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I became a Reisha [Rzeszow] resident in 1910, arriving there from the neighboring city of Ropczyce, which had a reputation for its rabbis and rebbes. I found a considerably large city with a rich Jewish Orthodox and national life, with a fine Zionist small world where one could live communally and in a traditional Jewish way. A city with synagogues, kloyzn [small houses of prayer], and Hasidic shtiblekh [small Hasidic houses of prayer]. There was a small Hebrew school there created by the famous Jewish scholar, Reb Abba Apfelbaum with the Hebrew teachers Naftali Gliksman and Meshulam Dudzon. The Folks-Zeitung [People's Newspaper], a Yiddish weekly, was published in Reisha, edited by Naftali Gliksman. After he emigrated to Eretz Yisroel, the newspaper was published by Leon Wizenfeld until his departure for America. Wizenfeld is now in Cleveland, Ohio, in America, where he publishes an English illustrated newspaper named The Pictorial Voice. After the First World War, I edited the Folks-Zeitung with a

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supplement of the Polish weekly newspaper, Żydowski Przeglad Rzeszowski [Jewish Review of Rzeszów], with the participation of Dr. Fishl Hopfen, the well-known Jewish lawyer and Zionist leader in Reisha, who survived the Nazi hell.

Reisha had a good reputation throughout the Jewish world as a national, Zionist city with well-known leaders, personalities, educated people, as well as poets and writers, as well as great Jewish personalities. The city rabbi was the rabbi and the brilliant man, Reb Nusan Lewin, and his successor, Rabbi Reb Ahron Lewin, who perished among the martyrs at the hands of the Nazis in Lemberg with his brother, Rabbi Yehezkiel Lewin, the rabbi in Lemberg.

Let us remember the Jewish political leaders of the city from all parties and sides: Reb Asher Zilber, Dr. A. Hochfeld, Dr. H. Wachtel – the so-called “government men.” The Jewish national, Zionist leaders were: Dr. Hofpen, Dr. Ahron Wang, Reb Chaim Wald and his children – Dr. Moshe Yeri and Meir Yeri in Israel and another daughter and son in the country [Israel]; Lev Chaim, Bernard Fisz, Poalei Zion [Marxist-Zionists]; Reb Elihu Wang with his [Theodor] Herzl beard and appearance, Reb Abba Apfelbaum, Simkha Zajden, Dr. Yeshaya Yare, Yakov Alter, Moshe Hofszteter, Dr. Tzvi Korec, Dr. Kanarek, Dr. R. Szildkraut, Kalman Kurcman, the kehila [organized Jewish community] secretary, the young lawyer Moshe Reich, also women leaders: Mrs. Anna Kahane, Ester Wizenfeld, Dwoyra Abramowicz, Ruchl Tenenbaum, Ruchl Hochman and incalculable others who are difficult to remember.

The Mizrakhi [religious Zionists] organization also was very active in Reisha with its political leaders like Hirsh Moshe Eizen, Naftali Tuchfeld and others. Our kindly landsman [man from the same town], Simkha Tzvi Leder of Washington, greatly informed us about Orthodox Hasidic Reisha in his book, Reisher Yidn [Reisha Jews]. Let us also remember our Reisha writers like Berish Wajnsztajn of New York and his poetic epic, Reisha, in Yiddish and in Hebrew, Nakhum Szternhaim, the people's poet and composer, Dr. Benyamin Szlager and his biblical story, Frei zikh Harts [Heart, Free Yourself] in Polish, about David and King Solomon, which I have translated into Yiddish with the title, Yedidia and which was published in installments in the Lemberg Togblat [Daily Newspaper] (I have this book in Polish and in my Yiddish translation and it would be worthwhile to translate it into Hebrew). Dr. Benyamin Szlager also wrote a work about Spinoza with a forward by Dr. Yehoshua Thon. Reb Abba Apfelbaum published important scholarly scientific books, Toledot Yehudah Moscato [The History of Yehuda Moscato], Toledot Reb Azaryah Figo [The History of Rabbi Azaryah Figo] in Hebrew and other treatises.

Interior of the Old Synagogue with the Bimah [Torah reading desk]

A brother of the great Jewish scholar, Dr. Shimeon Bernfeld, who occupied a respected place in the city's Zionist life, also lived in Reisha. Later, a Zionist activist, Hirshhorn, became an advisor to the Ethiopian King Haile Selassie.

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