Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

Signature Pages have a value separate from the content of the document to which they are attached, which may be fairly mundane materials. They may show a dual list of Russian and Hebrew signatures providing a means to make the transition when previously only one or the other was known. The majority of Russian documents will list the father’s name, which may have encouraged the writer of a Hebrew signature to include it in that language too, even when a surname was also being used in the Hebrew. The Hebrew honorifics that surround the father’s name, may offer clues as to whether the father was living when the document was signed, and a father with an important title may have it permanently appended to his Hebrew name.

In the signature lists that make up the petition to build a synagogue and another list that will be added shortly, surnames in Russian are almost always accompanied by surnames in Hebrew characters (the language may be Yiddish rather than Hebrew). Sometimes the surname is in translation, sometimes it is a transliteration. Transliterations provide a way to almost hear an ancestor’s voice as they chose the letters to represent the sounds they heard the other language making. Nicknames are often clarified in the effort – men who sign themselves with the Russian-Yiddish first names of Govsey and Ovsey appear with the signatures of Yehoshua (Joshua) and Osher (Asher), respectively on the synagogue list. Shaya is clearly Isaiah, and the patronymic Zosielovich turns out only once to be a misprint for Noselovich, the other time it clearly means son of Zusa or Zusiel. Letter shifts are evidenced, the men who gave their name as Gelfand on Russian documents stood by the traditional Hebrew spelling of Helfand, despite the availablity in Hebrew, to replicate the name exactly. Men named Girsh in Russian are seen to split themselves into those who are called Hirsh and those who are called Gershon in the Hebrew script.

Then there are the surprises. In 1819 the leaders of the community witnessed the Revision List and affixed their signatures. The two languages they chose to use, were Hebrew and Polish, despite Lyakhovichi’s possession by Russia for the previous quarter century. When the Crown Rabbi of Lyakhovichi signed a document in 1874, we would have expected this Russian official (appointed by the Crown, not selected by the community) to have been proficient in the Yiddish and Hebrew of his compatriots and he does not disappoint. But his signature is in Polish, not Russian, on the one document we so far have. Is that a salute to the authorities in Lyakhovichi which for most of the nineteenth century elected Polish Catholic officials to government office? Will we find that lack of Russian language skills terminates his position early or will we find him providing notary documents for the Justice of the Peace in Lyakhovichi in Russian which is part of his job description? We need more samples before we can come to conclusions and each example helps us build our knowledge on additional subjects relevant to Lyakhovichi research. In what order did the community's male membership sign documents? Does the large “John Hancock” like signature that is the first of 56 Jewish names on the Petition to build a synagogue, convey something that we should know about Echiel Maziya? Is there a reason that this first person to sign the page, is one of very few with no Hebrew signature? Share your insights and share the images that you have gotten from archives in your Lyakhovichi searches. We will post every one of them originating in our town!


1850 Revision List
Stan Golembe generously shared this image of a page in the 1850 Revision List that shows members of his family.Click the image to go to a larger page. That page is able to be enlarged further, hover over the bottom right corner until the Internet Explorer expansion icon appears. Click "back" on browser to return to this page


1851 Record witnessed by Crown Rabbi Szolom Szkolnik
Neville Lamdan also provided this document (with Rabbi Szalom Szkolnik's Polish signature) from a Supplementary Revision, dated 15 Oct. 1851 and submitted 28 April 1852, (source: NHAB (Minsk), 333/9/488). Click on the image to go to a 2 page pdf file which you can make as large as you need.


1874 List witnessed by Rabbis of Lyakhovichi
This document with signatures by Crown Rabbi Ch. Yelin, Yisrael Molchadzky, and Moshe Kantorovich, was generously provided by Neville Lamdan.