Legend
Kingdom of Poland
Becomes Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. Becomes Congress of Poland after Congress of Vienna. To Russia in 1815.Congress Poland
Radom
Founded by Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) in 1703, Saint Petersburg is located at the northwest periphery of Russia, on the Gulf of Finland. In 1712, it replaced Moscow as the capital of the Russian Empire. Over the course of the next two centuries, Saint Petersburg was ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kam’ianets’-Podil’s’kyi
(Pol., Kamieniec Podolski; Rus., Kamenets Podol’skii), city on the Smotrich River (a tributary of the Dniester) and district center of the Khmel’nyts’kyi region of Ukraine. In the 1430s the town passed from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Poland; from 1569 to 1792 it ... GO TO ARTICLE » Slutsk
town in Belarus. The first evidence of Jewish life in Slutsk (Pol., Słuck) dates from 1583, when the town formed part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; its Jewish community was granted a formal privilege in 1601. By 1623, Jews owned 16 houses. Though affected by ... GO TO ARTICLE » Łomża
town in northeastern Poland in the Mazovia region. By the fourteenth century, Jews had settled in Łomża, engaging mainly in trade in timber, salt, raw materials and in various crafts. In 1566 the town received the right de non tolerandis Judaeis (nontoleration of Jews) ... GO TO ARTICLE » Pinsk
city in southern Belarus. Pinsk’s Jewish community was founded in 1506 (and from ca. 1690 Pinsk was twinned with the town of Karlin) and was one of the five chief communities of “Lite” (Jewish Lithuania), extending its authority over at least 26 smaller Jewish settlement ... GO TO ARTICLE » Suwałki
town in northeastern Poland. Jewish residence apparently began in the nineteenth century when Suwałki experienced a period of substantial development. In 1808, there were 44 Jews living in the town, a number that had risen to 1,209 by 1827. In 1856, the community had ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kielce
(Yid., Kielts), city in southeastern Poland. Until the end of the eighteenth century, Kielce belonged to the bishops of Kraków, who forbade Jews to settle there. The partitions of Poland brought the city under Russian rule. Although Kielce’s residents maintained contact ... GO TO ARTICLE » Łódź
(Yid., Lodzh), Polish city and industrial center about 100 km west of Warsaw. From a hamlet of 767 people, including 259 Jews, in 1820, Łódź grew over the next century to a city of 670,000, with a Jewish community of more than 230,000, the second largest in Poland. At ... GO TO ARTICLE » Warsaw
capital of Poland from 1596 to 1794 and again since 1918. Warsaw’s importance in Polish and Jewish history is a relatively late phenomenon. For much of the Middle Ages, the Duchy of Mazovia, in which Warsaw was located, was a sparsely populated region, only loosely ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kalisz
town in Wielkopolska province, Poland. Kalisz (Yid., Kulish) is considered to be the oldest town in Poland. Jews first settled there as early as the twelfth century, where they minted coins for the prince. In 1264, Prince Bolesław the Pious issued a privilege or charter ... GO TO ARTICLE » Lublin
[To treat the history of Jewish settlement in Lublin, this entry is divided into two articles, the first on the pre-Partition period and the second on the post-Partition period until the present ... GO TO ARTICLE » Odessa
Founded in 1794 on land conquered from the Turks on the site of the Black Sea fortress town of Khadzhibei, Odessa received its name the following year. Within a few decades it was already a sizable city and soon commanded an international reputation as the preeminent ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kiev
(Ukr., Kyiv; classical Heb., Kiyov), capital of Ukraine. Jewish settlement in Kiev dates to the first years of the city, in the ninth century, when it was the capital of Kievan Rus’ and an important stop on the trading route between Europe and Central Asia. Although ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kishinev
capital city of the Republic of Moldova. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Kishinev (officially, Chişinău; Yid., Keshenev) was in the principality of Moldova, which was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1818 and called Bessarabia. In 1918–1940 and 1941–1944 it ... GO TO ARTICLE » Saint Petersburg
Founded by Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725) in 1703, Saint Petersburg is located at the northwest periphery of Russia, on the Gulf of Finland. In 1712, it replaced Moscow as the capital of the Russian Empire. Over the course of the next two centuries, Saint Petersburg was ... GO TO ARTICLE » Tallinn
(Ger., Reval; Rus., Revel, later Tallin), historical capital of the Province of Estonia. Christianized in 1219 by Danish crusaders and then a member of the Hanseatic League, Tallinn was under Swedish rule from 1561 to 1710 and Russian from 1710 to 1918. Beginning in 191 ... GO TO ARTICLE » Riga
