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[Page 181]
By Menashe Unger, New York
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
The Rebbe R' Mendl'eh of Vizhnitz, who would never give a Torah lesson at his Tisch, and in his first years refused to take any “bits and pieces,” had two sons and one daughter.
The first born was the Rebbe R' Boruch'l, who replaced him in Vizhnitz. The second son was R' Yaakov Yitzhak David[1], who passed away in Vizhnitz as a young man. He left no children, and the Rebbe R' Boruch'l had to give Halitza[2] to his sister-in-law.
R' Yaakov Yitzhak David was a son-in-law of Rebbe Meshullam Zisha of Tlomacz, the father of Rebbe R' Mordechai of Krystynopol, and is mentioned in the book ‘Tiferet Yisrael.’
The only daughter of Rebbe R' Mendl'eh, Sarah'leh, was the Rebbetzin of Rabbi R' Shmuel Rokeach of Sokal. She passed away on the second day of Shavuot 5675 [May 1915].
Rabbi R' Shmuel of Sokal was a son of the Rebbe of Belz, R' Yehoshua'leh Rokeach. He was born in the year 5611 [1851], and in the year 5647 [1887] he was taken to be the Rabbi in Sokal.
In the year 5654 [1894] after his father passed away, the Belz Rebbe R' Yehoshua, became the Rebbe in Sokal. He took only a small contingent of Belz Hasidim with him, because most of the Hasidim traveled to his brother Issachar David who remained as the Rebbe of Belz.
The Rebbe of Sokal, R' Shmuel was a formidable Torah Sage and was a teacher for the [Rabbinical] “Teaching Authorization.” Many young people who wanted to become Rabbis or Dayanim [Rabbinical judges], obtained the Teaching Authorization from him. He passed away on the second day of Sukkot 5672 [27 September 1912] in Sokal. His son, R' Sholom Rokeach, זצ”ל , succeeded him in his position.
Translator's footnotes:
By Melech Neustadt[1]
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
He was born in 5662 (1902) in Sokal (Eastern Galicia) to poor parents. His father was a shokhet, [kosher slaughterer], a melamed [elementary teacher] and a Belz Hasid. For his Bar-Mitzvah speech, young Shimshon put together a responsa about actual issues. He received his Rabbinic ordination from well-known Galician Rabbis at the age of 17. Later, he presented himself in Lemberg (Lviv) to take the government examination for the rabbinate.
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Belz Hasidim were angry with him over this, and their anger grew more intense when he joined ‘Agudat Yisrael.’ He married the daughter of the Warsaw Rabbi – Wilczyk – who worked as an employee of the congregation. In Warsaw, he joined the Editorship of ‘Tageblatt,’ the daily
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newspaper of ‘Agudat Yisrael,’ and he quickly took over the society position as a very talented publicist. In the course of ten years, he also became a weekly contributor, publishing articles with publicity in them, and was the only one among the rabbis in Poland, who regularly took part in the daily press and therefore had the possibility to directly influence the religious life of Polish Jewry. He was the man to be trusted by the Advisory group of Torah Sages in the editorship of the ‘Tageblatt’ and his objective was to provide oversight that published ideas should not stray out of the boundaries of a religious paper. Also, working with the newspaper, he presented Torah Study and especially devoted himself to his favorite subject, which was “Questions and Answers.” Not paying attention to his intense business involvement, he prepared several books for publication. In 1934, he was elected to be the Secretary of Halakhah by the Chief Rabbinate of Warsaw. He quickly became popular for answering even the most complex questions and Torah laws. He excelled especially in the organization's defense initiative against the anti-Semitic law project, to forbid Jewish ritual slaughter – he was the leading activist in this undertaking. It was that conflict, which marked the beginning of a renewal of the strengthening of anti-Semitism in Poland – under the direct influence of Nazi Germany – which was one of the dramatic events of Jewish life, and it united in the defense struggle among all the branches and parties of Polish Jewry.
During the war, he initiated an initiative to deal with agunot (women whose husband's whereabouts were unknown), and he looked after the Jewish servicemen going into the military, to give their wives conditional divorces and he exerted himself to help the wives of those mobilized. During the gruesome times of the German occupation, he was among the active rabbis, who took an important place in public life. He represented the rabbis in the ‘Judenrat,’ which existed in Warsaw illegally, and he received the task of organizing the entirety of religious activity in the underground ghetto. He was actively involved in all the activities of the ‘Judenrat’ and maintained contact with the ‘JOINT’ and their independent Jewish help work, from the capabilities of religious opportunity. He was active in the ‘Ezrat HaRabbanim’ committee, who strained themselves to provide material help to many rabbis and sages from Warsaw and from the province, and who were temporarily spared from the forced labor camps. It was with intense commitment that they worked for the good of the Warsaw Jews while they lived and after they died, assuring them of a proper Jewish burial.
