[Page 489]

We are at the end of our substantive history. In the pages of our Pinkas up to this point, are found the chapters of our dear home city, from its genesis, through all of the periods of its life, creating and struggling for its existence until the Holocaust. In the course of the hundreds of years, which the Zamość community existed, she had builders and activists in every generation, those who with their personalities and with their work, helped with the building up and the development of a community, and made Zamość renown in the larger world. Many of these self-same individuals are mentioned in tens of the memoirs of our Pinkas up till now. There are special essays about a portion of these individuals, a portion of which have been incorporated into general writings.

However, the number of those not mentioned is even larger. This was not done intentionally – the editors of the Pinkas had not received from everyone the appropriate materials about everybody. In the following pages, an entire gallery of individuals is presented, about which news has been received. This gallery is multi-hued, and a rainbow of many colors is reflected in it, which illuminated our city; every one of these people obtained a place here – and all the places are important ones. There is no priority in this section, as to who comes first and who comes later, there is no chronological order, and no group-selections. This was caused primarily for technical reasons: the material about the later activists was in hand earlier, and the material about the earlier activists was only now later received. And perhaps it is good that there is no sort of ‘order’ in this section about the individuals. Each stands in our memorial book in a place of honor.

In this section, there are individuals who passed away from this world in the normal course of human events, dying a natural death, and also martyrs, killed by the unclean hands of the Nazis.

Also, we did have an intent in this regard – let the generations and eras of our Zamość become interwoven, which with all of its hundreds of years become as one, one great example of martyrdom, as holy as all of the many communities that were cut down by the Nazis and their accomplices, may their names and memories be erased.

We are providing an accounting, that this section is far from being complete, and filled out. However, this is not our fault. All materials that was under our control were utilized.

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Once again, I bring here a series of personalities, activists in the socialist movement, people who were active in cultural doings, Jewish people of the spirit, free, enlightened and observant, with which our Zamość was sufficiently well-endowed. I bring those names that I remember; without a doubt, their number is much larger; perhaps these others are recalled elsewhere in the pages of this Pinkas. I am also assuming that even for those that are introduced here, many facts are missing, primarily biographical. However, not looking at these deficiencies, they must be in our Pinkas to be memorialized – let them be an example to the generations, about the spiritual wealth, of all kinds, which we had, and which this last calamity has annihilated.

There was Jew amongst us named Chaim Huberman. He had a son, Leon, and two daughters, Lonya and Andzheh. All were students. They were drawn into the socialist movement even before the ‘fifth’ year. Both sisters were also among the founders of the ‘Bund’ in Zamość. Andzheh remained in Russia with S. Ashkenazi, after the First World War. Lonya was in Zamość, and worked in the municipal hospital as a feldscher until the year 1939. She was killed by the Nazi murderers.

We had a little Jewish man named Shmuel Ashkenazi. He was a scholar, an enlightened person, a sympathizer with socialism, even with communist tendencies. All of [his] children entered the socialist movement. He prayed every day. He was a member of a variety of groups. In old age, he worked as the treasurer in the People's Bank. He was a genuine pearl of the city. He passed away a number of years before the Holocaust. He was a childhood friend of I. L. Peretz. He was always the Honorary Chairman of the I. L. Peretz Library.

Jonah-Joshua Peretz – brother of I. L. Peretz. A scholar, a sharp mind, worldly educated; he was often a councilman in the city; beloved by Jews and Christians – everyone related to him with deference; a free-thinker; he supported all the institutions of all parties in the city; he intervened on everyone's behalf; he never refused anyone; a real gem. He passed away close to the beginning of the Second World War.

A Jew was with us by the name of Elyakim. His family name was not known. He sat day and night in the Bet HaMedrash, and studied. During the Sabbath, he did not utter words having to do with the regular days of the week. His wife, ‘the kerosene lady,’ would feed him – she would go about selling kerosene from door-to-door. He didn't lecture anyone. He did not get involved in community matters.

Who did not know the Gorlitzer Hasid Azriel Bokser – a short, scrawny Jewish man, who prayed in the Belzer shtibl? He came from a shtetl near Kreszow. He had a wife who was a true Woman of Valor, who had a colonial business. During the Russian periods, she dealt with the officers. They were important people to them. They loved him, and thanks to that, many Jews were excused from military service. He was extremely pious, but for himself – not lecturing others; a simple man, not seeking aggrandizement.

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Shmuel Grossbaum, or as he was called: Shmuel'keh Dovidl Voveh's. A Torah scholar of a Jew; he had certification to be a ritual slaughterer; he was a Hasid, and became an atheist, a freethinker; erect in his bearing, and wearing long Jewish garb; active in community affairs, which had to do with education, enlightenment, upbringing. Did not seek honor; his children were educated in the Jewish and secular spirit.

We had a person known as ‘Aharon Deftak.’ However, his [sic: real] name was Aharon Goldgraber. He was a Jew who was a scholar. He was very well read and educated. He was a son of the Dayan; Dressed in long garb; He became a freethinker. He did not conceal his free-thinking – he made himself a ‘short jacket’ and became a frequent visitor to the I. L. Peretz Library. Before he ‘went bad,’ he was a Gerrer Hasid. He enjoyed to engage with his former Hasidic friends. He was a fine, and good-hearted person.

Yaakov-Meir Topf. A son of an elementary school teacher. A hatmaker. He always worked as an employee. An enlightened socialist, who joined the Bund, after the ‘fifth’ year. With regard to his position towards the communist party, he was neutral. He was a perennial chairman at worker assemblies. For a time, he was a member of the management committee of the Peretz Library. He was a member of the management committee of the trade unions. Killed by the Hitler-murderers.

Chaim Shtikh. – Born to Hasidic parents at the end of the previous century. Received an orthodox upbringing. At the age of 15 he begins to learn languages, and read books. During the time of the Austrian occupation, he enters the ranks of the Bund, where he belongs to the ranks of the active doers. After this, he is one of the founders of the Y. Sh. O. and becomes its chairman. He teaches cultural history in the evening classes of the Y. Sh. O. He is among the most active to get the closed Peretz Library re-opened, and supports the Library in a material fashion. After the outbreak of the last world war, he takes up residence in Kremenic (Volhynia). There, he is murdered by the German-Ukrainian Nazis.

Israel Zitzer – a son of a butcher. He studied, and became a bookkeeper with the Markfeld brothers, and afterwards in the mill of the Cohen brothers. He was not understandable. In the elections to the city council, he was a candidate on the communist ticket. He became a councilman. He was honest to a fault. He exerted himself to carry out all directives, that the initiators of the ticket had provided. Because of this, he lost his position with the Cohens. After that, he suffered a great deal. He lost his mind. This sort of task was too much for his mental faculties. He was killed by the Nazi beasts.

