[Page 241]

The Small Community

[Page 242]

[Page 243]

The first of the householders in Rubel was Shlomo Zingerman. His father Moshe was called Moshe from Minkovitz by the Hassidim of his time, for the Minkovitz estate next to Stolin, which he leased from the poretz [Polish landowner], in accordance with the custom of the landowners of those days to lease their estates to be worked by a Jewish lessee. These were the famous lessees for whom Y.L. Peretz established a monument of witness in his books, with his wonderful creativity.

For the most part, these lessees were negative characters. Like their landowner masters, they too were of coarse spirit, people who pursued honor, haughty people who aspired for lordship, heavy- handed and hard-hearted – as their personality is portrayed by Peretz in The Seder of Dogs and Mendele the Lessee which was also performed in theaters, and other books.

However, there were also positive characters, who had a Jewish heart and a good eye, broad knowledge, and open hands. In short, like the students of Abraham our Forefather (and not the wicked Balaam)^[1]. Moshe, and especially his son Shlomo, were among the lessees of the second group.

Avraham Elazar Rabinovitz, the son of the first rabbi of Rubel, said the following about Shlomo Zingerman, after many years, when he was already among the chief teachers in Vilna: “When I remember Shlomo Zingerman of Rubel, the image of Rabbi Shlomo the Nagid of the author Sholem Asch floats before the eyes of my imagination.”

Shlomo was like his father Moshe, having business with the landowners and the estates all his days. He had a horse and wagon, with a lad from Horodok, Moshe Baruch, riding with him. They would go out to the estate and the “court” in the morning and return home in the evening.

Moshe's house was bigger than all the other Jewish houses in the village. (There were 70-80 houses.) The door of the house never closed. It was always open to passers-by. When someone entered, the woman of the house would invite him to the table. If she was not present, the maid would do so. “'Sir Jew' should go, wash his hands, and sit at the table.” A Jewish young woman served as the maid in the house throughout all the years, and not, Heaven forbid, a gentile from the shiksas [non-Jewish women (usually derogatory)] of the village.

The young woman would work for several years until she had amassed enough money for a dowry. Then the owners of the house would marry her off to a man and arrange the wedding in their house, as if she were their own daughter and not a maid. They would give her presents, and she would then go with her husband to build her own home. A new young woman would come in her place, and this scenario would repeat.

The tablecloth would never be removed from the table, especially during the summer months when many people passed through the village: paupers from Horodok, peddlers, and ordinary poor people. The village was large, there were many farms, and the farmers always had something to sell. Sometimes, the guest would remain for the evening and dinner.

There was a very large room in the house. That room was larger than the other rooms, and was designated for honored guests. When the period of rabbis took place in Rubel, with a rabbi coming, a rabbi leaving, and a new rabbi appearing, the large room would serve as the venue for those who came to see him. The walls of that room were adorned with pictures of the great ones of Israel, Gaonim, and leaders of the generation. A picture of the holy city of Jerusalem, may it speedily be rebuilt, in an antique gold frame, hung over the door leading to the next room.

On Saturday night after Havdalah, the young son Shmuel would take his violin from the wall, and begin to play. His friends Motel and Yudel Berman, the elder son of Shimon the Shochet, were next to him. He played the violin, and they played flutes, as they would play music and escort the departing [Sabbath] Queen.

[Page 244]

Other youths, children, and young adults would come to the large room. Girls would not come, for once a girl reached the age of 11 or 12, she was forbidden from being in the company of men. If a girl managed to escape from the eye of her own mother, she could not evade the eye of Gisha, the mistress of the house. Shlomo's wife Gisha was observant of the commandments, and stringent about the easy as well as difficult ones. She was exacting about matters of religion, and conducted herself as one of the righteous women. Under no circumstances would she allow any traditions of the ancestors to be taken lightly. Her eyes were even always upon her youngest son Shmuel, lest he stray, Heaven forbid, from accepted customs. There was no shortage of vexation in the house regarding this. If she would see her son, whose friends were leading him off the “straight path,” shortening his prayers and being lenient about the morning washing of hands, she would be certain that he was not fulfilling the commandments, that he had not recited a legitimate Grace After Meals, and countless other complaints regarding the laxity of the younger generation. There should never be such a thing. The religious tradition as transmitted to her was to be transmitted exactly the same to her progeny.

During the winter, when the day was short and the evening was long, the oven would be specially lit on Saturday night to prepare a fourth meal in honor of the departing Sabbath Queen. This is the Hassidic feast of Melave Malka^[2].

Two barrels stood in the storehouse from the beginning of the autumn. One had pickled cabbage, and the other had frozen meat. It was not only the members of the household who were invited to that meal, for it was a meal of religious significance.

The small community was connected to Horodok rather than Stolin in all matters. The vast majority of the people of the village were not Hassidim, even though they worshipped in the Nusach Sephard rite^[3].

The veteran Misnagdim [non-Hassidic people] in the village maintained their independence, and conducted an early minyan at sunrise on Sabbaths and festivals, as was the custom of the Misnagdim, unlike the Hassidim who would worship later. Nevertheless, there were roots of Hassidism in the village. The most prominent sign of Hassidism was the custom to come to the home of Shimon the Shochet before the end of the Sabbath to partake of the Third Sabbath Meal [Seuda Shelishit or Shalosh Seudos]. The Sabbath hymns of the father and young sons would burst forth through the low windows of Rabbi Shimon's house and be carried afar.

During the days of Passover, they would go to the synagogue in the afternoon and sing the well-known Haggadah songs.

The chief singer was a Jew who was not necessarily well off, Yossel Tzeitel's, a carpenter by trade. He would sing with all of his 248 limbs, in the sense of “all my limbs shall say”^[4]. He was given the rights to lead the second Maariv service on festivals^[5]. The hearts of the women would literally depart from the sweetness of his voice, which was like “a violin player.”

They would also come on the Intermediate Days of Sukkot for the Simchat Beit Shoeiva^[6]. Shlomo would send for liquor and cakes from the house^[7], and they would drink Lechayim in memory of the days of yore in the Temple.

The synagogue stood at the edge of an alleyway, facing the fields. The synagogue was built many years before us, for its roof was already leaky during our childhood, and it was necessary to bring shingles and to hire a tradesman from Stolin to cover the roof with new shingles.

Two of the elders, Shlomo and Moshe (he was Moshe Durchin, the father of all the Durchins in Rubel) were still very young when they carried thick wooden beams on their shoulders to lay the foundations of the synagogue. They carried them from the river, through the entire breadth of the village, all the way to the fields, where the building site was. As they both walked, bent under the heavy load, they certainly saw themselves as carrying the hewn stones of the Temple Mount to build the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

That synagogue was a witness to the double murder perpetrated by the band of Balachowiczes on Simchat Torah of 1920. It took place in the afternoon, when the festival was eclipsed, and the joy turned to bitterness.

They attempted to arrange the hanging of Moshe's son Yehuda Durchin, on the bima of the synagogue “in the same place where I had an aliya to the Torah in the morning” – as he later said.

They murdered someone in the anteroom of the synagogue a short time before. That was his nephew, Aharon Hershel Durchin. Shalom Boyer, a young man from Stolin, was murdered along with him in the anteroom. He had been spending the festival with

[Page 245]

his wife's mother in Rubel. When they had arrested the young man, his mother-in-law ran after him to save him. The murderers told her to bring a ransom of two hundred rubles, and they would free him. She went back, obtained the money, and brought it to them. They received the ransom from her, and returned to her a dead body rather than a living person.

The synagogue was a large, spacious building. Its tall windows declared to every passer-by that it was a holy place, and honor must be given to the House of G-d.

Even though the building stood near the fields, separate and far from the houses of the Jews, and the villagers would pass by it daily on their way to the nearby fields – they never dared to damage it at all, to throw a stone or to break the windows, as was their custom on their night of watching, the eve of Good Friday before Easter, to take revenge for their crucified messiah.

