Kamyanets Podilskyy

The Structure of the City and its Location

The city, whose historical background the reader will find below, lies sixteen versts from the great Dniester river that connects Podolia with Bessarabia. With the end of the First World War in 1917, Bessarabia passed to Romania and this river was a natural border between two foreign and mutually hostile countries. Also the city was close to the border between Russia and Eastern Galicia.

The city itself was built on a high cliff, one of the offshoots of the Carpathians, and around it the river Smotrych sends its quiet waters to the Dniester, which surrounds the city on three sides and so it looks like a peninsula. On the other side of the city, the topographic structure consists of ups and downs, except for its central part where rocks that extend over large spaces rise up higher and higher out of the fertile, black soil. The suburbs are built on these rocks: “Novi-Plan” (the new city), “Polski Folvarek” (the Polish suburb), “Ruski Folvarek” (the Russian suburb), “Podzamcze,” Zinkovitz, and the Karvasari.

Transportation between the city and these suburbs was carried out over three bridges: the new bridge (built in the seventies of the 19^th century), which connected the city with the Novi-Plan, the second

From views of the city: “The New Bridge”

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bridge, which led from the city to “Polski Folvarek,” and the third bridge, “the Turki” (built by the Turks in the last quarter of the 17^th century), which connected the city with “Podzamcze.”

The “Podzamcze” suburb is apparently named after the fortress built by the Turks at the end of the bridge (in Russian and Polish - “Zamuk”). Apart from these bridge roads, side roads and paths led from the city to the suburbs.

The Smotrych flowed under the third bridge, in a noisy and roaring waterfall, on the one side to Zinkovitz

From views of the city: “The Turkish Bridge”

According to the records of 1847 (the “Revizia”), the community of Karvasar numbered 752 souls and, according to the census of 1897, 720 souls out of the general population of 1264 souls. When Kamyanets Podilskyy was declared the regional and district city, it expanded its borders and also “swallowed” this small town, which became a suburb of the city.

Usually the streets of the city went uphill and downhill, and only the main streets extended over a flat surface, with a square plaza in the center. On the four sides of the plaza stood large two- and three-story buildings, of which the upper stories were for residences and the lower ones for business and commerce. In the middle of the plaza, there were again tall buildings and among them the municipal police building. Above the police building rose a high square tower with a railing at the top, which served as a look-out in all directions. In this tower, the municipal clock was also installed.

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On either side of the central block of houses that were in the middle of the square, two groves (“Skverim”) were planted, which served as a resting place for passers-by, for children's games, as well as a meeting place for various brokers and craftsmen. Besides the mentioned groves, there were also two large city gardens (“Boulevarim”) “Old” and “New.” The first one was inside the city and extended on the slopes of the mountain next to the Smotrych River, from the Governor's Square to the “Podzamcze.” This garden was the older of the two gardens. The second, “New” garden was larger in dimensions than its predecessor and spread over a huge and wide area on the land of the “Novi-Plan” between the new bridge and the “Polski Folvarek” on the left - a walk of about a kilometer. Standing on the slope in this garden in the evening, you could see the city in all its beauty, as it beckons you with its lights from the residents' houses and the street lamps. This sight was very charming and it seemed to you as if God had scattered the star system not only in the sky, but also on earth. The beauty of the city left a deep and unforgettable impression even in the hearts of people who were not local who happened to visit. Among these I will mention two writers and thinkers, Chaim Greenberg and Shmaryahu Gorelik, may their memory be blessed, who expressed to me their admiration for the landscape images and delightful corners they found in Kamyanets Podilskyy.

Special mention should be made of “the path” (“Dorozhka”) within the “New” city garden that stretched over the top of the rock from the right side of the bridge to the “Ruski Folvarek.” This “trail” attracted the hearts and affection of most of the city's residents, especially the young ones, who used to hang out there in groups until late at night. Quite a few novels were planned there, and quite a few love relationships came as a result of meetings on “the path.”

From views of the city: “The Turkish Fortress”

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The Population

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the city was counted among the twelve districts of the Podolia region. According to its geographical situation, the city and its district lay close to the border of eastern Galicia. Its closest neighbors were - the new Ushitza district on the east side, and Proskorov= Khmelnytskyi on the northwest side.

As a result of the “movement of peoples” (Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Tatars, Turks, Ukrainians, etc.) from Western to Eastern Europe, and the frequent wars between them, layers of different peoples were formed in Podolia, who settled on its land as farmers in villages, and as residents, artisans, and merchants - in cities and towns. The proportion between the nationalities was different in each place. The population in Podolia, including in the western districts close to Galicia (Ushitza, Yampil, Mohyliv-Podilskyy, Proskorov= Khmelnytskyi, Kamyanets Podilskyy), was mixed with Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, and others. In the cities and towns, the Jews were the majority. In the villages - the Ukrainians, and in the manor houses - the Poles (the “Paritzim”). In the religious sense, the population was also divided according to this composition: Jews, Pravoslavs (Orthodox), Catholics, and Lutherans. The Germans made up a small part of the general population and were scattered throughout the whole district. Only in the town of Dunayivtsi was a significant part of them concentrated.

In Kamyanets Podilskyy itself, the population consisted of Jews, Ukrainians, Poles, and Germans. The Jews made up fifty percent of the total population. During the days of Khmelnytsky's attacks on Kamyanets, over ten thousand Jewish families were concentrated there. This number was accidental and ephemeral because, at that time, many Jews from other settlements were concentrated in the city, having fled to Kamyanets because it was a fortified city. With the cessation of fighting and skirmishes, many of them returned to their places and the Jewish population in Kamyanets continued to decrease.

We only find accurate numbers about the general and Jewish population in Kamyanets Podilskyy starting in the 19^th century. According to the census (“Revizia”) of 1847, there were 4,629 Jews in the city; in 1893, their number reaches 13,866 out of 36,951 in the general population (Pravoslavs - 18,211, Catholics - 4,150, others - 494). According to the census of 1897, there were in Kamyanets - 16,211 Jews, who constituted, at that time, forty percent of all residents. In the twenty years after this census, the Jewish population in the city grew and, according to the estimate, the number of residents reached 60,000 by the end of World War I, of whom half were Jews. The growth of the Jewish population came partly from natural increase and partly from the arrival of thousands of refugees from the towns near the border of Galicia who were expelled in 1915-1916 by the persecutor of the Jews, the commander-in-chief of the army, Nikolai Nikolayevich. The revolutions of February and October 1917, the change of regimes and governments, the rule of all kinds of local and foreign groups (Ukrainians, Bolsheviks, Poles, Czechs, etc.) resulted in the Jewish population looking for ways to escape from the oppression and hardship, some by internal migration around Russia or Ukraine and some by emigration, legal and illegal, abroad (the Land of Israel, the United States and Canada, South America, etc.). As a result, the number of Jews in Kamyanets also decreased and, according to the 1927 census, we find in Kamyanets in 1923 only 33,172 residents,

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of whom 50 percent are Jews. According to the 1951 census, there were in Kamyanets in 1926 only 31,000 residents (Jews and Ukrainians). For some reason, the author of the list does not mention the Poles.

