Schools

A Heder in Khashchevatoye (1864)

This is a painting of a melamed and his pupils in Podolia — a teacher in the heder (Jewish elementary school). Now, imagine that you could put a name on these faces! Well, I can. This scene could have taken place in Khashchevatoye.

In 1864, the district rabbi of Khashchevatoye was Ruvin Lipovetzky. The melamed (religious teacher) was Shimon Virnik. On June 29, 1864, Virnik received his official certificate for the title of melamed from the Nemirov District Jewish School Commission (certificate No. 89). It is likely that he had been teaching for some time before obtaining this formal certification — the inspection that year may well have prompted him to regularize his status.

The Nemirov District Jewish School Commission was the regional body overseeing Jewish education in the Podolsk Governorate, operating under the Directorate of Public Schools. It supervised hederim across multiple districts, including Bratslav, Gaysin, Vinnitza, Olgopol, Balta, and Yampol. In 1865, the Governor-General of the Kyiv Educational District inspected Jewish schools across the region, including the Zhitomir Rabbinical School and schools in cities such as Uman, Vinnytsia, Bratslav, Berdychiv, Kamianets, and Mohyliv, among others.

On November 6, 1864, Rabbi Lipovetzky submitted his report to the Provincial Jewish School Commission on the heder operating in Khashchevatoye during the second half of that year. On November 30, 1864, the Nemirov Commission sent a letter (No. 126) to the Director of Schools of the Podolia Governorate, noting that while it had received reports from the rabbis of about ten localities, more than sixty others — including Khashchevatoye and Teplik — had not yet submitted theirs. Lipovetzky’s report, dated November 6, had apparently not yet reached Nemirov by that date.

The report provides a rare and precious snapshot of Jewish education in the shtetl.

The pupils were:

1. Eli Moshkovitch Blinder, age 9

2. Yankel Borukhovitch Bilenskiy, age 9

3. Shlomo Duvidovitch Shaposhnik, age 9

4. Yos Yankelovitch Sogutovsky, age 9

5. Yos Leib Avrumovitch Kriman, age 9

6. Leib Khunovitch Chabarovsky, age 10

7. Duvid Avrum Yeshiovitch Kravetz, age 10

8. Nusim Avrum Moshkovitch Shaposhnik, age 10

There were 8 students in total. The tuition fees amounted to 38 silver rubles, ranging from 2 to 6 rubles per pupil, and sometimes going as high as 8 to 10 rubles. The heder was located in the melamed’s private house and was reported to be clean.

According to the Nemirov Commission’s summary report for the second half of 1864, the entire Gaysin district (uyezd) had 7 melameds and 36 students. Virnik’s heder, with its 8 pupils, thus accounted for nearly a quarter of all Jewish elementary students in the district — a sign of Khashchevatoye’s importance as a Jewish community. The Commission’s finances at the time amounted to 325 rubles, with an additional 119 rubles and 4 kopecks allocated for books.

These boys were born around 1854. Their names — Blinder, Shaposhnik, Kravetz, Kriman — are among the most familiar family names of Khashchevatoye. Tragically, at least four of them would meet a violent end more than half a century later: Eli Blinder, Yankel Bilenskiy, Shlema Shaposhnik, and Yos Leib Kriman were killed in the pogroms of 1919–1921.

Rabbi Ruvin Lipovetzky died on June 4, 1873.

Source: Reports of the Jewish School Commissions on Educational Institutions of the Podolsk Governorate, 1864–1865. Reference: HM2-8878.3, Directorate of Public Schools of the Podolsk Governorate. Original found in: State Archive of Khmelnytskyi Oblast (DAKhO), Khmelnytskyi, fond 67, opis 1, file 326. Copy held at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem.