The Drama of Berdichev: Levy Yitshak and His Town

POLIN STUDIES IN POLISH JEWRY II p » ,> >P P >IP 11 P JP P >P P >> P II F II F >> F 11? » P II F >IF IP ?iJMQ;.1'\4 ', h c; \\ ", \\ <; 4C <; 4' 2' C< 44\C ', \4 4i, \ \ 2'\, 4' i\ 4' \4 44-\4 2,1< 2' \\ VOLUME SEVENTEEN The Shtetl: Myth and Reality Edited by ANTONY POLONSKY IPP ,,,., , , , , , , , , , ,,,.. ,,,.. ,,,.. ;pp,,,,.,,, pp ,, ,,,.. »? »FWH..tS:,\, C,,\Z:,\\ ' " " ' ' ' " ' ' " "" "'' ,, ' " ,,, ' " ,,, ,,,;;,, Published.for The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and The American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies Oxford · Portland, Oregon The Littman Library ofJewish Civilization 2004 ;;;;;»IP >I? >IP I? >IP >IP IP >IP II,> >IP >IP >i,> >IP >IP ;p;:;pM(i.,,, :,qc Z,\\ ','\\ , , c;cc ',\\2',\\ 1'\\ c,qc '\ \ \ , , , ',\\,,,,cc c;; c The Drama of Berdichev: Levi Yitshak and his Town YOHANAN PETROVSKY-SHTERN IN Jewish popular memory Levi Yitshak hen Meir (1740-1809), the Berdichever Rebbe, is a hero par excellence, the protector of the Jewish people before God, the friend of the simple folk, and 'a favorite of hasidic folkl ore' 1-as if it were he, and not Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Apter Rebbe of nearb · Medzhybizh, who wrote Ohev yisra'el and was given the same title, the 'Lover of Israel'. Why has Levi Yitshak merited such esteem and popularity? He was not the only tsadik elected chief rabbi of a town. He established neither a hasidic court nor a long-lasting dynasty. Also, he was neither persecuted nor arrested by the Russian police like Yisrael ofRuzhyn. And he did not die a martyr's death, as his disciple Moshe Tsevi of Savran did while tending to sick Jews during a cholera epidemic. Nor could he boast the pedigree of Ephraim of Sudylk6w, grandson of the Ba'al Shem Tov. Contemporary minute books from Podolia and Volhynia reflecting the impact of tsadikim on Jewish self-governing societies seem remarkably reticent about him. According to primary sources, Samson of Shepetovka and Abraham Joshua Heschel enjoyed much greater influence and popularity throughout the region adjacent to Berdichev than Levi Yitshak himself. Opponents of hasidism persecuted Ya'akov Yosef of Polonnoe no less than they did the rebbe of Berdichev. Finally, Shneur Zalman of I .yady's intercession with the Russian government on behalf of Jews and hasidim was much greater than Levi Yitshak's. Thus, against the background of contemporary hasidic leaders, Levi Yitshak looks commonplace or at least not particularly charismatic. And yet his legendary fame far exceeds that of other tsadikim. This is the puzzle that the historian encounters when conducting research on Levi Yitshak. One way to untangle this problem is to examine Levi Yitshak's social and cultural environment. Popular memory is influenced not only by the wonders This chapter was inspired by the discussion of Kedushat levi, Levi Yitshak 's bool.: nf honiilici., at Brandeis University seminars led by Arthur Green in 1997-8. See A. Green, Tormented J"l1rWt'r: A L~feofRabbi Nahma n of Bmtslav (Woodstocl., NY, 1992), 95; S. A. Horodetsky, Lm ders ,1· Hasidism (London, 1928), 46; M . J. L uckens, 'Rabbi Levi Itzhak of Berdichev', Ph.D. thesis (Temple: University, 1974), 95-6; D. Shapiro, 'Levi ltzhak of Berditchev (Prolegomenon)', in L. Jung (ed.), M en ofSpirit (New York, 1964), 412 . 1 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern performed by tsadikim, but also by the social factors that form a dark, almost invisible backdrop against which the tsadik is placed. The darker the backdrop, the more scintillating the tsadik's holiness becomes. Jewish popular memory has firmly linked Levi Yitshak to Berdichev (Russian: Berdichev; Ukrainian: Berdychiv·I • Polish: Berdycz6w) and not to Zelech6w or Pinsk, his previous rabbinic tenures.2 It seems logical, therefore, to reconstruct Berdichev's outlook at the turn of the eighteenth century and to examine whether it contributed to the reputation of Levi Yitshak. 3 BERDICHEV: FIRST AMO NG EQ UALS Contrary to later legends that depict Berdichev as just another filth y, ugly, decrepit, and moribund Kasrilevke, 4 between 1780 and 1830 Berdichev was the most: 2 Levi Yitshak's biography, and especially th <: :1n:1lysis of hi~ almost rnenty-fin: -yc.tr tenure Berdichev, has yet to be written. Most authors view his life :,,; divided in two, with the first described as one of continuous persecution, and the second as a sta bk and happy span briefly int rrupted by his depression in 1793, the conflicts around R . Nahman of Bratslav in 1802-3, and the d<."".lth of his son Meir in 1806. Among the :,,ourcc:.. on various a:-.pccts of his biography there are quite a few worth mentioning. For an analy:.is of Le\'i Yitshak's stance on the polemic between hasidi m and their opponent~. ee S . H. Dresner, L evi Yitz hak of Berditchn·: Portmit of a Hasidir ,.