A city without a rabbi cannot exist. Rabbis, sub-rabbis and super-rabbis of Warsaw Governorate in the years 1888-1912

Warsaw 2012/National Directorate of State Archives/ first edition/ text in Polish and English/ publisher's cover, cloth/23x22.5cm/s.181/ rich illustrative material/ very good condition

Catalog from of an exhibition that brings closer the history of the Jewish community living in Polish lands since the Middle Ages. More than 50 unique portrait photographs from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, published for the first time - coming from the collection of the State Archive of the City of Warsaw - remind us of the profiles of rabbis and rabbinical candidates in the towns of the former Warsaw Gubernia. Many of them, as administrators of Jewish communities and spiritual guides, gained recognition not only at home, but also abroad.

The photographs, which are particularly valuable due to the low degree of preservation of the records of Jewish religious communities, have survived as attachments to applications for the rabbinical exam. This exam, taken in the Kingdom of Poland between 1888 and 1912 before Russian administrative authorities, confirmed, among other things, the degree of knowledge of regulations, related to the keeping of civil registry books, the functioning of synagogue superintendents (community boards), as well as Russian language, accounting and tax law. For each photo, a biographical note in Polish and English.