Guide to the Records of the Minsk Jewish Community Council, 1825-1917, RG 12

Processed by Elissa Bemporad with the assistance of a grant from the Gruss Lipper Family Foundation.

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Email: archives@yivo.cjh.org
URL: http://www.yivo.org

Electronic finding aid was converted to EAD version 2002 by Yakov Illich Sklar in February 2007. EAD finding aid customized in ARCHON in 2012. Description is in English.

Collection Overview

Title: Guide to the Records of the Minsk Jewish Community Council, 1825-1917, RG 12

ID: RG 12 FA

Creator: Minsk Jewish Community Council

Extent: 3.15 Linear Feet

Arrangement: The collection is arranged thematically and comprised of 68 folders.

Languages: Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew

Abstract

Part of the Lithuanian Kingdom from the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the mid-sixteenth century, Minsk was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1793, following the second partition of Poland. Under tsarist rule, the city became the capital of the Minsk province. From 1920 to 1991, it was the capital of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). At present, Minsk is the capital of the Republic of Belarus. The Records of the Minsk Jewish Community Council, or Kahal, are a fragment of the original archives of the Minsk Jewish community, which dates back to the sixteenth century. Most of the documents in this collection, which covers the tsarist period from the 1820s to the 1917 Russian Revolution, were assembled between the last decade of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The collection is of fragmentary nature, and consists of miscellaneous materials that relate to the role and activities of the Minsk Kahal in Jewish life; the relation between the Jewish body politic and local authorities; and between the Jewish body politic and the Jewish residents in the Minsk province. The collection is arranged thematically and comprised of 63 folders. Materials are in Russian, with a small number of documents in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish.

Scope and Contents of the Materials

The collection includes materials pertaining to: the implementation of the 1827 imperial decree on Jewish conscription, the reaction to the decree on Jewish conscription, the creation of conscription lists, and the methods through which the Kahal administrated Jewish military service and supplied Jewish recruits for the Minsk district, 1827-1844; birth and death statistics of the Jewish population of the Minsk district, civil status of Minsk Jewish residents, and personal matters, 1840-1842, 1866-1917; Korobka (tax on meat or candles imposed by the Kahal upon its members for communal purpose), tax apportionment, collection of tax arrears, financial records of Jewish institutions in the city of Minsk and Minsk district, 1825-1908; residential rights and registration status of members of the Minsk Jewish community, 1836-1844; criminal and civil cases, 1835-1848; public auctions for lease-holding contracts of products, places, or tax farming on kosher meat, 1839-1843. The collection also includes miscellaneous records some of which provide material of special interest for scholars of social history.

The collection consists of vital records, membership lists and contribution lists to major synagogues in the city of Minsk and Minsk district, financial records, reports regarding tax collection, petitions to the Minsk Kahal by individuals regarding a variety of issues and the Kahal’s resolutions to the petitions. A large part of the collection consists of correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and local authorities (original copies of incoming mail, and copies of outgoing mail, reports, and statements). The local authorities include the Governor of the Minsk Province, the Minsk Chief of Police, the Military Service Office of the Department of Revenue (Kazennaia palata), the District Attorney of Minsk, the Minsk Civil Governor (Minskii grazhdanskii gubernator), the Minsk Municipal Duma (Minskaia gorodskaia duma); the Minsk Province Administration (Minskoe gubernskoe pravlenie), the Department of Public Instruction (Ministerstvo narodnago prosveshcheniia), the Minsk Jewish Hospital (Minskaia evreiskaia bolnitsa), the Minsk Treasury, the Minsk Consolidated Criminal and Civil Courts (Minskaia soedinennaia palata ugolovnogo i grazhdanskogo suda), the Minsk Orphans’ Court (Minskii sirotskii sud), and the Minsk City Magistrate (Minskii gorodovoy magistrat).

Some of the most interesting materials in this collection bear witness to the immediate reaction of the Kahal to the issuing of Tsar Nicholas I decree on Jewish conscription, with copies of letters the Kahal sent to the Minsk Civil Governor two days after the issuing of the new law. The materials pertaining to military service provide information about the bureaucratic process that the implementation of Jewish recruitment entailed for the Jewish body politic: from the issuing of the decree, to the creation of conscription lists, the approval by the city police and other local authorities of the lists, and the petitions by young Jews (or family members on their behalf) requesting to be included or excluded from the conscription lists. Overall, the records of the Minsk Jewish community council represent a unique source for the study of Jewish life in Russia in the 19th and early 20th century.

Historical Note

The first Jew to lease the custom duties of Minsk was Mikhel Danilevich from Troki (Trakai), in 1489; Jewish families began to settle in the city of Minsk during the 16th century. In 1579, King Stefan Batory granted the Jews a charter allowing them to engage in commerce in the city; in 1606, by request of the Christian population, King Sigismund III invalidated the charter, but by 1629 he reinstated the Jews’ commercial rights, permitting them to open shops in Minsk. In 1633, King Ladislav IV granted the Jewish community permission to buy land for a new cemetery and acquire real estate on the market square.

In 1623, the leaders of the Jewish community council attended the first meeting of the Lithuanian Va’ad as representatives of an independent community; this in spite of the fact that until 1631 the Minsk community was still subordinated to the Kahal of the Brest-Litovsk district. During the Russian-Polish war (1654-1667) Minsk was occupied by Russian troops and the majority of the Jews left the city (1655); as soon as Minsk was returned to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1658) the Jewish community was reestablished. Since their right to settle within the borders of Minsk was restricted to specific areas, mostly controlled by the King, many Jews lived outside the city on land they rented from Uniates (Greek Catholics), and often suffered the consequences of the antagonism existing between the Russian Orthodox merchants of Minsk and the Uniates; in 1671, the Orthodox townspeople initiated a pogrom against Uniates and Jews. In 1679, King Jan III Sobeski restored the Jewish community the right to engage in trade and allowed the Jews to own land plots and homes in the city.

During the 17th and 18th centuries Minsk turned into a center for misnagdic religious scholarship: the first yeshiva was founded in 1685. The distinguished Talmudist, cabbalist and author of historical chronicles Yehiel Heilprin (1660 ca.-1746 ca.) taught here; in 1733 the Talmudist Aryeh Leyb b. Asher Ginzberg (1695-1785) established the second yeshiva of Minsk; both institutions attracted Jewish youth from all over Poland and Lithuania. By the end of the 19th century there were 99 synagogues and batei midroshim in Minsk; of these only 3 were Hasidic. One of the largest yeshivas in Minsk in the 19th century was the so-called Blumkes kloyz; Jeroham Judah Leib Perelman (1835-1896), known as the Minsker godl, served there as a rabbi at the end of the 19th century. The Minsk Choral Synagogue was inaugurated in 1904.

With a population of 47,562 Jews (53.2% of the city population), at the turn of the 20th century Minsk was one of the largest Jewish communities in Russia. The city counted numerous Jewish institutions: khadorim, Talmud-Toyres, a private modern Jewish school, a Jewish elementary school, two Jewish dental schools, a Jewish trade schools for boys and girls, a Jewish library, a Jewish model agricultural farm, a Jewish hospital, a branch of the Jewish Colonization Society (Evreiskoe kolonizatsionnoe obshchestvo), a local section of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment Among the Jews of Russia (Obshchestvo dlia rasprostraneniia prosveshcheniia mezhdu evreiami) and one of the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jews (Obshchestvo zdravookhraneniia evreev; in inter-war Poland renamed TOZ, Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej).

By the mid-19th century, Minsk became one of the most prominent Haskalah centers in the north-western provinces of the Russian Empire, and by the latter part of the century it grew to be a center of modern Jewish political movements. It became a stronghold for the activities of the Jewish labor party Bund and the Marxist-Zionist Poale Zion. In 1902, with the permission of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Second Conference of Russian Zionists was held in Minsk, with 526 participants. Jews played an important role in the anti-Tsarist demonstrations and strikes that took place in Minsk at the time of the 1905 Revolution. The Zionist Semyon Rozenbaum (1860-1934) was elected as the Minsk province deputy to the First Russian Duma (1906).