Meir Sternfinkel – Was born to Hasidic and intelligent parents, a grandson of Aharon Pfeffer. Apart from a traditional education, he also received a secular one. He was a graduate of the Polish Gymnasium. He joins the ranks of the Bund in the year 1923, and becomes the secretary of the organization. He is also the secretary of the Y. Sh. O. division in Zamość. During the 30's, he becomes a city councilman from the Bund, where he defends the interests and the dignity of the Jewish folk masses. An incident occurred with Sternfeld in the city council, which is among the very few in the history of Polish city councils. At a particular sitting of the city council, a ‘patriotic’ proposal was put forward by the Endekists, that the general of the Zamość military garrison should be given the title of ‘honorary citizen of Zamość.’ Meir Sternfeld came out against this. He justified his position by saying that the city doesn't have to award an honorary citizenship to persons that are seen to be hated by the populace. This general does not permit Jewish carriage drivers onto the premises of the barracks. He ordered that Christian carriage drivers should wear a metal badge on their hats, with the words: ‘Drozkarz Chrzescianski,’ meaning a Christian carriage driver, in order that there be no ‘mistakes.’ For this act of ‘chutzpah,’ Sternfeld was locked out of his position as a councilman in the city council. He left Zamość after the Hitler invasion of Poland in 1939. He was killed in Bialystok by the Nazi beasts.

Leibl Zetz. – A fanatic and totally committed communist. Honest. However, this did not help, and during the war he was exiled to Siberia. He constantly argued that all of the impermissible things were being done without the knowledge of Stalin. He also held, that it was important to find any means possible to make Stalin aware of these things. One time,

[Page 492]

on a Sunday, he went off to the Regional City, 50 kilometers from the place to which he was exiled, and met there with an officer of the Red Army, and told him ‘everything that he knew,’ and requested that this be relayed to Stalin. Returning to the place of exile, he happily repeated: ‘Now, it's going to be all right.’ ‘Stalin will know everything.’ After the liberation of Polish citizens from the exile colonies, on the strength of an amnesty, he died.

Yerakhmiel Brandwein

Hirsch Fruchtgarten

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a fashion salon. He is the Bund councilman in the city council of Chelm. In the year 1935, he and his family take up residence in Warsaw. Here also, he is active in the movement. Right along with all other Warsaw residents, he, together with his wife and three children, are killed by the Nazi murderers. His oldest son, Moshe, survived the war, and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, and is found today in Israel.

Shayndl Hechtkopf

While she was in the Gymnasium of her home city, she belonged, for a short time, to the revisionist youth organization, ‘Masada,’ which she left, and went over to the general Zionist Youth Movement. Coming to Warsaw, she joined ‘Freiheit,’ and the Zionist-Socialist Student Organization (also, her two younger brothers became members of the Zionist-Socialist Student Organization), in which she was one of the most active members, and she dedicated a lot of time to it. She was also active in the Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.) Party, participated in the leadership of the Peretz Library, organized education circles for workers, evening courses, summer colonies, etc. Alert and good-hearted, loved by all of the comrades. She responded to every calling made by the movement.

With boundless commitment, she remained at her post in the depression time. Tirelessly, and with great energy, she carried out the requests of the movement in every critical moment. She was secretary of the Warsaw party committee, and one of the most active people in the organization. She worked as a director in the people's kitchen, which at the same time served as a meeting place for the membership. She recreated anew, the Zionist-socialist Academic circle – together with Meir (Mark) Meirovich Ruth Maliniak. Meetings and discussions of the party committee would take place at her home. On September 6, 1942, she was arrested, and on the 10^th she was taken to the death camp at Treblinka. The movement expended great effort to free her, but she did not want to leave her mother, who was deported along with her. Her name is found among those on the is of those ‘Leaders Who Fell At Their Post,’ who are recalled in the letter of the party to the United International Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.) Organization of November 15, 1943.

[Molech Neustadt – ‘The Destruction and Resistance of the Jews of Warsaw’ – Second Section: Those Who Fell at their Post, pp. 433-534. Tel-Aviv 5708 (1948)]

Yohanan Morgenstern

A postcard from Yohanan Morgenstern to Molech Neustadt, the author of the book, ‘Destruction and Resistance of the Jews in Warsaw.’ The postcard left Warsaw on June 1, 1942, and was sent to Constantinople. The return address, Shakharson, is the former pseudonym, of Morgenstern Shakhar.

[Page 494]

the masses in the province, and he was one of the committed and loyal chief activists during over more than two decades. Not many comrades visited so thoroughly the large, expanse of Polish Jewry in its fullness from one end of the country to the other, – whether this was Eastern Galicia, or the Vilna Region, Zaglembia or the Bialystok Region. The comrades from these locations, always received him with satisfaction. He was a talented orator, and also, with his external appearance, he inspired sympathy among the comrades. His personal inclination was to literary themes. However, the needs of the movement directed him on other paths. He was employed at the daily newspaper of the Party, ‘Befreiung-Arbeiter-Stimme,’ and later in the daily newspaper, ‘Das Wort’ (under the pseudonym Y. Shakhar). He portrayed life in the provinces in small works, he delineated ugliness, and fought for improvements. He visited the Holy Land and during a period of several weeks, traveled throughout the land, and learned about the problems and happenings. From that time on, he dreamed of freeing himself from party work in Poland, in order to take up residence in the Land of Israel.

In the final years before the war, he was among the active members in the central committee of the party, and in its name, he also was active in the Bureau of the Jewish World Congress. Almost immediately before the outbreak of the war, he was designated as the secretary of the League for Labor in Israel in Poland. He was a delegate from the Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.) Party to the 21^st Zionist Congress in Geneva, and held many conferences and discussions with comrades from the Land of Israel on the strength of his prior activity of working in the Land of Israel and in Poland in the recent period.

During the German occupation, he was arrested and sent to a labor camp in Lublin. Many successful attempts were made to help him escape from there. He returned to Warsaw, and was among those, around whom the underground activity of the Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.) Party coalesced. It was only in these gruesome years, that his commitment and loyalty revealed itself in full force. He was at the head of JEAS, he was the chairman of the movement in ‘Joint,’ he was one of those, whose task it was to maintain contact with the outside world, and up to a short time before his death, we had much news from him. He was one of the principal initiators and member of the presidium of the Jewish National Committee. He belonged to the staff of the Jewish Fighting Organization – the leader of its finance division. His participation is mentioned in all areas, partaking in all activities. Lastly, he worked as a construction worker in the ‘kleines shoppe,’ with Schultz. During the principal battles, in April 1943, he was in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the first telegrams to the outside, about the ghetto rebellion, his name appears among the signatories in the name of the Jewish National Committee. On April 29, he was in the group that was taken out by way of the sewer system on the Aryan side. About 30 members of the movement were hidden in a bunker of the Jewish Resistance Organization on the Aryan side, at Agrodova 29. On May 6, the Gestapo discovered the bunker, and all those found there were taken to the S.S. Commander. The women were sent to the death camp of Majdanek and the men were murdered on the spot (among them was also the member of the Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.) Party in Warsaw, Yehoshua Malevanchik, an energetic fighter from the Jewish Resistance Organization, who was a talented and loyal employee of the espionage division). Yohanan Morgenstern's name is found in the lists of the fallen in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in the fighting division of Poalei-Tzion (Tz. S.). From a very well-branched out family – a wife, parents, 4 sisters, and a brother, only his older sister, Esther, remained alive, who came to Israel at the end of 1947, and a second sister, Pearl, who went off to Russia in 1940.

