[English page 127]

Kamenetzers
in the United States

There were only few ladies among its members.

Gradually, the Society grew larger and increased the scope of its activities. That was the period of large-scale immigration to America after the First World War. Many women from Kamenetz joined the Society which numbered over 150 members at that time.

Our activity began by sending money for the Kamenetz Talmud-Torah School, and a monthly allowance for the Rabbis. We also sent food and clothes for children. The money was sent to Reb Joseph Vigotov, May He rest in peace; he distributed it according to everybody's needs.

Some time later, we found out that some of our fellow countrymen from Kamenetz including some Yeshivah Students were in Russia. We lost no time in establishing contact with them by mail and we sent them money and food parcels.

The “Malbush Arumim Ladies Society” which provided clothes for the needy, financed the transportation to America of the Yeshivah students. We have a Kamenetz Yeshivah here and also in Jerusalem.

Many thousands of dollars have been spent for philanthropic purposes for American and Kamenetz “Yeshivot” (Institutions for religious studies), hospitals and other institutions. Funds were provided to enable brides from poorer families to get married.

New Ambulance presented to Magen David Adom by Kamenetz Litovsker Women's Malbish Arumim League

Every year, before the Passover holiday, we send a special allocation (“Meot Hitin”). We planted trees in Israel with the help of Jacob Savitzky of blessed memory, in the name of the “Malbush Arumim” Society.

We contributed a fund for the rescue from a French convent of four orphaned girls.

We contributed to the American Magen David Drive for Israel and sent various equipment, machines, building supplies as well as an ambulance, a centrifuge for blood plasma, 2 oxygen tents and a large quantity of drugs, to the David Marcus Memorial Building, for use in the hospital.

Quite recently we provided 5000 dollars for the erection of a clinic at Ofakim, near Beersheba. The Israel Government allocated 20000 dollars for the same purpose.

On May 5, 1963, we celebrated our 40th anniversary with pride and joy.

Our “Malbush Arumim” Society has done much for the general good, during the 40 years of its existence; it also helped to make possible the publication of the Memorial Book.

The following ladies hold offices in our society: Rivka Lifshitz – President: Bella Tendler, the Wife of Rabbi Tendler - Vice-President; Sara Hurwitz - Protocol and Financial Secretary; Nelly Federbush – Treasurer; Vice-Presidents: Babel Serota, Haya Rivka Sirota, Pearl Goldstein and Tema Goldman.

[English page 130]

In the 19th Century and at the beginning of the 20th Century, when the gates of America were widely open to the large stream of immigrants coming from Europe and other continents, our townlet, Kamentz-Litovsk, did not remain outside the stream.

Kamentz was not an industrial town and the possibilities of earning a living were very limited. As a result of the difficult economic conditions, many of our fellow townsmen from Kamenetz were forced to emigrate to America in search of happiness in the new land.

That is how many natives of Kamenetz settled down and because citizens in the new country where they hoped for a better future.

One of the Kamenetz townsmen died unexpectedly in a car-accident. The question where to bury him turned up. At that time there already existed the “Kokhav Ya'acov Anshei Kamenetz D'Lita” Synagogue, called also the Kamenetzer Shul, which possessed its own cemetery.

The Kamenetz people requested the permission of the management of the Synagogue to bury the victim Of the accident in their cemetery. Unfortunately, the request was refused on the grounds that the cemetery was only for strictly Orthodox Jews. This incident provided a stimulus for the more progressive Kamenetz townsmen to get organized in a separate organization.

Thereupon, in 1900, the Kamenetz-Litovsk Aid Society was established.

Beginning with a mere handful, the Society grew larger and in the course of time, counted 200 members.

The actions of the Aid Society have full justified the name it carries. During the years of its existence its doors were always open to the Kamenetz townsmen and to other institutions that needed help.

After the end of the First World War, the Society, the Synagogue Council and all other Kamenetz organizations, established a large Relief Committee to help all Kamenetz victims, wherever they might be; particular efforts were made to come to the assistance of the Kamenetz Talmud Torah, the only religious learning institution in Kamenetz.

During his visit to America, the Society honored the Late Kamenetzer Rov, Rabbi Burstein who was always guest at our meetings; we gave him the greatest possible measure of assistance. In this way our Society kept up contacts with our unforgotten townlet Kamenetz till the great Catastrophe.

Soon after the end of the Second World War, the Kamenetz Society, together with all other Kamenetz organizations, again set up a relief-committee, in the hope of helping the war victims of our town. Great were our pain and sorrow when we learned about the enormous proportions of the catastrophe.

