Resources

About Berdichev

• The Berdichev Revival
• Helm's Genealogy Toolbox - Ukraine

Berdichevers

• Steven Kitnick Family Tree Project and Steven Kitnick Genealogy & Family History Project
• Naylor Genealogy
• Home Page of Lev Zilbermints

Alex Kott <kotta@logica.com>

• I know that there exist in the Kiev archives a complete set of Revision Lists for Berdichev of 1834, 1850, and 1858. But are there any earlier Revision Lists available?

Paul Ginsburg <GinsburgP@state.gov>

• I have created a page concerning Sholom SCHWARTZBARD, a Ukrainian Jew who assassinated the leader of the independent Ukraine, Simon Petlura. Schwartzbard killed Petlura in 1926 in Paris to avenge those killed during the pogroms
• http://members.bellatlantic.net/~pauldana/schwartzbard.htm

Diane Kriegman Claussen <didado@mindspring.com>

• I saw a very interesting Russian produced movie about a story taking place in Berdichev, the readers may know of or want to check out: Das Commisar. It relates to many of the issues of Jews and Russian worlds and the Nazi events later with alot of symbolism. Really it is a cinema masterpiece I think. Does anyone know about this film and have any comments?

Harley I. Kessluk <hikessluk@juno.com>

• From the archives, dated 08/25/1998, http://www.glasnet.ru/~heritage/depe.htm (note: page no longer exists), The Jewish Archive Program

        The main goal of the "Jewish Archive" program is to locate, describe, make available to scholars and to preserve for future generations the great amount of source material for Jewish history from state repositories of the CIS and the Baltic states and neglected collections in vanishing Jewish communities and synagogues. Started by the Society several years ago, this work is based on the contributions of enthusiasts of Jewish history and culture. The "Jewish Archive" program brings together various professionals and amateurs: historians and philologists, archivists and librarians, students of regional history and public figures.

        The Society's work on uncovering and describing Jewish holdings in archives of the CIS and the Baltic states has passed through the following steps: collecting basic information about Jewish documentary holdings, compiling a list of archives containing documents in Jewish history and lists of Jewish files and files with sizable Jewish contents in them; preparing lists of the above files for every archive where Jewish documents were found; preparing a detailed description of each of the files.

        Presently, the JHS archival data base contains a comprehensive list of about 1000 Jewish files in 90 (out of 150) archives of the CIS and the Baltic republics and detailed description of Jewish files in 12 archives of Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Lvov, Zhitomir, Riga, Vilnius. The assembled material has formed the basis of the JHS "Jewish Archive" series with six issues already published.

        The "Jewish Archive" series provides to scholars all collected information resources - finding aids, directories, surveys, and inventories of documentary sources of Jewish history in repositories of the CIS and the Baltic states. Those resources are available for users both in the form of published surveys and on-line on the JHS home page.

        The participants contributing to the program - amateur and professional scholars, librarians and archivists - have formed the editorial board of the "Jewish Archive" series. The editorial board invites new participants to join its efforts by contributing surveys, source studies, copies of archival records and inventories to share with Judaic scholars around the world.

• Library Description
• http://www.jewish-heritage.org/ Found in a new location! But, note: Although the titles are in English, the documents are in Russian.

  All JHS services and publications are free of charge. If anyone knows Russian, we can best help this group by translating documents for them. Contact <info@jewish-heritage.org> to offer your assistance!

Naomi Fatouros <NFatouros@aol.com>

• September 10, 1998

        Jewishgenner Sandi Goldsmith gave me permission to post an old Jewishgen message of hers, provided that I emphasize that she has no relatives from Berdichev or its vicinity, and that she does not want to be inundated with email because she has no new information to add since her original post. Ms. Goldman wrote on February 26, 1996.

        I would like to share with you the list of rabbinate metrical books that are kept in the Central State Historical Archives in Kiev. Listed are the central towns of the district of Kievski guberniya.