If they were angry or had a grudge against some Jew – that night would be a night of revenge, where they would break the windows of the Jew on their way home from church after the festival service. That night was also a night of watching for the Jews^[8], to pull down the shutters. In houses that had no shutters over the windows, they would cover and protect them with boards or doors that they took from the inside rooms.

There were no shutters over the windows of Yehuda Durchin's home. One year, there was a concern that the youths would throw stones at the windows as they passed by the house. The residents of the house went outside with lanterns in their hands to light up the way for the passers-by. Their son Aharon would light them and call out a verse from the New Testament, “Happy are the tormented, happy are the pursuers of peace, love your enemies, if you forgive a person for their sins – your father in heaven will also forgive you.” This announcement was quite effective. The stone in the hand dropped to the ground and was not thrown.

We will return to talk about the synagogue: There were about eighty seats there. On festivals, when children would return to their parents' home from the city, the synagogue would be filled to the brim. People and children also crowded in the anteroom.

The synagogue also had another trait. It was flush with the open fields, and at times we would go out in the middle of the services to feast our eyes on the expanse of grain stalks swaying in the wind.

When Shlomo's children got older, he would bring young teachers for them from Horodok. The teachers would teach the boys as well as the girls Bible, grammar, and the Russian and German languages. These teachers would bring to the village the spirit of the Haskalah [Enlightenment] of that time, the Haskalah writers and their books: The Mysteries of Paris by Kalman Schulman, and The Painted Eagle, Guilt of Samaria, and Love of Zion by Abraham Mapu. All of the writings that appeared in the Jewish world at that time also reached the remote village, Hamagid, Hameilitz, Der Yud, and the house was connected with the greater Jewish world, and lived a communal Jewish life. Along with the members of the household were their friends and relatives of the same age, and especially the children of Shimon the Shochet, the intelligent Motel and Yudel.

When the convention in Katowice took place in 1884, which led to the founding of the Chovevei Zion [Lovers of Zion] organization, the household followed what was going on there from across the border in Russia, and their hearts swore an oath of allegiance to Zion.

The children of Nachum Neiditz, the well-known teacher from Horodok, Eizik and his brother Yaakov, disseminated Haskalah in the village. Shlomo had brought them from Horodok to be teachers to his children. As is known, these brothers later went out to the wide world and gained worldwide renown.

After them Yosef Choroshchensky, the brother of Mordechai Choroshchensky, the father of the Choroshchenskys in Rubel, served as the teacher in the home. The children, along with the few other youths in the village became acquainted with the new winds that began to blow in our poor world, the winds of Haskalah and the winds of new nationalism. National songs and songs of Zion in Yiddish and Hebrew echoed through the roads of the village from the mouths of the youth. They knew about everything happening in the Jewish world. When the great tragedy of the Kishinev Pogrom took place in the spring of 1903, the members of the household read the newspapers, knew what had happened, and participated in the great sorrow that overtook “The House of Jacob” in Russia.

[Page 246]

g. Dr. Herzl is No More…

We were young children then in the summer of 5664 - 1904, when the illustrious leader died. We, a group of friends, including the brothers Avraham and Yosef Choroshchensky, were strolling through the roads of the village. This was on a Saturday afternoon. The Choroshchensky parents came to meet us along with their guest, their brother Yosef Choroshchensky, who had been the teacher in Shlomo's house some years earlier. Yosef the uncle decided to test us on our knowledge of Hebrew. He followed us in the middle of the street and asked this simple question: On the first page of Hatzefira, in a black frame, the words “Herzl is no more” are written. What does “is no more” [einenu] mean? Should it not have said “Herzl is dead” [Herzl met]? What is einenu? A poignant question! We stood astounded and silent. None of us found an answer to the question. There were very talented children amongst us. Then Choroshchensky explained to us: einenu means that there is none similar to him, no one like him^[9].

That week, we were studying the weekly Torah portion, Matot-Masai with the teacher Pesach Golombovitz, our first modern teacher after the melamdim. We read in the Chumash “And Egypt was burying the firstborns whom G-d had smitten…” [Numbers 33:4]. Our friend Baruch Berman, one of the young sons of Shimon the Shochet, was sitting amongst us. He burst out in laughter at the words “Egypt is burying.” This was the laughter of revenge for the evil Egypt. We were wondering about this laughter. Our friend Avraham Durchin (living in the Land) reacted to this, “And on this day we will bury him…” an echo to the great tragedy that overtook the Jewish people with the passing of the leader.

The Sabbath came. The youths of Rubel, the older sons of Shimon the Shochet, Shmuel and their friends, decided to arrange a memorial ceremony for Herzl from the bima of the synagogue. When he time of the memorial came, the shamash Matityahu the Melamed pointed to the youths and began Kel Male Rachamim^[10]. The pious from among the Hassidim, Shlomo's brother Yaakov and Leizer Gomer rose and protested: “No, it is not permitted to arrange a memorial in the holy place for their heretic Dr.” The youths stood perplexed. As if the general tragedy was not enough, the small private tragedy was added. They were not even permitted to mourn the death of the leader… Yehuda Durchin, the president of the synagogue authorized by the government, decided in favor of the spirit of the youths and gestured to Matityahu to continue. The memorial took place. The youths were victorious over the darkened ones, who lacked the light.

These youths of Rubel did not sit with folded hands. They did not regard themselves as sitting on a remote island. Rather, they regarded themselves as part of the Jewish world. The newspapers that appeared in Russia at that time, Hameilitz, Hamagid, Hatzefira, and the Yiddish Der Yud, reached the village in order, and the youths of the village knew about everything that was taking place in the larger Jewish world, and saw it as their duty to do what was being done in all places for the sake of the new movement, the renaissance movement of the nation, first and foremost, in the area of education and culture.

Taking the example of the activists of nearby Horodok, especially of Aharon Yonah Shafer, who brought the well-known teacher Yishai Adler to the town and opened a modern school – our youths rose up and also founded a similar modern institution in their village, in which the children would not only learn kometz aleph oh^[12], but rather learn according to the modern methodology. The language of instruction was not a translation to Yiddish, but rather Hebrew in Hebrew. Furthermore, boys and girls studied together.

Who were the teachers in this new school?

Shimon the Shochet was greatly honored and important in the community. He had two older sons from his first wife. They, together with Shmuel the son of Shlomo, were the center of this new movement. Several other youths gathered around them, girls as well, which was an innovation to that generation. Of course, it was girls from the family.

When the modern school opened, Motel as one of the teachers. The second, who served as principal, was Yaakov Reznik, the son of Eizel the butcher from Horodok. He had a grandmother in the village, Hinda Rivka the wife of Meir Moshe the scribe.

They rented a home from a farmer, brought in benches (skameikes in the vernacular), and not simple tables as in the cheder. They placed them in rows. They brought in a podium for the teacher, a blackboard, chalk, and a bell – and behold, it was a veritable school.

[Page 247]

They hung an announcement in the synagogue, as follows: “O, all who are thirsty, come to water, and those who have money, go buy and eat” (Isaiah 55:1). This verse from the Bible served as the permit for the youths to talk in the holy place about the revolution that they were about to make in the education of the generation.

In the second year, the institution was transferred to a large house, and rays of light from the wide world penetrated the village.

These young activists also concerned themselves with culture. They gathered the books that they owned and donated them to the public library. They brought all the works of Peretz Smolenskin, and other children's books that were published at that time. At first, the library was in Shlomo's warehouse, for who would bring this treif-pasul^[13] into the house – for they were not from among the sacred books? Later, when our turn came to stand on guard of the renaissance, the library was already housed in a private house. We paid rent and purchased a bookcase. Everything was as it should be.

Uncaptioned. Seemingly one of the library activists mentioned in the following paragraph.