During World War I, thousands of Jewish refugees were concentrated in Minsk: the Jewish population grew from 45 thousand in 1914 to 67 thousand in 1917. After the February Revolution numerous Jewish periodicals were issued in the city, in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. With the Bolshevik rise to power, the Minsk Jewish community was disbanded, and by the early 1920s all Jewish parties (with the exception of the Poale Zion, which continued to exist until 1928) were dissolved. In line with official ideology the Jewish section of the Belorussian Communist Party (Evsektsiia) persecuted Jewish religion and Zionist groups, closing down synagogues and organizing trials against local rabbis and melamdim. Since its formation as an independent Soviet Socialist Republic on 1 August 1920, Belorussia was the only republic in the USSR where the constitution guaranteed an official status to Yiddish as a state language. As the capital of the BSSR, Minsk became one of the main centers for Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union: by the early 1930s there were in Minsk 8 Yiddish kindergartens, 12 Yiddish schools, a Pedagogical Institute, a Jewish Division in the Institute for Belorussian Culture, a Jewish Section at Belorussian State University, the Jewish National Court of Justice, the daily newspaper Oktyabr (1925-1941), the literary journal Shtern (1925-1941) and the Belorussian Yiddish State Theater which was housed in the building of the former Minsk Choral synagogue. Most Yiddish institutions were closed down in July 1938 as part of a campaign against national minorities.

At the beginning of 1941 there were almost 90,000 Jews in Minsk (37% of the city population). When the Germans occupied the city on June 28, 1941 the Jewish population reached 100,000 due to the numerous refugees from Białystok and other areas of western Belorussia. The Minsk ghetto was established in July 1941 at the outskirts of the city, in close proximity of the Jewish cemetery. About 8,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jews were deported to Minsk and imprisoned in the ghetto. The majority of the ghetto inhabitants (the total amounted to 85.000) were killed during the Aktionen carried out by the Germans from November 1941 to July 1942. In 1941, a group of Jews (among them the Polish Jew Hersh Smolar) organized a resistance movement in the ghetto: in collaboration with the Minsk Communist underground movement, the members of the ghetto resistance organized acts of sabotage and, working together with the Judenrat, diverted the production from the workshops and factories of the ghetto to the partisans. The resistance enabled thousands of Jews to escape from the ghetto into the forests, where they founded seven partisan brigades, one of which, in September 1943, organized the assassination of the General-Governor of Belorussia Wilhelm Kube. About 10,000 Minsk Jews succeeded in escaping from the Minsk ghetto, a proportion without parallel in the history of the Holocaust. In 1945, the first memorial to the Jewish victims in Minsk, and the only one in the USSR with a Yiddish inscription explicitly mentioning the Jewishness of the victims, was erected in Minsk.

As part of the state-sponsored anti-Semitic and anti-cosmopolitan campaigns of the 1940s and early 1950s, on Stalin’s orders, the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and director of the Moscow Yiddish State Theater Solomon Mikhoels (1890-1948) was murdered in Minsk on January 13, 1948; the Belorussian State Yiddish Theater was closed down in 1949, and many Minsk Jews, accused of being enemies of the Soviet Union, were dismissed from their jobs and arrested. In 1959 the main synagogue in use in Minsk was closed down, and in the late 1960s the Jewish cemetery was destroyed. Several Yiddish writers were active in Minsk in the post-Stalin years, most notably Khaym Maltinskii (1910-1984) and Hirsh Reles (1913-2005).

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions:

Open to researchers by appointment.

For more information, contact: Chief Archivist, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011

email: archives@yivo.cjh.org

Related Materials: Part of the original archives of the Minsk Jewish community is now in the custody of the National Historical Archives of Belarus (Natsionalnyi istoricheskii arkhiv Belarusi).

Preferred Citation: Published citations should read as follows:Identification of item, date (if known); YIVO Archives; Records of the Minsk Jewish Community Council; RG 12; folder number.

Box and Folder Listing

Browse by Series:

Series I: Minsk Jewish Community Council, 1825-1917,
All

Series I: Minsk Jewish Community Council, 1825-1917

Folder 1: Jewish Conscription, 1827 September-1828 January

Materials pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include correspondence to and from the Minsk Kahal, reports to the Governor of the Minsk Province and the Minsk Chief of Police, lists of Jewish recruits from the city of Minsk and surrounding towns, guidelines to produce conscription lists, cases of missing recruits and petitions to the Minsk Kahal to replace one family member for another

