[Page 1]

I have lived in Bialystok, one of the most interesting cities and communities, since 1880, for more than fifty years. It is a city with a developed industry and trade, as well as large Jewish national movements. I set out to research and investigate its historical development in all fields.

After working as a fabric manufacturer in Bialystok for more than forty years, I began writing a Hebrew textbook on the textile industry and its historical development in Bialystok. However, lacking the necessary Hebrew technical terminology, I immersed myself in researching the textile industry during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods.

The fruit of this labor is my book “Weaving And the Weaving Industry”, the first part of my “The Cultural Life in the Land of Israel During the Mishnah and Talmud Periods”^[1]. This research drew me into an extensive scholarly work entitled “The Ethnic and Cultural History of the Jewish People from Their Earliest Periods to the Completion of the Talmud” (see my foreword to the aforementioned book).

The result of my thirty years of work is a twelve-volume work that, given the critical times, has not found a publisher.

At the same time, I collected material at every opportunity to provide a broad and comprehensive description of the history of the Bialystok community.^[2]

Because I had been involved, all that time, in manufacturing and trade in Bialystok, as well as in the city's economic, cultural, religious, national, philanthropic, and educational activities, I felt qualified to write about all aspects of Bialystok's history. I considered it my sacred duty to finally begin this work. I took a break from my main job for a period of time.

[Page 2]

To this end, I spent more than a year preparing the technical aspects of this work, which I have now finished. I wrote it in Yiddish so that people of all social classes could understand it. Additionally, I have had negative experiences writing in Hebrew. My writings would have been printed in another language long ago, as renowned scholars who recognize their importance and necessity for Jewish scholarship have assured me. However, because the work was in Hebrew, a well-known publisher backed out of his contract to print the rest of my book, “Cultural Life in the Land of Israel”.

I must also point out that as a Jewish cultural researcher, I did more than write a dry monograph; I also provided the book with historical explanations of religious and educational institutions.

I have attempted to convey to future generations a complete picture of ancient life in Bialystok, including all its facets, strata, and fields; all its interesting personalities; their lifestyles and activities; and all their scholarly, enlightened, scientific, and literary creations, from the smallest to the greatest. I have also included all the legends, anecdotes, and common expressions.

I believe that I have succeeded in conveying a vivid picture of old Jewish Bialystok.

When writing about the history of Bialystok in general, I first used the Russian book by A. Bobrovski: “Materials for the Geography and Statistics of Russia, Grodno Governorate,” Petersburg, 1863It contains detailed and objective documents and knowledge about the former Grodno Governorate, including Bialystok. It covers the economic, cultural, and political situation up to that time, as well as the situation of the Jews specifically.

I also used the Russian Bialystok calendars published by M. I. Milakovski in 1897 and by M. I. Kral in 1912 and 1914, as well as the “Spravotshni Kalendar” [Almanac], published in 1913 by the Red Cross. Some of the Red Cross's employees were Jews from Bialystok.

I found very little information about the Jewish community in Bialystok. As is customary in other cities, I did not find a community register or register of the Burial Society, except for several registers of old bote-medroshim. Because of the long history of the community, I mainly used the register of the old Tiktiner community, from which the Bialystok community once depended. I also used old sources in Russian, Polish, and German.

[Page 3]

As far as the last fifty-plus years are concerned, I was an eyewitness and hearsay witness to all the old Jewish customs and traditions. While researching the ancient history of Bialystok, I was assisted by two capable young locals:

- Israel, the son of Rabbi Shloyme Heilperin and a great-grandson of Rabbi Lipele. He is an expert on the history of the Jews in Poland and Lithuania.

- Shimen Konyak. He is a young Talmud scholar and an expert and connoisseur of rabbinates. He also researches old Jewish cemeteries in the area.

I am grateful to the two young Bialystok librarians from the local Sholem Aleichem Library who provided me with materials, primarily on the history of the labor movement in Bialystok, as well as all the necessary religious and secular books in their collection. I also made use of the small study library affiliated with the Jewish community.

Author's footnotes:

1. Printed by “Shtibl” Publishing House, Warsaw, 1922 Return
2. I still remember the aftertaste of amateurism from my very first attempt to write a paper on the history of the Bialystok textile industry. That very first attempt was a dissertation in German that I wrote for a local Jewish student from the Riga Polytechnic. That man received his academic title for this work, and the Riga professors subsequently praised the dissertation. Return

Translator's footnote:

1. Contents in [ ] are from the translator. Contents in ( ) are from the author. Return

After I had finished writing the manuscript for my book, Professor Henryk Moscicki's Polish monograph on Bialystok^[1] was published. The local magistrate had commissioned and printed the monograph at his own expense.