The Polish teacher and Warsaw native, Rachel Feler, did great things. She was a teacher in the Tarbut School in the village. Through her connections to the capital city, she enriched the library with many books.

There was a period when the library in the village served the people of the nearby towns of Stolin as well as Horodok. The residents of Horodok recall that during the year prior to the revolution, there was a large library in the town, but it was shut and locked, until someone recommended that the library be transferred from the village to the town so that the masses could enjoy. However, the local residents objected, saying, “We prefer our poverty here over wealth in a different place.”

Our friend Aharon Hershel, may G-d avenge his blood, found out from the activists in Horodok that one could obtain all the volumes of Hashiloach for the library for free. One only had to issue a certification from the responsible person stating that a public library exists in the place.

Who was the philanthropist who donated the issues of Hashiloach to distribute to libraries for free? It was the well-known activist Kalonymus Zev Wissotzky, the owner of the famous Wissotzky Tea Company. He was a great lover of Zion, one of the founders of the [Chovevei Zion] organization in Katowice in 1884. He was also once sent by the Chovevei Zion headquarters to the visit the Land and report on the situation of the settlements that were in a difficult position at that time. Those were the settlements of the First Aliya: Petah Tikva, Rosh Pina, Zichron Yaakov, and Rishon LeZion. Incidentally, it is worthwhile to note that this Zionist activist left a bequest of one million rubles to found the Technion in Haifa.

[Page 248]

Indeed, who was the person of authority who would be able to confirm the existence of a library in the village of Rubel? It is self-evident that it would be the rabbi. Aharon Hershel went to Rabbi Moshe Chaim Hechtman, who settled in the village after the Balachowiczes. The rabbi gave him the requested certification.

Before long, packages of books arrived from Odessa: dozens of Hashiloach booklets covered with green covers, enjoyable to the heart and attractive to the eye, enchanting, and calling out: “Take us and enjoy us.” Indeed, we enjoyed them as “first fruits before summer.” They were like sweet honey and intoxicating wine to us.

We gave the booklets over to be bound, and the library of the village was suddenly enriched with a large treasury of thought, poetry, literature, and science. These volumes opened for us a window to the wide world of Jewry.

We got to know Mendele the Hebrew and Brenner from these volumes of Hashiloach. It was a great enjoyment to read the Thoughts and Deeds feuilletons of “Rabbi Karov” at the end of every booklet. This “Rabbi Karov” was the merchant and author E. L. Levinsky, whose name is borne by the Teachers' Seminary in Tel Aviv. He was a central figure among the group of writers in Odessa. He published the utopian Journey to the Land of Israel in the Year 5800.

These feuilletons were offered to the readers as a sort of wonderful fruit soup or tasty dessert after the ample, fine meal of important articles in the booklet.

The taste of these Thoughts and Deeds is guarded in our mouths to this day…

Finally, we should remember in a positive way the houses which hosted the library in the village: Sara Leah the widow of Reb Shimon Berman the Shochet, Nachum Durchin, Zelig the Carpenter, Yehuda Baruch Frumkin, and the final host until the time of the Holocaust – the home of the ordinary Jew Yossel Plotnitzky, who related to the library with honor, as a holy matter. He only accepted a very small, symbolic rent payment.

To complete the needs of the small community, a small bathhouse was built at the bank of the river through the initiative of the rabbi. That bathhouse had sweat boards, a mikveh for ritual immersion, as well as baths. During the winter, gentiles from among the local farmers or those of the nearby area would also come. On Friday afternoons, they would sweat along with the Jews in honor of the Sabbath.

On occasion, they had to make repairs on the bathhouse, and the appropriate sums of money were not always collected.

During the days of Rabbi Hechtman, there was a need for money for repairs, but money was not obtained. The community refused to give. The rabbi thought, and found a ruse to force the people to give their part. During services on the Sabbath, he announced from the pulpit that nobody would be permitted to bring their tallis home. The tallis would remain in the hands of the rabbi as a surety until the money would be brought. He spoke thus and did thus. After the services, he stood at the door to confiscate the tallises of the worshippers.

Another time when money was again needed, the important householders went down and the others went up. Those whose hearts were open had empty pockets, and those whose pockets were full had closed hearts, so the bathhouse remained firmly locked. Discussions regarding the bathhouse and the mikveh never ceased in the synagogue.

One day after services, a few people remained behind to conclude their prayers, Shlomo Zingerman among them. Yossel Plotnitzky, or Yossel “Samachdregas” as he was known in the village, stood in the second corner of the synagogue. He was childless, ignorant, and had a coarse spirit. Yossel began to speak on the issue of the times: the bathhouse. He opened his mouth and said in a cynical tone, “Of course, it will be good without a mikveh…” Shlomo heard his words, and responded with the following historical story:

Two thousand years ago, a Jewish woman gave birth to a son without a mikveh – and we have bundles of trouble from him to this day…

[Page 249]

l. The Second Synagogue in the Village

There was a second concentration of Jewish houses at the second edge of the village, in the direction of Stolin. These were working Jews, tradesmen, carpenters, shoemakers, builders, and sawmill workers – Pilshchikes. A large number of the houses of the farmers in the villages on the routes to Stolin and Pinsk were built by the callused hands of these upright workers. They would go out to the villages with their work tools at dawn on Sunday, and return on Friday afternoon. As their numbers grew, they built a small synagogue in their neighborhood, so as not to tire themselves with the long walk to the synagogue at the other end of the village. Only on Sabbaths when the rabbi delivered a sermon to the congregation, or when one of the Maggidim would preach his words to the community – and Maggidim did visit the village frequently – did these toiling Jews trouble themselves to go to the large synagogue at the other end.

The only one who lived in their neighborhood and who went on the long route to the first synagogue on Sabbaths and festivals was Shlomo Durchin, even though he had a place on the eastern wall of their own synagogue. He went either because of family connections or because he did not feel close with his Jewish neighbors. The common thread in that neighborhood was that this was pure Judaism, without excessive neighborly connections with the gentiles.

When the settlement dwindled and the bathhouse at the bank of the river was destroyed, they also built their own bathhouse in the courtyard of their synagogue.

The wealthy person in that neighborhood, the first in any communal matter, was Mordechai Nosanchuk. Any matter in the neighborhood was decided by his mouth. He would bring in a teacher for children. He continued in this role throughout all the years, even when the Tarbut School was built. He concerned himself with the school and the proper credentials of the teachers until he left the village to move to Stolin. He would bring in more than one of the maskilim of Horodok to the village to disseminate Torah to the children of those toiling families. They would partake of their meals at their tables in rotation, in accordance with the conditions of those times.

The writer of these lines also taught their children from time to time, until he left to nearby Horodok. Among those toiling Jews were several Jews like the Jews of Y. L. Peretz, the Sabbath and festival Jews, refined Jews with all their simplicity, with a way of life of working people that were upright and of the straight path. Ch. N. Bialik wrote his poem regarding such people: “May my lot be with them.” He called them “Tormented of this world, with mute souls, you are the faithful guardians of the spirit of G-d in the world.” We will bring here the memory of several of them: Yehuda Burshtein the shoemaker, Yosha Rimar the saddler, Moshe Feigelman the carpenter, and others.

1. The Shochet is the Rabbi

   There was no rabbi in the village for many years. The number of householders was not yet large enough to sustain the family of a rabbi. In addition, there was no urgent need for a local rabbinical guide. There was a shochet living in the village, Rabbi Shimon Berman. He was a Hassid of Stolin and a native of Breznitz-Dombrovitz. He was the former brother-in-law of Shlomo Zingerman. He would fill the role of rabbi at times of need. He would provide guidance in the laws of women^[14], issue decisions related to issues of meat and milk, etc. He was a Torah-oriented person with generous traits. He was honored by everyone, and had major influence upon all the residents of the village, just like a rabbi in his congregation. Rabbi Shimon filled the job of rabbi for tens of people.

