The uncanny ability to make history real is the source of a Yizkor Book's power. This power is manifest in the Voronova book, an extraordinary resource for historians, genealogists, and scholars. When combined with the speed and accuracy of internet searching, the inherent values of the work are magnified and honored in precisely the way its original editors had in mind when they asked us to: “…make a place of honor for this book, that you'll look at it from time to time when your heart feels like remembering our special town and our holy martyrs, and that it may interest your children for generations to come.”

To this end I have prepared a complete database index of names and places (accessible directly from this page, see below) so that every instance of any name and place, including names mentioned in photographic captions, may be quickly located in the book. Researchers interested in delving further into Voronovan genealogies and history are invited to visit the Kehilalinks Voronova and Kehilalinks Lida pages as well as the Lida District^[1] networking page.

I am forever grateful to the translators who have worked for pittances on this project. Their names may be found below the title of each of their articles and they should be treasured by the generations. We are likewise eternally indebted to the many generous, individual contributors whose funding made this translation possible.

While preparing this translation I have often longed to hear the sound of Yiddish as Voronovers spoke it. As if on cue, as the project reached its completion, I stumbled upon an extraordinary, 5 minute video interview in Yiddish with R' Berel Chafets, z”l^[2], born in Voronova in 1918! In this brief clip, not only to am I able to hear the spoken Yiddish and a few song snippets, as spoken and sung in Voronova so long ago, but to my astonishment R' Chafets makes reference to the rabbinical controversy which split the town apart in the 1930s (see p. 186 and p. 382) between adherents of the 'Kletzker' Rebbe and those of the 'Myadler' Rebbe. At the age of 94, in a Boro Park, Brooklyn café, the memory of the rabbinical controversy is still fresh in his thoughts. Something else I learned in the course of this project is that R' Berel is not only my first cousin, once removed, but that as a ten year old child he greeted the Chofetz Chaim.

I hope the public will find as much enlightenment, sustenance, pathos, and delight as I have in these pages.