Looking
Around at the morning minyan[sobranie,
meeting of at least 10] some days ago I
realized that we were a strange
collectivity. The only thing we had in common is that
we were all Jewish by
some standard or other. Though our backgrounds were
different we reached out to
each other for companionship in prayer. Sometimes we
don't have a full minyan.
That reminds us how precious every Jew is.
As I thought over who had attended during recent
weeks, I noted that we were
both Jewish-born and not Jewish-born. Some of us were
American-born.
Israeli-born, and foreign-born. In pigmentation we
were black and white and
various shades in between. In Jewish background we
were Orthodox, Conservative,
Reform and some totally indifferent, except when Kaddish[funeral
prayers] called them to the minyan.
There was at least one kind of Jew unrepresented in
the minyan. My
studies as a historian made me aware of the fact that
in Los Angeles early in
the last century in the Boyle Heights 'heartland'
there were Jews known as Subbotniki.
Some forty years ago, while walking on the grounds of
the Home of Peace Cemetery
on Whittier Boulevard in
East Los Angeles, after having officiated there, I
came across a series of
unusual grave markers which bore Russian names, but
not Russian Jewish names.
Recently, with my friend Jason Weaver, I went to see
them again.
Off and on over the years I have wondered about the
people represented by these
markers. Who were they? What was their Judaism like?
Was it possible they were
not Jewish? And if they were not Jewish, what were
they doing there, lying dead
in a Jewish cemetery?
On another visit that I made to those tombstones, I
met a man by the name of
Aronov. That was the only identification he would give
me. Though his name
sounded Eastern European Jewish, his accent and
appearance belied that. He
identified himself as one of the Subbotniki.
We Jews have to look out for each other and stick
together despite our
differences or we are lost. In the Midrash Rabbah,
100[investigation
of the Hebrew Bible], there is an expression
"A clan and a family
resemble a heap of stones. Take one stone out and the
whole heap tumbles."
Chavurah oomishpachah do-meen l’cheepaht avonim
— like a pile of
stones."
There was a time when the dominant German Jewish
community in the United States
acted alone. Then the Eastern European Jewish
community became dominant, and it
tended to deny a significant role to other Jews when
it could. Right here in
Los Angeles the Jews of Boyle Heights did not
acknowledge that there was
another Jewish community in their very midst.
It was the Subbotniki. Boyle Heights Jewry did
not reach out to these Subbotniki.
They became a stone pulled out of the heap.
Fortunately, the structure of Los
Angeles Jewry did not collapse, but it is less today
because there was no
out-reach, or in Boyle Heights there was no in-reach.
Aronov told me a little. I took notes that have become
illegible over time, but
I had begun, in earnest, my search for the Subbotniki.
There were very
few resources to aid me. I checked the records of
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
from the period when it was known by its corporate
name of Congregation B'nai
B'rith. It owns the cemetery. Also, three decades or
so ago, I inquired of the
late Nathan Malinow, of the then Malinow and Simon
Mortuary. Later I was to
consult Morton Silverman who had been the funeral
director at some of the Subbotniki interments.
Silverman indicated to me that in the early 1930s, the
Subbotniki in Los
Angeles had a core group of thirty or forty families.
Their prayers were in
Russian with an occasional Hebrew word, he remembered.
He said that the men
wore head covering. He felt that they were isolated
pretty much by choice.
"They knew", he said, "that the Eastern European Jews
of Boyle
Heights didn't think of them as Jews."(1)
Silverman told me that Rabbi Abe Maron of Congregation
Mogen David, in West Los
Angeles, had done funerals for them. I then spoke to
the now late Rabbi Maron
who told me that the group had no rabbi of its own,
only lay leaders. He didn't
remember having been called on to do weddings for
them, only funerals. He had
no doubts about their being Jewish, but in their own
way. Neither Rabbi Maron
nor anyone I spoke to over the years remembered any bar mitzvahs
[confirmations] being performed
for the group. Rabbi Maron also told me that the men
were circumcised; he
presumed by traditional mohelim[circumciser,
see mohel]
From Silverman, I learned that at the Home of Peace
funerals the Subbotniki would
have hymn singing in Russian for up to two or three
hours. The women
principally did this. Cemetery attendants, whom I
interviewed way back then,
told me that the hymn singing "was beautiful but
eerie." I learned
the Subbotniki sometimes brought food to the
cemetery grounds. Silverman
told me that it was usually kosher lamb when
meat was part of the fare.