\la ta ( New York, 1974), 26-8, 36 ff.; H. Liberman, 'Seder harabanut she! r. levi yits~ak miberditchev', in his Ohel ra~d (New Yurk, 1980), 66-g; G. Ni gal, 'Kchilot pinsk-karlin bein ~asidut lehitnagdut', in D. Assaf (ed.J, Twdik 1./edah Gerusalem, 2001), 338- 41; W. Z. Rabinowitch, l11/1uanian Hasidism.f,·orn its Bt'gimw1is to the Prn·11t Day (London, 1970), i5-40; A. Rapoport-Albert (l'<i .), H usuli III Reapprai t'd (London, 1996), index; M . Wilensky (ed.), fla idim umitnagedirn, 2 vols. Ocrusak m. l<J70), i. r .u- 3 1; S. D ubnow, Toledot ha~msulut (Tel Aviv, 1944), 151-3, 193-204, 309- 12.. Levi Yitshak's social :m<l commun:al leadership in the context of government reforms targeting the Jc,,s launched in pre-partition Poland and in Russia is discussed in Y. H alpern, 'Rabi levi yits~ak rnibcrdil:hev vegczcrot hamalkut he) m .iv', in his Yehudirn veyalwdut /,m11::.ra~1-eiropah Gerusalem, 1968), .Ho-7. A prdiminary analysis of som pivotal issues in Levi Yitshak's philosophy is provided in Shapiro, ' Leri It7.. hak of Ilcrd itchcv (Prolcgomenon)', 40 5- 14; :-1..'C' also L ucken.,;;, 'Rabbi L evi Itzhak of Bcrdiche \'', 58--96; S. A. Horodetsky, H11~1asidut r:eltr1~1rw'dim (Berlin, 1923), ii . 7J-•J6. Por an analysis of Le,·i Yitshak's role in introducing hasidic prayer ri1uals •. cc G. Dynn 'r, ·~lcn of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewry, 1754-1 830', Ph .D. diss. (Il , n<lcis ni,cr ·ity . .?002.), 58- 60. Among traditional hagiograp hic~ cont;1 inin g im pC>rtant data, the most noteworthy arc I. F.rlich, Rahi lct'i .rits~l(/1.: rnibercliche-l'(Td th i,·, 1986); Y. Shostik, J\l.[elitsyoshcr: Fun dem /,eyltgm fS(l(/iJ: 11u:(itrsn1n der gml' er mamhts t o1 •1.• r{(1 1ed11 )'u/11 ra/11 l<T'i."J)'itshokfa11 hardichuv (Lviv, n.d.); S. Gutm;rn. Ti./l'ret licit lai (I. ~i. 1909). Add i1io11al hiogr;1phic.1I material is ,cattered among the hasidic prim:1ry ·ourccs. For the description of Le, i Yi1sh:1k\ depression; , ec Yit:,,hak AY7.ik ofKomarno, Otsar h1t~11ty1m '1' llClkhal habcmk/111/i (Lviv, r S64). 50-..?; for L(;\'i Yitshak' und<.·n;tanding of hasidic prayer, ~cc lgaet hakodesh, in · limelekh of L6.ajsk, No 'am elimelrk/r Gerusalcm, 2001), 455-67. 3 Methodologically, this ch . plLT follows Rosman':-. portrayal of the Ba'al Shem To,· :1., a man of hi time and place . See M . Ro1.man, Fnmrrla nj lliri,li 111: I Qut'Sf j iJr the Hi tori((I/ lla'rtl Shem Toi (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996), 63-82.. 4 For an analysis of literary images of 13crc.lichc\', !-.cc M. Krutikov, 'Berdichev in Ru.'>.\i:m-Jew' h Literary Imagination: From Israel Aksenfeld to Friedrich Gorenshteyn', in G. Es traikh and M . K rutiko, (eds.), The Shtctl: I mage and Reality. Papers ofthe Second Mendel Friedman lnternatio11al Co11fer<'11r 011 Viddi.ch (Oxford, 2000). The Drama ofBerdichev 85 developed trade and economic centre in eastern Poland, equalled only by Warsaw. 5 In terms of its Jewish population Berdichev was not significant: it had one-sixth of the number ofJews in Brody and Lviv, half the number ofJews in Lublin, and twothirds of the number in neighbouring Medzhybizh and Shargorod. Of the t wentyfour Polish towns with 1,500-2,000 Jews, Berdichev occupied twenty-first place, surpassing only Krotoszyn, Komarno, and Korczyn. However, before the railway network made it irrelevant in the 1860s, the town had been a major junction of trade, connecting Poland with Turkey and Austria with Russia. Together with Grodno, Vilna, Shklov, and Bialystok, it played a pivotal role in foreign trade. Berdichev's annual fair, established in 1765, was the largest in the Polish borderlands (the kresy) with a heavy wholesale trade in ironware, textiles, leather, flo ck, and wood.Jews controlled 8 5----94 per cent of this trade. In addition to this main fair, in 1765 ten other fairs were established in the town. The volume of trade at Berdichev's annual fair grew steadily, and reached its peak of 5, 83 3,000 roubles in 1832. 6 Major banks and trading firms such as Efrussi, Gurovich, and Trakhtcnbcrg moved to Odessa from Berdichev. 7 In a word, before the 1850s, when Odessa became the capital of east European trade in general and Jewish trade in particular, Berdichev had been its own Odessa. At the end of the eighteenth century Berdichev also became a stronghold of manufacturing, especially textiles. The town's artisans were organized into semiofficial Jewish guilds centred in the professional synagogues, brotherhoods, and prayer groups. 8 In 1781 some 30 per cent of the local Jews were in trade. Seven Jewish merchants retained an absolute monopoly on Berdichev's cloth trac.lc. 9 As early as the seventeenth century, tailors, united in a guild, obtained a privilege (pri'uilegia) from the town's owners; this fostered their economic success to the point that they were outside the control of the kahal. 10 Berdichcv, like Warsaw, was a key location for Russian army purveyors, notable among wh om was one Bernshtein, in charge of textile supply. The first Russian J ewish banker, lzrail Y akovlevich Galperin (Yisrael Halperin), whose contemporaries loved and respected hi m 5 I. Schiper, D:::,1eje lw11dlu zydowskiego na :::,1 miach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 314,423. Ibid. 259, 289,314,338, 340-1 , 381, 421 --6 . Horodet...1-y mention s thei mponan ·1..:(1ftht.: l0\\11 but fails to mention its unpa,Jllch:<l role in c:.tst European commerce and trade (:.cc / l a~11rrd111 ,·cha~,a uiim, 78) . 7 M. Polis hchuk, fa:rc•1 0,/( ~·, 1\ 'ornron1 : S ariu/'11n-p11litic!,(' fora istor~y,1 n:rtn.' Odes J' i drugikh t,aro,lor Nonirossii, 1881- 1904 (Moscow, 2002), 2_1 . St.'C A. Zederbaum, Di geh~1 111111ise fu n berdits/111, 1 (\\":.t rsaw, 1870), 45-5 2. Sec also the co ll ection of Im p111J«n m (minute books) bdonging to different pro fo,sional guild, active in 19th- century Berdichev located at the Na 1~ional'na biblioteb kr:l) iny im . V. I. Vern ;H.ls'koho (1 f3 ). Kie,, Oric.:nt alia Division, Pinb~im Co llection, nos. 15- 2.1, .l()-.P . F or more detail, M.:c the list in Y. Pctrn,·sky, Nem fr Di rcivered Pinqa 1111 from . lnsl'.)' and llad·u T Coll ct1ons (Mos,cow, 1996). \ n dcclronic version i&:l\ ailab le at <http://www.j c-,,i~h-heritage.org/ sea5 .h tm> . 