Encyclopedia of Medzhybizh

Apter Rav (Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel)

People

Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel (1748–1825), known as the Apter Rav after his earlier post in Opatów (Apt), was one of the leading Hasidic rabbis of his generation. He lived in Medzhybizh from 1813 until his death and is buried in the old Jewish cemetery, close to the Baal Shem Tov. His synagogue building still stands; the Ohalei Tzaddikim organization bought it in 2008 to restore it.^[1][2]

See also: Old Jewish cemetery, Synagogues.

Baal Shem Tov (Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer)

People

Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (about 1698/1700–1760), called the Baal Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name") or the Besht, is the founder of Hasidism. By the 1730s he was known in Podolia as a ba'al shem, a healer who wrote amulets and prescribed cures, and the elders of Medzhybizh invited him to settle in their town as its resident kabbalist. Polish tax registers show him there from 1740 (many books say about 1742, the year the register first calls him "Balsem") until his death on Shavuot 1760. From his study house in Medzhybizh his teaching spread across Eastern Europe, carried by disciples such as Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye and Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch, who led the movement after him. He is buried in the old Jewish cemetery.^{[7][9][10][11][12][1][2]}

See also: In the tax registers, His circle, His grave, Hasidism.

Baal Shem Tov in the tax registers

Records

The historian Moshe Rosman found the Besht in the Czartoryski estate's tax registers of Medzhybizh, now in the Czartoryski Library in Kraków. The community-owned house beside the synagogue, usually numbered 93, is listed in 1740 as "the kahal or cantor's house, in which is the kabbalist"; in 1742 as "Balsem in the kahal house"; in 1758 as "Balsam"; and in 1760 as "Balszam, doctor, exempt". Throughout his years in the town he lived there rent- and tax-free, in a house kept for public religious figures, and members of his household and circle appear beside him. The records show that the Besht was not an outsider but a recognized figure supported by the community. By 1763 the house was occupied by "Herszko", probably his son Tsvi Hirsh.^[10][9][11]

See also: Baal Shem Tov, Revision lists.

Baal Shem Tov's circle in Medzhybizh

People

In Medzhybizh the Besht headed a study house of scholarly, mystical and ascetic men, among them Ze'ev Volf Kitzes and David Purkes, who also appear in Polish court records. Tradition says they at first resisted the newcomer and then accepted his leadership; Kitzes became the shofar-blower of the Besht's study house and is buried beside him. The Besht also took sides in town politics, opposing the butchers and the rabbi in their quarrel with the community in the early 1740s.^[7][16][11]

See also: Baal Shem Tov.

Baal Shem Tov's grave and pilgrimage

Places

The Besht died on Shavuot 1760, on 6 Sivan (21 May) by most accounts, or on the second day of the festival, 7 Sivan (22 May), by others. He lies in the old Jewish cemetery among his disciples and descendants: Ze'ev Volf Kitzes, his grandsons Rabbi Boruch and Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim, and the Apter Rav. The original stone was lost after the Second World War; local Jews marked the grave with a cement slab in the 1960s and a brick ohel followed in the early 1990s. In 2006 the Israeli organization Ohalei Tzadikim rebuilt the ohel over the four graves and built a synagogue, guest house and mikveh nearby; the rebuilding was criticized for disturbing surrounding graves. Since the late 1980s thousands of Hasidim have come each year, most of all on Shavuot, his yahrzeit; the war in Ukraine has made the journey difficult.^{[9][13][14][15][1]}

See also: Old Jewish cemetery, Medzhybizh today.

Baal Shem Tov's spring

Places

At Trebukhivtsi, on the edge of Medzhybizh, is a spring where, by tradition, the Besht prayed and washed his hands. A mikveh has been built over it for pilgrims. The tradition is a legend; no document records it.^[19][1]

See also: Baal Shem Tov.

Barondess, Joseph

People

Joseph Barondess (1867–1928) lived in Medzhybizh before emigrating to the United States in 1888, where he became a well-known leader of the Jewish labor movement in New York.^[1]

See also: The landsmanshaftn.

