The village had an important Jewish population before World War II.

[3][4] According to the single document of Kniahynychi's Jewish history,[5] during World War I the annals of the Jewish community were destroyed, but some stories were preserved, indicating that the community was over 300 years old.

In 1915, during World War I, as the Imperial Russian Army retreated, all male Jews were deported, including the Rabbi (Berel Weiss).

In 1918 the men returned but were continuously harassed and many families left for Argentina, the US, or Palestine.

The remaining hundreds of Jewish families did not survive WWII, killed by the Ukrainian militia and the German forces.