9 M.Oshero vich,Shtetlunshtet!ekh(New Y ork, 1<J48),95 1. 10 M. Wischnitzer, The Hist01y ofJemish Craji a11d C111/ds (New York, 1965), 1.51.- 72. 6 86 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern so much that they called him by his patronymic, Izrail Yakovlevich, also established himself in Berdichev. As a result of the town's economic growth between 1789 and 1849, its population increased fourteenfold, from 1,951 in 1781 to 28,637 in 1849. Moreover, it appears that in the first decade of the nineteenth century to move away from Berdichev was considered deplorable. For instance, when Nathan Shternhartz, the future court scribe of Rabbi N ahman of Bratslav, moved his family to Bratslav around 1802, his decision caused a prolonged family uproar . 11 We can only speculate about the Berdichev kahal's motives in offering Levi Yitshak the position of chief rabbi, but the significance of their invitation was selfevident. The fact that the Jewish comrimnity of the most prosperous and dynam ic town in Ukraine, if not in all of eastern Europe, invited him to serve as its religious leader could on ly serve as a striking example to other towns and townlets in Ukraine. If the hasidic master was accepted by the best and wealthiest, should not ordinary Jewish communities strive to establish a hasidic authority in their midst? It is therefore easy to imagine how the prestige of hasidism in late eighteenthcentury Ukraine rocketed after Levi Yitshak's arrival in Berdichev. Nevertheless, the fact that he had reached a relatively safe haven did not mean that the stormy period of his life had ended. Most scholars, however, assume that it had, and substitute analysis of Levi Yitshak's theology for fu rt her study of his life; thus, most studies divide into two parts, the first being bi ographical-'before Berdichev'and the second theological-'after Berdich\~v'. Such mechanical historiography completely ignores an aspect of Berdichev's history that had a definite impacton the last twenty-five years of Levi Yitshak's life. Like many other towns in the Pale of Settlement, Berdichev was a shtetl; that is, a private Polish town owned by a magnate. T he Polish system of private ownership of towns survived four Polish uprisings against Russian domination and was dismantled only in the late 1860s. Throughout most of the ni neteenth century Berdichev remained under the magnate's control, as did eight other larger towns and 347 shtetls in the region. The town Jews obtained their first privileges fromthe entrepreneurial Barbara RadziwiH ( 1521 - 5 I), who has been called 'T aI1cyrand ina skirt'. 12 In 1793, as a result of the second partition of Poland, the town was transferred to Russian authority but did not lose its private status. It remained in tlie family's possession until it was acq uired by the Tyszkiewicz family in the nHdnineteenth century and later by the Russian nobleman Rukavishnikov. Ilya Grigorevich Orshansky, the first scholar of Russian Jewish legislation, ca.11.ed Berdichev a 'serf town' (krepostnoi goroa) among other private towns. 'This charged description was accurate. Conflicts between magnates and the kahal were part and parcel of the private town economy, yet the case of Berdichev was particularl y tense. In the late eighteenth century the ma gnate and his subj ects failed to settle the 11 Sto en 162. 2000), 1~ kikh mestechek Ukrainy: Istoricheskii putevoditel'. Podolt:ya, 2nd edn. (St Petersburg, 12 A. Sajkowski, Od Sicrotl.:i do Rybenki (Pmn:1n , 1965), 158. The Drama ofBerdichev conflict amicably. Prince Maciej (Matvey) RadziwiH ( 1749-1821), Berdichev's owner in this period, was unable to control the crisis, and the local Russian administration became involved. 13 The case reached the chambers of the provincial court and ultimately triggered senate commission hearings in St Petersburg. The conflict had serious repercussions for all sides. In fact, the struggle between the town's owner and the townspeople symbolized the separation between the pre-modernif not feudal-system of control and the early modern economy. In the midst of this crisis the Jews of Berdichev hired and dispatched to St Petersburg a shtadlan, or interccs or, by the name of Tse vi Hirsch Shimanovich, with a serious complaint against RadziwiU. The pleas from the Jews, supporting documents of the Russian bureaucrats, the reports of the local inspectors, and self-justificatory notes from RadziwiH shed light on the day-to-day realities of Berdichev at the end of the eighteenth century. 14 THE SHTETL VERSUS ITS MAGNATE On 26 June 1798 Tsevi Hirsch Shimanovich submitted a formal complaint to the authorities in St Petersburg denouncing Prince RadziwiH's arbitrary rule. The figures in Shimanovich's plea were impressive, testifying to the exo rbitant economic burden that had been imposed on Berdichev's Jews. Shimanovich argued that before 1761 Jews had paid to the treasury of Prince:ss RadziwiH a tax of something between 0.5 and 2.5 zlotys for a fixed quantity of brewed wine, vodka, and beer. However, Prince RadziwiH had increased this tax to 8.5 zlotys. He also forbade the town's Jews to pasture their cattle on their fields, demanding 2.5 zlotys for the use of his own pastures, and prohibited them from buying bread and candles from anyone other than the arendator, his chief lessee. He introduced a one-off police tax of 1,200 zlotys, and a 6,000 zlotys annual tax that had never been imposed on the town before. He also demanded an additional 2,000 zlotys for his court doctor, whom nobody had ever seen. He stopped paying fees for communal needs to the halwl treasury, and taxed guild merchants trading outside Ilcr<lichc\' twice as much as their established custom tax dues. Using bribes, he persuaded Baruch Moshkovich and Ya'akov Lisy:msky, two wealthy lessees, to stop paying their taxes 13 Maciej R;Hlz.iwiH did not belong tu the cream of the RadziwiH family. He is hardly mentioned in the books dc\'Otc.:<l to the genealogy and history of the RadziwiUs, one of 1he most promine nl fa milies among the ,·::./(lc/1ta. For the relations between the Radzi,\ ill!