Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
Jewish life Jewish Life
(Tailors’) Synagogue, the Shusters’ (Shoemakers’) Shul, the Beit Midrash, and the Stoliner synagogue. My father belonged to the Stoliner synagogue, which was the most elite, although it was not the biggest or fanciest, nor built of brick. Rabbi Akiva Chazan was the whole town’s rabbi, but he al- ways prayed in the Stoliner synagogue. Synagogue members held assigned seats, so a person generally attended only the synagogue to which he belonged. To the best of my knowledge, there was never a conversion to Christianity nor an intermarriage in our town; that would have been considered sacrilegious. In a sense, everyone in Ludvipol was “Orthodox” because there was no other option; there was no such thing as Reform or Conservative Judaism. All the synagogues per- formed the same services and prayers, and followed the same rit- uals. Women and girls were not treated as the equals of men and boys in the religious arena. Women went to synagogue but sat sep- arately from the men on a balcony or the other side of a mechitza (divider). During the 1930s, Rabbi Akiva Chazan was the official rabbi of Ludvipol, with other out-of-town rabbis, such as Rabbi Iztkel from Brezno, visiting sometimes, which was always a cause for celebration. In school, we learned about religion, but it was taught as a Jewish study, not in a religious way. Every Jewish child needed to know the five books of the Torah. We read prayers, but did not chant them. There was some leeway in people’s level of observance. On Friday afternoons, the men bathed in the mill pond and then rushed off to Kabbalat Shabbat to celebrate the entrance of Shabbat. Almost every Shabbat, the rabbi sent a stranger to have dinner with my family after shul. My mother was always able to accommodate spontaneous guests. Whenever someone came to town, sometimes from far away, and needed a place to eat, the rab- bi would tell my father, “I’m sending somebody over for dinner.” We fed these strangers in our home, then they went to sleep at a guest house or local inn.
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