- September 30, 2026
- 4:08 pm
- World News
On September 29, 1933, a small trading vessel “Emanuel” set sail from Aarhus, Denmark. On board was a Jewish crew, the ship sailed under a Jewish name, and an unusual blue and white flag with the Star of David fluttered above the deck. The ship was commanded by 21-year-old Aryeh Grevnov.
Author: Alexander Khmelnitsky
The State of Israel did not yet exist. Almost fifteen years remained until May 14, 1948. The current national flag of Israel did not exist in its official status either. But a young Jew from Ukraine was already trying to do what seemed almost fantastic at the time: to create his own Jewish merchant fleet, with his own sailors, ships, a home port in Eretz Israel, and a flag over the sea.
On September 29, “Emanuel” departed from Aarhus to Antwerp with a cargo of soybeans. In the history of Israeli navigation, this voyage remained one of the symbols of the birth of the modern Jewish fleet. Grevnov’s company “Hofiya” lasted only a few months. Aryeh himself — less than twenty-two years.
That is why in our section “Jews from Ukraine“ we are telling the story of Aryeh Grevnov today — a man whose biography connected a Ukrainian Jewish shtetl, early Zionism, Tel Aviv, and the first attempts to create his own Jewish fleet.
But this story did not begin on the Mediterranean Sea.
It began in the Ukrainian town of Ichnya, on a small river, among Jewish shops, the Torah, early Zionist conversations, revolution, and pogroms.
Born in Ichnya, at home he was called Lyova
Aryeh Grevnov was born on May 1, 1912, in Ichnya, today a city in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine.
In the family, the boy was called Lyova — in Hebrew biographical sources, the form “Lyuba” is found. Later, already in Eretz Israel, he would become Aryeh.
His father Chaim Grevnov traded in fabrics. His mother was Sonia, daughter of Yehuda-Leib Ozerov. Aryeh had a younger sister, Nyusya.
One of the main early biographies of Grevnov is found in the “Encyclopedia of the Founders and Builders of Israel” by David Tidhar, published in 1952, that is, during the lifetime of people who personally knew the family. Tidhar characterized Chaim Grevnov not just as a merchant: he was a man of traditional Jewish education, a “ben-Torah” and a supporter of the Chovevei Zion — “Lovers of Zion” movement, predecessors of political Zionism.
Therefore, Zionism for the future sailor, it seems, appeared not in Antwerp, not in Tel Aviv, and not even in adolescence. He grew up with it at home.
This is an important detail. When we speak today from Israel “a Jew from Ukraine,” it is easy to imagine only a point of birth on the map. In the case of Grevnov, the Ukrainian part of the biography was much deeper: his early childhood passed in Ichnya, his Jewish identity was formed there, he first studied the Torah there, and — if we believe the early biography — it was there that he first wanted to participate in the Zionist movement.
What Ichnya was like
Ichnya is an old town in the northeast of present-day Ukraine, between Pryluky, Nizhyn, and Konotop. Historically, this area belongs to the Left Bank of Ukraine. In the 17th century, there was the Ichnya Cossack Regiment, later the town became part of the administrative system of the Hetmanate, and after the liquidation of its autonomy — the Russian Empire.
By the end of the 19th — beginning of the 20th century, Ichnya was no longer just a rural settlement. It was a small trade and craft center with railway communication. Lines to Bakhmach, Pryluky, and Konotop passed through the region. For a fabric merchant’s family, this had quite practical significance: goods, people, news, and money moved here much faster than in an isolated village.
In 1897, about ten thousand people lived in Ichnya.
The Jewish community was relatively small. The International Jewish Cemetery Project attributes the formation of a permanent Jewish community in Ichnya to the second half of the 19th century and gives the figure of about 575 Jews for 1913. That is, at the time of Aryeh’s birth, it was several hundred people — a noticeable community, but Ichnya was by no means a “Jewish town” like Berdychiv or some shtetls of Podolia.
For the Israeli reader, it is important to clarify one detail here. The Chernihiv province was part of the so-called Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire — the territory within which most Jews were allowed to live permanently. But even within this Pale, one could not simply choose any city and settle there: there were additional restrictions, exceptions, and special permits.