>, 1hcir trade agents, and their :.ubjccts in 18th-century L ithuania (and Belarus), sec t\ . T d ler, 'Tafkidam hakalkali uma';rn1adam h;'ll)C\'rati she! haychudim be'a~uzot beit radzivil belita h, mc':ih ha-18', Ph.D. thesis (Hebrew Un in:rsity, 1997). •~ See Rossiiskii gosudarstvenn yi i.storicheskii arkhiv (RGIA),fond 1374, opis' 2 1 dt lo 96i (S<:nah.:, Prosecutor-General: 'A Disputation between Count M. RadziwiH, the owner of the IO\\ n of lJc.:rdichc,·, and the Jews inhabiting this town, who complained of ext;C ·c.:i. of tributes and op pre. ... ion on the part of Count RadziwiH', 1798-1802). I consulted the microfilm at the Central Archive of the H istory of Jewish People (CAHJP), Jerusalem, HM 7779.1-14. I should like to thank Binyamin Lukin for his generous bibliographical assistance. 88 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern to the kahal and to function as RadziwiU's puppets. To enforce his decisions he dispatched his 'home Cossacks', who acted as if they were local police or provincial authorities, at one point arresting the local tax collector and imprisoning members of poor families unable to pay the tax. 15 The Russian authorities who received the complaints responded in various ways. The provincial prosecutor, Poltavtsev, took the Jewish side and supported the pleas presented to the capital. Conversely, the Zhitomir police chief, Baranov, demanded that the Jews respect the will of the town's owner. When they refused, he called them rebels 16-a term which, used just a couple of years after the Pol ish revolt, was an unambiguous threat. However, the senate committee in St Petersburg initially adopted a resolution favourable to the Jews. RadziwiU was furio us. On 26 June 1798 he sent a sharp letter to General Gudovich claiming that all the decisions of the committee and of His Excellency Gudovich himself would soonbe overruled. He clearly hinted that the privy councillor Count lcksey Borisovich Kurakin would defend his interests. However, he aiso asked Gudovich for merciful protection from the Jews and the province prosecutor, Poltavtsev, 'their zealous guardian'. 17 In addition, he demanded that all those who disagreed with his policy leave town at once and move to state towns (ka::emzJ,e goroda). 18 But Shimanovich did not sit idle. On 4 August 1798 he sent Kurakin another strong and well-argued plea claiming that RadziwiU treated Jews as if they were his serfs (krepostnye) and not free residents of his estate. He explained that Jews had been invited to settle in Berdichev as colonists. They had built their houses a.nd owned them for at least two centuries, and had never paid taxes for leased property. But after the partitions RadziwiU had decided to reverse this practice, arbitradly imposing new taxes and increasing old ones. He also demanded that Jews pay additional taxes for the leased property (which in fact belonged to them). He forbade them to grind flour on home handmills and demanded that they pay taxes even for lighting their own rooms. 19 His total income from over-taxing local Jews was 433,000 zlotys. 20 Memoirs from the period corroborate these complaints; for example, one observer argued that the town's Lax policy greatly benefited the RadziwiUs.21 In addition to the established tax, Jews in Berdichev had to pay taxes on some twenty-eight types of consumer product. Another observer recalled an exorbitant tax on alcohol imposed on the town's Jews. 1 :.! Later, in the 1830s, another conflict testified to the ongoing tension between the Berdichev kahal, on the one hand, and the lessees and RadziwiU, on the other. 23 15 16 RGIA,jrmd 1374, opis' 2, rldo 962, fos . 10v-14. Ibid., fos. 18-19. 18 19 Ibid., fos . 2-3 v. Ibid., fos. 29V, 34, 42v. Ibid., fo . 5'"'. 21 20 Ibid., fo. 170v. M. Margulis, Voprosy evreiskoi zhizni (St Petersburg, 1903), 43z. 22 To avoid paying this tax Jews went to town with their family and returned with bottles of ~odka popping out of their pockets. See I. G. Orshansky, Russkoe zakonodatel' stvo o evreyakh: OclurJ:i i i ledovan~ya (St Petersburg, 1877), 389. :1.:i Sec e.g. court .inJ l><cn:He documcnls on 1hc c;~1sc of Rubinshtein, who leased the production of 17 The Drama ofBerdichev 89 After another year of hearings, in early 1799, the court decided to grant RadziwiU's requests and protect him from 'Jewish accusations'. All of the court's members, with the exception of the chairman, Kryzhanovsky, voted in favour of this resolution. 'It would have led to an enormous number of complaints had the Jews had won the case,' the judges concluded. 