Небольшое мини-ЧГК по материалам прочитанной в в Стамбуле монографию Петровского-Штерна "The Golden Age of Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe".

1. Евреи в церкви

О том, заходили ли наши благочестивые предки в церковь, аз, многогрешный, писал уже неоднократно. (Если кто вдруг не читал, обращайтесь в комментах, дам ссылки). Однако, прочитав , неожиданно понял, что, оказывается, забыл о еще одной категории "традиционных" евреев, бывавших в христианских храмах достаточно регулярно.

Внимание, вопрос: о ком идет речь. Ответ под катом:

Jews stole from the churches, although those involved in sacrilegious offenses were ordinary
Jews, not Jewish clergy. These were Yiddish-speaking criminals stealing indiscriminately from Jews and Christians alike. One such criminal, Shmul Tsiner, and his accomplice Borukh Moshkovich, together with a number of other Jews, robbed a church near Balta. The police found in the house of Osia Portnoi a large silver cross, a silver goblet, some incense, copper candlesticks, and a number of other articles that obviously had come from the church. Shmul took a more practical trophy: a camisole, a silk gown, three Schwabian shirts, pillowcases, a red wool coat, a wedding shirt, and a special priest’s apron. His colleagues took sixty-one strands of pearls.41

These young Jewish men were hardly unique. The head of a Radomyshl gang of robbers stole copper cauldrons from Volko Budnitsky, two horses from a priest, and several copper utensils from a parish church.42

The Makhnovka Jews Berkovich, Volkovich, and Rubonovich, accused of stealing church property, also demonstrate that some Jews engaged in Christian sacrosanct activities: if offenses against the religious “other” was the norm, so were offenses against religious property.43 .

2. Где спрятать печать?

Некие евреи изготовили фальшивые таможенные печати, которыми клеймили товары, ввезенные в Россию контрабандой. Однако появление на рынке слишком уж большого количества легального товара вызвало подозрение у полиции, и она начала расследование:

The Volhynia provincial authorities mobilized all available networks. One Moshko Kandel, an informer, came to their aid, directing them to two residents of Ustiluch. The police and a unit of soldiers arrived in Ustiluch to take the suspects by surprise. They rushed into the house at night and performed a search, expecting an easy catch. To their disappointment,
they found nothing. At that point, the subservient Kandel volunteered to help. He entered
the house, looked around, and saw what anyone would see upon entering a shtetl house.

Внимание, вопрос: где была спрятана печать? Ответ под катом:

There was a small bag for the prayer shawl and phylacteries hanging on the wall. He pointed at it—have you looked there? A policeman reached into the bag, which contained nothing but phylacteries and a prayer shawl. Open the shel rosh, the head phylactery, advised Kandel.They grudgingly followed his advice. To their amazement, inside the head phylactery, instead of the five pinky-size pieces of parchment with the prayer “Hear, o Israel,” there was a stamp, one with the reversed letters, exactly what the police were looking for. They then found the second smaller stamp elsewhere.