History of the Jews in Galicia (Central Europe)

Galician Jews or Galitzianer Jews are a subdivision of the Ashkenazim geographically originating from Galicia, from western Ukraine (current Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions) and from the south-eastern corner of Poland (Podkarpackie and Lesser Poland voivodeships). Galicia proper, which was inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews, was a royal province within Austro-Hungarian empire. Galician Jews were primarily Yiddish speaking. However, according to the census of 1900, which did not include Yiddish as an option, Galician Jews recognized as their spoken language: Polish (76 percent), German (17 percent), and Ukrainian (5 percent). Fact|date=March 2007

All calculations lead to the conclusion that in Galicia, Jews were the third most numerous ethnic group and comprised at least 10 percent of the entire Galician population. The Ukrainian academician Yefremov commented: "Jews as we know, live in closest ties with Ukrainian people, these are not even neighbours as most of other peoples, but of composing parts of people on the same Ukrainian land." Fact|date=September 2007

Most of Galician Jewry lived poorly, largely working in small workshops and enterprises, and as craftsmen — including tailors, carpenters, hat makers, jewelers and opticians. Almost 80 percent of all tailors in Galicia were Jewish. The main occupation of Jews in towns and villages was trade: wholesale, stationary and retail. However, the Jewish inclination towards education was overcoming barriers The number of Jewish intellectual workers proportionally was much higher than that of Ukrainian or Polish ones in Galicia. Of 1,700 physicians in Galicia, 1,150 were Jewish; 41 percent of workers in culture, theaters and cinema, over 65 percent of barbers, 43 percent of dentists, 45 percent of senior nurses in Galicia were Jewish Fact|date=March 2007, and 2,200 Jews were lawyers. For comparison, there were only 450 Ukrainian lawyers.Fact|date=March 2007 Galician Jewry produced four Nobel prize winners: Isidor Isaac Rabi (physics), Roald Hoffman (chemistry), Georges Charpak (physics) and Shmuel Agnon (literature).

After World War I, Galicia served as a battleground between Ukrainian and Polish forces. During this conflict, Galician Jews were generally neutral although a 1,200 man all-Jewish battalion (lang |uk|"Zhydivs’kyy Kurin’ UHA") served in the Ukrainian Galician Army and Jews were allotted 10% of the seats in the parliament of the West Ukrainian National Republic .Orest Subtelny, " [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0802083900&id=HNIs9O3EmtQC&dq=0802083900 Ukraine: a history] ", pp. 367-368, University of Toronto Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8020-8390-0] , matching their population.

As of 1920, Galicia passed to Poland. Both Galician Jews and Ukrainians were not allowed by the Polish government to work at the state enterprises, institutions, railway, post, telegraph etc. These measures were applied in their strictest form. Galician Jews and Ukrainians experienced ethnic oppression by undergoing a forceful Polonization (for example, in 1912 in Galicia, there were 2,420 Ukrainian people's schools and in 1938 there remained only 352 Fact|date=March 2007). The Polish government conducted a plan of total assimilation of Jews and Ukrainians.

In September 1939, most of Galicia passed to Soviet Ukraine. The majority of Galician Jews perished in the Holocaust. Most survivors immigrated to Israel or the United States. The very few who remained in Ukraine or Poland have undergone assimilation.

Culture

In the popular perception, Galitzianers were considered to be more emotional and prayerful than their rivals, the Litvaks, who thought of them as irrational and uneducated. They, in turn, held the Litvaks in disdain. Ira Steingroot's "Yiddish Knowledge Cards" devote a card to this "Ashkenazi version of the Hatfields and McCoys." [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/13727/edition_id/265/format/html/displaystory.html] This coincides with the fact that Hasidism was most influential in Ukraine and southern Poland but was fiercely resisted in Lithuania (and even the form of Hasidism that took root there, namely Chabad, was more intellectually inclined than the other Hasidic groups).

The two groups diverged in their Yiddish accents and even in their cuisine, separated by the "Gefilte Fish Line," [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/12012/format/html/displaystory.html] Galitzianers like things sweet, even to the extent of putting sugar in their fish.

Notes

ee also

* Galicia (Central Europe)
* List of Galician Jews