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Introduction
30 percent of the population
Jewish communal organization
History of the rabbis of Bodzentyn
The synagogue
Time of emigration
 

Introduction

The proper name of the town is Bodzentyn, but since the Polish language is a Slavonic one each noun can be declined into six or seven cases: Bodzentyna is the genitive singular for Bodzentyn, while Bodzentynie is the locative or vocative form (depending on the context).
 
The name of the town derives from its founder’s name – bishop Bodzanta. The town belonged to successive Bishops of Kraków up to 1797, Jews settled in Bodzentyn only after that date.
 
In Yiddish the name of the town would be transcribed as Baizecheen or Bayzetshin.
 
Note: The story of the Jewish community in Bodzentyn may only be told in brief at this website. In order to learn more, please consult the list of literature.
 

30 percent of the population

At the turn of the century Jews from the surrounding villages began to settle in Bodzentyn. In the 1820s they were about 50 people. From the time of the first settlers the number of Jews increased, from 4 percent to the equivalent of 14 percent of the total population – close to 170 individuals – in the year of 1857. Some 20 years later, in 1862, the Jews received civil rights and in 1876 the authorities recognised the Jewish Community.
 
In 1917 the Jews of Bodzentyn were nearly 50 percent of the total population; Poles: 2,027 and Jews: 1,918 (in total: 3 945 individuals). However, partly due to emigration and the hardship of the years between the wars, the Jewish Community stopped growing and stayed almost a constant of 30 percent of the total population until the beginning of WWII. In 1939 they were approximately 1,100 in number.
 
In general the Jews of Bodzentyn were craftsmen, artisans and tradesmen. It was common that their residence was in a dwelling at the rear of a shop or store, and that the front would face the street. In 1934 the Jews kept up the business in 80 stores. (At that time there were all in all 107 stores in Bodzentyn.) There were stores in which people could buy bread, paper goods, ironware, tobacco, and many other sorts of things.
 
Note: Not all of the Jews in Bodzentyn and its surroundings were tradesmen and businessmen. Some of them were doctors and dentists; others ran small farms with agriculture. There were also Jews who earned a living by transporting goods and people between Bodzentyn and Kielce, the nearby provincial capital.
 

Jewish communal organization

The synagogue and house of study (Beit Midrash) was on the
Wesoła street. There was also a Jewish library and a cheder:
 

Poland, Jewish boys studying Torah at a Cheder, a religious elementary school. © Yad Vachem www.yadvashem.org
 
Bodzentyn had its own Jewish communal organization tending to all Jewish communal needs, such as providing personal to maintain the synagogue and the ritual bathhouse, mikve. They were also responsible of keeping records of the Jewish population, and asked to promote education:
 

One of the teachers in the Jewish cheder was Abram Israel Szafir, born on 05/09/1877 in Bodzentyn. © Yad Vachem www.yadvashem.org
 
The communal organization was elected every forth year, consisting of 8 members and 8 additional members. Men over 25 were able to vote. For a period of 20 years the organization was headed by Josek Sztarkman followed by Lejzor Chmielnicki, Josek Federman, Majer Szachter and then Nusym Szachter (Nus’n Szachter in a different spelling). In an old document from 1934 one may see that the name of the head was Josek Sztarkman, and that the secretary was Samuel Wajntraub.
 

The third man from the right is Nus’n Szachter. For some time he was head of the Jewish Council in Bodzentyn. © Yad Vashem. www.yadvashem.org
 

History of the rabbis of Bodzentyn

The town rabbi of Bodzentyn until his death (in 1906) was the Bazh’tshine rebbe, Moszek Awner Grynbaum. Thereafter a new rabbi was elected by the name Szmul Hersz Zylbersztajn (or Silbersztajn in a different spelling). In 1910 he was indeed concerned about the sick in Bodzentyn and thus wrote in a letter to Kielce:
 
”It is my duty to inform you that for three weeks now some 100 people have become infected with scarlet fever. However there is no doctor to be found, and the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous. I ask that you send a doctor, a few times every week, so that he may tend to the people who have become ill.”
 
