Tales of Bialystok

A Jewish Journey from Czarist Russia to America

Charles Zachariah Goldberg, Phyllis Goldberg Ross

• Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781578690053
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

Charles Zachariah Goldberg left Bialystok in 1906 at the age of 20 in the aftermath of a deadly pogrom in Bialystok, then a part of Czarist Russia.  Published later in life, living in Connecticut, these are his remembrances and stories about growing up in Bialystok, tales of the dreadful, and of the humorous, of family life, and of his journey to America. He writes in a voice all his own, familiar, plainspoken, direct and honest.  Originally written in Yiddish for publications in the New York City area in the 1930s and 1940s, Charles Zachariah Goldberg stories capture both the immediacy of his experiences and the tales told him by others.

EPILOGUE

BIALYSTOK – A HISTORICAL SURVEY

BY I. SHMULEWITZ

The Jewish community in Bialystok, which achieved so much on all fronts, goes back some 500 years. Its story is fascinating and unique. Until World War II, Jewish Bialystok was renowned in Russia, Poland and other countries as a center of commerce and industry. It was also celebrated for its Torah learning and charity, a broad network of cultural and community activities, labor, art and industry.

To understand Bialystok is to appreciate the enterprising spirit of its Jews, as well as their boundless capacity for compassion—helping the helpless, comforting the downtrodden, sustaining the impoverished. Above all, Jewish life and thought in Bialystok were diversified; many different points of view were held concerning all the important issues of the day. Bialystok was a place for people to grow and thrive, to face challenges and overcome adversity. This community accommodated multiple economic classes, social strata, political parties and theological positions.

Living in freedom was the major goal of Jews in Bialystok from all walks of life. No one held a monopoly on truth, ideas or values. The environment bubbled like a cauldron into which ingredients of all kinds were thrown.

There was a sense of community among Bialystok’s Jewish inhabitants. They all felt they belonged to one another. If the ugly head of alienation appeared from time to time, it did not endure for long. For there existed an intricate network of aid institutions, whether organized or informal, reaching out to those on the fringes of society.

As we will soon see, the very emergence of Bialystok from a barren, uncultivated swampland in the forests of Eastern Poland into a flourishing, sprawling center of human life was a tribute to the creativity, industriousness and hard work of its Jews. Let us go back in time and briefly review some milestones in its evolution.

Around the 10^th century CE, the Bialystok region was populated by a barbaric Baltic-Latvian tribe. Subsequently, its members were expelled from the area by Russian-Lithuanian conquerors. In 1320, Bialystok was founded as a village by the Lithuanian Count Gedimin. After being passed on from one generation of this Lithuanian family to the next, the village became the private fiefdom of King Zygmunt August, a Polish ruler, in 1542.

At the end of the 16th century, the Arians, a heretical Christian cult that did not accept several major Catholic dogmas, occupied Lithuania and Poland. They invaded a temple in Bialystok built many years before-hand and “defiled” it. These apostates were driven out, and in 1668 Bialystok went on to become an entrenched Polish territory. In 1795, following the partition of Poland, Prussia annexed Bialystok. Napoleonic armies on their way to Russia took over control of Bialystok and ruled for one year. Then in 1808, the city fell into Russian hands. Napoleon reconquered Lithuania and Poland in 1812, and three years later, after the Tilsit Peace Conference, Russia once again imposed its jurisdiction over the city, ruling for more than a century—until the first World War. Poland took over in 1919 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when for two years the Russians controlled Bialystok. The Nazis captured the city in 1941 and destroyed it in 1943.

The above reflects a history of political and social instability in Bialystok for almost 1,000 years. This town was a veritable football, kicked back and forth, first between groups and then nations vying with one another for dominance in the area. Under these conditions of flux and uncertainty, it is all the more amazing that Bialystoker Jews found it possible to grow, to build, to establish security and continuity through the many institutions they established.

Documents in Tyktin, the original capital city of the region, show that Jews already lived in Bialystok around 1658. In 1703, Polish Count Jan Klements Bronicki built for himself a wooden palace in Bialystok. The old Bet Hamidrash was constructed in 1718 within what was to be known as the synagogue court. In 1742, Bronicki elevated the village of Bialystok to the status of a city. Jews were granted equal rights in 1745. In that same year, Bronicki erected a tower that served as a detention center for criminals. At the base of this tower eighty shops were constructed, which Bronicki allocated for Jewish businessmen.

Germans hand over Bialystok to the Soviets on September 22, 1939.

Bialystok, located near the Bialy River (Bialystok means “White River” in Polish), became a haven for Jews. Bronicki invited them to settle there and build up the town; he provided them with land, lumber and other materials. In 1749 a small number of Jews settled in Bialystok, totaling 765 by 1765. In the next fifty years the Jewish community grew in both numbers and influence. In 1800 the “new Bet Hamidrash” was established in the synagogue court. Bialystok replaced Tyktin as the dominant city, surrounded by smaller satellite communities such as Choroscz, Horodok, Janowa, Jaszynowka, Knyszin, Odelsk, Sokola, Zabludowa, and Waszlykowa.

Rabbi Aron Halewi Horowic opened the first print shop in Bialystok in 1804. In 1807, about 6,000 inhabitants lived in the city, 4,000 of them Jews. Bialystok was declared the capital of the region in 1808. By 1897, 42,000 inhabited Bialystok, the Jews constituting 64 percent of the population.

