[Page 85]

YEDINTSY (Rum. Edineti). Town in N. Moldavian S. S. R. in the region of Bessarabia. Yedintsy developed in the first half of the 19th century from a village into an urban settlement as a result of the settlement of Jews who were then coming to Bessarabia. In 1897 the Jews numbered 7,379 (72% of the total population) and in 1930 5,341 (90.4%). The writer Judah Steinberg lived there at the end of the 19th century. The institutions of the community included a hospital which was established in 1930 and a Tarbut school. [Et. F.] Holocaust Period. The town was occupied by Germans and Romanians on July 5, 1941. Within two days 500 to 1,000 Jews were murdered. Women and young girls were raped and some of them committed suicide. The victims were buried in three large ditches and the Jewish gravediggers who had interred the bodies were in turn murdered and buried on the spot. Romanian gendarmes and troops were assisted in the massacre of the Jews by many of the peasants living in the area. In the middle of August a concentration camp was set up at Yedintsy, where all surviving Jews and those from different places in the north of Bessarabia, particularly from *Bukovina were interned. In September there were about 12,000 Jews in the camp. Many of the inmates succumbed to disease, cold weather, hunger, and thirst; 70 - 100 persons died every day. On Sept 16, 1941 all the inmates of the camp were deported to *Transnistria and only a few managed to survive. The few dozen families still alive at the end of the war settled either in Czernowitz or in Israel. Only a handful chose to return to Yedintsy. In the late 1960's the Jewish population was estimated at about 200. There was no synagogue although the Jewish Cemetery was still extant. [J. AN.]

[Page 86]

The basic mistake of the writer of the “Yedinitz” entry is that he does not convey the fact that the number of Jews and their proportion to the general population, in the 1897 census, relates to the entire community: both the “city” and the “village”; while the number of Jews (and their proportion to the general population) in the 1930 census relates only to the “city” (see article by Y. Magen “How Old is the Town”). The rest of the details about the town are also minimal.

The section “Holocaust Period” does not mention the expulsion of the Jews from the town about a month before the Romanians established here a concentration camp for Jews from other parts.

[Page 87]

During the past two years 2 large historical memorial books have appeared in Israel: “Pinkas of the Romanian Communities,” published by “Yad Vashem,” Jerusalem 1970, and “The Jews of Bessarabia,” in the series “Encyclopedia of the Diaspora,” Jerusalem 1971. In both books Yedinitz is often mentioned in various contexts.

In both books we find historical research regarding the distant and recent past of Bessarabia. The particulars about Yedinitz are very limited and very condensed.

First of all, in the book, “Romania,” the name of the shtetl (in Hebrew) is spelt Adinitz. That's how the translator of the material that was originally published in Romanian, transliterated the names of the shtetl from Edinti into Hebrew, and nobody pointed out the error to him.

More particulars about Yedinitz are found regarding the overview of the expulsion during wartime to Transnistria.

Regarding the overview of the Jews between the two world wars, (when Bessarrabia was part of greater-Romania) Yedinitz is not mentioned. Nor are those mentioned who were murdered on the seventh day of Passover 1915, nor is Shimshon Bronstein's demise, etc. mentioned. However Levise Gukovski is mentioned, the parachutist from Israel during World War II.

By the way, this is the first volume of “Pinkas of the Communities of Romania,” in the second volume, we have been promised that amongst other things, Bessarabia will also be mentioned, and there Yedinitz will have a separate chapter, based on archival material, which is, by the way very very scant.

The first volume of “Pinkas Romania” does not have an index of names nor places, so that we could not systematically research where Yedinitz and its inhabitants are mentioned.

More is mentioned about Yedinitz in the book “Jews of Bessarabia.” The name is spelled in Hebrew “Yadinitz,” and this book has an index.

