Author: Kateryna Malakhova

“Here is my Vinnytsia,” says a pleasant elderly woman who greets me – the daughter-in-law of Usher Lerner. “This is the street where I grew up, and around that corner is the institute where I studied.”

A quiet, low-rise street almost in the center of Holon, a small house in a courtyard, pots of petunias, cats. In a tiny office, on a large screen that covers nearly half the wall, there’s the very same archival case that’s open on my laptop.

“And what will you write about my father-in-law?”
“That he was a hero. Just look at all he did for people: he found aid in hard times, and after the war he organized the Jewish community…”
“He was a broken man, life broke him… And what he said during the interrogations, that he organized something – don’t believe that. He said what they wanted to hear.”

The case is titled “Archival Criminal Case No. 27643 against Lerner Usher Mendelevich and others”, dated 1939 – three massive volumes. Records on search, endless interrogations, wooden phrasing. There were at least two such cases in the fate of Usher Lerner, a forgotten hero of the Jewish underground, a Hasidic shochet and cantor from Vinnytsia – in 1939 and 1953. These cases, along with his daughter-in-law’s memories, are the only remaining trace of him.

He was known as “Usher the Shochet from the New Bazaar.” He didn’t do anything particularly extraordinary – slaughtered chickens, collected tzedakah, prayed – and quietly, persistently resisted the NKVD in defense of a disappearing Jewish way of life. He survived two arrests and exile; his voice rang out in the city’s synagogues, welcoming the Jews of Vinnytsia returning home. It’s hard to imagine the true, underground, Hasidic Jewish life of Vinnytsia during the Great Terror – the life of the “Jewish elders” – without him.
***
The story of Usher Lerner is best begun with the Kyiv case mentioned by I. Osipova in her remarkable book “The History of the Hasidic Underground During the Years of the Great Terror.”

On March 10, 1939, seven people were arrested in Kyiv on suspicion of “anti-Soviet agitation” as members of an “anti-Soviet Hasidic group.” Among them were Rabbis David Kaplan and Meir-Wolf Rapoport, as well as the “highly active Hasid” Moishe Kolikov. It is from this case that threads lead to the case of Usher Lerner. Osipova writes:

“One of the most active Kyiv Hasidim, Moishe Kolikov – who had already served twelve months in prison in 1927 – took it upon himself to raise funds for the operation of secret heders and yeshivas in other cities. Seeking material assistance, he reached out to Hasidic communities in Warsaw, Łódź, London, as well as to foreign charitable organizations. In the early 1930s, he succeeded in securing aid for starving Jews in the USSR from the London-based committee “Relfederation”. Under Kolikov’s leadership, a Kyiv branch of the committee was established to support Jews across Ukraine. It was headed by Rabbi Vaishelboim. In 1934 and 1935, Moishe Kolikov visited Uman and Vinnytsia, where synagogues and underground heders were still active… Everywhere he held secret meetings with rabbis, melameds (teachers), and shochets, and after announcing the opening of the Kyiv branch of the London committee, he promised financial aid.”

In 1934, Moishe Kolikov met in Vinnytsia with the local shochet, Usher Lerner. During an interrogation on June 4, 1939, Lerner described the meeting as follows:
“…In 1934, around January, Kolikov came to Vinnytsia from Kyiv on business related to Soyuzutil and happened to stop by my father’s place and meet him. Upon learning that we were experiencing material hardship and lacked food, Kolikov said that he was a member of the Kyiv committee for assisting the ‘poor’ and that he could provide support… Kolikov instructed me to identify schochets in need of assistance at the New Bazaar and compile a list. Kolikov himself visited the city synagogue and there identified about ten people in need. He gave me their addresses and asked me to compile a single list and send it to the committee, to Vaishelbaum – which I later did.”

Moishe Kolikov said the “Relfederation” committee was made up of “rabbis who had left the USSR and united… trying to provide assistance to the clergy in the USSR, knowing their dire circumstances.” Among the rabbis, he mentioned Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, who had emigrated to Riga. “Relfederation” appears in several cases from that time and is also mentioned by Osipova; however, the organization has not yet been definitively identified.

