a monthly stipend. The fifty-bed institution was housed in two buildings on a large lot. One building contained seven rooms for patients, an operating room, pharmacy, bathroom, kitchen, laundry, and the paramedic’s apartment. The second building accommodated patients with contagious diseases. The staff numbered eighteen—doctor, paramedic, ten nurses and orderlies, a director, cook, two laundresses, and two custodians. Here, as in the Pinsk facility, there were few patients capable of paying for their care. The municipality provided half of the monthly budget of 200,000 marks. As of May 1, 1921, the Karlin hospital nevertheless showed a deficit of 86,070 marks. The public board of directors had twelve members, including Y. Slutzky—chairman and Moravkin—treasurer.511 The Karlin hospital was more modern than the Pinsk hospital. Young Jewish doctors arriving from western Poland found it a more favorable setting for their energy and initiative than the Pinsk hospital, where the chief of staff was a non-Jew, an expert surgeon by the name of Dr. Yevsenko. Yevsenko preferred to employ non-Jewish doctors and nurses; it was said that the Pinsk Jewish hospital “had lost its Jewish character,” retaining only the name.512 The surgeon at the Karlin

Between Two World Wars

hospital was Dr. Edward Gliksman, who had worked there before the war and returned after it. In addition to the surgical department, the Karlin hospital had a department of internal medicine headed by Dr. A. Feldman and an ophthalmologic department, headed by Dr. Y. Skotnitzky.513 In 1926 an X-ray facility was opened to provide X-rays and radiation treatments. Dr. E. Gleiberson writes of the Karlin hospital: It may be said that the hospital sets very high medical standards. It was recently enriched by expensive medical equipment. The hospital has a modern operating room, a maternity department, an X-ray facility and a laboratory for blood tests, all thanks to the five Jewish doctors who work devotedly and energetically. This is a Jewish hospital that any city would be proud of.

The Pinsk hospital, on the other hand, was backward according to ­Gleiberson’s article. “It does not have separate departments, and sanitary conditions are not up to par.”514 Dr. Yevsenko rebutted that during the first half of 1927 alone, 258 operations had been performed in the hospital that he headed; the number of beds had increased from fortytwo in 1921, to sixty-two, and the hospital employed seven doctors in addition to himself.515 Both hospitals required improvements, but without legal proprietors or funds, there was no way to provide for modernization. In 1921 American support ceased, and the municipality reduced its share of maintenance. For 1928 the wojewoda authorized a stipend of 1,000 zlotys to the Pinsk hospital and 1,250 zlotys for the Karlin hospital; in the subsequent municipal budgets available,516 there is no mention of any appropriation. In July 1930 the kehillah appointed a committee to examine the situation in the hospitals and submit proposals. The members of the committee were Dr. Elazar Bregman, Dr. Gleiberson, engineer Goldberg, and Yosef Skolnik.517 They determined that were the hospitals to receive eight zlotys per day for each patient, they would be able to function without outside support, while carrying out improvements and modernizing equipment. In 1928 the Pinsk hospital provided 16,516 days of patient care and in 1929, 16,308 days of patient care; expenses for 1928 were 95,441 zlotys, and for 1929, 96,419 zlotys. The Karlin hospital provided 6,950 days of patient care in 1928 and 8,488 days of

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patient care in 1929; expenditures for 1928 were 55,600 zlotys (including repairs costing 10,500 zlotys) and for 1929, 51,696 zlotys. The cause of the deficits was the fact that the municipality paid only five zlotys per day for patients that it sent to the hospital, and the sick-fund paid only three zlotys per day for patients that it referred (medical insurance for workers had been legislated by the government). The hospitals could not collect what was owed them either from patients or from municipal councils in the area that sent their sick to city hospitals because they were not owned by a “legal corporation.” The committee reported that if the legal status of the hospitals was not altered, they would close down because without funding, improvements were not feasible, and it was impossible to maintain a hospital without modernization, especially since the local government hospital and private hospital were more advanced. The report also noted that staff salaries were very low. Twenty-four people worked in the Pinsk hospital and earned a total of 1,975 zlotys a month; fourteen people worked at the Karlin institution and earned 1,125 zlotys a month. The report lists the numbers of paying and non-paying patients, as well as those referred by the municipality and the sick-fund. The number of non-paying patients in the Pinsk hospital decreased each year: 102 in 1928, 78 in 1929, and only 20 up to September 1, 1930. The same was true for the Karlin hospital since the city and the sick-fund had increased payments for workers and the poor. The account pointed out that the Pinsk establishment needed repairs, and nutrition in both institutions was unsatisfactory—all patients received the same diet. The X-ray equipment introduced in the Pinsk hospital had been purchased with a 2,000-dollar contribution from TOZ, but the hospital still owed another 700 dollars. The surgical department of the Karlin hospital had to be remodeled. The committee proposed establishing a legal corporation to represent the two hospitals as a single institution with 110 beds. Jewish medical students would then be able to do their clinical training in the city, since the law permitted training only in hospitals with at least 100 beds. The majority of the committee members also felt that a single administration should be established for the two facilities. The report noted that the two hospitals were in difficult straits (the Karlin hospital’s situation was catastrophic) and demanded assistance from the kehillah.518

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The kehillah decided to draw up a charter to unite the two institutions.519 The doctors, however, were not in favor of the merger. Tension arose between the physicians and the administration of the Pinsk hospital—S. Luria, A. Holtzman, S. Eizenstat, and Faller. Early in 1931 the physicians called a strike because the administration of the Karlin hospital was seeking a replacement from outside for Dr. Gliksman, who had left the city. They called off the strike after extracting a promise that no outside doctors would be brought in without consulting with the physicians’ union.520 Complaints were voiced that the doctors were turning the hospital into a “private business,” unrestricted by accountability to the public. There were also claims that the hospitals were receiving support from the municipality, from TOZ, and from “committees” in America, while poor patients referred by the municipality lay in the corridor and were forced to sell their pillows and blankets to satisfy the greed of the “big shots,” that is the physicians.521 In 1934 the kehillah assumed control of the hospitals; the Karlin hospital was closed and its patients transferred to the Pinsk facility. The two old-age homes had been housed in very dilapidated quarters and the authorities were demanding that they be emptied, so their residents were moved into the Karlin hospital building.522 In 1937 the hospital had a deficit of 12,386 zlotys, and Dr. Yacobson demanded that the kehillah cover the deficit. Despite the reorganization, in other words, the hospital could not survive without outside help even though one patient-day cost the hospital only about a halfdollar (5.02 zlotys in 1934, 4.95 zlotys in 1935, 4.32 zlotys in 1936).523

Gemilut Hesed (Free Loan) Societies The JDC had started to establish an interest-free-loan fund as early as 1920. A report written on May 10, 1920, notes that fifty thousand marks from JDC funds were earmarked for loans. Brin lent the cooperatives three million marks from the monies that he brought with the stipulation that when the sum was returned, it be used to start a free-loan fund. In June 1921, however, a JDC official named A. Zucker questioned whether the cooperatives would return the money.524 The sum, however, had depreciated markedly during the 1922–23 devaluation,

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and interest in the matter died down. The issue came up again during the 1926 crisis, and two interest-free-loan funds were set up. One was located in the Linishches neighborhood in the pre-war gemilut hesed building and was known as Gemilut Hesed I. The second was originally called the Unprotzentige Leikasse (interest-free-loan fund) and later known as Gemilut Hesed II. Gemilut Hesed I was founded at the initiative of Shmuel Kosik, with the assistance of the manager of the match factory Yisrael Reikh, an engineer; Monish Prizant; Moshe Veitzel; Pesah Shukhman; Pesah Podokholsky; and Yudel Basevitz. According to the charter that was ratified by the wojewoda, the society was an “association” that lent money to members without interest on the basis of notes and guarantors. The old ­gemilut hesed building (on Y. L. Peretz Street, formerly Wolotna Street) was renovated. Members were recruited for the society mainly through the efforts of Mrs. Elka Tyokal, Shevah Gevirtzman, and Mania Prizant. At the first meeting, the rabbis of the city and Yisrael Reikh were appointed honorary members, and an executive committee and board of overseers were elected as required by the regulations. Shmuel Chernihov was elected chairman and served until his death in 1930. Shmuel ­Garinovsky, elected as chairman approximately two years later, introduced the sale of low-cost life insurance for members of the Gemilut Hesed. The significance of the society is borne out by the following facts: When the Gemilut Hesed began operation in 1927, its capital consisted of 556 zlotys, plus 1,000 zlotys donated by Lipa (Leopold) Luria. Ten years later, at the end of 1936, its capital was 47,000 zlotys, derived from membership dues and contributions from local and foreign benefactors. Yehudah Leib Feldman of the United States donated 100 dollars, and the kehillah appropriated small sums to the society from 1933 on. Between 1927 and 1936, 16,872 loans totaling 931,950 zlotys were granted: To workers and others, 7,448 loans totaling 401,740 zlotys. To craftsmen, 5,848 loans totaling 315,305 zlotys. To small businessmen, 3,576 loans totaling 213,905 zlotys. The number of borrowers was 2,494.

Between Two World Wars

Borrowers were obligated to repay their debts in weekly installments calculated from the day the loan was taken out. The amounts loaned were small; this made a large turnover of funds possible. In 1936 the loans averaged 65 zlotys; they had been even smaller previously.525 Gemilut Hesed II was established at the request of Gitterman of the JDC by reorganizing the Va’ad Ha-Hatzalah [rescue committee] that had been established in 1926.526 A founding meeting took place on January 2, 1927, with the participation of the city rabbis Rabbi Walkin and Rabbi Rabinsky, B. Bukshtansky, Y. Eliasberg, Volovelsky, and Holtzman. Attendees pledged various amounts of money; the Luria factory promised 900 zlotys, and Eliasberg made a personal donation of 100 zlotys. Within a month, 3,390 zlotys had been collected, and another 17,291 zlotys granted as a loan by the Va’ad Ha-Hatzalah were released for use. Gemilut Hesed II began to grant loans as of February 20, 1927. Gemilut Hesed II was also a hevrah [society] and gained 800 members within the first three months.527 In 1927, a total of 713 loans were granted—381 to small businessmen, 230 to craftsmen, and 102 to members of the professions. In 1929–30, a total of 1,441 loans were granted—524 to businessmen, 774 to craftsmen, and 143 to other workers. The value of loans granted in 1929 totaled 153,258 zlotys. On the average, loans given by the Gemilut Hesed II were larger than those given by Gemilut Hesed I, which gave out 2,338 loans totaling 133,300 zlotys that same year. In 1931–32, the 1,029 loans totaled 106,466 zlotys.528 The great crisis of 1930–35 caused a decline in activity. In 1937 Gemilut Hesed’s capital totaled only 9,705 zlotys, and in 1935 only 532 loans, totaling 50,250 zlotys, were granted.529 The members of the board of directors elected in 1932 were: S. Luria, Yitzhak Bodankin, David Buniuk, Eliyahu Holtzman, Meir Ratnovsky, L. Frishberg, Moshe Dobrushin, Leizer Moliar, Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub, Leib Antopolsky, Mordekhai Garfunkel, Zvi Hirsh Pinsky, Halouna Srivnik, Yosef Aharon Rolnik, Shmuel Friedman, and Avraham Lin.530

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up to the Nazi Occupation (September 16, 1939–July 4, 1941)

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The atmosphere of approaching war that prevailed in Poland in the early summer months of 1939 was palpable in Pinsk. The Jews had no idea of what the Nazis were to do to them; still there was fear in Pinsk, not only of the horrors of war, but of the certainty that, should war break out, Poland was no match for Hitler’s forces.1 With no way to escape, life’s routines continued although at the end of April or the beginning of May, the air raid siren was tested.2 The economic situation improved noticeably. Zvi Yakshin writes that “prosperity reigned.”3 The annual Polesie Fair, begun in 1936, was held at the end of the summer of 1939 and no doubt contributed a great deal to the economy in terms of commerce, the trades, and the hotel business.4 Polish-owned enterprises that had opened in 1937, intending to usurp business from Jewish merchants and shopkeepers, closed down one by one, unable to compete with the more experienced Jewish entrepreneurs. The gangs of anti-semitic youngsters who had tried to harm Jews during 1937–38 disappeared. For one thing, they were deterred by blows from young Jewish Pinskers and from Jewish carters and porters; furthermore, the danger posed by the “neighbor” on the west took their minds off the Jews. The wojewoda Kostak Biernacki, well-known for his despotic rule, stopped pressuring Y. Eliasberg to take on a new factory supervisor who was considered trustworthy by the government and did not renew his demand that Jewish workers be fired and replaced with non-Jews.5 Tension was mounting in August. The authorities began to build fortifications. “A group of Polish youths bearing spades marched through the streets.”6 Jewish youngsters were not conscripted for these

The Second World War up to the Nazi Occupation

activities, most likely because they were not trusted. Civil defense activities began, but the head of the civil defense was a nationalist who later turned out to be a Nazi and a German agent.7 The Noar Zioni movement made preparations to continue its activities in the event that the “older brothers” were drafted for the army.8 Other youth movements probably did the same. On August 27, the day that prizes for outstanding products were awarded at the Polesie Fair, general mobilization began. Jews serving in the reserves appeared promptly.9 Some returned home, however, since the mobilization was poorly organized, and even uniforms were not available in sufficient quantities.10 During the night of September 1, Hitler’s air force began to bomb defense installations and airports in western Poland. The radio announced these developments the following morning and warned against aerial attacks. In the afternoon, vehicles with Polish officials and officers fleeing toward Galicia and Romania could be seen in Pinsk. Before long, the city was filled with masses of refugees from Warsaw, Lodz, and Bialy­stok, most of them Jews.11 Many of those called up for the army returned home because of Poland’s military collapse and the prevailing chaos in the defense structure. It was clear that Pinsk would shortly fall to the Nazis. Enemy planes were seen overhead, and bombardments claimed twelve casualties, including three workers in the plywood factory. Paratroopers landed, but they were seized and shot.12 The few individuals with means of transportation left the city. They headed either for Vilna—hoping to reach Riga and then London or the United States—or for the Romanian border, which was rumored to be open, intending to reach Palestine. Y. Eliasberg departed in the direction of the Russian border.13 There was no possibility of hiding in neighboring villages since gangs of robbers were terrorizing the entire vicinity. Rumor spread that they were about to enter the city; a civil militia was organized. The Jews of Pinsk prepared to resist and to chase them off. Workers who remained in the plywood factory as “firemen” and watchmen assembled for armed defense to prevent “undesirables” from penetrating the premises.14 The Soviet invasion of Polish territory, in accord with the ­Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement of August 23, began on September 16. At twilight on September 17, the first tanks of the Soviet vanguard en-

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tered the city limits. Word spread rapidly, and elation prevailed. Dread of the Nazi invasion dissipated. Exhilaration nevertheless was mixed for many people with apprehension: those who feared for the Jewish religion, activists of political parties and Zionist youth movements, and owners of property and businesses. Secret communists came out into the open and some even went to welcome the Soviet advance forces. Employees of the factories and workshops held a demonstration of sympathy for the Soviet regime and marched in unison to the Plaza of the Third of May (the market square) to greet the liberating forces. Shots aimed at the remaining Polish Legionnaires holed up in the monastery could still be heard, and a deafening explosion resounded from the Pina bridge, blown up by the last of the Legionnaires.15 The Russians arrived prepared to establish Soviet rule in the occupied territories. Political commissars, politruks, entered along with the troops. The next day the Polish mayor was arrested and a new civil administration was established, composed entirely of non-Pinskers. Factories were put back into operation that very day. Commissars and local communists, some just released from prison, appeared at the Luria plywood factory to arrange for maintaining production. They called a meeting of workers, and after an explanatory speech, a new workers committee was elected at their suggestion. It was decided that the former management would continue to run the plant, and Y. Eliasberg was brought back from Luninec. A week later, however, Eliasberg was forced to accept a “colleague,” who gradually pushed him out of his responsibilities. Eliasberg realized that he had no alternative but to flee the city.16 The situation in other factories was presumably similar. Within a few days, numerous clerks had arrived in Pinsk and taken over the positions of senior Polish officials, many of whom had managed to escape before the occupation or in its first days. Searches were conducted for those who had not fled; they were detained and expelled by the N.K.V.D. (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, i.e., secret police), which had begun to function at the inception of Soviet rule. All recent arrivals, Polish army veterans, who had been settled by the Polish government on the estates along the Russian border, were expelled, apparently to Nazi-occupied Poland, and “the impression of that expulsion affected the Jews of Pinsk for several days.”17

The Second World War up to the Nazi Occupation

The new order established itself quickly; assistance from local Jewish communists was no minor factor. The government bank was opened, and residents were required to deposit their savings. Other banks were closed. The court was also open. The Jewish kehillah was not disbanded and seems to have functioned during the first weeks of the occupation; in any case, the kehillah hospital continued to exist as a private institution, along with the old-age home and the orphanage. Initially, only the factories, the cinemas, and the theater were expropriated. The new clerks were lodged in rooms confiscated from owners of apartments. In the major enterprises, alternate workers committees were formed and “objectionable” individuals disqualified. Trade unions still existed, but committees were constituted in line with the wishes of the commissars or the politruks, rather than according to the independent choice of the workers. At large workplaces, “party cells” were formed; their main role was to educate the workers to be loyal and devoted to the current regime. To this end, innumerable meetings were scheduled in workplaces, as well as at mass outdoor gatherings. All workers were obliged to attend these assemblies. Large-scale change took place in the economy. Important trade, silenced with the outbreak of war, was not renewed. The supply of food was insufficient, and prices rose. Long lines extended alongside the grocery stores. The textile and leather factories enjoyed a large volume of business. Recent arrivals—clerks, officers, and soldiers—constituted their clientele. They grabbed the merchandise, bought everything available, and didn’t bother to haggle over prices. Payment was made in zlotys; ­Soviet rubles were not to be seen. The millions of zlotys in the vault of the government bank were divided among members of the new regime.18 Workers were not yet restricted as to the places they could work. Employees of the Luria brothers’ factory left their jobs and probably found other employment. As a consequence of the authorities’ desire to increase production, the factories were opened to many more workers; at the Luria plant the number of workers doubled. Daily wages were five zlotys, and purchasing power had decreased to about one-fifth of the former value. The price of a pud, or sixteen kilograms of potatoes, rose from one to five zlotys.19 Worse still was the predicament of people who were not workers and who did not have savings. Within a short while,

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a common phenomenon of the First World War—the sale of household articles and clothing—resurfaced, with Soviet officials as customers.20 Disbanding on their own, political parties ceased to exist. The Noar Ha-Zioni youth movement carried on surreptitiously for a while, as did the Shomer Ha-Tzair movement. The pioneering kibbutz Shahariah received permission to reorganize, in view of the possibility that kibbutz members would assist in establishing kolkhozes [collective farms] in the vicinity of the city. But the kibbutz dispersed shortly afterward.21 Educational institutions were opened about two weeks after the occupation by order of the authorities. Free tuition was proclaimed, and teachers thus became employees of the Soviet government or the municipality. At first, no basic changes took place in the schools. In the Hebrew schools classes were conducted in the Hebrew language, but at the Tarbut gymnasium, the Ukrainian language was introduced; a short while later it was supplanted by Belarusian. Jewish teachers arrived from Moscow to provide language instruction. The language changes were connected to the question of which Soviet republic, the Ukrainian Republic or the Belarusian Republic the city would be annexed to. Within the month, however, a ban was declared against Hebrew language and literature, and Yiddish was designated as the language of instruction for all subjects. The curriculum was altered radically. Study of the Bible and the works of Hebrew and nationalist poets and writers was forbidden, even in Yiddish translation. Texts were replaced with others brought from Soviet Russia, written in the Yiddish orthography in use there (free of Hebrew-style spelling). Certain periods were excised from the study of Jewish history—the Biblical era and the eras of the Second Temple, the Mishnah, and the Talmud—to extirpate religion, links to the Land of Israel, and Zionism. Study of the geography of Palestine was halted for the same reason. Jewish nationalist education was eradicated, and teachers who arrived to supplement the existing staff conducted anti-religious propaganda. Hanukkah celebrations were not held in the Hebrew schools that year, a disappointment for educators and students. A gymnasium teacher informing his class: “Children, this is the last time that I will address you in the Hebrew language,” burst into tears, and the students wept with him. On one of the days of Hanukkah, pupils found a Hebrew proclamation in their coat ­pockets.

The Second World War up to the Nazi Occupation

“Remember, children,” it read, “our language is Hebrew. Today is the festival of Hanukkah, the festival of the Maccabees. Let each child celebrate the holiday of Hebrew heroism in his home.” If the quotation is accurate, the proclamation must have been authored by a teacher and distributed by a group of loyal students. Fear of the N.K.V.D. was already extreme; when word of the proclamation reached the teacher David Alper, still serving as principal of the gymnasium, he assembled the students and requested that they not repeat the incident.22 N.K.V.D. activities had begun in the earliest days of the occupation. First to be investigated, arrested, and expelled were activists of the New Zionist Federation, Betar and Berit He-Hayal, whose members were former Polish soldiers. They were all considered outright counter-revolutionaries and were exiled to remote regions of the Soviet Union.23 Next came the “capitalists” whose factories and warehouses had been emptied by members of the new regime. They [the “capitalists”] were dispatched with their families to villages in the Pinsk area as “undesirable persons.”24 Vilna, which had been seized by the Soviet army and annexed to Lithuania on October 29, 1939, seemed to be a lifeboat or a springboard to countries outside both Nazi and Soviet domination. Until annexation, escape to Vilna had not entailed any danger; it was possible to travel legally by train. Afterward, the situation became graver—it was possible to travel only to Lida, then one had to jump the current Lithuanian border, between Soviet Radin and Lithuanian Eishishuk. Among the first to leave Pinsk were Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub and the young men from the Beit Yosef yeshivah. Twenty years earlier Rabbi Weintraub had fled the Bolshevik pogroms in Russia with his yeshivah. He was aware of what awaited him and his students under the present regime. The yeshivah moved on from Vilna to Vilkomir.25 Not many people took advantage of the opportunity to flee to Vilna. Either they hoped to survive under Soviet rule or did not wish to uproot themselves and roam, vulnerable and without a source of livelihood. About forty young men and women from the Shahariah kibbutz group of the Noar Ha-Zioni movement left, along with several members of the Shomer Ha-Tzair and about twenty-five members of Betar.26 Others, such as the assistant manager of the Luria factory, made off when they sensed that they were being followed.27

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Some people attempted to reach Vilna and, stopped by Soviet or Lithuanian guards, were unable to cross the border. Not everyone came out unscathed from these encounters. Y. Eliasberg describes the adventures and perils of flight. In December 1939 he left for Lvov on “vacation.” Among refugee circles there he heard that many people were escaping to Romania but that this involved a serious hazard because Russian guards were lurking along the border with bloodhounds; anyone caught was dispatched to slave labor in the far north. Eliasberg heard that passage to Hungary was less dangerous, but he did not care to climb the Carpathians while they were snow-covered. He therefore decided to flee to Vilna and notified his wife in Pinsk by telegram and telephone. Eliasberg traveled by train from Lvov to Lida, where he was joined by his wife and daughter. He opened negotiations with border-runners who served as guides. One night, a Pinsk merchant named Gold burst into his lodgings and reported that the night before he had set out for the border in a sleigh and had been discovered by a roving guard unit. Thanks to fast horses, he managed to outdistance them but fell off the wagon and returned on the brink of death. Eliasberg met another acquaintance who had already crossed the border, but had been brutally ousted by Lithuanian soldiers. Eliasberg and his household returned to Lvov hoping to get an immigration certificate from the Land of Israel. On April 13 he and his family were expelled to Kazakhstan.28 On November 29, 1939, following extensive propaganda and mass assemblies, a referendum was held on the annexation of Pinsk to the Belarusian Republic. The terrified populace voted unanimously for annexation.29 Shortly afterward, word came that Soviet passports were being granted.30 Apparently anyone who wished could receive such identification. This act legitimized everything that had or was to happen to these people. Interrogations, arrests, and subsequent expulsions became more and more frequent. Bundists, communists, and ordinary workers were questioned, arrested, and sent off. Zvi Yakshin, a member of the workers’ committee in the Luria brothers’ factory, was imprisoned. According to his diary, the reason was that the new manager did not approve of him since he had spoken up for the workers about wages and firewood and had criticized the manager’s methods.

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Yakshin was not the only one to be arrested for this sort of “offense.” His memoirs contain fascinating information on the arrests, investigations, and expulsions. Yakshin was detained on the night of December  12. Another young man was held together with him. In the tiny cellar room of the N.K.V.D. building, he found another fifteen or so fellow sufferers. The following night some of them were taken from the room, never to be seen again, and others were brought in their stead. After being interrogated, Yakshin was put in a dark vehicle with other people, Jews and Poles. All were taken to prison. His cell held forty-two men—Jews, Poles, Belarusians. Most of the Poles had been senior officials, officers, policemen, and lawyers. Yakshin was in prison until August 1940. During that period, he was twice taken for questioning and accused of derogative speech against the Soviet regime. A single witness testified against him. Yakshin immediately exposed the man’s lies and even the examiner realized that the witness was testifying falsely. Yakshin was nevertheless transferred from prison, together with his companions, to the interior of Asiatic Russia. The prisoners’ diet consisted of 600 grams of bread and twice-daily rations of soup.31 On December 23, 1939, the Bund spokesman Aharon Yudel Shlakman and other Bundists working in the match factory were arrested and exiled to Siberia. The leader of the Polish Bund, Dr. Ehrlich (originally from Warsaw, he had found refuge in Ya’acov Holtzman’s home), was also arrested then.32 The communist David Shlossberg was imprisoned; in general, the respectability and importance of local communists were on the decline. They were silenced and kept out of all “activist” roles, or else they chose to retire to the background. Expulsions were carried out at night and intensified during March 1940. Dr. Y. Margolin, a refugee in the city, writes: I remember the nights of March 1940, when I would wake and listen in the darkness to the cries of terror. Weeping could be heard in the streets, and sounds of women wailing and lamenting reached us from afar. . . . I pictured the scene: armed men would break in during the dead of night, screaming and threatening: “Pack up and be ready within two hours.” . . . The neighboring grocery, where just yesterday one could purchase butter and cheese, was empty by morning, the windows sealed, shuttered, the doors locked.33

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Among those expelled were grocers and their families. According to Margolin, in April 1940 “Zionists [were arrested] and exiled to the camps for eight years.”34 Margolin was probably referring to Zionist Federation activists, but he may have exaggerated in his generalization. Yosef Skolnik, Mordekhai Yosef Segelevitz, Alter Einbinder, and Neimen, a member of the Right Poalei Zion were relocated with their families to villages in the vicinity of Pinsk.35 June 15, 1940, saw the start of the expulsion of refugees who had declined to receive Soviet passports, in the hopes of returning one day to their former homes and families. Approximately one thousand people were expelled within a short period.36 In January 1940 Polish zlotys were declared invalid. Only the Soviet ruble was recognized as legal tender, and one was permitted to exchange no more than three hundred zlotys for rubles.37 Within a day, the rich became poor; their remaining zlotys had all the value of wrapping paper. Construction of the communist economic system began. Factories were expropriated. The rabbi and historian from Petrokov, Rabbi Shimon Huberband (killed at Treblinka in August 1942), was in Pinsk and its vicinity for two months during the spring of 1940, and he describes the situation: All factories, large buildings and enterprises were nationalized. Smaller businesses and workshops continued to function, but paid fantastic taxes, twenty times as much as under Polish rule. Little by little, their raw materials were exhausted, for the cooperatives would not sell to them. Craftsmen began to organize and set up “associations.”

Meir Bromberg fled from Pinsk when the Nazis invaded. His memoirs relate the fate of the craftsmen: A craftsman who employed three workers was considered a capitalist. A craftsman who continued to work in his shop on his own, was taxed beyond endurance and forced to close down. Finally, all small crafts were organized in cooperatives administered by a cooperative center. . . . It was somewhat odd to see how the small shops were liquidated; they took down the walls and opened big stores in their stead.38

The “big stores” were government enterprises, and the former owners of small shops may have served in them as salesclerks. In return for

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the dissolution of independent businesses, jobs were created for everyone, warranted or not. All men and women who wish to work and were capable of doing so, were given work in government enterprises. Anyone who had completed even elementary school was given a government position.

Dr. Margolin continues: Everywhere, suddenly, the process of proletarization. . . . Anyone without a regular source of income became a Soviet worker.”39

Everybody of working age was compelled to work, as clerk, laborer, or custodian; otherwise he was liable for expulsion. The case of the Admor [Hasidic rabbi or rebbe], Rabbi Elimelekh of Karlin, is interesting: During the intermediate days of Sukkot 1940, when I was working as manager of the warehouses of the government cooperative society in the Pinsk district, several of the Admor’s followers approached me. . . . After numerous attempts, the Rebbe was listed as a night watchman in the warehouses. . . . This was done to “legitimate” him as a citizen with full rights, holding a regular job, so that he should not be liable for expulsion from the city limits of Pinsk, like other “non-productive” people in the city whose fate was exile to remote villages.40

The kehillah hospital and the other private hospitals were now closed down, and the government hospital expanded. Part of the medical staff that was transferred became government employees. Physicians’ salaries were quite good—they received 300 rubles a month (a kilogram of bread then cost 0.85 rubles). Private practice was forbidden, and medical care was provided free of charge.41 Doctors considered extraneous were assigned elsewhere.42 All but five lawyers lost the right to practice their profession.43 No noticeable change for the worse took place in the economic status of Pinsk’s working class. They were, however, now deprived of their freedom—forbidden to leave jobs without permission, enjoined against speaking up and demanding better working conditions. On the other hand, workers were given the opportunity to vacation at resthouses. “The cinema and the theater were full of workers,” probably

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because they received free tickets. For small sums it was possible to buy “good books in Yiddish, Russian and Belarusian, and every worker could amass a library. Evening classes in Russian and arithmetic were opened,” also free. “People’s trials” were instituted where workers were granted the right to express their opinions. When the communist “head of the cooperative center” for small crafts abused his office, he was tried before the “people’s court.” He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and hard labor, and “the cooperative members unanimously approved the verdict.”44 The workers “became accustomed to this life, adapted, and were satisfied with the regime,” especially because they became “citizens of a great power in a period of terrible universal turmoil.” “We were very content.”45 The world of the Orthodox grew dark. At first one day of rest was permitted for every five workdays. Later on Sunday was designated as the day of rest. Jewish holidays were eliminated. They were replaced by two new “holidays,” the seventh of November (the day of the Bolshevik revolution) and the first of May. Participation in parades on those days was compulsory and required wearing a red flower in one’s lapel. Observant Jews did all they could to refrain from working on the Sabbath and holidays, but legislation of June 22, 1940, thwarted their efforts. The law stated that a worker arriving more than twenty minutes late would be fined 15 to 25 percent of his salary for a period of three to six months; repeat offenders would be punished by three to six months’ imprisonment. The Great Synagogue was converted into a theater. Jewish “politruks . . . operating in all the work places” gathered signatures of Jews on a petition to transform the synagogue into “a workers’ cultural center.” The study houses were closed down. The three Christian churches were unharmed “and were not used for any other purpose.” A. Avivi writes in his memoirs: The conversion of the Great Synagogue into a theater came at the instigation of Hutianov, a Soviet Jew serving as secretary in the municipality. My brother-in-law Ben Zion Papish, one of the senior workers in the Halpern factory, told me sorrowfully that he would be forced to put his signature to this petition, which would be brought to him tomorrow or the next day. I told him that if he would do so, I would never speak to him again, and he did not sign; but the majority penned their names in pain and tears, for fear of the regime was great. . . . The

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[change in the] day of rest from Saturday to Sunday, seriously affected the Jews. Before this decree we were permitted to celebrate our Sabbath once every six weeks. . . . On the last Shavuot holiday before the war broke out, I prayed in the shtiebl [small synagogue] of the Karliner Rebbe. The Rabbi read the Akdamut [mystical Aramaic poem read as a prelude to the Torah reading on Shavuot] fervently and tearfully. His heart must have foretold the future. . . . The Soviets arrested his son-inlaw and intended to exile him. The Rabbi’s disciples employed all their influence and paid out large sums of money, and he was released. . . . Parallel to Secretary Hutianov’s anti-religious activity, we discovered religious activity that had been initiated by the late Rabbi Aharon Walkin. As soon as the Soviets arrived, and aware of their machinations, the Rabbi became panic-stricken and was ready for expulsion at any moment. He removed his rabbinical derby and donned a proletarian cap. They did Rabbi Walkin no harm. But the city’s leading Bundist Aharon Yudel Shlakman, who use to organize annual free meals opposite Rabbi Walkin’s window for anyone wishing to eat on the Day of Atonement, was imprisoned by the Soviets; he starved to death in a Russian prison. Despite his own fear and the danger of exile, the Rabbi drafted several letters in which citizens of the city petitioned that one synagogue be preserved in their neighborhood. The Rabbi mobilized young people, myself among them. We went from house to house, signing up those who were willing. Only a man ready to endanger himself would affix his signature. I remember that one synagogue existed in Karlin until the war broke out, the result of his intercession.46

The predicament of the Admor of Karlin, Rabbi Elimelekh, is enlightening: On the basis of authorization from the housing division of the municipal council, a stranger—a government official—came to live with them, and he had the privilege of using the kitchen. This effectively precluded use of the kitchen by the Rabbi’s family, because the new neighbor, a native Russian from Greater Russia, was obviously not particular about kashrut [the Jewish dietary laws] . . . and was wont to roast a small pig in the oven.”47

The Admor was probably not the only one to be given such a neighbor. Anti-religious propaganda was conducted in the schools. In the gymnasium—the Tarbut gymnasium up to the Soviet occupation—the

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administration tried to influence the students to join the Komsomol. The principal, David Alper, was dismissed and replaced by a Jew from the Soviet Union.48 Libraries, including private ones, were expropriated and assembled in one home; “experts” removed “unsuitable” books.49 Dr. Y. Margolin, whose memoirs served as source material for this chapter, was a “censor” until he was exiled as a refugee without Russian citizenship. He writes: “Each day I would take the quota of books from my superiors and set them aside without opening them till evening.”50 Among the books banned were works by Mendele, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz. All books with religious content were certainly pronounced unfit. There is no information on the fate of Torah scrolls and other holy books in the synagogues and study houses. It was already policy to supplant the Yiddish language for the Soviet municipal library opened in Ya’acov Eliasberg’s home contained no Yiddish books even though they were on the shelves in the new book stores. The librarian of the Brenner library, Samurin, who had been sentenced to imprisonment in 1937 for retaining communist literature, was appointed to head the Soviet municipal library.51 Shortly before June 22, 1941, when the Nazi attack on Soviet Russia began, heightened N.K.V.D. activity could be felt in the city. People were arrested, sometimes on the street, taken to the train and sent to Siberia as unreliable elements in time of emergency. Some were Zionists, some were “capitalists,” and some were refugees who had received Soviet citizenship.52 Enemy planes could already be seen in the skies above Pinsk on the first day of the war. The next day, paratroopers exploded the arms warehouses near the railroad. Soviet authorities in the city were bewildered. Mobilization was declared. On June 26 conscripts were sent to Luninec. When they arrived, the Soviet general sent them back to Pinsk. On June 28 it became clear that “the situation was beyond despair,” and the Jewish recruits decided to join the retreating Soviet army. They managed to do so, and at dawn the next day, departed by train. Despite aerial bombardments, they succeeded in reaching Uriol on July 6 and were put through military training. Because, as residents of former Polish territories, they were not trusted, they were subsequently transferred to Izbesk in the Urals. David Plotnik (one of the inductees and later one of the most courageous partisans in the war

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against the Nazis) wrote that he found “hundreds of Pinskers” there.53 Conscripts like Plotnik, exiles, and refugees who had managed to escape before the city fell to the Nazis, were probably concentrated there. Pinsk Jews were fearful and alarmed. The Nazi position vis-a-vis Jews in captured areas of Poland was by now well-known. They sought ways to escape, but there were no options except for the young and bold. Trains were taken by the retreating army; they were a target for enemy bombardment anyway. Other vehicles were nonexistent. Some people left on foot in the direction of Luninec but were stopped on the way by Soviet soldiers and returned to the city. Escape to cities in the marsh region was also dangerous for “murder reigned on the roads.” A group of young people fled by boat on the Pina River in the direction of David-Horodok and somehow reached there. They found the town full of refugees sleeping in the streets. Their attempts to get to Turov, across the former Russian border, were unsuccessful. Soviet guards sent them back the way they had come. On July 3 refugees in Pinsk were ordered to return home with the claim “that the enemy had been repelled.” The next day, the last members of the Soviet regime fled the city in a motorboat. On July 4, 1941, toward evening, the first of the advance guard of the Nazi forces entered Pinsk.54

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The secret codicil of the pact (Stalin-Hitler pact, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), signed by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on August 23, 1939, assigned eastern Poland to the Soviet Union. The Red Army occupied the area beginning on September 17, 1939—sixteen days after the Germans attacked Poland from the west. Pinsk was incorporated into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. As everywhere else that they had “liberated from the Polish feudal yoke,” Soviet authorities made all Jewish parties and movements illegal, dissolved Jewish communal institutions, transformed Jewish schools—whether religious, Hebrew, Yiddish, or Zionist—into Soviet schools, and dismantled organized Jewish life. Over the course of two years, organized Jewish life ceased to exist. This weakened the ability of Jews in Pinsk and elsewhere to organize resistance to the Nazis who, in violation of the 1939 treaty, invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and occupied Pinsk on July 4, 1941, then home to about thirty-five thousand people, twenty thousand of them Jews.1 The Jewish population swelled at the end of 1939 due to the influx of about 1,700 refugees who came from German-occupied Poland. By February 1940 there were nearly 66,000 Jewish refugees (not counting children) in Sovietized west Belarus. From Pinsk oblast, 965 people were deported east by the Soviets because they had refused to accept Soviet citizenship, thereby inadvertently saving them from the Germans.2 As Rita Margolina [Margolin] has observed, after the Soviets destroyed the community, “Every Jew remained face-to-face with the state and his fate was determined by his social status and political outlook.”3 Pre-war credentials hardly mattered, and what had been a

Afterword by Zvi Gitelman

highly organized community was turned into a collection of individuals for whom the family became almost the sole collective structure. Julius Margolin [quoted in Chapter 11] recalled the nighttime arrests in March of 1940: “The whole street would be weeping and you could hear the distant screams and lamentations of women. ‘They’ve gone to the neighbors next door!’ . . . the cries, the haste, the oaths, the threats, two hours . . . to gather one’s belongings. And the next morning, the store next door . . . its doors barred as if after a pogrom.”4 Nevertheless, the Soviet authorities reported that as of May 15, 1941, there were sixty-four active synagogues in Pinsk oblast. Twenty-seven rabbis were considered “active,” as were twenty-two shohtim (ritual slaughterers).5 A report by secret police officials to the First Secretary of the Communist Party in Pinsk oblast Avksenty Minchenko noted that a police plant (“Pinsker”) had elicited criticisms of the Soviet regime from Rabbi Shevel Haim Rosenzweig.6 Rabbi Abram Srolevich Perlov had remarked, “It’s very bad to live in the Soviet Union, even worse than in Germany.” Rosenzweig and others had organized a committee to aid impoverished clergy, including the great scholar, Borukh Halevi Epstein.7 Other informers (“Genrikh” and “Germov”) reported that Rosenzweig was leading an underground Talmud study group and that there was a heder of thirty to forty children meeting in secret on Kirovskaya Street. “Zionists” were also continuing their activities in a clandestine manner.8 The Tarbut school, reputed to be one of the finest of this network of Hebrew-language schools in Poland, was forced to adopt Yiddish as the language of instruction, though students continued to study Hebrew secretly. Still, Margolin concludes that by the spring of 1940, organized Jewish life in Pinsk had ended. “The heads of the Bund had been . . . deported; in April the Zionists were singled out and each of them condemned to eight years in concentration [labor] camps. Systematically and unpityingly, every active element that might conceivably have offered resistance to the ‘re-education of the masses’ was rooted out.”9 Some, particularly among the young, had initially seen the Soviet troops as liberators from Polish anti-semitism, but most soon became disillusioned by the harsh labor regime imposed, the repression of Jewish life, and perhaps most shocking, the poverty and backwardness of

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the Soviet “liberators.” “What to us was dire poverty was sheer luxury to them. . . . The people of Pinsk were dumbfounded to see the Russians wearing nightshirts by day, sleeping without sheets or blankets, and ordering ten glasses of tea at a time in the canteens.”10

The Holocaust An excellent, comprehensive overview of the Holocaust of Pinsk Jewry is found (in English) in the second volume of the original Hebrew edition of the Pinsk history.11 Suffice it to note here that German troops entered Pinsk on July 4, 1941, two weeks after they attacked the Soviet Union, and were not expelled until July 14, 1944. In the course of three years of occupation, about thirty thousand Jews were murdered in and around Pinsk, and only seventeen survived in the city to see the liberation. There were two waves of mass executions. The first was the shooting of about eight thousand men between the ages of sixteen and sixty on August 5, 1941, and about three thousand more were shot in the next two days. This meant that within a month of the German occupation, the vast majority of able-bodied men, those active in all aspects of the life of Pinsk, were done away with. It also meant that the kind of cultural activities conducted in ghettos such as Vilna and Warsaw would not be seen in the Pinsk ghetto, established on April 30, 1942. “Most veteran teachers, intellectuals and public functionaries had perished in the August action. There was no one to organize a school . . . nor is there any indication of youth-movement or political-party activity.”12 The second mass execution took place on October 29, 1942, when German Police Battalion 306 and other units murdered about ten thousand Jews. The only ones spared were 143 craftsmen who were performing “useful work,” but they were shot on December 23, 1942. Despite the early elimination of most of those who could have mounted resistance, a resistance group of about fifty did form in the ghetto and managed to obtain some arms and ammunition. The Judenrat got wind of the group and asked them not to leave for the forest to join the partisans because that would endanger the entire ghetto. The group was persuaded. When they sensed that a final Aktion was in the

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offing, the group planned various ways of resisting by force, including burning down the ghetto. “The problem was discussed at all our meetings but it was never resolved when to give the decisive word. We knew that resistance would be followed by bloody revenge which the Germans would wreak upon the whole ghetto, that is, by wholesale destruction of all the Jews in town. . . . We did not want to take the responsibility for having triggered . . . the destruction of thousands of Jews.”13 Ultimately, Alfred Ebner,14 deputy civilian commander of the ghetto, persuaded the Judenrat that “nothing will happen to the Jews of Pinsk. They are working for the German war effort.” The Germans spread rumors that all those who were working would remain in the ghetto.15 These were believed, and the underground was caught unaware when the final destruction came and never took action.

