[Page 30]

Dr. Abraham Khomet

In the epoch of the Red Forts (the so-called ‘Grody Czerwieńskie’) there was an independent province under the rule of Ruthenian Dukes, and also later, when Ruthenia disintegrated into single separate dukedoms – Sokal and its environs were part of one of these provinces that stood alone, that is from the dukedom of Belz, with a separate duke at its head.^[1]

The Presidium during a Memorial Service for Sokal & Vicinity in Tel-Aviv, 1958. Speaking is Dr. David Kindler

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In the year 1335 the last ruler of Ruthenian origin died and this entire land fell to Troydanowicz, the duke of the province of Mazovia. The location of Sokal already was in existence in the Belz dukedom, apart from the city of Belz, which in the year 1424 obtained the privilege from the Mazovian duke, which allowed it to rise to the level of a city with its own independent municipal self-government.

Very little is known about this city prior to the year 1424. According to the Polish historian Sokalski, the former Sokal lay on the left side of the Bug River, and it was only in 1524 that the city began to get built up also on the right side of this river.

The flat left side of the river was often covered by flood waters, and this completely held up its development. Apart from this, the city lay on what was called the ‘black tract’ – this was pathway that stretched from the far distant steppes, from which wild Tatar hordes would come, who during their assaults on Ruthenia, plundered and robbed everything that they encountered along their way.

In this period, the city was under the rule of the Mazovian dukes, who were concerned with its fortifications and permitted construction on the right side of the Bug, opposite the ‘zhabuzhzha’ a fortified castle, whose purpose was to protect the city. In this castle, during a time of trouble, it was not only the local people who sought refuge, but also people from the neighboring locales who were also under threat, and for this reason had an obligation to fund the fortified castle.

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The ruins of the Old Castle in Sokal (From the right: Moshe Beri and the two Teller sisters)

The Duke Ziemowit ruled until the year 1446. After the death of the last duke of the Mazovian line in the year 1462, the province of Belz fell to Poland as a separate voievode, to which, once again, the governance of Sokal belonged, that is to say, the city of Sokal and its surrounding villages.

Now, Sokal participated in the fate of all Polish boundary territories, which were exposed to continuous battles and devastation in the 17^th century, by the Tatar, Cossack and Swedish wars. The

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city suffered a great deal in the year 1499, when the Tatar armies fell upon the Belz province, and then again in the years 1502-1503, 1509, 1511 during which time those same Tatar camps ran amok in all of Ruthenia.

Sokal was entirely devastated in the year 1519, when the Tatars tore into the Ruthenian territories. The area of Sokal on the left shore of the Bug was entirely burned down, and on that wreckage, on February 8, 1519 there was a battle that took place between the Tatar warriors and Polish military forces, who came down from the castle. Despite the fact that the Poles fought fiercely, the Tatars were in an overwhelming majority and the Polish fighters had to retreat to the castle.

On the part of the Polish rulers, efforts were made with a variety of easements, releasing the residents from tax payments, as well as reimbursements for the rebuilding of the destroyed city. These efforts were expressed in a Privilege from the king Zigmunt in the year 1524, in which it is recorded that the Sandomierz voievode of Jenzi of Tenczyn, who through no minimal effort and much expense, created a better condition all through the managed cities and castles in the Belz Starostvo – this also brought about an elevation of Sokal, which through unfortunate events as well as neglect by the previous landowners, had reduced to poverty, such that nobody wanted to live there. However Tenczynski not for his own needs – again stressed under the king – ‘ that for the good of the republic, led the residents of this city to a different and more appropriate location and in order that people be more interested in living there, and so he exerted himself that the privileges be reconfirmed that our fathers gave the city.’

The residents of the old, incinerated Sokal were indeed relocated onto the other right side of the shore, and found themselves under the protection of the castle. In order to unite this with the prior parcel, which was called the ‘Zhabuzhzha’ there existed a sort of connecting bridge.

The First Evidence of Jews in Sokal

Despite the royal efforts to raise the economic state of Sokal, a series of mishaps such as revolution, fires and plagues, negated such efforts. We know about these unfortunate incidents in the second half of the 16^th century from a testament, which the Starosta of Sokal began to write in the year 1570 – which conveyed that the residents of those houses do not, in general, pay any rent.

It is in this testament that one finds the first mention about the presence of Jews in Sokal. As indicated there, there were only two houses in the city in which Jews were permitted to live.

This decree was formalized later in the year 1578 by the king Stefan Batory limiting the number of Jews in the city to two families and two houses.

As is told in the memoirs of R' Isaac Konstantin, which contains a treasure of facts about the old home, it is thought that the first Jews of Sokal came from Belz. The first Jews of Sokal came from

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Bela, and for a period, the Jewish settlement came from Belz. In the first period, Jewish settlement in Sokal was very poor, but they were – tells R' Isaac Konstantin – decent and observant Jews, scholars and sages. This small settlement was an affiliate (pszikahalkeh) of the community of Belz and all community matters were dependent on Belz.

So long as the local Jews were permitted to reside in only two houses, their means of development was severely limited. All the efforts on this first small outpost of Jews to create better circumstances for their existence and to raise the economic status of this poor Jewish settlement were met with stubborn resistance from the Christian citizenry, who had only one concern: not to permit the Jewish population there to grow.

The efforts of King Zygmunt III to raise the economic life , by granting a privilege on March 26 1607 to open a Ruthenian salt storage facility in Sokal did not help.

A frightening conflagration turned the city to ashes. Together with this misfortune, King Zygmunt III gave out an order, which had been approved by the Sejm in Warsaw in the year 1616, which relieved the city of the burden of land obligations, taxes and repayment that the city had become responsible to pay into the King's treasury.

Almost all of the Polish kings in the 16^th and 17^th century used all manner of efforts through actual releases from debt to raise up the royal city of Sokal from its fall, the condition in which it found itself after ongoing fires, in which the still weak Jewish community suffered there along with the Christian populace.

On December 5, 1639, the King Wladyslaw IV granted a Privilege which took into account the continuum and by this, prevented Sokal from having a second Market Fair. He ordered a second fair in the city proper at the marketplace that should last for two weeks only in mid-week and not during Roman Catholic Holidays. At the same time, he freed all merchants who came to this fair from paying a head tax for a period of 10 years, which they normally had to pay to the castle and the city.

The fortified castle was completely destroyed in the first half of the 17^th century. Now, the residents in the Sokal area had to seek protection in the buildings of the St. Bernard Cloister, which had been built there I In, the year 1599.

Despite the fact that the city government in Sokal, with the help of the royal Starosta rigorously observed the decree that Jews should not live in more than two houses, the number of Jews there rose. This increase in Jewish population was a result of the fact that in neighboring Belz the Christian citizenry worked on the King Zygmunt Augustus, such that he issued an order in 1557 which forbade the local Jews from running saloons. Because of this, many Jews from Belz left the city and sought to make a living in neighboring Sokal. Already previously identified writer of the memories of old Jewish Sokal, R' Isaac Konstantin, gave yet another reason why the number of Jews

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rose. Namely, R' Leib זצ”ל had taken up residence in Sokal. He was the son of the renown Tzaddik and Gaon R' Sirkis Joel ben Shmuel, who was called the ‘Ba”Kh’ using the acronym [in Hebrew] of his substantive book, ‘Bayit Khadash.’

The son, R' Leib also stood out in his acuity and scholarship, and thanks to his presence in Sokal, the Jewish settlement there became an attraction for many Jews from the entire vicinity.

– 5 –

The fires and other misfortunes that brought Sokal to the level of being totally destroyed, compelled the locally residing Christian populace to change their relationship to the Jewish populace . In the year 1609, an agreement was achieved between the local Christian and Jewish populace by which Jews, for the price of 100 Polish zlotys, obtained the right to construct 18 residential structures in the city, a synagogue and to organize a cemetery.

It is on the basis of this agreement that it becomes clear why the Jewish population in Sokal grew significantly in the first decade of the 17^th century. This agreement also clearly implied that this Jewish settlement would make an effort to tear itself away from the Belz community. You can appreciate that these efforts ran into sharp resistance from the leadership of the Belz community. There were more Din-Torah cases brought before the Rabbis in the center-city of Żółkiew and even in Lvov.

As R' Isaac Konstantin relates in his memoirs, there is an interesting episode connected to these Din-Torah sessions, which took place at the Sokal Rebbe R' Sholom Rokeach זצ”ל. After extensive discussions and dealings about the issue of splitting it [Sokal] from the Belz community, the Rabbi, as the Head of the Bet-Din whose spiritual position was well understood by both sides – issued the decree that they should count up the number of set of Shas that there are in Sokal, and the number of prayer books in Belz. If it becomes evident that Sokal has more Shas than Belz has prayer books, then the Jewish community in Sokal will get the right to separate itself from the Belz community.

And this was the way it actually happened – tells R' Isaac Konstantine. Truly, in Sokal there were more copies of Shas than there were prayer books in Belz. Since that time, the community of Sokal became entirely independent, and was on its own.

– 6 –

A new enemy appeared on the eastern borders of Poland, and like a flood, it inundated the cities and towns sowing death and destruction. This was Chmielnicki in the year 1648, as the head of the united Cossacks coming out against the Polish state. A gruesome war spread out, from which it was the Jews who suffered the most, and were bloodied the most.

In the years 1648, 1651 and 1655 – during which time, the united front of Cossacks with help from Tatar armies wrecked entire cities and villages – all of which was tragically incorporated into the history of Sokal.

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The tower and part of the wall of the St. Bernard Monastery

 

The first time the Cossacks appeared at the city, was when Chmielnicki, marching with his soldiers to Zamość, took care of Lvov, and first stopped at Sokal. During an assault by the Tatars, the fortified castle had already been burned to the ground, and the fortified castle, and the only remaining place of refuge was in the well-fortified St. Bernard monastery. It was here, indeed, that the Jews of Sokal and Poles, as well as the area populace who then put up equivalent forces in the form of a strong resistance inside the walls of the monastery – and they compelled Chmielnicki and his Cossacks to retreat from the city.

Out of all that remained from the terrifying Chmielnicki period of the years Ta”Kh & Ta”T the only historical material that remained was just one small book: ‘Yeven Metzullah’ – ‘an important source for the history of the decrees and incidents of the Chmielnicki period that fell upon our Jewish prepared by R' Nathan Neta Hannover from Zaslow in Ruthenia, a refugee of that time. This small book was written in the year 1653, and was translated from Hebrew to Yiddish in the year 1920.

‘In all of Poland, Ruthenia and Lithuania – we read in this little book – and all around, when news of the happenings arrived, the ‘Greeks’ rose up against the nobility and slaughtered all the nobility and all the Jews in a manner never before seen. Some fled to fortified cities, to the sacred communities: Bar, Kamieniec , Podolsky, Brod, Lvov, Narol, Prszemsyl, Belz the monastery in

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Sokal and to Zamość. Some fled into the Wolynian territory, the Rabbis fled to the other side of the Vistula.' About the simultaneous protection offered the Jews and Poles in the St. Bernard Cloister in Sokal, Dr. Yaakov Szatzki relates in his description of the ‘Decrees of Ta”Kh’ (which appeared in Vilna in 1938), where he tells that there was a famous monastery in Sokal where approximately 100 Jews saved themselves (p. 152).

A year later – in 1649 (in the month of July) after the Polish king Jan Kazimiersz ordered a general mobilization of the people, the Polish army concentrated itself behind Sokal and it was from here that it went out to make war against the Chmielnitcki hordes. A peace was concluded between the two sided in Zaborow, but already, by the year 1651, Chmielnicki broke the peace agreement and prepared himself with a new assault on Poland. The king, Jan Kazimiersz again called together a general mobilization, and the concentration point for the Polish fighters was set at Constantine, a city not far from Sokal. Immediately afterwards when the Cossacks took possession of this city, a new point was selected for the Polish army, and it was the city of Sokal.

On May 17,1651 when the king Jan Kazimiersz came to Sokal, a strong Polish army had already come together on the fields of the ‘Babiniec’ consisting of more than 130,000 soldiers, who went out to do battle with the bloody enemy. The battle with Chmielnicki's Cossacks ended with a complete victory for the Polish army.’

In order to compensate for the losses that Sokal sustained while the Polish army was stationed at Sokal, the king Jan Kazimiersz released the city from a series of taxes for a period of five years.

– 7 –

This condition of peace did not last very long. In the year 1655, Chmielnicki – now with the help of Russian military forces, invaded Poland and laid siege to Lvov. This time, as well, he did not overlook Sokal, and he destroyed the city. The St. Bernard Cloister was spared by a miracle.

In that very same year, a war began with Sweden that was of long duration, whose troops went into Poland and after a series of victories over the Polish military forces, took control of a large part of Poland, plundering the occupied territory in a frightening way. Sokal was also among the cities that suffered seriously during the Swedish occupation.

To round out the misfortune, in 1671 a frightening fire destroyed the city. After this fire, the residents of Sokal became so impoverished that the king Jan III saw it as

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necessary in the year 1678, to released the city from several royal taxes, including the Jews, who were released from a head tax for four years.

The war with the occupying Swedes spread out almost across the entire country. The city of Sokal, that had already suffered so much at the hand of the Swedish invaders, was again occupied in the year 1702 by the Swedish general Sztenback, who billeted himself and his army on the ‘Babiniec’ expanse. The Swedish soldiers plundered the city and also the St. Bernard monastery, from which they seized inventories of valuably jewelry and other valuables, which the neighboring nobility used as a cache as well as the municipal leaders of Belz.

 

On the ‘Babiniec’ outside of Sokal (Picture: House of Mazur the photographer)

 

Two years later (1704) the Polish king Augustus II again halted the otherwise victorious Swedish soldiers, and stopped them at Sokal with the help of Russian military divisions that were at that time friendly to him. You can understand – that the local residents did not get much good out of the presence of the royal Saxon and Russian soldiers.

All of these misfortunes, the constant warfare, fires, the frequent marching through of enemy and friendly troops, the heavy taxation and plagues – brought the city to the level of ruination.

The decline of the city was so widespread, that the subsequent royal relaxation in tribute in the year 1717 had little effect, a time when the city was once again relieved of certain taxes for a period of five years.

– 8 –

However, during this time, the Christian residents occupied sufficient fertile soil, from which they could derive a sustenance – the local Jews suffered not only from general troubles, which made it difficult for the entire municipal populace to make a living. They had to fight stubbornly to expand their presence in the city, for just the simple need to work for a living, or being allowed to participate in the town fairs. It is for these reasons that the economic circumstances of the Sokal Jews, in this period of time, was especially difficult and the poverty that could be found on the Jewish street took on a frightful form.

But the Sokal Jews, mostly craftsmen and middlemen, did not break under the yoke of these difficult wartime events and frequent fires, and engaged in all manner of strenuous effort to re-build the destroyed city.

The so-called objective Polish historian Bronislaw Sokalski explicitly stressed in the previously mentioned monograph of his that the Christian residents of Sokal did not, apart from working the land, engage in any sort of other labor – while at the same time complaining that ‘the city is so fallen, that – during the many years of sacredly observing King Stefan's rule, that one should not forget the limit of two houses for Jews in the city. Sokalski takes the firm position that ‘– Sokal is once again getting filled up with Jews.’ And with great sorrow, he underscores that during the time the Jewish printers were driven out of neighboring Tartakov in 1754, they received a friendly acceptance by the local [Sokal] Jews as if they were guests. The number of Jews in Sokal grew daily. In the lists of the

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census for the first half of the 18^th century, ordered by population, Sokal is counted among the nine large congregations, called out for the Chelm-Belz valley, the expression ‘9 Congregations’ is often mention in the documents of the Va'ad Arba Aratzot during the period 1664-1744. In connection with this census count in the Chelm-Belz valley, there were nine large communities contained in the census of 1717, to which it belonged: Luboml, Chelm, Olesk, Szynovo, Warzyce, Sokal and Tyszowce, with Zamość at the top.

In the first half of the 18^th century the Jews of Sokal occupied a sufficiently large position, if they had the nerve to call a member of the royalty to court. We learn about this from the Act of 1749, where it is stated that in that year before the royal chancellor, Yankl Kiwowicz, a resident of Sokal declared on his behalf – and that of the Jews Pesach Jakubowicz and Mark Smolewitz, residents of Hrubieszow and Sokal that they are stepping down from the trial against an employee of the royal treasury.

– 9 –

Stalls in Old Sokal

 

How many Jews lived in Sokal in the first half of the 18^th century?

It is difficult to provide accurate statistical numbers in connection with the number of Jews for this period in time. The first counting of Jews in independent Poland took place in 1764 and the beginning of 1765. The Jewish historian, Dr. Raphael Mahler writes: ‘The Jews in former Poland lack good numbers (see Verlag, the Yiddish Book from Warsaw 1958) – and in the year 1927 began to work on the census rosters of the census taken in 1764.

In the year 1937 Dr. Mahler interrupted this work, leaving uncounted, among others, the rosters concerning part of the Ruthenian districts (this is Eastern Galicia) and seeing that the census rosters of the year 1764 with the additional census rosters of the year 1795 were incinerated in Warsaw

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during the Hitler occupation, Dr. Mahler's statistical research could not include the Jewish residents of the Eastern Galician vicinity.

Most of the Jews in Sokal at that time were engaged in buying agricultural produce from the residents of the surrounding villages.

Jewish craftsmen had to endure a lot of trouble from the Christian unions, to which the Jews could not belong. During that time, the unions were the deciding factor in all issues that had to do with labor. To become Master, in order to sell one's own products, to obtain raw materials, – for everyone there had to be consent from the unions, who looked upon the Jewish workmen with antipathy, and as competition and fought them every step of the way.

– 10 –

Under Austrian Rule

In the first partition of Poland in the year 1772, that part of the Belz voievode that encompassed Sokal and its surrounding towns fell under the Austrian monarchy.

The change in rule because of this occupation of Eastern Galicia involved upheavals in the right-wing political supporters as well as changes to the socio-economic condition of the Jews who lived there.

To begin with, the Austrian kingdom built up an administrative apparatus in Eastern Galicia that relied on the central Viennese institutions of rule. This was the period when the rulers of the large kingdoms relied on enlightened absolutism, that is to say from a royal politics, this was a form of monarchial politics that the centralized monarchial rule gave the appearance of humanitarianism, whose motto was to create ‘Leibeigenschaft’ (panoszyć^[2]).

The Austrian government in approaching the Jewish populace in Galicia made use of directives and orders, which first and foremost sought to minimize the number of Jews, and second these directives bore a purely physical character. Also for the Austrian rulers – just as it did for the Polish magnates and populace – the Jews were thought of as an object for physical exploitation.

This goal was realized by the Jewish ordinance of Theresienstadt of the year 1776, which took into account the rooting of a Jewish social presence, which was still tightly bound to the Jewish religious tradition. The queen, Maria Theresa established the autonomy of Jewish communities, for which she created a central body – the so-called ‘Jewish Directorate,’ whose objective was to divide up the Jewish taxes among a few communities.

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Maria Theresa's successor, Kaiser [Franz] Josef II, who was a loyal follower of the absolutist-humanitarian governing tendencies of the previous era, approached the Jewish question seriously with a radical plan for transforming the Jewish standard of living.

In connection with these administrative changes, which the ruling government of Austria carried out based on the Royal patent of 1782, occupied Galicia was divided up into 18 circles, who were directly dependent on the governing authority in Lemberg. Sokal was in one such circle, even though, in this period, it had the appearance of a large town. Even the local circle headquarters had its location in a wooden building.

Industrially separated, cut off from other parts of the land because of a lack of a train station and suitable roads, which could have enable a light contact with the then most important center in Lemberg – the area city of Sokal, for a long time, did not emerge from its industrial backwardness.

A small part of the local populace at that time made a living from primitive weaving methods, which only started to develop at the end of the Joseph II period.

To understand what was relevant to the socio-economic condition of the Jews in Sokal during the Josef II period, requires that we consider the king's far-reaching reforms, which cut deeply into the economic life of the Jewish settlement in Galicia and were formulated as part of his famous ‘Tolerance-Patent’ of 1789. This patent first disposed of all limitations concerning Jewish commerce, and permitted the Jews to freely pursue their crafts, and to sell their products both in their homes, and at fairs or in the marketplace. With few exceptions, this ‘Tolerance-Patent’ nullified all the decisions of municipal governments in connection with their right to limit the dwelling rights of Jews.

