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Radziwillow

RADZIWILLOW (since 1940, Chervonoarmeisk), town in Volhynia, today in Rovno district, Ukraine. A Jewish community existed in Radziwillow from the end of the 16th century. In 1787 the owner of the town, K. Miączyński, obtained permission from King Stanislaus II Augustus (Poniatowski) to establish a printing press for Hebrew books. At that time Jewish merchants and contractors founded an explosives factory in the town. From 298 Jews who paid poll tax in 1765, the community increased to 3,064 in 1857 and 4,322 (59 percent of the total population) in 1897. The majority were shopkeepers, tailors, and furriers, but some Jews also engaged in tanning, joinery, manufacture of building materials, and transportation; the wealthy traded in timber and grain. Branches of the Jewish labor movement and of the Zionist movement were first organized in 1905–06. The Jewish population of Radziwillow suffered heavily during World War I and the civil war between Ukrainian nationalists and Bolsheviks. In 1920 the town was incorporated into independent Poland. By 1921 the number of Jews had declined to 2,036 (48 percent). Jews dominated the grain trade between the world wars. Jewish cultural and educational institutions functioned until 1939, among them a Hebrew Tarbut school with 300 pupils.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

B. Wasiutaʿński, Ludność żydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX (1930), 85; I. Schiper, Dzieje handlu żydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (1937), index; Radzivilov; Sefer Zikkaron (Heb. and Yid., 1966).


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