A Schedrin/Bobruisk Travelog

by Sheldon Benjamin, MD, Miriam Rosenblum, Malka Benjamin, and Raphael Benjamin

[Ed. note: this is excerpted from a much longer original document that covers the entire trip taken in June, 1996 by Sheldon Benjamin, Miriam Rosenblum, and their children Rafi (age 8) and Malka (age 11). The Oleg referred to is Oleg Perzashkevich, the Minsk researcher, who is an old friend of Sheldon’s.]

Part 3: The Jewish Community and The Sunday School of Bobruisk

A week prior to our departure, we had heard from the JDC that the Jewish community of Bobruisk had asked for medical supplies and help for their outreach program for elderly Jews. They gave us the name of Fania Palay, their contact in Bobruisk.

Bobruisk Jewish Community
Fania Palay/Boris Gelfand (contacts)
Belarus 213826
Bobruisk
67-1 utilize Sovetskaya
phone/fax: 011-375-2251-7-48-73

A phone call to Fania the week before our trip revealed that she spoke Yiddish, was excited about the prospect of visitors, and had a physician volunteer who was helping care for elderly Jews and could meet with us. We decided to combine our visits to the nearby shtetlach (plural of shtetl) with a visit to the Bobruisk Jewish community, including their Sunday School.

History of the Bobruisk Jewish Community

Sheldon, his father, and brother, had visited Bobruisk briefly in 1992 and had been favorably impressed by the Jewish community. The Jewish presence in Bobruisk dates to the late 17th century. But it was not until the second partition of Poland by Catherine the Great in 1793 that the Jewish population began to increase rapidly. At the beginning of the 19th century, the provision of supplies to the military fortress of Bobruisk had been the major Jewish occupation. In the later 1800"s lumbering supplanted the military supply trade. In 1914, the 25,876 Jews of Bobruisk represented 61% of the total population. There were 41 synagogues, numerous yeshivot, a Jewish library, and many other Jewish cultural institutions. At the turn of the century, Bobruisk had been one of the main bases of the Bund. The Jewish printing presses of Bobruisk were the last in the former Soviet Union to be closed down in 1928. Until 1939, there were public Yiddish schools in Bobruisk offering communist instruction. 20,000 Bobruisk Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, but the population grew back to 30,000 by 1970. Following the war, the Jews of Bobruisk raised money among themselves and built a new synagogue only to have the government close it down in the 1950’s within a few years of its opening (that building today serves as a government archive).

Jewish Community Organization

Today it is estimated that 6,000 Jews remain [Ed. note: this was in 1996. A recent article in the Jewish United Fund News placed this figure for Bobruisk at 2,800 in 1997]. In contradistinction to the situation in Lithuania, where the government has turned over buildings to the Jewish community for their use, the repeated pleas by Bobruisk Jews to have even a single building returned for their use have fallen on deaf ears. In response to the community’s requests for the return of at least one of the numerous confiscated Jewish buildings in town, the local government offered them a pre-war synagogue. We visited this site.

The offer was a cruel joke. There are only two remaining walls of what was once apparently an ornate brick building. It had been a factory for many years, then collapsed. There is no floor and no roof. Trees and shrubs grow between the two remaining broken down brick walls. The two remaining walls are collapsing. The hundreds of thousands of dollars that would be necessary to raise the structure and build a new building are beyond the means of this poor community.

Despite the absence of government support and the toll of emigration, an active Jewish community exists. There is a central Jewish community organization in which Fania Palay serves as coordinator. A handful of others function as leaders. The community uses part of an old wooden house at 67 ulitsa Sovietskaya as their base. Inside are a small meeting room, the walls decorated with children’s art, and a tiny combination library and office. A separate entrance around the corner leads to the prayer room, with seating for about 15. There are siddurim, chumashim, and kipot, but no Torah. We met Victor, the man who serves as shaliach tzibor (service leader) and Torah reader (actually done from a chumash). He does not intend to leave and hopes to continue to function as lay religious leader of the community. Before our departure, we were served dinner together with several community leaders in the meeting room. Already hardened by their first week in the former Soviet Union, Malka and Raphael were undaunted by the rather rustic outhouse around back, shared with neighboring buildings.

The Bobruisk Jewish community rents an auditorium and classroom space in the city’s dom kultura (cultural center) every Sunday during the year. From 12-3 PM, local Jews know to expect a speaker, discussion, or some sort of Jewish educational program every week. 3-400 individuals attend the Sunday education programs consistently. There is a Sunday school said to have about 100 pupils and 9 teachers. The community receives $50 per month support from the JDC, and receives occasional emissaries from project Lech Lecha, a student outreach project of Yeshiva University. 75 elderly Jews receive a package every two months from the JDC. The Sakhnut supports a small Hebrew ulpan, emigration assistance program that has little interchange with the Jewish community group. The Jewish leadership in Minsk (Yuri Dorn, for example) are available to help with things such as teacher training

Dearth of Foreign Visitors

We were struck by how few American travelers visit the Bobruisk community in light of the large number of people traveling to the former Soviet Union. Fania listed the few visitors who have brought medical supplies in the past 4 years. When she described a physician and his two sons who brought medications in 1992 I realized she was describing our own previous visit. In 1992 I had been told that the Jewish community of either Manchester or Liverpool, England had adopted Bobruisk but that support apparently did not last. In many ways, Bobruisk is a forgotten community. But what they manage to accomplish!

