Tag #144036 - Interview #94880 (Yefim Volodarskiy)

There were three synagogues in Belaya Tserkov. There was one synagogue for aristocratic public [high class], one for middle class and one for bindyuzhniki [Russian jargon for strong and rough people. Originally it means cargo driver.]. We, children, liked the ‘bindyuzhniki’ synagogue. Bindyuzhniki often had celebrations and drinking parties singing songs at the synagogue. They had the most joyful celebrations. During pogroms in Belaya Tserkov in the 1910s bandits were afraid of the bindyuzhniki neighborhood, because they were strong people and united into self-defense groups [1].

Besides those synagogues there was also a shil [shul], also a synagogue, but the grandest one. There were one-storied buildings and rarely two-storied ones in Belaya Tserkov, but this synagogue was a three-storied building. There were services on big holidays in it with concerts of a Jewish choir and a boys’ choir. In the 1930s, during struggle against religion [2] the state expropriated the shiil, but to not offend Jews, they established a Jewish school in it, and the former school building was given for a shop.

There was also an Orthodox Christian church in Belaya Tserkov that was also closed in the 1930s. There was a catholic church, very beautiful and grand, but Soviet authorities also closed it and it became a storage facility.