[Page 88]

Yedintsy (yidyēn’tsē), Rum. Edineti (yĕdĕnĕts’), town (1941 pop. 3,969) N. Moldavian SSR, 30 mi. SW of Mogilve-Podolski; road junction; agr. Center; flour milling; limestone quarry. Until Second World War, pop. Largely Jewish. What is important about this entry in The Columbia Lipincott Gazetter of the World, is that it mentions Yedinitz among all the settlements in the world: “in 1941 – 3960 residents…. Agricultural center, flour milling, limestone quarry… until the War – most of the population was Jewish.” A few misstatements within five single lines….

[Above is a copy of an insert in “The Columbia Lipincott Gazetter of the World” where it says: “this is what the world knows about Yedinitz: In 1941, 3960 residents agricultural center, flour mills, lime-stone…until the war, majority of the residents – Jews…” How much misinformation in five brief lines.]

But also in the historical overview of later times, from WWI to WWII, the overview is very scant regarding Yedinitz. The important events of Yedinitz are not mentioned, such as: the pogrom of 1917; the murdered ones of 1915. On the other hand the order is mentioned, that one must bow down to the hat of the gendarme – chief Dimitriv.

There is also a report of a case where a Jewish merchant (no name given) was beaten to death because he carried on a dispute with a peasant. There is also an extensive report on a case involving the director of the Seminary, the Priest Georgestco. No mentioned is made in the book, however, about the anti-Jewish demonstrations that the seminarians conducted.

The case of Shimshon Bronstein is barely mentioned (without his name). On the other hand Yedinitz is mentioned a lot with regard to the expulsion to Transnistria in the years 1941-1945.

No mention is made in either book about Yedinitz merchants, spiritual leaders, Rabbonim, teachers, etc., however the overview does include “Chazzanut in Bessarabia,” by Isaiah Vinitski (“Jews of Bessarabia”). There one finds many particulars about the cantors of Yedinitz. As already mentioned, the editors and publishers promise further publications of both books. Let's hope that they will consider more complete reports of Yedinitz.

[Page 89 - Yiddish] [Page 35 - Hebrew]

The exact entymology of the name is not known. It is all speculation without any real basis. It is believed that the name of the shtetl was “custom made” from the Russian (or Ukrainian) word “Yedinitza” (singular) or “yedintzi” (the only one) or Yedinitz (the only one). From this we can learn that before the settlement was recognized and got official status, there were single houses or lone scattered residents and the place did not yet have a name. The local residents did indeed call their growing settlement: “Yedinitzi” (the only one – houses or people). That is what the self-starting settlement was also called under the new Russian rule.

The Russians had their own way of writing the name of the shtetl (in Cyrillic of course, Yeditzi), but a “yednitzer” was called in Russian “yedinstski” in the singular and in the plural “yedinchaniye.”

The “goyim” who spoke spoke “Goyish” or “Khakhlatze” – the Russians (whose language is similar to Ukrainian) called the shtetl “Yedinitz”: as it was also called by the Moldovians in their folk tongue, just like the Jews.

[Page 90]

When the Romanians entered Bessarabia (1918) they didn't all use the same Romanian spelling of the name of shtetl. I recall very well that they wrote:

EDINITA, EDINITI, EDINET, EDINT, EDINTI, EDINTA. Finally the Russians settled on the YEDINTSY – spelled out, of course, in the exact transliteration from the official Russian name.

The fact that the Romanians didn't have their own (that is to say a previous name for the shtetl) is proof that it was established after the Russian annexation of Bessarabia (1812).

The settlement doesn't have a long history in its past, not a gentile one nor a Jewish one. The “Yevreiskoya Encyclopedia” (Petrograd, 1909) reports that the “Yedintski” settlement received municipal status from a “magistration” (shtetl) in 1835.

The land of the shtetl belonged to noblemen who lived far away: the families Kuzichin and Kazimov. The later stemmed from Poland and were Catholic. The noblemen established several community institutions in the shtetl: built a public school, a …house, a “Norodni Daam” (Folks' House) where later, under the Romanians, a gymnasium functioned, (and last of all, the Jewish Old Folks' Home). There was an annual exhibition there. A boulevard (tree-lined) was built by him, as well as a large palace for himself, surrounded by an orchard.