“After Kolikov left for Kyiv,” Lerner continues, “some time later, each of the 26 people on the list received half a pood of flour and 2 pounds of sugar. A few months later, aid was again received from the Kyiv committee, but this time not for 26 people – only for 10, and again half a pood of flour each. The flour was sent in parcels to my address, and I distributed it among the shochets.”

Soon even that meager aid – “half a pood of flour and Provencal oil for the Jewish Passover” – came to an end. Kolikov advised Lerner to write directly to the “Relfederation” with a request for help. A letter was sent to London; according to Lerner, Kolikov insisted that he describe in detail both his own dire situation and that of the other shochets, otherwise no aid would be granted. A few months later, $4 was received in Lerner’s name through Torgsin; afterward, he began receiving $4–5 every six months, continuing until 1937.

The amount was not as small as it might seem. Lerner’s “accomplice,” Shmuel Liberson, claimed during interrogation that he received as much as 100 rubles for a single dollar through Torgsin. Still, it’s hard to say what exactly that could buy in Vinnytsia in 1935.

In 1935–1936, Lerner, already acting on his own initiative, reached out to various foreign organizations – apparently mostly Hasidic – requesting financial support for the Vinnytsia religious community. “God forbid you deny anyone,” he wrote, “for they are all great scholars…” Among the recipients, he mentions Gias (meaning HIAS – the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, founded in the U.S. in 1881), Ezras-Toirah in New York (he contacted them through the former rabbi of Medzhybizh, Chaim Byk, whom he may have known personally through his wife’s relatives from Medzhybizh), and several others. Some did not help at all; others periodically sent small amounts.

Lerner’s ties to the already “compromised” Kolikov and his Kyiv committee, his extensive foreign correspondence describing the poverty of shochets and rabbis (which the investigators, of course, classified as slander against Soviet reality), and the organized material aid he arranged for the community became one of the triggers for the case against him.

March 5, 1939, in Vinnytsia – five days before the arrest of the Kyiv group – ten arrest warrants were signed.

The youngest in the group is our protagonist, the Vinnytsia shochet Usher Lerner, 46 years old. The oldest, Shmuel Liberson, gabbai of the Sendagura Synagogue, 74 years old. The others – Yakov Paperny, Yosef Ingerleib, Yosef Slobodyansky, and others – also elderly rabbis, shochets, or cantors.

The “anti-Soviet clerical group” is accused of organizing illegal prayer gatherings, ties with foreign Jewry, and, of course, counterrevolutionary propaganda. The investigator assigns everyone the same three sections of Article 54 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (Ukrainian analogue of the notorious Article 58): 54-4 (assistance to international bourgeoisie), 54-10 (anti-Soviet propaganda), and 54-11 (participation in a counterrevolutionary organization).

On March 8, searches and arrests took place at five addresses in Vinnytsia. On March 9 – in two houses in Koziatyn. On March 10 – two addresses in Brailiv.

Usher Lerner was accused of organizing an illegal prayer house, “where, under the guise of religious rites, he carried out anti-Soviet nationalist activity,” of ties with the Kyiv committee “Aid to Poor Jews,” as well as “with bourgeois-nationalist organizations abroad.”

From March to June 1939, Lerner endured more than thirty interrogations and confrontations, during which he “confessed to ties with bourgeois-nationalist organizations abroad, which is also evidenced by documents seized during the search at the time of his arrest” (referring to correspondence).

The transcripts of these interrogations are not only a unique testimony to the life of Jewish Vinnytsia in the prewar years but also the story of a remarkable fate.
We present quotes from them, preserving the original spelling wherever possible.

***

Alright, let’s get to know Usher Lerner a bit better.
“Surname – Lerner
Name and patronymic – Usher Mendelevich
Date of birth – 1893
Place of birth – Vinnytsia
Place of residence – Vinnytsia, Korolenko St. No. 19
Profession and specialty: “fighter-pluker”
(arrest questionnaire, March 16, 1939)

The eye stumbles over the odd phrase “fighter-pluker.” Ah, here it is a bit further down: “fighter of birds,” meaning shochet. “Pluker” – while working at Soyuzutil, Lerner evidently not only slaughtered chickens but also plucked them (from “skubaty” in Ukrainian – to pluck).