Berdyczewski, Micha Josef

People

Micha Josef Berdyczewski (1865–1921), the Hebrew and Yiddish writer and thinker, was born in Medzhybizh.^[1]

Bick, Rabbi Chaim Yekhiel Mikhel

People

Rabbi Chaim Yekhiel Mikhel Bick (1887–1964) is the last rabbi known to have lived in Medzhybizh. He left the town in 1925.^[1]

See also: Soviet era.

Boruch of Medzhybizh, Rabbi

People

Rabbi Boruch ben Yechiel (born 1753 or 1757; died 1811), a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov through his daughter Udl, knew his grandfather as a child. He returned to Medzhybizh in 1788 and kept a splendid court there, with the folk jester Hershele of Ostropol. He left no dynasty, having only daughters, and is buried beside his grandfather. Around 1800 a dispute in the town divided the community, and Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews came to be led separately.^[8][2][1]

See also: Baal Shem Tov, Hershel of Ostropol, Moshe Chaim Ephraim.

Castle

Places

Work on the stone fortress began in 1511, replacing wooden palisades, on the point of land where the Buzhok river meets the Southern Buh. A dam across the Buh made a defensive lake. The castle is a rhomboid with four towers; it was partly rebuilt in the 19th century. Today it holds a small museum of local history and a large memorial museum to the Holodomor, the famine of 1932–33. Many of its walls are deteriorating.^[1][4]

See also: Medzhybizh today, Names of the town.

Churches and palace

Places

Besides the castle, the town keeps the 16th-century Orthodox Church of the Dormition, with old frescoes, the 16th-century Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, and a 16th-century palace.^[4]

See also: Castle.

Civil war and pogroms, 1917–1922

Events

In 1917 the First Ukrainian Corps under Pavlo Skoropadsky was stationed in the town, and in 1918 Ukrainian and Red Army forces fought nearby. During the civil war of 1919–1922 control of the town changed hands many times, and its Jews suffered pogroms. Soviet rule was established in 1922.^[4][1]

See also: Soviet era.

Cossack uprising of 1648

Events

Before 1648 Medzhibozh had one of the largest Jewish communities in Podolia. On 20 July 1648, during the Khmelnytsky uprising, Cossack forces under Danylo Nechay and Maksym Kryvonis killed or carried off almost all of the town's Jews, about 2,500 people. By 1661 only a handful of Jews remained. Further attacks followed in 1651, 1664 and the early 18th century.^[1][2]

See also: Population, Timeline.

Fairs and trade

Society

Medzhybizh was known for large fairs that drew Jewish merchants from across the region. Its economy declined after 1831, when the regional seat moved to Kamianets-Podilskyi, and later when the railway bypassed the town.^[2][1]

See also: Russian rule.

First records

Events

The town is first named in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1146, as an estate of Kievan Rus. Jews are first recorded there in 1518, making it one of the oldest Jewish communities in Ukraine. In 1566 King Sigismund II Augustus exempted the town's Jews from taxes. The oldest dated grave in the old Jewish cemetery is from 1555.^[4][1][2]

See also: Timeline.

Hasidism, birthplace of

Society

Hasidism, the religious movement that stressed joy, prayer and closeness to God for ordinary Jews, grew from the circle of the Baal Shem Tov in Medzhybizh in the mid-18th century. His grandson Rabbi Boruch and later the Apter Rav kept a Hasidic court in the town, and Hasidim still come from around the world to pray at their graves.^[1][2]

See also: Baal Shem Tov, Apter Rav, Boruch of Medzhybizh.

Hershel of Ostropol

People

Hershel of Ostropol, the legendary joker of Jewish folklore, is said to be buried in an unmarked grave in the old Jewish cemetery of Medzhybizh.^[1]

See also: Old Jewish cemetery.

