Zheimel (Zeimelis in Lithuanian) is situated in the north central part of Lithuania four km. from the border of Latvia, its name having been mentioned in old manuscripts dating back to the 13^th century. From the 14^th century until the 18^th century the Zheimel estate had been administered by German feudal lords, and the town of Zheimel which developed near the estate was the county administrative center from 1568 on. In 1613 King Zigmunt Vaza granted Zheimel the privilege of holding two fairs a year.

Until 1795 Zheimel was part of the Polish Kingdom, but at that time Poland was divided for the third time among the then three superpowers – Russia, Prussia and Austria – and most of Lithuania, including Zheimel, was apportioned to Russia.

During Russian rule (1795–1915) as well as during Lithuania's period of independence (1918–1940), Zheimel was again the county administrative center. During the German occupation in World War I, Zheimel was connected by a narrow gauge railway to Joniskis and before World War II a railway line was laid which led from Zheimel through Joniskelis to Panevezys.

Testimony to the fact that Jewish settlement in Zheimel was one of the oldest in Lithuania can be seen on tombstones dating back hundreds of years which were found in the old cemetery of the town, for example as the year of birth (1738) of the Jewish scholar Shelomoh Zalkind Horovitz, who was one of the students of Moses Mendelsohn and a member of the “Sanhedrin” during the time of Napoleon. Horovitz was an expert on oriental manuscripts in the National Library in Paris.

The Jews of Zheimel made their living from commerce and agriculture and almost every family had a small garden near their home. There were 753 Jews in the town in 1847.

In a news item which appeared in the newspaper “Ha Magid” in the year 1883, it was reported that a synagogue, one of the oldest in Lithuania and a study house (Beth Midrash) were built in 1862. In the 1880s, Zheimel gained publicity because of a dispute over the election of a Rabbi for the town. Two camps formed in Zheimel, each one wishing to impose their will on the other. As both sides were willing to use any means, such as informing the authorities, including violence, and smashing of windows, the authorities had to intervene.

The dispute in Zheimel lasted until Rabbi Abraham–Yitshak Hacohen Kook, who received his first appointment there, was elected Rabbi of Zheimel in 1887. Rabbi Kook officiated in the town for 7 years and managed to make real peace between the warring camps. During his tenure of office Rabbi Kook enriched the library of the Beth haMidrash and strengthened the welfare

[Page 681]

societies in the town, such as “Hakhnasath Orkhim”, “Bikur Kholim”, and “Gemiluth Khasadim.” Owing to his efforts a bath house and a sauna were also built. In 1903 R. Kook immigrated (ascended) to Eretz Yisrael, becoming the Rabbi of Jaffa. From 1918 he officiated as the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, and from 1921 until his death in 1936 was the Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel.

HaRav Kook

In 1891 a welfare society, “Lekhem Aniyim” – Bread for the Poor – was established with the assistance of the Mayor Prince Liven, who donated 35 pud of flour (570 kg), 50 funt of sugar (205 kg), and 3.5 kg tea to the society every 10th week. The Jewish benefactors were Tsevi Hirsch Abramovitz and Eliyahu–Matityahu Khayuth (Khayes). In the list of donors for the Yishuv (settlement) of Eretz Yisrael during the years 1900 and 1903 many of the people of Zheimel are mentioned.

[Page 682]

In 1897 its population numbered 1266 people, among them 679 Jews (54%).

After World War I, Zheimel was cut off from its large rural hinterland, which was incorporated into Latvia. This fact and the policy of the Government of Lithuania, which strove to undermine the foundation of the Jewish economy, were the reasons for the decline of Zheimel's Jews fortunes, as a result of which many emigrated to South Africa, the United States, and Eretz Israel.

Following the law of autonomies for minorities issued by the new Lithuanian government, the minister for Jewish affairs Dr. Menakhem (Max) Soloveitshik ordered elections to community committees (Va'ad Kehilah) to be held in the summer of 1919. In Zheimel a community committee of seven members was elected It was active in most spheres of Jewish life in the town for several years (1919–1925).

According to the first census carried out by the Lithuanian Government in 1923, there were then 1209 people in Zheimel, including 378 Jews (31%). The town was part of the Siauliai district.

During the years 1927–1928 Zheimel received much publicity because of a trial against five Jewish butchers who were accused of the murder of the local veterinary surgeon. The accused were each sentenced to five years in jail, but the Supreme Court reduced their sentence to only eight months. The Jews of Lithuania saw in this trial a Lithuanian version of the Beilis blood libel trial of 1913 in Russia. One of the defending counsels of the accused was the lawyer Dr. Ya'acov Robinson, previously the first director of the Hebrew high school in Virbalis. The well known lawyer A. Gruzenberg, the defending counsel in the Beilis trial, also advised the defense in this case.

During this period the Jews of Zheimel made their living mainly through commerce. There were merchants in the town who engaged in the export of flax, grain, etc., Zheimel being then a center for the export of flax. In the middle 1920s 250 wagons of flax seeds and about 200 wagons of flax would be exported from Zheimel during a season. Other Jews made their living as buyers in the villages, teamsters, packers and similar vocations.

During 1928 there was a severe crisis in Zheimel because the crops of flax and grain had failed, as a result of which many Jewish families had no means of support for their families, and thus a committee to help the destitute was established to provide bread and wood for heating for those in need. The Association of Zheimel Jews in America sent them $100, which was divided among 28 very needy families.

