Jews started to settle in Kadzidło at least in the 19th century. In the local Jewish tradition, there was a belief that the Jews, desired craftsmen above all, were brought to the area of the Green Forest (Polish: Puszcza Zielona) by the Polish nobility. During the Napoleonic wars, Chaim the Jew of Ostrołęka, son of Hersz Jankiel, who had a grain granary in Kadzidło, was well-known. The headquarters of the French army were stationed there and Chaim delivered fruit and other food products to soldiers. Chaim was said to have been a supporter of the Tsar and, taking advantage of enjoying certain trust from the French, reportedly spied for the Russians. The spy was to be discovered by Napoleon himself (called “Senchariw” by the Jews, which means “Sword”), who disguised himself as a village chicken merchant and tracked down Chaim, who was listening to the soldiers conversations about the situation at the front. The Jew faced death, but thanks to a series of “miracles”, including the work of dayan rabbi Mendel, both Chaim and his family survived.

Among the first Jewish inhabitants of Kadzidło were: teacher Aron Jakub Dułowicz, tailor Nachman Dułowicz, Eliezer Gibalt, Jecheskiel Gilda, tailor Eliahu Jagoda, painter Mejer Lewiński, shoemaker Abram Zylbersztajn. At the end of the 19th century, over 100 Jews lived in Kadzidło. Unlike in other rural areas of the Kingdom of Poland, in northern Mazovia, in Kadzidło as well, many Jewish families, apart from traditional trade and small craft, were also engaged in farming. They traded, among others, in grain and forest plots for felling, sometimes competing with each other.

Izrael Lewiński, a pre-war Jewish resident of Kadzidło, whose recollections can be found in the Book of Remembrance of the Jews of Ostrołęka (Polish: Księga Pamięci Żydów Ostrołęckich), described the past as follows: “Many Jews living in Kadzidło were craftsmen without their own workshops. For example, a tailor received his food in the house where he was employed. Working in a different house every week, he earned enough to support his family. Shoemakers, furriers and undertakers also did not suffer from hunger. Those who were tradesmen had their own ‘zones’ and did not get in each other's way. They bought up everything they could and sold it for a certain profit. They loaded the purchased goods onto carts borrowed from the villagers and brought them home, where merchants were already waiting to collect the goods. The earnings were enough to survive. At the end of the summer, the market was abundant in honey and geese. A poultry trader from Prussia would come to Myszyniec and pay an agent in advance, who would collect as many fattened geese as possible from all the villages and surrounding towns and fill the train he hired.

The Jews of Kadzidło were very keen on this trade, transporting geese to the Prussian border and from there to Germany. Mostly every villager had a beehive in their garden, where they kept bees. Twice a year, in July and at the beginning of autumn, beekeepers sold honey, and the Jews from Kadzidło bought it and traded it in all surrounding towns. In May and June, the mushroom trade flourished. The children of the villagers collected mushrooms and the Jews bought every quantity from them, paying very generously for it. There was a demand for mushrooms in Germany and the merchants got rich quite quickly from this trade. But unfortunately, this did not last long. The Germans, for some unknown reason, stopped making demand and the Jews lost large sums. In winter the Jews also sold animal skins, mostly foxes, martens and polecats; they bought animals from hunters who distinguished between young and old foxes, tanned the skins and dried the meat, for which there were also many buyers. Rabbits were mainly bought by priests and noblemen”.

The location of the village at the border played a major role in illegal emigration even before 1914. Israel Lewiński recalled that: “Because of pogroms, Jews were leaving for America illegally, stopping in Kadzidło and not harassed by the Russian police, richly paid by them. Fugitives from Kadzidło went to Prussia, and from there to their place of destination”.