[The notice, as well as the photograph of the post card are from the book by M. Neustadt, about the battle and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, published in Tel-Aviv, 5708 (1948).]

Abraham Zvi Ehrlich (Hershkeh) ז”ל

Abraham Zvi Ehrlich

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A student of the Gymnasium of the Jewish community of Zamość. The program of study in this Gymnasium was an exact copy of the teaching program in the Polish government Gymnasiums, the language of instruction was Polish, the studies in Jewish studies were meager, because the leadership of the Gymnasium were from the half-assimilated circles. It is no wonder, that as a result of such an upbringing, the concept of a national way of life was alien to most of the students, and because of the anti-Semitic wave, that had engulfed the Polish youth in the schools, the young Jewish students turned their eyes to revolutionary ideas, from which their entire salvation was expected to spring. Most of the students belonged to the assimilated circle of the so-called ‘salon-communists,’ who were strangers to the Zionist concept.

Hershkeh had the temerity to swim against the current, and his commitment to the Zionist-socialist concept was boundless, he was intensely active in practical Zionist work, in the fund-raising for Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael.

Endowed with great skills, he was one of the first students in the class, in which learning came to him with special ease, and he dedicated his free time in the evenings to cultural and educational work among the youth, especially in ‘Freiheit-Dror.’

He did exceptionally well on the graduation examinations, which were extra (because the Jewish Gymnasium did not have the same right as the government Gymnasium), and the chairman of the examinations committee, a Pole, and anti-Semite, predicted a brilliant future for him. His parents, from the ‘middle-ranks’ of the middle class, did not have the necessary means for him to continue his studies, and he was compelled to occupy himself for an entire year in giving lectures, in order to amass the necessary sum for continuing study.

In the university as well, he was active in the Tz. S. circle, this was in the time of the wild predations of the Endekist anti-Semitic students and when they proclaimed ‘A Day Without Jews,’ his proud nature did not permit him to knuckle under, he and one other friend came that day to learn at the university – and he got a gruesome beating that day from student-pogromists and lay ill of a longer period of time.

In the fall of 1939, fleeing from the Nazis, he became tossed into the part of Poland invaded by the Soviets, and then worked as a teacher of mathematics in the Volksschule of Svislucz (Bialystoker area), in the 6^th and 7^th classes. Because of his striving to come to the Land of Israel, he declined to accept a Soviet pass and he was then send to the Siberian wilds of Vologda by the N.K.V.D. He spent 15 months in the camp, doing hard physical labor, bad food, and deprived of liberty. His health was undermined at that time.

After the amnesty of the Polish citizens, after the attack by Hitlerists against Soviet Russia, he wandered into South Russia in the steppes of Uzbekistan, with a clear goal to cross the border at the first opportunity, and to reach The Land. Yet another year went by, of fresh wanderings, hard physical labor, an absence of bread and a roof over the head – his spiritual and physical strength were undermined.

With the mobilization of the Polish ‘Anders’ Milit6ary Force, the Russians suddenly transferred 400 Jewish refugees from Poland, to Teheran, who were located in Turkestan. They paid no mind to the opposition of the anti-Semitic ‘Anders’ Battalions, who did not want to accept any Jews into the Polish military. Hershkeh was to be found among these refugees. In Teheran, he made contact with an office of the Land of Israel, and in July 1942, he arrived in Israel.

Arriving in The Land, as someone who had been attracted by ‘Dror,’ he joined Kibbutz ‘Etz HaYam,’ in Atlit. There he found his brother, who was the sole survivor of his entire family. His sister was murdered by the Nazis, his parents, who were refugees in Russia, died there.

He was in the kibbutz for four years, and he was active in all areas of kibbutz life, and especially in the ‘Haganah.’ Life on the kibbutz influenced him greatly, and it was there that all the energies of his spirit and soul were revealed. He married there, and a daughter was born to him.

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A day came when he decided to transfer to another kibbutz. He was not given the opportunity to do this, and he was compelled, despite his wish to live a city life, to transfer to Kfar Atta. There, he worked as a construction worker, and he prepared himself to return to his studies at the Haifa Technical Institute, and to slake his thirst for continued education.

On May 30, 1948, he was mobilized into the Haganah L'Yisrael and was transferred to the ‘Giveati’ Brigade. Paying no heed to his weakened health condition (affecting his eyes and feet), he refused to work in the military command structure, which was proposed to him, but rather he presented himself to be put in the front ranks of battle. He participated in all the battles to liberate the Negev.

In the battle of the night of 15 Tishri 5709 (October 19, 1948), he fell in the action to capture Sulikat. He had the great privilege of being among the ones who opened the way into the Negev. His memory, and the memory of his fellow combatants, who were heroes will never be forgotten by the Jewish People.

Israel Rosett

Israel Rosett

He was a member of the Zionist Party Council in Poland, and the chairman of the Zamość Zionist Organization. A councilman in the municipal council and a member of the leadership committee of the community.

He was the model of an honest community activist, known for his upstanding nature and commitment. The Jews of Zamość remember very well his energetic stands in the city council against the anti-Semitic councilmen.

Being active in many philanthropic institutions, he was personally among the greatest spenders, setting an example, in this manner, for others.

He was killed by the Nazi murderers in the year 1942 in Kremenec (Volhynia), where he had gone to on the eve of the occupation of Zamość by the Hilterists.

Translator's footnotes:

1. In this case, the sense seems to be a store that dealt in women's dresses (Konfekcja damska in Polish). Return
2. During the nineteenth century, Vologda gained notoriety as a place of exile for political prisoners. Among its most famous inhabitants-in-exile were: Peter Lavrov, a revolutionary populist exiled to Vologda Province from 1867 until 1870, when he escaped to Paris; and Joseph Djugashvili (Stalin), who was exiled to Vologda and the surrounding towns three times between 1909 and 1912, Each time he was able to escape after a few months, a leniency that would have been unthinkable under his Gulag system. Return

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Ner Elohim Nishmat Adam – Man's soul is a candle of God. The candle burns, and it illuminated with light – so long as the man lives. If the man dies, the light is extinguished. But only the ‘surrounding light’ goes out, the ‘reflected light’ remains with the living, nestling into the memory, and shines their like an Eternal Light.

It was in the year of 1908, and my need was such that I was a ‘son-in-law being under support’ at the home of the Rabbi of the Zamość Neustadt, of blessed memory. I was approximately 20 years old at the time. Through my window, I would see – every day, and possibly several times a day – a Jewish man walking by, clean, handsome, dressed immaculately, with an already silvery combed beard, with a patriarchal appearance, and with a straight step, and in general different from the average Neustadt Jew. And it was precisely this difference that intrigued me, to want to know: who is this Jewish man?

It was springtime, during the days of the counting of the Omer, between Passover and Shavuot, on a morning. Not far from the open window, the Rabbi sat and studied – deeply immersed in an issue, and I also was at that moment in the courthouse room – needing to ‘look into’ a book, and I hear:

– A good morning to you, Rabbi!