A final, unofficial, and imprecise census, a blood census, was conducted by the Hitler murderers (may their names be obliterated) at the beginning of the month of Elul 5701 (end of August 1941), with their extermination in Kamyanets Podilskyy of about ten thousand Jews from the people of the area and the nearby towns and another six thousand Jews who were brought from Western and Eastern Europe (Hungary, Belgium, Holland, and Romania). God will avenge their blood.

Until 1915, there was no railroad in Kamyanets that would connect the city with the rest of Russia near and far, with the all-Russian industrial centers or with the cultural centers of the

From views of the city: “The Polish Suburb”

It goes without saying that the absence of the railroad that would connect Kamyanets with the rest of the country was the fault of the city. Its merchants, who were going to Warsaw or to Moscow, to Riga or to Odesa, to Nizhny-Novgorod or to Kyiv - for fairs and contracts - deliberated a lot over the question of transportation since transportation by horses was very expensive. Two offices took care of bringing goods and cargo: one was the “All-Russian Transportation and Insurance Company” (“Vserossiyskaya transportnaya i strakhovaya obtshistav”), under the management of H. Shabati, a native of Berdychiv, and the other, “The Southwest Transportation Office” (“Yugo-Zapadnoe transportnoe kontura”), under the management of Abraham Branzon and Menachem-Moshe Lichtman. These two offices kept large warehouses where the goods brought from far away were stored until the merchants - their owners - could take them out after paying the transportation, insurance, storage, and guarding fees, etc.

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These transport companies would help the merchants by providing loans against the stored goods and thereby enable them to last through the “dead” seasons. The merchants who could not bring their goods from far away were helped by the annual fair that was held in the town of Yarmolyntsi, sixty versts from Kamyanets, in the months of June-August, which attracted many vendors, factory owners or their agents from all over Russia. Here they bought and sold the agricultural produce of Podolia and the industrial products of the industrial centers in Russia and Poland.

There was no developed industry in our city. The main reason was again the lack of a railroad and the location of the city geographically at the edge of the region and also at the southwest edge of Russia. There was only light industry, aimed mainly at the local market. There existed: a beer factory of the Kleiderman family, tobacco factories, cigarette pouch factories, two mineral water factories, two cotton wool factories, a large flour mill, and a few other smaller enterprises. In Kamyanets, the mechanical factory of Kramm (German) which dealt in mechanical casting and welding was considered a heavy industry.

Maccabi-ha-Esh's observation tower (the “Kolancha”)

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The Governmental and Public Institutions

The city served as an administrative center of the region and the district, and the government institutions were concentrated there: the district court, the local courts, the state treasury, the Office of the Inspector of Taxes, the Regional Administration and the Office of the Minister of the Region, the governmental and public banks, as well as educational institutions (four gymnasiums, a technical high school, a Russian religious seminary) and culture (theatre, etc.) and medical institutions. Two army battalions were also camped in the city with their commanders and officers.

As in all the cities of the “Pale of Settlement,” trade and crafts in Kamyanets Podilskyy, too, were mainly in the hands of the Jews. We find statistical information about trade and crafts in the city only beginning in 1847 (according to the Revizia). Among the Jewish population at that time, there were 370 merchants, who were, apparently, of the wholesaler type. In addition to them, there were also retail merchants. In agricultural products - 759 self-employed (2,278 family members); in clothing - 270 self-employed (740 family members); in brokerage - 119 (370 family members); in just trade without a special type - 123 (392 family members), and in total 1,750 self-employed (6,300 family members) were engaged in trade. In crafts, the Jews took the first place: in tailoring - 713 self-employed (1,562 family members); in processing food products - 115 self-employed (397 family members); in metal (sheeting, framing, etc.) - 108 self-employed (227 family members). There are no numbers from that period about other types of craftsmen (carpenters, engravers, painters, watchmakers, goldsmiths, hatters, cobblers, etc.). And it can be assumed that there were close to five hundred self-employed like this (about 2,000 family members).

According to the same count from 1947, there were engaged in clerical work and non-professional jobs 679 (men - 131, women - 548); in the professions - 190 (253 family members); those with fixed income 304 (612 family members).

All the professionals mentioned worked for the local population as well as for the surrounding area. The clerks, the teachers, the clergy, the police, the gendarmerie and the army, as well as the farmers and the owners of the estates, formed a group of customers from whom the Jews of Kamyanets made a good living. Also, the Jews of the towns that belonged to the district of Kamyanets or Ushitza would come frequently to Kamyanets to settle their affairs here, either in commercial matters or in financial matters in banks, or in matters concerning the various government offices. All this necessitated the existence of hotels and guesthouses, most of which were owned by the Jews.

The three major banks played a large part in the city's economic development: the State Bank, Union Bank, and the “Russian Bank for Commerce and Industry.” The Jewish merchants were also represented in the councils of these banks. These representatives were not elected, but rather were added or sometimes invited by

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the bank managers. From them, the managers obtained their information about the economic situation in the city and about the economic situation of those who applied to them for credit. For the most part, the big merchants or the owners of the estates and the various institutions were helped by these banks, but not the shopkeeper or the small craftsman, or the clerk, the teacher, etc. These circles, therefore, turned to private lenders who were engaged in providing loans at high interest rates and the borrowers never managed to get rid of their debts … In the broad community, the recognition grew that new ways to sources of cheap credit must be sought and that it is necessary to add penny to penny in order to save. That's when the two mutual credit institutions were founded, which played a large part in the development of the city's economic life.

The first association that was founded under the name of “The Mutual Credit Cooperative Association” mostly included among its members the estate owners, the upper office workers, and the big merchants, Jews and Christians. And even though this association did not close its doors to “Amcha” (=average people) of all nationalities - because according to the regulations, it was impossible to behave in a discriminatory fashion - nevertheless, the financial politics of the management was to restrict the advancement of Jewish “Amcha” in granting credit, even though there were also Jewish representatives among the members of the council. This desire to seclude themselves among privileged circles only was even more felt in the selection of the necessary clerks. In the staff of clerks of this financial institution, which was larger than a “minyan” (= 10), there was not a single Jew, despite the considerable number of Jewish members of the association. This came about as a result of the anti-Semitic attitude of the chief accountant, Biletsky (a Pole), who was supported by the Christian members of the management. Only after the death of the aforementioned anti-Semite Biletsky, and especially with the outbreak of the First World War, when some of the Christian clerks were drafted into the army, did the opportunity for Jews to join the group of clerks also come.

When the broad circles of the residents came to know that the aforementioned cooperative society did not stand at the service of “Amcha,” they rose up and founded the second mutual credit society, which opened its doors to the shopkeeper, the craftsman, the low-level clerk, from the city and the surrounding area. The members of management and the council as well as the staff of clerks were all Jewish. The association absorbed a large number of members from all Jewish and Christian circles. In general, it should be noted that the relations between the nationalities in the city in daily contact were among the improved ones and this was also reflected in the composition of the institutions as mentioned above.

Private insurance companies operated in our city, whose centers were in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and they had agencies in Kamyanets, whose managers were only Jews. But there were many who could not meet the payment conditions of private companies and it was necessary to take care of the sustenance of families of this type in the event of a disaster. For this purpose, the “Society for Mutual Aid in Case of Death” was founded in 1912. Even this company served as an example of good relations between all parts of the population, and Jews and Christians were elected to its management as well as to the audit committee.