After the ghetto uprising in May 1943, the Germans sent him to the Budzyn concentration camp, in the vicinity of Lublin, together with about 800 Jewish Warsaw Jews. There was a fighter plane factory in this camp. The Jews crammed in there conducted themselves with considerable respect for the rabbis (also the Rabbi Kelmisz Szapiro and Rabbi Posner were crammed in there) and made an attempt to get light work for them. In May 1944, the Jewish National Committee found ways to get in contact with him. He was among the Jews that the Germans took out of the Budzyn camp to Plaszow and Wielicki. A telegram from Lublin on January 18, 1945 advised us that he was murdered by the Germans. (Dr. Hallel Zeidman writes in the ‘Morgen Zhurnal’ of July 20, 1947, that he was wounded in February 1944 during a bombardment of the transport, that was taking the Jews from the Budzyn camp, to the west, and died three days before the liberation. Someone saved from Budzyn thought that it was a mistake: a) the Jews of the Budzyn camp were not transferred in February, but later; b) it appears that he saw Rabbi Sztokhammer in the new place, not wounded). His family was killed in the Warsaw ghetto, even before he was sent off to the Budzyn camp.
Translator's footnote:
By Abraham Zemba
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
Rabbi Shimshon Sztokhammer is well-known to the orthodox world in Poland. He came from Sokal, studied in Yeshivas and had his rabbinic ordination from great Galician Rabbis. He was very young when he came to Warsaw, where, with his entire ardor, he threw himself into community work for Torah and strengthening of The Faith. In the central [office] of ‘Agudat Yisrael’ in Warsaw, he worked scrupulously in the division for the Strengthening of the Faith. He wrote fiery articles in the entire [Jewish] orthodox press and was a constant worker in the ‘Yiddishn Tageblatt.’ For his scrupulous work he received recognition and was taken in as a member of the Warsaw Rabbinical Council, where he was one of the youngest rabbis.
He held his position as a Rabbi in Warsaw up to the last minute of the Holocaust, Passover 5703 [1943]. He was able to hide himself after every transport and selektion from the camp up to the last minute. During the most difficult months of the first selektion together with the Gaon R' Menachem Zemba זצ”ל and (may he be separated for life) Rabbi Shapiro שליט”א, today in his activities as he carried out rabbinical functions, and even endangering their lives in sustaining Yeshiva and Torah students. Also, he participated actively in general community life. On one occasion, he sat in on a conspiracy meeting while preparing for the Warsaw uprising.
On Passover 5703[1943], he was captured with his whole family and sent to Lublin. From there he was sent to Budzyn. The Torah students and Jewish intelligentsia grouped themselves around him there as well, and would hear words of solace from him, words by which to bolster one's self and to feel secure.
His conduct and the way he held himself elicited the greatest esteem and sense of honor. The seventh “cabin”, the so-called rabbinic cabin (togetherness), where he lived together with Rabbi Shapiro, may he live a long life, and Rabbi Yitzhak Zemba and an array of Torah students was an item to be discussed all over the land. In the evening, people streamed into the cabin after they had finished their working day, who craved a bit of spiritual warmth and they found it there. There were sets of phylacteries there, several books, and most essential, the warm Jewish words of solace. Many who had become passive in their observance of Yiddishkeit and mitzvot, were motivated, in this warm set of surroundings and under his influence, to the roots of their original Judaism.
At the time of the first evacuation of the Eastern-European Jewish camps, he was sent to Wieliczka and from there to Germany. At the time of the last evacuation, with the sorrowful but known so-called ‘Tyrol Transports,’ he was severely wounded in a bomb attack two days before the liberation. Not being able to handle transport, eyewitnesses tell that a cruel German S.S. man ימ”ש on the sixth day of Iyyar (20 April 1945) shot him near Schwartzenfeld, where he was laid to rest in a grave.
May God Avenge His Blood!
Translator's footnote:
By Y. F.
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
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He was born in Sokal in 1905. He was a scion of an extensively branched rabbinical family related to the ADM”oRs of Belz. From his earliest childhood years, he worked in the movement of the religious Labor Party – ‘HaPoel HaMizrahi.’ He was one of the founders of Tzeirei Mizrahi in Sokal.
He made aliyah to the Land of Israel in 1926 and was a founder of the kibbutz ‘Yehoshua’ on the land of Salbagdi in Petakh-Tikva. He founded the first religious settlement (moshav) ‘Sdeh-Yaakov’ in the Jezreel Valley, and was counted among the fighters in international institutions for the purpose of erecting a legal base for the creation of independent religious settlements.
During his entire life, he dedicated himself to issues of settlement and agriculture. He was an activist for establishing settlements for new arrivals and devoted himself to founding an industrial and agricultural base for them. He filled leadership positions in the national religious movement, for settlement and agriculture, as a member of the active leadership committee, in the leadership of “HaPoel HaMizrahi” movement, and the institutions for settlements in the agricultural sector; he was also active in the administration of the Moshavim organization, and the director of their Religious Matters Division. Alongside his work in the settlements, he was interested in the general issues of the movement and conveyed his thinking both orally and in writing. During the rule of The Mandate, he was the Mukhtar of the village. He served as an officer of HaPoel HaMizrahi in several Zionist Congresses. From time to time, he wrote articles in ‘HaTzofeh’ and notes on questions related to settlements.
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He died suddenly in 5721 [1961] in Tel-Aviv and was brought to his final resting place in the cemetery of the Sdeh Yaakov village. His sudden death installed a heavy mourning mood in the religious settlements, as well as among his friends in the city and village.
At his funeral, which took place in Sdeh Yaakov, participated the leaders of the religious settlement movement. There were administrative officers, people from the Organization of Émigrés from Sokal, and a large ensemble of numerous people. He left a highly branched family behind him, a son, two daughters and grandchildren.