Thus, from the Jewish community’s inception until its brutal liquidation by the Nazis, the Jews played a major role in the life of Bialystok. But there were frequent ups and downs. At times they enjoyed prosperity, as well as periods of relative well-being and security. At other times, repeated political and economic crises plagued them, forcing some Jews to flee Bialystok for other countries. This trend reached its peak in the 1880s and 1890s, when Bialystoker Jews arrived in the United States, Argentina, Israel and other lands. Wherever they settled, however, they brought with them the pride of their origin. They transplanted their civic spirit, their zest for living, their creativity and their ingenuity to their new homes.

Shortly before 1914, 80 percent of Bialystok’s inhabitants were Jews. Virtually its entire economic and social infrastructure was in Jewish hands. By 1939, just before the Nazi invasion of Poland, 100,000 people lived in Bialystok, 60,000 of them Jews. The ethnic mixture of the city included Poles, Jews, Russians, White Russians, Germans and Lithuanians.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Jewish Bialystok was well known throughout Russia, Lithuania, Poland and other places as a center of Jewish culture, variegated social activities and philanthropy. It always joined other major Jewish communities in Eastern Europe in assisting needy Jews with generosity and enthusiasm. The town was the cradle of the Chovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement. This focus on Israel as the Jewish homeland was sharpened when, in 1882, several prominent Bialystoker pioneers helped establish Petach Tikvah in Israel. They founded businesses, built houses, and organized cultural and social institutions in the Holy Land.

Israel was, however, not the only part of the world in which Bialystoker Jews invested their energy and resources. Mosesville, a Jewish colony in Argentina, was formed through the efforts of Jewish Bialystok. Villa Lynch, an industrial center in Argentina, came into being as a result of the initiative, efforts and money of Jews in Bialystok.

In the United States, Mexico, South America, Western Europe and Israel, there are today significant communities of Bialystoker landsleit to whom perpetuating the heritage of their beloved hometown is essential. We shall see later on in greater detail the contributions of Bialystokers to various lands.

Needless to say, the Jewish citizens of Bialystok did not neglect their hometown itself. They organized Yiddish- and Hebrew-speaking schools, gymnasiums (advanced high schools), libraries, theaters, music groups, sports clubs, and a multiplicity of other cultural organizations. Habimah, the famous Hebrew theater company that has delighted audiences throughout the world, was started by Nochum Cemach, a Bialystoker Jew.

The city had an intelligentsia that included writers, scientists, actors, musicians, artists, educators and political leaders. In the religious sphere, Bialystok produced great rabbis, Talmudists and yeshiva educators who spiritually uplifted the Jewish community. They functioned within more than one hundred synagogues and yeshivot in the city and its environs and encouraged the masses to maintain contact with their Jewish tradition—to study and pray. Generations of Jewish children were educated in these institutions. Young students from nearby towns came to Bialystok to study Torah in its highly regarded yeshivot. Their hosts, among the most gracious, generous and hospitable Jewish families to be found in Eastern Europe, provided them with food and lodging.

One of the distinguishing features of the Jewish community in Bialystok was its absolute dedication to assisting the poor. The community established its own Jewish hospital, a Linas Hatzedek (a free clinic where physicians donated their services to the destitute and medications were dispensed gratis), an old age home, orphanages, aid societies and lending institutions. Many individuals, both men and women, felt an obligation to serve as alms collectors. They solicited donations from the Jewish population and then distributed the funds to the needy. The poor were also provided with wood and coal for heat, food for the Jewish holidays, money to help pay their rent, and marriage dowries for their daughters. All of this was done quietly and with the greatest discretion to preserve the dignity of the recipients.

The Jewish community of Bialystok displayed the best traits of the Jewish people as a whole: ambition mixed with mercy. It left a record of rich and ennobling achievements. There was every reason to expect that many more pages would be added to the chronicle, which would have made it even more impressive, had Bialystok continued to exist.

Unhappily, the Nazi juggernaut, in its diabolical effort to annihilate every Jew, did not spare this illustrious center of Jewish creativity and compassion. The town was utterly destroyed, but its legacy must never be forgotten.

This Bialystok Memorial Book, therefore, represents the last and best attempt of landsleit who remember Jewish Bialystok to make certain that the legacy outlined in this chapter will long be remembered. Future generations, it is hoped, will sift through these pages and discover their roots, physically buried under the rubble but spiritually everlasting.

The tragedy of Bialystok’s destruction was eloquently described in a poem written by Z. Segalowicz, titled “My Bialystok.” He likens his memories of his beloved hometown to a book that has fallen into a fire, consumed by the hungry flames. Disbelieving and catapulted into a state of shock, the poet asks, “What happened to my town? My generation? My past? Where are my family and friends? How devastating it was for an entire breed of believers with high hopes and expectations, bubbling with pride, filled with courage and awaiting a bright future, to be condemned to oblivion by a raving and bloodthirsty nation.” Surely all we can do is to rewrite, though in abri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• The Magic of the Written Word, A Foreword from the Translator
• Contents
• In the Shadow of Death
• Life Experiences
• Memories of Menkhes Gesel
• The Informer
• My Father’s Advice
• Stealing Across the Border
• Murder by the Dozen
• A Serpent’s Tooth
• A Soldier’s Tale
• Two Friends
• The General
• A Commotion in the Horse Stall
• The Inspector
• Getting Even With the Rabbi
• A Poor Boy is Not Destined for Joy
• Mystery in a Small Town
• The Blood Libel
• In the Nick of Time
• A Wonderful Bialystoker Self-Defense Organization in 1906
• A Ruined Holiday
• Epilogue: Bialystok – A Historical Survey by I. Shmulewitz
• Notes on Sources