– A good year, Moshe'leh.

I look about – it is the ‘interesting’ Jewish man… I slide myself into a corner, perhaps I am not supposed to hear…. and a couple of minutes later, I hear how the Rabbi says to Moshe'leh:

– Regarding the second issue, we will talk at another time, because I do not want to disrupt my study.

And R' Moshe'leh answers the Rabbi in a friendly way, with a smile:

– Rabbi, when we retained you as a Rabbi, you already ‘knew enough,’ and you can relax a bit from studying…

This very answer made me even more curious to know, to know – who is he, this very R' Moshe'leh?

On that same day, a Shammes, – R' Berel Pagoda – came into the Bet HaMedrash, and when R' Berel was at the point of already departing, I asked him to come into my room, and I honored him with a L' Chaim, and in this manner, speaking with R' Ber'eleh, I posed a question to him:

– Who is this R' Moshe'leh?

– Oh, you undoubtedly mean R' Moshe'leh Strekher – his family name is actually Zilber.

– So why then is he called Strekher?

– Oh, this is quite a story: at one time, R' Moshe'leh was actually a teacher– he taught children. He would also write briefs for the courts – he was not a lawyer – but he knew the work, and he would write them up free of charge for poor people, a very decent person, very decent, and finally, he began to work in, of all places, a brick factory, where bricks were manufactured for houses. He would straighten out the bricks, so they would be smooth, and that's why he is called R' Moshe'leh Strekher, but – R' Berel adds further – he is an ‘enlightened’ person, he is not a Hasid, he does not travel to, nor attend the court of any Rebbe, and believe me, this very R' Moshe'leh knows more than other religious fanatics

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who hold themselves to be big Hasidim. R' Moshe'leh is a smart man, a happy person, you need to hear some of his bon mots – they are profound… a really special person…

A day later, I was already personally acquainted with R' Moshe'leh. How does the expression go: where there is a will – there is a way. True, I was a 20 year-old, and he, a 60 year-old, but the difference in our ages was not a barrier to our friendship. And immediately after our first meeting, we became intoxicated with mutual friendship. Our names got switched: instead of R' Moshe'leh Strekher – friend Zilber; and instead of the Rabbi's R' Yankel'eh – friend Rothenstein…

It is not possible to forget, that one time, in an intimate conversation, when I had asked my friend Zilber: can you explain to me, how a Jew like yourself comes to work in a brick factory? – And the answer came immediately: – I hold very strongly by the saying in Pirkei Avot, that any learning which is not also accompanied by work, is in the end useless, and also brings one to sin…

It is also not possible to forget one of our conversations, where my friend Zilber was practically embittered about the methods of Jewish education in the better part of Poland – to wit: Children are not acquainted with Jewish history, and not even Tanakh. With the Torah, there is only half a problem, because the portion of the week is reviewed each Sabbath, but Prophets and Holy Writings, this is practically entirely omitted, and if a young man happens to know a little of Na”kh, it is only thanks to [what he picks up from] the Gemara, in which he is likely to learn, ‘and as it is said…’ and also, ‘why is it written,’ and this gives the young Jewish lad a perfunctory grasp about our prophets, and in place of familiarizing a young boy with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, Zechariah, etc., his mind is perversely directed to the jurisprudence of ‘an ox that gored a cow,’ or ‘gold is more valuable than silver,’ etc. which it would be better to start teaching to a 15 year old pupil….

One time, I say to my friend Zilber: – Do you know that you are considered a ‘free-thinker’ in the Zamość Neustadt? And freethinking is thought to go hand-in-hand with apostasy!….

– Yes, my friend Zilber answers me, I know this. And why shouldn't they think of me as an apostate? For the strokes [against my breast] that I make at the recitation of ‘slakh lanu’ are barely audible; the extent to which I bow while reciting ‘modim anakhnu lakh,’ is not so deep as one bows before a nobleman; my three steps back at ‘oseh shalom bimromav’ are perhaps barely three foot lengths, and my expectoration on the floor at ‘kekhal hamonam’ is barely detectable, and the really important thing: I don't attend Tashlikh… Nu… is it any wonder that the Neustadt considers me to be an apikores?…

My friend, R' Moshe'leh Zilber, נ”ע, was a talented storyteller, it was a genuine pleasure to hear him talk about facts and inferences… he was also a cheerful and carefree man. He did not suffer contrived haughtiness. He loved simple folk people in general, and cultured people in particular. He did not take the measure of a man solely by the size of his store, or according to the extent of his dealings with the nobility… rather, he placed his emphasis on the quality of intelligence, of refinement, and decency. He also had a ‘special love’ for the Jewish working man and the masses.

I remind myself about one evening, about sunset, several Jews are standing about, having a serious conversation, and my ear catches: R' Moshe'leh is, sad to say, very sick, he suddenly ‘fell upon’… when I heard this, I stood rooted with a terrible heat sickness. Well, the Jews shortly went on their way, since it was time for afternoon prayers. As it happens, the Gabbai of the Hevra-Kadisha happens to cross my path, Yaakov Koch, and I ask him: – Have you heard anything about R' Moshe'leh? – I am, after all, his neighbor, and I am just coming from there. Regrettably, he is seriously ill, dangerously ill…God help him… but as it happens, I saw something of a peculiar smile flit across the face of Yaakov Koch, so I ask him: – I think, rather, that you are smiling, how can that be? He answers me: – If I tell you, you may also smile. And he tells me, in the following language:

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– Before I left, R' Moshe'leh calls me over, and with a barely audible voice, he says to me: Listen, Yaakov, tell your ‘Hevra-Kadisha’ that for the ‘Tahara^[2],’ they are not to scratch the soles of my feet, because I am ticklish, and I will burst out laughing.

Being a ‘son-in-law under support’ was like a being yoked under a horse collar, not suitable to me…. and, as it was, commercial conditions made it necessary for me to return to Ludomir, and in this way, the thread of contact between my friend Zilber and I was cut – may his soul rest in paradise.

In general, my friend Moshe'leh Zilber was a man of the people, and an intellectual, in which wondrous creative forces lay dormant, but they did not find proper expression for themselves in the Neustadt. He stood heads higher than those about him, taller ‘from his shoulders and upwards…’

It is almost half a century since I have left Zamość and my friend R' Moshe'leh Zilber, that beautiful bright companion and friend, whom I will never forget.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Acronym for the Hebrew, ‘nishmato ayden,’ meaning that his soul is in Eden (i.e. deceased). Return
2. The ritual purification of a dead body prior to interment. Return

A half century ago, the two Margalit (Margolis) brothers lived in Zamość, Berish and Hirsch-Leib. Both rich, Jewish, ‘dressed like Germans,’ who occupied themselves with the general welfare, retaining Jewish scholars in their businesses, who had a surfeit of means to earn a living.