Unfortunately, our hopes of being able to extend help to our fellow-townsmen did not materialize. Those few, fortunate persons from Kamenetz, who succeeded to survive the Nazi death-camps and came to America, were received by us like brothers and sisters.

On their first visit to our Committee, each one of them received 100 dollars. To our sorrow, there were no more people from Kamenetz whom we could help.

The sum of $ 2300, which was at our disposal for aid purposes, was transferred by us to the United Jewish Appeal, the only body which extended help to the holocaust survivors and to the State of Israel. The Relief-Committee was dissolved. Despite the dissolution of the General Relief Committee, the Aid Society, as an independent organization, did not give up its philanthropic activity.

The Society was instrumental in selling $ 5000 worth of Israel Bonds and continues to participate in various drives for Israel.

The Kamenetz Society was pleased to welcome our fellow townsman Abraham Shudroff who arrived from Israel with the proposal to publish a Memorial Book. The Society has been one of the active participants on the Memorial Book Committee. It gave both material and moral support to the project.

The following members direct the affairs of the Kamenetz-Litovsk Aid Society:

Velvel Miletsky – President; Hershel Bobrofsky – Vice President; Meir Visotzky – Financial Secretary; Harry Simon – Protocol Secretary; Jack Goldberg – Treasurer.

The author of this report is one of the Society's representatives on the Memorial Book Committee.

While describing the Society's activity, we must mention the great personality of the late Jacob Hurvitz who was one of the first active members of our society.

He was a great scholar learned in the Law. In spite of his great knowledge he was a very modest man without a trace of haughtiness in his relations with the humblest of men. It was he who drew up the Statute of the Society.

He was devoted with all his heart and soul to the Society's work. Whenever requested, he was always ready to lend his helping hand in cultural matters.

An Aramaic phrase of our forefathers: “Woe for those who are gone and cannot be replaced certainly applies to a man like him.

Blessed be His Memory!

Members of Aid Socierty Sitting, from right to left: Mr. Babel Man; Mr. Harry Simon; Mr. Wiliam Miletsky; Mr. Jim Goldberg; Mr. Meyer Wisotzky Standing from right to left: Mr. Louis Radish; Mr. Harry Bobrofsky; Mr. Izzy Silverman; Mr. Sam Melnitsky

Members of Lopata Family Sitting, from right to left: Mrs. Esther Weinstein; Mr. Sam Weinstein; Mr. Iser Goldberg; Mr. Meyer Tendler; Mr. Meyer Wisotzky; Mrs. Helen Wisotzky; Mrs. Hayke Goldberg; Mrs. Sylvia Tendler; Mrs. Shoshke Wisotzky; Mr. Moshe Segal

[English page 136]

At the western end, for example, there was Germany, where Reform Judaism was born under Moses Mendelsohn the wake of the European enlightenment, as historians describe the cultural transition of eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. In the south-eastern regions – that is, the Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Rumania – the Hassidic movement was sired by Israel Baal Shem. While at the north-eastern extreme, where north Poland links with western Russia, the yeshivah and kolel movement was founded by Hayim of Volozhin, disciple and colleague of the phenomenal Elijah of Wilno.

Of the first two movements only Hassidism still seems to show some sign of life, despite its old-world features, while Reform is dying, as its leaders frankly confess. And only the last – the yeshivah movement – appears to be gaining impetus, if we may gauge it by certain symptoms across the length and breadth of the land. What is particularly significant about yeshivah growth is its un-indigenous character (except for Yeshiva University). For the moment it seems rather to be gathering momentum in the tradition of the yeshivoth of Russo-Polish Lithuania and of points south.

This would never have happened if East European Jewry had survived, and it is with lingering sadness that we observe this unprecedented transplantation of European academic institutions that left their imprint on universal Jewry. The transplantation has been so complete in some instances as to carry along faculties and student bodies, often via circuitous routes as remote as Mongolia, Siberia and China from the heart of East-European Jewries. A case in point is the Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America which, if the term “wandering Jew” has any meaning, applies to this institution of higher learning. You may call Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America the most itinerant yeshivah of the century.

Founded sixty-one years ago as “K'nesseth Beth Yitzhak,” it was forced to flee to Minsk at the outbreak of World War I. Then down again to Kremenchug, about five hundred miles south. Then to Wilno, about seven hundred miles north. And, shortly before the rise of Hitler, to Kamieniec Litewski (Kamenetz-Litovsk), about four hundred miles south-west, closer to the Polish border, a small settlement in Bielorussia founded in the thirteenth century. And, then, again, following the catastrophe of World War H, via the Far East, to Jerusalem and New York, where it is presently housed in a five-story brown-stone at 255 East Broadway, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Here, the heroic survivors pursue their studies, as in happier days under their late guide and mentor Rabbi B. B. Leibovitz, affectionately remembered by the scholarly world as “Rav Baruch Baer,” and regarded by authorities as the greatest Talmudic savant of our time.

