Hebrew manuscript receipt, signed by the notables of the Kehillah of Volozhin

(VOLOZHIN).

Volozhin

Erev Rosh Chodesh Nissan, 1824

This note, signed by nine town notables, ackowledges receipt of the amount of 72 "zehuvim" (gold rubles) for the needs of the town, from fellow townsman R. Elijah ben Aaron. This amount is to be deducted from the proceeds of the new "Korobka" which has been leased to R. Elijah. The money is to be deposited with the "Rav ha-Gaon di-kehilatheinu" (the Rabbi of our community). "Korobka" or "meat-tax" was a levy that householders paid for each animal slaughtered. The kosher meat-tax was originally devised in order to supply funds for various communal needs, and was under the direct control of the Kahal. It was not uncommon for the monopoly to be farmed out to individuals. After the abolition of the autonomous Kahal in 1844, the Tsarist Russian government stepped into the picture, making the tax obligatory rather than voluntary on the part of the Jewish communities, and placing the tax under the jurisdiction of the corresponding municipal government. See JE, Vol. VII, p. 562. In 1824, the Rabbi of Volozhin was the Gaon R. Isaac, popularly known as "R. Itzeleh Volozhiner" (d. 1849), who succeeded his father R. Chaim (1749-1821) as Rabbi and Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin. The famed Yeshivah of Volozhin was founded exactly a generation earlier in 1803. See EJ, Vol. XVI, cols. 218-19