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Authors

As mentioned above, the population in Kamyanets was mixed with different nationalities, but at all times, the Jews were 40-50 per cent of the residents. Until the second half of the 19^th century, the spoken language of the Jewish community was only Yiddish, however, the “Revizia” (=census) of 1847 already knows to point out that, within the Jewish population of 16,112 people, only ninety-nine did not speak Yiddish - at the end of the century, the number of Jews who also knew other languages kept increasing. According to the statistics from that time, 24 per cent of the Jews of Kamyanets knew Russian and there were another about 14 percent who knew other languages.

In the 60s and 70s of the preceding century, Shalom Yaakov Abramovich (Mendele Mocher Sforim) and A.D. Gottlober lived and worked in Kamyanets. In 1857, the man who was later known as Baron David Ginzburg was born there. Professor Fischl Schneerson z”l and Menachem Poznansky z”l were also born in Kamyanets.

From the later generation, we should mention the teacher and writer Shlomo Shafan z”l (born in Yarmolyntsi), who received his general education in our city, and even studied at the university that was founded there during the days of Ukrainian rule, and the teacher and writer Aharon Ashman and teacher and poet Avraham Rosen were distinguished for long lives.

With its positioning on the border of Galicia and Wallachia Moldavia, the city was open to attacks and wars from its near and far neighbors, and even to spiritual influences. On the other hand, the 17^th and 18^th centuries were the most difficult for the Jews of Podolia in general and the Jews of Kamyanets in particular. The devastation of the years of 1647 and 1648 at the hands of Khmelnytsky's troops; the wars between the Poles and the Turks, as a result of which the city was conquered by the Turks and was under their rule in the years 1672-1699, put great fear into the Jews and greatly weakened their economic situation. With this, the circle of economic relations expanded and the Jews of Podolia reached Kushta and Smyrna in trade relations. Some of them even sent their sons there to study with the Sephardic rabbis. Among them were those who were influenced by the pseudo-Messianists (the Shabbtais) and the teachings of the Frankists. In particular, the members of the Frankist sect also found a foothold in the towns near the border: Lyantskorun=Zarechanka, Sataniv, and others. It goes without saying that the rabbis and all the ultra-Orthodox could not sit quietly when they saw that the new teachings, which contained kernels of Christianity, captivated the souls of the weak in spirit, and they began to persecute the members of the sect. The latter sought protection from the Polish authorities and the Catholic clergy until finally the rabbis had to submit to the demand of Bishop Dembowski and stand in a public debate with the Frankists. With the results of the same debate, about 1000 books of the Talmud were burned.

Around the same time, the Hasidic movement arose, whose founder and originator was Rabbi Israel Ba'al-Shem-Tov z”l. This movement, whose cradle was almost at the gates of our city (The Besht was born in the town of Okopy,

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close to Kamyanets), had many supporters and fans. And when, as is known, after the departure of the Besht and his first disciples, the “rabbis' courts” on both sides of the border multiplied. There were also some among the Jews of our city who would travel to their rabbis who were across the border and there were rabbis who came from time to time to their followers in Kamyanets.

The majority of the Jewish population in the city was made up of “Mitnagdim,” or more precisely, of those who were indifferent to Hasidism and behaved in their religious lives according to the accepted tradition. The style of prayer was the Sephardic style and, as Professor Balaban explains in his book “The History of the Frankish Movement” (“Dvir Press”, Tel Aviv, 1933), it was influenced by the Jews of Spain who immigrated to Eastern European countries and came into contact with Judaism in Poland, Austria, and Hungary.

The Cathedral

With the annexation of Podolia by the Russian Empire at the end of the 18^th century, the spiritual life of the Jewish settlement also changed. Even under the new conditions, the Jews were limited in their rights, such as the prohibition of settling in the villages, the purchase of land, “numerus clausus” in the high schools and colleges, and the prohibition of permanent settlement in cities outside of the “Pale of Settlement,” etc., etc. Even so, new winds were blowing and the ideas of the new time also influenced Russian Jewry. The Jews of Kamyanets Podilskyy, as in the rest of the cities of the country, were no longer satisfied with providing their sons with a traditional education in the “cheder” and the yeshiva, and they began to send their sons away

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to the general schools, elementary, high, and universities. After the boys came the turn of the girls.

As a result of this, the number of people who knew Russian and other languages kept increasing among the Jewish residents. The encounter with the culture and literature of the Russian people and other peoples of Western Europe came about. The influence of various social movements also penetrated the peoples and Israel. The daily life of the Jews of Kamyanets took on a new shape and a different tone, especially among the young generation, and the deviation from a traditional way of life began. Despite this, there were no breaches in the wall of traditional Judaism in our city (desecration of Shabbat and the like) until the days of the Revolution of 1917.

The founders of the Zionist youth organization “Kadima”

The national revival movement in its first manifestation - the “Hovevei Zion” movement - and later on the Zionist movement had considerable influence in our city.

The “Hovevei Zion” was headed by the lawyer David Schleifer z”l, who was in his time one of the founders of the BILU Association in Kharkiv, but for various reasons did not immigrate to Eretz Israel with his BILU associates and worked as a prosecutor in our city.

“Hovevei Zion” in Kamyanets were not satisfied with just collecting membership fees or donations from the “bowls,” but were alert to the general questions of the movement and participated in the general meetings and conferences of the “Odesa Committee.”

With the appearance of the book, “The State of the Jews” by Dr. Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl, and the gathering of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, many of the “Hovevei Zion” joined the Zionist movement, as is known, including many of the “Hovevei Zion” in Kamyanets. From them, David Schleifer founded the first “chug” of the organization, the Zionist Federation, in Kamyanets Podilskyy.

In this way of “chugim,” more male members joined the movement, as well as female members (“B'not Zion”) from among

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the middle class, educated and young, and in the years 1904-1905, the Zionist Federation had six chugim in our city. The writer of these columns was then tasked by the general municipal committee, which consisted of representatives of all the chugim, to organize an additional chug in the Polish suburb, mainly from among the local youth.

The “third chug” was the most outstanding, since most of its members were educated people who knew Hebrew and were supporters of Hebrew literature, young people aged 20-25, members of more or less economically established families. They excelled in activity and daring activism.

The influence of David Schleifer, who was the chief spokesman of the Zionist Federation and even of the Jewish public in the city, was evident on all “chugim,” except for the members of the diplomaed intelligentsia who saw their world in the pursuit of profits from their professions and of their private pleasures and hardly took part in public work. These (except for a few of them) were imbued with the spirit of assimilation and looked at Schleifer, who, despite his occupation and troubles as a lawyer specializing in civil law and famous throughout the region, devoted himself to Zionist work and other public affairs as abnormal. In his work for the Zionist ideal, David Schleifer was helped by a loyal and dedicated Zionist like Mr. Israel Goldman z”l who served for many years as the secretary of the Zionist Federation in our city.

