[Page 478]

It is well known that in human life different events happen unexpectedly, chance occurrences or encounters that make a strong impression that often lasts for a long time.

I count among such chance occurrences my meeting with the famous Vitebsk Rabbi Rav Shemaryahu Medalia—a meeting that not only made a strong overall impression but that also influenced my stories. Quite often in difficult situation and decision making I would think: How good it would be if I could be with Rabbi Medalia. Or how would that great man, Rabbi Medalia, have regarded this?

It was an accident that I merited this meeting. It was the end of 1912. At that time, aside from community affairs, I went into woodworking, from which a good number of Jewish families derived income. My greatest activity in this calling was in the territory of White Russia, especially in Minsk and Mohileve gubernias, and I often went from one place to another to give attention to some matter. One place where I was employed was near the town of Bichov (Old Bichov) in the Mohileve gubernia. At that time I lived in Bobroisk, and the way from there to Bichov led through the Knipstanzia Junction. There one had to transfer from the Libaveromen train to the Kiev-Petersburg train.

[Page 479]

One time, on a cold winter afternoon, wearing a heavy raccoon coat and carrying a satchel, I arrived at the junction. I exited the car that had brought me from Bobroisk and entered the other car, second class, and found a place by the window. Opposite me, on the other bench, sat a man of about forty-one, reading the Russian student newspaper “Retch” [“Speech”]. The man gave a sideways glance at his new neighbor and went back to his paper. I, on my side, took off my heavy coat and also took out a newspaper, not the student “Retch” but a Yiddish paper, “The Friend”. So we sat opposite each other in silence for several minutes. After a little while, my neighbor began, quietly, to take out from his traveling bag a copper teapot and went into the station in search of hot water. In a little while he returned and began to make preparations for a cup of tea; He took out a polished glass in a silver holder, a silver container of sugar, a teaspoon, and a bag of kichel. I sat there holding my newspaper half covering my face. When my opposite number had poured a cup of tea, he spoke to me in this way:

“I see that you're reading a Yiddish newspaper. Are you therefore a Jew and would you like to drink a glass of tea with me?”

I looked at him for a few seconds and answered:

“Thanks. I will have a glass of tea with you”—and I smiled at him—“since it appears that you are also a Jew. Can I offer you a Yiddish newspaper, my 'Friend'”?

With a smile he responded that he would be honored to take it.

Thus, with a friendly glass of tea in the car of a train began our friendship. He honored me with his tea and I honored him with my newspaper.

Sitting there with the tea, he began, as Jews usually do, to ask questions. First of all he wanted to know my name, and when I told him my family name, he asked:

“Are you the publisher of the 'Retch' newspaper?”^[1]

[Page 480]

I was surprised that my new acquaintance even knew such things. I told him that, sadly, I was not him, and so he asked more questions: what did I do, where do I live, do I have a wife and children, etc.

By the time of our second glass of tea, our conversation turned to community items, naturally concerning Jews. Then we spoke about the rabbinical conference that took place not long ago in Katowice.

This man interested me more and more. I could not take my eyes away from his stately appearance; his ideas about certain matters interested me with their logic and simplicity.

As we went through the city of Rogatshov, I told him that the next station was Bichov, where I had to get off.

After I said to him that he would be alone in the compartment, he said to me:

“You are a curious Jew! I have already examined you. I know not only your name but also your profession and even how many children you have, and you have not even asked what people call me, what my name is. Is that possible?”

I apologized by telling him that I was reluctant to question people that I met in the train about their names, where they came from, and so on, since not everyone liked it.

“So?” he responded, “I will tell you on my own who I am. But I am not bragging. I am the Vitebsk rabbi. My name is Shemarahu Medlia. That's it. I am unhappy that you have to leave. Our conversation is far from over. So I have a proposal: I request that you come to me for a Shabbos. Yes, in Vitebsk. There we will be together in a restful time and we can conclude our conversation. You can come whenever it is convenient for you. Just let me know a couple days in advance.”

After thinking for a moment I gratefully accepted his request. And as the train entered the station at Bichov, we said goodbye and each of us went on his way. I went to my job and the Vitebsk Rabbi Medalia went on to his rabbinical seat in Vitebsk.

A few weeks later I let Rabbi Medaliah know that on the next Friday I would come to Vitebsk at his invitation. I was very surprised when he himself met me with

[Page 481]

a broad smile at the train station and took me to his home, where a special room had been prepared for me.

It was already mid-day and preparations for Shabbos were under way. Rabbi Medalia let me know that since we would first go, in a couple of hours, to shul for receiving Shabbos, he brought me a glass of tea.

I knew that in this house I must do “whatever the master said,” so I followed the dear man and drank tea with him. Then I dressed in honor of Shabbos, and shortly after the Shabbos candles were lit, we went to shul to welcome in Shabbos. I do not remember is any of Rabbi Medalia's children went with us to shul. In the shul, the rabbi put me near him and introduced me to the leading citizens at the eastern wall, who unanimously greeted me with a “sholem aleichem.”

I must note with how much love and respect everyone treated their rabbi, their leader and teacher; and I, his guest, also felt this respect, which I had not earned.

After the prayers and after universal “gut Shabboses”, the people did not hurry home. Instead they encircled the rabbi and spoke about a variety of things for a while. Only gradually did people trickle away.

When we arrived home, we entered an atmosphere where everything was holy. The people were all sanctified in a Shabbos way. The emotion when they sang “Sholom Aleichem” and the saying of Kiddush were very moving, and the three Shabbos meals were each a mitzvah. Even the conversations consisted of holy words.

Never in my life had I experienced such Shabbos rest as I did in the home of Raabbi Medalia. Never had I tasted the joy of Shabbos as I did in the house of the great scholar Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia.

Naturally on Shabbos morning we went again to the shul. I was called to the Torah, and shortly after the prayers, we headed home. Again it was emotional: making the blessing, the second Shabbos meal, the songs, the blessing after the meal, and so on.

During the second half of the day, until afternoon prayers, we concluded our conversation about the gathering of rabbis in Katowice, because Rabbi Medalia did not consider this a secular subject. After Havdalah,

[Page 482]

I began to prepare for departure, but my wonderful host cited the well-known line, “Lodge here tonight” [Number 22:8]. “Nothing will run away,” he said, “and who knows when we will see each other again? You can leave early tomorrow.” I could not decline the honor of remaining.

That whole evening, together with guests who were arriving, we spoke about a variety of things—cultural questions, political opportunities, the Jewish situation around the world, and so on.

I was surprised at Rabbi Medlia's mastery of different secular matters and at his broad appreciation and tolerant attitude to many of these matters. Having ended the night with a “Melava Malka”, in the morning after breakfast Rabbi Shemaryahu “permitted” me to leave. I entreated him not to accompany me to the train station. He agreed. I thanked the rebbetsin for her hospitality. Rabbi Mendalia at my departure gave me a blessing; and full of wonderful impressions and with a solemn voice I left that holy place, the house of the Vitebsk rabbi, Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia, and I returned to my regular days at work.

