Title

Description

The pinkas (ledger) begins with a brief introduction, which is not dated, followed by the rules and regulations of the society, consisting of 21 statutes. Each statute begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in alphabetical order, yet the letter shin is missing; perhaps it was accidently omitted by the transcriber. Afterwards appear additional 15 or so statutes followed by the signatures of the members of the society. [Images 1-8]

The results of elections and the names and dates when new members joined the society are recorded. Many children joined the society as s hamashim (junior members), as was customary. Dates follow the names of some signatories, apparently indicating the date on which they joined the society. The earliest date appears to be 5590 (1789) [Image 32], and the latest date is 5625 (1864). The entries in the ledger were evidently not written down in chronological order. [Images 9-15,20-26,28-37]

On 21 Tishrei, 5594 (September 27, 1793), the esteemed Rabbi Moshe Shmuel the son of Rabbi Mordekhai ha-Kohen, the rabbi of the community, was appointed one of the trustees of the society. [Image 9]

Two early entries from 1759 and 1760. They may have been copied from another ledger, since the paper onto which they were transcribed differs from that of the rest of the manuscript and the names of the signatories on these entries are not found among the signatures at the beginning of the ledger. [Image 16]

Three entries in Polish signed by a noblewoman and her son, dated 1760. The transcriber notes that these pages were sewn into the ledger from an older ledger. [Images 18-19]

The ledger records the following incident which was considered miraculous: The wife of Reuven, son of Meir, of Kilnits died suddenly on 14 Tevet, 5593 (January 5, 1833) during her fourth month of pregnancy. The Burial Society was unsure if they should bury her or “were we to induce her through wise men to deliver her child as per the custom of the elders.” They sent a messenger to the community of Ladizhin to the illustrious Rabbi Efraim, the Chief Rabbi of Sokolits [now called Sokilets], as how to proceed. Nonetheless, before the messengers returned, two members of the community testified that they had seen a deceased woman in the seventh month of her pregnancy who had been compelled by the rabbinical court to deliver her child. After hearing this episode, the rabbinical court and the members of the Burial Society sent a number of women to warn the deceased in their name to give birth to her child or else they would not prepare her body for burial as normally done with upstanding members of the community. The women placed the deceased in a tub of hot water and transmitted to her the request and warning. The deceased woman then exerted herself with great effort until her face turned red, and the child was born. The community considered this to be a great miracle and recorded it the next day in this pinkas. It is signed by Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Ha-Kohen, the Chief Rabbi of the community, along with other signatories. [Image 27]

The transcriber provides a brief physical description of the pinkas, and he mentions that the two pages in Polish were not part of the original ledger. [Image 49]

A product of a cooperative agreement between the Russian National Library and Touro University’s Project Zikaron in 2019. This pinkas is part of the Günzburg Manuscript Collection at the Russian National Library in Moscow. In the 1890s, Baron David Günzburg of St. Petersburg, Russia hired Avraham Sharfshteyn to arrange for the original pinkas and others like it to be transcribed for his private library. The current location of the original pinkas is unknown, if it at all still exists. This overview was prepared by Rabbi Yitzchok Stroh of Brooklyn, New York, in 2020.

Category

Year of Publication/Creation

1789-1864

Language(s)

Hebrew

Geographic Places

• Haysyn (Gaysin, Haysin, Hasin, Asin, Aysin), Ukraine (read online)