Post-War Pinsk Millions of people were on the move in Europe between 1944 and 1950. “Displaced persons,” demobilized soldiers, refugees, and ordinary migrants changed the demographic profile of the continent dramatically. Some pre-war residents of Pinsk returned to the city from exile, evacuation, or the armed forces, but many left for other cities and countries relatively soon. About thirty Jewish survivors from Pinsk left for Poland in 1944–45 before the repatriation of former Polish citizens from the Soviet Union had been legalized. Jews from the pre-1939 Soviet Union, especially from Soviet Belarus, came to Pinsk and filled important administrative posts in the immediate post-war years because non-Jews who had lived in Pinsk during the long German occupation were considered politically unreliable or were not qualified for jobs that demanded some secondary or higher education. Jews were prominent in industry, trade, food supply, health services, and culture (theater, library, museum, schools). According to Rita Margolina, in this period Jews were confident in their nationality. “Having served at the front or in the partisans or having been in evacuation were good credentials in cases of conflict and argument. Jews used Yiddish freely in public. Children were given Hebrew/Jewish names . . . or names used then

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only by Jews and not by Slavs.” Few marriages took place between Jews and non-Jews.16 Of course, in the late 1940s when all Jewish cultural institutions were closed all over the country, the campaign against “rootless cosmopolitans” was launched, and Jews were expelled from leading positions; the general atmosphere changed, and Jews in Pinsk were demoted, with a few exceptions. During the “uncovering of the Doctors’ plot” in early 1953, a Jewish woman doctor was accused of allowing a child to die of diphtheria, but she was banished from her post and the city for only a few months. “The government openly signaled that Jews had ceased to be ‘our own.’ Jews and non-Jews understood the regime’s message immediately.”17 Journalists understood that they should not “turn the newspaper into a synagogue.” That meant that no issue should have more than one or two articles portraying Jews in a positive light. According to Margolina, “Non-Jewish names were published in full, with the first name and patronymic, but Jewish names were published only with initials. In the mid-1950s newborns were no longer given Jewish names. . . . [A]t the beginning of the 1960s, Yiddish disappeared from the streets of Pinsk.”18 Little wonder that in 1957–58 when a second wave of formerly Polish citizens were permitted to leave for Poland, several Jewish families did so, many of them then re-emigrating to Israel. In 1945, about twenty to twenty-five Jews formed a religious congregation with a Rabbi Boris Efimovich Rosenzweig, who had testified about atrocities he had witnessed, as unofficial rabbi. The Great Synagogue had been torched by the Nazis—its last ruins were later torn down by the Soviet authorities who erected a large supermarket on its site—but three other synagogue structures seem to have survived, one of which was torn down in the 1980s to make room for a parking lot to accommodate clients of the Pinskaya Shlachta restaurant.19 An application was made in 1947 to establish an officially recognized synagogue, but it was rejected in 1949, and its intended building was ordered to become an “educational center.” It is estimated that between 1948 and 1953, 40–120 people would attend services regularly, but after 1949 services were held only in private apartments. People from small towns in the area—Mikashevichi, ­Luninec, Drohiczyn, Ivanow (formerly Janow)—would come to

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Pinsk for important holidays.20 In 1950 local authorities in Pinsk forbade prayer meetings on the high holidays and charged the security services with implementing the decision.21 There were several shohtim in the city, but they were harassed by the authorities. Even the order of the vice-director of the Pinsk trade organization that live carp (used to prepare gefilte fish) be in the stores on Fridays was countermanded. Religious practice, not to speak of instruction, was strongly discouraged for all of the period from 1945 until Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika in the late 1980s; and public Jewish cultural activity also ceased in Pinsk, as it did almost everywhere in the Soviet Union.

After the Soviets In independent Belarus, as in the rest of the former Soviet Union, Jews are free to recreate communities and conduct public Jewish life. In 1992 a Jewish cultural society was established in Pinsk at a time when the Jewish population was estimated at over one thousand, in a general population that had grown after the war to about 140,000. Originally named Hatikvah, the society was headed by Mikhail Chakotskii who emigrated to Israel and was succeeded by Grigorii Druzhinin, Alexander Lapidus, and, since 2002, Iosif Yakovlevich Liberman, a local businessman who is also chairman of the board of the religious community.22 It has been renamed the Chaim Weizmann Jewish Cultural Society. In 1992 a Sunday school was founded with about fifty pupils. In 1998 it was reported to have forty-six students, ages five to sixteen, divided into three classes, with five teachers. The principal was Asya Gliner. In 1991 the Karlin-Stolin Hasidic group, with deep roots in the area, sent Rabbi Yochanan Berman from Brooklyn, New York, to reestablish religious activity. He was succeeded by Rabbi Moshe Fhima of England who serves the community today. The Hasidim founded a boarding school, Bais Aharon, for boys and girls that draws teen-age students from all over Belarus. The school claims about seventy students and over 250 graduates, many of whom leave the country and go to Israel or the United States.

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Following the common pattern in the former Soviet Union, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee helped organize a local welfare organization called Hesed Aharon in 1995, serving nearly three hundred clients, mostly elderly. Hesed Aharon, whose chief administrator is Roza Kasimtseva, supplies medicine, warm clothes, fuel, eyeglasses, hot meals, and social assistance. With the massive emigration of 1989–2004, the majority of Jews remaining in Pinsk are elderly and often in need of assistance. Semen Shapiro edits the Jewish newspaper Karlin, published in Russian several times a year in an edition of 299 copies, usually having four to eight pages. One of the major activities of the Jewish community is memorialization of the Holocaust. During the Soviet period, not a single monument or even plaque commemorating the annihilation of the Jews was erected in Pinsk. In 1993 after negotiating with the city government about the wording and languages to be used, local Jews succeeded in putting up a monument to the Holocaust victims on the site of a former Jewish cemetery, now occupied by a driving school, where five mass graves were located. The inscription is in Belarusian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, as are those on the additional monuments put up after 2000 on Pushkin Street and, the largest, at Dobraya Volya (Dobrowole in Polish), the former airfield and site of the largest massacre.23 Before the war there were three Jewish cemeteries in Pinsk, the oldest dating back several hundred years. Located in what had become central areas of the expanding city, they were razed by the post-war Soviet authorities and replaced by a nursery-kindergarten complex, a school, and the driving school. In 1948 one of the cemeteries was described as having “skulls and human bones scattered about, garbage dumped in it, smashed monuments, and pockmarked with tar pits.”24 The cemetery was not restored, and since the war Jews have been buried in what had been a Catholic cemetery. In 2007 it was reported that of 172 monuments in an area of the cemetery where there was a concentration of Jewish graves, sixty-three had been restored.25 There is one reconstructed synagogue in the city, run by the KarlinStolin group. The high school (gymnasium) that Chaim Weizmann attended stands, as do the Jewish orphanage, a former old-age home (now a military headquarters), and the Jewish hospital building, now a

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clinic. The historic match factory owned and largely operated by Jews still operates. A matchbox set commemorating the factory’s history shows the ruins of the synagogue in 1944 but identifies it as the “main building of the factory.” The number of Jews in Pinsk today (2012) is estimated at about five hundred, a high proportion of elderly.

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Chapter 1 1.  The Karliner Tzaddik [Hasidic master], Reb Asher the First, exhorted the householders not to neglect the matter of a livelihood although their souls might thirst for Torah. When he heard that his in-law was “negligent in his work, the work of God, and preferred to be a scholar,” he wrote him thus: My dear one should know that this is not the way. . . . Believe me when I say that a benevolent act, a single coin for charity, or any one of the other practical commandments, and especially hospitality . . . is preferable to several weeks or perhaps even years of learning Torah, [for] one who labors faithfully is not obligated to do more than set aside fixed times for Torah study, [and] thus the road is clear for householders who wish to avoid evil and do good . . . [more efficaciously] than by studies. Reb Asher adds: “With God’s help I succeeded thus with several people who wished to do as he did [his relative] and I forced them into business.” He demands of his in-law, “The main thing is not to be slack at any occupation.” See Bet Aharon (Brody, 1875), pp. 293–294. Portions of the letter are cited in Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, Ha-Hasidut Ha-Lita’it (Jerusalem, 1961), p. 59. 2.  See, e.g., the description of the two towns, Kameniec and Wysoki, by Yehezkel Kotik in Mayne Zikhronos (Berlin, 1922), vol. 1, p. 14. In his opinion, approximately two-thirds of the Jews there were “missing.” 3.  Hillel Alexandrov, Die Yiddishe Bafelkerung in die Shtedt un Shtedtlech fun Vaysrussland, Tsaytschrift (Minsk, 1928), p. 355. See Yakov Leshchinsky, “Yidn in die Gresere Shtedt fun Poilen,” YIVO Bleter, vol. 21 (Vilna and New York, 1931–1939), pp. 42–60. See also Slownik Geograficzny Krolewstwa Polskiego [cited hereafter as SG], vol. 8, col. 167–183, entry for Pinsk (Warszawa, 1887); and data for 1909, in Evreiskii kalendar kadima, B. A. Goldberg (ed.), (Vilna, 1909), pp. 53–54; Razsvet 1 (1879), col. 607. 4.  Pinsker Shtodt Luakh, Ma’asaf Shenati (Vilna, 1903–04), p. 5. Cited hereafter as PSL. Although the data in SG indicate a natural increase of ten thousand, that is implausible. 5.  See manuscript article, Demographishe Yedios Vegn Yidn in Pinsk, a microfilm in YIVO in New York. According to the data in this article, the natural increase in 1880 was only 303 persons and in 1890, 350 persons. But it is a fair assumption that many births were not registered, particularly births of girls. In 1880, 252 births of boys were recorded and only 204 births of girls. In 1890, 481 births of boys were recorded and only 247 births of girls.

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Notes to Pages 4–5 6.  This figure was arrived at from information cited in Ha-Melitz from late July 1893 to January 1894. The figures may be inaccurate, and it is possible that the epidemic particularly affected Pinsk. M. Kerman relates that in late 1883, the “cholera devil” appeared in the city. Among the dead were Isaac Luria and Zelig Boyarsky, sons of the aristocracy. A commotion arose, money was collected, advice and medications were sought. The women decided to chase the devil away by the “tried and true” method of conducting a wedding ceremony in the graveyard; they even found a couple willing to participate. But, at the last minute when all was ready, and an apartment had even been found for the young couple, the latter regretted the arrangement and in response, Rabbi David Karliner (Friedman) ordered the ceremony to take place in appropriate surroundings. According to Kerman, the source of the epidemic was the fish, caught in abundance and eaten while no longer fresh in the summer heat. Incidentally, during the epidemic of 1872, a wedding ceremony was held at the graveyard. Zederbaum (Erez), editor of Ha-Melitz, attacked this in an editorial, rebuking the enlightened for agreeing to such a ceremony in their city. Shomer (Nahum Meir Shaikevich), the author, and Rosenberg, the Crown rabbi, published an apology in Ha-Melitz. See Ha-Melitz, weekly and then daily, ed. A. Zederbaum, and subsequently, Y.L. (Leon) Rabinowitz (Odessa-St. Petersburg: 1860–86, 1886–1904), August 15, 1872, no. 7, p. 49, and September 12, 1872, no. 11, p. 80. 7.  Ha-Melitz, September 12, 1883, no. 71, p. 1141. 8.  Ha-Melitz, January 18, 1887, no. 15, p. 155. Yitzhak Asher Neidich, for instance, moved to Moscow. Shaul Levin (a descendent of Shaul Levin, the father of Haya Luria), who was among the great merchants in forestry and barge transport, moved to Kiev. Haim Chemerinsky (Reb Mordkhe’le), the author, relates the following: Shaitse saw the young louts of the city, “men of action,” fleeing the city without a penny to their names, crossing the Dnieper to start from scratch, and earning tens of thousands (one of them, David the son of Shimon Margolin later earned millions). He envied those “little foxes,” picked himself up, and resettled in Kiev. See Reshumot, ed. Alter Druyanov (Tel Aviv, 1924), vol. 2, p. 112. Y. Eliasberg writes about the Levin family “that it began to spread across the face of the earth, even before the death of grandmother Haya,” that is, already in the 1860s. Y. Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot (Jerusalem, 1965), p. 21. See also PHeb1 [Nadav, Pinsk (1973), pp. 257–258, translated as The Jews of Pinsk, 1506 to 1880 (2008), pp. 422–424]. 9.  Ha-Maggid, weekly, ed. A. Zilberman, D. Gordon, Y. Sh. Fuchs (Lyck and Berlin, 1856–92), September 24, 1891, no. 38, pp. 300–301. 10.  Ibid. There were also some who left in haste and returned empty-handed, “the disgust evident on their faces, for they had been deluded into believing that America was a land of gold.” Ha-Melitz, December 30, 1891, no. 291. 11.  Ibid., June 24, 1893, no. 141. 12.  Ibid., April 9, 1891, no. 83. 13.  W. Evans-Gordon, The Alien Immigrant (London and New York, 1903), p. 116. But, he relates that he heard that ten rubles were given to each person who wanted to emigrate, in order to ease the pressure for jobs, ibid. Evans-Gordon was in Pinsk in September 1902. See the first series of Chaim Weizmann’s writings, Iggerot, vol. 1, (Jerusalem, 1969–72), p. 351. Cited hereafter as Weizmann, Iggerot. See also Die Welt (Wien, 1898–1905), July 25, 1902, no. 30, p. 6. A 1903 article on the Pinsk district informs us that the towns were emptying out, and primarily young people and craftsmen were emigrating. Der Fraynd, daily, ed. Shaul Ginzburg and subsequently Sh. Rosenberg (St. Petersburg and Warsaw: 1903–08, 1910–13), September 16, 1903, no. 207, p. 3. 14.  Letter to Vera Hatzman, Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 3, p. 281.

Notes to Pages 6–9 15.  Der Fraynd, October 21, 1904, no. 238, p. 2. 16.  Ibid., March 27, 1905, no. 66, p.3. 17.  Das Leben, daily, ed. Shmuel Rosenfeld (Warsaw, December 13, 1905–July 30, 1906; October 13, 1913–August 14, 1914), March 7, 1906, no. 54, p. 4. 18.  Ha-Zefirah, weekly and intermittently daily, ed. Haim Zelig Slonimsky, Nahum Sokolov, Yosef Haftman (Warsaw, 1862–1931; Berlin, 1874–75), September 22, 1905, no. 201, p. 3. 19.  Cited hereafter as PL. December 5, 1910, no. 12, p. 2ff. It may be that some of those who applied to the office were from the area that had the highest rate of emigration. Ya’acov Kantor (Pinsk 1886–Moscow 1964) belonged to the S.S. party in Pinsk (see below) and moved to Russia during the First World War. He published several books and articles dealing with statistics and demography of Jews in the Soviet Union and with education and politics. 20.  Toyzent Yohr Pinsk, ed. Dr. Ben Zion Hoffman (Zivion) (New York, 1941), p. 423ff. Cited hereafter as TY. The biographies are of a small segment of those who fled in those years. 21.  Hed Ha-Zeman, ed. Ben Zion Katz (Vilna, 1907–10), November 7, 1909, no. 244, p. 3; Haynt, daily, ed. Sh. Yatzkan and subsequently, Avraham Goldberg (from 1921) and Haim Finkelstein (from 1932) (Warsaw, 1908–39), October 20, 1909, no. 247, p. 3. 22.  See note 3. 23.  Haynt, January 15, 1913, no. 13, p. 4. Even Jews who had lived in the villages prior to 1882 were expelled for the crime of engaging in commerce. Ha-Zefirah, July 24, 1913, no. 141, p. 3. See Zwolfter Geschaftsbericht des Hilfsvereins der Deutschen Juden (Berlin, 1914), p. 76, for information on the expulsions and denial of business permits to Jews in the villages. The account was submitted at the general meeting on April 26, 1914, and also refers to Pinsk. A photo­copy of the document of the sale of hametz in Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Volk’s court, mentioned above, can be found in the department of manuscripts of the National Library of Israel [formerly the Jewish National and University Library] in Jerusalem, reference Peh 2836. We have placed question marks following names that were illegible. 24.  Haynt, February 11, 1913, no. 36, p. 3 (article by Moshe, the son of Avraham Yitzhaki, that is Moshe’le Gleiberman). 25.  Ha-Zefirah, July 24, 1913, no. 141, p. 3. 26.  Ha-Zefirah, May 20, 1913, p. 4. These were the lessees of fruit and vegetable gardens and of milking cows. Isser Brisky reports in a MS. that his grandparents, who were lessees of milking cows, were among those expelled. They were transferred by “convoy” (i.e., police supervision) to Pinsk, where they lived in his parents’ home. 27.  Ha-Zefirah, September 10, 1913, no. 211, p. 4, and July 24, 1913, no. 141, p. 3. 28.  Haynt, September 6, 1910, no. 208, p. 1. 29.  Haynt, January 15, 1913, p. 4. 30.  Haynt, February 11, 1913, no. 36, p. 3. 31.  Ha-Zefirah, February 21, 1913, no. 18, p. 3. 32.  Ha-Zefirah, November 14, 1913, no. 25, p. 3. 33.  Haynt, January 12, 1914, no. 10, p. 1, and January 13, 1914, no. 11, p. 1. 34.  Haynt, September 17, 1913, no. 217, p. 4. 35.  In his childhood, M. Kerman, born ca. 1859, witnessed “prisoners” being taken down from the kahal room under guard by Russian soldiers. The cantonist system, by which adolescent Jews had been kidnapped and conscripted for the tsar’s army with the implicit intent of converting them to Christianity, was abolished in 1856 by Alexander II’s manifesto. Nevertheless, a remnant of the regulations of the era of Nikolai I remained. In any case, the kahal room still served as the gathering point for Jewish inductees conscripted according to the manifesto,

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Notes to Pages 9–14 primarily sons of the poor. See Y. Apel, Be-Tokh Reishit Ha-Tehiya (Tel Aviv, 1936); and the memorandum by Palin, the prefect of Vilna, in He-Avar, 7(1960): p. 116. Although the Jewish community in the city was officially recognized as Yevreiskoye Obshchestvo, an association possessing property such as the synagogue, the bathhouse, and the like, it did not have rights of a juridical body, the right to levy taxes, and permanent recognized representation. 36.  Ha-Melitz, no. 242, November 16, 1887, p. 2575. The law permitted the existence of a study house for every thirty families, a synagogue for every eighty families, and required authorization from the regional prefect. The synagogues and study houses had to be a certain distance from the Christian churches. See, e.g., the above memorandum by Palin in He-Avar, p. 102. 37.  Ibid. 38.  Ha-Melitz, July 19, 1896, no. 161. See also Sh. M. Halevi Rabinowitsch, “Al PinskKarlin Ve-Yoshevehen,” Ma’asaf Talpiot (Berdichev, 1895), section entitled Kehilat Ya’acov, p. 14 (each section is paginated separately). Cited hereafter as Talpiot. 39.  Ha-Melitz, February 13, 1890, no. 37. Michael Samzhovsky was officially entitled ­Obshchestvenny Rabbin, in Pamyatnaya Knizhka i Kalendar Minskoi Gubernii, 1892, p. 95. Besides Samzhovsky, Borukh, the son of Shemuel Romer, was referred to as Kazenny Rabbin (ibid., 1893, p. 95). But, in 1894 only Samzhovsky was referred to as Obshchestvenny Rabbin, and likewise in 1898. (Only the books from those years were available to me.) 40.  We know that from 1890 to 1893, one Jew, Yudel the son of Leib Zeitlin, was a member of the city council (Gorodskaya Uprava). From 1897 to 1898, there were no Jewish members of the council. On the other hand, Jews were included in the court dealing with matters of taxation (Podatnoye Prisutsviye). In the 1890s the following were members of the court dealing with guild matters: Alexander Luria, Wolf Gruenberg, Yosef Halpern, Isaac Basevitz, Shmuel Rabinowitsch, and Leizer Valer. The following were members of the committee dealing with other taxes: Michel Kotok, Leizer Chichik, Yudel Zeitlin, Yehiel Gorin, Leizer Meshel, and Nota Rabinowitz. In 1895 changes took place in the composition of the committees, and the members of the committee for guild matters were: Alexander Luria, Alexander Skirmont (a Christian), Moshe [Haim] Eliasberg, and Shmuel Rabinowitsch. Regarding other taxes, the members were: Leizer Meshel, Aharon Basevitz, Haim Lubezhinsky, and Leizer Chichik. For information on the general situation, see the above memorandum, He-Avar, p. 101, and see below, Chapter 2. 41.  M. Kerman, notes, MS. 42.  Ha-Melitz, December 20,1881, no. 48, p. 966; December 16, 1889, no. 265, p. 2; and December 14, 1891, no. 268, p. 2. 43.  Above memorandum, He-Avar, p. 102 [above, n. 35]. 44.  Ha-Melitz, December 20, 1881, no. 48, p. 966. 45.  Ha-Melitz, December 13, 1881, no. 47, p. 953. 46.  Ha-Melitz, January 3, 1883, no. 1, p. 9. 47.  Ha-Melitz, October 19, 1886, no. 135, p. 1676; and January 3–4, 1887, no. 3, p. 29. 48.  Ha-Melitz, November 16, 1887, no. 242, p. 2576. 49.  Ha-Melitz, December 4, 1889, no. 265; and December 21, 1890, no. 281. 50.  Ha-Melitz, December 2, 1891, no. 268. 51.  Ha-Melitz, December 30, 1891, no. 291. 52.  M. Kerman, notes, MS. For information about Rabbi Gad Asher Levin, see the article by Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, He-Avar 14 (1967), pp. 185–190. The Russian name for the “crafts office” was Remeslennaya Uprava.

Notes to Pages 15–20 53.  The lumber trade did not occupy a central role in the economic life of the city. The Russian author Y. Yanson, whose book Pinsk i evo raion was published in Petersburg in 1869, saw the lumber trade as consisting only of barges that sailed the rivers and canals transporting cargo. As we see below, in 1887 wood and wood products were exported from Pinsk only in the sum of 97,000 rubles. 54.  Ha-Melitz, November 7, 1891. 55.  See SG, entry for Pinsk. According to official data from 1891, the cargo of bread, that is, wheat kernels, exported from seventeen depots in Polesia totaled 1,110,575 pud. Of this, 496,975 was exported from Pinsk (including 60,237 pud that were exported directly beyond the Russian border). If we compare this figure with data from 1887, the decline was rather large. In 1887, 1,415,959 pud were exported from Pinsk if we take into account only barley and wheat. Perhaps conclusions should not be drawn from 1891, since the Russian wheat harvest that year was meager. 56.  See Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, Talpiot, pp. 9–10. The wheat trade in Ukraine was concentrated in the hands of the large firms of Dreyfus and Neufeld, and smaller merchants could not compete with them. On this topic, see L. Levinsky, Rishmei Masa (Tel Aviv, 1936), vol. 2, pp. 353ff. 57.  Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar entry on Pinsk. 58.  Ha-Melitz, November 7, 1891, no. 247. 59.  Ha-Melitz, January 16, 1892, no. 13. 60.  Ha-Melitz, December 2, 1891, regarding the murder of a man and a woman in Pinsk; October 16, 1889, regarding the robbery of a woman on her way to Pinsk; and November 27, 1889, regarding the murder of a Jew near Pinsk. Also, M. Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, MS., (Haifa, 1951), p. 149. 61.  Ha-Melitz, March 2, 1887, no. 51. 62.  Ha-Melitz, November 19, 1891, no. 247, p. 2, article by Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch. 63.  Ha-Melitz, December 6, 1891, no. 261, p. 2, article by Yeshayahu Haim Grosberg. 64.  Ha-Melitz, March 12, 1892, no. 60, p. 2, article by Grosberg. 65.  Ha-Melitz, January 16, 1892, no. 13, article by Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch. 66.  Ha-Melitz, December 30, 1891, no. 291, article by Avigdor Haim Bergman. 67.  Das Leben, Fuftsig-Yohriker Yovel Bukh, 1908–1958, ed. Sh. Debich (New York: Pinsker Branch 210 Arbeter Ring, 1958), p. 23. 68.  Based upon a conversation with Y. Eliasberg, grandson of Moshe Luria. 69.  This was related to me by Dr. George Halpern and Y. Eliasberg. According to Eliasberg, Moshe Luria’s position was consolidated in 1883 after the workers at the railway shops burst into the city intending to start a pogrom, and Jewish butchers and porters chased them away. A. A. Feinstein relates this episode in his book Megilat Puranuyot (Tel Aviv, 1929), pp. 9–10. Dr. George Halpern also related the discussion with Krieger. His brother Bernard, however, was the manager of the factory from 1904. See also Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 211–212. 70.  Ha-Melitz, May 16, 1883, no. 37, p. 592. 71.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 15. 72.  SG, entry on Pinsk. 73.  Ibid. 74.  Y. Yanson, Pinsk i evo raion, p. 72. 75.  Based upon data in SG, entry on Pinsk. 76.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 15.

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Notes to Pages 21–25 77.  Evans-Gordon, Alien Immigrant, p. 79. According to official data, in 1890 there were 653 industrial enterprises in the Minsk district: forty-three in Minsk, thirty-seven in Bobruisk, twenty-seven in Pinsk. It may be assumed that the distilleries were included in this figure, and, since the number was so high, that small factories were included. In 1892 there were already thirty-two manufacturing enterprises in Pinsk, whose output was valued at 771,525 rubles and whose workers numbered 454. According to the official data of 1896, there were twenty-seven factories in Pinsk, employing 1,375 workers and producing an output worth 1,763,000 rubles. In Bobruisk at that time, there were twenty-two factories, employing 304 laborers with an output valued at 576,000 rubles. Pamyatnaya knizhka i kalendar, minskoi gubernii. Minsk: 1898, p. 29. 78.  I. Khorosh, “Po promyshlennoi cherte osedlosti,” Voskhod, 10(1890): pp. 27-29. 79.  Ibid. 80.  Isser Brisky, MS. 81.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 41–42. 82.  Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar entry on Pinsk. See also: Talpiot, p. 10; essay by “A Karliner,” i.e., Leopold Luria, in Die Welt, 1898, no. 11; see note 78; Die Tsayt (Petersburg, 1912): November 21, 1913, no. 8; Arbeter Shtyme, no. 24, (1901): p. 24. 83.  Der Moment, daily, ed. Zvi Prilucki (Warsaw, 1910–39), December 26, 1911, no. 299, p. 4; Haynt, December 28, 1911, no. 301, p. 3; Talpiot, p. 10 (quote from Rabinowitsch); Die Tsayt, no. 8, November 21, 1913; Yosef Rakow, who worked in the match factory as a youth, earned 75 kopeks a week, for a workday that began early in the morning and extended till the evening hours. See Memoiren fun a Russishen Revolutsioner (Chicago, 1934), p. 34. 84.  The statistics regarding the workers, male and female, and their wages are based upon the above essay by Khorosh in Voskhod [above, n. 78]. 85.  See the memorandum by Palin, the Vilna prefect, in He-Avar,7(1960): p. 108; and also Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 16. There was a sizeable gap between the wages of the workers and the salary of the officials, particularly senior officials. According to engineer Efraim Z. Ben-Ami’s recollections, his father Aharon Rubinstein (1860–1912), who was a general manager in the Luria plywood factory, earned 150 rubles a month. 86.  This sentence was attributed to the “nobles” by the Agudat Zion: “The great nobility may say that they are doing their duty by the city. In their factories, in their kantors (counting houses), they provide a livelihood for the city.” PSL, 1903, p. 90. 87.  PSL, 1904, p. 72. The distribution of flour, potatoes, and cash totaled 833.48 rubles. See note 59. 88.  Ha-Zeman, ed. Ben-Zion Katz (Vilna, 1903–15, intermittently), January 21, 1903, nos. 3–4, p. 6. Most of the data is taken from a survey conducted by ICA in 1898. The districts of Vilna, Kovno, and Grodno were the poorest. 89.  Ha-Zefirah, June 22, 1901, article by Isaac Goldman. 90.  On August 12, 1901, Weizmann wrote from Pinsk: “A terrible mood prevails in the city. The economic crisis and the tragedy [that is, the fire], which befell Pinsk, left their mark on its atmosphere.” Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 148. 91.  Ha-Melitz, January 18, 1887, no. 15, p. 155, and February 16, 1889. 92.  Ha-Melitz, September 6, 1889, no. 199. 93.  Ha-Melitz, May 31, 1892, no. 119. 94.  Ha-Melitz, July 5, 1894, no. 150. 95.  Ha-Melitz, December 2, 1896, p. 30. An official notice referring to this year points out that the fires in Pinsk caused damages in the sum of 138,275 rubles.

Notes to Pages 25–35 96.  Ha-Melitz, May 6, 1901; Ha-Zefirah, May 9, 1901, no. 104; Ha-Dor, weekly, ed. David Frishman (Warsaw, 1901–04), May 23, 1901, no. 21; Der Yud, weekly, ed. Y. H. Ravnitsky, Yosef Luria (Cracow, 1899–1902), May 30, 1901, no. 22, p. 7. 97.  Ha-Dor, May 23, 1901, no. 21. 98.  Ha-Zefirah, May 9, 1901, no. 104, p. 418. 99.  Ha-Zefirah, September 20, 1901. 100.  Ha-Zefirah, August 14, 1901; Ha-Dor, July 18, 1901. 101.  Ha-Zefirah, December 2, 1901. See also the feuilleton in PSL, 1903, pp. 102–103. 102.  SG, entry on Pinsk. 103.  See introduction to TY, p. 81. 104.  Der Fraynd, August 4, 1908, no. 175. 105.  For information on the new aristocracy, see Dr. A. Mokdoni, Mayne Bagegenishen (Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 239–242. 106.  See feuilleton mentioned in note 101. 107.  See Weizmann’s letters to Vera Hatsman on April 7, 1904 and April 14, 1904, Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 3, p. 276, 281. 108.  Der Neiyer Veg, Organ fir die Interesen fun dem Yiddishen Proletariat (Vilna, 1906), May 18, 1906, no. 2, pp. 88–89. 109.  For information about the monopoly that worked alongside the river and employed approximately two hundred porters and wagoners, see the pamphlet by A. Kolodny, Zug ­Holmim Ve-Lohamim (Jerusalem, 1952), p. 15. 110. See letter by Y. Bregman to Ussishkin of July 18, 1913 in the General Zionist Archives, file A 24/111/2. We know of the teachers’ circumstances from an invitation sent by Mrs. KilaGolda Rubinstein, the wife of Aharon Rubinstein, to Devora Baron, in May 1908, inviting her to come teach at the Girls’ School that was about to open. Mrs. Rubinstein, chairperson of the committee for the founding of the school, writes to Devora Baron: My dear young woman, perhaps you would be able to accept this position to teach Hebrew (using the “Hebrew into Hebrew” method) in the school. If you teach only Hebrew . . . sixteen hours a week, you will receive approximately thirty rubles a month, but if you teach other subjects as well, such as mathematics . . . in this way totaling approximately five hours a day, you will receive fifty rubles a month. In addition, should you wish to give lessons in private homes—you will surely be able to. I can guarantee you of that. A photocopy of this letter was provided by the engineer Efraim Ben Ami, Mrs. Rubinstein’s son. Incidentally, Efraim Ben Ami also related the following detail about the attitude of the Russian authorities toward the Polish language: The Velkovitz press was fined one thousand rubles for printing calling cards in Polish letters for Polish squires. 111.  Alter Kolodny was dismissed from his job at the notary. See his autobiography in the archives of Minister Moshe Kol, MS. 112.  Based on Isser Brisky’s description, dealing with economic matters in the city, which served as my source material. 113.  Such were the sugar warehouses of Brodsky, whose representative was Harol; the flour and oil warehouses of Jacobson and Albert; the colonial commodities of Haim Lutsky; the manufacturing storehouses of Pines, Boyarsky, Vigdorovitz, and Malka Friedman; and the kerosene tanker of the Nobel company. 114.  Based upon a conversation with Y. Eliasberg and George Halpern. See also Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 210.

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Notes to Pages 35–41 115.  P. Mandelbaum, “Die Pinsker Leiyeh un Spar Genasenshaft,” PSL, 1904, pp. 92–93. 116.  See PL, October 11, 1910, no. 4, p. 1. The name of the company was Pinskoye obshchestvo vzaimnovo kredyta, in Pamyatnaya Knizhka i Kalendar Minskoi Gubernii 1892, 1893, 1894. See Z. Rabinowitsch, “Ha-Rotschildim shel Pinsk Ve-Karlin,” He-Avar, 17 (1970): 17, pp. 276ff, and this same monograph below, in expanded form (in PHeb II). 117.  Ha-Melitz, February 13, 1890, no. 37. 118.  See note 115. This firm bore the name of Pinskoye sesudo-sberegatelnoye obshchestvo. 119.  TY, p. 246. 120.  PL, February 9, 1911, no. 29, p. 2. 121.  See note 115. Sultz was one of the strongest opponents of Grigory Luria, as demonstrated at the board meeting of the bank, directed by Grigory Luria, which took place on February 27, 1911; see detailed account in PL, pp. 35–37. The meeting was a stormy one and broke up without selecting a director. According to the report in TY, p. 246., Moshe Soloveitchik was eventually chosen as bank director in place of Grigory Luria. 122.  A. Lebendiger, “Mayne Yungent Yohren in Pinsk,” MS. 123.  See section on Rabbi Yitzhak (Itcha) Berlin by A. Stillerman, Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 505. See Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 46–47; and also Lebendiger, MS. 124. Dr. Feivel Rabinowitz, “Aliyat Kevutzat No’ar Mi-Pinsk La-Aretz Be-Shenat 1913,” Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 93–94. 125.  Der Kantchik, Iton Hituli (Pinsk, 1912): p. 18, and see jokes there, p. 31. 126.  Ibid., p. 8. Based on the Hebrew translation from the Yiddish by the Pinsk poet Yehoshua Rabinov.

Chapter 2 1.  See below in the chapter entitled “Education and Culture (1881–1914).” 2.  Be-Halom U-Ve-Ma’aseh, Sefer Zikkaron Le-Yitzhak Asher Neidich (Tel Aviv, 1956), p. 57. 3.  Ha-Melitz, November 28, 1886, no. 168, p. 2031. 4.  “She’elat David” in Drishat Zion Virushalayim (Piotrokov, 1913), article 4, p. 32; HaLevanon, monthly and then weekly, ed. Yehiel Brill, M. Liman (Jerusalem, Paris, and Mayence, 1863–81, 1886), 1863, nos. 6–8. See also Rabbi David Friedman’s letter from 1890 in A. Y. Slutzky, Shivat Zion (Warsaw, 1900), 2nd ed., pp. 18–19. 5.  A. Y. Katz, “Moshe-Aryeh Leib Friedlander Ve-Sifriyato Ha-Mefursemet,” Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 487. 6.  Y. M. Pines, Emek Ha-Berakhah (Jerusalem, 1881), no. 11, p. 2 and no. 14, p. 2. 7.  Yisrael Klausner, Ketavim Zioni’im shel Harav Zvi Kalischer (Jerusalem, 1947), p. 252. Yehudit Harari relates that Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the rabbi of Pinsk, used to take her father, Aharon Eisenberg, for a stroll each evening; they would read letters, which had arrived from Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, and apparently Rabbi Horowitz had an inclination toward Hibbat Zion. Yehudit Harari, “Mi-Toldot Aba, z”l [zikhrono livrakhah, of blessed memory],” Bustenai, weekly (Tel Aviv, 1931), no. 25, pp. 14–15. In his eulogy for Rabbi Horowitz, Rabbi Borukh Epstein, his son-in-law, noted: [Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz] also merited the distinction of [association with] the Land of Israel, by enabling many scholars and righteous people to settle there, and he served as their leader and benefactor for many years. . . . Approximately five hundred rubles were taken each year from the Eretz Israel charity box in his home, monies that were entrusted to him for distribution, in addition to very large sums in charity boxes for scholars and for the sick.

Notes to Pages 41–48 See Borukh Epstein, Nahal Dim’a (Warsaw, 1890), p. 27. According to this, Rabbi Elazar Moshe Horowitz was the communal leader who took responsibility for Kollel Pinsk. 8.  Sh. L. Zitron, Toldot Hibbat Zion (Odessa, 1914), pt. 1, p. 69; Sefer Yahadut Lita (Tel Aviv, 1961), vol. 1, p. 492. 9.  A. Hoenig, “Yitaron Da’at,” Beit Moshav Zekenim, Likutim Mi-Kitvei Yad, printed together with Y. T. Eisenstadt, Da’at Kedoshim (St. Petersburg, 1897–98), p. 45. For details, see David Tidhar, Encyclopedia Le-Halutzei Ha-Yishuv U-Bonav (Tel Aviv, 1944), pp. 59, 223, 297, 465, 487, 589, 747, 1583, 1619, 2342, 3331 (cited hereafter as Tidhar) and Avraham Ya’ari, Sheluhei Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1951), pp. 779–780, 786, 798. See also Z. Rabinowitsch, Ha-Hasidut Ha-Lita’it (Jerusalem, 1961), p.78; Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 7, p. 526, entry on Kobrin. The computation of the number of cemetery monuments was done by my student, Mr. Zvi Kovetz, based upon the pamphlet “Helkat Mehokek” by Asher Leib Brisk (Jerusalem, 1901). 10.  Pinsker Shtodt Luakh (PSL) (Vilna, 1903), p. 53. Incidentally, Wolf Rabinowitsch was apparently the father of Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, whom we have quoted extensively. 11.  Me’asef Talpiot (Berdichev, 1895), p. 13. 12.  Pinsker Vort, weekly, ed. Nisan Rubakha (Pinsk, 1931–39), May 27, 1932. 13.  PSL (1903), pp. 53–54. See Ya’acov Mazeh, Zikhronot (Tel Aviv, 1936), vol. 1, p. 13, for information on Shaul Pinhas Rabinowitz’s circular in the spring of 1882 and its repercussions. 14.  A. A. Druyanov, Ketavim Le-Toldot Hibbat Zion U-Le-Yishuv Eretz Yisrael (Tel Aviv, 1928), vol. 1, p. 410. Cited hereafter as Ketavim. 15.  Ibid., p. 834. See also Y. Klausner, Ha-Tenuah Le-Zion Be-Russia, Mi-Kattowitz Ad Basel (Jerusalem, 1925), vol. 2, p. 262. 16.  PSL (1903), p. 55. 17.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 3, pp. 32–34. 18.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 1, p. 175. 19.  Ibid., p. 235. 20.  The pages are to be found in the Sharon (Shwadron) Collection in the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. 21.  Ha-Magid, June 11, 1891, pp. 81–180. Rabbi David Friedman’s letter to Rabbi Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor, from 1891, is cited by Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch in his article. 22.  The Druyanov collection in the Central Zionist Archives, file 153. 23.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 1, pp. 411–412. 24.  Ibid., p. 303. I do not know why it is stated that Rabbi David Friedman was elected to the presidium. There is no mention of this in the Conference Protocol. See p. 296 for the members of the presidium. 25.  Zvi (Hirsch) Maslansky, Sefer Ha-Zikhronot Ve-Ha-Masa’ot (New York, 1929), p. 7. 26.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 1, p. 410; Y. Klausner, Ketavim Zioni’im shel Harav Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, p. 261, based upon a letter from 1885. 27.  Ha-Melitz, June 3, 1885, no. 46, p. 740. 28.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 1, pp. 578–579. 29.  PSL (1903), p. 55. 30.  N. M. Lifshitz, “Die Zionisteshe Bevegung in Pinsk,” in PSL (1904), p. 65. 31.  PSL (1903), p. 55. 32.  Ha-Melitz, January 18, 1887, no. 15, p. 155, article by “Aviad” of the Bnei Aharon organization. 33.  Ch. Weizmann, Masa U-Ma’as (Jerusalem, 1949, 1963), p. 31.

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Notes to Pages 48–52 34.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 1, pp. 832–834. 35.  Ibid., pp. 844–845. 36.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 2, p. 26; and see Klausner, Ketavim Zioni’im, pp. 122–123. 37.  Druyanov, Ketavim, vol. 2, p. 58. 38.  Apel, Be-Tokh Reishit Ha-Tehiya, p. 263. 39.  Ha-Melitz, June 8, 1882, no. 22, p. 437. 40.  Concerning Chertok’s emigration prior to the first group of Biluim, see his letter in Druyanov, Ketavim, vol 1, p. 757; see Ha-Melitz, November 28, 1886, no. 168, p. 2031, for information about the telegram that Yisrael Nimtzovitz’s mother received in Pinsk, saying “that his factory for making cooking oil started working and the oil is very good.” See Druynov, Ketavim, vol. 2, p. 20, regarding his election to the committee in Yaffo. There he is described as “a fine man, wise and dignified, whose love for the Holy Land brought him here to expand industry, a man of repute.” See also pp. 33, 139, 157 concerning his mission to Rothschild. For information about Yitzhak Vinograd and his brother Yosef Vinograd, see A. Y. Zaslansky, Sefer Zikhron Le-Zekher . . . Rabbi Yitzhak and Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Vinograd (Jerusalem, 1944), p. 121; regarding Harbovsky and Zisselman see PSL (1903), p. 55; for information on the ­aliyah of Yisrael Mayer Katz, see Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, p. 186. According to Kerman, the “­Maches Shul” (a synagogue) was registered in the name of Yisrael Mayer Katz and when he emigrated to Israel in 1885, the Hovevim took it over. For details on Zerah Epstein and Asher Levin, see Tidhar, pp. 643, 3318. See also Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 556 for information on Asher Levin. In 1889 Ya’acov Avigdor Minkovitz emigrated at the age of 22. However, he left because of the malaria epidemic; see PS, weekly, 1927–39, ed. M. Bulin, September 23, 1927. He died on September 19, 1927, at the age of 60. 41.  The letter is in the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Z. Gluskin collection, file A 118. 42.  A. M. Luntz, Jerusalem (1911), vol. 9, pamphlets 1–2, p. 36. 43.  Luntz, Jerusalem, vol. 9., pamphlets 3–4, p. 210. 44.  See note 41. 45.  Luntz, p. 323, and Yisrael Klausner, Toldot Ness Ziona Be-Volozhin (Jerusalem, 1954), p. 70. 46.  Weizmann to Motzkin on October 9, 1895, in Iggerot, vol. 1. 47.  Weizmann, Masa U-Ma’as, p. 30. 48.  Ha-Melitz, March 6, 1901, no. 54; Sefer Yahadut Lita, vol. 1, p. 495; A. Zenziper (­Rafaeli), Pa’amei Geula (Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 66, no. 31 in the picture. 49.  Yisrael Klausner, Mi-Katowitz Ad Basel (Jerusalem, 1965), vol. 1, p. 295, based on a letter of the society dated 1890, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Ussishkin Collection, 100/D. 50.  A. Y. Slutzky, pt. 1, pp. 18–19. 51.  Ha-Melitz, March 2, 1890, no. 51; the letter is also cited by Slutzky, pt. 2, p. 22. 52.  Ha-Melitz, January 24, 1894, no. 20. 53.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 175, 177. 54.  Ha-Melitz, February 27, 1897, no. 49. 55.  See Sh. M. Rabinowitsch in Talpiot. 56.  Luah Ahi’asaf, Ma’asaf Sifruti, 1893–1896, fourth year, 1896, p. 249. 57.  MS letter from 1891, signed by the treasurer of the society, Z. H., apparently Zvi Hiller, in the Central Zionist Archives, Z. Gluskin Collection, file A 118/x3. The following account is also given: 1,238.28 annual and monthly dues, 230.40 random donations, 424.65 pictures of Montefiore and the Katowitz Conference, 118.01 citrons from the Holy Land, 169.35 collection plates, Day of Atonement, 201.05 lots, 125.13 interest (collected in accord with the approved halakhic method: heter iska).