   When the community grew, a rabbi was brought to the village. He was an actual rabbi, a man of stature, and possessing of authority. This was Rabbi Yechiel Michal Rabinovitz, the first rabbi of Rubel. Rabbi Rabinovitz ran his community with a strong hand. We were friends with his young sons Yosef and Chona in the cheder of Avraham the Melamed. His oldest son Avraham Elazar, who was noted in the early chapters, was a friend of my brother Yudel, may G-d avenge his blood (perished along with his wife and daughter in the community of Pinsk.) Both of them studied Gemara with the rabbi.

 

2. The Man With the Angry Eyelids

   When Shimon the Shochet grew old and no longer had the energy, he taught his oldest son Motel the laws

[Page 250]

of shechita [ritual slaughter], so he could take his place from time to time. This was logical and natural, and did not arouse any opposition. Everyone greatly honored Rabbi Shimon and related to his deeds with full trust. At that time, there was a man meticulous about religious matters, who was zealous for the L-rd of Hosts, who raised a racket and instigated a wave of protest.

Moshe Durchin had a brother named Wolf. That Wolf was an unparalleled zealot, a man of wrath with angry eyelids. He considered himself as a protective wall for G-d's Torah, with a character similar to the well-known shochet in the Yosha Egel play. We children knew his difficult spirit and did not like him. He used to suddenly appear in the cheder of our rebbe Avraham the Melamed, sit comfortably at the head of the table and act as the superintendent. He would test our knowledge of Bible. He would begin a verse and ask us to finish it. He brought a bad spirit in with him when he came to the cheder.

When this Wolf heard about the young shochet, he raised his voice, shouting, “Can it be that a lad who sits together with young women be a shochet? He will feed us non-kosher, treif meat! Such a thing will surely not be!” The village was in ferment. Some were opposed and others were in favor, and the Satan of discord celebrated its victory, as was common in Jewish communities during that time. However, the power of the shamash [beadle] was displayed with full strength later, when the saga of the rabbis of the village began.

 

3. The Contempt of Torah

   Rabbi Rabinovitz lived in the village for six years, and then moved to Dombrovitz. The ship of the small community was left without a captain, but not for long. Candidates for the rabbinical seat began to stream to the village. A rabbi came, ascended the pulpit, delivered a sermon to the congregation, and made a good impression. It seemed that everything was straight and smooth. However, when the matter came down to action, everything disbanded and was as if it had not been. The rabbi left as he had come, and another rabbi came to try his luck. This happened repeatedly. Woe to the people for the contempt of Torah [Pirkei Avot 6:2]. How much disgrace, desecration of honor, how much oppression of the soul and contempt did these candidates for the rabbinical seat in “large” Rubel endure. The matter with the signatures on the writ. Local Jews were requested to sign their names that they install Rabbi so and so the son of so and so to guide, and judge in their community, and they obligate themselves to several obligations: To purchase Sabbath candles from the rebbetzin, as well as yeast for challah – all those were the monopoly of the rabbi. Those two primary sources of income, as well as the festival payments at the holidays, and other sporadic sources of income, such as for conducting weddings, rabbinical adjudications, and the like, were not great in this small community.

   That is where the differences of opinions and discord began. Some said yes, others said no, and there was no end to the matter. This was the way things were in large and small Jewish communities. The matter never ended.

   Several candidates came, delivered fine sermons, and left empty-handed. One winter, Reb Dovidl Berkovitz brought his son-in-law, the husband of his daughter Alta, to Rubel. He died in his prime. He was a young man great in Torah. Apparently, everything went smoothly. Reb Dovidl worked, wearied himself, and interceded, but he did not achieve success.

   Another time, in the summer, his nephew Reb Baruch Zeldin, his sister's son, came. He too was ordained as a rabbi. He attempted to obtain the rabbinate of Rubel, but also did not succeed.

   Two were accepted and settled there, but they left after a short period. One settled at the second end of the village. Mordechai Nosanchuk gave him a dwelling in his house. He lived as he lived, and finally left the village.

   The second settled in the larger edge of the village. He also lived as he lived, and left at his first opportunity. He later initiated a lawsuit against the householders who signed the writ. The matter continued for several years. A rabbi came, a rabbi left, and there was no rabbi. Finally, a young rabbi from Slutsk came to Rubel. He was a man of stature, who excelled over the masses, and knew how to win over people's hearts.

 

4. A Rabbi, a Man of the People

   He was also not accepted by everyone at first. A miracle such as that does not happen. He left the few, the well-pedigreed people, and went to the masses of regular people. He visited their homes and talked with them. The regular people were unaccustomed to such honor – especially the women. He won over their hearts. He brought his family. He rented a dwelling

[Page 251]

and settled in. He made no preconditions, and did not request signatures on the writ. He slowly but surely captured the hearts of the community. The number of his opponents dwindled continually, and, at the end, he was loved by everyone.

 

Uncaptioned. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Hechtman.

 

He also suffered from want during the first period, but he was supported by his father-in-law, a wealthy Jew from Slutsk, who from time to time fed anyone who reached the disgrace of hunger.

The young rabbi, Moshe Chaim Hechtman, conducted his small community with wisdom and understanding. He taught the chapter [of Pirkei Avot] during summer Sabbaths, and Mishnah between Mincha and Maariv. He frequently delivered sermons on Sabbaths. In time, he became endeared to everyone, including the youths.

Rabbi Hechtman led his small community during the days of the First World War, until the days of the great disaster of the Balachowiczes, may their names be blotted out (Sukkot 1920), in which he and his family also suffered greatly. After the community was shaken up by the disaster and many left, some to America and others to nearby cities, the rabbi found the opportunity to go to the city of Sarny, where there were several Rubel natives. He was appointed as the government rabbi with the support of the local Zionist community. He built a large house, married off his daughters, and lived a life of comfort and honor, until the arrival of the terrible Holocaust, in which he and his community perished among all the thousand communities in the country of Poland. May G-d avenge their blood.

Later on, several details about the last hour of the rabbi became known. He hid for some time, and was not removed from his house with all those who were found. After his hiding place was exposed and he was found, he was led bareheaded outside, where he was murdered. May G-d avenge his blood.

After the departure of Rabbi Hechtman, the community of Rubel did not remain without a rabbi. Yossel, the second son of Rabbi Dovidl came and served as a rabbi for many years. He returned to Horodok after the death of his father Rabbi Dovidl to take his place.

This ends the annals of the rabbis of Rubel. Now we will discuss rabbis from Rubel.

The village did not produce many high school graduates. On the other hand, it did send many of its sons to Yeshivas, and many became ordained and occupied rabbinical seats.

Rabbi Hechtman, and his position in the city, served for many households, and especially for many mothers, as a fine example of how to build a career for the sons in Yeshiva and as rabbis in communities. We have before us a long list of rabbis. Most of them immigrated to the United States and Canada, following their fathers, to fructify the desolate fields of Judaism in the new world.

A more living and more instructive and practical example was the first two natives of our village, of our age, who became rabbis of renown thanks to their unusual talents and diligence.

The first was Yitzchak the son of Leib and Bracha Stollman, today a rabbi in Detroit. He was a deep lad with unusual talents, as well as an artist. Even when occupied in Talmudic discussions, he had the “evil inclination” to draw from chapter to chapter. When he was studying in Slobodka, he received regular monthly support from his father in America, so he would not suffer from the tribulations of a Yeshiva student, and not degrade himself to partake of his meals in rotation at the tables of strangers. His dress was splendid and elegant, literally

[Page 252]

not like a Yeshiva student. With his talents, he would have been able to successfully complete an upper-level school for sciences and become famous in the modern world. However, he did not, Heaven forbid, get enticed to leave the world of Torah and transfer to another world.

After some time, he visited the Land, and was even invited to direct a well-known Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He lived in the Holy City for one year. He returned to his former place for various reasons to lead his flock. From there, he went overseas.