By Y. F.
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
This is a brother to the active participant and secretary of the landsmanschaft of the Jews from Sokal in Israel. Sh. Joseph Fyvel – held Leoniah Fyvel ז”ל to be a close and warm contact with his landsleit [sic: in Italy].
Being in Milano (Italy) – thanks to his humanitarian activities, Leoniah attained a high level of social community importance and recognition. A general sorrow befell Milano Jewry when he passed away in 1953 after hard suffering.
To get a sense of the respect accorded to this Sokal Jew, Leoniah Fyvel, in Milano after his passing, it is enough to quote a few Hebrew words from the eulogy, which during the burial were delivered by the head of the Jewish community of Milan:
‘There are not enough words to express all the virtues of the man lying before us, I can only say: He was a great man, and our loss is a great one.’
The engineer Israel Kalk gave a detailed and comprehensive characterization of the deceased Leoniah Fyvel ז”ל in the community newspaper in Milano:
We transcribe a few of the words from his article, which appeared in the newspaper previously mentioned, together with a description of the deceased Leoniah Fyvel's persona:
He was born in 1900 in Sokal. He was a young man when he left his home.
He settled in Argentina, and there he succeeded – thanks to his organizational skills and diligence– he attained economic independence. Out of longing for his family, he returned to Europe and took up residence in Milano, in 1932, acting as a founder, along with his brothers, of a successful confectionery.
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Unlike the example of many emigrating Jews who believe that distancing themselves from Jewish life will lead to a lightening of their social burden – he always remained connected to his source and roots and proved at every opportunity what his connection to his people was like.
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And during that time when thousands of Jews came to Italy, fleeing the Nazi's dark pursuit, without an opportunity to make money and to live, – Leonis Fyvel gave all his energy to the work of getting help; it is true, he was not alone in doing so, others also felt a need to offer assistance, but he stood apart from the others – (richer people than himself) –because of the nature of his work. To him, the refugees were not poor people needing help, but brethren – as understood metaphorically – that we are obligated to share with them what we have.
Italian hereditary laws forced his brethren to leave Italy and find a new home elsewhere. Leoniah was able to stay, because he was a declared Argentinian, and begins a daily activity for the good of the refugees, and in this he found solace for his loneliness.
He founded a restaurant together with his friends, where all Jewish refugees could get two meals a day at no cost, and he looked after obtaining and bringing the required food, required clothing
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(frequently he would take them from his own store) medicines for the sick, and educational materials for students. And when the Fascists came and rounded up the men, putting these refugees in a concentration camp, Leoniah took on the responsibility of looking after the women and children that were left behind in Milano.
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For those children who traveled with their parents to the concentration camp, he organized an assistance line in the form of packages. He was personally prepared to pack the parcels and bring them to the Post Office. All of this was done quietly and with by now overt demonstrations.
When the Nazis seized Northern Italy, he too was taken to prison and after several weeks he was taken to the Bergen Belsen camp.
For 15 months, he suffered hunger and excessive and punishing torture and was ready to consign himself to the gas chambers, but this time good fortune was on his right hand, and the speed of the Allied troops saved his life.
After his return to Italy, very sick, he lay in the hospitals for years, where he needed difficult operations, and was also in recuperation facilities, and he suffered without complaint.
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His final wish was only to get his body a little stronger to be able to travel to Israel and hug his brothers and their children. But he did not make it. On the night between 23–24 June 1953, after a difficult operation, he stopped living – and it is possible to say that only – he stopped suffering.
My dear friend! You lived your life that was cut short before its time, you lived like a Tzaddik, simply and modestly, up to the end, you fulfilled and discharged your responsibilities as a man and a Jew. Together with all your comrades, and with all those who admire you, in Italy and in other parts of the world, I bow my head in your memory.
Your fate did not permit you to realize your desire to travel to Israel, and because of that, your friends and admirers and all those who received succor from your care, want to facilitate this trip for the youngsters that you loved so much, and they established a ‘Keren Yesod Fyvel’ as a trip to Israel prize, for the benefit of the students at the Milano Jewish School.
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By Michael Landau, Tel-Aviv
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
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The death of Dr. Weniger was not only a blow to his wife, his family, those who knew him, and his friends but also to every person who places value on how people should relate to one another, which seems to be acutely missing in our society. Dr. Weniger died at a relatively young age, only 61 years old, an age at which it would have been possible for him to continue his life and activity for quite a long time. But his death did not come suddenly. His death came as a result of his battle with a very bad malignancy. That battle went on for close to three years, and the man was not willing to accept his bitter fate, which in the end, shortened his life. The shock of his death has not yet passed, although it is human nature to forget and calm down after ‘Shiva,’ and the ‘Shloshim.’
Dr. Weniger was born in the town of Sokal which is in Galicia, in 1904, to parents who were Enlightened and progressive, in an atmosphere of a Jewish shtetl in which families were true friends with one another, worrying together in bad times, and participating in happiness during joyous times. From childhood onward, the boy showed himself to be exceptionally talented in study, and his parents oriented him more toward secular studies rather than religious ones.
While still young, he already demonstrated a complete mastery of his tradition, he stood out from the circle of his friends in skill in his anticipated actions in which he excelled for his entire fruitful life.