Summer, 1914. Lying ill in a Berlin hospital, I heard the good news that Wilhelm II had declared war on Nicholas II…

In order not to be interned in Germany as a Russian subject, through my friends in Berlin I began to lobby for permission to leave Germany as soon as I was released from the hospital. It took a long time, but eventually I received permission and I set out for home, not thinking about all the dangers that threatened me because of military operations that could begin at any minute. From Berlin to Verzhbolova took me three days of travel in different trains. But when I got to Russian soil, I discovered that all of my baggage remained in Germany.

The mood around me was tense and nervous. On the eastern border I saw camps of homeless Jews—men, women, and children—crowding all the roads and pathways, with nothing

[Page 483]

on which to survive for even a day.

They wandered mostly on foot, sometimes in peasant carts. They spent the night wherever they were, even in the middle of fields, and they had nothing to give to their small children.

Since there was no regular train traffic, I began to seek ways for me to get home. Since at that time of chaos it still held that “money answers all things” [Ecclesiastes 10:19], in two days of hard travel I arrived in Bobroisk.

I found my home to be half occupied by soldiers, officers, doctors, and their staff. Since I was the owner of a large sawmill and had a great supply of wood products, the commander of the local garrison made me a proposition, that I should sell him all of merchandise, on the condition that I should accept his prices…I accepted (Did I have a choice), but on the condition that he should not take advantage of me. The commander, with his golden epaulettes, laughed:

“My price,” he said, “is not the usual 4 kopecks a foot but 24 kopecks. The 20 extra kopecks we will share equally.”

I refused this business, and the commander, disappointed, disappeared from my counter. But surely he found someone else for this nefarious business, someone who because wealthy…

At that time Bobroisk was full of merchant refugees fleeing from Poland, mostly from Warsaw. They came with the army. Among these people I met a fine young man who became my friend, heart and soul, until his very last days. His name was Ilyusha Berkovitsh. Thanks to this friend, I was destined once again to meet with Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia, and this time our meeting lasted longer than the first time.

This is how it happened. My friend Berkovitsh came to me with a request: two of his good friends, Milshteyn and Perlmutter, business partners in Warsaw, had a quarrel and agreed to seek arbitrators. Therefore he came to ask me

[Page 484]

to be the arbitrator on Perlmutter's side. I agreed in principle, on the condition that he inform me how great the disagreement was and who was the arbitrator on Milshteyn''s side. He answered my first question immediately, saying that Milshteyn expected 600,000 rubles from from Perlmutter, and Perlmutter not only denied the claim for 600,000 rubles but he expected 350,000 rubles from Milshteyn. This was a dispute over a million rubles. I understood that tis was an administrative matter, but I did not want to refuse to be an arbitrator. To the other question, he was hesitant about answering. When I asked why he was delaying, he stammered that he did not know if the other arbitrator would agree to sit with me for the arbitration, because he was a rabbi.

“Who is this rabbi?” I asked out of curiosity. The answer surprised me. It was the Vitebsker Rabbi Medalia.

I advised him with a happy feeling that Milshteyn should quickly send a telegram to Rabbi Medalia and ask whether he would agree that the other arbitrator should be Mendel Elkin from Bobroisk. A few hours later came the rabbi's laconic answer: “With pleasure.”

A few days later, we—Rabbi Medalia from Vitebsk and myself from Bobroisk—came to Minsk, where we remained for 12 days for the arbitration case.

Right from the beginning, at our first meeting, it was clear to me that if Rabbi Medalia took little pleasure in the fact that Jews were dealing in millions from war profits, but he held that they should at least in this matter show some ethical order…

During the twelve days that the arbitration lasted, we had a score of meetings. At these meetings I had the opportunity to see how skillfully Rabbi Mendalia conducted himself in secular matters, even in muddled war business. There were moments, however, when he was greatly disturbed over unethical and not upstanding business on both sides, but he tried not to show it, and in a quiet way he would clarify things and thereby also rebuke them in a fatherly way…

Arbitration was over all still distant, and we were both exhausted until we ourselves, without a supervisor, brought forth a judgment. It did not matter that Rabbi Medalia was the arbitrator for Milshteyn's side, for the other side,

[Page 485]

that is, Perlmutter's, won. Both sides received the judgment gracefully. They thanked us for our efforts and paid our fee of five thousand rubles each and took it upon themselves to cover our expenses. This was around noon. Later, sitting quietly in the afternoon, Rabbi Medalia asked me a question, what I was going to do with the five thousand dollar fee that I had received. I replied that in Bobroisk there was a charity fund, a hospital, a Jewish library, and those rubles would be put to good use. It seemed he agreed with my plan, but he said nothing. Only later on, when we were in our meeting room and receiving copies of the agreement, he said:

“I like your plan. I will do so as well in my Vitebsk, where there are also Jewish institutions in need of aid. And now, Reb Mendel, I am ready to be your guest in Bobroisk.

This news made me very happy. I immediately wired home that I was coming with an important guest. My wife, a”h, prepared a special room for our guest, and in the morning we arrived in Bobroisk. Entering the house, my distinguished guest raised his hand near the door and, to my great joy, touched the mezuzah. When he was led into the prepared room, we—my wife and I—greeted our guest with “Blessed is he who comes” and told him that he should feel at home. He thanked us, and with a smile he said:

“I will drink tea and coffee with you, but I will pray and eat with Rabbi Shmerl Noach (Rabbi Shmerl Noach Schneerson from the Lubatchiver sect was the Chasidic rabbi in Bobroisk). You will agree with me that no matter how careful a Jew is, with Reb Shmerl one can be more certain about kashrus…”

We saw that he was right and we “permitted” him to go wherever he wanted. A couple of times I even took him to Reb Shmerl myself.

During the three days that he spent in Bobroisk, he spent the daytimes at Reb Shmerl Noach's, but the evenings he spent with us. A special group of men came to say shholem aleichem to our honored guest. Even the Milshteyn and Perlmutter came once to thank the Vitebsk rabbi, that giant in Israel, for his efforts.

That time that Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia spent with us was like a Yom Tov in my house. His distinguished voice dominated. We all thought that even his secular words were sacred.

One evening he let us know that in the morning, God willing, he would leave so he could spend Shabbos at home. He had already been away for two weeks.

I did not dare to say to him, “Rest here for the night,” as he had said to me when I was his guest in Vitebsk. My wife and I thanked him for the honor that he had brought to us with his visit, and in the morning, as he was leaving, I said to him:

“Rabbi, our two encounters will remain in my memory for years. Perhaps we will meet again, when the sorrowing heavens will lighten over the heads of the Jewish people after the bitter war. And, Rabbi, 'Let not the blessing of a laymen be simple in your eyes'” [B. Megillah 15a]—and I held up my hands and said the whole “Yivarechecha.”

I noticed that he was moved. In his dignified away I conducted Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia to the Bobroisk train station and wished him a good journey.

