Shochetim (Ritual slaughterers)
in Sanok^[1]

From the elders of our generation, we have been told about two Shochtim in our city during the previous era, Rabbi Yacov Yosef Rosenfeld and Rabbi Shlomo Schickler of blessed memory. Both of them were extremely diligent in their responsible positions in matters that were required then, and are still required, by the bearers of that profession: “a scholar and a greater fearer of Heaven than the masses”, with stress on the last word, “than the masses”, for indecisiveness and lack of knowledge have serious consequences. The ensuring of the Kashrut of meat for the Jewish community in the city was always the chief interest of the leaders of the city. According to the Jewish conception, the ensuring of Kashrut came with the promise of ensuring the peace and health of the citizens of the city. On the other hand, they were very concerned, Heaven forbid, about any deviation, breach, or leniency in the laws of ritual slaughter, deliberately or through negligence, at the time of the slaughtering and inspection by the shochet, or afterward by the butcher in the butcher shop or the housewife in the kitchen. All of this was due to simple hygiene or, perhaps more important, due to the severity of the prohibition on eating non-kosher food and the punishment from Heaven for the transgressors. From here came the caution to the point of fear regarding any deviation or borderline of deviation in the laws of shechita, salting meat, kosher animals, etc. From here as well came the recoiling from any words or expressions such as “treifnik”, “consumer of treif”, etc. The fate of a Jew with respect to the eating of kosher meat was placed in the hands, first and foremost, of the shochet. Therefore, the aforementioned qualities were demanded of him. Of course, the degree of esteem of the community for their shochet was proportional to the degree of manifestation of these character traits within him.

Indeed, the members of the Sanok community knew how to relate appropriately to the two aforementioned shochtim, the last in a line of preceding shochtim about whom we have no information, and the first of those who lived with us, in our generation and in our community. We will discuss them in this chapter. These first two were exemplary shochtim, forging the style and founding the tradition for those shochtim that followed after them. Therefore, to our good fortune, we are able to utilize these few but important lines to dedicate a monument to their personalities written by Rabbi Alter Maier of blessed memory, who was almost of the same generation. These lines are important because the writer knew both of them personally and salvaged the few details about them from the risk of oblivion.

Here is the article of Rabbi Alter Maier of blessed memory, entitled “Two Beloved and Pleasant Shubim”.

“The two were Reb Yacov Yosef Rosenfeld and Reb Shlomo Schickler of blessed memory. The former I new only a little bit. Had we not lived in the same house as Reb Eliahu Guttwirt, who knows if I would have known him at all, for more than 60 years have passed since his death. Reb Yacov Yosef was not only among the honorable shochtim in our city, but his name went before him throughout the country. He was a scholar and an honorable Belzer Hassid. He served as the prayer leader on the High Holy Days in the large Beis Midrash. His children were all men of Torah. The eldest Reb Shalom was a notable. One son, Shraga-Feivel who was my age, had literary talents. I recall the following fact. One Friday, when the weekly Hamitzpe newspaper reached us and I opened it, we noticed a feuilleton with the name Feivel Rosenfeld at the bottom. I melted with jealousy and said in my heart: “If Feivel can reach this stage, so can I.” I remember that it was because of this that my diligence in reading and study increased. Within two years my article entitled “The Fine Traits of the Etrog” appeared in the literary section of this newspaper. This was my first literary creation.”

“Reb Shlomo Schickler, the father of Reb Abishel who served in the latter period as a rabbinical judge and teacher in our city, his hometown;


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and of Reb Pinchasl who served as a rabbinical judge and teacher in the city of Tarnopol, lived longer than Reb Y. Y. Rosenfeld. He was also a Belzer Hassid, but he was more retiring. His fame did not extend beyond the bounds of our city. It is possible that this was an expression of his sublime feelings based on the fact that his sons were all very successful, excelling in Torah and fear of Heaven, who with the passage of time became notable rabbis. Reb Shlomo would visit our home on occasion, for he often needed the services of Father, Reb Yisraelche Maier of blessed memory, for some type of intercession with the head of the community, or to obtain a draft exemption for his rabbi sons.”

Our brethren, members of the final generation of Sanok Jewry, we have seen shochtim who served in this role in our generation in Sanok as a continuation of the tradition of shochtim who preceded them. We know that these ones did not lack any of the “appropriate characteristics” of their predecessors. We even saw in them additional generous traits, each of them in their own arena as prominent nuances in the general personalities of each of them. Here they are, one by one:

The Shub Reb Shlomo Grossman of blessed memory

Reb Shlomo Grossman was a loner, living within himself. We did not understand him. He seemed aloof and strange to us. Whoever did not identify with our life, way of life and way of thinking of that time, even only in thought without an external, practical expression, would be considered to be a maskil and “leavened”^[2]. We would distance ourselves from such a person. Such a person would have no dealings with the elders or even with the youth. The former distanced themselves from him, and he would distance himself from the latter lest bad rumors about him be brought to their fathers or the fathers of their friends. Such was Reb Shlomo the Shub. He would often visit our home due to the friendship between us. This was always during the hours of the night. He would often sit with a book in front of himself until late in the evening, immersed in reading without paying attention to any movement or noise around him. When people approached him to start a conversation, he would awaken as if from another world. Reb Shlomo was a great scholar with deep understanding of all areas of Torah and Jewish thought. All the pathways of Torah and Jewish knowledge were clear to him as if he had learned to walk on them only yesterday. Hidden matters and revealed matters were clear as a cloth spread before him without any silence or stammering. He hid the essence of his soul and his spiritual being from even his best friends. Rabbi Alter Maier of blessed memory writes the following about him:

