 |
In the center of the principal Botwinik, one of the active cultural doers of Eishishok
|
|
[Page 123]
[Page 124]
[Page 125]
The final rabbi of the community of Eishishok (1874-1941)
(about his personality)
Translated by Jerrold Landau
Rabbi Shimon the son of Avraham was the son of pious parent from a family of Torah greats and rabbis. He was born in 1874 in the city of Kapyl (Kapoli), district of Minsk in White Russia.
Rabbi Shimon the son of Avraham was the son of pious parents from a family of Torah greats and rabbis. He was born in 1874 in the city of Kapyl (Kapoli), district of Minsk in White Russia.
He received a traditional Jewish education, as was customary in those days. When he got older, he studied in the famous Volozhin Yeshiva and later in the Yeshiva of Slobodka-Kovno.
He became known for his sharp mind and his great expertise in Gemara, Tosafot, and rabbinical responsa. He was brought in honor to his hometown of Kapyl to serve as the rabbi.
He was liked by the townsfolk, and he was accepted by all circles of the community. When the town was conquered by the Bolsheviks in 1919, he was forced to escape, for he was known as an enthusiastic Zionist. In 1921, the heads of the community of Eishishok asked him to fill the place of the Gaon Rabbi Yosef Zundel Hutner of blessed memory, who had died two years previously, and left the town without a spiritual leader. He [Rabbi Rozovski] served in the rabbinate in Eishishok for twenty years, until the day of his tragic death along with thousands of members of his community, on 5 Tishrei, 5702 [1941]. May G-d avenge his blood.
Rabbi Shimon Rozovski did not cloister himself within the four ells of Torah. Rather, he was an important activist in the Mizrachi movement, and participated as a delegate in many conventions and gatherings of that party. He was also active in work on behalf of the national funds. He took an interest in the economic and communal life of the Eishishok community. He was among the doers and activists in every important communal endeavor. He spoke well and fulfilled [his obligations] well [i.e., he not only spoke, but he acted].
He published many articles in Zionist newspapers both in Poland and in the Land of Israel. He prepared to publish a Torah book called Shevet Shimon, but the manuscript, like the author, was lost forever during the time of destruction.
[Page 126]
As has been said, Rabbi Shimon Rozovski was one of the few rabbis in Lithuania and Poland who bore the banner of Zionism up high and with pride. He did not flinch from the attacks of his rabbinical comrades, who, for the most part, tended toward the anti-Zionist Agudas Yisroel. He also knew how to befriend the youth and help them in their cultural and Zionist activities. He also wrote articles for Unzer Fand [Our Banner], that was published by the Jewish National Fund in Eishishok in 1936. He wrote the following among the rest of his words:
“… The Torah tells us ‘and you shall take possession of it and settle in it.’ [Numbers 33:53] It is our obligation to take possession of our land… We have no other path than to redeem our land with the best of our money, our fat, and our blood. Every person who donates to the Jewish National Fund [Keren Kayemet LeYisrael] redeems our Land every day, and fulfills the commandment ‘and you shall take possession of it and settle in it.’ Therefore, my heart is glad when I see that the honorable residents of my city are virtually all lovers of Zion, who fulfil this great commandment and support the Jewish National Fund. This is especially the case now, during these times, when the Jewish National Fund is making a great rectification, for all the residents on the lands owned by the Jewish National Fund are obligated to observe the Sabbath along with all the commandments dependent on the Land…”
When the booklet “The Charitable Fund” was published in Eishishok in 1936, we find in it an article written by him regarding the value of charitable deeds, for the heart of our rabbi was alert to all communal needs, large and small. He played an active role in everything, acting and urging others to act. He aroused the masses and urged them toward faithful communal activism.
However, the crowning achievement of his communal work was for the Refugee Committee, which he headed. Many eyewitnesses in this anthology have written about this. Thousands of refugees who passed through Eishishok at the beginning of the war owe him thanks for this assistance, and for perhaps also saving them from the danger of death at the hands of the Communist and Lithuanian police.
Thus did he stand at the head of the community of Eishishok for the last twenty years of his life and of the life of his community, until he drank from the poison cup, as he witnessed the destruction of his beloved community with his own eyes, and met his own death – the death of a martyr – among his unfortunate community members.
May his soul be bound in the bonds of eternal life!
