seem to be interested in studying the Torah any longer. Religiosity among the laity was more external than real. Despite the rise of new Jewish educational institutions, the trend away from religion increased. The extent to which traditional Jewish life deterio- rated in Bialystok could be measured by the decline of the rabbinate, which in its heyday produced great Torah authorities. These rabbis instituted Jewish eccle- siastical courts (batei din), which wielded significant power in the community. Appointments to these tribu- nals were made infrequently and according to the most stringent religious standards. With the new swing toward secularism, rabbis were appointed to the courts not to propagate Judaism but to represent the interests of powerful businessmen and lay people. It soon became fashionable among the more edu- cated and the well-to-do to be antireligious. The young proletariat, as well, was consciously undevout. They began to work on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. No longer was kashruth observed. No one thought of teach- ing his children how to pray anymore. Whereas at the end of the last and the beginning of this century public desecration of the Sabbath was unknown — for example, no one kept his store open or smoked in public on the Sabbath — in 1905 things changed. Work was done behind half-closed doors on the Sabbath. People walked in the streets with cigarettes in their mouths. War had intensified this movement away from religion. To be sure, Judaism was still prac- ticed outwardly but more in form than substance. The atmosphere of the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays, so sacred in earlier years, had by this time evaporated. These shifts also occurred in the smaller towns and villages, but in Bialystok they were more profound. It, more than the surrounding communities, had gone through most keenly the economic changes brought about by industrialization. Textile manufacturing in particular experienced ups and downs, every change sending shock waves through the city. Economic crises, years of rapid development, revolutionary movements, pogroms, wars, changing political jurisdictions, new upheavals — all of this kept the average Bialystoker citizen in a constant state of flux. He was forced to adapt to these vicissitudes quickly and with little preparation. Perhaps he was more restless and energetic than his peers elsewhere. The street effervesced with ferment; life was vibrant and adventuresome. Both the economy and the cultural sphere benefited from these radical shifts. Not always did positive results emerge. Yet there was a constant readiness to experiment with new ideas and approaches. This quick growth within Bialystok generated some trends that cannot be considered satisfactory. In 19th century Bialystok, in my opinion, more worthwhile and lasting achievements were made than in the later period. Strides in the religious sphere outshone in con- tent and value those of the Haskalah movement. For The Bialystoker Memorial Book example, Yiddish literary creativity seems to have eclipsed the use and development of Hebrew in the last period. In fact, Hebrew books and writers almost com- pletely disappeared from Bialystok. This partial withdrawal from cultural creativity can be explained by the fact that commerce and industry consumed much of the creative energies and interest of Bialystoker Jews. Bialystok bookstores sell no Hebrew books except for some elementary textbooks. While there is a distinguished Sholem Aleichem Library with many Yiddish volumes and many opportunities to read books in Polish, serious afficionados of Hebrew have no similar facility. The middle class had supported the Chibat Zion (pre-Zionist) movement and the Hebrew language. That same bourgeoisie, which actually created and maintained Bialystok’s Jewish religious 280 philan- thropic institutions, 19 now experiencing hard times. Nevertheless, a new nationalistic, Hebrew-speaking youth is growing and developing, fervently wishing to practice its national ideals, a youth no less enthusiastic than its counterpart in the labor movement that draws its knowledge and inspiration from Yiddish literary creativity. In summary, I witnessed spectacular changes in the organized life of Bialystoker Jews. At first its focus was the bet hamidrash, and later the cultural and political circles such as the Haskalah movement and the Chibat Zion. In the last decades the culture groups have receded, supplanted by political parties. All ideologies are represented in Bialystok, from extreme right to left. x * *

(Editor’s note: Awrom Szmuel Herszberg, the wri- ter of the above article about Bialystok one hundred years ago, was murdered by the Nazis in August 1943, as reported to his family in New York מן‎ a letter by Berel Mark, a well-known Yiddish writer. In his letter, Mark wrote: ““Concerning your inquiry about the fate and death of the prominent Jewish historian and author from Bialystok, I can share with you the information that he perished during the second liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto in August 1943. He was led out by the Jewish police together with his daughter and the Secre- tary of the prewar Jewish Kehilla, Mr. Bachrach. He conducted himself with great dignity when, after an- swering a German hooligan sharply, the latter had pre- pared to strike him. In the middle of the street Herszberg collapsed. He was assisted and led further to the death train. In the ghetto he lived in his old house on Gumjener Street. His monumental books and manuscripts unfortunately no longer exist.’’) gn 33 x asl Et 3