According to a government survey from 1931, there were 26 businessmen in Zheimel, 20 of whom were Jews, as detailed below:

[Page 683]

Branch or sort of business	Total	Jewish Ownership
Grocery stores	3	2
Flax and Grain	7	7
Butcher shops & livestock trade	2	0
Restaurants & pubs	1	0
Clothes, furs, textiles	5	5
Shoes, leather, shoemaking	1	1
Medicines & cosmetics	1	1
Radios, sewing machines, electrical equipment	1	1
Work tools & iron implements	0	1
Paper, books & stationery	1	0
Miscellaneous	3	2

In 1937, 17 Jewish artisans worked in Zheimel: 9 tailors, 3 butchers, 2 bakers, 1 tinsmith, 1 photographer, and 1 barber, and in 1925 there were 2 Jewish physicians in the town. The Peoples Bank (Folksbank), which in 1927 had 118 members, played an important role in the town's economy. Out of 50 private and public telephone subscribers in 1939, 5 were Jewish.

From the mid–1930s the number of Jews in the town dwindled, due to the crisis in Lithuania and the overt propaganda by the Lithuanian merchant organization Verslas against buying from Jews. This caused many of them to seek their fortune elsewhere, and during those years many left the town, especially the young people who emigrated to Eretz Israel.

The primary education of the Jewish children of Zheimel was given at the Hebrew school belonging to the Tarbuth network, which had a special building of its own, built at the end of the 1920s. There was a library in Zheimel, and an amateur troupe which gave theater performances also in the surrounding towns.

Many of Zheimel's Jews belonged to the Zionist camp, almost all the Zionist parties were represented in the town and collections of donations were held for the National Funds “Keren Kayemeth”, “Keren haYesod” and “Keren Tel–Hai”. On the 26^th of December 1934 a letter of one of the activists of “Keren Kayemeth” in Zheimel was published in the Yiddish daily newspaper “Dos Vort” in which he protested against “Keren Tel–Hai” of the Revisionists for distributing boxes of their fund to collect small donations similar to the popular blue box of “Keren Kayemeth”.

The division of voters to the Zionist congresses during the 1930s is shown in the following table:

[Page 684]

Congress Nr.	Year	Shekalim	Voter	Labor Party	Revisionists	General Zionists A B		Grosmanists	Mizrahi
18	1933	—	108	66	36	4	—	1	1
19	1935	—	99	70	—	—	15	13	1
21*	1939	61	45	35	—	—	National Block 10

The “Maccabi” Soccer Team (?) of Zheimel (Photo supplied and identified by Barry Mann)

[Page 685]

Zheimel “Maccabi” Branch, 1927 (Photo supplied and identified by Barry Mann)

[Page 686]

The old synagogue and Bet Hamidrash were also the center of religious life in the town during this period. The Rabbis who officiated in Zheimel were R. Hayim–Zalman Kron, R. Yisrael Kravitz, R. Leib Siger, and R. Aryeh Leib Schneider, who were all murdered by the Lithuanians during the Holocaust.

Among the native born of Zheimel was the son of Rabbi Kook, by the name of R. Tsevi Yehudah son of R. Abraham–Yitshak Kook (born in 1821), in due course to be one of the principals of the “Merkaz Harav” Yeshivah in Jerusalem, who prepared to print and publish his father's writings. Others were Aharon Khayuth, who emigrated to Eretz Israel in the 1890s, built a flour mill in Tel Aviv and founded the Chamber of Commerce in Jerusalem. Also Nathan Rapaport, who emigrated to Eretz Israel in 1906 and was one of the first ten settlers in Kefar Saba, and was killed in 1921 while defending Petakh Tikvah against Arab marauders.

With the annexation of Lithuania by the USSR, and on becoming a Soviet Republic in 1940, part of the Jewish shops were nationalized, the Zionist political parties and youth movements were disbanded, and the Hebrew educational establishment closed. The supply of goods decreased, and as a result prices soared. The middle class, mostly Jewish, was hit hard, and the standard of living dropped gradually.

On the 22^nd of June 1941 war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union and the German army entered Zheimel at the end of the same month. Prior to that ten Jewish families had managed to escape to Russia.

During the first months of the Nazi German rule, the Jews did not suffer from any special oppression. But on the 8^th of August 1941 (14^th of Av 5701) the Lithuanian auxiliary police rounded up the Jews of Zheimel, transported them a distance of 2 km from the town into a forest and murdered them all by shooting.

In a document found in Zheimel after the war, an application by the local council to the district officer in Shavel is quoted as follows:

”In answer to your inquiry Number 962, we hereby inform you that in Zheimel there were a total of 205 Jews. 44 escaped to the Soviet Union, 160 were shot to death on the 8th of August 1941. At present there are 2 Jewish women here who tried to escape but returned, and they will be sent to Zagare (Zhager).”

According to Soviet sources, a mass grave was found after the war near the village of Veleisiai about 2 kilometers from Zheimel, where about 150 men, women and children are buried.

In 1959 there were 1,106 people in Zheimel and not one Jew!

[Page 687]

The Mass Grave near the Village of Veleisiai

The Old Jewish cemetery The inscription in Hebrew, Yiddish and Lithuanian: “The old Jewish cemetery, let the remembrance of the dead be sacred.”

[Page 688]

Barry Mann at his grandfather's house, 1999

Chamber of the Holocaust at Mount Zion in Jerusalem (Photo supplied and identified by Barry Mann)

[Page 689]

Bibliography:

Lite, New–York 1951, volume 1 & 2 (Yiddish).
Yad–Vashem archives, the Koniukhovsky collection 0–71, file 107.
YIVO, NY–Collection of the Jewish Communities of Lithuania, files 403–436, 1385,1587.
HaMeilitz– St. Petersburg, 21.11.1884; 15.5.1885; 5.6.1885; 9.3.1895.
Der Yiddisher Cooperator –Kovno, 1929 Nr.2–3.
Folksblat–Kovno16.10.1935.
Dos Vort–Kovno 26.12.1934.

  Preserving Our Litvak Heritage     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 08 Oct 2018 by JH