The writer of these lines visited the old Jewish cemetery in the early 1930s (together with Yisrael Kolker, who is presently living in Lvov).

[Page 91]

The oldest gravestone that we came across, after a long search, was from the year 1821. Obviously, one should look for the beginning of the shtetl at the start of the 19^th century. Taking into account that most of the shtetl and shtetlach in the surroundings are Moldovian, and very few names are Russian or Ukrainian, including Yedinitz, and that Bessarabia came under Russian rule only in 1812 – one can surmise that the “settlement of the singular ones” was founded after the Russian occupation of Bessarabia by Russian or Ukrainian speaking settlers; or it was after 1812 recognized as a municipality and from that got its Russian name. It seems that Jews were amongst the first “singular ones,” who settled there. A sign of this – the Jewish gravestone from the year 1821! But – very few Jews, as we shall see later.

There is no possibility to search archives since, understandably, there are none. Who knows if there ever were any, but no archives that could tell about the founding of Yedinitz and of its Jews exist.

I found mention of Yedinitz in three encyclopedias that I secured. In the Jewish Encyclopedia in Russian, published in Petrograd in 1909, in “Navi Enncyclopedichheski Slovar” from the end of the 19th c, and in the Grand Soviet Encyclopedia, second edition of the recent decades.

The above mentioned “Jewish (Yevreiskaya) Encyclopedia” says the following about “Yedinzi”: “A municipality (since 1835), Khatiner district Bessarabia Gubernia in 1897, the general number of residents 10,211 of whom 7,379 are Jews.” The encyclopedia is based on the census taken in Russia in 1897.

In that year, this encyclopedia states (in another article) there resided in all of the Khatin district 307,532 people, amongst them 48,000 Jews (close to 16%!). The city of Khatin had a population of over 18,000, amongst them 9,291 Jews (over 50%!) and here are the census figures of the settlements inhabited by no less that 500 residents

[Pages 91-92]

Name	Total Population	Jews
Atanki (Otek)	831	123
Balboka	829	84
Briceni	7446	7184
Balashkova	1050	119
Yedinitz	10211	7379
Klishkowitz	7707	1000
Lipcani	6865	4410
Neparakova	1631	268
Navoselitz	5891	3898
Rebovnitzi	2140	369
Securan	8982	5042
Tchepleantz	1555	163

What do we see from this table? That already at that time, at the end of the 19^th c. Yedinitz was the second largest city in the district, after Khatin, both according to the number of the general population, as well from the number of Jews. After Yedinitz comes Briceni (the most Jewish shtetl in the whole area!), Securan, Lipcani and Navoselitz.

In 1897 the first modern census was undertaken in Russia. For the first time, individuals were counted. Formerly only “families” were recorded.

A previous census took place in Bessarabia in 1847: It was called “Revision.” The “Jewish Encyclopedia” records the following numbers for the Jewish Communities by which is meant groups, associations, because there was no organized Jewish Kehillah. Following is a table of the Khabin area, according to the revision of 1847:

In Khatin itself:	1067 families
Lipcani	713 families
Novoselitz	81 families
Briceni	602 families

Yedinitz is not mentioned in this table, nor is Securan. Apparently there were in Yedinitz, at that time, less than 81 families that were listed in Novoselitz and we must not forget that already in 1835 Yedinitz got municipal status.

The general population, and particularly the Jewish population of Yedinitz, sprung up in the 50 years between the first count, the “Revision” of 1847 and the census of 1897.

What is the reason for this growth? It is incomprehensible for me. The shtetl was not situated beside a large highway, had no industry, certainly no rich natural resources, and was generally off the beaten track. Perhaps the growth stems from the large agricultural space of which Yedinitz was at the center.

[Page 93]

From whence did the Yedinitz Jews come? According to “names” by which the Jews were called: Terebener, Risener, Zabrichener, etc., many came from the surrounding far and near villages. Some came from the Ukraine, from across the Dniester.

