Parchment Burning

Polonnoe July, 1648 Nathan Hanover was the author of Yeven Metzula, one of the main Jewish sources that tells of the Chmielnicki Massacres. In that book, he tells of the death of his teacher, Rabbi Samson, a Kabbalist, in the city of Polonnoe. "Every day an angel would come to him and learn with him the secrets of the Torah. The Kabbalist wrote a commentary on the Zohar based on the Kabbala of the Ar"i, but it was never published. The angel told him before the pogrom that they needed to repent greatly, so as to avoid the evil decree. So he spoke several times in the synagogue and warned the people to repent, and on the impending tragedy. And they did repent, in all the communities, but it was to no avail, since the decree was already sealed. When the cruel enemies reached the city, the kabbalist went to the synagogue with three hundred wise men, all dressed in shrouds and their prayer shawls on their heads, and they busied themselves with prayer, until the enemies reache...

Narol, Poland 1648 In 1648, the army of Chmielnicki arrived in Narol. Many Jews from neighboring villages had come to Narol for protection. The Jews crowded into the synagogue and attempted to defend themselves. However, the Cossacks set fire to the building, killing those inside. ( Virtual Shtetl ) Nathan Hannover describes the scene in Yeven Metzula: "Many hundreds shut themselves up in the synagogue, but they broke down the doors and first slew the Jews inside it and then burnt the synagogue with the slain. There was no such slaughter in the whole of Poland." He continues: "A woman who remained alive, related to me that several hundred women, and children, and a few men survived the carnage These had no food for five days and they ate human flesh. They cut off organs from the slain and roasted them on fire and ate them. Many thousands of the slain were eaten by dogs and pigs." One of the survivors, Moshe Kohen of Narol, afterward became the rabbi in Me...

Nemirov 14 June, 1648 The first major massacre during the Chmielnicki uprising took place in the city of Nemirov. Jews from the countryside had fled to Nemirov, as the town was fortified. However, Chmielnicki dispatched 600 Cossacks, who dressed up as Polish soldiers. (At least, according to legend.) The town opened its gates and the Cossacks rushed in. Once inside, the Cossacks demanded that the Jews in town convert to Christianity. When they refused, 6,000 Jews were slaughtered. "In the synagogue, before the Holy Ark, they slaughtered with butcher knives the choirs and cantors and beedles, there they sacrificed the children of Israel as burnt offerings, offering themselves up as sacrifices like rams and sheep and goats...after which they destroyed the synagogue and took out all the Torah books, old and new, and they tore them to bits and they laid them out for men and animals to trample on." ( Megilat Afa ) In the following years, the Council of the Four Lands decree...

1648 Pogrebishche, Poland Jewish history is full of massacres. During some periods, dozens of communities were attacked in quick succession, often wiping them out. The stories of these communities, especially the small ones, are often untold; we don't know the details of how the Jews were killed. For this reason, it is very likely that there are many, many more instances of synagogue massacres that are unknown and unreported. This can be demonstrated with the case of Pogrebishche (then in Poland, now in Ukraine) during the Chmielnicki massacres that started in 1648 and wiped out a good number of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. My grandfather was born in Pogrebishche and I have done a lot of research about the town's Jewish history; that is the only reason why I happened across the following obscure story, passed down orally for generations and recorded on paper in the early 20th century by an immigrant to Israel, H.M. Lieberman-Weiner: "Behind the synagogue t...