Notes to Pages 53–57 58.  Y. Bregman, “Chaim Weizmann Ve-Iro Pinsk,” Ha-Boker, December 4, 1944, p. 2. 59.  PSL (1904), pp. 66–67. 60.  Ha-Melitz, February 27, 1896, no. 49. 61.  The letter is in the Central Zionist Archives, Druyanov Collection, file A 9/15. 62.  Ha-Melitz, August 23, 1890, no. 190. 63.  Ha-Melitz, December 21, 1890, no. 281. 64.  Ha-Melitz, March 29, 1891, no. 74. 65.  The letter is in the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Z. Gluskin Collection, no. A 118. 66.  He-Avar 12 (1965), p. 36. Regarding Dolnik, see note by Klausner, who published the letters; ibid., p. 35, note 1. Concerning Ussishkin’s stay in Palestine, see ibid., p. 11, Slutzky’s article. 67.  Ha-Melitz, July 9, 1891, p. 216. 68. See note 65. 69.  Ha-Melitz, July 21, 1891, no. 162. Such letters were sent from other places as well. The reply should be noted: We have arrived at a decision not to interfere at all in the matter of leaving for Palestine. We have left this issue in the hands of those who wish to emigrate, and for our part, we have chosen other goals for those who seek our patronage. Ibid. See also Y. Klausner, “Ha-Tenu’a Le-Zion Be-Russia,” Mi-Katowitz Ad Basel, vol. 3, p. 101. 70.  Ha-Melitz, August 23, 1890 and March 29, 1891; Tidhar, p. 52, 177, 1523, 1689; Ha-Zofe, October 3, 1944, Rabbi Moshe Ostrovsky’s remarks pertaining to the sainted Rabbi Zalman Osovsky. 71.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, p. 177; Sh. Tschernovitz, Bnei Moshe U-Tekufatam (Warsaw, 1914), p. 27. 72.  Ibid., p. 28; PS, September 23, 1927. 73.  He is included in the list of Bnei Moshe members, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, Druyanov Archives, 9/68. 74.  Yisrael Klausner, “Hibbat Zion Be-Lita,” Yahadut Lita, vol. 2, pp. 501–503. Apparently additional members were enlisted in the Bnei Moshe society. Thus, e.g., Avraham Kertzinel said of himself that he was a constituent of Bnei Moshe. A. Kolodny, Zikhronot shel Zug Holmim ­Ve-Lohamim (Jerusalem, 1952), p. 4. 75.  Ha-Melitz, January 5, 1896, no. 4. 76.  Ha-Melitz, October 26, 1894, no. 235, and Maslansky Archives, file 2, Shwadron Collection, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. Women also participated in this farewell party. 77.  Ha-Melitz, February 11, 1894, no. 36. For information about the lifestyle of the Hibbat Zion movement, see A. Shohet, “Shemot, Semalim, Ve-Havai Be-Hibbat Zion,” in Shivat Zion, annual, vol. 2–3, (Jerusalem, 1953), p. 246ff. 78.  It was Feinstein who eulogized Shmuel Yosef Fuenn, as well as Erlanger, in Hebrew, Ha-Melitz, January 29, 1891; regarding Rabbi Ya’acov Lieberman, see Ha-Melitz, October 9, 1896, no. 220. Concerning Rabbi Aryeh Dovid Feinstein and his son Avraham Asher, see the article by Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, “Beit Feinstein Be-Pinsk,” in the memorial volume, Efraim Zur-Feinstein, Iggerot U-Reshimot (Be’er Tuvia, 1964); and Pinsk, vol. 2, p. 493. 79.  Letter to Motzkin, September 10, 1895, Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 44. 80.  See Talpiot, p. 13. 81.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 44. At the eleventh congress, which took place in early September 1913, Rubinstein was cited as one of the active Zionists who had passed away after the preceding congress, and in whose honor the delegates rose.

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Notes to Pages 57–61 82.  S. N. Gitelman, “Hagigot Ha-Zionim Be-Hanukkah,” Niveino [weekly, published by the Zionist Organization’s youth department Tarbut] (Pinsk, 1935–38), 1937. His account is apparently distorted. According to Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein’s account, Be-Tzel Koratenu (Tel Aviv, 1948), p. 132, the party that Gitelman refers to was held in the home of M. Re’em, not in the home of M. Luria, and in 1901, not 1900. The Hanukkah party of 1899 was held in M. Luria’s home “in the presence of hundreds of people.” See Die Welt, December 8, 1899, no. 49, p. 9. According to Ha-Melitz, 1899, no. 44, p. 2, “people by the hundreds came to the party,” referring to the national party that was held on one of the intermediate days of Passover in honor of the holiday. 83.  See above, Chapter 1, and below, Chapter 4. 84.  A. Y. Slutzky, Shivat Zion, pp. 18–19. 85.  Yosef Rabinowitz and Sh. Z. Landau, Or La-Yesharim (Warsaw, 1900), p. 54. 86.  Ibid. 87.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 106–107. 88.  Ibid., p. 98. 89.  Y. Bregman, p. 2. 90.  Protocol of the First Zionist Congress (Jerusalem, 1947), p. 165. Z. Rabinowitsch, “HaRothschildim shel Pinsk Ve-Karlin,” He-Avar 17 (1970): p. 272, and in expanded monograph form: “Shisha Dorot shel Gevirei Pinsk Ve-Karlin”, in PHebII. See also the picture of the participants in the congress, Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, p.106, no. 36 and no. 46. Shaul Luria does not appear in the picture. Luria wrote to Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch regarding the mandate he received from Southern Rhodesia. 91.  Weizmann to Motzkin, September 24, 1898, Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 59; and Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 99. 92.  TY, p. 150. Article about Yosef Bregman by Yosef Herman, MS. 93.  Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, the organizer of the Benot Zion group, recalls (pp. 172–173): Bnei Zion and Benot Zion worked hand in hand, but the boys’ work was more productive and successful. The girls were more flighty and fell into the snares set for Zionists by the Bund; some of our most loyal and devoted (female) members left us for good. 94.  PSL (1904), p. 67. 95.  At this meeting it was decided to establish four centers of activity: 1. a spiritual center in Bialystok, 2. a correspondence center in Kishinev, 3. a literary center in Warsaw, 4. a financial center in Kiev. See the circular issued by the spiritual center in Bialystok, 1897, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file 279. The protocol of the congress was published by Y. Verfel (Rafael), Sinai, vol. 3 (1939): p. 126. There is an error there, in the mention of M. Luria rather than G. Luria. 96.  Ha-Melitz, July 28, 1898, no. 166. 97.  Die Welt, August 20, 1898, no. 34, p. 4. 98.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 99. 99.  Apel, Be-Tokh Reishit Ha-Tehiya, p. 465. Regarding Grigory Luria, see the article or monograph by Z. Rabinowitsch, as cited above, note 90. 100.  A. A. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 9. 101.  PSL (1904), p. 68. 102.  Apel, Be-Tokh Reishit Ha-Tehiya, p. 465. 103.  Possibly Kerman’s remarks, p. 206, about the transfer of the mandate to Avraham

Notes to Pages 61–66 Nimtzovitz, under the influence of his brother-in-law Ya’acov Reigrodsky, refer to the third congress. 104.  See below, Chapter 4. 105.  Ha-Zefirah, February 13, 1900, no. 29, p. 116. 106.  Yosef Herman’s notebook of memoirs, MS, written in 1937, p. 42, in the archives of Moshe Kol. Previously the synagogues of Pinsk had been open to Zionist propaganda. Similarly, we learn that due to the activities of one “enlightened” individual, the synagogues were closed to a Zionist “preacher” who lectured on Jewish history. Ha-Zefirah, December 23, 1901, no. 276, p. 2007. The “enlightened” individual may have been S. N. Gitelman, who was known to teach Bible according to the methods of Biblical criticism. 107.  PSL (1903), p. 16. 108.  TY, p. 150, pp. 429–430. 109.  Ha-Melitz, March 6, 1901, no. 54. 110.  PSL (1904), p. 67. 111.  See Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, p. 141, picture 395, no. 21 and no. 44. 112.  Die Welt, August 3, 1900, no. 31, p. 10; and December 20, 1901, no. 51, p. 5. 113.  Yisrael Klausner, Oppositsia Le-Herzl (Jerusalem, 1960), p. 147. 114.  M. Y. Fried, Die Groise Zionisten Asefa in Minsk (Cracow, 1903), pp. 51, 58; M. Nurock, Ve’idat Zionei Russia Be-Minsk, trans., with foreword by Yisrael Klausner (Jerusalem, 1963), p. 63; Die Welt, September 19, 1902, pp. 3, 5. Berger was apparently Y. L. Berger. Dr. A. Lichtenstein, Pinhas Mandelbaum, and Yosef Bregman appear in the photograph of the congress participants. See Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, pp. 116–117, nos. 171, 303, 430; Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 111–113. 115.  PSL (1904), pp. 70–71; for Tarshish’s list of the founding members of Mizrahi, see Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 209. 116.  Fried, Groise Zionisten Asefa, pp. 60–61. 117.  PSL (1904), p. 71. 118.  TY, pp. 151–152. 119.  PSL (1904), p. 71. 120.  Herman, MS, pp. 41–42; and the pamphlet by A. Kolodny, Zug Holmim Ve-­Lohamim, p. 2. See also Tidhar, vol. 7, p. 2871. 121.  See PSL (1904), pp. 69–71, and compare to Yitzhak Broides, Vilna Ha-Zionit VeAskaneha (Tel Aviv, 1940), p. 210. 122.  Fried, Groise Zionisten Asefa, p. 61. 123.  Ha-Melitz, February 3, 1902, no. 28. 124.  Fried, Groise Zionisten Asefa, p. 51. On January 8, 1903, Yosef Bregman informed Ussishkin: “There was a party in the club during Hanukkah and I was the speaker.” General Zionist Archives, file A 24/111/2. 125.  Die Welt, August 14, 1903, no. 33, pp. 2–3. H. D. Horowitz was not a Pinsker. Sh. A. Levin was Shmuel Avigdor Levin, of the original Hovevei Zion in Karlin. He was born in 1866 and died in 1931. For further information, see PS, November 16, 1931, no. 19 (224), p. 4. 126.  Moshe Weizmann is photographed in the “group of delegates”; see Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, p. 120, picture no. 372. Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 114. According to Yosef Herman, Yosef Bregman participated in the fifth and sixth Zionist congresses, and it was at the sixth congress that he came out strongly against Herzl. Herman, MS. 127.  Leopold Luria was the brother of Grigory Luria, a founder of the Jewish Colonial

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Notes to Pages 66–73 Trust Zionist bank, and he lived in Lodz. Regarding his selection to the sixth congress, see Ha-Zefirah, August 18, 1903, no. 181, p. 2. 128.  General Zionist Archives, file A 24/111/2. 129.  Ibid. 130.  Letter dated April 11, 1904, Weizmann, Iggerot (Jerusalem, 1972), vol. 3, p. 279. 131.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 146. 132.  Ibid., pp. 154–155. Ya’acov Reigrodsky was among the early members of the Zionist movement in Pinsk. Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 2, letter 396. 133.  Ha-Zefirah, July 1 and July 11, 1904. 134.  PS, 1937, serialized. We have no information from a contemporary source. 135.  Article by Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, Ha-Zefirah, November 25, 1903, no. 253; see the list of rabbis who presumably gave notice of their participation in the gathering, among them Rabbi David Friedman, Ha-Zefirah, November 17, 1903; Ha-Zeman, November 18, 1903, no. 86, p. 3. According to Ha-Zefirah, December 8, 1903, the initiators of the gathering intended to involve the participants in anti-Zionist activity. B. Dinur, Olam She-Shaka (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 174. 136.  Der Yiddisher Arbayter, Bund organ (published outside Russia: 1896–1904), November, 1897, nos. 4–5, p. 12. According to legislation enacted in 1879, the workday of employees in the workshops was to last no more than twelve hours, but no one paid attention to the law. See Royter Pinkes, Tsu der Geshikhte fun der Yiddisher Arbeter Bavegung un Sotsialistishe Shtremungen Bay Yidn (Warsaw, 1921–24), vol. 2, p. 170. See also Der Veg, August 4 (17), 1905, no. 4, p. 3, for a survey of labor legislation in Russia from 1838 on. 137.  TY, pp. 95, 99, 115. 138.  Letter from Ya’acov Beizer to Moshe Novik, January 27, 1956, p. 9, MS. We have information, from the 1880s, about a young woman from the Lifshitz family called Zhinaida. Her father was a learned and enlightened man, and she herself also studied Hebrew. Influenced by a novel she had read, she was seized by the idea of establishing a cooperative workshop for sewing women’s clothing that would serve as a beginning and a model for production communes. She opened her workshop in Kiev, but the experiment failed. A. Kotik, Dos Lebn fun a Yiddishen Intelligent (New York, 1925), pp. 215ff. 139.  We know when the Pinsk Bund was established from a S.S. article in the weekly, Der Nayer Veg, organ for Jewish proletarian issues (Vilna, 1906), May 5 (18), 1906, p. 88, wherein it is stated that the Bund “has already been active here for seven years.” 140.  Mikhael Goldhorn, “Mi-Yamim Avaru,” Yoman Hameshek (Gevat), May 1, 1953, no. 24 (786). 141.  Cf. the description of the pressures placed on a daughter by poor, aged parents, who wanted her to go out to work as a “maid,” while she preferred to be a worker in a factory. See PSL (1903), pp. 29–35. 142.  Die Arbayter Shtyme: Tsentral Organ fun Bund, September 27, 1917, pp. 19–21. A.­Litvak, Vos Geven (Warsaw, 1925), p. 271. 143.  Ibid., pp. 186–187. 144.  See note 140. 145.  W. Evans-Gordon, The Alien Immigrant (London and New York, 1903), p. 116. The donor of the stipend is not specified. 146.  Mokdoni, Mayne Bagegenishen, p. 246. 147.  Die Tsayt, weekly (St. Petersburg: 1912), March 22 (April 4), 1913. Two accidents within a span of two weeks are discussed here. See also note 243. 148.  Mokdoni, Mayne Bagegenishen, pp. 246–248.

Notes to Pages 74–79 149.  PSL (1903), p. 106. The feuilleton was signed with the pseudonym, “Aleichem Sholem.” The feuilleton caused unpleasantness for Lifshitz, and several Bnei Zion members left the association and joined Poalei Zion. 150.  PSL (1904), p. 128. 151.  TY, p. 98. According to a book published in Soviet Russia, there were more than ten strikes between 1890 and 1895. A. Netylkin, Pinsk: Istoricheskii Ocherk (Minsk, 1961), p. 17. 152.  A. N. Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte fun der Yiddisher Arbeter Bavegung in Russland (Vilna, 1931), p. 158. See survey of the ukhranka in Sh. S. Agorski, Die Sotsialistishe Literatur aff Yiddish (Minsk, 1935), vol. 2, pp. 321–322. According to this survey, members of the group would assemble in the forest on Saturdays; they also tried to force a laborer who worked for a tailor, Borukh Miller, to join their group, and when he refused he was beaten. 153.  TY, p. 98; Leyzer Levin, “Der Bund in Pinsk,” in Dos Lebn, Fuftsig Yoriker Yovel-Bukh 1908–1958 (New York: Pinsker Branch 210, Arbeter Ring, 1958), p. 29. Cited hereafter as Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, according to year of publication. 154.  Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 158. TY, pp. 139–140. 155.  Der Nayer Veg, May 5 (18), 1906, p. 88; however, according to TY, p. 140. The Pinsk Bund was established in 1901. 156.  TY, p. 99. In November 1900 Ya’acov Hanger, Azriel the tailor, and two teachers, Levin and Heckelman, were imprisoned. Strikes broke out in the match and cigarette factories. Die Arbeter Shtyme, August, 1901, no. 24, p. 24. 157.  TY, pp. 140, 428. See also Yosef Herman, Mahberes Zikhronos, MS, pp. 30–31. 158.  M. Stak, Mit Yoren Tsurik, Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, pp. 9–10. That year more than 100 workers assembled in the forest on April 28, which fell on a Saturday, to celebrate the first of May. They demanded an eight-hour workday and sang the song: “Trugt aroys die royt heylikeh fahn”[carry the holy red flag]. Ibid., p. 17. 159.  Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, pp. 101–102. 160.  TY, pp. 140–141; Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 2, p. 47. 161.  Stak, Mit Yoren Tsurik, pp. 9–10. 162.  TY, p. 141. Y. Sh. Hertz, Der Bund in Bilder (New York, 1958), p. 20. Hertz writes that Lieber was shot in November, 1937, after being horribly tortured in the prison at Alma-Ata, capital of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. 163.  Stak, Mit Yoren Tsurik, pp. 9–12, 17. 164.  Y. Sh. Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vols. 1–4 (New York, 1960–72), vol. 2 (1962), pp. 106–107, 113. 165.  TY, pp. 141–143. 166.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 1 (1960), p. 231. At about the same time the Pinsk Bund issued a pamphlet. We do not know if this was a single issue or a periodical, ibid., p. 258; possibly this is the proclamation mentioned below. A rumor was spread that “brothers and sisters” marched in procession with red flags, but this was a false report. Die Arbayter Shtyme, August, 1902, no. 28, pp. 8–9. 167.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 32. According to TY (pp. 100–102), these strikes took place in 1902. Sh. Dennenberg told me about the settlement of Yakovlev and his relative ­Paprotsky, who was a resident of the settlement. 168.  TY, p. 102. Posledniye izvestiya (PI), London, September, 1902, no. 85, p. 2, and November 1903, no. 93, p. 2. See above, p. 43. 169.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 33. During that period, on September 19, thirteen people were arrested, of whom eight were released shortly thereafter. Among those who were

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Notes to Pages 79–83 not released were Segelevitz, the teacher mentioned above, Shmuel Gladstein, the student studying independently (so-called: extern) Neidich, the carpenter, and his sister, who was a worker. Their arrest was effected by Haripov, an adjutant gendarme, who came especially from Moscow. PI, November 6, 1902, no. 93, p. 2. 170.  TY, pp. 101–102. 171.  Ibid., p. 43. 172.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 86; Hirsh Abramovich, Farshvundene Geshtaltn (Buenos Aires, 1958), pp. 254–260; TY, pp. 144–145. 173.  Mokdoni, Mayne Bagegenishen, pp. 248–249. 174.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 138. However, the writer’s memory deceived her. The episode took place, not on “the last day of the Sukkot holiday,” 1904, but on the seventh day of the Passover holiday, 1903. See TY, pp. 103–104. Leyzer Levin’s memory similarly deceived him, when he wrote that this happened “on the second day of the Passover holiday,” Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1958, p. 29. Incidentally, Tepper became a monarchist during the Bolshevik revolution, and shortly afterward converted to Christianity. Mokdoni, Mayne Bagegenishen, p. 250; Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, p. 54; Die Arbayter Shtyme, May, 1903, no. 33, p. 17, and also, PI, April 30, 1903, no. 121, p. 4. 175.  Remarks made at a memorial gathering for the martyrs of Pinsk, held in Haifa in November 1965, and on Kol Yisrael (Israel radio) in the series “Bet Avi” in January 1967. 176.  Der Fraynd, October 8, 1903, no. 219. Four of those vindicated in court were David Unterman, Shayna Haya Veskovoynikov, Yitzhak Alianov, and Arontzvitzky; Ha-Zeman, October 7, 1903, no. 73, p. 4. Rivka Kahan, who was a worker at the match factory, was arrested at a Bund meeting, fired from her job because she disseminated illegal circulars, and then imprisoned a second time in 1903 following an attack on the Pinsk police station to free Bundist prisoners. It is fair to assume that this second imprisonment was connected with the attempt to release Kolia Tepper. Y. Yeshurun, ed., Arbeter Ring, Boyer Un Tuer (New York, 1962), p. 336. 177.  Abramovich, p. 260. PI, April 30, 1903, no. 121, p. 4. 178.  Der Fraynd, April 28, 1903, no. 93, pp. 3–4; Ha-Zefirah, May 20, 1903, no. 106. According to the account, two thousand rubles were collected up to that time. “Most of the contributions were from the middle class and the poor who always donate their coins with tears in their eyes, while nearly all the wealthy among us excelled in their heartlessness on this occasion.” The article describes the great gathering in the synagogue on the Sabbath when Moshe Romm spoke about the Kishinev pogroms. 179.  TY, p. 105; PI, London, May 16, 1903, no. 125, p. 2. The contents were copied into the essay: Kishinever Hariga, Materialn un Documenten Heroysgegebn fun Algemeinem Iddishen Arbayter Bund in Lita, Poilen un Russland, London, June, 1903, pp. 45–46. See also PI, Geneva, March 9, 1904, no. 170, p. 2. 180.  Der Fraynd, September 26, 1903, no. 213, p. 4; Ha-Zeman, September 22 (October 5), 1903, no. 71, p. 4; Ha-Zeman, October 10(23), 1903, no. 74, p. 5; Yiddishe Folkstsaytung, weekly, ed. Mordekhai Spektor (Warsaw [printed in Cracow], 1903), October 21, 1903, no. 43, pp. 12–13; Ha-Zefirah, October 23, 1903, no. 231, p. 2. 181.  Der Fraynd, September 26, 1903, no. 213, p. 4; Ha-Zefirah, October 23, 1903, no. 231, p. 2. 182.  Die Arbayter Shtyme, September 1904, no. 38, p. 20. 183.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 154–155; Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 2, letter 396.

Notes to Pages 84–94 184.  TY, pp. 109–110; PI, London, February 19, 1903, no. 108, p. 3 and February 25, 1904, no. 170, pp. 2–3. 185.  Yehuda Erez, “Ha-Hagana Ha-Atzmit Be-Rusia Ba-Shanim 1903–1905, Lefi Yediot Iton Ha-Sotzial-Democratim Ha-Rusim Iskra,” He-Avar 4 (1956): pp. 82ff, esp. p. 87. 186.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 152. 187.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, p. 44. 188.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 152. 189.  Byloye, zhurnal posvyashchenny istorii osvoboditelnovo dvizheniya (Petersburg, 1908), no. 7, p. 129; Beinish Mikhaelevich, Zikhronos fun a Yiddishn Sotsialist 1902–1905 (Warsaw, 1921), vol. 2, pp. 63–65. 190.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 34. 191.  M. Goldavsky, Fun Vayten Amol un Haynt (New York, 1959),p. 59. 192.  Ibid., p. 60. 193.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 34. 194.  Goldavsky, Fun Vayten Amol un Haynt, p. 59. 195.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 34. 196.  TY, p. 107. PI, 1904, no. 170; See also TY, p. 140–141; Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 2, p. 47; Byloye, zhurnal posvyashchenny istorii osvoboditelnovo dvizheniya, no. 7, p. 129; Mikhaele­ vich, Zikhronos, vol. 2, pp. 63–65. 197.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 153; article “Pinsker Yaten-Pinsk in Yor 1905,” by An Alter Bakanter [=an old acquaintance]—that is Y. Pesahson or Peisakhzan, known as “Dovid,” in Naye Folkstsaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 7; TY, pp. 106–107; Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, p. 44. For information about Pesahson, see Hertz, Doros Bundistn (New York, 1956), vol 1., pp. 262–269 and M. Mishkinsky, Ba-Derekh, vol. 1, August 1967, pp. 3–4. 198.  Ha-Zefirah, September 16, 1904, no. 212, p. 2; April 22, 1905, no. 62, p. 3. TY, pp. 107–108. Mikhaelevich, Zikhronos, vol. 2, pp. 63–65. 199.  Der Fraynd, October 6, 1906, no. 49, p. 4. TY, p. 108. According to Mikhaelevich, Zitrin was sentenced to eight years in prison (Mikhaelevich, Zikhronos, p. 65). Rakow mentions Tischiv, a Bundist, and Alexander Gurovich, who sat in prison. Y. Rakow, Memuarn fun a Russishn Revolutsioner (Chicago, 1934), p. 21. According to Hertz, Der Bund in Bilder, p. 35, Zitrin escaped from Siberia. 200.  See above article by Pesahson, note 197. 201.  TY, pp. 108–109. 202.  Ibid., p. 112; PI, 1904, no. 170, p. 3. 203.  Die Arbayter Shtyme, February 1904, no. 36, p. 20. PI, 1904, no. 170, p. 3. 204.  PI, 1904, no. 170, p. 3; Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 316. 205.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 138. 206.  Ha-Zefirah, August 25, 1904, no. 17, p. 2. 207.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 135–136. 208.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, pp. 25–26, p. 101; Die Arbayter Shtyme, September, 1904, no. 38, p. 2. PI, August, 22, 1904, no. 193, p. 2. 209.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, pp. 101, 122, 129. 210.  TY, pp. 113–114. 211.  Memoirs of Nissel Forman, PS, 1937. According to Bukhbinder, approximately 80– 100 people participated in the demonstration. See Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 320. But, we cannot tell if the reference was to this demonstration on October 9. In TY the chief of police is called by the name Vychorka. Undoubtedly the reference is to one of the venerable policemen.

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Notes to Pages 94–103 212.  TY, p. 127, and see pp. 132–133 for information on the Bund Ha-Tzair (der kleyner Bund). 213.  Yosef Bregman’s letter to Ussishkin, April 21, 1905, in the General Zionist Archives, file A 24/111/2. 214.  TY, p. 152. It is reported herein that in 1904 the Poalei Zion party numbered 400–550 members. 215.  Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 322. 216.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 3, p. 270, letter of April 3, 1904; p. 278, letter of April 11, 1904; and, p. 283, letter of April 18, 1904. 217.  Letter to Shimon Novik, January 27, 1956, p. 16, MS. 218.  Shlakman was an S.R. member. He was imprisoned and sent to Siberia, as was the S.R. member Grigory Yefimovitz Shrader, a teacher in Drunzik’s school, who in 1902 was apparently imprisoned already. Rakow, Memuarn fun a Russishn Revolutsioner, p. 42. 219.  Two hundred fifty legal suits were brought against farmers in the vicinity of the villages of Telehany and Dubowa for letting loose their animals in the fields of the nobles, but the suits were cancelled. Der Fraynd, August 4, 1905, no. 169, p. 4. 220.  Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, “Leopold (Lipa) Luria,” Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 480ff. Rabinowitsch, “Ha-Rothschildim shel Pinsk Ve-Karlin,” ibid., pp. 262–263; and the monograph by the same author, in PHebII: “Shisha Dorot shel Gevirei Pinsk Ve-Karlin.” (See note 90 above.) 221.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, p. 177; PI, March 15 (2), 1905, no. 221, pp. 4–5; Baylage Tzum 39 Numer Arbayter Shtyme, March 1905, p. 28. 222.  TY, p. 127. 223.  Ibid., pp. 114–116. 224.  Ibid., p. 128. 225.  Kronik fun der Tsionistish-Sotsialistisher Bavegung, Oisgabe fun Tsentral Komitet, July 1905, no. 1, p. 7ff. See pamphlet, Der Bund Als Vekhter fun Ordnung, which was published by the Minsk committee of Poalei Zion, July 1905, p. 2. 226.  Der Fraynd, April 22, 1905, no. 84, p. 3. 227.  Der Bund, May 1905, no. 6, p. 17. 228.  Der Fraynd, April 22, 1905, no. 84, p. 3. 229.  Der Bund, May 1905, no. 6, p. 17. Die Letste Pasirungen Oisgabe fun Oislendishn Komitet (shel Ha-Bund), Geneva, July 4, 1905, p. 1. 230.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 155–157. 231.  See note 225. The “red declaration” is cited by Sh. Eisenstadt, Perakim Be-Toldot Tenuat Ha-Poalim Ha-Yehudit(Merhavia, 1944), vol. 2, p. 168. Excerpts appear in Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 392. Beizer’s postcard is cited in TY, p. 154. 232.  Der Bund, May 1905, p. 13. 233.  Der Fraynd, May 4, 1905, no. 94, p. 2. The wounding of the chief of police apparently made an impression upon the Jewish community. The newspaper Ha-Zeman surveyed “Events in Russia in 1905” in its January 2 (15), 1906 edition and mentioned that in the month of May, “the Pinsk demonstrators wounded the chief of police.” 234.  Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 394. 235.  Der Bund, May 1905, p. 13. 236.  See note 225. 237.  TY, p. 133. 238.  Der Bund, May 1905, p. 13; and see TY, pp. 116, 128–129 about the strike in general. On p. 116 it says that the strike broke out in March, but this is apparently an error.

Notes to Pages 104–111 239.  See note 138, and Rabinowitsch, “Dr. Alexander Luria,” Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 481–482. See note 220. 240.  An Alter Bakanter, “Pinsker Yaten, Pinsk in Yor 1905,” Naye Folkstsaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 9. 241.  TY, p. 129. As told to me by Efraim Ben-Ami, Aharon Rubinstein’s son, the strike erupted because twelve workers were fired. Under Rubinstein’s influence, Alexander Luria agreed to cancel six of the firings. Although Rubinstein had nothing to do with the hiring and firing of workers, his life was in danger. Efraim had a pistol and he would accompany his father when he left the house. In the evenings a soldier would come to stand guard because one day a few Bundists, who wanted to kill Rubinstein, came to their home. One of them, with a flick of his stick, smashed their crystal chandelier to smithereens. 242.  TY, p. 485. 243.  See notes 225 and 229, Die Letste Pasirungen. 244.  TY, p. 129. 245.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, pp. 141–142. 246.  TY, p. 155. 247.  Naye Folkstzaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 9. 248.  TY, pp. 154ff. 249.  Herman, p. 52. 250.  Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2, p. 230. M. Adler, Epizoden fun Amol, Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1928, p. 13. 251.  Der Veg, September 7 (20), 1905, no. 31, p. 2. According to this news item, the episode took place on Saturday, July 3, at 1:30 in the afternoon on Brzesc Street. But, apparently the date is incorrect. According to TY, this took place on Av 14, August 2, according to the Russian calendar. Mordekhai Gimpel’s remarks were made during our conversation. 252.  TY, pp. 117–118, 131–132. See also Adler, p. 13. 253.  Dos Lebn, June 4, 1906, p. 3. 254.  TY, p. 430. 255.  Ha-Zefirah, August 17, 1905, no. 171, p. 3. 256.  Der Veg, August 28 (September 11), 1905, no. 22, p. 3. 257.  Der Fraynd, August 17, 1905, no. 180, p. 3. See Sh. Dubnow, Divrei Yemei Yisrael ­Be-Dorot Ha-Aharonim (Berlin, 1924), vol. 2, p. 289. 258.  Der Veg, September 4 (17), 1905, no. 28, p. 2. 259.  Nissel Forman, “Epizoden Un Bilder fun Naentn Ever,” PS, May 21, 1937. 260.  Naye Folkstsaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 9. 261.  Der Fraynd, September 1, 1905, no. 193, p. 3. Der Veg, August 29 (September 11), 1905, no. 23, p. 3. Hatred for the Jews penetrated even the students’ circles. A student injured a Jew who attempted to defend a Jewish youth whom the student had hit. See Der Veg, August 28 (September 10), 1905, no. 22, p. 3. 262.  Y. Krepeliak, “In Yene Shturmishe Teg,” Dos Lebn, Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 26. 263.  TY, p. 154. 264.  Ibid., pp. 154–155. 265.  Ya’acov Beizer’s letter, cited above, p. 17, MS. 266.  See the list of places cited in Bukhbinder, Die Geshikhte, p. 343. Pinsk does not appear in the list. 267.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Koratenu, p. 153. 268.  Ibid., p. 160.

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Notes to Pages 111–121 269.  Naye Folkstsaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 9. In TY, Shelomo Zheleznikov and Grisha Lieber­man are noted as the first commanders of the fighting division, and no mention is made of Volodka. 270.  TY, pp. 133–134. 271.  Naye Folkstsaytung, 1927, no. 237, p. 9. Ha-Zefirah, September 5, 1905, no. 187, p. 3, regarding one political murder in Pinsk. 272.  Der Fraynd, September 1, 1905, no. 193, p. 3. 273.  Dos Lebn, Jubilee Volume, 1923, p.37; ibid., 1928, p. 14; PI, October 30 (17) 1905. 274.  Ha-Zefirah, October 5, 1905, no. 208, p. 3. See also Khronika Yevreiskoi zhizni, Petersburg, October 13, 1905, nos. 39–40, p. 33. 275.  TY, p. 118. Earlier, the Pinsk Duma had applied to the Minister of Interior requesting that he exempt the city from the expense of maintaining the police force, but the request was denied. Der Veg, August 4 (17), 1905, no. 4, p. 3. 276.  TY, p. 118. 277.  TY, p. 132. 278.  PS, October 22, 1937, p. 3. See also article by An Alter Bakanter (Pesahson), Der Veker, weekly (Vilna, 1905–06), December 30, 1905, year 1, no. 6. 279.  TY, pp. 135, 154. 280.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, pp. 36–37. 281.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1928, pp. 14–15; Die Letste Pasirungen, 1905, no. 23, p. 3; PI, 1905, no. 251, p. 9. 282.  TY, p. 155. 283.  TY, pp. 119, 143. 284.  Herman, pp. 65–66. 285.  Ibid. 286.  TY, p. 155. 287.  Ibid., p. 120. 288.  PS, October 15, 1937, p. 3. 289. From the TY account, p. 155, it may be inferred that the S.S. defenders seized “three strategic points in the city” during the mass assembly of December 15, discussed below. 290.  Ibid. 291.  TY, p. 135. 292.  Der Veker, December 30, 1905. 293.  TY, p. 120. 294.  Der Fraynd, December 1, 1905, p. 3; Netylkin, p. 22. 295.  Dos Lebn, January 3, 1906, p. 4. Krepeliak comments in Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, pp. 27–28, that only Pinsk responded to the summons of the Moscow workers’ representative, and only in Pinsk was there a general strike in December 1905. This is incorrect. 296.  Der Veker, December 30, 1905, year 1, no. 6. 297.  Ibid. 298.  TY, p. 136. 299.  Der Veker, December 30, 1905, year 1, no. 6. 300.  TY, p. 155. 301.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, p. 38. See also TY, p. 37. 302.  Ibid.; Der Veker, 1906, no. 4, signed by An Alter Bakanter (Pesahson). 303.  Ha-Zefirah, December 22, 1905, no. 261, pp. 2–3. 304.  Krepeliak, Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1923, pp. 27–28.

Notes to Pages 121–127 305.  Dos Lebn, January 3, 1906, p. 4. 306.  Der Veker, December 30, 1905, year 1, no. 6; 1906, no. 5, signed by An Alter Bakanter (Pesahson). Netylkin, p. 22. 307.  These details are revealed in Bregman’s letters to Ussishkin, available in the General Zionist Archives, file A 24/111/2; letters, Pinsk, 9 Adar I, 5665 (February 14, 1905); Pinsk, 12 Adar I, 5665 (February 17, 1905); Luninec, 15 Adar I, 5665 (February 20, 1905). 308.  Der Fraynd, January 17, 1905, p. 4. 309.  The platform was published in the press. See, e.g., Die Welt, 1905, no. 5, pp. 3–4. 310.  See Bregman’s letters, above, note 307, and also, postcard, Pinsk, 12 Adar I, 5665 (February 17, 1905); letter, Pinsk, 8 Adar I, 5665 (February 13, 1905); letter, Pinsk, 3 Nisan, 5665 (April 8, 1905). 311.  See above file, note 307, and also, letter, Pinsk, 16 Nisan, 5665 (April 21, 1905). 312.  Proceedings of the Congress, MS, in possession of Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch’s son. The date of the congress was May 5, 1905. See Bregman’s letter in above file, Pinsk, 16 Nisan, 5665 (April 21, 1905). 313.  See postcard, Pinsk, 12 Sivan, 5665 (June 15, 1905), in above file, note 307. 314.  Bregman’s letters in the above file, note 307, Szklow, May 21, 1905; Pinsk, 23 Sivan, 5665 (June 26, 1905). Zelig Tir is photographed in the group of Russian Zionists, participants in the seventh congress, Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, p. 125, no. 98. Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch is no. 4 in the same photograph (although no. 4 is noted as “unidentified”). 315.  Die Welt, July 21, 1905, p. 27. 316.  Proceedings of the congress, MS. 317.  Article by Z. Tir, “Dapim Le-Tenuat Ha-Tehiya,” Davar, October 13, 1946. 318.  Herman, p. 49. 319.  A. Levinson, Be-Reshit Ha-Tenua (Tel Aviv, 1947), p. 8. 320.  See note 317; Sh. Eisenstadt, Perakim Be-Toldot Tenuat Ha-Poalim, p. 107. 321.  Ibid. 322.  Zenziper, Pa’amei Geula, photograph 502. Concerning another woman member named Zhivova, see Herman, p. 77. 323.  Herman, p. 52, 61–62, 70–71. In that demonstration, Herman was caught by the Cossacks. Beaten and wounded in one eye, he sat in jail for about a week. 324.  Ibid., pp. 70–71. 325.  In 1906 Herman served as a voluntary emissary of the movement in Shavali, Lithuania, and made a living by teaching Russian; ibid. Zhivova served as an emissary at the same time in Kelm, Lithuania. 326.  Levinson, Be-Reshit Ha-Tenuah, p. 14. Herman, p. 50, 56. 327.  Eisenstadt, Book 2, p. 107.

Chapter 3 1.  Ha-Zefirah, February 15, 1890, no. 40, pp. 168–169. 2.  For Brainin’s correspondence, see G. Alkushi, in Me’asef Le-Divrei Sifrut, Bikoret, VeHagut, 4 (1964): pp. 525–538; I. Klausner, “The Pioneers of Hebrew Speaking in the Diaspora” [H], Leshonenu La’Am (1964), p. 24. 3.  R. Brainin, Fun Mein Lebensbukh (New York, 1946), pp. 261ff. 4.  A. Druyanov, Ketavim Le-Toledot Hibbat Zion Ve-Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, vols. 1–3 (Odessa

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Notes to Pages 127–140 and Tel Aviv, 1919–34), vol. 2, pp. 784–787. D’Arabeleh was born in Poltava; his real name was Yitzhak Amchislavsky. 5.  Ha-Zefirah. March 24, 1890. 6.  Ha-Zefirah, February 18, 1890. 7.  The correspondence and by-laws of Pinsk Safah Berurah, as well as the names of its members were copied into three small registers belonging to the society. These registers were part of the estate of Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch, and his son Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch deposited them with the Israel Academy of the Hebrew Language. 8.  Niveinu (a weekly periodical published by the youth department of the Tarbut organization of Pinsk), May 7, 1937, p. 3. A. A. Feinstein published the book, Megilat Puranuyot [scroll of misfortune], which is an important testimony about the situation in Pinsk and vicinity during the First World War. In addition to the precise details about the murder, by Poles, of the thirtyfive Jews in Pinsk in 1939, it utilizes reliable testimonies to describe the massacres perpetrated by Balakhovich’s soldiers in many of the towns of Polesie and Ukraine (see below, Chapter Nine). 9.  Sh. M. Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants” [H], Me’asef Talpiyot (Berdichev, 1895), p. 11: “The ‘Safah Berurah’ society was founded here [Pinsk] by the present writer.” Rabinowitsch announced the society’s founding in Ha-Melitz, April 11, 1890. 10.  Niveinu, June 17, 1937, p. 3. 11.  Niveinu, June 4, 1937, p. 2. 12.  Y. Broides, Vilna Ha-Zionit Ve-Askanehah (Tel Aviv, 1939), p. 47. The society was founded by Ben-Avigdor. See Shlomoh Hillel, “Soroki and Its Community” [H], in the series Pirkei Bessarabia (Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 113; Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Betzel Korateinu, (Tel Aviv, 1948), p. 70. The issue here only concerned a youth group. On Minsk, see A. Zenziper, Pa’amei Geulah (Tel Aviv, 1952), p.37. See also Klausner’s pamphlet referred to in note 2 above (this pamphlet also contained information on societies in other locations). A critical essay in Kenesset Ha-Gedolah 2 (5650 [1890]), p. 143, reads: “The writers of Israel are now busy giving expression to our Hebrew language and our young people are striving to become like the most modernized among our brothers in Jerusalem. In every single city they have founded chapters of ‘Safah Berurah’”. 13.  See note 8, above. 14.  The association published J. L. Gordon’s collected poems, as well as the writings of Smolenskin and others. 15.  On Berger, see the article by Y. Neidich in Niveinu, June 18, 1937, as well as the words of appreciation written by Chaim Weizmann in Masa U-Ma’as, 6th ed. (Tel Aviv, 1962), p. 3; and see above Chapter Two and below, Chapter Four. 16.  E.g., Y. H. Ravnitzky wrote in his article in Pardes 1 (Odessa, 1892), p. 25: “And there in the Holy Land, Israel will also renew its Holy Tongue, a true renewal, a renewal for the generations, without playing the ‘societies’ and ‘meetings’ games of the ‘Lovers’ [of Zion = Hibbat Zion organization], even omitting the fanfare from the camp of the ‘spokemen’ who with their mouths call out with a great noise: ‘Our language is ours!’” 17.  Druyanov, Ketavim, v. 3, pp. 157–158, 229. Ben David complained in a letter to Brainin (Lebensbukh, pp. 277–281) that Ahad Ha’Am and Mendele [Mokher Seforim] mock him. On the other hand, Berdichevsky joined Ben-David’s association; cf. Brainin, ibid.; Klausner, “Pioneers,” p. 9. 18.  Ha-Melitz, January 23, 1891, no. 19. 19.  Borukh Halevi Epstein, Safah La-Ne’emanim: An Essay on the Qualities and Value of the Holy Tongue [H] (Warsaw, 1893), pp. 13–14 (this work was written in 1892).

Notes to Pages 140–147 20.  Ha-Melitz, January 23, 1891, no. 19. On A. D. Feinstein, see Ze’ev Rabinowitsch’s article in Ephraim Zur-Feinstein, (Be’er Tuviah, 1964), pp. 9–10; Rabinowitsch, in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2. 21.  Ha-Melitz, August 13, 1890, no. 190. There were members of the society not listed in the “Register of Members’ Names.” They are: Engineer Moshe Nahman Syrkin (later deputy editor of Ha-Zefirah; see S. N. Gitelman in Niveinu, May 28, 1937), the Fried brothers, and Shimon Cohen. Cohen was the grandson of Elazar Moshe Horowitz, the rabbi of Pinsk; see S. Cohen, Hukei Hayim (Warsaw, 1899). 22.  Niveinu, June 4, 1937, p. 2. 23.  Ha-Melitz, October 21, 1890, no. 221. 24.  Ha-Melitz, December 21, 1890, no. 281. 25.  S. M. Rabinowitsch in Ha-Melitz, March 29, 1891, no. 74. 26.  Ha-Melitz, Octoer 21, 1890, no. 221. Jacob Goldman (d. September 30, 1908) was “one of the survivors of the old generation” of maskilim. He wrote additional textbooks: Kitzur Mishnayot [abridged Mishna], Gemara Le-Mathilim [beginner’s Gemara], Tapuhei Zahav [lit. oranges, a book of Hebrew idioms and expressions]. He also wrote articles and reports for Gottlober’s Ha-Boker Or periodical and for Ha-Melitz; see Ha-Zeman, September 15, 1909, no. 204, p. 3. 27.  Ha-Melitz, December 21, 1890, no. 281. 28.  Ha-Melitz, June 24, 1893, no. 141. 29.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin.” 30.  Ibid. 31.  “Doverei Ivrit” society register book, MS. in NLI. 32.  Yiddishe Folkstseitung, March 4, 1903, no. 10, p. 5. 33.  On these organizations, see A. Levinson, Ha-Tenuah Ha-Ivrit Ba-Golah (Warsaw, 1935), p. 14ff. 34.  Niveinu, Sept. 17, 1937, p. 3. 35.  Ha-Zefirah, November 19, 1910, no. 12, p. 3. 36.  Sefer Ha-Mikhtavim of the Russian National Center of the Histadrut Le-Safah U-­LeTarbut Ha-Ivrit, Central Zionist Archive, A126/6. 37.  Niveinu, Sept. 17, 1937, p. 3. 38.  S. Beirav, “Mi-Levatei Ha-Tzionut Be-Rusia Ha-Tzarit: A Memoir,” unpublished MS. in Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP). 39.  Niveinu, Sept. 17, 1937, p. 3; Ha-Zefirah, July 20, 1912, no. 138, p. 3. 40.  Dr. Tenzer’s article in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, pp. 7ff.