In the 18^th century most of the Jews lived in the villages. In the 19th century many Jews left the villages and settled mainly in the shtetl and shtetlach. This process increased during the Romanian rule, after 1918. After the catastrophe hardly any Jews were to be found in the Bessarabian villages.

And there is another interesting point that concerns the shtetl in the last years of the previous century. In old Romania one by the name of Zamfir Arbore, a Bessarabian with a “nationalistic-Romanian” consciousness, who, it appears, ran away from Tsarist rule in Bessarabia, at that time Romania (Regat) and had a book published in a geographical lexicon format. In his book Arbore listed all the settlements in Bessarabia in which he included some historical and geographical facts, to the extent of which he was aware. But in this book also there are no particulars about the founding of Yedinitz. He writes the name of the shtetl in a very unique name: EDINTA (Yedintza). Conclusion: This is another proof that there was no Romanian spelling-tradition for the name of the shtetl.

The above mentioned author “knows” to convey the following dates regarding “Yedintza.” Total population 3450, of these, 1242 Russians. In the shtetl there are approximately 670 houses. That's it. Who are the “Russians” and who are the other 2208 residents? This he doesn't tell us. Nor does he say when (year or epoch) these residents lived there. As stated, it apparently deals with the end of the 19th century. We can't be enlightened by the above mentioned work of Arbore's book of numbers and dates.

And another Romanian source:

The Romanian sociologist, Victor Tufesko, released a research about the “Moldavian Shtetlach and Their Economic Importance.” (See Klishe, in the Hebrew version of the article.)

The writer wants to show that the Jewish shtetlachs are a “foreign body” in the agrarian-Romanian district. He states that the shtetlach were partially founded at the end of the 18th century but mostly in the 19th century. He adds historical and demographic particulars about the shtetlach which he mentions. He apparently relied on reliable sources. This is what he tells about Yedinitz:

[Page 94]

Yedinitz (Khatin). A shtetl founded in 1820. In 1930 it had 5625 residents of whom 5354 were Jews. There was a weekly fair, an oil factory, etc.

The year it was founded (that's to say reorganized as a stable settlement) 1820, is the same as we have previously encountered. The writer has repeated these many errors where it appears as though there were two different settlements – the “town” and the “village.” He only gives statistics for Yedinitz “berg” (town).

Incidentally, the research appeared in 1942, when the Jewish shtetl of Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transilvania and Norah-Moldova was destroyed and the Jews had been expelled and many murdered. The researcher justifies this calculation though his research was unnecessary.

The Romanians, during their rule in Bessarabia, conducted only one census, but in that period there existed an administrative municipal division for both parts of greater Yedinitz – “Yedinitz town” and Yedinitz village.” And this is what that census gives in its official publications.

In the shtetl-Yedinitz (targ) there was a total population of 5910. Of these, according to their ethnic roots:

Jews	5341
Romanians	194
Russians	344

But according to “ religious affiliation” the following figures are given:

Mosaic religion 5349, which means that only 5328 people (Jews) declared that their spoken language is Yiddish. That means that eight Jews declared themselves as such from a religious standpoint and not from an ethnic-national standpoint. Twenty-one Jews declared that Yiddish is not their daily spoken language but rather Russian or Romanian. Factually, a small percentage of assimilated exceptions. Or maybe we have here a mistake in the registration and here are the results of the non-Jewish part of the settlement in the Yedinitz-village. The total number of residents: 5260, amongst them:

According to the “ethnic roots”	398
According to the Mosaic roots	401
Yiddish speakers	401

[Page 95]

The other residents (the majority Christians) are listed according to their nationality:

Romanians

2183

There are the Moldovers. The true Romanians from Regat, and the gypsies who declared themselves as Romanians.

Russians

2124

(including the “Katzapes,” part of the Bakhlahzke-speaking and the true “Russians” whom the Jews called “Christians” in contrast to those who spoke Ukraine dialects. These the Jews called “goyim”).