        The records of nearby small towns may also be in fonds of these towns. They are written in Russian and Hebrew. I have seen only one of these books but I am told that they are all basically the same. For example,included in the birth records are, the date of birth, Hebrew date of birth,name of mohel, date of bris, M or F, place of birth, first and surname of mother and father, profession of father, place of father's birth, maternal father's first name, and child's first name. At the end of each month the rabbi totaled the number of boys and the number of girls and signed his name.

        The following list includes: name of town, year in which the books were compiled, and number of books for those years.

  Berdichev, 1845-51 (2)

  Boguslav, 1848 (1)

  Buksk, 1848-53 (8)

  Vasykov, 1849-74 (15)

  Gornostaypol, 1851-62 (45)

  Zvenigorod, 1846-66 (44)

  Ivankov, 1854-62 (39)

  Kyiv (Kiev), 1850-1910 (510)

  Korostyshev, 1840-1916 (203)

  Lipovets, 1851 (8)

  Malinsk, 1846-62 (55)

  Pereyaslav, 1851-1915 (10)

  Radomyshl, 1855-93 (80)

  Sivirsk, 1854-67 (7)

  Taraschansk, 1840-60 (10)

  Uman, 1844-60 (21)

  Habno, 1849-62 (57)

  Cherkasy, 1853 (1)

  Chornobyl, 1852-62 (34)

        I have to add that Sallis and Web, in their "Jewish Documentary Sources in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus," unaccountably do not list the address for: The State Archives of Zhitmir Province, Berdichev Branch (Gosudarstavennyi arkhiv Zhitomirskoi olasti, filial v g. Berdicheve) although they do give addresses for some Moscow archives

        All this isn't very helpful, but at least you know now of the existence of the Berdichev archive and of the two Berdichev records.

  
  
• April 14, 2002

        Here are [two] of the messages I've sent about Berdichev to this Berdichev Group and to Jewishgen's mail group on the Ukraine. To them I now add the following:

        It may be that Jewishgen's Joyce Field may be working "behind [the] scenes" to have the Tsederbaum book translated and put online. But I stress that I don't know for sure whether this is happening. Also, there is a Book of Remembrance of Babi Yar which was published in 1983. I've been told it contains over 100,000 names, but I have not seen the book myself.

  
  
• December 17, 2001

        Jewishgen's mail group published a[n] inquiry from a Daniella Judd who said she may have found her NUDELMANs at the Ellis Island Database. She wanted to know where "Beredischew" is. I suggested with some certainty that the town's name was misnoted or mistranscribed; it was really "Berdichev," which is west of Kiev and about two-thirds of the way between Vinnitsa and Zhitomir. Although none of what I have written below says anything about Ms. Judd's Nudelman's her message prompted me to write up the following which I put off until yesterday. I am sharing it with the Ukraine group members since I know that many of them do not subscribe to Jewishgen's mail group (as distinct from its SIGs mail groups), and some Ukraine researchers are interested in Berdichev.

        Because Berdichev was a large town, heavily populated by Jews nearly all of whom of whom were Chassids, there is a lot of information about it. Toward the last part of the nineteenth century many Bundists gathered in Berdichev and under their influence some of the town's Jews, unlike those unfortunates in many other villages and towns, managed at least to put up a defense against pogromists and they even prevented one pogrom from occurring.

        Today those Berdichev Jews who survived the atrocities of WW II are being cared for and the community, such as it is, is being revived by American-born and other Chassids. Meanwhile Christian evangelical missionaries claim to be successful at proselytizing the Jews whom the Chassids haven't succeeding in reaching.

        On the Internet there are a number of descriptions of visits to Berdichev made by Chassids and a few others Jews and non-Jews. The Chassids who do not stay to work among the Jews of Berdichev make these visits to pray over the graves of Rabbis in the Ukraine. An oddity among such websites displays the text of a "sermon" by a California rabbi whose subject matter was his romantic, rhapsodic, totally imaginary visit to Berdichev. Not being at all religious myself, I thought this account absurd, but other Berdichevers may sigh over it with vicarious nostalgia.

