Hadassah Hirshowitz Levin

“Even as the Shechinah is in galus, adrift in camps of labor and degradation, She is so desperately desired”

Hadassah Hirshowitz was born in Panevežys, Lithuania in 1912, the daughter of Rav Yosef Arieh (Leib) Hirshowitz and Zelda Zaks Hirshowitz. Her father, who later moved to Kovno, was well known as the author of HaEshkol on Bava Kamma, used in many Litvishe yeshivos, and of the sefer Moreh Derech Lenevochim. The Hirshowitz family was closely connected with the Ponevezher Rav, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman ztz”l and Hadassah was a friend of the Rav’s brilliant and beloved daughter, Esther Hy”d. Hadassah trained at the Yavneh Teacher’s Seminary in Telz and became a teacher in Kovno, where she lived in her childhood home after her marriage to Rav Eliezer Levin of Telz.

Even as a young girl, Hadassah was an outstanding writer. She published her works as part of her affiliation with Bais Yaakov of Lietuva (which will be discussed further on).

In the summer of 1941, Hadassah was visiting her in-laws in Telz while her husband accompanied his brother to a medical specialist in Estonia to treat a glandular infection. The two men fell directly into the hands of the Nazis and were immediately put to death. Hadassah had one child, Yosef Arieh, and was expecting another when she was incarcerated into the ghetto in Telz. She lived through the horrors of the Geruliai camps, the Telzer ghetto, and the ghetto in Shavli. In the midst of the hardships of the Telzer ghetto, she gave birth to a baby boy, only to have him pass away in her arms just a few days later. Hadassah then bargained with a local priest, arranging for a safe haven for her little Yosef in the home of one of the parishioners as she fled from village to village.

And throughout it all, Hadassah wrote. On scraps of paper repurposed from German air-raid notices, using whatever writing implements she could find, she kept a journal of life in Lita from 1941 to 1945. In order to achieve, perhaps, some semblance of distance from which to record the unbearable reality, Hadassah narrated her memoir in third person, referring to herself as Shifra. Her pen name was one she had used before the sorrowful times, but it augured the heartbreak that she lived through: Bat Ami, daughter of my people. In her memoir, she reflects, in literary Biblical Hebrew, on the iron will and courage of the Jewish People. She describes the devastation of the Churban as it unfolds, but also highlights, in real time, the diamonds in the rough.

In the following excerpt from her memoir, Hadassah shares an account of the strength that women drew from their spiritual practices. She points to Shabbos as the single saving grace available to her in times of terror:

Once again it is Shabbos. These are the moments that are the most precious to Shifra. Even as the Shechinah is in galus, adrift in camps of labor and degradation, She is so desperately desired, since She alone can provide comfort to oppressed souls, the downtrodden and dispirited.

Further describing the Shabbos scene that took place within the Rabinowitz home, she writes,

All have gathered there on Shabbos and holidays. Prayers and learning alike, especially the weekly parshah, are held here. Even though the quarters are extremely close, even though a baby is here, it never dawned on Mrs. Paltit or her daughter Mrs. Rabinowitz to complain or to prevent the gathering from being held there. On the contrary — though they themselves are immersed in the 49th level of poverty, privation, and pain, they always found solace beyond themselves.

At war’s end, she collected Yosef and planned to fulfill her dream of emigration to Israel. Tragically, it was not to be: She contracted tuberculosis and passed away in a hospital in Munich in 1946. Her deathbed wish was to have her journal published. Another nearly identical journal was in fact kept by the Ponevezher Rav, who intended to publish it. Fifty years later, Yosef Eliaz fulfilled his mother’s final request, meticulously combining the extant manuscripts and printing the memoir as Bat Ami: Netiv HaYesurim VeHaEmunah Shel Bat Yahadut Lita Beyemei HaShoah.

Hadassah, serving as both poet and chronicler, did not merely describe her own life in her memoir. Her impassioned prose tells the tales of other Litvishe women whose lives were interrupted and then ended while still in full bloom. All of the women profiled here come alive through Hadassah’s words; she is telling us their stories, alongside her own.

Ella Schwartz Shmuelevitz

“Ella extended a special devotion toward those who were broken in spirit, in dire straits”

Ella Schwartz Shmuelevitz was truly a daughter of Telz. Her father, Reb Avraham Abba (known familiarly as Ab’chik) was the chief administrator of Yeshivas Telz, the person responsible for all the buildings and finances of the yeshivah. The Schwartz family blossomed, physically and spiritually, within the yeshivah’s environs. Their home was so close to the yeshivah that another daughter, Bluma, would recall how the blasts of tekias shofar and the words of “amen, yehei Shemei Rabba” would resound inside their house. Bluma, in fact, was so inspired by the constant thrum of learning and the kol Torah that penetrated the walls of the Schwartz household that she decided to pursue her dreams of higher education abroad as well.

Ella’s surviving sisters fostered homes that spanned the breadth of Litvishe royalty: Rav Shaul Brus, rosh yeshivah of Bais Talmud, married Chana Schwartz Ordman’s daughter Malka; Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Har Etzion and the son-in-law of Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, was the son of Ella’s other surviving sister, Bluma Schwartz Lichtenstein.

In Bat Ami, Hadassah describes meeting Chana Schwartz in transit at the war’s end. Beginning by reflecting on Chana’s losses, Hadassah leads her readers to the unique personality of Chana’s sister Ella. She shares a glimpse of Ella’s life journey, finishing with her own peirush on the Talmud maxim that “nashim da’atan kalos.”

All night Shifra could not close her eyes. At home she met acquaintances from days gone by as well as those with whom close ties of friendship were only recently forged. Each soul — a divine candle, and each personality — a world entire, a world in and of itself.

Across from her sits a woman and her daughter. She and her daughter were all that were left of her family. Shifra had known her only sister [Ella Shmuelevitz].

Ella was a woman of great renown. Her actions were noteworthy, even from her early years of childhood. Such were the daughters of Telz: She was a friend and supporter to anyone of forlorn spirit, as was customary for the children of Telz, who were educated yet in their youth in the value of good deeds…

This Ella extended a special devotion toward those who were broken in spirit, in dire straits. Not only did she attempt to alleviate another’s suffering, but she would even take the bread from her own mouth to give to another.

As she got older, she gravitated toward the revolutionary spirit. She believed then, in her innocence, that the Socialist ethos possessed the power to resolve the problems of the human condition, and that only this framework could bring an end to all woes and suffering. However, she soon realized that this was not the way to ameliorate the evil that prevails in the world.

No moral construct could free those born of women from the fetters of injustice that run rampant in the world; injustice and disparity exist at every level of humanity.

Slowly but surely, she came to realize that there is something more elevated than a system of man-made morality…

And so, in slow and delicate steps, she returned from the path leading only to a world of culture… and leaned into the depths of her birthright — of Judaism. She married her teacher, who likewise had  returned from the foreign fields of ethical and universal culture and found, within the resources of his people’s legacy, untold treasures he had never seen before.

Together, teacher and student, man and wife, they dedicated themselves completely to guiding others to follow their ideals to the source of their nation’s existence. They served as leaders to many people: The husband through teaching, and the wife by way of her righteous deeds and her devotion to the greater good.

Ella devoted herself to the tents of Torah, reserving the choicest portions for the poor and leaving for herself only the remnants… Her one dress served her both in summer and in winter, as did her hat and the rest of her wardrobe. Still, her home radiated cleanliness and a welcoming aura for the guests that were constantly present there, because she would never refuse anyone’s request.

When her family moved to Kovno, she established the Bais Yaakov and quickly was appointed to be the chairperson. This group, whose foundation was Torah study and whose terminus was good deeds, was built with the intent to forever edify the souls of Jewish young women. Indeed, it was she who breathed a spirit of vitality into the souls of those who had nary a foothold in the realm of true Yiddishkeit.

To the extent that she applied herself to the task, so did she succeed. In spite of the effort and toil she invested in her work, she did not shirk her household responsibilities; this was in fact her greatest source of satisfaction. After all, when a “liberal” woman takes part in other branches of life, a part of her femininity is lost. For a man can rise in the ranks of his working life and social arenas without compromising his masculinity, but the opposite is true of a woman: The rising persona of a modern woman deters the (kalus) “light-heartedness” that is her unique charm, which attracts people to her as a “daughter of Chavah” in every sense of the word.

Indeed, Ella went on to be the driving force behind the Bais Yaakov system in Lithuania. Unlike the Bais Yaakov established by Sarah Schenirer in Krakow, the Lithuanian Bais Yaakov was not a school system: Bais Yaakov of Lietuva (Lita), as it was called, was the very first independent Orthodox women’s group to devote itself to Torah learning, increased adherence to women’s mitzvos, and acts of chesed.

Bais Yaakov of Lietuva was established in Kovno in 1932 under the direction of Ella Shmuelevitz, who worked to create branches throughout Lita of this educational and proactive endeavor. By 1937, there were 30 branches, led by local rebbetzins and young women, most of whom had graduated from the Yavneh schools similarly networked throughout Lita.

Lectures on Torah topics as well as study groups were held at Bais Yaakov, with guest lectures by local and visiting rabbanim and Torah personalities. Simultaneously, Bais Yaakov of Lietuva actively worked to inculcate the fuller observance of mitzvos — they formed groups focusing on particular mitzvos, targeting specific populations with particular tactics; the groups were called “Mazhirei Shabes,” “Taharas Hamishpachah,” “Chofetz Chaim,” and another group called “Lehashlamas HaMiddos” which was dedicated to Sarah Schenirer.

Bais Yaakov of Lietuva published and disseminated halachic pamphlets and wrote their own journals to express — in both Hebrew and Yiddish — the importance of living Torah lives and being deeply connected to mitzvos and avodas Hashem. For the most part, these journals adopted the language of battle; it is clear that these women were valiantly combating the modern movements that sought to tarnish the sterling values of traditional hashkafah.

The European upheaval in the aftermath of World War I was still deeply felt in the 1920s and 1930s, and traditional Yiddishe values were beleaguered by humanistic, socialist, and liberal causes. Bais Yaakov of Lietuva worked to fight these influences as they encroached at every corner. They did so by using the ammunition of Torah learning, as Litvishe women were primed to do, by dint of their upbringing among erudite brothers and fathers — but also because of the standard of Torah education provided for girls at the Yavneh schools.

Golda Amelan

“All that she said was said passionately, with belief and assuredness, such that her words entered deeply into the hearts of her listeners”

Our final voice is that of a young woman — a bright star who illuminated the darkness with Torah and chesed. Unlike Hadassah and Ella, Golda Amelan was not educated in Telz or at any of the schools in the Yavneh network. Yet despite her relatively humble upbringing in Kveidan, her tzidkus and her brilliance emerged.

Again, it is our chronicler Hadassah who tells us first about Golda, whom she knew well:

This was a young girl, around 19, child of the village of Kvedarna; she was visiting Luknik and was pulled along to the Geruliai camp. She was a wise young woman, energetic, active, and productive. Immediately upon her arrival, she gathered the young children and organized discussions with them, learning with them and guiding them. She spoke and lifted their broken spirits and lightened their hearts with words of hope for better days to come…

Although her learning and knowledge was derived entirely from “Tz’enah Ure’enah,” even so, all that she said was said passionately, with belief and assuredness, such that her words entered deeply into the hearts of her listeners, and even the Tehillim she read with such emotion, like the meshorer himself.

Rabbos banos asu chayil in their learning; they exceeded her in number and in caliber, but not one of them succeeded in acts of such a scale, as did Zahava [the Hebrew equivalent of Golda], the simple daughter of her nation, whose entire strength lay in her simplicity.

There were still many men in the camp, and these were the lions that remained from the city of Telz: Merkin, the Yosselevsky brothers (brothers of Mrs. Merkin), Broide, and others and even refugees from Alsiad, and those who fled from, Ritove, Luknik, Laukuva, and elsewhere. But as to her — the Shechinah lived in her handiwork, and everything that she touched succeeded.

Golda confronted the realities of persecution by addressing the needs and the pain of those around her. She began a Chevras Tehillim for children during the Geruliai internment; later, in the Telzer ghetto, she was the one who organized all the remaining sifrei Torah, seforim, and tashmishei kedushah, recreating the semblance of a beis knesses, just so that women would be able to go to shul and pour their broken hearts before their Master. In the month of Elul, she went along with Bat Sheva Berkman and her sister Shoshana (Reizel) to wake the women for Selichos. In the old beis knesses, she organized a Chevras Tehillim and minyanim.

But as we will see, Golda didn’t stop there. At every level, silently and secretly, she stepped in to fill the need in any way she possibly could. An entire entry in the comprehensive Yizkor (Memorial) book of Telz is devoted to Golda, where she is dubbed the Jan Korszak of the Telzerer Ghetto. Chasia Gring-Goldberg writes:

In the ghetto, diphtheria broke out; absent any medicine, and in the subhuman conditions of the ghetto, the disease spread quickly. Leaders of Lithuanian cities were seized with fear concerning the possible spread of the disease outside the ghetto, and so they decided to hospitalize the affected children in the local hospital. Communication between children and parents was forbidden; no one knew if they were alive or had died.

Weeks passed, and one day the ghetto gates were opened. A truck drove in, deposited several miserable creatures in the middle of the road, and drove off. These were three Jewish girls from among the patients in the local hospital who survived the disease. They were emaciated, shaven, and pale. They did not have the strength to stand up on their feet. They lay on the sidewalk like abandoned cats, crowding into one another, crying bitterly, “Mama, Mama.” No one recognized them. During the time that they were in the ghetto, their mothers had been murdered; the war machine cooperated unfailingly and consistently.

Before a decision could be made regarding these young girls, Golda approached them, soothed them, and promised them that from then on she would be their “mommy.” She gathered them up and from that moment on, she dedicated her life to them.

She collected food for them from among the more stable inhabitants of the ghetto, mended their clothing, bathed and fed them. She was busy with them all day. These children called her “Mama.” They accompanied her wherever  she went. They constantly clutched her dress, as they were fearful that she would run away and abandon them. Several days passed, and the orphans gained weight and began to look like human beings.

Golda was then able to place some of the orphans in homes of women who could care for them, but she kept the most difficult and needy child in her own exclusive care.

In another part of the Bat Ami memoir, Hadassah describes how Golda was there for her at her own most sorrowful of times, in the hospital, just after her infant son died in her arms:

Enter the young Zahava Amelan, whose entirety was devoted to the needs of others. She lifted the baby who had been washed by his own mother, along with the gravestone that had been readied by his own mother, and she carried them to the Telz beis hakvaros, where his holy ancestors, the pure tzaddikim, lay peacefully at rest.

New Year of Tears in Telz

Perhaps the most poignant, and certainly the most exceptional, incident that occurred in the Telz ghetto surrounds the observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in 1941. With no men left in the ghetto, how would these women commemorate the holiest days of the Jewish year? Who would conduct the extensive and formidable services, and who would lead all the women in prayer? Malke Gilis, in testimony given to Leyb Koniuchowsky in 1946 at the displaced persons camp at Landsberg, details the scene:

Rosh Hashanah, 1941

All of the women in the ghetto gathered in the synagogue to pray and pour out their sorrow and pain before G-d in heaven. A young woman, age 20, led the prayers. She prayed skillfully and melodically, just like a chazzan. There was not a single man in the shul. The women prayed in the place of all the men who had been shot.

On the morning of the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the peasants in the villages had to bring all the women who were working for them into the ghetto. Thus, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, all of the women who were still alive and who belonged in the Telz ghetto were in shul.