My third and last encounter with Rabbi Medalia was not face to face, only in writing. It happened right after the great Russian Revolution, in the year of great hunger, 1918. My family and I then lived in Petersburg, but my wife's family remained in Bobroisk. At the beginning of 1918 my wife's mother let us know that she would soon be coming to Petersburg for a couple of weeks. She had to meet with an “important” doctor because of her illness. The news pleased and shocked us. We were pleased because we would soon see her, but we were shocked at the reason for her coming. As it turned out, she came and the doctors told her that she must stay in Petesburg for two or three months, and only then could they make a determination as to whether their cures were working. So my very observant mother-in-law stayed with us for a long time, until the beloved holiday of Pesach raised the difficult question of where we would get food in general and the special kosher Passover food for my observant mother-in-law.

[Page 487]

Nowhere in all of Petersburg could I find food for Pesach, except that my brother, a resident of Tikhvin, who did not suffer greatly from hunger, was able to send me some buckwheat flour for baking crackers. The situation was difficult. I did not know how to escape from it.

Suddenly I had an idea—to go to Rabbi Medalia in Vitebsk with my problem. I understood that I could be embarrassing this beloved man, because in Vitebsk, too, it could be that no Passover food could be found, but…I wrote him a letter and begged his pardon for interrupting him on a matter that perhaps could not be solved, but I asked him to help me with a couple of pounds of matzo. I myself could have gotten along with just potatoes, but for my mother-in-law this would have been a tragedy.

I was not sure that anything would come of my letter, but I waited impatiently for a response. And when you wait, you wait, according to a folksaying. About 8 to 10 days later there was a ringing at my kitchen door and someone asked whether “Comrade” Elkin lived here. When I opened the door, a Red Army soldier entered with a large package in both hands and said:

“The rabbi from Vitebsk sent this package for you, Comrade Elkin, for your Passover.”

I received this Red Army soldier, my matzo-messenger, with great respect. I was honored at the food items that were in my house and began to unpack the package. I found there a full Pesach—matzo, matzo meal, sugar, schmaltz, and even a kosher slaughtered turkey with certification from Rabbi Medalia that it was kosher for Pesach. I was amazed at this shipment. How had he gotten it? How much searching and running around had he done, and how much did it cost!

The soldier saw that I was happy and said that he would tell the rabbi. He rested a bit and then prepared to leave, because he had to return on that day. As I gave him a few rubles for his troubles, he thanked me, but he would not take them, because the rabbi had forbidden him to take them—and he left.

In the package was a short letter, in which Rabbi Medalia asked

[Page 488]

me to pardon him for not being able to send everything that he wanted to send. The times were such that one had to be satisfied with less. And should I find it surprising that he sent the food with a Gentile, he thought that it would be more secure that way. Finally, he wished me and my household a happy and kosher Pesach.

The joy in my household was immense, and I told the story around Petersburg, and many of my coreligionists were jealous. Even I felt jealousy…Naturally I thanked Rabbi Medalia for the gift.

This was my last encounter with the great Jew and extraordinary man, Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia. I have heard nothing else about him.

In the Communist journal “The Atheist,” from September 21, 1938, there is some news about the Vitebsk rabbi, Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia.

The journal informs us that in Moscow, “a Jewish counter-revolutionary group was liquidated. It was led by members of the Moscow Reform synagogue: Rabbi Medalia, a former merchant named Urinson, a former manufacturer named Braude, and others from the clerical authorities.” This group was accused of “serious crimes”: that organized bakeries to make matzo, for which they collected upwards of 100,000 rubles. They sold seats in the shul, aliyahs, and so on. With the income they financed “illegal religious schools and yeshivas.” Two of these yeshivas were in Moscow. They also distributed money to the poor.

About these charges that the Cheka had produced, we had no knowledge. But we can imagine the fates of Rabbi Shemaryahu Medalia and the others who were arrested.

I am thankful to those people who afforded me the possibility of reliving the distinguished mood of my acquaintance with Rabbi Medalia some forty years ago.

Footnote:

1. At that time the publisher of the “Retch” was the Petersburg lawyer Boris Elkin. Return

[Page 489]

Zvi ben Yakov Bruk, who in the wider circles of the Jewish community was known as Grigory Bruk, was born in Chernigov in 1869 in an intellectual family. Even when he studied at the gymnasium he was already attracted to the Chovevei Tzion [The Lovers of Zion]. He 1893 he graduated from the medical faculty of Kiev University and after that he practiced in a variety of cities. In the four years from 1897 until 1900 he lived in Gomel in the Mogilev District. There in Gomel he began his active community work. He was then especially active in the Zionist movement. The Gomel Zionists chose him as a delegate to the Third Congress in Basel (1899). At that Congress he was elected to the large Action Committee. At the same time, Dr. Bruk was the leader of all Zionist activity in three districts: Vitebsk, Mogilev, and Minsk.

Dr. Bruk developed ties to Vitebsk in 1901, when he was elected to be the governmental rabbi. From that time on, Dr. Bruk was one of the most popular community activists in Vitebsk. He took part in all the local communities. There was not a single community initiative in the city in which Dr. Bruk was not either the initiator or one of the most dedicated workers. He was the noisiest, most active worker in the whole Jewish settlement, and as a person, as a doctor, as a community leader, he beloved by all. People were proud of him—whether for his many talents or for his moral conduct. Although he was greatly occupied by his community work in Vitebsk, he still devoted much time to the Zionist movement.

[Page 490]

Grigory Bruk

At the Sixth Congrress in Basel in August, 1903, when Dr. Herzl introduced his proposal about Uganda, that proposal caused an outbreak of passions. As is known, it divided the Congress into three groups: 295 were “yea-sayers,” 178 were

[Page 491]

“nay-sayers,” and 132 abstained. Yakov Zineman in his book The History of Zionism (Paris, 1947-1949; pages 532-532) describes the mood of the Congress: “About 150 delegates with the Russian members of the Action Committee (Bruk et al.) stood up and suddenly left the Congress. Terrible scenes played out in the neighboring room and in the corridors. The nay-sayers went around crying, women fainted, men felt that the “weepers” were living through deep sadness and tragedy.” Dr. Bruk had a sharp experience of this time in Zionism.

At the consultation in Kharkov that took place in October, 1903, Dr. Bruk took part in the protest against the Uganda proposal, as well as against Dr. Herzl. Most of the Russian Zionists paid attention to the “weepers.”

At that time the political situation of Jews in Russia had grown worse, and Dr. Grigory Bruk was drawn into the liberation movement. He became a member of the “Liberation” association that had been created by the national activists and radical intelligentsia in Russia. The Pogroms in Kishinev and Gomel without doubt stimulated Dr. Bruk's political activities. After the Gomel pogrom, which had especially shocked Bruk, he traveled there and took a special interest in the question of Jewish self-defense. The later developments in political life: the Russo-Japanese War, the assassination attempt on von Plehve, the “political spring” of Sviatopolk-Mirsky in 1904 and then the revolution of 1905—all of these events did not allow rest for the community activists. Dr. Bruk was no revolutionary and did not belong to any socialist movement. He was a democrat with liberal leanings. In 1905, when the Social Democrat Party was founded, Dr. Bruk became involved. In the same year, Dr. Bruk, along with A. Volkovitsch and others, founded in Vitebsk a liberal newspaper in Russian, “The Voice of Vitebsk,” which had a substantial following.