Yitzchak Ogen
Translated by Jerrold Landau
On a cold, snowy winter day, a young lad, approximately 18 years old, girded himself and emerged from the sled that stopped in the town courtyard next to the well. He stood for a moment to gird his bones, which were sore after a 25-kilometer journey from the railway station to his destination. The wagon driver did not wait until his sole passenger shook himself off properly. He hurried up and jumped off his platform, tossed the lad's heavy suitcase to the ground, grunted a sort of greeting, hurried back to his place, and set off on his way, pulling the rains and cracking the whip, forging a new path in the fresh, pure snow, as he disappeared from the eye on a small alleyway in a corner of the square yard. The lad remained standing in this white town, as his heart wondered and palpitated regarding what was to come. At that time, it seemed that the town was empty of its residents. The small, black houses stood in silence, peering with their caulked, closed, patched windows upon the streets, which were empty of people. Only the thin smoke spiraling up from the chimneys gave evidence to the presence of residents of the houses, dealing with their day-to-day lives. Suddenly, the lad noticed a scalding glance, and was taken aback as a person caught in his disgrace. As he turned his head, he noticed in the nearby window a face looking through the pane, with eyes staring at him, assessing him … wondering… He took hold of his suitcase, and, as gestured by the peering eyes, forged his way to that home to ask for the location of the house of the principal of the town's Hebrew school, Mr. Botwinik.
That young lad from Vilna served in that town, Eishishok, as a Hebrew teacher for a short period of only five weeks. For various reasons, he was forced to abandon his post and return to his home. However, those five weeks are etched in his memory forever. When he remembers those days, and when the image of the town, its people, its youth, its children, and everything therein comes before his eyes… and it seems at times that this is merely a dream and nothing more. Indeed, this town did not appear before him as a dream…
[Page 128]
Twenty-five kilometers from the railway station, cut off from the central living arteries of the poor state, it seems at times that the distance is farther. Around a great desert, with much desolation, in this desolate heart a place of human habitation sprouts out before him, as an oasis in the desert. The landscape is unique, unlike other landscapes in the towns of Poland, for it is lacking forests. This made an impression upon him, emboldened him, and strengthened him.
Indeed, Eishishok, you seemed to me as an island in the heart of the desert, a town of Israel. A Jewish town sprouted up in the desert of the Polish Diaspora, wonderful in its kind, serving as a pure birthplace for a Hebrew lad dreaming of aliya to the Land (waiting for a certificate, like all Jewish lads in those days). It demonstrated the revival of the nation and the language. On its own, far from other Jewish settlements and even from Christian settlements, it had a Jewish life that had no shortage of images and splendor of the desired life that will eventually be there, there…
There was no community in the Diaspora of Poland where the vast majority of its residents, young like old, men like women, knew Hebrew as in Eishishok. That Hebrew School existed for nearly three generations, went through several forms and incarnations, and was transferred as an inheritance to its final owners. Three generations received a modern Hebrew education. Hebrew, almost like a spoken language, was on the mouths of all its residents. There is no doubt that the children already learned the language from their mothers, who put them to sleep with Hebrew melodies and folksongs. All residents of Eishishok, as Zionists, as Mizrachi followers, as Bundists and Communists (for there were all types in the town, as was usual in Jewish communities of Poland), all of them were fans of Hebrew with their full heart. They supported it with their mouths as with their hearts. All of them knew Hebrew and loved to speak it. Even the stormy debates in the presence of the Hebrew teacher, the purpose of which was to change his mind or negate his influence, even they were in the purity of the Hebrew language. Such Hebrew personalities were found to me, the Hebrew teacher for a brief period, later only in the Land [of Israel], and even here, not in every place, and not with such enthusiasm, with such love, love for its own sake. I testify before the heavens and the earth that several innovations of the language, which I discovered in the Land, some of which I have not heard the likes of – were created in Eishishok for the needs of the time, for the needs of expression, the joy of speaking, and the necessity of speaking…
|
|
| The Hebrew school and its teachers in 1925 In the center of the principal Botwinik, one of the active cultural doers of Eishishok |
[Page 129]
Spread and woven before his soul was a complete Jewish town, the dream of a different reality and of a life that was not here. With a meager livelihood, poor in deeds, with lots of time on his hands, a complete Jewish community was spread out and the dream of leaving the place and planting himself in a different place was woven. Many lads uprooted themselves form Eishishok, with the vast majority settling in the Land of Israel. Letters that arrived from them became public property, passing from hand to hand, and serving as a source of joy and encouragement for complete months. At times when I went out at night, tired of conversation and heavy in ideas, to wander through the alleyways of the town, the reality turned into a legend for me. I did not know where I was, and what place this town had chosen for itself. I imagined orchards growing and sprouting from its alleyways. The sounds of the waves of the Mediterranean Sea rose to my ears. The mountains of Judea cast their large shadows on the belly of the town, on the well, the swipe and bucket of which penetrated as a flat into the night, the last color of the shepherds…
I left the town, and its image is etched in my heart. I bear its burden as a precious gift that cannot be assigned a value. As the image of the town comes before my eyes, two significant feelings tug at me. I see, in my consciousness, the town emptied of its residents. They all left and are all here in the Land, scattered in all the settlements and cities of the Land. On the other hand, my heart and I have a different desire: To visit the town once more, which dwells alone, as an oasis in the desert of the far-off Diaspora, and to find there, complete and standing in all its essence and charm – that same birth-hive that is etched in his languages, dreams, and ideas… until the end that was more bitter than all came. Until I have an opportunity to meet with a refugee, a native of Congress Poland, who told me and left no more space for a dream. There is no place for anything other than a singular feeling of horror, of boundless horror and love.
