Motal' (Russian: Motol, Yiddish: Motele) was a Shtetl located about 20 miles west of Pinsk on the Yasolda River. It was the birthplace of Israel's first President, Chaim Weizmann. The town was in the Grodno Guberniya in the Kobrin District.
Motol, 52'’ 19' N 25'’ 36' E, was in the Kobryn Uezd (district) of Grodno Gubernia (province) until the collapse of the Russian empire in 1917. Between WWI and WWII it was in the Drohiczyn district of the Polish Gubernia of Polesia. It is near the center of Polish Polesia which constituted an irregular rectangle of roughly 110 miles from east to west and 50 miles from north to south.
In 1937, Motol had 4,297 inhabitants, of whom 1,354 were Jews. (Reinharz, 1985).
The Destruction of Motele(Hurban Motele) was published in Hebrew by the Council of Motele Immigrants in Jerusalem in 1956. It was edited by A.L. Poliak, Ed. Dr. Dov Yarden. The book has 87 pages and contains memoirs and events leading up to the destruction of the Jews of Motele in 1942. An English Transaltion is available on the website of the JewishGen project.
Chapi