24 The Jews appealed, but it appears that the decision was left to stand. However, the case was not closed. St Petersburg established new commissions and obtained new information. RadziwiU's further explanatory notes and his more moderate tone indicated that he was now on the defensive. Between 1800 and 180 2 , making any number of excuseL , he refused to go to St Petersburg for a personal hearing, dispatching instead his charge d'affaires, Ivan Kalentsky. In his note to the prosecutor-general he argued that he had every right to tax Jews for the land on which synagogues and prayer houses stood, as well as for rabbinic positions. Yet, citing a 1764 privilege, he clearly circumvented any discussion of the level of taxes, including the one on rabbinic positions, which he had arbitrarily quadrupled. 2 5 He also implied that, since he was responsible for keeping the town in proper order, he had an innate right to tax the Jews according to his whim. This self-justification was in response to the strong tone taken by the prosecutor-general and his deputy, who reiterated that RadziwiU should once and for all stop over-taxing his subjects. 26 RABBINIC LEADERSHIP CHALLENGED In 1785 Levi Yitshak left his rabbinic position in Pinsk to become the head of the rabbinic court (av beit din) in Berdichev. 27 Thus, a persecuted rabbinic leader, who had been expelled almost physically from similar posts he had occupied in Ryczywo~, Zelech6w, and Pinsk, Levi Yitshak was invited to preside over one of the most pro~perous and rapidly developing communities in eastern Europe. 28 The importance of this event for the his tory of hasidism is difficult to overstate. The Berdichev period was so important in Levi Yitshak's life that oral hasidic tradition sanctified it with a quotation from Psalm 19: II: 'more to be desired [arc the judgements of the Lord] than fine gold'; the last three words are rendered in Hebrew as 'mipaz rav', and were read as an abbreviated list of the towns where Levi alcohol in Berdichev and was supported by the town owner, and the kahal and the town Jews, who refused to buy alcohol from the lessee ('On the complaints of the nobleman RadziwiH and the lessees of alcohol production [pit'n ngr, otl:upa J . and G. Rubinshtein about the refusal of the Berdichev petty urban dwellers to purchase the lessee's vodka', 25 May 18.H, T scnlrJl'nyi dtr7.havnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrayiny, Kiev,fond442, oj1is' I, delo 1499). 24 25 26 RGIA, fond 1374, oj1is' 2, delo 962, fo . 265 Ibid. 291-294v. Ibid. , fos. 47'-v, 300. On the dramatic circumstances causing Levi Yitshak\ n ..-scttlcment in Berdichev in the conll'Xl of the hasidic-mitnagdic controversy, see Rab ino witsch, Li//111111111m Hasidism, 25-7. 28 The real reasons why Levi Yitshak was invited to the town as a legal authority are still unclear. Horodetsky's attempt to depict BerdicheY a'> a hasidic town before the arrival of Levi Yitshak S<."<.·ms unsubstantiated (see Jfasidut veha~asidim, 79-80 ). 27 90 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern Yitshak had held a post: 'PaZ RaV', denoting Pinsk, Zelech6w, Ryczyw6l, and Berdichev (the last letter in the word rav is beit, as in Berdichev). 29 In other words the posting in Berdichev was God's true and merciful decision (according to the' previous line, in Ps. 19: IO), and for Levi Yitshak it was better than pure gold. Indeed, his impact on the town's Jews was so strong that after his death in 1809 they decided to leave the post of chief rabbi empty. 30 Amazingly, because of his stay in Berdichev, the very name of the town acquired a connotation of redemption: Yisrael ofRuzhyn, for example, claimed that to soften God's judgement before the Day of Atonement it was enough to concentrate on the name of the town. 31 Though Berdichev was not a typical hasidic town, after Levi Yitshak's appoint+ ment it became one of the major centres of the spread of hasidism in central Ukraine, and it established ties with surrounding hasidic centres. For example;>in the 18oos hasidim from Berdichev went on a regular basis to pray in Medzhybizh, the seat of the late Ba'al Shem Tov. In 1802 the famous rabbinic council was helcl in Berdichev, and it was at this council that Levi Yitshak defended Nahmanof Bratslav from attempts to excommunicate him. 32 Perhaps because of Levi Yitshakl~ continuing protection ofNahman ofBratslav, Nahman's followers established their voluntary society in Berdichev as early as the 1820s. 33 In 1803 Yisrael Friedman,\~ young tsadik from Ruzhyn, arrived in the town for his engagement to Sara, the daughter of R. Moshe Efrati; Levi Yitshak blessed the couple and took part in the festivities, which were celebrated more extravagantly than the visit of the tsar. 34 In the 1820s Meshulem Natan Margoliot, who replaced the late Levi Yitshak's son as head of the local rabbinic court, accepted as binding all communal fasts proclaimed by Abraham Joshua Heschel intended to avert the new regulations promulgated by Alexander I. 35 Finally, not without the influence of the town rabbi, Ber Segal's printing press, which was established in Berdichev in the early I Soos, became pivotal in hasidic publishing. 36 Indeed, the conflict between RadziwiU and the kahal could have rendered Levi Yitshak's tenure in Berdichev unlucky and brief if not for the town's support of its rabbi. In every plea and complaint of the Jews ofBerdichev, whether brief or detail,ed, the most painful issue is that of the freedom to practise Judaism. One may assume that Shimanovich's voice conveys the unanimous feeling of the town Jews: 29 30 Shostik, Me/its yosher, 19. Luckcnl,, 'Rabbi Levi Itzhak of Berdichev', 55-6. 