“I was born in the city of Vinnytsia. My father had a slaughterhouse at the New Bazaar, where he butchered fowl. Our family consisted of five souls – father Mendel, mother Hana, brothers Aba, Gavshy, and me.” (interrogation, March 9)

In one of the interrogations, the name of the grandfather appears – Avrum. The 1895 family register of Vinnytsia Jews remembers this family – grandfather Avrum Leibovich Lerner (born around 1847), his mother Shifra, his wife Rivka (Usher’s grandmother), and their three sons: Mendel, born 1875; Pesach, ten years younger; and Levi, who died as a two-year-old infant in 1876. A note added in 1909 states that the family of their son Mendel Lerner was living with them – his wife Hana, daughter of Chaim-Shlem, 40 years old, and their three sons: Yosef, born in 1898; Aba, born in 1900; and Gavshy (Hoshea), born in 1902.

But where is our protagonist? Joseph born in 1898 instead of Usher born in 1893 – a typical mystery for such documents. Most likely, it was a clerk’s error, mixing up similar names and dates. Or perhaps… there was another brother.

So, Usher Mendelevich Lerner was born in Vinnytsia in 1893 into the family of the shochet Mendel Avrumovich Lerner. The family lived at 9 Nekrasov Street, also in the New Bazaar district. This house appears again in another registry from 1916; later, Usher would mention “my father’s house on Nekrasov Street.”

The New Bazaar was a marketplace in the center of Zamostia, the part of the city separated from downtown Vinnytsia by the Southern Bug River. Urban development in the area began in the 1860s, with the construction of the railway station. The “New Bazaar,” which likely appeared around the same time, was considered “new” in contrast to the old one on Kalicha Square, in the city center. Little is known so far about the Jewish community of Zamostia; the story of the Lerner family sheds some light on it.

Usher Lerner received a “home” education: “I never studied anywhere, my father taught me.” By 1917, the young man was already 24 and had likely managed to receive a solid traditional Jewish education.

As a hereditary shochet, his father taught Usher all the intricacies of the craft. The entire family were shochets: not only his father and his brother Aba, but also his maternal uncles, the Rapoports (one of whom was a shochet all the way in Mexico). Usher’s wife, Reizya Khaskelevna, was originally from Medzhybizh, bore the surname Shoichet, and was the daughter of the local shochet; her brother, Isaac, was a shochet as well.

Usher also, as he put it, “had a voice.” For most of his life, he worked not only as a shochet but also as a cantor.

Until 1929, Usher Lerner, together with his father, ran a slaughterhouse at the New Bazaar – “engaged in the slaughter of fowl.” During that same period, up to 1929, Lerner served as cantor at the New Bazaar Synagogue.

Then, in 1929 or slightly later, Lerner took a job as a shochet (more precisely, a pluker) at Soyuzutil, where he not only slaughtered poultry but also plucked feathers – raw material intended for further processing. This turn of fate wasn’t unique – this all-Union organization, with its broad scope of operations, became a refuge not only for shochets but for many other Jewish “religious functionaries.” Among its employees were Moishe Kolikov and Israel Tarlo, one of the Vinnytsia rabbis; apparently, many Vinnytsia shochets were absorbed into it as well.

In 1935, Lerner recounts, “me and other shochets were hit with large taxes by the finance department. As a religious functionary and homeowner, I was taxed 2,000 rubles.” It seems that Lerner continued working as a cantor after 1929 – possibly at a different synagogue. The Soyuzutil management told Lerner to give up his cantorship – “otherwise you’d be dismissed.” Lerner submitted a declaration to the newspaper Bolshevik Pravda, renouncing his role as cantor. That didn’t save him, however – in other interrogations he says he was fired from Soyuzutil in 1935.

In 1936, his father, Mendel Avrumovich, passed away. A year later, Usher Lerner and his family moved to a new house – at 19 Korolenko Street, right across from the New Bazaar Synagogue, where he used to serve.

