Photograph: Grave of Baal Shem Tov

European Jews

Podolia Guberniya, Proskurov Okrug, Shtetl of Medzhybizh

1927

Gelatin silver printing with chemical development (DOP)

11,1 x 8,4

РЭМ 4681-6

Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, lived in Medzybozh in the 1740s-1760s. The Jews used to come to the graves of famous tzadiks for help in case of any misfortune. “It was common among the Hasidim, should anyone suffer a misfortune, God save us, or in case of a libel or a cruel decree of authorities, to “ascend to the Zion” of the late rabbi, to put the written message in, and say prayers” (From the memoirs of A. Rechtman, participant of the Jewish Ethnographic Expedition of A. A. An-sky in 1912-1914). Up to this day, the grave of Baal Shem Tov has been a site of pilgrimage for the Hasidim.