Max talks about his father's religiosity in a town with four or five houses of God (shuls). Also: social aspect of shul attendance
LISA: Lisa, interviewing her grandfather, Max Was your father religious?
MAX: Max, interviewed by Lisa or talking with other family members No, he wasn't very religious like you see the Lubavitcher /7/, no, no he wasn't at all. As a matter of fact, this is a moment that it's worthwhile noticing... So my father used to be Jewish, of course, and we used to go to the smedrish... the smedrish is a synagogue. In the town there were four or five houses of God, some of them were like here, like even in the United States, Orthodox, Reform...but they had different names. They had Hasidism, they used to go with... long coats, and they had their shul separately.
In the interwar period, the town was known to have three synagogues: the New Shul, the Old Shul (converted to a Beis Midrash sometime after the New Shul was put into service), and the Tall Shul (located in the town square, adjacent to the market square building, taken out of service for safety reasons in the 1930s.). There is an elusive photographic reference to a fourth, which resembled an ordinary, free-standing private home. Max's mention is the only known reference to Hasidism in Wysokie-Litewskie.
For Max, Jewish observance was an animated, happy experience:
MAX: And the everyday Jews, like my father, and like others, they used to go to different kind of shul. But I want you to know that the shul, in those days, in my years, were more than a shul. The shul was more than a shul in the sense that we all figure out the shul as a praying place, but it was more than a praying place. We used to spend our time [there], and having a good time!
LISA: It was a community house…
MAX: Yeah, a gathering place.
Perhaps reflecting the intense social intimacy of their small town, this community gathering place blended secular and religious.
Max changes course from this characterization and describes a completely typical synagogue organization:
MAX: So each to his own, there were business people with long beards, they had a place a little high up... high up in the place like you go east side, west side, the seats near the door were cheaper, the seats in the center was more, and the seats over on the [wall] were more expensive, because [they were near the ark. Over there they used to sit with the Rabbi, next to the Rabbi, and then there were a stage, a bimah in the center, where they called you up to the Torah.
Max then described his father's place in the synagogue and in the town:
MAX: And below that were tables surrounding the center... And around this here bimah, what we call, there were tables. Those tables were made for the people from the street, like my father, he was a tailor.
Max didn't remark on the relegation of women to the upstairs gallery of the New Shul; That, too, was normal practice.
Stepping back: To what degree did the Imperial Russian government influence the religious lives of the Wysokie Jews?
NARRATOR: Lisa, backgrounding/commenting. Five synagogues in one small shtetl town seems to be an inordinate amount in the face of the extreme intolerance of the Tsarist regime. One wonders that they were even allowed to exist, as their role in Jewish life was continually expanding. After 1844, when Tsar Nicholas I tightened his control over the Kahals, making them purely instruments of the state, the boards of the synagogues assumed fiscal and administrative functions. /8/
The ruins of the New Shul indicate a floor area of approximately 10m (30ft) by 20m (60ft): not very large.
During this era Imperial Russia generally pursued a policy of increasing central control at the expense of local institutions. Community-level control of Jewish towns, by kahal organizations, was squeezed out. Those functions were assumed by synagogues. With respect to control from Moscow, Wysokie was apparently very distant in multiple respects. There is no evidence that the Russian government ever attempted to regulate the number or size of synagogues in Wysokie.
NARRATOR: This was typical of how Jews tried to take care of their own within the restrictive Pale:
"The synagogue remained the religious, cultural, educational and social center. [It]... was rarely imposing. A slate-gray house, almost invariably dilapidated and leaking, it was quite ugly by an aesthetic standard. Nevertheless, a seat in the shul was highly prized. It was either purchased for life or rented annually; for without such a seat a man was not eligible for the exalted honor of introducing the weekly Scriptural reading." /9/
It is said that regional regulations forbade non-Christian places of worship from exceeding the height of Christian churches. The small town shuls of which photos survive indicate that Jews did not attempt to compete. Utilitarian!
NARRATOR: The different types of synagogues were not divided according to denomination, as American Judaism is today, with Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. Except for the Hasidim, all the Eastern European Jews considered themselves to be Orthodox.
(We're thankful for Max's perspective on the absence of modern sectarian labels on small-town synagogues in his Eastern European youth.)
(We're also thankful for Max's mention of a Hasidic presence in Wysokie, which is otherwise barely documented. He doesn't mention shtiblekh, the generally small, sparse meeting rooms commonly used by Hasidim. Did these exist in Wysokie?)
IMAGE: Boy's cheder, Lublin, 1924
NARRATOR: In the larger communities there were many private synagogues, maintained by the wealthy; there were also shuls maintained by various occupational groups.
(We recall a small town further south and east in which specific trades maintained batei midrash (study houses) in the immediate vicinity of the main synagogue.)
Even within these there was a ranking system for seats closest to the Rabbi.
(This constancy is reassuring.)
/4/ Elementary school
/5/ Teacher
/6/ Ivan Batnik Jewish Encyclopedia Katzenelson, Dr. L Ginsburg, Baron D., eds. (ca. 1904-05) p. 862
(Translated by Leonard Dudka)
/7/ A Brooklyn-based sect of the Hasidim, so named for the section of Russia from which they emigrated
IMAGE: Father leading son to cheder
IMAGE: Synagogue in Orla
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