Kazan קזאן
A city beyond the Pale of Settlement, where Rabbi Bentzion Zilber secretly taught his son—and the son kept every Shabbat for half a century.
Kazan lay beyond the Pale of Settlement, and the Jewish community here took shape late—from discharged cantonist soldiers, craftsmen and merchants of the first guild who were allowed to live outside the Pale. By the start of the twentieth century the community was small but well ordered; in 1915 the synagogue was consecrated.
In the Soviet years Kazan was one of the places where Torah lived in apartments. Rabbi Bentzion Chaim Zilber taught his son Yitzchak at home, behind curtained windows; the son grew up, became a mathematics teacher, and did not break a single Shabbat—not at university, not in the camp, not at school. His book To Remain a Jew is the testimony of how it was done.
After the collapse of the Union the community revived; the synagogue was returned in 1996.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Documents of the period
- Rav Yitzchak Zilber, To Remain a Jew — Jewish Kazan of the Soviet years through the eyes of one who lived there
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the community beyond the Pale, the synagogue of 1915, its return in 1996
Basis: documents and evidence.