Kolonja Izaaka Home

Special Greeting from Kolonja Izaaka native, Sarah Chinsky.

Kolonja Izaaka, located 1.5 km southwest of the town of Odelsk in what is now Belarus, was a Jewish farming village settled in 1849 through land grants made to poor Jews. The community existed continuously for nearly a century until liquidated by the Nazis in 1942. Kolonja Izaaka's original settlers were a handful of Jewish families from Odelsk, Sokolka and Krynki. These colonists retained close ties with family and friends in those nearby towns.

Welcome to this site celebrating the pioneering spirit of these Jewish farmers. Please contact Irwin Keller with your additions and your comments!

THANK YOU! This Shtetlinks site was developed by Irwin E. Keller, a descendant of the Knishevitsky family of Kolonja Izaaka. Many thanks to Susana Leistner Bloch and Barbara Ellman of JewishGen's Shtetlinks project for their support and guidance. Heartfelt thanks to Sarah Ekshteyn Chinsky for sharing her childhood memories of Kolonja Izaaka, painful as it may have been to do so. Thanks to Tomasz Wisniewski for maps and materials, including a copy of Salomon Salit's book which he dropped in Irwin's lap in Bialystok in May, 2007. Much gratitude to Marilyn and Lynn Keller and all the neo-Knishevitskys of the Bnai Mayshe family club in the US for their ongoing enthusiasm for memorializing and re-imagining this sad, plucky pioneer village. Love to Oren Slozberg for not begrudging me the time. And oceans of gratitude to Knishevitsky cousin Avra Cohn for her keen insights, tireless detective work and overflowing heart.