The Lithuanian murderers’ order to bring all the Jewish women into the ghetto caused a panic among all the women. They were certain that their moment of death had arrived. Everyone was certain of it. Oceans of tears poured from the eyes of the surviving women that Rosh Hashanah. They all pleaded with Hashem for forgiveness, and repented for the sins that they had never even committed. It was a day of moral reckoning with Hashem, a moment of eternal parting with the world.

Once again, the young girl stood at the amud and prayed instead of a chazzan, instead of a man. Her sweet voice and prayer to Hashem to save them from death called forth rivers of tears from all the women present.

Malka Gilis’s testimony continued, with scenes of Yom Kippur just a week and a half later.

The Women’s-Only Yom Kippur

All of the women gathered together quite early. Miss Golda Amelan stood at the lectern instead of a chazzan. Everyone without exception was fasting. Miss Amelan’s voice beseeched, demanded, and tore its way into the deaf heavens. In the afternoon, many women lay on the floor in a faint. The stronger and healthier ones continued praying until nightfall.

There was not a single man in shul that Yom Kippur. It was a Yom Kippur with no one but women and small children. Just like men, they swayed back and forth, begging Hashem for forgiveness, for a good year of life and livelihood, and so forth. In the back of their minds, all the women thought that this Yom Kippur would be the last for all the Jewish women in the Telz ghetto. And because of this their weeping was so heartrending… they wept and begged Hashem to have mercy on them and on the children, and they wept when they remembered previous Yom Kippur days together with their families.

The world had never seen a Yom Kippur like this, never! Who knew if the world would ever understand it, and remember, and recall it? Who knew?

Bat Sheva Berkman, in her memories of that Rosh Hashanah, elucidates that the women deliberated beforehand whether they could say Kaddish; since women were the only ones alive, the decision was made to do so, such that they could properly give final kavod to their beloved husbands, sons, and fathers.

Holiday prayer books and siddurs were hardly to be found, just as there was no man to serve as prayer leader. Everyone waited. And suddenly, a sweet voice was heard: barechu es Hashem hamevorach! And the congregation answered: baruch Hashem hamevorach l’olam va’ed. Before the altar stood a young girl who prayed by heart… with the appropriate liturgy to suit the holiday, just as an actual cantor would. And the crowd was swept along with her. This young girl even blew the shofar. She pressed her hands to her mouth, forming the shape of a shofar, and articulated the sounds of each blow: Tekiah, Shevarim, Teruah, with the expertise of an experienced baal tokeia.

What became of these women? What is left of their intense devotion to prayer, to acts of chesed, and to staunch mitzvah observance?

Hadassah tells us what became of Golda Amelan. In the last moments before the final liquidation of the Telzer ghetto, Hadassah begged Golda to join her in escape. Golda refused.

“What will I do with my little baby?” she asked, referring to the sickly child she had adopted.

Hadassah replied, “I, too, have a baby with me! We can escape together, and Hashem will help us both!”

“But who will care for the other orphans that I placed with the neighbors? Who will be their mother then?” Golda insisted. “I won’t leave their side. I cannot.”

And so, with her final act of kiddush Hashem, Golda Amelan joined Ella Shmuelevitz; several years later, Hadassah Levin joined them as well. They are doubtless in the Yeshivah shel Maalah, adjacent to the Torah and the tefillah to which they dedicated their lives. They were silenced, like so many others, while they still had so much to say.

But the strength of their deeds is eternal; as daughters of our people, their spiritual voices resound. They have emerged from the depths of the archives to inspire us still. Like that of Rachel Imeinu, may their voices be heard on high, interceding on behalf of their children to bring an end to all suffering.

Take My Children First

In the course of my research, I had the tremendous zechus of interviewing Rebbetzin Shoshana Gifter. Her mother, Rebbetzin Luba Bloch, was the wife of Rav Shmuel Zalman Bloch, eldest son of Rav Yosef Leib Bloch. Rav Shmuel Zalman, the menahel of the Telzer Yeshivah, was among those led to their death at this time. The story that Rebbetzin Gifter shared with me is nothing short of unforgettable.

