Born on 18 August 1886 in Izmail, south-western Ukraine, to a Jewish family, Shalom Schwartzbard (aka Samuel Schwartzbard aka Sholem Shvartsbard) remains one of the less well-known fighters of the Ukrainian Makhnovist uprising 1917-1921.

Schwartzbard was apprenticed at the age of 14 as a watchmaker. It was during this apprenticeship that he became interested in revolutionary ideas, getting involved with the local socialist group Iskra, named after the official journal of the Lenin’s Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During the 1905 Russian Revolution, Schwartzbard was in Kruti and participated in a Jewish-run paramilitary unit, for which he was eventually arrested and imprisoned.

Released as part of a wider amnesty of political prisoners by the Tsar following the revolution, Schwartzbard fled the Russian Empire in 1906 and, while living in exile in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he became an anarchist. After repeated arrests he was forced to relocate to France in 1910.

With the outbreak of World War One, Schwartzbard joined the French Foreign Legion, during which time he was wounded and honourably discharged along with an excellent military record. Demobilised in August 1917, he returned to the Russian Republic and went to Petrograd, where he joined the Red Guards, a politically-mixed volunteer paramilitary unit often made up of peasants and factory workers (these would later be reorganised into the Red Army under Bolshevik control)

Returning to Odessa, Ukraine, he began working to set up independent anarchist schools. In 1919, however, he re-enlisted in the Red Army upon hearing reports of numerous anti-Semitic pogroms by White and Ukrainian armies, which would eventually claim the lives of approximately 50,000 Ukrainian Jews, including 14 members of Schwartzbard’s own family.

During this time, it is also thought that Schwartzbard deserted the Red Army to join the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. Indeed, the RIAU helped organise self-defence among Jewish communities under attack from pogromists and had many Jewish members including some in leading roles such as Lev Zadov, central organiser of the RIAU’s intelligence corps, the Kontrrazvedka.

In 1920, Schwartzbard returned to Paris and opened a clock and watch repair shop. The RIAU would finally be defeated by the Bolshevik Red Army in 1921. In Paris he would become active in the French labour and anarchist movements, remaining in contact with many veterans from the Russian Revolution such as Volin, Peter Arshinov and even Makhno himself.

Symon Petliura, who was head of the Directorate of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1919, had moved to Paris in 1924 and was the head of the government-in-exile of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Sholom Schwartzbard, who had lost his family in the 1919 pogroms, held Symon Petliura responsible for them. According to his autobiography, after hearing the news that Petliura had relocated to Paris, Schwartzbard became distraught and started plotting Petliura's assassination. A picture of Petliura with Józef Piłsudski published in the Encyclopedia Larousse allowed Schwartzbard to recognize him.

On May 25, 1926, at 14:12, by the Gibert bookstore, he approached Petliura, who was walking on Rue Racine near Boulevard Saint-Michel of the Latin Quarter, Paris, and asked him in Ukrainian, "Are you Mr. Petliura?" Petliura did not answer but raised his cane. Schwartzbard pulled out a gun shooting him five times and, after Petliura fell to the pavement, twice more. When the police came and asked if he had done the deed, he reportedly said, "I have killed a great assassin." Other sources state that he attempted to fire an eighth shot into Petliura, but his firearm jammed.

The jury complied, acquiting Schwartzbard and awarding the somewhat insulting sum of one franc in damages each to Petliura’s widow and brother. In 1937, he travelled to South Africa to try and raise money for a Yiddish-language Encyclopedia. On 3 May 1938, while visiting Cape Town, Schwartzbard had a heart attack and died.

-- Schwartzbard, Shalom (1886-1938)

-- [Shalom Schwarzbard](https://vilnacollections.yivo.org/?ca=((item.php!id__rg-85*col__v)

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New question A fútbol fan's nightmare

A fútbol fan, upset by the defeat of their favorite team, slept restlessly. In their dream a goalkeeper was practicing in a large unfurnished room, tossing a fútbol ball against a wall, then catching it.

But the goalkeeper grew smaller and smaller and then changed into a ping-pong ball while the fútbol ball swelled up into a huge cast-iron ball. The iron ball circled around madly, trying to crush the ping-pong ball which darted desperately about. Could the ping-pong ball find safety without leaving the floor?

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POSTING QUOTES FROM JEWISH PHILOSOPHY - DAY 8

Today's quote comes from the Talmud (Berakhot 10a):

There were these hooligans in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood who caused him a great deal of anguish. Rabbi Meir prayed for God to have mercy on them, that they should die. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Berurya, said to him: What is your thinking? On what basis do you pray for the death of these hooligans? Do you base yourself on the verse, as it is written: “Let sins cease from the land” (Psalms 104:35), which you interpret to mean that the world would be better if the wicked were destroyed? But is it written, let sinners cease?” Let sins cease, is written. One should pray for an end to their transgressions, not for the demise of the transgressors themselves.

Moreover, go to the end of the verse, where it says: “And the wicked will be no more.” If, as you suggest, transgressions shall cease refers to the demise of the evildoers, how is it possible that the wicked will be no more, i.e., that they will no longer be evil? Rather, pray for God to have mercy on them, that they should repent, as if they repent, then the wicked will be no more, as they will have repented.
Rabbi Meir saw that Berurya was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented.

Interpreting this quote and applying it to the modern day is in my opinion quite straightforward: an approach to criminal justice must focus on rehabilitation, not on punishment.

There is another interesting part of this quote: who it is from. The one who gives this wisdom is not Rabbi Meir, but his wife, Berurya. (Also known as Bruriah and Beruriah.) It probably would not surprise you to learn that women in ancient Judaism were not treated equally to men. There are a number of Talmudic quotes that are unfortunately quite disparaging to women, which may indicate the attitudes of the Talmudic scholars. While women were not forbidden to study Torah, they were not obligated to do so like men were, so they were not in general as well educated or treated with the same respect as men were in regards to Torah study. It was sometimes said that a woman's priority should be on encouraging the men in her life to study Torah rather than studying it herself.

However, Berurya was said to be a great scholar. In another part of the Talmud, there is a story about her learning 300 halachot from 300 sages on a single day. The quote above is significant for a number of reasons: Berurya was a named woman in the Talmud, and not only was she quoted, but she also won the argument! This means that the Jewish canon necessarily recognizes that women can be sages as well. The Talmud is a dialectic, so coming out on top of an argument is probably about the highest honor one can have.

One thing I wonder: Where are female scholars elsewhere in the Talmud? This is a bit of speculation, but I have two guesses: Men were given credit for the wisdom coming from women, or the wisdom was simply not recorded, not being seen as important. I can only lament how much we have lost due to these historical sexist attitudes.