This synagogue, by the way, was only recently discovered by local historians. In 2017, the plaster began to peel off the facade of a three-story residential building at 16 Korolenko Street, revealing arched vaults underneath. When exactly it was closed remains unclear; architects believe it was converted into a residential building in the late 1930s.

By 1939, Usher had four children – his eldest daughter Rivka, 16 years old; his son Pinya, 14; Khaim, 12; and the youngest, Moyshe, 8. The children attended a Jewish school, and Lerner was once again working as a shochet – this time for Ukrptitseprom. All of this was interrupted by the first arrest.

***

So what kind of community was Usher Lerner part of – the cantor and shochet from the New Bazaar – the community for whose sake he was arrested for taking part in its life? His case serves as a kind of guidebook to the underground Jewish life of Vinnytsia in the late 1930s.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Vinnytsia had around twenty synagogues, including at least two Hasidic ones – the Skvira and Sadigura synagogues. Starting in the late 1920s, synagogues began to be shut down one after another. By 1931, only two were still functioning. The group arrested in this case was connected to the Sendagura (Sadigura) synagogue, which, according to some sources, was located at 71 Pervomayska Street.

Until 1934, according to case materials, the rabbi of that synagogue was Joseph Shapiro – heir to an entire dynasty of Vinnytsia rabbis (he himself was also the chief rabbi of Vinnytsia, though it’s unclear in which years). Joseph Shapiro appears to have been an active and engaged community leader who tried to preserve traditional Jewish life under conditions of total war against religion.

Shmuel Liberson told investigators about one of Shapiro’s attempts to create an association that would advocate for essential aspects of Jewish religious life – the construction of a mikvah, among other things.

“…Around 1931 or early 1932, on a Saturday after prayers, former Rabbi Joseph Shapiro spoke at a gathering and began saying that we must unite in order to defend religious matters – such as pushing for the opening of kosher shops, building a mikveh, and studying the Talmud. Shapiro pointed out that there are small towns that have mikvehs, but in our city there is no mikveh. There were up to 100 people present at that gathering. Most of those present supported Shapiro and spoke in favor of the need to unite in the struggle for religious issues. I also expressed my agreement and promised to help with money – right then I pledged to give 50 rubles for this cause.” (Interrogation transcript of the accused Shmuel Liberson, July 14, 1939)

Lerner denied being present at that gathering. And yet, according to the interrogation transcripts, lively discussions about the need to build a “mikveh” and other communal matters were sometimes held not only in the synagogue but also in his father’s house.

It is unknown whether this association was ever actually formed or if it all ended with just talk. However, for the investigators, the very idea of such an association aimed at defending religion was crucial – it was this that allowed them to accuse the entire group of “participation in a counterrevolutionary organization.”

The investigator refers to this association by the name “Ahdus.” It’s worth noting that a Jewish political organization with that name and similar goals really did exist – only not in Vinnytsia, but in Kyiv, back in 1918. It was founded by Shlomo Aronson, the chief rabbi of Kyiv from 1906 to 1921. In 1921, he fled to Germany, and from 1923 to 1935, he served as the first Ashkenazi rabbi of Tel Aviv. In 1935, he passed away. Any direct connection between the Kyiv organization “Ahdus” and communal affairs in Vinnytsia is doubtful.

Nevertheless, during a search of one member of the Vinnytsia group, investigators found a copy of the “General Congress Protocol of the Ahdus Organization of All Ukraine in Kyiv,” printed by the Ha-Tchio publishing house in 1918 – neatly stitched into the case file (unless, of course, the secret police planted it themselves). By linking the activities of a Vinnytsia rabbi to a Kyiv Jewish political party from 1918, the investigation charged the entire group with participation in the counterrevolutionary organization “Ahdus”.

Another of Joseph Shapiro’s undertakings was an underground yeshiva at the Sendagura Synagogue – serving 20 to 50 students with daily lectures.

