Embedded Files
Pale of Settlement, about 1855
The western area of the Russian Empire where Jews were required to live from 1791 to 1917
Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York
Volhynia Region, 1900
Districts and Main Towns
of the Russian Empire 1900s
Russian Empire (1793–1914)
Russian Empire (1793–1914)
When the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was dissolved and partitioned in 1793, Starokostyantyniv was annexed to Russia, becoming a district city and the second largest community of the Volhynia gubernia (Province).
The vast majority of Jews were restricted to live within the western regions of the country, known as the Pale of Settlement, which became home to the largest concentration of Jews in the world. Towns throughout the Pale of Settlement, including Starokostyantyniv, experienced periods of anti-Jewish discrimination, violence of pogroms, political instability and famine.
In 1827, laws exempting Jews from military service were revoked and Jewish communities were required to identify specified numbers of men for conscription into the army for twenty-five year terms. In addition, boys were taken from their parents when they were only twelve years old for six years of preparatory training before beginning their military service. These decrees were met with anti-government riots in Starokostyantyniv and other Jewish towns.
In 1844, the government established a Jewish school system which included secular education for children and teacher training institutes. This curriculum was supported by the Haskalah or Jewish Enlightenment movement, which administered these schools, but Hasidim and other traditionalists strongly opposed them.
Reforms implemented from 1855 to 1881 outlawed the conscription of children, expanded the ability of some Jews to reside outside the Pale of Settlement, and lifted some economic and educational restrictions against Jews, but anti-Jewish persecution continued and accelerated.
Anti-Jewish pogroms in 1881 and 1882 devastated Jewish communities, with very significant destruction of homes, businesses, synagogues and civic buildings. Legal restrictions were again implemented limiting the number of Jews in state educational institutions and in the professions. Jews were increasingly unjustly blamed for economic problems and for the rise of the revolutionary movement.
Despite persecution and poverty, the Jewish community persevered. In 1900, the 9,212 Jews estimated to be in Starokostyantyniv were the majority of the town’s population. The Jewish Encyclopedia reported that in 1905 Starokostyantyniv had two synagogues, five prayer-houses, a school for Jewish children, and a number of Jewish benevolent institutions.
After the Revolution of 1905 the government abolished some of the many restrictive laws limiting Jewish participation in Russian civic life and abolished the Pale of Settlement.
Nearly 3 million Jews had by this time emigrated to the West, a massive displacement of population that historians link to pervasive anti-Jewish discrimination, the mass violence of pogroms and devastating poverty.
Poverty in Starokostyantyniv following the Russian Empire
Poverty in Starokostyantyniv following the Russian Empire
Starokostyantyniv Jews were devastated by economic decline following an intense period of political, social and economic change following the fall of the Russian Empire, the Russian Revolution in 1917, the end of WW I in 1918, the Russian civil wars (1918-1920), and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, when Starokostyantyniv became a city within the Kamenets-Podolski Oblast.
Over a half million Jews had served in the war for Russia; historians estimate that 100,000, or 20 percent of the Jewish soldiers, were killed in action. The names of some of these World War I Jewish soldiers from Starokostyantyniv are identified on the Krasilov KehilaLinks site, with information from a Russian language website translated to English.
During the Russian civil war, pogroms were again reported in Starokostyantyniv in 1919 and 1920 with great loss of property. With the establishment of the Soviet regime, Jewish community life began to dissolve. The town's Yiddish school and synagogues were closed by the Soviet authorities at the end of the 1930s.
This period also marked the economic collapse of the city and the emigration of many inhabitants. The Starokostyantyniv Jewish community experienced widespread devastation and extreme poverty in the years following the war and became dependent on the support of aid organizations for food, clothing, medical care, and shelter. Aiding Jews became a priority during and after the war for newly formed organizations in the United States. The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the overseas rescue, relief, and rehabilitation arm of The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC, often referred to as the Joint), was a major source of assistance. Landsmanschaftn also raised funds to help support their members' towns of origin.
The JDC "Report on Staro-Konstantinov" of October 16, 1923
The JDC "Report on Staro-Konstantinov" of October 16, 1923
This report describes the economic life of the Jewish community before the war, and provides a detailed comparison to the devastation following the war:
“Staro-Konstantinov produced hundreds of thousands of pounds of grain for export abroad. About 30 percent of the Jewish population of Staro-Konstantinov were engaged in grain trade. There was also a trade in wool and hemp carried on in this town; the greater part of these commodities went abroad via Volochisk and Shepetovka. In 1913 the trade in Staro-Konstintinov became especially active, owing to a railway line (Shepetovka-Proskurov) being constructed and passing this town.”
The report describes the struggles of about half of the Jewish population of the town that were unemployed when “Staro-Konstantinov lost its significance as a grain trade centre.”
About 500 Jewish shops that operated before the war were reduced to just 150. A sugar refinery which provided scores of Jewish families with a living and two large steam flour-mills reduced their production to the minimum. Two tobacco factories employed about 120 workmen before the war, but only one factory with 12 employees remained.
About 1400 Jewish houses existed before the civil wars, some were destroyed and about 90 percent needed repairs.
Those in need of assistance for food and clothing included 200 widows, 100 orphans, 250 half-orphans, and 60 persons who had lost their working ability.
The report recommends extending credit on easy terms, opening a "school-Asylum" for 80 children, enlarging the Home for Aged and subsidizing the Jewish Hospital "in order to improve the conditions of the Jewish population of Staro-Konstantinov."
Search the JDC Archives to access a total of seven reports about Starokonstyantyniv in this period, including the report summarized above. For best results, use Staro-Konstantinov and Starokonstantinov as spellings for the town in the full-text search field. The Archives can also be searched by family name, place of birth and other variables.
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