Here is another email from Danny Maryam (Gameroff), 20 July 2005:

Hello Raphael I am sending you a photo when my grand-father Salomon Gameroff 1877-1955 (or Hamerow) was soldier in the Tsar’s Army,(he his the little one).The other soldier would be a cousin! I have been told that a grand father’s cousin moved to South Africa when my grandfather left Lithuania for France in 1904. As your father and my grandfather was born in Osveya! It’s quite sure we have some family ties! Are you a brother of Joe I met in Tel Aviv?

Sincerely Danie.

Here is the photo.

The soldier on the left looks a lot like my brother Joe in Israel.

How do I know that this isn’t an official army photo?  Because they’re not holding rifles; but fags. They look so short; two sawn-off smoking shotguns.  Or is that pillar in the middle more than two feet long? I emailed Danny and asked him if he knew anything about the stone. He had no idea. The mystery of the black stone.

Salomon Gameroff on the right doesn’t look more than 15 years old. Perhaps as young as 12 years old. Salomon’s cousin on the left, my brother Joe’s lookalike, looks older with the moustache. But who’s to tell that it’s not made of chocolate; or spit and meteor polish. If these soldiers in the photo are so young, what were they doing in the Tzar’s army? Although the legal conscription age was between 18 and 35, Jewish conscription was between the ages of 12 and 25. The Russian administration wanted to catch the Jews while young and make them more productive. This could be best achieved by reducing the influence of the Jewish family.

The Jewish conscripts  of Poland had a much better deal. If they proved their patriotism, they could achieve full emancipation. In Russia, in contrast, the Jewish elders in  the  Pale of Settlement doubted the good intentions of the Russian authorities. Before the publication of the statute of Jewish conscription, Jews suspected that conscription would jeopardise their traditions. They flocked to tsadikim (holy men) like Avraham Yehoshu‘a Heshel (circa 1825) to seek intercession with  Hashem (literally, THE NAME of the Almighty). With the support of Chasidim (Charedi[1] Jews), of affluent Jews and community leaders, they bribed state officials in a futile attempt to circumvent Jewish conscription. The irony is that these same affluent Jews and community leaders ended up being conscripted to draw up the conscription lists of the same people they had been helping to dodge the draft.

Email to Daniel, 20 July, 2005:

Hello Daniel
Thank you for the photo.
Yes. Joe is my brother. I also have another brother in Tel Aviv (didn’t Joe tell you?) whose name is Benny. If your grandfather was born in Osveya, then it is almost certain that we are closely related,. I sent you a file containing the names of two Gamerovs listed as property owners in Osveya. One of these men must have been closely related to them. My grandfather’s name was Saul (Shaul). It seems he had another name as well – Joseph.  See Drissa Uezd, Vitebsk Gubernia, Duma Voter Lists.[2]

Best regards, Raphael

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[1] Charedi/Haredi (חֲרֵדִי) is derived from charada, “fear or anxiety”. A Chasid/Hasid, is one  “one who trembles in awe of God” (Isaiah 66:2-5). The Hebrew is pronounced “chasid”. “Hasid” is used in English because English speakers have difficulty pronouncing the guttural “ch” (as in the “loch”).  I shudder when I hear English speaking Jews say “Hannukah” instead of “Chanukah”. They sound so goyish.

 

[2] I discuss these lists shortly.

Here is the Russian voter’s list, I mentioned earlier, in which two Gamerovs appear.The table below contains a few voters from the original list of 599 Jewish voters from Drissa Uezd – the district in which Osvei/Osveya is found. The voters were registered to vote in the first or second electoral congresses (assemblies) of city voters for the 3rd Duma in 1907. This list contains the full name, place of residence, nationality/religion, and the reason the voter qualified to vote. The source of this list is Vitebskie Gubernskie Vedomosti (Vitebsk Gubernia Record), the provincial newspaper of Vitebsk Gubernia, which had this logoWhich translates: Drissa Uezd, Vitebsk Gubernia, Duma Voter Lists, 3rd Duma 1907

Drissa was one of the eleven uezds (districts) of Vitebsk Gubernia from 1866 to 1917. The city of Drissa, now known as Verkhnedvinsk, Belarus, was the principal town in the district.

Because nationality/religion is indicated for each voter, Jews are explicitly identified as such. Other nationalities on the lists were Russian Orthodox, Belarussian Catholic, Lutheran, Old Believers, Poles, and Germans. Jews accounted for 113 of 158 voters (72%) in the first congress and 486 of 638 voters (76%) in the second congress. The reason why Jews are in the majority on these voters’ lists – considering that they lived under repressive and discriminatory laws – was because these particular lists were of those shtetls containing a majority of Jews. There are other 3rd Duma voter lists for the Drissa Uezd region, containing landowners, nobility, clergy, pensioners, and so forth. which have few or no Jews. The votes of these latter voters carried far more weight than the Jewish vote in the overall voting scheme.

The following table gives dates of political control of Osvei/Osveya from 1900 – 2000 and the size of the Jewish population in 1900, which was the era when Izzy’s father left Osvei.

There were only 1660 Jews in Osvei, so everybody must have known everybody (‘s business).