Usher Lerner was a participant in this “Talmud Torah school”:
“…I admit my guilt in that, by my own decision and under the influence of my father, around 1931 I joined the school for the study of the Talmud, organized at the Sendagura Synagogue by former Rabbi SHAPIRO Joseph. Upon receiving assignments, I – like the other Talmudists – studied the Talmud at home, and once a year we gathered at the synagogue (in another place he says, ‘we jointly reviewed the conclusion of the Talmud’). There were about 20 Talmudists in total… Lectures on the Talmud at the Sendagura Synagogue were given by Meilakh Shapiro, Meer Gerber, and Mikhel-the-shoichet, I don’t know his last name.” (Interrogation of June 5)

In 1934, Joseph Shapiro left for Palestine and settled in Haifa, where he “lived well.” He was succeeded by his nephew, Meilakh Shapiro, who was arrested together with Lerner. The gabbai, or head of the community, was Shmuel Liberson – another defendant in the case.

After the rabbi’s departure, the “school for the study of the Talmud” was headed by Meer Gerber. It seems that during this period it moved entirely to a kind of “remote work,” as we would say today:

“…After Shapiro’s departure to Palestine, there were no gatherings, and we studied the Talmud, the instruction was overseen by Meer Gerber, who kept a book of the people who took part in Talmud study. In that same book he wrote down the assignments – who was to study what. Gerber sent the assignments to those Talmudists who studied at home, through Biks Yoyna.” (Usher Lerner at a confrontation, June 14)

Yoyna Bisk (in some documents Biks; the name Yoyna appears in various forms – Eyna, Oyna, etc.), through whom the notes with assignments were passed, was the synagogue watchman. In 1938, when the synagogue was closed, it was at his place that the community gathered:

“The Sendagura Synagogue, where I was head of the community, was closed in January 1938; afterward, until May, we gathered illegally in the watchman’s lodge where Bisk Eyna lived, and then began attending the Hefter Synagogue.” (Shmuel Liberson, interrogation of May 21)
“A group of old men burst in and demanded that I provide my apartment for illegal prayer meetings…” – explained Yoyna Bisk (confrontation between Liberson and Bisk, July 15)

The Hefter Synagogue lasted longer than the Sendagura. It also hosted an underground yeshiva – “every day for one hour,” as Lerner reports.

In addition to synagogues, small prayer groups gathered in private homes – an integral part of the Jewish landscape of Vinnytsia. The case mentions several such groups – “Frankel Naftula, the blacksmith; Burikh, near the New Bazaar; and Eli, a tinsmith who lives near the train station.” It was precisely the participation in an “illegal gathering” that became one of the charges against Usher Lerner:

“The accused LERNER U.M. was one of the organizers of an illegal prayer house in the city of Vinnytsia, at the apartment of PENZE Borukh, where, under the guise of religious rites, he conducted anti-Soviet nationalist activity.”

The prayer group at Borukh Penze’s had been meeting for “the past two or three years,” i.e. from 1937 to 1939. The apartment was located at 5 Timiryazevskaya Street; about ten people gathered there, all neighbors. If there was no minyan – they didn’t pray. “Besides prayer, we sometimes discussed the news, what was happening abroad, etc.” (interrogation of Usher Lerner, June 5). Lerner himself claimed that he was not the organizer of that group, and only “on days of mourning for relatives acted as cantor.” However, it turns out that before 1936 the group met at his father’s house:

“Before my father died in 1936, I lived with him, and in my apartment illegal prayer meetings were held. After 1936, there were no such meetings at my place. …afterward, they started gathering at Penze Borukh’s.” (interrogation, May 26)

***

To the charge of organizing an illegal minyan, another was added:

“LERNER also admitted that he is a Hasid of the tsadik TVERSKOY, residing in the city of Moscow, and named known Hasidim in the city of Vinnytsia – among them Slobodyansky and Liberson, both involved in the present case. The latter hosted gatherings of Hasidim during visits by Tverskoy, the last of which took place in 1937.” (from the indictment)

Behind this charge lies a very particular chapter in the history of prewar Jewish Vinnytsia – its unexpectedly vibrant Hasidic life.

As it turns out, there was a group in Vinnytsia of Hasidim loyal to the tsadik Avraham Yehoshua Heshel Tverskoy of Makhnovka (1897–1995), and Usher Lerner was among them.

The Makhnovka dynasty was a branch of the Skvira Hasidic line of the Chernobyl dynasty. Around 1887, Rabbi Joseph Meir of Makhnovka, grandson of R. Yitzchak of Skvira, moved from Skvira to nearby Makhnovka and established his own court. After his father’s death in 1917 – during the most turbulent time – Avraham Yehoshua Heshel had to take on the leadership of the small dynasty.

The remarkable story of his life is told in the book “Le-Avdekha Be-Emet” (Bnei Brak, 2011): his escape from impending arrest in Moscow in 1932, his life in Cherkizovo working as a self-employed tailor (“works as a craftsman – makes little hats”), evacuation to Tashkent, arrest and exile to Yeniseisk, then back to Moscow, a full campaign in 1963 for the Makhnovka Rebbe’s emigration to Israel – and the revival of Makhnovka Hasidism in Bnei Brak.

Chernobyl Hasidism is known for its dedication to the practice of maggidut – periodic journeys by the tsadik to nearby towns, where he was received with great ceremony by local followers. The first Makhnovka Rebbe traveled actively through Podolia’s towns, which led to the popularity of Makhnovka Hasidism. After his death, his son continued the work. In Vinnytsia, a group of 15–20 Hasidim remained (or formed anew) in exactly this style. It’s likely that the Hasidim of the second Rebbe of Makhnovka also included remnants of the many Skvira followers – and perhaps followers of other Chernobyl dynasties as well.

Here’s Usher Lerner during interrogation on March 28: “I am a ‘Hasid’ of the tsadik Tverskoy. I recognize Tverskoy as a wise religious man. Besides me, the following people in the city of Vinnytsia were Tverskoy’s ‘Hasidim’: Slobodyansky Yosef, Liberson Shmuel, Rayz Shmil, Penz Borukh.”

Shmuel Liberson, in his interrogation on March 2:
“…I am a ‘Husid’ of the tsadik Tverskoy; I recognize him as a very wise religious man and receive advice from him on all matters and follow his instructions. …Altogether in Vinnytsia, Tverskoy has up to 20 ‘Husidim’. Besides Vinnytsia, Tverskoy had ‘Husidim’ in Kazatyn, Samhorodok, Belilovka, Makhnovka, and other towns.”

As befits a tsadik of the Chernobyl dynasty, the Rebbe from Makhnovka would occasionally visit his Hasidim – and continued this practice even during the terrifying years of 1937–1938. He stayed at the home of Shmuel Liberson.

Usher Lerner, interrogation of March 13, 1939:
“Question: You say you’ve known Rabbi Tverskoy since childhood. When and where did you last meet with him?

Answer: The last time I met with Rabbi Tverskoy was in the city of Vinnytsia, when he came in 1936 and conducted prayers in the Skvira Synagogue.”

Shmuel Liberson, interrogation of March 16, 1939:
“Question: When and for what reasons did Tverskoy visit you?
Answer: In 1937, Tverskoy came from Makhnovka to Vinnytsia to see Dr. Fishenzon; he stayed with me for about a day. Because of his religious beliefs, he did not spend the night in the city but in Zamostia, at the New Bazaar…
Question: How did you know about Tverskoy’s arrival, and why did you visit him?
Answer: Tverskoy came with his attending gabbai, Gersh from Makhnovka, who informed us of his arrival. Everyone who visited him was his Hasidim.”

