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1
The Jews of Galicia under Austrian-Polish
Rule, 1867-1918.
Piotr Wrobel
Galicia occupied an important place in the
history of the Jewish Diaspora. Galician Jews made up
a majority of Habsburg subjects of Mosaic faith and
formed a cultural bridge between West- and Ostjuden
.
Numerous outstanding Jewish political figures and
scholars, such as Isaac Deutscher, Karl Radek and
Martin Buber, were born or raised in Galicia, where
Zionist and Jewish socialist movements flourished at
that time. The unique atmosphere of a Galician shtetl
was recorded in Hassidic tales, in the books of Emil
Franzos, Manes Sperber, Bruno Schulz, Andrzej
Kusniewicz and others. Scholarly works on Jewish
Galicia are, however, mostly outdated and relatively
short.
1 
Consequently, scholars who use information
on Galicia only as supplementary data often make
numerous errors, and even for an educated American
or West European Galicia remains a land of
mystery
.
2Marsha Rozenblit is absolutely right when
she concludes a review essay, "The Jews of the Dual
Monarchy," with the observation: "Indeed, it would
be nice to know more about the traditional Jewish
population of Moravia, Galicia and Hungary."
3The
present article is a contribution to filling that gap
with regard to Galicia.
Galicia constituted the largest and
simultaneously the poorest and the most retarded
province of Austria.
4
The Kingdom of Galicia and
Lodomeria was created in 1773 out of the territories
ceded to the Habsburg Empire after the First
Partition of Poland in 1772. Previously, Galicia had
no separate identity within the Polish state. The new
name of the southern Polish lands, grabbed by
Austria, harked back to the medieval principalities of
Halich and Vladimir, once claimed by the Hungarian
state. In 1795 Galicia was enlarged by the Austrian
share of the Third Partition of Poland, which was
recaptured by the Duchy of Warsaw in 1809 and after
the Congress of Vienna formed a part of the Russian
controlled Congress Kingdom of Poland. In 1846, the
tiny, puppet Republic of Cracow was added and after
this reorganization Galicia, covering about 20 000
square miles, remained unchanged until the end of its
existence in October 1918.
5
Galician history, like that of the entire
Habsburg Empire, can be divided into three periods:
(1) the absolutist era before 1848; (2) the decade of
revolution, counter-revolution and neo-absolutism of
1848-59 and the struggle for democratic changes
1859-67; and (3) the epoch of Galician autonomy
1867-1918. Initially, the monarchs of Austria
thought of exchanging the province for another
territory and, as a result, Galicia was ruled more
harshly than the neighboring Russian and Prussian
provinces of former Poland. Galicia stagnated after
1772 and was exploited economically, cut off from
its Polish hinterland, treated as a reservoir of
manpower for the Austrian army, burdened with a
monstrous bureaucracy and numerous border
garrisons. Polish patriots were harassed by the
inquisitorial police system, and the entire Polish
population was Germanized.
6
The revolution of 1848 significantly changed
the Empire and introduced the unwritten rule that all
people should be treated as equals under the law. A
new period began in the economic and social history
of Galicia: serfdom was abolished and the first
changes leading to a capitalist society were
introduced. Political change was slowed with the
triumph of the counter-revolution and the
reestablishment of absolutism in 1851. However,
Hungarian rebelliousness, Austrian policy during the
Crimean War of 1854-56, the Italian War of 1859
and the loss of the Italian provinces, the defeat in the
struggle for supremacy in Germany and several lesser
problems pushed the emperor towards new reforms
and liberal constitutional experiments. The February
Patent of 1861 established a constitutional system in
Austria which also brought into being separate
administrative institutions in Galicia. In 1867, after
the Compromise with Hungary and the
reorganization of the Empire as the Dual Monarchy,
a broad autonomy was granted to Galicia. The
province was administered by the Poles themselves,
that is by an oligarchy of Polish nobles. Polish
became the official language and Galicia was reshaped
into a center of Polish culture, influencing the other
parts of partitioned Poland.
7
The Galician Diet (the ) and the entire
apparatus of self-government was, however,
dominated by the Polish lower nobility. The total
number of registered landowners did not exceed 2,000
mostly noble families but among them there were
only about 400 families, which (in 1866) owned
42.98% of arable land, 90.45% of forests, and
preserved numerous traces of feudalism. By 1890 the
supremacy of the Galician nobility came under
challenge by new political and economic forces,
mostly of peasant origins; but still, representatives of
the rich gentry owned 41.3% of arable land and
forests (in 1889), almost half of which were held by
161 families.