“… There is drawn water and there is water of a spring. As plentiful as it is, it is drawn water. It has value but not life. When it stands in its place without movement for a great deal of time it turns green and begins to stink and rot. However water of a spring, even if of a small quantity, will always remain living water. It is always fresh and sweet, and always maintains its freshness. The shochet Reb Shlomo was a type of spring, turned in to himself. He did not befriend others and always remained in his own small world. His only enjoyment in life was from those hours in which he was immersed studying a book, beyond the bounds of time, either sitting or standing. He was completely immersed and cut off from the world and his own surroundings.”

Reb Shlomo the Shochet was quiet by nature and did not enjoy conversation, whether secular or Torah related. Only when he was asked a question by those close to him, the youths of the Beis Midrash and studiers of Torah, or when they asked him to clarify some matter – would he answer briefly and succinctly.

The Shub Reb Chaim Schwerd of blessed memory (The Shub of Bokowsko)

Until the end of the First World War, after the death of Reb Shlomo Schicker, this position remained open for a long time due to the war that had broken out. Many Jews left the city, whether

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as refugees or as soldiers, and organized Jewish life in the city did not function as normal. Only one shochet carried out the shechita – Reb Shlomo Grossman. He was not found fitting for serving in the war, and he remained at home. In the interim, the war ended. General and Jewish life returned to its cycle. People returned home, the population grew, and one shochet was not sufficient. Then, in 1920, Reb Chaim Schwerd was accepted as the second Shochet in the city. He was a shochet from the nearby town of Bokowsko, and was known throughout the region for his Hassidic practices and his high level of professional competency. Reb Chaim the Shub was liked by the entire community here, as he was in his former place. As a scholar and a great fearer of Heaven, he did not waste his free time but rather utilized every spare moment for Torah and prayer. Despite his punctiliousness in Belzer Hassidism “from the womb and from birth”, for his family origins were from the town of Ugarow which was very close to Belz, all of whose Jews were without exception Belzer Hassidim; and that his father, his uncles, and all of his family members were among the closest people to the Hassidic court of the Admorim of Belz – Reb Chaim found it appropriate to frequent the Admorim of other dynasties in the city and surroundings, and to endear himself as well to the Hassidim of these Admorim.

Reb Chaim Schwerd the shochet (in the middle) between his two sons, Eliezer and Meier His wife Chaya Sara is between her daughter Yehudit on the left and her daughter-in-law Leah on the right, on whose side is her grandson Pinchas. Sitting at the bottom (from right to left) is their granddaughter Zissel, and their daughter of old age Hinda

Reb Chaim Shub reached the pinnacle of his excellence in the realms of charity and hosting of guests, which knew no bounds. His home served as a constant guesthouse for anyone visiting the city that was unable to afford to stay in a hotel. The home of Reb Chaim Shub made no distinction between different poor people. All of them were treated with special care in this house. The poor, downtrodden, constant floaters with worn out clothing received the same bed, the same bedding, the same dinner as those poor people who came from honorable forbears^[3] or to a “yarud” – a well known concept at that time referring to a wealthy person who had come upon hard times and had become impoverished to the point of bankruptcy. This was his own behavior, and thus did he instruct his family. His wife Chaya Sarah (Sarache the Shochetke) not only served as his faithful assistant, but had her own independence in this area which she apparently had absorbed from the home of her father, Reb Eliahu-Zusha the shochet of Bokowsko. She continued with this custom even after her husband Reb Chaim Shub died in Siberian exile in Dzambul on the 8^th of Nissan 5703 (1943). A great deal is told about the charity and kindness that she did for the unfortunate, downtrodden refugees during the years of the Second World War, and even after she succeeded in making aliya to the Land after the end of the tribulations of the Holocaust. When she was old and sickly, living at the homes of her children in Jerusalem, she continued with her good deeds with great diligence.

We have not fulfilled our historical duty and our faithfulness to this book if we do not mention the special care received at the home of Reb Chaim Shub by Jewish soldiers who served in the Polish army and were posted in the large military camp in Sanok. Because of the anti-Semitic and inimical atmosphere that pervaded in the camp in particular and in the Polish army in general, Jewish soldiers suffered greatly in various ways, such as illness, persecution, not being freed from work on Sabbaths and festivals, refusal to be granted leaves to attend synagogues on Sabbaths and festivals, etc. The young son Meier Schwerd, a scholar, great fearer of Heaven, and astute in worldly affairs, worked on all of these matters. Many such soldiers who survived the talons of the Holocaust and succeeded in arriving to Israel told us a great deal about his good deeds toward them. They recall, and recount enthusiastically to this day, his kind concern and loving relationships, his warm heart, his good disposition, his constant readiness to come to the assistance of all of them in any way that was possible, and the assistance that he succeeded in offering them.

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