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| About the matzevah of the
murdered Rabbi February 10, 1810 |
About the matzevаh
of the murdered Rabbi
Semyon Milman is a volunteer of the Jewish Charitable Foundation "Hesed-Besht" of the city of Khmelnitsky, former Proskurov, Ukraine (the head of the "Hesed-Besht" is Igor Ratuschny). In his article "DISAPPEARING SHEETS OF THE STONE BOOK OF THE JEWISH ATLANTIS IN UKRAINE", Semyon Milman told about the important part of "Hesed-Besht's" activities. Here, we publish a piece of his article. “…45 Jewish cemeteries are now located in the Khmelnitsky region (oblast’). The oldest ones are over 500 years old. The actual number of burial places is much bigger, and their condition is mainly deplorable. Only a few of the cemeteries are monitored and supervised. The others may disappear in close future. So, watching this sad trend, the workers and the volunteers of Khmelnitsky "Hesed-Besht" Foundation decided to collect and preserve at least a small part of historical Jewish heritage, namely, – a part of old matzеvot (grave stones) scattered in the deserted and neglected Jewish cemeteries of the city of Khmelnitsky vicinity. There are no Jews in the majority of the former shtetles, mainly because of the Nazi occupation. Some shtetles have still existed, but been ruined and lost their Jewish homes The other Jewish settlements disappeared because when the Dniester hydroelectric power station was constructed, all settlements which had been located on the place of the newly formed huge water reservoir were got under water. But in all of them, once upon a time, beginning several centuries ago, generations of Jews used to live. They married, raised many children and later died and got buried in the closely located cemeteries which had been founded by their communities. These Jewish cemeteries were often preserved by miracle (even after shtetles had disappeared) owing the location at the big distance from the roads, among the thick vegetation, оr on the top of the high hills. In the course of the "Hesed-Besht" campaign, 18 tombstone fragments were collected in different state of preservation – some part of them were without full epitaphs, but with beautiful decoration, the others were without top, etc., etc. All of them were broken and partly destroyed. They were collected during the volunteers’ trips to the villages of Khmelnitsky and Dunaevtsy districts. There was decided to install these pieces in the old Jewish cemetery of the city of Khmelnitsky which was just recently restored and renovated. A special brick wall was erected in the territory of the cemetery, and in December of 2015, earlier collected fragments of the matzеvot were put (attached) on this wall. One of those grave stones is really unique! I have never seen a description or а photograph of a tombstone like this one. It was installed at the burial place of the Rabbi's whole family: all of them - Rabbi, his wife, children and his brother - were killed at the shtetle during a robbery back in 1810. The specific character of this matzеvah depends on the fact that its decoration absolutely does not corresponded to the Jewish traditions of those years. It does not look like the tombstones which were installed on the graves of the late rabbis. There is absolutely no symbolism of the Garden of Eden and the immortality of the soul, no images of birds, animals and plants, no division into the spiritual and material parts of the monument. Everything is subordinated to only one goal and connected with it. This is the tragedy description and the expression of the sorrow of the murdered Rabbi’s disciples. That is why we see here the image of the murder weapon. The surviving part of the obelisk has the following dimensions: 68 cm (width) x 84 cm (height); its thickness is 12 cm. Below there was a continuation of this part up to 80 cm long, which has not preserved. In the upper part of the preserved fragment of the matzevah, two pair of two hands are symmetrically depicted. On each side, the fingers of one hand squeezed a long knife, the other hand holds an ax. Well-carved in stone and well preserved are images of the palms, phalanges of fingers, nails. In the epitaph, we didn’t read: "carpenters came and murdered…”, but, apparently, in that small community which belonged Rabbi and his family it was exactly known. That's why the unknown Jewish stonecutter who performed this wonderful masterpiece carved professional carpentry tools on the matzevah. This is a specific carpentry ax, which is used to perform small work in wood processing - with a short ax, sharpened by a wide blade in the form of a truncated triangle and with a lightweight butt. And the knives here are also unusual, they are specifically carpentry tools. Their images show wide blades protruding beyond the edges of the flat handle; this form should protect the palm from being wounded in consequence of a strong blow, the knife blades are not straight; unsharpened areas are rounded. Four hands with murder tools frame the top contour of the monument, in violation of Jewish canons - images of eternal life are usually depicted at the top of the tombstone… This part of the tombstone is well preserved. Along the entire length of the epitaph text, on both sides, a decorative ornament was carved; bunches of grapes are well visible. The letters are beautifully carved, the line-by-line dividing the epitaph text resembles the same in the Scripture text”. Deciphering of the Hebrew epitaph to Russian was performed by Michael Nosonovsky. Below is my (E.Sh.) English translation of his work.
Let’s return to the article of Semyon Milman. “So, from the text of the epitaph it becomes clear that this tombstone was installed on the grave of the tragically murdered Rabbi and his family. It seems highly probable that the subject and the composition of the image which was carved on the matzevah and the text of its epitaph were developed by the disciples of the rabbi; they understood that a non-standard image would attract the attention of the next generations to this tragic story. We can imagine how great were difficulties which had to be overcome by the people who ordered such unusual tombstone during the pre-production negotiations and coordination on its installation. We also can imagine what emotions raged in the souls of Rabbi's disciples and how passionately they wanted to perpetuate the memory of their teacher and convey the history of this tragedy on matzevah so that their sorrow and indignation could reach the descendants. ... And a miracle happened - the Almighty wished that this masterpiece of stone-cutting art, which was performed by an unknown master more than 200 years ago, conveyed to us their hatred to the murderers of our brothers and brought to us the story of this unknown tragic episode of the long-suffering history of our people”. PS. I (E. Sh.) have asked Semyon a couple of additional questions. E. Sh. Where exactly did you find this unique Matzevah Which shtetle Rav Yaakov once lived and perished in? S.M. The place where murdered Rabbi had lived before he was killed in 1810 is called Sokolets, Ushitsky uezd. Now the grass grows in the place of the shtetle. But Sokolets was one of the well-known Jewish places of Podоlia. For a long period Ukrainians and Jews lived here together. The Ukrainian village was separated from the shtetle by a small fence of rubble masonry up to half a meter high. In 1765, there were 356 Jews in Sokolets and the surrounding villages. According to the revision of 1847, the Sokolets Jewish Society consisted of 457 souls. According to the census of 1897, there were 2746 inhabitants in Sokolets, among them 747 Jews. In ХIХ and in the beginning of XX centuries, there were a synagogue and a Jewish prayer house in the shtetle of Sokolets. Also two cemeteries, both the “old” and the “new”, have still existed in its vicinity E. Sh. What kind of stone the matzevah was made of? S. M. Matzevah was made of the stone quarried in local quarry. It’s a shell rock, or limestone. Here, in our places, there was the ancient sea millions years ago. Those stones used to form the bed (bottom) of that sea. The stone is soft and easy for processing. Images, which are performed on this kind of stone are well preserved due to the fact that the material like this easy absorbs moisture and quickly dries under the wind, but at the contact with the soil (the ground) it has become the subject of the intense destruction Editing and translation: Eugenia Sheinman |
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