Mezhybizh
Mezhybizh[1] is a historic Jewish townlet in northern Podolia[2] that for centuries served as a center of Torah learning and Chassidic life. Among its Jewish inhabitants, Mezhybizh was known affectionately as the Tzion of Podolia[3] and di kleyne Eretz Yisroel — the little Land of Israel.[4]
History[edit | edit source]
Mezhybizh is among the oldest towns in Eastern Europe, with a history spanning over a thousand years. In its early centuries it passed through the hands of the Tatars, the Principality of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Galicians, and the Ottoman Turks — each ruling it in turn. In 5460 (1700), Poland recaptured the city,[5] and in 5506 (1746) it passed to the Principality of Volhynia.
The name[edit | edit source]
The town's name is a combination of the Slavic word mezi — meaning "between" — and Buh (Bozok), the name of the river that encircles it.
Location[edit | edit source]
Mezhybizh sits between the northern and southern branches of the Bug River. To enter the town, travelers must cross a bridge overlooked by a fortress from which soldiers once guarded the crossing. The town also contained an extensive network of underground tunnels connecting it to surrounding areas of Ukraine.
The Jewish Community[edit | edit source]
Around 5020 (1260), Jews fleeing persecution and pogroms in neighboring towns began settling in Mezhybizh, drawn by the protection its fortified walls offered.[6]
In 5022 (1262), the town's grand and splendid synagogue was erected.
Around 5360 (1600), the Gaon Rabbi Yoel Sirkis — known by the acronym of his masterwork as the Bach — settled in Mezhybizh, transforming it into a center of radiant Torah scholarship. He established a yeshiva there that drew students from across Poland, and the community became known throughout the Jewish world as a kehillas orah shel Torah — a community illuminated by Torah.[7] The Bach prayed in the town's great synagogue[8] and his rulings on synagogue practice were transmitted among Mezhybizh's Jews from generation to generation.[9] Around 5370 (1610), the Bach departed.[10]
He was succeeded in Mezhybizh by the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Katz, author of Penei Moshe, Keren Ohr, and additional works.[11]
The Chmielnicki massacres of 5408–5409 (1648–1649) brought catastrophe to Mezhybizh's Jewish community. In 5408 (1648) Cossack forces under Bohdan Khmelnytsky attacked the town and murdered many of its Jews. In Tammuz 5409 (1649) the Cossacks returned, destroyed most of the Jewish population, and burned the town.[12]
In the years that followed, Jews gradually resettled in Mezhybizh. Rabbi Tzvi Epketz led the community,[13] and Rabbi Yaakov Yehudah Leib of Mezhybizh served as moreh tzedek (halachic decisor).
The Baal Shem Tov[edit | edit source]
In 5500 (1740), the Baal Shem Tov was searching for a place to settle. His disciple R' Nachman of Horodenka wrote to his brother, the town's moreh tzedek R' Yaakov Yehudah Leib, who promptly invited the Baal Shem Tov to come. The invitation was accompanied by a letter from the town's non-Jewish leadership as well, eager to raise Mezhybizh's standing by attracting so illustrious a figure.
The Baal Shem Tov heard the offer and agreed, saying: "I could have settled in Nemirov[14] — where many Jews were martyred for the sanctification of G‑d's name[15] — but I prefer Mezhybizh, because it sits beside a river and I will have an abundance of fish for Shabbos."[16]
That same year,[17] the Baal Shem Tov settled in Mezhybizh together with his daughter Marat Adel, his son-in-law Rabbi Yechiel Michel Ashkenazi,[18] his secretary R' Tzvi the Scribe, and his devoted disciple R' Zev Volf Kitzes. According to the town's records, he received, in his capacity as a doctor and baal shem (a healer who worked with holy names), a rent-free apartment beside the old beis midrash where he prayed, together with complete exemption from taxes.
During the years the Baal Shem Tov made Mezhybizh his home, the town drew visitors from across the world — Jews and non-Jews alike — who came throughout the year to bask in his presence and receive his blessing.
