Rebbetzin Chana’s Memoirs: The Rav and the Writer

In this 19th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana reminisces about an episode with a Jewish writer named Markish, which took place while they were living in Dnepropetrovsk.

The Rav and the Writer

Today I read in the newspaper that the writer, Peretz Markish, has been exiled to some unknown location in the Soviet Union. This news reminded me of an episode in the life of my husband, of blessed memory:

In 1937, Markish’s father passed away in our hometown, Dnepropetrovsk. He was Torah learned and would regularly visit our home. Before his passing, he left instructions that his burial be conducted in accordance with Rabbi Schneerson’s directives. When the writer was told of his father’s passing, he came to Dnepropetrovsk with his sister, who worked as a secretary. Markish had by then been awarded the Order of Lenin, and no one was admitted to his home without special permission. At that time he was considered a prominent personality in the Soviet Union.

Since his father was religious, Markish did not interfere in the burial proceedings, and didn’t want it to be known that he was present in Dnepropetrovsk. Instead, he sent his sister, who was also a Communist party member, together with another sister in whose home their father had lived, with a message to my husband.

He wanted my husband to know that, although he couldn’t meet with him personally, the Rav should be aware that regardless of Markish’s personal ideology and prominent position, he held Rabbi Schneerson in the highest esteem and related to him with the greatest personal respect. This was based on his own experience and on his father’s frequent letters to him, which made a deep impression on him.

Markish communicated everything regarding his father through his sister, the secretary. But he asked that it be kept as quiet as possible.

All details of the burial, which was also in a favorable plot, were performed in the finest possible manner relative to the conditions of that time. The family donated large sums for the city’s clandestine Torah schools for children and the like, which were conducted at great personal peril to those involved. The writer and the secretary left town the night after the funeral, and no one else in town was aware of their visit.

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