What about all the others?!  The city of Bila Tserkva is a typical Ukrainian city. Walking through it today you would never know that there was once a vibrant Jewish community living there. It had dozens of shuls and kehillos, and no less than eight Admorim who led their flocks there. In 1897 there were 18,720 Jewish residents (54% of the total population of the city); and in 1926 there were 15,624 (36.4% of the population). Even after the establishment of the Soviet regime in Ukraine in 1918, and despite pogroms that left around 300 Jews murdered, the Jewish community still thrived and took part in all aspects of communal life and municipal activities. Only after the Nazi SS death squads flooded the city and exterminated the city’s Jewish residents did Bila Tserkva’s Jewish community end. The only remnant that remains as a silent witness to the vibrant and contented community that once existed there is the cemetery on the outskirts of the city. There are many hundreds of Jews buried in the old cemetery, among them great Chassidim and tzaddikim who lived two hundred years ago. But even the dead were not left in peace. The Communist authorities coveted the land and build a hospital over much of the area. Hundreds of graves were destroyed. There was still a large portion of the cemetery that remains. For many years it stood desolate and dilapidated until the current municipal government decided to develop the land for a residential project.  The local Jewish community raised an outcry, but no one listened. Various organizations were asked to intervene to try and thwart the plan, but they met with complete failure. The contractor started digging the foundations, and it was horrifying to see the bones rolling around like trash in a most humiliating way. Then Rav Yitzchak Schapira stepped in, and everything changed. This is how Rav Meir Holzberg, the Rav of Bila Tserkva, described what happened: “We were beyond despair. We had tried everything and didn’t manage to stop the terrible crime. We just gave up. Then Rav Schapira entered the picture. We saw that his approach was completely different. He had the ESJF – the international organization that he founded and leads – behind him. He dealt with the authorities respectfully while at the same time being firm and resolute. The organization used all the weapons at its disposal with quiet efficiency, eventually reaching the President of the country. Within a short time, the President’s staff did what had seemed impossible – the work stopped! To our great surprise, not only was the project scrapped, but they even made efforts to repair the damage, returning the bones to their places, allowing the deceased to return to their eternal rest.” ESJF went to the root of the problem. This phenomenon, of cemeteries being viewed as abandoned property free for the taking, stems from one cause – years of neglect and the lack of fencing around the grounds. “When there is no fence”, the energetic CEO of ESJF Mr. Philip Carmel explains, “a cemetery becomes an abandoned lot. It invites hooligans, homeless people, wild animals, looters looking for building materials, and of course real estate sharks who are happy to turn it into a building site. When we get to a cemetery and […]

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