Preparing for Munkacs - Some Resources

With another week and a half until our trip, I am trying to learn more about the Munkacs area. There are a few interesting resources on the web.

• The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has an online  Holocaust Encyclopedia with a few articles about Munkacs.

• Yad Vashem has a rich  online exhibition about the history of Jewish settlement in Munkacs (in Hebrew).

• The Israeli Association of Carpatho Ruthenians has a rich website (in Hebrew).
• Final Presentations of the Journey into Jewish Heritage Delegation to Carpatho Rus 

• In the 1930's the American film company, "March of Time", made a short newsreel about the Jews of Carpatho Rus. It contains sections about the court of the Munkacser Rebbe, R' Chaim Elazar Shapira, his daughter, Chaya Frima Rivka's regal wedding to Rabbi Baruch Yehoshua Yerachmiel Rabinowitz, local Jewish vendors and artisans, Cheder students studying, Zionist youth group members dancing the Hora to a Chasidic tune and Zionist Hebrew school students singing Hatikva.

• I"m also reading the autobiography of David Ben David, a member of the original Kfar Etzion. David was born and raised in a village in Carpatho Rus. In his story, he gives vivid accounts of growing up, studying in cheders and Yeshivot in the area and eventually joining Bnei Akiva and coming via illegal Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. The reader is swept along into David's story, truly experiencing life in Carpatho Rus during the 1920's - 30's.

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Getting to Know You

I'm here in Petach Tikvah at the offices of Shai Bar Ilan - our tour organizer. In a few minutes we'll be  meeting with our guides and organizers and with the group who'll be going with us. One of the organizers - Yehuda Chen from  Kibbutz Ein Tzurim was a partner on a project I worked on many years ago. It was good to see him again. He'll be coming with his wife and will be responsible for technical aspects of the tour.

Shmil Holland historian of East European cuisine and chef will be covering this aspect of our tour (and will be hosting a culinary workshop in Uzhorod).

Dr. Shlomo Tikochinski historian of modern Jewish European history  whose specialty is in the history of Lithuanian Yeshivot. (Don't think there were any of those in Carpatho Rus!)

Our Planned Trip Route

Shmil opened with an overview of the area accompanied with slides. We"ll be landing in Budapest, Hungary and moving to Slovakia - Koshitze & Preshov.  From Koshitze we'll cross the border to the Ukraine & stop in Uzhorod the capital of the SubCarpathian region, the smallest province capital in all of the Ukraine.

The history of the Czechoslovakian rule is predominant in Uzhorod.  From there on to Munkacs, much smaller, but with a very intensive Jewish presence.

We get a view of the Latorica River which runs through the town. From there on to Khust.  From there southwest toVinohradiv (Selish). We''ll then visit the village of Veliki Komiaty where we"ll see a rare wooden synagogue which serves as a barn. From there west to Berhove  (Beregsas) where the Hungarian culture reigns supreme.

"One of the problems we"ll face is the passage between the country boundaries" says Shmil.


Shlomo tells us that this area is known as the Unterland - the Carpathian - Transylvania region, a very green forest - mountain region. Uzhorod & Munkacs were central in the Jewish settlement.

In the 19th century, by the Chatam Sofer's followers from Pressburg.The other stream dominant in the area are the Chasidim, who were very influential in the region. We  will also learn much about the the Streams - Orhodox - Neologs & status quo faction. We will follow the very influential Munkacser Rabbi - the Minchas Elazar in his battles against the Zionists, Neologs and other Chasidic rabbis.


Here is a more detailed description of our planned trip (in Hebrew),



Yehuda fills us in with travel details: flights, meals, weather, bus,etc.

Yehuda, Shlomo & Shmil

We"ll be 19 people from all over Israel, mostly couples including the staff. Most of the people have roots in the region. Not everyone made it to the meeting.

Looks like this might be a nice trip. Will we find what we"re looking for?

To CarpatoRus

For years I have been interested in going to see the area from where my family originated - the area between Munkacs and Uzhorod  in SubCarpathian Rus. I had heard stories about the area in my youth and read some about the area in later years. My parents lived in small towns near Munkacs and, as far as I understood, earned their living from farming and simple crafts. At one point I entertained the idea of being able to visit the area with one of my relatives who had survived the Holocaust and would be willing to go back and visit the area with some of the second or third generation family members. But that never materialized.

A few years ago, I  heard of a group of students that would be visiting the area as a learning expedition under the auspices of  the Shazar Institute. I was granted permission to sit in on some of their preparatory sessions, picking up much about the area along the way. After they returned, I attended a public session where they presented much of what they had discovered about the Jewish communities of the area: Munkacs, Uzhorod, Hust, Beregsas and more.

Was I excited when about two months ago, I saw an ad in one of the Shabbat pamphlets which flood our Batei Knesset about an organized tour to this area organized by Shai Bar Ilan. Nine days from Budapest, Hungary to Kosice, Slovakia to TransCarpathia - Uzhorod, Munkacs, etc. with an emphasis on  Jewish heritage, Jewish  cooking, the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust and the remnants of the Jewish community  during the Soviet period till today.It didn't take long for us (Leah & I) to decide  that we would join this tour.  My first cousin Moish Lebowitz and his wife Surie,  from Masuot Yitzchak, decided to join this adventure too, only adding to our expectations on this journey to our family's roots.

Tomorrow, we will be meeting with the other members of our  tour group as well as our guides and organizers. This should help us clarify our expectations and focus our preparations for the trip which will begin on August 5, 2013.

In preparation we are reading about the area. First is a research project on our family written by our granddaughter Reut Har Zahav, a few years ago. The project was based on interviews with relatives, mainly my cousin Morris Stern, Z"L.