Chapter 4 1.  Yehezkel Ya’acov ben Yisrael Letabla, Mivhar Ha-Heshbon, (Warsaw, 1866), at the end of the book. 2.  David Friedman, Emek Berakha, 14:1 (Jerusalem, 1881). His brother-in-law, Yehiel Mikhel Pines, persecuted by the zealots of Jerusalem, was undoubtedly the person who arranged for this book’s publication. Y. Engel, “The Eretz Israel School of Rabbinic Literature” in Sefer Ha-Yovel Shel Histadrut Ha-Morim Be-Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem, 1929), p. 215. 3.  Friedman, Emek, 14:2. 4.  On his activities, see M. Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos (Haifa, 1951), pp. 22ff. The dispensation allowing levirate marriage [yibum] instead of the halitzah ceremony (obviating the need

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Notes to Pages 147–158 for such a marriage) especially angered the rabbinic world (ibid., 28–29). See also the biography of Rosenberg written by M. Rabinson in A. H. Rosenberg, Otzar Ha-Shemot, 2nd ed., pt. 1 (New York, 1923). 5.  Friedman, Emek, 12:2. 6.  A. Mokdoni, Mayne Begeginishen (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 234–235. 7.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 61. 8.  See section on hadarim metukanim below. 9.  Vestnik OPE 5 (March 1911): pp. 18–19. 10.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 102; Sha’arim: Periodical of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Workers, Kislev–Tevet 1962, pp. 81–82. 11.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 61. 12.  PSL (1904), p. 97. SG 8:173 states that in 1887 there were fifty-seven hadarim (oneroom Jewish schoolhouses) in Pinsk. 13.  Sbornik Materialov Ob Ekonomicheskom Polozhenii Yevreev V Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1904), p. 351, based apparently on statistics from 1898, gives the number of Jewish boys and girls of school age as 2,420, of whom 61 attended general schools in the city, and 861 were in Jewish schools (including the Talmud Torahs). 14.  S. M. Gitelman, Ha-Melitz, October 8, 1891, no. 223. 15.  PSL (1904), p. 96. 16.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 99. 17.  See note 7, above. 18.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 72. 19.  Yosef Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 7–13 (MS in Moshe Kol Archive; cf. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2 pp. 85–86. 20.  TY, p. 284; cf. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 105. 21.  See in his book, Ohel Moshe (Warsaw, 1889), on tractate Bava Batra 21a. 22.  TY, p. 284; Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 105. 23.  S. M. Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants” [H], Me’asef Talpiyot (Berdichev, 1895), p. 11; cf. PHebI, p. 268, n. 635. 24.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 11; PSL (1904), p. 78; PL, no. 9, p. 3. 25.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 11; PSL (1903), p. 72; PSL (1904), p. 78. 26.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 50, in a letter to Motzkin of January 23, 1896. 27.  PSL (1903), p. 19. This article was written by A. D. Lifshitz under the pseudonym, M. R. Adler. I have deleted here the more pungent expressions. 28.  A. A. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot (Tel Aviv, 1929), p. 9; cf. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 504 on the dispute between Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch and Rabbi Rabinsky. 29.  A. A. Feinstein, “The Talmud Torah Issue” [Y], PSL (1903), p. 72. 30.  Ibid., p. 73. 31.  Ibid. 32.  Ibid., pp. 76–77. 33.  Ha-Zefirah, February 2, 1905, no. 22, p. 3. 34.  Ibid. 35.  Ha-Zeman, February 13, 1903, no. 11, p. 3. 36.  PSL, (1904), pp. 77–78. 37.  Ibid., p. 35. 38.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 11. R. Samuel Vilkomir died on June 20, 1896; see Ha-Melitz from that date.

Notes to Pages 158–164 39.  I. Brisky, unpublished MS in Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), excerpted in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 106. Aharon Yisraeli (Weiner, in an MS deposited in the CAHJP, noted that in 1912–13, S. N. Gitelman taught Hebrew by the “Hebrew into Hebrew” method and Bible with “biblical criticism.” There were also classes in singing by sight reading and, in addition to Russian language and literature, arithmetic, geography, and Russian history, also rudimentary science. The curriculum followed that of the Druznik School, and the teachers of these subjects came from there and from Ms. Lubzovsky’s girls’ gymnasium. The morning hours were devoted to Torah and Talmud, the later hours to the Prophetic books, Hagiographa, and secular subjects. In a personal written communication, Brisky has informed me that the sciences were taught with the textbook of the brothers Wachtrub, geometry with Kiselov, algebra with Shaposhnikov Waldov, and Russian history with Ostrokovsky. The students wrote compositions in Russian and Hebrew. The Hebrew ones, written under the tutelage of Gitelman, were always about nationalistic subjects. Brisky wrote about Gitelman: “He taught us to be proud Jews.” See M. Kol, Morim Ve-Haverim (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1968), pp. 15–25; and Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 500–502 regarding Alter Kolodny. 40.  See his letters of 15 Kislev and 2 Nissan 5674 (1914) in the Maslansky Archive in NLI. 41.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 16; Ha-Melitz, November 6, 1862, no. 2, p. 23; June 11, 1863, no. 20, p. 312. 42.  Kerman, p. 55. 43.  Ha-Zefirah, April 30, 1900, no. 76, p. 322. In Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 106, it mistakenly says that the building was a gift of Aharon Luria. 44.  Kerman, p. 55. 45.  Ha-Magid, September 1, 1880, no. 35, pp. 301–302. 46.  Ibid. 47.  Ha-Melitz, June 27, 1888, no. 139, pp. 1469–1470. 48.  Ha-Melitz, May 25, 1887, no. 114, p. 1203. There are later testimonies about arranging “eating days” for children from out-of-town [i.e., to eat at different people’s tables on different days] and about providing clothes and shoes for poor children: “In the winter, prominent women from the wealthy families would distribute rough leather boots and long, warm outer coats to the children of the poor. And there were also those who arranged for dozens of children from the province to “eat days” at the homes of householders” (I. Brisky, MS). According to PSL (1904), pp. 48–49, the estate of Gad Asher Levin was a source for funding the clothing and footwear of the poor children in the Talmud Torahs and the “improved [modern] heders.” 49.  Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 23–24. 50.  Ha-Melitz, June 27, 1888, no. 139, pp. 1469–1470. 51.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 16; Brisky MS; Ha-Magid, September 1, 1880, no. 35, pp. 301–302; see note 48. 52.  Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 18–24. 53.  Aaron Begun, “Talmud Torah Karlin,” unpublished MS in CAHJP; cf. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 104, where the end of the sentence was deleted. 54.  PSL (1903), p. 19. 55.  See note 53, above. 56.  PL, no. 21, pp. 2–3; no. 24, p. 3; no. 27, pp. 2–3; no. 28, pp. 2–3. 57.  Kerman, p. 55. 58.  See A. Katzman, Zikhronos, unpublished MS in CAHJP; see note 45, above. 59.  See Ha-Magid, December 1 and 8, 1880, nos. 47–48, pp. 339, 408.

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Notes to Pages 164–172 60.  Ha-Melitz, June 27, 1888, no. 139, pp. 1469–1470. 61.  PSL (1904), pp. 76–77. 62.  PL no. 9, p. 3. 63.  Ha-Melitz, August 23, 1890, no. 190, p. 2. 64.  Ha-Melitz, October 21, 1890, no. 221. 65.  S. Tchernowitz, Bnai Moshe U-Tekufatam (Warsaw, 1914), p. 142. 66.  Y. Shatzky, Geshikhte fun Yidn in Varshe, vol. 3 (New York, 1953), p. 221; Encyclopedia Ha-Hinukhit, vol. 4, see the article about the influence of the national movement on Jewish education in the lands of Eastern Europe on pp. 675–705. 67.  Y. Broides, Vilna Ha-Zionit Ve-Askanehah (Tel Aviv, 1939), pp. 79ff. 68.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 48. 69.  Ibid., p. 50. 70.  Ha-Melitz, February 25, 1896, p. 2. 71.  C. Weizmann, Masa U-Ma’as, 6th ed. (Tel Aviv, 1962), p. 31. 72.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 178–179. As mentioned earlier, the Zionist struggle for the Talmud Torahs occurred during the year 1900. Perhaps it began as early as 1895. Cf. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu (Tel Aviv, 1948), p. 87. 73.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 179–183; Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu, pp. 85 (which is mistaken about the year of the founding), 87; cf. Ha-Melitz, June 27, 1888, no. 139, pp. 1469–1470. 74.  Ha-Zefirah, April 10, 1897, no. 83, p. 431. 75.  Niveinu, June, 17, 1937, p. 2. 76.  Der Yud (Cracow), October 18, 1900, no. 42, p. 8. 77.  Ha-Zefirah, August 20, 1901, no. 178, p. 715; cf. Chronika Voskhoda (1899): col. 446. 78.  PSL (1904), p. 99. 79.  Ibid., p. 98. 80.  PSL (1904), p. 99. 81.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, p. 48. 82.  Weizmann, Masa, p. 32. 83.  Y. Appel, Be-Tokh Reishit Ha-Tehiyah, (Tel Aviv, 1936), p. 87; H. Bar-Dayan, Yahadut Lita, vol. 1, (Tel Aviv, 1959), p. 302. Actually, in 1905, Berger published the book under the title Mavo Ha-Mikra [introduction to the Bible] and hid his identity behind the pen name, L. Abramov (his father’s name was Abraham, and Abramov means “Abram’s son”; cf. Mordecai Ben Hillel’s remarks about Berger in Ha-Aretz, 1927, no. 1). 84.  Feivel Bernadsky’s report in Der Yud, July 19, 1900, no. 29, pp. 8–9 (cited in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 100). There was probably some truth to the complaints of the ultraOrthodox because, as already observed (note 39, above, citing Aaron Yisraeli [Weiner]), S. N. Gitelman did teach Bible with “biblical criticism.” 85.  A. A. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 8; Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu, p. 87. I found Kerman’s words in a newspaper fragment (apparently from the Pinsker Shtyme from 1932) with the title: “Fifty Years of Hibbat Zion” (a serialized article). By the way, with respect to the Pinsk rabbinate, two parties developed. One continued to support R. David Friedman, while the other took the side of R. Zvi Hirsh Volk. This is indicated by two articles appearing in Ha-Melitz in 1896. In no. 143: “For Pinsk obeys the Rabbi of Karlin [Friedman],” while the second article denies this. The denial was signed by representatives of only ten of the numerous synagogues in Pinsk. (For a full list of the signatories, see PHebII, p. 85, note 85; cf. Ha-Melitz, 1896, no. 126, p. 4 and no. 161, p. 5.

Notes to Pages 173–183 86.  Ha-Melitz, February 25, 1896, p. 2. 87.  See note 84, above. 88.  PSL (1904), pp. 96–97. 89.  PSL (1903), pp. 67ff. and note 77, above. 90.  PSL (1904), pp. 100–101. 91.  See note 66 above. 92.  See S. Ernst’s article in the Yishai Adler Jubilee Volume (Tel Aviv, 1957), pp. 5–14. 93.  On Simha Dubovsky as the first “Hebrew into Hebrew” teacher, see below. 94.  Adler Jubilee Volume, pp. 65–75. 95.  See note 77, above. 96.  Sbornik Materialov Ob Ekonomicheskom Polozhenii Yevreev V Rossii, p. 311. 97.  Ha-Melitz, February 25, 1896, p. 2. 98.  Ha-Melitz, June 25, 1902, no. 139. Here Simha Dubovsky was called: “The teacher of the first and second classes.” 99.  Ha-Magid, October 23, 1903, no. 37. 100.  Ha-Zefirah, October 25, 1901, no. 226, p. 907. 101.  S. A. Horodetzky, Zikhronot (Tel Aviv, 1957), pp. 45–46. 102.  Adler Jubilee Volume, pp. 65–75. 103.  Ha-Zefirah, December 23, 1901, no. 276, p. 2007. 104.  Ibid. 105.  Reshumot 2 (1947), ed. A. Druyanov, 89–90; Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu, p. 47; C. Weizmann, Masa, p. 11; cf. Dr. Ritterman, Zikhronos, unpublished MS in CAHJP. 106.  PHebI, pp. 261–274. 107.  See Ha-Melitz, October 8, 1891, no. 223. 108.  SG, 8:167ff; s.v. Pinsk; Pamyatnaya Knizhka (1892): p. 97, (1898): p. 101. 109.  PHebI, p. 265, note 606. 110.  Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 26–27. 111.  See note 107, above. 112.  Herman, Zikhronos, p. 35. 113.  Ha-Zefirah, December 10, 1899, no. 262, p. 1146. 114.  Herman, Zikhronos, p. 36. 115.  PSL (1904), p. 35; PL, no. 9, p. 3. 116.  PHebI, p. 266. 117.  Ha-Melitz, December 6, 1881, no. 46, p. 930. 118.  Ha-Zefirah, March 16, 1903, no. 53. 119.  Dr. Ritterman, Zikhronos. 120.  PSL (1904), pp. 26–27. 121.  PL, no. 9, p. 3 and no. 12, p. 3. This school was popularly known as Sidlik’s Beginners’ School. Sidlik, however, considered this name to be undignified and claimed that his school was not classed with the third category lower schools but was a “progymnasium” and was called that—according to him—by the authorities of the Vilna School District (which included Pinsk). 122.  Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 26ff. 123.  The military chaplain Dr. Tenzer wrote in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, p. 9, that “all four children received an academic education.” According to him, his youngest daughter, Fania, headed a girls’ gymnasium in Pinsk when he visited there. She also served as a stenographer at the second Russian Duma and for the Morgenthau Commis-

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Notes to Pages 183–189 sion. On the gymnasium that she founded and led, see Chapter Eight, below, the section on education and culture. 124.  Y. L. Rosenthal, Hevrat Marbei Haskalah Be-Yisrael Be-Eretz Russia Mi-Shenat Hityasdutah 1863, ve-ad 1885 (St. Petersburg, 1886–1890), vol. 1 p. 176. 125.  SG, 8:167ff, s.v. Pinsk. 126.  Ha-Melitz, October 25, 1891, no. 236, p.2. 127.  Ibid. 128.  PSL (1904), p. 35; PL, no. 9, p. 3. 129.  Vestnik OPE, September 1912, no. 15. 130.  Ha-Zefirah, July 14, 1897, no. 159, p. 796. 131.  Ha-Zefirah, March 19, 1903, no. 65 and also in Yiddishe Folkstseitung (Warsaw), April 8, 1903. 132.  PSL (1904), p. 35; PL, no. 9, p. 3. 133.  Ha-Melitz, July 1, 1896, no. 146, p. 2. 134.  Vestnik OPE, March 1911, no. 5, pp. 18–19. As to the date of the opening, see Der Fraynd, July 14, 1908, no. 158, p. 3. (The date that appears in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 108 is incorrect. The formal name of the school (in Russian) was: The Women’s Academy of the Pinsk Benevolent Society. 135.  Vestnik OPE, April 6, 1911, no. 6, p. 56. 136.  Vestnik OPE, no. 16, p. 113. 137.  Vestnik OPE, September 1911, no. 7, p. 24. 138.  Vestnik OPE, no. 20, p. 16. 139.  PL, no. 9, p. 3 and no. 8, p. 2. 140.  Herman, Zikhronos, p. 35. 141.  Vestnik OPE, no. 16, p. 113 and the unpublished biography of Savile Schroeder, in Russian, pp. 12–13 in Moshe Kol’s personal archive. 142.  Y. L. Gordon (YaLa”G), Iggerot, ed. Y. Y. Weisberg (Warsaw, 1894), letter no. 47. 143.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 57–58. 144.  PHebI, p. 266, note 620. 145.  Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 57–58. 146.  See note 12, above. 147.  Personal oral communications from George Halpern and Y. Eliasberg. 148.  Ha-Melitz, October 1, 1896, no. 213. 149.  Brockhaus-Ephron Encyclopedic Dictionary [Russian], vol. 46, s.v. Pinsk. 150.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu, p. 84. In that same year Yehiel Weizmann was one of the three. The calculation of the exact year was done by Weizmann-Lichtenstein from memory. The Weizmann family arrived in Pinsk in 1895. 151.  Ha-Zefirah, July 14, 1897, no. 159, p. 796. 152.  Personal oral communications from George Halpern and Y. Eliasberg. 153.  See also the report in Ha-Zefirah, May 6, 1903, no. 94: “Here [in Pinsk] they are considering the question of starting a school for commerce” because “more than 100 young Jews have left the city and the exodus continues as they seek commercial schools.” Moreover, “many parents are forced to follow their children.” 154.  PSL (1903), pp. 79–90. 155.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 102; Sha’arim: Periodical of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Workers, Kislev–Tevet 1962, pp. 81–82.

Notes to Pages 190–197 156.  Herman, Zikhronos, pp. 7–13 (MS in Moshe Kol Archive; cf. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 85–86. 157.  PL, no. 2, p. 2. 158.  Ha-Melitz, February 1, 1900, no. 26. 159.  Herman, Zikhronos, p. 23. 160.  PSL (1904), pp. 41–49; Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos, pp. 18–21. See also: Z. Rabinowitsch, “Gad Asher Levin,”[H] He-Avar 14 (1967): pp. 185–190; Z. Rabinowitsch, “The ‘Rothschilds’ of Pinsk and Karlin” [H], He-Avar 17 (1970): pp. 257–258. 161.  Ha-Melitz, May 26, 1895, no. 113. Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants” [H] (1895): p. 16, states “founded about eight years ago,” and it may be that this article was actually written in 1893. 162.  Ha-Melitz January 3–4, 1887, no. 3, p. 29. Y. L. Gordon wrote to Aharon Luria regarding the search for a professional teacher; see Gordon, Iggerot, vol. 4, p. 285, letter no. 426; cf. PHebII, pp. 427–431. 163.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants,” p. 17. 164.  Ha-Melitz, May 26, 1895, no. 113. 165.  Ha-Magid, February 13, 1890, no. 7, p. 53; Ha-Melitz, January 16, 1890, no. 13; ­Ha-Dor, July 18, 1901, no. 28, p. 8. 166.  Der Yud, March 28, 1901, no. 13, p. 8. Of course, when viewing items in exhibitions, there is no way of knowing what the respective roles of teacher and students were in creating them. According to Y. Horosh in Voskhod, October 1901, no. 10, p. 48, the ship was built with the help of the teacher, as well as “several hired metalworkers.” 167.  Yevreiskaya Shkola, February 1904, p. 49. 168.  Chronik fun der Ts.S. Bavegung, July 1905, no. 1, p. 8. 169.  Horosh in Voskhod (see note 166, above). 170.  PSL (1904), p. 35; PL 9, p. 3. 171.  Der Fraynd, December 28, 1908, no. 242. 172.  PL 9, pp. 2–3. 173.  Ibid., no. 7, p. 1. 174.  Ibid., no. 9, p. 2. 175.  Ibid., no. 20, p. 1. 176.  PSL (1904), pp. 75–76. 177.  Yevreiskaya Shkola, February 1904, p. 52. 178.  PSL (1904), pp. 75–76. 179.  PL, 9, p. 3. 180.  Hed Ha-Zeman, December 3, 1909, no. 289, p. 2. 181.  PL, 23, p. 1. 182.  Hasia Dudiuk, unpublished article, CAHJP. 183.  Haynt, July 2, 1914, no. 159, p. 5. 184.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants,” 17; Ha-Zefirah, June 29, 1899, no. 135, p. 611; July 23, 1899, no. 154, p. 686. 185.  A copy of the MS is in the CAHJP. 186.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 72. 187.  Ha-Melitz, April 8, 1896, no. 79. 188.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1, pp. 45, 49. Earlier, “papers on the history of our people” had been delivered at the “Lishkat Zerrubavel” club; see Tchernowitz, Bnai Moshe U-Tekufatam, p. 142.

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Notes to Pages 198–204 189.  Ha-Melitz, April 8, 1896, no. 79. 190.  Ha-Zefirah, December 23, 1901, no. 276, p. 2007. 191.  Ha-Zefirah, September 20, 1901, no. 203, p. 815. 192.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-tzel Korateinu, p. 102. 193.  PSL (1904), pp. 70–71. 194.  Ha-Zefirah, April 10, 1897, no. 83, p. 431. 195.  Ha-Zefirah, March 8, 1903, no. 46. 196.  Ha-Zefirah, March 12, 1897, no. 51, p. 243; Horosh in Voskhod, October 1901, no. 10, p. 48. 197.  Ibid., p. 49. 198.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p.188. 199.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 28; Dudiuk, (note 182, above) wrote in her MS: “This writer was a gymnasium student and learned Hebrew in a group taught by the kindergarten teacher, Bertha Katz.” 200.  PSL (1904), pp. 75–76; PL 1, p. 1; PL, 9, p. 3. 201.  This article was submitted to the editors of TY and is now deposited in the YIVO Archive in New York. (A photocopy is in the manuscript section of NLI).

Chapter 5 1.  See Rosa Shomer-Batshelis, Undzer Foter Shomer (n.p., 1950), pp. 27–29, for a description of the betrothal (tenaim) ceremony between Michel Berchinsky’s daughter Dinah and ­Nahum Meir Shaikevich (Shomer); cf. Miriam Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday (New York, 1939 [1978]), pp. 80–84. This betrothal took place ca. 1865 and Berchinsky, never having even seen the man he intended for his daughter, relied on the assurances of the matchmaker (shadkhan). This may have been one of the first attempted rebellions on the part of a traditional bride who wanted to see her fiancé before the betrothal. 2.  Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday, pp. 114, 142–143 on Michel Berchinsky’s daughter, Haya. See also M. Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos (Haifa, 1951), pp. 82–83, on the marriage of Moshe Soloveitchik to the daughter (or granddaughter) of Getzel Ochehovsky. 3.  Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday, p. 153. 4.  Ibid., pp. 214, 217. 5.  Weizmann, Iggerot, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 42. 6.  Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday, pp. 207, 214. These were Fraidel and Minna, daughters of Michel Berchinsky. Fraidel already was accustomed to “powdering” her face. Shomer’s daughter Miriam, the narrator of these details, left Pinsk around 1890. According to Shomer-Batshelis, Undzer Foter, p. 112, Shomer himself reached the United States in 1889, with his family joining him about a year later. Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu (Tel Aviv, 1948), p. 31, told how in Motele the gymnasium student Chaim Weizmann burned his mother’s wig; cf. R. David Friedman, She’eilat David, pt. 2 (Piotrkow, 1913), sect. Even ­Ha-Ezer, par. 4. 7.  Ha-Melitz, April 8, 1883, no. 28, p. 455, advertisement by Professor Lipmann of Heidel­ berg: “Israelites who desire to attend school” would find in his home “everything they need in a curriculum and with respect to modern and ancient languages.” The ad included Moshe Luria’s endorsement: “My son studied in the home of the famous, honored Professor H. Lefman [sic] a year and a half and I was satisfied in every way, finding there more than I expected.” See George Halpern and Ya’acov Eliasberg, Ba-Olam Ha-Hafikhot (Jerusalem, 1965), pp.13–16. 8.  Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday, pp. 200–201.

Notes to Pages 204–214 9.  Ibid., p. 41. 10.  PSL (1903), pp. 102–103. The article was signed with A. D. Lifshitz’s pseudonym, “Aleichem Sholem.” 11.  PSL (1903), p. 101. 12.  Ha-Melitz, 1873, p. 29. Eliasberg, Ba-Olam, pp. 14–15; Shomer in Ha-Melitz, 1862, no. 11, p. 81; 1863, p. 84. 13.  See Chapter Three, above. 14.  Unpublished MS, in Moshe Kol’s personal archive, of a biography of Saville Schroeder written by his wife, pp. 13–14. 15.  See above, Chapter Four, in the section called “Secondary Education.” 16.  PSL (1904), p. 130. 17.  Yosef Herman, Zikhronos, unpublished MS in CAHJP, p. 33. 18.  Ibid., p. 77. 19.  Schroeder biography (see note 14), p. 48. 20.  Rahel Stillerman, “Anecdotes from Pinsk” [H], unpublished MS in CAHJP. 21.  PSL (1904), the final advertisement at the end of the book. 22.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu, p. 130. 23.  For a critique of G. Luria’s library, see PL 16, no. 14 (December 1910): pp. 2–3. On the 15th year celebration for the library (named after Y. H. Brenner, see Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, February 19, 1926, no. 9, p. 6. 24.  Ha-Melitz, February 3, 1884, no. 11, p. 153. 25.  Herman, Zikhronos, p. 32. 26.  The Hasid, Michel Berchinsky’s sons, David and Joshua, studied in the Reali School. 27.  Haklai’s memoir in Sha’arim: The Journal of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Workers, Kislev–Tevet 1962, p. 82. 28.  PSL (1904), pp. 102, 105. 29.  For publication details of these, see Bibliografiia periodicheskikh izdanii Rossii, 1901–1916, nos. 6077–6078, ed. L. N. Beljaeva, et al., (Leningrad: 1960). I personally saw the first publication, not the second. 30.  PL, January 26, 1911, no. 25, p. 3. 31.  YIVO Bleter 1 (1931): pp. 181–185. 32.  Der Fraynd, May 22, 1907, no. 111, p. 4. 33.  Haynt: August 9, 1909; September 27, 1909. 34.  See above, Chapter Four in the section called “Secondary Education.” 35.  Sha’arim: The Journal of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Workers, Kislev–Tevet 1962, p. 82. 36.  See below, Chapter Seven, at the end of the discussion of the Ha-Tehiyah society’s platform. 37.  Herman (Zikhronos, p. 33), e.g., began to smoke while a student at the Druznik School. 38.  E.g., PL, December 16, 1910, no. 14, p. 1, an advertisement for the performances of the Ukrainian troupe of Sochodolsky; PL, March 9, 1911, no. 37, p. 3 on the Garbowitz concert held on Friday night, the Sabbath eve. 39.  Halpern and Eliasberg, Ba-Olam. 40.  PSL (1904), p. 104. 41.  A photocopy of the rabbinic letter of appointment is kept in the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the NLI, no. F2836. It mentions two more prayer halls; one, Menashe’s; the other, Tanhum’s. The actual document is held by Mordecai Gimpel Volk of Jerusalem, the rabbi’s son.

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Notes to Pages 214–222 42.  S. M. Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants” [H], in Me’asef Talpiyot (Berdichev, 1895), names only seventeen prayer halls in Pinsk, including the Great Synagogue. (The date given there for the fire that destroyed it is not accurate.) 43.  Y. Barzilai, personal communication: In his youth, worshippers would pray the midnight lamentations and remain in the synagogue until after the first morning prayer group finished at 6:00. On the Wolpe Synagogue, see W. Z. Rabinowitsch, Lithuanian Hasidism (New York, 1971), p. 114, note 110. On the worth of the Pinsker kloyz, see Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 264. 44.  The list of prayer halls was made on the basis of consultation with Shalom Tennenbaum (the dean of Pinskers in Israel, living in Kibbutz Usha) and A. Stillerman. According to the latter, there were twenty-three prayer halls in Pinsk and eighteen in Karlin. These numbers exactly match the information given by David Gleiberman in the memoir he wrote about his uncle Mordecai Judah ben Berekhiah Feldman (although he did not name all of the Pinsk synagogues). On R. Yisrael Eger, see Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, “R. Gad Asher Levin of Pinsk” [H], He-Avar 14 (1967): p. 186, note 11. Some synagogues were known by more than one name and thus there is probably duplication on the list. “Meiche’s Beis Medresh” was named after Saul Levin’s grandson Meir ben Moshe Yitzhak and was apparently built by him. He was a great scholar. The rabbi of Karlin, R. David Friedman, addressed him thus: “To my soul mate, the great rabbi, the magnificent, perfect lord.” Rabbi Friedman was responding to his query concerning harmonizing disparate views of Maimonides (D. Friedman, She’eilat David, pt. 1, [Piotrkow, 1913], Yoreh Dei’ah, no. 17). Cf. Z. Rabinowitsch, “The Rothschilds of Pinsk” [H], He-Avar 17 (1970): p. 225 and his expanded essay in PHebII, pp. 407–466. 45.  PSL (1903), p. 20. 46.  PSL (1904), pp. 29–32. With regard to his pseudonyms, A. D. Lifshitz wrote to Maslansky on October 14, 1904 (Maslansky Archive, Schwadron Collection, NLI): “With the help of the Agudat Zion, I have published the [PSL] for the past two years, in Yiddish to great effect. However . . . due to unusual problems I was forced to take a break for a year. The work on this almanac is very onerous. Since I am almost the only one in our city qualified for literary labors, half the articles were the product of my own pen. In addition to the articles and poems with my name on them, there were my pseudonyms: Adler, Aleichem Shalom, Aviyosef, Pinskiel.” There is no indication that the PSL was suspended by the censor or the like. In the same letter, Lifshitz wrote that he was about to publish the PSL for 1906. 47.  PL, November 21, 1910, no. 7, p. 3. 48.  PSL (1903), p. 107. In this instance the fight was against the ambitions of the “Zionists.” 49.  Reshimot Al Hayei Ha-Kalkalah Ve-Ha-Hinukh [H]; Borukh Halevi Epstein, Nahal Dimah (Warsaw, 1890) (eulogy Epstein gave for his father-in-law, R. Elazar Moses Horowitz). 50.  Y. Eliasberg, Ba-Olam, p. 23; Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu, pp. 154–155. The “Intelligentsia Club” may have been the club founded by Grigory Luria. 51.  PL, December 19, 1910, no. 15, p. 3 (Leo’s Feuilleton). 52.  PSL (1903), p. 106. 53.  I. Brisky, Reshimot. 54.  Sha’arim: The Journal of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipal Workers, Kislev–Tevet 1962, p. 82. 55.  Shomer-Batshelis, Undzer Foter, pp. 108–110. There is a Russian language broadside, dated January 4, 1904, printed by B. Kozol with the censor license issued by a policeman, “Officer Wycherka,” announcing a performance by an amateur group for the “benefit of poor, sick Jews.” The program included excerpts from the works of Russian authors. The actors and actresses were, obviously, members of the Pinsk Jewish intelligentsia: the daughter and

Notes to Pages 223–231 daughter-in-law of Ozer Weizmann, Jacob Eliasberg, B. Briskman, A. Levin, M. Bookstein, D. Reygrodsky, M. Ginzburg, A. Feldman, Y, Fishman, D. Eisenstein, and others. The director was Tsikonov, evidently a non-Jew. 56.  Shomer-Batshelis, Undzer Foter, pp. 108–110. 57.  Shomer-Zunser, Yesterday, p. 212. 58.  PL, December 16, 1910, no. 14, p. 4 (“Teatrali”). 59.  PL, no. 15, p. 4; no. 16, p. 3. 60.  Ibid., 1911, no. 21, pp. 3–4. 61.  Ibid., p. 4. 62.  Ibid., p. 3. Already in the 1870s, the rabbi of Karlin, R. David Friedman (She’eilat David, Even Ha-Ezer, p. 92), had discussed writing the name Zhenia in a bill of divorce (get): “As a generation has arisen that does not want its names or the names of its children to be anything except names of the gentiles.” 63.  PL, 1911, no. 21, p. 3. 64.  PL, 1911, no. 27, p. 1. 65.  Ibid., p. 3. 66.  Ibid., p. 4. 67.  Ibid., no. 28, p. 1. 68.  Ibid., no. 29, p. 4. 69.  Ibid.: no. 31, pp. 1, 4; no. 32, p. 1; no. 33, p. 4; no. 34, p. 1; no. 35, p. 1; no. 36, pp. 1, 3–4; no. 37, pp. 1, 3–4. 70.  I. Brisky, Reshimot. 71.  Ibid. and Y. Barzilai, personal communication. 72.  Razsvet, February 21, 1910, no. 8, pp. 44–45. 73.  Marie Syrkin, Golda Meir: Woman with a Cause (London, 1964), p. 18. 74.  PL, November 24, 1910, no. 8, p. 3.

Chapter 6 1.  Ben-Zion Dinur, “The Historical Image of Russian Jewry and the Problem of Researching It” [H], Zion 22 (1957): 102–103. 2.  Ha-Melitz, July 30, 1895, no. 167. 3.  S. M. Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin and Their Inhabitants” [H]. Me’asef Talpiot, (Berdichev, 1895), p. 17. A copy of the anonymous article from the YIVO Archive is deposited with the Pinsk Collection in the CAHJP. 4.  Pinsker Shtyme, December 25, 1936, no. 52 (432), p. 3. 5.  Ha-Melitz, February 13, 1890, no.37. 6.  Ha-Melitz, February 15 , 1891, no. 33 contains an article implying this by announcing that “the city officials” (pekidei ha-ir) “sealed the charity homes in the city” because they were unlicensed. 7.  Ha-Melitz, June 22, 1894, no. 139; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 13; PSL (1904), p. 73. 8.  Ha-Melitz, June 19, 1891, no. 135; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 13. 9.  Ha-Melitz, January 13, 1886, no. 4, p. 55. 10.  PSL (1904), p. 80. 11.  W. Evans-Gordon, The Alien Immigrant (New York, 1903), p. 118; Ha-Melitz:

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Notes to Pages 232–238 March 24, 1891, June 5, 1896; PSL (1904), pp. 78–79; PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 16; Pamyatnaya Knizhka 1892. 12.  Ha-Melitz, January 16, 1890; PSL (1904), pp.79–81; PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” pp. 11–12; Pamyatnaya Knizhka 1892, 1893, 1898. 13.  Ha-Melitz, March 12, 1892 and sources cited in previous note. 14.  Ha-Melitz, April 9, 1891, June 5, 1896, no. 124, March 8, 1898, no. 55; PSL (1904), pp. 79–81; PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 16. 15.  Ha-Melitz, February, 11, 1896, no. 35; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 12. 16.  Ha-Melitz, November 4, 1891, November 7, 1891, November 20, 1891, March 12, 1892, October 28, 1892, April 5, 1893; Ha-Zefirah, April 25, 1897, no. 94; PSL (1904), pp. 79–81; PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3. 17.  The organization was called, Yevreiskoye blagotvoritelnoye obshchestvo (Jewish Benevolent Society). For a list of the names of its 101 members and an itemized budget for 1910, see ­PHebII, 113, note 17. See also, Ha-Zefirah, February 13, 1900, no. 29, p. 116; March 28, 1900, no. 50, p. 199; PSL (1903), pp. 25–26; PSL (1904), pp. 72–74; PL, March 9, 1911, no. 37, p. 4. 18.  The name of the society was Zhenskoye yevreiskoye blagotvoritelnoye obshchestvo (Jewish Women’s Benevolent Society). PSL (1904), pp. 75–76; Ha-Zefirah, March 8, 1903, no. 46; May 6, 1903, no. 94. Information on functions planned by this organization appears in various issues of PL. See also, R. Stillerman, “Anecdotes from Pinsk” [H], unpublished MS in CAHJP; Z. Rabinowitsch, “The Rothschilds of Pinsk” [H], He-Avar 17 (1970): p. 269. As to the year this society was founded, see Khronika Voskhoda, 1899, no. 5. col. 5. The women’s society probably received its license before the men’s. 19.  PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3; January 1, 1911, no. 18–19, p. 5; February 13, 1911, no. 30, p. 1. 20.  See PSL (1903), advertising section, p. 2; Ha-Zefirah, March 17, 1903, no. 54; TY, pp. 285–289; YIVO article (above n. 3). 21.  Haynt, March 12, 1913, no. 61, p. 3. 22.  PS, July 1, 1927, no. 25, p. 6; Ze’ev Livne (Lerman), unpublished MS in CAHJP. In addition to the people named in the text who founded and directed institutions, there were individuals who regularly engaged in their own private charitable acts; for a list see PHebII, p. 114, n. 22. 23.  Ha-Melitz, November 25, 1892, no. 261; PL, October 4, 1910, no. 3, p. 2; October 11, 1910, no. 4, p. 2; November 24, 1910, no. 8, p. 1. According to SG, 8:181, there was a fire brigade in Pinsk beginning sometime in the 1880s. 24.  A. Lebendiger, unpublished MS in CAHJP. 25.  Ha-Melitz, January 16, 1890. 26.  Ha-Melitz, February 13, 1890, March 7, 1894, no. 56; Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” p. 17. 27.  Ha-Melitz, July 5, 1896, no. 150; August 9, 1896, no. 179. 28.  Ze’ev Wolf Neidich died on February 14, 1903; see Ha-Zefirah, February 16, 1903, no. 40, p. 3; February 21, 1903, no. 45, p. 2; Der Fraynd, February 26, 1903, no. 45, p. 3. That ­Aharon Luria was the lessee of the meat tax was affirmed by Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch and Aryeh Leib Zeitlin; and see PSL (1904), pp. 24–25. 29.  PSL (1904), p. 37; Ha-Zefirah, April 26, 1903, no. 83. 30.  Dos Lebn, January 22, 1906, p. 4. 31.  PSL (1904), p. 36; PL, November 28, 1910, no. 9, p. 3; Der Fraynd, August 16, 1906, p. 3. 32.  PSL (1904), p. 34.

Notes to Pages 238-244 33.  Rabinowitsch, “On Pinsk-Karlin,” pp. 13, 17. 34.  S. Korngold, Zikhronos [Tel Aviv, 1968], p. 18; Shalom Tennenbaum, Kibbutz Usha, oral communication.

Chapter 7 1.  Dos Lebn, January 1, 1906, no. 1, p. 3. 2.  Pinsker Shtyme, October 15, 1937, no. 42 (534), p. 3. 3.  Dos Lebn, January 1, 1906, no. 1, p. 3. 4.  TY, p. 173. 5.  Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu (Tel Aviv, 1948), p. 160. M. Kerman, Mayne Zikhronos (Haifa, 1951), pp. 87–88, linked the imprisonment of Soloveitchik to the “Haganah” episode. According to him, Soloveitchik was freed after serving three months in jail, and twelve Zionists (including Pinhas Mandelbaum and the teacher, Wilenchik) were placed under police monitoring. However, Kerman’s memoirs typically confuse and conflate events and chronology. 6.  Ephraim Zur Feinstein, Iggerot U-Reshimot, (Be’er Tuviah, 1964), p. 21. 7.  Dos Lebn, January 1, 1906, no. 1, p. 3. 8.  TY, p. 120. 9.  Dos Lebn, January 13, 1906, p. 3; Der Veker, December 30, 1905, no. 28; Y. Krepliak, “In Yene Shturmishe Teg,” Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume,1923, pp. 28–30, told about a “pogrom” by Kuban Cossacks (January, 7–9, 1906) begun because one of them lost his fur hat (in which was hidden an Old Slavonic translation of Psalm 91 as an amulet) in Pinsk; see PHebII, p. 116, n. 9. 10.  Dos Lebn, January 15, 1906, p. 3. 11.  Der Veker, January 22 1906, p. 3. 12.  Dos Lebn, January 22, 1906. See Krepliak, “Shturmishe Teg,” pp. 30–31, There were thorough searches made for Shlomo’ke Zheleznikov, but he succeeded in skipping town and spent two years wandering from place to place. In 1907, before his emigration to the United States, he participated in a most dangerous caper, aiming to free from a Minsk prison three political prisoners condemned to hanging. The operation failed, and the sentence was carried out. The poet H. Leyvik was a prisoner in the same prison. 13.  Der Neiyer Veg, 1906, no. 2, pp. 88–89. 14.  Der Fraynd, November 21, 1906, no. 89, p. 4. 15.  Der Fraynd, October 26, 1906, no. 67, p. 4 16.  Der Fraynd, November 14, 1906, no. 83, p. 4. 17.  Ha-Zeman, January 18, 1907, no. 15. 18.  Dos Lebn, May 12, 1906, pp. 3–4. 19.  Dos Lebn, May 14, 1906, no. 106, p. 4. 20.  Dos Lebn, May 24, 1906, no. 112, p. 3. 21.  Y. Rakow, Memoiren Fun A Russishen Revolutsioner (Chicago, 1934), pp. 45–47; and see note 12. 22.  Dos Lebn, June 26, 1906, no. 40, p. 3. 23.  Dos Lebn, July 2, 1906, p. 3. 24.  Dos Lebn, July 3, 1906, p. 4. 25.  Dos Lebn, July 5, 1906, p. 3. 26.  Dos Lebn, July 12, 1906, p. 3. 27.  Der Fraynd, Sept. 1, 1906, p. 4; Der Neiyer Veg, Oct. 25 [7 Nov.], 1906, no. 22, pp. 31–32.

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Notes to Pages 244–249 28.  S. Dubnow, Divrei Yemei Yisrael Be-Dorot Ha-Aharonim, 3:298 (Berlin, 1924). 29.  Dos Lebn, July 3, 5, 1906. 30.  See note 27 above. This same Topoleyev was one of the killers of the Duma member Gretzenstein (a Jewish convert to Christianity). The murder occurred on July 18, 1906. In April 1907 Topoleyev came to Pinsk. The news of his arrival set off fears that “something was up,” for “newcomers” were seen roving about the city. On April 18, 1907 Topoleyev was arrested as he walked near the train station and Jews who recognized him began to shout: “There’s Gretzenstein’s murderer!”; Y. Rakow, Memoiren fun a Russishen Revolutsioner, p. 47. 31.  Dubnow, Dorot, p. 293. 32.  Der Fraynd, August 21, 1906, p. 3. 33.  Der Fraynd, August 29, 1906, p. 3. 34.  TY, p. 156. 35.  Der Fraynd, November 10, 1906, p. 2. 36.  Personal communication from Rabbi Mordecai-Gimpel Ha-Kohen Volk, son of Rabbi Zvi Volk. 37.  Razsvet, July 14, 1907, no. 27, p. 25. 38.  Hed Ha-Zeman, December 14, 1909, no. 275, p. 2. 39.  Haynt, September 10, 1913, no. 211, p. 4. 40.  Personal communication, Arka Yisraeli (Weiner). 41.  Der Neiyer Veg, October 25 (November 7), 1906, no. 22, pp. 31–33. 42)  Khronika Yevreiskoy Zhizni, April 26, 1906, no. 16, p. 28. 43. Der Neiyer Veg, October 25 (November 7), 1906, no. 22, pp. 31–33. 44. Der Fraynd, March 29, 1909, no. 71, p. 4. 45. Personal communication, Arka Yisraeli (Weiner). 46.  PL, January 23, 1911, no. 24, p. 2. 47.  PL, March 2, 1911, no. 35, pp. 2–3. 48.  Dos Lebn, March 13, 1906, no. 59, p. 3; TY, 73; Razsvet, January 18, 1907, no. 2, pp. 32–33. The Soviet writer, A. Netilkin, Pinsk: Historical Essays [in Russian] (Minsk, 1961): “The Zionists, Rom (manager of the match factory), Strick (an official of the Minsk Commercial Bank), Rubinstein and Minkowitz were feeling self-assured.” 49.  Razsvet, January 18, 1907, no. 2, pp. 32–33. The Left put up candidates. One was a member of the Association for Full Equal Rights. The second was a right-wing Christian member of the Constitutional Democracy party. The members of the SS presented their own candidate. The Zionist candidates were the ones chosen. See Razsvet, January 11, 1907, no. 3, p. 27. 50.  Razsvet, November 28, 1909, no. 48, p. 33. 51.  PL, September 19 1910, no. 1, p. 2. For some reason Pinhas Mandelbaum resigned right afterward. See Vestnik OPE, November 9, 1911, p. 15, Appendix to 1910 report. 52.  Personal communication from Aaron Leib Zeitlin. 53.  M. Smilansky, Hadera (Tel Aviv, 1930), p. 70. 54.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu, p. 172. 55.  Razsvet, January 10, 1907, no. 1, p. 41. By the time this announcement appeared, those arrested had been released. See Y. Broides, Vilna Ha-Zionit Ve-Askaneha, pp. 224–225, who asserts that they were freed thanks to Wolfson’s appeals to Stolypin. 56.  Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Be-Tzel Korateinu, p. 175; A. Zenziper, Pa’amei Ge’ula (Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 128, in the photograph nos. 11, 43, 64. 57.  See the Protocol of the Eighth Zionist Congress, pp. 424, 442; Razsvet, July 14, 1907, no. 27, p. 33.