The work is based on a collection of old Polish and Russian archival materials. In my book, I added everything I knew about Bialystok's history relevant to my work. Unfortunately, Moscicki lacks basic knowledge of the historical development of the Bialystok textile industry, the Bialystok labor movement, and in general, Jewish history in Bialystok.

As it turns out, he relied on his local assistants, the so-called “editorial committee.” This committee had no information on any of these topics, and the information Moscicki provided about the Jews in Bialystok is very biased. This committee had no information on these topics, and the information Moscicki provided about Jews in Bialystok is biased.

The author himself seems to have strong prejudices against Jews. He ignores well-known printed documents that we cite from Branicki's time as much as possible.

[Page 4]

These prove the important role that Jews played in Bialystok at that time. Other information, however, he distorts.

We will cite several examples.

On page 36 of his “History”, he writes, “Retail trade was mainly dominated by Jews, but in terms of wholesale trade, the most important trading companies remained in the hands of the ‘meshtshanes’ [mieszczanie, non-Jewish Polish citizens], that is, where they had been before.”

One wonders: Where did he get this information? His first major reference to this is, “…One of the most important items was cloth, which was traded by Jan Boguslaw from Terespol.” How does he know that Jan Boguslaw was the only one who traded cloth in Bialystok? Was he the only Christian who traded cloth, and were the others all Jewish?

The German writer A. C. von Holsche^[2], whom Moscicki quotes on page 68, writes that, at that time, wholesalers of manufactured goods and cloth were primarily Jewish. Moscicki also cites Holsche's complete records of the well over forty shops in the Breml [the area around the clock tower where there were many Jewish stores in whitewashed cottages standing in rows, also known as the Bremlekh], but he conceals the fact that they were, according to Holsche, exclusively Jewish. Moscicki states that there were only forty rich merchant stores.

Moscicki ignores Holsche's detailed information about the shops. According to Holsche, the Jewish shop owners brought goods from Leipzig and Frankfurt. They were large wholesale buyers, and their shops were an ornament to the city. Other items were sold more cheaply in their shops than in many larger cities.

Indeed, Moscicki later quotes the following information from Holshe on page 80 regarding the wholesale trade of Jewish shopkeepers and applies it to the entire trade. He states that the trade was predominantly dominated by Jews and “meshtshanes,” a term that Holshe never used. (The Polish historian added the term “meshtshanes” on his own initiative). It's admirable how much he twists things around to avoid accurate information.

Regarding the situation in Bialystok in 1800, Moscicki ignores Holshe's information that most of the houses belonged to Jews, who constituted the majority of the population.

As a second piece of evidence showing that Christians were the wholesale buyers and Jews were the retail traders, Moscicki (ibid., p. 36) cites the Karabelnikes [tobacco merchants]. The tobacco trade flourished greatly in Bialystok and was run by a partnership firm consisting of a Christian, Jan Naumowitsh, and three Jews (Moscicki does not mention their names). Naturally, one might conclude that the Christian, who owned only a quarter of the firm, was the financier and that the three Jews were the actual traders who traveled around buying and selling.

However, if Moscicki had searched international historical sources, he would have found that, from 1793 to 1795, there were only six Christian merchants and 76 Jewish merchants in the entire Bialystok trading region.^[3]

[Page 5]

Moscicki extracts a whole series of families from the inventory of the complete property register compiled in 1772 after Branicki's death. (The inventory contains 604 pages and is located in the Vienna University Library). Moscicki develops various conclusions from these families (p. 34).

Interestingly, Pesach Kaplan also notes that “among dozens of families, he found only a few German ones, such as Herman, Blum, Bem, and Menger, but not a single Jewish one, even though Jews already played a significant role in Bialystok.”

When Moscicki mentions that there was already an intelligentsia in Bialystok, he emphasizes that it was Christian. - God forbid one should not mistakenly assume there was a Jew among the intelligentsia…although the intelligentsia was not dominated by Poles either, but rather by ‘foreigners.’ Incidentally, Moscicki does not know (and could not have known) that, as early as 5478 (1718), nine years after [Jan] Clemens Branicki II [following his father Stefan], there was a large bes-medresh in Bialystok. It is known today as the Old Bes-Medresh, located in the courtyard of the ‘shul’.

