The Rabbi Who Tricked Stalin

by Mordechai Landsberg

At the beginning of April 1929, events in great Russia, as well as in Belarus – badly turned against Rabbi Aaron, and against the Jews in general. The remaining religious people in Minsk were shocked by the attempt of the Soviet regime to confiscate the two remaining old Synagogues in town. These had been the relics and symbols of religious and cultural Jewish life in Minsk, and suddenly all broke down.

  The violent activity against the synagogues took place four years after the Choral (main) synagogue had been taken from the Jewish community, and changed to a cultural cinema hall for ‘all citizens of Minsk’- Elya Ruhin was one of the pushers for that.

  The old Jewish synagogue, in which Rabbi Arron used to pray and study Talmud, was in Troyitskoye street. It was not far from the center of the Jewish Quarter. Early in the morning he was interrupted from his prayer at home. Natalya arrived, telling him about the confiscation – proclaimed on the Announcemnts pillars. Rabbi Aaron waked Raphael and rushed with him to Blooma, and was running with Natalya to his sinagogue.

  Both were said to arrive at their work-places at nine, but the expected happening regarding the synagogue - drawned them to wait at that hour near the place. They saw hundreds of Jews standing already on the Square, many of them praying loudly and waving their fists. Rabbi Aaron soon met the two ‘Assitant Rabbies’ of Rabbi Haneles, who still used to pray there in Sabbaths with their small congregation.

  At first the crowd’s demonstration was non-violent. The people were standing and shouting from time to time at two construction workers, who had just broken down, by hammers, the metallic ‘Shield of David’ at the building’s front. That symbol, as well as the wording in Hebrew letters ‘Bet Kneset’ (that means: synagogue) in copper letters had been attached there- for generations. Now everything was removed by the strikes. The broken copper pieces were collected by two woman workers, who gathered those into a sack. As a precaution - policemen were standing in front of the synagogue small Square, on the sidewalk. For the time being they were only surveying the area.

  As the workers-breakers were descending their ladder, Rabbi Aaron rushed toward them. He had discerned dark uniformed policemen nearby, and was aware of their possible brutal intervention, but he began to shout:

  “Be ashamed, to invade into our holy place! God will revenge you - for devastating a quiet Prayers Temple.”

  Natalya, standing beside him, shouted to the policemen: “You call yourselves communists? You are barbarians.”

  The Jewish crowd began to approach the policemen. Though some were pushed aside by their trunches and wooden gun-handles, others replaced them and continued to approach the synagogue enrty doors. The policemen were pushing the crowd back, but they were in an extreme minority. Their commander pulled out a pistol from his trousers’ pocket, and a Gepau dressed in civil followed him suit. Shots had been heard. Two demononstrators fell down wounded on the Square’s pavement. The panic had grown, and two elder Jews had assaulted the shooting officer, and his pistol was snatched. But four Gepauniks suddenly appeared from two opposite sides of the square, and were facing the first stream of demonstrators. Two police officers had used their whistlers, and others began shouting at the crowd. Soon two of them ran out , calling for a strengthening force to cover the area..

  The sight of many Jews, ready to ‘defend the Holy Shrine,’ appalled the Gepau’s Deputy Commander Vronsky, who had taken care of that event. He was looking at Rabbi Aaron’s thick beard,(‘cultivated’ recently – Natalya had a hand in its shape) moving in the air, while he began talking with compassion – to the ‘herd of God’ around him:

  “Everyone of us,” said Rabbi Aaron, “is feeling an inner strength in himself. It comes with unwavering faith. We shall not let the regime throw us from our last religion fortress. God is our refuge, and this synagogue is our castle. My brethern and sisters, this time we should prove to the Soviets that we are not like scared mice. We will sacrifice ourselves for the name of our God.”

  The Minsk Gepau deputy Vronsky approached the crowd, and tried to calm them.

  “We can bring here thousands of policemen,” he said, “Don’t behave like fools. Go to your homes and to your work. We don’t want bloodshed. Don’t force us to shoot any more.”

