History of the Jews in Lublin
The story of the Jews in Lublin describes Jewish life in one of the most important Jewish centers in Poland in the 16th century . Lublin was also a center of Hasidism .
Kingdom of Poland
Jews were first mentioned in Lublin in 1316. By the end of the 14th century at the latest, there was a Jewish merchant settlement at the foot of the castle. In 1453 the Jews in Lublin were granted freedom of trade.
In 1517, Shalom Shachna founded a yeshiva in Lublin. The city became the most important center of Jewish learning in Poland and east-central Europe. During this time, the annual fair in Lublin became the most important meeting place for Jewish merchants and rabbis. Joint decisions were made here for the Jewish communities across Poland. The Council of the States developed .
In 1547 a Hebrew printing company was founded by Chaim Schwarz, the second in East Central Europe after Krakow. In 1567 Solomon Luria founded a yeshiva with disciples like Mordechai Jaffe .
In 1655 the city was attacked by Cossacks and around 3,000 Jews were killed.
Jakob Jizchak Horowitz came to Lublin around 1792 and founded an important center of Hasidism there . In 1793 Lublin was occupied by Russian troops . In 1794 the first Hasidic synagogue in Poland was opened.
19th century
In 1795 Lublin came to the Habsburg Monarchy , 1809 to the Duchy of Warsaw and in 1815 as part of Congress Poland to the Russian Empire .
From 1862, Jews could settle in the whole city. In 1865 almost 60% of the population was Jewish. In 1886 a Jewish hospital was opened.
In 1918 Lublin came to Poland. In 1930 the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva was opened as the largest Talmud school in Europe.
German occupation
In 1939 Lublin was occupied by the German Reich . In 1941 the Lublin ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp were established in the city. By 1942, almost all of Lublin's Jewish residents were killed.
present
Today there are almost no Jews left in Lublin. No visible remains of the former Jewish quarter around the Schloßberg have survived; there is a parking lot and a multi-lane street. Since 2007 there has been a synagogue, a museum and a library in the Chachmei Yeshiva.
Population development
| Jewish population in Lublin | |
|---|---|
| year | number |
| 1568 | 500 |
| 1602 | 2,000 |
| 1787 | 4.231 |
| 1865 | 12,992 |
| 1931 | 38,937 |
| 1939 | 42,830 |
| 1945 | 4,553 |
| 1990 | 10 |
| 2007 | 20th |
literature
- Jörg Gebhard: Lublin. A Polish City in the Backyard of Modernism (1815–1914) , Böhlau 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-07606-1
- Majer Balaban: The Jewish City of Lublin (reprint of the 1919 edition), Lublin 2012, ISBN 978-83-61064-42-8