Along with this, he did not forget the strength of his roots, and he was among the founders of ‘HaShomer’ in his home city, and for many years was its living spirit. A whole generation was educated and inhaled love for the Land of Israel, but first and foremost, a love of Israel.
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After completing his syllabus at the gymnasium, Weniger went on to the University of Lvov (Lviv), where he received the title of Doctor of Philosophy with excellence, and he decided to select the area of teaching that was very near to his heart.
He thought it an honor that his first steps in education were at his birthplace, where he grew up, and worked a great deal in general but in particular in the gymnasium where he was educated.
He also excelled as a professor of Polish language and literature, to the extent that everyone talked about him.
However, despite all this, his ties to his people and the Zionist movement were not sundered. He responded to all its callings, participated–as much as possible–in its endeavors, and carried his identity as a Jew most high.
He married a woman from a family that were very old friends–scions of Sokal–and a great love that continuously existed between them for all the 33 years of their marriage. There was nothing that he believed to be a large sacrifice to please his wife, who understood his spirit and adored him.
As time went by, and this was several years before the outbreak of the Second World War, the hatred of Jews grew stronger in Poland… And it did not skip over the place where Dr. Weniger worked, and penetrated the curriculum of the school where he taught, and the atmosphere there also became difficult to tolerate.
Dr. Weniger caught on immediately to the implications, and he left his teaching position to be selected as the vice-principal of the Polish Tourist Group ‘Orbis’ and after he excelled here too in a government institution, he was offered the position of General Manager in this institution, but only on condition that he changes his religion. Dr. Weniger answered–as you can understand–as proper for a proud Jew, and so they let him go from his position.
Dr. Weniger left Poland, and after trials and tribulations of the trip, he reached The Land of Israel at the outbreak of the Second World War, a time when he was full of plans, self-confidence, saturated with the love of his people, and the country, and was ready for all things to be able to extend a helping hand. After several intermediate stations, he found himself back in the tourism field and was immediately placed among the top managers of the airline company ‘El-Al’, and was appointed an officer of the Western Europe Division, and his residence was to be in Rome.
During the time he did this work, he succeeded in creating intimate contacts with senior positions from the economic life of the Italian country who respected him greatly and in view of this, they extended a great deal of help to our fledgling nation. During hard times–meaning financial hardship for the ‘El-Al’ company, he was even able to secure loans at favorable conditions from banks and he saved his group from financial disaster.
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Also in this period, he did not forget his friends and those whom he knew. His home, his pocket, and his heart were opened to all who turned to him for help. It seemed like the man did not live an ordinary normal life – but rather his life was dedicated to the needs of those around him.
In this same period, Dr. Weniger also worked for the good of the General Labor Union (Histadrut) and in its name, he organized tours of workers from the United States to Israel. There too, he immediately acquired and bound himself into links of camaraderie with people of high standing and among them was Arthur Goldberg, [at the time] the US Ambassador to the United Nations, who at the time was serving as an advisor of the labor organizations in America.
It is important to note here, that because of his excellent work, Dr. Weniger earned recognition for this excellence from the Italian government, for his work in bringing the two nations together, a matter of considerable rarity, in the case of two nations wary of each other in the near east.
In the end, Dr. Weniger insisted on being returned to Israel, from which he had been away for many years, and because of the many ties he had there, he was appointed to be the manager of the Israeli branch of ‘El-Al.’
In Tel-Aviv, he began to organize his ordinary and personal life, together with all his friends and those who knew him to reach a period of stability and rest–however, no one gave him such permission. He fell sick to an incurable disease and was plucked from us while still at the height of his powers.
We lost a miraculous man. In all he has done in his life, which was full of content and activity, he sought perfection. The man was well-rounded in character and commitment, in his powerful will to serve the friends he knew, and to give them all that was in his ability to give, to minimize suffering and enhance love and well-being. We will never forget his powerful image; may his soul be bonded in the chain of life.
By Dr. Y. Efrat (Minkes)
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
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I first knew Naphtali (or ‘Tulak,’ as we called him among friends for over forty years), when he was a pupil in the fifth grade at the gymnasium in our city of Sokal. This period– the early twenties– was a time of much hope for the Jewish people. The First World War, which had taken place in this part of Europe, had now ended. On the background of the
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territory where he was born and educated, the mighty and noble image of Naphtali-Tulak Tauba-Shimoni was shaped. He was a son of Galician Judaism, which because of national and geographic conditions served as a multicultural meeting place: traditional Judaism rooted in its Hasidim, its opponents [the Mitnagdim], and its Enlightened members; the Western culture in its good and progressive appearance, whose influence is still strong on our parents, and even on us, the youth; the romanticism of the Polish poets, and the romanticism of the Roman and Greek writers, these things we absorbed within the walls of the classic gymnasium. And on all of these was the great spirit and optimistic hope that made the hearts of the Jews beat after the Balfour Declaration.
Naphtali came to us from a small village, Libcza, where he spent his early childhood with his parents, who owned a small parcel of land beside the village. They were followers of the Enlightenment traditions, which along with their standing as landowners, also observed their Jewish traditions, and they did not even give up the traditional Jewish garb. The proud house on its land, the agricultural produce of the fields, and the corn aplenty, embedded their shape on Naphtali's noble soul.