Folder 2: Jewish Conscription, 1838 April-1839 October

Materials pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include correspondence between the Minsk Kahal, the Military Service Office of the Department of Revenue, the Minsk City Police and the District Attorney of Minsk on issues relating to conscription lists; reprimands by the Minsk City Police to the Minsk Kahal for submitting inaccurate conscription lists to the Department of Revenue; complaints and petitions to the Minsk Kahal by Minsk Jewish residents arguing that family members were wrongly included in conscription lists; and official resolutions of disputed cases of conscription

Folder 3: Jewish Conscription, 1838 August-1839 April

Materials pertaining to the implementation of Jewish conscription in 1838, in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include the official order by the Minsk City Police on Jewish conscription, August 1838; copies of Imperial decrees, signed by Nicholas I, regarding conscription of Jews, August, 1838; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and city authorities about fulfilling the requirements for Jewish conscription for the year 1838; lists of Minsk Jewish families with members eligible for recruitment, and reasons for discharge from conscription of other family members; lists of conscripted Jews; report of the Recruitment Office of the Minsk Province to the Minsk City Police on cases of conscripted Jews who failed to register for conscription; notifications of arrest of conscripted Jews who failed to register for conscription

Folder 4: Jewish Conscription, 1838 September-1839 June

Materials pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include statements by family members to the Minsk Kahal, notifying that the conscripted son is in fact deceased and requesting that other male children not be enlisted for military service; death certificates issued by Jewish religious bodies or civil offices in Minsk and surrounding towns and submitted to the Minsk Kahal by family members as evidence of death of conscripted sons; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal, the Military Service Office of the Department of Revenue and the Minsk City Police about increase and decrease in recruitment figures from September 1838 through June 1839; lists of Jews who can be added to conscription lists, and Jews who, for a variety of reasons (death, exile to Siberia, conscripted the year before), cannot be enlisted for the period September 1838 through June 1839

Folder 5: On Preventing Jews from Deserting the Military Service, 1839

Materials pertaining to prevention measures against vagabondage and desertion of Jewish draftees. These include an official order by the Minsk Civil Governor on actions to be taken against conscription runaways, March 1839; an instruction from the Minsk Chief of Police to the Minsk Kahal to display the Governor’s order against desertion in the proximity of the city’s synagogues; letter from the Minsk Kahal to the overseers of the Minsk synagogues instructing them to make public and promulgate in Yiddish translation the Governor’s order about uprooting the tendency to conceal conscription fugitives, March 1839

Folder 6: Petitions, Jewish Conscription, 1840 March-1841 June

Materials pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include petitions to the Minsk Kahal by Minsk Jewish residents asking to discharge a family member from military service and petitions of individuals, mostly from destitute social background, stating their desire to be conscripted in lieu of draftees from other families (most petitions are by parents or older siblings on behalf of the family member because of his young age); documents confirming the age of the draftee; health certificate issued by the Minsk Jewish Hospital; a discharge certificate issued by the Gorodetskii (Gorodishche) Jewish community confirming that one of its members may be drafted instead of a Minsk family member; and resolutions by the Minsk Kahal endorsing the petitions

Folder 7: Petitions, Jewish Conscription, 1841 January-October

Materials pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include a petition to the Minsk Kahal by a father asking to summon his son - who moved to Lyuban’, Poltava guberniia, without his permission-for enrollment in the military service and documents relating to this case (including correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and the Minsk Head of Police, the Lubyan’ Police and the Minsk Municipal Duma); a decree by the Minsk Province Administration regarding a father’s petition to discharge his son from military service so that he can pursue his studies in gimnaziia, and documents related to this case (including correspondence between the Department of Education of the Minsk province and the Minsk Province Administration, and between the Minsk Kahal and the Minsk City Police)

Folder 8: Corruption, Jewish Conscription, 1841 January-April

Documents pertaining to the Minsk Kahal’s mishandling of Jewish conscription matters in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include correspondence between the Minsk Kahal, the Minsk Criminal Court and the Minsk Chief of Police; records of expenses and revenue of the Minsk Kahal; lists of Jews involved in corruption cases; lists of Jews who were conscripted in lieu of other individuals, including the names of those they replaced; lists of indigent Jews who were granted residence permit by the Minsk Kahal for recruitment purposes

Folder 9: Minsk Kahal, Resolutions, 1841 January-November

Resolutions by the Minsk Kahal and the Society for Jewish Conscription mostly pertaining to Jewish conscription in the city of Minsk and Minsk district. These include the Minsk Kahal’s endorsement of petitions by individuals who wish to be conscripted in lieu of draftees from other families; petition by a grandmother and grandfather of a Minsk Jewish resident stating that the boy wishes to be “voluntarily” (dobrovolno) conscripted in lieu of a draftee from another Minsk Jewish family, and stating that as the primary care-givers, they give their approval to the boy’s conscription; petition by the member of the Gorodetskii (Gorodishche) Jewish community who asks to serve in the military in lieu of a member of the Minsk Jewish community.

The materials also include the report of a Minsk tax-collector concerning Jews who failed to pay their dues to the Kahal, and the Kahal’s resolution about penalties for those who neglect to pay taxes

Folder 10: Jewish Conscription, 1843 August

Documents pertaining to the case of two Minsk brothers who went into hiding during the 1840 recruitment campaign. These include the Minsk Chief of Police order of forcible conscription of the two brothers and a report by the Minsk Kahal to the Minsk Department of Revenue regarding the case

Folder 11: On Compiling Conscription Lists, 1843 June

Materials pertaining to the compilation and submission of conscription lists to the Minsk Department of Revenue. These include an order from the Minsk City Police to the Minsk Kahal requesting to submit an updated conscription list for 1843 to the Department of Revenue; an Imperial decree outlining the guidelines for the compilation of conscription lists of Jews; information about the number of Jewish males listed in the Minsk Kahal tax-book; a report from the Minsk Kahal to the Minsk Municipal Duma regarding the creation of conscription lists; and statements to the Minsk Kahal by individuals affirming and providing evidence for the death of family members who were erroneously included in conscription lists

Folder 12: Medical Treatment for Jewish Recruits, 1843 February-September

Correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and several city authorities and institutions, such as the Minsk City Police, the Department of Revenue and the Minsk Hospitals, about providing medical treatment for Jewish recruits. The documents include local police-officers’ orders to the Minsk Kahal to cover medical expenses for Jewish recruits hospitalized in the Minsk City Hospital (Minskaia gorodskaia bolnitsa) and Minsk Military Hospital (Minskaia voennaia bolnitsa)

Folder 13: Birth Registry, Zaslavye, 1866 January-December

Birth registry of Jews born in the town of Zaslsavye, Minsk district

Folder 14: Death Registry, Minsk, 1867 October-December

Incomplete death registry of Jews who died and were buried in the city of Minsk

Folder 15: Birth Registry, Minsk, 1879-1900

Birth registry of Jews born in Minsk, January-December 1879. It also includes birth records of individuals born 1880-1900

Folder 16: Birth Registry, Minsk, 1879-1900

Registry book of Jews born in the city of Minsk, December 1879 - December 1880. It also includes birth records of individuals born 1881-1900

Folder 17: Birth Registry, Rakov, 1890 January-March

Incomplete birth registry of Jews born in the town of Rakov, Minsk district

Folder 18: Birth Registry, Minsk, 1905 December-1906 December

Birth registry of Jews born in Minsk

Folder 19: Marriage Registry, Ostroshitskiy Gorodok, 1907

Marriage registry of Jews who married in the town of Ostroshitskiy Gorodok, Minsk district

Folder 20: Death Registry, Kaminsk, 1908

Death registry of Jews who died in the town of Kaminsk, Minsk district

Folder 21: Marriage Registry, Minsk, 1914

Marriage registry of Jews who married in the city of Minsk

Folder 22: Birth Registry, Minsk, 1917 January-December

Registry book of Jews born in the city of Minsk. It also includes a number of records of individuals who converted from Christianity to Judaism

Folder 23: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1825 January-1835 August

Materials pertaining to state taxation of the Jewish community. These include correspondence between the Minsk Chief of Police and the Minsk Kahal regarding the authentication of the Kahal’s account books of revenues and expenses and the collection of tax arrears; information about Minsk Jews appointed as tax collectors, and representatives of the community elected to assess taxes; report by the Minsk Kahal to the Minsk Civil Governor about Jews in the district and province of Minsk who failed to pay their taxes; lists of destitute Jews unable to pay taxes and of Jewish tax debtors

Folder 24: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1838 April-1939 January

