Overview

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, once said that the Shapiro family is one of three families, most ancient and distinguished in their ancestry. In this collection of studies, Rachel Bayvel covers over 1,000 years of some of the more dramatic history of the Shapiros, who numbered such rabbinic luminaries as the kabbalist Natan Nata Spira of Krakow (1585–1633), the author of Megaleh 'Amukot, and the educationalist Meir Shapiro of Lublin (1887–1933), who established the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin and Daf Yomi – the page-a-day Talmud study programme. Generations of the Shapiros directed the celebrated Hebrew printing presses in Slavuta and Zhytomyr, Volhynia, then part of the Russian Empire. The Shapiro presses, during their 75-year existence (1791–1866) printed the famous Slavuta Shas (Talmud), the Hasidic classic, Tanya, prayer books and books on important aspects of Jewish religious life. Chava Shapiro (1878–1943), born in Slavuta, became one of the first women in the history of Hebrew literature. Along with the changing fortunes of the Shapiro family, several essays are dedicated to Jewish life in the USSR during Stalin's time, covering the little known contributions of Jews to World War II military history, as well as the periods when the entire existence of the Jewish community was under threat. The final section of the book is devoted to the lives of three Jewish artists: Yehuda Pen (the founder of the famous Vitebsk art school and the teacher of Marc Chagall), Natan Altman and Anatoly Kaplan.

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9781803710358

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Rachel Bayvel (1936–2016) was born in Leningrad – now St Petersburg. A descendant of the Slavuta Shapiro printing dynasty, she and her family maintained an observant Jewish way of life, despite tremendous difficulties in doing so. Rachel received a Masters degree from the Leningrad Institute of Design and Technology, and in 1978 she and her family, came to live to London, where she worked in the design departments of Marks & Spencer and Burberry. After retirement she focused on Russian Jewish history research and writing.

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