Across the ocean with an inherited responsibility

Poverty, conscription, political uncertainty, and the hope of supporting a family pushed hundreds of thousands of Jews toward the ports of Europe. For a Jew from Galicia, the journey began with painful farewells and a question that could not be packed into a trunk: could an ehrlicher Yid remain faithful in America?

The reputation of the new country was frightening. Workweeks ran through Shabbos, kosher food could not be assumed, and children entered schools and streets far removed from the ordered Jewish life of the towns their parents had left.

Traditions preserved among Shendishover families tell that Rabbi Avraham Horowitz considered requests to leave individually. Some were permitted—or directed—to travel, but not without a firm demand that they remain loyal to Torah and mitzvos.

One account tells of Rabbi Leiber Hirsch of Ropshitz taking leave before his journey. Rabbi Avraham told him that a grandson of his would one day be in America and that he should attach himself to him. Decades later, when Rabbi Tuvia arrived, the old words gave the journey a meaning that had not been visible at the time.

The immigrants did not wait for ideal conditions. They formed congregations and landsmanschaften, helped newcomers find work and lodging, acquired cemetery sections, and gathered on Shabbos and yahrzeits. In 1899, Jews from Shendishov established the First Shendishover Galician Society.

By the time Rabbi Tuvia came to America in 1923, a ציבור already existed that remembered his father and the court in Galicia. The ocean had changed their address; it had not erased the line of attachment that would allow Shendishov to take root in America.