Notes to Pages 249–264 58.  See the Protocol of the Ninth Zionist Congress, p. 497. 59.  Hed Ha-Zeman, December 12, 1909, no. 272, p. 2; see also Bregman’s questions and criticism at the caucus of Russian delegates held at the Hague during the eighth Zionist congress, Razsvet, August 11, 1907, no. 31, p. 31; December 15, 1909, no. 50, p. 45. Bregman was also a delegate at other Zionist congresses. 60.  Razsvet, January 10, 1907, no. 1, p. 43; March 22, 1907, no. 11, p. 28; May 12, 1907, no. 18, p. 32; July 28, 1907, no. 29, p. 30; 1907, no. 48, p. 27. On the nationalist-educational value of the Frug-Yaffe banquets; see the report of the central committee of the Zionist Organization in Russia to the Fifth Conference of Russian Zionists that convened in Hamburg, Hed ­Ha-Zeman, December 12, 1909, no. 274, p. 2. 61.  Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file A 24/111/2. 62.  Razsvet, January 17, 1910, no. 3, p. 21. 63.  Razsvet, February 21, 1910, no. 8, pp. 44–45. 64.  PL, December 26, 1910, no. 17, p. 1; Ha-Zefirah, January 30, 1911, no. 74, p. 3. 65.  See his letters to Ussishkin dated 26 Shevat 5670 [=February 5, 1910], 8 Tammuz 5670 [=July 15, 1910], Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file A 24/111/2. 66.  TY, p. 173. 67.  On M. Eisenberg and P. Mandelbaum, see PS, August 27, 1937, no. 527, p. 3, and October 27, 1933, no. 43(329), p. 2, respectively. 68.  See the list of places in Ha-Olam, April 2, 1909, nos. 11–12 in the Supplement. 69.  Yehiel Chlenov, Heshbon Ha-Kesef She-Nikhnas Mi-Rusia Le-Tovat Ha-KK”L, (Vilna, 1909). 70.  For the methods of fundraising and the names of the fundraisers, see Razsvet, March 14, 1910, no. 11, p. 48; 1910, no. 12, p. 46. 71.  Razsvet, 1910, no. 7, p. 32; Broides, Vilna, p. 239. By June 1903 all Zionist activity had been outlawed; see the introduction by Y. Klausner to the pamphlet by Rabbi M. Nurok, Ve’idat Zionei Rusya Be-Minsk (Jerusalem, 1963), p. 46. 72.  Broides, Vilna, p. 239. 73.  Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file BIf, 1 aleph; cf. Der Fraynd, July 14, 1908, no. 158, p. 3. 74.  Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file BIf, 1 aleph. 75.  See PHebII, pp. 140–142. 76.  Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, file BIf, 1 aleph. 77.  Ibid. 78.  Ibid. 79.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot (Tel Aviv, 1929), p. 9. 80.  Personal communication from Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch. On the article from the Bundist source, see Informatzionnyi Listok Zagranichnoi Organizatzii Bunda (Geneva, 1912), no. 4, p. 11. 81.  See Chapter Two above; Z. Tir, “Fun Unzer Ovor,” Befreiung, April 18, 1921, pp. 9–12. 82.  Zenziper, Pa’amei Ge’ula, photograph 503. 83.  Khronika Yevreiskoi Zhizni, March 1, 1906, no. 8, p.46; March 15, 1906, no. 10, p. 32. 84.  Z. Tir, “Fun Unzer Ovor,” Befreiung, April 18, 1921, pp. 9–12. 85.  Ibid. 86.  Zenziper, Pa’amei Ge’ula, photograph 503. Z. Tir, “Dapim Le-Tenuat ‘Ha-Tehiyah,’” Davar, 18 Tishrei 1947, mistakenly said the conference was held in August. 87.  Broides, Vilna, p. 128; A. Levinson, Bereishit Ha-Tenu’ah (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 11–20;

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Notes to Pages 264–271 B. West (ed.), Naftulei Dor (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 16–20; S. Eisenstadt, Perakim Be-Toldot Tenuat Hapoalim Ha-Yehudit, vol. 2 (Merhavia, 1944), pp. 108–109. 88.  Z. Tir, “Dapim,” Davar, 18 Tishrei 1947. 89.  Z. Tir, “Fun Unzer Ovor,” Befreiung, April 18, 1921, pp. 9–12. 90.  Ibid. 91.  Herman’s memoirs, in manuscript, are in the Moshe Kol Archive. The quote here is from p. 80. 92.  Aryeh Kolodny, Zikhronotav shel Zug Holmim Ve-Lohamim (Jerusalem, 1952); Herman, Zikhronos, p. 50; Khronika Yevreiskoi Zhizni, March 8, 1906, no. 9, p. 37. 93.  Z. Tir, “Dapim,” Davar, 18 Tishrei 1947. 94.  Z. Tir, “Fun Unzer Ovor,” Befreiung, April 18, 1921, pp. 9–12. 95.  Razsvet, April 8, 1907, no. 30, p. 30. 96.  Niveinu, 12 Tishrei 5695 [=September 21, 1934], p. 3. 97.  Gvat: Mekorot Ve-Korot (1937), pp. 129, 282–283; He-Atid, February 15, 1935, no. 12, p. 12; personal communications from A. Yisraeli and Elazar Bregman. 98.  Personal communications from A. Yisraeli and Elazar Bregman; see also, Tidhar 3:1232. 99.  PHebII, p. 188. 100. Ber Borochov, Ketavim (Tel Aviv, 1958), p. 570, note 237. 101.  See the Jewish Social-Democratic Worker’s Party in Russia’s (Poalei Zion) organ, Dos Freiye Vort, vol. 1, June 1910, no. 2, p. 22 (published in Lvov). 102.  PHebII, p. 188. 103.  Dos Freiye Vort, 1910, no. 1, p. 20. 104.  Dos Freiye Vort, 4(17) (July 1914): p. 23. 105.  Ibid., p. 21. 106.  PHebII, p. 188. 107.  TY, p. 120. See Ha-Zefirah, January 8, 1906, no. 7, concerning a bomb that exploded in a “hasidic kloyz,” injuring three people. “Armed uprising” was then a topic of discussion throughout the ranks of the Bund, and this event may have been linked to Bundist activities. 108.  Y. S. Hertz, Die Geshikhte fun Bund, vol. 2 of 4, (New York, 1960–72), p. 363. 109.  Der Neiyer Veg, 1906, no. 2, pp. 88–89. Bundists or “junior Bundists” tore up the SS’s May Day posters. 110.  Unzer Veg, September 7, 1907, no. 3, p. 31; TY, p. 157. 111.  Der Fraynd, January 16, 1907, p. 2; Razsvet, January 18, 1907, no. 2, pp. 32–33; Hertz, Bund, p. 396. 112.  Unzer Veg, September 27, 1907, no. 5, pp. 32–33. 113.  TY, p. 147. 114.  The reali school superintendent was robbed of 771 rubles (Der Fraynd, January 21, 1907, no. 16, p. 4). In Pinsk, Minsk, and other places, bankers and business owners were permitted to hire guards to protect against robbery (Der Fraynd, March 22, 1907, no. 65, p.3). The “Maximalist Gang” was caught in the Pinsk railway station (Der Fraynd, February 17, 1908, no. 40, p. 4). Six criminals who robbed a church and killed two of its guards tried to break out of jail (Der Fraynd, January 1, 1907, no. 1, p.4). Thirteen prisoners, including robbers, did escape prison; most were captured (Hed Ha-Zeman, March 27, 1909, no. 70, p. 1). Two prisoners charged with attacking the mail train escaped from the Pinsk hospital (Der Fraynd, April 2, 1909, no. 73, p. 4). A gang that committed five robberies and a murder was caught (Haynt, July 9, 1909, no. 155, p. 3). PL also contains reports of a number of burglaries.

Notes to Pages 271–280 115.  Der Fraynd, November 20, 1907, p. 3. 116.  TY, pp. 148, 423, 428. 117.  A. Litvak, Vos Geven (Warsaw, 1925), p. 271. In addition to the branch in Pinsk, he mentions branches in Gomel, Bobruisk, Grodno, Lodz, and Riga. See also Louis Denenberg’s comments on p. 47 of Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1928; Hertz, Bund, pp. 541, 544, 576. 118.  TY, p. 149. 119.  Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume, 1958, p. 77. 120.  Informatzionnyi Listo, Zagranichnoi, May 1912, p. 13. 121.  Der Shneider, December 1913, p. 13 (published in Vilna). 122.  Zeit, 1913, nos. 10, 19, 23, and passim (published in St. Petersburg). 123.  Der Neiyer Veg, 1906, no. 2, pp. 88–89. 124.  Der Neiyer Veg, January 12 (January 25), 1907, no. 24, p. 45. 125.  Ibid., pp. 57–58; TY, p. 157. 126.  TY, p. 14. However, a Pinsk representative did participate in the regional conference in Vilna held March 19–20, 1906; see Folks-Shtyme, April 30, 1907, no. 6, p. 76. 127.  TY, pp. 157–158. 128.  Der Neiyer Veg, October 25 (November 7), 1906, no. 22, pp. 31–32. 129.  Dos Vort, July 12 (July 25), 1907, pp. 31–32 (published in Vilna). Seventy-six and half rubles were sent to the SS Central Committee from Pinsk, one of the larger contributions; e.g., Warsaw, thirty rubles; Riga, fifty rubles; Rovno, sixty rubles. Only Plock, at eighty rubles, sent a larger amount. 130.  Unzer Veg, September 7, 1907, no. 3, p. 31; October 10, 1907, no. 6, p. 55. 131.  TY, p. 160. 132.  Ibid. Additional members were M. Miller, Shmuel Glatzer, and Kayla Gorin. 133.  Ibid., pp. 160–161. 134.  Ibid., pp. 161–162. 135.  A. Kirzshnitz, Der Yiddisher Arbeter, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1927), p. 87; Y. Rakow, Memoirn, pp. 48, 60, 62, 64, 68, 77–78. 136.  Microfilm, YIVO, New York. 137.  Ha-Derekh: News from Agudas Yisrael, no. 6 (1913), p. 11, in NLI bound with HaZefirah, vol. 39 (1913), between nos. 120 and 121 . 138.  Der Fraynd, October 17, 1907, no. 225, p. 3. 139.  Ibid., February 8, 1909, no. 32, p. 3. 140.  Ibid., March 29, 1909, no. 71, p. 4. 141.  Der Moment, December 26, 1911, no. 299, p. 4; Haynt, December 28, 1911, no. 301, p. 3. 142. Dos Freiye Vort, June 1910, no. 2, p. 22; Zeit, 1913, no. 13. 143.  PL, October 11, 1910, no. 4, p. 3. 144.  Dos Vort, July 4 (July 17), 1914, no. 4, p. 17; Zeit, February and August 1913. 145.  Dos Vort, June 6 (June 19), 1914, no. 3, pp. 17–18. 146.  Unzer Zeit, 1914, no. 4; this article is quoted by Kirzshnitz, Der Yiddisher Arbeter, vol. 3, p. 154. 147.  Private communication from Prof. Michael Ish-Shalom, Arka Yisraeli, and Dr. Elazar Bregman. Cf. Dr. Feivel Rabinowitz, Aliyat Kevutzat Noar Mi-Pinsk, in PHebII, pp. 93–94. 148.  Ha-Olam, May 20, 1913, no. 17, p. 16. 149.  Dos Vort, May 16 (May 29), 1914, no. 1, p. 23.

699

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Notes to Pages 288–306

Chapter 8 1.  Photocopy of MS provided by YIVO, New York. 2.  Y. Eliash, Zikhronot Zioni Mi-Russia (Tel Aviv, 1955), p. 156. 3.  Reshumot 2 (Tel Aviv, 5687 [1926–27]), p. 253. 4.  A. Yisraeli (Weiner), “October Be-Ayarot U’ve-Yaarot,” Mi-Bifnim, Kibbutz Hameuhad (1958). 5.  Hasia Dudiuk, MS. 6.  I. Brisky, MS. 7.  Yisraeli, (Weiner), “October Be-Ayarot U’ve-Yaarot.” 8.  Ibid. 9.  Dr. Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, p. 7ff. 10.  See Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 524, for details about the Zaretsky family. 11.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, pp. 7ff. See also a biographical account of Dr. Alexander Luria by Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 481, and an article in PHebI, “The ‘Rothschilds’ of Pinsk and Karlin” (Tel Aviv, 1973), pp. 66–109; and in ­He-Avar, no. 17, pp. 252–280. 12.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, p. 7ff. 13.  A. Weiner (Yisraeli), “Mi-Pinsk Ad Gevat,” Gevat-Mekorot Ve-Korot (Tel Aviv, 1937), p. 47. 14.  Commander Lindemann, Die Woche, November 13, 1915, no. 46, p. 1649ff. 15.  A. A. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot (Tel Aviv, 1929), pp. 18–19. 16.  Lindemann. The order to grant right of way to army personnel was issued on December 31, 1915, and reiterated on May 3, 1916, under threat of punishment by imprisonment for a minimum of one week in addition to forced labor (Pinsker Zeitung, May 3, 1916. Cited hereafter as PZ). 17.  Brisky, MS. 18.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 30. 19.  Ibid., p. 21. 20.  TY, p. 196. 21.  Ibid., p. 182. 22.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 47–48. 23.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 20. 24.  Ibid., p. 21. 25.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, p. 7ff. 26.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 19. 27.  Rachel Stillerman, MS. 28.  Yosef Dworkin, MS. 29.  Brisky, MS. 30.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 23. 31.  Z. Ben-Yishai (Bakalchuk), MS. 32.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 23. 33.  Brisky, MS. On March 14, 1916, the Citizens’ Committee published the following notice: “Due to the delay in the provision of flour to the city, we have decided to sell baked bread in our stores only to the most destitute. We appeal to all those who are not in need of this bread at this point to refrain from purchasing it, so that we will be able to increase the ration for the needy” (PZ, March 14, 1916). 34.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 28.

Notes to Pages 307–330 35.  Pinhas Eliyahu (Alter) Kolodny, Praktishe Gartnerei (Pinsk, 1917), Introduction to the pamphlet. 36.  Kolodny, MS, in the archives of his grandson, Moshe Kol. 37.  PZ, December 21, 1916; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 25. 38.  Feinstein, ibid. 39.  TY, p. 188; PZ, October 13,1916. 40.  Kolodny, MS. 41.  Ibid. In July, 1917, the following official notice was published: “Women who know that they are infected with venereal diseases, and nevertheless engage in sexual relations with citizens or soldiers, will be punished. They will be apprehended and expelled from the city. Those who act as procurers or provide a place for sexual relations, will be punished. Women who engage in prostitution for pay will be apprehended and expelled” (PZ, July 17, 1917, signed by Commander Basler). 42.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 29. 43.  Z. Ben-Yishai, Zikhronot; Shaul David, S. M. Rabinowitsch, Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 507; PZ, July 22, 1917, August 15, 1917, August 25, 1917, September 22, 1917, October 3, 1917, October 30, 1917. 44.  Copy of the memorandum in the CAHJP and in the possession of Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch. 45.  A photocopy of the account of the meeting of Pinskers, held in the home of I. A. Neidich in Moscow, was provided by YIVO, New York. For information regarding the parliamentary question raised in the Reichstag and the outcome, see TY, p. 196. 46.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 32. 47.  Brisky, MS. 48.  TY, p. 197. Apparently Menuhah Alperin’s description refers to this period: “Famine spread its black wings, tormented people. Hunger . . . robberies and theft were everyday occurrences. . . . One day mother came and told us: ‘Children, there is no more chaff left; there will be no pancakes today.’ We had long ago forgotten about bread and other foods” (Pinsker Vokh, 25 Tamuz, 5692 [July 29, 1932], no. 2, p.4). 49.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 32. 50.  The personal correspondence of Yisrael (Lola) Bregman was made available by his brother Dr. Elazar Bregman. 51.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 33–34; PZ, November 2, 1916. 52.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, pp. 7ff. 53.  TY, p. 187. 54.  Kolodny, MS. For information on expulsions, see PZ, March 5, 1916, March 8, 1916, etc. 55.  TY, p. 187. 56.  Haynt, October 8, 1918, no. 181, p. 6 and no. 233, p. 4; Dos Lebn Jubilee Volume 1923, p.22. 57.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, pp. 7ff. 58.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 27. The notices were published in the PZ on the stated dates. Payment for a day’s work ranged from 80 pfennigs to 1.80 marks. Workers received 300–400 grams of bread per day (Raskin report from July 1, 1921, in the archives of the Joint Distribution Committee, New York). 59.  TY, p. 190. 60.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 21. 61.  Brisky, personal communication.

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Notes to Pages 331–354 62.  TY, p. 190. 63.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 22. 64.  PZ, May 12, 1916, August 24, 1917. 65.  Barzak [daughter of], Zikhronot; PZ, October 6, 1917. 66.  PZ, May 12, 1916, August 24, 1917. 67.  Barzak [daughter of], Zikhronot. 68.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 21. 69.  PZ, October 6, 1917. 70.  TY, p. 193. 71.  Raskin report, July 1, 1921. 72.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 24; Raskin report; PZ, April 17, 1916, May 10, 1916, May 13, 1916, October 8, 1916. 73.  Raskin Report. 74.  TY, p. 184. 75.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 34. See also biographical evaluation by Shaul Mendel Rabinowitsch (Pinsk [Hebrew], vol. 2, p. 506–507). 76.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 48. 77.  TY, p. 192. 78.  S. N. Gitelman, Zikhronot, MS. 79.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 24–25. 80.  TY, pp. 164–165. The convention, which took place in Pinsk in 1915, resulted in strengthening of the ties between the various branches of the party. 81.  Haynt, February 7, 1917, no. 33, p. 4. 82.  Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, p. 12. 83.  TY, pp. 164–165. 84.  A. Tartakower, Toldot Tenuat Ha-Ovdim Ha-Yehudit (Warsaw, 1929), vol. 1, p. 86. 85.  Die Peoples Relief fun Amerika, Facten un Doumenten, 1915–1924 (New York, 1924), p. 723. Cited hereafter as Relief. 86.  TY, p. 162. 87.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 34. 88.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 131–132. 89.  Ben-Yishai. Zikhronot. 90.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 28–29. 91.  Related by Aryeh Leib Zeitlin and Ya’acov Barzilai. The son of Cecilia Bukshtansky, Ya’acov Bakst, is a professor of music in New York. In their youth, he and his older brother Aharon attended the Realschule in Pinsk. 92.  Tenzer, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums, January 7, 1916, pp. 7ff. 93.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 29, 130. 94.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 70, 130. The connection between Gutman, the Zionist soldier, and the veterinarian, is not clear. 95.  [Evidently, an article in PZ sometime in 1917; Shohet did not specify which issue.] 96.  TY, p. 279. 97.  PZ, March 7, 1916, April 1, 1916, April 20, 1916, April 29, 1916. 98.  The album is in the possession of Z. Livne (Lerman). 99.  Livne, pages from the album, Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 28, 88. 100.  The pamphlet is in the Pinsk Archives, located in the CAHJP. 101.  Unpublished article by Menuhah Alperin about Haya Vasterion, MS.

Notes to Pages 354–369 102.  Welman, Yisroel (Bar-Ratzon), MS. 103.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 49–50. “Saturday Lessons in the History of our People” had begun by March 1916 because we read in an extant notice: “On Saturday, April 29, 1916, the eighth lecture will take place. Tickets for the coming lectures may be obtained . . . at the course center, and on Saturdays—at the Casino.” We may infer that these history lessons were a regularly scheduled event. 104.  TY, p. 165. 105.  Stated by Borukh Aznia, personal communication. 106. PZ, March 13, 1916, April 1, 1916, May 1, 1916, October 13, 1916, October 10, 1917, December 2, 1917. 107.  Published as Ha-Sonata Ha-Kritzarit (Pinsk: 1916). 108.  [No references appear in PHebII for the last section of this chapter.]

Chapter 9 1.  Pinsker Shtyme, January 1, 1937, January 8, 1937, January 22, 1937. 2.  Ibid., February 12, 1937, article by Nissel Forman. 3.  Shaul David, Regina Rabinowitsch, Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 560; Shaul Mendel Rabin­owitsch, et al., ibid., p. 507. 4.  TY, p. 198. 5.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 35. 6.  Yitzhak Gordin, “Yohren Fargangene, Yohren Umfargeslekhe,” Folks Shtyme, 1958, no. 136 (1826): p. 4, and no. 138 (1828): p. 3. 7.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 36. 8.  Haynt, February 26, 1919, no. 50, afternoon edition, p. 2. 9.  Z. Katz, Haynt, February 3, 1919, no. 29, p. 3. 10.  Nissel Forman, article in PS, March 5, 1937, no. 10. 11.  Haynt, February 3, 1919, no. 29, p. 1. 12.  Ibid., February 18, 1919, no. 42, p. 3. 13.  Forman, PS, no. 10. 14.  See below in this chapter about the murder of the thirty-five. 15.  Weiner [Yisraeli], Gevat, p. 51. 16.  Ibid., p. 29, account by Elazar Bregman. 17.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 38. 18.  Haynt, February 17, 1919, no. 41, p. 1. 19.  Forman, PS, no. 10. 20.  Haynt, February 26, 1919, no. 50, afternoon edition, p. 2. 21. Forman, PS, no. 10. 22.  A. Yisraeli, “October Ba-Ayarot Uve-Yaarot,” Mi-Bifnim, 20 (5718 [1957–1958]), pp. 289ff. 23.  See below in this chapter about the murder of the thirty-five. 24.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 74, footnote. 25.  Ibid. 26.  Ibid., p. 41. 27.  See a list of places where attacks and pogroms took place in Evidence of Pogroms in Poland and Ukraina, issued by the Information Bureau of the Committee for Defense of Jews in East European Countries, division of the American Jewish Congress (New York, n.d.), pp. 48–51. Cited hereafter as Evidence.

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Notes to Pages 370–383 28.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 85–86. See also, the testimony of the Christian, Tropimowicz, before the Sejm commission. “Protocol of Testimony,” MS, General Zionist Archives, file A 127/75, pp. 31–33. Cited hereafter as “Protocol.” 29.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 48. Raskin’s report, June 1, 1921, JDC Archives in New York. Samuel’s report, JDC Archives (I do not recall if it was in print.). 30.  Evidence, p. 138. The statements are excerpted from a letter that Brailsford published in The Times, May 1919, no. 252. 31.  H. N. Brailsford, “My Warning Was in Vain,” in Weiner, Gevat, p. 42. 32.  Evidence, p. 138; Haynt, May 6, 1919, no. 103, p. 3. 33.  See Borukh Zuckerman’s letter, written in early May, 1919, Die People’s Relief fun America, Fakten un Dokumenten, 1915–1924 (New York, 1924) pp. 719, 723. Cited hereafter as Relief. 34.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 34. 35.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 2. 36.  A. Goldberg, “Shedlikhe Einredenishen,” Haynt, March 18, 1919, no. 67. The new wave of pogroms began in Busak on March 12, 1919 (Evidence, p. 60). 37.  Haynt, March 11, 1919, no. 60, p. 11. 38.  See as an example, the translation of an anti-Semitic poster, Haynt, March 31, 1919, no. 77, p. 4. 39.  Haynt, April 4, 1919, no. 81, p. 1. 40.  See below, testimony of Sonia Rabinowitz before the Sejm commission of inquiry. 41.  Relief, p. 723. 42.  Borukh Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, (New York, 1956), pp. 361–362. 43.  Relief, p. 724. 44.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, p. 376. 45.  Letter by Feinstein, MS, General Zionist Archives, file A 127/75. The letter is undated but from the contents, it is clear that it was written in early May, 1919. Relief, p. 725. 46.  Ibid. 47.  Ibid. See also testimony of Dayan Rabbi Ya’acov Meir , before the Sejm commission of inquiry, “Protocol,” pp. 3–4. 48.  Testimony of Shayna Slivka, “Protocol,” pp. 33–35; Haynt, May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 3. 49.  See Landsberg’s testimony before the Staszminski commission, “Protocol,” MS, in the General Zionist Archives, file A 127/75, pp. 5–6. 50.  “Protocol,” p. 13. 51.  Ibid, p. 11. 52.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 39. 53.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 2. 54.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 34. 55.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 50. 56.  Haynt, May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 3. 57.  Testimonies as to the characters of Kozak and Kolkar are in the General Zionist Archives, file A 127/75. An undated letter of Feinstein to Y. Gruenbaum includes details of the incident of Prizant and Fialkov. 58.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 56. 59.  “Protocol,” pp. 7–9; Haynt, April 11, 1919, no. 87, p. 6. 60.  “Protocol,” pp. 7–9. 61.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 34–35. 62.  “Protocol,” p. 14, testimony of Berta Pollack.

Notes to Pages 383–394 63.  “Protocol,” pp. 5–6; see testimony of Moshe Bregman (father of Yisrael Bregman). See also testimony of Elka Miletsky; according to her testimony, several young men provided themselves with such documents because the Poles suspected the younger Jews of Bolshevism. 64.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 2; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp 57–58; Elias ­Tabenkin (correspondent for The Tribune), in Evidence, p. 76; report of a Pinsker, Haynt, April 9, 1919, no. 85. S. N. Gitelman lamented the massacre in his poems: (a) “Thirty-Four,” Ha-Shiloah, vol. 43 (5685 [1924–1925]), pp. 234–241; (b) “Life’s Trials,” ibid., pp. 322–329. 65.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 70. 66.  Ibid, p. 60. 67.  Some maintained that the Bolshevik meeting took place in the room adjacent to the hall of the Beit Ha’am, and some maintained that it took place in a small room on the floor below the Beit Ha’am. 68.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 60. 69.  Tabenkin, Evidence, p. 76. According to Morgenthau’s report, less than one hour elapsed from the time of the arrests until the execution. See Henry Morgenthau, All in a Life Time (New York, 1922), p. 412. 70.  See document signed by Dimitri Szyngal, director of the prison, “Protocol,” p. 14. According to this document, the Jews were imprisoned at 9:30 p.m. See Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 58, who also notes that among the twenty-six prisoners were nine children below the age of twelve and six teenage girls. 71.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 52. See testimony of the policeman Staromejski, “Protocol,” p. 53. 72.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 53. 73.  See “Protocol” for statements about Kolkar’s boasts. 74.  “Protocol.” 75.  “Protocol,” Gruenbaum’s account; Haynt, May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 3; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp 58–59. 76.  Haynt, May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 3. 77.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 102, p 2. 78.  Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, personal communication. 79.  Boris D. Bogen, Born a Jew (New York, 1930), pp. 176–177. See also telegram sent by Zionist office in Copenhagen to the JDC on April 25, 1919, JDC Archives. 80.  Haynt, May 6, 1919, no. 103, p. 3; Moment, May 7, 1919; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 60–61. 81.  Haynt, April 11, 1919, no. 87, p. 6. 82.  Relief, p. 718. 83.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, pp. 363–364. 84.  “Protocol,” p. 102. 85.  Haynt, April 9, no. 85. 86.  “Protocol,” p. 2. 87.  See Listowski’s address to the members of the Sejm commission of inquiry, reported in Haynt, April 18, 1919, no. 91, p. 5. 88.  Bogen’s letter, JDC Archives; Relief, p. 718; On Novak, see Bogen, Born a Jew, p. 131. 89.  Relief, p. 726. See also testimony of Mary Turobowicz, “Protocol.” 90.  “Protocol,” p. 102. 91.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 62–63. The women beaten in the prison were: Elka Miletsky, Merl Berman, Zlotka-Sonia Rozman, Fruma Eisenberg, Shayna Koifman-Slivka.

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Notes to Pages 395–406 92.  “Protocol,” pp. 3–5. 93.  Ibid., pp. 6–8. 94.  Ibid., p. 8. 95.  Ibid., p. 9. 96.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 40. 97.  “Protocol,” pp. 1–2. 98.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, p 362. 99.  The resolution was transmitted from Copenhagen, probably by the Information Office for the Affairs of Polish Jewry, to the JDC in New York. 100.  “Protocol,” pp. 1–2, 15; Weiner, Gevat, pp. 39–40, concerning the report of the commission of inquiry of the Socialist International in Lucerne. 101.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 40–41. 102.  Y. Lifshitz, “The Pogroms in Poland in 1918–1919, The Morgenthau Commission, and the American State Department,” Zion, nos. 23–24 (5718–19 [1957–59]), pp. 66ff, and esp. pp. 76ff. The account of the Pinsk pogrom, given on page 73, contains many inaccuracies. 103.  Haynt, April 9, 1919, no. 85, p. 2. 104.  See the testimony of Mary Turobowicz, May 3, 1919, file A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 105.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, pp. 365–373. 106.  Ibid. 107.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 40. 108.  Evidence, p. 78. 109.  Haynt, April 8, 1919, no. 18, p. 1; Weiner, Gevat, p. 33. 110.  Weiner, Gevat, p. 35. On April 8, during debate in the Sejm, Gruenbaum also brought up the matter of Pinsk. He made the following statement: “If we wish to show the world that the ‘eastern districts’ desire annexation to Poland, we must alter our policy toward the Jews, because the present policy cannot inspire Jewish affinity for the Polish state.” Thereupon, a commotion erupted in the Sejm, and shrill cries were heard: “The Jews are our downfall! That’s enough! Get down!” When Gruenbaum mentioned the Pinsk episode, one of the Sejm delegates even ran forward with the intention of striking him (Haynt, April 9, 1919, no. 85). 111.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 35–36. 112.  Evidence, p. 77. This is undoubtedly a reference to Novak. 113.  A. A. Hartglas, “Die Kedoshim fun Pinsk,” Haynt, April 4, 1937, no. 78, p. 7. 114.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, p. 365. 115.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 64. 116.  Ibid., pp. 64–66. 117.  Evidence, p. 91. 118.  Zion, p. 85. See also Haynt, April 20, 1919, no. 92, p. 2. Also, see the letter signed by V. Grossman, sent to the JDC in New York on April 28, 1919, in the JDC Archives. 119.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, p. 369. 120.  Cyrus Adler and Aaron Margolith, American Intercession on Behalf of Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States 1840–1938 (New York, 1943), p. 151. See Lifshitz, “Pogroms,” Zion, p. 85 for Gibson’s position. See also Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, pp. 370–378. 121.  Haynt, April 20, 1919, no. 92, p. 2. 122.  Haynt, April 24, 1919, no. 94, p. 3. 123.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 67–69. 124.  Haynt, April 25, 1919, no. 95, p. 1 and May 2, 1919, no. 100, p. 3. 125.  Ibid., May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 2.

Notes to Pages 407–418 126.  Ibid., May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 1. 127.  “Protocol,” p. 1. 128.  Ibid., pp. 3–4. 129.  Ibid., p. 7. 130.  Ibid., pp. 7–11, 35–36. 131.  Ibid., pp. 15–16. 132.  Ibid., p. 79. 133.  Ibid., p. 27. 134.  Ibid., pp. 12–14. 135.  Ibid., pp. 53–54. 136.  Ibid., pp. 67–69; 41–48; 87–88; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 73–74. 137.  Ibid.; Haynt, May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 3. 138.  Gruenbaum’s remarks in Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 5. 139.  Haynt, May 6, 1919, no. 103, p. 3. 140.  Ibid. 141.  See Feinstein’s letter to Gruenbaum, file A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 142.  See testimonies about Kozak and Kolkar, file A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 143.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 5. 144.  Ibid., May 8, 1919, no. 105, p. 2. 145.  Lifshitz, “Pogroms,” Zion, pp. 85–89. 146.  Haynt, April 30, 1919, no. 99, p. 3 and May 5, 1919, no. 102, p. 2. 147.  Haynt, May 11, 1919, no. 107, p. 5. 148.  Haynt, May 4, 1919, no. 101, p. 5. 149.  Feinstein’s letter, file A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 150.  For events in the United States, see Lifshitz, “Pogroms,” Zion, pp. 85–89. See also the letter of an American diplomat from May 22, 1919, JDC Archives; and text of Wroblewski’s speech on Kosciuszko Day, Haynt, May 9, 1919, no. 106, p. 5. 151.  File A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 152.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 87–88. 153.  Haynt, June 26, 1919, no. 145, p. 3. 154.  Haynt, July 3, 1919, no. 151, p. 3. 155.  File A 127/75, Zionist Archives. 156.  Haynt, July 17, 1919, no. 154, p. 6. 157.  Haynt, July 25, 1919, no. 170, p. 4. 158.  Die Arbeit, Zamelheft, Warsaw, June 3, 1921, p. 3; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 75–77. See Weiner, Gevat, pp. 37–38 for the report of the Sejm commission of inquiry read by Wroblewski at the Sejm session of May 24, 1921. 159.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 76, footnotes. 160.  Zuckerman, Oifen Veg, p. 377. 161. Haynt, June 12, 1919, pp. 133, 2. 162.  See Magnes Archives, in CAHJP, p. 20, F 26–L–98. H. Morgenthau, All in a Life Time, p. 352. 163.  Morgenthau, All in a Life Time, pp. 353–354; Zion, pp. 94–96. 164.  Morgenthau, All in a Life Time, p. 157. 165.  Haynt, August 13, 1919, no. 185, p. 2, August 6, 1919, no. 180, p. 5, and August 10, 1919, no. 182, p. 2; Adler and Margolith, American Intercession on Behalf of Jews, p. 160. 166.  Haynt, August 14, 1919, no. 186, p. 2 and August 17, 1919, no. 188, p. 3.

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Notes to Pages 418–435 167.  Haynt, August 22, 1919, no. 193, p. 3. 168.  Haynt, August 21, 1919, no. 192, p. 2. 169.  Morgenthau, All in a Life Time, pp. 369–370. 170.  Haynt, August 21, 1919, no. 192, p. 2. 171.  Haynt, August 27, 1919, no. 197, p. 2. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 82–90. I do not know why Feinstein reports, on page 83, that Morgenthau’s examination of the witnesses lasted five days; presumably he added the days of the previous investigation by Morgenthau’s commission to the days of investigation by Morgenthau himself. 172.  Morgenthau, All in a Life Time, pp. 411–412. 173.  Lifshitz, “Pogroms,” Zion, pp. 201–208; Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 90–91; Samuel’s report is in the JDC Archives, New York. 174.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 90–91. 175.  Weiner, Gevat, pp. 38–41; Dos Leben, pp. 21–25. 176.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 202–205. 177.  See the article by Hartglas, Haynt, April 4, 1937, no. 78, p. 7. Until this day [i.e., 1971], Polish émigrés continue to claim that those massacred in Pinsk were Bolsheviks. The topic has become a matter of actual debate between Jews and Polish anti-Semites in the press. See Avraham Wilk, “Poilisher Ofitser Leikent Hariga fun Pinsker Kedoshim in 1919,” Forward, July 4, 1971, pp. 2–3. According to his article, the major who ordered the execution is still alive in America. He bears the rank of General, and his name is Jerzy Lutszycki. I doubt whether the name cited is accurate. According to my sources he was called Luczynski. In addition, the article in the Forward quotes excerpts from an extremely inaccurate article published in ­Wiadomosci, the newspaper of Polish émigrés in Paris. That article was written by one Grabski, who now lives in Toronto, Canada, and who was Chief of Staff of the Polish army division that conquered Pinsk. I have not encountered that name. Perhaps it is to be connected to General Krajewski, who was commander of the Polish forces in Polesia during the second conquest of the city. Incidentally, Feinstein mistakenly calls the major in charge of the massacre by the name Leszczynski. 178.  B. Bogen, Born a Jew, p. 176. 179.  Haynt, August 5, 1919, no. 178, p. 5. 180.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 78ff. 181.  Haynt, August 15, 1919, no. 127, p. 9. 182. Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 95ff. 183.  Ibid., pp. 92–93; Haynt, September 4, 1919, no. 204, p. 2. 184.  Nayes fun Haynt, May 5, 1920, no. 105, p. 2. 185.  See Zuckerman’s report and also his letter to his wife in Relief, p. 718ff. 186.  “Kol Ha-Kore,” Haynt, May 2, 1919, no. 100, p. 3. 187.  Feinstein’s letters are in the Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. 188.  Haynt, April 28, 1919, no. 97, p. 4 and May 9, 1919, no. 106, p. 6. 189.  Haynt, May 11, 1919, no. 107, p. 5, August 17, 1919, no. 188, p. 2, and September 2, 1919, no. 202, p. 2. 190.  Haynt, September 30, 1919, no. 224, p. 3; Relief, pp. 363, 365, 368. 191.  Haynt, July 25, 1919, no. 169, p. 6. 192.  Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, p. 12. 193.  Haynt, September 30, 1919, no. 224, p. 3; Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, 19–20. All of the material is in the archive of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York (=JDC).

Notes to Pages 436–449 194.  Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, p. 12. 195.  Ibid., p. 17. 196.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 109 in the note. 197.  Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, p. 20. 196.  Ibid. 199.  Ibid., p. 13. 200.  Nayes fun Haynt, June 7, 1920, no. 131, p. 6; Dos Leben Jubilee Volume 1958, p. 13. 201.  Relief, pp. 723–725; Shulvezen: Zentrale Yiddishe Shul Organizatsiya, February–May 1938, pp. 4–5; PHebII, p. 107; Haynt, August 17, 1919, no. 188, p. 2. 202.  N. Kantrovich, “Di Zionistishe Arbeter Bevegung in Poiln,” in Yarbukh, ed. S. Federbush (New York, 1964), pp. 118–119. 203.  Personal communication from Barukh Azniah and his copy of the article by David Barzilai. 204.  Memorial Register (Pinkas Zikaron) in the possession of Dr. M. Ish-Shalom; cf. PHebII, pp. 165, 172. 205.  Der Tog (Haynt), July 28, 1920, no. 39, p. 1. 206.  TY, p. 202; report by the JDC representative, Jacques Rieug, October 22, 1922, in the JDC Archive. 207.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, pp. 103ff.; A. Yisraeli [Weiner] in Mi-Bifnim, 20 (5718[=1958]), pp. 287–292. 208.  Der Tog (Haynt), September 30, 1920, no. 89, p. 1. 209.  Esther Lerman, diary MS. 210.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 116; Relief, p. 715. 211.  Lerman, diary. 212.  According to Anshel Lebendiger (memoirs in manuscript), five men were killed including Senderovitz “the millionaire”; L. Morgenthau, in Al Ha-Mishmar, August 22, 1960, mentioned the murder of a tailor on Zabalna St. on one of those same nights. 213.  Ephraim Rabinov, correspondence shown to me. 214.  Ibid., citing Sonia Schmidt, sister of the dead man. 215.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, pp. 189–190. 216.  Ibid., p. 133. 217.  Ibid. 218.  Ibid., pp. 134–135. 219.  Ibid., p. 135. 220.  Haynt, October 10, 1920, p. 4. 221. Relief, p. 717; Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, p. 24, in the JDC Archive. 222.  TY, p. 203. 223.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 123. 224.  Ibid., pp. 120–123. 225.  Ibid., p. 122. 226.  Ibid., pp. 129–131. 227.  Relief, p. 717; Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, p. 24, in the JDC Archive. 228.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 132; cf. Z. Rabinowitsch, Lithuanian Hasidism (New York, 1971), p. 102. 229.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 132. 230.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, pp. 148, 177, 182. 231.  Neiyer Haynt, December 10, 1920, no. 52, p. 8.

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Notes to Pages 450–461 232.  Uncatalogued article found in the CAHJP. 233.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, p. 136. 234.  Their report is located in the JDC Archive. 235.  Feinstein, Megillat Puraniyot, pp. 138–146. 236.  Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, p. 24. 237.  JDC archival documents: correspondence from October 23, 1920 (Kowalski); November 21,1920; Shifman Report, May 3, 1921; Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, pp, 40–41. 238.  JDC archival document: “Subvention to Towns from October 1, 1920 to June 30, 1921.” The sums (in marks) listed are: Orphanages: 2,768,660 Hospitals: 425,000 Sanitation: 867,984 Kitchens: 300,000 Elementary schools: 155,000 Other schools: 369,400 Vocational schools: 250,000 Cooperatives: 420,000 Miscellaneous: 197,999 239.  Correspondence (in JDC Archive) of: S. Rosenblatt (Acting Chairman, Chicago Joint Relief Committee) and Dr. S. M. Schmidt (Director Landsmannschaft Bureau, Joint Distribution Committee, New York), October 17, 1920, October 25, 1920, November 8, 1921, undated letter. 240.  Confirmation of Felix Warburg and Albert Lucas in JDC Archive. 241.  Yosef Brin’s report to the Pinsk Relief Committee, entitled “An Iberblik iber Pinsk un Ihre Anshtalten (An Overview of Pinsk and Its Institutions)” (Chicago, 1921) (in JDC Archive); Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, p. 64. 242.  Raskin Report to Warsaw JDC, July 1, 1921. 243.  Raskin Report, June 1, 1921, p. 5. [Here Shohet is apparently going back to the June 1 report where Raskin described the situation in the city. The July 1 report was probably the description of the shutdown.]

Chapter 10 1. Yudishe Industriele Unternemungen in Poilen, Loit der Ankete in 1921, Be-Arbayt unter der Leitung fun Inzhiner Eliezer Heller, vol. 7–8 (Warsaw, 1923), p. lxiii. See Pinsker Shtyme (PS), July 25, 1930, p. 4, and MS article at YIVO (a photocopy is in my possession). 2.  PS, April 8, 1927, p. 2. 3.  PS, August 17, 1928, p. 3. 4.  Leshchinsky Archives, file 243, table 13. According to this census, there were 15,153 males and 16,759 females in the city. The discrepancy between the sexes may be accounted for by the fact that limited opportunities for emigration were exploited more readily by the young men than by the young women whose possibilities were much more restricted. Division by religion was as follows: Jews—20,220, Catholics—6,324, Orthodox—5,158, others—209. Division by mother tongue was as follows: Hebrew and Yiddish—20,180, Polish—7,346, Russian—2,866, Belarusian—592, local [dialects]—781, other—140. 5.  PS, January 13, 1928, p. 4; and January 14, 1938, p. 4. 6.  See note 1.

