Pinkas / shayakh le-ḥavura mishnayot de-poh ḳ.ḳ. Meropali

Ḥavura Mishnayot

Pinkas / shayakh le-ḥavura mishnayot de-poh ḳ.ḳ. Meropali (Pinkas / Belongs to the Society for the Study of Mishna of Myropil')

Manuscript on paper

Myropil’, ca. 1837–48

This handwritten pinkas (ledger) is one of a very few surviving record books kept by Jewish communities in 19th-century Ukraine. Pinkasim (the plural form) were commonly used to document various aspects of Jewish communal life in the little shtetlekh (plural of shtetl, “town” in Yiddish) related to local organizations, including the names of their members. Pinkasim have a unique historical value, as often they are rare original surviving testimonies of life in these communities. 

This pinkas is a manuscript documenting names of the members of Ḥavura Mishnayot (Society for the Study of Mishna) in the small town of Myropil’ (now in the Zhitomir region of Ukraine) in the years 1837–48, when it was under the influence of the Trisker branch of Hasidism, named after what is now Turiisk in western Ukraine. The Trisker dynasty of Hasidism was established by Rabbi Avraham Twersky (1806–1889), son of Rabbi Mordechai Twersky of Chernobyl, making it an offshoot of the Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty which was widespread in this part of Ukraine during the 19th century.  

The decorated title page on display was added in 1876 and bears a dedication to the Trisker rabbi. The hand-colored page is a charming example of the Jewish folk art found in the murals and decoration in synagogues, on the engravings of the tombstones, and so on. A pair of lions, tongues playfully sticking out, rest on columns alongside tulips hanging upside down.  

It is worth mentioning that Myropil’ was the town where the famous drama The Dybbuk by Shloyme Zanvl Rapoport (S. An-sky) was set. Written in 1914, the play is deeply rooted in Jewish folklore and mysticism.