Ichnya was just such a difficult case. Historical directories indicate that the possibility of permanent Jewish residence here was regulated separately, and in the documents of the State Archive of the Chernihiv region, for example, there is a case from 1903 “On allowing Jews to temporarily reside in the town of Ichnya, Borznyansky district”.
That is, the appearance of the Jewish community in Ichnya was relatively late and occurred under administrative restrictions. By 1913, there were about 575 Jews here. It was a small community against the backdrop of about ten thousand city residents, but already quite stable — with its families of merchants and craftsmen, religious life, and connections with Konotop, Pryluky, Nizhyn, and other Jewish centers in the region.
And yet the community existed. There was religious life, families of merchants and craftsmen, connections with larger Jewish centers in the region.
One of these families was the Grevnovs.
Torah, yeshiva, and a very stubborn boy
According to Tidhar, already at about nine years old, Lyova could read the Torah with traditional cantillation.
Later, he was sent to study in a yeshiva in the Konotop area. For a modern Israeli, Konotop today is primarily a Ukrainian city in the Sumy region, about several dozen kilometers from Ichnya. But before the revolution, it was also one of the regional centers of Jewish life.
At the same time, the parents did not limit their son to only religious education. He was preparing for secular exams as well. Tidhar’s biography claims that the boy mastered the program of several gymnasium classes in a very short time. How accurately specific terms can be verified today is a question, but the overall picture is clear: his education was both Jewish and secular.
And at about 10 years old (1922), an event occurred that explains a lot about Grevnov’s future character.
According to Tidhar, the boy wanted to join a Zionist underground organization that was already operating under Soviet rule. He was not accepted. The reason was quite banal — too young.
Then he created his own children’s organization.
Moreover, if we believe this biography, he invented rules of conspiracy for it that were almost stricter than those of adults.
At twenty, the same person would be gathering sailors, looking for investors, registering a company, and traveling across half of Europe for his own ship. So the story of a ten-year-old boy who did not agree with the answer “you’re still too young” looks very Grevnov-like.
Childhood amidst revolution and pogroms
But romanticizing childhood in Ichnya is definitely not worth it.
When the 1917 revolution began, Aryeh was five. Then came the Civil War. Power on Ukrainian territories changed sometimes several times over a short period: Ukrainian formations, Bolsheviks, Whites, local atamans, armed gangs.
The Jewish population became one of the main victims of this chaos.
Documents of the era record a pogrom directly in Ichnya. In a summary of pogroms in the Chernihiv province, based on the materials of the Cherikover archive, an attack is indicated on April 13, 1919, during which 14 Jews were killed. Aryeh was not yet seven years old then.
This is not the only episode of violence from that period. The wave of pogroms from 1918 to 1920 passed through a huge number of settlements in Ukraine, and crimes were committed by various forces — military units, insurgent formations, White Guards, individual parts associated with the UNR army, Grigorievites, and numerous gangs. Simplifying this tragedy to one political scheme would be historically incorrect.
We do not yet have a document in which Grevnov himself describes what exactly he saw as a seven-year-old child in Ichnya. Therefore, inventing memories for him is not permissible.
But one thing is known for sure: he grew up in a city where a Jewish pogrom occurred during his childhood.
And soon after that, the boy became interested in Zionism and Palestine.
Are these things directly related? This is already an interpretation, not an established fact. However, the historical background in which the family made the decision to leave is quite understandable.
From little Ichenka — to the Mediterranean Sea
There is another almost incredibly fitting detail to this story.
According to Grevnov’s early biography, his love for water began at home when he swam in the river near Ichnya.
This refers to the small Ichenka, flowing through the town.
Not the Mediterranean Sea. Not the Atlantic. Not the harbor of Antwerp.
A small Ukrainian river.
Two decades later, the boy who learned to swim in Ichnya would stand on the deck of his own ship in a European port and hold the flag of the future Jewish fleet.
NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency tells this story in our regular section “Jews from Ukraine” precisely because in Grevnov’s biography, not a single half can be erased. Without Ichnya, it is impossible to understand Tel Aviv. Without the Jewish home of Chaim Grevnov — his Zionism. Without the dream of Zion — the story of “Emanuel”.