Notes to Pages 462–472 7.  Letter by Hershel Pinsky, dated September 5, 1922, in Sefer Gevat, p. 317. 8.  For information on the fire and relief activities, see Neiyer Haynt, August 8, 1921, no. 181, pp. 1, 5–6; ibid., August 15, 1921, no. 168, p. 2; ibid., August 17, 1921, no. 188, p. 3; ibid., August 18, 1921, no. 189, p. 3. 9.  Statistics from September 7, 1930. Photocopy sent by YIVO. 10.  See Haynt, January 1923. This factory was transferred to Swedish ownership around 1923; the new machinery introduced resulted in the reduction of the number of workers, but about 350 people subsequently still worked there. The figure of 800 male and female workers was cited in relation to the fire that broke out in the factory on January 6 and may be exaggerated. A similar number was reported in connection with the strike that began on November 8, 1922, due to the administration’s refusal to raise wages because of a decline in the value of the Polish mark. The strike continued for a significant period of time. According to a report on December 8, 1922, in the newspaper Freitik, p. 6, the strike was still on. 11.  Y. Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot (Jerusalem, 1965), p. 170. 12.  Raskin report from July 1, 1921. 13.  See note 1. The Vilkovitz press, which was consumed in the great fire, was restored by Nehemiah Vilkovitz. See B. Rubinstein, article in Hed Ha-Defus, August 25, 1961, p. 57. 14.  Haynt, June 22, 1922, no. 143, p. 3. 15.  See A. Lebendiger, “Havtahah She-Nitmal’ah,” Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair, vol. 37, no. 33, May 10, 1966, p. 27. 16.  See advertisement in Haynt, January 1, 1923, no. 1, p. 1; and no. 4, p. 1. 17.  Based on personal communication from M. Prizant and an article by A. H. Kizshi; photocopy sent by YIVO. According to an advertisement in Haynt, March 6, 1925, no. 56, p. 2, the Merchants’ Bank engaged in all sorts of banking transactions and had warehouses for storage of merchandise. See Haynt, March 3, 1926, no. 53, p. 4. 18.  Ibid., July 20, 1923, no. 167, p. 7. 19.  Ibid. 20.  See note 7. 21.  Based upon a conversation with Eliasberg. 22.  Haynt, February 18, 1926, no. 42, p. 6. 23.  Information based on the above article by A. H. Kizshi (note 17). 24.  Haynt, March 3, 1926, no. 53, p. 4. 25.  Haynt, November 4, 1926, no. 252, p. 4. 26.  Report in the YIVO Archives in New York, American Joint Reconstruction Fund, section 20. Cited hereafter as AJRF. 27.  PS, January 7, 1927, no. 1, p. 4; ibid., February 18, 1927, no. 7, p. 3; ibid., February 25, 1927, no. 8, p. 3. 28. Haynt, July 8, 1926, no. 156, in the article entitled “Dos Hartz fun Polesien—Pinsk”; PS, February 25, 1927, no. 8, p. 3. 29.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, December 17, 1926, no. 48, p. 4; ibid., February [?] 1927, no. 4 (61), p. 5. 30.  Conversation with Eliasberg. 31.  Haynt, November 10, 1926, no. 257, p. 4; PS, February 25, 1927, no. 8, p. 6. 32.  PS, November 18, 1927, no. 45, p. 4; ibid., April 20, 1928, no. 16 (67), p. 4; ibid., May 17, 1928, no. 20 (71), p. 4. 33.  Ibid., April 8, 1927, no. 14, p. 6. 34.  Ibid., May 13, 1927, p. 6; personal communication from M. Prizant.

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Notes to Pages 472–479 35.  PS, September 26, 1927, no. 38, p. 2. 36.  Ibid., August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 1. 37.  Ibid., April 15, 1927, no. 15, p. 7. 38.  Ibid., February 11, 1927, no. 6. [p. ?]. 39.  Ibid., June 3, 1927, no. 21, p. 4. 40.  Ibid., February 18, 1927, no. 7, [p. ?]; see ORT report, “Haklaut,” in the Leshchinsky Archives, file 256. 41.  PS, March 16, 1928, no. 11 (62), p. 4. 42.  Ibid., October 25, 1929, no. 146, p. 3; ibid., January 10, 1930, no. 157, p. 3; ibid., July 18, 1928, no. 28 (79), p. 2. See also report of Farband fun die Yiddishe Cooperative Gezelshaften in Poilen, Drite Kadentz, Tzveite Sesie, in the YIVO Archives, section AJRF 23. 43.  PS, June 24, 1927, no. 24. [p.?]. 44.  Ibid., January 20, 1928, no. 3 (54), p. 4; and February 10, 1928, no. 6 (57), p. 4. 45.  Ibid., April 27, 1928, no. 17 (68), p. 4. 46.  Ibid., May 24, 1928, no. 21 (72), p. 4. 47.  Ibid., June 22, 1928, no. 25 (76), p. 4. 48.  Ibid. 49.  Ibid., August 10, 1928, p. 4; and October 12, 1928, p. 4. 50.  See above Chapter Seven. 51.  PS, January 24, 1930, no. 4 (159), p. 2; and May 9, 1930, no. 19 (174), p. 2. 52.  Ibid., July 15, 1927, p. 5. 53.  Mordekhai Liftchok, Divrei Zikhronot, MS. 54.  PS, September 20, 1929, no. 38 (141), p. 2. 55.  Ibid. 56.  Ibid., November 8, 1929, no. 45 (148), p. 1; and December 13, 1929, no. 50 (153), p. 4. 57.  Ibid., October 18, 1929, no. 42 (145), p. 3. 58.  Ibid. 59.  Ibid., November 1, 1929, no. 44 (147), p. 2. 60.  Ibid., October 18, 1929, no. 42 (145), p. 1; and November 29, 1929, no. 48 (151), p. 2. 61.  Letter by Hershel Pinsky, dated January 1, 1930, Sefer Gevat, p. 338. 62.  Pinsker Zeitung, January 31, 1930, no. 5 (20), p. 3. 63.  Moznaim, 4 (1933), no. 9 (159), p. 6; cf. Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa (Tel Aviv, 1933), pp. 5–6. 64.  PS, January 24, 1930, no. 4 (159), p. 2. 65.  Ibid., February 7, 1930, no. 6 (161), p. 3. 66.  Ibid., January 30, 1931, no. 3 (210), p. 2. 67.  Ibid., May 9, 1930, no. 19 (174), p. 2. 68.  Ibid. 69.  Ibid., December 26, 1930, no. 50 (205), p. 4. 70.  Ibid., January 16, 1931, no. 3 (208), p. 3. 71.  Ibid., November 25, 1931, p. 3. 72.  Ibid., July 22, 1932, no. 30 (263), p. 2. 73.  Ibid., December 12, 1930, no. 48 (203), p. 4. 74.  Ibid., December 19, 1930, no. 49 (204), p. 1. 75.  Ibid., January 16, 1931, no. 3 (208), p. 4. 76.  Ibid., June 27, 1930, no. 26 (181), p. 3. 77. Ibid., October 1, 1930, no. 39 (194), p. 3.

Notes to Pages 480–491 78.  Ibid., February 26, 1932, no. 9 (243), p. 2. See also Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 211. 79.  PS, February 1, 1930, no. 5 (160), p. 4. 80.  Ibid., February 5, 1932, no. 6 (240), p. 4. 81.  Pinsker Vokh, July 22, 1932, no. 1, p. 2; and August 5, 1932, no. 3, p. 3; Pinsker Vort, March 31, 1933, no. 13 (113), p. 2. 82.  Pinsker Vort, January 26, 1934, no. 4 (156), p. 2. 83.  PS, January 27, 1933, no. 4 (290), p. 2. 84.  Unzer Freiheit, February 18, 1934, year 5, p. 8; Dos Vort, September 27, 1933, no. 72, p. 4. 85.  Letter in archives of M. Kol. See Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, February 17, 1933, no. 17, p. 5. 86.  PS, February 1, 1935, no. 5 (395), p. 4; and October 25, 1935, no. 43 (433), p. 3; Pinsker Vokh, July 29, 1932, no. 2, p. 2. 87.  Dos Neiyer Pinsker Vort, July 10, 1936, no. 27, p. 6; PS, July 10, 1936, no. 28 (468), p. 3. 88.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 211. 89.  PS, November 9, 1934, no. 45 (383), p. 4. 90.  Ibid., June 28, 1935, no. 26 (416), p. 4. 91.  Ibid., July 24, 1936, no. 30 (470), p. 1. 92.  Ibid., June 19, 1936, no. 25 (465), p. 1. 93.  Ibid., July 10, 1936, no. 28 (468), p. 4; and August 28, 1936, no. 35 (475), p. 2. 94.  Ibid., September 10, 1937, no. 37 (529), p. 2; and September 17, 1937, no. 38 (530), p. 4. 95.  Ibid., June 25, 1937, no. 26 (518), p. 2; and July 2, 1937, no. 27 (519), p. 3. Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 193. 96.  PS, July 16, 1937, no. 29 (521), p. 4; and July 23, 1937, no. 30 (522), p. 4. 97.  Ibid., October 4, 1933, no. 40 (326), p. 4. For information on Boldok, see Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 173–174. For the situation in general, see A. Tartkover, “Ma’avakam Ha-Kalkali shel Yehudei Polin bein Milhamah Le-Milhamah,” Galed, Ma’asaf Le-Toledot Yahadut Polin, 2 (1975), pp. 145–177. Note 20, page 156, states that these remarks were made by the Polish Prime Minister on June 4, 1936. 98.  PS, August 18, 1935, no. 42 (432), p. 4; Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 214. 99.  PS, May 24, 1935, no. 21 (411), p. 4. 100.  Ibid., February 28, 1936, no. 9 (449), p. 2; and June 19, 1936, no. 25 (465), p. 3. 101.  The Goldman letters are in the Pinsk Archives of the CAHJP. On shehita, see below: section on the kehillah, at note 360 and passim. 102.  PS, January 22, 1937, no. 4 (496), p. 2. 103.  Ibid, April 1, 1937, no. 14 (506), p. 2. 104.  Ibid., April 16, 1937, no. 16 (508), p. 4. 105.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 211–212. 106.  PS, October 8, 1937, no. 41 (533), p. 4; and November 5, 1937, no. 45 (537), p. 4. 107.  Ibid., January 22, 1937, no. 4 (496), p. 4. 108.  Ibid., June 25, 1937, no. 26 (518), p. 2. 109.  Haynt, June 29, 1938, no. 145. 110.  PS, November 19, 1937, no. 47 (539), p. 3. 111.  Ibid. 112.  Ibid., March 13, 1936, no. 11 (451), p. 2. 113.  Ibid., February 26, 1937, no. 9 (501), p. 2; cf. text at note 373. 114.  Pinsker Vort, February 25, 1938, no. 8 (366), p. 4. 115.  Neiye Folkszeitung, June 25, 1939.

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Notes to Pages 491-506 116.  PS, January 30, 1931, no. 3 (280), p. 2. 117.  Ibid., November 22, 1929, no. 47 (150), p. 4. 118.  Ibid., July 6, 1928, no. 27 (78), p. 1. 119.  Ibid., September 17, 1932, no. 38 (271), p. 4. 120.  Ibid., February 1, 1930, no. 5 (160), p. 4. 121.  Ibid., February 25, 1927, no. 8, p. 5. 122.  The tables are brought in TY, pp. 236–237. Information on the sawmills is taken from a letter sent by activists for the orphanage to Mrs. Silverman on September 6, 1938 in JDC Archives. 123.  Photocopy of the book is in the NLI, section P 2836. The book itself was in the possession of Rabbi Mordekhai Gimpel Volk (1894–1986). 124.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 165. 125.  PS, April 1, 1927, no. 13, p. 2. For the names of those chosen, see PHebII, p. 225, n. 125. 126.  For information on the General Zionists, see PS, March 18, 1927, no. 11, p. 2. According to this, the General Zionists had a separate list, and their candidates were engineer, A. Friedman; A. M. Feldman; and V. Elshtein. A. Weiner (Yisraeli), on the other hand, writes that “the General Zionists did not appear on a separate list.” Sefer Gevat, p. 100. 127.  PS, March 9, 1928, no. 10 (61), p. 4. Of the 13,845 people with the right to vote, 9,851 cast their ballots. Non-Jewish voters voted for: Sanacja (Pilsudskiites)—1,753; P.P.S.—264; Russians—672. It is impossible to know how many non-Jews cast their votes for the minority bloc. 128.  For the names of those chosen for the municipality, see PS, September 5, 1930, no. 36 (191), p. 1 and PHebII, p.225, n. 128. 129.  PS, September 5, 1930, no. 36 (191), p. 2. 130.  PS, August 24, 1928, no. 34 (85), p. 1. For the names of those chosen for the kehillah council, see ibid. and PHebII, p.225, n. 130. 131.  PS, October 7, 1936, no. 41 (481), p. 4; and November 6, 1936, no. 45 (485), p. 2. For the names of the kehillah council members, see these sources and PHebII, p.226, n. 131. 132.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 197–198. 133.  Ibid., p. 208. 134.  Sefer Gevat, p. 162. 135.  Dr. Elazar Bregman informed me of this, among other details of his public activity, in a letter dated November 9, 1967, just a few weeks before his tragic death in an accident. See Neiyer Haynt, August 23, 1921, no. 193, p. 4; Haynt, July 6, 1923, no. 155, p. 2. 136.  According to information in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 143, Avraham Asher Feinstein, S. N. Gitelman, S. Fishman, A. M. Feldman, and Mrs. Regina Rabinowitsch participated in this convention. According to Neiyer Haynt, 1921, no. 157, p. 3, besides Feinstein, the other Pinsk delegates were Yehoshua Gottleib, Moshe Weizmann, and Levita. None of the three were residents of Pinsk at the time. Perhaps they were in addition to those first mentioned. Dr. Z. Rabinowitsch pointed out that he also traveled to Lodz—not as a delegate—together with his mother Mrs. Regina Rabinowitsch, who was a delegate. 137.  Haynt, June 14, 1923, no. 136, p. 4; and February 14, 1923, no. 39, p. 3; PS, June 24, 1927, no. 24, p. 6; Kerman, MS; PS, January 3, 1930, no. 1 (156), p. 4. 138.  Unzer Tzukunft, April 11, 1924, pp. 9–10; Haynt, April 18, 1924, no. 94, p. 10. 139.  Sefer Gevat, p. 126. 140.  Kerman, pp. 208–209. 141.  Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, p. 30; Kerman, pp. 211–212. The memo-

Notes to Pages 507–518 rial plaque was affixed to one of the synagogue walls. The procession began from the Zionist Federation building. 142.  PS, August 30, 1929, no. 35 (138), p. 4; ibid., September 6, 1929, no. 36 (139), p. 4; ibid., October 4, 1929, no. 40 (143), p. 2. 143.  Ibid., October 18, 1929, no. 42 (145), p. 4; ibid., no. 43 (146), p. 2; ibid., March 28, 1930, no. 13 (168), p. 2. 144.  The leaflet is in the Pinsk Archives at CAHJP. 145.  Unzer Tzukunft, April 11, 1924, pp. 9–10; Haynt, April 18, 1924, no. 94, p. 10. 146.  PS, August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 4; ibid., July 5, 1929, no. 27 (130), p. 4; ibid., July 28, 1933, no. 30 (316), p. 4; ibid., July 2, 1935, no. 31 (421), p. 4. 147.  Report of Keren Ha-Yesod (United Jewish Appeal) in Poland, January 7, 1930. 148.  “Keren Ha-Yesod in 1938,” Keren Ha-Yesod Central Office in Poland (Warsaw, 1939), p. 17. 149.  PS, October 10, 1930, no. 40 (195), p. 3; and September 25, 1931, no. 17 (222). 150.  For information on the “Arlozorov Project,” opened upon Borukh Zuckerman’s visit, see PS, November 10, 1933, no. 45 (331), p. 4. For the “Hula Valley Project,” see PS, February 8, 1935, no. 6 (396), p. 4. For the “Special Project,” see PS, May 26, 1936, no. 22 (462), p. 4. A committee was chosen and the members were: Ya’acov Eliasberg, Dr. Elstein, David Alper, Dr. ­Yoselevitz, Attorney Y. Fas, and Y. Skolnik. For the “Bitzaron Project,” (establishment of the Bitzaron moshav settlement in southern Palestine), see PS, November 13, 1936, no. 46 (486), p. 4. 151.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 196–197. 152.  Letter from the Polish Zionist Federation, Pinsk branch, signed by Y. Skolnik, chairman; M. Eizenberg; A. Stillerman; and Y. Bodankin, to Moshe Kolodny, dated December 23, 1935. 153.  PS, August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 4; ibid., July 5, 1929, no. 27 (130), p. 4; ibid., July 28, 1933, no. 30 (316), p. 4; ibid., January 20, 1933, no. 3 (289), p. 4. 154.  PS, January 3, 1930, no. 1 (156), p. 4; ibid., January 19, 1934, no. 3 (341), p. 4. 155.  PS, July 28, 1933, no. 30 (316), p. 4; ibid., July 2, 1935, no. 31 (421), p. 4; ibid., July 16, 1937, no. 29 (521), p. 4. 156.  Ibid. 157.  Photocopies of the proclamations [are] in the manuscript department of the NLI. Mrs. Rahel Stillerman wrote to me about WIZO; see also the pamphlet Der Bazaar (Pinsk, 1933), pp. 16–18; and Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 214–215. 158.  PS, August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 4; ibid., July 5, 1929, no. 27 (130), p. 4; ibid., July 28, 1933, no. 30 (316), p. 4; Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 201–202. 159.  PS, April 21, 1933, no. 16 (302), p. 4; ibid., April 28, 1933, no. 17 (303), p. 4; ibid., February 26, 1937, no. 9 (501), p. 1. 160.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 208–209. 161.  Dr. Bregman’s remarks are quoted from his letter, cited in note 135. For the attitude of some of the Zeirei Zion to the Hebrew language, see Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, p. 114. For information on the rift, see Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 107. 162.  Befreiung, April 11, 1921, no. 9 (27), p. 27. 163.  Ibid., March 25, 1921, no. 12 (30), p. 30; ibid., April 18, 1921, no. 14 (41), p. 28. 164.  Ibid., November 25, 1921, no. 28 (55), pp. 26–27. 165.  Hershel Pinsky’s letters in Sefer Gevat, pp. 314, 316; Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 107, 131. According to A. Weiner’s description, the second bet mahse was also run by the Zeirei Zion, but he

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Notes to Pages 518–528 writes that it was established by Zelig Tir’s branch, which had broken off from the Zeirei Zion, Sefer Gevat, p. 70. 166.  Sefer Gevat, p. 316. 167.  Ibid., p. 72, 317–319. 168.  Ibid., p. 317. 169.  Ibid., p. 318. 170.  Befreiung, May 27, 1921, no. 17 (44), p. 23. 171.  Ibid., June 15, 1922, no. 13 (70), pp. 27–28. 172.  Sefer Gevat, p. 316. 173.  Ibid. 174.  Befreiung, June 15, 1922, no. 13 (70), pp. 27–28. 175.  Ibid. 176.  Sefer Gevat, p. 320. 177.  See the pamphlet Unzer Tzukunft (Pinsk, 1924), p. 6. The pamphlet appeared in anticipation of Leib Yaffe’s visit. 178.  Undzer Shtyme, vol. 3, August 10, 1924; Sefer Gevat, pp. 126, 321, and Unzer Tzukunft (Pinsk, 1924), p. 6. 179.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, November 27, 1925, no. 3, p. 6. 180.  PS, October 27, 1933, no. 43 (329), p. 4. 181.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, April 14, 1933, no. 15, p. 4. 182.  Sefer Gevat, pp. 320, 322. 183.  PS, August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 4; ibid., July 5, 1929, no. 27 (130), p. 4; ibid., July 2, 1935, no. 31 (421), p. 4; ibid., July 16, 1937, no. 29 (521), p. 4. 184.  Folk un Land, April 8, 1922, no. 20, p. 11. 185.  Folk un Zion, June 30, 1922, nos. 14–15, p. 20; Folk un Land, July 28, 1922, nos. 16–17, pp. 21–22. 186.  Folk un Land, October 22, 1926, no. 17, p. 12. 187.  PS, August 5, 1927, no. 30, p. 4; ibid., July 5, 1929, no. 27 (130), p. 4; ibid., July 2, 1935, no. 31 (421), p. 4; ibid., July 16, 1937, no. 29 (521), p. 4. 188.  Folk un Land, July 2, 1926, no. 11, p. 15; ibid., June 9, 1933, no. 22. 189.  PS, April 1, 1927, no. 13, p. 4; ibid., March 9, 1928, no. 10 (61), p. 4; September 5, 1930, no. 36 (191), p. 1. 190.  Ibid., June 15, 1934, no. 24 (362), p. 4; ibid., October 7, 1936, no. 41 (481), p. 4. 191.  Freitik, May 12, 1922, no. 1, p. 8. 192.  Ibid. 193.  Ibid., September 8, 1922, no. 6, p. 8; Dos Leben, October 18, 1922, no. 9, p. 3. 194.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 194–195; Sefer Gevat, pp. 66–67; Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 181–182. 195.  Pinsk, vol. 2, p. 179. 196.  Ibid., p. 175. 197.  TY, p. 281. 198.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 162. 199.  Photocopies of the proclamations are in the manuscript department of the NLI. See also Yugnt Veker, January 1, 1930 and July 15, 1930. Memoirs of Aryeh Avivi, MS. The Zionist youth movements are not described here; they are discussed in detail in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 148–157, 168–178, 183–185, 191–208.

Notes to Pages 528–543 200.  Neiye Folkszeitung, September 27, 1933 and March 19, 1936; Der Idisher Arbeter Klas in Yohr 1936 (Lodz, 1937), pp. 119–120. 201.  D. Shlossberg, Meine Erinerungen, MS, written in Wroclaw; memoirs of Alter Serchok, MS. According to Serchok, the guilty were pardoned, and most of the active communists fled to Soviet Russia. Moshe’le Braverman was executed there for Trotskyism, Nisel Wagman—as a counter-revolutionary. Wagman’s wife died of a heart attack in prison, as did Pesah Visotzky after ten years imprisonment. Yudel Koznitz was shot by Poles near the Polish border on one of his missions to Soviet Russia for the communist party. 202.  See A. Netylkin, Pinsk: Istoricheskii Ocherk (Minsk, 1961). This author’s approach is exemplified by the fact that in his work he does not mention the word “Jews,” even as communists. 203.  PS, March 9, 1928, no. 10 (61), p. 4; ibid., August 29, 1930, no. 35 (190), p. 4. 204.  Ibid., September 7, 1928, no. 36 (87), p. 4; ibid., October 19, 1928, no. 42 (93), p. 4; ibid., May 2, 1930, no. 18 (172), p. 4; ibid., October 30, 1931, no. 21 (226), p. 4; ibid., January 20, 1933, no. 3 (289), p. 4; ibid., February 3, 1933, no. 5 (291), p. 4; ibid., December 8, 1933, no. 49 (335), p. 4; Netylkin, Pinsk, p. 44. 205.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 206. 206.  Ibid., p. 207. 207.  Pesah Pkach, Zikhronot, MS. 208.  Aryeh Avivi, Zikhronot, MS. 209.  Tzu Hilf [newsletter], New York, 1936, p. 19 and May–June 1938. 210.  PS, August 17, 1928, no. 33 (84), p. 4; ibid., November 6, 1936, no. 45 (485), p. 2. 211.  Ibid., August 15, 1930, no. 33 (188), p. 2; ibid., June 8, 1934, no. 23 (361), p. 4. 212.  Pinsk, vol. 2, p. 210; PS, July 24, 1936, no. 30 (470), p. 1; Pinsker Vort, March 11, 1938, no. 10 (368). 213.  Information on the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot and Tiferet Bahurim, discussed below, was derived from letters found at YIVO, New York, and microfilms received from there. In 1930, the Beit Yosef yeshivah had 160 students. Talpiyot, vol. 6 (1949?), p. 360. 214.  PS, July 1, 1927, no. 25, pp. 5–6. 215.  Ibid, August 22, 1930, no. 34 (189), p. 4. 216.  PZ, April 4, 1930, no. 14 (29), p. 3. 217.  PS, November 22, 1935, no. 47 (437), p. 4. 218.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 24–25. 219.  See A. Weiner in Sefer Gevat, p. 109ff; Halutzim in Poilen, ed. L. Speizman (New York, 1959); Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 168–178. Hereafter sources will be cited primarily for topics not connected to matters discussed in this paragraph. 220.  Sefer Gevat, p. 323. 221.  Ibid. 222.  I personally remember this from Gottlieb’s visits to my town Motele. 223.  Hen-Melekh Merhaviah, Am U-Moledet: Otzar Teudot Be-Inyanei Ha-Ezrahut ­Ha-Ivrit, Ha-Zionut Ve-Ha-Yishuv (Jerusalem, 1944), p. 612. 224.  Folk un Land, October 22, 1926, no. 17, p. 12. 225.  He-Atid, May 22, 1925, no. 16. 226.  See Weiner’s article in Halutzim in Poilen (note 219). 227.  Merhaviah, p. 604. 228.  He-Atid, July 16, 1926; Sefer Gevat, p. 118; Halutzim in Poilen, p. 147. 229.  Sefer Gevat, p. 182. 230.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, December 17, 1926, no. 48, p. 4.

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Notes to Pages 544–553 231.  He-Atid, November 1, 1934, p. 23. 232.  Merhaviah, p. 615. 233.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 177. 234.  Ibid. 235.  Ibid. 236.  Sefer Gevat, p. 338. 237.  Ibid., p. 352. 238.  Ibid., p. 340. 239.  Ibid., p. 344. 240.  Ibid., p. 342. 241.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 382, 384. 242. He-Atid, April 1, 1935, no. 15, p. 21; Unzer Freiheit, year 5, February 18, 1934, p. 8. 243. Yehudah Helman article in: Yoman Gevat, May 5, 1967, no. 32, pp. 3–4. 244.  PS, April 21, 1933, no. 16 (302), p. 4. 245.  Ibid., January 25, 1935, no. 4 (334), p. 4. The Shahariah budget for October 1, 1935– September 30, 1936 in the Leshchinsky Archives, file 238, showed income of 31,655 zlotys and expenses of 38,082 zlotys, yielding a deficit of 6,427 zlotys. For details of the budget see ­PHebII, p. 244, n. 245. This budget is interesting for a number of reasons. The average annual cost of provisions per person was 298 zlotys=approximately $38 in 1936 dollars. Average income per person was about 440 zlotys per year (280 work days), or approximately $55, that is 19 cents a day. This was actually the salary of many day laborers in Pinsk. Rabbi Judah Nadich (Neidich) of New York, who visited Pinsk in 1937, related that a relative who served as a night watchman in the flour mill was paid 19 cents for a night’s work. 246.  Dos Neiye Pinsker Vort, March 13, 1936, no. 63, p. 10. 247.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 211. 248.  Ibid. 249.  As shown in two photographs, ibid., pp. 211–213. 250.  Ibid., p. 212; PS, May 9, 1930, no. 13 (174), p. 4. 251.  PS, August 30, 1931, no. 21 (221); Die Vokh, August 26, 1932, p. 6. 252.  PS, January 27, 1933, no. 4 (290), p. 4; ibid., November 17, 1933, p. 4; ibid., June 22, 1934, no. 25 (363), p. 3. 253.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 212. 254.  PS, October 1, 1937, no. 40 (532), p. 2. 255.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 209–210. 256.  PS, May 9, 1930, no. 13 (174), p. 4. 257.  Ibid., November 23, 1934, no. 47 (385), p. 3. 258.  Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, pp. 29–32. 259.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 95–97. 260.  Ibid., p. 96. 261.  Ibid., p. 98. 262.  Ibid., p. 196. 263.  A. Weiner in Sefer Gevat, pp. 90–100. 264.  Ibid. 265.  PS, February 25, 1927, p. 1. 266.  Ibid., March 11, 1927, no. 10. 267.  Ibid., p. 6.

Notes to Pages 553–562 268.  Elazar Bregman, “Mi-Zikhronotav shel Segan Rosh Iriyah Sotsialisti,” in Sefer Gevat, p. 133. 269.  Ibid., p. 134. 270.  Ibid., p. 133. 271.  Ibid., pp. 133–134. 272.  PS, July 15, 1927, pp. 2, 5. 273.  PS, August 26, 1927, p. 1. 274.  Sefer Gevat, p. 134. This seems to contradict the above remarks of Elazar Bregman. 275.  PS, April 1, 1927, p. 4. 276.  Sefer Gevat, p. 101. 277.  Ibid., p. 102; PS, August 5, 1927, p. 1; ibid., September 16, 1927, p. 4. 278.  PS, October 5, 1927, p. 4. 279.  Sefer Gevat, p. 134. 280.  Ibid., p. 101. 281.  Ibid., p. 134. 282.  PS, February 24, 1928, no. 7 (59), p. 4. 283.  Ibid., February 10, 1928, no. 5 (57), p. 4. 284.  Ibid., December 14, 1928, no. 50 (101); ibid., December 21, 1928, no. 51 (102), p. 3. 285.  Ibid., October 12, 1928, no. 41 (92), p. 2. 286.  Ibid., January 18, 1929, no. 3 (106), p. 3. 287.  Ibid., May 10, 1929, no. 10 (122), p. 4. 288.  Ibid., November 29, 1929, no. 48 (151); ibid., December 27, 1929, no. 52 (158), p. 4. 289.  Ibid., September 5, 1930, no. 36 (191), p. 1. 290.  Ibid., February 20, 1931, no. 8 (213), p. 4. 291.  Ibid., March 18, 1932, no. 12 (245), p. 4. 292.  Ibid., January 5, 1934, no. 1 (339), p. 2. 293.  Sefer Gevat, p. 104. See also Bregman’s remarks on the topic, ibid., pp. 139–141. 294.  PS, December 18, 1931, no. 28 (233), p. 4. 295.  Sefer Gevat, p. 139. 296.  Ibid. 297.  Ibid., p. 140. 298.  Ibid. 299.  PS, January 20, 1928, p. 2. 300.  PS, February 24, 1928, no. 7 (59), p. 4. 301.  PS, July 12, 1929, no. 28 (131), p. 4. 302.  Ibid., January 10, 1931, no. 3 (208), p. 4. 303.  Ibid., June 20, 1930, no. 25 (180), p. 2. 304.  Ibid., February 22, 1929, no. 9 (112), p. 4. 305.  Ibid., February 1, 1930, no. 5 (160), p. 4. 306.  Ibid., January 10, 1931, no. 3 (208), p. 4. 307.  PS, January 5, 1934, no. 1 (339), p. 2. 308.  Ibid., June 15, 1934, no. 24 (262), p. 4. 309.  Neiye Folkszeitung, May 26, 1939. 310.  PS, March 1, 1935, no. 9 (399), p. 4. 311.  Ibid., May 2, 1935, no. 16 (408), p. 2; ibid., December 13, 1935, no. 50 (440), p. 2. 312.  Ibid., July 1, 1932, no. 27 (260), p. 4. 313.  Ibid., March 8, 1935, no. 10 (400), p. 4.

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Notes to Pages 562–573 314.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 175. 315.  PS, August 16, 1935, no. 33 (423), p. 4. 316.  Ibid., December 4, 1936, no. 49 (489), p. 4; ibid., December 10, 1936, no. 51 (489), p. 4. 317.  Ibid., December 15, 1936, no. 52 (492), p. 4. 318.  Ibid., December 8, 1933, no. 49 (335), p. 4; Ibid., December 15, 1933, no. 50 (336), p. 4; ibid., January 12, 1934, no. 2 (340), p. 4. 319.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 210. See also above pp. 220–221 about anti-­ semitism and preparations for self-defense. 320.  PS, July 6, 1928, no. 27 (78). 321.  Ibid., July 29, 1927, no. 29, p. 2; ibid., February 3, 1928, no. 5 (56), p. 3. 322.  Ibid., July 6, 1928, no. 27 (78), p. 3. 323.  Ibid., May 11, 1928, no. 19 (70), p. 3. 324.  Ibid., p. 4. 325.  Ibid., May 17, 1928, no. 20 (71), p. 4; ibid., June 22, 1928, no. 25 (76), p. 2. 326.  See proclamation of Poalei Zion Z. S. in Sefer Gevat, p. 106. 327.  PS, July 20, 1928, no. 29 (80), p. 4; ibid., August 17, 1928, no. 33 (84), p. 4; ibid., p. 3; ibid., September 14, 1928, no. 37 (88), p. 4; ibid., October 19, 1928; ibid., November 2, 1928, no. 44 (95), p. 4. 328.  Sefer Gevat, p. 107. 329.  PS, May 17, 1929, no. 20 (123), p. 4; Sefer Gevat, p. 107. 330.  PS, September 13, 1929, no. 37 (140), p. 4. 331.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 174. According to the proposed kehillah budget for 1935 (see below), Shlakman was director of the old-age home. 332.  PS, November 1, 1929, p. 2. 333.  Ibid., November 15, 1929, no. 46 (149), p. 4. 334.  Ibid., May 23, 1930, no. 21 (176), p. 4. 335.  Ibid., July 4, 1930, no. 27 (182), p. 4. 336.  TY, p. 275. 337.  Ibid. 338.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 172. 339.  PS, July 11, 1930, no. 28 (183), p. 4. 340.  Ibid., September 22, 1930, no. 38 (193), p. 4. 341.  Ibid., October 24, 1930, no. 42 (197), p. 4. 342.  TY, p. 275. 343.  PS, January 2, 1931, no. 1 (206), p. 4. 344.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 172. 345.  PS, April 25, 1930, no. 17 (172), p. 3. 346.  Ibid. 347.  PS, January 9, 1931, no. 2 (207), p. 4. 348.  Ibid., January 30, 1931, no. 5 (210), p. 4. 349.  Ibid., September 11, 1931, no. 14 (219), p. 2. 350.  Ibid., December 11, 1931, no. 27 (232), p. 4. 351.  Ibid., December 18, 1931, no. 28 (233), p. 4. 352.  Ibid., December 11, 1931, no. 27 (232), p. 4. 353.  Ibid., February 24, 1933, no. 8 (294), p. 4. 354.  Ibid., January 12, 1934, no. 2 (340), p. 2, p. 4. 355.  Ibid., January 26, 1934, no. 4 (342), p. 4.

Notes to Pages 573–587 356.  Ibid. 357.  Ibid., March 2, 1934, no. 9 (347), p. 4. 358.  Ibid., April 13, 1934, no. 15 (352), p. 4. 359.  Ibid., May 4, 1934, no. 18 (356), p. 4. 360.  Ibid., March 1, 1935, no. 9 (399), p. 4. 361.  Ibid., March 13, 1936, no. 11 (451), p. 2. 362.  Ibid., October 26, 1934, no. 43 (381), p. 4. 363.  Ibid., September 14, 1934, no. 37 (375), p. 2. 364.  Ibid., December 28, 1934, no. 52 (390), p. 4. Y. Skolnik’s comments to newspapermen and Jewish members of the municipality. 365.  Ibid., September 21, 1934, no. 38 (376), p. 4. 366.  Ibid., April 23, 1937, no. 17 (509), p. 4. 367.  Ibid., September 11, 1936, no. 37 (477), p. 4. 368.  Unzer Pinsker Lebn, July 17, 1936, no. 29, p. 2. 369.  PS, August 21, 1936, no. 34 (474), p. 3. 370.  Ibid., October 7, 1936, no. 41 (481), p. 4. 371.  Ibid., March 12, 1937, no. 11 (503), p. 4; ibid., April 1, 1937, no. 14 (506), p. 4. 372.  Ibid., April 23, 1937, no. 17 (509), p. 4; ibid., August 20, 1937, no. 32 (524), p. 4. 373.  PS, February 26, 1937, no. 9 (501), p. 2. For the original quotation, see above at note 113. 374.  Pinsker Vort, March 4, 1938, no. 9 (367). 375.  Ibid., April 15, 1938, no. 15 (372), p. 6. 376.  Pinsker Lebn, September 23, 1938, no. 38 (203). 377.  Yediot Ha-Va’ad Ha-Merkazi shel Histadrut “Tarbut” Be-Polania, nos. 2–3 (Warsaw, 1928), p. 21; ibid., nos. 4–5, p. 53. 378.  As to Brin’s dilemma, see Chapter Nine, text after note 240. Raskin’s report from June 1, 1921, p. 64, JDC Archives in New York, and his report from May 22, 1921. See Boris Bogen’s report to the JDC, dated March 11, 1920, with regard to the position of the leftist parties. 379.  Memoirs of Hasia Dudiuk, MS. PS, August 7, 1936, no. 32 (472), p. 4; ibid., August 21, 1936, no. 34 (474), p. 4. Mrs. Rivkah Mogilanska and Mrs. Kahn were the teachers in the kindergartens founded in the 1930s. They had worked together previously. In the morning the ­kindergarten was run in Hebrew and in the afternoon in Polish. See PS, September 21, 1934, no. 38 (376), p. 4. It may be assumed that there were two separate groups of children. Adjacent to the Chichik gymnasium was a kindergarten under the direction of [Mrs.] PliskinKolodna, probably run in Polish. See PS, January 1, 1936, no. 1 (443), p. 4; ibid., July 10, 1936, no. 28 (468), p. 4. 380.  PS, October 5, 1928, (91), p. 3; ibid., March 1, 1929, no. 12 (115), p. 4. In the late 1930s there were five government elementary schools in the city. See PS, April 23, 1937, no. 17 (509), p. 2. 381.  Ibid., December 8, 1933, no. 49 (335). 382.  Ibid., February 3, 1928, no. 5 (56), p. 4. Hershel Tanhowski served as principal of the government elementary school in 1932–33. He was, incidentally, appointed chairman of the Red Cross in the Pinsk district. 383.  Shifman report to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated January 25, 1921; Zucker report to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated June 22, 1921; above Raskin June report, all three in the JDC Archives. 384.  PS, April 18, 1930, no. 16 (171), p. 2. 385.  Shifman report to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated January 25, 1921; Zucker report

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Notes to Pages 587–597 to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated June 22, 1921; above Raskin June report, all three in the JDC Archives. 386.  PS, May 14, 1937; Pinsker Lebn, July 28, 1939, no. 29 (246), p. 1. 387.  See the letter of appreciation from Yitzhak Eliyahu Gottleib to the Yavneh school and its teachers: Steinman, Dubovsky, and Ogolnik, PS, February 18, 1927, no. 7, p. 1; ibid., September 10, 1937, no. 37 (529), p. 1. 388.  Ibid., April 30, 1937, no. 18 (510), p. 3. 389.  Ibid., August 14, 1936, no. 33 (473), p. 4. 390.  See note 383; and see Brin’s account of his activities in Pinsk (JDC Archives); Sefer Gevat, p. 70; A. Yisraeli (Weiner) MS; TY, p. 283; Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 108. 391.  Memoirs of Pesah Pkach, MS, pp. 20–25; the letter is in the CAHJP. See also Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, November 23, 1928, no. 38, p. 14. 392.  See note 383. The correspondence related to Elka Miletsky’s request is also in the JDC Archives. 393.  Sefer Gevat, pp. 314–316. 394.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 107. It is possible that Dr. M. Berezovsky came to visit this school on behalf of the Tarbut center. See Neiyer Haynt, September 7, 1921, no. 206, p. 6. See also note 383. 395.  See note 383; TY pp. 279–281; PS, May 22, 1936, no. 21 (461), p. 2. The first graduating class of the Bund school was composed of girls only. See photographs in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 189–190, esp. see picture on p. 220; and pictures of this school in the YIVO Archives in New York. 396.  Shifman report to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated January 25, 1921; Zucker report to the JDC center in Warsaw, dated June 22, 1921; above Raskin June report, all three in the JDC Archives. 397.  See previous note. 398.  Reported by Pinskers in Israel. 399.  See Referat, no. 5 by investigator Y. Friedman, YIVO Archives, Section AJRF 20. 400.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, June 10, 1927, no. 22, p. 6; PS, August 22, 1930, no. 34 (189), p. 4. 401.  PS, February 26, 1934, no. 8 (346), p. 3; Pinsk, vol. 2, p. 129. 402.  PS, July 22, 1927, no. 28, p. 6; Nehari’s autobiography MS in the YIVO Archives in New York. 403.  PS, July 16, 1937, no. 29 (521), p. 3; ibid., April 12, 1938. 404.  Ibid., June 8, 1928, no. 23 (74), p. 4; ibid., June 7, 1929, no. 23 (126), p. 1; ibid., June 20, 1930, no. 25 (180), p. 4. 405.  Related by Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch. These three teachers founded the gymnasium for girls in 1916. An announcement from April 29, 1916, states that “classes for young children will be opened alongside the classes offered by teachers F. Epstein, A. Chichik, and F. Zeitlin, as well as preparatory classes for girls to match four grades of the curriculum of the government girls’ gymnasium. An announcement from 1917 states that a sixth grade was opening. The language of instruction apparently has been Russian and now was replaced by Polish. PZ, April 29, 1916; ibid., August 8, 1917. 406.  PS, June 3, 1927, no. 21; ibid., June 8, 1928, no. 23 (74) p. 4; ibid., August 24 [192?], no. 34 (85), p. 4; ibid., August 31, 1928, no. 35 (86), p. 4; ibid., May 31, 1929, no. 22 (125), p. 4; ibid., June 20, 1930, no. 25 (180), p. 4; ibid., June 28, 1935, no. 26 (216), p. 4; ibid., July 10, 1936, no. 28 (468), p. 4.

Notes to Pages 597–608 407.  A. Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, p. 56. 408.  Niveinu, April 16, 1937, 1 (15). 409.  Yediot, November 5, 1927, pp. 5–6. See note 377 and compare with Encyclopedia ­Hinukhit, vol. 4, “Toledot Ha-Hinukh,” column 761. 410.  Report on the gymnasium by Hanokh Levin, MS, 1937. Most of the information on the gymnasium that follows is taken from his account, and hereafter only other sources will be cited. 411.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 208. 412.  Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, p. 49. 413.  Yediot, Spring 1929, pp. 47–48. 414.  Yediot, November 5, 1927, p. 6. 415.  According to Yediot, above, there were 327 girls and boys that year. 416.  Yediot, Spring 1929, p. 63. 417.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 118. 418.  PS, October 9, 1931, no. 18 (223), p. 4. 419.  Ibid., May 21, 1937, no. 21 (513), p. 4. 420.  Memoirs of Pesah Pkach, MS, pp. 20–25; the letter is in the CAHJP. See also ­Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, November 23, 1928, no. 38, p. 14. 421.  PS, June 15, 1934, no. 24 (364), p. 4; ibid., June 7, 1935, no. 23 (431), p. 4; ibid., August 28, 1936, no. 35 (475), p. 1; letter from Arthur Asher to Mr. Y. Bune, October 1968. See Folks Hilf, no. 4 (76), 1937, Leshchinsky Archives, file 249. 422.  PS, August 7, 1936, no. 32 (472), p. 4. 423.  Information on the yeshivah is based primarily upon a typewritten article by Meir Einav, brother of the head of the yeshivah Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub, and upon letters by Rabbi Shmuel Weintraub and Rabbi Dov Barkovsky to the Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot center, (YIVO Archives in New York), and Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 259–261. See below, p. 240. 424.  PS, November 1, 1935, no. 44 (434), p. 4. 425.  Ibid., August 22, 1930, no. 34 (189), p. 4. The implication is that the yeshivah was founded in 1927. 426.  See note 383; see also Dr. Morris S. Vitales’s report to Leonard G. Robinson in Vienna on February 5, 1923, pp. 11–12 (the report was written in Pinsk on May 26–28, 1922), YIVO Archives, Section AJRF 21. See the report by Professor Sandtruk and Dr. Orenstein of their visit to Pinsk on May 17, 1922, p. 53. 427.  See previous note; it may be that this school was the same trade school originally founded by the Jewish Women’s Charitable Association, which had ceased to exist during the First World War. 428.  PS, July 12, 1929, no. 28 (131), p. 3; ibid., June 27, 1930, no. 26 (191), p. 4; ibid., July 11, 1930, no. 28 (183), p. 4; ibid., December 12, 1930, no. 48 (203), p. 2; ibid., November 13, 1931, no. 23 (228), p. 3; ibid., April 1, 1937, no. 14 (506), p. 1; ibid., March 10, 1939, no. 10 (607), p. 4; Pinsker Vort, March 10, 1939, p. 4. Photographs in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 221–222 show the girls of the Bund vocational school. The author’s caption on p. 222 is incorrect. Zadok Riklin was among the thirty-five murdered on April 5, 1919. 429.  PS, November 8, 1929, no. 54 (148), p. 4; ibid., February 21, 1930, no. 8 (163), p. 4. 430.  PS, November 8, 1929, no. 45 (148), p. 4; Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, El Ha-Gevul Ha-Nikhsaf (Tel Aviv, 1953), p 127. 431.  Memorandum of the Pinsker Tekhnishe Shule to the JDC in Warsaw, dated December 20, 1920, JDC Archives in New York; see also note 383.