Holocaust, 1941–1942

Events

German troops took Medzhybizh on 8 July 1941; a pogrom had already broken out on 6 July, before they arrived. About 2,347 Jews lived in the town in 1939. They were forced into a ghetto, fenced with barbed wire, in the poorest part of town, and made to labor, from spring 1942 building roads at a quarry 14 km away. On 14 April 1942, 200 men were sent away as slave laborers. Soviet records date the killings from 21 August to 31 October 1942. The largest came on 22 September 1942, at a ravine near the road to Rusanovtsy; Jews later found in hiding were held in the castle barracks and shot over the following weeks, and the last were murdered by 31 October. The victims lie in three mass graves. Sources give the number of Jews murdered as 2,558, 2,583 (the Soviet commission's act of 4 June 1944) or 2,588. The town was liberated on 24 March 1944, and about two dozen Jewish families returned after the war.^[3][2][1][5]

See also: The Holocaust memorial, Mass graves.

Landsmanshaftn (New York societies)

Society

Emigrants from Medzhybizh founded mutual-aid societies in New York, among them the Medgibosh Progressive Solidarity Society, the Meshbisher Untershtutzung Verein and the Chevra Ohev Israel Anshei Meshbosh. The societies bought cemetery plots for their members in Queens and Long Island, which is why so many of the town's descendants are buried together in America.

See also: The landsmanshaftn, Search the registry.

Magdeburg rights, 1593

Events

In 1593 Adam Sieniawski granted the town Magdeburg rights, a charter of self-government used across Central and Eastern Europe. Over the centuries the town belonged to the Zasławski, Sieniawski, Potocki and Czartoryski families.^[1][4]

See also: Russian rule.

Mass graves and memorial

Places

The Jews murdered in 1942 lie in three trenches near the road to Rusanovtsy, about 2 km from the town, covered in concrete and marked by a monument. Sources place the site north or west of the town, beside the Southern Buh.^[3][1]

See also: Holocaust, 1941–1942, The Holocaust memorial.

Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov, Rabbi

People

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim (born 1748, some say 1742; died 1800), another grandson of the Baal Shem Tov through Udl, grew up in his grandfather's house in Medzhybizh. His book Degel Machaneh Ephraim (first printed in Korets in 1810) preserves many of the Besht's teachings. He returned to Medzhybizh as rebbe in 1785, died there in 1800 and is buried beside his grandfather.^[17][7]

See also: Baal Shem Tov, Boruch of Medzhybizh.

Nachman of Breslov, Rabbi

People

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810), founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, was born in Medzhybizh on 4 April 1772 (Rosh Chodesh Nisan 5532). He was a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov through Udl's daughter Feiga, and as a boy he went at night to pray at his great-grandfather's grave.^[18][1]

See also: Baal Shem Tov.

Names of the town

Society

The name comes from mezhbuzhye, "between the Bugs". Ukrainian: Medzhybizh (Меджибіж); Russian: Medzhibozh (Меджибож); Polish: Międzybóż; Yiddish: Mezhbizh (מעזשביזש); Hebrew: מז'יבוז'; German: Medschybisch; Ottoman: Mejibuji. Records and books also write Medzibezh, Medzibozh, Mezhibezh, Mezbizh, Miedzyboz and Międzybórz, and the New York societies wrote Medgibosh, Meshbisher and Meshbosh.^[1][5][2]

See also: The many names of the town.

New Jewish cemetery

Places

The new Jewish cemetery lies toward the western part of the town and holds graves from the early 19th century to the 1980s. It has been surveyed by the ESJF (European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative).^[1][6]

See also: Medzhybizh today.

Old Jewish cemetery

Places

North of the town lies the old Jewish cemetery, whose oldest dated burial is from 1555. Here are the graves of the Baal Shem Tov, the Apter Rav and Rabbi Boruch, sheltered by a modern building, and the unmarked grave said to be Hershel of Ostropol's. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hasidim from around the world.^[1][2]

See also: Baal Shem Tov, How to read a Jewish gravestone.

Ottoman rule, 1672–1699

Events

The Ottoman Empire took Podolia in 1672, and Medzhybizh, which the Ottomans wrote Mejibuji, became the centre of a district (sanjak) of the Kamaniçe province. Polish forces under Jan Sobieski retook it in 1682, though Poland only regained full control in 1699.^[1][4]

See also: Timeline.

