Mejloch Kleinzahler's book

The collection of the library in the Old Synagogue in Kraków contains a pre-war copy of a book by Sholem Asch from the collection of Mejloch Kleinzahler from Czarny Dunajec.

This is the first book found so far that belonged to the Jewish Library in Czarny Dunajec and the first trace at all that such a library existed before the war. On the copy of the collection of short stories by the pre-war Jewish author, Sholem Asch, born in 1880 in Kutno, there are two stamps: the Jewish Reading Room in Czarny Dunajec and the Library of the Association [?] in Czarny Dunajec. But in addition to this, there is a handwritten note in Polish and Yiddish: “From the collection of M. L. (Mejloch Lejb) Kleinzahler”.

This is an extraordinary coincidence, because in 2022, in a demolished building where the Kleinzahler family lived in Czarny Dunajec before the war, a letter was found, also written by Mejloch Kleinzahler (you can read more about the letter here). According to the account of his nephew's wife, who lives in Israel, Mejloch lived in Kazimierz in Krakow and was probably an optician. It is not known what happened to him during the war.

It is also not known how the book ended up in the collections of the Old Synagogue library in Krakow. After the war, people brought Jewish books to it, and Mejloch's book was probably among them. The copy is worn, some pages are torn off, and others have children's drawings, but it is still a very valuable artifact in the digital archive of the Jewish community of Czarny Dunajec.

The book was published by the Vilnius publishing house B. A. Kletskin (Vilner Farlag), located on Św. Szczepana 23. It was one of the most important publishing houses in the Russian Partition, which published and printed books in Yiddish before the war.

Thanks to Karolina Ożóg from the library of the Old Synagogue, a branch of the Krakow Museum, for the information and pictures and thanks to Esther Bardack for additional information and translation.