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Notes to Pages 609–615 432.  PS, January 30, 1931, no. 5 (210), p. 2; Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 131–133. 433.  PS, July 15, 1927, no. 27, p. 6; ibid., July 12, 19??, no. 28 (131), p. 4; ibid., July 11, 1930, no. 28 (183), p. 4. 434.  YIVO Bulletin No. 1, Economishe Statistishe Opteilong in Warsaw, May 1930, typewritten, in the Leshchinsky Archives. 435.  PS, June 15, 1934, no. 22 (360), p. 4. 436.  Ibid., September 23, 1932, no. 39 (272), p. 4. 437.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 180. 438.  See note 432; and memoirs of Pesah Pkach, pp. 31–34. 439.  See Hershel Pinsky’s letter from May 5, 1922, Sefer Gevat, p. 316, pp. 76–77. 440.  Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme, December 17, 1926, no. 48, p. 4. 441.  PS, February 24, 1928, no. 8 (53), p. 1. 442.  Ibid., January 30, 1931, no. 5 (210) p. 4. 443.  Announcement in PS, February 12, 1932, no. 7 (241), p. 4. 444.  Ibid., October 19, 1927, no. 32, p. 4; ibid., March 5, 1937, no. 10 (502), p. 3. 445.  Ibid., June 8, 1934, no. 23 (361), p. 4. 446.  Ibid., November 29, 1935, no. 48 (438), p. 4. 447.  Microfilm of letters of Tiferet Bahurim in manuscript collection of the NLI, PS, November 1, 1929, no. 44 (147), p. 1; ibid., December 27, 1929, no. 52 (155), p. 4; Pinsker Vort, April 20, 1932, no. 17, p. 8. 448.  Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, pp. 31–32; PS, January 3, 1936, no. 1 (443), p. 4. 449.  PS, March 6, 1936, no. 10 (450), p. 1. 450.  Ibid., October 30, 1931, no. 21 (226), p. 2; ibid., January 19, 1934, no. 3 (341). 451.  Ibid., October 19, 1928, no. 41 (92), p. 4; ibid., September 27, 1929, no. 39 (142), p. 4; ibid., November 15, 1929, no. 46 (149), p. 4; ibid., March 27, 1936, no. 13 (453), p. 3. 452.  Ibid., January 15, 1937, no. 3 (495), p. 4; ibid., February 19, 1937, no. 8 (500), pp. 2–3; ibid, April 9, 1937, no. 15 (507), p. 4; ibid., April 13, 1932, no. 16 (249), p. 4. 453.  Druyanov, Zionut Be-Polania, Rishmei Masa, p. 12; Haya Weizmann-Lichtenstein, El Ha-Gevul Ha-Nikhsaf, p. 126. She visited the city in 1935. 454.  PS, March 5, 1937, no. 10 (502), p. 3. 455.  PS, January 15, 1937, no. 3 (495), p. 4; ibid. February 19, 1937, no. 8 (500), p. 2; ibid., May 17, 1929, no. 20 (223), p. 2. 456.  Pinsk, vol. 2, pp. 241–242; PS, November 8–10, 16–17, 22, 28, 30, and December 6–7, 20–21, 1929. 457.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 242. 458.  Ibid., p. 244. Photographs of the drama circle and the orchestra of the kultur lige are in the YIVO Archives. PS, April 16, 1937, no. 16 (508), p. 4. 459.  PS, September 26, 1927, no. 38, p. 2; ibid., September 24, 1937, no. 39 (531), p. 2. 460.  Ibid., January 5, 1934, no. 1 (339), p. 4. 461.  See photograph in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 588; PS, June 10, 1927, no. 22, p. 4. 462.  PS, August 3, 1928, no. 31 (82), p. 4. 463.  Ibid., December 20, 1929, no. 51 (154), p. 2; ibid., January 20, 1933, no. 3 (289), p. 4. 464.  Ibid., January 26, 1934, no. 4 (342), p. 2; ibid., January 25, 1935, no. 4 (394), p. 4. 465.  Ibid., November 10, 1933, no. 45 (331), p. 4. A 1933 photograph of the (coeducational) Morgenstern group is in the YIVO Archives. Members of the administration also appear in the picture: T. L. Freint, L. Kaplan, S. Mandelbaum, and counselor Y. Orbeitel.

Notes to Pages 616–628 466.  From the introduction to the book. 467.  Raskin report from June 1, 1921, JDC Archives, New York. 468.  Die People’s Relief fun America, p. 725. 469.  Raskin report from June 1, 1921, JDC Archives, New York. 470.  Ibid. 471.  Feinstein, Megilat Puranuyot, pp. 194–195; Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 181–182. 472.  Raskin and Brin reports in the JDC Archives. 473.  Pamphlet: 5 Yohriker Tetikeits-Barikht fun der Gezelshaft far Yesomim-Farzorgung Oif Polesie (Pinsk, 1929), p. 5; photograph album: Tzum Ondeinkung Unzer Freint Regina Rabinowitsch, Pinsk, July, 1926; an article apparently written for Toyzent Yohr Pinsk, photocopy in the manuscript department of the NLI. 474.  Y. Friedman’s report in the YIVO Archives in New York, Section AJRF 20. 475.  PS, February 25, 1927, no. 8, p. 2; ibid., March 11, 1927, no. 10; ibid., April 11, 1930, no. 15 (150), p. 2; ibid., June 25, 1937, no. 26 (518), p. 4. 476.  See the article in note 473; see PS, December 21, 1934, no. 51 (389), p. 3 for information on the assistance offered by orphans who had been transferred to London in an earlier period and had since grown up and become independent; Pinskers in Canada sent twenty dollars in late 1933; ibid., December 22, 1933, no. 51 (337), p. 3. 477.  Letter in the Pinsk Archives in the CAJHP. 478.  Correspondence in the JDC Archives in New York. 479.  See article in note 473. 480.  PS, February 7, 1930, no. 6 (161), p. 2; article called “Tzentrale Burse far Meidlekh in Pinsk,” apparently written for Toyzent Yohr Pinsk, January 1937, photocopy in the manuscript department of the NLI. 481.  TY, p. 284. 482.  See articles referred to in notes 473 and 480. 483.  Die People’s Relief fun America, p. 725. 484.  Raskin report, June 1, 1921. 485.  Ibid. 486.  PS, May 6, 1927, no. 18; ibid., April 27, 1928, no. 17 (68); ibid., May 24, 1929, no. 21 (124), p. 4; ibid., June 13, 1929, no. 24 (127), p. 1. 487.  PS, February 24, 1928, no. 8 (59), p. 4. 488.  Ibid., January 16, 1931, no. 3 (208), p. 4; ibid., June 20, 1930, no. 25 (180), p. 2. 489.  Unzer Pinsker Lebn, July 17, 1936, no. 29, p. 2. 490.  PS, April 23, 1937, no. 17 (509), p. 2. 491.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 174; PS, February 1, 1930, no. 5, p. 4; ibid., April 12, 1935, no. 15 (405), p. 4. 492.  PS, October 28, 1927, no. 42, p. 2; ibid., June 24, 1927, no. 24, p. 6. 493.  See note 474. 494.  PS, February 24, 1928, no. 8 (59), p. 4; ibid., October 31, 1929, no. 35 (138), p. 4. 495.  Ibid., March 13, 1936, no. 11 (451), p. 2. The kehillah allotted a similar sum in 1935. Ibid., February 22, 1935, no. 8 (398), p. 4. In 1934 the kehillah allocated 3,500 zlotys to children’s camps and, previously, 2,500 zlotys, probably through TOZ. PS, September 14, 1934, no. 37, p. 2. 496.  Based upon a report by Menuhah Alperin, “Bilder Un Tipen fun TOZ,” PS, May 1, 1936, no. 18, p. 3–4. 497.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 189, 204; Pinsker Vort, March 9, 1934, no. 10, p. 2.

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Notes to Pages 628–638 498.  See report by Menuhah Alperin, “Bilder Un Tipen fun TOZ,” PS, May 1, 1936, no. 18, p. 3–4; Pinsker Vort, March 9, 1934, no. 10, p. 2. 499.  PS, July 1, 1927, no. 25, p. 6. 500.  Ibid., March 14, 1930, no. 11 (166), p. 4; ibid., April 4, 1930, no. 14 (169), p. 4. 501.  Letter in the Pinsk Archives in the CAJHP. 502.  Data in the JDC Archives, New York. 503.  Pinsker Vort, March 11, 1938, no. 10 (368), p. 6. 504.  PS, January 7, 1927, no. 1. 505.  Ibid., September 1, 1933, no. 35 (321), p. 4. 506.  Ibid., June 3, 1927, no. 21; ibid., March 2, 1928, no. 9 (60); ibid., March 15, 1929, no. 11, p. 3. 507.  Ibid., March 2, 1928, no. 9 (60), p. 3. 508.  Ibid., March 8, 1935, no. 10 (400), p. 2. 509.  Ibid., November 29, 1935, no. 48 (438), p. 4; ibid., December 27, 1935, no. 52 (442), p. 4; ibid., January 17, 1936, no. 3 (443), p. 4. 510.  See Die People’s Relief, p. 724. 511.  Raskin report from June 1, 1921, JDC Archives, New York. 512.  PS, June 10, 1927, no. 22, p. 3; ibid., June 24, 1927, no. 24, p. 2. 513.  Haynt, December 24, 1925, no. 297, p. 1. 514.  PS, July 1, 1927, no. 25, p. 5. 515.  Ibid., July 8, 1927, no. 26, p. 3. 516.  Ibid., February 24, 1928, no. 8 (59), p. 4. 517.  Ibid., July 11, 1930, no. 28 (183), p. 4. 518.  Report in the Magnes Archives of the CAHJP, Section PL 106. 519.  PS, September 22, 1930, no. 38 (193), p. 4. 520.  Ibid., December 19, 1930, no. 49 (204), pp. 3–4; ibid., January 2, 1931, no. 1 (206), p. 4. 521.  Pinsker Vokh, August 12, 1932, p. 5. 522.  PS, June 1, 1934, no. 22 (360), p. 4. 523.  Ibid., April 1, 1937, no. 14 (506), p. 2. 524.  Reports in the JDC Archives in New York. 525.  Based upon an article in manuscript written for TY in January 1937 and not published. Photocopy of the article, without author’s name, is in the manuscript department of the NLI. See also PS, December 25, 1936, no. 52 (492). 526.  See Friedman’s report from December 19, 1926 in the YIVO Archives, Section AJRF 20. 527.  PS, January 7, 1927, no.1; ibid., February 11, 1927, no. 6; ibid., February 24, 1928, no. 8 (59), p. 4; ibid., March 14, 1930, no. 11 (167), p. 4. Pinsker Vokh, July 22, 1932, no. 1. 529.  PS, January 24, 1936, no. 4 (444), p. 4; ibid., June 25, 1937, no. 26 (518), p. 4. 530.  Pinsker Vokh, July 22, 1932, no. 1.

Chapter 11 1.  Y. Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 220. 2.  Ibid., p. 219. 3.  Zvi Yakshin, Zikhronot (memoirs), MS from the Bolshevik period in Pinsk, edited by A. Yisraeli (Weiner), Gevat [n.d.]. 4.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 220.

Notes to Pages 638-647 5.  See Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 211–216. 6.  Ibid., p. 220. 7.  Ibid. 8.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 155. 9.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 220. 10.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 316. 11.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 220–221. 12.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 325. 13.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 221. 14.  Meir Bromberg, Dapei Zikhronot (memoirs), in the Gevat Archives; see also note 3. 15.  Ibid. 16.  Yakshin, Zikhronot; Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 225. 17.  Dr. Y. Margolin, “Bi-Yemei Ha-Kibush Ha-Sovieti,” Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 311ff. 18.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, pp. 227–230; Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 312, 318 regarding elections for the committee of the trade and clerks’ unions. 19.  Yakshin, Zikhronot. 20.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 229. 21.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 156, 187, 200. 22.  Ibid., p. 128. There seem to be internal contradictions with regard to the time framework, but basically the facts are correct; ibid., pp. 155, 312. 23.  Ibid., pp. 202, 208, 209. Among the first to be expelled was Avraham (Adolf) Pelzen, a member of the municipal administration. Ibid., p. 546. 24.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 229. 25.  Shearim, March 15, 1945. 26.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 156, 187, 200, 208. 27.  Eliasberg, Be-Olam Ha-Hafikhot, p. 226. 28.  Ibid., pp. 231–233. 29.  Ibid., p. 230. 30.  Margolin, p. 313. 31.  See note 3. 32.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 527, 528, 318. 33.  Ibid., p. 312. 34.  Ibid. 35.  Ibid., pp. 536, 558, 559; see also note 14. 36.  Ibid., p. 313. 37.  Ibid., p. 312. 38.  Bromberg, Zikhronot; see also Rabbi Shimon Hoberband, “Kiddush Ha-Shem, ­Ketavim Mi-Yemai Ha-Shoah,” Ringelblum Archives in the Warsaw Ghetto, ed. Nahman Blumental and Yosef Kremish (Tel Aviv, 1969), p. 181. 39.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 312. 40.  Dr. Ze’ev Rabinowitsch, Ha-Hasidut Ha-Lita’it Mi-Reshitah Ve-Ad Yameinu (Jerusalem, 1961), pp. 158–159. 41.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 312, 587. 42.  Ibid., p. 558, for information on Dr. Elhanan Einbinder. Dr. Yegerman and Dr. Nurkin were conscripted into the Soviet army; they took part in a military march and then all trace of them was lost. A. Avivi, Zikhronot (memoirs), MS. 43.  See note 14.

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Notes to Pages 648–654 44.  Ibid. 45.  Ibid.; see also Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 319, 567. 46.  See note 14; A. Avivi, Zikhronot (memoirs), MS; S. Hoberband, pp. 182–183; L. Shotzbetz, “Zikhronot,” Shearim, January 6, 1969. 47.  Ibid. 48.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 128. 49.  Bromberg, Zikhronot. 50.  Margolin, p. 313. 51.  Bromberg, Zikhronot. 52.  Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 320. 53.  Ibid., p. 375. 54.  Bromberg, Zikhronot.

Afterword 1.  Most sources cite between twenty thousand and thirty thousand Jews in Pinsk under the occupation. The higher figure probably includes the refugees who had come to Pinsk. 2.  Evgenii Rozenblatt, “‘Chuzhdyi element’: Evreiskie bezhentsy v zapadnoi Belorussii (1939–1941 gg.),” in O. V. Budnitsky, ed., Istoriia i kultura Rosiiskogo i vostochnoevreopeiskogo evreistva (Moscow, 2004), pp. 346, 356. 3.  Rita Margolina, “Hakamat yudenrat be-Pinsk: efshariyot khipus” (Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2001–2, unpublished). Ms. Margolina is an invaluable source for the history of Pinsk and lived there until the mid-1990s. She has been most generous to me and every other researcher of Pinsk. 4.  Julius Margolin, “When the Red Army Liberated Pinsk,” Commentary 14, no. 6 (December 1952): p. 518. 5.  E. S. Rozenblat, “‘We, Religious Jews, Await Arrest Every Day,’” in O. V. Budnitsky, ed., Arkhiv evreiskoii istorii, vol. 1 (Moscow: Rosspen, 2004), p. 386. Mordechai Altshuler cites sources that report that there were forty-three synagogues in Pinsk on October 10, 1940, but only sixty-four registered synagogues remained in the oblast in May 1941. See his Yahadut bamahbesh ha-Sovieti (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2007), p. 20. 6.  Leonid Smilovitskii reports that Rabbi Rosenzweig was discovered in a bunker in the ghetto in November 1942, stabbed a policeman, and was shot. “Jewish Religious Leadership in Belorussia, 1939–1953,” Shvut 8, 24 (1999): pp. 87–122. 7.  Author of the Torah Temimah and other notable works, Epstein died a natural death in Pinsk in 1940. 8.  The report noted the existence in Vilna of a “Jewish nationalist organization khevra kadisha (sic) that used a secret code to communicate with Yokohama (Japan), where a committee coordinated all Jewish emigration activities and was headed by Shchupak (Bund) and [Zerah] Warhaftig [later a minister in the Israeli government],” p. 385. 9.  Margolin, p. 525. 10.  Ibid., p. 526. 11.  Nahum Boneh (Mular), “The Holocaust,” in Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, pp. 98–146. See also E. S. Rozenblat and I. E. Elenskaya, Pinskie evrei, 1939–1944 (Brest: Brestskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ universitet, 1997). 12.  Tikva Fatal-Knaani, “The Jews of Pinsk, 1939–1943, Through the Prism of New Documentation,” Yad Vashem Studies, 29 (2001): p. 174.

Notes to Pages 655–658 13.  Testimony of David Gleibman-Globe, New York, 1962, quoted in Boneh, “The Holocaust,” p. 118. 14.  On Ebner, see Katherina von Kellenbach (his grand-niece), “Vanishing Acts: Perpetrators in Postwar Germany,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 17, no. 2 (Fall 2003): pp. 305–329. 15.  A 1942 German report said that 4,150 Jews were working every day, and eight thousand others worked roughly every third day; Fatal-Knaani, “Jews of Pinsk,” p. 166. 16.  Rita Margolina, “Evreii Pinska v poslevoennoe vremia,” unpublished manuscript kindly given to me by Ms. Margolina. 17.  Ibid. 18.  ibid. 19.  The restaurant is on the site of my great-grandfather’s house (Mates Gitelman) on what had been Prodol’naya shkola Street and is not Korzh Street. 20.  See the article by Eduard Zlobin, a local historian who specializes in Pinsk Jewry, in Karlin, July 6, 2007. 21.  Altshuler, p. 111. 22.  According to the local Jewish newspaper, Liberman received 120 of 121 votes cast for the chairmanship of the Chaim Weizmann Jewish Cultural Society. See Karlin, July 13, 2000, p.3. 23.  Karlin, nos.4–7 (52–55), December 5, 2006, p.7. 24.  Report of the Council for Religious Cults, cited in Altshuler, p. 326. 25.  Karlin, nos. 13–15 (61–63), May 9, 2007.

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General notes: 1. Periodicals have been listed with dates of appearance, even though only selected issues were referred to for the purposes of this work. 2. Essays in Toyzent Yohr Pinsk(TY) and Pinsk: Sefer Edut Ve-Zikaron Le-Kehillah Yehudit, Vol. 2 (Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2), Tel Aviv and Haifa, 1966, have not been listed. 3. In the bibliography and endnotes, PHebII refers to the second part of the first volume of the original Hebrew edition of Pinsk: Sefer Edut Ve-Zikaron Le-Kehillah Yehudit, Vol. 1, edited by W. Z. Rabinowitsch, namely, the part containing Azriel Shohet’s monograph of which the present book is a translation. Pinsk (Hebrew), vol. 2, refers to the second, nonhistorical volume of the Hebrew edition of Pinsk, edited by Nachman Tamir (Mirski). 4. Documents and manuscripts found in the Central Zionist Archives, the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Archives, the YIVO Archives, the Leshchinsky Archives in the National Library of Israel (NLI), and others, have not been listed. Archival reference information appears in the appropriate endnotes. The Pinsk material in the Moshe Kol Archive is currently housed at the Massuah Institute for Holocaust Studies, Kibbutz Tel-Yitzhak, Israel. 5. Three dots in the bibliography signify uncertainty as to the final appearance of a particular periodical. 6. This bibliography does not include works cited in Zvi Gitelman’s Afterword. For those references, please consult the endnotes. 7. Zikhronot means memoirs.

Books, Journals, Pamphlets, and Essays—Hebrew and Yiddish Abramovich, Hirsh. Farshvundene Geshtaltn. Buenos Aires, 1958. Adler, Yishai. Sefer Yovel. Tel Aviv, 1957. Agorsky, S. Die Sotsialistishe Literatur Oif Yiddish. Vol. 2. Minsk, 1935. Alexandrov, Hillel. “Die Yiddishe Bafelkerung in die Shtet un Shtetlekh fun Veisrusland,” Tseitshrift. Minsk, 1928. Apel, Y. Be-Tokh Reshit Ha-Tehiyah. Tel Aviv, 1936. Be-Halom U-Be-Ma’aseh, Sefer Zikharon Le-Yitzhak Asher Neidich. Tel Aviv, 1956. Bet Aharon. Brody, 1875.

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Bibliography Weizmann, Chaim. Iggerot. Vol. 1–3. Jerusalem, 1970–72.[See also: Chaim Weizmann. The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann. London, New Brunswick, Jerusalem, 1968–84, 25 vols.] ———. Masah Va-Ma’as. Jerusalem, 1949. [See also Chaim Weizmann. Trial and Error. New York: 1949] Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Hayah. Be-Tzel Koratenu. Tel Aviv, 1948. ———. El Ha-Gevul Ha-Nikhsaf. Tel Aviv, 1953. Werfel (Rafael), Yitzhak. “Ha-Ve’idah Be-Bialystok.” Sinai 3 (1940). West, Binyamin, ed. Naftulei Ha-Dor. Tel Aviv, 1947. Ya’ari, Avraham. Sheluhei Eretz Yisrael. Jerusalem, 1951. Yeshurun, Y., ed. Arbeter Ring, Boyer Un Tuer. New York, 1962. Yisraeli (Weiner), Aharon (Arka). “October Ba-Ayarot U-Ba-Ye’arot.” Mi-Bifnim, Bitaon, HaKibbutz Ha-Meuhad 20 (1953): 287–292. Zaslansky, A. Y., ed. Sefer Zikharon Le-Zekher ... Rabbi Yitzhak Winograd Ve-Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Winograd. Jerusalem, 1944. Zenziper (Rafaeli), A. Pa’amei Geulah. Tel Aviv, 1952. Zuckerman, Borukh. Oifen Veg. New York, 1956. Zur-Feinstein, Efraim. Iggerot U-Reshimot (Memorial Anthology). Be’er Tuvia, 1964.

Newspapers and Magazines—Hebrew and Yiddish Al Hamishmar. Israeli daily published by Hashomer Hatzair organization. Tel Aviv: 1943– 1995. Befreiung Arbeter Shtyme. Weekly. Publication of Poalei Zion. M. Kantrovitz (ed.). Warsaw: 1919–30. Der Fraynd. Daily. Shaul Ginzburg, Shmuel Rozenfeld (eds.). St. Petersburg and Warsaw: 1903–08; 1910–13. Der Kantshik. Humorous newspaper. Pinsk: 1912. Der Moment. Daily. Zvi Prylucki (ed.). Warsaw: 1910–39. Der Neiyer Veg. Vilna: 1906. Der Shneider. Vilna: December, 1913. Der Veg. Daily. Zvi Prilucki (ed.). Warsaw: 1905–06. Der Veker. Weekly. Vilna: 1905–06. Der Yiddisher Arbayter. Bund publication. Printed outside Russia. 1896–1904. Der Yud. Weekly. Y. H. Ravnitzky and Yosef Luria (eds.). 1899–1902. Die Arbayter Shtyme. Occasional Bund publication appearing in St. Petersburg from 1901. From 1917, bi-weekly. Die Tsayt. Weekly. St. Petersburg: 1912. Dos Freiye Vort. Russian Poalei Zion weekly. Lvov: 1910? Dos Lebn. Daily, replacing Der Fraynd. Shmuel Rozenfeld (ed.). Warsaw: December 13, 1905– July 30, 1906 and October 13, 1913–August 14, 1914. Dos Neiye Pinsker Vort. Weekly. 1936. Dos Vort. Daily. Zalman Rubashov (Shazar) (ed.) Warsaw: 1933–34. Dos Vort. Weekly. Vilna: 1907. Folk un Land. Semi-weekly, then weekly publication of Zionist Labor Party Federation. Warsaw: 1921–27, 1932–35. Freitik. Publication of Pinsk Poalei Zion Left. Pinsk: 1922. Ha-Dor. Weekly. David Frishman (ed.). Warsaw: 1901–04.

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Bibliography Ha-Levanon. Monthly and then weekly. Yehiel Brill and M. Liman (eds.). Paris and Mainz: 1863–81, 1886. Ha-Magid. Weekly. E. Zilberman, D. Gordon, and S. Fuchs (eds.). Lyck and Berlin: 1856–92. Ha-Melitz. Weekly, then daily. Alexander Zederbaum, Y. L. (Leon) Rabinowitz [from 1893] (eds.). Odessa and St. Petersburg: 1860–1886, 1886–1904. Ha-Olam. Weekly publication of the Zionist Federation. Edited by Nahum Sokolow (Cologne: 1907–09); Alter Druyanov (Vilna and Odessa: 1909–14); Moshe Kleinman (London: 1915– 24; Jerusalem: from 1925). Ha-Poel Ha-Tzair. Weekly organ of the Israel Labor Party (Mapai). Tel Aviv: 1938–70. Ha-Zefirah. Weekly, from 1886 daily. Haim Zelig Slonimsky, Nahum Sokolow, and Yosef Heftman (eds.). Warsaw: 1862, 1874–1931. Haynt. Daily. Shmuel Yatzkan, Avraham Goldberg (from 1921), Haim Finkelstein (from 1932) (eds.). Warsaw: 1908–39. Ha-Zeman. Ben Zion Katz (ed.). Vilna: 1903–15, intermittently. He-Atid. Biweekly publication of He-Halutz. Warsaw: 1925. Hed Ha-Defus. Periodical of the Tel Aviv print workers union, 1937–61. Hed Ha-Zeman. Replacing the censored Ha-Zeman. Ben Zion Katz (ed.). Vilna: 1907–10. Letste Pasirungen. Illegal publication of the Bund. Printed in Geneva, distributed in Russia: July 1905–13. Luah Ahiasaf, Me’asef Sifruti. 1893–96. Moznaim. Literary quarterly of the Israel Hebrew Writers Association. Tel Aviv: 1929–69. Neiye Folkstzeitung. Daily. Warsaw: 1926–39. Neiyer Haynt, Warsaw from 1925: an illustrated supplement to Haynt. Niveinu. Weekly, published by youth office of Tarbut. Pinsk: 1935–38. Pardes. Anthology. Y. H. Ravnitzky (ed.). Odessa: 1892–96. Pinsker Lebn. Weekly. Haim Ber Rudansky (ed.). Pinsk: 1936–..., continued Undzer Pinsker Lebn (see below). Pinsker Shtodt-Luakh, Me’asef Shenati. Vilna: 1903–04. Pinsker Shtyme. Weekly. M. Bulin (ed.). Pinsk: 1927–39. Pinsker Zeitung. 1916–17. Pinsker Zeitung. Daily. Pinsk: 1930–... Pinsker Vokh. Weekly. Pinsk: 1932. Pinsker Vort. Weekly. Nisan Rubakha (ed.). Pinsk: 1931–39. She’arim. Newspaper of Po’alei Agudat Yisrael in Eretz Israel. Tel Aviv: 1935–51. She’arim. Publication of the Workers of the Municipality of Tel Aviv: 1944– Shulvezn. Tsentrale Yiddishe Shul-Organizatsiye. Warsaw: 1938. Talpiyot. Quarterly for Halakha, Aggada, Musar and Judaism. New York 1944–70. Tsu Hilf. New York: 1936–38. Undzer Pinsker Lebn. Weekly. 1931–36. See also Pinsker Lebn. Undzer Shtyme. Publication of the Jewish Socialist Workers Party: Poalei Zion. 1921–24. Unzer Freiheit. Biweekly for youngsters. Warsaw: 1929–34. Yediot, Ha-Va’ad Ha-Merkazi Shel Histadrut “Tarbut” Be-Polania. Warsaw: 1927. Yiddishe Folkstsaytung. Daily publication of the Polish Bund. Appeared under different names to avoid censorship. Beinish Mikhaelevitsh(ed.). Warsaw: 1922–31. Yiddishe Folkstsaytung. Weekly. Mordekhai Spektor (ed.). Cracow: 1903. YIVO Bleter. Quarterly organ of YIVO. Vilna: 1931–39 (fourteen volumes). From volume fifteen, appeared in New York.

Bibliography Yoman Gevat. Kibbutz Gevat newsletter. Gevat: ongoing. Yugnt Veker. An organ dedicated to the interests of working youth. Warsaw: 1923–39.

Manuscripts—Hebrew and Yiddish Please note: Unless otherwise indicated below and in the endnotes, these manuscripts are located in the Pinsk Collection of the CAHJP. Avivi, Aryeh. Zikhronot. Bar-Ratzon (Welman). Devarim Al Pinsk. Barzak, [daughter of]. Zikhronot. S. Beirav, “Mi-Levatei Ha-Tzionut Be-Rusia Ha-Tzarit: A Memoir.” Ben-Yishai, Z. Zikhronot. Brisky, Isser. Reshimot Al Hayei Ha-Kalkalah Ve-Ha-Hinukh. Bromberg, Meir. Dapei Zikhronot. (Gevat Archives) Dudiuk, Hasia. Zikhronot. Dvorkin, Yosef. Zikhronot. Einav, Meir. Remarks on the yeshivah in Pinsk. Gitelman, S.M. Zikhronot. Gleiberman, David. Memoir about Mordecai Judah ben Berekhiah Feldman. Herman, Yosef. Mahberes Zikhronos. 1937 (Moshe Kol Archives). Katzman, A. Zikhronot. Kolodny, Alter. Autobiographia (Moshe Kol archives). Lebendiger, Anshel. Mayne Yugent-Yohren In Pinsk. Levin, Hanokh. Report on the Pinsk Hebrew gymnasium, 1937. Liftchok, Mordekhai. Divrei Zikhronot. Pkach, Pesah. Zikhronot. Ritterman, Avraham Velvel. Zikhronot. Serchok, Alter. Zikhronot. Shlosberg, David. Mayne Erinerungen (written in Breslau). Shroeder, Saville. Biographia. (Russian, Moshe Kol Archives). Stillerman, Rahel. Zikhronot. Yakshin, Zvi. Zikhronot. Edited by A. Yisraeli (Weiner). Gevat [n.d.].

Miscellaneous—English, German, Polish Adler, Cyrus and Aaron Margolith. American Intercession on Behalf of Jews, in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 1880–1938. New York, 1943. Bogen, Boris D. Born a Jew. New York, 1930. Evans-Gordon, W. The Alien Immigrant. London and New York, 1903. Evidence of Pogroms in Poland and Ukraina. Issued by the Information Bureau of the Committee for Defense of Jews in Poland and other East European Countries. New York, 1919? Morgenthau, Henry. All in a Lifetime. New York, 1922. Shomer-Zunser, Miriam. Yesterday. New York, 1939 [1978]. Syrkin, Marie. Golda Meir, Woman with a Cause. London, 1964. Slownik Geograficzny Krolewstwa Polskiego. Vol. 8, s.v.: Pinsk. Warsaw, 1887. Die Welt. Wien: 1898–1905. Zwolfter Geschaftsbericht des Hilfsvereins der Deutschen Juden. Berlin, 1914.

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Miscellaneous—Russian Biloye, zhurnal, posviashchennyi istorii osvoboditelnovo dvizhenia. St. Petersburg, 1908. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar. F. A. Brokgauz and I. A. Efron, publishers. St. Petersburg: 1890– 1907. S.v. Pinsk. Evreiskii kalendar kadima. Edited by B. A. Goldberg. Vilna, 1909. Evreiskaya shkola: ezhemesyachnyi zhurnal posviashchennyi vospitaniu i obrazovaniu evreiev. St. Peters­burg, 1904. Informationnyi listok zagranichnoi organizatsii Bunda. Geneva, 1912. Khronika voskhoda. St. Petersburg, 1899. Khronika evreiskoi zhizni. St. Petersburg, 1905–06. Netylkin, A. Pinsk: Historicheskii Ocherk. Minsk, 1961. Pamyatnaya knizhka i kalendar, minskoi gubernii. Minsk, 1891–94, 1898. Pinskii Listok. Pinsk, 1910–11. Poslednia izvestiya. Izdanie zagranichnovo komiteta vseobshchovo evreiskovo rabochovo soyuza v Litve, Polshe i Rossii. Geneva, 1902–04. Razsvet: Organ ruskikh evreiev, ezhenedelnoye izdanie. Edited by Ya. L. Rozenfeld, A. S. Zeder­baum, et al. St. Petersburg: 1879–82. Razsvet: Obshchestvenno-politicheskaya i literaturnaya ezhenedelnaya gazeta posviashchennaya evreiskii interesam. Edited by Babkov. St.Petersburg: 1907–10. Sbornik materialov ob ekonomicheskom polozhenii evreiev v rossii, evreiskoye kolonizatsionno obshchestvo. St. Petersburg: 1904. Vestnik obshchestwa prosbeshchenya evreiev. St. Petersburg: 1910–11. Yanson, Yu. Pinsk i evo raion. St. Petersburg, 1869.

Index

Please note: A boldface page locator denotes a page that includes an illustration, a map, or a table. Adler, Yishai, 174–75 Admor. See Elimelekh of Karlin adult education, 149, 196–201, 354, 610–11. See also Hebrew language; Zionism and Zionists agent provocateurs, 84–86 agriculture. See citrons (etrogim); farming Agudah party (Agudat Yisrael), 276–77, 423, 499–501, 536, 538 Agudat Ahim (brotherhood society), 230 Agudat Ahim Sapanim society [brotherhood of shippers], 237 Agudat Morim [teachers] society, 237 Agudat Zion, 187–89 Ahad Ha’am, 38 Al Ha-Mishmar faction [progressive-labor], 512–13 aliyah movement, 543. See also emigrants and emigration from Pinsk; Fourth Aliyah; Land of Israel; Second Aliyah; Third Aliyah; Zionism and Zionists Alkalai, Yehuda Hai, 126 Alper, David, 483, 601 Alperin, Menuhah, 200–201, 616–17, 701n48 American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. See JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) anti-Bolshevism. See Bolsheviks and Bolshevism anti-semitism, 259–60, 288–89, 388. See also pogroms; violence against Jews defense against, 516, 638 (see also selfdefense organizations)

economic aspects, 485–90, 477–78 German occupation and, 301 Polish, 368–74, 397–98, 410–13, 496, 562–63 (see also massacre of the 35) Arderly (governor), 245 “Army Service” law of 1874, 11 Arnadsky, 84–87, 90–91 arrests, 76, 241–42, 246, 533, 644–46, 650, 652. See also political prisoners Asher, Arthur, 603 Asher the First (Karliner Tzaddik), 661n1 assistance, 76–77, 315, 359, 428–29, 483, 584. See also JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee); relief organizations; rescue campaigns; unemployment for Land of Israel, 508 (see also Jewish National Fund; Keren Ha-Yesod) for the poor, 628–630 from Pinskers in North America, 158– 59, 343, 431, 434–35, 455–56, 534–35, 622–23, 630 from Pinskers in Russia, 315–16, 317 from Warsaw Zionist Federation, 376–77 autonomism, 39, 263–64, 345–46 Avivi, A., 648–49 Balakhovich, Bolak and Boris, 444, 451–53 Balakhovich pogrom and Balakhovists, 444–58 Balfour Declaration, 358, 507 Bank for Industry and Commerce, 467, 487 banks and banking, 35–36, 467–69, 471–72, 505. See also kantor (private bank) barbers and barbershops, 32–33, 473, 487 Barkovsky, Yitzhak Dov, 604

739

740

Index Barkuz, Shmuel Haim, 177 Baron, Devora, 667n110 Bat, Jozef, 408 batei midrash (study houses), 9–10, 216–17, 664n36 Befreiung (Mizrah Farband periodical), 516–17 Beilin, Eliyahu, 10 Beit Ha’am (Community Center), 319–20, 355, 376–80 Beit Ha-Asaf Le-Zekenim Ve-Halashim. See Pinsk Old Age Home beit hakhnassat orehim [hostel for travelers], 233 Beit Mahse Le-Zekenim. See Karlin Old Age Home Beit Mahse schools, 352, 438–39, 590–92 Beit Yosef yeshivah. See Novaredok yeshivah Beizer, Ya’akov, 110 Belarus, 644. See also Jews of Belarus Ben-David, Y. L.. See Dovidovitz (BenDavid), Y. L. Benei Ha-Tehiyah, 267–68 Benei Moshe, 51. See also Zerubavel Lodge Benei Zion, 60, 62–65, 110 benevolent societies, 227–39, 357, 617–37, 658. See also gemilut hesed [benevolent and free-loan] societies; under individual names Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer, 48, 126 Berdichev (city), 2 Berger, Yehuda Leib, 51, 58, 136, 686n83 hadarim metukanim and, 167 opposition to, 171–72 Bergman, H. P., 175, 177 Berit Ha-Hayal [the soldier’s covenant], 516 Berlin, Yitzhak (Itcha), 36 Betar organization, 515–16 betrothal ceremonies, 690n1 Bialik, H. N., 505 Biernacki, Kostak, 486, 638 Black Bureau, 57–58, 154, 171–72 Black Hundreds, 96, 109, 242, 244 black market operations, 308–9 blood libels, 82–83 Bogen, Boris, xxvii, 393, 422, 433 on economic conditions, 429 on massacre of the 35, 388 on Pinsk educational institutions, 439 Boldok, Waclaw, 485

Bolsheviks and Bolshevism, 391–92, 397, 451–53 first occupation, 364–68 retreat of Russian forces, xxi, 294–95, 297, 368, 443–45, 650–51 second occupation, 441–44 Borochov, Ber, 94–95, 123, 518–19 Borochov School, 524, 594 Boshes, Ze’ev, Nadav xxiii, 63, 161, 403 Brailsford, Henry Noel (H. N.), xxv, 371–72, 390 Brainin, Reuven, 126 Bregman, Elazar, 498, 503 on a boys’ school, 352 government service, 555, 559 Mizrah Farband and, 516 Bregman, Yisrael (Lola), 320–21, 355, 383 Bregman, Yosef, 31–32, 66–68, 95, 122–23, 248–55, 673n126 Brenner library, 534, 611–12 Brin, Yosef / Brin funds, 455–57, 584, 591–93, 624 Brisky, Isser, 158, 163, 319, 526 British Mandate for Palestine, 424–25, 507, 525. See also Balfour Declaration Broad, Shepard, Jews of Pinsk, Volume I, afterwards, Nadav xxiii-iv, iv, xxxii Bromberg, Meir, 646 Bukrawa (mother), 407–8 Bukrawa (physician), 381–82, 407 Bukrawa (priest), 376, 400 Bukshtansky, Binyamin, 554 Bukshtansky, Cecilia (Epstein), 351 Bund organization, xviii, xx, 57–59, 70–94, 524–28, 674n139 anti-Zionism, 527–28 demonstrations and strikes, 104, 115, 272–73, 677n211 educational endeavors, 439, 524–26 founding, 38–39 influence of, 71–80, 117–21, 270–74, 525–27, 675n158 Poalei Zion party (new) and, 99–100 re-emergence of, 92–94 religious observance and, 213 revolutionary activity, 78–83, 97–103 (see also demonstrations and strikes) self-defense activity, 110–12 Sionisty Socialisty (S.S.) party and, 96, 106, 119–20

Index weakening of, 83–91 between the world wars, 464, 497–501 burial societies (hevrah kaddisha), 571–72. See also Hevrah Kaddisha (holy brotherhood) society Burstein, Zalman, 34 business conditions, 362–63. See also economic conditions; industrialization; manufacturers and manufacturing 1881–1941, 15–17, 28–29 between the world wars, 468–71, 477– 81, 483–88, 491–95, 493–94 carpentry trade, 30, 474, 491 carters and porters, 477–78 cathedral and seminary of Pinsk, 284 cattle trade, 29 cemeteries, 42, 564–65, 571–72, 658 census of 1919, 376 census of 1921, 459–61, 465–67 census of 1931, 459–61, 485, 710n4 Central Yiddish School Organization (CYShO). See CYShO (Central Yiddish School Organization) Centus (Polish Society for Orphan Care), 620, 623–24 Chaikovsky’s gymnasium, 189–90 Chaim Weizmann Jewish Cultural Society, 657 charitable organizations and charity. See benevolent societies Chertok, Ya’acov, 49 Chichik gymnasium, 596–98, 722n405 children, 161, 350–55, 617–24, 686n48. See also forced labor; Jewish education; youth groups/movements The Children’s Home, 352–53 cholera epidemic of 1883, 662n6 churches, 283 Citizens’ Committee, 300, 319, 322–27, 329–30, 333–41, 357 citrons (etrogim), 45, 61 civil rights, 259, 399, 551–54, 561 classes (social), 203–5 commercial schools, 187, 206, 603 communists, 529–35, 717n201 community affairs, 496–97. See also benevolent societies; Jewish communal organizations; kehalim (s. kahal) [community ruling councils]; kehillah [Jewish community administration]

Community Center. See Beit Ha’am (Community Center) concert halls and concerts, 213–14, 223–24, 356 confiscations, 7–9, 255. See also expulsions; nationalization of businesses Bolshevik, 366–67, 442–43 German, 301–2, 307–8, 313–15, 333–34 Polish, 371, 402–3, 411–12, 424, 428–29, 470 construction and related trades, 30, 472. See also carpentry trade; plywood factories cooperatives and cooperative shops, 363, 472, 478 cork manufacturing, 22 Cossacks, xx–xxii, 98, 101–3, 120, 243–44 brutality, 106–7, 109, 112–13, 240–41 looting, 294–96 craft guilds and craftspeople, 14–15, 26–27, 191–92, 461–63, 468–69, 478–79, 646. See also vocational education and training Cross (Captain), 417–18 Crown rabbis, 10. See also Rosenberg, Avraham Haim; Samzhovsky, Michael cultural life, 202–26, 350–57. See also concert halls and concerts; intelligentsia; libraries and reading rooms; theatrical performances CYShO (Central Yiddish School Organization), 588, 626 Czybusz (Corporal, later Sergeant), 395–96 dance halls and dancing, 222 Davitch, Shmuel, 435–36 Defense of the Jewish Community Fund, 507 deferment system (legota) and deferments, 11–13 demographics. See population and demographics The Depression, 474–76 Dinzon School, 593–94 discrimination. See anti-semitism displaced persons, 359–60, 655. See also expulsions; refugees Dolinko, Melekh, 107 Doverei Ivrit society [Hebrew speakers], 143 Dovidovitz (Ben-David), Y. L., 126–28, 131–32, 136–39 driving lessons, 607