The second was of the same age – Mordechai the son of Chana and Natan Elya Gertzulin the smith. He was from a home of literal paupers, and he was not graced with special talents. It was only because of his strong desire and diligence that he attained that which he attained. When these two natives of the village would come home for the holidays, they would treat the congregation to a lecture in the synagogue. The first, Yitzchak or Itzel Stollman, knew what he was preaching, and the second, Mordechai, preached what he knew. That Mordechai encapsulated the character that the writer Azar, Alexander Ziskind Rabinovitz, portrayed in one of his stories From the Yeshiva. Avraham Hirsch was the name of Azar's hero in his interesting story. Avraham Hirsch was not unique in the dwellings of Jacob. Our village also had one such as that.

Uncaptioned

3. Moshe Milman, the son of Yosef and Gruna Feigel, a writer for Davar. He lives in Hadera. Y. Shiv is his relative. He was a rabbi in Kostopol.
4. Shimon Shulman the son of Motel, of the wide-branched Shulman family of the village. Another two sons of Avraham Shulman as well (who are mentioned in the book.)
5. Berl Budimsky the son of Moshe.
6. Zeev the son of Nachum Durchin, grandson of Wolf, the religious zealot who was mentioned in earlier chapters.
7. Shaul Rosenzweig the son of Chaim Leib and Rivel of the Gomer family. He was a rabbi in Pinsk. He has relatives in the Land (he is a cousin of Chaim Weizmann.)
8. His brother Berl Rosenzweig, a rabbi in Cuba.
9. Moshe Hechtman the son of Rabbi Hechtman. He is in America.
10. Hershel Stollman, a rabbi in Brooklyn. He is the son of Chava and Nachum who were murdered by the Balachowiczes in Rubel. He is the brother of Ada Stollman of the Teachers' Center, and her sister Zelda who participated in our book.
11. Aharon the son of Dov Bokov.
12. Shlomo the son of Yeshayahu Bokov (a shochet.)

Then, in those generations, it was a great merit to immigrate to the Land of Israel and to be buried in the holy soil – but this was not a common occurrence. Only a few took hold of that merit. Only those who came to a general agreement, without a shadow of doubt or uncertainty, as if it is written about them: To him it is fitting, to him it shall be fitting^[15]. Only such a person would leave his family and the people of his place during his evening years and make aliya to the Land of the Patriarchs, to return his soul to G-d there, and to be saved from the tribulation of rolling through the tunnels^[16] at the time of the Resurrection of the Dead.

There would not even be one such person in a city, and there would not be such a person at all times. The writer Micha Yosef Berdichevsky enriched our book with a story about one such person who left for the Land of Israel from his city of Tolna, Natan Nota the Shochet. From the days of our childhood, we know about two such situations of aliya. One was the elderly Rabbi Avraham Ber of Kozhan-Horodok, the father of the rabbis Rabbi Itche of Lakhva and Rabbi Dovidl of Horodok.

We went to Horodok to bid him farewell. He placed his hand on our heads and blessed us, his great-grandchildren. He gave us each eighteen coins as a token of blessing.

[Page 253]

The second was Rabbi Meir Moshe the writer of Rubel. He traveled with his wife Hinda Rivka, the grandmother of the teacher Yaakov Reznik, who was mentioned in earlier chapters.

It was a lovely summer day. The wagon with their belongings drove in front of them. Walking behind it were the olim [immigrants to the Land of Israel], accompanied by women, men, and children accompanying them until they left the village.

When the entourage passed by the cheder of Avraham the Melamed, our rebbe interrupted his lesson, when out to the street, and told us to run to catch up with the old man and get a blessing from him.

We ran, and reached the head of the entourage, and we each stuck out our small hands and wished him “Travel in peace.” The old man touched our heads with his hands as a sign of blessing. In the name of historical truth, we should add that there was one other aliya from Rubel. It was a literal aliya, not of old people on the verge of death, but rather of youths who traveled to the Land to try their luck there. It was not from inspiration and aspiration, like all those who made aliya on the Third Aliya, but rather because of some spirit that overtook them, for they were people who were very far from inspiration and idealism.

These were the two: Mordechai the glassmaker, a pure, upright man, from among the simple folk. He was poor and indigent all his life. The second was Moshe Kotsh, who made a living by his profession, but was also very poor in body and spirit. They used to travel to southern Russia to work there in the summer. Apparently, they were swept up with the stream of the Second Aliya to seek work in the Land. They remained there for the time they remained, and just as the Land absorbed them, it expelled them. They returned to the village, and nobody knew what was what. Nobody started up with them because their spiritual level was less than zero. It was well known that only few people of the Second Aliya withstood all the trials and remained in the Land. Approximately ninety percent left. Only ten percent remained in the Land. On the other hand, the village merited to serve as a host for the regional convention of Hechalutz [The Pioneer]. This was at the height of the Fourth Aliya. Approximately a hundred Chalutzim [Zionist pioneers] came from Stolin, Horodok, and the region in 5685 / 1925 to prepare for aliya to the Land.

Uncaptioned. A group meeting (caption unclear), from 5685 / 1925.

[Page 254]

They were unable to gather in Stolin or Horodok because of the evil eye of the government, so they chose a place between the two cities.

In its time, this was a matter of shkotzim [non-Jewish men (usually derogatory)] in our eyes, when the simple people burst forth against the honorable ones in a revolt against the people of the eastern wall in the synagogue^[17].

Of course, there were not workers and employers in the village. There were not oppressed and oppressors. As in any large or small community, there were classes. There was the class of shopkeepers and merchants, and the class of tradespeople and craftspeople, who earned their livelihoods from both the Jews and the farmers. These were the “householders” who sat at the “east,” whereas the tradespeople sat on the northern and southern sides of the synagogue, or stood behind the bima.

There were apprentice youths who worked with the tailors, shoemakers, and smiths. These people once declared a revolt against their employers and demanded an improvement in their working conditions. This was several years before the incident that will be described later. One youth, specifically from among the better pedigreed ones of the village, became friendly with these poor people. He drew close to them and spread his protection upon them. He organized evening classes for them, and taught them reading, writing, arithmetic, and especially class consciousness. He also set up a small library for them, and led them toward their first act, their first class action.

One day, these apprentices stood up and declared to their masters: “Enough! You have the day, and we have the evening. We will not work for you endlessly.”

In its time, this was a veritable revolution. The youths and apprentices succeeded through the power of their organization.

However, in actuality, this also had results that reached nearby Horodok.

There was a Jew named Shmuel Gomer in Rubel who would sail all summer on his berlina [river barge] to cities in Russia, as did many of the people of Horodok. As someone who came from the “wide world” who knew what was transpiring in the big cities, he placed himself at the side of the employers, and defended their rights that had existed from generation after generation.

When he found out about this rebellion of the apprentices against their employers, and who had incited them to such, he encountered the youth who instigated the rebellion, slapped him over the cheek, and warned him with reproof: “Hey you sheketz [a non-Jewish man (usually derogatory)], for you have mixed in to affairs that are not yours, and you should surely remember…”

The youths heard about this, and became very incensed. However, they could not deal with the strongman in his place. They rose up and informed their friends of the same class in Horodok about the travesty that had taken place to their patron and friend. They decided to react. When Sh. G. came to Horodok and crossed the bridge in the direction of his boat that was anchored at the riverbank, he found a large crowd of male and female youths blocking his path to the boat: “Why did you hit our friend and protector Shmuel Zeldin? We will not permit you to board your boat until you ask his forgiveness in public for the deed that you had done!”

After a long negotiation, he acceded to their demand. One day, an apology to Shmuel Zeldin by Sh. Gomer appeared in two newspapers, Hameilitz and Hatzefira. The matter became a topic of discussion among everybody.

The blood of a rebel revolutionary bubbled within that youth Sh. Z. from his childhood. When they stood him up in the synagogue to recite Kaddish for his father who had died while he was a youth, he refused and protested with the following words: “Why should I say Kaddish to a G-d who stole my father from me?”