During the revolutionary years of 1905 and 1906, Dr. Bruk was absorbed in Jewish political matters. On his agenda was a question about the fight for equal rights for Jewish people in Russia. People hoped and believed that a new era for Jews was beginning in Russia. The waves of the October Revolution in 1905, for many Jewish politicians, especially

[Page 492]

for those in Zionist circles, caused disappointment. Dr. Bruk remained among the “optimists.” He was an active member of the “Society for Achieving Equal Rights for Jews” and he took an active role in the conferences of the “Achievers” in Vilna in 1905-1906. At the same time, Dr. Bruk was also active with the Social Democrats.

In the spring of 1906, at the time of the elections for the first Gosudarstvo [State] Duma, Dr. Bruk was elected as a deputy. In this first Russian parliament, there were a total of 12 Jewish deputies, and ten of them were from the Social Democrat faction in Gosudarstvo Duma. Zionist circles were opposed to the Jewish deputies mixing so much in general Russian politics and dealing so much with general Russian parties. Dr. Bruk took another position. He was convinced that the fate of the Jews was tightly bound up with the fate of Russia. Therefore he held that the Jews must take an interest in Russian political problems. About this dispute between Dr. Bruk and the Zionists, the “Russian-Jewish Encyclopedia” (volume 5, page 37), writes that “he left the Zionist organization (without abandoning his Zionist ideals), because he did not agree with their prevailing thought that Zionists should constitute an independent party on all questions of Jewish life.”

When the czarist government dissolved the Duma, Dr. Bruk joined the majority of deputies in signing a protest document to the population. Because of this document, all of the deputies who signed it were sentenced to three months in prison. Dr. Grigory Bruk, like the others who were sentenced, was not allowed from then on to hold any political or community post. They also could not be elected to the Duma. Dr. Bruk could also not hold on to his position as government rabbi in Vitebsk. When he was freed from prison, he returned to Vitebsk and resumed his medical practice.

It appears that there were no longer disagreements between him and the Zionists, and he again became the head of the Zionist movement in Vitebsk. He was elected as a delegate to the eights Zionist Congress (The Hague, 1907) and to the Tenth Congress (Basel, 1911). In the years leading up to the first World

[Page 493]

War, Dr. Bruk was one of the pillars of Jewish community activity in Vitebsk—chair of the Literary Society, chair of the “Aid through Labor” organization, and so on. At the very beginning of the First World War he was mobilized and sent to the front. Because of the war, one can say, he was torn away from his community and political activities. In the short time of the February Revolution, Dr. Bruk was elected as a councilman in the Democratic State Duma. But soon the October Revolution broke out and Dr. Bruk was forced to leave Vitebsk.

There is little information about the later years of his life. In the civil war, fate drove him to Crimea. From there he was allowed to travel to Eretz Yisroel. Apparently Dr. Bruk did not find in Eretz Yisroel a permanent home after all the problems of the war, the revolutions, and the civil war in Russia. It also appears that in Eretz Yisroel he could find no community position that would allow him to further his activities in the Zionist movement. The last news we have of Dr. Bruk we find in the report of the Twelfth Zionist Congress in Carlsbad, from September 1921. (This was the first congress after the war.). Dr. Bruk came to Carlsbad from Eretz Yisroel and spoke there in the name of the “old followers of Herzl.” In the already-cited History of Zionism by Y. Zineman we find some lines about Bruk: “Dr. Zvi Bruk (Eretz Yisroel) pictured in bitter words the difficult situation of the Jewish settlement—both in political and economic hindsight” (volume 2, page 353).

For the last two years of his life, Dr. Bruk lived in Berlin. He lived alone, ripped away from his natural environment, from Zionist and other community activity. In the summer of 1923 he became ill. In June of 1923, Dr. Grigory Bruk breathed his last in a hospital at the age of 54. The Zionist organization in Berlin arranged his burial. In the cemetery of the local community, Dr. Bruk found his eternal rest.

[Page 494]

Already the name of one of the most active workers for Zionism in pre-revolutionary Russia, one of the most active leaders in the Pale of Settlement, and a man who in the first years of political Zionism was one of Dr. Herzl's ambassadors in Russia is almost forgotten. I have in mind Dr. Grigory Bruk.

Perhaps for me, a Bundist who had no sympathy for Zionism, it is unseemly to enter a foreign garden. But there are circumstances that prompt me to take up my pen and say some words about Dr. Bruk. I must do so simply because over the years we had a friendly personal relationship.

Dr. Bruk's moral attitude won him friends everywhere, even in opposing parties. This won for him great appreciation, popularity, and love at every level of the people in the northwest territories of Russia where he was active.

In my childhood years, when I first met Dr. Bruk, I was raised in a Zionist environment. My uncle, the well-known Yiddish-Hebrew-Russian writer Mordechai ben Hillel HaCohen (one of the first Russian Zionists) was always surrounded by leading Zionists: in the summer months ag his dacha “Tchenki” (near Gomel), was Achad Ha-am (who was later to become part of our family); my Hebrew teacher was Hillel Zeitlin, who then took his first literary steps in Achad Ha'am's “Ha-Shaloach”, and meanwhile earned a meager livelihood by teaching the children

[Page 495]

of Gomel's homeowners; various young talents in Hebrew literature—among them Brenner and Shofman—would come to my uncle. This was the Zionist circle in Gomel at that time.

At that time in the local community, important positions were held by the two Bruk brothers, two oculists. The older brother, Abram, leaned toward the socialists, although he never formally belonged to a party. The younger—Grigory—was the acknowledged leader of Gomel's Zionists. A young man, temperamental, with a Chasidic, rebellious, fanatical fervor, always read to “swim against the stream,” with an oratorical talent, and with good European manners, Dr. Grigory Bruk both shone and irritated in the community, and more than anyone else he impressed us children.

Both brothers embodied the best traditions that in Russia were bound up with the type “Zemsker doctor.” This was a type of doctor who had a passion—an interest in everyone, and one thought—“to repay what he owed” to the suffering people at whose expense he received his education and his privileges. Such men were the doctors Bruk. The younger one, Grigory, was more active, more energetic, and more tempestuous that the elder. For his cause—Zionism—he was prepared to give his life. For his dedication to Zionism he attracted followers from the whole Jewish population, especially among the young. I will never forget the passionate, grandiose gathering in Gomel when the delegates returned from the Zionist Congress. It was something of a mixture of prayer and politics. The sacred language aura of the speech that Mordechai ben Hillel delivered echoes even today in my ears, as does Dr. Bruk'sm emotional speech, which stirred up the large crowd…

Grigory Bruk was at that time, at the turn of the century, one of the wordsmiths of political Zionism. He was a member of the action committee, one of the first Russian Jews who stood with Dr. Herzl. He was named as plenipotentiary in White Russia, worked with the Zionist there, traveled to Jewish cities and towns, led propaganda in the schools and half-legal gatherings, and took part in the central Zionist conferences and conventions.

