History of the Jews in Brody

Even a remote tiny forest village of Stanislavchyk, 15 km north east of the city, surrounded by hip plantations, boasts a Jewish heritage and had many Jews living there, most likely moving there from Brody.

Though Żołkiewski indeed received a permission from Polish king Stefan Batory to establish a center following Magdeburg city laws in Brody.

In the year 1648, during the Hmelnytsky massacres in Poland, 400 Jewish families lived in Brody, quite a significant number of Jews for a Polish town in that period.

Baal Shem Tov arrived in Brody at the age of 20 when his religious outlook was taking shape, yet before making himself public all over western Ukrainian lands.

As he was not well trained in the Talmud, Simon Dubnow presumes he was an elementary level teacher instructing children in prayer, reading and translating Torah.

His honesty, non-passionate meek character, humbleness and life gained wisdom attracted the attention of the surrounding common people, heading to him for consultations and court advice.

Brodyites expressed their concern that the new heresy can bring a catastrophe on whole Polish Jewry discrediting God's name in the same way as Frankists and Sabbateans did.

Brody sages feared that the sect was particularly dangerous as there was no high authority to interfere after dissolution of the Great Council of Fours Lands.

Israel Lefin spent part of his life in Berlin where he was teaching Mendelssohn, instructing him in mathematics and to whom he imparted his love for philosophy.

Persecutions by the Orthodox rabbis forced him to seek another home, and he returned to Galician lands, settling in Brody, where he lived in great poverty.

Along with Roth's, it includes the sculptures of three Ukrainian cultural notabilities: painter Trush, folklorist Rozdolsky, scientist Shchurat and writer Tudor.

In the end, in 1880 Brody town commune appealed with the complaint to the Tribunal of the State (Reichsgericht) in Vienna, after unsuccessful attempts to defend their claim at the Galician Landeschulrat and the Ministry of Religion and Science.

In the State Tribunal Brody commune was represented by Dr Heinrich Jaques [de] (1831–1894), who published the memorial on the situation of Jews in Austria in 1859.

Pergin von Purschka, court councillor and member of the Highest Tribunal (Oberster Gerichtshof) considered that "the Jews joined only the language tribe (Sprachenstamm)."

Two other board members (Dr Anton Rintelen and count Edmund Hartig) suggested to limit the discussion to the fact that "Brody Jews speak German and all other issues should be set aside".

Crossing a swampy ford on the way to the city one marvels with a question how could something referred to as "Jerusalem" in such a flat and boggy pine forested "mosquito area".

Kratter, the contemporary of Joseph II, notes in his Briefe über den jetztigen Zustand Galiziens that Brody is the first and almost the only commercial city, where big enterprises are concentraned in the Jewish hands, except a few German trade and banking houses.

The Galician Jewish cultural development was directly linked with the international trade, as most of Eastern Galicia was economically impoverished peasant countryside.

Notorious Russian Jewish journalist and writer Solomon Ansky who after great efforts visited Eastern Galicia, to inquire of the local Jewish state of affairs at the time of the outbreak of the First World War, gives subtly conclusive and very apt description of the land, which is worthy to cite: Galicia is one of the poorest regions in Central Europe, if not the poorest.

The deeply rooted Galicians, especially Ruthenians (i.e. Ukrainians) in the eastern part are barely educated and live roughly; they are more backward than the Russian muzhik.

The statistical study done by Szyja Bornsztejn witnesses that for the year of 1914, 53.1% of Galician and Polish Jews immigrating to the United States did not possess any money at all when arriving on the American soil.

This drama and scope of the tragedy of these events closely echoes Josephus account of the Fall of Jerusalem, burning of the Last Temple and its siege by Titus legions.

Many stores, especially the bigger one and richer ones, were locked or boarded up…The instant…I entered the market, we were surrounded by whole army of poor, ragged, famished kids, who were begging for a kopek.

At noon, Korochaev, in a black cloak, the disgraced commander of the fourth division, fighting alone and seeking out death, flew past us.

In the imperial history of Russian Jewry the most famous is the family of Meir Schorr who adopted the last name Brodsky (after he moved from Brody settling in Kiev).

In February 1945, Zoller converted to Catholicism, taking the name of Eugenio Maria (in homage to Pope Pius XII) returning to the Vatican.

In 1938 Kalman Kahana immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, becoming the leader of Poalei Agudat Yisrael and member of Provisional State Council.

Baron Hirsch entrusted his secretary Veneziani to buy spacious premises of an old clothing factory, where the refugees were consequently accommodated.

Several hundred Brody Jews returned to the city after the war, most having hidden with the partisans in the forest, some few survivors of concentration camps (as was Jacob Jakubovics) or those who may have fled or been deported to Soviet territory.

The people of Brody tried unsuccessfully to stop Rabbi Elazar from moving on to Amsterdam, where he and was received with great honor both by Jewish leaders and by representatives of the Dutch government.