An exception – rather rare for Jews – the ‘Judenordnung’ was the right to limit the number of Jews in a village that engaged in agriculture only, or craftsmanship, and it was thereby forbidden for Jews to deal with the villages in drink products, to lease parcels of land, mills, and the like.

These decrees, ordered by Josef II shook up Jewish economic life in Galicia. Approximately 40% of the Jewish population living there lived in villages during that period. Now, the Jewish village people were left without an income and had no other choice but to move from the villages to the cities.

It was conditions like these that the Jewish settlement in Sokal with wondrous persistence strained all of its might in order to overcome the imposed constraints, which it encountered on a daily basis in the difficult struggle for a decent existence.

Thanks to these efforts, not only did the Jewish settlement get stronger, but the city itself began to develop and raise its economic power.

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The development process of the Sokal Jewish settlement encountered obstacles frequently, which, on one side, had its roots in the centralizing tendencies of the Austrian government in Vienna, and from the other side in the old enmity from anti-Semitic circles within the Christian residents who were still strong enough to wield influence.

As the previously mentioned Polish historian Bronislaw Sokalski relates, Sokal was an ‘insignificant city’ even as late as 1885, in which the world was built of wooden boards and resembled a large village rather than a center city. ‘But in the latter times’ – Sokalski immediately stresses – ‘much improved and now the city looks much better.’

Since the significant part of the city began to expand on the right side of the Bug, new streets appeared there with small houses boasting of mortar.

The northern side of the Lemberg Main Gasse, which stretched for a distance of 3 kilometers, with time became more substantively built up and by the end of the 19^th century a whole row of new buildings were concentrated there, such as the municipal hospital, the Magistrate's offices, with a small tower added in 1898, in which a tower clock was situated. These significant buildings by virtue of government law and tax income, stood as a bulwark, into which the municipal marketplace expanded. Over time, other buildings were built for important institutions such as the Girl's-School, the store for kitchen supplies, the Post Office and several private homes. However, near to these new buildings there remained a number of low huts with straw roofs, that gave the appearance of a village setting. It was only later that these small huts vanished, because the municipal government began to allocate building permits to erect only houses using concrete and mortar. Slowly but surely, thanks to this movement to build more houses, the city grew larger, and began to lose its village-like appearance.

However – as our Polish historian Sokalski complains – ‘a misfortune’ befell the city of Sokal… He writes in his monograph that ‘the Jewish population which heretofore had lived only in the northwest part of the city, on the so called ‘zarwanica,’ has now taken over the marketplace, and took up residence even further along the Lemberg Gasse, buying up the parcels from the locals whom they displace from their prior homes.’

Old and well-known complaints are repeated in all municipal monographs that Polish historians write over the course of centuries. Sokalski's arguments are not understandable to the Jews, seeing that they have built new concrete and mortar buildings in the place of burned out wooden houses… but he personally stresses that since an intensive construction movement began there, Sokal took on the appearance of a city.

But according to Sokalski's conclusions, this was not the only ‘sin’ of the Jews in Sokal, which had developed so rapidly only thanks to Jewish diligence and patience.

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In front of the store of Isaias Lieber R' Yehoshua) in Sokal, opened in 1876

As we have already previously noted, the reforms of [Emperor Franz] Josef II caused fundamental changes to the socio-economic life of the Jewish population in Galicia.

To begin with, all of the constraints regarding choice of occupation fell away. From this time on, Jews received the opportunity to be active in all socially permitted professions and became free to sell their products in their homes, or in the market or at fairs.

All of the local agreements of municipal leadership limiting the area where Jews could live were nullified, and given a larger number of houses where Jews would be allowed to live. Together with this, Jews received permission to enlarge their residences.

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Such a process also came into being in Sokal. Here, as well, Jews moved in from the surrounding villages and began the stressful activity in order to occupy an appropriate position in the local economic life. Along with the local residential Jews, they made meaningful contributions to the growth and rise of the city.

Weaving was the exception in this regard, where a larger number of the Christian residents were employed, who wove primitive linen. This folk-weaving first began to develop strongly during the reign of Josef II.

In light of these facts, the complaints of the referred to author of the monograph concerning the Sokal vicinity are characteristic, that ‘in the entire Sokal Powiat,’ the Jews have entirely displaced the Christian element in the towns, dominating the industry and the commerce with small towns.’ This is an explicit and angry slap with clearly anti-Semitic overtones…

Without a question, all of the commerce in Sokal was concentrated in Jewish hands. However, towards the end of the 18^th century, this commerce did not have any great potential for growth, because at that time Sokal was still cut off from the principal communication road which led to Lemberg. Almost an entire century passed until the year 1878, the first such road was completed, which connected Sokal with the station in Kristianopol and in this fashion, the city obtained a connection with Lemberg via Mosty' and Żółkiew. Apart from this connection in 1884, the construction of a train station was completed, which went from Sokal through Rawa Ruska and Żółkiew until it reached Lemberg.

In the year 1893, the road from Dobroczyn to Sokal was paved with brick, and in the same was, in 1898, the road was done from Sokal to Tartakiv. These communication links contributed a great deal to the increase in commerce in Sokal. The export trade in agricultural products was thereby increased in a large measure. It is worth noting that in 1899, 82 residents in Sokal were engaged in the weaving trade, and 864 manual laborers and merchants were domiciled there, the majority being Jews, who controlled the export trade, which took in everything but wood products and agricultural products. The export of eggs became very significant, which were sent out of the country by wagon. Because of this egg transportation, Sokal Jews obtained work as egg buyers, carton makers, and the like.

A consequence of this revolutionary upheaval, which spread all over European countries in the year 1848, the socio-political foundations of the Habsburg Empire began to disintegrate. In Galicia, after creating the Panczizna (private ownership) profound changes took place on the scene of economic life. The purchase power of the rural areas rose, and together with the rise in consumption needs of the peasant masses, Jewish commerce grew stronger.

In Sokal, which according to the report of 1889, was reckoned to be among the 29 larger cities with its own autonomous municipal leadership, there was created a solid base for a stronger economic

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activity by the Jewish populace. The skill base of the Sokal Jewish populace grew meaningfully, which had now become a magnet for Jews of other locations.

A picture that stands out of the continuous growth of this Jewish populace is provided by the statistical data from a number of census takings, which the Austrian authorities carried out in Galicia.

Up until the year 1850, it was the royal authorities that came to take the census, which were carried out by organs of the military and therefore the results of these tallies had questionable worth. Even the first civilly-conducted census of the year 1869 which took place a mere two years afterwards, in which the rights of the Jews in Galicia were undercounted, this did not arouse any sorrows with the Jews. As was previously the case, during the physical and military census, the Jews used every method they could not to be found in the census rolls.

It was only in the civil census of the year 1880, which took place in Galicia after the implementation of general military service, which also was imposed on the Jews, the census was conducted rigorously, and had trustworthy data in it.

There were three such census counts taken in Galicia until the end of the 19^th century: the years were 1880, 1890 and 1900.

In order to become acquainted with the results of these three census rolls in connection with the Jewish population in Sokal – we revert to a separate tale:

1880
The general population in Sokal	6725
Jewish residents
The absolute total	2408
The percent vs. the general population	35.8
1890
The general population in Sokal	8006
Jewish residents
The absolute total	3272
The percent vs. the general population	40.9
1900
The general population in Sokal	9609
Jewish residents
The absolute total	3778
The percent vs. the general population	39.3

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Together with this statistical data, one has to first underscore the meaningful growth of the Jewish population in Sokal, where the Christian residents over the course of centuries strictly supervised conformance to the privilege of 1578, where the residential rights of Jews there was limited to only two houses. From barely 20 to at most 30 Jewish people in the first half of the 16^th century – up to the year 1880 grew the Jewish population to 2408 people.

Ten years later – in the year 1890, the Jews of Sokal had to document a large growth, because the Jewish population at that point had reached 3272, that is, 864 additional lives. Also relatively, in comparison to the general population of Sokal residents, the number of Jews rose to 40.9%

But in the next decade (1890-1900) the number of Jews in Sokal only grew by 506, and relatively, their percentage fell to 39.3%

This relative decrease in the indicated decade was a result of the nationalist politics of Ruthenia from the side of the Polish administration in Eastern Galicia – in an area where there was not yet any bigger industry that could provide jobs to new immigrants. With the help of the Polish authorities, these Polish residents began to pressure the Jews who lived there, moving them out of their economic positions. Those Jews who were driven out did not have many towns in Eastern Galicia to which they could relocate or to other Austrian lands, or to emigrate overseas.

As the first statistical data indicates, the Jews of Sokal did not break under this pressure, but rather withstood the strong doubled pressure from the Austrian bureaucracy on one side – and the ruling Polish circles on the other side. In the resulting ‘humanitarian’ Josef directives, all the village Jews from the Sokal area, left the homes they resided in, and moved into Sokal, where the Jewish settlement had already conducted a severe struggle with the attempts of the Poles to exterminate them.

Changes also took place in the organization of the community along with changes that took place in economic and political life of the Jews in Sokal under Austrian rule.

During the reign of Maria Theresa, the largest of the Jewish communities continued to remain in place, under what can be called ‘general-direction’. It consisted of 6 precincts composed of 6 elders headed by what was called an Oberlands-Rabbiner. The principal objective of this body, which was selected for a term of 6 years after a very complex election process, was to divide up the taxes among the various communities.

The successor to Maria Theresa, the Kaiser [Franz] Josef II, created a ‘Jewish Directive’ in the year 1785 with the autonomous communities. Following his reformist plans regarding the Jews in Galicia, the remnants of Jews from the former autonomous Jewish communities in Poland were an obstacle to his efforts to remove Jewish separatism. In his opening year of 1789 ‘tolerance patent,’ in 64 paragraphs, he formulated the constitutional foundations and the proper condition of the Jews in Galicia.

