The students of the Tarbut High School in Brisk (Brest) issued a 24-page newsletter, Tzohar, on the 2nd of Adar, 1932, the third such publication to date.
This publication offers us information about people who lived in 1932 in Brest, and the life of the Tarbut High School – curriculum and activities.
This school was a Gymnasium, a four-year high-school in which the first year was called 5th Grade and the final year the 8th Grade.
Language and Idioms
The content was written by students in Hebrew, which is filled with literary and religious idioms.
The Hebrew of the students is very beautiful! –H. K.
Tzohar is the Hebrew word for skylight. Reflecting the same word in Genesis 6:16 in this Chabad interpretation:
You shall make a skylight for the ark, and to a cubit you shall finish it to the top, and the entrance of the ark you shall place in its side; you shall make it with bottom [compartments], second story [compartments], and third story [compartments].
The address in Polish appears on the front page in full: Brest on the Bug River. The address in Hebrew is rendered in shortened form –an acronym– as follows:
ענ"ב
[AN"B], which stands for al-nahar-Bug [on-the-River-Bug]. The same acronym is used by Jewish scholars for the words taken from the lament on the exile to Babylon: al-naharot-Bavel [on-the-Rivers-of-Babylon] in Psalms 137:1 –
על נהרות בבל
– By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept as we remembered Zion. It seems that this usage was intentional, to allude to life in Exile.
Credits
The source material is courtesy of Prof. Avi Shmida, Israel, son of Dov-Ber "Berchik" Shmidt (Shmida). Professor Shmida contributed the original to the Jewish Museum of Brest.
The material is presented here in either full or condensed translation by Hannah Kadmon.
Additional research, consultation, and contemporary newspaper clippings: Oleg Medvedevsky, Brest.