  New policemen were approaching the Square. They began hitting men and women with their black cudgels. Old women screamed and some swooned, but the heartless gentile and Jewish cops were ruthlessly driving people out of the area.

  But meanwhile - Rabbi Aaron and another Rabbi, Notea Noah, succeeded to reach the building from behind, and climb the back broken stairs of the synagoue.. They were followed by about ten elders, who were immediately scattered inside the Hall, then hiding behind the prayers’ stands and benches, or were just strolling there around. Natalya’s sight was lost from Aaron’s eyes. He had forgotten everything except his wish to penetrate inside and see what the confiscators would do there. He was afraid, that the sacred scrolls and Torah precious metals ornaments, golden crowns and ‘silver hands’- would be just burned or robbed by Gentiles or even Jewish mobsters, that would soon arrive…

  The Rabbies saw about ten Russian ‘carpenters’ and furniture breakers, who had just entered there. They were stirring by hammers and axes the old benches, and breaking apart the wooden stage, from which every Saturday the congregation would hear the Torah reading by the ‘Calling-expert’ (“Baal Kryah”).

  “This is a Holy place!” shouted at them Rabbi Aaron, and Rabbi Noteh Noakh followed him. “How dare you, criminals? We pray here hundreds of years. We have never caused any damage by that, but the opposite. We have paid our taxs for maintaining it; and we had not asked your favors to renew it.”

  “We have an order, Yevreiski Rabbi,” said a police Officer, “The Soviet of Minsk, the people’s assembly – had decided that. It’s an Act of Law, and don’t break it. You are criminals, I warn you!”

  The Police Officer pulled a document from his pocket, and waved it close to the Rabbi’s eyes. He was reading it loudly:

  “Any religion building, its furnitue and holy articles - is from now on- confiscated. All the property will be handed to the workers’ organizations, and used by them for cultural purposes.”

  Another policemen came toward Rabbi Aaron from behind, and grabbed him by folding his arms by the elbows.

  “Put your hands off me!” shouted Rabbi Aaron, but the policeman continued to hold him tightly. Other policemen held his collegue, Rabbi Noteh.

  More policemen rushed inside – trying to drive them out, and the struggle strengthened.

  Rabbi Aaron, though grabbed by the policeman, continued to shout at the workers, who were indicated by a Police Officer to follow him. He rushed to the Synagogue’s Ark’s place, in the eastern side, and the assistant Rabbis followed them.

  Policemen began to chase the Jews that they had met in the hall. They were trying to push them toward the entry, which had been filled with Gepaus and uniformed men. The Jewish mob staying outside - could not pass the mass of security men, to penetrate inside.

  Standing already at the velvet curtain of the Ark, the police officer opened it. However, he could not open the wooden door- so he ordered a carpenter to break it by his ax.. Five Torah scrolls were revealed to the eyes of the breakers and policemen. The Ark had been built hundred or more years before, since that synagoue had been established. Now the authorities’ delegates took out the Holy Scrolls, which were “dressed” with blue and red velvets covers. Each scroll was ornamented by two silver crowns assmbled on its top.

  The workers and Police Officer were rushing with their precious loot out of the synagogue Hall. Each one was grabbing a Torah Scroll in his hands, close to his belly, (not in the Jewish manner of holding the sacred script - close to the chest).

  The policemen released the Rabbis from their grip. Rabbi Aaron and his collegue were running after the looters of the scrolls. They were filled with dread, and some Jews who saw the snatche
d scrolls were weeping. Rabbi Aaron felt like a bad burning in the left side of his chest, and fell down. A kind hearted policemen who saw that, brought a bucket filled with water. He poured it on the Rabbi’s head, and he rose to his feet. A police officer saw him recovered, and soon handed him a scroll which he was grabbing.

  “Rabbies, “ he shouted, “Tell your people to take all the other scrolls to their homes. We don’t need them. Call your God-believers here.”

