Semey’s Jewish heritage

Semey’s Jewish community in archival and family records

In many Kazakhstan cities, Jewish history is reconstructed from individual names, later directories, memoirs and records of post-Soviet organisations. Semipalatinsk has an unusually rich body of sources.

Researchers at the East Kazakhstan Regional Architectural, Ethnographic and Natural Landscape Museum used pre-revolutionary periodicals, collections of Kazakhstan’s Central State Archive, records from the Centre for Documentation of Contemporary History, cemetery registers and family archives. These materials describe community institutions, their members and the authorities’ decisions that ended organised religious life in the early 1930s.

The historic religious community, contemporary cultural centre and Hesed belong to different organisations; the former synagogue survives as a building.

The community appears in records in the second half of the nineteenth century

A study of the formation of East Kazakhstan’s Jewish diaspora cites figures from the military governor of Semipalatinsk Region. In 1870, the region recorded 77 Jews, of whom 63 lived in Semipalatinsk itself.

Later statistical snapshots change sharply. Researchers give 17 Jewish residents in Semipalatinsk for 1885 and 281 for 1887. The Russian Empire’s first general census in 1897 recorded 182 people of the Jewish faith in Semipalatinsk.

Different administrative records and categories were used in different years, so these figures do not form a single demographic series. They confirm a Jewish presence in Semipalatinsk in the second half of the nineteenth century.

By 1895, a reference source used by the museum researchers also reported a Jewish school attended by seven boys. This indirectly supports accounts of a prayer house in the city before the large synagogue was built in the early twentieth century.

Accounts describe the first prayer house, but archival confirmation is missing

N. V. Krutova describes the building at today’s 51 Beiseitov Street, formerly Belinsky Street and, before that, Dalnyaya Street. Members of Semipalatinsk’s community recalled that the early Jewish prayer house stood here.

In the mid-2000s, the researcher could still inspect the building. Its owners described a recess for the Aron Kodesh and stairs to a women’s balcony. During the Soviet decades, it housed a tuberculosis dispensary. A bank occupied it later.

Krutova found no archival document directly confirming the building’s original use as a prayer house. The case rested on residents’ oral memories, architectural details and indirect evidence of a Jewish school in the late nineteenth century.

The museum study records the building as a bank; available sources provide no information on its use after the mid-2000s.

The “Jewish row” and the large synagogue

Another building is much better documented. It stands at today’s 16 Alash Kozbagarov Street, on the corner with Ibrayev Street. Historically, the street was called Loktevskaya and then Oktyabrskaya.

The museum study states that residents called this area the “Jewish row”. A substantial part of the city’s Jewish population was concentrated here. The new large synagogue was built here too.

The archival reconstruction draws on Semipalatinskiye Oblastnye Vedomosti. After the newly built synagogue was consecrated, the Jewish society sent a telegram to the emperor. The Minister of the Imperial Court’s reply is dated 17 September 1913. On this and other evidence, the researcher unequivocally dates the synagogue’s construction and opening to 1913.

The former synagogue is dated to 1856 or 1913

Abai Region’s current state list of historical and cultural monuments of local significance identifies the site at 16 Kozbagarov Street as a “sports school (former synagogue)” and dates it to 1856. The city’s monuments page repeats that date.

Meanwhile, the archival study, based on pre-revolutionary press and Semipalatinsk collections, describes a newly built synagogue on Loktevskaya Street in 1913, associating it with the building that later became a sports facility.

Available sources do not explain whether the 1856 and 1913 dates concern the same building. They do not establish whether the discrepancy reflects a dating error, reconstruction of an earlier building or confusion between different prayer houses.

The sources provide two different dates.

The official state register dates the surviving building to 1856. The archival study documents the opening of a newly built synagogue in 1913. The dates of 1856 and 1913 remain a discrepancy between sources. Establishing their relationship requires architectural and archival comparison.

Who was the new synagogue’s rabbi?

The study identifies Kiva Itskovich Rabinovich as the new Semipalatinsk synagogue’s first documented rabbi.

Rabinovich was a pharmacy assistant, worked in Semipalatinsk pharmacies, traded in perfumes and cosmetics, took part in charity and appeared in lists of people eligible for jury service. The 1914 Reference Book of Semipalatinsk Region listed him as rabbi of the Jewish prayer house.

In May 1915, when Rabinovich went on leave, Khatskel Fabrikant performed the religious teacher’s duties. An earlier source from 1912 names Movsha Abramovich Gilfand as the Jewish society’s acting “scholar and teacher”.

Sources also mention other “Jewish scholars” performing religious and educational functions.

After mid-1915, Rabinovich’s documented biography in Semipalatinsk breaks off; the study does not establish whether he subsequently returned to the post.

The community continued after the revolution

The synagogue did not close immediately after 1917.

In 1921, the community underwent Soviet re-registration and signed an agreement to use the building. In 1922, silver ornaments were taken from Torah scrolls during the campaign to seize religious valuables.

In June 1930, worshippers again submitted registration documents. Their application explicitly states that 60 citizens decided to form a Jewish religious community in Semipalatinsk called the “Jewish Community”.

The surviving membership list names workers, artisans, cab drivers, shoemakers, carpenters, office employees, homemakers, a photographer and a hat maker. Members were aged between 22 and 85.

