Khotin

KHOTIN (Hotin in Romanian; Khocim in Polish), town in Bessarabia, today Moldova. Jewish merchants traveling from Constantinople to Lvov in the 15^th and 16^th centuries used to pass through Khotin, then an important customs station on the Polish-Moldavian border on the commercial route between Turkey and Poland. Similarly, Jewish merchants from Poland used to visit Khotin for the fairs held there, evidence for which dates from 1541. However, the residence of Jews in Khotin is first mentioned in documents in 1741. When the Frankist movement arose in nearby Podolia in the 18^th century (see Jacob *Frank and Frankists), Khotin, then under direct Turkish rule, served as a refuge for Frank and his followers when they were forced to leave Poland. In this period it also served as a refuge for *Judaizers who fled from Russia, and the community even sent emissaries to Germany to collect contributions for their maintenance. The Jews of Khotin then maintained a flourishing trade with the Ukraine and other regions of Bessarabia, and they also leased the management of estates and various branches of the farm economy. There were 340 Jewish families in 1808.

After the incorporation of Bessarabia into Russia in 1812 the community grew as a result of the large Jewish immigration into the region. The community numbered 6,342 in 1864 and 9,227 (50.2% of the total population) in 1897. A Jewish government school was established in 1847 which encouraged the growth of Haskalah; a private school for girls was opened in 1857. The Jews in Khotin were subject to the restrictions on Jewish residence in the border zones, and suffered, mainly at the end of the 19^th century, from persecution by the authorities, who expelled them from Khotin on the grounds that they had no rights of residence in the city. In the first half of the 19^th century, Isaiah Schorr, one of the most important rabbis in Bessarabia in the period, officiated in Khotin. After Bessarabia was incorporated into Romania in 1918 the community led an active cultural and communal life. Before World War II its institutions included a hospital (founded in 1865), an old-age home, a soup kitchen, a talmud torah, and a *Tarbut elementary school. It numbered 5,786 (37.7% of the total population) in 1930.

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