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Apart from a whole variety of agreements which limited the entry possibilities of the Jewish populace in Galicia, such as military service, a variety of taxes –especially the tax on kosher meat and candles, the patent sanctioned the removal of the ‘General-Directive’ with the land – and the elders in the communities, and it left 141 newly-created communities in the entire country, whose only objective was to have a sort of religious oversight without any other competition. The election of such a community (having from 3 to 7 principal representatives) – the so called ‘Kultus-Gemeindesverstand,’ was introduced by a system of election whose basis was the principle of Sabbath candle count, therefore only homeowners could become members of such a Community-leadership. The candidates for this community leadership had to have command of German and get 2/3 of the vote of those Jewish balebatim who were qualified to vote.

It was in this fashion that hegemony over a community was turned over into the hands of a small group of rich Jews, who did not always take into account the important living issues of the Jewish populace, who suffered so greatly under the burden f the tax-yoke from other bureaucratic directives.

The ‘Tolerance-Patent’ of the [Kaiser Franz] Josef II provided for a ‘Kreis-Rabbiner’ for the larger communities, ans a ‘Religions-Weiser’ for the smaller ones, who were nominated by the Kreis-Rabbiner. The objective of such a ‘Religions-Weiser,’ in his location was the same in his location as that of a ‘Kreis-Rabbiner’ in his community. Sokal belonged administratively to the circle of Żółkiew, and employed a ‘Religions-Weiser’ who was nominated by the ‘Kreis-Rabinner’ in Żółkiew. In the year 1833, his salary came to 170 Florins.

The only thing remaining for the Kreis-Rabbiner to do was act as a judge in religious matters, and because of that, he was forbidden to make use of excommunication. Also forbidden was any contact with the community leadership, in order to render impossible to undertake the creation of any attempt to create any sort of central community body.

A prominent feature in the ‘Tolerance-Patent,’ can be found in the attempts by Josef II to interdict any attempts at Jewish-Nationalist separation. At the Kaiser's demand, the Jews needed to shed all of the religious customs, which do not express loyalty to the laws of the land. For not carrying out this decree, they risked the loss of the citizen's rights, and additionally had to pay the emigrant-tax – this was the decree to leave the country.

Jewish life in Sokal oriented itself in compliance with these legal decrees. This Jewish settlement, which towards the end of the 19^th century was still a fortress of Hasidism, took up very reluctantly these Josef II reforms. To the good fortune of the Sokal Jews, since the year 1782 there was a chief–area head in place, who placed great weight first of all on economic problems and specifically engaged himself to raise the living standard of the city's populace.

Because of this, the old Hasidic conferences held during this period with the Haredim, with the Yeshiva, and with the spiritual center, and from which famous scholars and Torah sages emerged.

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Also later on, under the rule of Kaiser Josef's heirs, the Jews in Galicia suffered from the burden of the reactionary tendencies by the Austrian rulers. The ruling administration of that time in Galicia, adhered very strictly to this law, particularly with regard to the tangible monarchial interests when it came to the Jews.

In addition to the physical pressure, there were also economic and cultural pressures. The entire array of economic limitations placed on Jews in Galicia remained in place.

Since 1829, Jews were forbidden to engage with medical crafts and pharmacies. Jews were not allowed to deal with items sacred to Christians, including pictures.

All the Jews of Galicia suffered in the cultural sphere as well, mostly from the very strict Austrian censor, who did not permit even old religious writings. It was forbidden to make use of religious books and this, yet further, forced the Jews of Galicia to print all of their books using secret press facilities. A medieval decree continued to remain in force, where the prohibition forbade the use of old religious customs to light [candles in] the synagogues, or to appear in the streets during a Christian procession, which always engendered a fright and terror in the Jewish populace.

It was first in the revolution in Austria of 1848, the so called ‘spring of the nations,’ that in Galicia new horizons opened to Jews and awakened hopes to struggle for a fully-qualified citizenship as equals. In the month of April, 1848, the Jews in all of Austria got the active and passive right to cast a vote for the Austrian parliament and in the first constitutional convention Jewish debates took a part in the proceedings, among whom, the most prominent of the Jews was the Viennese Rabbi Mannheimer, who had been elected in the Jewish section of Galicia.

Thanks to their tireless struggle in the Viennese parliament, in October 3, 1848 the shameful taxes on kosher meat and candles were nullified.

It was difficult for the Jewish debaters at that time to achieve the total removal of the remaining but legal limitations imposed on the Jewish community. It was first after the fall of the Austrian government in external politics and after losing wars, the constitutional régime in Austrian lands became strengthened, and in the end, the various national groups in Austria received broad autonomy in the constitution of the year 1867. All Austrian citizens had all of their rights guaranteed with equality under the law, regardless of faith or nationality.

It was on the strength of this constitution the Jews of Galicia also achieved full, legal rights as citizens.

A whole array of previously arrayed limitations on the right to do work were annulled, and the number of Jews in the schools, and universities grew, and along with that the number of Jews in the independent professions grew, all of which opened the path to Enlightenment widely in Galicia.

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The changes wrought by these right-wing political changes also altered Jewish life in Sokal. The Hasidic Jews there, who during this period were still living with the patriarchal tradition of Polish Jewry, tried all manner of means to dilute these tendencies to adopt these reforms, which threatened to block the Jewish way of life up to that point. All of this while in neighboring Żółkiew as well as other Eastern Galician cities, in the second half of the 18^th century there was a whole array of Enlightened folk, and people who fought for secular education, but in Sokal, they strongly refrained from adopting even the most minimal level of secular studies.

Despite the fact that since 1806, Jews in Galicia were permitted to send their children to the government-run elementary schools, the number of Jewish children in these Volksschule was still very small in the first half of the 18^th Century. In the entire district of Zółkiew to which – as we know – Sokal already belonged, in 1806 there were barely 100 Jewish students in these secular Volksschule. Even later, in the year 1830, when the general number of children in the Government-run elementary schools reached 51,153, there were barely 804 Jewish children there from all of Galicia, this already included the number of children in the Jewish school in Tarnopol.

As is related in the memoirs of R' Isaac Constantine, Sokal Jewry in this period lived under the spiritual influence of the Belz Gaon and Tzaddik R' Sholom Rokeach זצ”ל. This influence held sway even after his death in the year 1855, when the Rabbinical seat in Belz passed to his youngest son, R' Shia ז”ל and his uncle R' Zindl and after him (about 1882) R' Shmuel Rokeach זצ”ל. It was R' Shmuel Rokeach who was particularly strict in seeing that Sokal Jews lived in the spirit of Torah and tradition. He closely examined every innovation to Yiddishkeit in the city. He founded a Yeshiva, where over 100 young men from the age of 13-14 studied. These Yeshivah students were stringently separated from any whiff of worldliness, including even mastery of the Polish language, which was forbidden.

As R' Isaac Constantine tells further in his memoirs – he, being a pupil of that Yeshiva had a desire to learn the Polish language; But his father ע”ה did not permit this, standing on the point that it was sufficient to be able to write an address in Polish.

In the second half of the 19^th century Sokal permitted itself to undergo a significant change in all aspects of Jewish life. Almost all of commerce was in the hands of Jewish merchants and it was the cohort of Jewish craftsmen who had the lead.

There already was a steam-driven mill in place, which belonged to the one-time Jewish rich man, Raush. Thanks to the Jewish energy in action, there was a significant export of agricultural products from Sokal.

We learn of the extent of export business from a number of statistical sources, which Sokalski documents in his previously mentioned monograph about the Sokal vicinity. The following were sent out of the Sokal train station in the years 1890, 1891, and 1892:

5,485 Tons of grain for the inner land
460 Tons of grain to Austria
397 Tons of grain to Russia by way of Brod
10 Tons of grain to Germany

During these three years, the following potato exports were sent out from this train station;

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657 Tons to other parts of Galicia
80 Tons to Austria

During this same period, the following was also sent to other parts of Galicia from Sokal:

262 Cattle to other parts of Galicia
2,562 Cattle to Austria

The Sokal Jews also developed their own small industry. In the 80 years of the 19^th century they were engaged in the manufacture of small belts with a Kilim weave.

In general, they opened up work opportunities for Jews in Galicia in the second half of the 19^th century that were far-reaching. In the year 1859, the ‘durable goods-law’ was implemented. This broke the independent control of the guilds, and as a consequence, Jews received the right to engage in collective labor.

It was only at the end of the 18^th to the beginning of the 19^th century that the first rays of the Enlightenment-Movement penetrated into Galicia. Since most of the Austrian provinces became open to communication methods and the Jewish merchants remained connected with Vienna and other large cities, a fresh atmosphere dominated the spirit of Galician Jewry.

An intense culture war [sic: kulturkampf] broke out on the Jewish streets in Eastern Galicia. In a whole row of larger cities, in Lemberg, Brod, Zółkiew and Tarnopol, Enlightened people and culture activists lived and made their influence felt, who set themselves an objective to create a synthesis between religious tradition, Yiddishkeit and the knowledge being developed in the outside world, and in doing so, strove to spread worldly education and child-rearing on the Jewish streets.

This movement towards Enlightenment encountered a strong opposition from orthodox circles, who in that period still opposed, in Jewish settlements, allowance in any form of change to the old way of Jewish life. The struggle between Enlightenment reformers and orthodox leaders mostly was played out within the study houses, in the schools and the shtiblach. By extraordinary stressful methods, it fell to the Enlightenment to lead for worldly cultural enlightenment among the Jewish masses by their activity.

In Sokal this kulturkampf did not have such a quick success. In this city, even though it belonged to the circle of Zółkiew, where the Enlightenment movement was already strongly developed, the Rabbis and scholarly rich men, still retained the deciding influence over the religious-cultural directions on the Jewish street. They subjected every attempt of Enlightenment activity on the Jewish street to a strong-handed approach, subjecting every move by the Enlightenment to scrutiny which began to storm amongst the Jewish youth in that place.

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As it is related, in a different part of this Yizkor Book, the Sokal native R' Yitzhak Birnbaum – left his home town even before the First World War, and when he returned after a number of years to Sokal, already being an Enlightened young man, the Hasidim regarded him with suspicion and spied on him, whether he was -God forbid- not become ‘infected’ with Zionism, which had in other Jewish settlements in Galicia already had captured the mood of Jewish youth. But – as Yitzhak Birnbaum relates– most of the youth from the Husiatyn Kloyzin Sokal had already absorbed something of Zionism and they asked of him more than once, that he acquaint them with the foundations of the Zionist concept.