As we know, all the Zionist work in the first years of the movement's existence was conducted by the institution “Ha-Morashim.” The Zionist Federation in Kamyanets Podilskyy, along with all the other Federations in the Podolia region and in the region of Bessarabia, including the Khotyn district, were in the circle of activity of the Morasha, the member of the Executive Committee Dr. Yaakov Bernstein-Cohen z”l, who lived in Chisinau. However, apparently, it was impossible to be satisfied with the management of the Zionist work from the center in Chisinau and, therefore, Kamyanets Podilskyy was chosen as the appropriate place for this and it was there that the first regional conference was held in 1901. Of the leaders of the Zionists, Dr. S. Bendersky, Dr. Y. Bernstein-Cohen, Menachem Sheinkin, and others participated. Of the 24 conference delegates, Kamyanets was represented by 8 delegates and at their head, the lawyer D. Schleifer and Mark Nudelman.

Kamyanets Podilskyy also sent its delegates to other Zionist congresses and conferences. At the Second Conference of Russian Zionists in Minsk in 1901, D. Schleifer participated as a delegate from Kamyanets. At the Third Conference in Helsinki (1906), Israel Drachler, who also participated as a delegate from our city in the Fourth Conference in The Hague (1907) as well as in the Eighth Zionist Congress there that same year, represented Kamyanets. At the Ninth Zionist Congress in Hamburg (1909), Kamyanets was represented by Israel Drachler and Israel Goldman.

I was then a boy of fifteen and, until this day, that bitter and hasty day when the news of Dr. Herzl's passing came is retained in my memory. And the Jewish city of Kamyanets, with all its chugim and classes, religious and secular, Zionists and non-Zionists, was in heavy mourning. On that day, a mourning meeting was called at the time for the prayers of Mincha and Ma'ariv in the tailors' synagogue, the largest and most magnificent in the city. The news

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Regional Zionist Conference

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of the death of Dr. Herzl and of the meeting quickly spread to all corners of the city and even reached the nearby towns, and long before the appointed time crowds began to flock to Purlasky Street where the synagogue was. Many people came to the meeting, not only from the Zionists, but just Jews “all year round,” sympathizers of Zionism and even those who opposed it; many came from the intelligentsia who until now had mocked the “dreams” of the Zionists, people from the local government also came. I don't remember if the Zionist Federation announced the cancellation of work and the closing of shops, but during those hours of the meeting, the streets of the city were deserted because all the workshops and shops were closed as a sign of mourning. The great hall of the synagogue was too narrow to accommodate the entire crowd and many stood outside.

The great debate in the Zionist movement on the question of Uganda - the Land of Israel found its expression even in Kamyanets Podilskyy. However, the number of those inclined to the territorialist idea was very small in Kamyanets and most of the members of the Zionist movement in our city remained loyal to the Land of Israel and supported “Tsiyonei Tsiyon.”

The Zionist movement had not managed to heal its wounds after the Uganda debate when the days of the first coup in Russia came in October 1905. Czar Nikolai II announced the granting of a constitution that would allow the people to take part in the management of the affairs of the state through its emissaries to the first Russian parliament - the “Duma.” The Jewish population pinned a lot of hopes on the new system that came to the country and, along with the rest of the inhabitants, rejoiced in the coup and looked forward to good days. However, this joy did not last long. Almost the day after the constitution was given, riots and pogroms took place organized by the “Black Hundred” under the auspices of the police and the Jews were chosen as the “scapegoat.” For 2-3 days, pogroms were held in dozens of cities and towns, Jewish property was looted, and quite a few victims even fell. In Kamyanets Podilskyy, rioters who were recruited from among the Gentiles of the suburbs of the city went wild and to them were added a number of “Katsafs,” who were brought especially from the center of Russia. Admittedly, the pogrom in Kamyanets manifested itself only in the breaking of windows of a number of Jewish houses and the looting of several sales stalls in the market and there were no victims, although the Jews locked themselves in their houses until the anger passed.

The socialist parties that had been working clandestinely until now came to light and began to conduct broad written and mainly oral propaganda among all segments of the population, including the youth and the working classes. In order not to have to rent special halls for meetings, a meeting place was arranged for them in the streets in the evening hours after the male and female workers had finished their work. The propagandists of the parties would “catch” the workers on their way home from work and hold informative talks with them about the essence of their program and their ideals and about the democratic rights declared for them in the constitution. The meeting place was known as the “Birzha” (stock exchange).

The parties that operated in the “Birzha” were: the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Anarchists, and “Po'alei Tsiyon.” Each party had its “Birzha” on one of the four broad sidewalks of the central square in the city.

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The First Seeds of “Tse'irei Tsiyon”

In those days, young people from the ranks of the workers and the students who sought in Zionism not only the fulfillment of the aspiration for a Jewish state like all the states, but also aspired to a state of social justice, began to gather and organize. At that same time, an emissary from Odesa arrived in our city, a skinny guy, with black hair and deep piercing eyes, wearing a black “Rovshka” and sash, about 18-19 years old, who made a great impression on everyone who met him. This young man was Chaim Greenberg z”l.

Chaim Greenberg came then to lecture on matters of Hebrew culture and literature, however he did not wash his hands from the political questions either and he spoke respectfully in a lively and comprehensive debate with the opponents of Zionism. The power of his warning and persuasive speech (he spoke in Russian), his noble appearance, and the ways of pure conceptual debate captured the hearts of all his listeners, especially the youth. In this visit, Chaim Greenberg sowed the first seeds of the “Tse'irei Tsiyon” movement in our city.

The Student Organization “Kadima” in 1918

“The Work of the Present”

After the Russian Zionist Conference in November 1906 in Helsinki (Finland), during which the “Helsinki Program” in the matter of “The Work of the Present” was accepted and in which Israel Drachler participated as a delegate on behalf of the Zionists of Kamyanets Podilskyy, Zionist activity increased in our city, too. The People's Bank was founded and special attention was paid to strengthening the girls' school of Mrs. S. L. Blobstein, and the “Jewish Club” was also established, whose role was to bring the assimilated intelligentsia closer to the national movement and the national cause. Various cultural activities were carried out in this club and there was also a library there of 3000

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volumes in Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew. The Zionist Federation also gave its opinion on the matter of the “Talmud Torah” in Polski Folvarek, which, until the years 1905-1906, was in very poor condition. A new curriculum was implemented, which also included learning the Russian language and arithmetic as well as craft lessons. Poor students also received clothing and shoes. The Zionists also took care to improving the institution of “hospitality” and to expand it.

Thus the Zionist activity in our city flowed in two channels: the usual Zionist work for the education of the masses for Zionist national consciousness and the collection of funds for the institutions and funds of the movement, and the care of the local public institutions.

At the Helsinki conference, a central committee was elected, whose seat was in Vilnius. However, Kamyanets in particular, and Podolia in general, had an organizational and spiritual connection to the Odesa center headed by M. M. Ussishkin. In 1907, the well-known Zionist writer and publicist A. M . Borochov (bless him) was sent to Kamyanets from Odesa in order to organize here, at a regional conference of Podolia Zionists, an active center for the entire region. At this conference, the following were elected to the regional council: David Schleifer, Israel Goldman and Israel Drachler from Kamyanets Podilskyy, Menashe Altman from Balta, Shalom Altman from Zhvanets, Zvi Isserzon from Vinnytsya, and Yosef Blank from Dunayivtsi.

