[Page 112]

Twenty-five years have passed since the Moghiloff American fraternal brotherhood, which goes by the name, American Brotherhood of Moghiloff, was founded.

With an individual that number of years constitute a considerable portion of a lifetime, and with an organization – a body consisting of individuals – that is also a number of years which leave a noteworthy mark upon its existence and activity. An organization which has already gone through a quarter of a century of existence has by the same token, already coped successfully with all manner of troubles that are a by-product of the formative, unfolding period: and has already grounded itself with roots so deep that it is no longer an easy matter to destroy them.

We doubt if the founders of the American Brotherhood of Moghiloff realized twenty-five years ago, that they were laying the foundation of an organization which would develop to its present strength and scope in the Jewish public life of America, and would go through twenty-five years of life with the excellent record that it has to its credit. It seems to us that the founders sought to confine themselves to the interests having to do merely with their native city of Moghiloff and to separate and isolate themselves for this purpose. They designated as the functions of the brotherhood; helping one another in case of illness or need, and coming together now and then for the purpose of recalling the old home town where childhood years were spent. To prove this theory, one need only point to the present constitution with its ruling that only those who hail from Moghiloff or its environs are eligible to membership in the brotherhood. However, though this primary requirement has remained in force to this day, the activity of the organization has not been limited to the expressed purposes for which it was founded. When it became necessary, the brother hood lent its help to the Jewish people throughout the world. The American Brotherhood of Moghiloff never refused to participate in the general course of American Jewish life, as well as in the life of the Jews across the sea. And, at the close of the first twenty-five years of existence, it feels that it is an organic part of the whole Jewish body politic.

All this is especially significant when one considers the fact that the past twenty-five years constitute an extraordinary period for mankind in general, and for the Jewish people in particular.

It has been perhaps the most important, the most pregnant period in our entire two thousand years of goluth. It has been a time when the old persecutions and accusations came to life again, while the old faith was dying out. The Jewish people realized more and more its oneness as a nation and yet became more split up than ever into classes. It was a period of pogroms,

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butchery, brutalities which even the most feverish fancy could not, a short time previously, have imagined; a barbarism and savagery which would have been inconceivable even in the darkest years of the middle ages.

It was also a time of such opposing movements as political Zionism and Jewish Communism. And simultaneous with the national renaissance which seems to have uplifted the whole people, a wave of assimilation has been sweeping over us which threatens the very existence of all Jewishness. And, while everywhere it is being asserted that the age-old historic hope has inspired us, as we have never before been inspired, our hearts are being weighed down with a leaden despair, the like of which we have never in the course of our whole historic existence, experienced.

Of course, all this was felt most poignantly in our old homes across the sea, whilst we here, in distant and free America, were culturally and spiritually living in the mere reflection of the activity going on among our brothers over there.

In the course of the 25 years, we in America, have been reinforced by two million immigrants; almost a sixth of the Jewish population of the world have taken up the stick of the wanderer and have come here to us. Seven times the number of Jews who were expelled from Spain have forsaken the homes of their forefathers and have emigrated to these distant shores to establish new homes here among us.

It is hardly possible to estimate the tremendous changes which have, as a result of this, been brought about in the Jewish life here. There is no parallel to the great organization work, educational work, enlightenment and relief work which have had to be done. In all these gigantic activities, the American Brotherhood of Moghileff has not failed to take part with all of its strength. And, therefore, at the close of the 25 years of its existence, there is all the reason in the world to congratulate the brotherhood and extend it our heartiest good wishes.

Greetings to you O founders and builders of the American Brotherhood of Moghileff. Greetings to you, all of you members who have the high privilege of partaking in the 25^th anniversary celebration of such a noble organization. To you may be applied the old Hebrew saying: “How pleasant and agreeable it is to be in the company of good friends”?

Go on with your work of ennobling and strengthening your “old home town” organization.

Go on with your work with greater speed and increased strength until your 50^th anniversary; and from then on, still further and further and further.

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Twenty-five years ago, a small group of young men, for the sake of companionship, organized what they termed a fraternal organization. They were men who had known each other for years having all emigrated from the same section of Russia, namely Moghilev.