But these were isolated individuals from the younger generation, who secretly sought a way to the Jewish Renaissance movement. At that time, the Jewry of Sokal was still stubbornly and tightly tied to the old Jewish way of life, and still lived under the strong influence of the Rabbis and Hasidism. The orthodox leader in that location accumulated enough clout in the second half of the 19^th century – to [zealously] guard the foundations of the ‘old ways’ on the Jewish street, in connection with how to raise youth by sending them to Heder and Yeshiva, where there was a pervasive fear of any attempt to broaden the spiritual and social horizon.

In this period, even if there were weak social forces active in Sokal, they could not get themselves out of the ranks of receiving charity – or other philanthropic support endeavors.

Sokal went through yet another development towards the end of the 19^th century. New buildings for schools and other public institutions, the general hospital (finished in the year 1878), the lively private building movements all raised the significance of the city, which now no longer belonged under the supervision of the Zółkiew leadership, but rather, it became the principal city of a separate Sokal administrative area.

This implied that the economic condition of the Jews there improved. They took advantage of the favorable opportunities, whether for internal or external commerce. Thanks to their ability to make a large effort and extraordinary diligence, they overcame all the difficulties that they had to struggle with in their daily struggle for existence.

In their loyalty to the sacred faith in the year 1856 they built a respectable school modeled on the school in Zółkiew.

The Christian townsfolk had no small amount of envy of their Jewish citizens. Suddenly, the Poles and Ukrainians who, for many years lived essentially from agriculture, found satisfaction in commerce.

‘In the city, there is one Christian colonial business’ – Sokolski complained in his monograph on the Sokal vicinity. Now, the Christian residents became ardent guardians of the village peasantry, and began to spread their plans for how to free the peasantry from Jewish hands, from the Jewish merchant, from Jewish storekeepers, craftsmen and intermediaries.

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Along with these efforts, whose goal was to take control of the Jewish trade – the Christians of Sokal made great efforts to drive the Jews out of the export trade, calling on the agricultural populace not to sell agricultural produce to the Jews. To launch this offensive with Jewish commerce, they began to form the so-called ‘Zulka Rolnica’, (agricultural circles).

In the last decade of the 19^th century, there existed more of these ‘Zulka Rolnica’ who engaged in buying up and sale of the agricultural produce of the peasantry, and in the year 1898 a Commerce-Union was founded, which encompasses more that 50 such buy-and-sell circles in the area.

These Christian commerce points, supported by undisguised funding via the kreis-rat (rado powiatowa), had to serve as an authority for the expulsion aktion and – and as emphasized by our Polish recorder Sokalski – these ‘kukla Rolnica’ needed – to enjoy continuous financial support from the local authorities (especially the rada powiatowa) and at the earliest future date to become competent enough to take over the village-based commerce into their hands.

This anti-Jewish aktion had to produce the desired result. The pressure of this act of penetration, subsidized by official and unofficial anti-Semitic factors, began to subvert the economic foundations of the Jewish population of Sokal. The number of Jewish business entities that fell as victims of this extermination-activity by the Christian populace of the town, grew stronger day-by-day. Only one alternative remained for the Jewish populace of Sokal: Emigrate away from the city.

It is for these reasons that in the last decade of the 19^th century, the relative number of Jews in Sokal fell 1.6% as we have already established before.

A growth of the Polish element took place at the expense of the Jewish populace, which chose the path of emigration.

There was no talk of an independent Jewish self-help organization. By the end of the 19^th century, there remained only few respectable, orthodox faith promoters, who, in past times, had honestly and sensibly managed community funds, and represented Sokal Jewry in the office of the city Magistrate. These one-time orthodox leaders such as R' Isaac Byk ז”ל and after him, R' Israel Brod ז”ל – with completely earnest commitment were active in the community. But they did not take into account the thinking of the larger Jewish populace, which at this point in time, because of reactionary voting ordinances, had no elected authority to act on their behalf of the [Jewish] community or the City Council. The fact was that these activists were always ready for any community undertaking, and for each occasion developed a necessary philanthropic help-activity for the good of their needy Jewish folk. But to open the gates of the community for the wider circles of the Jewish populace, these activists had not developed an understanding of how to proceed. Quite the opposite – guarding the old Jewish way of life on the Jewish street in Sokal, they succeeded in stopping any trace of worldliness, that had already begun to penetrate into the ranks of orthodox Jewish youth.

It is sufficient to point out the writings of the Sokal landsman Aharon Hafner ז”ל, born in 1864, and studied there in a yeshiva. After he married, he became a comic, and began to write songs in Hebrew

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and Yiddish, and later, in the year 1901 he and his family emigrated to America, where he participated as a journalist in the daily papers there, and also published several collections with Hebrew songs. He died in America in the year 1933.

The twentieth century began in Sokal with a great misfortune. A frightening fire in 1901 destroyed a large part of the Jewish quarter, and hundreds of Jewish businesses were left with no roof over their heads. With the greatest of efforts, the local Jews there took to rebuilding their destroyed homes, and those Jews who did not suffer from the fire did not allow their brethren to fall in this time of trouble, and generously helped with the reconstruction work.

In general, the economic circumstances of the Jews in the Galician cities and towns deteriorated. At the end of the 19^th Century, approximately 80% of the commerce was in Jewish hands, and in certain lines of business there were exclusively Jewish control in wholesale and export business. Already in the first years of the 20^th century, these Jewish economic positions began to totter.

In Sokal and its vicinity, there was a substantial rise in Polish ‘Zulka Rolnica^[3]’ which were also deeply rooted in the wholesale business with agricultural products.

A similar [business] activity was also developed by the ‘Soyuz Ukrainskii,’ the ‘Narodna Torhowla,’ and the ‘Soyuz Ruskii.’ The Jews now finding themselves under the double pressure of Polish and Ukrainian anti-Semitic forces, had to battle intensely against the efforts to expel them by the opposite Christian sides.

We catch a glimpse regarding the economic and social structure of the Jews in Sokal during the first decade of the 20^th century from the writings of Dr. David Kindler, the renown Zionist and social activist in that area for decades, who miraculously was saved from the Nazi Gehenna and today lives with his family in Israel.

As he tells this, as early as the first years of the 20^th century, what developed in accordance with the accepted practice, among the Jewish masses, was the manifestation of concentrating itself around the Gaonim of that time, Tzaddikim from Belz, Husiatyn and Strilets'ke. Each group of Hasidim built and maintained its own house of worship. Apart from Yiddish, the Jews there spoke a bit of Polish, or Ruthenian, to the extent that it was needed to transact business with the Polish or Ruthenian populace. During that period, there were already Jews who spoke a bit of German, and read the Viennese periodical ‘Die Neue Freieh Presse,’ which simultaneously was a sort of guide to political problems.

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In front of the Korn house of the Jewish Quarter

There was a steam mill that was run outside of the city, which was built by the rich Sokal man Rauch. Later on this mill was bought by the Baron Watman, who took on the responsibility of providing Rauch's son with the position of director of the mill, which had only Jewish employees and Christians as simple laborers. The director Rauch – even though he ran his house in the Polish spirit, was very generous in donating to all Jewish needs.

On the periphery of Sokal was a bench factory, which belonged to the Griner brothers who manufactured benches for distilleries and made a great deal of money. The balebatim that owned this factory, simple Jews of the old traditional way of life, integrated themselves, to a great degree, in the city. Their children were, however, already members of the so called assimilated intelligentsia.

Most of the Jews of the city – as Dr. Kindler tells – in the first decade of the 20^th century, were involved with commerce, many in wholesale. There were also craftsmen among the Jews who were active as tailors, carpenters, artists, and a few shoemakers. The Christian populace – that we already know from before – also got themselves involved in the working of the land, and as a result there were also Christian craftsmen but not in a large number.

As Dr. Kindler tells us, two Jews stood out as unusually excellent in their community work: one was the businessman Burstein, a wealthy Jewish man, one who observed tradition, and would often be found

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perusing a page of the Gemara. His children were already studying at universities, and were entirely assimilated and, in general, took no part in Jewish community affairs.

The second community activist was Abgot, the owner of a fabric cutting business and a member of the Sokal City Council. As for his two sons – one was an active assimilationist, while the second led a Jewish life.

As to all political issues, at that time, the Sokal Jews aligned themselves in accordance with the guidance given by the Tzaddik of Belz.

As early as the end of the last decade of the 19^th century, when the Galician government readied itself to limit and even eliminate the competition from Jewish communities, the progressive Jewish activists of that time in Galicia from the ‘Shomer Yisrael’ organization called for a gathering of Jewish communities in Lemberg, which took on the role of being a model of status for the communities of Galicia, and it was decided to establish a Rabbinical Seminary in Galicia. Along with this decision during this gathering, a heated battle took place between the modern oriented representatives of the communities and the emissaries of the orthodox. In the end, the Tzaddik of Belz, the Rebbe Yehoshua Rokeach זצ”ל, along with other orthodox rabbis, called for a boycott of all the decisions taken at the Lemberg conference. At the same time, they created a separate religious organization, ‘Makhzikei Das,’ which set for itself the objective to contest the progressive tendencies that began to penetrate the Jewish communities.

These orthodox circles called for a conference in Lemberg, in 1882, in which 220 rabbis participated and 800 delegates from Jewish communities in Galicia and Bukovina and as it was decided at the time that the status of the Jewish communities was to follow the orthodox tradition.

This contest between the orthodox and progressive camps in Galicia took on sharp forms – this was especially the case when Jewish-Nationalist leaders began to appear in the Galician political arena, who took up the fight for the realization of Dr. Herzl's solution to the anticipating Jewish communities.

As we have previously shown, a grasp of the Jewish-Nationalist politics was alien to the Sokal Jewish leadership, and still by the beginning of the 20^th century there was calm that reigned on the Jewish street of Sokal, until the appearance of the first Zionist pioneers and even then, Sokal was not plagued by any fighting. Several respected rich orthodox families held sway in Sokal, carrying out their duties and community affairs with commitment, within the narrow limitation s of what was then the area of Jewish activity.

These rich people often represented the Jewish populace in the Sokal Town Council, using very simple efforts to obtain relaxation of limits for the Jewish side.