This is not a ‘house of prayer’ or a ‘school,’ but rather a house of learning and study. It is home to a large Talmudic intellectual community and a closed chevra called ‘Neir-Tomed’ [Ner Tamid, Eternal Light]. Their rav, Rebe Klunimus Kalman Lichtenstein, who is mentioned there, delivered a Latin eulogy for Branicki (see below). Jewish sculptors were already considered artists at that time.

Additionally, Moscicki does not cite Branicki's decrees proving that Jews in Bialystok had the same rights as Christians and their own guild laws, the ‘tsekh-dayonem.’^[5]

At the end of his book (p.199), Moscicki openly reveals his prejudice against the Jewish merchants and shopkeepers of Bialystok: “The Bialystok shops and warehouses at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century were filled with various kinds of goods, a significant percentage of which came from abroad and were often smuggled by local Jews.”

As a former manufacturer and merchant from Bialystok, editor of the Bialystoker Tageblat, and an objective and independent researcher, I can testify that this information is false, as can all Jewish merchants. Jewish shops exclusively traded and sold domestic products from Lodz and the surrounding area, as well as from Moscow and its environs.

Before the war, there were fourteen first-class warehouses with manufacturing facilities in Bialystok. These warehouses were owned by reputable companies and had a total annual turnover of four million rubles. In addition, there were many smaller wholesalers, all of which sold exclusively domestic products^[6]. Only two Jewish merchants sold specialized foreign goods in Bialystok: Eliyahu Dayan and Aharon Hersh Kanel.

The Polish historian then writes, “Wholesale and retail trade in Bialystok was almost entirely in the hands of Jews from the very beginning” (contrary to his own previous statement); “Such a situation was tolerated by the Christian population for a long time. Only at the end of the nineteenth century, in connection with the rise of anti-Semitism, did Christians vigorously engage in their own trade and boycott Jewish enterprises.

[Page 6]

The idea of cooperation served as a means of becoming independent of Jewish trade…”

This tendentious and thoroughly anti-Semitic note incites hatred against Jews. According to popular opinion, it does not correspond to the spirit of objective scientific research. The author claims that “the Christian population of Bialystok could no longer tolerate Jewish trade.” (One wonders why.)

He continues, “They began an extremely energetic boycott of Jewish enterprises.” We, the Jews of Bialystok, know absolutely nothing about this and have only just heard of it. We only know that free competition constantly prevails in Bialystok's trade, and none of the Jews have interfered with local Christians from trading as freely as Jews do. Moreover, they didn't need to resort to boycott measures, which have never been used in Bialystok to this day.

Throughout this time, the Christian population has continued to buy from the Jews, and conversely, the Jews have always bought from the Christians. Does anyone in Bialystok not remember Muravyov's shop on the corner of Senkevitsha and Pilsudski Streets? It was the largest store selling groceries and other goods before the war. Most of his customers were Jewish. Then there are the other smaller shops of this kind–assuming the esteemed author doesn't introduce a boycott in Bialystok now.

One might also ask the author: Why do local Christians tolerate the Jewish textile factory in Bialystok, which has existed for almost 100 years, to this day? Its masters and workers are mostly Christian. Why don't they gain independence from the Jewish manufacturers who displaced the German Christian manufacturers and became the sole rulers of Bialystok's textile industry? This industry still supports several thousand Christian workers today.

In general, such anti-Semitic, false, and harmful opinions had no place in a book commissioned and printed by the local magistrate, who was the joint head of the Jewish and Christian populations of Bialystok.

Through his clouded and vague judgment of the great [1906] pogrom that shook the entire civilized world at the time, the author demonstrates his hostile attitude toward the Jews of Bialystok. Many separate books have been written about this event. He dismisses the pogrom with a few meaningless lines, stating that it was organized by the “Black Hundreds” [a reactionary, anti-Semitic organization], as well as by bandits, thieves, and drunks. He copied the official Tsarist reports word for word.

Regarding the Bialystok pogrom, it was publicly clarified in the Gosudarstvennaya Duma at the time that the Russian government directly organized it and its regular army and police carried it out, together with a mixed crowd from the Christian underworld of Bialystok.

Prof. Moscicki suddenly becomes a defender of the police, saying, “Moreover, the revolutionary ‘boyuvkes’ [Jewish self-defense units] did not shy away from acts of violence and terrorized the city's quiet residents. The police and other security agencies were helpless against the crowd, which was incited and thrown into turmoil by the agitation of the demagogues.”