Materials pertaining to state and Korobka taxation of the Jewish community. These include correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and the Minsk Chief of Police regarding tax debtors, collection of tax arrears and penalties for those tax payers who failed to cover their debts; and orders by the Minsk Municipal Duma to the Minsk Kahal regarding the Korobka and other special Jewish taxes

Folder 25: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of communal taxes. It provides information about tax collectors, amount of taxes collected each month and tax arrears

Folder 26: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of taxes paid by individuals registered in the Minsk Jewish community but who resided elsewhere

Folder 27A: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839 February – September

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of taxes paid by individuals residing in the city of Minsk

Folder 27B: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839 September – December

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of taxes paid by individuals residing in the city of Minsk

Folder 28: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of tax arrears paid by individuals residing in Minsk,

Folder 29: Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1839

Minsk Kahal receipt-book of tax arrears paid by individuals registered in the Minsk Jewish community but who resided elsewhere

Folder 30: Financial Records, Minsk Jewish Hospital, 1839 February

Materials pertaining to the finances of the Minsk Jewish Hospital. These include a report from the Jewish Hospital to the Minsk Kahal about the appointment of supervisors to review the institution’s financial records for 1838 and assess tax apportionment

Folder 31: Financial Records, Minsk Jewish Hospital, 1841 February - November

Materials pertaining to the finances of the Minsk Jewish Hospital. These include a request from the Jewish Hospital to the Minsk Kahal to appoint supervisors to review the institution’s financial records for 1840 and assess tax apportionment for 1841

Folder 32: Tax Apportionment, Minsk Kahal, 1841 November-1842 April

Materials pertaining to state tax apportionment by the Minsk Kahal. The documents include petitions and complaints by Minsk Jewish residents about the disproportionate tax allotment and the faulty collection procedures of the Minsk Kahal; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal, the Minsk Municipal Duma and the Minsk Chief of Police, regarding petitions and tax debtors; registers of tax payers whose tax dues should be reduced; cases of tax payers and tax debtors who did not reside in Minsk but were registered with the Minsk Jewish community, and notifications of local police authorities (in Igumen, Vitebsk, Slutsk, etc.) to the Minsk Chief of Police of arrears payment by members of the Minsk Jewish community; lists of tax payers whose tax dues should be reimbursed, including amount of refunds; and orders by the Minsk Municipal Duma to the Minsk Kahal in response to complaints by tax payers about disproportionate tax allotment

Folder 33: Tax Receipts, Minsk Kahal, 1841

Tax receipts issued by the Minsk Treasury

Folder 34: Tax Collection, Minsk Kahal, 1841 January-December

Materials pertaining to tax collection. These include requests by the Minsk Kahal to the Minsk City Police to enforce strict measures against tax debtors; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and the Minsk District Treasury about the collection of state taxes (head tax and Korobka); letter by the Minsk Kahal to the Minsk Rabbi about confiscating the property of a deceased Jew who failed to pay taxes; correspondence between the Minsk Municipal Duma and the Minsk Kahal about the apportionment of taxes on local services

Folder 35: Litigation Records Regarding Taxes, Minsk Kahal, 1837 August-circa March 1842

Litigation between members of the Minsk Kahal and private creditors over a financial loan, 1816-1842 ca. Includes a petition by the Minsk Kahal to be released from the payment of 1,000 rubles for lawsuit expenses for failing to pay off the loan and the accumulated interests to the creditors; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and the Minsk City Police about the litigation; and resolutions by the Minsk Court of Justice and Civil Court regarding the lawsuit

Folder 36: Tax Apportionment, Minsk Kahal, 1843 January-May

Materials pertaining to the appointment of supervisors to assess tax apportionment and other financial matters for the Minsk Kahal. These include the Minsk Municipal Duma order to the Minsk Kahal to appoint tax assessors; a petition to the Minsk Kahal by a newly appointed tax assessor asking to be released from his responsibility and to appoint someone else in his lieu; letter from the Minsk Chief of Police to the Minsk Kahal about levies on lodging services

Folder 37: Account Book, Shivah Keruim Synagogue, Minsk, 1903

Account book of donations, revenues and expenses of the Minsk Synagogue Shivah Keruim

