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Rozwadow

ROZWADOW, town in Rzeszow province, S.E. Poland. In 1727 there were a synagogue and 30 houses owned by Jews in Rozwadow. According to the 1765 census, there were 333 Jewish poll-tax payers and a further 35 in the surrounding villages. The Jewish population increased rapidly during the second half of the 19th century following the construction of the railway which linked the town with krakow and Lemberg. In 1880, 1,628 Jews (76% of the total population) lived in the town. The wealthiest among them (known as the Danzig merchants) exported timber by raft to Germany and mobilized peasants of the district for agricultural work in Prussia. The majority of the Jews of Rozwadow earned their livelihood in small trade and crafts such as carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, the manufacture of soap, and the making of shirts for the peasants. From the middle of the 19th century the rabbis of Rozwadow were descendants of the Ẓaddik Naphtali Hurowic of Ropczyce. In 1910 there were 2,372 Jews (70%) in the town. The president of the Jewish community, Dov Ber Reich, also held the office of mayor (1907–40). From 1900 to 1914, a school founded by the *Baron de Hirsch functioned in the town. On the eve of Shavuot 1915, the Russian army expelled the Jews who had remained in the town and many of them were exiled to Siberia. In the fall of 1918, a Jewish national council headed by Jacob Schreiber was formed in Rozwadow. During the transition period and the first weeks of Polish rule, a Jewish youth group was organized to protect the Jews from rioters. In 1921 the Jewish community numbered 1,790 (66% of the total population). Between the two worlds wars the Zionist movement in Rozwadow gained in strength, and a Hebrew school, a Hebrew library, and the sport clubs "Maccabi," "Judah," and "Trumpeldor" were established.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

M. Baliński and T. Lipiński, Starożytna Polska (1845), 482; B. Wasiutyński, Ludność żydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX (1930), 118; R. Mahler, Yidn in Amolikn Poyln in Likht fun Tsifern (1958), index; N. Blumenthal (ed.), Sefer Yizkor Rozvadov veha-Sevivah (Heb. and Yid., 1968), incl. Eng. introd.


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