| In the second half of the
nineteenth century four Hebrew daily newspapers circulated widely
in Lithuania and Latvia. One of these was Ha-Melitz (The Advocate,
or Morning Star). It was founded in 1860 in Odessa, and was
initially published as a weekly. From 1871 until 1904 it was
published in St. Petersburg as a daily, and by 1893 it was regularly
filling its back page or pages with lists of persons living in the
various shtetlach who had made donations to funds for the building
up of the Land of Israel, or for the relief of victims of famine, fires
and other community tragedies. Lists of Ritavas residents featured
on four separate occasions: in 1898 (Issues No 132 and 173);
in 1899 (Issue No. 56) and in 1900 (Issue No 121). The 1900
collection was for a fund to aid the hungry in Bessarabia.
These lists have been translated by Jeffrey
Maynard and incorporated into a searchable database.
The list that follows is extracted from the database, and is an
alphabetical list of all Ritavas residents whose names appeared, together
with the relevant Hamelitz issue number.
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