JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

into the agricultural and industrial sectors failed to solve the
problem. A partial solution was however achieved by the continuous
Jewish emigration from Belorussia to the interior of
Russia, especially to Moscow and Leningrad. According to
the census of 1939, there were only 375,000 Jews living in Belorussia,
and their proportion in the general population had
decreased to 6.7%.
The *Yevsektsiya (Jewish section of the Communist
Party) was particularly active in Belorussia in its violent campaign
of propaganda and persecution against the Jewish religion
and way of life and Jewish national solidarity. Ḥadarim
and yeshivot were closed down, and synagogues turned to
secular use. Yet, even in the late 1920s religious Jews still
fought courageously for the right to publish siddurim, calendars,
etc., and to maintain synagogues. Ḥadarim and yeshivot
were maintained secretly. A relentless war was also waged on
Zionism, which was deeply entrenched in Belorussia. Underground
Zionist youth movements (*Kadimah, *Ha-Shomer
ha-Ẓa’ir, *He-Ḥaluẓ) continued their activities in Belorussia
until the late 1920s. It was only after repressive measures and
systematic arrests that the movements were suppressed.
On the other hand, Jewish Communists attempted to
create a framework for promoting a Soviet-inspired secular
national-Jewish culture in Belorussia. A network of Jewish
schools giving instruction in Yiddish was established, which,
in 1932–33, was attended by 36,650 children, 55% of the Jewish
children being of school age. A number of Yiddish newspapers
were also established, the most important of which were
the daily Oktyaber and the literary journal Shtern. In 1924 a
Jewish department was established at the Institute of Belorussian
Culture of Minsk, with philology, literature, and history
sections. There was also an institute for Jewish teachers at the
Belorussian University. In 1931 proceedings were conducted
in Yiddish in ten Soviet law tribunals. A center for Yiddish
literature was created in Minsk, of which the most outstanding
members were the writers Izzie *Kharik, Moshe *Kulbak,
and Selig *Axelrod. During the 1930s there was a sharp decline
in this cultural activity with the abolition of the Yevsektsiya.
The Jewish cultural and educational institutions gradually degenerated,
and toward the end of this decade most were liquidated.
The systematic “purge” of Jewish intellectuals in Belorussia
also began in the late 1930s (Izzie Kharik and Moshe
Kulbak in 1937, and Selig Axelrod in 1941).
Western Belorussia under Polish and Soviet Rule
In the western part of Belorussia, which was under Polish rule
from 1920 to 1939, Jewish life developed along entirely different
lines. The old economic order was maintained, and the
Jews continued to engage in commerce and crafts, most living
in great poverty. Jewish culture, however, was able to develop
freely. Ḥadarim and yeshivot, including yeshivot whose
members had fled from the Soviet sector, such as the yeshivah
of Slutsk that transferred to Kletsk, continued to expand. A
Hebrew school network (Tarbut, Yavneh) was established. The
Zionist movement was well organized and many of the local
belov, A.
youth joined Zionist bodies, from Ha-Shomer ha-Ẓa’ir to Betar.
Many were also members of the illegal Communist movement
which was rigorously repressed in this border region.
Yiddish remained the spoken language of the Jewish masses
and knowledge of Hebrew was widespread. In the cultural
sphere the Jews of Western Belorussia looked to the important
centers of Vilna, Brest-Litovsk, Bialystok, and Warsaw.
In September 1939, when western Belorussia was annexed
by the Soviet Union, hundreds of thousands of Jews
in whom religious and nationalist feelings were strong augmented
the numbers of Belorussian Jewry already under
Soviet rule. They also included groups of refugees from the
Nazi-occupied zone. Even though the Soviet authorities immediately
began to liquidate the practice of religion and the
Zionist movement, signs of awakening were evident among
the “older,” “Soviet” Jews. In Bialystok a nucleus of Jewish
writers and intellectuals was formed. The Hebrew schools
were converted to Yiddish institutions. The higher authorities,
however, were quick to liquidate this “reactionary evolution.”
Arrests of “bourgeois elements” and expulsions to the
interior of Russia soon followed, and every effort was made
to press forward with the liquidation and assimilation carried
out over 20 years in eastern Belorussia. The German invasion
of Belorussia in June 1941 interrupted this activity, then at its
height. The Jews in Belorussia, most of whom had not succeeded
in escaping eastward, were now caught in the trap of
the Nazi occupation.
For their subsequent history, see *Russia, Holocaust Period,
Contemporary Period; *Belarus.
Bibliography: Dubnow, Hist Russ; N.P. Vakar, Belorussia
– the Making of a Nation (1956); idem, Bibliographical Guide to
Belorussia (1956); W. Ostrowski, Anti-Semitism in Belorussia and its
Origin (1960); H. Shmeruk, Ha-Kibbutz ha-Yehudi ve-ha-Hityashvut
ha-Yehudit be-Belorussia ha-Sovietit – 1918–1932 (1961), Eng. summ.;
Vitebsk Amol (Yid., 1956); Slutzk and Vicinity (Heb., Yid., Eng., 1962);
Sefer Bobruisk (Heb., Yid., 1967); Sefer Pinsk (1969).
[Yehuda Slutsky]
BELOV, A. (pen name of Abraham Joshua Elison; 1911–
2000), Soviet Russian writer, translator, and journalist. Belov
was born in the town of Mogilev on the Dnieper. He received
a traditional Jewish education before entering a Soviet public
school. In 1927–28 he was a member of the underground
Zionist youth organization and escaped arrest by moving to
Leningrad. In 1933–36 he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory.
From 1932 he contributed to Soviet periodicals and
in 1934–49 he was on the staff of Leningradskaya pravda. He
was fired from the newspaper during the campaign against
the “cosmopolitans.” After World War II Belov coauthored
several volumes of popular history that were translated into
a number of languages. Together with the semitologist L. Vilsker
(1919–88) he translated works from the Syrian (Aramaic)
and Hebrew languages. His translations of Israeli writers are
collected in Rasskazy izrailskikh pisateley (“Stories of Israeli
Writers,” 1965) and Iskatel’ zhemchuga (“The Pearl Diver,”
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