8
The Legal Position of Galician Jews .
Austria, like Prussia and Russia, was
confronted with a large scale Jewish problem for the
first time after acquiring Polish territories. In 1785
there were 150,000 Jews in the Habsburg lands outside
Galicia: about 70,000 in Bohemia, Moravia and

2
Silesia, and about 80,000 in the vast Hungarian
Kingdom. No Jews lived in Austria proper: Emperor
Leopold I had banished them from Vienna in 1669
and two years later from the whole of Lower Austria.
The exiled Jews moved to the West, to Prussia and to
Hungary, where Jewish communities suffered heavy
casualties during the Turkish wars. Even without
counting Galician Jews, Habsburg Jews constituted a
relatively large community in eighteenth century
Europe: there were about 40,000 Jews in France at
this time, Dutch and British Jewries were even less
numerous. Galician Jewry was much larger: the
Austrian administration listed 171,851 Jews in Galicia
after the First Partition of Poland and 215,447 in
1785, which made up almost 9% of the entire
Galician population.
9
Habsburgs' Jewish subjects were dispersed over
immense territories, and by the end of the eighteenth
century an Austrian Jewish elite entered an era of
rapid modernization. A relatively large number of
Jews went to secular, non-Jewish schools and started
successful big businesses or even converted. A
comparatively large group of Jewish entrepreneurs,
readmitted to Vienna in the 1690s, lived or conducted
business in that city. Some of them made fortunes
during the wars against revolutionary France. In the
1780s, Emperor Joseph II ennobled the first Austrian
Jews, mostly rich court bankers. Galician Jews were
less modernized and their situation was harder. In
1764, Jewish self-government in Poland, the so-
called Council of Four Lands, was abolished, but the
authority  of the Jewish communities and
conservative rabbis was so great that it was hard to
weaken their power. Poland, falling apart, was not
able to protect its Jews, who were oppressed in many
ways. The Jews of Galicia were ruined during the
devastating wars fought on Polish territories in the
eighteenth century. Galician Jews were divided into at
least two parts: adherents of orthodoxy and admirers
of Baal Shem Tov.
10
Empress Maria Theresa treated Galicia as a
bargaining chip and tried to exploit the province as
much as possible. The Empress, a bigoted Catholic,
detested the Jews.
11
 Despite this she intended to
profit from the presence of the Galician Jews,
although that was not easy to do. The new border,
which divided partitioned Poland, had negative
economic consequences, especially for Jews. Maria
Theresa's "Code of Regulations Concerning the Jews"
of 1776 proclaimed that Jewish beggars should be
expelled from Galicia and that only rich Jews would
be allowed to settle there. Jewish artisans were not
permitted to work for Christian customers, except in
places where no Christian was working at the same
time, and Jewish traders could not sell products
controlled by state monopoly. Maria Theresa's
Judenordnung levied several heavy taxes on Jews and
created a new autonomous board of trustees
(Generaljudendirection) to help collect them. The
board was presided over by a chief rabbi and consisted
of six district elders and six deputies from different
parts of the province.
12
Maria Theresa's successor and an admirer of
Enlightenment, Joseph II, wished to systematize and
administratively supervise the entire life of his
subjects. They were to be reshaped into loyal citizens
and taxpayers, Austrian patriots and potential
soldiers. The emperor abolished some feudal
privileges, improved the situation of peasants and
changed again the status of Jews. They were partially
admitted to civil rights, to education, and to
numerous previously prohibited professions. Jews
were allowed to settle in all cities and to hire
Christians. To make Jews more useful to the state,
Joseph II intended to terminate the traditional
"separatism" of the Jews and to expose them to
intense modernization and Germanization. Jews were
encouraged to take up agricultural work and to send
their children to government schools, established for
the education of Jews.
13
 The new position of Galician
Jewry was codified in the status of 1785, abolishing
the Generaldirektion and in the Toleranzpatent
 of
1789. 
 
The latter was the most liberal of the
Emperor's Decrees of Toleration for the Jews in any
of the Habsburg lands. However, the document
contained numerous contradictions. The Patent
abolished the autonomy of the kahals (rabbinical
courts) but kept the Jewish population in ghettos.
Jews were forbidden to hold leases (arenda) of mills,
inns, breweries and estates, or even to reside in rural
areas except to work on the land or as artisans. Jews
had to serve in the army and were declared members
of the communities in which they lived, but at the
same time special Jewish taxes were retained or even
increased. The authors of the Patent wanted to limit
the increase of the Jewish population, and therefore,
among other means, marriage taxes were introduced
for the Jews. Fortunately for the Jews of Galicia, the
Austrian administration was not able to implement all
of these regulations.