After that, when he moved to Pinsk to study in the trade school, he joined the ranks of the members of Tzeirei Zion [Youth of Zion] and was among those who were most active in that organization. As is known, this was fraught with many dangers at that time, under the rule of the Czar in Russia.

On page 160 in the book One Thousand Years of Pinsk, published in America, it describes that young locksmith who lived in the attic of a certain house, and in whose dwelling the proclamations of the party were published. The “stash” of “weapons,” so to speak, of those days was also in his dwelling.

One winter night, the owner of the house sensed that not everything was proper in the attic of his house. He rose up with the fear of death and demanded that he leave the room. What was to be done with the printing and the “weapons”? They took the letters – Yiddish and Russian –

[Page 255]

placed them in small bags, and distributed them among the members. Some of the printings were placed in chests and hidden in the cemetery. The implements of death were placed in the yard of one of the synagogues. The gunpowder was taken out, scattered in the snow, and covered on top. That is how the resident of the attic was able to escape the wrath of the police.

Eventually, that locksmith immigrated to the United States and became a member of the right leaning Poalei Zion [Workers of Zion]. He became one of the dedicated activists of the Histadrut Campaign in Los Angeles. He visited the Land after the rise of the state, and a second time this past Passover (5717 [1957]).

Let us return to the matter of the class war in the village. The war first broke out against the “owners of the east” in the synagogue, with the formula: “You have taken on too much. The entire congregation is holy, so why shall you raise yourselves up?” [Numbers 16:3]. It is logical that the revolt in the desert on the route to the Land of Canaan served for them as the first factor to jump up and call out: “Why shall you overload? We too want to “have rights.” The revolution against the “ones with rights” in the Great Synagogue began.

We were small children, aged 7-8 at that time, when the event took place on a winter Sabbath, on the Torah portion of Vayechi. They were reading the Torah as customary, and about to conclude the Book of Genesis. Matityahu the Melamed stood to the left of the Torah reader and he called up for an aliya “Let Rabbi Yaakov the son of Rabbi Moshe come up for an aliya, Chazak!”^[18] Two people jumped up from close to the southern wall, ascended the bima from the right side, and called out, “Let Rabbi Yeshayahu the son of Yosef come up for an aliya, Chazak!” From one side Yaakov, and from the other side Yeshayahu. Yaakov was the brother of Shlomo Zingerman, one of the well-pedigreed people. He was erudite. More than he was pedigreed, he considered himself of high pedigree. Even though he lived under meager straits all his life, he would announce that he was the only scholarly Jew in the synagogue – Uchony Yevrei as would be said in Russian.

And Yeshayahu was an ordinary person who rose to greatness. He began as a woodcutter, and ended up as a shopkeeper, trader, agent, filling all roles. He surrounded himself with his fellow professionals and family members, and was a “something” in the village. Now, for the first time in his life, he desired to be honored with the Chazak honor.

Needless to say, they did not recite the Musaf service in the synagogue. It was only with difficulty that they managed to put the Torah back in the ark. Then they congregation dispersed and went home, with the pain and anger about the dispute and the degradation of the Torah in the holy place.

There was someone who reported the incident to the authorities. The police chief came to the village, interrogated, and asked questions. There was a great suspicion that if these matters were to reach the high offices, the district governor and regional governor – the synagogue would be shut, and perhaps even worse things would happen.

The Jews utilized the well-known and tried method, from that time and previous, even from the days of Jacob our Forefather. They gave a present to the police chief, and the matter was covered over, as if it never happened.

However, the chasm that opened on that Sabbath never disappeared. The dispute and hatred never stopped for many years. It is possible that the echoes of winds blowing from Russia at that time, winds of revolt and revolution, reached even to the remote village.

Once, a dispute broke out in the synagogue in the middle of the holy Yom Kippur. The dispute was not limited to Chazak and synagogue honors, for it passed over to economic matters, competition in business, and other such matters. A new community of those jumping to the top stood opposite the small number of veterans, of old, well-pedigreed householders. There were times when the dispute took on a sharp form. Once, they even boasted that if they were to catch Chanchik the daughter of Yehuda Durchin, they would cut off the long braids of her head.

There was a widow in the village, Sara Leah, who had been the wife of Rabbi Shimon Berman the Shochet. She was the daughter of the brother of Rachel Weitzmann, the mother of the first president [of Israel]. She was left to tend to young children after the death of her husband. The widow suffered no small amount until the children grew up and went out to seek their luck in the wide world.

The older children scattered in different directions, some to Yeshiva and others to work. Only Baruch and the daughter Rivel were left with her. Baruch began to work as a teacher, and gave over his salary to his mother.

[Page 256]

The sole source of income that she had after the death of her husband was the “rights” to shechita [ritual slaughter]. The new shochet who came was obligated, as was the way in communities, to give over a portion of his earnings to her. Since the place was small, and there were few shechitas, the shochet did not earn enough to sustain two families, and the widow suffered from want and poverty.

After time, it was agreed that she would have the rights to the meat tax in the village, as was the custom in Russia for many years.

She leased the tax from the butchers of Horodok. They leased the tax from the government in the district city of Mozyr. The money was collected from the customers by the butcher based on every liter of meat. This is how things continued in the village for many years. Nobody would have thought about damaging the widow and her sole source of livelihood.

The revolutionaries looked jealously upon the tax that was in the hands of the widow. Prior to the beginning of the new tax year, they stood before the butchers in Horodok, added to the price, and received the rights to the tax. They returned to the village and imposed their fear upon the shochet to refrain from slaughtering without getting permission from them. They entered the house of the shochet and removed his shechita knives by force. Drunk with victory, they took them to their home.

At that time, I was teaching the Jewish children in the other side of the village. I returned home, and my mother told me about this scandalous deed. They had taken the knives from the shochet by force, and had removed the last morsel of bread from the widow and her children – all my blood was boiling. What could be done for these poor people? Who can adjudicate with someone stronger than themselves? I decided to publicize the matter. If there is no justice or judge here – there is justice and understanding in the world community.

The Hatzefira newspaper had a regular column called Letters from the Remote Cities^[19]. I wrote a long description of the shameful event and signed it with the initials Y. Z. The letter appeared in the newspaper after some time. Of course, the perpetrators were not among the readers of Hatzefira, but they found out about the letter and the newspaper. Somebody informed them.

One morning as I was walking to work, Avrahamel Plotnitzky, the brother of the aforementioned Yeshayahu, met me on the alleyway of my classroom. He had been a participant in this entire deed. He greeted me, “Good morning to you, Mr. Editor!” It seems that they were generally satisfied with the publicity that I had given them in the newspaper. They did not have a lifegiving breadth within the narrow confines of the village. They were lacking the broad arena for the frenzy of their stormy activity.

In time, almost all of these “children of Korach”^[20] immigrated overseas to the United States and Canada. First the men went, and then the entire family. There, in the land of dollars, their ebullient energy found broad horizons for activity. Like many other immigrants, many of them quickly ascended the rungs of the ladder and became very wealthy. Some became involved in positive communal activity in their overseas communities.

After years, they had the opportunity to give some sort of reparations for the travesty that they perpetrated to the widow. Her youngest son Sheika – Sam (who visited Israel in Elul 5715 – 1955 as a wealthy tourist from Los Angeles) – was received with honor by one of the Plotnitzkys, Arke the son of the aforementioned Yeshayahu, when he arrived in Canada in 1922. Sheika benefited from the support of his wife Malka during the first period until he got set up in the new country. This was a sort of atonement for the deed of that time in Rubel. Perhaps even at that time, the hearts of the son and his wife were not content with the deeds of the father.