From the very start they were confronted with great difficulties, the most formidable being, a financial one. None of the organizers could by any stretch of imagination be called rich as they (were) had just recently immigrated from Russia.

To complicate the financial worry, it was decided to restrict membership to those who could trace Moghilever strain in them or acquired by marriage. Thus, we can see the membership did not grow by leaps and bounds.

From the humble beginning, the American Bro. of Moghilev has grown to what it is today: the foremost organization of its kind in America.

To trace the innumerable admirable deeds, the organization has performed would fill pages. However, it would be well to mention some.

During the Great World War, when Moghilev was practically cut off from the world, when its inhabitants faced pestilence and starvation, the members of society gladly contributed thousands of dollars year-after-year. Nor was this good work confined to Moghilev alone. Money and clothes were also sent to neighbouring provinces.

When the war ended, quite a sum of money was sent to rehabitate a Talmud Torah there. This society subscribes regularly to a yearly fund for the upkeep of Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Denver and Los Angeles.

It subscribes to every good cause that appeals to it and voluntarily makes subscription where there are no appeals.

It is a fraternal organization paying sick benefits and death benefits. When one of the members of the society was asked by an outsider how the organization managed to prosper on so nominal a dues charge, he answered: “By careful management and a wise selection of Officers”. And this has been true throughout the entire span of years. The men at the helm have safely guided the organization through turbulent times, through years of difficulty and struggle.

They have brought it to what it is today: staunch and hardy, a monument to their wonderful efforts.

Moghilever – you should be proud to claim this organization as your own.

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A person living in any particular country has pride and patriotic feelings towards it because of a strong nationalistic feeling, a deep loyalty, an ardent fervour, a sincere regard for it.

Too often, these well-founded feelings are forgotten, any former associates discarded and the background of having lived within a same metropolis torn down.

To preclude any possibility of losing sight of their comrades of their early days, and to attempt to better conditions of persons less fortunate than they, the Mogileff Society was formed. Twenty-five years ago! The Mogileff Society has risen from a group of fifteen to their present status of three hundred and seventy-five members.

They attempted to alleviate distress in Europe, and during the war, several thousands of dollars were sent to their brethren.

They are members of the United Charities as well as the Los Angeles and Denver Sanatorium.

At every meeting of their society, some charity or destitute person comes up for consideration and it can be truthfully said that no bona fide case has ever been refused assistance.

Twenty-five years has transformed the youthful organization to men of middle age. They look to their sons, the younger generation, to continue the admirable work, the cementing of friendships, the continuance of good work.

Aside from the humanitarian duties, their social activities blend their large organization into one large family.

Let me express here my heartfelt appreciation and profound praises for the commendable work accomplished and permit me further to extend my hopes for an eternal continuance of this splendid work.

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Jewish boys and girls who were born in this country have much to be thankful for. And not a small part of their gratitude is due to their fathers and mothers and all the hardy host of Jewish immigrants who came to great and rich America from the quaint towns and town lets of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and other East-European countries.

There have been Jews in this country from the very beginning. That is the first ones came here with Columbus, and indeed, allegations have been made that the Indians themselves, the original inhabitants of the western world, are descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. But, leaving the legend regarding the red men out of the question, only a small handful of our people were here in those far-off days.

The first Jews to come to America hailed from Spain and Portugal and belonged to the Sephardic wing of Judaism. After them came, in somewhat larger numbers, Jewish immigrants from Germany. At about 1848, there was an especially large exodus of independent-minded people from Germany. They left the Fatherland because of the political oppression prevalent in the country which the rebellion of the daring minority of liberals had failed to uproot. And this exodus of independent-minded spirits out of Germany brought to America a considerable number of Jews. They settled here among the Christians who had come with them from Germany and for all but religious and philanthropic purposes, were hardly to be differentiated from their Christian German-American neighbours.

The third and largest wave of Jewish immigration to America started around 1880, and brought upon its crest tens and hundreds of thousands of our people from Russia, Romania, Austria and Hungary. These immigrants came to America to escape the persecution, oppression and poverty which embittered their lives in the countries in which they were born. They came here with empty pockets and bowed backs but with upright souls. They were different from their Spanish and German co-religionists in that they brought with them the seeds of a whole culture. They spoke Yiddish and the more intelligent among them were imbued with idealistic aspirations and with a determination to keep alive the dearly paid-for culture which they brought with them.

From 1880 up until the opening of the World's War, these immigrants from the east of Europe kept coming in ever greater and greater numbers. The general populace up until the degradation of the American spirit brought about by the war hysteria, welcome their newcomers with open arms. But the German and Spanish Jews looked upon their Russian and Rumanian co-religionists as inferiors. This, however, did not deter the progress, economically, intellectually and spiritually of the doughty sons and daughters of Israel hailing from the Czar's empire and neighbouring lands. They went on with their work so enthusiastically and successfully that at length, even the German “Yahudim” felt compelled to recognize them as equals.

It was not, however, until the extreme restriction on immigration (recently enacted came into power) that we realized that the mass immigration of our people from eastern Europe was over and we began to take stock of ourselves, we became aware of the magnitude to which American Jewry had grown.

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Leaving economic expansion and the mere increase in numbers up to the present 4,000,000 out of the question, what has transpired in American Jewry since 1880 is still singular phenomenon – one without parallel in all history. Out of struggling, impoverished handfuls have grown great communities throbbing with life. Synagogues, theological seminaries, academies, newspapers, magazines, theatres, fraternal orders, political and social movements have grown up and developed until the whole of American Jewry is criss-crossed with a network of organization which functions in a cultural way here and in a charitable way for the relief of the dispossessed and downtrodden Jews of Europe.

Every phase of Jewish life is now represented on the American scene from the most orthodox to the most heterodox – from the most conservative to the most radical, and from the most admirable to the most shameful. American Jewry is looked to not only to carry the brunt of the burden in financing Zionist endeavours; we are coming more and more to play a paramount part in the cultural and theoretical side of the Jewish neo-nationalist movement. And even in the religious matters, the former position has been reversed: instead of importing rabbis from Europe, we are now supplying England, for instance, with rabbis trained in America.

Too, the United States is now playing the leading role in the production of Yiddish literature. The universally recognized living masters in Yiddish 'belles lettres' are almost without exception now to be found living and working in New York. Also, we have Jewish art exhibits, Yiddish jazz bands and Jewish football teams. And still the growth goes on apace leading to what and where, no one can prophesy.

Truly this mushroom rising up of American Jewry is one of the most marvellous wonders in Jewish history, a history replete with miracles and wonders. Never before has there existed a Jewry so rich, so powerful, so pregnant with awe-inspiring possibilities as is American Jewry. And the most remarkable thing about it all is the fact that the foundation for this great material, cultural and spiritual structure was laid by the poor refugees who made their start here as peddlers of furnishings and trinkets among the farmers, and as tailors and cloak-makers in the sweatshops of New York and Chicago. Wonder upon wonder; and another proof positive of the potency of the Jewish will to live.

Interior view of the Moghileff Synagogue

Though the city of Moghiloff was well known as an important trading centre as early as the 14^th century, the first mention of Jews there occurred in a document dated 1522 wherein King Sigmund awards a lease for a period of three years, of the various taxes of Moghiloff to Michael Jesofovitch, the noted merchants of Brest. This lease was renewed three years later and subsequently taken up by Jesovovitch family and other Jewish merchants, as appears from a number of documents.

Towards the end of the 16^th century, Jews had probably settled in Moghiloff in considerable numbers, although there are no documents to show the extent on how well an organized community they had done at that time. In 1583, Affras Rachmelovich, a prominent Jewish merchant of Moghiloff carried on an import-export trade with Riga and Lublin. The presence of a considerable number of Jews in Moghiloff at the end of the 16^th century is attested also by a petition dated March 5, 1583 of the burghers of the city to King Stephen Bathori praying that Jews might be prohibited from settling in Moghiloff, since they would be a serious menace to the prosperity of the Christian merchants. The King promised to grant the request of the burghers but, in spite of this, the agents of the Jewish tax-farmers continued their business in Moghiloff as is shown by certain lawsuits brought by them in 1589 against some Christian merchants for selling spirituous liquors without a license. In a document dated Jan. 31,1597, a Jew, Anam Rabinovich, is mentioned as residing on Pokrovsky Street.

