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JEWISH AFFAIRS Chanukah 2015
On 20 February 1953 A. Sarid, editor of
the Afrikaner Idishe Tsaytung (‘African Jewish
Newspaper’, 1932-1985), appealed to readers to
send in information and photographs of their
home towns in Eastern Europe for a forthcoming
series, subsequently entitled, Iz Geven Amol a
Heym (‘There Was Once a Home‘). This series
followed on a photographic series, Bilder Fun
der Alter Heym (‘Pictures of the Old Country’),
that had begun the previous year – comprising
photographs of groups of people in Lithuania
taken in Ponevezh, Shavli, Kupishok and Shatt
in the 1920s and 1930s. The series of photo
reportages that followed incorporated a far larger
number of towns: 25 in Lithuania – Aniksht,
Birzh, Kelme, Kovarsk, Krakinova, Kupishok,
Kurshan, Linkova, Oren, Plungian, Ponevezh,
Poshelat, Poshvitin, Posvol, Radvilishok,
Rakishok, Rasin, Shavli, Shidlova, Vashki,
Vilkomir, Yanishok, Yanova, Yurburg and
Zhager, and four in Poland – Lodz, Ostrolenka,
Rozhan, Vashilkova. It is very likely that the
series was inspired by the appearance in 1952 of
the memorial book to Rakishok and its environs,
published by the Rakishker Landsmanshaft in
Johannesburg. 1 Rakishok itself is included
among the articles in the series, with an article
published in the Rakishok Yizkor book by Berl
Stein describing the life of the Chassidim in
the town.
My attention was first alerted to this series, the
references to which are listed on the Jewishgen
website, by Ann Rabinowitz of Miami Florida. It
was she who suggested that I translate them. The
result was a modest publication by the Isaac &
Jessie Kaplan Centre at the University of Cape
Town, launched in June this year.
Besides the information, what makes this
series invaluable is that they include a total of
67 photographs. With the exception of the towns
of Oran, Shidlova and Yanova in Lithuania
and Lodz in Poland, there are photographs
attached to all of the articles. Of these, seven
Dr. Veronica Belling is the author of Bibliography
of South African Jewry (1997), Yiddish Theatre
in South Africa (2008), and the translator of
Leibl Feldman's The Jews of Johannesburg (2007)
and Yakov Azriel Davidson: His Writings in the
Yiddish Newspaper, Der Afrikaner, 1911-1913
(2009).
are of views of the towns and six are individual
portraits. The remaining 54 are of groups of
people belonging to the various organisations
that proliferated during the period between the
two World Wars, when Jewish life flourished in
an independent Lithuania and in Poland. Each
photograph has captions with the names of every
single individual and, if the information was
available, where they were living at the time
of publication - South Africa, Israel, North and
South America - or whether they had perished
during the Nazi Holocaust.
By far the most popular organisations are
those of the Zionists (11 photos), including
Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa’ir, Hechalutz Ha-Tsa’ir,
Herzlia and Bnoth Zion; next come the Yiddish
Theatre groups (8); students and teachers of
the Folkshul (6); Maccabi sports groups (5);
a kindergarten group in Kupishok (2) and a
Hebrew High School or Gimnasye in Yurburg
(2). Others are of lesser known groups, such
as the Jewish People’s Bank, of which there
were eighty branches in Lithuania; an Esperanto
Group in Vilna; Linat Ha-Tsedek – the Home
for the Sick in Vashki; a Library Committee in
Yanishok; the Yiddish reading room in Shatt;
the Borochov Study Circle, a Memorial evening
to the Yiddish author, Ba’al Machshoves and
the Fire Commando (a very important group in
Lithuanian towns, where the houses are made of
wood and where fires were endemic) in Ponevezh;
the Community Council and the Management
of Oze – the Society for the Protection of the
Health of the Jews - in Radvilishok and a Soup
Kitchen in Ostrolenka, Poland.
Some of the people in the photos, such as
the musician and composer Hirsh Ichilchik
(who became a well-known personality in early
Johannesburg) is featured in the photograph of
the Fire Commando in his native Ponevezh; Mr
Blesovski, who would become a well-known
Hebrew teacher in Cape Town, is featured as
the Director of the Hebrew school in his native
Posvol; another Cape Town Hebrew teacher, Mr
Achron, appears among a group of teachers in his
native Yurburg. The book has a detailed index
of names and places to facilitate a search for
relatives. Already, members of our community
have identified their relatives in the photographs.
The articles are preceded by an introduction
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