When did the family leave — 1922 or 1924?
Here the sources differ, and this is a case where it is better to leave the question open than to invent a beautiful exact date.
A later family version attributes the Grevnovs’ move to Eretz Israel to 1922, when Aryeh was about ten.
Tidhar indicates 1924 and writes that Aryeh, along with his parents and sister, “fled from Russia”.
Therefore, it can be confidently said: in the first half of the 1920s, the Grevnov family left Soviet Ukraine and moved to Mandatory Palestine.
They settled in Tel Aviv, in the Nordia district. Later, the family address — Bograshov Street, 79 — would become important for Aryeh himself: there were the family, a small shop of the parents, and effectively the headquarters of his maritime projects.
For a modern Israeli, Bograshov needs no special explanation. But then it was a completely different Tel Aviv — a young Jewish settlement, a rapidly growing city still without a state, without its own full-fledged merchant fleet, and without the infrastructure we are used to.
“Herzliya”, “Zevulun” and the idea that Jews need a fleet
Aryeh continued his education at the “Herzliya” gymnasium.
And here his Ukrainian childhood fascination with water turns into a profession and ideology.
His mathematics teacher Meir Gurvitz, one of the enthusiasts of the Jewish maritime movement, played a significant role. Grevnov joined the “Zevulun” organization, which was engaged in maritime training of Jewish youth, and later taught there himself.
The goal was much broader than teaching teenagers to handle a boat.
Zionist construction assumed that Jews should be able to do everything necessary for a normal country: grow bread, build roads, defend settlements, create industry — and go to sea.
Not just use other people’s ships.
Create their own.
Grevnov participated in the first projects of the future port infrastructure of Tel Aviv. In the early 1930s, students of the maritime school, together with their mentors, experimented with mooring facilities on the coast.
And then he decided to get a real maritime education.
Antwerp — and another dispute in the biography
In 1929, Grevnov went to Belgium and entered the maritime academy in Antwerp.
The fact of his studies is confirmed by the academy’s archive: there is a registration of Grevnov as a élève libre, a free student of the long-distance navigation program.
But then the dispute begins.
The traditional Israeli biography claimed that Grevnov completed the program acceleratedly and received the qualification of a naval officer. Later researchers, in particular Captain Avraham Ariel, found that the academy’s documents confirm the study, but reliable evidence of passing the full set of exams and obtaining the corresponding diploma could not be found.
There is also an amusing detail: when registering in Antwerp, the birth date of 1910 was listed, while family and Israeli sources give 1912. Perhaps the age was deliberately increased.
Therefore, calling him a graduate of the academy with a fully confirmed diploma without reservations would be incorrect.
But in the practical part, there are significantly fewer doubts: Grevnov lived by the sea, worked with sailors, taught, participated in maritime organizations, and finally went to sea on his own ship.
He is twenty. He decided to create a Jewish shipping company
Returning to Eretz Israel, Grevnov continued working in “Zevulun”, wrote about the sea, and began gathering professional sailors.
In 1933, he created the “Association of Sailors of Eretz Israel”. In a short time, about twelve specialists were gathered.
Then the shipping company “Hofiya” — חופיה בע”מ appeared.
The company was registered in Tel Aviv, and the address was still the same house of the Grevnov family on Bograshov, 79. The plan of the 20–21-year-old Aryeh was not at all adolescent: to buy a ship, register it as belonging to a Jewish company of Eretz Israel, recruit a Jewish crew, and develop cargo lines between Palestine, the Mediterranean, and Europe.
One of the main investors in the project, Yosef Blumenfeld from Merhavia, left memories of the negotiations. In April 1933, he gave Grevnov money for the trip and an advance for the purchase of a ship.
Grevnov went to look for a ship in Europe.
And found it in Denmark.
An old two-masted ship becomes “Emanuel”
The ship was far from new.
The only offer Grevnov could afford was found in northern Denmark, in Aalborg. In June 1933, he became the owner of an old two-masted schooner capable of carrying up to two hundred tons of cargo. It no longer had sail rigging, but it did have a small engine. The ship itself required serious repairs.
