(PINKAS).
<<(Galanta, Hungary).>> Melatsche-Buch Chevra Kadisha [community memorial volume]. ...

(PINKAS).
<<(Galanta, Hungary).>> Melatsche-Buch Chevra Kadisha [community memorial volume]. Volume II.


Manuscript in Hebrew and Yiddish written in square calligraphic and cursive hands on paper. Colored title page in blue, black, red, and gold, signed by the scribe/artist Avraham Ya’akov Grunmor. Each subsequent page is divided into four with four names listed, for a total of c. 400 individual names. Each entry is numbered and most have the official stamp of the Burial Society, many are dated. The final date in these entries is 1943, followed by a tragic, pregnant pause, and a resumption of entries in 1946. The last dated entries are from 1949. Following this are several pages where the only date of each entry is Parshath Teruma - the week of February 18-24, 1944 - and commemorating victims of deportation by the Nazis, most of whom are children.
pp. 102 (excluding blanks). Original boards, worn. Lg. folio.
Gallandau (today, Galánta, Slovakia): 1888


The name ‘Melatsche, ’ which means ‘small’ in Slavic languages, for a chevra kadisha is curious. An oral explanation attributed to Rabbi Chaim Ehrenreich (1887-1942) suggests that ‘melatsche’ is a Hebrew acronym for the duties performed by a Chevra Kadisha: Melaveh, Lina, Tahara and Shmira. See Khayim Liberman, Rabbinic Etymologies of Yiddish Words, in: Yiddishe Shprach 27:2 (Sept. 1967) p. 56. Galanta's Jewish community was established in the 17th century. Permission was granted to build its first synagogue and Jewish cemetery was in 1729. By 1840 there were 430 Jews resident and by 1900 that number had grown to 937. After the notorious split of Hungarian Jews in 1868 into Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities, Galanta chose to affiliate Orthodox. See www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/galanta.