The children all studied, and left Zamość. [Descended] from Hirsch-Leib, there remained in Zamość 3 sons, and a daughter – Kleinerman. She also was well-known for her activity on behalf of the general welfare. She took an interest in the TOZ Children's Home, and was the President of the leadership. She lived up to a few years before the [outbreak of the] Hitler War. One of her daughters was murdered during the Hitler-occupation.

The oldest son, Yaakov (among us, he was called Motkeh) was an engineer, lived in Bukhara, after that in Warsaw and in the end, in Zamość, where he was the municipal engineer. He comported himself simply, and loved returning to the common people. His wife was a former cook from our neighboring town of Komarow. All the wagon drivers from Komarow, horse and cattle handlers, had access to him; he would hear out their tales, helped them with their difficulties, assisted with advice and money. He did not involve himself in community affairs. He spoke a plain Yiddish. He was murdered by the Nazis.

The two other sons, Naphtali and Ignacy, were students at the [St.] Petersburg University. During the student strikes at the university, in the '90s of the previous century, they were sent out of Petersburg, and came to Zamość, where they then remained, with minor interruptions.

Naphtali was among the founders of the Bund in Zamość. He distinguished himself with his Enlightened work among the Jewish working class. His calling card were free lectures for those who were drawn into the movement. At the time of the stormy ‘Fifth Year,’ when arrests took place among the activists of the Bund, he was given an alert before the gendarmerie (where the Margolis family had connections) and he fled out of the country, where he remained until after The First World War.. At the time Poland became independent, he came back to live in Zamość, married Gutsha Epstein (also a former member of the Bund in the ‘Fifth Year’). The wife managed a rich home, typical of the balebatim. However, Naphtali stuck to his modest demeanor; he spoke Yiddish; he wore his worn out student coat; helped all of the Jewish institutions, such as the Library, Volksschule, and others. He was murdered by the Nazis.

Ignacy held himself aristocratically. He dressed in the European manner. He took an interest in municipal issues. For a period of time, he was the President of the Jewish community. He donated a great deal to charitable causes; He was the President of the Gemilut-Hasadim Bank, and helped it a great deal. He was in the leadership of the Yiddish-Polish Gymnasium, and supported it; He helped to erect the building for this Gymnasium. A couple of years before the last World War the community had a debt to the treasury for the ill. To settle this debt, the treasury for the ill wanted to seize the building of the Gymnasium. Ignacy was approached. At that time, he was already sick. After hearing out the issue, he ordered that the demanded sum be paid.

There is quite a litany of stories told about him and his deeds. One of them is this story about the coach driver from Lublin. Being in Lublin, he had ridden in a coach, and the circumstance was such that during this trip, the horse fell. The wagon driver, a Jew, began to weep out of sheer sorrow. At that point, Ignacy Margolis handed him his visiting card, and told him to come and visit him in Zamość. In Zamość, Ignacy sent him to Ploskia, to the yard, with a check, and ordered that the Jewish man should be allocated a horse that would be satisfactory to him…. (see a second version of this ‘horse story’ in Moshe Kezman's work).

These Margolises are the ones descended from Yehoshua Margolis, who are often mentioned in the various works about the previous century in Zamość.

It will soon be 15 years since she was murdered, and the heart does not wish to accept the fact that Leah is no longer with us.

The images of her life pass before me life like the frames of a film; healthy, erect, proud, from the time when we first met in Zamość, at the conclusion of our schooling. The wondrous blending of external elegance with inner intelligence in her personality. Her beautiful carriage, her quietness, drew me to her and we became friends.

It is hard to grasp, where did she draw the inner tranquility of her soul, in the time, when all of Jewish life at that time bubbled and stormed? From where did this wondrous harmony come to her, when everything about her was full of conflict?

When the war broke out in which Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Leah remained in Zamość. I met her when we were giving first aid to wounded soldiers. She fulfilled this mission with a serious quietness, immersing herself completely in it.

I will not forget the first meeting with Leah in Warsaw, at the time when the Zamość ghetto had already been liquidated. I recognized her from afar. I was alone under difficult conditions, and I was positioned as an ‘Aryan’ servant in a gentile home, which exploited me effectively for all manner of work. My clothing was pitiful. For Leah, it was the opposite, she was dressed very handsomely. I picked up my pace in order to be able to speak to her from up close. Leah sensed that someone was following her. She did not change her pace.

We met. We spoke very little, I inquired how she was sustaining herself. I told her of my situation. She told me that it was possible to obtain assistance from the ‘Joint.’ She told me that she was living at the home of a Christian family, and we decided that I would come to meet her at her residence, or in the street. Despite [sic: these difficulties] we met once a month. Other girls from Zamość came along with her. Each one of them told about their specific pack of troubles. All were surviving on ‘Aryan’ papers.

One time I met her, and she told me that she is being spied upon, and she has big problems. Her gentile mistress had told her to change the hair on her head, and Leah took this to mean that her mistress also has some part in her being investigated.

Everything did not come to an end with this. One day, I was told, that Leah is no longer alive. They came into the place where she worked, she was taken away from there, and vanished from that time on.

She was a delicate plant, a wondrous one, and she was uprooted from among us, and she was all of 22 years old when she was murdered.

Her persona will live forever in my memory.

To be a Shammes was a well-known occupation in the service of the community in the city, in a variety of respects; in prayer and study, in the synagogue and the Bet HaMedrash; they served the community at festive times – at weddings, at a brit milah, a bar mitzvah, and other events. For all of these services, they had the right to solicit a

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couple of groschen from the relatives of those attending the festivities, and the invited guests, placing a plate for this purpose, and circulating among the tables.

After all the salaries and collections, the occupation of Shammes was a lowly one, and the Shammes was typically a pauper, always relying on the charity of the community.

It is this way that I remember the Shammashim of that day, Yekhezkiel and Ber'keh.

When one saw Yekhezkiel Shammes running through the street with a couple of small pillows knitted from velvet, with a tablecloth (also out of velvet), one immediately knew there was a brit milah in the city. In that time, 50 years ago, a ritual circumcision was conducted in the synagogue. For this purpose, there was a special Prophet Elijah chair, where the sandek sat, brought the child into the Jewish fold.

Mazel Tov! When one saw Yekhezkiel Shammes running with the canopy poles, one knew that a wedding ceremony was to take place on the Schulhof. In that time, almost all wedding ceremonies took place on the Schulhof. The bride and groom came, their parents, all the relatives, guests (invited and uninvited), and children. At the end, came the musicians and the Rabbi.

After the wedding ceremony, and a blessing over the wine by the Rabbi, the musicians began to play a cheerful air, and the entire procession marched from the Schulhof to the wedding hall. Afterwards there was a Sheva Berakhot celebration, and after that, lashchinehs.^[1]

From time to time, the occasion would arise for escorting a scroll into the synagogue. The ‘escorting’ took place under a canopy, with music and carrying on, with song and dance – a regular Jewish celebration!

A bit of a holiday for the school children was a ‘galivka,’^[2] a ‘parade’ for the Russian Czar, when the Rabbi would come to the synagogue, the Cantor recited a special prayer, music was played, Ьоже Царя Охрннй (God Save the Czar…), and there was another bit of celebration – when the Rabbi went to swear in the Jewish recruits at the location of the Neustadt road. Where the division and its commanders were standing. Following the Rabbi was Sholom Shmucklar with a small box, containing a small Torah scroll.

