FOREWORD While contemplating this volume, I recalled my gentle childhood days. Among my cher- ished memorabilia is a notebook from my fourth-grade class at the Bet Hasefer Haamimi Haivri Harishon in Bialystok, the forerunner of the Tarbut Schools. On the first page in Hebrew 1s a song titled ‘“The Promise” and on the next page, Hatikvah, **The Hope.” These two titles capsulize the meaning of this publica- tion for me. I visited Jewish cemeteries in many coun- tries all over the world; I saw markers from almost every century of our dispersion. Occa- sionally, one observes an old synagogue or ruins. One finds reports by historians, govern- ment writers, quasi-professionals who try to bind bits of history together. Much 15 conjec- ture; the material is often theoretical and ambiguous. This sense became all the more pronounced when, on atrip to Israel in 1976, I stopped off to visit Bialystok, the city of my roots. I read much of the Holocaust literature; | saw movies and spoke with fortunate survi- vors. But my_ birthplace’s shocked me beyond belief. Jews lived in the land of Poland before there was a Poland. Over the course of a mil- lennium, they created a remarkable civilization characterized by deep piety, rich cultural achievement and outstanding intellectual pursuits. In 1941 the Nazis invaded Poland and within four years they put to death three million Jewish men, women and children, and destroyed all that had been created over the course of a thousand years. In 1900, Bialystok was the third largest industrial city in Russia. Of 65,000, 64 percent were Jews. In 1913, the population was 91,000 of whom 60,000 were Jewish. Over 350,000 Jews resided in Bialystok and its provinces. transformation The Jewish community had adjusted as dias- pora life and the Czar’s whims permitted. It drew on an inner creative strength to overcome assimilation; neither did it stagnate. At the beginning of the Haskalah movement, the Jews of Bialystok knew Torah and also participated in the wider cultural and educational life of this cosmopolitan community. They fought for civil liberties and established health-care and welfare networks. Cooperative effort and unity enabled them to survive with honor and dignity. They established homes for the aged, orphanages, theaters, libraries, schools, social clubs, youth groups, Zionist organizations and labor unions. The Bialystok Jewish community pro- duced doctors of national prominence, histori- ans, writers, scientists and professors. There was pride in this exhilirating city. Bialystok’s Jewry was active in the rebirth of Israel before Zionism was formally estab- lished by Dr. Herzl in 1897. In the early 1880's, a group known as “BILU” (House of Israel Go Forth) was formed in Russia with offices in Bialystok. The first group left for Israel in 1882 and founded Rishon Lezion (with the help of the Rothschilds). My parents married in 1889. They wanted to join the second group but were refused permission to leave by the Russian government. In the ensuing years immigrants continuously flowed from Bialystok to Israel. From my class in 1920, 14 out of 29 left for Israel by 1935. I still remember my first day of school, when I was three, in 1910; the first electrified weaving loom in our factory in 1911 that illumi- nated my house on Czysta Street; the 300th anniversary parade of the Russian kingdom of Peter the Great; Czar Nicholas’ visit to Bialys- tok in 1913; the beginning of World War 1 in 1914, when three hundred children on the way to school were killed by bombs dropped from German warplanes; a celebration of the Balfour IX