opinion
Mariupol, a Main Putin Target,
Once Sheltered a Great Yeshiva
BY HENRY ABRAMSON
arring a miracle, Mariupol, the beleaguered
industrial center in eastern Ukraine, may
henceforth be known only as the city that bore the
brunt of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked assault on
Ukraine’s independence and its people.

But the city also has a rich and often tragic
Jewish history, shaped by conflict and the efforts
of previous generations to preserve their lives,
faith and culture in the face of brutality.

One such story starts at the beginning of the
20th century, not in Ukraine but in Lithuania.

Perched on the western edge of the Russian
Empire, the Lithuanian town of Panevezys (pro-
nounced Ponevezh or Ponevich) was home to
some 7,000 Jews, roughly half the total popula-
tion. The town boasted few amenities, but chief
among them was the yeshiva established in 1909
by Liba Miriam Gavronskii, widowed daughter of
the wealthy tea magnate Kalonymus Wissotsky.

Rabbi Yitshak Yaakov Rabinovich (known as Reb
Itsele Ponevezher, 1854-1919) was its first head, or
rosh yeshiva.

The yeshiva flourished, but it faced an early
threat to its existence with the outbreak of World
War I. Seeking to undermine the Russian war
effort, the Germans directed a Yiddish-language
proclamation to the Jews of the Russian Empire,
promising them full emancipation and equal rights
once the Romanov dynasty was toppled. Already
distrustful of his large Jewish population, the noto-
riously antisemitic Tsar Nicholas II ordered a brutal
expulsion of Jews from the borderlands region to
the interior of the Russian Empire.

The Yeshiva of Ponevezh was forced to relo-
cate, first to Ludza in nearby Latvia, and then once
again to Mariupol. Before returning to reestablish
itself in independent Lithuania in 1919, the yeshiva
would spend the remainder of the war years in
Mariupol. Why Mariupol? The great distance from the front
lines certainly factored in the thinking of the rosh
yeshiva, but Mariupol had developed a reputation
as a haven for Jewish settlement. In 1791, the port
city was added to the Pale of Settlement, the
region of the Russian Empire designated for Jews.

By 1847 just over a hundred Jews had established
homes in Mariupol, participating in the Black Sea
trade. It became a destination for Jews looking for
economic opportunity and those fleeing the over-
crowded regions of Lithuania and Belarus. By the
end of the 19th century, the city was home to over
16 APRIL 28, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
5,000 Jews, constituting 16% of the population;
the 1926 census records 7,332 Jews in Mariupol,
or 18% of the city.

The expanding, dynamic Jewish community of
Mariupol — disturbed only by riots associated with
the 1905 revolution — came to an abrupt end with
the Nazi invasion. Mariupol’s Jews were rounded
up and shot by Einsatzgruppen on a single dark
day — Oct. 18, 1941 — as part of the horrific
“Holocaust by Bullets.”
As for the Lithuanian yeshiva that was shel-
tered by Mariupol in World War I, it went on to
establish itself as one of the greatest institutions
of Talmudic study during the interwar years. In
1939, however, war came to Panevezys again, with
both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany invading
Lithuania. Under the leadership of Rabbi Yosef
Shlomo Kahaneman (1888-1969), the yeshiva con-
tinued to function under Communist rule despite
the fact that he was trapped outside the country,
with students moving from one synagogue to
another until the Nazis took over in June 1941 and
murdered them all, together with most of Rabbi
Kahaneman’s family.

In 1944, Rabbi Kahaneman reestablished the
Ponevezh Yeshiva once again — this time in B’nai
Brak, in what would become Israel — with seven
students. Amazingly, it has grown to reclaim its
reputation among the most prominent institutions
of higher Talmudic education in the world; at 98,
its current rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein,
is regarded by many as the spiritual leader of
the “Lithuanian” non-Chasidic stream of haredi
Orthodoxy. After the Holocaust, Jews slowly trickled
back into Mariupol, which in 1948 was renamed
Zhdanov by the Soviets after the sudden death of
Andrei Zhdanov (1896-1948), long rumored to be
Joseph Stalin’s presumed successor (his son also
married the Soviet dictator’s daughter). By 1959
over 2,000 Jews lived in the city, but only consti-
tuted about 1% of the total population.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city
reclaimed its original name of Mariupol in 1989,
and became part of newly independent Ukraine
shortly thereafter. The heroic presence of the
Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Mariupol, as in
many formerly Soviet communities, supported the
tiny Jewish population that remained after most of
them emigrated to Israel in Operation Exodus —
when Jews escaped the crumbling Soviet Union
more than three decades ago — and continued to
serve even through the Russian invasions of 2014
and 2018. Now, in the midst of the invasion of 2022,
Chabad and others are working to evacuate as
many of them as possible. JE
Henry Abramson is a specialist in Jewish history
and thought who serves as a dean of Touro
College in Brooklyn, New York.

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