32 Gutman, Tiferet beit levi, 30. Rapoport-Albert (ed.), Hasidism Reappraised, 16. 33 Sec Pinkas de~1a ldei brats/av [Bratslav Hasidim Society], n.d., copy by Avraham Rech tman, c. 1912, NBU, Orientalia, Pinkasim Collect:ion,.fond 321, opis' 1, n.11 (o . r. 21). 34 D . Assaf, 'Yisra'el miruzhin umekomo betoledot hal~asidut bernal~ali.il harishonah shel hamc'ah ha-19', Ph.D. thesis (Hebrew University, 1992), 38. 35 I. Alfasi, Harav miapta: Ba 'al ohevyisra'el Oerusalem, 1981 ), 49 ff. 36 Between 1808 and 1815 Berdichev's printing press published D c,!cl ma~1aneh efi·ayirn by Moshe Haim Ephraim of Sudylk6w, Magid dcrn rav leya 'akov by Dov Ber of Mt:z(;rich, Kedushat levi by Le,·i Yitshak of Berdichev, Tsiva'at rivash by Ba'al Shem Tov, and Shiv~iei habesht, the first edition of the stories about the founder of hasidism. See Y. Vinograd, Otsar hascjcr ha 'ivri Oerusalem, 1994), 106-8. 31 The Drama ofBerdichev 91 Our religion is leased by the [town) owner. In order to conduct our own religious service we are obligated to pay money to those who have leased our creed from the prince [Radziwilt]. Even the conscience of each of us is not free to express its religious needs. 37 And in a di fferent plea: RadziwiU has appropriated the boxes for alms and for orphans.· And again: Even our religion and rabbinic positions are leased. 39 And in greater detail: The rabbinate itself is leased so that when a rabbi is elected we are obligated to pay to the lessee. Jews have repeatedly complained of this to the authorities but they have obtained no protection. 40 Further correspondence confirms that the issue of taxing the position of the rabbi was second only in the minds of the Jews to the liquor tax. Despite an old privi lege allowing Jews to elect rabbis and requiring rabbis to pay the town owner some 1,000 zlotys annually, RadziwiU repeatedly tried to appoint his proteges to the post. In the 1790s he appointed Ya'akov Lisyansky as town rabbi, but the Jews dismissed him as 'harmful'. RadziwiU commanded the town rabbi-that is, Levi Yitshak-to pay at least 500 zlotys or risk imprisonment. In 1793 he appointed four JewsBorisovich, Lisyansky, Moshkovich, and Tatarinovsky-as 'judges', purportedly to settle the issue of the tax on the rabbi's position; the real purpose was to lease to them the 4,000 zlotys tax for the post, thereby enabling them to choose the town rabbi who best suited their interests. 41 In fact, RadziwiU did his best to establish a new type of court that was absolutely independent of the chief town rabbi. 4 2 In 1794 he accused the town rabbi-apparently Levi Yitshak-of inciting local Jews against the town owner. He demanded that the rabbi immediately sell his property and leave town. After another strong protest on the part of the local community, RadziwiU acquiesced and allowed the rabbi to stay, though he claimed that the 4,000 zlotys tax was the price of his benevolence.-t:i What do we learn from the conflict between the magnate and his town? Obviously, this conflict reflects tensions and shifts in the triangular relationship between the szlachta (Polish nobility), the Russian authorities, and the Jews. Despite Berdichev's well-established status as a private Polish town, the Jews perceived the town's owner as their primary oppressor, and the Russian government, whose subjects they had quite recently become once again, as their long-awaited protector. In 37 38 39 RGIA,fond1374,opis'2,de/0962,fos.14v-15. Ibid.,fo. 279. Ibid.,fo . .i79 . 41 Ibid ., fos . r64-5 . Ibid., fo. 5v. 42 See the whole text ofRadziwiH's 1793 regulation on the local court in Reg f )' i nadpisi: St·nd materia/07.' tlfra i tori, evreev Rossii (1780 g. - 1 J<JQ.([.) , 3 vols. (St Petersburg, 1899-1 91 3), iii. 308- 10. 43 RGIA,fimd I 374, opis' 2, drlo 96.z , fo . i.z3. 40 92 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern this sense, th.e conflict reflects early Russian Jewish sensibilities, if not the rise of Russian Jewish identity. In the context of 'Russia's gathering of her Jews' (to paraphrase John Klier), the various responses of the Russian authorities to the conflict and the clear tendency to protect Russian Jewish subjects from Polish noblemen are telling. They reflect the government's perception of Jews as Russian subjects as early as the reign of Paul I. And they probably reflect the government's sense of responsibility to its subjects-if not an attempt to win them over. On the Polish side, RadziwiU's behaviour demonstrates that the partitions had no effect on the sense of security of the s;::,lachta. Moreover, the partitions appear to have created a legal vacuum that increased the autocratic nature of the szlaclrta. Still, RadziwiH seems to have been much more confident under Paul I (1796--1800) than under Alexander I (1801-25). The case also illuminates a rift betweell the lessees; that is, between RadziwiU's court or puppet Jews, on the one side, and the kahal elders and the town merchants and artisans, on the other. To be sure, Berdichev became a battlefield on which the early modern Jewish middle classand business elite tried to bolster its own growth, while the town's owner relied heavily on his feudal system of economic control to try to stop them. Finally, let us examine the repercussions and implications of this case for the town's rabbi . The fact that the post of town rabbi had been transformed into another lucrative source of income for a nobleman was no novelty: the position was 'leased by the town owner', to use the language of the complaint, perhaps in every Polish private town. 44 Also, the tax imposed on the town rabbi, confirmed in the times of Princess Barbara RadziwiH and later fixed at 1,000 zlotys, was not enormous. R. Avigdor, who very likely was behind the expulsion of Levi Yitshak from his position in Pinsk, had to pay a similar amount in advance for his ten-year rabbinic tenure in the town. 45 At the same time, in the far less developed town of Starokonstantinov, for instance, the arendator obtained 6,000 zlotys in 1778 from the sale of alcohol alone, whereas the overall annual income from all lessee and sub-lessees in that town was 44,600 zlotys. 