In those days, the Baal Shem Tov's beis midrash was regarded as the Beis HaMikdash — the spiritual Temple — of that generation,[19] and the spiritual dimension of the Tablets of the Covenant was said to rest within it.[20]
On Shavuos, 6 Sivan 5520 (1760), the Baal Shem Tov passed from this world.[21] He rests in the central section of the town's cemetery.[22]
His son Rabbi Tzvi continued to lead the Chassidic movement in Mezhybizh until 7 Sivan 5521 (1761), when — in accordance with his father's instruction conveyed through a dream — he transferred the leadership to the Maggid of Mezeritch, who moved the center of Chassidus to Mezeritch. R' Tzvi remained in Mezhybizh for about two more years before relocating to Pinsk.[23] Remaining in Mezhybizh were R' Zev Volf Kitzes, the Baal Shem Tov's son-in-law R' Yechiel Ashkenazi, his wife Marat Adel, and a handful of Chassidim. Between 5527 and 5532 (1767–1772), the tzaddik R' Zalman of Luntshitz — a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov — also lived there, but despite his presence, Mezhybizh gradually lost its central prominence.
In 5530 (1770), R' Yechiel and R' Volf both passed away, and in 5532 (1772) R' Zalman followed, leaving Mezhybizh without Chassidic leadership.
The Era of the Baal Shem Tov's Grandchildren[edit | edit source]
Around 5547 (1787), R' Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov — author of the Degel Machaneh Ephraim and a grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, who had been born and raised in Mezhybizh — returned to the town and served there as rabbi and maggid (preacher). He was deeply beloved by the community.
Because he did not hold the position of Rebbe — Chassidic master — no formal Chassidic court formed around him, and his leadership remained local. Mezhybizh did not recover its former centrality.
R' Ephraim passed away on 17 Iyar 5560 (1800).
Following his passing, the townspeople turned to his brother, R' Baruch of Mezhybizh, who at the time served as Rebbe in Tulchin, and asked him to assume the town's rabbinate. R' Baruch agreed, and transferred his court to Mezhybizh.
Under R' Baruch's leadership, Mezhybizh flourished once more. Thousands of Chassidim from across Volhynia came to receive his blessing, many leading figures of the Jewish world visited his court, and dozens of families settled in the town to be near him.
It is related[24] that during R' Baruch's leadership, Chabad Chassidim avoided entering the town, owing to the disagreement that existed between R' Baruch and the Alter Rebbe — Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad Chassidus.
In 5571 (1811), R' Baruch passed away.[25]
The Era of the Ohev Yisrael and His Descendants[edit | edit source]
After R' Baruch's passing, the community turned to the Rebbe R' Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt — known as the Ohev Yisrael ("Lover of Israel"), after the title of his celebrated work — who was then residing in the city of Jassy, and invited him to serve as their rabbi.[26] He accepted,[27] and led the community for thirteen years before his passing in 5585 (1825).
His son R' Yitzchak-Meir led the community in Zinkov, near Mezhybizh. R' Yitzchak-Meir's grandson, the Rebbe R' Avraham Yehoshua Heschel,[28] returned to Mezhybizh and established his own Chassidic court there. He passed away in 5648 (1888). His son R' Shalom Yosef Yisrael succeeded him, followed by R' Shalom Yosef Yisrael's eldest son, R' Avraham Yehoshua of Mezhybizh, who after a time relocated to Ternopil and established his court there. R' Avraham Yehoshua's brother, the Rebbe R' Yitzchak Meir Heschel of Mezhybizh, then led the community, with their mother the Rebbetzin Bas Sheva remaining in the town as well. He purchased his ancestor the Ohev Yisrael's beis midrash from his cousins, and courageously defended the synagogue against government seizure. When the authorities ultimately ordered all Jews to vacate the building, R' Yitzchak Meir transferred his leadership to Odessa, operating under difficult conditions. He eventually emigrated to the Holy Land and established his beis midrash, called "Ohev Yisrael," in Haifa.
The Bik Family[edit | edit source]
For a number of generations, the Bik family served in the rabbinate of Mezhybizh.[29]
Mezhybizh in the Holocaust[edit | edit source]
In Menachem Av 5701 (August 1941), the Russian army withdrew from Mezhybizh and German forces occupied the town. Ukrainian nationalists immediately began attacking the Jewish population, and the Baal Shem Tov's beis midrash was destroyed to its foundations. The beis midrash standing today is a reconstruction of the original.
For thirteen months, the Jews of Mezhybizh endured unimaginable suffering. They were confined to a ghetto surrounded by high, tangled barbed wire, with fifteen to twenty people crowded into a single room. The town's young men were sent to forced labor, and many perished.
In early 5703 (1943), most of the community was deported to extermination camps; those who fled were hunted down and killed. On 4 Nissan 5703 (March 31, 1943), the majority of Mezhybizh's Jews were murdered in the death camps, among them the Rebbe R' Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Ternopil.