In the battle between the Poles and Ruthenians, they always took a solid position on the Polish side, who supported the single just ruler in Eastern-Galicia.

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The National-Zionist currents, which in the first years of the 20^th century had already captured the mood of the Jewish masses in the larger Eastern-Galician cities, in the end, broke through the wall of indifference and political nationalist lack of concern that for generations long had held sway over the Jewish street in Sokal. In the year 1905, there was already an active Zionist Society headed by Dr. Shimon Wolfram.

In the 1907 elections to the Austrian parliament, the young Zionist activists in Galicia, for the first time, went out to do battle on behalf of Jewish-Nationalist candidates, that were put forth in a few election districts. This election contest awoke the Jewish masses from their political apathy and reluctance to participate. With indescribable and ardent fire, the Jewish-National proposals were taken up in the Jewish settlements of Galicia.

The Jewish national camp fought from a unified front of the Polish reaction with assimilated Jewish people, voted for the Jewish-Nationalist ticket, against anti-Zionist orthodox circles, who were only able to put up three or four candidates, even though the mass of Jews voted in an array of cities, voted en masse for the Jewish-Nationalist ticket.

This voting contest still elicited a weak reaction in Sokal. The young Zionist organization there, encountered a strong opposition to its efforts from all orthodox circles, who at that time were still the deciding factor on the Jewish street.

These same circles, led by rich orthodox balebatim, also held sway over the Jewish community in Sokal. The large part of the Jewish populace did not have any strong idea regarding the election of the community leadership, because the active and passive privilege of voting depended on two aspects of the election census: a census of wealth, and of scholarship.

Jewish Sokal, during the first decade of the 20^th century was in the advantageous position that Jewish scholars stood at the head of its leadership, who faithfully, and with commitment, carried on the affairs of the community for the benefit of the entire Jewish populace in the city. This becomes apparent from the composition of the Sokal budget of the year 1909/10 (5670), at that time, the head of the community was R' Isaac Byk, and his deputy was Todros Anker. Other members of the community council were: Mekhl Shlomo Burstein, Meir Pfeffer, Tzalel Szmutzer, Moshe Baum, Meir Berisz Reiman, Mendl Trefel, Leib Beri, Shlomo Blum, Chaim Yaakov Reiman, David Szpalter. The city rabbi at the time was R' Shmuel Rokeach and apart from him, other rabbis who were active in the community were Shabtai Herzog and R' Leib'eleh Dayan. The secretary of the council was Yaakov Horn.

At that time, the Hevra Kadisha was directed by Chaim Yaakov Reiman. It is worth noting that the Sokal municipal budget of the years 1909/10 came to 12,000 Austrian Crowns – a large amount in comparison to others at that time.

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Towards the end of the first decade of the 20^th century, the stream of Poles from Western-Galicia became substantive. The decline in the relative number of Jews vs. the local general population of residents, that became apparent already in the year 1900, now continued to grow. In the year 1910, the number of Jews in Sokal was 4,516, this being an increase of 738 people over the year 1900, and despite this, the relative number of Jews fell from 39.3% to 38.9%. You can appreciate that with the growth of the number of Polish residents – the pressure against Jewish business positions also grew stronger.

The Jews did not sit idly on their hands. The Jewish society in Eastern-Galicia organized a broadly based counteraction, whose objective was to allocate help to the positions of Jewish businesses under threat, being destabilized by the pressure of the threatening undertakings by the elements of the Polish citizenry.

In Sokal, during the first decade of the 20^th century, the Poles unfolded an intensive economic activity, especially in the founding of credit [granting] institutions, whose goal was to finance Polish commerce. During the year 1908, there were 4 Jewish credit-societies active there, and at the same time there existed 5 Christian so-called credit-institutions.

As a result of the decree to have Sunday as a day of rest, as well as decrees regarding salt and monopolies in [strong] drink, the condition of the businesses in the hands of the Jews meaningfully deteriorated in Sokal. A fatal influence on the economic condition of the Jewish populace was the order regarding propination^[4] - concessions, because of the 15,000 Jewish families that lived off the commerce in drink – 8,000 – meaning about 40,000 Jews lost their livelihood.

Thanks to the intensive Enlightenment activity of the younger Zionist organization, towards the beginning of the second decade of the 20^th century, the awareness of nationalism began to be

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awakened among the Jewish populace. During the 1911 elections to the Austrian parliament, the Zionist organization already took an active role in the election process and threw itself into the election campaign with fiery ardor.

The Zółkiew -Rawa Ruska -Sokal election district consisted of the Polish professor Stazhinsky, Dr. Ignacy Steinhouse – a lawyer supported by the city official (viceroy) Bozhinsky, the Ukrainian priest Lewicki, and Dr. Rapaport, an easterner, and a member of the city council in Lemberg. The Jewish-National Committee proposed to the Ukrainians that they conclude an agreement, which required that in this circle, that had to cast their votes for the Jewish candidate, Rapaport. But nothing came of this, because the Ukrainians wanted primarily to demonstrate their strength and for the first ballot, they voted for their candidate Lewitzky, and only in the eventual final vote, they wanted to cast their votes for the Jewish-National candidate.

As Dr. Kindler tells us in his memoirs, the Jewish-National candidate Dr. Rapaport obtained the greatest number of votes in the city of Sokal proper, but in an array of smaller locations that belonged to this election district, the Jews were terrorized by the official administrative factors, as well as being under the influence of the anti-Zionist orthodox milieu, and voted for Dr. Steinhouse and it came to a run-off between this latter individual and professor Stazhinsky. Dr. Steinhouse was elected, who upon joining the Viennese parliament, became a member of the Polish parliamentary club (Kola Polskie).

In the year 1912-1913, Galicia endured a difficult economic crisis. The aggressive military tendencies of the Austro-Hungarian political scene made their appearance even stronger than before.

The entire economic life in Galicia became shaken up. There was stagnation in trade, as well as the weakly developed industry, which led to frightful unemployment and the pauperization on the Jewish street took on a frightful appearance. There were Jewish social forces at work in an array of cities, whose mission was to organize a broadly branched assistance initiative.

In Sokal, up to the year 1913, there was not a single Jewish social institution, or humanitarian organization, that would make the effort to lighten Jewish poverty in an organized way. There were single well-to-do Jews, who held that the good deed of giving charity, and as far as was possible, exerted themselves to help their needy brethren. The tales of these refined Sokal Jews will eventually be discussed in other chapters of this Yizkor Book.

Because of the pre-war industrial crisis in Galicia, and the general poverty that spread unchecked across the Jewish street in Sokal – these conditions caused the local activists to see the need to establish philanthropic activities on broadly-based social foundations. It was for this reason that in 1913, several philanthropic societies were founded, each of which had different goals.

An animated activity was started by the Jewish Tailors Society, which was founded in that year. The reason that this Society was first founded in this year was simply because of the fact that in old Sokal, in the city of scholars and Torah Greats, the number of Jewish craftsmen was not so large. In time, Jewish

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craftsmen came from the surrounding villages, and as it happened there was a larger number of tailors among the new arrivals, therefore causing them to found their own society with their own small synagogue, which was found near the Bet HaMedrash and, apart from the Jewish tailors, craftsmen from other trades also worshiped. Over the course of many years, the head of the Tailors' synagogue was R' Josef Eliyahu Zwirn ז”ל, who was very active in sustaining the Tailors Society and its little synagogue and thereby he developed a very necessary activity for the good of the Jewish craftsmen in the city. In the budget year of 1914/15 it was the well-to-do Sokal resident and activist M. Krebs ז”ל who stood at its head.

It was the ‘Tomkhei Aniyim^[5]’ society that began to take shape in the year 1913, which assumed the responsibility to donate provisions for the poor people with adequate heating material during the winter months. The head of this society was R' Mendl Beri, who with his inexhaustible energy did much to lighten the load on the Jewish street.

A separate society of exceptional importance in Sokal, which began its work in 1913, was the women's society, ‘Ezrat Nashim’ whose principal objective was to supply foodstuffs for those sick Jews who sustained themselves in the general municipal hospital. The committed social activist Mrs. Chana Kreminer ז”ל and Mrs. Podzhamczer were at the head of this society for many years.

The ‘Bykur Kholim’ Society had a very important humanitarian mission, which also initiated its activity in the year 1913 and concerned itself with distributing cost-free help for poor Jews. The well-to-do activist R' Ephraim Gross ז”ל led this society over the course of many years.

To the credit of the leadership of the Jewish community in Sokal in the period 1913/1914 – it is necessary to stress that in the domain of social support, it demonstrated a meaningful activity. In the budget year 1913/14 the head of this community council was R' Tzalel Szmutzer, who continued the tradition of the previous community leadership and fulfilled his social goals with full commitment. Two additional community activists, apart from those previously mentioned, in the year 1912/13, were R' Abraham Krom and D. Welisz Zaks.

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From the right, R' Asher Szmirer – Sokal Rosh Yeshivah

The First World War broke out in August 1914. During the first bloody days of battle, Sokal immediately found itself on the front lines. As a result of the first clash, the Austrian soldiers came as far as Lublin. However, immediately, at the hands of the Russian general Ruzsky they were thrown back over the Austrian border. The Russian soldiers took possession of Sokal on August 16, 1914. Two weeks later, the Russian general Brusilov took control of Tarnopol and Halicz, and on September 3, 1914, entered Lemberg with his army.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the Sokal Jews were faced with very difficult times. Immediately after the city was taken by the Russian Cossacks and Circassians, a bloody pogrom took place. All Jewish places of business were plundered, and in addition 35 Jewish hostages were taken, and 75 Jews were dragged back into Russia. It is not possible to put down in writing the suffering of the Jews of Sokal during the long-lasting Russian occupation. The hunger and general want on the Jewish street placed massive responsibilities on the handful of community activists that remained in the city.

Refugees arrived on a daily basis even from more distant places that suddenly found themselves on the Russian or Austrian front line. And whenever danger threatened needy Jews, the balebatim of Sokal, themselves in difficult material circumstances, did not stint in their energy or sacrifices to help out and organize initiatives to bring relief.