Upon his arrival in Sokal at the age of eleven, he became a student in a government gymnasium and encountered not only his classroom seat, a foreign language, and the world culture but also the movement of [Zionist] revival, and the Hebrew language that was renewed and taught with zest by most of the young people in an evening school. When he was a lad of fifteen, he was the center of a group of boys his age that initiated and drove in a most organized way, and even led according to its ways, the movement of ‘HaShomer HaTzair’ in our city. Indeed, it was Tulak the 15-year-old, and the boys his age who initiated and were the ones who pulled the movement along, and it was after them that others, older than them joined afterward. It was already then, that one of the nobler lines of his character was revealed: the absence of empty ambition, egotism, and an independent mode of thought that listened to and assessed the real situation – He did not mind transferring the responsibility to the older boys, who did not hold the rights of the beginners, but he had assessed them as being more advanced.
And so, he had forsaken these things in favor of doing things for the good of the public as a purpose. He was the one who made the effort, and organized – but the fruits of his effort he turned over to the lesser skilled hands of those older than him, who did not have the privilege of being among the beginners of the initiative.
He was in charge of assessing the effectiveness of workers and people, and always gave constructive criticism, without a grudge. Both in the gymnasium and in the movement, he was a loyal comrade and friend, always willing to help with heart and soul, and he remained this way for his entire life.
Years went by when a calamity befell the Zionist movement, waves of emigration [from The Land of Israel] after the fourth aliyah; the youth that had grown up had found themselves without a direction and objective.
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Naphtali's family situation, by now having lost his father, did not open up many possibilities. He began his studies at the University of Lviv (Lvov). But even under these conditions, he did not abandon the fulfillment of a Zionist goal in the future. So, he trained himself to be a Hebrew teacher. With the acceptance of his parallel studies in the faculty of philosophy, he excelled in the seminar for Hebrew teachers, ‘Pedagogues of Hebrew,’ to prepare himself for a position in teaching and education in the Diaspora and The Land. When he completed his training syllabus and served several years as a teacher at the Tarbut school in Pinsk, he decided to investigate the possibilities of moving to the land of his dreams.
He was older than me by a few years, and our paths during this period diverged. This was in 1939, and I was an administrator in Emek Bet-Shean when I received a letter from him regarding a visit he was planning to come to our Kibbutz. From that time on, it changed the outlook he had on life. I cannot forget the image of happiness on his face, that characteristic laugh, the good one, and full of his graciousness, when the train stopped at the station of the Emek. Tulak came to us for a day, but he delayed his departure one day, and then another day. Something stirred within him anew: it was the atmosphere of the town where he was born, the education he received in the pioneering movement, and the agricultural mark that despite suppression always remained at the absolute center of his desire. He did not spend hours in the administrative offices, but every morning he went to work sowing and harvesting, picking corn, he had found his new world.
However, his position called him back, and here, at the end of his tour in The Land, the second fateful thing in his life occurred: he was hit by an Arab assassin's bullet close to Jerusalem. This was the last bullet fired during the events of 1936/39. While he was in the hospital, the Second World War broke out.
After recovery, pursuing his dream, he filled various positions in teaching and education; however, he could not be completely satisfied in general education and in the role of principal in schools. We met more often from that time when he came to The Land, and on one of these occasions, he again revealed to me the secret of his soul and the essence of his desire. On one of the days between the end of the Second World War and the War of Independence, Naphtali came to visit us in Kiryat-Chaim and just as was the case during his first visit, in Nir-David, he conveyed his desire to see my workplace as described in ‘HaZera.’ After I showed him how they were planting a large parcel, he said: ‘In truth all of this is important and interesting, but do you know what it is that I am missing from the time? Was I to be found in the Sharon and in the Shfeyla? I want to see – and he says the following in Polish: Wielki łan pszenicy – a very large stand of wheat.’ And he was able to satisfy himself because there were many fields in the valley on the other side of the Kishon, but Tulak was not satisfied only by seeing the fields.
Tulak went to the courses for teachers of nature and agriculture at the “Kaduri” school in the Galilee, and improved the teaching of farming in the school, in which he taught, and led them in a subject that he loved. He added to this by graduating from “Mikve Yisrael” (an agricultural school) and for a while he even transformed agriculture into his only profession and abandoned teaching. In the final period of his life, he received the position of director of the farm in Afehl, and afterward the farm Nir Aviv in Kfar Shalem.
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Naphtali did not have formal training in nature and agriculture. He reached this state of knowledge because it was as if he had returned to himself and his world through the humanist background in which he was educated, and because of this he had a romantic approach to plant growth that he nurtured, that he could not have obtained from any formal study of natural science, which would have been inadequate for his needs.
Naphtali was a superior being, a rare combination of a realist and a romantic, of understanding, nobility of soul, and an honest heart. He had an optimism and a sense of caring for the neighbor, and above all a love for the community, loyalty to friends, and a state of readiness to help a friend.
By Dr. Y. Efrat (Minkes)
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
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With the death of Aryeh Fass ז”ל, we, the residents of Sokal have been left without one of highest and noblest of our personalities. I became acquainted with him in the ‘HaShomer HaTzair’ youth movement, in his family, and in the Polish High School in our city.