How does this relate to the pogrom he is trying to cover up? His entire description gives the impression that he is trying to defend the Russian government against the historically documented truth about the Bialystok pogrom. This is completely unsuitable for a Polish scholar.

The monograph omits everything Jews built in the philanthropic, educational, religious, and cultural spheres. This could still be excused.

[Page 7]

The Jews didn't publish anything about it, so the Polish authors didn't necessarily have to know about it. However, the two Jewish members of the editorial committee certainly knew about it and could have provided information. Why does the monograph describe the reconstruction of the old Polish church in detail but not mention that, at the same time, the Jews were restoring and expanding their large shul in the synagogue courtyard?

On the other hand, false accusations are made against the Jewish population of Bialystok. For example:

In a sarcastic tone, it is claimed that “the first German patrols were met by large groups of Jewish middlemen who were immediately ready to serve them. With their commercial instincts, they sensed that, since they understood German, they would be the perfect mediators between the Germans and the population” (ibid., p. 213).

One wonders:

How could it have been otherwise? Should the Jewish merchants have remained loyal to the departing Russian government instead of devoting themselves to their trade and starving to death?

There is also the shameful accusation (on page 242) that, as the Bolsheviks retreated, people from the Jewish streets of Versalske, Legionove, Rynek Kosciuszki, and side streets such as Surazer and Mazowiecka shot from their windows at exhausted Polish soldiers fighting the retreating Bolsheviks.

Moscicki claims that the shooters were “communist residents,” although incidentally, he essentially only lists Jewish streets, despite the fact that there were plenty of Polish communists at that time. Yet he doesn't mention them.

He also fails to mention that, even back then, a “Sovnarkom” [Council of People's Commissars] for Poland, led by Marchlewski^[b] and composed of truly vicious “Polyaks” [non-Jewish Poles], was stationed in Bialystok, prepared to triumphantly enter the Polish capital. Additionally, there were quite a few volunteer “Polyaks” in the Bolshevik army marching on Warsaw. Meanwhile, many Jews at that time were suffering false accusations from Yablono [a small town near Warsaw], and paying the price with over thirty Jewish martyrs from Pinsk and the Plotzker Rebe.

While Moscicki accuses only the local branch of the P.P.S. [Polish Socialist Party] of collaborating with the Communist Party, one of its seducers, the “Polyak” I. Bernatski, was later sentenced to fifteen years in prison by a Polish court. However, none of the Jews were ever charged.

On the contrary: Moscicki lists four Jews killed among the Bolshevik victims (p. 244). The Polish historian accepts the false accusation that Jews fought with the Bolsheviks against the Poles and fails to cite all the documents from the Battle of Bialystok to expel the Bolsheviks.^[7]

[Page 8]

Could shots have actually been fired from middle-class windows in the city at those expelling the Bolsheviks? After all, the Bolsheviks had destroyed the bourgeoisie of Bialystok, and the Polish expellers were now saving it.

Moscicki presents unsubstantiated and false information (on page 229) that certain groups of Jewish politicians and public figures had proposed declaring Bialystok a free city to best protect the interests of the Jewish population. As former Jewish social activists of the time, we know nothing of this and have heard nothing of it. It is obvious, as P. Kaplan rightly states^[8], that “it is nothing more than empty chatter, published with a clearly anti-Jewish aim.” “Nothing more than empty chatter published with a clearly anti-Jewish aim.”

On the other hand, the monograph (p. 214) presents a false report on the activities of a certain Polish engineer, G., to clear him of an accusation and make him a political martyr. Moscicki recounts that the resigning Russian government gave G. control of the power station. Within a few months, the German government arrested G. and brought him to Germany, where he was imprisoned for a year and a half. From that moment on, the occupying power was able to operate a predatory economy. (Was the occupying power afraid of him before?)

In reality, however, the situation was quite different. The Citizens' Committee appointed Engineer G. head of the power station at the beginning of the occupation, only after the Russians withdrew, despite the Jewish members' votes against him. They didn't trust Engineer G. and voted for another Polish electrical engineer instead.

Ultimately, he managed the power station poorly financially and was accused of deliberate deception. He was brought before a German court and sentenced to one and a half years in prison–(he would have received the same sentence from a Polish court).

This raises the question: Why would a scholarly monograph delve into such private matters only to produce a false report? The monograph contains many inconsistencies, as if it were uncontrolled.

