Metadata: Jewish Community of Staryi Tolochin; Staryi Tolochin (Orsha county, Mogilev province)
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- National Historical Archive of Belarus
- Holding institution (official language):
- Национальный исторический архив Беларуси
- Postal address:
- ul. Kropotkina, 55, Minsk, 220002, Belarus
- Phone number:
- + 375 (17) 286 75 23; 286 76 92
- Web address:
- https://niab.by/newsite/
- Email:
- niab@niab.by
- Reference number:
- F. 2413
- Title:
- Jewish Community of Staryi Tolochin; Staryi Tolochin (Orsha county, Mogilev province)
- Title (official language):
- Старо-Толочинское еврейское общество, м. Старый Толочин (Оршанский уезд, Могилевская губерния)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Community of Staryi Tolochin; Staryi Tolochin (Orsha county, Mogilev province)
- Date(s):
- 1861
- Language:
- Russian
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 1 storage unit
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- The fond contains sets of Jewish vital-records documents (logbooks for recording acts of civil status), in some cases with gaps in individual years. Logbooks usually took the form of typographically printed tables, filled in by hand by rabbis or assistant rabbis in Russian and Hebrew. The information given in the books was certified by the signatures of the rabbi and three members of the religious board, as well as by the signature of the head of the registration desk of the Mogilev Provincial Administration and requisite seals. In particular, there are vital-records logs containing information on Jews born in the town of Staryi Tolochin (1861).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- A small Jewish population, consisting mainly of Jews who did not own their own homes and rented temporary housing, known as komorniki, arrived in Mogilev and the adjacent territory in the late 16th century. The first Jewish communities were formed in the mid-17th century. The Jewish community of Belitsa was one such example, listed in 1637 among other Jewish communities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania that were in debt to the treasury. By 1776, there were 642 Jewish payers of the poll tax in the city of Mogilev and surrounding villages. The primary occupations of these people were trades, moneylending, distilling, and contracting to serve as state tax collectors. Upon the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Mogilev province was formed on 28th May 1772 from part of the Belorussian lands annexed to Russia. It existed until 1796, and was later restored in 1802. In 1794, the province became part of the Pale of Settlement established by Empress Catherine II. The legal status of the Jewish population was regulated by several legislative acts, including the Statute on Kahals of 6th September 1773, following which elections were held on 1st July 1774 to the kahal of Mogilev province. On 9 December 1804, the Statute on Organizing Jewish Life, developed by the First Jewish Committee, was adopted; this called for the “correction of Jewish morals” via education and the incentivizing of Jews to engage in the most “moral” types of work, primarily agriculture. The imperially ratified Statute on Jews of 13th April 1835 consolidated the significance of kahals, but these entities were liquidated following the law of 19th December 1844, and their functions were transferred to local community and estate institutions, including Jewish communities. The National Historical Archive of the Republic of Belarus is in possession of information on Jewish communities of the Mogilev province, which had, according to the census of 1847, 87,739 Jewish residents in total. In the early 1870s, there were Jewish communities across the province in seven county seats and non-administrative cities, twenty-six townships, and three villages. Religious services for the Jewish population were held in synagogues and houses of worship (shuls) that had been established with the permission of the provincial authorities according to the formula: thirty Jewish homes allowed for the opening of a shul whilst eighty allowed for a synagogue. According to data from the early 1880s, there were about 350 synagogues and houses of worship in the Mogilev province in this period. The community elected a rabbi, starosta, and treasurer, who together made up the community board. Rabbis were elected for a three-year term by authorized electors (ten for each hundred community members, and one for every hundred over this number). In order to be eligible to be elected rabbi, one had to be a subject of the Russian Empire; at least twenty-five years old; a member of the community for no less than two years; and a graduate of a rabbinical school, or of a higher- or secondary-educational institution. Those elected were approved by the provincial administration. If the community had one thousand or more members, an assistant rabbi was elected from among community members. Upon taking office, the rabbi entered into an agreement with the community that established his salary and payment for the performance of rites. The rabbi’s duties included overseeing community members’ behavior and keeping vital records, whilst administrative issues were dealt with by the board. The treasurer kept income and expense logs, recorded donations, and collected excises. Materials on the community’s operations in registering vital records and population counts, as well as information of a financial nature, were annually submitted to be audited by requisite municipal administrations or analogous civil institutions. Upon the establishment of Soviet power in Mogilev in 1920, the property of the Jewish religious community began to be nationalized and synagogues, houses of worship, and community institutions were closed. This process lasted until the early 1940s, when the community as a whole was abolished.
- Access points: locations:
- Orsha county
- Subject terms:
- Rabbis
- Vital records
- Vital records--Birth records
- System of arrangement:
- Inventories of fonds are systematized mainly on a chronological basis.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary