The earliest information about Homel recorded in historical sources dates back to 1142. There is no mention of Jews in any document from the first four centuries of the town’s existence. The local community was probably established after 1537, that is after the incorporation of the area into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The first specific information on Homel Jews comes from 1637. A document drawn up that year mentions the debt of the Jewish community of Bielica – the outskirts of Homel. Nevertheless, the local Jewish community must have developed quite rapidly, as the pogrom committed by the Cossacks during the Khmelnytsky Uprising cost it as many as 2,000 lives (however, not all the victims belonged to the local community). Apparently, the attackers promised Jews that they would spare their lives in exchange for ransom and conversion to Orthodox Christianity. Most of the Jews, led by Rabbi Eliezer, declined the offer and were killed. Legend has it that out of the entire Jewish community of Homel, only one little girl survived the massacre. She was said to have founded the Babuszkin dynasty. The pogrom was described in literary texts: Megillat Efah by Szabtaj Cohen and Peta Tszuba by Gabriel Schusburg.

After the pogrom, the Jewish community ceased to exist and was not reborn until 1665. It is believed that its revival was initiated by local Jews, forcefully converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, who decided to return to practising their original faith. During the last century of the existence of the Commonwealth, the community once again experienced a period of swift development. In 1765, it had 685 members (according to some sources this was the number of families and not individuals, but in the light of the statistics from later periods this seems highly unlikely). The name of the town in Yiddish was Homl, and in Hebrew – Homia. In the 1770s, there were about 70 Jewish households in the town, with 596 persons in total, accounting for 32% of the population. Historical documents from the period feature the names of Colek Zalmenowicz, widow Mowszowa, Nausiewicz, Lejbowicz, Abramowicz, etc. People would live off of commerce and crafts. Historical sources also point to the existence of an independent kehilla in the town. In the 1770s, it was headed by Rabbi Dawidowicz.

In the 18^th and the 19^th century, Homel became one of the most important centres of the Chabad Hasidic movement. In the mid-19^th century, one of its most important leaders, Isaac Mordechai Epstein (1780-1857) – a favourite student of Szneur Zalman of Lady best known for his work on the Kabbalah – served as the community rabbi. He was thus described by Abraham Dow Ber of Bobruisk: “When I was six years old, in 5592 [1832], still before [father] sent me to the cheder, he took me to Lubavitch for Shavuot. (...) After Lag BaOmer, preparations for a new expedition began. On Lag BaOmer, they decorated mainly the interior of one of the main synagogues of Homel, and the gaon, Ajzyk Homelski (Isaac Mordechai Epstein), led the Hasidic service. Since there was no possibility of accommodating all attending Hasidim and spectators, the celebrations lasted two or three, sometimes even five or six days.”

In 1852, Homel became the capital of the district, and in 1854 – the de facto centre of the Mogilev Governorate. Its status improved even more after the construction of a railway junction (the Lipawa-Romneńska railway line of 1873, Poleskie Drogi Żelazne [Polesie Region Iron Routes] 1888), which in turn boosted the development of entrepreneurship and trade, successfully pursued by many Jews. The annual fair drew huge crowds of visitors. In 1847, the population of Jews in the town amounted to 2,373, but one should add 1,552 inhabitants living in the Bielica suburb on the other side of the Sozh River. Among the largest Jewish companies were: Szkolnikow’s salt production plant and candle factory (est. 1840), Liubin’s mill (1853), Łowianow’s bone processing plant (1864), Szenderow’s mill in Bielica (1874), Szejkman’s mead making enterprise (1877), and two yeast plants belonging to Gamburg and Itonowa (both 1879). The annual Wasilewski Fair soon became a huge wood exchange[1.1]. There were 29 Jewish entrepreneurs actively involved in the Homel wood industry, and eight more working in other localities of the district. Izrael Jankiel Amstisławskij, Ajzik Szkolnikow, Mendel Szkolnikow, Izrael Piewzner, and Zelman Piewzner were some of the most important players in the food sector. In the nearby town of Wietka, the most prominent businessmen were: Ajzik Lirin, Genuch Dworkin, Mojsze Judycki, and Abram Ostrowski[1.2]. According to statistics from 1882, 639 out of all 931 craftsmen working in Homel were Jews[1.3]. Eight out of 11 factories operating in the town belonged to Jews. These were: Szkolnikow’s salt and candle factory, Szejman’s mead mill, Jankiel Lowianow’s bone processing plant, Mojsze Lubin’s grout plant, and the yeast plants owned by Tytel Lotkerowoj, M. Hamburg, Cypis Sztormowy, and Ch. Korzeniewski. Almost all of the most important industrial plants founded in Homel in the subsequent years were established thanks to Jewish businessmen. There were many foundries in the city, producing materials bought by the rail. They belonged to: M.M. Furmin and Sons, S.B. Gurewicz, the Agroskin brothers, and the Dubiński brothers. The town also boasted sawmills run by J.W. Brojtman, A.Sz. Brojtman, W.I. Levitin, and S.B. Gurbicz’s lamp factory. There was also a credit union in Homel. Among all 21 agents working there, 15 were Jews. In 1914, Wiktor Bychowski was appointed representative of Homel’s Commerce Club, while Nison Rubinstein served as its treasurer. In the years 1892-1911, the head rabbi of Homel was Meir Majanc – a well-known entrepreneur and owner of a house at Rumiancewska Street. Izaak Symcha-Berow also served as the town rabbi, and his assistant was S.M. Gunzburg. As far as the religious life of local Jews is concerned, it is important to note that at the beginning of the 20^th century, there were 18 synagogues and 8 prayer houses in Homel. Nevertheless, Jews were did not manage to completely dominate the economy of the city. Here is an entry from the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and other Slavic Countries published in 1882: “The local trade, which has been very active thanks to the railway connection, is not exclusively run by Jews, but also by old believers [Russian Orthodox Christians].” Jews also played an important role in the administration of the town. In the 1860s, the members of the Town Council included Szewel Ajnbinder and Calja Gezencwej. Mowsza Utewskij and Codik Nechamkin served as the chairmen of the city duma (parliament), while some of its members were Lejba Browenman and Boruch Bobrujski. The function of the governor was held by, among others, Abram Perlin and Kiwa Fridkin.

In 1833, the Great Synagogue was erected. The construction of the brick building was financed by Count Rumiancev, the owner of the town. It was the most important synagogue of Homel (it has not survived until present day). According to data from 1863, there were also eight other synagogues in Homel. The most important synagogues of that period were: the Great Stone [Brick] Synagogue, the Small Stone Synagogue, the Staroselsk Synagogue, the Lubowiczyn Synagogue, and the Small Lubowiczyn Synagogue. Most of them were located in the city centre, in particular at Bazarna (now Rabochaya), Mohylewska (now Kirav), Kuznicza (now Internatsyanalnaya) and Zamkowa (now Lenin Square) streets. Both ‘stone’ synagogues were located in the area of the present Rabochaya Square, at the intersection of Zamkowa and Mohylewska streets. The Rosh-Pino (‘On the Corner’) Synagogue was built in 1890 at the junction of the former Generalska (Krasnoarmeyskaya) and Dworcowa (does not exist) streets. The building has survived to this day; it is once again used for religious services.

In 1897, there were 20,385 Jews living in Homel, which constituted 56.4% of the total population. Most earned their living as government suppliers and traders in forest products. However, the community also struggled with poverty. The so-called Rov (“Trench”) was a valley inhabited by poor, large Jewish families. The place was depicted by J. Ch. Brenner in his work entitled Me-’ emek ‘akhor (1900). The above-mentioned census of 1897 lists 26 synagogues, 25 prayer houses, a primary Jewish school (200 pupils), the Ratner Jewish male lower secondary school (with as many as 27 teachers and 255 students), a junior high school for girls (90 students), a Jewish high school (193 students), the four-class school for girls run by Syrkina (403 pupils), a Talmud-Torah school run by Hołomsztok (152 pupils), and as many as 45 cheders with the total of 662 students.

The large Homel community expanded even more after the removal of Jews from Moscow in 1897. The newcomers, sent to the ‘settlement zone’ by force, brought the big city lifestyle to the town, opening, among other ventures, trendy clothing stores, which turned out to be very popular. Homel appeared to be a fertile ground for the sale of luxury goods. The local population was quite affluent, with large amounts of money earned primarily from the profitable wood trade (turnover in this sector increased from 2.2 million roubles in 1870 to 5.5 million roubles in early 1890s). However, not everyone enjoyed such a good fortune. At the turn of the 20^th century, the revolutionary movement promoted by the Bund party started to gain large influence. The Zionist also enjoyed mass following. Many local supporters of Zionism migrated to Palestine during the Second and Third Aliyah. Throughout that period, Homel remained an important religious centre. In 1891, Eliyahu Eliezer bar Reuwen-Dow Dessler was born in the town. He was the leader of the religious Mussar movement, best known for his work in the United Kingdom, where a comprehensive selection of his teachings was published in 1955 under the title Michtav me-Eliyahu (‘Letter from Elijah’).

In September 1903, Homel became a site of a pogrom. The massacre was triggered by an incident which took place at the market square on 11 September, when a fight broke out between Jewish traders and their potential Christian clients. One person suffered severe injuries and died the same day. Unrests also occurred the next day, starting early in the morning. This time, the instigators of the violence were fierce anti-Semites, and the assailants were mainly workers employed at the local railway junction. The area which was attacked most fiercely was a poor suburb called New America (Rus. Novaya Amyerika). Jews organised self-defence under the command of Ezekiel Henkin, but their actions were deliberately obstructed by soldiers, who prevented the Jewish fighters from erecting barricades in the streets. In general, the attitude exhibited by the law enforcement, both the soldiers and the police, was marked primarily by indifference. They seemed to pay no mind to the plunder of shops and physical violence. The pogrom resulted in 25 fatalities. 100 people were heavily wounded and 200 suffered minor injuries; 372 houses and more than 200 Jewish-owned shops were destroyed. On 17 September 1903, the dead were buried at the Jewish cemetery alongside the scroll of the Torah desecrated in one of the synagogues.

Peter Dunow reported on the events in Homel to the Russian Minister of the Interior, stating that the pogrom had probably been planned for several weeks and that the Christian competition against Jewish merchants could have had an impact on the events. Apart from the instigators of the massacre, the authorities also punished 36 members of the Jewish self-defence, 18 of whom were sentenced to one year in prison. Nonetheless, the so-called Homel Trial, held from October 1904 until January 1905, and then in November 1906 (a total of about 1,000 witnesses were questioned), exposed the underlying causes of pogroms and the shameful role played by the tsarist officials to the whole world.

In 1909, an armed self-defence organisation called HaShomer (Hebrew ‘The Watchman’) was established. Its leader was Israel Szochat. It is considered to be the predecessor of the famous Haganah, which greatly contributed to the struggle for Israeli independence. The members of the ‘Watchman’ were some of the most militant fighters in Palestine. In 1910, there were 47,505 Jews living in Homel, which constituted 55% of the total population of the town.

During World War I, the staff and equipment of various yeshivas were evacuated to Homel from the territories of Poland and Lithuania invaded by Germany. One of the institutions forced to evacuate its assets was the famous Nowogródek (Navahrudak) yeshiva, founded in 1896 and headed by Josef Horowitz, also called Saba of Nowogródek. In 1915, the school was moved to Homel. The institution was followed by hundreds of its students, who were accommodated in local synagogues and allowed to sleep on the pews. In 1919, following the intervention of the Bolshevik authorities, the main personnel of the school was transferred to Kyiv, as the government feared that the town would become a lively centre of Orthodox Judaism. The founder of the yeshiva met his end in Kyiv – he died of typhus in 1920. Nonetheless, the most important branch of the Nowogródek yeshiva, headed by Horowitz’s son-in-law – Awraam Jafen, was still based in Homel. After a period of custody in the Bolshevik jail, Awraam Jafen fled to Poland. He thus transferred the famous Nowogródek yeshiva to Białystok (currently, the institution is based in Brooklyn, New York). In the early 20^th century, Homel was also visited by famous Kabbalist Szlomo bar Chaim Eliasziw.