When the Russians suffered a substantial defeat at Gorlitz, in a panicked speed, they drew back from all of mid-Galicia and in leaving the city of Gorlitz, the Russians seized 80 respected Jews, thereby being old and weak, that had to make the entire trip to Sokal on foot, where the Russian military staff made its headquarters. Exhausted and half dead, the hostages from Gorlitz were taken to the chief headquarters of the Russian city commandant, which occupied the post office building. The news of the frightening circumstance of the Jews from Gorlitz spread with lightning speed through the city, and Jews came running from all streets, bringing food and drink for the starved hostages, so they could eat and drink. Simultaneously, the tireless community activist of the Czortkow-Husiatyn kloyz, R' Israel Brod, went to the commandant of the city and worked out with him that all of the Gorlitz hostages would be set free under the condition that he, coupled together with the then Sokal community head, would guarantee that these released Gorlitz hostages will, at all times, at the behest of the Russian commandant, return to be under Russian command. In the meantime, all of these Gorlitz Jews were settled in the Husiatyn kloyz, where they got food and drink. They were also provided with living quarters, because almost all of the well-to-do balebatim took one, or two of the hostages.

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In the month of June, 1916, the Russian Armyu Under the leadership of General Brusilov, after difficult battles, once again took over a large part of Eastern Galicia and all of Bukovina, and in those areas that fell under Russian control, the situation of the Jews improved a great deal. On the other side, the economic and community conditions of the Jewish populace got worse in the occupied cities and towns.

The state of the Jews in occupied Galician industrial sites was very sorrowful. As An-ski portrays it, in previously documented memoirs of his, large swaths of earth remained untended, commerce came to a halt, the factories and also the workingmen were left with no work to do. The remaining Jewish intelligentsia had no means from which to derive a living. The occupation drew out all sources of income. A beaten-down pessimistic mood was created. Ripped away from every culture, no newspapers, no books, no theater, the young left with no schools– that's what was found on the street. In that same year of 1916, the Russian authorities began to send back all of the deported Jews of Galicia (except those held hostage). The 75 Jews also returned to Sokal, who had been dragged off in the first weeks of the war. Along with them, the Russians also sent about 4,000 homeless Jews to Sokal, from Pidvolochysk and Husiatyn. These Jews found themselves in a frightful state. The impoverished community in Sokal undertook every effort in order to provide a roof over their heads for these unfortunate homeless Jews, and as An-ski describes, they settled 4 to 5 families in one room, and thereby, all the study houses were utilized, magazines and even stables.

In Independent Poland

In November 1918, the bloody World War came to an end, and an independent Polish state was created on the wreckage of the destroyed monarchies, which, among other things, included Galicia. However, immediately the Ukrainians declared Eastern Galicia, which included Sokal, to be a part of the newly created Western Ukrainian Republic.

The Jews of Eastern Galicia had enough to withstand the fights between the Polish and Ukrainian forces, who spread out across this entire area. We learn of the sad plight of the Jewish populace in Sokal, under the rule of Ukrainian masters from a correspondence from three, which appeared in the Lemberg Zionist Daily ‘Kvila’ from 16.6.1919 (N. 152). On November 2, 1918 – we read this following correspondence – the Jewish populace in Sokal is willing to accept the fact of the takeover of rule by the Ukrainians. Torn off from the peripheral part of the country, and without direction – by itself, it opted for the very appropriate way of strict neutrality. Carrying out matters pertaining to Jewish issues, it was taken over by a presidium of the native community, around which gathered a group of employable balebatim. From day-to-day, this need increased, because the full stagnation in commerce, elicited from the dearth going back as well as the reversal of the centralization of commerce in the hands of Ukrainian rulers, increased the poverty of the Jewish populace. The not infrequent military excesses elicited unrest and those who, with force, imposed by their nature, the ‘Karbovantzehs’ (Haryuventzehs) ruined the rest of the assets of the people.

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In this correspondence we further read that voluntary spending for a philanthropic initiative was organized which was substantively helped by the Jewish Women's circle. Every time, when it was necessary, they intervened with the Ukrainian authorities. A deep pain shook up the Jewish community because of the death sentence handed down to the imprisoned officer of the Polish military – Severin Buchsbaum ז”ל.

Finally, we learn from this correspondence, that in the city, ‘the life of the young people pulsed strongly, who had concentrated themselves around the ‘HaShomer’ organization and in the Hebrew school. The existing Jewish societies exerted themselves to satisfy the cultural and social needs, to the extent that they could and what was permitted at the time, and if there were not larger military divisions stationed in the city.’

‘The last days were frightful – it says in the correspondence – when the Ukrainian authorities fell upon the city wildly without restraint. There was no end to the plunder. No house was spared in this respect. After the Polish troops marched in, there was nothing to envy in being part of the Jewish community. First, because of an intervention by the local Polish residents, who did not forget the substantial restraint in leaving the Jews alone, whom they willingly helped both morally and with material things – conditions improved. This attraction to the Jewish populace on the part of the Polish residents, came with a manifestation of a gathering of the Poles, in which not a single hostile word was uttered about the Jews.’

Despite this, the political position of the Jewish populace in Sokal was very difficult. Proclaiming the neutrality of the Jews in Eastern Galicia, during the Polish-Ukrainian War, elicited dissatisfaction and animosity towards Jews both from the Polish and Ukrainian side.

The condition of the Jews in Eastern Galicia did not improve even afterwards, when in the month of January, the Polish-Ukrainian War ended, with the total collapse of the Western Ukrainian Republic.

At this point, the battle over Eastern Galicia took on a political character. The Polish rule in this respect needed to be sanctioned by means of the political means of the day, imposed by the large victorious countries. After difficult political wrangling at the post-war peace conferences, after strong protests by the Polish government – Poland's de facto recognition over the rule of the settled part of, Eastern Galicia, but only temporarily until there would be a new decision. This transition period lasted until 13.3.1923, when the ambassador's council eventually allocated Eastern Galicia to the country of Poland.

During this transition period, which lasted almost four and a half years, the condition of the Jewish populace deteriorated further in Eastern Galicia.

The Jews of Sokal were not an exception. The battles that took place in Eastern Galicia, the harassment and cruelty against the Jewish populace both from the side of the occupying Russian military, and the Ruthenians and later on by the Polish government, the decrees, the dragging off and

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deportations to Russia – all of this caused a significant drop in the number of Jews in Sokal. According to the population census of 1921 the Jewish population came to 4,630, this being 114 individuals more than the year 1910 (4561) and the relative proportion of Jews rose by 0.45% because the general count of the residents in the year 1921 came to 10,200 souls.

The fall in the number of Jews in Sokal in the post-war period is understandable, when you take into account the gruesome events of the war, as well as the rise in Jewish emigration during the first years after the war.

To understand the rise in relative Jewish numbers, one has to take into account the heavy losses of the Polish and Ukrainian populace during the war years, and also the fact that during this period there was a temporary Polish colonization activity instituted in Eastern Galicia.

The continuous growth of poverty of the Jewish populace in Sokal, elicited a strong reflection in the social life of the city. The reflection of this state in those social activists, decent and committed compassionate people, for whom philanthropic activity was for them a deeply religious and moral responsibility, became powerless in the sight of the continuous growth of the need in the Jewish street.

Municipal initiatives now required organization of a self-supporting initiative on all fronts of political and economic life. Constructive help now became the solution of the new social activists, who together with representatives of the American ‘Joint’ made the maximum efforts to rebuild the Jewish businesses ruined during the war, and to create new means of earning a living.

As was the case in all Eastern Galician cities, such a Jewish rescue committee, was also formed in Sokal, which assumed the task to rebuild those Jewish entities ruined during the war, and for this purpose, they created manufacturing institutions in the cities and towns.

When in 19.12.19 a gathering took place in Lemberg of the Jewish rescue committees, Dr. Rauchberg, a gymnasium teacher from Sokal, participated.

The new generation of Zionist activists in Sokal, former Yeshiva students from the local Bet HaMedrash of the Husiatyn Kloyz already understood how to take the measure of the weighty role and objectives of the Jewish community. For many years this role was led by prominent Parnassim from the orthodox camp, who were elected to their positions by an old non-democratic leadership, which completely excluded the larger Jewish masses from participating in the leadership.

Already in the final three decades of the 19^th century, a very heated struggle took place between the orthodox and progressive camps in Galicia regarding the rightful choices of business in the Jewish community.

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The Austrian government prepared a project of their own in a general law for the communities in all of Austria, which was put in place in the year 1890 by the Austrian parliament. This community status did not include the postulates of national Jewry and foresaw no central community institution, since the First World War caught Galician Jewry in a state of disorganization regarding the issue of autonomous Jewish life as well as the deterioration of political and economic life.

Thanks to the reactionary election system which was a supporting part for the new community status, the communities often got administrators [in charge] who did not have a comprehension of the new currents and needs of the Jewish masses and relied on the authority, with the help of the ruling monarchial institutions, who did not permit the use of changes that were fundamental to community leadership, always turning instead to install a Government-Commissar as the head of a community.

In the year 1919, almost in all of Galicia, there were Government-Commissars who held sway, because due to the Ukrainian-Polish War there were no elections run in this area.

Later on, a more democratically election ordinance was simultaneously put in place by the Pilsudski decree of 7.2.1919 together with the order of the President of the Polish Republic of 14.10.1927 (excepting Silesia), which a larger number of the community members received the right to vote.

Despite the fact that the new community decree held by the old assimilationist principle, and limited the activity of the community leadership only to religious matters, it also created the possibility to open the gates of the communities for legitimate representation of the people, who would be open to the development of a broad social and national activity on the Jewish street.

As we previously stressed, the Jewish community in Sokal, even before The First World War, was led by decent, committed activists, almost all from the orthodox camp, who approached their community obligations seriously. There were such precious Jews as R' Itzik Bykז”ל, R' Bezalel Schmutzer ז”ל, Todros Anker ז”ל and many others, who for many years dealt with the issues of Sokal and literally gave their lives for the good of the masses, had a very well-aligned approach to social work, believing strongly in the power of simple exertion of effort, believing deeply in simple effort, they discharged their community duties with full commitment.