[Page 496]

When, in 1903, Dr. Herzl made his dangerous journey to that enemy of the Jews, to the czarist minister von Plehve, in order to find support from the Petersburg government for the diplomatic plans for Zionism, Dr. Bruk was one of his “guides” and associates. (Dr. Herzl talks about this in his diary.). It is hard for me to believe that Dr. Bruk agreed with Dr. Herzl's politics at that time, especially after the Kishinev pogrom. I can only imagine that Bruk, so to say, played the role of a “selfless soldier” for the movement. He kept his doubts to himself and did not show his Bundist beliefs.

In 1901, Dr. Bruk was chosen to be the governmentally appointed state rabbi in Vitebsk. In several cities it was decided at that time that these posts should not be taken by “officials” who would be true and loyal to the administration but by actual community workers. And Dr. Bruk was truly a mensch who had the full confidence of the population and especially of the Vitebsk Jewish community—this is shown by the fact that in April of 1906 he was chosen for the first Russian parliament, the State Duma. For the first time in Russian history, everyone, including Jews, had the ability to select the “best men” for parliament. Among these men was Dr. Grigory Bruk.

It is well known that after the dissolution of the first parliament, the deputies gathered in Vyborg (Finland) and released a revolutionary announcement. For this act they were taken to the Russian court, sentenced to prison, and lost forever the right to be chosen for parliament. This was also Dr. Bruk's fate. We should also stress that Dr. Bruk, the Zionist, took an active role in issues of Russian politics and was part of the Constitutional Democrats' Duma faction, a liberal party, led by Professor Milikov. Bruk was also before the Revolution a member of the illegal group “Bafrayung” [Liberation]. This called forth certain reproaches again Bruk in Zionist circles.

Soon after the dissolution of the first Duma, I happened to be at a local meeting in the already mentioned summer place near Gomel. I was then freed from prison and had come to relax for a short time with Mordechai ben Hillel Hacohen. In those

[Page 497]

days I happened to be at an interesting meeting with Bruk. The presider at the meeting was Achad Ha-am. Among those who took part in the debate, as I recall, were Shimon Dubnow and an 18-year-old “Simowitz” Shaul Cohen (the youngest brother of the Bundist Virgili Cohen). The main talk was given by Dr. Bruk, who perhaps had come specially from Vitebsk to argue either with Achad Ha-am or with his old friends—the Gomel Zionists. The subject of Bruk's speech was—the report of the activities of the Jewish faction in the first Duma. I remember that Achad Ha'am was calm but very sharp on the subject against the leadership of the Jewish deputies who were too involved—“to the Jews' detriment”—in general Russian politics and therefore abandoned their responsibilities to the Jewish people. Achad Ha'am particularly blamed Dr. Bruk, because he had forgotten his Zionist duties and actively collaborated with the Russian democrats, which as a Jew he should not have done. Dr. Bruk showed no readiness to ask for forgiveness and did not offer a response.

At the time of the Beilis trial in the fall of 1913, I was in Vitebsk, where I again ran into Dr. Bruk. Our meeting soon turned into a true friendship. The fact that we were from different parties did nothing to disturb our friendship. Perhaps this was because Dr. Bruk was a sincere democrat, a popular person, and among the Zionists he belonged to the Yiddishists. A Yiddishist- Zionist was always something a little different, like those Zionists who were Orthodox-Hebraists.

We, Bundists, socialists, Yiddishists, together with Dr. Bruk, worked without conflict in the Vitebsk Literary Society, established together the society “Aid through Labor,” began to reorganize on a democratic basis the general Jewish community organization—the Va'ad. Dr. Bruk was one of the pillars of Jewish work in the city.

At the same time, he did not diminish his close ties to the liberal movement, often visited Petersburg, was often seen with the leaders of the political opposition, and often conveyed to us

[Page 498]

their messages and intentions. In Vitebsk there was established a permanent conference for the leaders of various political groups. Unfortunately, Dr. Bruk was onlyh with us for a short time. The war interrupted his colorful community labors; he was mobilized into the army and he was sent to the front.

Generally, Dr. Bruk during the war had no ability to take part in Jewish community work or political activity. For one or two days, I recall, he appeared in Vitebsk, particularly those terrible days that befell the Jews. In honor of his coming, we called a meeting. Meeting with him was like a holiday. But soon the holiday was over, and the community activists had to deal with issues concerning refugees, with antisemitism in the army, and with various edicts about Jews which fill the history of the First World War in Russia. We truly missed Dr. Bruk.

I remember several of our encounters in 1917. Dr. Bruk was very pessimistic about the prospects of the democratic revolution. Several times I tried to talk to Dr. Bruk about political events, but he was only focused on a single question—to create Jewish self-defense against a possible pogrom! I heard that Dr. Bruk had dedicated his whole time since his demobilization to the Zionist circles. Perhaps these people had, a couple of months before the October coup d'etat, lost hope in Russian democracy and turned to Zionist plans and hopes. After the Balfour Declaration, this tendency increased.

We met one last time: in 1922, as political emigrants, in Berlin. I knew that at the time of the civil war, Dr. Bruk was in southern Russia, then in Crimea. From there he left for Eretz Yisroel, where he lived for a couple of years—and suddenly left. Why? It was not clear. What had displeased this veteran Zionist?

In Berlin we began to renew our old friendship. Dr. Bruk was isolated. He had no direct relationship with the central Jewish organization in Berlin. As far as I could tell, he was distant from concrete Zionist activities. He certainly had many

[Page 499]

friends and acquaintances everywhere, but he avoided them and seldom met with them. Bruk felt so isolated that he always wanted to know in which Berlin café we held our regular party meetings so that he could come to the café, wait patiently until the meeting was over, and we could spend an hour or two together.

He felt ill. His material situation was also not good, which he often spoke about with me. His “possessions” amounted to 25 English pounds and a necklace—the only thing he had left from his mother. Once Dr. Bruk went to a jeweler to learn how much this golden necklace with its diamonds and stones was worth. He had to leave this necklace there for a day or two and then was quite disappointed when the jeweler offered him a ridiculous amount of money. Dr. Bruk maintained that he had been deceived and that the valuable stones had been replaced with glass…

He wrote letters to several of his old friends, and he showed me the answers he had received: they were all similar. I remember well their form and contents: “Dear Grisha,” his old friends wrote, “we are surprised at the unhappy tone of your letter. We all would like to do whatever we can to get you a position suitable for your talents and abilities. You should not worry. But unfortunately you have come a little too late, because the most important positions have already been given out, and the leadership positions in our organizations in Berlin, Paris, London, Constantinople are already spoken for. You understand that you cannot take a secondary position. That is not possible. You must be patient…” This was the unambiguous sense of the letters. He took it to mean that he had become an “extraneous man.”

