Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopolk-Mirskii - References and Links

References and Links

• Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov Edited by H.H. Fisher and translated by Laura Matveev; Stanford University Press, 1935.
• The Memoirs of Count Witte Edited and translated by Sydney Harcave; Sharpe Press, 1990.
• Biography of Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopok-Mirsky in Russian

Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopolk-Mirskii had a younger brother who converted to Judaism at age 17 after witnessing the suppression of what was called "the 1st Russian Revolt" conducted against the Czar by Jews and peasants in Moscow. The revolt was commanded by his own brother Pyotr Dmitrievich Sviatopolk-Mirskii. During this revolt, many innocent people died. Following a visionary night dream which showed the younger brother the glory of Jerusalem and ordered him to convert to Judaism, the younger brother began to question his family's connections and actions and decided to renounce his princely title and wealth and begin a journey on foot to Jerusalem. He was aided by a donkey he sometimes rode while sometimes used to carry his meager possessions. His Russian family warned him that he would be shunned if he decided to become a Jew. Still, he followed his spiritual vision, which he later described as: "A mystical calling from God showing me my future life in Jerusalem and that of my descendants to come." He left Moscow in the late 1880's and on his way to Jerusalem was aided by Jewish families of the Prushim Chassidic sect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilna_Gaon. He arrived in Jerusalem after his year long journey by foot, already a convert to Judaism. In the Old City of Jerusalem, in its Jewish Quarter, he became a Rabbi and later a leader of the Prushim movement. He never revealed his Russian first name and took on the first Name of Avaraham Mordechai. He kept his last name Mirsky. He married Hatoon Mizrahi: whose mother's mother came to Palestine with Ali's invasion in the 1830's from Egypt. Her father was of Kurdish origin of Jews who settled in the Old City's Jewish Quarter hundreds of years before. Hatoon was a born Jew on both sides. Eventually, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Mirsky gained utmost respect as one of the greatest leaders of the Prushim and practical kabbalists and became the "Gabay" or head Rabbi, of the Hurva synagogue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurva_Synagogue He died before World War I, of influenza, after getting a cold while burying a miscarried embryo on the Mount of Olives. His daughters tell how he foresaw his own death when arriving on that full moon night at the Mt. of Olives' Jewish Cemetery to bury the embryo, as he did often, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_of_Olives there he saw 9 men calling him by his name, to say the "Kadish" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish prayer, when he approached them, he saw them hovering upon his own grave while the 9 men: "dissipated like ghosts". Soon after that foretelling vision, he died and was buried on the Mt. Of Olives. His burial site along with that of thousands of other Jews, was demolished, when Jordan built a road crossing through the middle of the cemetery. Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Mirsky was described as extremely "Nordic" looking; tall, and blond with sapphire blue eyes, humble and happy at his lot and devoted to Judaism as well as religious Zionism in the style of Haggaon of Vilna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilna_Gaon. He left Hatoon a widow with 7 children whom as Ashkennazi Jews, grew up in abject poverty and famine in Jerusalem's Old City, until they were forced to leave in 1948 when that part of the city surrendered to Jordan. All of his childern looked like him and were often mistaken for Christians, except for his youngest daughter, who had her mother's dark complexion. His great grandson, working as an architect for the city of Jerusalem in the 1990's and early 21st century, was credited with saving the ruins of the Hurva synagogue by persuading then Architect Nahum Meltzer to speak to Mayor Ehud Olmert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Olmert, to restore the ruins of the former Hurva synagogue to its former glory instead of building a business complex as the city planned to do. A mystic himself, the great grandson, enlightened the respected mayor Olmert and Nahum Melzer, with a multitude of "synchronicities" he claimed were sent by his great grandfather and grandmother. The mayor was convinced and ordered the complete restoration of the Hurva synagogue. Yeshivat "Eitz Chayim" in the heart of Jerusalem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_Shearim commemorated Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Mirsky and even boasted his only known photo, proudly framed at its entrance for nearly a century, until it disappeared.