Same person, interrogation of March 27:
“Question: When did you first meet tsadik Tverskoy?
Answer: I met tsadik Tverskoy in 1932. My former neighbor Gutman came to me and invited me to Rayz Shmil’s apartment, where Rabbi Prus Aron was staying, and to whom, as Gutman told me, tsadik Tverskoy had arrived. I went there and met Tverskoy. Besides us, there were about 10 people present. At Prus’s apartment, there were conversations on various religious topics.
Question: What was the purpose of this gathering?
Answer: The gathering was of Tverskoy’s Hasidim for religious purposes – that’s the religious custom.
Question: When else were you at Tverskoy’s or he at yours?
Answer: Tverskoy visited again in 1935, 1936, and 1937.
Question: What was the purpose of his visit to you?
Answer: He came to me in order to visit (orig. otvedat’) his Hasidim, and when he stayed at my place, his Hasidim would come to see him.
Question: Who visited him when he stayed with you?
Answer: When Tverskoy stayed with me, up to 20 people came to visit him…”

The group of Hasidim consisted of approximately 15–20 people. The interrogations mention the names of Shmuel Liberson, Yankel Paperny, Meilakh Shapiro, Usher Lerner – “Usher from the New Bazaar,” Joseph Slobodyansky and his brother Gersh Slobodyansky from Makhnovka (the gabbai of the Makhnovka Rebbe), Meer Zilberman, Avrum Uchitel, Borukh Penz, and several others.

The nature of their activities is illustrated by the following excerpt:
“Question: What anti-Soviet activity was carried out by the Hasidim you listed, including yourself?
Answer: Here’s what I know:
1.Hasid Yankel Paperny gathered Jewish youth and held discussions with them on religious topics. These discussions mainly took place in Paperny’s apartment.
2.Hasid Shmuel Liberson – illegal gatherings were repeatedly held in his apartment, where questions were discussed about how to reclaim the confiscated synagogues. In addition, when visiting Vinnytsia, the “tsadik” Tverskoy would stay in Liberson’s apartment, and Hasidic gatherings were held there.
3.Hasid Avrum Uchitel gave lectures on the Talmud and the Bible at the Hefter Synagogue.
4.Hasid Shmil Rayz – took part in gatherings during the visits of tsadik Tverskoy; what specific work he carried out as a Hasid, I do not know.
5.Hasid Meer Zilberman – also took part in the gatherings during Tverskoy’s visits to Vinnytsia.
…The work carried out by us Hasidim was anti-Soviet in nature, as we tried to instill religious opium not only into believing old people but also attracted youth to belief in “god,” bringing them to synagogues and illegal prayer houses.” (Interrogation of Meilekh Shapiro, April 4, 1939)

Note how neatly the interrogation cliché “anti-Soviet activity” morphs into Hasidic avodah – religious service: “what work he carried out as a Hasid, I do not know”, “the work carried out by us Hasidim was anti-Soviet…”

Until 1938, the practice of hilula (a festive commemoration of a tsadik’s death) in honor of “tsadik Tverskoy” continued in Vinnytsia’s synagogues. Most likely, this referred to the founder of the Chernobyl dynasty, Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl, whose yahrzeit falls on the 11th of Cheshvan. In the interrogations, this is called a “ball in honor of the tsadik’s death”:

Meilekh Shapiro, interrogation of July 11:
“Question: Did you deliver anti-Soviet speeches at the balls organized to mark the anniversary of tsadik Tverskoy’s death?
Answer: Such balls were indeed held in synagogues every year. The last of these balls, in honor of tsadik Tverskoy’s death, was in October 1938. A meal was held, with drinking, and I did indeed give a speech, though it was not anti-Soviet in character – it was only about the significance of the tsadik.”

One Hasidic group was not the end of the story. The “Sadigura” synagogue retained its name for good reason. Even though it had become a haven for the Hasidim of the Rebbe from Makhnovka – followers of the Sadigura Rebbe were also present:
“Question: How did you know about Tverskoy’s arrival, and why did you visit him?
Answer: …all the people who visited him were his Hasidim. No one from the Sendagura Synagogue came, since the Sendagura tsadik is abroad, in Austria.” (Interrogation of Shmuel Liberson, March 16; this refers to Avraham Yaakov Friedman, the third Sadigura Rebbe (1884–1961), who fled to Vienna during World War I and held court there until 1938).

Finally, in the 1930s, Vinnytsia also saw the arrival of a self-proclaimed tsadik – Yankel Hertzovich Paperny. Originally from near Donetsk, a former owner of a music shop, student of one of the Lithuanian yeshivas, itinerant melamed, vagabond, and beggar – he took on the most difficult task, the one the respectable Jewish society of Vinnytsia had failed at: keeping Soviet working-class youth within the fold of traditional Jewish life.