Aryeh Fass was a scion of one of the better-known and respected families in our city. He came from the Fass family who, under the liberal conditions of the Austrian monarchy proved that under appropriate conditions, a Jew is capable of standing tall and his tendencies need not be only to deal with merchandising and various city occupations; that is to say that millennia of exile have not destroyed the spark for nature and working the land; after all, it is not the Jews who came up with the phrase ‘How pleasant is this tree’ in the Torah and the Jewish tradition? Rather, they did engage in agriculture, but Jews, in all of their 248 bones, were rooted in the traditions of their fathers, regarding their dress, and their way of life.
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After the First World War, not many men from the Fass clan were engaged in farming in the traditional way, but at all times they continued their love for plant life and beauty; they were famous for beauty, for the matured plants around them, and from this vantage point they were a ‘light unto the nations’ to the gentiles in our city.
In the background of this human landscape, the sons of R' Netanel Fass rose high: the youngest among them, Aryeh, took “nine parts out of ten” regarding who could inherit that spot. Out of the entire family (and there were five brothers and five sisters), Aryeh was the only one who selected Nature as his subject of prime interest in the gymnasium. We recognized in him (and in our studies), that he was one of the better biology teachers in The Land. He chose this direction because of his deep love of nature, growing plants, and living things. Everything that he did was because of his gratitude to the natural world. Nature was not only a subject to him; it was his second “me.”
Honesty and conscience were a part of the man. The important thing with him was self-satisfaction, and not only his popularity in the eyes of others. He knew of no compromise with what his conscience dictated to him. As a member of “HaShomer HaTzair,”a movement in its early days that was a Scouts-style movement of romantic nationalism, and its core desire was to create a new [kind of] Jewish man, better, and freed from what used to be called the “Diaspora personality distortion,” a man who stood straight, to his full height and proud, and Aryeh Fass did not reconcile himself to the concept of Socialist Zionism. He saw in it a compromise, and compromises were alien to him – they did not align with his personality.
We, his pupils, felt deep inside that he was not feeling an inner completeness with himself; and the day came when he left us. Initially, we thought that he left us in the same manner as many others, out of convenience and an aversion to the need to fulfill the pioneering direction that the movement demanded of its members. But we quickly came to see that this was not his purpose. He was the only one of the older group of the Jewish gymnasium students and was in a position to study law, medicine, and a variety of humanity subjects, yet he turned to the study of nature; moreover, not to the study of nature for itself, but because he saw in it a place where he could work the land, in all of the extensive vacation periods between the years of study, he went out to work, initially as a laborer, but over time, as a professional expert, regarding garden vegetables that were grown in the parcels beside our city. It became clear to us that it was not out of a search for an easier way of life that he left, when he, as it were, ‘abandoned’ his former way of work.
During this period, he did not close himself up within himself, he was one of those who did not speak a lot, he always had a lot to do, and to give to the community by way of realization of his work. Rather, we find him at the center of the Zionist youth movement ‘Akhuza,’ where he was one of its founders, in the center in Lvov during his studies there, and afterward. And even in this role, he was not among the “preachers,” whose words were not followed by deeds. He was one of the founders, organizer and leader of the training farm in the village of Signiuvka, in the Lvov (Lviv) neighborhood and it was to it that he dedicated his energy and skill; its base was a farm for learning agriculture.
It was one of the few such farms in the decade of the thirties, because most of the training (Hachshara) camps in Galicia and Poland, abandoned working the land, limiting themselves to the design of cooperative life, where
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their members were nevertheless doing physical work in manufacturing, trades, and similar work. Fass persevered in his work for years, in the meantime many changed jobs but he remained in his position and did not manage to make aliyah before the outbreak of the Second World War; he was not spared the suffering and nightmare of the German occupation; when the Holocaust ended, he was the only remaining scion spared from his large family. He got to us several years after the war. An office for a nature teacher had opened up, and we supported his nomination here. I will not forget our first encounter beside the gate of Holon, and the news that an appropriate position was waiting for him in this school; his reaction was characteristic of him: “This is a great privilege, more than that, this was always a dream [of mine] to work in this place, in which the beginning of the rise of the Jewish nation began, but how can I do this if my Hebrew is not reliable, and after all, teaching “ in particular in an agricultural school, to teach Nature one has to be fluent here, and all of this is still strange to me.” He did not say these words out of a worry for his prestige and fear of failure, but rather because of responsibility and honesty, in fear that he might not be able to convey to his students what he needs to give them from the point of view of completeness. He intended to spend a year working elsewhere in any kind of work, complete his knowledge, and only then start teaching. It wasn't easy to convince him to give up his plans. However, the absence of biology teachers managed to convince him. As soon as he was convinced, he dedicated himself to work with all his energy, and within a month, he managed to train sufficiently to get himself appointed to the position. On the quality of his teaching, I would like to mention one issue, which perhaps is very fitting for those who remember it to this day. This was in his first year here and Mikve Yisrael had no “Nature Room,” and no equipment worthy of this name. Not all of these deterred Fass, and here the windows of the Teachers' Room filled with bottles, plates, and pipes, and in them the new immigrant teacher grew plants, samples for what will be taught in the classroom. It was Fass who injected life into the study of nature in this school, and there was no one else to create something out of nothing.
Aryeh Fass left us before his time. A person's being in the sense of mental preservation is not limited to his only to his natural life if his legacy is implemented after his death in the thinking of all who remain after him. People continue living as a concept and a symbol amongst nations and humanity itself. We will all preserve his memory, the members of his family, his friends, those who loved and respected him, and his students and he will live on as a model and symbol.