What sets apart Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America from other yeshivoth is that its disciples are competent to carry on in the absence of their late celebrated dean, hewing to the course laid down during the four creative decades of his regime. The first principle of his teachings was this, that the study of Talmud, Halachah and related subjects must be pursued for its own sake, without regard to material gain or reward. It is therefore at Kamenetzer Yeshivah that the Talmudic elite may be found, adult scholars from whose ranks are expected to emerge America's Talmudic authorities of the future.

Kamenetz, it seems, does not produce mere “rabbis” or other ecclesiastical functionaries. Its emphasis is on research and scholarship, as, in a sense, Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study under the directorship of Prof. Robert Oppenheimer concentrates on scientific research for the enhancement of science. In this sense, you might say, too, Kamenetzer Yeshivah is not a “yeshivah” at all, as we have come to understand that word. But is rather a “kolel,” in the tradition of nineteenth century “kolelim,” whose fraternity included the greatest scholars of the old world. The term “yeshivah,” as you know, has been bandied about indiscriminately in our country. In fact, what is usually described here as a “yeshivah” would have been classified abroad as a “talmud torah” that serves adolescents. Since the term “yeshivah” (for reasons we need not go into) is frequently a misnomer, it would be an understatement to call K.Y. other than a “kolel”. A “kolel” serves advanced students exclusively.

Advanced students, as you know, cannot be mere undergraduates, so to say. The very nature of scholarly research involves long and arduous pursuit, often years of preparation far beyond the normal years of study for average students. Thus, in order to encourage research, Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America finances its Talmudic projects by stipends to keep its scholars going even after they have taken on the responsibilities of home and family. It may not be much from our standpoint of living, but it seems to be enough for these dedicated men who have made Jewish scholarship their life work.

This method of financing Talmudic projects was introduced by the above-mentioned Hayyim of Volozhin a century and a half ago, when on the outskirts of Wilno he founded the model yeshivah – or “kolel” – for the scholarly elite, a fraternity that produced the most learned halakhic spokesmen during, the whole range of the nineteenth century. And as informed readers know, too, Judaism is not a faith of mere form and rite. While form and rite are basic to our Faith, it is the study of that vast literature transmitted to us down the centuries that is an integral part of the Faith. Without it Judaism would long ago have been relegated to the limbo of dead antiquity.

It is no secret to those who have been exposed to it that to probe even into a minor section of that encyclopedic literature, a whole lifetime could not suffice. For it involves, among other things, a knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, etymology, philology, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, anatomy, physics, biology, medicine, criminology, theology, not to mention mysticism (as we Jews understand it). In short, merely to read the voluminous literature based on the twenty-four books of the “Old Testament” and particularly on the Five Books of Moshe – were humanly impossible, so vast is it so diversified, so intricate, so diffused.

The anthology just published by Kamenetzer Kolel en titled “Deggel Naphtali” and containing original monographs of the most abstruse rabbinic problems, attests to the scholarship of that learned fraternity. To my knowledge, this is the first instance of a student body showing up in print under the imprimatur of a yeshivah. Of course there are so-called “journals” and “annuals” published by various student bodies of American yeshivoth, but they have no more value, say, than journalism has to literature; they are featherweight stuff. Original “Deggel Naphtali” represent the original Talmudic findings of the scholars of K.Y. every one of whom gives promise of future creative endeavour, as each is expected to enrich that vast rabbinic treasure house of literature begun two millennia ago by our sages.

There were great minds in the past that traversed much of the range of that literature during a single lifetime. Among them we may include the above-mentioned Elijah of Wilno, for example, and perhaps his disciple, Hayyim of Volozhin. And in our own era, the late dean of Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America, the above-mentioned “Rav Baruch Baer.” Their vast erudition was due to superior mentalities, of course, to devotion to projects that left them little time for normal day-to-day activity, as two or even less hours of sleep per day were common practice for them. Needless to say, for all their erudition, even the elite of Kamenetzer Yeshivah of America would not claim such superhuman effort. Suffice it to say in all fairness, though, that Elijah of Wilno, Hayyim of Volozhin and the late Rav Baruch Baer are their models and inspiration.