The Jewish community in Kadzidło was well-organised, and its members themselves believed that their community “was spiritually and intellectually on a par with communities in larger towns. They were not simple villagers”. The most famous residents were: Alter Jagoda, Achi Jom Tow, Szlomo and Abram Dułowicz, Mosze Szczawinowicz, Jehuda Cwi Gibalt and Józef Lewiński. There was a synagogue and a mikveh in the village, although the local community could never afford its own rabbi and matters turned to the rabbis of Ostrołęka or Myszyniec in important. Preaching took place in private houses - teachers from Ostrołęka or Myszyniec visited the cheders. Many of the local Jews were regarded as experts in Torah, Talmud and Halakha. Initially, cattle trader Szrag Fajwel from the village of Czernia took care of the ritual slaughter. He came to Kadzidło every week on Thursday. However, due to problems with meat storage and the opposition of local butchers, the community decided to hire a shochet on a permanent basis. Having found out about this, Fajwel offered to appear in the village twice a week. However, this did not satisfy the inhabitants of Kadzidło, and the matter eventually came before the rabbinical court in Myszyniec. The court revoked Fajwel's privilege for Kadzidło, which from then on received a permanent shochet. At first, he was a young energetic butcher, who later moved to Różan. He was succeeded by Mosze Aron from Ostrołęka, who also held the post of chazan (cantor) for the High Holy Days (Jamim Noraim, 10 days beginning with Rosh ha-Shanah and ending with Yom Kippur). When after a few years he moved to Małkinia, Gerszon Sarny became the shochet, the last in the history of Kadzidło.

Israel Lewiński assessed that “The relations between the Kurpie people and the Jews were very good. They called Jews the Old Believers, trusted them and traded with them”. When it comes to his village, in turn, he wrote: “The air in Kadzidło was very clean, the clearings and forests smelled wonderfully, so that it was also a place of rest for people from nearby towns and even Warsaw. The number of farms in Kadzidło was about 500-600, most of them inhabited by people from Kurpie, who differed in customs from the rest of Poles. They were brave, pious and fanatical. They were involved in agriculture, hunting and beekeeping. They had special rights in beekeeping and honey production and did not count with the laws of the state. They were called beekeepers. Kadzidło was the village they liked the most, even though other villages were bigger and more populated. They built a cemetery and a wooden church, and in time, when the number of Kurpie people increased, they built a brick church with the help of a bishop from Warsaw and a local priest. The construction was commissioned to specialists and well-known architects and the church could accommodate over 5,000 people.

While excavating the foundations of this huge building, the builders came across human skeletons. As they assumed that these were the remains of Kurpish people killed in battles against the Russians and Polish authorities, they reburied them with great respect and honours. In Kadzidło, there was also a court which tried citizens from other villages and towns, even from Myszyniec. (...). There was also a post office in Kadzidło, although the nearby Dylewo was a much bigger town. After the inhabitants, including the Jews, made great efforts, Kadzidło was granted the status of a commune. (...). Kadzidło (...) laid between Ostrołęka and Myszyniec - it served as a resting point for anyone travelling that way. The journey took about 8 hours for a walker, and during the rainy season or in winter even longer. So everyone would stop at an inn to rest, water the horses and eat a warm meal in one of the Jewish houses. Kadzidło was the place for longer stops”

The Jews of Kadzidło suffered greatly during World War I. As the German army had been driven out of East Prussia, the Russian army forced them to leave the village - the houses of Jews suspected of spying for them were to be occupied by tsarist officers. After the war, some Jews returned, and Lewiński wrote: “It is worth noting that the Christians were pleased with the Jews return and gave them back their furniture, which they had kept throughout their absence.”

In 1921, 133 Jews lived in the village. The interwar period witnessed a significant development of the community, which at that time numbered about 50 families. New craftsmen arrived - tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, bakers, and Jewish shops functioned. A library was established, Hebrew and Yiddish were taught, and Zionist organisations were active. However, Kadzidło was not free from anti-Semitic activities, among others in the form of pickets in front of Jewish shops.

After the outbreak of World War II, most Jews from Kadzidło escaped to near towns (e.g. Jedwabne, Łomża), where after 1941 they found themselves in local ghettos (e.g. in Ostrowia Mazowiecka). In the source materials of Yad Vashem there are 66 entries concerning about 50 Holocaust victims connected with Kadzidło. Members of the Borenstein, Dobek (Dobek), Gordon, Lewiński, Lipkiewicz families, among others, survived the genocide. They live mainly in Israel.

Bibliography

• Lewiński I., Kadzidło, [in:] Księga Żydów Ostrołęckich, eds. Z. Drezner, J. Gołota, A. Wołosz, Ostrołęka – Tel Aviv 2002.
• Szczepański J., Społeczność żydowska Mazowsza w XIX–XX wieku, Pułtusk 2005.