46 Naturally, the salary of the town rabbi in a private Polish town was only part of his income. He earned further income from overseeing the operations of the selfgoverning town societies (~avurot), presiding over the rabbinical court (beit din), giving sermons (derashot), issuing wedding and divorce documents (ketubot and gitin), and overseeing the work of the ritual slaughterers (sho~etim). 47 Even so, 4,000 44 M. Rosman, The Lords',7ems: Magnate- ] e,vish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Cornmomve11/Jh During the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 200-3. 45 Luckens, 'Rabbi Levi Itzhak of Berdichev', 42 . 46 See the pioneering research that has unfortunately been overlooked by Western scholars: A. L Baranovich, M agnatskoe khozyaistvo na y ugc Vnfi,ni t· .\' VIII v. (Moscow, 1955), 121, 131 ; on arenda in general, see ibid . I 17-37. 47 G. D. Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Prirnt( Tu11'11: The Case of Opat61v in the Eighteenth Cen/UfJ' (Baltimore, 1992), 94-5. The Drama ofBerdichev 93 zlotys for the rabbinic position annually, if the complaint is accurate, might have been too much. Unlike other towns, where the kal,al had to accede to the decisions of the magnate-supported lessees, the Berdichcv kahal, supported by middleranking merchants and artisans, decided to oppose the town's owncr.48 The ensuing conflict placed Levi Yitshak against the local lord and his two or three little-known but influential chieflessees, who responded by doing their best to dismiss him from his post. RadziwiU's own language in accusing Levi Yitshak is eloquent testimony to the seriousness of the conflict. This kind of social conflict was otherwise unheard of. Elsewhere hasidic leaders were persecuted either as individuals-Ya'akov Yosef of Polonnoe being the best example of this-or as representatives of a religious group suspected of schismkarli11t~)', as hasidim were dubbed in Russian documen t , or kat (sect), as they were scornfully identified by rnitnagedirn. The most notorious case involved the incarceration ofShneur Zalman ofLiady, the founder ofHabad-Lubavich hasidism, who was denounced as a leader of a sect, arrested, taken to the Petropavlovsk fortress in St Petersburg, interrogated, found not guilty, and released. But the case of Levi Yitshak was different: he was oppressed neither as an individual pietist (hasid) nor as a representative of the hasidic movement, but rather as a communal figure. Apparently, he retained his post by relying on strong and unanimous communal support. The conflict between the town and its owner transcended the limits of the hasidic-mitnagdic controversy and created a remarkable bond between the town's rabbi and the Jewish townspeople. Berdichev's economic and trade elite, the kahal elders, local artisans, hasidim and rnitnagedirn, orphans and beggars, as well as Levi Yitshak himself, found themselves in the same boat. Had he triggered any opposition from the town's eli tes, Levi Yitshak would not have been able to retain his post, but because his position was unstable, he had to associate himself with all of the town's Jews. The Jews of Berdichev protected, justified, and defended him before the town's owner no k ss than he defended them before God . IfRaciziwjH-'s efforts to get rid of Levi Yitshak imply that the latter refused to join RadziwiU and the town lessees, siding instead with the town's merchants, then the overwhelm in g admiration and gratitude of the town's residents, and not only of his hasidic followers, becomes self-explanatory. Dubnow's and later Dinur's somewhat naive understanding of hasidic rebbes as popular social leaders in opposition to the regime is indeed an exaggeration, but it might hold a grain of truth in the case of Levi Yitshak. Is there any hint of the conflict between RadziwiU and Berdichev in what is known about Levi Yitshak from 'hagiographical' sources? To answer this question, let us consider the story 'Hamokhsan shenish ar al kino' ('The Lessee Who Retained his Name'), which has been attributed to Levi Yitshak. The plot is simple. Haim, from 48 Cf. Rosman, The Lords'.Jervs, 189-93. Yolu111a11 Petrovsky-Shtcm 94 a village near Skvira, is a modc;st and trustworthy Jew who leases ,m inn from a certain childless magn ate. The magnate dies and bequeaths all his po sessions to his nephew, who had st udied philosoph.: in Pari . . 'I h nephew turns out to be an evil person who oppresses the villagers and banishes a numb r of them from the village. n unnamed and wealthy Jew from the village of Bclilovka, unscrupulously \'iolating thl'. law of ~w ::al.:al, (rights of possession) and promising a better income, offers the new magnate his services as a lessee. H,tim appeals, but lo no a,·ail. Pushed out by the magnate Haim goes to the tsar!,} of Bcrdichc , complains to him, ,rnd asks him ro intcrccck, but the ri\'al ksscc docs not agree to settle the matter amicably and docs not come lO Lhc tsudil·. Thus Haim loses his only source of income, which had pro vid ed for his father and granclforhcr, and hc; becomes penniless. Following the advice of the l.wrli/..