Ukranians	353
Germans	3

( !- Who are they? Perhaps the remainder of the Ehrlich family, true Germans who lived peacefully amongst Jews? Or maybe the convert Yohan Kaufman's family who became Lutherans, registered as “Germans?”

From the religious standpoint the Christians from the “village” registered as follows:

Pravoslavneh-Orthodox	3792
Actually all Christians except: Katzepas (Lipovener, Stara-Verbzi)	1014

In total there lived, at that time, in all of Yedinitz, both in the “shtetl” and the “village,” 11,170 people, less than was previously thought. This included 5150 Jews-330 more than non-Jews (5420). That's to say that in 1930 there were,in the whole shtetl, only 59 people more than in 1897 (10,211!). The number of Jews in 1930 (5750) was reduced by 1629 from 1897 (7379). The difference between the number of Jews and the number of Christians that was in 1897 (2832) more than Jews, in contrast to 1930 (5750) declined by 1629 from the year 1897 (7379). The difference in numbers was even greater between the number of Jews and Christians which was in 1897 (2832 more Jews) as opposed to 1930 (only 330 more Jews). Percentage wise: In 1897 the Jewish population was over half of the total population 72; in 1930 – percentage of Jews fell to 51.

As far as I remember, there were in Yedinitz, at the beginning of the thirties (I worked for a short time in the "Primaria" then), approximately 3000 houses and in more than half of them Jews lived. It was believed at that time that there were around 15,000 in the shtetl of whom more than half were Jews and roughly a smaller portion of Christians. As we see, the Jewish population did not grow but rather declined in Yedinitz since 1897 (7379 Jews!) meanwhile the Christian population grew – nearly double.

[Page 96]

The main reason for the slowed-down growth process of the Jewish population of Yedinitz after 1897 is the emigration to overseas – to North and South America where there are more than 1000 stemming from Yedinitz. Hundreds emigrated to Palestine. Only a few hundred moved to other cities in Russia, or later, Romania.

And now let us make a further leap to the Bolshoi Sovietski Encyclopedia, second edition. In Volume 15 (published in 1952) we find the following about Yedintski:

A settlement of the city kind. The center of “Yedinctykova region” Yedinitz region. ( Beltykova district) Moldovskya S.S.R. (Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic) is on the railway line Kishinev – Czernowitz, 17 kilometers south-west of the train station Redin Mara (line from Aknitza-Beltz). There are small factories in Yedinitz – of soap, leather, bricks, a mill, schools in 1954, agricultural technions, two middle schools (languages of instruction Russian and Moldavian), a school for the working youth, a cultural center,one cinema, two libraries. Wheat grows in the region, also soybeans. Milk production is also developed. Cattle and sheep are raised. There is a station M.T.S. (Machine and Tractor Station).

Population figures are not given. In Soviet Russia there were, I believe, two national newspapers after the last war. We did not receive any particulars.

The last “shoichet” and Rav, Reb Yeshayeh Elkis, who went on Aliyah to Israel in 1972 reports that in Yedinitz there gathered, in the period of the Soviet rule 300 Jewish families. (See interview with him.)

Where are the Yednitzer survivors now after the catastrophe?

According to a rough reckoning that is, in my opinion, close to the reality, there now live:

        In Israel 600 Yedinitzers
        In North and South America 1000 Yedinitzers
        In other lands 200 Yedinitzers
        In Russia and Romania 200 Yedinitzers
        In Yedinitz itself 300

Approximately 5000 perished in pogroms, during the Romanian-German invasion in 1941. In their wandering during their deportation in the death camps of Transnistria. May their memory be blessed!

[Page 97]

Childhood and homeland! There's really no difference It's she that's the seed for wide horizons And she is the center of the universe That's why it's no wonder, let's publicly say. That we all – why should we deny it? Carry deep in the hidden chambers of our heart, Forever and always the city of our childhood.

By Shimshon Meltzer

At first glance the words seem right of that shtetl-nostalgia-enemy that argued. What do we have in common with that out-of-the-way shtetl, whose way of life we were so fond of and that we left without longing?

It appears that there is much truth in this argument, that the youth who left the shtetlach in Eastern Europe years ago, led by a strong national feeling, a vision of the future, has no grounds for nostalgia for the past. Their direction in life is a result of uprising and struggle against the past and against what awaited them there.

Furthermore, ever since they planted themselves in the Land of Israel, they managed to have a very full life being witnesses to wonderful and colossal changes to which they themselves contributed.

Now the citizens are in a free and sovereign State. The majority raised families and their children live far from the disastrous events that their parents lived through in their childhood and youth.

The boys and girls of yesterday, it's true, have in the intervening years grown grey and lost much hair, but biological changes alone aren't sufficient reason to clamor into the past.

[Page 98]

We must not forget, however, that only once in the history of mankind was there “Braishit” (The Beginning) and from then on there exists a steady connection in the historical process; also the sharpest changes in the individual's life and of the masses, have their roots deep in the social and spiritual weave of the community in which the changes began. One cannot understand them, therefore, without knowing the faces and the background that existed before those changes took place.

Furthermore, we are living in a generation that is swiftly moving forward, true, there is an interest in Middle Age archeology but to mock the graves that were but yesterday dug, are the later not entitled that we should halt there for a moment to tell them that there was once life here? Maybe the gravestones that we are erecting are not monumental, but small and at times provincial, like the shtetlach from which we sprouted, but they are also intimate and individual so that they enable us to unite with relatives, friends and chaverim from whom we have parted forever. The self-confirming eternity is the thread that connects us.

All around where the steppes spread, there was the apple orchard of Zhilovky behind some houses. There blossomed in the Spring, many colored and wonderfully fragrant plants. There were orchards of apples, pear, cherries and plums. Birds sang and the lawns were green in the summer months. In the sea of autumn gold a wind blew and spread out into the surrounding forests. Winter there was sleigh riding on a horse-drawn sled, the two horses speeding along in a clear white world in the moonlight.

But in spite of the wonderful landscape, Yedinitz was one of the most out-of-the-way places, in a far-off province that “sits” on the border of two nations.

[Page 99]

According to the means of transportation, our town was still in the Middle Ages; the closest train station was 18 kilometers and there was no one “human” or paved road connecting it to its surroundings. You always knew when you were on the way but never knew when you would arrive, particularly in the rainy autumn months and in spring, as the snow was melting, and the roads became a swampy mud in which the horses harnessed to the carriages sank in up to their bellies.
Being cut off and removed from the distant world, the town sank into an economic and spiritual [intellectual] standstill, which determined its final fate.

The external pastoral landscape of the town was not always in synchrony with its internal landscape. The right “landscape” of the town, on one side, surrounded the eight kloyzen [private “houses of study” for scholars] that stood abandoned and shut at the edge of the town, downhill. And in its very center stood the unfinished “synagogue,” a large two-story building of red brick, with darkness and filth all around. It seems that this was once a center for Torah study, faith, and prayer. But those times have long ago transcended the time in which the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik sang: “There are still far-flung towns in the extended exile, in which our ancient light still secretly flickers.” No one was left here. This place only triggered the children's fantasy about evil spirits, ghosts, and prayer of lamentation over the dead.

And on the other side, in the actual center of the Jewish religious town, the Christians built their tall church that shone and sparkled with its towers and crosses. They brought their living and dead here and clanged the scary bells. On the snowy, freezing, winter days, black crows sat on the top of the church towers, and from there, they spread out across the town crying out with their screeching sounds: “Bad, bad, bad!”

When Bessarabia fell to the Romanians two factors became evident which determined the relationship of the authorities towards the Bessarabian Jews in general, and the fate of the small town, specifically:

1. The fear of the large and powerful neighbor from across the Dniester River, and the terror that the bargain …

[Page 100]

… which had fallen into their hands, is not secure and is not for long.
2. There was the conventional hatred towards the Jews, with the additional suspicions, that they are a foreign and disloyal element.