Shammashim with us were fated to be perpetual paupers, and the greatest of these among them, was indeed, Sholom Shmucklar. On top of everything else, he was a hapless individual with no luck.^[3] He was a very uneducated Jewish man, who could never find a way to be without dependence. He was the Shammes in the Bet HaMedrash, and there, Netanel'eh was also the Shammes. The latter was held up to be learned in Torah, and he was related to with respect. This Netanel'eh, when it came time between afternoon and evening prayer, when the congregation sat down in the Bet HaMedrash to study, he would walk around and distribute candles to the congregants – a single candle per individual.

He also was involved in the matter of allocating honors of being called to the Torah reading on the Sabbath and Festivals. By contrast, Sholom Shmucklar stoked the heating stove, saw to it that there was water in the barrel, and hand towels; pouring off the dregs that always remained. He always escorted the Rabbi whenever he went forth on municipal matters.

Sholom Shmucklar had an important and significant role during the eight days of Hanukkah. At that time, he blessed the Hanukkah candles every night. Groups of young school children waited for this with great impatience. Shmucklar

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was called by the Gabbaim to bless the candles, and as he began to approach the lectern on the small bimah, the young boys began to chant like a choir:

– He's going! He's going!! He's going!!!

[That was] until he reached the Hanukkah candelabra. Then he began to prepare the Hanukkah menorah.

– He's preparing! He's preparing!! He's preparing!!!

– He's pouring! He's pouring!! He's pouring!!!

– He's lighting! He's lighting!! He's lighting!!!

And when he concluded the blessings, the young ones shouted out:

– Shmucklar! Shmucklar!! Shmucklar!!!

Sholom Shmucklar, who was, in addition to all of this short-tempered, on his way back from the lectern to the heating stove, would still want to grab one of the young boys, and give him a good twist of his ears. They knew this only too well, and they would stick out a foot [sic: to trip him], the result of which was that he would fall and be spread out on the floor. If, indeed, he managed to grab a hold of one of the group, and managed to twist his ears, then, to make matters worse, it would turn out to be an elderly Jew, who sorry to say, was not much taller than a young Heder student….

And so, it was left for him to wait until the following year, when this same ‘honor’ awaited him, to bless the Hanukkah candles in the Great Bet HaMedrash in the sacred congregation of Zamość.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Author's footnote: Lashchinehs – In the local Zamość Yiddish patois, this meant – the movement of the musicians to the home of the parents homes to ‘play a mazel tov’ before the ceremony, and after the wedding, escorting the bride and groom along with important parents to their home. At large weddings, the lashchinehs lasted late into the day. (From the Russian word, lastkatzya, meaning to fawn over. – JSB) Return
2. From the Russian word for giddiness. Return
3. An attempt to translate the Yiddish sobriquet, shlimazl. Return

R' Shmuel Yitzhak Kornblit (untitled)

After The First World War, when hunger and disease ruled in the city, he was among those who created the ‘Linat HaTzedek.’ Not only once did the very observant approach him with complaints – is it possible, how can he allow himself to participate in organizing balls and theater presentations for the benefit of the institution, where looseness reigns, may God protect us. His answer was: ‘Let Jews be healthy – within a healthy Jew there will be a healthy Jewishness.’

At the establishment of the ‘Agudat Yisrael,’ he becomes the Chairman, first with the ‘Tze'Irei Agudat Yisrael,’ and later, of the ‘Agudat Yisrael’ itself in Zamość.

He dedicates himself considerably to the ‘Talmud Torah’ concerning himself with assuring its ongoing existence, and also for the content of its curriculum of study. He looks after the creation of a commission that will take up these issues. He wanted to transform the ‘Talmud Torah’ into a religious trade school. In connection with this matter, he undertook negotiations with ‘ORT.’ The Second World War disrupted his plan in this respect.

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When the German hordes seized Zamość, may father, and the entire family, abandon the city, along with the larger part of the Jews of Zamość, and they move over to the Soviet side. We take up residence in Koval. Also there, his home was a place of refuge for people from Zamość.

After this, the family is tossed about into the faraway Urals. Under the most difficult of circumstances, my father was a model of religious fidelity and observance.

Immediately after the Soviet amnesty for all former Polish citizens is proclaimed, the family travels to Turkestan (Kazakh Republic). This was in the year 1942, when the gruesome Typhus epidemic took its bloody cut from among the Jewish refugees. The dead lay spread out over the streets and roads. He organized a Hevra-Kadisha there, which went from street-to-street, from wreck-to-wreck, gathering the dead, and giving them a proper Jewish burial.

He also creates a help committee to help the hungry and the sick.

At the same time, he organizes the religious life there. He creates a synagogue, under the direction of the Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk, and later the Rabbi of Biala. My father becomes aware, that 25 years before, the Jews of Turkestan their sacred implements in a filled in brook in the local [Jewish] cemetery. So, on a dark winter night, without anyone knowing about it, he went off to the cemetery, found the brook, and with great joy, brings back 2 Torah scrolls and other books, which he donates to the synagogue that he had created.

Seeing the difficulty in properly observing the Sabbath and Festivals, because of the absence of a Jewish calendar, he creates such a calendar – simply, he writes out such a calendar and distributes it among the Jews.

He continuously comforted those of his acquaintance – God will help, we will live to see the downfall of the Hitler-bandits. We will again rebuild Jewish Zamość.

However, the Red Army freed Zamość from the Nazis, and the dark, horrid news began to arrive from Poland in general, and from our Zamość in particular.

My father was utterly broken, his sorrow knowing no bounds – he leaves this world on 14 days in the month of Heshvan. He was brought to rest in faraway Turkestan, in the Soviet Kazakh Republic in middle Asia.

Who among us in Zamość didn't know R' Shmuel Reisen? – the ‘Father of the Jewish Arrestees,’ the quiet activist on behalf of those detainees who were in need?

Quiet and self-effacing, without pomp and pride, without anyone's help, neglecting his business, he would go from house to house, from business to business, and collect the groschen here, a groschen there, in order to provide for the Sabbath of those who were without means.

And on the Sabbath, when all the Jews would sit with their families at provision tables, R' Shmuel would go out with his 2 children (a little boy of 9 years and a little boy of 6), with baskets in the hand, and gather challahs from the houses for those who sit in the dungeons.

It was a long way to the prison – and he would drag his children there, who would help him carry his heavy bundles, in order to bring some happiness to the hearts of those who were robbed of their freedom, and from homey, family, Sabbath tables.

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He was murdered in Ludomir. For an extended period of time, he had hidden himself in a bunker. One time, it was a couple of weeks before the liberation, the Nazis took note of him leaving the bunker, and shot him. May the Lord avenge his spilled blood.

Israel Sheck (untitled)

After The First World War, he worked in the municipal government in the bureau of registration. He is let go from his position because he refuses to work on the Sabbath.

Later on, he becomes an expediter at the railroad, where he remains employed up to the Holocaust.

