[2][4][5][6] In the early 1800s, Jewish immigrants began to stream into Odesa from Europe, many of them coming from the town of Brody in western Ukraine.

[7][8] In the 1840s, the Brody Jews leased their first synagogue, at the corner of Pushkin and Postal (now Zhukovsky) streets in a relatively small house from the wealthy Greek businessman Ksenysu.

[13] One of the documents from the Office of Novorossiysk and Bessarabian Governor-General, dated 1852, states: "All the educated people of the Jewish community in Odesa are going there.

It was designed by the famous architect Joseph N. Kollovich in the Gothic and Renaissance revival styles, built with local limestone, and completed in 1868.

[8] The synagogue is mentioned in writings of Isaac Babel, Sholem Aleichem, and Ivan Bunin (the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature).

In 1925, the Brody Synagogue was turned into the Rosa Luxemburg Workers Club, which was a meeting place to push socialist propaganda.

[7] During World War II, Adolf Hitler requested Romanian leader Ion Antonescu to occupy the Ukrainian territory between Dniester and Bug Rivers.