Eishishok was transferred to Lithuania at the beginning of the war. It served as a border city, as a large center for Jewish refugees who escaped from Poland and wanted to go to Vilna or Kovno, from where they would have a hope of setting out for the Land. Eishishok girded itself completely, as a unified effort, to assist the refugees. It received them, and provided them with everything they could, with its entire soul and resources. Nobody was opposed. No resident of the town ignored the tribulation.
[Page 130]
When isolated individuals, individuals only, asked for recompence for their toil (it is not that, Heaven forbid, they denied their help), the rabbi convened a large gathering in the synagogue, and imposed a great ban on the transgressors, with black candles and a curse…
Eishishok, this dear Jewish city, was completely destroyed, and is no more. It lived like a dream, and was erased like a dream.
Tel Aviv, July 20, 1948.
by Rachel Abiri (Strikovski)
Translated by Jerrold Landau
In the great deluge of blood that befell the world, my small town – my charming town with its five roads that all converged in the market square in the center of the city – also drowned. From the images of your good, pure Jews, in whose hearts burned the holy fire of love of their nation and its Torah, Jews who were not excited by grandeur, but rather lived their simple, upright lives with the toil of their hands and commerce. From among these precious personalities flutter the dear images of the Yoseles and the Sarales [“little Josephs and little Sarahs”], their childhood deliberations, their laughter and cries filling the room of “my kindergarten”… the first Hebrew kindergarten twenty years ago in my town of Eishishok.
Behold, I see you in front of my eyes as if alive… You Sarale Libati – your blue eyes always laughing, for they saw a world full of innocence and splendor. And your dimples on your round cheeks. Oh, I could kiss them! You were the center of the “group”! ... And you, serious Mirele [“little Miriam”], with the black curls, looking upon the agony of the world. You .. were also successful in the games that you organized! ... How, how, Sarale? – did cruel foul people snuff out the wick of your young life! And you, Gitele Kumin – the famous “artiste”!
I remember the first Purim play of my kindergarten that we performed in the house of Jurditzinski (The Freiseliche). For the first time in your short life, you marched on the boards of the stage that was set up with love and dedication by Motke Burstin and Yankele, the son of the smith, according
[Page 131]
to all the “technical wisdom” in their hands. You ascended the stage, you, four years old, with strength, without fear. You recited, sang, and acted like a veritable “artiste.” Your parents and your entire audience who heard and saw you rejoice in joy and were full of satisfaction [naches]. All foresaw a great future for you – an exemplary actress!
The crowding was so great that Leibele, the son of Leizer Remz, could not ascend the stage to “play his role”... and his father placed him on his shoulders and from that “stage” he flawlessly recited his declamation, without fear of the audience, and earned a stormy applause.
Then came the turn of the “Gypsy girl dance.”
Mirale the daughter of Esther Kiuczewski, dressed in your colorful costume, “literally” a gypsy girl, started to dance. Your small feet took mincing steps on the boards of the stage… and you brought the audience of mothers and fathers to exceptional amazement and emotion!
And behold, you too, “our hero” – the oldest son of Batya and Tzvi Kopelman – I have forgotten your name – as twenty years have already passed since then!![1]
All of the children of the kindergarten were afraid of your small fists. More than once, I had to scold you for your acts of mischief. How is it now! Did you grow up and become a mighty man? Did you merit to repay the impure ones their just deserts, and take revenge for your parents, your family members, and all the residents of your town, as one of the partisans?