Here, however, there is a discrepancy in the sources regarding the age of the ship. It is usually indicated that it was built in the Netherlands in 1904 and was originally called Johanna Elizabeth. If this date is correct, in 1933 the ship was about 29 years old, not 52. Therefore, the figure “52-year-old schooner,” found in some publications, should be considered questionable.
It was a small two-masted motor-sailing ship with a gross tonnage of about 140 tons and a carrying capacity of about 200 tons.
For large shipping — almost nothing.
For a twenty-one-year-old Jew from Ichnya, who decided to create his own shipping company almost from scratch — already a real fleet.
The ship was transferred to the “Hofiya” company and received the name “Emanuel” — “God is with us”.
The news of the appearance of a national Jewish trading ship caused a real uplift among the Jewish community of Aalborg. According to one version, it was the local Jewish women who sewed the white and blue flag with the Star of David for the ship. It was raised over the schooner even before the first full-fledged commercial voyage.
Grevnov called his comrades to Denmark. A Jewish crew was being formed, including Binyamin Levin and mechanic Eliyahu Rozin. The ship was being repaired, put in order, and prepared for cargo voyages.
From Aalborg, “Emanuel” moved to Aarhus, where the repair continued. And only at the end of September 1933 did the ship finally take on a cargo of soybeans and set off on its first full-fledged commercial voyage — to Antwerp.
But even this first voyage turned out to be almost a test of survival.
The passage, which was supposed to be a relatively ordinary trading voyage, stretched for almost a month and a half. During this time, “Emanuel” managed to collide with a German ship, Grevnov quarreled with a coast guard officer, the engine broke down, the ship lost two anchors, ran aground, and eventually had to reach Antwerp by tow.
For a normal shipping company, such a voyage would look almost catastrophic.
For Grevnov — it seems, another confirmation that the project needs to continue.
He did not give up either the ship or the idea of a Jewish merchant fleet.
And above the deck, the blue and white flag with the Magen David was already flying all this time.
Not quite today’s flag of Israel
This is important to explain.
The blue and white Zionist symbolism and the Magen David existed long before the creation of Israel. Flags very similar to the modern state flag were used by the Zionist movement since the late 19th century.
But the flag of the ‘Emanuel’ was different.
In well-known photographs, a blue and white maritime flag with the Magen David and the designation of the ‘Hofiya’ company is visible. Researchers reconstruct it as a special flag of the Jewish fleet created for Grevnov’s project.
And on September 29, 1933, it was above a real merchant ship.
After repairs, the ‘Emanuel’ moved from Aalborg to Aarhus, took on a cargo of soybeans, and set off for Antwerp.
The Danish press paid attention to both the unusual ship and the new Jewish flag. Israeli sources call this voyage the first commercial sailing of a ship of the revived Jewish fleet under its own Jewish flag in the modern era.
This happened two days before the official opening of the deep-water port of Haifa on October 1, 1933.
A very symbolic coincidence: literally in the same days, the Jewish maritime infrastructure of Eretz-Israel was beginning to turn from an idea into reality.
Southampton: a photograph that outlived the ship
Later, the ‘Emanuel’ ended up in English Southampton.
It was there in January 1934 that one of the most famous photographs of this story was taken: young Grevnov and his people stand on the deck and display the flag of the Jewish fleet.
He is still twenty-one.
In this photograph, no one yet knows that the ‘Emanuel’ has only a few weeks left to live.
Grevnov, meanwhile, did not intend to stop at one old ship. In the UK, he tried to negotiate the status of the Jewish merchant fleet and even offered the British Admiralty to consider it as a kind of Jewish addition to the British merchant fleet.
He never received a response.
The last voyage
On January 30, 1934, the ‘Emanuel’ left the English port of Poole.
On board was a cargo of porcelain clay intended for delivery to Greece.
The ship went to sea.
And disappeared.
Neither the ‘Emanuel’ nor its crew of five sailors returned home.