In the 1911 Annual Report of Congregation B'nai
B'rith, I found that Kaspare
Cohn "brought up the question of a certain Russian
sect who claim to be
Jews, but about them there are doubts in the minds of
many as to whether they
are Jews or not. It was decided that the President
[Dr. David Edelman] appoint
a committee to investigate and report at the next
monthly meeting of officers.(2)
Kaspare Cohn was the leading philanthropist of
the Jewish community and a distinguished banker who
founded the Union Bank of
Los Angeles.
Following investigation, the congregation concluded
that the Subbotniki were
sufficiently Jewish to qualify for Jewish burial. The
tombstones are the best
evidence. Certainly approval by the very Reform
congregation was no proof of halachic[by
Jewish law] Jewishness, however it should be
noted that Rabbi Abe Maron
was considered Orthodox.
Albert Parry, a journalist, visited some of the Subbotniki
in Los
Angeles during the 1920s. He indicated that they spoke
to him "in the
harmonious accents and inflections of the Central
Russian moujik[muzhik:
Russian peasant]."(3)
Among the names of Subbotniki that he
visited he recalled Pivovaroffs, Potapoffs, Yurins and
Yurkoffs. Weaver
observed that in their section of the cemeterySubbotniki names
included Gregorief, Konnoff, Bagdanov, Urov and the
name Pivovaroff which was
also noted by Parry.(4)
Parry learned from the Subbotniki
that they came from
Transcaucasia, but that their ancestors were
originally from the Tamboff [Tambov] and Voronezh
provinces of Central Russia. They
said that they had been
exiled there because their ancestors refused to "eat
bacon, worship icons,
and accept the Greek Orthodox Priests."(5)
They told Parry that one of the first teachers was a
Jew whose name they
vaguely remember as "Skharia." Parry identified him as
Zachary Skara
from Kiev. An 1889 Jewish Newspaper account said that
Zechariah was "a Jew
prominent for his learning who publicly preached
against the trinity and the
divinity of Christ. As Jew and scholar, Zechariah
appealed to the common sense
and to the critical judgment and soon gathered many
adherents." He was
said to have compiled a catechism of sayings from the
Talmud[discussion of
Jewish law].(6)
Zechariah's followers were regarded as Subbotniki,
Sabbath-Keepers or Sabbatarians
who were "Genuine Russian Jews." This was true
despite their lack
of knowledge of the Hebrew language and literature.(7)
They were likely antecedent to the Subbotniki
of Boyle Heights, who
also evidenced no knowledge of
Hebrew. In Boyle Heights there were two Russian groups
who evidenced Jewish
practices. One was the Molokanswho
accepted the divinity of Jesus
and the other was the Subbotniki.
They both kept Shabbat[day of rest]
and some form of kashrut[kosher:
ritually correct diet]. The Molokans were
called "the milk
people" because they favored dairy foods. They did not
claim to be Jewish.
They were Sabbatarians like the Seventh Day Adventists
and Seventh Day
Baptists. Interestingly, the Russian Government, in
1914, practiced
"Anti-Semitism" against Seventh Day Adventists
"because their
faith is closely allied to that of the Jews!"(8)
Aronov told me that the number of Subbotniki
had decreased because of intermarriage with the Molokans
with whom
they were so culturally similar.(9)
I believe it was in the 1950s that I remember a Molokan
Church in Los
Angeles located in the downtown area off Olympic Blvd.