“Paperny, calling himself a ‘holy man’, formed a group of Hasidim, recruiting into this group people from among the youth with anti-Soviet religious leanings…”

Clearly, it was Hasidism in its most radical forms – with eccentricity, drunkenness, miracle-working, and prophecy – that still had something to say to young Jewish people during the darkest of times.

“Interrogation transcript of the accused Meilekh Yosefovich Shapiro, July 11, 1939:
“…At the ‘Sendagura’ synagogue, early in the mornings, the youth would gather around tsadik Yankel Paperny. They gathered so early because most of them worked in factories and offices; no more than 15 people met at Paperny’s. They prayed in winter while it was still dark. On Saturdays, this youth would visit Paperny at his apartment – they gathered there. What they did, I do not know; I personally saw them going to Paperny’s apartment. Besides that, Bisk Oyna told me – he was there himself – that they drank alcohol.”

Naturally, this provoked resentment:
“Testimony of the accused Shmuel Liberson, March 16, 1939:
Question: Tell us, did you know the tsadik Rabbi Paperny?
Answer: Yes, I know Yankel. He came to the synagogue around 1931 to pray. I helped him buy a [tallit?? – unclear], fed him. About two years later, he declared himself a tsadik, went house to house and in some cases said he was a tsadik, close to God, and could help – deceiving people, extracting money under the guise of prophecy. Yankel often sent the collected money by mail to unknown recipients. With him – that is, with Yankel – went and served as his gabbai-servant to a man named Berish, who had come from Poland and later disappeared without a trace.”

It gives the impression that Paperny – out of the entire group of ten – was the only one who truly understood how to behave during an interrogation. Here are a couple of telling exchanges:
“Testimony of the accused Yankel Hertzovich Paperny, March 16, 1939
Question: The investigation has evidence that, presenting yourself as a “holy” tsadik, you conducted anti-Soviet activity under the guise of religious work. Tell us, on whose orders you carried out this anti-Soviet activity.
Answer: (Silent)
Question: Do you understand the question?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why are you not answering?
Answer: I have nothing to answer.
…
Question: What were you doing in Mohyliv?
Answer: Begging. In Vinnytsia… we decided to go around asking for alms.
…
Question: Tell us, are you acquainted with the Makhnovka tsadik? If so, when and under what circumstances did you meet him?
Answer: I’m not acquainted. About four years ago someone came from Makhnovka to the synagogue to pray, I don’t know his patronymic, he’s respected here, his father was an honorable man. I went to escort him; he was staying at the apartment of Shmuel Liberson.
Question: What’s the name of this honorable man, and why is he respected?
Answer: I don’t know his name. He is respected because his father was respected.”

In addition to the Makhnovka Rebbe, Paperny also had ties to the Bratslav Hasidim – he traveled to Uman, and referred to his gabbai Berish as a “Hasid of the Rebbe of Uman.” By June, Yankel Paperny – having “forgotten” Tverskoy’s name – was already educating the investigator on Hasidic history and geography:
“Question: Were you a Hasid of the Chabad tsadik?
Answer: I was not a Hasid of Chabad. That movement was based in Leningrad, and I’ve never been there.
Question: The investigation is aware that you took part in Uman in joint gatherings of Hasidim of the Chabad and Bratslav tsadikim. Do you confirm this?
Answer: No, I do not confirm this. These are two completely opposite movements. I have been to Uman on the Days of Atonement 2–3 times; on those days people come there to the tsadik’s grave from all over the Union and even from abroad.
Question: What happened at these gatherings, and why did you participate in them?
Answer: (Silent)
Question: Why are you not answering?
Answer: Refuse to answer any further questions.

Interrogation concluded at 3:40 p.m.
Refused to sign.” (Interrogation transcript of the accused Yankel Hertzovich Paperny, June 17, 1939)

Unfortunately, after the sentence was issued (the same as for the rest of the group), his trace disappears.