These two factors marked themselves in the life of the town, along with the occupation. The persecutions crushed the life of the residents in the town even before the anti-semitism celebrated its official victory in the Romanian country.

In reality, the small towns were under a military regime during the entire period of the Romanian rule. The storm of dark, sadistic feelings was transmitted to Yedinitz, perhaps more than to any other small town. The town factually was under the permanent rule of the gendarme who recklessly employed the authorities which were in his hand. The “chef de poste” was a sort of sole ruler; all the residents were dependent on his grace or punishment. He was the one who passed the laws, he was the judge and the executor. His mental condition and the number of cups of whiskey he drank played a distinct role in the well-being and life of the town's residents. The “chef de poste” set the morale in town and its economic state. He ruled over the social life and culture of the town. He decided whether to allow gatherings or to disperse them. He even disbanded gatherings that he had initially permitted. He made decisions about performances and evenings of pleasure. He arrested people and then let them go free. He was everything.

To this very day, the disturbing images of motzei Shabbat remain with me, the time when the youth and adults would go strolling on the Patchova street, the long main street, the widest and most beautiful in town. Pochtowa was the only place for relaxing (the authorities tried to destroy the “garden,” which was called “the boulevard,” since it seemed to be harmful to one's health). Here was the meeting point between boys and girls. Here, you could see the latest fashion. Here, while strolling, the first love evolved, politics were discussed, and there were talks of a new book that was ordered in the library.

Then, the “chef de poste” went into the streets quite drunk, very angry, and cried out in a grating, murderous voice: “Everybody go home!”

[Page 101]

Like a flock of terrified sheep, everyone ran into the side streets.

Yes, he was a type of super ruler and threw his sole rule onto the helpless, unprotected town's residents.

During the time when from the outside in the hoops of the evil administration squeezed tighter and tighter, they tried to uproot all of life's joys and applied an economic suffocating punishment accompanied by harsh burdensome payoffs, with the goal of destroying the town's physical life. So, from inside out, the town fell into a social and mental crisis that expressed itself in the splitting apart of the traditional Jewish life in the home and on the street.

The familiar ideal, that the sons and daughters would marry and build their homes near the family nest, disappeared forever. The parents' livelihood became weaker, and it no longer was a given fact that the son and son-in-law would be embraced into the parents' earnings, not in terms of the funding and not in the work itself.

In the homes the gaps between the parents became deeper: those who maintained the traditions of the past and who were religious in their beliefs, and between the children who felt that the ground had slipped out from under their feet and began to rethink their path of life and their future.

The feeling that embraced the largest portion of the youth was that here in town nothing was waiting for them. In their forlornness they saw two possibilities for salvation from their life's question:

1. Part of the youth took hold of the wandering stick, as was the longtime tradition of the persecuted Jews. They searched for their future, as individuals and alone, in distant and unfamiliar lands; they went to Brazil, Peru, Chile, and other countries across the ocean, primarily in South America, to test their luck, there (the gates of South America had been locked for a long time). But the flow of immigrants to these countries across the ocean was also relatively small because the emigration to these places involved many obstacles.
2. Not everyone had the opportunity to leave their problems behind on the road to emigration.

[Page 102]

In one significant part of the youth there was more of a Messianic feel, a phenomenon that is very familiar in Jewish history during challenging times, an illusionary Messianism with fictional wings that carries you far, far away from the gray, bitter reality of the town. With chassidic spirit and misnagdish fanaticism, with a self-sacrifice in G-d's holy name, they entered a world of legends, but in their eyes, it was a world of belief and reality based on a scientific analysis and a historical determinism…

