The Jewish Community of Piryatin

Poltava

Полтава

A city and the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast, Ukraine

Jews began to settle in Poltava towards the end of the 18th century. In 1801 there were 18 Jewish merchants in Poltava and 292 Jews who were classified as townsmen (about one-fifth of the total number of inhabitants). The community in Poltava and its surrounding neighborhoods numbered 2,073 in 1847. By the 1870s that number had doubled, and in 1897 the Jewish population reached 11,046 (20.5% of the total population), of whom a considerable number were originally from Lithuania and Belarus. The Poltava community became one of the best-organized and most progressive in Russia.

The community had ten synagogues. By the end of the 19th century the Talmud Torah had been converted into a modern elementary school and was attended by 300 children who studied both religious and general subjects. Its teaching staff included Alexander Siskind Rabinovitz and M. Haezrachi. There were also vocational schools for girls supported by the Jewish Colonization Association, a yeshiva, and 20 cheders. The community's hospital and clinic provided free services, and there was an old age home and a loan bank. The Jewish library consisted of 8,000 volumes. During the 1920s and 1930s there were also two Yiddish schools.

The influx of the Russian intelligentsia, led by the author Vladimir Korolenko, prevented the outbreak of pogroms in Poltava during the revolutions in Russia in 1905 and 1917.

There was a strong Zionist movement in Poltava, which became one of the foremost centers of the Po'alei Zion movement in Russia. Several founders of the party were born in Poltava and became very active there, including Itzhak Ben-Zvi (Shimshelevich) and Jacob (Vitkin) Zerubavel. The ideological organ of the party, Yevreyskaya Rabochaya Khronika, founded in 1906, was published in Poltava.

The rabbi of Poltava from 1893 until 1917 was Eliyahu Akiva Rabinowitz. He was an ultra-Orthodox and a strong opponent of the Zionists. He published the religious monthly HaPeles (1903-1906) and the weekly HaModia in Poltava (HaModia continues to be published in ultra-Orthodox communities as of 2015). Another notable figure born in Poltava was the historian Elias Tcherikower. Poltava remained a center for printing Jewish religious books (particularly siddurim and calendars) until 1927.

The Jewish population numbered 18,476 (20.1% of the total) in 1926. Of the Jews in the labor force, 2,415 were white collar workers, 1,862 were craftsmen, and 1,676 were unskilled laborers. Approximately 80% of the members of the artisan union were Jewish.

When the Germans entered the city in 1941, those Jews who did not succeed in escaping were killed. On September 25th 5,000 Jews were killed, and 3,000 more were executed on November 23rd.

In the late 1960s the Jewish population was estimated at 5,000. There was no synagogue; the last synagogue was forcibly closed in 1959 by a militia that broke in, confiscated all of the religious articles, dispersed the congregation, and prohibited any further gatherings. Subsequently, the Jews prayed in private. There is a Jewish cemetery in Poltava, along with two mass graves of Jews who were killed by the Nazis; 13,000 bodies are buried in one, 7,000 in the other. The monuments at the location do not specify that all of the victims were Jews.

Ukraine

Україна / Ukrayina

A country in eastern Europe, until 1991 part of the Soviet Union.

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 50,000 out of 42,000,000 (0.1%). Main Jewish organizations:

Єврейська Конфедерація України - Jewish Confederation of Ukraine
Phone: 044 584 49 53
Email: jcu.org.ua@gmail.com
Website: http://jcu.org.ua/en

Ваад (Ассоциация еврейских организаций и общин) Украины (VAAD – Asssociation of Jewish Organizations & Communities of Ukraine)
Voloska St, 8/5
Kyiv, Kyivs’ka
Ukraine 04070
Phone/Fax: 38 (044) 248-36-70, 38 (044) 425-97-57/-58/-59/-60
Email: vaadua.office@gmail.com
Website: http://www.vaadua.org/