Some people also moved to Homel from the opposite direction, as evidenced by the fate of the parents of Mark Edelman; according to one of the sources, Edelman himself was born in Homel on 1 January 1919. Another Jewish migrant from eastern Belarus was Henryk Szletyński, an actor who lived in Poland and was actually called Henryk Homel. The Demski family migrated from Homel to New York. Hershel Demsky was the father of Issur Demski, born in 1916, widely known as Kirk Douglas.

Shortly after the victory of the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks seized power in the town and anti-religious repressions were enforced. Synagogues, prayer houses and cheders were closed down and transformed into theatres and culture clubs. The last rabbi of the town, Rafael Mordechai Borisanski, was arrested. In 1926, the town had ca. 10,000 Jewish inhabitants less than fifteen years earlier (37,475), which constituted 44% of the total population. There were six schools and two Yiddish kindergartens in Homel. A teachers’ college existed in the town until 1929, when it was transferred to Smolensk. The population of the town was composed primarily of people belonging to the working class; there were also numerous petty craftsmen. Over 5,000 Jews were subjected to the process of collectivisation. In 1930, there were eight kolkhozes in the vicinity of Homel, housing ca. 400 families. In 1939, the Jewish community had 40,880 members – 29% of the total population. One of the people born in Homel was Lew Sznirelman (1905-1938), a brilliant mathematician who died prematurely. Another prominent figure associated with Homel was Lasik Roitschwantz, one of the best known literary heroes of the era, often compared to Josef Svejk. He was immortalised in the satirical novel by Ilja Erenburg, The Stormy Life of Lasik Roitschwantz (1928), in which he eventually reached Palestine.

At the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, many Jews fled east, thus escaping the Holocaust. Germans entered the city on 19 August 1941. They established four ghettos and three labour camps for 1,500 people in Homel. The ghettos were located at: 1) Nowo-Lubienska Street, 2) Bychowska Street, 3) the village of Monastyrka, 4) the Nowo-Bielica district. Initially, 4,000 people were imprisoned in all four ghettos, primarily old people, women and children; the districts quickly became overcrowded. In September 1941, 2,365 people were murdered; in December 1941 – another 4,000. Special trucks were used to exterminate women and children with toxic fumes. Many people were driven out of the town, mainly to the forest near the village of Leszczyniec, 9 kilometres from the town in the direction of Chernihiv.

After 1945, a large group of Jews appeared in the town, but none of the pre-war Jewish institutions resumed their activity. The Great Synagogue survived, but the authorities did not respond to petitions asking for its restitution. In 1947, a building was bought with the intention of converting it into a house of prayer. The project was eventually blocked by the authorities. In 1963, the militia ‘broke up’ a group whose only crime was the possession of two scrolls of the Torah. At the time, the Jewish community of the town was still quite large and amounted to 20,000 people. There were 25,000 Jews living in Homel in 1959, 26,416 in 1979, and 22,574 in 1989. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, the declaration of Belarusian independence and the opening of borders resulted in the immediate emigration of Homel Jews. According to the 1999, the town only had 4,029 Jewish inhabitants. It is probable that many Jews departed in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster which took place in nearby Chernobyl in 1986.

Several attempts to revive the Jewish community have been made since the 1980s. Nonetheless, the Beis Yaakov Synagogue was not opened in the town until 2006; it is active until the present day. Currently, the local Jewish community has ca. 1,000 members, 20% of whom are active religious practitioners. In February 2008, a marriage ceremony under a chuppah was held for the first time in decades, and November 2008 saw the first ritual circumcision carried out in accordance with the ritual practice. On 18 October 2009, the Torah was solemnly carried into the synagogue; the ceremony was attended by 400 people.

Bibliography

• “Homel or Gomel,” [in] Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 1901–1905, vol. 16, pp. 450–451.
• Encyclopaedia Judaica, Thomson Gale 2007, vol. 7, pp. 747–748.
• Yevreiskaya istorya Gomelya [online] http:/www.jewishgomel.com/Evreyskaya-istoriya-Gomelya [Accessed: 06 Sept 2020].
• Suryn F., “Homel,” [in] Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, eds. F. Sulimierski, B. Chlebowski, W. Walewski, Warsaw 1882, t. 3, pp. 117–118.
• Zoglin P., Gomel History [online] https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/homyel/gomel_history.html [Accessed: 06 Sept 2020].