The textile industry and trade in Bialystok are dismissed in three pages: 146, 147, and 148. This is despite the fact that Bialystok grew and prospered solely thanks to its trade and textile industry during this time. How can one write a monograph about Bialystok without any knowledge of its commercial and industrial history? In the little that the monograph contains, there is a blatant contradiction that is a disgrace. Based on an erroneous quotation from a Russian magazine, it claims that in 1830, goods worth 230,483 rubles were produced in Bialystok on 184 looms. Yet, on the same page, it claims that by 1842, Bialystok only had a small cloth factory and an old German “kapelyush” [fedora hat] factory. Actually, that was in 1830, and by 1842, Herman Komikhoy's large cloth and blanket factory was already in Bialystok!

The inconsistencies can be attributed to the fact that the work passed through various hands. Besides Professor Moscicki, who I'm told is very busy and works in all fields, the main work was done by a master philologist named Zygmunt Zmigrodski, whom the author thanks in his introduction. Additionally, a local editorial committee of nine people, including two Jews, worked on the text. The committee spent all their time collecting materials and sending them to Warsaw for editing.

As the saying goes, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”^[c]

[Page 9]

I asked the two Jewish members of the editorial committee how they could have allowed such false accusations against the Jewish population of Bialystok to slip through.

R' Binyamin Floymenboym replied that he hadn't participated in the editorial process and that he shouldn't be mentioned as a member of the editorial committee. The second member said that, although he participated in committee meetings, he couldn't help because no one paid attention to him. This committee wrote the most important antisemitic misinformation of recent times.

Finally, we must acknowledge that the monograph contributes valuable information about the core history of the city of Bialystok and its Polishness. However, regarding the history of the Jewish population, the work is full of errors, one-sided biases, and hostility toward Jews.

The history of trade and industry in Bialystok, which was shaped by Jews and Germans and not by “real Poles,” has been almost completely neglected, and what little has actually been cited is worthless and full of errors.

Author's footnotes:

1. Henryk Moscicki, Bialystok, Zarys Historyczny [Historical Overwiew], Bialystok, 1933. In 1933, Pesach Kaplan published a series of articles about and against this book in Unzer Leben, beginning with issue 262. I have used several of his objections and comments. Return
2. August Varl von Holsche, “Geographie und Statistik von West-Sued-und Neu-Ostpreußen“ [Geography and statistics of West-South and New East Prussia], volume 3, Berlin, 1800-1807. Return
3. see S.B. Weinrich, “Studies on the Economic History of Jews in Russia and Poland in the 18^th and 19^th centuries”, Breslau, 1933, p.28: Krug, “Contributions to the description of South and New East Prussia”, Berlin, 1803, p. 50; Jakobson, “Monthly Journal of Jewish Studies”, 1920, p.282; R. Schmidt, “Trade and Crafts in New East Prussia”, Goettingen, 1910, p. 14; Bloch, “The Year 1793“, published by R. Frumert, Pozen, 1895, p. 592; Levin, “Monthly magazine”, 1915, p. 183 Return
4. Unzer Leben, 1933, number 266. Return
5. To fully understand how biased Moscicki's story of the old Branicki period is, a Jewish researcher must verify the information that author brings from the inventory book. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so. Return
6. see Bialystoker Yorbukh, 1932-1933, p. 16. Return
7. This false, widespread notion is why Colonel Mirski allowed his invading regiment to rob the Jewish population for several days. We experienced terrible things back then. We were brutally robbed. A Jew named Grochovski from Masovetski Street was shot on the spot for resisting. Fearing for their lives, all Jews were afraid to resist, and Jewish Bialystok was robbed – something even the enemy hadn't done to us.
   H. Yakov Shapiro, a member of the editorial committee, told me that the Polish intelligentsia itself had become aware of the false, biased news. R. Zirkwitz, the renowned German pastor, also mentioned this to me. Return
8. Unzer Leben, 1934, number 11. Return

Translator's footnote:

1. Contents in [ ] are from the translator. Contents in ( ) are from the author. Return
2. The Sovnarkom [Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov] was the highest executive authority in Soviet Russia after the October Revolution. Julian Marchlewski, a Polish Marxist revolutionary, was not the leader of Sovnarkom but he played a key role in Soviet efforts to export revolution to Poland. In 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War, he was appointed Chairman of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee [Polrevkom] in Bialystok, a Soviet-backed body intended to govern Poland if the Red Army succeeded in capturing Warsaw. Return
3. The original Yiddish proverb reads: “A child with many nannies will end up nose-less.” Return

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