        Doing website searches for Berdichev, Berditchev, Berdichiv, Berdichew, etc., will turn up a preponderance of websites having to do with the sometimes touching, sometimes funny, sometimes mysterious sayings and doings of Berdichev's most famous rabbi, Levy Yitzhak. (Samuel Dresner has written the biography of this Rabbi.) Although, as I've admitted, I am not religious or maybe because I am not, I admire Levy Yitzhak if only because he dared to "sue" God!

        Steve Rosen has sent to the Berdichev group at Rootsweb and to Jewishgen's Ukraine mail group messages both of which contain a list of 280 Berdichev Jews compiled by Yael Driver from a booklet "The town of Berdichev" by Baruch Karu, Krupnik, Tel-Aviv, 1951.

        There are two websites devoted to Berdichev. One [of] which was set up by Jim Borman can be reached through JewishGen's ShtetLinks. The last time I looked at it nothing new had been added. The other website, "The Berdichev Revival," is still being worked on by Jorge Spunberg. Among other new items to be found there, he has translated the introduction of his father's memoir and I am eager to read the rest because Jorge told me that his father mentions having had a physic teacher in Berdichev named Iona BELKOWSKY. This Iona was my grandfather's nephew and I have a letter from Iona saying that he had taught there. Moreover, Jorge found among his family's memorabilia two snapshots of Iona standing in his lab which he kindly sent me. Jorge's site has moved from its former URL to: http://www.berdichev.org/

        Although his site is not complete and may always remain a "work in progress" it contains pictures of Berdichev and a database of Russian Army Jewish soldiers who were injured, killed or missing in action during the Russo Japanese War of 1904-05. When I returned to the site today to make sure I had the right URL (the site was formerly at another address) I noticed that it also contains now a copy of that rhapsodic description I mentioned above.

        Another website Berdichevers should look at is John Garrard's "Phoenix" website site at: http://www2.jewishgen.org/JewishGen/pr/phoenix.htm. [unavailable as of 04/14/2002]

        There they can click on his three partial lists of WWII Berdichev victims 'names.

        I have read the following books because they have been translated into English:

  • "Der Family Mashber" by "Der Nister" ("The Hidden One," pseudonym of Pinhas Kahanovitch). This is a long saga of the eventual decline of a wealth Jewish family in 19th century Berdichev. It is such a fine novel that I hope that someday I'll find time to re-read it.
  • "Life and Death" is an "epic" novel by Soviet writer Vassily Grossman who was born in Berdichev and whose mother lived there until she was murdered by the Nazis. Grossman describes life and death in Berdichev, the battle of Stalingrad and the many problems of life during the Stalinist regime. Grossman also co-authored a book with writer Ilya Ehrenberg, " Black Book" which mentions atrocities in Berdichev. The book was censored for many years by the Soviets. Some information about Berdichev can be found also in John and Carol Garrard's "Bones of Berdichev" which is their biography of Grossman, but I think Grossman's "Life and Death" contains more.

  
  

        From the Internet I learned that a film was made in 1967 entitled "The Komisssar" which was based a story Grossman wrote called "In the town of Berdichev.". It was not released until 1988. Another film about which I read in J.Oberman's"Bridge of Light" is "Jewish Luck" (Yevreishkoye Schastye) which is based on a story by Sholem Aleichem, With mostly exterior scenes, Oberman says it is "almost semi-documentary in its representation of a tumbled-down section of Berdichev." I don't know where these films can be found and viewed.

        During my self-directed course in reading books about Russian history, and in finding information about my grandfather's birthplace, I've come across several descriptions of past and present Berdichev not one of which tempts me to visit it as it was or is. These passages occur in the work Sholem Aleichem, Yisroel Aksenfeld, and others. I also found a paragraph about Berdichev in Martin D. Kushner,MD, "From Russia to America: A Modern Odyssey." Over the years I've collected a few such descriptions, with the idea of writing up a little study, but I learned last year that Mikhail Krutikov has published an interesting article entitled "Berdichev in Russian Literary Imagination: in which he quotes from Sholem Aleichem and Aksenfeld.