Only a handful of the town's Jews survived.
Further Reading[edit | edit source]
- Rabbi Shlomo Avish, Ir Mivtzar — A History of Mezhybizh, published by Mosedes Mezhybizh, New York, Elul 5769 (2009).
- Pamphlet Echad Hayah, supplement to the newspaper HaMevasér on the subject of the Baal Shem Tov, Shavuos 5770 (2010).
External Links[edit | edit source]
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ In Ukrainian: Меджибіж (Medzhybizh); in Polish: Międzybóż (Miendzhibuzh); in Yiddish: מעזשביזש.
- ↑ Located today in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine.
- ↑ An echo of the Biblical phrase "on Mount Zion, which lies desolate" (Lamentations 5:18) and "Mount Zion, the utmost heights of the north, the city of the great King" (Psalms 48:3), both referring to Jerusalem as the spiritual center of the Jewish people. For sources applying this title to Mezhybizh, see Sarei HaMeah, vol. 3, ch. 1.
- ↑ See the pamphlet Echad Hayah ve'Acharav Lo Yihyeh, Shavuos 5770, p. 14.
- ↑ Some Chassidic traditions hold that the Polish reconquest took place only after the Baal Shem Tov settled there, in 5500 (1740).
- ↑ Among the Jews it was called ir mivtzar — a fortress city.
- ↑ For a fuller account of this period, see Sarei HaMeah by Y.L. Fishman-Maimon, vol. 3, beginning.
- ↑ Long afterward still referred to as "the Bach's shul."
- ↑ The Bach's years in Mezhybizh became, four decades later, one of the reasons drawing the Baal Shem Tov to settle there. See Or Olam — HaModia, Shavuos 5765, p. 26.
- ↑ The Bach passed away on 2 Adar 5401 (1641).
- ↑ A nephew of the author of Semichas Chachamim.
- ↑ General history books debate who was ultimately responsible for the fall of the fortified city. Some have suggested that antisemitic garrison soldiers abandoned their posts out of hatred for the Jews.
- ↑ The government-appointed rabbi was R' Berish Bilayois.
- ↑ A large and important city.
- ↑ During the Chmielnicki massacres of 5408–5409 (1648–1649), led by the Gaon Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Nemirov.
- ↑ In the name of R' Yosef of Mezhybizh, a great-great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov through the Degel Machaneh Ephraim, a different version is told, connected to the construction of a new beis midrash in place of the old one by the government rabbi and community patron R' Berish Bilayois; a heavenly accusation arose against the town, R' Berish fell gravely ill, and the Baal Shem Tov came to heal him — and to nullify the accusation he settled in the town and established himself in the old beis midrash. See at length in the book Ir Mivtzar.
- ↑ Several versions exist for the precise year of his settlement, but the figure recorded in contemporary documents is 5500 (1740).
- ↑ Their children, born in Mezhybizh over the years, included R' Moshe Chaim Ephraim — author of the Degel Machaneh Ephraim — R' Baruch of Mezhybizh, and their daughter Feiga, mother of R' Nachman of Breslov.
- ↑ See Kuntres Beis Rabbeinu SheBeBavel, 5752 (1992).
- ↑ From the dream of R' Zev Volf Kitzes, recorded in Shmu'os veSimuros by the Chassid R' Refael Nachman HaKohen, vol. 2.
- ↑ See at length in Sefer HaToldos Baal Shem Tov by Avraham Chanoch Glitzenstein, in the chapter on his passing.
- ↑ In recent years, Yisrael Meir Gabai, head of the organization Ohalei Tzaddikim — affiliated with the Sephardic stream of Breslov Chassidus — renovated the ohel and erected a large and impressive structure on the site.
- ↑ Echad Hayah — HaMevasér, p. 32; opinions differ.
- ↑ Oral tradition.
- ↑ According to the encyclopedia Gedolei HaDoros.
- ↑ The Ohev Yisrael's relationship with Chabad Chassidus was somewhat strained.
- ↑ It is told that upon arriving in the town he noticed that the community members appeared somewhat downcast, and he understood they feared he would not live long due to his advanced age. He said to them: "I promise you that I will serve here as rabbi for exactly thirteen years — just as the Degel Machaneh Ephraim did." And so it was.
- ↑ Son-in-law of R' Shalom Yosef Friedman of Sadigorer Chassidus.
- ↑ Source needed.