Old Bobruisk

On Sunday morning May 26th, after convincing yet another disinterested waitress that we required a vegetarian breakfast, we were guided along Invalidnaya Street, through the old Jewish section of Bobruisk, by Fania and Boris. We saw synagogues in ruins, synagogues that had become stores, synagogues that had become offices, and synagogues that had become apartments, complete with Judaic symbols in the masonry. There were former yeshivot (religious study houses), old wooden houses, an old library, and a park with a war memorial built on the site of the prewar Jewish cemetery. The only old Jewish property not in evidence were graves. In 1992 we had visited the "new" Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town. It was quite full (of post-war graves) and bore a foreboding "closed for new burials" sign.

The Sunday School Assembly

Fania escorted us to the Jewish community program at the dom kultura at noon, hurrying us along so as not to be late. We had arranged for Miriam to teach an Israeli dance class to their dance group. It was the last day of school for the year so we were to be guests at the final assembly, a sort of variety show. Without any hint of what was to come, Fania led us into the auditorium and asked us to take our seats…on the stage…in front of the 300 or so assembled people. Fania then took the microphone and introduced us at length complete with an emotional telling of how we took a cutting from the old apple tree and sought details of the lives of our grandparents. We were then handed the microphone and asked to "speak." "Tell them about Jewish life in Boston," Fania whispered to us in Yiddish, then walked off the stage. Our faithful interpreter, Oleg, without missing a beat, joined us at the podium, and helped us tell our story. Then came the questions: "How many Jewish newspapers in America?" "Do misnagdim (anti-Chasidic religious intellectuals) and Chasidim pray in the same shuls (synagogues) in America?" And, most touching of all, "can you teach us how to find our missing family in America like you did in Russia?"

We have left to pick up some people to take us to the place where my mom is going to teach dance at a Sunday school. We are going into the school. Hello! What’s this? We have to go up onto a stage in front of three hundred people. They didn’t even warn us and we have to talk for an hour. We were not even warned one little bit. We are jumping out of surprisement. Well anyway, my parents and me and my sister got by, though I was worried to death… (from Rafi’s journal).

There followed presentations. For Miriam and Malka, bouquets of roses (Malka’s presented by one of the student leaders), for all of us, a shofar (horn) made of Belarussian straw craft (to symbolize our having heard their call) and a booklet about Bobruisk. Then, a multi-stanza poem written in honor of our visit was read to the assembled crowd. We were finally guided, stunned by the warmth of our reception, to seats in the front row to watch the remainder of the program.

Performances by Jewish Students

First, an Academic Challenge-type game between Commande Ner (a combination of Russian and Hebrew words meaning "the Candle Team") and Commande Or (the Light Team) moderated by the poet/humorist who had written the poem in our honor. With Fania and a few other community leaders seated at the judges table, each team answered questions based on the Torah and Jewish history. Then, each team was allowed to ask 3 questions of the opposing team, tongue-in-cheek questions. The wittiness of the opposing teams answers were compared to the pre-written answers. A few examples of these were: Q. What will happen if the city of Bobruisk finally gives the cultural building back to the Jews? A. They will finally have taken the statue of Lenin down. Planned answer: No, Bobruisk will have become the 8th wonder of the world. Q. What if Lillia Grigorievna goes to Israel? (Lillia is their chief teacher and has said she’s not leaving). A. Don’t worry, it won’t ever happen. Planned answer: You won’t know since Lillia Grigorievna will be the last one to leave Bobruisk.

There were dance performances by students in different years, including a very talented high school age group. Two unbelievably cute little girls gave recitations in Hebrew and in English. Sheldon was called upon to teach a Yiddish song to the group. Gifts were presented to a young woman who would shortly move to Brooklyn. And Fania was the glue that held the entire program together. A woman in her late 60’s, Fania works full time as a teacher (she speaks sign language) in a school for the deaf near the community center. Evenings and weekends, Fania serves as secretary for the community. But she seems actually to be the leader. Boris Gelfand, also active, is rather quiet. And Victor, the prayer leader, is even more reserved.

Desperately Seeking

When the program ended, Miriam began teaching dance to several dozen young people on stage with Rafi serving as sound engineer. Meanwhile, Sheldon was mobbed by individuals wanting help finding their families in America. Old folks, one by one, told Sheldon how difficult life is for them, complaining of terrible loneliness, of being abandoned in Bobruisk. A 100 year old woman, still strong and independent, said that Fania tries very hard to help them but her resources are so meager that the help doesn’t go far. Scraps of paper bearing names and last known locations of missing relatives were thrust at Sheldon. The crowd was packed in so tightly that we were unable to reach one another. The contrast between the graceful motion on stage and the stock-exchange-like pandemonium surrounding Sheldon off stage was striking. We were adrift in a sea of Bobruisk humanity.