Events in 1932 can be reconstructed almost month by month

In April 1932, the authorities again demanded community re-registration and a new agreement for the building.

A report dated 28 June recorded visits to the synagogue about eight times a month, with an average attendance of 15; prayers were held twice on Saturdays. At that point, neither the congregation’s council nor its audit commission had been elected.

During the summer, meetings of various city groups began adopting resolutions calling for three religious buildings to be seized. These were the synagogue, an Orthodox cathedral and a mosque.

In August and September, the city council petitioned for the synagogue’s closure and proposed using the building as a library.

On 2 October 1932, a report was drawn up recording the sealing of the prayer house at 36 Oktyabrskaya Street.

Afterwards, worshippers asked for permission at least to gather in another room for Yom Kippur. Ruvim Zuskovich Mostinsky was among the signatories. His family later preserved an old cemetery register.

On 20 November 1932, the authorities established a commission to dissolve the synagogue and transfer the building to the city’s central library. A detailed inventory of religious property was drawn up during the handover. It included the ark, a seven-branched candlestick, a curtain, raised platforms, chandeliers, candleholders, benches and other objects. There were 29 entries in total.

The 1932 records document the sequence of official decisions and actions that ended in the synagogue’s dissolution.

The building outlived the community it was built for

In 1935 and 1936, the former synagogue was assigned to a physical education centre, a city club and other institutions. An extension was later added to the historic building, which housed a children’s sports school.

The museum study from the mid-2000s reported that the Batyr sports complex had operated in the building since 1997.

Abai Region’s current monuments list retains the building at 16 Kozbagarov Street as a monument of urban planning and architecture of local significance named “Sports School (Former Synagogue)”. It is not used as a synagogue; the monument’s existence does not establish an active religious community.

Burials from 1879 were found in Semey’s Jewish cemetery

Museum fieldwork records the earliest identified burials in 1879 and the latest entries in 1970. Researchers provisionally divide the cemetery into an “old” section with burials from 1879 to 1945 and a “new” section covering 1945 to 1970.

In another study, Krutova notes that the surviving cemetery register she used begins in 1892. An earlier burial may be confirmed by a gravestone or another source, while the surviving register starts later.

Researchers reconstructed 361 burials from the cemetery register. For many, they established birth and death dates, rows and grave locations.

Late nineteenth-century matzevot are among the earliest and most distinctive monuments. They bear Hebrew and Russian inscriptions and images of the menorah, tablets and Star of David. Described gravestones include Grigory Leibovich Zelener’s late nineteenth-century grave. Another monument, dated 1897, is a stone sarcophagus, rare in this region.

Gravestones and the cemetery register preserve names, languages, decorative traditions and evidence of the duration of the city’s Jewish presence.

The post-Soviet community took a different organisational form

New civic infrastructure emerged in Semey after the USSR dissolved, but this was not the legal restoration of the same religious community registered in 1930.

The public association “Boker Jewish Cultural Centre” was registered on 18 March 1992. Contemporary register aggregators using government open data show it as active and name Ilya Vladimirovich Barokhovsky as its head.

An ethnocultural directory also lists Boker among the region’s Jewish organisations.

Hesed Semey / Semipalatinsk represents a separate charitable organisation. In 2026, the Association of Jewish Communities of Kazakhstan’s website continues to list it alongside the Jewish cultural centre, naming Alevtina Ruban as Hesed’s director. Its published history states that a branch of Hesed Polina opened in Semipalatinsk with support from the Joint in 2004.

Much of the association’s programme descriptions and news archive dates from 2000 to 2017. The page’s presence in 2026 does not confirm that earlier programmes, staff and operating arrangements remain unchanged.

What about today’s religious community?

The city administration’s official page, updated on 20 May 2026, reports 30 active religious associations: 16 Muslim, 2 Orthodox, 2 Catholic and 10 Protestant. There is no Jewish religious association on this list.

The Boker cultural centre and Hesed undertake civic and charitable activity; their presence does not establish a registered Jewish religious community.

In brief

• 1870. The military governor’s statistics document 63 Jews in Semipalatinsk.
• Late nineteenth century. An early prayer house probably existed. Identification of the specific building at 51 Beiseitov Street rests chiefly on oral tradition and indirect evidence.
• 1879 to 1970. Museum researchers established this period of burials in the old Jewish cemetery. The surviving cemetery register begins in 1892.
• 1913. Archival sources document the opening of a newly built large synagogue on Loktevskaya Street.
• 1856 and 1913. The current state list dates the building at 16 Kozbagarov Street to 1856. The archival study gives 1913 for the synagogue’s opening. The discrepancy remains unresolved.
• 1914. Kiva Itskovich Rabinovich is documented as rabbi of Semipalatinsk’s Jewish prayer house.
• 5 June 1930. 60 citizens applied to register a Jewish religious community.
• 2 October and 20 November 1932. The prayer house was sealed on 2 October. On 20 November, the synagogue’s dissolution and the building’s transfer to secular use were formalised.
• From the 1930s. The building was used for a library, physical education and other city purposes. It is now protected as a former synagogue and architectural monument of local significance.
• 18 March 1992. The Boker Jewish Cultural Centre was registered.
• 2004. Community sources date the opening of a Hesed Polina branch in Semipalatinsk to this year.
• 20 May 2026. Semey’s official list of 30 religious associations contains no Jewish organisation.