  Rabbi Noteh and other Jews were soon handed their precious and sacred articles. They embraced the Torah scrolls like these were babies, and were telling each other: ‘Thank God. The Gepau could set all that on fire- and break our souls…’

  The number of Jews outside the synagogue had been diminished to thirty. Soon they discerned two organized groups of a steel factory’s ironmongers, who had arrived to the square by two trucks. They burst into the emptied synagogue. There laughter and joyful singing pained Rabbi Aaron’s soul. Soon there came a Jew from inside the Hall, telling he had seen the workers drinking vodka from bottles they had brought.

  “Blessed be Stalin, our father.” their choir was heard, “We have won, and this is our new club. Oh, Maria, come to see our joy, but undressed… ”

  The Jews discerned two horse-wagons, which were coming close to the square. The wagoners got out and approached the Jewish crowd. They said that the Gepau deputy commander had invited them. They would drive the scroll carriers to their homes.

  The two Rabbies climbed on one wagon, and the three other Jews – holding the other scrolls, took the second one. Rabbi Aaron had already looked at ‘his’ Torah scroll. It was Genesis, handwritten in the old Hebrew square script. He kissed the scroll and held it tightly up. When he heard the wagoner’s whip whisle over the horseback, he turned his head back to the square, and saw only few male Jews that had still remainded there.

  Hopefully Natalya had not been hurt, he said to himself. Surely she had returned to her work. Soon – I will lay the sacred scroll in my wardrobe. There is enough place for it. In Sabbath we will use it to pray together in my small hut, or go with it to somebody else. We must continue to read the Torah in public, so is the tradition. . .

  That was not the end of the ‘synagogue rally’. Antonov, the Gepau head in Minsk, made some arrests of Jews at that day, as the Jewish surrounding was still storming. Three of his men were assaulted and severely injured by stones and sticks of Jewish outraged God-believers. The Gepaus were ordered not to react by shooting, as the rest of Soviet Russian States and towns at those days were quiet. From the wooden huts and semi-detached bricks houses of the Jews, even some Regime supporters became intolerant to its violence.

  Antonov had also heard a rumor, that some of the drunken Soviet ironmongers, who captured the synagogue for their ‘cultural use’ - would like to bring there some whores at the coming nights. He was afraid of even worse events to come as a result, and reported about all that to the Kremlin. His boss Menzhinsky told him, that a foreign newspaper had already published that incident. On the other side - the Minsk Soviet(Party Representatives) was angry of the proven weakness of police and Gepau, who were not vehement enough in the struggle.

  “Now we have an intolerable dillema”, roared the All Russian Gepau Head Menzhinsky at Antonov, “Therefore- better throw everybody from that cursed holy place.Then block all the entries, including the windows- by red bricks with cement. In due time we’ll open it, not now. Stalin has some visitors from abroad, and wants to show a calm country.”

  The following sentences were published in Warsaw, as news coming from the Jewish Telegraphic agency - on the 3rd of April 1929:

  “ACTION POSTPONED, FOLLOWING RELIGION CONFLICT:

  Members of two religious congregations in Minsk, white Russia (Belaruss) have offered resistance to the order of the communist authorities to confiscate their synagogues...(according to Polish news agency). The synagogues were confiscated ‘for the benfit of ironmongers and leather workers , to be converted into clubs.’

  When carrying out of the (confiscation) order - has led to street fights between the workers and the Jewish God’s worshippers, the Minsk Soviet decided temporarily to seal the synagogues without converting them immediately into clubs...However, the Youths’ Comsomol organization expressed its dissatisfaction with that act of the authorities.

  (see: internet ”www.archive.jta/article/1929….”)

  The head of the communist youths was Elya Ruhin. He could not tell the newspaper agency, that he had been satisfied that the workers had not won yet. He was supposed to be more religious than the Pope – as he represented the enthralled youths, feeling the fire of destruction of the old world burning in their hearts.

  CHAPTER 32