And perhaps you remained alive as one of the Holocaust survivors, and succeeded in coming to the Land [of Israel], and are among the camp of builders of the new homeland??...
Where are you all? I do not remember all your names now. The vicissitudes of life have caused me to forget them. However, your memories are alive in my heart, and I will remember you will love and reverence all the days of my life…
by Uri Rozovski
Translated by Jerrold Landau
This was in 1925. The situation of the Jews of Poland became more serious, and their economic situation was literally catastrophic. This was the well-known “Grabski era”[2]. The Zionist movements with all its streams and factions ruled the Jewish street, and the aspiration of the masses of Jews, especially the youth, was aliya [emigrating] to the Land of Israel.
[Page 132]
One bright day, news spread in the town that the family of Zeev Sznider, one of the honorable families with many children, was preparing to make aliya to the Land.
This news had a novelty to it. A well-off Jew, honorable in his community, was abandoning his hometown, liquidating his assets, and preparing to settle in the Land of Israel… The Zionist parties regarded this event as a singular opportunity to demonstrate the love of their townsfolk for the Land of Israel.
A committee was set up to organize a large farewell celebration. The night of the farewell celebration arrived. It was a black, dark night, but suddenly the windows of the houses lit up with candelabras and candles. Members of the Zionist youth organizations -- Hechalutz, Hechalutz HaMizrachi, Hechalutz Hatzair, and Hashomer Hatzair – appeared in formation in lines, with torches in their hands. Each organization was in its designated spot. All of the organizations carried their flag and mottoes… Then the Sznider family left their house, surrounded by crowds from the city, relatives, acquaintances, and ordinary Jews. A large parade took place, with riders in front, and formations of youths with their flags behind them, singing songs of Zion. The streets were lit up like day, and the joy and emotions were very great.
The procession stopped at the edge of Radun Street, on the road leading to the Bastuny railway station[3], next to the house of Meir the Teacher. The rabbi of the city, Rabbi Shimon Rozovski, one of the veteran activists of Mizrachi in the district of Vilna, delivered a farewell speech, with his face beaming from joy and emotion. He spoke warm, enthusiastic words about the love of Zion and the revival of the nation. When he finished, he kissed the head of the family, Mr. Zeev Sznider. Then, leaders of the Zionist organizations spoke. Zeev Sznider and his son Shaul, the founder of the Hashomer Hatzair chapter in the city, responded to the blessings and greetings. The townsfolk then bid farewell to those making aliya, with the singing of Hatikva[4] by the thousands in attendance, with tears streaming from the eyes of many. All of those gathered returned to the town. All the organizations arranged themselves, gathered together, and returned to their meeting places. The sounds of song and dance of the local Zionist youth could be heard until a late hour. That evening was indeed an evening of great impression and essence. It was spoken of for a long time.
However, there were other results of that evening. The Polish priest and the town physician,
[Page 133]
great anti-Semites, complained to the head of the district government in Lida about the police chief of Eishishok for granting permission for the Jews to organize a “Zionist demonstration” and disturb the sleep of the calm residents until a late hour of the night…
Incidentally, the police chief was an apostate Jew who had a very positive attitude to the Zionist movement. He was fired for this, and a new police chief was appointed, whose relations were more exacting and stringent. Nevertheless, the impression of the “Zionist demonstration” did not depart from the hearts of the townsfolk for a long time, and brought many people close to the Zionist idea.
by Mordechai Kaleko
Translated by Jerrold Landau
|
My native shtetl, you innocent victim, The hands of the enemy did not pass over you People like beasts – barbaric, corrupt Turned you into a bloody field. The market with shops, the houses were set on fire –The wind from the wide forests blows Colorful wreaths of flowers, twist; Among the fields, sown with grain I would sing and dance joyfully there. Everyone relaxed there near the small stream,My shtetl was beautiful on the Sabbath early morning When Jews walked calmly from the synagogue, visiting… Children played around Jewish houses – – – Where are you now??? – murdered, murdered… I see my town on Sabbath eves –Oy! The day turned into a dark night… I see the destruction from afar – – – Will the bestial regime pay for it?! With the revenge for those times come soon??? |
Translator's Footnotes
|
|
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
Eišiškes, Lithuania
Yizkor Book Project
JewishGen Home Page
Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 24 Oct 2022 by JH