14
Joseph II's successors discontinued his policy
and opposed the emancipation of the Jewish people.
All government schools established by Joseph II for
education of Jews in Galicia were closed and the right
of the Jews to participate in municipal elections was
sharply limited, personal service in the army was
abolished and replaced by the old Polish exemption
tax. The plan of settling Jews on government-owned
land failed, most Jews were excluded from the inner
city of Lwow (Lviv)
15
, foreign Jews could come to
Galicia only for a limited time and, from 1811, all
newcomers from Poland had to pay a poll-tax.
Joseph II's detailed codification succeeded only in one
point: numerous Jewish arenda-holders and

3
innkeepers lost their businesses, which meant that
close to one-third of the Jewish population of Galicia
was deprived of its means of livelihood.
16
 Many relics of medievalism survived in
Galician legislation until the middle of the nineteenth
century. Numerous cities had Jewish ghettos or even
managed to keep old Polish "privilegia de non
tolerandis Judaeis." The burdensome system of Jewish
taxation was extended. An imperial order of 1810
sought to limit Jewish marriages by decreeing that no
one could marry unless he had passed an examination
in religion based on German catechism. Secular
education and the abandonment of distinctive dress
was encouraged but the system of oppression, which
remained unchanged until 1848, preserved the old
Jewish social structure, pushed almost a half of the
Jewish population in Galicia beyond the limits of
poverty and produced crowds of Luftmenschen.
17
Jewish emancipation was accelerated during
the "Springtime of Nations" in 1848. Habsburg Jews
took part in the revolutionary events in the entire
Empire, demanding equal rights for themselves. Even
earlier, in 1846, Jews participated in the rising at
Cracow and a number of them were jailed as a result.
That same year Austria incorporated the Republic of
Cracow. Jews in Galicia continued a political fight,
calling for civil rights, already enjoyed by Jews in
other parts of Austria. In spring of 1848, when the
first news about the outbreak of the revolution came
to Galicia, the Jews ceased to pay taxes on kosher
meat and candles. Jewish representatives joined a
delegation, which went to Vienna to present to the
emperor the Galician postulates. The most important
of them included the liberation of peasants and the
termination of statutes that singled out Jews. Two
Jews from Galicia were members of Kremsier
Reichstag and Isaac N. Mannheimer, a Vienna rabbi,
was elected for Brody. The Austrian constitution of
April 1848 granted equal rights and civil liberties to
all social groups. However, it did not abolish all
Jewish restrictions and taxes. These were abolished in
October 1848, when the Reichstag declared null and
void all the semi-feudal estate taxes. The constitution
of March 1849 confirmed these principles. Jews were
given full civil rights, were allowed to settle in all
Habsburg lands and to buy real estate.
18
The "Springtime of Nations" brought Jewish
and Polish elites closer together and introduced the
principle of equality into Galician politics. This
principle was broken, however, after the defeat of the
revolution. At the end of 1851, the 1848
constitution was revoked. Certain anti-Jewish
restrictions were reintroduced, while others were
enforced by local authorities contrary to the law but
with the toleration of the government. Jews of
Galicia lost the right to buy land, and they were
frequently restricted to ghettos and driven from town
centers. Craftsmen's guilds, public service and
university professorships were closed to Jews and
their representation on city councils were sharply
limited. Special taxes on Jews were collected again,
Christians were not allowed to work in Jewish
enterprises.
19
The conservative forces, which dominated
Austrian political life after 1849, saw their
predominance come to an end when the Habsburg
Empire was defeated by France and Piedmont in
1859, which led the emperor to introduce reforms. In
the same year of 1859, anti-Jewish marriage
restrictions were lifted and Jews were allowed to
witness in court against Christians, to practice all
artisan professions, to work as chemists and tavern
owners and to buy real estate anywhere. However,
Lwow and Cracow managed to preserve their ghettos
until 1867. In 1861, Jews received the right to be
elected to the Sejm and, in the same year, during the
first election, four Jewish deputies entered the
provincial parliament. The Austrian constitution of
1867 granted Jews equal rights which meant a
termination of all feudal restrictions.
20
The principles of the 1867 constitution were
realized in different ways in different fields of life.
Constitutional theory and everyday practice met in
the closest way in municipal self-government. By
1874, the Jews were represented in 261 city councils.
Forty five other Galician city councils lacked Jewish
deputies. In the second half of the nineteenth
century, 10 cities in Galicia elected Jewish mayors.