In the crowd was a Jewish reporter from one of the two Bobruisk newspapers who, in the midst of the chaos, was attempting to interview Sheldon for an article he was writing about our visit. The reporter, who had suffered a stroke last year, worked slowly. His grandson, growing impatient with his reporterly habit of checking spellings and seeking background information about our visit, attempted to hurry him, but he plodded along, impervious to the mob, and the pressure.

Delivery of Medical Relief Supplies

Finally, we were taken back to the little community center, where we met with Joseph Barshay, a recent medical school graduate, who acts as physician to the Jewish elderly of Bobruisk. Dr. Barshay’s father was the poet who had composed the poem in honor of our arrival. In anticipation of meeting Dr. Barshay, we had amassed about 75 pounds of medical supplies in the days before our departure with the generous help of David Krohn (who pointed to his sample closet and said, "Take it all!"), Leora Fishman, and many friends who donated cash for the purchase of supplies that couldn’t be donated. The JDC had provided us with a list of requested medications and supplies. We reviewed the various medications with Dr. Barshay and clarified the usage of any he was unfamiliar with. The medications had been carefully packed with prescribing information in each package but we wanted to get an idea of how he would use them. He did appear to have a reasonable knowledge of practical therapeutics. The Jewish community leaders were grateful for these supplies. Western prescription medicines are scarce and quite expensive when they can be found. Even basic medications are still hard to obtain in Bobruisk.

List of medical supplies delivered to Dr. Barshay

Acetominophen 1000; Prinivil 10mg 120; Adult multivitamins 1800; Brontex (w/codeine) 50; Chewable vitamins 500; Ziac 2.5mg 100; Ibuprofen 200mg 1000; Cardizem CD 180mg 70; 1 cc insulin syringes 300; Prinizide 20-2550; Prinivil 5mg 450; Cardura 1 mo starter kit 6 packs; Cardizem 30 mg 300; Glucotrol XL 5mg 70; Vasotec 5mg 60; Prinizide 20-12.556; Prilosec 20mg 164; Seldane D 40; Biaxin 500mg 750; Capoten 12.5mg 180; Vasotec 10mg 40; Propulsid 10mg 40; Asocol 400mg 100; Tenormin 50mg 42; Proctofoam 2 kits; Metamucil 50 pkts; Prinivil 20mg 60; Capoten 25mg 150; Zithromax 250mg 50; Cardizem CD 240mg 105; Cipro 500mg 100; Zebeta 5mg 75; Procardia XL 60mg 48; Carafate 1gm 60; Vasotec 2.5mg 20; Cardizem CD 120mg 105; Ziac 5mg 100; Zantac 300 28; Childrens Advil susp 6 btls; Erythromycin PCE 21; Seldane 60mg 75; Tagamet 400mg 48; Tagamet 800 mg 48; Cefzol 250mg 20; Ceftin 250mg 50; Prevacid 30mg 60; Zestril 10mg 70; Prevacid 15mg 60; Asmacort inhalers 8; Nasocort inhaler 1.

Needs of the Bobruisk Jewish Community

A dinner was planned in our honor in the Jewish community building. There, the various community leaders outlined the help they needed to continue their activities. We had presented sufficient school supplies for 100 students at the Sunday school as well as Judaic studies materials and gifts from the Solomon Schechter Day School of Newton. We also presented Fania with $200 cash raised from members of the Brookline Havurah Minyan for the Bobruisk elderly outreach project. This, too, was appreciated. We were told that the school wished to purchase texts to offer Hebrew classes to those who did not intend to go to Israel, as part of their adult education program. The Sakhnut provides instruction to prospective emigrants but not to their school, since it is not oriented toward encouraging emigration. Their other needs, all quite reasonable, were detailed. Later, in Minsk, activist Yuri Dorn (phone 011-375-172-65-16-94) confirmed that the Jewish community of Bobruisk could benefit from increased Western assistance. He agreed to receive international electronic fund transfers on their behalf and supervise their distribution.

Though it was already a bit late for our departure to Minsk, we decided to pay a visit to the little village of Vorotin, home of Sheldon’s grandfather, first (see above).

Return to Minsk

There was no further postponing it. The time had come to drive back to Minsk. In the intensity of the past 48 hours there had not been time for us to step back and think about our experiences. Only now, with several hours in the van, we began to process what had transpired. Had it been only two days? We had interviewed at least 30 individuals in the villages and spoken with at least that many again in Bobruisk. We had given a presentation to 300 Jews in Bobruisk, taught a dance class, delivered medical relief supplies, supplies for the Sunday School, support for the elderly project, attended a wonderful program by the Bobruisk Sunday School students and attended a dinner in our honor. We had found people in the villages who remembered Sheldon’s paternal great grandparents, who could show us the sites of there homes and work, we had seen the remains of cemeteries, learned much about life in the villages, and been inside several houses in the villages. It would be difficult to imagine how any more experiences could have been packed into these two days. We were full to overflowing.

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Revised 9/2/99

Content last updated Friday, July 31, 2015 at 06:03 PM US Eastern Standard Time

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