Galician Jews - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Galician Jews or Galitzianer Jews are a subdivision of the Ashkenazim geographically originating from Galicia, from western Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

(current Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions) and from the south-eastern corner of Poland (Podkarpackie and Lesser Poland

Lesser Poland Voivodeship

Małopolska Voivodeship , or Lesser Poland Voivodeship, is a voivodeship, in southern Poland...

voivodeships). Galicia proper, which was inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews, was a royal province within Austro-Hungarian empire. Galician Jews primarily spoke Yiddish.

Demographics

All calculations lead to the conclusion that in Galicia, Jews were the third most numerous ethnic group and comprised at least 10 percent of the entire Galician population. The Ukrainian academician Serhiy Yefremov

Serhiy Yefremov

Serhiy Yefremov was a Ukrainian literary journalist, historian, critic, political activist, statesman, and academician. He was a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Science and Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv...

commented: "Jews as we know, live in closest ties with Ukrainian people, these are not even neighbours as most of other peoples, but of composing parts of people on the same Ukrainian land."

Society

Most of Galician Jewry lived poorly, largely working in small workshops and enterprises, and as craftsmen — including tailors, carpenters, hat makers, jewelers and opticians. Almost 80 percent of all tailors in Galicia were Jewish. The main occupation of Jews in towns and villages was trade: wholesale

Wholesale

Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...

, stationery and retail. However, the Jewish inclination towards education was overcoming barriers. The number of Jewish intellectual workers proportionally was much higher than that of Ukrainian or Polish ones in Galicia. Of 1,700 physicians in Galicia, 1,150 were Jewish; 41 percent of workers in culture, theaters and cinema, over 65 percent of barbers, 43 percent of dentists, 45 percent of senior nurses in Galicia were Jewish , and 2,200 Jews were lawyers. For comparison, there were only 450 Ukrainian lawyers. Galician Jewry produced four Nobel prize winners: Isidor Isaac Rabi

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Isidor Isaac Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.-Early years:...

(physics), Roald Hoffman (chemistry), Georges Charpak

Georges Charpak

Georges Charpak was a French physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992.-Life:Georges Charpak was born to Jewish family in the village of Dąbrowica in Poland . Charpak's family moved from Poland to Paris when he was seven years old...

(physics) and Shmuel Agnon (literature).

History

Under Habsburg rule, Galicia's Jewish population increased sixfold, from 144,000 in 1776 to 872,000 in 1910 due to a high birth rate and a steady stream of refugees fleeing pogroms in the neighboring Russian Empire. They constituted 1/3 of the population of many cities and came to dominate parts of the local economy such as retail sales and trade. They were also successful in the government; by 1897, Jews constituted 58 percent of Galicia's civil servants and judges. During the 19th century Galicia and its main city, Lviv (Lemberg in Yiddish), became a center of Yiddish

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

literature. Lviv was the home of the world's first Yiddish-language daily newspaper, the Lemberger Togblat.

After World War I, Galicia served as a battleground between Ukrainian and Polish forces

Polish-Ukrainian War

The Polish–Ukrainian War of 1918 and 1919 was a conflict between the forces of the Second Polish Republic and West Ukrainian People's Republic for the control over Eastern Galicia after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.-Background:...

. During this conflict, Galician Jews were generally neutral although a 1,200 man all-Jewish battalion served in the Ukrainian Galician Army

Ukrainian Galician Army

Ukrainian Galician Army , was the Ukrainian military of the West Ukrainian National Republic during and after the Polish-Ukrainian War. -Military equipment:...

and Jews were allotted 10% of the seats in the parliament of the West Ukrainian National Republic

West Ukrainian National Republic

The West Ukrainian People's Republic was a short-lived republic that existed in late 1918 and early 1919 in eastern Galicia, that claimed parts of Bukovina and Carpathian Ruthenia and included the cities of Lviv , Przemyśl , Kolomyia , and Stanislaviv...

, matching their population. The West Ukrainian government fought antisemitic acts by punishing robbery with execution, and respected Jewish declared neutrality during the Polish-Ukrainian conflict. By the orders of president Yevhen Petrushevych

Yevhen Petrushevych

Yevhen Petrushevych was a Ukrainian lawyer, politician, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic formed after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918.-Biography:He was born on June 3, 1863, in the town of Busk, of Galicia in the clerical...

it was forbidden to mobilize Jews against their will or to otherwise force them to contribute to the Ukrainian military effort. Both Ukrainians and Jews suffered from violence at the hands of Poles as they captured Galicia from Ukrainian forces. The Council of Ministers of the West Ukrainian People's Republic provided assistance to Jewish victims of the Polish pogrom in Lviv

Lwów pogrom (1918)

The Lwów pogrom of the Jewish population of Lwów took place on November 21–23, 1918 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. In the course of the three days of unrest in the city, an estimated 52-150 Jewish residents were murdered and hundreds injured, with widespread looting carried out by Polish...

.

As of 1920, Galicia passed to Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. Both Galician Jews and Ukrainians were not allowed by the Polish government to work at the state enterprises, institutions, railway, post, telegraph etc. These measures were applied in their strictest form. Galician Jews and Ukrainians experienced ethnic oppression by undergoing a forceful Polonization.

In September 1939, most of Galicia passed to Soviet Ukraine. The majority of Galician Jews perished during the Holocaust. Most survivors immigrated to Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia. A small number have remained in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

or Poland

Poland

Culture

In the popular perception, Galitzianers were considered to be more emotional and prayerful than their rivals, the Litvaks

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...

, who thought of them as irrational and uneducated. They, in turn, held the Litvaks in disdain. This coincides with the fact that Hasidism

Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...

was most influential in Ukraine and southern Poland but was fiercely resisted in Lithuania (and even the form of Hasidism that took root there, namely Chabad

Chabad-Lubavitch

Chabad-Lubavitch is a Chasidic movement in Orthodox Judaism. One of the world's larger and best-known Chasidic movements, its official headquarters is in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York...

, was more intellectually inclined than the other Hasidic groups).

The two groups diverged in their Yiddish accents and even in their cuisine

Jewish cuisine

Jewish Cuisine is a collection of the different cooking traditions of the Jewish people worldwide. It is a diverse cuisine that has evolved over many centuries, shaped by Jewish dietary laws and Jewish Festival and Sabbath traditions...

, separated by the "Gefilte Fish

Gefilte fish

Gefilte fish is a poached fish mince stuffed into the fish skin.More common since the Second World War are the Polish patties similar to quenelles or fish balls made from a mixture of ground deboned fish, mostly carp or pike...

Line." Galitzianers like things sweet, even to the extent of putting sugar in their fish.

Demographics

Society

History

Culture

See also