He was a member of the revisions committee of the community.

He was killed by the Nazi murderers in the year 1942 in Izbica.

The following biographical details about Dr. Philip Lubelski were published by the editor of ‘HaMelitz,’ Aleksander Zederbaum, [whose] pseudonym was ERE”Z, in “HaMelitz,” Number 7, 1879.

I knew Dr. Lubelski from my childhood, and I heard his story from my mother, she should rest in peace. In the house of my grandfather, R' Natan HaKohen, he was an assistant and teacher, by whom my mother and my older sister were taught. When my grandfather went off to Berlin, he took this assistant along with him. Coming to Berlin, he is influenced by the Enlightenment movement, and he took himself to education. He requested of my grandfather that he give permission for him to remain in Berlin. My grandfather did this, and he even recommended him to an array of local important people, indicating that they should offer him support. Indeed, he graduated from the Medical faculty (I do not remember if it was Berlin or Vienna).

It was wartime, and he became a staff doctor in Napoleon's army. When the war ended, he returned to Zamość, where he became the doctor in the hospital for the Polish military. He rose to the rank of Major.

Upon arrival in Zamość, he went immediately to my mother (Zederbaums), whom he remembered by her first [sic: married] name after her first husband, R' Abraham Edel (the son of the Maggid Rav Yudel of Slonim, the author of ‘Afikei Yehuda’^[1]) and proposed that he would become our house doctor without pay, because he had become wealthy, and did not want to take any stipend from my parents in the form of money. From time-to-time he would be given something in the way of a gift.

When I was in Warsaw in the year 1856, I went off to see the doctor in whose hands I was brought up, I was told that he had relocated there. As soon as I had said who I was, the elderly man got up from his seat, embraced me, kissed me, and tears appeared in his eyes. He began to interrogate me about the story of my parents up to their deaths. He made me take an oath that I would come to visit him from time to time, which indeed, I did. I visited him in the years 1857, 1869. These visits gave him much pleasure.

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In the periodical, ‘Israelita,’ which appears in Warsaw, I found an obituary about Dr. Lubelski. I found an array of details there about him that I did not know. He participated in a series of wars. He was aware the honorary order of: Officier de Légion d'Honneur.

He also had an honorary award from the Polish Army. In Warsaw, he had the reputation of being a rather great medical specialist, and important people came to be treated by him, military seniors, and the gentry. However, he also attended the sick among the poor, where he healed free of charge.

He lived as a Jew, and he died with the words of the ‘Shema’ on his lips.

According to the description in ‘Israelita,’ thousands of people participated in his funeral procession, who filled the streets that led to the Jewish cemetery. There were people from the educated world, and the leadership of all persuasions.

He was born in 1778 in Zamość – died in Warsaw in February 1879.

Author's footnote:

1. See the compilation of Dov Ber Mandelbaum in this Pinkas. Return

Feivel's father – Zvi-Hirsch Geliebter, was a descendant of a family of scholars, writers, and people of many virtues. His youth was spent in the Bet HaMedrash, where he studied the Talmud with the Classical Commentaries, as well as looking into a variety of contemporary books of explanation and research text, which were found in the Bet HaMedrash. The will to fulfill himself through acquiring secular knowledge was aroused in him, and he began to visit the house of Joseph Zederbaum (the father of Aleksander Zederbaum) where there was a true ‘Headquarters of the Wise;’ R' Shimon Bloch, his brother Shlomo-Wolf and others would come there. There, he became friendly with Yaakov Eichenbaum, Dr. Shlomo Ettinger, deputy to the Kohen (who moved to Brod), Y. Levinsohn, and others – friends of the same age. There, he also began to study German and Polish.

He becomes a teacher, and earns a living this way. However, he was not typical of the teachers of our time. He loved the logical simplicity of the Gemara, and not the web-spinning of casuistry. Apart from the Gemara, he studied the Tanakh with his students, using Mendelssohn's ‘Bay'oor,’ as well as the principles of grammar. He was therefore acceptable only to those parents who had sympathy for the Haskala and understood its significance – at that time, such [parents] were a rarity.

It didn't take long, and fanatics began to hound him, they argued – he as become ‘corrupted,’ he is a Maskil, he looks into ‘Outside Books,’ of the ‘Berliners,’ teaches foreign languages, and reads foreign books… because of this harassment, he was compelled to stop his teaching, and begins to give lectures (‘hours’) in Hebrew, German, Polish and in Mathematics. He would also write letters and applications in the language of the land.

R' Zvi-Hirsch had three sons: Feivel, Yaakov and Simcha, and one daughter. All were talented, but Feivel was the best among them.

Had he received a proper pedagogic education, he could have enriched the base of knowledge with is deep understanding and his wondrous insight, especially in mathematics. His father, who was occupied with giving ‘lectures’ in order to provide a meager sustenance for the family, could not properly dedicate himself to [teaching] his son. Apart from this, Zamość did not have a Volksschule at that time for Jewish children. It was impossible to send a child to a secular school – this carried the odor of harassment with it, and possible excommunication.

And it was in this fashion that Feivel spent his best years in the study of the Talmud with Classical Commentaries. First with teachers in Heder, and later on between the walls of the city Bet HaMedrash, where books were in abundance: Shas, Commentaries, Responsa, Explanatory texts on the Tanakh, and a variety of scientific textbooks about computation and technology, as well as Kabbala and exegesis.

[Page 507]

The young Feivel began to peer into, and really study, these books which were found in the Bet HaMedrash. There, he had the books: ‘Complete Arithmetic,’ ‘The Work of Computation,’ and others. In his love for mathematics and geometry, he literally ingested them.

Before he showed himself to be capable of accomplishment in some learned profession, he was already consigned, as was the custom in those times, to be under support by his father-in-law (a baker), not a rich man.

Feivel was compelled to become a storekeeper of a food outlet, sitting there in order to extract a living for his family. In free moments – in the store, at home, or in the Bet HaMedrash, especially at night, he would continue to study. He strikes up a relationship (true, in secret) with the few educated people who were found in Zamość at that time. He also teaches himself German, Polish, and later also Latin and French. He also accustoms himself to read and write them perfectly. He doesn't do this to find a means by which to earn a living, but rather in order to be able to understand the works of mathematics and geometry which are written in these languages.

He first directs his attention to the work of Euclid; later he learns Euler's work, Wolf's and others of that generation. He is like a brook that doesn't lose a single drop of what it takes in.

Being set apart form people, nobody from his surrounding paid much attention to him; nobody knew that such a genius was to be found among them. To the contrary, he was often mocked, when they would see that the papers in which the butter or honey, or pepper, was wrapped, were written over with peculiar symbols, ciphers, calculations and geometric figures.

