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Dorohoi

DOROHOI, town in N.E. Romania, located on important trade routes between Poland, Bukovina, and Moldavia. Jews began to settle there in the 17th century. They were granted charters of privilege in 1799, 1808, and 1823. The Dorohoi community was organized, like other communities in Moldavia, as a Breasla Jidovilor ("Jewish guild"), first mentioned there in 1799 and existing until 1834. There were 600 Jewish families in Dorohoi in 1803, 3,031 persons in 1859 (50.1% of the total population), 6,804 in 1899 (53.6%), and 5,820 (36.6%) in 1930. The town was also a ḥasidic center, where admorim sometimes lived, among them Jehiel Michael Tierer and Hanoch Frenkel who died in Haifa. Among the town's rabbis were Mattitiyahu Kalman (d. 1824); Ḥayyim *Taubes (1847–1909) after serving in Sassov, Galicia, author of Torah commentaries and responsa; Dov Beer Drimer; and Pinhas Eliyahu Wasserman (1917–1996), who died in Jerusalem. Before the Holocaust 25 synagogues functioned in Dorohoi. A regular modern communal organization was set up in 1896. The community had a talmud torah and a secular Jewish school by 1895. A large number of refugees from persecutions in the vicinity arrived in Dorohoi in 1881–4. The community also suffered severely during the peasant revolt in 1907. The Jews were persecuted by the military authorities during World War I and suffered from economic restrictions between the two world wars. The Jews in Dorohoi were mainly occupied as artisans, manual workers, and petty shopkeepers. In 1920 the community established a hospital. Ḥovevei Zion groups became active in the last decades of the 19th century. Later various Zionist and other Jewish organizations also became active. Among the intellectuals born in Dorohoi were Romanian-language writers on general and Jewish themes, such as Ion Călugăru (1902–1956), Saşa Pană (1902–1979), and Ştefan Antim (1879–1944). Jewish periodicals in Yiddish and Romanian were also published there.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

M. Mircu, Pogromurile din Bucovina şi Dorohoi (1945), 132, 145; M. Carp, Cartea neagră, 1 (1940), index; F. Şaraga, in: Sliha, 11 (1956), 4; 1:12 (1956), 4; 1:13 (1956), 4; pk Roman-yah, 1 (1970), 104–10. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. David (ed.), Dorohoi-Mihăileni-Darabani-Herţa-Rădăuţi Prut, 5 vols. (1992–2000); M. Rozen, Evreii din Judeţul Dorohoi (2000); I. Wasserman, Dobândeşteţi un rabin, câştigă-ţi un prieten (2003), 278–345.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.