Folder 38: Account Book, Bet Midrash, Samokhvalovichi, 1904

Account book of revenues and expenses of the Samokhvalovichi Bet Midrash, (also known as Kitaevskaia) on Slutskaia street

Folder 39: Account Book, Bet Midrash, Kamen, 1904

Account book of non-monetary donations and expenses of a Bet Midrash (shkola) in Kamen

Folder 40: Account Book, Synagogue, Ivenets, 1904

Account book of donations, revenues and expenses of the Ivenets Synagogue

Folder 41: Account Book, Synagogue, Stolbtsy, 1905

Account book of donations, revenues and expenses of the New Synagogue in Stolbtsy, Minsk district

Folder 42: Account Book, Minsk Choral Synagogue, 1908

Account book of non-monetary donations and expenses of the Minsk Choral Synagogue

Folder 43: Residential Records, Minsk Kahal, 1836 December-1841 July

Materials pertaining to residential rights in Minsk and registration status in the Minsk Kahal. These include petitions to the Minsk Kahal by individuals wishing to obtain permanent residence (postoiannoe zhitelstvo) in Minsk and be registered in the Minsk Jewish community for business purposes; certificates of permanent residence and registration in the local Jewish community issued to petitioners by the Minsk Kahal; lists of Jewish merchants, commoners and tradesmen in Minsk, who are permanent residents and pay taxes, but do not own property in the city; correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and local authorities about the case of a Jewish resident in the Minsk district who no longer resided in the location stated in the 1834 census

Folder 44: Residential Records, Minsk Kahal, 1840 July-1841 July

Materials pertaining to the residence status of members of the Minsk Jewish community. These include correspondence between the Minsk City Police, the Department of Revenue and the Minsk Kahal about individuals who were not included in the population census; and regulations of the Minsk Civil Governor about issuing passports to Jews

Folder 45: Residential Records, Minsk Kahal, 1841 February-1844 March

Materials pertaining to residential rights and registration status in the Minsk Jewish community and in Jewish communities in other provinces. These include petitions to the Minsk Kahal by individuals residing in Minsk who whish to obtain permanent residence elsewhere and be registered in the local Jewish community; request from the Minsk City Police to confirm that a number of individuals still belong to the Minsk Jewish community and reside in the city; and correspondence between Zemstvo courts (zemskii sud) and the Minsk Kahal regarding the residence status of a number of Jews.

The materials also include information about members of the Minsk Jewish community who have the right to participate in municipal elections

Folder 46: Membership Records, Bet Midrash, Samokhvalovichi, 1903

Registry book of members of the Bet Midrash in Samokhvalovichi, on Koidenovskaia street. It includes member’s name, age and gender

Folder 47: Membership Records, Bet Midrash, Samokhvalovichi, 1903

Registry book of members of the Bet Midrash in Samokhvalovichi (also known as Kitaevskaia) on Slutskaia street. It includes member’s name, age and gender

Folder 48: Membership Records, Bet Midrash, Minsk, 1903

Registry book of members of the Lubavitcher Bet Midrash in Minsk. It includes member’s name, age and gender

Folder 49: Membership Records, Main Synagogue (Glavnaia Sinagoga), Minsk, 1903

Registry book of members of the Main Synagogue (Glavnaia Sinagoga) in Minsk. It includes names of male members

Folder 50: Membership Records, Bet Midrash, Samokhvalovichi, 1908

Registry book of members of the Bet Midrash in Samokhvalovichi (also known as Kitaevskaia) on Slutskaia street. It includes member’s name, age and gender

Folder 51: Death Notices, 1840 July

Death notices issued by family members to the Minsk Kahal

Folder 52: Petitions, Minsk Kahal, 1838 December-1839 September

Petitions to the Minsk Kahal. These include petitions to join the merchant corporation (kupechestvo) and be exempt from taxation and military obligations for commoners; certificates of corporation change (from commoner to merchant) issued by the Minsk Kahal; petition by a student of the Vilna Medical Academy asking the Minsk Kahal to issue a certificate stating that his brother is free from military service and may attend institutions of secondary and higher learning

Folder 53: Petitions, Minsk Kahal, 1841 January-December

Petitions by Minsk Jewish residents to the Minsk Kahal requesting official documents. These include requests for certificates confirming destitute status and inability to pay state taxes; requests for certificates of age, name or family status based on population census; petitions by gimnaziia students unable to pay tuition; petition by merchants and home-owners asking that a local chimney-sweeper be registered in the local trade-corporation; petition by a third guild merchant asking to be exempt from tax obligations for commoners