Only a few Jews represented their communities in the
largest cities of the province. There were only five
Jewish deputies among 100 council members in Lwow
and only 11 Jews among 60 members of the city
council in Cracow. The number of Jewish
representatives in the Sejm, consisting of 150-155
members, seldom exceeded five.
21
Jews were also rarely admitted to the civil
service: in 1897 only 5.8% of the Galician judiciary
staff were of Jewish origin, 4.7% of them were public
notaries. A similar situation prevailed at the
universities. New limitations appeared at the
beginning of the twentieth century. A state salt-
monopoly was introduced in 1910, and as a
consequence hundreds of Jews lost their jobs. A year
later, Jews were forbidden to sell alcoholic beverages;
15,000 Jewish families lost their livelihoods.
22
In 1867, the Jews of Austria received full civil
emancipation as individual citizens. They had not
been accorded the status of a "nationality"
(Volksstamm), but were considered only as a religious
group (Religionsgemeinschaft). Consequently, Jews
were not granted even the limited national rights
enjoyed by the recognized "nationalities". Yiddish did
not receive official approval for use in schools and

4
public life. Israeliten should seek their places among
the non-Jewish "nationalities", and consider
themselves Poles or Germans of the Mosaic faith.
Majority "nationalities" initiated a campaign to
persuade Jews to join their ranks and a Jewish
response in one direction or another frequently
provoked anti-Semitic reactions. Only in Bukovina,
where no nationality had a majority, Jews were
recognized as a de facto "nationality". The duties of a
Religionsgemeinschaft were outlined by the all-
Austrian law of March 21, 1890. Previously, there
were numerous statutes regulating Jewish life in
different ways in particular provinces of the
Danubian monarchy. The law of 1890 remained in
force until the end of World War I. Each
israelitischer Glaubensgenosse, regardless of his rite,
had to belong to a religious community. They did not
create, as in pre-partition Poland, a hierarchic and
autonomous organization, settling independently
their own internal affairs, but the state supervised and
protected individual local communities. Teachers of
the Mosaic religion, to give only one example,
received permanent positions at schools and were
paid from the state budget. Religionsgemeinschaften
were responsible for the entire religious life of the
local Jewish population, they constituted legal bodies
endowed with public-law status and privileges, enjoyed
the right to tax their members and maintained objects
connected with religious life. Specific instructions
regulated the internal structure of a community and
the activities of its staff members, who had to meet
specific educational requirements. In the years 1891-
93, there were 206 Jewish religious communities in
Bohemia, 15 in Bukovina, 2 in Dalmatia, 253 in
Galicia, 1 in Styria, 10 in Silesia, 1 in Vorarlberg, 2 in
Kustenland, 50 in Moravia, 14 in Lower Austria and
2 in Upper Austria.
23
Demography of Galician Jews .
All statistical data concerning Galicia should
be taken with extreme caution. The first modern
census was held there in 1880 and was based on
"everyday language" (Umgangssprache). Yiddish did
not receive this status and qualified only as a "local
dialect" (Localsprache). Jews, who figured only as a
"denomination" in official documents, had to choose
one of the eight "official" languages (Landessprache)
of the Empire. Religious statistics did not give the
numbers of Uniats and the people combining Polish
national consciousness with the Mosaic faith.
Frequently, the Jews disliked and avoided all kinds of
censuses and polls and did not register their new-born
children.
24
The ethnic map of Galicia changed only to a
limited extent in the nineteenth century. In 1785
about 215,000 Jews (9% of the whole population)
lived there, in 1821 about 218,00 (5.5%) and in
1830 about 250,000 (6%). The Republic of Cracow
was populated by 8,500 Jews (8.4%) in 1818, and by
16,50 (11.5%) in 1843. In 1850 about 333,000
Jews were recorded in Galicia, 449,000 in 1857, and
576,000 (10.6%) in 1869.
25 
The growth of the
Jewish population in Galicia is shown in Table 1.
Before World War I, Jews constituted the
fifth largest nation of Cisleithanian Austria (4.68%
of the entire population) after Germans, Czechs,
Poles and Ukrainians.  In 190 Galician Jews made up
66.9% of all the Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy
(excluding Hungary). By comparison, the Jews of
Lower Austria (including Vienna!) comprised 12.9%,
those of Bukovina 7.9%, those of Bohemia 7.6%,
those of Moravia 3.6%, and those of Silesia 1%. Jews
in other provinces of Austria constituted only 0.9%
of all Austrian Jews.
26
 Table 2 shows the number of
the Jews in the lands of Austria and Hungary in the
years 1880-1910.