His great knowledge was unwittingly disclosed and he began to be spoken of in the city as a great scholar . ERE”Z (Aleksander Zederbaum) relates in his memoirs, the occasion that led to the disclosure, as follows:

‘On a specific time, he (ERE”Z) was strolling with his friends among the walls of the fortress, and Feivel Geliebter joined them. When they got close to the new bastion, which was being built, Feivel halted, and in examining the work, he called out to the overseer that was there (the contractor was R' Hirsch Krasnopolsky), that according to his calculations there is an error. With his finger, he pointed to a specific spot. Those standing around began to laugh, but on the following day, the overseer conveyed this to the engineer, Engbrecht (with the rank of Colonel), the most senior of the builders of the fortress. How embarrassed were those who chose to laugh, when they saw, that the engineer ordered the structure to be taken down that had just been built up, and to rebuild it according to the way Geliebter had indicated.’

Because of his circumstances and situation, time and place, neither he himself, nor anyone else, gave him the encouragement to study fundamentals in a school of higher learning, covering theory and practice of construction and technology. He projected his day-to-day life, sat in his little store, sunken deeply into his books, and studied for its own sake.

Nevertheless, something does remain from his knowledge that is for the use of others. He applied himself to the discovery of a new system for the movements of a mechanical mill. He wrote once about this invention to Zederbaum. Aleksander Zederbaum heard afterwards, that Feivel Geliebter found a man in Warsaw, who began to publicize his invention. He invented even other machines – whether he showed any evidence of applying them, is not known.

Abraham Leon, a scion of Zamość settled in Kishinev in 1848 and thereafter, wrote in the Russian periodical, Хроника Восхода (1888), that many students who thirst for knowledge from among the youth, would come to him in the store, to hear his words. Also in the Bet HaMedrash, he would answer the questions posed by the young men regarding geometry and mathematics. For the interested, he would also give lectures on calculating fractions, mechanics, physics. He maintained letter correspondence with an array of professors about difficult questions in theoretical and applied mathematics. Engineers would find their way to him, who were working on the fortress, about difficult questions concerning their work. According to the words of ERE”Z, he wrote a book about geometry in Hebrew. His modesty did not permit him to submit it for publication.

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ERE”Z personally was tutored by Feivel's father, Zvi-Hirsch as a 7 year old boy, in the year 5629 (1869) ERE”Z visited Zamość , and met with F. Geliebter, who was ten years older than him. They visited in the circle of his city adherents.

He died at the age of 80 in the year 5645 on the 11^th of March 1888.

The musical genius, Bronish Huberman was born in Zamość. It was of him that our Sages of Old said: ‘Beware of the children of the poor, for from them will arise Torah.’ His father, also, despite the fact that he was born into a poor household, exhibited great talent. He was the first one to attend the four-grade state school, when it was opened in 1872. The people of Zamość called him ‘Tze Tameh’ (Begone, unclean one), and looked upon him ad one who forsakes the faith of his parents. The young boy made great strides in his studies. In order to further anger those who hated him, and those who didn't feel he deserved his rewards, paying no mind to the hunger that came from the poverty in which he found himself, he completed his studies in Warsaw. He became a teacher in the city of Bendin, and he is now a poet in Warsaw. Blessed is the father who has lived to see this. As to Zamość, one can say: ‘There are many types of people who are born there.’

Regarding the passing of the Bet Din Senior of Zamość , Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Heschel Wohl [who passed away on 13 Nissan 5633 (1873)], the writer and researcher, Yaakov Reifman published a special article in ‘HaMaggid’ of the same year (No. 19), under the title, ‘A sobbing voice is heard from Zamość .’

The deceased, whom the notice writer knew personally, was among the most interesting of all personalities. He gives him the title, ‘The Rabbi who is a great light, honed and analytic, in command of all aspects of law and jurisprudence, righteous in his ways, charitable in his deeds, and known throughout.’ He was a son of the Rabbi of Turobin, and was himself a student of the well-known Gaon, Rabbi Meshulam-Yaakov Orenstein, the Bet Din Senior of Lemberg, the author of ‘Yeshuot Yaakov.’

Reifman portrays him as a man with the greatest virtues, especially his goodness, full of good deeds. He would distribute his money to the poor, and was modest to a fault. Before his death, he ordered that no eulogies were to be made, and on his gravestone no titles or praise were to be engraved.

He had a great pedigree, from a family where Torah and greatness were wedded together – the family of the legendary Shaul Wohl, about whom it is told that he had spent one night as the King of Poland.

Mordechai-Joseph Kornfeld

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He was born in 1867 to a simple family. He was educated in the shadow of the walls of the Bet HaMedrash. He absorbed the spirits from piety. He was set upon the path of traditional Judaism. Suffused with the customs of the older generation, but he also could take up the reverberations of the new chant, that could begin to be heard on the Jewish street.

He was a man of the people, and a committed worker for the general welfare, who also had an open ear for the concerns of the individual – helping with advice and action, whoever needed his help or advice.

He founded a modern school in the name of his daughter, who was torn away from the world in the bloom of her years.

He supported the Hebrew Volksschule, ‘Kadima’ and also the Yiddish Gymnasium in Zamość.

His great important task was dedicating himself to the Cooperative Bank. He did everything so that poor people, hard-pressed, could obtain loans. However, he stood rather at a distance from the rich Merchant's Bank.

When The Second World War broke out, he took up his wandering staff, and left with the stream of refugees, fleeing far from the Nazi Beast. He reached Lemberg. And also here, he did not evince any signs of down heartedness. Even in an unfamiliar place, his home became a place where exhausted people came for comfort, where the despondent could imbibe some hope.

Also, in the far reaches of exile in Russia, he recalled the responsibility to those near to him, and happily tried, in keeping with the means of the time, to fulfil the commandment of ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Under his broad and warm wings, many unfortunate Jews received protection and advice, with whom he shared the last of what he had.

After a serious and severe illness, he passed away at the age of 64. May these lines serve as a garland of flowers on his grave, far away, deep inside of Russia.

The following obituary appeared about the death of one of the prominent members of ‘B'Nai Zion,’ in Zamość, who died at the age of 25, Shabtai Hollesch, in ‘HaTzefira,’ No. 84 in 1910:

The deceased did a great deal for the development of the Zionist concept in our city. He was among the first founders of the ‘B'Nai Zion’ society and because of his great integrity and commitment, he was elected as treasurer. He discharged the duties of this post with great understanding and knowledge, because his heart was full of sacred feelings to his people, and he wanted to be of assistance.

When he was just a child, his father died, and he was left with his mother in great penury and need. From that time on, until today, he had a life full of pain and need, which literally oppressed him. However, he would not complain about his bitter lot, rather, he would find solace in his Zionist ideal, which he served with all of his heart and soul. It was only here, that he saw the hope for his people, and their success in the future. His cherished idea was the ‘Colonial-Bank,’ which was founded for the development of the Yishuv in the Land of Israel. A few hours before his death, when his severe illness intensified, he instructed his sister, that she should carry out all of his tasks. He very strongly identified with the situation of the worker in the Holy Land…. he was raised on the lap of Torah study, and its lore. The will to knowledge was very great with him. However, for known reasons, he could not realize his requirement to travel abroad, in order to round out his knowledge.

The terrifying news of the loss of such a dear soul has shaken all of the residents of our city. His coffin was escorted by masses of people on the final journey to eternity. Many shed tears.

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