In the 1934 edition of Lloyd’s Register, the owner of the vessel is listed as Arieh Grevnov, and later a note appeared next to the entry: Missing since 1.34 — missing since January 1934.
The exact location of the ship’s demise was never established.
One of the most common versions is a disaster in the Bay of Biscay, known for severe winter storms. But no wreckage was found that would allow a final conclusion.
It is unknown why, despite the storm warning, without waiting for more suitable weather, the overloaded and seriously needing repair ship went to sea against all odds.
Arieh Grevnov was 21 years old.
The ‘Hofiya’ company, having lost its only ship, owner, and core crew, ceased to exist. Its entire maritime history spanned about four months.
The father continued to wait
After the disappearance of the ‘Emanuel’, the parents remained in Tel Aviv.
And here ends the story not of the fleet, but of the family.
According to preserved testimonies, Chaim Grevnov was long reluctant to finally acknowledge his son’s death. Even years later, the issue of insurance payments for the ship remained for the family not only about money: acknowledging the insurance case meant acknowledging that Arieh would not return.
In 1950, Chaim and Sonia donated a Torah scroll in memory of their son to one of the Tel Aviv synagogues.
Arieh’s name also appeared on a memorial plaque for the fallen sons of the Nordia district.
Sister Nyusya continued to live in Israel; the family retained descendants who for decades collected documents and defended Arieh’s memory, including when researchers began to argue about some details of his official biography.
And an unexpected archival thread back to Ukraine
The history of the Grevnovs in Ukraine has not yet been fully studied.
In the documents of the Chernihiv region, other people with the surname Grevnov are also found. In one of the lists from the early 20th century, a Jew named Yudka Grevnov, who lived in the region for several decades, is mentioned.
Even more interesting is the investigative case of the Pryluky district department of the GPU from 1927, related to Zionist activities. Among the surnames mentioned there are Yehuda Berkovich Grevnov, Milya Grevnov, and Tsira Grevnov.
So far, there is no basis to declare them relatives of Arieh. The same, albeit quite rare surname, is not yet proof of kinship.
But the combination of circumstances is curious: the same region, Jewish Grevnovs, Zionist activity — and the family of Chaim Grevnov from Ichnya, which itself was associated with Zionism.
Perhaps someday metric books, family lists of the Borzna district, or the family archive of descendants will allow this line to be extended another generation or two back.
For now, the question remains open.
In Israel, he is remembered — but…
The memory of Arieh Grevnov in Israel has been preserved primarily in two places — in the Nordia district in Tel Aviv, where his family lived, and in the history of Jewish seafaring.
In the former synagogue of the Nordia district on Bugrashov Street, 63, on the wall facing the sea, a marble memorial to Arieh Grevnov is installed. On it, he is called “חלוץ ימי” — “pioneer of the sea”. His name is the first on the memorial plaque for the fallen residents of the district.
In 1950, Arieh’s parents, Chaim and Sonia Grevnov, donated a Torah scroll in memory of their son to this same synagogue. The ceremony was not a private family event but a public commemorative event with the participation of organizational representatives.
In the same 1950, an attempt was made to secure his name on the city map. Four well-known Tel Aviv residents, including the director of the Herzliya Gymnasium Chaim Boger and one of the figures of the Jewish maritime movement Meir Gurvitz, appealed to the municipal commission on street names to name one of the streets of Tel Aviv after Arieh Grevnov. The initiative was supported by the maritime organization “Hevel Yami le-Israel”. But a street in his name in the city ultimately did not appear.
At the same time, in the professional maritime community, his name did not disappear.
Grevnov was remembered in connection with the society “Zvulun”, where he first studied maritime affairs and then himself trained young sailors; with the association of sailors of Eretz-Israel he created; with the shipping company “Hofiya”; and, of course, with “Emanuel” — the only vessel of this company.
“Zvulun” is a Jewish youth maritime organization in Eretz-Israel, created to prepare Jews for maritime affairs: sailing, boat and ship management, navigation, fishing, and generally professions related to the sea. In the 1920s-1930s, this was part of a much broader Zionist idea: the future Jewish country needed not only farmers and builders but also its own sailors, fishermen, ports, and merchant fleet. The name “Zvulun” is associated with the biblical tribe of Zebulun, which in Jewish tradition is associated with the sea and trade. Hence the maritime symbolism of the organization.
