The Sochatchover Rebbe on the Polonia
On the Polish steamer Polonia in 1935, the Sochatchover Rebbe, Rabbi Dovid Bornsztain, walks the deck toward Haifa. At about 1:17 in the full reel, Rabbi Yaakov Meir Biderman is on his right and Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin on his left.
Archival Treasures – Ultra-Orthodox Life in the Holyland (1935; also jer-cin 60963). The archive streams this with DRM, so playback works most reliably on their site (Chrome: allow Protected Content). Alternate: open their player in a new tab (same stream, cued near 1:17).
On the Polonia deck
Cue the full reel to about 1:17. On the Polish steamer Polonia in 1935 (Constanța to Haifa, bound for Eretz Yisrael), a senior figure in a shtreimel walks the deck with two companions. The Israel Film Archive names him: the Sochatchover Rebbe, Rabbi Dovid Bornsztain.
The deck around them is crowded with frum passengers: talk, tefillah, and a party of Agudat Yisrael rabbis from Poland and Lithuania. On the right of the frame walks Rabbi Yaakov Meir Biderman, a Polish rav of the prewar generation. On the left, Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin, later a leading Agudah figure in Eretz Yisrael, a Knesset member, and a minister. The Rebbe was not part of the Agudah delegation itself; he appears as a passenger walking with those two.
Seven years to Gęsia Street
A few years after this voyage, the German occupation reached Łódź. Chasidim later smuggled the Sochatchover Rebbe into the Warsaw Ghetto on forged papers. There he kept a tish, supervised Sochatchover talmidim, and moved from place to place. He died of heart failure in the ghetto on 17 November 1942 (8 Kislev 5703), hiding on Gęsia Street. He was buried in the Gęsia cemetery; accounts say he was among the last, or the last, buried there before the cemetery was closed. His wife and children were murdered afterward. Rabbi Biderman, who walks with him on this deck, was also murdered in the Holocaust.
Third Sochatchover Rebbe
Rabbi Dovid Bornsztain (1876–1942) was the third Sochatchover Rebbe, son of Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain (the Shem MiShmuel) and grandson of Rabbi Avrohom Bornsztain (the Avnei Nezer). He became Rebbe after his father’s petirah in 1926. His court sat near Łódź; he built a network of yeshivos under the name Beis Avrohom and sat with Agudah’s Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (Agudah’s council of leading rabbis). Surviving Torah from him was later published as Chasdei Dovid.
Other Agudah faces on the same run
Earlier in the Polonia passage, the archive marks Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin coming up from below decks (about 0:53 on the short Polonia segment page; shortly before the Rebbe in the full reel). Behind him, briefly, is Rabbi Alexander Zusha Friedman, general secretary of Agudat Yisrael in Poland and author of Maayana shel Torah. Rabbi Sorotzkin survived and later chaired the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah and Chinuch Atzmai (independent Orthodox school network) in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Friedman was murdered; he appears in Warsaw Ghetto leadership accounts. Rabbi Levin, beside the Sochatchover Rebbe at about 1:17, also survived to Eretz Yisrael.
Where this clip sits in the reel
The Polonia segment opens a longer silent compilation the archive titles Ultra-Orthodox Life in the Holyland: Poalei Agudat builders, Mahane Israel below Mount Tabor, Jerusalem’s Bnei Zion Talmud Torah, and a hakhshara (agricultural training for aliyah) at Sobków in Poland. Those later passages are Agudat settlement and fundraising footage. This post stays with the Sochatchover Rebbe on the deck.
Haifa ahead
Steamship Polonia, Constanța–Haifa run
Haifa Port (arrival)
32.8194, 35.0044
Satellite view of Haifa Port. The archive places the Polonia segment on the Constanța–Haifa run; the named deck footage is at sea, with Haifa as the ship’s destination.
The film and what followed
Seven years after this voyage the Sochatchover Rebbe was niftar in the Warsaw Ghetto. Rabbi Biderman was also murdered. Rabbi Sorotzkin and Rabbi Levin reached Eretz Yisrael and continued Agudah public work here.
Timeline
- 1876
- Rabbi Dovid Bornsztain born in Nasielsk, Poland.
- 1926
- Becomes third Sochatchover Rebbe after the petirah of his father, Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain.
- 1935
- Filmed on the Polonia deck toward Haifa; Sochatchover Rebbe with Rabbi Biderman and Rabbi Levin at about 1:17 in the full reel; Rabbi Sorotzkin and Rabbi Friedman appear in the same ship passage.
- 1939
- German occupation of Poland; later smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto.
- 17 Nov 1942
- Petirah in the Warsaw Ghetto (8 Kislev 5703); buried at Gęsia.