Folder 54: Petitions, Minsk Kahal, 1843 January-November

Petitions by Minsk Jewish residents to the Minsk Kahal requesting official documents. These include petitions to issue certificates confirming death, identity, age, property ownership, family membership, inheritance rights

Folder 55: Petitions, Minsk Kahal, 1844

Petitions by Minsk Jewish residents (and a number of Jews residing in surrounding districts) to the Minsk Kahal regarding a variety of matters including the payment of arrears, tax apportionment, military service, permanent residence, and change of corporation. The petitions are followed by the Minsk Kahal resolutions

Folder 56: Personal Matters, 1841 March-1842 June

Materials pertaining to the divorce case of a Minsk Jewish soldier hospitalized in Tallin. These include repeated requests from the Tallin Military Hospital to the Minsk Kahal to confirm the divorce

Folder 57: Criminal and Civil Cases, 1835 December-1848 November

Materials pertaining to criminal and civil cases. These include reports by the Minsk City Police to the Minsk Kahal about the investigation of a Jewish pick-pocket in Minsk; a case of injuries and death caused by the collapsing wall in the city’s shul-hoyf; a case of pilfering; and the resolution by the Minsk Consolidated Criminal and Civil Courts (Minskaia soedinennaia palata ugolovnogo i grazhdanskogo suda) about a case of property litigation between Minsk residents

Folder 58: Miscellaneous, 1839

Materials pertaining to the investigation of a case of two anonymous letters critical of local authorities, May 1839. These include the Minsk Chief of Police report on the incident and his order to distribute the report in the local synagogues, in Yiddish translation

Folder 59: Miscellaneous, 1841 April-December

Materials pertaining to the collection of information about the civil status of Minsk Jewish residents. These include correspondence between the Minsk Kahal and local authorities such as the Minsk City Police, the Minsk Orphans’ Court, the Minsk City Magistrate and the Minsk Office of Investigation (Minskii sledstvennyi pristav) to verify the residential and registration status, age, date of death, census data and other civil matters of Minsk Jewish residents

Folder 60: Miscellaneous, 1828 June-1844 June

Correspondence to and from the Minsk Kahal. The documents pertain to a variety of matters including military service, local Jewish institutions, communal taxes, debt, inheritance, registration and residence status, alimony, family relations, corporation change, and cases submitted to the Minsk bes-din (Minskii evreiskii dukhovniy sud)

Folder 61: Lease-Holding Contracts, 1839 January-October

Materials pertaining to public auctions for lease-holding contracts of products or places, to take place in the Minsk Municipal Duma. These include orders by the Minsk Municipal Duma to the Minsk Kahal to announce forthcoming auctions in the city synagogues

Folder 62: Lease-Holding Contracts, 1841 March-December

Materials pertaining to public auctions for lease-holding contracts of products or places. These include orders by the Minsk Municipal Duma to the Minsk Kahal to summon contractors by distributing auction announcements in the city synagogues

Folder 63: Lease-Holding Contract, 1843 May-August

Materials pertaining to the public auction for tax farming on kosher meat in Minsk. These include the auction announcement by the Minsk Province Administration for the Korobka leasing in all the cities and shtetlekh of the Minsk province, for a four-year period (1844-1848)

Folder 64: Account Book, Beit-midrash, Kapyl’, 1862

Account book of revenues and expenses of the Kapyl’ beit-midrash, Minsk district

Folder 65: Birth Registry, Kamen’, 1867 January-December

Birth registry of Jews born in the town of Kamen’, Minsk district

Folder 66: Birth Registry, Kamen’, 1875 January-December

Birth registry of Jews born in the town of Kamen’, Minsk district

Folder 67: Death Registry, Minsk, circa 1877 January-December

Death registry of Jews who died and were buried in the city of Minsk

Folder 68: Account Book, Beit-midrash, Minsk, 1909-1910

Account book of donations, revenues and expenses of a beit-midrash in the Minsk district (unspecified location), 1909-1910

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Series I: Minsk Jewish Community Council, 1825-1917,
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