capital of Latvia. Founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century, Riga was a member of the Hanseatic League. Jewish merchants became active in the city from the mid-sixteenth century, although opposition from local merchants forced them to live on the outskirts of ... GO TO ARTICLE » Hrodna
city now in Belarus; also known in Polish and Russian as Grodno and in Yiddish as Horodno or Grodne. Grodno’s Jewish community, one of the oldest in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, existed as early as the fourteenth century. Its privilege, allegedly obtained in 1389 from ... GO TO ARTICLE » Bendery (Tighina)
town and district center on the Dniester River, presently in the self-proclaimed Republic of Transnistria. Tighina (Rus., Bendery; Yid., Bender) was part of Romania from 1918 to 1940 and was in the Moldavian SSR from 1944 to 1991. Jews settled there in Ottoman times ... GO TO ARTICLE » Khar’kiv
In 1734, the Russian state permitted Jewish merchants to visit Kharkov (more properly Khar’kov; Ukr., Khar’kiv) to engage in retail and wholesale trade. Jewish residence in this city outside the Pale of Settlement, however, remained under strict control throughout the ... GO TO ARTICLE » Zhytomyr
city on the Teterev River (a tributary of the Dnieper); administrative center of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr oblast. In existence since the ninth century, Zhytomyr (Rus., Zhitomir; Pol., Żytomierz) was from the 1330s attached to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and from 1569 it was ... GO TO ARTICLE » Rostov-on-Don
town on the Don River; administrative center of the Rostov province of Russia. In 1761, the Rostov fortress and settlement were founded, and the town gained official status in 1796. By 1811, there were 20 Jewish families living in Rostov, a number that rose ... GO TO ARTICLE » Vitsyebsk
city in Belarus. The first reference to Jews in Vitsyebsk (more commonly known to Jews as Vitebsk) dates from the mid-sixteenth century. In 1627 a synagogue was built and in 1634, Jews received permission to engage in com-merce, have their own cemetery and synagogue ... GO TO ARTICLE » Moscow
Present-day capital of the Russian Federation, Moscow was capital of the Russian state from the end of the fifteenth century until 1712, and capital of the Soviet Union from 1918 to 1991. Jews were first mentioned in connection with Moscow in the fifteenth century ... GO TO ARTICLE » Minsk
capital of the Republic of Belarus since 1991. From the beginning of the fourteenth century, Minsk was part of Lithuania; from the mid-sixteenth century it belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1793, the city was annexed to the Russian Empire and became the ... GO TO ARTICLE » Vilnius
(Pol., Wilno; Rus., Vilna; Yid., Vilne), capital of the republic of Lithuania. In 1323, Gediminas made Vilnius the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The city became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569. It fell under the domination of the Russian ... GO TO ARTICLE » Bălți
second-largest city of the Republic of Moldova. Bălți (Yid., Belts; Rus., Beltsy) was within Romania’s borders from 1918 until 1944; after World War II, the region in which it is located became part of the Moldavian SSR. Famous personalities from Bălți have included the ... GO TO ARTICLE » Brest
(also Brest Litovsk; Pol., Brześć nad Bugiem; Yid., Brisk or Brisk de-Lita [Brisk of Lithuania]), city now in Belarus. Located at the confluence of the Bug and Mukhavets Rivers, Brest was a district capital and a large commercial center. Jews settled in Brest at the ... GO TO ARTICLE » Homel’
city in southeastern Belarus on the right bank of the Sozh River. The origins of Jewish settlement in Homel’ (Rus., Gomel’; sometimes Homiyah in Jewish sources) are obscure but date after the annexation of the town to Lithuania in 1537. Contemporary chroniclers first ... GO TO ARTICLE » Białystok
industrial city in northeastern Poland, Białystok (Rus., Belostok) sits nestled in a heavily wooded area that divides central Poland from Belarus and Lithuania. The town, originally founded in 1320, remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, after ... GO TO ARTICLE » Berdychiv
A city on the Hnylopiat’ River (Dnieper basin), Berdychiv (Yid., Barditshev; Rus., Berdichev; Pol., Berdyczów) is the district center of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr oblast. From 1569 it belonged to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; from 1793 the town was in the Volhynia ... GO TO ARTICLE » Dnipropetrovs’k
industrial city in eastern Ukraine. The Jewish community of Dnipropetrovs’k, a city with a population of more than 1,000,000, was in decline at the end of the twentieth century, but remained one of the largest in Ukraine. According to the 2001 population census, the ... GO TO ARTICLE » Kaunas
city in central Lithuania. Part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795 when it came under Russian rule, Kaunas (Yid., Kovne or Kovna; Pol., Kowno; Rus., Kovno; Ger., Kovne) was occupied by Germany during World War I, after which it served as the capital of ... GO TO ARTICLE »