On a Sabbath afternoon, we would float over the fields, far from the village, at least, outside of the Sabbath boundary^[22]. There, behind the fields, there was a long row of piles of grain bundles, “fades” in our language of that time. After the harvest, the farmer would gather some of the rye into the barn for a certain period. He would leave the rest next to the field, on top of four pillars pitched in the soil, at a height of more than a meter. We sat in their shade

[Page 257]

on Sabbath afternoons. There were paths among the furrows in the standing grain fields leading to the heaps. There was also a main route, which was the meeting place with the youth from the other end of the village.

One Sabbath, we gathered for a clandestine meeting in the shade of those heaps. An “agitator” that is an activist from the “democratic” revolutionaries as they were called at that time, spoke. All the youth of the village of age twenty and below, the children of the wealthier people as well as of the tradespeople, all gathered at the meeting. Guards were set up lest one of the villagers pass by and see a mass gathering of Jewish youth. Difficulties and tribulations were not lacking at that time. There were arrests, fines, and worst of all – exile to Siberia.

The meeting passed without mishap. The speaker uttered his statements not like dew, and not like rain. Rather, his words fell upon the ears of his audience like clumps of stones. These were strange words, not absorbed even though they were spoken in the Yiddish language. We knew Peretz at that time. We also known Sholem Aleichem and Mendele in Yiddish, but our ears still did not absorb a scintilla of his words, whether because the orator uprooted us to another world far from the world of our conception, or because his language was the languages of the brochures that were known in this days – brochures hugging the world and what is in it, people and groups, and written in a languages and style in which the German foundations were greater than the popular Jewish foundations.

The winds of revolution and revolt always blew toward us from Horodok. There was an unmediated influence from the youth in the town to the youth in the village, whether in relationship to the Haskalah [Enlightenment] or in ideological and factional affiliation.

The constant influence was known in the home of Eizel Beilin. Even though Eizel was a tradesman, spending his days with the hammer and anvil – he was an erudite man, a Jew who knew the book. In his development, he exceeded many of the wealthy householders, and his children even more so. His children served as examples and guides for our youths, especially after their sister married Michal the smith, the son of Shlomo Chaim Shulman, the Nikolaev soldier, in Rubel.

If sparks of connection to Socialism and Yiddishism, and opposition to bourgeoisism, Hebrew and the Land of Israel – this came from the energy of Beilin's sons.

… In time, the new ideologies caused a separation between the adherents. A schism arose between those faithful to Hebrew and their friends who were promoters of Yiddish.

One day, newspapers from Horodok reached the village. It told there that Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, the famous writer and ideologue, went to the Land of Israel and stood up to deliver a lecture in Yiddish in Jaffa. Students of the Herzliya Gymnasium came and arranged an obstruction in the hall. The audience was forced to disperse, and the lecture did not take place.

They said in dismay: “Oh, is this what your high school students do, to not permit a famous man such as Chaim Zhitlowsky to speak! You should be ashamed and embarrassed!” The response was:

“If one brings an idol into the sanctuary – should we be quiet?”

Who was that speaker in the secret meeting that we discussed above?

There was a man in Rubel named Baruch Kaplan. He was like an exception to the Jews of the village. He was not a peddler amongst the farmers, and he did not earn his livelihood from business or trade. He eventually immigrated to Canada. He remained there for a period of time, and returned to his home with a bundle of money. He went to Stolin, and could not find what to take hold of, so he took his family and returned to the New World.

Baruch had a brother, a young lad named Berl. Berl would come from time to time to the home of his brother as a guest. He would remain for some time and leave, and the cycle would repeat itself. Eventually, we discovered the mysterious secret, that the brother was hiding from the eyes of the Czarist police who were following his steps.

From Baruch's son Gershon Kaplan, who visited Israel in the summer of 5713 [1953], we learned interesting details about the adventures of his uncle Berl, who was the one who arranged the clandestine meeting in the field on the Sabbath. Like many of the other youths of that generation, he had studied in Yeshiva and was a candidate for rabbinical ordination. He left the Yeshiva and transferred to the Haskalah and the revolutionary movement.

[Page 258]

Berl continued with his revolutionary activities, in propaganda against the rotten Czarist regime, until the police caught him one day and brought him to trial. His verdict, as was the verdict of most of the revolutionaries of that era, was deportation to Siberia. They were a full group, and they succeeded in escaping from Siberia and coming to Canada. In Canada, the revolutionary had a field and a farm. Years passed, and the owner of the farm was successful and had amassed a significant sum of money. The days of the regiments arrived, and the days of Balfour, and of the “State for the Jews” fluttered in the air. It was not for a man such as Berl to sit on the fleshpots in the land of the dollars. His aspiration was to become a chalutz [pioneer] in the Land of Israel, a pioneer of the farm and Hebrew agriculture.

Fifteen families from Canada, with Berl at the head, made aliya to the Land at the end of 1921. Their aspiration was for agriculture – and this is proved by the fact that Berl brought a special species of Leghorn chickens with him.

The question arose: Where to go to establish an independent farm?

From Yaakov Metman, the brother of the well-known founder of the Herzliya Gymnasium Dr. Metman, and from the lawyer M. Talisman, we found out the following details of our acquaintance Berl Kaplan and his attempt at agricultural settlement in the Sharona German neighborhood.

In 1914, even before the outbreak of the First World War, several people of Achuzat Bayit – which is Tel Aviv – succeeded in purchasing a nearby plot of land for agricultural settlement.

The first of the initiators were the aforementioned Dr. Metman and Swerdlow – both were teachers at the Herzliya Gymnasium. Our own Dr. Zagorodsky, Dr. Slushtz, Yishai Adler, and several other activists founded a company called “Ir Ganim” to obtain land.

They negotiated with an Arab from the village of Salama who owned properties in the area, who gathered together plots from other Arabs, for a total of 1,800 dunams to the right of Wadi Musrara – which is Nachal Ayalon. The price was approximately two liras per dunam (at the time the currency was the French franc.) Members joined the company and invested money as candidates for settlement in the new area.

In the meantime, the war broke out. Alongside came hunger, suffering, and the deportations of Djemal Pasha. Of course, the matter was abandoned.

When the new era came, and the Land was transferred to the Mandate government, negotiations were renewed regarding the purchase. The purchase was concluded in 1921, at the price of ten liras per dunam.

The area was all desolate sand dunes, with no sign of life, no tree or bush, a distance from the “Negev” in the Sharona German neighborhood.

Plots were sold to 270 people. They dug a well next to the wadi, which gave four cubic meters of water per hour.

While the residents of young Tel Aviv who owned the plots were thinking about taking hold of the land (it was not all that easy to leave the Achuzat Bayit neighborhood next to the city of Jaffa and to go out to the “desert” that had no roads, no [electric] light, and no regular flow of water) – new pioneers had made aliya from Canada, headed by our acquaintance Berl. As had been noted, this was at the end of 1921. Of the fifteen families who had come from Canada, eight remained that decided to settle. They were joined by another family who had been in the Land for a long time, and who had suffered greatly in the moshava of Qastina – today Beer Tuvia – and who could not maintain themselves in the heart of the Arab sea at the “edge” of the Land.

These were the first nine families who pitched the first tent peg in that area, which is now the location of the splendid Ramat Gan.

They brought money with them, and they also had goodwill. Furthermore, they were not lacking in agricultural experience. Therefore, they dreamed of establishing an agricultural settlement, a farm, near Jaffa-Tel Aviv.

The Ir Ganim company sold each of them fifteen dunams of land at the purchase price. Later, they also added to them an area that would, to their best estimation, be sufficient for maintaining a family.

They chose the strip next to the wadi. This was for two reasons: it was close to the water well, and the banks of the wadi were formed of heavy soil rather than sandy soil.

[Page 259]

The settlers set up huts in their new place and moved there, with various plans in their heads. This was on Chanukah of 5682 – 1921.

