{"product_id":"memorial-book-of-kamenets-litovsk-zastavye-and-colonies-kamyanyets-belarus-9781954176362","title":"Memorial Book of Kamenets Litovsk, Zastavye, and Colonies (Kamyanyets, Belarus)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis Yizkor Book memorializes the Jews of Kamenetz‐Litowsk-a shtetl in an area that changed hands over\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe centuries, from Lithuania to Poland to Belarus. It was situated on the banks of the Leshna River, in the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eshadow of the \"Sloop\", a 14th‐century fortress tower. The Jews of the town took great pride in the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKamenetz Yeshiva, a center of advanced Talmudic learning. Young men from all over the world flocked\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethere to study and to bask in the presence of the renowned Boruch‐Ber Leibowitz, the prodigious head of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe yeshiva.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Jewish presence was obliterated by the Nazis during World War II. The Jews of the town were first\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003econfined to a ghetto, then expelled and transported to death camps. Only one Jew, Dora Galperin, was\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehidden by local Christians and survived in and around the town-traumatized by her experience for the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003erest of her life. A few others who had been expelled survived the brutal conditions of work camps. The\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esmall number who returned after the war could not bear their neighbors' animosity and emigrated to\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIsrael and other countries. Nothing remains in Kamenetz of the centuries‐long Jewish presence-no living\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJew, not even a trace of the Jewish cemetery.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe essays in this Yizkor Book also describe the thriving pre‐war Jewish community. There are biographies\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eof mid‐19th century Kamenetz adventurers (Menachem‐Mendel of Kamenetz, Yisrael Ashkenazi) who\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esettled in Israel in the trying conditions of those times. One essay tells us about the 19th‐century career of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ea fiery orator, the Maggid of Kamenetz, who emigrated to London in 1890. Two writers (Yeḥezkel Kotik, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFalek Zolf) contribute colorful autobiographical pieces on life in the town in the late 19th and early 20th\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecenturies. We learn about Kamenetz's travails during World War I: the influx of refugees, the German\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eoccupation, the epidemics, the blaze that destroyed much of the shtetl, and the bandits-escaped\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eprisoners‐of‐war who hid out in nearby forests.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOther essays describe Zionist organizations, the hard‐working communal volunteers, a successful amateur\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003etheatre, a self‐trained orchestra that performed when the Kamenetz Yeshiva was dedicated, and the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eexperiences of Jewish pupils attending the Polish elementary school in the 1920s. Several articles tell us\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eabout the last Chief Rabbi of the town, the charismatic Reuven Burstein, who perished in Auschwitz; he\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewas an enlightened, tolerant leader with a profound religious interpretation of Jewish history. Another\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003etells the story of a brilliant PhD mathematician from Kamenetz, Ayzik Gorny, for whom \"Gorny's Theorem\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewas named; he was teaching in a French university in 1940, yet shared the fate of his fellow\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKamenetzers-sent from France to his death in Auschwitz. And we are told about the achievements of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethose who had left: the proud, new lives of the immigrants to Israel; and the philanthropic\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eaccomplishments of the immigrants to America. Both groups joined hands to memorialize the town and\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eto write the Yizkor Book. Finally, a detailed necrology, authored by Meir Bobrowski, lists all the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKamenetzers, more than 1,700 in number, who perished at the hand of the Nazis.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Jewishgen.Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50389350613266,"sku":"9781954176362","price":51.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_9ba2cb56-87ce-4ab8-9888-7c85367e3e6c.jpg?v=1728920222","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/memorial-book-of-kamenets-litovsk-zastavye-and-colonies-kamyanyets-belarus-9781954176362","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}