Bielsk Podlaski, Poland - JewishGen
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Bielsk Podlaski

Bielsk Podlaski, Poland, has a long Jewish history. This site connects you with that history through first-person accounts, Holocaust testimonies, family histories, and photographs. It also contains links to archival materials, encyclopedic works, and other resources pertaining to Bielsk Podlaski and to Jewish life in Poland. This site can help you learn more about how your ancestors lived, and perhaps help you discover names or photos of relatives. A significant portion of this material has been shared or translated by others with ties to Bielsk. If you have photos, documents, stories or materials related to Bielsk Podlaski that you would like to share, or if you find any errors, please email the coordinator.

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This site is hosted at no cost by JewishGen, Inc., the Home of Jewish Genealogy. If you have been aided in your research by this site and wish to further our mission of preserving our history for future generations, your JewishGen-erosity is greatly appreciated.

Support the Bielsk Podlaski Yizkor Book Translation Project

See the current progress of the translation project

Yizkor Book

The memorial book of the Jews from Bielsk Podlaski (in Polish: księga pamięci Żydów Bielska Podlaskiego) is titled Book in the Holy Memory of the Bielsk Podliask Jews Whose Lives Were Taken During the Holocaust Between 1939 and 1944. Through it, survivors and their families speak about the history of the town, what life there was like, its people, and their fate. The book contains a brief section in English, along with more extensive Hebrew and Yiddish sections. The complete Yiddish section has been translated to English, and the Hebrew section is in the process of being translated. Many of the Hebrew chapters have been completed. Please click here to read about the Bielsk Podlaski Yizkor Book Translation Project.

Families and People

Family histories contain unique stories, perspectives, documents, and photographs of people and life in Bielsk. They are presented here as a way of supplementing the Yizkor book. If you would like to add your family history, please contact the coordinator

History and Background

Holocaust

After the war

Cemeteries

Synagogues

The Rabbis of Bielsk

The following chapters in the Bielsk Yizkor book discuss the Rabbis of Bielsk Podlaski:



Rabbi Aryeh Loeb Yellin, born in Skidel, Lithuania in 1820, served as the Chief Rabbi of Bielsk from 1856 until his death in 1886. Yellin's published works are sermons, responsa, commentary, and "glosses" to the Babylonian Talmud. Known as Yefeh 'Einayim, the glosses were printed in the back of the Vilna edition of the Talmud. See the following for references:


Rabbi Ben Zion Sternfeld (1835 – 1917) was appointed Rabbi of Bielsk after the death of Rabbi Yellin.

 

Rabbi Moyshe Chaim is written about in Disputes with Rabbis in Bielsk, but the chronology of his Rabbinate is not given.


Rabbi Moshe Aharon Bendas (also spelled Ben Da'as and Ben Daat) (1866 – 1943), the last Rabbi of Bielsk, was designated by his father-in-law, Rabbi Sternfeld, to be his successor. According to this site, which includes a photograph of him, he died in Treblinka. Haim Rabin wrote that “together with his flock, he was engulfed by the Holocaust and died the death of a martyr.”


Rabbi Mordechai Goldin was head of and teacher at the Beis-Yosef Yeshiva of Bielsk-Podlaski (a Rabbinical College), concurrent with Rabbi Bendas. Letters and cards he wrote can be read in the online archives of the Center for Jewish History.
Much of Rabbi Goldin's correspondence was addressed to Vaad HaYeshivos (or Hayeshivot) in Vilnius. His letters bear the seal of Yeshiva Beis-Yosef in Bielsk. That same seal appears on an appeal for funds that was republished in the Bielsk yizkor book in A Call for Help from the Bielsk Yeshiva on page 488.





Rabbi Yechezkel Levintal

Rabbi Yechezkel Levintal (also spelled Leventhal or Levinthal) was written about on page 172 of the yizkor book. He was known primarily as "the Dayan," meaning the judge, during the tenure of Rabbi Bendas. His responsibilities as the dayan would have involved presiding over various legal and religious matters.


Other Rabbis


Other Bielsk rabbis whose names appear on correspondence in the CJH archive are Rabbi Epstein, Rabbi L. Lewin, Rabbi Maier Rubin, and Rabbi Arye Ze’ev Lewin (Mashgiach of Yeshivas Beis Yosef of Bielsk-Podlask). 

 

Photographs of Bielsk

Archival Holdings

Books

Documents

Maps

Related Materials

While not specific to Bielsk Podlaski these materials may provide a glimpse of the lives of our ancestors.

o   Jewish Life In Bialystok (including footage of the great synagogue in Bialystok and a young girl eating a bialy)

o   A Day In Warsaw

o   Jewish Life In Kracow

o   Jewish Life In Lvov

o   Jewish Life In Vilna

o   Other films about Jewish communities, the Holocaust, early Zionism, and Israeli statehood

o   2001

o   2002

o   2003

o   2004

o   2005

o   2006

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Compiled by Andrew Blumberg
Updated February 28, 2024
Copyright © 2002 - 2024 Andrew Blumberg

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This site is hosted at no cost by JewishGen, Inc., the Home of Jewish Genealogy. If you have been aided in your research by this site and wish to further our mission of preserving our history for future generations, your JewishGen-erosity is greatly appreciated.