·, I Iaim goes to a nearby village an<l kascs a small inn from another magnate. Subsequently, the Jew from Ilclilovka, who due nor know how to brew good wine, ruins himself and his magnate, whncas I aim, a skilled brewer, finds fa\"our in the eyes of the peasants and his new master. The story ends with his new magnate praising Haim s wine, and a form:11 :1pology from his previous master; Haim returns to his previous position, :ind the Jew from Iklilovb, ullerly defeated, following the ad ,·ice of the 1mrlil· of Bcrclichc\·, asks for Haim 's mercy and is accepted as his sub-lessor or partner. HJ This hasidic story, whatever its true authorship cff ·ctivcly combinc;s a lheological and a social message. version of a hasi<lic slory about a lessee a tsarlil and a magnate, not uncommon in hasidic lilcraturc, this talc coul<l be read as a rdkction of conlcmporary Bcrdichcv. Many details apparently refer tor ·al life in Berdichcv: :1 childkss magnate his nephew studying in Paris the oppression of the villagers, expulsions, tricks with ar ·nda, and ,·iolation of the rules of f1a zal.. ttl1. The name of Bclilovka (Bclilcvkc), a real Ukrainian Yilh1ge in the province of Kil'.v, is ;1ssociatcd linguistically with hd1)1a 'a/ rhc biblic:11 embodiment of cvil. 00 If J, ·vi Yitshak or anybody else had told this slory, its message would ha c been immc<li:1tcly clear to its audience. On the most superficial level Lh<.: 1.,mlih is far from omnipolent: tht: 'bad' lessee <locs not can: about him, th<.: la\\ s of frn :::.ahd1 arc not binding, the I.Huiii.: docs not intercede directly wiLh the magnalc and so forth. I low<.:vcr, on the hid<lcn level, the lsadil.! is an axis 111111uli, to use Arthur Green's ex ·client metaphor: no one bul the IS(tr/ih embodies the final lruth ; no one but the /sadit..,, acting- behind the scenes, punishes the wickc;d :m<l rewards the ri~htcous, thus tinally restorin g justice. \Vh;ltc\·cr I he consequences of the conflict bet ween Radzi\\ iH an<l B ·r<lichcv, the audience of this slory knew that, thanks to th · lsadil·, the ma~nal an<l his lcssc ·s would be punished, rhe tax hurdcn lifted, an<l the lO\\ nspeuple rclievcdhcnce the paramount significance oft he f:,m/ik ;is the highest nulhority in r h · realm of social jusLice. 1 1 4 n G. :-.i~,tl (ed .), 50 Nr//11 /cn 1·1t(~T({J:111,I, nl1tl1tT: S1p1111111 Ucru,:ih:111, J<J(J7), 1-14- 8. Sec: e.g. Prm. 1<,: r .?; Ju<lg 1<J: H: i. S..1m . .:.o: 1. , The Drama ofBerdichev 95 Although the stories about tsadikim (sipurei ma 'asiyot) are modelled on folk talcs, some are more embedded in history than others. Perhaps the story of Levi Yitshak 's visit to Lviv, where he inserted a Polish curse into his prayer, refers to Prince Maciej RadziwiH, whom he dubbed-if our hypothesis is accurate-'the princedemon of Poland'. 51 Levi Yitshak's bitterly sarcastic attitude towards both Jews and non-Jews occupying positions at the top of the social ladder might also reflect the conflict in Berdichev. i It is tempting to see his depression or 'loss of spirit' in 1793, concerning which vague testimonies have been preserved, 53 as an oblique reflection of the new challenges by Ra dziwiU, who in the same year forba de the chief rabbi to head the local court. 54 And Levi Yitshak's desire to compose and publish his homilies in the first edition of Kedushat levi (Slavuta, 1898)-which was rare among tsadikim of his generation, wh o generally preferred an entirely oral message to a printed one-can be seen as his attempt to secure his position by publishing a book of major importance. Levi Yitshak's sharp criticism of th1.; authorities, including his reproaches directed towards the God oflsrael, which have been preserved in folklore, should probably be read not only as paradoxical hasidic theodicy but also, to use Saul Ginzburg's words, as a reflection of the dra ma of Berdichev. This drama highlights one of the most characteristic features of Levi Yitshak's personality: his non-sectarian approach to social and theological issues. He almays preferred to rely on popular support, whether by rejecting the idea of esta blishing a group of followers and disciples or by seeking the town's help in his conflict with the magnate. Thus, before he became part of the collective Jewish memory, he \\';lS firmly embedded in collective Jewish history, together with the townspeople, as the opponent of RadziwiH. Ultimately, the drama of Ucrdichev suggests a sophisticated and subtle interaction between the theology and the social history of hasidism . .'il Jus1if~·ing hi., Jcl, J.cvi Yi1~h:1k rcplicu : ' I rn.111agl·J lO d<rn n my other enemies, but this was the only \\ :l • J could get the better of the prince-demon of Poland' (M. Buber, Tales of the }}(I id11n: The Earlv Masters (New York, 1973), 210). '" four cx:implc, ~c<.: the stories 'The True King',' b .1h:im :rnJ Lot', 'Envy', 'Charity', and 'The Grea tness of Pharaoh', ibid . 209,219, 224-6, 228. 53 Sec L uckens's n:nucring- ofYitshak Ayzik of Komarno's testimony in hii, 'R;1ubi J.c\ i Yitzh.ik of Berdichev', 50- 2. 54 I believe that this regulation was a much more serious hl<J\\ to the chief rabbi's prestige than the transfer of the town to Russian rule, which also (x:curr ·din 1793.