The name of Mr Zylbersztajn’s successor in the 1930s was Herszka Szwarc (or in an different spelling Henry Schwartz – both are transliteration of the German word schwarz, which simply means black, and was a common family name among Ashkenazi Jews). There is supposed to have been a tzaddik in Bodzentyn in the 1920s, but his name is not known. Or else, this may be the tzaddik from Ostrowiec, that some refer to in their testimonies. There is in fact more than one who testifies that their grandfather/grandmother was a Hassid and a follower of the Rabbi from Ostrowiec, (Ostrowiec Rebbe).
 
Most of the Jews in Bodzentyns were either Orthodox Jews, or Chassidim. They wore traditional clothing.
 

The synagogue

The synagogue that was originally set up was damaged by fire, as it seems in 1889. Chaim Silberberg was in charge of the reconstruction of the building. In the process he received financial support from the Jewish Community as well as a helping hand from Alter Szachter and Berek Wajngold. The “new” building was to be bigger than the first one. The flight of stairs in this two store building was to be replaced by a staircase in stone due to security precautions. When the building was finished everyone seems to have been satisfied with the result.
 
In 1917 another fire broke out threatening to destroy all houses and buildings in Bodzentyn. In fact half of the village was destroyed, as was the synagogue. The Jewish Community restored it in 1929, but at the time of the Second World War it was demolished by the Nazis. (Elder citizens of Bodzentyn still remember those times and that building.) The closing pages 120-121 of chapter 13 in The Last Selection by Goldie Szachter Kalib refer to the eruption of flames in the middle of the night:
 
“Hunger and disease spread everywhere. When a typhus epidemic began to sweep the city, Plock Jews began dying in droves. Eight to ten frozen corpses were found daily on the streets. The synagogue was converted into a makeshift hospital and emergency center […] one night a fire erupted […] The flames not only consumed the synagogue building but also swept across several adjacent houses, inflicting untold damage and havoc […] We soon learned that the fire that had consumed the synagogue had been ignited as an arson attack by a group of young Poles. As a result, many Plock Jews perished from burns and/or suffocation, and the few survivors were absorbed into homes. It was not clear whether the action had been motivated by anti-Semitism, ordered by the German authorities, or perpetrated as a plan to minimize the spreading typhus epidemic by destroying most of its carriers, who were housed in the synagogue.”
 

Time of emigration

At the time of WWI both Jews and Christian Poles in Bodzentyn suffered alike from the hardship of those years. In one letter from Toronto in 1916 Yitzchak Leib Rosenberg, the maternal grandfather of Reuven Daitch, expresses his greatest concern for the relatives that he left behind:
 
“Already, it has been a year that I have not received a letter. Therefore, I am asking you, sirs, to make an effort, if possible, to find out what has happened to my family. I am writing to you where my family is and what their names are: Raizel Rosenberg, Chaim Korenblum, Pesach Korenblum – Bayzetshin, Kelts province, Russia-Poland.”
 
Quite a few Jews decided to leave Poland and head it for places like the United States, Canada, Brazil and the ancient Jewish homeland in the British mandate Palestine. The Zionist movement gathered crowds, mostly young men and women. In the outskirts of Kielce and close to a stone quarry, Jews were taught how to farm, so that they would be able to set up a kibbutz at their arrival in the new homeland. Also in Bodzentyn several young men and women were involved in Zionist activism. The best known groups were Poalei Tziyon and Beitar.
 

The Beitar Movement attracted several young people in Bodzentyn. The men and women in this photo from 1935 are some of them. Far on the right side is Menachem Weinstok (or Wajnstok), who is said to have been the assistant of the first Likud Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin. © Yad Vashem. www.yadvashem.org
 
Several of the Jews chose to immigrate to Toronto in Canada during the first decades of the 1900s. When one member of the family had moved several relatives soon followed. Sharing a common heritage of traditions, language and Orthodox way of life many of them gathered in Toronto. In fact Baizecheeners/Baizetshinners as they were called – were awarded a special piece of land at The Dawes Road Cemeteries. There were also sizeable communities of Baizetshinners in Baltimore and in Brooklyn in the United States.