On Tu B'Shvat, the owners of the plots set out to a new place. Along with the Canadian settlers, they fulfilled the commandment of “When you come to the land – you shall plant” [Leviticus 19:23]. They prepared 5,000 saplings for planting. The giant eucalyptus trees that today obscure Nachal Ayalon – the polluted Wadi Musrara – from our eyes, are the work of the hands of these first pioneers, the splendid efforts of their hands.

And what became of the agricultural plans? They began to plant orchards. At that time, before the area was turned into fields (with the Fourth Aliya), Ramat Gan was one giant orchard, a spectacular area with its large, precisely measured, straight rows.

However, the orchard began to bear fruit only after four or five years, and in the meantime, our farmers had no source of livelihood. They had small farms of fowl, vegetables, and goats. That was the period of tobacco prosperity, and the entire ground from Petah Tikva to Rosh Pina set their hopes on that sector. Our agriculturists also took hold of this. They finally left with their hands over their heads.

The experience of our farmers from blessed Canada did not serve them well. In time, the money that they brought with them from Canada was used up, and the situation became quite bad. As the aforementioned Metman relates, “they were bound the earth,” that is, they had reached the point of a morsel of bread.

In a letter that Berl sent to his brother in Pinsk, he writes the following:

(The letter was written in clear Hebrew: the former Yeshiva student, a Haskalah man, was recognized therein.) “This is a known matter in the Land of Israel, that it impossible to extract even a cent from a farm worked by others (Jews) – (the owner of the farm was sick for three years with fever) – Nevertheless, I am trying to do something this year (5683 – 1923) on my plot: I will plant a small vineyard, some fruit trees, and a few shade trees to improve the appearance of the place. He adds: my biggest lack now is the lack of [the contents of] a pocket, for not one coin remains from all the money that I have brought from Canada. I have already borrowed two hundred dollars from our relatives in Canada to purchase a cow…”

He purchased a cow for seventy liras. It later became clear that the cow was sick. He went through issues and court cases until he returned the cow, and only received part of the money back.

These were the issues in agricultural settlement, so to speak.

However, from the letter, a clear picture emerges from those days – the beginning of the Third Aliya, when the Land began to rejuvenate after the tribulations of the war.

Here are the words of Berl in a letter:

“Here the yoke of life does not oppress people as it does in the Diaspora. If a person only has his own dwelling and a bit of his own land for vegetables – he remains with very few needs.” He adds: “Here in the villages, the difference between man and beast is indeed naught. There are no books, no daily newspaper, no theater, and no movie theater. And this is the wonder: there is not even any need for such… People wear torn, worn-out clothes, and are not embarrassed. They purchase on credit and do not pay. They promise and do not fulfill. At first, this dismayed me, but now I have gotten used to it.”

“I am sorry that I do not have the ability to help you…”

Despite the lowly material situation, Berl was at the center. The youth gathered around him. His hut was a sort of gathering place. The man was joyous and full of life. He had no equal in hosting guests. As the lawyer Talisman describes him, “he was 100% a national man,” “pleasant in his ways,” “with refined soul,” and “full of humor.”

He was not burdened by family matters. When he took ill with fever, he took in a lad to work his farm, and the worker lived together with him.

At first, the local council would hold its meetings in Tel Aviv. Later, the opinion grew to “sit” for meetings in the place. A committee was chosen to direct the issues of the settlers, and Berl Kaplan was the first committee head

[Page 260]

of Ramat Gan during its infancy, at the beginning of 1923. M. Talisman, who later became a lawyer in Tel Aviv, was the secretary of the committee. The hut that served as the office stood at the top of a hill. Berl would go up to there from his hut on his donkey. The donkey forged a path with its feet, the first path on the sandy hill.

There was a large warehouse next to his bunk, in which all the tobacco of the members was collected.

Berl would urge his brother in Pinsk to send one of his daughters to the Land. This was worthwhile from all perspectives (there were five!), and he would have an assistant in his farm, for he was a bachelor, unlike the rest of the settlers who came with families.

The brother responded, and made a condition that he add a room to his hut, a special room for her. She made aliya in Sukkot 1924, but no longer found Berl.

One night the secretary Talisman was summoned to the chairman who was lying in bed, burning like a furnace. Talisman brought him to Hadassah [Hospital] by a wagon, and he never returned from there.

Berl was unable to withstand the difficult conditions of those days There was no communal support for those who settled, no Keren Kayemet [Jewish National Fund], no Keren Hayesod [Foundation Fund]. There was only their own efforts. The lot of Berl the bachelor was much more difficult. His energy was drained, and his heart could not withstand the difficulties of settling. He left his lot and his farm in 1924, and died childless…

After the eldest sister made aliya to the Land, the other sisters came one by one. His brother Asher also came in 1933 to take over the estate of his brother.

Berl's plot still exists to this day. It is an orchard, largely abandoned, the remnants of the large orchards from those days. It is a green area next to the road, past the bridge on the right side before Ilit.

Let these lines serve as a monument to that revolutionary from the bogs of Polesye, who was exiled to frozen Siberia, moved from frozen Siberia to Canada, and made aliya from Canada to the Land of Israel.

He was a pioneer of the Third Aliya. May his memory be a blessing.

1. See Pirkei Avot 5:19. Return
2. Three meals are eaten on the Sabbath: on Friday night, on Saturday at midday, and the Seuda Shlishit (or Shalosh Seudos) toward the end of the day. Many people also eat a fourth meal, called Melave Malka [escorting the Sabbath Queen] after the Sabbath ends on Saturday night. Return
3. There are several styles of prayer formats within Judaism. The true Sephardim (Jews of North African origin) as well of Middle Eastern Jews (e.g. from Iran, Yemen, etc.) use various forms of the Sephardic form. European Jews generally use the Ashkenazic form. Ashkenazic Jews who are influenced by Hassidim used a modified form of the Sephardic rite, called “Nusach Sephard.” This is not the true Sephardic rite of the Sephardic Jews – it can better be termed as the Hassidic rite. Return
4. Psalms 35:10, also incorporated in the Nishmat prayer of Sabbaths and festivals. Return
5. I.e. the Maariv service of the second night of a festival. Return
6. A Sukkot night celebration in commemoration of the water drawing festivities during the time of the Temple (see fifth chapter of Mishna Sukkah.) Return
7. The celebration would be taking place in the Sukkah. Return
8. Leil Shimurim – also a term for Passover night – literally, a night of watching or guarding. See Exodus 12:42. Return
9. A play on the word ein [none or is not]. Return
10. The prayer for the dead. Return
11. Isaiah 55:1. Return
12. The traditional rote rendition of the Hebrew alphabet with the vowel sounds, used in old-fashioned cheders. Return
13. Literally – unkosher and invalid. A reference to the religious objection to secular works. Return
14. I.e. laws related to the nidda cycle and ritual immersion in a mikveh. Return
15. This is the refrain of the Ki Lo Naeh hymn of the Passover Seder. Return
16. There is a tradition that at the time of the Resurrection of the Dead, those buried in the Diaspora will roll through tunnels to Israel. Return
17. The “Mizrach” people – i.e. the people who sit near the eastern wall – i.e. the wealthier people. Return
18. This is the formula for calling up a person to the Torah for an aliya. The final aliya of each of the five books of the Torah is called up with the term “Chazak” – “Be strong,” since the phrase “Chazak Chazak Venitchazek” [Strength, strength, and let us strengthen ourselves] is recited at the conclusion of the reading of each of the five books. Vayechi is the final Torah portion of Bereishit [Genesis] and is generally read about two weeks after Chanukah. Return
19. Literally: Cities of the field. Return
20. Based on the Biblical character of Korach, who led a rebellion against Moses [Numbers 16-18]. Return
21. This section header was not numbered. And the next one, on page 257, is numbered incorrectly. Return
22. There is a prohibition of walking more than 2,00 cubits (around one kilometer) outside the bounds of a human habitation (city, town, or village) on the Sabbath or festival. Return

  Davyd-Haradok, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 15 Oct 2024 by JH