Magicians, Mohels, and Mosques … or, Moslems in the Shtetl

Tatar mosque in Nemėžis, Lithuania

If you didn't think there were Christians living in the shtetl, then you probably really didn't think there were Moslems.  

But guess what? There were: members of a people known as the Lipka Tatars, whose lives intersected with those of their Jewish neighbors in some totally fascinating ways, involving magic spells, magic amulets ... and maybe even marriage. 

But before we get into that, let's just go over a little history, so we're clear on who we're talking about. The Tatars in general are a Turkic people originating in Mongolia, of whom there are a number of branches, the most prominent of which is named for the Volga, as in Volga Tatars. (Altogether, there are about 5.5 million Tatars living in the territory of the Russian Federation these days.)

Zeroing in on the Pale of Settlement: if you look into the histories of various shtetlekh, you're likely to find sentences like 'this or that building was constructed as a defense against the Tatars.' Generally, this is not a reference to the Lipka, but to the Crimean Tatars, who for hundreds of years terrified everybody in the Ukraine: from their Black Sea base, they would make raids to capture as many slaves as possible, then hand over their captives in trade to the Ottoman Turks. The Crimeans also didn't mind teaming up with Cossacks now and then. 

(Among the fortifications built to repel Crimeans and Cossacks were stone "fortress synagogues," according to Jeffrey Veidlinger's In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine.)

The Lipka, though related to the Crimeans, had a very different history. Their arrival in what is now Poland, Lithuania and Belarus dates back to 1397, just after they lost a power struggle with the notorious Mongol leader Timur, or Tamerlane, of pyramid-of-skulls fame.

 The soon-to-be-Lipka (the name means "Lithuanian") were given refuge by Vytautas the Great, Grand Duke of Lithuania (who was also very welcoming to Jews, and generally had a glowing reputation among Lithuanians of all faiths.)

Lithuanian Tatars in the Napoleonic Army, by Jan Chełmiński

For most of the next several hundred years, Lipka fought as cavalrymen alongside the army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (or as part of that army), enjoyed privileges as Polish noblemen, and built more than a hundred mosques in  Commonwealth lands. (These mosques were usually wooden and painted green, like the one pictured above, and included women's galleries.) 

The Lipkas' complex history--Mongol descent, Moslem faith, centuries of residence in Eastern Europe--is reflected in their language, literature and religious practice. In Lithuania-Poland, they quickly adopted local languages, but wrote them in Arabic script. Their literary output was variously in Polish, for religious commentary (written between lines of Arabic in the Qur'an); and Belarusian, for kitabs, that is, "religious literary anthologies … containing Muslim legends, ritual prescriptions, stories and moral precepts, apocrypha and other narratives, but also texts in Arabic (and rarely in Turkish) such as fragments from the Qur’an, prayers."

In their religious practice, the Lipka Tatars differ from some other Moslems in significant ways: they do not engage in polygamy, their women are not veiled, they drink alcohol. In addition, at least formerly, they shared many of their neighbors' folk beliefs--for example, "they did not feed the cows on the Midsummer Day, fearing that they might lose their milk"--and they sometimes mingled the Islamic with the shamanistic. And this, my friends, is where things really get interesting.

According to Marek Dziekan, in History and culture of Polish Tatars, "Polish people often considered Tatars to be sorcerers." More specifically, Tatars had a reputation as extraordinary healers--a reputation in which their Jewish neighbors firmly believed.

We learn from various authors that, in a milieu rife with folk healers of various stripes, Jews particularly favored the Tatars*; and that the "acknowledged experts in the use of spells as well as herbs were the Tatars, and when an illness was so serious that it could not be cured by the exorcism of a dybbuk or the use of conventional medicine, the Tatars were called upon for help."**

* Deutsch, The Jewish Dark Continent
** Eliach, There Once Was A World

What kind of magic did these Tatar healers practice? This very question was asked by the great ethnographer S. Ansky, author of the play The Dybbuk, in the questionnaire that he and his associates took around to Jews of the Pale between 1912-1914:  "Are there  Tatars in your community, old male and female gentiles, who heal? What provisions and remedies do they offer?"

Here are some answers: 

One technique involved "reading Muslim prayers and blowing on the patient. Such technique was supposed to cleanse the body by 'blowing away' the sickness that came from the air. The second most popular method was fumigation. A page from a prayer book or a specially written amulet was supposed to be burned on coals and the sick one was expected to inhale the smoke while listening to specially chosen prayers. This was a way of dispelling 'charms'. Another use for cards with writing was to wash away the text and drink the used water." This last was said to be "a good cure for epilepsy and giddiness."***

The Dybbuk

*** According to Shirin Akiner, in Religious Language of a Belarusian Tatar Kitab

Also, says Dziekan, "Many amulets and charms were sup­posed to guard a man from evil powers. These were … usually worn under clothes." And in addition, says Akiner, "Muslim cemeteries were regarded as holy places, with magical properties. Tatars (as well as local Christians and Jews) would make communal visits to them to pray for good health, help with conceiving, and other blessings."

***

How else did Jews and Tatars interact?

Yaffa Eliach tells us that, in the shtetl of Eishyshok, Jews and Tatars were friends, and that during World War II, Tatars (and Christians) aided their Jewish friends there. In some shtetlekh, for example Lyakhovichi, Jews and Tatars were close neighbors: "The street Tatarskaya was named for the primary street of their residence and that of their mosque, but it was not exclusive to them, Jews lived on Tatarskaya also." 

One descendant of Lipka Tatars: Charles Bronson

The same source tells us that "These Sunni Moslems were a small group that reportedly found it difficult to find suitable marriage partners for their children without some intermarriage. It was illegal for a Christian to convert to Judaism, but there are a number of documented cases ... of Lipka Tatars converting from Islam to Judaism to marry." 

I haven't been able to find documentation of these documented cases (though it's true that Tatars were a very small minority in some towns.) But I did learn of one way in which Jews were definitely able to help their Tatar neighbors out:

"Circumcision is called siunniet (from Arab. sunna, Tur. sünnet – ‘tradition’), by Tatars ... It was formerly done by spe­cialised ritualists called siunnietdży, who were often Jews."