He convinced himself that everything was lost. He was very restrained with me and told me almost nothing of what he was thinking, what was eating at his soul: I had become a stranger, an opponent. Once, however, on a summer evening, he announced to me triumphantly that Vl. Jabotinski, the editor of the Russian Zionist journal “Rezsivet,” [“Dawn”] which was published in Berlin, along with his followers, had organized a “glass of tea” in his honor. There he would give a lecture and speak from his heart.

[Page 500]

I was later told that in his performance at the “glass of tea” Bruk was exceedingly nervous. After his fiery speech, he did not feel well, so much so that people had to take his hand and lead him from the hall to his lonely room. On that same day he was taken to the hospital. I went there immediately. About a day later he had his first “attack.” Another day—and Dr. Bruk died. This was in June of 1923…

Right away, as news of his death became known, Zionist leaders appeared—Russian and German of all shades and colors. They declared that they would be responsible for the mourning ceremonies and the burial. They handled these in the best Berlin traditions: a rabbi delivered a long, appropriate speech. Prominent leaders appeared as speakers: Dr. Klee [?], Vl. Tiomkin, the younger Yosef Schechtman. A couple of hundred people were there…

My duty was to inform his brother and sister in the Soviet Union about the death of Grigory Bruk. At 54 years of age, he ended his stormy, ideological life. In “Reszviet,” there appeared some warm articles in his memory. I, on my side, assembled some Jewish community leaders from Gomel and from Vitebsk who knew Bruk well and now by chance lived in Berlin, and in the name of the Gomel and Vitebsk Jews, we published a mourning announcement for Dr. Bruk's death in the Berlin Russian newspaper “Rul.”

And now, as I recall my brief memories of Dr. Grigory Bruk, I feel that not only Vitebskers and not only the Zionists but the broader Jewish masses from the past, from the almost forgotten past, had lost in Dr. Bruk a crystal-pure man, a devoted community activist, who worked hard for the local and widespread traces of Russian Jewry.

[Page 501]

The first step in tearing away from the spiritual ghetto was taken a couple of generations earlier.

The strict judgments and customs bound the Jews. Only a few wanted to liberate themselves. I remember the Vitebsk “aristocrats”, the “Germans” or the “Berliners”, as they were called at that time, who began to cut short their long caftans and to trim their beards. There were even some who shaved their beards entirely. These “Germans” even read the Hebrew newspapers “Ha-tzefirah” and “Ha-melitz”, so that the religious Jews considered them apostates. Having tasted the Haskalah, these maskilim developed the courage to look into Russian newspapers as well. And not only this, but the maskilim even dared to send their children to Russian schools, to the gymnasiums, so that by us in the city there began to appear gymnasium students, dressed up in their uniforms, and more than a few of the yeshiva students envied them.

But such heresies did not have a mass character. The broader mass of the people continued with a lifestyle mired in the previous centuries. My grandmothers even in my time shaved their heads just as they did at the time when they married, and they were married when they were 15. They were, you should understand, not the exception. To go around then in short clothing, in cut down caftans was then considered to be leaving the path of righteousness, leaving the Jewish way.

The shuls and beis-medreshes were packed with worshippers, whether on Shabbos or on weekdays. Even Jews who had left the “path of righteousness” did not pass up the chance to go to the beis-medresh. On Shabbos, until the evening meal, the streets were deserted. No Jews could be seen. Only after their Shabbos naps did they go out for a walk…

[Page 502]

Socially the Jews were cut off by a firm wall from the non-Jewish population. In economic life, such strong borders could not be drawn. Stores and businesses were in Jewish hands, and so Christians had to buy from Jews, and the Jews had to buy agricultural produce from the peasants, and so on. But aside from such business dealings, Jews and Christians were firmly separated. Thus did Jewish life in Vitebsk appear in my younger years, that is, in the 80's of the nineteenth century.

When I was five years old, I began to go to cheder. From being a small child, I suddenly became a little Jew who had to assume the yoke of the commandments. One had to learn what a Jew could and could not do. In cheder, the children first learned the alef-beis, then went on to Hebrew and from there to Chumash with Rashi. At 8 or 9 they already started to learn Gemara. They studied for 10 hours a day. Only Fridays were happy days—study occupied only half the day. And even on Shabbos we were not totally free.

A new time began for the Jews of Vitebsk only the 90's of the nineteenth century. The process was complicated. I have no detailed explanation for how a level of cultural life that had sunk such deep roots in the Jewish world was overturned. Instead I will try to explain the transition with concrete facts that gave the stimulus for breaking the ice and piercing the dam that separated the old world of Vitebsk's Jews from the outside world, which would not long be unfamiliar.

Of the causes that encouraged the development in this new direction I will mention two. For the first cause, one can mention the small number of families of Vitebsk maskilim, who were the missionaries of the exit from the ghetto. These were the families of Zalman Zeitlin, the most educated man in the city; Vishniac, the banker, who prized education; the families Ravitch, Zuckerman, Moyshe-Hirshl Ginzburg, Markovitch, Greenblatt, and others. The elders strongly maintained all the traditions, followed all the laws and traditions, including the laws of kashrus. But their children did not go to cheder and studied instead with tutors at home, and they were being prepared to go to the gymnasium.

[Page 503]

A liberal spirit ruled in their homes. The men went about with uncovered heads; they did not wear hats. On Shabbos the maidservant set up a samovar. The Shabbos samovar in place of the more traditional Shabbos arrangement was a sign of the new era. People wrote for newspapers and journals. The girls took piano lessons and the young men learned to play the violin.

The second cause was that in Vitebsk education created a new kind of young people. These were young people who strove after self-education. Some circles of the self-educated were already known in the eighties. From such circles came Shloyme-Zanvil Rapaport (Sh. An-sky), the future essayist and author of “The Dybbuk,” and Chaim Zhitlovsky. Among them, too, was Shloyme Gurewitsch, who was later the editor of the fine provincial Russian newspaper “Smolenski Vestniik” [“The Smolensk Herald”].

To these names should be added another—a young man who came to Vitebsk in the 90's and who belonged to the freedom movement in Russia. This was Amsterdam. I knew him well, because he was one of my first teachers of Russian. He was poor. He gave hourly lessons. Amsterdam was a born propagandist. Even as a teacher he would not stick to the school program. He thought only of propaganda. Amsterdam was therefore popular among the young people of Vitebsk and also therefore called down upon himself the hatred of the Orthodox. I remember how much he agitated against religion, against tradition, and so on. But he sowed in these young people a yearning for world culture, an interest in Russian literature, a critical attitude toward the old traditions. At the same time, Amsterdam planted in the more mature young people revolutionary convictions. From their ranks, Amsterdam chose a whole group of “apostles”, who went recruiting among the yeshiva students. Later, a whole assortment of of revolutionaries and community activists emerged from Amsterdam's school. Amsterdam drowned in Shklov. The stimulus that he gave to Vitebsk's Jewish youth brough results.

