Shmarya Yehuda Leib Medalia

Shmarya Yehuda-Leib Medalia (Shemaryahu Medalia[1], Russian: Шмер-Лейб Янкелевич Медалье; 1872 – April 26, 1938) was the Lubavitcher chief rabbi of Moscow between 1933 and 1938.[2] He was sentenced to death and shot in 1938 during The Great Terror in the Soviet Union.

Biography

Shmarya Yehuda-Leib Yankelevich Medalia was born in Kretinga[3] to a family of Lubavitcher Hasidim. He was an alumnus of the original Slabodka yeshiva.[4] He is described in the Yizkor book of Vitebsk as a popular and influential, musical and scholarly preacher of a sanguine disposition, but stern on matters of Yiddishkeit. He had six sons and five daughters, who all lived to adulthood, among whom were scholars, a rabbi, and a shochet. On one notable occasion he refused to start a Jewish prayer service unless stationed Bolshevik militiamen left, crying, "This is a desecration of Shabbos!"[3] His son Hillel Medalie became chief rabbi of Antwerp.[5]

Between 1899 and 1903, he served as the rabbi of Tula, Russia; and between 1905 and 1917, in Vitebsk. After Tula he served in Krolevets.[3] In 1910 he participated in the All-Russian Rabbinic Congress. In 1912, he took part in the Agudat Israel congress in Katowice, Poland. He was chosen to be one of seven leading rabbis of the Russian-Jewish rabbinical congress in 1917, and was the only one left in 1922.[6] Between 1927 and 1931, he again served in Tula. In 1930 he left Vietbsk due to a tax dispute.[7] In 1933, he received the appointment to serve as the rabbi of the Moscow Choral Synagogue.[2] By 1933 the Russian government had already shut down the mikvahs and synagogues other than that one, which was under close surveillance.[8] By 1938, Medalia had become the unofficial primary spiritual leader of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union.[4]

In 1938, while serving as chief rabbi in Moscow, he was convicted of collusion with German fascists, and of illegally promoting Jewish education.[9][10] His son Moishe was also arrested.[11]

His high profile led the central offices of the NKVD in Moscow to directly handle his case rather than the distributed NKVD troikas. He was accused in court of communicating with Lubavitcher rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn who had been arrested and exiled from the USSR in 1927.[2] Medalia was a relative of Schneerson, who urged him to stay in Russia and lead the Jewish community there.[8] Medalia was imprisoned, tortured, and interrogated for months.[8][2] His wife Devorah wrote to Lazar Kaganovich begging for kosher food and matzah to be provided for him. Writing directly to Joseph Stalin, she begged, "I appeal to you, greatly esteemed Iosif Vissarionovich, with a request to help free my husband. The only thing it would be possible to charge him with is that he is a rabbi."[2]

In addition to communicating with German agents and "corrupting the youth,"[9][8] he was convicted of counterrevolutionary activities, including organizing matzah bakeries, selling aliyahs and seats in the synagogue, distributing money to the poor, and financing illegal yeshivas.[1] He was accused of leading a group engaged in theft and speculation.[12] He was also accused of cheating people and late night drunkenness.[4]

The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union found him guilty under Articles 58-8 and 58-11 of Russian criminal code. Upon conviction, he was shot and buried in the common tomb in the Kommunarka shooting ground.[2] He was posthumously exonerated after twenty years. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who held the post of the rabbi of Moscow in 1991, presented the Choral Synagogue with a parokhet or ark curtain, in memory of Rabbi Medalia. Goldschmidt later left Russia and was declared an enemy of the state over his views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the first time since Medalia a rabbi was declared this.[13]

His family finally received notice of his 1938 execution by the NKVD in 1964, with declassified KGB documents in 2008 revealing more details.[4][8]

References

  1. ^ a b Elkin, Mendel (1956). "The Famous Vitebsk Rabbi, Rav Shemaryahu Medalia". Vitebsk amol; geshikhte, zikhroynes, khurbn (Vitebsk in the Past; History, Memoirs, Destruction). New York. pp. 478–527. Retrieved 2025-12-29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ a b c d e f Margolin, Dovid (2023-08-11). "The Jews in Defiance of History". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
  3. ^ a b c Mushkatin, Meir (1956). "In the Time of the Bolsheviks". Vitebsk amol; geshikhte, zikhroynes, khurbn (Vitebsk in the Past; History, Memoirs, Destruction). New York. pp. 593–625. Retrieved 2025-12-29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ a b c d Paz, Ruchama (2011-03-30). "Missing In Action". Mishpacha Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
  5. ^ "Chief Rabbi Medalie of Antwerp Dies at 60". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. September 26, 1977. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
  6. ^ Fishman, David (1993). "Preserving Tradition in the Land of Revolution: The Religious Leadership of Soviet Jewry 1917-1930". In Wertheimer, Jack; Jewish Theological Seminary of America (eds.). The uses of tradition: Jewish continuity in the modern era. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 89–119. ISBN 978-0-674-93157-2.
  7. ^ "Flees Vitebsk to Avoid Arrest for Non-payment of Exorbitant Taxes". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. March 4, 1930. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
  8. ^ a b c d e Galinsky, Ephraim Zalman (2024-06-25). "Secret Shepherds". Mishpacha Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
  9. ^ a b Howard, Thomas Albert (2025). Broken Altars: Secularist Violence in Modern History. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-26361-9.
  10. ^ Levertov, Moshe (2002). The Man who Mocked the KGB. M. Levertov.
  11. ^ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (15 July 2024). 200 Years Together: The Jews in the Soviet Union (PDF). Omnia Veritas Limited. ISBN 978-1-80540-189-6.
  12. ^ Pinkus, Benjamin (1984). The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948–1967: A Documented Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511897306. ISBN 978-0-521-09046-9.
  13. ^ Eichner, Itamar (2023-07-01). "Russia lists former Moscow chief rabbi as foreign agent". Ynetglobal. Retrieved 2025-12-29.
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