Antopal

Antopal or Antopol (Belarusian: Антопаль; Russian: Антополь; Yiddish: אנטיפאליע, romanized: Antipolie; Polish: Antopol; Hebrew: אנטופול) is an urban-type settlement in Drahichyn District, Brest Region, Belarus.

According to Encyclopaedia Judaica published during the Cold War, Jews were already living in Polesia in the 14th century.

[citation needed] On the road to the town there are rows of Jewish graves, called "The Swedes."

Two emissaries from Jerusalem visited Antopal in the 1880s and mentioned the Jewish community in their records.

Rabbi Moshe Neeman Akiva of Antopal went to Israel and survived the Safed riots of 1834.

Several famous Americans are descended from Antopal residents; for example, Metropolitan Opera singer Roberta Peters and fiction writer Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans (Jewish Colonisation Association).

[2] Jews were active in fattening geese, and imported sickles and scythes from Vienna.

[3] Bus service was introduced in 1925; connecting Antopol with Kobryn, thereby advancing further development of commerce in the town.

Soon after the invasion of Poland at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, an influx of Jews from the German-occupied western part of Poland led to a rapid swelling of the number of Jews living in Antopol, their population growing to 2,300 out of a total population of 3,000.