Small Riga Ghetto

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well-known today in the Soviet Union, especially in Moscow, was born in
Dvinsk. *
The city was a great trade center and a meeting place for the merchants of
the Baltic countries.
It also played a role in the field of religion. It had many large and small
synagogues, Talmud toras and yeshivas (religious schools). Moreover, outstanding
religious figures such as the world-famous gaonim (leading rabbinical
scholars) Reb Meier Simche (Kahn) and the Rogachev gaon (Josif Rosin) lived
there. Both of them wrote numerous works of religious philosophy. For example,
the Rogachev gaon wrote a scholarly philosophical book entitled The
Revelation of the Mysteries. The well-known Jewish writer Bjalik declared on
the occasion of his visit to Dvinsk that the gaon was the equivalent of two Einsteins.
Both gaonim knew the entire schas (Talmud) by heart.
Here I would also like to mention my grandfather (Schachne Kaufmann),
who was regarded as a great religious figure and also knew a significant part
of the Talmud by heart. He often carried on Talmudic disputes with the gaon
Reb Meier Simche. Twice a day, morning and evening, he taught the schiur
(Talmud) in the synagogue.
During World War I, when the enemy encamped outside the city for a long
time (in 1914), most of the Jewish population left Dvinsk. Only the gaon Reb
Meier Simche remained faithful to it even in the most difficult times. After the
war, the Rogachev gaon returned to Dvinsk from Leningrad, but a considerable
proportion of the population either remained in Russia or moved to Riga
or abroad.
II.
Daugavpils (1918)
Daugavpils-Dvinsk was part of Latvia and was the country's second-largest
city. The face of old Dvinsk had changed completely, and now only between
15,000 and 18,000 Jews lived there, most of whom had been born in the countryside.
The following Jews served on the city council: the Kopilowski brothers,
Gurwitsch, Meiksin, Lewin and others. In order to give Daugavpils a Latvian
character, on Dr. Ulmanis' orders a huge building called the House of the
People was built in the market square, and a gigantic bridge over the Daugava,
called the Freedom Bridge, was built in the center of the city.
* [Ed.: Wowsi was killed in Minsk on January 13, 1948.]