The committee went to work body and soul and vitality was introduced in all the local cells of the Zionist Federation in Podolia. The connections with the two centers - Vilnius and Odesa - worked miracles and helped a lot to put the work and the propaganda on a high level, and Kamyanets was both the plaintiff and the defendant for all kinds of actions, including cultural actions. And indeed, the year 1908 was rich in cultural events in Kamyanets. In the summer of that year, the famous writers Shimen Frug and Leib Yaffe visited our city and, with their participation, two literary banquets were held in the municipal theater, which attracted many Zionists and just Jews from the country towns as well. On behalf of the central committee in Vilnius, its member Dr. Daniel Pasmanik visited Kamyanets. At the end of the summer of that year, the writer Shmaryahu Gorelik, member

A group of Zionists from Kamyanets and the surrounding area who were imprisoned at the Zionist Conference in Mohyliv-Podilskyy in 1920

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of the “Das Yiddische Falk” council in Vilnius came to our city. The members of the “Bund” and “Po'alei Tsiyon” also regarded his visit positively, as a writer who writes Yiddish and as a lecturer on literary matters and not as a Zionist speaker.

All these actions of the guests were arranged with a license from the local authority (the police). In order to disguise the purpose of these “guests'” coming, “neutral” topics were chosen for their lectures. At the same time, there were secret meetings and gatherings of the Zionists of Kamyanets and the surrounding area, in which we discussed organizational questions and practical day-to-day matters.

And here one bright day, on the intermediate days of the holiday of Pesach (April 1909), the gendarmerie appeared - apparently, according to the information of someone among the “Haters of Zion” - at the apartment of the Secretary of the Regional Committee, Israel Goldman z”l, conducted a long and thorough search, and confiscated all the material related to the Regional Zionist Committee's activities. This time they were satisfied with only this. A few days later I. Goldman was invited to the gendarmerie office and was required to translate into Russian all the material taken from him during the search. The translation of the material was finished about a year later and, contrary to the opinion of the gendarmerie, that the matter should be dismissed, the investigator of the district court saw fit to file a complaint against the Committee. And indeed the trial took place in the district court in Kamyanets Podilskyy in the summer of 1911 and, thanks to the defense of the local lawyer D. Schleifer, all the members of the committee were found innocent.

In connection with the “War of Languages” that was going on at that time in the Jewish street between Hebrew and Yiddish, Zev Jabotinsky, whose reputation as a brilliant orator and a gifted publicist preceded him, was invited to give a lecture in our city. His lecture on “Jewish Language and Culture,” which was held in the municipal theater hall, attracted a huge audience and many of those who came remained outside. At the end of the first lecture, the representatives of the “Bund” and of “Po'alei Tsiyon” and the rest of the left-wing parties were invited to come up on stage to argue with the lecturer, but the great victory of the lecturer on the Hebrew matter discouraged them and none of them dared to ask permission to speak, and they did not appear any longer for Jabotinsky's second lecture on the same subject. In a proclamation issued jointly by these parties, they accused the Zionists of deliberately inviting the regular police and the secret police to ensnare the representatives of the “proletariat” when they took the stage to argue with Jabotinsky, but the words of the conspiracy did not elicit any response and the victory of the Zionists and the “Hebrews” was complete.

Among the other activities, it is worth noting the two Purim receptions, which were held as part of “Eretz Israel Week.” Thanks to these receptions, which were very successful, the light of Zionism was raised in the city.

Since our city was very close to the Austria-Hungary border, it was the first to experience the taste of war and its horrors. And indeed on August 5, 1914, the city received authoritative information that the Austrian army had crossed the border, was already on Russian territory, and was approaching Kamyanets. And this was immediately felt: the enemy, who was already within firing range of field artillery, began to bombard the city thinking that a Russian army was in the city. The bombings continued with slight breaks. On that day, the Austrian soldiers entered, including a Hungarian regiment, and passed through the main streets of the city together.

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For the hostilities of the retreating Russian army, a penalty of 300,000 rubles was imposed on the city in money or its equivalent, as well as the provision of certain amounts of food and various supplies to the army. The army demanded that this be provided by 9 o'clock in the morning the next day, otherwise it would continue its operations against the city. The Polish mayor and two of the city's Jews were arrested as hostages against the fulfillment of the demand.

All night the residents were worried that the necessary amount would not be collected and the next morning, when they saw that the hostages had not yet been released, many began to leave the city.

A few days later, the city's conquerors left and the Cossacks entered. It was on Shabbat and when the Jews came out of the synagogues, the Cossacks greeted them with curses and whipping and, after venting their anger on the heads of the Jews, they continued on their way towards the border to Galicia. Life in the city returned to its normal course and the refugees began to return.

During the war years, the residents of the towns near the border and the front suffered in particular, and many of them left the place they had resided for generations and moved to other settlements. Thus was created a very considerable flow of refugees who demanded the help of the central Jewish institutions in the capital city: “YKUF,” “OZE-YIVO,” “ORT,” and more. The administrations of these institutions had the hand of the left-wing parties, the anti-Zionists, at the top and most of the people who were sent to the refugee centers were “theirs.” Mr. Eliyahu Gumener, a lawyer from Vilnius and a socialist Zionist, was also sent to our city as an agent.

A person with energy, organizational skills, and a dynamic speaker, but at the same time a clear “Zion Hater” and even more a hater of Zionists in all their shades. He appeared in Kamyanets in 1915 in the midst of the war and his “authority” also reached other cities and towns in the districts of Kamyanets and Ushitza. And since he had the “century” in his hand, he tried to have the “opinion” as well. As a party member, he aspired to increase and glorify the forces of the left in our city in order to create for himself an influential public home front. Indeed, all the anti-Zionist forces in the city were concentrated around him: “Po'alei Tsiyon,” the “Bund”, and the “Folks-Party,” which usually did not have a large number of friends or sympathizers in their ranks, but all of them were imbued with the spirit of militant “Yiddishism.” In this anti-Zionist assemblage, the lawyer Yaakov Krayz, who created for himself the popular spirit of a public businessman close to the “Folks-Party,” and Israel Drachler (brother of Sarah Drachler, who was killed in the defense of Tel Hai), who previously represented the Zionist Federation in riots and congresses, also stood out. By profession, he was a Hebrew teacher, but at the same time he created for himself the theory of Yiddishism and became close to the “Po'alei Tsiyon” and became their spokesman. As a serious public figure, with a quiet temperament and pleasant manners with people, he was accepted by all the chugim, including his former friends in the Zionist movement. Of the few “Bund” people, S. Bograd and Feibush Morgenstern, and of the socialist Zionists - Moshe Sister (now Dr. Sister, researcher and teacher of Tanach at the Kibbutzim College in Israel), who was strongly opposed to the movement and the Zionist Federation in his public appearances on the party stages, along with E. Gumener, his friend, stood out.

New and fresh forces appeared in the Zionist camp as well. With the expulsion of the Jews of Zhvanets on the Austrian border, by the decree of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army Nikolai Nikolayevich, most of the deportees came

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to nearby Kamyanets. The people of Zhvanets quickly integrated into the economic, social, and cultural life of their new place of residence and introduced new blood into the life of the Jewish community. The younger generation especially excelled among them, who had grown up and were educated in an atmosphere of Hebraism and Zionism in their place of origin and continued their activity in this area here, too. The driving and encouraging force of all this cultural activity was one of the young people of Zhvanets, Yehoshua Salzman (Malchi) or, as they called him at the time - Schika Salzman, who was a student at the “Herzliya” Gymnasium in Tel Aviv and returned home for his annual vacation and because of the war could not return to the Land of Israel. This Salzman excelled in his warm temperament and in the polemical talent of a popular orator who stood out the most over the years after the Revolution of 1917 in his debates on public platforms against the anti-Zionist parties. He was also the originator of the idea of “Ha-Mitnadvim ba-Am” (an organization of “He-Halutz”) and the organizer of the youth chug,

First group of members from Kamyanets in Kiryat Anavim

However, it was not only the younger generation of Zhvanets refugees who were involved in the life of the Jewish population in Kamyanets. The elderly among them, led by veteran businessman Shalom Altman z”l, also took an active part in the life of our community.

In those years, Meir (Muni) Zak, who was later the general manager of the main office of the Keren Kayemet Le-Israel in Jerusalem, under the name of Meir Ha-Ezrachi, became famous. He stood out as a talented Zionist orator and was one of the few who remained within the framework of the Association of General Zionists throughout his life.

In those days, young forces who belonged to the “Tse'irei Tsiyon” also appeared in the public arena and they were: Zalman Pretkin (born in Pryluk), known in Israel as Zalman Porat, director of the supervisory alliance of the agricultural cooperative and active in the Aliyah Bet mission; the teacher the writer Aharon Ashman (born in Balin); Mendel Goldstein, who graduated from the Faculty of Law and excelled in the power of his speech and pen; Israel Bashirovker

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(born in Lyantskorun=Zarechanka), a Hebrew teacher, known in Israel as Y. Bar-Shira, a lawyer and law lecturer at the Tel Aviv branch of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Yaakov Sharir, director of the “Zion” Insurance Company in Israel and head of the Association of Insurance Companies in Israel; Y. A. Weisman (now Bar Levi), the only Yiddishist in the Zionist camp and in the “Tse'irei Tsiyon” Party in Kamyanets; Etti-Hadassah Lerner (born in Zhvanets), kindergarten teacher, having a gentle soul and advanced intelligence.

A non-Zionist religious party, “Ahdut Israel,” which united and consolidated the religious circles in the city from the worshippers of the synagogues and the Beit Midrash led by R. Leib Kley-Darman, owner of a beer factory, also appeared then for the first time.

In the last years of the war (1915-1917), the struggle between the Zionists and their opponents intensified and this time not only for the sake of abstract ideological values, but also over matters of money received from the central aid institutions. These funds were intended not only for physical needs, but also for things in the spirit: maintaining kindergartens, schools, and various cultural activities.

In the years 1900-1902, two “reformed rooms” were founded in our city. Only one of them lasted 3-4 years. Better than that was the fate of the school for girls named after S. L . Blobstein, the daughter of the “Ha-Rav Mita'am,” which was founded in 1902 and existed until approximately 1916.

At the end of the First World War, two Hebrew schools were founded in our city under the auspices of the local “Ha-Tarbut” called Tushiya and Moledet. In the field of Hebrew education, the following teachers worked at the time: Aharon Ashman, Avraham Rosenzweig (Rosen), Israel Bashirovker (Bar-Shira), Haim Schreiberman (Sharig) and others. Two Hebrew kindergartens were also founded, under the management of kindergarten teachers Etti-Hadassah Lerner and Batsheva Hat.

The last three years before the February coup were marked by lively activity among all the chugim of the Jewish population in the city, and especially in the area of culture among the youth. Each chug worked according to its ability and according to its achievements. In addition to the two mentioned Hebrew schools, which were nurtured with love and devotion by their teachers and administrators, the left-wing chugim also founded their own schools in Yiddish. Even the older generation and the maturing generation among the youth broke their own paths and created two important institutions for themselves: “Beit Ha'Am” and “Kadima.”

“Beit Ha'Am” opened in one of the houses on Dolgaya Street and the evening classes for boys and girls aged 15-18 were held there, on Hebrew, Hebrew literature and history, as well as lectures and debates on the questions of the time and on the future of the Jewish people.

The Jewish youth who were students, the students of the Russian gymnasiums, found their place in the “Kadima” organization.

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The Histadrut was founded on April 28, 1916. Here, too, the orientation was nationalist-Zionist, and although most of the speeches and lectures were conducted in Russian, the Hebrew language was also studied in this chug. With the February coup of 1917, “Kadima” appeared as a defined Zionist group and participated in all the Zionist activities in the city.

“Kadima” Student Organization

In November 1920, with the resumption of Bolshevik rule in the city, the activities of “Kadima” ceased as most of its members left Kamyanets and immigrated to the Land of Israel. In Israel, “Kadima” gave two more concerts: one with the participation of the choir of Gedud Ha-Avoda in Petah Tikva and one in Jaffa. Some of the members of “Kadima” who remained in Kamyanets organized themselves as a professional musical group and performed in a concert in early 1921. After a Yevsektsiya man reported them to the Bolshevik government as a “counter-revolutionary” Zionist organization, the group ceased to exist.

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Regime changes and riots

In the first years after the February 1917 revolution in Russia, there were regime changes frequently. According to the book by E. Gumener, “A Kapitel Ukraine” (“Ukraine Chapter”), the regime changed sixteen times in Proskorov= Khmelnytskyi during the first two years of the revolution. The same was also the case in Kamyanets. Of course, the entire civilian population suffered from this, especially the Jewish communities. The rule of various militias under the leadership of all kinds of adventurers, men of hand and fist, to whom human life was worthless, instilled in the Jewish population a constant fear of riots. And indeed it was not a vain fear. A wave of riots passed over the Jews of Ukraine and, in our surroundings, it befell the cities and towns: Orynyn, Dunayivtsi, Velikiy Zhvanchik, Vurbovtsi, Murovani Kurylivtsi, Yarmolyntsi, Solovkovyts, Kytaihorod, Kopaihorod, Shatava, and other settlements. This wave did not skip over our city, Kamyanets Podilskyy, either and reached it on the eve of Shavuot (June, 1919). The pogrom lasted for 3 days during which the Heidemaks of Petliura ran amok in the city and were helped by the local people, who took advantage of the window of opportunity to steal Jewish property from apartments, shops, and warehouses. About 72 Jews were killed in these riots.

These lives of fear and riots had a considerable effect on worsening the economic and cultural situation of the Jewish residents. Due to the changes of regimes, the value of the currency decreased and the crowds thinned out, the roads were disrupted, and trade and crafts dwindled. Nevertheless, these were years of lively political and public activity on the part of all parties and all circles.

For its part, the Ukrainian government recognized the right of the Jewish population to organize its communal life

The leadership of the Jewish community

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on a democratic basis. In Kamyanets, the community committee and its council were elected in democratic elections according to the spirit of the times and the laws of the state, which managed all the affairs of the Jewish public in the city. The community committee also served as an address for help in times of need for all public businessmen in the nearby towns.

The “Haganah” in 1909

After the pogrom in Kishinev=Chisinau in the spring of 1903, a number of young Zionists, educated and “house owners,” organized themselves and began collecting funds to buy small arms (pistols), learned the “craft” as “amateurs,” and went out to fulfill the obligation of “self-defense.” The “mild” pogrom in Kamyanets in October 1905, the day after the first revolution, reminded the Jewish youth in the city that they should not remain complacent and quiet. And then the reduced circle of the young Zionists began to broaden the framework and to bring the common working people, porters, butchers, and blacksmiths closer for defense matters. In the meantime, years passed and there was no need for “self-defense.” Those who were at the head of the organization grew up in the meantime and dispersed to different places and the city was left without “defense.”