We, the cheder boys, were raised by strictly religious families. Because we could not go to the gymnasium, we were

[Page 504]

“externals.” Our evolution from cheder to diploma holder from the gymnasium and then to partaker in the revolutionary movement was much simpler than people might expect. For a Jewish boy, who from the age of 5 was steeped in the system of strict intellectual discipline, and from 10 years on expended his energy on Gemara—for such a boy to cover in two or three years the courses in the gymnasium was hardly difficult.

The split with the old order, the developmental process of the Jewish youth, was not painful. The young people who tore themselves away from the Talmud blindly went on a new road. A large role was played by mutual aid in small collective groups that educated themselves in yeshivas and beis-medreshes. Then arose circles for self-education. A young man who had gone through Amsterdam's school could himself lead such a circle, sharing his bits of knowledge of literature and learning with a few fortunate frriends. These circles later took an a political character.

I remember one of my young friends from when we were both 14 or 15—Hirshl Luria was his name. He later became an important member of the “Bund” and a participant in the heroic epic of the “Romanovtzes” (a brief rebellion against the Romanovs in 1904). His family was very poor: his father and mother were matchmakers, and on market days they would stand in the market with a bowl and beg for money. Their whole “capital” from this “bank” amounted to a “colossal” sum—a whole 5 rubles…Hirshl Luria was the younger and most successful son in the family. At 12 years of age, he was already steeped in Talmud, although his parents could not pay tuition—10 rubles to the rabbi for a semester. At his bar mitzvah he became a Torah reader. Thereafter, my young friend would study Ayin-Yakov in the beis-medresh between afternoon and evening prayers. Hirshl Luria's parents were very proud of him and hoped that he would grow to be a significant person in Israel [the people, not the country].

But Hirshl quickly became a “ruin”, having fallen into the nest of the maskilim. Earlier he had been friendly with me and with others in the beis-medresh who had had a taste of heresy, and he joined our beis-medresh “club”. He learned to read

[Page 505]

Russian and he began his “secret life”. He would still sit in the beis-medresh with a copy of Baba Metziyah or Baba Batra [Talmudic tractates} in front of him. But under the Gemara lay works by Bokel [?] or [Herbert] Spencer, as well as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Mikhilovski, or a new volume of a Russian journal. After a short course on political economics, he studied [David] Ricardo or Adam Smith. He read according to a particular program. For example, he read Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin” and then he read Beliski's criticism of Pushkin and Pisarev's criticism of Belinski, etc., etc. In his head it was kind of a mishmash, but our autodidacts had earlier in their yeshivas had a good school for analysis and critique, so that later on they could analyze the complexities of fine literature, of sociology, of economics, and so on.

The entrance of our youth into worldly culture often stumbled against the opposition of their parents. One had to be steeped in the Jewish life of that time in order to understand how complicated were the experiences of my friend Hirshl and of all the other Hirshls in Vitebsk. The family conflicts often occurred because a Hisrshl was late coming to morning prayers, or to those in the afternoon or evening. And what happened when a Hirshl sought a bit non-kosher food or smoked a cigarette on Shabbos? The Shabbos cigarette or a bit of treif nauseated the Hirshls, but the “principle” was precious to them and more important than obedience to their parents. In the battle between parents and children, the children won, and the parents' generation had to make peace with the heresies of their children. And who, then, was not considered a heretic? The Orthodox even regarded Zionists as heretics, because they wanted to end Jewish exile before the Messiah's arrival. But parents did not always and everywhere want to make peace with their children. Sometimes there were conflicts that led to a split between parents and children.

But the struggle was lost. The current of the new culture had seized the Vitebskers in the 90's. The young people who visited the gymnasia developed naturally and normally. They had to conduct a battle against the government offices that ruled that in the gymnasia such authors as Pisarev, Dobrolyubov, and Tchernishevski, not to speak of Marx,

[Page 506]

whom the gymnasia of the upper classes were already reading. These autodidacts, however, the yeshiva boys, could not be jealous. That had to work independently, on their own responsibility, to seek an escape. The situation of girls from poor families was more peculiar. For them it was even harder to get a diploma from a school. They lacked the preparation from a cheder or a yeshiva. Typically they had gone no higher than the first four grades in gymnasium, which opened for them the doors to various study courses.

In the latter half of the 90s, the independence movement began to form, which united all the streams, all the currents, which had broken through the walls of religious tradition, as well as the walls of social conditions. Religion, descent, social and economic status no longer stood in the way of friendships. Poor or rich, yeshiva student or student at a gymnasium, even a Jew and a non-Jew—all those things that had played a role. On a new, broad basis were established solidarity, friendship, fellowship. Thus the son of the wealthy Vitebsker Moyshe-Hirshl Ginzburg, Abram, who later played an important part in the social-democratic movement and its literature and who, in the twentieth century, after the Bolshevik Revolution became a well-known economist in Russia—this same Abram Ginzburg, despite his great abilities and knowledge, became friendly with the proletarian autodidacts and married a daughter of a watchmaker, Chanake Rosenfeld.

The young people were caught up in the revolutionary movement. In the Zionist movement, and generally in the Jewish national movement, aa relatively insignificant number participated. The beginning of the revolutionary movement was bound up with Amsterdam's activities and his circle in the 90's. Almost everyone who had gone through his self-education circles participated.

[Page 523]

In wooden, one-storied houses, scattered on both sides of the Dvina, having lived quietly and peacefully, bearing the heavy yoke of having to earn a living. Around the center of the city—in Podrohadkes, Prasmushkes, Piskevatshik, Treishonkes, Lutshesse, the sooty little prayer houses piled next to each other. For years and years our fathers and grandfathers were called only by their first names: Yekutiel's Asher, Meir's Shmuel Noson, Yisroel's Moishke, Yisroel-Kalman…

Small merchants, market peddlers, draymen, small craftsmen—they lived hand-to-mouth, always bustling, preoccupied on weekdays, but spiritually exalted and united on Shabbos and Yom Tov in prayer, singing and spiritual kinship, praying with a cantor in the beis-medresh.

Our mothers, always under the yoke of housework and constant worry about raising fine and observant children, lived in the shadows of the men. But among us there were renowned “women of valor, like Channah Hurvitz with her business; Serl, who had a basement shop, with poor workers—Minna and Tzipa, the cooks and bakers; Rash's Channah Feyge; Basha Mintz, the mother of Yakov Mintz—he was known in the revolutionary circles of New York (and died in 1910). A famous person was Beila with her restaurant, where our working people could go to get a drink of whisky and a snack of goose liver. A homeowner had a house with a garden behind it, grew potatoes and other vegetables; had a barn for horses and cattle; chickens bred in the house under the oven. Yankel Smalinker with his peasant wagon every morning would sell milk and buttermilk, scooping it up from barrels, for two kopecks a quart. Zalman the woodcutter with his partner sat on boards—the partner above and he, Zalman, would drag out the saw from below.