Even during the period when Government-Commissars were in charge, Jews were found in Sokal with warm Jewish hearts, with a deep empathy for distress and poverty. This exceptional sense of compassion manifested itself openly during the support initiative for the hungry Jews in Russia and in The Ukraine, that was carried out in Sokal in June 1922. We read about this support initiative from a correspondence from Sokal, which appeared in the Lemberg ‘Khwalla’ of 9.6.1922 (No. 131), which says: ‘The help initiative for the hungry Jews in Russia and The Ukraine, which is now being carried out in many towns in Galicia, also had a start with us, thanks to the initiative of the native community, and an array of Zionist activists. On Sunday, the 11^th of June 1922, a general meeting was called, from which a help-committee was constituted and immediately declared [a need for] approximately 200,000 marks. Special collectors for this purpose were designated to approach people and other balebatim [e.g. people of substance] to collect expense money as quickly as possible.

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With time, the activity of the Commissars in the Sokal community elicited strong opposition by the members of the Jewish social community in the city in place of the prior serious activists. The community leadership brought in people, whose one virtue was their geniality, which they developed and showed to the Polish people in power in Galicia.’

The change in approach in the Sokal community is pictured for us in the Sokal correspondence, which appeared in the Lemberg ‘Tageblatt’ of 2.6.1924 (No. 87). Where we read: ‘as was the case in other cities, the lot fell on our city to carry the yoke of unsympathetic Government-Commissar. Now, thanks to the Jewish representation in the Sejm, we were privileged to have new elections and we have the possibility to liberate ourselves from the indifferent overseers, making it possible for these [sic: our] good people to triumph in their candidacy.’

Very soon, elections were held in the [Sokal] community and from a later correspondence from Sokal in the Lemberg ‘Tageblatt,’ of 24.6.1964^[6] (No. 123), we already learn that these votes were annulled because of voting irregularities.

‘By the base and underhanded swindle of the old clique at the ballot box' – we read further on in the correspondence – where they did not permit one trusted man from the national list [vote], the clique, once again won the community election. This elicited a strong outcry and a cold reaction even by those who were not party affiliated, such that on the second day, after the elections in the morning, a protest had already been put together with a large number of signatures. First the circle of the swindling cohort was made fun of by protesters, and they, even in unison, suggested that the Starosta will make no use of this. However, several days later, when the Starosta brought forth a variety of witnesses in regards to this matter, and listened very intensively to them, they had already seriously thought about the issue. Now we are awaiting an official declaration from the Starosta, that the protest was accepted, and they must immediately print up new ballots. Our unwanted overseers are therefore walking around as if headless. We can rest easy on the honest understanding of the voters, that they wish to excise the process from the hands of the swindlers. And they will cast their votes on the second ballot for people who always strive for the common good, and are ready at any and all opportunities to protect Jewish honor and Jewish interests.’

A severe economic crisis started in Poland in the year 1929. The first victims of this crisis were the Jews. Thousands of Jewish families were left with no income, and a frightful poverty spread throughout the Jewish cities and towns. The destructive effect of the crisis on the Jewish street had its roots not only in the abnormal socio-economic structure of the Jewish populace , Poland, but in a larger measure it accelerated the process of impoverishing Polish Jewry by the anti-Semitic extermination-politics of the Polish governing authorities. A major contributor to the [economic] deterioration of the Jewish populace in Poland was the strong anti-Jewish boycott-agitation of a broad anti-Semitic front, which, with the exception of Polish Socialists, enveloped almost all the Polish political factors in the land.

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Sokal Jewry was no exception in this respect. The community activists there made enormous efforts to organize the Jewish industrial forces in the struggle for work and sustenance. It was for this reason that great emphasis was placed on the effort to create independent support institutions, such as credit-cooperatives, and other socio-economic organizations.

Jewish Porters in Sokal

At the same time, however, the percentage of Jews fell in 1931 compared to the general population, which came to 12,000. During the year 1921, the relative amount of Jews in Sokal was 42.8% – which fell now to 41.6% This decline was as a result of the strengthened Polish colonization politics in Eastern Galicia.

In January 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany. The influence of Hitler's anti-Semitic solutions found fertile soil in Poland. With each passing year, life became more unbearable for Polish Jewry. Aided by esthetic experiments, monopolies and concessions, the pressure to push out the Jews from industry and commerce increased. The intent of each law, or every order that the Polish ruling circles promulgated, was aimed at harming the Jews.

The disappointing position of the Jewish cities and towns in Poland became expressed during the budget debate in the Polish Sejm in February 1933, when the President of the Jewish Sejm-Club Dr. Yehoshua Ton ז”ל, who added the declaration to the Sejm-Agenda that the Jewish populace had been led to such an unbounded confusion, that as their representative, he voted against the government budget.

Regrettably, the protests from the industrial and political Jewish organizations did not help. The reverberations of the pain emanating from the Jewish representatives did not elicit any echoes [of support] from the Polish Sejm and Senate. Anti-Semitic sentiments grew among the Polish populace. There was no end to the anti-Semitic decrees and harassments.

The reformation of the way products were sold from the government tobacco-monopoly, the animal slaughter law, the Polish ‘Ovshem’ politics that legitimized the industrial extermination initiatives aimed at Polish Jewry, the boycott initiative, which using all possible means were supported by the official authorities – this all had the explicit goal of driving out the Jews from their productive positions.

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The Jews of Sokal, during this period of aggressive and total anti-Semitism, showed a great measure of modest patience and a strong will to create independent self-help means, in order to bolster and save Jewish existence from complete ruin.

The willingness to help and endure sacrifice for the good of needy Jews was deeply rooted in the hearts of the Sokal Jews, who did not spare energy or sacrifice, at every opportunity, to help their brethren. Not only once did the Sokal Jews put out their posture of decency, gentleness and being broad-hearted. Details about initiatives that were undertaken in Sokal in the most difficult off circumstances are related in another part of this Yizkor Book.

At the beginning of 1939, the prospects of an agreement between the Polish ruling circles Hitler's Germany disappeared. In the end, the Polish people in power saw that Poland's life interests were in large measure threatened. No one, any longer, had any doubt that the German Army was preparing to invade Poland.

The entire country stood under the provocation of German demands… The war-psychology infected the mood of all Polish society.

The democratic circles in Poland had already understood that with the appearance of clouds that darkened the horizons of Poland, that it was necessary to create a united front of all forces in the country to fight the Hitlerist enemy. And when elections to the municipal council took place in Sokal on March 12, 1939, as a result of an agreement between the Jewish and Polish voting committees they created a partnered voting bloc of Poles and Jews, which put out a joint list of candidates for the Sokal municipal council.

As we read in the call to vote from the united Polish-Jewish voting committee written to the Jewish voters, the Polish side was represented by the one-time burgomaster Mgr. Z. Alszewiski, and the Jewish side was represented by Rabbi Abraham Rokeach, the President of the Jewish community leadership, Eng. Schwartz, the president of the Gemilut Hasadim Bank, Dr. David Kindler, the city doctor, Dr. Szmieder, the doctor of the Sokal Hospital Dr. Z. Gruber, the director of the Merchant's Bank David Byk, the merchants Israel Rapaport and Joseph Babad.

Regrettably, there was no force to be had to halt the catastrophe, which with enormous speed drew closer to the borders of the Polish state.

On September 1, 1939 the Hitlerist soldiers attacked Poland. In a matter of a few weeks, all of Poland up to the Bug River was occupied by the German Army. The rest of Poland was under the control of Soviet occupiers.

The catastrophe for Polish Jewry drew nearer. Immediately in the first months of German rule, the period of pain and killing of the Jewish settlements of Poland began.

The tragic killing of those decent Jewish people in Sokal drew nearer. During the cruel murdering

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and relocation aktionen in the Sokal ghetto, the precious Sokal Jews were tortured together with their brethren from the surrounding locations. They gave up the sanctified spirit of their lives in the gas chambers and mass graves.

Together with all the other Jewish settlements in Poland the venerable Jewish settlement in Sokal was wiped out and erased.

A section of the Sokal marketplace in 1932 with the courthouse to the left

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Sample call to vote for the city of Sokal in 1939 by the United Voting Committee

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On a street in Sokal during a fair (From the right): Meir Liferman, Hebrew Teacher, and Leib Fyvel during a 1933 visit

Page 95 of this book is devoted to a listing of 33 footnotes that the author has employed in the preparation of this memoir. All of these references are in either Polish or German, with a smattering of Yiddish and Hebrew. I have chosen not to translate this page, and refer interested parties to the original text if they wish to consult the details.

1. In the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th centuries, the Czerwien stronghold was in the hands of the princes of Wlodzimierz (the Principality of Halych-Volhynia ). Its greatest development took place at the turn of the 12^th and 13^th centuries. In 1240, Czerwin was destroyed by the Tatars and then rebuilt [4] . The end of the existence of the stronghold came as a result of another Tatar invasion after 1289, when the Red disappeared from the face of the earth. The memory of the stronghold disappeared for many centuries, and its function was taken over by Belz . Therefore, in place of the old names such as the land of Red and Czerwienskie, the concept of the Duchy of Belz or the Land of Belz appeared in 1462, transformed into a province .
   In the 14^th century, the territory of Grody Czerwienskie ( Red Ruthenia at that time under the control of the Tatar Khanate) was re-incorporated by Casimir the Great into the Polish state. Return
2. Run by the nobility. Return
3. Circles dealing with agriculture Return
4. Propination laws were a privilege granted to Polish szlachta that gave landowners a monopoly over profits from alcohol consumed by their peasants. Propination is a historical right to distill spirits.
   In many cases, profits from propination exceeded those from agricultural production or other sources.
   These laws usually included:
   peasants were not allowed to purchase any alcohol not produced in their owner's distillery
   alternatively, they could be allowed to brew their own drinks but had to pay a fee according to the amount produced
   peasants had to buy at least a given quota of vodka or okovita. Those who didn't comply had the remaining amount dumped in front of their houses and had to pay the costs.
   These laws first appeared in the 16^th and were widespread by the 17^th century. They lasted until 1845 (Prussian partition), 1889 (Galicia) and 1898 (Russian Partition).
   Propination was the main cause for massive alcoholism in Poland; also, because taverns in rural region were leased nearly exclusively to Jews who took part in enforcing these privileges, it was also a major reason for anti-Semitism among peasants Return
5. Supporters of the Poor. Return
6. Very likely a ‘typo’ which should have read 1924. Return

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