As the murders of the townspeople were committed before the Rebbetzin’s eyes, Rebbetzin Bloch recognized her incipient fate. She then approached the German killers with a final, surprising request: She asked that her children be killed first. To this, the Nazis readily agreed. (Rebbetzin Gifter had already escaped to safety.)

As soon as her children were put to death, she leaned over each one in the pit, closed their eyes, and straightened out their bodies. She said Shema aloud, and she thanked Hashem that she was able to bring them to kever Yisrael. Only then did she turn to face the murderers, accepting her death b’kiddush Sheim Shamayim.

When Rebbetzin Gifter shared her mother’s story, it immediately brought to mind another story that I had heard the previous winter from Shulamith (Shuli) Berger, the curator of Special Collections and Hebraica-Judaica at Yeshiva University Library.

Shuli’s great-grandmother, Pesha Frayda Rachkovsky, lived on a farm near the small town of Leipalingis (Leipun). In September 1941, the Nazis arrived to massacre the Jews of the town, as they purged Lithuania (Lita) of its Jewish population. Pesha Frayda was taken to the killing fields along with her husband, Aryeh Leib, her grown son, Sholom Tzvi, and her daughter, Chana Minna.

Before it was her turn to be killed, Pesha Frayda approached the Nazi killers with a pasuk on her lips. “You must have heard,” she stated, “of the commandment in the Bible, that when you come to take the young from a mother bird, you must distance that bird, so that she will not witness the loss of her children. I ask that you put me to death first, so that I will not witness the murder of my children before my very eyes.”

The Nazi in command did not permit her final request, but the eyewitness never forgot the presence of mind of Pesha Frayda Rachkovsky, who framed an unspeakable horror by turning to words of Torah in the very last moments of her life.

The  Yavneh Network

Women strikingly fluent in Torah

The first Yavneh school for girls was established in 1921 under the auspices of Rav Yosef Leib Bloch to address the educational needs of girls in Telz; soon afterward another was opened in Kovno, followed by others throughout Lita. Reflecting the stature of the surrounding yeshivos, the schools were highly organized and promoted a superior educational standard in both limudei kodesh and chol. All classes were held in Hebrew, even mathematics! Litvishe women thus easily corresponded in Ivrit and were proficient in Tanach, history, and literature.

Evidence of the caliber of the women of Telz is found in documented halachic exchange between two friends, Bat Sheva Berkman (later Schwartz) and Miriam Bloch, daughter of Telz rosh yeshivah Rav Avraham Yitzchak Bloch. Bat Sheva received a letter from her friend Miriam while she was in hiding. The letter included precise directions, empowering her with the wherewithal to navigate her position in order to remain safely within halachic confines:

If you eat the food of a non-Jew, be sure not to relish its flavor or derive enjoyment therefrom, to bear in mind that it is forbidden, as bread of non-believers. If you are compelled to do work on Sabbath, try to minimize that which is forbidden as much as possible. If you must wash the floors on Sabbath, do not squeeze the rag. When the non-Jews bring books for you to read aloud to them to fill their time, refrain from reading (non-Jewish) religious books.

While this particular halachic familiarity might have been partially due to Miriam’s elite family background, Litvishe women raised outside of Telz, far from Yavneh and in simpler surroundings, were also strikingly fluent in Torah, as evident from the story of Pesha Frayda Rachkovsky. The larger construct of the yeshivah world may well have bred an affinity for independent learning, and it is possible that women were literate in Hebrew because they were taught at home; others may have learned to read and write in Yiddish and Hebrew at their local schools.

Tzipora Weinberg is an educator, lecturer, and historian residing in North Woodmere, New York, where she is rebbetzin of Kahal Lev Avos. She dedicates this piece to her students, the senior class of 5781 at Bais Malka of Belz.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 876)