A Jewish community seems to have existed in Moghiloff for some time prior to 1621 in which year the local guild of butchers passed resolutions making it illegal for Christians as well as Jewish members of the guild to buy cattle outside of the city and requiring Christian butchers who wished to sell kosher meat to do business in certain places where the Jewish butchers were established. In the following year, the Municipal

[Page 105]

Consul of Moghiloff borrowed from the Jew, Gabriel Samuelovich and his wife Rukhana Stzkhakovna 100 Lithuanian Kop groshen for a term of ten years, and as security, gave to Gabriel a house belonging to the city situated on Nikolski Street.

The growing antagonism on the part of the Christian merchants provoked by the competition of the Jews caused the former to make repeated complaints to the King and finally led to the promulgation of an edict (July 23, 1626) by Sigismund III., whereby all Jews owning houses on the market place were ordered to remove to the street on which their prayer-house was situated, “in order to prevent the conflicts due to the residence of Jews and Christians on the same streets”. Equivalent areas were assigned to the Jews on the Jewish street. This edict was confirmed by Ladislaus IV. (March 8, 1633), who also prohibited the Jews from building baths and breweries within the city limits. This and other documents show that the populace was being incited against the Jews by the burghers and the clergy.

In 1639, the burghers reported to the city council that a Christian servant who had been employed for ten years by the Jewess Lyuba Jesofova and died under suspicious circumstances and that the Jews had buried her without giving notice of the funeral to her relatives. The investigation revealed that the deceased had been drinking heavily in the monastery and had fallen unconscious in the street near the house; that Lyuba, with the aid of servant sisters, had carried her into the house where she died soon after and that the son of the deceased, accompanied by other relatives, had buried her – a fact corroborated by numerous witnesses. Other unfounded accusations repeatedly made against the Jews of Moghiloff, especially as to their responsibility for the frequent conflagrations occurring in the city.

The enmity towards the Jews found expression in a riot which occurred on the Jewish New Year's day, Sept. 21, 1645. Led by the burgomaster, Roman Rebrovich, an armed mob attacked the Jews who had gone to the River Dneiper for the observance of the religious custom of “Tashlich”. The mob wounded men and women, robbed them of jewellery and attempted to throw them in the river. The case was carried to Prince Radzwill whose influence enabled the burgomaster to escape punishment. This incident, one of many, throws a light on the popular attitude towards the Jews a few years before the uprising under Chruielnicki. The Jews of Moghiloff apparently escaped the first fury of Chrielnicki's Cossacks in 1648 and they benefited in the following year by the renewal of the charter granted to many Lithuanian communities by King John Cosiveir. (Feb. 17).

The security of the Moghileff community was, however, of short duration. In 1654, the city was annexed to Russia and by order of the czar Aleksei Mikharlovich in response to a petition of the Moghileff burghers, the Jews were commanded to leave, (Sept.15, 1654). In spite of this, they remained in Moghileff (probably as the result of bribery of the local officials), but they paid dearly for doing so. In 1655, most of them were massacred by the Russian soldiers outside of the city walls where the Jews had assembled by order of the Russian commander, Poklonski. The only Jews spared were those who had not yet left the city and who, fearing a similar fate, had declared their readiness to accept baptism. The Father Superior, Orest, commenting on this incident in his memoirs, laments the fact that after the war when the dangers to the Jews had passed, most of the converts returned to Judaism, only a tenth part of them remaining Christians.

In 1656, Moghileff was given under Polish rule and the old charter of privileges was renewed by King John III. In the memoirs of Orest, referred to above, mention is made

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also of Shabbethai Zebi (whom Orest calls “Saprai Gershonovich”).

The first rabbi of Moghileff and of the “Russian province” of whom record is preserved in Jewish documents was Mordecai Siisskind Ruttenburg who was living in Moghileff in 1686, as appears from his response (i. 446/ Amsterdam, 1746). He was probably the first (if not the first) of the rabbis of the Moghileff community after permission was given to the Jews in 1678 to reside anywhere in the city. For the next century, the Jews of Moghileff remained secure under the polish crown, with the exception of the period covered by the Swedish war, when Moghileff was for a time on the battleground between the Swedes and the Russians. Orest describes in his memoirs the entry of Peter the Great into Moghileff, when the Jewish inhabitants together with the rest came to welcome him and presented him with a live sturgeon.

With the partition of Poland in 1772, Moghileff became a part of the Russian empire. Catherine II visited the city in 1780 and was received by the Jews with expressions of joy. They decorated the public square with flowers and erected an arch bearing the inscription: “We rejoice as in the days of King Solomon”. They also engaged a band of music to play in the daytime and in the evening. During the successive reigns of Catherin, Paul and Alexander, the prosperity of the community increased. The Jewish merchants of Moghileff were especially prominent as traders in timber, help and grain which were sold in Riga where a number of Jews of Moghileff settled later. Important commercial relations were maintained also by way of the Dnieper with Kier and Kherson. Towards the middle of the 19^th century and later, the Jewish merchants of Moghileff became prominent also as government contractors and carried on an extensive trade with Moscow.

View of Synagogue in Moghileff

In the year of 1901 to 1906, during the revolutionary movement, Moghileff contributed

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Quite a number of young, energetic men and women to that famous organization (at that time) the “Bund”. Later, when the reactionary activities of the Czar spread, most of the inhabitants of Moghileff migrated to the United States. During the World War, Moghileff had been, (at intervals), under different governments whereby they had suffered great persecution and cruelty. The poverty and suffering was carried to that extent that obligations was made upon their friends and relatives in America for help.

Under the Bolshevist's reign, they were given soil by which they developed Jewish Colonies and through which they made their living.

No definite statistics have been formed as to the number and trades employed by the Jews, at the present time in Moghileff.

This is a question that has arisen in the minds of many people, especially in mine. I did come across an inkling of an answer. Many times while meditating on the subject, I try to find excuses for that restrained feeling on the Jew's part but I have never succeeded.

For example, when I am in my classroom, I usually drop a Jewish word here or there in my conversation to my teacher, or, in fact, anybody, be it principal, dean, superintendent, engineer, Jew or Goy. As that Jewish word slips out of my moth, my Jewish companions start or blush though they are the staunchest Jews I know. When one accosts them and asks them why they feel to uncomfortable, they only answer: “I don't know, but I just feel funny, or I can't stand it”.

If someone told you to wrap up your package in a Jewish paper and carry it through the streets, why horrors of horrors, you would say emphatically no!

It is always the lowest ignorant Jew that will carry a package wrapped in a Jewish paper through the streets without any misgivings, while the highly intelligent Jew who claims to understand the Jews' unfortunate circumstances would shrink from that dreadful ordeal: just think to carry a package wrapped in the Forwards, Courier or Tog through the streets? Ugh, how vulgar!

That inkling of an answer that I found was that the Jews are so scattered they are subconsciously trying to assimilate themselves so as to be like his Gentile neighbours, because they have no country, laws or customs to call their own. Even most of the sculptors, artists, authors, plays and what not are taken from them. For instance, when a certain great singer was asked to bear the flag of her nationality upon the stage in one of the acts in the opera, she brought out a Polish flag, though all the world knows that she is Jewish and her father was a Rabbi in Poland. There are so many offenses of such kind that one could write a whole book.

I hope that the children who might celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the Moghileff Society, which is now celebrating its 25^th will not try and get assimilated too much because they would be surprised to know how much a genuine Jew is respected.

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There is an element of the marvellous, if not miraculous, in the growth of the Jewish settlement of America. From a mere handful – a few thousands scattered in small groups all over this big and unsettled land – at the close of the Revolutionary War, the Jewish population of America has risen to a number exceeding three million. It is as big as that of the Jewish population of Poland, together with all the annexed non-Polish territories – bigger than that of Soviet Russia and bigger than the Jewish population of all the central and West European countries, including the British Isles combined. Only old Czarist Russia, in the heyday of its power, when its sway extended over one-sixth of the globe and included Poland, Lithuania and other lands thickly populated by Jews, boasted a more numerous Jewish community than does the United States of today.

But a brief while ago, as history is reckoned, Warsaw was accounted the greatest Jewish community in the world, its numbers reaching the half-million mark. Yet, what is one to say of the City of New York or Chicago of today with its three million Jews, metropolises wherein every third man, woman or child that one meets is sure to be of the seed of Abraham?

In addition to the mere fact of numbers, one needs to bear in mind that this phenomenal growth does not represent a natural increase of the indigenous elements, but rather an influx, a hasty and hurried influx in its greater part accelerated by the persecutions in the Old World countries. But, a brief 40 years ago, the greater number of the Jews living in America today or their fathers and mothers, still had their abode in the midst of mediaeval Russia, Poland or Galicia and never dreamt of being transplanted to a strange soil and a new home. The marvel of it is, that having been carried over here by the whirlwind of cruel forces beyond their own control, running willy-nilly from the dark forces of hatred and persecution and even slaughter, they yet managed to establish themselves so well, to rebuild their fortunes both materially and culturally, and to drop the forbidding and pity-awakening aspect of the hunted refugee so completely from their physical and mental make-up!

No exact and reliable statistics of the Jew in America are available. But that much we do know that he has prospered materially and is also looking and exceedingly earnestly and well to his spiritual life well-being and growth. The material well-being of man forming the sina qua non of his cultural life and advancement (and we have the authority of both Marx and Buckle for it), it follows that once the Jew has found a solid economic soil under his feet in his new home, the desire for the rebuilding of his centuries-old cultural life with the proper modifications suited to his new environment will be awakened within him. Let but the gaunt spectre of want be driven from his sight; let but the ghost of struggle for mere elemental needs be laid in its grave and the Jew of America, descended of a long and honourable line of cultural people, will seek to rebuild his spiritual fences so that he may once more resume his interrupted cultural life. Mere material success cannot possibly satisfy a member of an ancient and cultured race, especially one who entire life had for centuries revolved about the axis of the spirit. No wonder,

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The Jew of Fiction

then, that one beholds, wherever one goes, the rising number of Jewish clubs of all kinds: Y.M.H.A. buildings, Jewish Centres, Community Houses, libraries, meeting and lecture halls and the like centres for educational, social and beneficial purposes.

In the fiction written by non-Jews, the Jewish characters when not sordid and antipathetic, are invariably depicted as cloud-soaring visionaries and dreamers. There is never a trace of the practical and the self-interested about these superlatively-good and Angelic beings. Were the Jew in reality made of the flesh and the substance of the Jew of fiction, he would still be living today in his two-room apartment in the Old Law tenement on Maxell or Canal streets. He would still worship his God in his top floor rear synagogue while his social life would find adequate expression in the Lodge Meetings held in the rear part of a Soft Drink Parlor (the saloon of the Pre-Volsteadian days) and his young ones would still huddle like frightened sheep in the pen, into the parlours of the Settlement Houses and kindred institutions that bear upon them the indelible marks of charity; the condescension of the rich towards their less-abundantly blessed brothers and sisters. But the Jew of America, at heart, is essentially a realist – even when dreaming his airiest dreams – and the practical passing and disappearance of the Settlement House from the Jewish neighbourhood and its present confinement to the Italian and Slav neighbourhoods, attests this fact amply.

Should one desire any further proof, let him but look at the rows upon rows of neat apartment houses that line Albany Park. Let him but look at Douglas Park, North-west side and ask himself the question: “Who has built all these?” “Who has converted all these erstwhile wildernesses and swamps into blooming towns; into towns teeming with life and activity and bespeaking a degree of comfort rarely matched anywhere?” Let him pause before the many beautiful buildings of a public character or, still better, enter within their hospitable doors, look about and find the answer to his question written large upon every brick and every stone of these ornate structures.

Having put his physical house more or less in order, the American Jew began thinking seriously of his spiritual house. The call of the ages, of the past days, come to him loudly, insistently. One may describe that call as atavistic; one may describe it as Idealism – pure and simple. But there is no mistaking the fact that having lived an intensely spiritual life all through the centuries past in his old home, the transplanted Jew could not suddenly abandon himself to a life of physical pleasures and economic interests only. He had, on the contrary, come into a fuller life. His environment had been changed from a Mediaeval 14^th century one to that of the 20^th century industrial America. The Seven League Boots of inexorable force has catapulted him, at one bound, over a distance of five or six centuries of economic, industrial and political development. His ideas of life were modified accordingly, while his religious, social and educational needs also underwent a corresponding modification, finding ample expression in the religious and cultural institutions that he is establishing for the benefit of himself and his sons and daughters.

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