The story of Rav Baruch Baer's successors calls for a treatise by itself. But I have no room here for details, except to point out that it is to these men that K.Y. owes its survival and, above all, its transplantation to New York. Particularly to the late Rabbi Naphtali Ze'ev Leibowitz, Rav Baruch Baer's brother-in-law and colleague who, though granted leave to settle in the U.S.A., refused to abandon his disciples – and stayed behind to brave the Siberian wilds until he saw them safely to the 'States. The story of how this soft-spoken scholar, with his bare emaciated hands, buried students who perished in Siberia from cold and starvation, is blood-curdling. Suffice it to say that the survivors followed the late Rabbi Naphtali faithfully to the States, as he had indeed followed them loyally to Siberia.

Readers might well ask: What purpose does such dedicated scholarship serve? What good can it do the American community? Is the American environment conducive to such supreme scholarly efforts of an esoteric elite?

It is therefore not far-fetched to say that if Judaism is to hold its own in the face of a challenging modern environment, it can do so better with institutions like the Kameezer Yeshivah in our midst. Without it, without other institutions to emulate it, our synagogues might well remain nothing but beautiful edifices that manage to fill to capacity no more than twice a year. But that is not enough for historic survival.

There seem to be, as you know, quite a few institutions in our country today that produce rabbis and minor religious functionaries to serve an ever expanding Jewish community.

Who, you might ask, is going to teach our rabbis and teachers? Heaven knows, many have no time later for study! And, we are in need, it seems, of scholars to teach our future communal leaders. We also need scholars to whom our American-trained rabbis may turn when questions about the Faith arise that call for clear, authoritative answers based on sound and profound erudition. In this respect, I think, Kamenetz Yeshivah of America is a model institute for advanced study, setting pace and tempo for others, in the spirit of great European institutions of learning now, alas, gone forever!

This, I believe, it was what the illustrious Rav Baruch Baer must have had in mind when, two years after he transplanted his yeshivah to the town whose name it bears he visited New York, accompanied by the late Rabbi Reuben Grozowsky, to bear Torah tidings to an awakening American Jewry. That was thirty years ago.

[English page 143]

Large-scale Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe to the United States began in the 17th century in the eighties. Jews from Kamenetz were among those coming to America's shores.

The first newcomers from Kamenetz were poor and quite miserable. They suffered common hardships and were homesick. This and the fact that the Jewish population in the U.S. was as yet small made them cling together.

When the number of Kamenetz townspeople in the “new country” grew up, they acquired a Torah-Scroll and established a society centred round their own synagogue which was named “Kokhav Ya'acov” (Jacob's Star) – The society, founded in 1891, in Suffolk Street, New York, became the oldest Kamenetz organization and one of the first Jewish societies of that kind in America.

The society's founders are no longer among the living. Let us recall their names: Joseph David Appelman, Moshe Silverman, Israel Zlotes, Abraham Luring and Abraham Yoel Radish. They drew up the constitution of the society and formulated its aims. One of the fixed rules states that meetings must be conducted in Yiddish. The society's aims included:

a)	Acquisition of a synagogue of its own for holding lectures and other cultural activities as well as services.
b)	Acquisition of cemetery plots where the members of the society would rest eternally "after 120 years".
c)	Help for the sick.
d)	The setting up of an Interest Free Loan Fund (Gemiluth Hesedim).
e)	The provision of aid to the needy Jews in Kamenetz.
f)	Participation in philanthropic activity carried out by institutions in the United States.

The Society has been active since its foundation but it flourished in particular in the thirties. At that time the number of its members rose to 250. Some of them were American-born and some were not even natives of Kamenetz. Today even the President of the 74-year-old Society is not a native of Kamenetz, but he is very devoted to its work. The vice-President, the Financial Secretary and the Treasurer, all Kamenetz-born, have many years of fruitful work behind them and we wish them many additional years.

These are the names of the Society's officers: Mr. David Appelman – President; Mr. Shmuel Itshak Melnitzky Vice-President; Mr. Joshua Silverblatt – Treasurer; Mr. Shraga Feivel Tendler – Financial Secretary.

The older members of the Society have introduced the custom of calling one another at meetings “Brother” and “Sister” and this custom reigns also in their private lives.

The Society participates in all local or national drives. In recent years it has contributed its share to the rebuilding of Israel. It has also made a contribution to the publication of the Kamenetz-Litovsk Memorial Book.

In 1917, a Kamenetz Ladies organization (Ladies Auxiliary) was formed. Its primary purpose was to aid the synagogue.

The late Esther Dolinsky was the first President of the Ladies Auxiliary and the late Ida Singer was the first Vice-President. At present Mrs. Sarah Melnitsky is the President and Mrs. Rose Bobrovsky the Vice-President.

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