Help with translation, please

[Julia Verkholantsev]

"Shkol'nik" in this context is indeed the same as "shames" or "shamash" -- a
person who keeps and takes care of the synagogue. This is also a widespread
Jewish last name.

jv

-- 
Julia Verkholantsev
Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Acting Undergraduate Chair, Comparative Literature
University of Pennsylvania
745 Williams Hall
255 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/slavic/

Tel: 215-898-8649
Fax: 215-573-7794


> Jules Levin wrote:
>
> > I am translating 19th C. Jewish birth registrations from the Pale of
> > Settlement.
> >
> > I find in a document I am working on the term "shkol'nik" used for
> > adult witnesses aged 58 and 67. I suspect that these witnesses are
> > employees of the synagogue (shul), and the term shkol'nik was the
> > Russian translation (if anyone actually used it) for a shamus
> > (beadle).
> >
> > Can anyone confirm this or correct it? Modern dictionaries do not
> > even give shkola as a Russian rendering of shul, but it would be
> > parallel with German and Italian (scuola), so I suppose it could have
> > been a hyper-learned usage...

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