However, the unstable security situation that arose due to the frequent changes of government in the years 1918-1919 required the creation of some kind of framework of security and defense and the residents, principally the Jews, organized a night watch in every house. At a later time, a sort of “Civil Guard” was organized under the authority of the municipality. The men of the guard also received a limited number of rifles from the city militia, although not all of them were trained and knowledgeable in the rules of the rifle and its use.

And here, on one of the days at the end of May 1919, the chairman of the Bolshevik “Revkom” informed the Jewish Civil Guard that gangs of Heidemaks had entered the town of Orynyn, near Kamyanets,

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and were organizing a pogrom there, and suggested that the Jewish population take care of the defense of the Jews of Orynyn, and the safety of the Jews of Kamyanets as well, and to mobilize the Jewish youth for this purpose. From the Jews of Orynyn, too, came a cry and a demand to come to their aid. Immediately, the call went out among the Jewish youth in the city, regardless of party or ideological outlook, to volunteer and to come to the aid of the Jews of Orynyn. The number of young people who volunteered reached eighty-ninety and they were joined by several tens of soldiers from the “Red Army” and two officers at their head and, along with them, one cannon.

The company barely managed to move about 8 versts away from Kamyanets and suddenly it was subjected to heavy fire from cannons and machine guns. The volunteers were ordered to lie down on the ground and a fierce battle ensued between the young Jews who were not used to weapons and war, and the Ukrainian army, experienced in battles and murders, who also had more men. But in this critical and desperate situation, the Jewish volunteers concentrated their forces and switched from defense to counterattack, and overcame the Heidemaks. The results of the battle were: 60 Heidemaks were killed, excluding the number of wounded taken by the retreating Ukrainian army, and on the side of the Jews, two fell, one of them Avraham Korman z”l (a member of “Tse'irei Tsiyon”), and three were wounded.

When the victorious volunteers returned to Kamyanets, it became clear that the Bolsheviks' intention in sending the Jewish youths to Orynyn was to use them as “cannon fodder” in order to gain time for the evacuation of the city. And indeed it did not take many hours and the city was emptied of its Bolshevik rulers, who fled eastward.

It was clear to the Jews that, if the city was captured again by the Ukrainian army, they would not be silent about the defeat that the Jewish youths had caused the Heidemaks and they would want to take revenge on the Jewish population. And in fact the Heidemaks arranged the pogrom in Kamyanets, which we mentioned above, at the beginning of June 1919.

Many of the Jews fled the city to other settlements. Among them was Alexander (Shura) Chomsky, the deputy commander of the “Civil Guard,” who participated in the “Orynyn campaign” as the commander of the volunteers, but about two weeks later returned to Kamyanets and was arrested by the secret police of Petliura. He was charged with being the leader of armed Jewish forces in the “Red Army” who fought in the Orynyn front against the Ukrainian army and the matter was handed over to a military court.

The trial was conducted behind closed doors. The defense was headed by the defendant's brother-in-law, M. Alter, an excellent and very talented lawyer. As defense witnesses there appeared at the trial the best businessmen of the city - Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles. But all the testimonies in Chomsky's favor were of no use and he was sentenced to die for his “crime.” However, for some reason, the verdict was not carried out immediately, as is customary in such cases, but was delayed for a long time. In the meantime, the defense tried with the Petliura government to pardon the accused or to cancel the verdict and to investigate the matter anew. And although the government circles recognized Chomsky's righteousness, they encountered resistance from the army, which sought revenge.

In the end, the government had the upper hand and Alexander Chomsky was released from prison. The whole city, and the Jews in particular, breathed a sigh of relief.

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The Help of the Jews of America

The echoes of the terrible pogroms reached abroad, even though the suffering Ukrainian Jewry was cut off from the wider world. The communities that suffered from the pogroms could only expect a small amount of help from the local aid organizations who were also cut off from their centers in Petrograd and Kyiv. Indeed, a small amount of help did come from the Jewish Ministry in the Ukrainian government, but this government itself wandered from place to place and the connection to it was extremely loose.

The community committee in Kamyanets Podilskiyy, which was the largest community in the area, served as an address to which the people of the small towns in the nearby districts turned for help and the community responded to them to the best of its ability. However, the financial means of the community were very limited and it maintained its institutions with great difficulty and met the needs of the local population.

And then at the same time the first emissaries of the “Joint” arrived in Bessarabia, which was then under the rule of Romania, and Mr. Zelig Shuchtman (now Z. Eligon) came to Kamyanets from Kishinev=Chisinau to establish a public committee that would deal with proffering help under the auspices of the American “Joint.” Since the committee was composed mostly of the parties: “Ahdut,” the general Zionists, and “Tse'irei Tsiyon,” the left-wing parties that remained in the minority established a parallel separate committee. In January 1920, the first delegate of the “Joint,” Mr. Becker, came from Bucharest and brought with him a large amount of money for help, but he stipulated that the two committees must unite and, accordingly, a new committee was assembled on an equal basis.

The large financial means of the “Joint” allowed the committee to conduct its work for the benefit of the needy in all the surrounding communities that had suffered from the pogroms, providing them with material and spiritual help.

In February 1920, during the rule of the Poles in Kamyanets, the “Joint” envoy came from Warsaw. After the Poles left and the Ukrainians entered again, the “Joint” envoys arrived in Kamyanets: Max Fein and Judge Fisher from Chicago, followed by Professor D. Friedlander, Moshe Katz, and Dr. Lev.

During one of the delegation's trips across the Jewish settlements, Professor Friedlander stopped with his friends in the town of Yarmolyntsi and on the 19th of Tammuz Tara”f (July 5, 1920), he and Dr. Cantor were shot there by “Red Army” patrols, who mistook them for Polish military personnel.

When word of the disaster became known in Warsaw and in America, help from American Jewry stopped. The central committee in Kamyanets nevertheless continued its work for some time. However, when the Bolsheviks returned to the city in November 1920, they confiscated all the funds found in the hands of the central committee and distributed the goods in the committee's warehouses among the “Red Army” soldiers and even among the farmers in the surrounding area. The committee dissolved and its work was banned.

In those three years after the second Russian revolution (1917-1920), years of confusion and despair, years of hardship and constant fear for the future, our city also knew good days and one of those was “San Remo” Day.

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On April 24, 1920, the San Remo Peace Conference confirmed the rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the Balfour Declaration was included as a clause in the peace treaty between the Great Powers and Turkey. When the news was received in Kamyanets, about two weeks later, it was decided to celebrate the event in a big public way and on May 12 the celebrations were held with great pomp and a great procession went through the main streets

A celebration in honor of the acceptance of the Balfour Declaration by the San Remo Peace Conference in 1920

Towards evening, a large public meeting gathered in “Shevchenko Beit Ha'Am” (Shevchenko Community Center). The hall was decorated with blue and white flags and on the stage sat distinguished guests invited to this meeting, among them: Minister of the State Prof. Ogienko, Substitute Head of the Ministers; the Jewish Minister P. Krasny; the Mayor and his Deputy; a representative of the “Zemstvo”; professors from the university; the editors of the daily newspapers and representatives of Western European governments.