Author's Footnote:
By Dr. David Kindler
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
He was born in Sokal to a prominent merchant family. His father Sholom had three other brothers in Sokal, who were also merchants.
The great-grandparents of David Byk were already residents of Sokal and played an important role in the Jewish community life there, and one of them – R' Isaac Byk was the head of the community there from 1909 to 1913.
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David received a fundamental traditional Jewish upbringing. He first studied in the Heder, and later in the Sokal Yeshiva. He was also educated in secular studies at home.
During the Russo-Japanese war, a group of immigrants came to Sokal from Russia, and among them was the Zionist Yitzhak Bloch, who immediately began to spread broad propaganda for the Hebrew language and became active as the first Hebrew teacher in Sokal. The acquaintance with him had a great influence on the young David Byk. Under his influence, David Byk became thoroughly imbued with Zionist concepts, and he even began to write articles for the Lemberg (Lvov) ‘Tageblatt,’ and with his full youthful ardor, he began to lead an active information activity for the benefit of the Zionist ideal among the young orthodox circles and in a short time,
he had the chance to create a Zionist organization in Sokal, of which he was the first President.
As also mentioned elsewhere, as early as 1907, David Byk carried out the first organized fundraising activity and he sold a significant amount equivalent to today's 20 shekels. With his exceptional skill, he now strengthened his propaganda-related activity among the Yeshiva students, as well as throughout all Jewish youth in general. During all the years up to the outbreak of the First World War, he stood in the center of the Zionist movement in Sokal.
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During the elections to the Austrian parliament in the years 1907 and 1911 he worked with the Zionist election initiative in the Sokal election district, and thanks to his oratorical and organizational skills, he had a large influence in shifting popularity toward the Zionist candidate on the Jewish street. With his energetic and fully committed heart, during the election to the Parliament in 1911, he managed to get a Zionist candidate in the Sokal district elected; Dr. Rapaport got the most votes in the city of Sokal proper.
During the First World War, David Byk first settled in Vienna, and afterward in Holland.
He returned to Sokal in 1920 after the First World War and immediately involved himself in social community work. At that time, a substantive Zionist updraft took place, and in the ranks of those former Zionist activists, the understanding first strengthened itself for the need to rebuild that which was destroyed during the war; economic positions were established for this purpose, and self-help institutions, in particular in the area of credit management. The Zionist leaders in Sokal also established a Merchant's Bank with David Dyk as the director at the head. Thanks to his masterful, straightforward and committed leadership of the bank, this institution, which we describe in detail elsewhere, was a weighty factor in the reconstruction efforts on the Jewish street in Sokal.
Under the direction of David Byk, the Merchant's Bank acquired the full trust of all Jewish economic circles in the city.
During the entire period – from 1920 up to the Holocaust, David Byk took an active part and excelled in his commitment to all Zionist initiatives, especially those for the good of the Zionist Funds, “K.K.L.” and “Keren HaYesod,” [Jewish National Fund (JNF) and United Israel Appeal (UIA)] and also for the Hebrew school.
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In 1941 – when the German murderers carried out their first execution initiative in Sokal against the Jewish population, they took over – ostensibly to be sent away to labor – a larger number of Jews and gathered them together in the marketplace, where they carried out a “selektion,” and a group of about 180 Jews, mostly from the young intelligentsia, led them off in the direction of Tartak Road and under the road, at an array of already prepared graves, shot them all.
David Byk הי”ד, was in the first row of those earmarked for death among the Sokal Jews, who were now walking for the last time on their hometown city streets to death by murder… His bookkeeper at the Merchant's Bank was walking beside him, The Mizrahi activist Parnas and afterward the Lawyer, Dr. Gruder.
In the second row were the lawyer Dr. Shmuel Fass, the gymnasium [senior] teacher Yitzhak Fass, and their brother-in-law the goods lessor Fass.
In the third row the lawyer Dr. Leon Honig and his brother Yaakov Honig, also a gymnasium [senior] teacher, went on their final way, as well as the gymnasium [senior] teacher Dr. Isidore Koch.
The wife and daughter of Dr. Byk were exterminated in 1943 – during the liquidation of the Sokal Ghetto.
Dear…gentle Jews of Sokal… in pain and torture breathed their last breath.
Their memory should be honored!
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Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
He ran the disaster office in Sokal which he took over from engineer Werber. As an employee of the state, he refrained from open attendance at community meetings. However, he ran his house in the traditional Jewish spirit and would spend lavishly in support of national Jewish purposes.
The engineer's wife was active in the Jewish Women's Committee in Sokal.
In the last community elections in 1936, he was elected as the chairman of community management in Sokal, and thanks to his need-driven and fully sacrificial activity, he earned the sympathy and recognition of the Jewish populace in the city.
His contribution consisted of running orderly finances in the community budget, and he specifically placed a significant emphasis and care about this issue, since he held that the community officers should be regularly paid every month. He also made an effort to take responsibility for order and sanitation in the community institutions.
During the war, Engineer Schwartz remained in Sokal and organized a public kitchen for Jewish workers, who worked for the Germans. In this kitchen, food was provided for Jews who lacked food and had no money and no goods to sell. He also initiated and oversaw to institute vegetable gardens.