In 1905, some of the Los
Angeles Molokans moved across the Mexican
border to the village of
Guadalupe in Baja California. They were described as
dressed "in the
simple peasant costume of the their ancestors, the
bearded men and shawled
women."(10)
In my archival material, I found a 1913 newspaper
article.(11) It described a
community of "thirty
families of Caucasian Jews" who were regarded as
something of a "lost
tribe." They were the Subbotniki of Boyle
Heights. The reporter
described them as, "A strange Jewish colony practicing
queer customs and
peculiar rites." He indicated that they knew no Hebrew
because "their
antecedents lived for a long time in Russia where the
government forbids them
being taught the language of their birth.
The Examiner asked Rabbi Rudolf Farber of Sinai
Congregation in Los
Angeles to comment. He indicated that the Subbotniki
were "people
adhering to the Russian style of dress and speaking
the Russian language, [and]
who have lived quietly on Gless and Utah Streets for
the past several
years." He said that they observed the Sabbath, the
Holidays, and were
"strict in the observance of the dietary laws. He
noted that they married
at an early age usually before twenty and that they
only marry within their
group and in marriage practice tarahat mishpacha.(12)
As I write this, it is the year 2002 and it has been
more than a quarter of a
century since I spoke to any of the Subbotniki.
When I did I was told
that they had a "little Jewish church" of their own.
They called it
the "Subbotniki Synagogue of Yiddish Jews."
Silverman told me
that he heard that they had mainly hymn singing there.
There is no indication that the Subbotniki reached
out to the organized
Jewish community except in matters of circumcision,
death and interment. Over
the years they intermarried, abandoned their unique
traditions, or simply died
out. Unfortunately, something of what the Jewish
community might have been also
died with them.
In 1993, responding to a column I had written on the Subbotniki
for The
Guardian, a publication of The Jewish Home for
the Aging, I received a
letter from Rose Gousman, a Los Angeles resident. She
indicated that in 1928
she lived on Boyle Ave. near a section called "Russian
Town" on Gless
Street. She said that she attended Roosevelt High
School as did some of the Subbotniki
boys according to my informants.
They
were very handsome, and the
Jewish girls were not allowed to date them. Only on
Saturdays did I see the
Subbotniki women walking on the street, dressed in
long white skirts and
blouses with fancy aprons on top. They were the only
people who dressed this
way. I could never figure out who they were or what
their religion was but I
was told that they were Russians. Their looks and
mannerisms were typically
Russian, as opposed to looking like the Jewish people.
They used to observe
tile Jewish Holidays, but we didn't know why. My
parents used to say that they
had a synagogue of their own, but nobody ever saw it.(13)
There is much in the Jewish and general press these
days about crypto-Jews who are
turning up after generations
of .secret identity. For example, among Mexican
Americans in the Southwest,
some are outwardly Catholic, but have learned at
puberty that they had a silent
Jewish heritage. I wonder if there are Subbotniki
crypto-Jews among
Russian gentiles in California who will come out of
their Christian closet.
We Jews are a pile of stones. One Stone is labeled
German Jew, another Russian,
another Ethiopian, and so on. Today we are missing a
stone called "Subbotniki"
because there was no reaching out. We have to be
careful because we can't
afford to spare any more stones.
Endnotes
Undated interview by
the author, approximately 1960.
Report of Annual
Meeting of Congregation B'nai B’rith, October 27,
1911.
Albert Parry 1930 The
American Hebrew, "Subbotniki" a Strange Sect".
Visit to Home of Peace
Cemetery. April 11, 2002.
Albert Parry 1930 The
American Hebrew, "Subbotniki" a Strange Sect".
Anon, "A Curious
Russian Sect: Part I”, The Jewish Messenger,
New York Sept. 6, 1889.
Ibid. Part 2, Sept. 13, 1889.
B'nai B'rith
Messenger, Los Angeles. March
27, 1914.
My interview with him
was on May 16,1978 (as best as I can decipher my
faded notes).
"Guadalupe Molokans," Baja
California Yearbook of Las Californias Magazine
1963.
