V,1      A Walk through Jewish Rozalimas 

(with references to Map of Rozalimas in 1940)

It happened that Jewish families settled even in a small village like Rozalimas and they had built a synagogue in the centre of Rozalimas.  
the synagogue
the synagogue

This synagogue was made of wood and painted in different colours.

As I understood, the colours which had been used to paint the synagogue were red and yellow. On the outside of the building there was a staircase which led women and children to their compartments at the upper level of the synagogue. Women either sat on wooden benches or didn't sit at all. Men stayed on the groundlevel. Women were separated from men by the upper level and by a wooden carved fence. Such 'seperation' is made, because in this way one can pray to God in a very concentrated manner and one isn’t distracted by the opposite sex. In the centre of the synagogue one can find the bima, a table with a beautiful cloth, on which one lays the Torah-scrolls from which one reads a certain chapter during the service. The Torah (the five books of Moses) is written and read in the Hebrew language. The Torah-scrolls are kept in the Aron Hakkodesj situated on the east-side of the synagogue. Unfortunately, I don’t know, up to this point, neither what the inside of the synagogue looked like in detail, nor if the Torah-scrolls were covered with a silk or velvet cloth and ornamented with silver or gold towers. The exact number of ritual objects one used in the synagogue for all kinds of services are not known by me. All the information which could lead to an answer was destroyed in 1941. One of the escaped Jews might have been able to take something with him/her in order to preserve it. One of the citizens of Rozalimas might have taken it and kept it, not knowing what to do with it.

The rabbi is a scholarly person who has studied the Hebrew language, the Torah, the commentaries on the Torah and all kinds of other subjects concerning Judaism. He is the spiritual leader of his community and a guardian of Jewish traditions. He receives his education at the so-called jesjiwa. At the end of the 18th century a lot of jesjiwa’s were established in Lithuania, after the death of the famous scholar the  Gaon of Vilna(1797)whose ideas influenced Judaism all over the world. His real name was Elijahoe Ben Shlomo Zalman.

The names of the rabbis of Rozalimas were: R.Nachum Sahr(Sher) (who served also in Daug, near Alytus), Yehekel Zussman Brudno (who died in 1923) and R.Eliezer Goldberg. The latter was the last rabbi of Rozalimas. It’s a pity, I don’t have any more names of rabbis resident in Rozalimas.

 

 rabbi Yehekel (Ezekutiel) Zussman Brudno
house of the rabbi 

The house of the rabbi and his family was almost opposite the synagogue. I didn't hear from the eye-witnesses if he and his family were in Rozalimas in 1941.

Next to the house of the rabbi was the Jewish school, where the Jewish children (from + 4-12 years old) were taught the Hebrew alphabet, the Hebrew language and parts of the Torah(the five books of Moses).This teaching took place on Sundays and was done by the rabbi and the teacher Fiskis.

 

 the Jewish school

 

   

 to the next chapter


Copyright © 2005 Dora Boom

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