[Page 524]

He protected his face with a net and blue glasses, but his black beard would be covered with sawdust. All of Vitebsk would get water from wells and from the Dvina. There were terms for male and female water carriers, Vodonoskes and Vodovozn, respectively. Chaim-Leyb the porter, always with a rope around his hip, would be bent over as he carried 2-pood sacks of flour [about 80 pounds] on his back going from the market to a little street outside the city for a total of twenty kopecks.

With honor and respect the poorer people regarded the rich—the merchants, those who dealt in flax, wood, and grain, those who were called by their family names: the Levinsons, Gureviches, Rapaport, Zeitlin, Mintz…The Jewish masses regarded the rabbi, the scholar, the Chasid, with awe.

Alter, the teacher, burdened with a family of sons and daughters, “removed himself from the world,” as people said. He sat day and night in the Zaranov Shul and learned by himself for eight years until he received rabbinic ordination. In all of our beis-medreshes people not only prayed, but they satisfied their spiritual hunger with a bit of fellowship, mutual help, good deeds, and charity.

From the shuls—the Polotzk, the Zaranov, Yosohe Chayakes Shul, Dovid Kapels Shul, the Zagorod, the two large choral shuls, one on Offitzersker Street and the other on Old Mohilever Street (the Zarutsheyer Shul)—we still have wonderful memories of our youth and the memorable events of that revolutionary era.

The Jews received an exalted spirit and true soulful pleasure from the prayer leader and cantor. The cantor, the congregation's messenger was closer to the Jewish soul than a great teacher. Vitebsk produced real artists at the cantorial desk: Hirshl-Yoshe Cohen, who was the city cantor of Vilna before the arrival of Cantor Sirota; Leibke Schlossberg, known as Leiblke Alusker; Shagat-Aryeh, who went around the world and died in America. Famous for years was Eli the Riabe (who had a voice like a clarinet). Jews would say that the Jewish spirit of is singing came from his bitter occupation: he would “go in ropes”, that is, he would pull boats on the river with a rope (a Jewish barge hauler). More than any of the others, the cantor of the poor—Zalmen-Duvid Sheynzon—sticks in my heart. Because of his professions people would call him Zalmen-Duvid the painter or Zalmen-Duvid the fisherman. He was short, but he had a voice blessed by God. At the cantor's stand he was in ecstasy. Partway through the service his voice reached the highest heights,

[Page 525]

and all the bones in his small body would tremble from inner spirituality.

Into this atmosphere of restrained communal life of our parents, at the end of the nineteenth century , winter began to blow in, bringing with it unrest and suspicion. Shaul Kosuchkin—gave a talk in the Polotsk Shul about Zion, about Jewish redemption in our own time. The Lubavitsher Chasidim, the “Itzeles” (that is, Itzele Sasoniker and Itzele Shapiro) could not bear this talk. What is all this about bringing the end near? Who ever heard of such a thing! There was an assembly at the Lubavitsher Shul. Young and old attended. This was at the time of the Zionist Congress in Basle. On the bimah stood an important Jewish businessman—Duvid Yachnin, anad the choir from the Zarutsheyer choral school sang “Hatikvah.” Those were other times…

The times were tumultuous. The young people would disappear in the evenings and go to highly secretive gatherings. Workers began to rebel. At the time of the Russian-Japanese War, the young people already belonged to a variety of parties: Zionist, Socialist-Revolutionary, Anarchist. But the largest party for us in the city was the “Bund.”

Into the old Jewish life of faith and trust entered the spirit of revolt, of war against the existing order of Czarist rule and economic exploitation. The Jewish workers, ruled by a new longing, were drawn to a new light, and with religious fervor they sang their oath: “Brothers and sisters of labor and need, together, together in life and death…”

The gathering place for working men, the stock exchange on on the sidewalks of Zamkover Street, buzzed every night with youthful enthusiasm, with secret conversations. On summer days there were large gatherings in the woods outside the city.

Certain activists and leaders distinguished themselves—workers and intellectuals: Max Kahan, Boris with the glasses, Kokya Droibin, Arke Prikoschik, Zalmen-Shimon, Sarah'ke the sock makers, children from wealthy families: Gurvitshes, Ginzburgs, Zeitlins, Globuses…

The beis-medreshes often housed revolutionary gatherings. I remember on Shabbos in the beis-medresh. It was after the Musaf service in the crowded Ofitzersker Shul. People were delighting in Cantor Mostov's

[Page 526]

melodies. They were already at Aleinu and Kiddush. Hearty young men stood by the door and allowed no one to leave…On the bimah stood a tall young man who began a polished, emotional speech: “Fathers and grandfathers! We come to you because you won't come to us. Listen! There is a great struggle in the world, a battle against tyranny. We ask you to stand and help us. You must—and you will—do this, because if you don't, the tortured martyrs of Kishinev and Homel will point at you with their dead fingers…” So spoke “the young Lasalle,” the twenty-year-old Baruch Vladek. At the eastern wall stood Vishniak, the banker, in a tallis with a silver collar, and with a broad smile he looked the young man in the eye.

I used to go on Shabbos afternoon to the house of Yosef Stolper, an aged, observant householder, a retired soldier. He stalked around with his yarmulke on his head. He knew that I was a “follower.” He said to me boldly: “Listen to a story! A very learned man—Kniaz Trubetskoy himself came to Czar Nikolai with written request from the people.

He had the impertinence to say that the little people should be put aside and the noblemen should be afflicted.

“Then came those days in October of 1905. The czarist manifesto was issued by the governor. A day earlier I had been at a meeting in the Zarotsheier Shul, where revolutionary speakers spoke out…One of them—“David” (Shmaya Dropkin) later emigrated to America, where he died six years later in New York.

“Our revolutionary youth knew no fear. They left their work and demonstrated in the main streets with revolutionary shouts. A host of armed Cossacks tore horribly through the ranks of the workers and shot seven young men. Thousands took part in the funerals, old and young, and with honor accompanied the revolutionary martyrs to their eternal peace. The victims were buried in a walled common grave.

“After the proclamation of the czarist manifesto we had free days, though they were numbered.

“In those brief days there were large gatherings in the city theatre with revolutionary speakers: Max from Dvinsk, Sergey Braun. Our own Max Kahan, a Bundist, discussed with the Zionist-Socialist Nachman Sirkin about the future of Jews after

[Page 527]

the revolution. The student Shmuel Pisarevsky, a Bundist, debated with the student Grisha Ravitsch, a Socialist-Revolutionary, about Marxism and about ideological approaches to the revolution. A similar debate was conducted by Rapaport (Sh. An-sky) with the student Trein. I remember two large meetings in a large hall with R. Abramovitsch about the elections for the Second Duma and about the national question.

“The workers organized semi-legal professional unions and clubs. But the reaction soon set in. Pogroms were organized against Jews and revolutionaries. The air was filled with disappointment. Many young people took the natural course for personal benefit and emigrated to free countries—mostly to America, where our old fighters carry in their hearts even now the wonderful flame of revolutionary enthusiasm and ideals of freedom, which warms their souls in their older years.”

  Vitsyebsk, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 6 Jul 2024 by LA