        It can be read in "The Shtetl: Images of Reality" which contains several other intesting essays. Krutikov's esssay can also be read at least in part on the Internet at: http://www.berdichev.org/krutikov1.html and http://jewish-history.com/Occident/volume2/nov1844/berditschew.html. There is a[n] article or review of "Berditchew Artificers" taken from an 1844 edition of "Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums." The review mentions the number of participants in each of the various trades to be found among the then 30,000 Jewish inhabitants.

        Because I can't yet read Yiddish unless it is transliterated and I cannot read Hebrew almost at all, I haven't tried to read or even locate the whereabouts of the following but I presume that YIVO in New York has copies of all or some:

  • N.B. Lynder, 1885-1968 "In yene tag, tipn un bilder fun YIdishn lebn amol in Berditshev."
  • Tsevi Kaminski, 1897-1973 "Geven amol a shtot Berditsheve" Paris, Ts.Kaminski, 1952.
  • Alexander Tzederbaum,"Die Giheimnise fun Berdtchev ("The Mysterious" or "The Secrets" of Berditchev), Warsaw 1870 - (Yiddish) I've read that it contains much valuable information. Also, I've seen Tzederbaum's name spelled as Cedarbaum and in a few other ways. He was the editor of the Hebrew newspaper Hamelitz.
  • Yaakov Bookstein, "Memoirs from Berditchev", He-Avar 7 (1960), pp. 156-158 (Hebrew)
  • Miryam Shperber, Mi-Berditchev le-Yerusalaym: Zichronot le-beit Ruzhin, Jerusalem 1981." (Yiddish)
  • Benjamin Mandelstam, Chazon la-Moed, II, Vien 1877, pp. 73-76 (Hebrew).
  • Jacob Leshtchinski, "Barditchover Yiddishe Kehilla fun 1789 biz 1917", Bleter far Yiddishe Demografie, statistik un Economik, II (1923), pp. 37-48 (Yiddish) (I've also seen this author's name spelled as "Lestchinsky."
  • A an issue of the old Hebrew journal "Yalkut Volhin", dedicated to Berditchev: Volume II, no. 12-13 (1951), 66 pp., (Hebrew) This is said to contain many articles and memoirs.
  • There are also Hebrew memoirs of Berdichev, here are two:
    • Yaakov Bookstein, "Memoirs from Berditchev", He-Avar 7 (1960), pp. 156-158
    • Miryam Shperber, Mi-Berditchev le-Yerusalaym: Zichronot le-beit Ruzhin, Jerusalem 1981."

  
  

        In the H-Judaic mail group, Zachary Baker (former YIVO Librarian and editor of "From a Ruined Garden") once mentioned a memoir by Sholem Aleichem's brother, Wolf Rabinowitz: "Mein Bruder Sholem Aleykhem, zikhroynes,: Kiev, 1939. Baker wrote that portions of this memoir are set in Berdichev.

        I may be mistaken but I don't think there exists a Yizkor book on Berditchev although many such books mention it.

        Finally, according to Miriam Weiner's "Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova" some records from Berdichev are still extant and located in Kiev. I believe some may be also located in Vinnitsa. How to obtain them is another story.

        I'm sure I've left something out which I had wanted to note here, but if I did, I'll write a follow-up.

  
  
• December 20, 2001

        First I want to refer Berdichev genealogists to a section of Linda Berkowitz's extraordinary "Jewish-History.com" website at: http://jewish-history.com/Occident/volume2/nov1844/berditschew.html

        I've known about Ms. Berkowitz's site for several years but have only rarely visited it beause none of my ancestors arrived in the US before 1896, and I thought the website would not hold much interest for me. It is largely devoted to information about Jews who came to the US much earlier than mine and has a large section about Jews who fought in the Civil War.

        But during the past couple of days, I discovered at this website a section called "The Occident and American Jewish Advocate." Here there is a collection of articles taken from microfilmed copies from a publication that was issued in Philadelphia from 1844-1848. I read a brief but interesting article about Odessa's Jews, to which I've already referred the members of the Odessa mail group at Rootsweb.com. But there is also another brief but interesting article at the above noted URL which is entitled "Jewish Artificers in Berditchew." After some discussion, it presents a "statistical" paragraph about its Jewish population and the number of Jews engaged in each of the various occupations noted.