In October 1942 the organs of the Gestapo threatened Engineer Schwartz, forcing him to take over the leadership of the Judenrat. During the entire time that he served, in a very straightforward manner and filled his difficult objectives at great personal risk to his own life, and at every opportunity he made the effort to help his hapless brethren.
Because of a betrayal by an informer, he together with his daughter sat for a while in Gestapo hands. In May 1943 during the liquidation of the Sokal ghetto, Engineer Schwartz was executed along with his wife and daughter.
His memory should be honored!
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
He was born in Sokal. After finishing dental school in Berlin, in the year 1910 he began to practice as an independent dentist in Sokal.
His refined character and his exceptional decency created general sympathy towards him by both the Jewish and non-Jewish populace in the city. Quietly, and in his work, he considered the patient's financial situation in the practice. He treated the poor free of charge. For many long years, he was practically the only dentist in the entire Sokal district.
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He was the first donor in the case of every philanthropic initiative. He also s pent a great deal to foster Jewish National objectives.
Sadly, he was executed in the Sokal ghetto during the aktion of May 1943. Before the liquidation of the ghetto, he was warned by a Christian friend of his – that he should save himself… He passed this warning along to Dr. Kindler, who thanks to him, was able to call on the Jews in the Sokal ghetto to flee.
Sadly, he was tortured together with his wife and his entire family.
A dear man…a decent Jew…fell in Sanctification of the Name…
His memory should be honored!
By A. Becker (Buenos Aires)
Edited by Dr. Rafael Manory
My earliest recollection of Yidd'l Grossman goes back to the Heder of his uncle Shim'eleh ע”ה, a teacher of Gemara on Tartakov, where I studied as a young boy.
This was, with precision, after the First World War and Yidd'l Grossman, not having any [living] parents, came from the shtetl Wiszkow to his uncle, to live with him.
My very first look at him already made an exceptional impression on me. He had a sympathetic-shaven face, with small black curls, a part combed at an angle, with a large cap on his head.
It didn't take a very long time and the entire shtetl began to murmur, that Yidd'l Grossman, a relative of Shim'eleh the Melamed, was a blatant atheist, a ‘Zionist’ following ‘Shabtai Zvi.’ These rumors emanated from the Bet HaMedrash, where Yidd'l Grossman began to frequent, the place where the youth of Sokal would concentrate, and there he carried out his explanatory work.
He gave the young men books to read, that they drank in like thirsty people take in water, first secretly, holding their books under their Gemara volumes – later on, they left the Bet HaMedrash entirely and began to read Hebrew and Yiddish books openly.
The path of struggle was very difficult for Yidd'l. The Hasidim with the Rabbi of the city at their head, fought stubbornly to keep the current way of life, not to deviate so much as the ‘tail of the letter ‘Yud’’ from this way, [i.e.,] the way traveled by their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. The Hasidim harassed the children who had become Zionists, and would beat them with rods, denying them food, driving them out of their houses, insulting and abusing them.
Their greatest anger–they let out on Yidd'l's head. In him they saw the one principally responsible, the “igniter of the fire,” as they used to say – that had surrounded and captured the entire shtetl.
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But he faithfully carried out his sacred calling, that he had assumed voluntarily, fearing no one and nothing.
And when he married the daughter of a rather rich businessman, and in the process, improved his material state, he felt even stronger and more daring and carried on his struggle with greater stubbornness and energy.
Thanks to his extraordinary focus, he taught himself Hebrew and through ‘Tarbut’ was authorized to be a Hebrew teacher.
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After he had fulfilled his mission in Tartakov, where he had brought up an entire generation in this new spirit, and having – as the Hasidim would say – ‘upended’ the entire city – he went over to Sokal to continue this work.
In the Hebrew school there, he worked as a teacher and there as well, did not miss attending important public meetings, election meetings, or [meetings] for other causes, where he was one of the prominent speakers.
In that period, he divided his time between Tartakov and Sokal, because from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning, he would be with his family in Tartakov and during that time, he participated in the Zionist work going on there.
The work as a teacher and speaker, as an organizer and fighter, severely affected his health. In the fire of the struggle, his lungs became infected. It happened more than one time, that after a stormy election meeting, in which he appeared as a speaker, he would come home and immediately have a dismaying outburst of blood.
After several such attacks, the doctors forbade him to give speeches and in general to work as a teacher, but Yidd'l did not obey these warnings, and in general to work as a teacher and already not so often, he would allow himself to be heard, from time-to-time, in public.
As lightly as he spoke, so did he lightly write. He would edit the needed requests of the Zionist Organization and the Hebrew School. He also wrote texts for stage scenes for school children.
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He would even write countless private letters on behalf of widows, Agunot[1] to relatives across the sea about help. He would seldom do the writing personally, thankfully he enjoyed dictating to a second party, and he would often ask me to act as his secretary, which I eagerly did, doing this in Tartakov as well as sharing a room for a three-year period.
Yidd'l Grossman, that wondrous teacher and leader of the younger generation in both neighboring cities, Tartakov and Sokal – was executed along with his son in Tartakov, killed by the German murderers in 1941.
Let these lines of mine, those of a pupil and a friend of Yidd'l Grossman serve as an eternal light to his sacred memory.
Translator's Footnote:
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