741

742

Index Drunzik, A. B. (Alexander Berkovitz) / Drunzik school, 179–80, 182 Druyanov, A., 475–76, 505, 550–51, 597–98 Dubnow, Simon, 39 Dudiuk, Hasia, 291–92 Duma elections, 242, 244–48, 696n49 Duma plan, 116–17 Dwa Grosze (newspaper), 410–11 Eastern Europe, xiv–xv. See also Belarus “eating days,” 161, 193, 686n48 economic conditions, xviii–xix, 15–28, 36–37, 277–79, 318–19, 321. See also business conditions; The Depression; food distribution and supply; forced labor; monetary policies; standard of living; unemployment; wages; working conditions 1905–14, 246–47 1918–20, xxvii–xxviii, 359–62, 425–32, 437 1939, 641–42 first Bolshevik occupation, 367 German occupation (see German occupation) post-First World War, 461–95 post-Second World War, 655 Second World War, 646–48 education, 222, 497–98. See also commercial schools; elementary schools; government schools; Jewish education; private schools; secondary education; vocational education and training Eisenberg, Aharon, 47 Eisenberg, Mordecai (Motel), 251 Eisenberg, Shalom Mordekhai, 572–73 elections. See Duma elections; kehillah [Jewish community administration]; municipal elections and government elementary schools, 439, 585–95, 597, 626–27, 721n380. See also talmud torah schools; Tel Hai school Eliasberg, Moshe Haim, 52 Eliasberg, Ya’acov, 19, 26, 205, 620, 644 Elimelekh of Karlin, 647, 649 Elstein (Dr.), 628 emigrants and emigration from Pinsk, xxix– xxx, 3–7, 265–66, 460–61, 662n8, 662n13. See also aliyah movement to America, 48, 437, 453, 456

to Palestine, 41–42, 48–50, 55, 279–80, 437, 453, 499, 502, 670n40 (see also Kevutzat [Kibbutz] Gevat) Enlightenment. See Haskalah entertainment and recreation, 32, 221–22, 613–15. See also concert halls and concerts; theatrical performances Epstein, Borukh, xxx, 139–40, 158, 304, 611, 615–16, 728n7 Epstein, Fania, 34, 350–51, 596, 687n123 Epstein, Shalom Ha-Levi, 126 Epstein, Yitzhak, 174 Erdmann family, 89–90 Eretz Israel. See Land of Israel ethnic relations, 422–23, 458 Et Livnot faction [middle-class], 512–13 Evacuation Committee, 322–24 evacuees. See displaced persons; expulsions; refugees executions. See also massacre of the 35 Bolshevik, 364–66 Haim Levin, 270–71 Second World War, 654–55 expulsions. See also arrests; displaced persons; refugees from Brest, 291–93 during German occupation, 302, 321–26, 335, 338 during Second World War, 640, 643–47 from villages, 7–9, 663n23 factories, 98–99, 491, 546, 640–41. See also manufacturers and manufacturing; match factories; plywood factories; strikes and work stoppages; tinsmithing fires, 25 (see also match factories) German occupation, 348 growth of, 22 hours, wages, and benefits, 71, 278–79 nationalization of, 646 post-First World War, 465 unions and, 92, 275 between the world wars, 427, 432, 461, 479, 491 Der Fareynigte (The United Jewish Socialist Workers Party), 344 farming, 33. See also potato crop Feinstein, Avraham Asher (A. A.), 61, 128, 616, 682n8 on anti-semitism in Pinsk, 412–13

Index Balakhovich atrocities and, 446, 450–53 emigration to Palestine, 502 on first Polish regime, 370–71, 427–28 on German occupation, 305–6, 312, 331 on massacre of the 35, 381–82, 402–3, 409–10 Pinsk Talmud Torah and, 154–56 on police action against Zionists, 256 on second Bolshevik occupation, 442 on Zionist youth, 341 Feinstein, Moshe, 695n5 Feldman, Avraham, 150–51, 197 Feldman company, 484 feldshers (medical practitioners/paramedics), 32 financial aid. See assistance Fink, Caroline, xxv–xxvi fire brigades, 236, 285 fires, 24–26, 463–64, 666n95. See also match factories; The Great Synagogue First World War, 288–357 economic conditions, 290, 302–15, 321, 348–50, 700n33 German occupation, xxii–xxiii, 295–302 refugees, 291–94, 302, 325–26 fish trade, 29 Floris, Mina, 231–32 Folks Hilfs Komite (People’s Help Committee), 431 food distribution and supply, 305–6, 312, 700n33 forced labor, xxiii, 327–33 forestry and lumber industry, 15, 20–21, 29, 491, 665n53 decline of, 479 between the world wars, 465, 468, 472, 474 Forman, Nissel, 114, 116, 359–60, 365 Foster (Major), 403–4 Fourth Aliyah, 499–500, 502, 540–41, 543 Franczak, Francis, 391–93, 399–400 Fredman, Avraham, 532 free-loan funds, 470, 476, 635–37. See also Loan Fund Freiheit youth group. See socialist groups and parties: youth groups Freinkel, Feigel, 129 Friedman, David, xviii Agudat Yisrael and, 276–77 on the Haskalah, 145–47

Pinsk rabbinate and, 172, 686n85 Zionism and, 40, 43–46, 51–53, 55, 58, 69–70 Friedman, Y., 620, 626–27 furniture making. See carpentry trade Gavrilkovitz (mayor), 396, 400 gemilut hesed [benevolent and free-loan] societies, 227–29, 470, 635–37. See also freeloan funds Gemilut Hesed I, 636 Gemilut Hesed II, 637 General Zionists, 261–62, 344, 352, 439, 500–501, 511–13 Ger (Commandant), 447–49 German occupation, xxii–xxiii, 295–302 forced labor, 327–33 economic conditions, 302–15, 321, 348– 50, 700n33 (see also forced labor) political conditions, 343–48 prohibition of correspondence, 331–32 women and, 312, 329–30, 701n41 Gevati, Haim, 267–68 Gibson, Hugh, xxvi–xxvii, 404–5, 416 Gilze, Hauptmann Von Und Zu, 328 Ginsberg, Asher Zvi. See Ahad Ha’am Girls’ Gymnasium, 350–51, 353 Girls’ School, 587–88. See also Leah Feigele’s School Gitelman, S. N., 128, 141, 143, 179, 183 Glauberman press, 31 Gleiberman, Aharon, 385 Gleiberman, Moshe’le, 195, 235–36, 376, 525. See also Moshe’le Gleiberman’s school Gleiberson, E., 633 Goldavsky (Golodny), Morris, 86–90 Goldberg, A., 380–81, 406–7 Goldman, Michael. See Liber, Marc (Michael Goldman) Goldman, Ya’acov, 196 Gordin, Yitzhak, 362 Gottlieb, Shmuel Noah, 58, 154, 171–72 government-business relations, 478–79 government schools, 182, 585, 721n380. See also Realschule (government school) Grabski, Wladislaw / Grabski system, 462, 469–72, 476 grains and grain trade, 290, 305–9, 313. See also wheat trade gravestones, 287

743

744

Index The Great Synagogue, 214, 217, 219–20, 648 fires, 463, 656 memorial services, 418–19, 506 organizations and, 117, 236 Grodnicki (bishop of Pinsk), 233 Grosberg, Yeshayah Haim, 54–55 Grossman, Meir, 513 Grove (American colonel), 388–89, 393–94, 402, 404 Gruenbaum, Yitzhak, 381, 388–89, 400–401, 405–7, 414–15, 706n110 guild system and guilds, 14–15. See also craft guilds and craftspeople Gurevitz, Lev. See Horowitz (Gurevitz), Lev gymnasium for boys. See Chaikovsky’s gymnasium gymnasium for girls. See Chichik gymnasium Gyrs (governor), 8–9 Hadani, Ever, 147–48, 150 hadarim (s. heder), 149–52 hadarim metukanim (s. heder metukan), 147–48, 165–74, 176–78, 586–87 Haganah (Jewish defense organization), 240 Haklai, Yehudah, 148, 168–69, 213 Halpern, Bernard (Benny), 465, 467–68 Halpern, George, 19, 665n69 Halpern, Yosef, 75, 99, 231–32 Ha-Maggid (periodical), 4–5, 176 Ha-Melitz (periodical), 15 Ha-Shiloah (periodical), 174, 212 Hasidim, 1, 208–9, 657, 661n1 Haskalah, 1, 39, 145–47, 202. See also Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment Ha-Tehiyah [rebirth] movement, 124–25, 257–65 Ha-Tzah. See New Zionist Organization (Ha-Tzah) Ha-Tzohar. See Revisionist party (HaTzohar) Haynt (newspaper), 212, 325–26, 398–99 Hebrew education, 147–48. See also hadarim metukanim (s. heder metukan); Hebrew-speaking societies; ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew) method; Jewish education Hebrew gymnasium. See Tarbut gymnasium Hebrew in Hebrew method. See ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew) method

Hebrew language, 126–44, 170, 354–55, 597–98. See also ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew) method; Safah Berurah society Hebrew literature, 135, 143–44, 206 Hebrew periodicals, 39, 135, 205. See also under individual names Hebrew-speaking societies, 126–43 He-Halutz Ha-Betari, 550–51 He-Halutz Ha-Kelali, 539–47 He-Halutz Ha-Merkazi, 547–49 He-Halutz Ha-Mizrahi, 549–50 He-Halutz Ha-Tzair, 542–44 Helfand, Haim Ya’acov. See Litvak, A. (Haim Ya’acov Helfand) Herman, Yosef, 125, 151–52 on Chaikovsky’s gymnasium, 190 on harassment, 265 on the Karlin Talmud Torah, 161 on Russian-Jewish school for boys, 179 on Russification, 207 Herzl, Theodore, 69–70 Hesed Aharon (welfare organization), 658 Hevrah Kaddisha (holy brotherhood) society, 238 Hevrah Ketanah (little brotherhood) society, 238 hevrah mishnayot (Mishnah study circle), 229 Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah Ha-Yehudit [Jewish charitable association], 234, 694n17 Hevrat Ha-Tzedakah shel Ha-Nashim Ha-Yehudiyot. See Jewish Women’s Charitable Association Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) nationalist movement, 38, 44, 505–6. See also Hovevei Zion society Hilfsverein of German Jewry organization, 312, 315 Hiller, Zvi Hirsch, 53, 166, 340 Histadrut La-Safah Ve-La-Tarbut Ha-Ivrit (Organization for Hebrew Language and Culture), 143–44 Hitahdut party, 522–23 Holocaust, 654–55, 658 Holtzman, Ya’acov, 474, 476, 480–81 Honen Dalim society [compassion for the poor], 230 Hoover, Herbert, 416 Horev educational institutions, 587, 595 Horodetzky, Sh. A., 177 Horowitz (Gurevitz), Lev, 179, 187

Index Horowitz, Elazar Moshe, xvii, 12, 153 on the Haskalah, 145–47 Zionism and, 40–41, 51–52, 668–69n7 Horowitz, Ya’acov Meir, 374–75, 387, 402, 407 Horowitz, Yosef Yozel, 603–4 hospitals, 337–38, 571, 631–35, 647, 658. See also Karlin Bikur Holim hospital; Pinsk Bikur Holim hospital Hovevei Zion society, 39–40, 42–48, 52–57. See also Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) nationalist movement Huberband, Shimon, 646 ICA (Jewish Colonization Association), 6, 193–94, 609–10 illiteracy, reduction of, 497 immigration. See emigrants and emigration from Pinsk industrialization, 19–24, 666n77. See also business conditions; manufacturers and manufacturing institutions, secular, 220 intelligentsia, 220, 225, 468, 473, 481 adult education and, 149, 197 entertainment and recreation, 614 German-Jewish, 304 harassment of, 242–43 Hebrew language and, 132 public affairs and, 498 Russification, 207 Zionism and, 43, 69 ivrit be-ivrit (Hebrew in Hebrew) method, 174–78 Jabotinsky, Ze’ev (Vladimir), 515 JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), 325, 622, 658. See also Bogen, Boris; Raskin report aid to Pinsk (1918–20), 429–30, 432–33, 434, 437, 451–58, 710n238 aid to Pinsk (after 1920), 463–64, 469–71, 584–86 Bund organization and, 525 educational institutions and, 517, 591–94, 605–6 hospitals and, 631–32 interest-free loans and, 635 old-age homes and, 624–25 orphanages and, 618–20, 623

Jewish autonomous community. See kehillah [Jewish community administration] Jewish Colonial Trust, 61 Jewish Colonization Association (ICA). See ICA (Jewish Colonization Association) Jewish communal organizations, 9. See also benevolent societies; kehalim (s. kahal) [community ruling councils]; kehillah [Jewish community administration] Jewish education, 438–41, 583–84. See also adult education; elementary schools; hadarim (s. heder); Hebrew education; Horev educational institutions; kindergartens; Shul-kult educational network; talmud torah schools; Tarbut schools; teachers and teaching profession; vocational education and training; Yiddishist schools boys, 147, 178–82, 189–90 (see also yeshivot) First World War, 290, 292 German occupation, 350–57 girls, 183–85, 596–98, 687n123, 722n405 (see also Leah Feigele’s School) influence of Haskalah, 145–47 Pinsk as a model, 176–78 post-Soviet invasion of 1939, 642–43 post-Soviet rule, 657 between the world wars, 583–611 Jewish-German relations. See German occupation Jewish National Fund, 64–65, 252, 510–11 Jewish-Polish relations, 422–23. See also antisemitism Jewish press, 398–99. See also Hebrew periodicals; Russian and Russian-Jewish periodicals; Yiddish newspapers Jewish Women’s Charitable Association, 194, 200–201, 234–35, 694n18 Jews of Belarus, xiv, 9, 663–64n35 Joint Distribution Committee. See JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) Jozef, Kazar, 485 Kadimah group (Zion group), 62 Kadimah society, 66 Kalischer, Zvi Hirsch, 40–41 kantor (private bank), 35, 74, 114 Kantor, Jenia, 200–201

745

746

Index Kantor, Ya’acov, 6, 200–201, 529, 663n19 Karlin (Russian-Jewish newspaper), 658 Karlin Bikur Holim hospital, 230–31, 337–38, 631–35 Karliner Tzaddik. See Asher the First (Karliner Tzaddik) Karlin Old Age Home, 232–33, 337–38, 624–25 Karlin-Stolin Hasidim. See Hasidim Karlin Talmud Torah, 159–65, 353, 586–87 Kattowitz Conference (1884), 44, 46 Katz, Berta, 195 Katzman, Eliyahu, 449–50 Kazarinov (district official), 242–44 kehalim (s. kahal) [community ruling councils], 9, 227, 663–64n35 kehillah [Jewish community administration], 227, 500–501, 564–83, 641 distribution to institutions, 572, 725n495 elections, 565–69, 580–82 executive, 568 taxes and budget, 573–80, 575–77, 582–83 Keren Ha-Yesod, 503, 508–10, 509 Kerman, M. (Mordekhai), 11–12, 14, 617 on hadarim metukanim, 166–68 on Hibbat Zion celebration, 506 on opposition to Berger, 172 Zionist activities, 503 Kevutzat [Kibbutz] Gevat, 422, 499, 521–22, 540, 543 Kevutzat Pinsk. See Kevutzat [Kibbutz] Gevat kindergartens, 195, 584–85, 721n379 Kinder Platz. See Dinzon School Kishinev pogrom, 81, 676n178 Kisilev libel, 82–83 Kleinman’s school, 181 klezmerim (folk musicians), 32 Kol, Moshe, xxiv, xxiv, xxix, xxxiii, 207, 483, 667, 673, 684, 688-89, 691, 698, 701, 715, 731, 737 Kolkar, Mordecai, 380, 410 Kolodny, Pinhas Eliyahu (Alter), 307, 310–12 Konarski, Jozef, 365–66, 368, 409 korobka (tax on ritually slaughtered meat), 11, 227, 237–38, 694n28 Korolov (governor), 243–44 Korzec, Pawel, xxv

kosher slaughtering. See ritual slaughtering Kozak, Daniel, 380, 385–86, 410 Kugel, Julius, 431, 457 Land of Israel, 251, 346–48. See also emigrants and emigration from Pinsk; Palestine; Zionism and Zionists preparation for life in, 342–43, 539–42, 588–89 support for, 503–4, 507–8, 519–20 (see also Hovevei Zion society; Jewish National Fund; Keren Ha-Yesod) Land of Israel office, 502 Landsberg (military commander), 377, 387, 396, 409–10 language issues, 347–48, 518–19, 540–41, 589, 642–43. See also Hebrew language; Yiddish language Lansing, Robert, 417 Leah Feigele’s School, 184–85, 351–52, 438. See also Tel Hai school leasing rights and lessees, 8 Lederman, Haim, 412 Left Poalei Zion, 523–24 Leibkes, Alter, 152 Lerman, Ze’ev Livne. See Livne-Lerman, Ze’ev Levin, Asher, 50 Levin, Gad Asher, 14, 19, 191 Levin, Haim, 270–71 Levin, Tuvia (Tal), 356 Levy, Hilda, xxii, xxv Liber, Marc (Michael Goldman), 76, 675n162 libraries and reading rooms, 142, 205, 207–8, 343, 355, 612–13, 650. See also Brenner library Lichtenstein, Haya Weizmann. See Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Haya Lieberman, Menachem, xxiii–xxiv Lieberman, Saul, Nadav xxv Lieberman, Sulya, xv–xvi lifestyle changes, 202–5 Lifshitz, A. D., 65, 74 on dance halls, 222 on hadarim metukanim, 173–74 on Pinsk Talmud Torah, 154 on synagogues and cantors, 218–19 Ligah Le-Ma’an Eretz Yisra’el Ha-Ovedet [Land of Israel workers’ league], 501, 520–21

Index Lilienblum, Moshe Leib, 136–37 Linat Holim society [hospice for the sick], 235–36 Linat Tzedek society [hospice for the poor], 235, 630 Lindemann (Major), 297–303, 321, 334–35 Listowski (Polish general), xxv, 389–92, 398, 405–6, 423 Liszniewski (Minister of War), 401–2 literature, illegal. See reading circles, illegal Lithuanian Jewish Council, 1 Litvak, A. (Haim Ya’acov Helfand), 72, 75, 174 Livne-Lerman, Ze’ev, 200, 320 Loan Fund, 454–55 Lourie, Paul, xxx–xxxi Lubzovsky-Shapira school, 184, 194, 200 Luczynski (Polish commander), xxv, 382–83, 389–92, 394–95, 398, 407, 414–15 lumber trade. See forestry and lumber industry Luria, Aharon, 35, 104, 154, 191, 274 Luria, Alexander, 21, 108, 325, 339 Luria, Grigory, 59–60, 114, 154, 156–57, 194–95, 668n121 Luria, Leopold, 21 Luria, Moshe, 20–21 Luria, Shmuel, 464, 571 Luria family, 19, 21, 25, 35–36, 71, 103–4 Luria family anniversary, 286 male-female relations, 202–3 Manakhovsky, M., 199 Mandelbaum, Pinhas, 187–88 manufacturers and manufacturing, 19–24, 465–67, 491, 666n77, 666n85. See also factories Mapai (Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael [Israel workers’ party]), 545 Margolin, Rita, 655–56 Margolin, Y. (Julius), 645–47, 650, 653 Marshall, Louis, 416–17 Maskil El Dal society [consider the poor], 230 maskilim. See intelligentsia Maslansky, Zvi, 39, 42–43, 46–50 massacre of the 35, xxiii–xxvii, 383–87, 397, 705n96, 708n177 inquiries and reports, 398–99, 404–7, 420–21 memorial, 418–19 reaction of Sejm, 401–2, 706n110

match factories, 19–23, 251, 461, 465, 530, 659, 711n10 fires, 25, 295, 297 Swedish ownership, 490–91, 531 strikes and work stoppages, 75, 78, 99, 273, 473, 524 Matszynski (Dr.), 556–58 Mazkeret Moshe Committee. See Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) nationalist movement Mazur, Avraham, 600 Medem, Nina, 326 medical practitioners. See feldshers (medical practitioners/paramedics) Megilat Puranuyot, 616, 682n8 Meier, I., 433 Mekhabei Esh Mitnadvim [volunteer fire brigade], 236 Mekor Borukh, 615–16 melamdim (s. melamed), 149–51, 171, 173 merchants’ association/society (Pinsk branch), 467–69 Merkaz Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot [central organization of yeshivot], 536–37, 604 Meshell, Yeruham, Nadav xxiv, Nadav, xxix metalworking. See tinsmithing Midrashah Tarbut. See Tarbut schools Mifleget Ha-Medinah Ha-Ivrit [the party of the Hebrew state], 513 Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael. See Mapai (Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael [Israel workers’ party]) Mikhaelevich, B., 88–89 Miletzky, Elka, 420, 439, 591 military service, 2, 6–7, 11–14, 563, 663– 64n35. See also deferment system (legota) and deferments First World War, 288 Second World War, 638, 650–51 Mirski, Tamir, Nadav xxiv-xxv, xxix, xxxii, xxxv, 731, 734 Mirsky, Devorah, xx, 282 Mirsky, Israel, Nadav xxx, xxiv, xxxi Mirsky, Wilfred, Nadav xvi-xxii, xv, xxi Mishmeret Hadashah [new guard] youth group, 440–41 Mitnaggedim [observant Jews but opponents of Hasidic practices], 162 Mizrah Farband, 516–18 Mizrahi organization, 38, 535–36

747

748

Index Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, 639–40, 652 monastery of Pinsk, 283 monetary policies, 469. See also economic conditions money lenders, 35 Montefiore, Moses, 44–46 Morgenthau, Henry / Morgenthau commission, Nadav xxiv, 416–21, 591 Morgentoi, Leib, 464, 616 Moshe’le Gleiberman’s school, 353, 592–94. See also Beit Mahse schools; The Children’s Home Moshkovsky, David, 383 Mukdoni, A., 72–73, 80, 147 municipal elections and government, 10–11, 664n40 1930, 500–501 first Polish regime, 423–24 Ukrainian rule, 363 between the world wars, 552–62 musicians. See klezmerim (folk musicians) mutual aid associations. See benevolent societies Mutual Credit Union. See Pinsk Bank nationalism, Jewish, 212, 257–66. See also Land of Israel; Zionism and Zionists Hebrew language and, 135–37 resurgence of, 358–59, 365–66 suppression of, 642 nationalization of businesses, 646–47. See also confiscations Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland, 341, 639–40, 651–52 Neidich, Yitzhak Asher, 19, 40, 50, 662n8 Neidich, Ze’ev Wolf, 237, 694n28 Nes Ziyyonah society, 51 newspapers, 288, 506, 613, 735–37. See also libraries and reading rooms; under individual names German, 209 Hebrew, 205, 210–12 Russian, 209 Russian-Jewish, 658 Yiddish, 210–12, 616 New Zionist Organization (Ha-Tzah), 515 N.K.V.D. (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs [secret police]), 643, 650 Novakovsky, Yehudah, 105 Novaredok yeshivah, 550, 603–5

numerus clausus, 149, 186, 190, 205–6 Nun, Zvi, 177 October (1905) manifesto, 116–17 Odessa Committee/Society, 51–53 old-age homes, 230–33, 337–38, 624–25, 658 Oliphant, Laurence, 49 orphanages, 361, 617–24, 618–23, 658, 725n476 Orthodox and Orthodoxy, 57–58, 146, 535– 39. See also Agudah party (Agudat Yisrael); Black Bureau education and, 587, 595, 648 (see also Horev educational institutions; Novaredok yeshivah) Jewish public affairs and, 501, 566–67, 581 Zionism and, 154 Ozerim Yehudim [Jewish supporters], 237 Palestine, 251, 506–7, 527–28, 612. See also emigrants and emigration from Pinsk; Land of Israel Paprotzky, Daniel, 78 parliament, Polish. See Sejm, Polish (parliament) patriotism, 243, 289–90, 342, 562–63, 570 peasants, xx–xxii, 27–29, 242–43, 475, 479–80 pedagogy. See education; teachers and teaching profession People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. See N.K.V.D. (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs [secret police]) “People’s trials,” 648 periodicals, 210–11, 735–37. See also Hebrew periodicals; newspapers; Russian and Russian-Jewish periodicals; under individual names Perlmann, Eliezer. See Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer Pesahzon, Y. M., 104, 109, 111–12, 115, 119–21 petition-writing business, 488–89 pharmacists. See feldshers (medical practitioners/paramedics) Pilsudski, Jozef, 471, 485, 570 Pina River, 284 Pines, Yehiel Mikhel, 40 Pinsk, xiii–xviii, xxvii–xxix, xxxvi, 1–2, 655–60 Pinskaya Zhizn (Pinsk life), 211

Index Pinsk Bank, 35 Pinsk Bikur Holim hospital, 231–32, 337–38, 631–35 Pinsk Branch 210 of the Arbeter Ring, 431 Pinsk episode/massacre. See massacre of the 35 Pinsker, Y. L., 44, 46–49 Pinsker Assistance Committee, 343 Pinsker Radikale organization, 76 Pinsker Shtodt Luakh (town calendar), 65, 692n46 Pinskers in North America, 343, 434–35, 534 Chicago, 455–56, 622–23 New York, xxix, 76–77, 158–59, 431, 623 Pinsker Zeitung (newspaper), 298 Pinsk ghetto, 654–55 The Pinsk Group of AnarchistsCommunists, 114 Pinsk Gymnasium, 353–54 Pinsk Joint Relief Committee, 431 Pinsk-Karlin Talmud Torah Training School for Builders and Smiths, 191–94 Pinsk monastery and churches, 283 Pinsk Old Age Home, 232, 337–38, 624–25 Pinsk Rescue Committee, 455 Pinsk skyline, 284 Pinsk Talmud Torah, 152–59, 585–86, 685n39 Pinsky, David, 305 Pinsky, Hershel, 499, 544–45 activism, 267–68, 440, 518–19 on Beit Mahse school, 592 on economic conditions, 475 on emigrants to Palestine, 522 He-Halutz and, 540–42 on Poalei Zion-Z. S., 520 Pinsky Listok (Pinsk bulletin), 211–12 Pinsk Zionist Federation. See Polish Zionist Federation, Pinsk Branch Pkach, Pesah, 483, 603, 610 Plotnik, David, 650–51 plywood factories, 479, 531–32, 563, 639 Lishche, 482–83, 491 Luria, 21–22, 279, 465, 477, 480, 490– 91, 533, 609, 640 Mercier, 477 Poalei Zion (Marxist-pioneer Israeli), 268–69 Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion) party, 38–39 Poalei Zion party (new), 62–63, 94–96, 99–102, 343 Poalei Zion schools, 594

Poalei Zion-Z. S., 519–22 pogroms, 38, 109–11, 117, 242–46. See also blood libels; massacre of the 35; riots; selfdefense organizations Balakhovich, 444–53 Kishinev, 81, 676n178 Polish, 373, 403–4 Polesie Fair, 484, 638 police, 80–82, 106–7, 112–13, 256–57. See also anti-semitism police (Jewish), 338–39, 341 Polish culture and language, 583, 596–97, 603, 612–13 Polish-Jewish relations. See Jewish-Polish relations Polish nobility, xxx–xxxi Polish rule, 368–441 1919, xxxvii anti-semitism and, 368–74 economic conditions, 372–73 political conditions, 373–74 Polish-Russian relations. See Russian-Polish relations Polish Society for Orphan Care (Centus). See Centus (Polish Society for Orphan Care) Polish Zionist Federation, Pinsk Branch, 377, 502, 504, 511–12 political activity and political conditions, 9, 11, 642, 663–64n35. See also arrests; Bund organization; civil rights; Duma elections; municipal elections and government; revolutionary activity; Zionism and Zionists 1906–1914, 240–48, 252–59 1918–20, 358–81 first Polish regime, 422–24, 439–40 German occupation, 343–48 between the world wars, 500, 551–62 political prisoners, 534–35. See also arrests the poor, 17–18, 357, 488. See also benevolent societies; economic conditions; Tomkhei Aniyim society popular universities. See adult education Popular Zionist Socialist Party, 345–47 population and demographics, 2–5, 3, 7, 661n5 post-First World War, 459–61, 460, 710n4 Second World War, 652, 728n1 porters and carters, 477–78 Poshko, Yehudit, 598

749

750

Index potato crop, 303–14 prayer halls. See shtiebls [prayer halls] printing trade, 31 prisoners. See political prisoners private schools, 180–81 Prizant, Haim Monish, 467 Prochansky, David, 436, 442 professionals, 34, 466, 481, 495. See also intelligentsia; teachers and teaching profession Prukhodnik, Aharon David, 91 Prylucki, Noah, 405–7, 410, 428 public affairs. See community affairs public health, 626–28 Purim contributions, 44–45, 53 Rabakowicz, Zygmunt, 485 rabbis, xxxi, 564. See also Crown rabbis; under individual names Rabinov, Yehoshua, 37 Rabinowitsch, Shaul Mendel, 4–5, 42, 123–24, 127, 141–42 police action against, 256–57 Zionism and, 54 Rabinowitsch, Ze’ev, 280, 316 Rabinowitz, Shaul Pinhas, 48, 251 Rabinowitz, Sonia, 388, 408 rail transport and railways, 15–17, 115, 428. See also workshops: railway railway workers, 98, 115–16, 118, 121 Rakovchik, Pavel, 467 Rakow, Yosef, 96, 243, 276 Raskin, Y. M., 450, 456–58 Raskin report, 335, 369–71, 618–19, 624, 631–32 reading circles, illegal, 75, 271 reading rooms. See libraries and reading rooms Real Russian People, 96, 109 Real Russians, 242–43 Realschule (government school), 149, 185–86, 198–99, 596 recreation. See entertainment and recreation Red Faction. See communists refugees, xxi, 425–26, 603. See also displaced persons; expulsions Balakhovist pogroms, 449–55, 619 First World War, 291–94, 302, 325–26 Second World War, 639, 650–52 “refugee trains.” See expulsions

Reier, Jacques, 450, 453, 455 Reikh, Yisrael, 498, 569–70 Reines, Isaac Jacob, 61–62 relief organizations, 359, 433–34. See also JDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee); rescue campaigns religious observance, 212–14 forced desecration, 149, 185–88, 190, 212–13, 300, 333 restrictions, 648–50, 657 rescue campaigns, 449–53, 469–70. See also relief organizations; United Rescue Committee Revisionist party (Hatzohar), 515 revolutionary activity, 70–81, 97–98, 108–9, 114–16, 344–45, 675–76n169 riots, 506–7, 527–28, 612. See also pogroms Ritterman, Avraham (A.), 178, 181, 628 ritual slaughtering, 485–86, 579 rivers and river traffic, xiii–xiv, 15–17, 28, 484 robberies, 698n114. See also violence against Jews Robotnik (newspaper), 406 Rokeach family, 19 Rosen, Pinhas, 345 Rosenbaum, Shimshon, 67–68, 166–67 Rosenberg, Avraham Haim, 39, 180, 205 Rosenzweig, Shevel Hayim, 653, 728n6 Rozenkrantz, Yehoshua Heshel, 225–26 Rubakha [activist], 91, 101 Rubakha, Leib, 180 Rubinstein, Aharon, 679n241 Rubinstein, Kila-Golda, 667n110 Russia. See Bolsheviks and Bolshevism Russian and Russian-Jewish periodicals, 210–11. See also Karlin (Russian-Jewish newspaper) Russian-Jewish schools for boys, 178–82. See also Realschule (government school) Russian-Polish relations, 458 Russian revolution of 1905, 695n5 Russification, 178, 205–12 Rykwert, Shimon, 376–79, 382–83, 393 Sabbath observance. See religious observance Sabinkov, Boris Victorovich, 451–53 Safah Berurah society, 126–36, 139–43, 165, 197, 206, 682n7 Samuel, Stuart, 371, 421

Index Samzhovsky, Michael, 10, 664n39 San Remo Conference, 507 Savings and Credit Association, 35–36 Schiper, Yitzhak, 415 Schmidt, Wolf, 445 schools. See also elementary schools; Jewish education; under individual names commercial, 187, 206, 603 government, 182, 585 (see also Realschule (government school)) private, 180–81 technical, 511, 607–10 Yiddishist, 344, 353, 524, 616, 626 Second Aliyah, 265–66 secondary education, 185–91, 206–7, 354 secret agents, 84–86 Sefatenu Itanu, 127–30 Segelevitz, Vitali Aronovitz, 75, 675–76n169 Sejm, Polish (parliament), 401–2. See also massacre of the 35 commission of inquiry, 365, 378–83, 386, 404–7, 411–16 (see also Staszminski commission of inquiry) elections, 500, 523, 531, 551–52, 714n127 members, 281 Sejmist movement/Sejmists, 105, 343 self-defense organizations, 96–97, 110–12, 116–17, 490, 563. See also Defense of the Jewish Community Fund; Haganah (Jewish defense organization) Seudat Shabbat Le-Orehim society, 236 sewing workshops, 194 Shahariah kibbutz, 546–47, 642–43, 718n245 Shazar (Rubashov), Zalman, 505 shekalim [monies], 508–9 Shifman [JDC representative], 451, 454 Shlakman, Aharon Yudel, 96, 568–70, 625, 645, 649, 678n218 Shlossberg, David, 529–31 Shomer-Batshelis, Rosa, 222–23 shopkeepers and shopkeeping, 16–17, 480– 82, 484–85, 487–88 Shoresh Zion (Zionist youth group), 63, 124 shtiebls [prayer halls], 10, 214–15, 217 Shul-kult educational network, 588–89 Sidlik’s school, 181, 687n121 Sionisty Socialisty (S.S.) party, 95–96, 102–3, 270 activity during German occupation, 343–44

adult education and, 200 Bund organization and, 96, 106, 119–20 founding, 39 influence of, 273–76 strikes and work stoppages, 105 weakening of, 117–21 Slutzker melamed. See Zilberman, Hirsch Slutzky, Ya’acov, 554 Smolenskin, Peretz, 40, 134–35 socialist groups and parties, 38–39, 75, 94– 96, 276, 343–48, 368, 516–19. See also ­HaTehiyah [rebirth] movement; Poalei Zion party (new); Sionisty Socialisty (S.S.) party; Zeirei Zion-Z.S. (Zionist Socialist) education and training, 539–40 youth groups, 544, 547–48 Socialist International, 94, 422 Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment, 156, 182–83, 225 Soloveitchik, Joseph, Nadav xxvi; xxxi– xxxii Soloveitchik, Moshe 18, 64, 116, 172, 232, 240, 668, 690 Somekh Nofelim Ve-Yoledot (support for the distressed and for new mothers), 229–30 soup kitchens, 233, 357 Balakhovist pogroms, 449–51 first Polish regime, 372–73, 425–26 German occupation, 312, 315, 337–38 Soviet invasion of Poland, 639–41 Soviet Union. See Bolsheviks and Bolshevism sports, 614–15 Stachow survivors, 449–50 Stalin-Hitler pact. See Molotov-Ribbentrop pact standard of living, 203–4 Staromejski, Casimir, 382–83, 385, 408–9 starvation, xxii–xxiii, 17–18, 296, 360–61, 367, 426–28. See also German occupation: economic conditions Staszminski commission of inquiry, 378, 389, 396–97, 414. See also Sejm, Polish (parliament) Stern, Hershel, 106–7 Stillerman, Rachel, 305 Stoliar, Y. H., 488 Strauss, Lewis, 405, 416, 425 Strick, Mordekhai Meir, 42–43

751

752

Index strikes and work stoppages, 83–84, 99, 103–5, 112, 118–21, 278, 680n295 Bund-influenced, 75, 78–80, 273–74 (see also Bund organization: demonstrations and strikes) German occupation, 318–19 railway workers, 115–16 (see also workshops: railway) between the world wars, 473–74 Struma [ship], 467 study circles, 196–97. See also hevrah mishnayot (Mishnah study circle) study houses. See batei midrash (study houses) sufot banegev. See pogroms suppression of 1905–06, 240–41 synagogues, 214–21, 692n44. See also shtiebls [prayer halls]; The Great Synagogue assemblies, demonstrations, and meetings, 119, 130–31, 137–38 closures, 387, 421–22, 649–50 German occupation, 300–301 Karlin Hasidim, 208 Pinsk, 284 post-First World War, 361 post-Second World War, 656–59 regulation of, 9–10, 664n36 Second World War, 653, 728n5 Zionism and Zionists and, 62, 506, 673n106 Syrkin, Nachman, 346 Talmud societies, 196–97 talmud torah schools, 152–53, 337. See also Karlin Talmud Torah; Pinsk Talmud Torah Tarbut gymnasium, 597–602, 600 Tarbut schools, 498, 595–602 taxation and taxes, 478–82, 664n40. See also kehillah [Jewish community administration]; korobka (tax on ritually slaughtered meat) German occupation, 327, 335–37 (see also Citizens’ Committee) Grabski system, 462, 469–72 Nazi occupation, 646 teachers and teaching profession, 31–32, 34, 237, 667n110. See also Jewish education; melamdim (s. melamed); tutors (private); under individual names

technical schools, 511, 607–10 Tel Hai school, 439, 517–18, 587–90, 598. See also Leah Feigele’s School Tenzer (Dr.), 144, 304–5, 327, 349–51 Tepper, Kolia, 79–80, 676n174 theatrical performances, 222–24, 300, 613–14 Third Aliyah, 348, 502 timber trade. See forestry and lumber industry tinsmithing, 30–31 Tipat Halav [well-baby clinic], 626–28 Tir, Zelig, 95, 123–25, 264, 266, 516 Tomkhei Aniyim society, 628–30 Topoleyev, Cosmo, 109, 243–44, 696n30 Torah Temimah, 351, 615 TOZ society (public health organization), 626–28 trade associations, 236, 246. See also Agudat Ahim Sapanim society [brotherhood of shippers] trade unions, 92, 272, 275, 492, 529–30 transit trade and transportation, 15–16, 20, 28–29. See also carters and porters automobiles, 607 First World War, 290, 303 rail (see rail transport and railways) river, xiii–xiv, 482–84 strikes and work stoppages, 115–16, 118 Trashinsky, Yudel, 481 treaties. See also Molotov-Ribbentrop pact Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), 318 Treaty of Riga (1921), 444, 458, 552 Tropimowicz, 377–78 Trubetzkoy (prince), 233–34 Tushiyyah schools, 536, 587 tutors (private), 148–49 Tzeilingold, Nahum Mendel, 88, 91 Tzitrin, Moshe, 88–90 Tzukunft (Bund youth organization), 526 “Tzum Kampf ” (pamphlet), 98 Uganda proposal, 65–68, 122 Ukraine, 319–21 Ukrainian rule, 359–65 unemployment, 247, 326–27, 473–76, 480–83 assistance, 487–88, 542, 560–61, 579 salesclerks, 277–78 unions. See trade unions United Rescue Committee, 434–35 Ussishkin, M., 54–55, 67, 251, 254–55

Index Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot. See Merkaz Va’ad Ha‑Yeshivot [central organization of yeshivot] Versailles Conference, xvii, xxv-vi, xxvii, 375, 551 Vilkomirer, Shmuel, 162–64 Vilna, 643–44 Vilna Platform, 122 Vintz, Yehuda Leib, 130 violence against Jews, xx, 363, 366, 445–49. See also pogroms; riots Vitelis (Dr.), 606, 608 vocational education and training, 191–95, 199, 439, 517–18, 605–10, 623–24. See also craft guilds and craftspeople Volk, Mordekhai Gimpel, 107 Volk, Zvi Hirsch, 107, 172, 246, 686n85 Voloveler, Betzalel, 231–32 Volovelsky, Alexander, 150–51 Von Bissing, Hauptmann Frier, 301, 305, 308 Von Sturk (Lt. General), 308 wages, 23–24, 32, 71–72, 330, 473–75, 481–83, 666n85 Walkin, Avraham, 536–37, 571, 649 Waller school, 183–84 Wasserman, Fishel, 471 water carriers, 31 the wealthy, xviii–xx, 68, 72–73, 203–4, 349. See also Luria family decline of, 311, 496 nouveaux riche, 223–24, 308–9 Weiner (Yisraeli), A., 341, 367, 505, 559 Weintraub, Shmuel, 537, 604–5, 643 Weizmann, Chaim, 5, 47, 59–60, 68–69, 79–80 hadarim metukanim and, 165–67, 171 on Yehuda Leib Berger, 51 Weizmann, Ozer, 91 Weizmann-Lichtenstein, Haya, 59, 69, 79–80, 85–88, 102, 110–11 on adult education, 198 on hadarim metukanim, 167–68 on suppression in 1905–06, 240 on Yosef Bregman, 248–49 welfare associations. See benevolent societies wheat trade, 16, 665nn55–56. See also grains and grain trade WIZO [Women’s International Zionist Organization], 513–14

Wohl, S., 339 wojewoda (provincial governor), 574–77 women, 33–34, 312, 329–30, 514, 701n41. See also Jewish education: girls; Jewish Women’s Charitable Association Women’s Committee of Chicago Pinskers, 622–23 Women’s International Zionist Organization. See WIZO [Women’s International Zionist Organization] Women’s Society for Welfare Work, 631 working conditions, 70–71, 470–71, 647–48. See also forced labor; strikes and work stoppages; wages; workshops workshops, 78, 195, 465–66, 480–81. See also carpentry trade; cooperatives and cooperative shops; strikes and work stoppages; trade unions German occupation, 348 hours, 70, 674n136 mechanized, 474 railway, 22–23, 26, 115–16 sewing, 194 shoemakers, 27 between the world wars, 492–93 Wroblewski [investigator on Sejm commission], 412–16 Yaffe, Leib, 504 Yakshin, Zvi, 644–45 yeshivot, 147, 190–91. See also Merkaz Va’ad Ha-Yeshivot [central organization of yeshivot]; Novaredok yeshivah Yiddisher Klub Fun Melukhah Gedank (Jewish Club for the Idea of the State), 563 Yiddishist schools, 344, 353, 524, 616, 626. See also CYShO (Central Yiddish School Organization) Yiddish language, xviii, 612, 656 curriculum / language of instruction, 153–54, 439–41, 518–19, 591–95, 605–6, 642 Hebrew language and, 540–41, 588–89 political aspects, 555–56 restrictions, 246, 300, 387 Zionism and Zionists and, 347–48 Yiddish literature, 201, 212–13, 222, 616 Yiddish newspapers, 210–12, 616. See also under individual names

753

754

Index Yiddish theater, 222 youth groups/movements. See under individual names; Zionism and Zionists Zakharov (police chief), 107–8, 113 Zakheim, Haim, 22 Zeirei Zion, 200, 344–48, 440, 516–18 Zeirei Zion-Z.S. (Zionist Socialist), 440. See also Mizrah Farband Zerubavel Lodge, 55–56, 165–66 Zheleznikov (Selnick), Shelomoh (Shelomo’ke), 78–79, 87–88, 90, 114–15, 695n12 Zilberman, Hirsch, 150–51 Zionism and Zionists, xviii–xix, 38–39, 41–44, 51. See also aliyah movement; under names of organizations activities and programs, 249–54 education and, 154–56, 198, 248, 348, 354, 439 First World War, 342–48 funding of, 44–48, 62–63, 252

hadarim metukanim and, 167, 686n72 opposition to, 57–58 police action against, 252–57 political aspects, 57, 59–61, 247–48 public affairs and, 499–502 socialist groups, 257–65 synagogues and, 62, 506, 673n106 unification attempts, 512–13 between the world wars, 502–10 youth groups, 266–68 (see also under individual names) Zionist conferences and congresses, 59–67, 121–24, 503, 508–9, 672n95, 714n136 Zionist Federation of Pinsk. See Polish Zionist Federation, Pinsk Branch Z.S. (Zionist Socialist) Zeirei Zion. See Mizrah Farband Zuckerman, Borukh, 374–76, 388–89, 393, 400–401, 404–5 on economic conditions, 426–27 on the Karlin orphanage, 618 on Pinsk institutions, 437–38