This is likely one of the paradoxes of the Jewish anomalies of those times. The Jewish respectable and romantic youth who lived far from the industrial centers and from the proletariat lifestyle, tried to save themselves from being uprooted and from degeneration by attaching themselves spiritually to the global proletariat, to the class, so to speak, which was about to take the main position in the future society and lived with the illusion that they, so to speak, were on the way to Redemption…

During the time when the majority of the youth was going around generally idle, simply because there was nothing for them to do and were also boarding at their parents' homes, the youth's fight against the capitalist society expressed itself by them secretly hanging a red flag on May 1 onto an electricity pole and distributing flyers printed on a stencil on the day of the October Revolution, and by reviewing repeatedly the ”political economy” with several young tailors. They read the writings of Plekhanov and Bukharin, Marx, Engels, and Lenin. During the celebrations they sang revolutionary songs and read I.L. Peretz's writings, for which he was considered, I do not know why, a cosmopolitan and a heretic, or Ehrenburg's the “13 Pipes.” Using these means, they tried to undermine the foundations of the regime… The interesting thing about this was that the authorities took them very seriously and tortured them as if they were true revolutionaries, and as if the youth honestly wanted to threaten the regime. You have to say, that it was very magical in their thinking world and in their naivete and spirit that they so strongly invested] in their belief. Tragically, such special youth perished in the Nazi hell, and the portion that merited to enter the gates of the “Redemption” felt tricked, confused, and disturbed. These were the people whose beliefs were lost twice.

[Page 103]

The Zionist Youth

The first buds of the Zionist youth movement were already back in the times of the Chibat Zion [“Love of Zion”; movement to rehabilitate Israel, late 1800s]. But they did not yet set their crystallized and clear ideological framework nor put together cohesively their ways to their satisfaction. Only in the second half of the 1920s did the Zionist youth movement become crystallized, whose existence, education, and formative thought were influenced by the realities of the Land of Israel and by the political and colonization movements there as well.

In those years, the youth organization “Hatchiya” could not meet all the ideological demands of the various movements that were part of it; from the “Hatchiya” two youth organizations were formed: “Gordonia” and “Dror Freedom,” and later came the Beitar and the Mizrachi youth. The Maccabi group served as the meeting point of the “golden youth.”

The Zionist youth organizations absorbed the masses of the youth from the town.

Even though splits happened in the tradition and life's customs, the youth remained anchored in them. They still held onto much of the warmth and tenderness of the Jewish home: celebrated Shabbat in the home, the preparations of Passover and the seder, the Days of Awe, the complete joy of Simchat Torah, and the other Jewish holidays, which also left a strong impression on the feelings of the youth, even when they lost a lot of their religious flavor.

[Page 104]

And consciously or unconsciously, most of the youth still lived in the spirit of the inheritance which they absorbed in cheder and Hebrew school. This was all an exceptional grounding before the growth of a broad, Zionist youth movement.

But the most important strength of the youth movement lay in their power to change the foggy desire of each youth in his rudder and set straight his private lifeboat, incorporating himself into a large camp that was crystallizing its framework and growing its traditions, moral worthiness, and personal education. The youth movement poured security into those youths who came to it and taught them how to organize their lives. They filled up their skills, connected them anew to nature, chased away the confusion that had been there because of the sad situation around them, and blew a new belief that a better life was waiting for them.

The Zionist youth movement reached its culmination point in the 1930s and was turned into a life center that provided support to the entire town.

Many hundreds of young boys were already part of the youth organizations; tens of the older ones were already in the Hachshara, the agricultural training, and some already made Aliyah to Israel. Without question, if fate would have given the youth movements ten more years of activity, we would be witness to the town emptying itself of the youth; the majority would have immigrated to Israel.

A group of social activists collected the survivors of the pogrom (“Bezhentzes”) from Ukraine in the years 1920-1021 The second from the right, middle row, in the white blouse, is Mrs. Dora Garfinkel. The picture was sent in by Dr. Meyer (Mirontchik) Garfinkel (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The majority of those in the picture are survivors with their children.

  Edineţ, Moldova     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 21 Jul 2022 by LA