For the descendants of Ostroh’s Jewish community in Volhynia, today’s 7 Tammuz is not an ordinary date. It is celebrated as a local Purim, known as the Purim of Tammuz, commemorating a rescue tied to an unexploded cannon shell.
Ostroh, in what is now western Ukraine, once had a large Jewish population, at times making up more than half the town. It was known as “Ohel Torah,” a title that sounds close to the city’s name in Ashkenazi pronunciation. Prominent rabbis, including the Maharshal, the Taz, and the Shelah, lived in or passed through the town, and its great synagogue was named for the Maharshal.
According to the account, in 1768 local peasants tried to attack Jews during the Haidamak uprising, but Jewish residents hired mercenaries who stopped them before they arrived. The better-known episode came in 1792, during the Russo-Polish War, when General Alexander Suvorov besieged Ostroh. The Poles slipped away overnight, and the Jews woke to find themselves alone before a Russian army that thought it was facing a fortified stronghold. The community gathered in the Maharshal synagogue for prayer, while Russian guns fired for two days. Two shells hit the synagogue, one lodging in a wall and another landing on the floor, but neither exploded.
A local Jew reportedly approached Suvorov and told him, “The Poles have fled, there is no army here, there is no fortress. There are only Jews praying to God.” Suvorov believed him. On 7 Tammuz, Russian troops entered without battle or destruction, the shelling stopped, and the community was saved. A special “Megillat Tammuz” was later written, and the date was observed every year with synagogue readings, following the Jewish custom that rescued communities establish their own Purim.
The Jewish community that survived that earlier danger did not survive the Holocaust. Of the thousands who had lived in the city, only about 60 survived, and just five families returned after the war. Today, there are no Jews left in Ostroh.