        Those of you who are interested in reading more about Russian history may want to click on the many other articles from the four volumes of "The Occident. such as one showing the text of the 1827 ukase regarding conscription, an article about the relief of 30 or so Jews from that ukase, and several articles about Dr. Lilienthal and his efforts and those of other "enlightened" Jews to ameliorate the lives and living conditions of the more unfortunate of their brethren. There are also chapters from an ardent Chassidic rabbi's lengthy refutation of those efforts. Also at the same website at: http://www.jewish-history.com/cantons.htm is an article about the Cantonists which was written by a cantonist soldier named Herzl Yankl Tsam. This is followed by a bibliography.

        Secondly, I had written earlier that I did not know where the films regarding Berdichev I mentioned could be found. Although I am still not sure, I think they may be found in the film library of the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University. YIVO may also have the films I mentioned. I was recently notified by a RAV SIG member that part of YIVO's catalogue of holdings has been put online and that eventually more items will be added, but when I went to: http://www.cjh.org/about/yivo_catalog.html in order to find out about the Berdichev films, my service provider (AOL) had a fit and "hung" my browser when I tried doing a search using the search button provided by the website. I did not attempt a second search after I logged on again. Maybe those of you who would like someday to view those films will have more luck than I did.

        Today in Jewishgen's Discussion Group Archives I did a search for old messages of Sandi Goldsmith who has been the Jewish Records Indexing Project's capable "Town Leader" for Shcherets (Szczerzec). I wanted to read the questions she had posted over the years just in case I could help her in return for her admirable efforts to put online the records of my father's birthtown.

        I'm glad I did this search. Had I not, I might not have thought of re-read a message she had written on June 18, 1996. (I had read this message years before and then forgotten it, although as I discovered later, I had stored a copy of it on my old Mac laptop.) Ms. Goldsmith's message reminded me of the existence of nineteen Rabbinic metrical books which are kept at the Central State Archives in Kiev. These books contain the records of prominent towns in the Kiev area and also the records of the smaller towns and villages in the area of the prominent ones.

        For me personally, those metrical books which could be of the greatest interest were those kept for Berdichev because it was my grandfather's birthplace, for Korostychev because I think it was the birthplace of my grandfather's mother. I am also curious about the contents of the metrical book for Radomysl, because some information I have learned about the origins of one set of my maternal great grandparents suggests that the male BELKOWSKYs may have started life in Radomysl.

        But unless we Berdichev genealogists can get together to find a reputable researcher in the Ukraine who could do research for us at a group rate, (say, so much per surname) in those metrical books and in any other sets of genalogically relevant archives which the Kiev State Archives shelters, none of us who hasn't been able to hire a researcher privately is likely to find any information regarding our respective ancestors.

        I think there are enough of us Berdichevers to help support an ordinarily poorly paid researcher in the Ukraine for several months, if not for a year. I know that the archivist whom the Odessa group hired is very glad to have the extra money; the group has been helping support her for more than a year and the waiting line of people eager to participate in the Odessa project indicates that she will be busy researching for the group for another year or more.

        Jewishgenner Daniel Kazez has told me about a researcher he has used for research in Kiev, and about her modest fee. He said she had done "great work." Since I can't post the information about her here you may write to me in private. The boldest of you may want to take charge of the proposed Berdichev group and write a proposal to Mr. Kazez's researcher. (The archivist for the Odessa group had been recommded by the group's leader who had previously hired her to find her family's records and was pleased with the archivist's work so far as I know, those for whom the Odessa archivist found records are pleased she was able to find even the little she did in some instances.)

        I do not wish to be the Berdichev group's leader; I've always been inept at negotiating any money matters, or at adroitly managing any group. Besides, not only am I occupied with other matters, some of which are very worrisome, but I lack the diplomatic skill as well as the energy and stamina needed to maintain a group's cohesiveness.

