Krasnystaw Jews – their languages and literature
explanations of biblical texts). Until now the Hebrew Bible – the Tanakh (TaNaCh)– is read. The abbreviation is derived from the names of individual sets of books, which included the Torah (the five books of Moses), Nebijim – the prophets, as well as Ketuwim – the scriptures (the letter kaf is either pronounced as voiced k or as unvoiced: chaf as ch, hence the discrepancy in the record). Another name, which was used by the Jews, also Krasnystaw Jews, was Chumesh (or Chumash), which is an acronym for the Hebrew words meaning the five books of Moses. The Hebrew language is called leshon kodesh – a holy language, mainly because of it being used as the language of the biblical texts, including the Torah and the Ten Words, or Ten Commandments. Writers (soferim), the Pharisees and rabbis were the authors of many writings, translations or biblical commentaries. It is impossible to discuss here all the religious rabbinic literature or other works, e.g. historical or philosophical, created by the Jews. I would like to draw our attention to the post-biblical writings created already in our era, still read and commented today. The most important of these is the Talmud consisting of the Mishnah and the Gemara. Their Hebrew is called the Mishnah Hebrew which is immersed in the Aramaic language, which in the last centuries BC had become the language spoken on a daily basis. It should be noted that there were actually two Talmuds – Palestinian (Jerusalem) and the one of Babylon. Their names indicate the place of creation – Palestine (I-III.) and Babylon (IV-V century AD). Several generations of rabbinical scholars worked and commented on the Bible in the Talmudic Academies. We owe the Talmud to them. At the beginning of the era, Mishnah, written in the so-called Mishnah Hebrew, was created in Palestine. The best known among the goyim (non-Jews) is probably the beginning of the book – Pirke Avot Treaty, or Rabbis Hillel and Shammai. The Mishnah consists of six treaties (Zeraim, Moed, Nashim, Nezikim, Kodashim, T.ohorot), and the legislation included in them is carefully studied, commented on and followed until today. In the third century, the Tosefta, or Mishnah complementary texts appeared. They were also read by Krasnystaw Jews, who studied not only the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, but also rabbinical ancient texts, esp. Talmud as described in the above-mentioned Krasnystaw Book of Remembrance3. In the Middle Ages Hebrew songs called pijutim appeared. In the X-XII centuries Jewish philosophers and poets, for example Yehuda Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol, created Spanish religious poems, including works called zionids expressing their longing for the Holy Land. They had found their place in the Jewish liturgy and certainly were sung in Krasnystaw synagogues. The Hebrew prayer books – machzor and sidur – were probably used. The rabbi prayed in Hebrew, the kantor sang and other men followed. Therefore learning the language from an early age was important. In cheders – religious schools for boys – they used to begin learning it at the age of three. The level of education was different, but often low. The reason was the fact that the children of the poor Jews were forced to stop learning and start working, which resulted in their poor knowledge of the sacred language. However, Jewish children were given Hebrew names what can be traced in the Book of Remembrance4, as well as on the lists of names of the Holocaust victims5 and the tombstones. Izkor cum andenk fun di kiduszej krasnistaw, p. 7, 30. E.g. Szlomo Jehoszua Weiser, Jona Mandeltort, Izkor cum andenk fun di kiduszej krasnistaw, p. 28. Szmuel Zalcman, ibid. p. 27. 5 http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Krasnystaw/kra119.html [access: 6.07.2015 r.]. 3 4
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