Paleolithic site

Places

Near the town and the village of Holovchyntsi lies the Medzhybizh archaeological site, with some of the oldest traces of human presence in Ukraine.^[4]

Population

Society

See the table of Jewish population figures below. The 1847 figure of 1,719 is as published, though it looks low beside the 1834 revision list, which names some 1,456 households of Jewish townspeople, besides 401 households of craftsmen.^[1][2][5][4]

See also: Revision lists.

Printing press, 1815–1827

Society

From 1815 to 1827 a Hebrew printing press in Medzhybizh published Hasidic and kabbalistic books.^[2]

See also: Hasidism.

Rapoport, Rabbi Dov Berish

People

Rabbi Dov Berish Rapoport (died 1823) was the first of the Rapoport rabbinic family to settle in Medzhybizh.^[1]

Revision lists (tsarist censuses)

Records

The Russian Empire counted its taxpayers in "revision lists" (revizskie skazki). For Medzhybizh these survive in the State Archive of Khmelnytskyi Oblast (ДАХмО) and are among the best sources for Jewish families of the 19th century: 1816/1818 (fond 226, opis 79, file 3789), 1829 and 1833 (226-79-4747), 1834 (225-1д-859, which names every man, woman and child), 1843 (226-79-4960, transfers to other towns), 1851 (226-80-977), 1858 (226-79-6109) and 1875 (226-80-1166). Several are free to view on Wikimedia Commons, and JewishGen indexes many of them.^[20][21]

See also: How to read a revision list, Find your Medzhybizh family.

Russian rule, 1793–1917

Events

Russia took Medzhybizh in 1793, in the second partition of Poland, and it became part of Podolia province. The Czartoryski family owned the town until Adam Czartoryski went into exile in 1831; the regional seat then moved to Kamianets-Podilskyi, the railway later bypassed the town, and it declined. Yet its Jewish community kept growing, to 6,040 people, 74 per cent of the town, by 1897.^[1][2]

See also: Population, Revision lists.

Shevchenko, Taras, and other visitors

People

The Polish hero Tadeusz Kościuszko was stationed in Medzhybizh in 1790. The Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko stayed in the town in October 1846 during an archaeological expedition; a plaque marks the spot.^[1]

Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov)

Records

Most stories of the Besht in Medzhybizh come from Shivhei ha-Besht, more than 200 tales gathered in manuscript around 1795 by Dov Ber of Linits and printed in Kopys in 1814 (often dated 1815). Historians read it as hagiography with a historical core: some of its people, such as Kitzes and Purkes, are confirmed by Polish documents. Beyond those, the record of the Besht's life is thin: a few register entries, a handful of letters, and the teachings his disciples wrote down.^[7][2][10]

See also: Baal Shem Tov.

Sirkes, Rabbi Joel (the Bach)

People

Rabbi Joel Sirkes (1561–1640), the great legal scholar known as the Bach after his book Bayit Chadash, served as rabbi of Medzhybizh from 1604 to 1612.^[1][2]

Soviet era, 1922–1991

Events

Soviet rule brought electricity, schools, roads and collective farms. In the 1920s the town had a Jewish council and a Yiddish newspaper, and a Jewish collective farm (kolkhoz) was founded. In 1926, 4,614 Jews lived there, 58 per cent of the population. The famine of the early 1930s is remembered in the castle museum.^[1][2]

See also: Holocaust, 1941–1942.

Synagogues

Places

A small study house in Medzhybizh was known for generations as the Baal Shem Tov's synagogue. Sources disagree on its end: closed by the Soviets in 1939 and burned in 1942, or demolished by the Germans in 1941. A replica, built from photographs taken around 1915, was raised on the site between 2000 and 2005 and dedicated on Shavuot 2004; it serves pilgrims today. It is best described as the traditional Besht synagogue: some scholars doubt the photographed building is where he prayed. The Apter Rav's synagogue survives, used for other purposes, and was bought in 2008 for restoration.^{[12][14][1][3]}

See also: Baal Shem Tov, Medzhybizh today.

The town today

Places

Medzhybizh is a small settlement of about 1,200–1,300 people in Khmelnytskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, about 25 km from the city of Khmelnytskyi, at 49°26′N 27°25′E. It belonged to Letychiv Raion until 2020 and was an urban-type settlement until 2024.^[1][4]

See also: Medzhybizh today.