        Jeffrey Knisbacher made a translation of the chapter headings of "Secrets of Berdichev" by A. Cedarbaum (Tsederbaum), a book I mentioned to you in one of my earlier Berdichev messages. He sent to the translation to Jewishgenner Steve Rosen who in turn posted the translated headings to the Berdichev Group at Rootsweb. Mr. Knisbacher had said that they could be posted on the Ukraine group. (I don't know whether anyone did post them to the group. The Berdichev group's messsage was dated December 30, 2000, perhaps before the creation of the Ukraine Group or maybe I missed seeing it if it was published subsequently)

  "Secrets of Berdichev" Chapter headings

  1. General overview, p. 1
  2. The physical layout of Berdichev, p. 5
  3. The history of Berdichev, p. 7 [1860, est. pop. 56,000 total, 50,000 Jews]
  4. Business operations, p. 12
  5. Prevailing spirit in the community, p. 15
  6. Religious and charitable institutions, p. 20
  7. The Kaher shul, p. 30
  8. The Jewish hospital, p. 35
  9. The Talmud Torah, p. 38
  10. The widows and orphans society, p. 45
  11. The hospitality society, p. 45
  12. Other societies, p. 46
  13. The burial society, p. 48
  14. Educational institutions, p. 53
  15. The Club, p. 65 [where the men played cards, billiards, dominos and chess and, when women were present, held dances, theatrical presentations, concerts and readings]
  16. The library, p. 69, [founded by Dr. Rotenberg, 1500 books, many of them Russian classics-30 kop./month for one book, 40 kop./month for two, 3 rubles/year for one book, 4 rubles/year for two.]
  17. The meat tax [not sure if the word 'facht' means 'tax], p. 69
  18. Concluding remarks, p. 79
  19. Statistical tables, p. 85 [of Jewish trades and crafts listed in the Berdichev guilds-with a note following that some are not real trades]
  20. List of synagogues, schools/study centers (Batei Midrashim/Kloyzen)

  
  

        I wonder whether any Berdichevers would be willing to contribute toward a translation of the entire book, even though it may not contain the names of their ancestors. To me it appears that the book would provide a good backdrop for our respective Berdichev family histories, even though our own "actors" may not be present on Cederbaum's "set."

        The one time I did try to raise money for the translation of the Podwolochisk Yizkor book which I had bought, I got very few responses. (But my late mother raised much more than a million for Hadassah!) The writers of the responses I did receive asked me why they should contribute when they did not know whether the names in which they were interested appeared in the book. I could understand that no one wants to buy a pig in a poke, but since I couldn't at the time read the Hebrew letters in which the Yiddish text was printed, I couldn't say whose names appeared, in say, the book's necrology.

        After weeks of futile correspondence, I returned to the Indiana University student who had been recommended to me for translating the whole book to ask how much she would charge if she translated only the necrology rather than the whole book. But even the estimated sum she wanted for only that was beyond my means and I could not raise the money to help with that minimal translation either! ( Eventually, the entire Podwolochisk Yizkor book was translated into English at no cost. It can now be read online, thanks to Joyce Field's tact and patience in handling matters with the head of the Podwolochisk Society in Israel.)

Book Reviews and Articles of General Interest

• Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman and translated by Robert Chandler
  • Josef Skvorecky, NY Review of Books
• The Black Book, edited by Ilya Ehren-burg and Vasily Grossman
  • Richard F. Shepard, NY Times
  • Walter Goodman, NY Times Book Review
• The Bones of Berdichev: The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman, by John and Carol Garrard
  • Robert Conquest, NY Review of Books
• The Passing of an Illusion, by Francois Furet
  • (links defunct, 2004/08/20)
• And they all confessed ...., by Gudrun Persson
  • Gudrun Persson, Art Bin
• Ukrainian Weekly on the Great Famine of 1932-1933

General Jewish Genealogy

• Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy
• Where Once We Walked
• Getting Started Tracing Your Jewish Roots
• Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy
• Discovering Your Jewish Ancestors
• Lots and lots of books from Avotaynu

Write to me with the resources you want added to this list.