Auction 4
By MDLD Auction House
Jun 16, 2019
3 HaTaasiyah St., 3rd floor. Industrial area, Raanana, Israel
מכירה רביעית - יודאיקה, היסטוריה, אמנות ותרבות יהודית וישראלית.
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LOT 121:

A set of fascinating photographs from HeChalutz movement from Grodno (western Belarus). Found in the photo, Henry ...


Start price:
$ 40
Estimated price :
$130 - $160
Buyer's Premium: 20% More details
VAT: 17% On commission only

A set of fascinating photographs from HeChalutz movement from Grodno (western Belarus). Found in the photo, Henry Morgenthau.

Signed M. Rubenstein, Grodno and dated.


HeHalutz or HeChalutz (Hebrew: הֶחָלוּץ, lit. The Pioneer) was a Jewish youth movement that trained young people for agricultural settlement in the Land of Israel. It became an umbrella organization of the pioneering Zionist youth movements.


Henry Morgenthau:

Henry Morgenthau (1856-1946) was an American lawyer, businessman and United States ambassador, most famous as the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. As ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Morgenthau has come to be identified as the most prominent American to speak about the Armenian Genocide.

Morgenthau was the father of the politician Henry Morgenthau Jr. His grandchildren included Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney of Manhattan for 35 years, and Barbara W. Tuchman, a historian who won the Pulitzer Prize.

Appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire by President Wilson in 1913, he served in this position until 1916.


Grodno and the Jews:

Jews began to settle in Grodno in the 14th century after the approval given to them by the Lithuanian prince Vitland. During the next years their status had changed several times and in 1495 the Jews were deported from the city and banned from settling in Grodno (the ban was lifted in 1503). In 1560 there were 60 Jewish families in Grodno, the Jews were concentrated on the "Jewish street" with their own synagogue and "hospital". In the year 1578 the great synagogue of Grodno was built by rabbi Mordehai Yaffe (Baal ha-Levush). The synagogue was severely damaged in a fire in 1599. 

The community was not affected by the Khmelnitsky uprising but suffered during the 1655 Cossack uprising and during the war with Sweden (1703–1708). After Grodno was annexed by the Russian empire in 1795 the Jewish population continued to grow and in 1907 there were 25,000 Jews out of total population of 47,000.

In the period of independent Poland a yeshiva had operated in the city (Shaar ha-tora) under the management of Rabbi Shimon Shkop. Before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland there were about 25,000 Jews in Grodno out of 50,000 total population.[10] After the German attack on the Soviet positions in eastern Poland, on November 1, 1942 the Jews were concentrated in 2 ghettos – 15,000 men were confined to the old part of the city where the main synagogue was located. A high wall of 2 meters was built around the ghetto. The second ghetto was located in the Slovodka part of the city with 10,000 inhabitants. The head of the Judenrat was appointed Dr. Braur, the school's headmaster, who served in this duty until his execution in 1943.

Further information: Grodno Ghetto

On November 2, 1942, the deportations to the death camps began and during 5 days in February 1943, 10,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz. Later, on February 13, 5,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka. During the deportations, many synagogues were looted and some people were murdered. The last Jews were deported in March, 1943. By the end of the war, only one Jew had remained in the ghetto.