Nosovka

Nosovka, a city (since 1960), is a district centre in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine. The population is 13,310 people, according to the 2020 census. The city stands on the Nosovochka River, which is a tributary of the Ostra.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a town of Nezhinsky district of the Chernihiv province.

I could only find very little information about the Jews of Nosovka.

Article was translated by Daniel Pesin.

542 Jews lived in Nosovka in 1910; in 1920 Jews made up 1.2% of the town’s population, in 1939, 116 Jews lived in Nosovka. In 1864, a synagogue was operating. In 1886 a Jew owned a pharmacy in Nosovka. In the 19th century the rabbi of Nosovka was Yitzchok Teleshevsky; from 1887 it was Chaim Sheyniuk (1863-?); from 1908 it was Shmuel Goldshmid (1881-?).

It is quite obvious that there was a Jewish cemetery in the shtetl. But I could not find where it was located and when it was destroyed.

In October 1905 there was a pogrom in Nosovka.

Among the few documents and memoirs about the Jews of Nosovka, I managed to establish the following surnames of the Jews who lived in Nosovka in the 20th century: Lefand, Schneerson, Rabinovich, Men’, Stomberg, Aronov, Freydinov, Pritikin, Nimkovsky, Rodnyansky, Lipkin, Shteidman.

In 1913, Jews owned two grocery shops and the only grocery-manufacturing shops. In the shtetl there was a big factory – which produced leather – which belonged to the three Fabrikant brothers.

In 1919, a pogrom, arranged by parts of the Volunteer Army, took place in Nosovka. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but it was definitely greater than ten. Pesya-Malka Moisey-Shmerkovna Men’ (1910, Nosovka – 2001, Nezhin) remembered how an officer of Denikin lived at her home, and when the people of Denikin left Nosovka, he killed the father of the household, Moisey-Shmerko Nemkovsky (1874-1919).

In the 1920s in Nosovka there was organised a Jewish kolkhoz (collective farm) called Sverdlov. In the 1930s it was joined with other, less successful, collective farms.

In the 1920s, a Zionist organisation operated in Nosovka. Its members were arrested in 1926 and from the OGPU case we know their names: Alexander Isaevich Lefand, Iosif Shneydman, Ruvim Gershenovich, Zyama Gershenovich, Zyama Khaimovich Russ, Solomon Khaimovich Russ, Shaya Nimkovsky, Nyunya Shklyarova, Abram Moiseevich Men’, Isaac Lefand, Boris Moiseevich Nimkovsky, Samuil Zalmanovich Kinzgbursky, Khana Abramovna Beilina, Yosef Filippovsky.

In the 1920s and 30s the majority of Jews moved from Nosovka to the big cities of the USSR.

In the 1930s the only synagogue of the shtetl was closed. In its building a club was made. In different times, building was used for pharmacy, library and cinema. In 1970’s, tt was take apart.

After the occupation of the shtetl by German troops, the Jews of Nosovka were sent to Nezhin, where they were shot. I did not manage to find the exact dates when this happened, but it roughly happened in November-December, 1941.

The family Senik-Rodnyanko helped the partisans, and also tried to save the Jewish girl Manya Lipkina. But the whole family was arrested and shot together with Manya.

After the liberation of Nosovka by Soviet troops in 1944, several Jewish families returned to the town.

With the fall of the USSR, a Jewish community was organised in Nosovka, the chairman of which was chosen to be Isaac Men’ and his wife Ester. At that moment about ten Jews lived in Nosovka, most of whom were pensioners. Among was one woman, who survived Holocaust and was on forced labor in Germany during WWII.

In the 2010s, Jews did not live in Nosovka.

Famous Jews from Nosovka

Menahem-Mendel Shmulevich (1879, Nosovka – 1911, Israel), an Israel journalist.

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