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Zajczik, Isaak

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Isaak Zajczik was a Soviet epidemiologist and a collector of postcards and pre-revolutionary postage miniatures, many of which are related to Judaism and Israel. He was born in Leningrad (St. Petesburg). He volunteered to fight on the front lines during the First Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) and also fought in the Russian army against Nazi Germany. In 1948 Isaak Zajczik applied to travel to Israel in order to defend the Jewish state during the War of Independence. His request was rejected - and this apparently saved him from future arrest. In Leningrad, he worked as a deputy chief physician in a municipal sanitary and epidemiological station, and taught at the Institute for Advanced Training. He began to study history, and was fond of collecting postcards. In particular, he collected postcards with views of synagogues. In 1990, he immigrated to Israel, and settled in Jerusalem. In Israel, he lectured to Russian-speaking immigrants on Jewish history, the history of the State of Israel, Jewish philosophy and Jewish traditions. The private collection of Isaak Zajczik includes: private photos; his and his wife’s personal documents; postcards of paintings of Russian-Jewish and Soviet-Jewish artists; postcards with portraits of writers, actors and scientists; postcards with paintings of Western Europe Jewish artists; postcards with Jewish sites of Palestine and Biblical motives; slides with portraits of Jewish writers; slides with sites of ancient Jerusalem; slides with views of Israeli cities and synagogues; slides of participants during the Dreyfus Trial in France and slides with caricatures --

Reference Code
P257
Dates
1910-2004
Consists of
11 files..
Languages
Russian; Hebrew;
Description
The personal collection of Isaak Zajczik contains private photos and documents, various postcards and slides. The collection includes photographs from 1910-1958 from the family album of Dina Smolianova (Isaak’s wife), the Ketubah of Dina’s parents who married in Poltava (1920), and a copy of the Ketubah of Isaak and Dina from Jerusalem (2004). The collection contains two postcards from the First World War from Jewish soldiers (1915-1916). Postcards with paintings of Russian-Jewish and Soviet-Jewish artists contain: paintings by Isaak Levitan, sculptures by Mark Antokolsky, paintings by Leonid Pasternak and Leon Bakst, paintings by Isaak Brodsky, a self-portrait of Natan Altman and more. Postcards with portraits of writers, actors, and scientists include: portraits of Albert Einstein, Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Heinrich Heine, Baruch Spinoza, Karl Liebknecht, Sholom-Aleichem, Mendele Mocher Sforim, and more. There are also several postcards with portraits of famous non-Jewish figures: Jean Jaurès, Abraham Lincoln, Franz Schubert. The collection includes a photograph of the Leningrad synagogue’s cantor David Stykin (1960), and photos of popular Soviet actors, directors and musicians of Jewish origin. The collection also contains two postcards with scenes from performances on a Jewish theme at the Moscow Art Theater (MHAT). Postcards with paintings of Jewish Western European artists include: paintings of Chaïm Soutine, Max Liebermann, Isaac Lazarus Israëls, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and more. Postcards with Jewish sites of Eretz Israel and Biblical motives include: views of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Beit Lehem, Jericho, Nazareth, the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, etc. The collection contains postcards with photographs of a Jewish cemetery in Tétouan (Morocco) and St. Petersburg, photographs of ritual objects from the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Jewish Studies, and photographs of synagogues in Budapest, Nalchik, and Patras. The collection also contains slides on subjects including: the Jewish way of life and Jewish holidays; pogroms; synagogues; portraits of Jewish writers; caricatures; sites of ancient Jerusalem and views of different Israeli cities; biblical motives and heroes; participants in the Dreyfus Trial in France, and more.
Title Zajczik, Isaak.
Contributors Dina,Smolianova 1922-2012
Host Item Zajczik, Isaak - Private Collection
Level of Description Fonds Record
Biographical summary Isaak Zajczik was a Soviet epidemiologist and a collector of postcards and pre-revolutionary postage miniatures. He was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1939 he enrolled at the Medical Institute, but in 1940, he volunteered to fight in the First Soviet-Finnish war. In 1941, he fought in the Russian army against Nazi Germany. After he was wounded in 1941, Isaak Zajczik returned to Leningrad and survived the siege. In August 1942, he was evacuated to Frunze (Bishkek). There he continued his studies at the Kyrgyz Medical Institute, and met his future wife - Dina Smolianova from Kharkiv. In 1948 Isaak Zajczik applied to travel to Israel to defend the Jewish state during the War of Independence. His request was rejected - and this apparently saved him from future arrest. After the war, he worked as a deputy chief physician in a sanitary and epidemiological station in Leningrad, and taught at the medical college. He was dismissed from his job in 1953 during the doctors' plot, but after 6 years he was reinstated. He began to study history, and was fond collecting of postcards, many of which related to Judaica. In 1990, Isaak Zajczik immigrated to Israel, and settled in Jerusalem. In Israel, he lectured to Russian-speaking immigrants on Jewish history, history of the State of Israel, Jewish philosophy and Jewish traditions.
Ownership history The documents were transferred to The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People by Isaak Zajczik's wife, Dina Zajczik (Smolianova), in 2005.
Language Note Russian and Hebrew
National Library system number 990043442630205171
Links פרטים על מיקום החומר/Location&access
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