In Israeli maritime historiography, he has been represented for decades as one of the pioneers of the Jewish fleet, and the voyage of the ‘Emanuel’ as one of the symbolic episodes of the maritime revival of the Yishuv.
Researchers of the history of Jewish seafaring Meir Gurvitz, Zeev ha-Yam, and Jeremiah Galpern wrote about Grevnov. In 1978, his story was included in a jubilee edition released for the 50th anniversary of “Zvulun”.
Separate commemorative publications appeared even earlier. On May 16, 1944, ten years after the disappearance of the ‘Emanuel’, on Sea Day, the newspaper “Ha-Tzofe” dedicated a separate article to Arieh. And in 1950, a publication was released in the maritime journal “Yam”, timed to his memory and the disappeared crew.
Moreover, Grevnov was remembered not just as the owner of one ship that perished a few months after starting work.
For maritime history, the project itself was more important.
He attempted to create a Jewish shipping company even before the State of Israel appeared. He assembled a Jewish crew. Bought a ship. Gave it a Jewish name. Raised his own blue and white flag with the Magen David over it. Planned to make Jaffa the home port. And embarked on international commercial routes between Europe and the Mediterranean.
That is, it was not just about one voyage. It was an attempt to show in practice: a Jewish merchant fleet can exist as a real economic structure, not just as a dream of the Zionist movement.
That is why the contribution of Grevnov and the ‘Emanuel’ team was primarily symbolic and ideological in Israeli memory. Their project lived briefly but became part of the maritime movement from which the state Israeli merchant fleet later grew.
At the same time, official commemoration turned out to be noticeably more modest.
In Haifa today, there is a memorial to the fallen sailors of the Israeli merchant fleet, located in the Mitzpe Yordei ha-Yam area. But the crew of the ‘Emanuel’, including Arieh Grevnov, is not included in the list directly commemorated on this memorial.
There is no separate street for Arieh Grevnov, according to available data, neither in Tel Aviv nor in other cities of Israel.
It turns out to be a rather strange situation.
A person who for decades was called one of the pioneers of the Jewish fleet has a marble memorial in Tel Aviv, a Torah scroll donated by his parents in his memory, separate commemorative publications, a place in the history of ‘Zvulun’, ‘Hofiya’, and ‘Emanuel’, and his name has been repeated for decades in books on the history of Israeli seafaring.
But at the same time, he has neither a street, nor a notable state monument, nor a separate place on the main memorial to the fallen sailors of the merchant fleet.
That is, in Israel, Arieh Grevnov is remembered — but much better in books, archives, and the history of the fleet than on the streets and squares of the country.
Ukraine — Tel Aviv — the sea
Arieh Grevnov did not have time to become a famous admiral. He did not see the State of Israel. Did not see the official blue and white flag over state institutions. Did not see the Haifa port as we know it today. Did not see the Israeli merchant fleet, the container terminals of Ashdod and Haifa, Israeli ships in world ports.
He lived only twenty-one years in total.
But the chain turned out to be amazing.
Ichnya. A Jewish family of a fabric merchant. Torah. Pogroms of the Civil War. A children’s Zionist circle. Departure to Eretz-Israel. Tel Aviv. ‘Zvulun’. Antwerp. ‘Hofiya’. An old ship bought in Denmark.
And finally, September 29, 1933.
The blue and white flag with the Magen David is raised over the ‘Emanuel’, and the ship sets off from Aarhus on a commercial voyage.
There are still almost fifteen years until the State of Israel.
But a 21-year-old Jewish guy, born in Ukrainian Ichnya and first falling in love with water on a small Ukrainian river, is already leading a ship of the Jewish fleet across the European sea.
Perhaps that is why the story of Arieh Grevnov should remain in our section “Jews from Ukraine“.
Because sometimes the connection between Ukraine and Israel is not an abstract ‘common history’.
Sometimes it looks quite literal.
Like the road from Ichnya to Tel Aviv.
And then — going out to sea.