Indeed, the festive mood of “San Remo” Day did not last long. In September of that year, the Ukrainians returned to Kamyanets and in November, the Bolsheviks captured the city for the third and last time.

The “He-Halutz” movement that encompassed many of the youth circles in the communities of Israel in Russia also attracted the hearts of the youth in our city. Among the members of “He-Halutz” was the local organization “Ha-Mitnadvim ba-Am,” whose members came from the ranks of the General Zionists and “Tse'irei Tsiyon.”

In order to acquire practical knowledge in agriculture, some of these young people left their parents' homes and went to work as laborers for the Jewish farmers in the agricultural colonies in the Kherson region. Others also came to Odesa and learned the theory of agriculture from the renowned agronomist, A. Sussman, in practice.

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“Podolskiyy Kray” (Podolia geographic region), a daily paper in Russian, which appeared in Kamyanets Podilskiyy. The May 12, 1920 issue was dedicated to the celebration of the acceptance of the Balfour Declaration at San Remo. (See the contents of the issue on the opposite side of the page.)

[No page number]

Sunday, May 16, 1920	No. 529

Churchill on the government in Israel London, May 6. Churchill responded to the question in Parliament concerning the future of the government in Israel that, following the decision for a solution of the question of Israel at San Remo, the military government will be converted to a civilian government.   The first steps towards peace between the Jews and the Arabs Krakow, May 6. The Pantara Agency announces from San Remo that, after the decision was taken on the question of Israel, a banquet was held of all the representatives of the Zionists and the Arabs, during which the two sides announced in their speeches their readiness for joint work in the Near East (“the call”).   The celebration following the recognition of the rights of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel Already on the evening before the day of celebration, the city was decorated with the national flags and with pictures of the Zionist leaders. In one of the houses on Rehov Ha-Do'ar, a picture from the lives of the Jewish farmers in the fields of the Land of Israel was displayed and the entire city was lit up with a strong light as if it were daytime. On the morning of May 12, various organizations began to gather in Governor's Square: Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army, Jewish “Scouts,” “Maccabi,” a group of Jewish horsemen, bicycle riders, and also delegations from the surrounding towns.

All the demonstrators arranged themselves in a circle around the stage upon which sat members of the community committee, the rabbis, the Ukrainian Republic Minister for Jewish Affairs P. Krasny, the Regiment Head from the Ukrainian Officers School, the Professor from the Ukrainian university in Kamyanets Podilskiyy, and others, Mr. Ashman, head of the community committee, opened the celebration and after him, Mr. M. Goldstein, a member of the community committee, and representatives of the various authorities and institutions spoke. After the speeches, the entire community went out in a procession throughout the streets of the city, while the playing of gramophones was heard through the open windows, accompanying the demonstrators with marches. At 5 p.m., a festive meeting of the community committee was held at the Shevchenko Beit Ha'Am, dedicated to marking the important event. After each speech, the musical organization, “Kadima,” played the national anthem, “Ha-Tikva.”   We will remember them … On the day of our national holiday, when above the heads of the celebrating masses the great news was carried, when from the depths of the shocked heart a stormy wave of happiness and joy burst out - we will remember them, the first ones, the good ones, and the chosen ones … on the day of our great joy, when our thoughts rise up to the heavens in a celebratory flight to meet the nearness of our desire to be realized, to meet the miraculous fairy tale and wonderful dream about to become reality - we will remember them, the proud and heroic and fearless originators of our movement … M. Goldstein

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Pioneers from other cities also worked in this place, among them from the city of Pryluky, some of whom joined the Kamyanets pioneers when they immigrated to Israel and together with them established the Kiryat Anavim collective farm near Jerusalem.

Some of the pioneers of our city who did not go for training in Kherson and Odesa received a piece of land free of charge from local resident Pinchas Oksman and established a farm there. The local community and the adherents of “He-Halutz” from among the Zionists supported with their money the budget necessary for the farm equipment and for the members' sustenance until the new harvest, and living together qualified them as members of the Kiryat Anavim collective farm.

A group of pioneers from the Kamyanets district on their way to Israel

The Poles ruled Kamyanets until September 1920 and in their place came the Ukrainians led by Petliura. This rule lasted less than three months this time and, in November, the city was conquered by the Bolsheviks who remain there to this day. Even before the arrival of the Bolsheviks, a notice was published in the city under the auspices of the city commandant of the Ukrainian army, according to which all holders of a passport stating that they were born in Bessarabia or were former residents might return to it and take their property with them. The returnees would arrive in the town of Zhvanets, where they were received by a Romanian army officer and transported by way of the Dniester River to the town of Khotyn. Quite a few took advantage of the legal possibility to cross the border into Bessarabia. But there were also many who “stole” the border to there by way of the same Dniester River, abandoning themselves and their property to the hands of border smuggling “goyim” and not a few were taken down to the bottom of the river by these “saviors.”

Another stream of those fleeing the rule of Petliura, and then from the Bolshevist rule, followed a different path through Galicia. They also had to “steal” the border in the dark of night. These two countries, Bessarabia and Galicia, served many of the refugees as intermediate stations only, while for others they became like a second homeland in their view that they had already reached a state of tranquility. Until the war came, followed by the Holocaust, and the cruel hand of Israel's bitter enemy, Hitler (may his name be obliterated), caught up with them, too.

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However, not all the Jews of Kamyanets could, or did not want to, “steal” the borders and flee from the city. Many remained in place under the Bolshevik rule and adapted to its regime. Some of them moved to other cities in Russia, where no one knew them nor did they know about their “bourgeois” or “petty-bourgeois” past.

Thus gradually the city emptied of its Jewish inhabitants and when Hitler's goons arrived in 1941, they found ten thousand souls in total, a third of the Jewish population in 1920. The Jews of Kamyanets and the surrounding area were imprisoned by the Nazis in a ghetto with about six thousand more Jews who were brought by the murderers from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and were destroyed in the suburb of Podzamcze on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days of Elul Tash”a (August 27, 28, 29, 1941) (may God avenge their blood).

This is how the Kamyanets Podilskiyy community lived and died. The city was ruined and destroyed. Partly by the actions of the last war, and mainly by the local non-Jewish residents who looted all the Jewish property left behind after the destruction.

Are there still Jews in Kamyanets? - It is impossible to answer that with certainty. The Soviet authorities do not allow foreigners to visit the city and only a few succeed once in a while to get in there. In any case, some estimate the number of Jews currently in the city at fifty families (?). These are mostly elderly people who are no longer able to work and live only on the pension they receive from the government.

4-5 years ago, one of its native sons visited the city and found it in great ruins, and in the summer of 1963, one of the city's native daughters (now in Colombia) visited Kamyanets and searched for her parents' house, but all her efforts were in vain. The street where the house stood, as well as the large synagogues and the several Beit Midrash of the city, were completely destroyed and of all that was in it, only one ruin remained: the ruins of the building of the tailors' synagogue and two Beit Midrash of the cobblers and of the “Kov'ei Itim” - a memory of eternal sorrow for future generations.

From views of the city: The Military Hospital