A majority of Galician Jews, like Jews
elsewhere in Europe, but especially in the Eastern and
Central part of the continent, lived in cities; however
only in Galicia and Russia did the Jewish population
form the majority ethnic component in numerous
urban centers. In 190 Jews made up 72.1% of all
residents in Brody, 57.3% in Buczacz, 57.1% in Rawa
Ruska (Rava Rus'ka), 52.7% in Sanok, 51.3% in
Stanislawow (Stanislaviv), 51.2% in Gorlice, 50.8% in
Kolomyja (Kolomyia).
27
 Table 3 presents the
number of Jewish inhabitants of five large cities,
located in different parts of Austria.
Galicia, in ethnic terms, consisted of the two
halves: predominantly Polish Western Galicia -- west
of the river San -- and Ukrainian Eastern Galicia --
east of San. 169,684 Jews constituted 8% of the
whole population of Western Galicia in 1880, but at
the same time there were 516,912 Jews (13.4% of all
residents) in Eastern Galicia. Respective data for
1910 show the number of 213,173 (7.9%) for the
West and 658,722 (12,3%) for the East.
28
A majority of West-Galician Jews was
concentrated in the eastern parts of this region,
mostly in the cities. In 1910, Jews constituted 21.3%
of the entire population in Cracow, 14.7% in Biala,
17.7% in Wadowice, 16.1% in Wieliczka, 19.2% in
Bochnia, 27.9% in Podgorze, 32% in Nowy Sacz (all
these towns were located in the western or central
parts of Western Galicia) and (in eastern segments of
the region) 41.2% in Tarnow, 37.1% in Rzeszow,
22.3% in Jaslo, 28.2% in Krosno, 51.2% in Gorlice.
29
Table 4 shows the number of Jewish citizens in
particular districts (powiaty) of Western Galicia in
1910.
The Jews of Eastern Galicia, more numerous
than in Western Galicia, were distributed almost
evenly in all parts of the region. In several districts

5
of Eastern Galicia, especially in the North, the Jewish
population held the balance between Polish and
Ukrainian groups, almost identical in numbers. In
other districts, especially in the South, Jews and Poles
formed two minorities similar in numbers, living in
the midst of clear Ukrainian majority. In Eastern
Galicia a relative numerical decline of the Jewish
population was slower than in Western Galicia. Jews
were better represented in the villages and composed
one of the three equaly large ethnic groups in the
cities.
30
 Table 5 shows the number of Jews in
particular districts of Eastern Galicia in 1910.
The relative increase of the Jewish
population in Galicia sank in the 1880s. However,
Jews still had the largest birth-rate: 18.2% in the
years 1901-1910, when Ukrainian and Polish birth-
rates amounted to 15.9% and 16.3% respectively.
Altogether, the Jewish population of Galicia increased
more than two times between 1850 and 1914 (Table
6).
31
Emigration.
Emigration belonged to the most important
phenomena leading to the decrease of the Jewish
population in Galicia. The bad economic situation,
especially in industry and in the cities, and the fact
that opportunities for the Jews to enhance their
social status were extremely limited, drove many
Galician Jews from their homeland. In the years
1881-1910, the United States naturalized 3,091,692
immigrants from Austrian lands. Jews constituted
9.1% of them (281,150) and the Jewish emigration
from the Danubian Monarchy was the second largest
after that of Russia. The main source of Austrian
emigrants was Galicia: 236,504 Jews left the province
in the years 1881-1910. These constituted about
85% of all Jewish emigrants from Austria and 30.1%
of all emigrants from Galicia.
32
Jews were, in relative terms, three times more
numerous among emigrants than their share of the
entire population of Galicia. Jewish emigration,
unlike that of Poles or Ukrainians, was not
predominantly  seasonal in character. In the years
1900-1910, as many as 389,338 Poles and 152,811
Jews emigrated, which means that within particular
ethnic groups living in Galicia 105 Jews, 71
Ukrainians and 47 Poles emigrated out of each
10,000 of their co-nationalists.
33
 Even smaller
Galician shtetls were well represented in the "New
World". In 1890, there were so many immigrants
from tiny Dobromil (1,845 Jews in 1900) near
Przemysl (Peremyshl) in New York that they could
establish the "First Dobromiler Young Men's Sick and
Benevolent Association", continuing well into the
1920s.
34
Numerous Galician Jews did not leave the
Dual Monarchy but moved
from Galicia to other Habsburg lands. In 1787, there
were only 83,000 Jews (1% of the entire population)
in Hungary. In 1850, about 366,000 Jews (3.2%)
lived there, sixty years later there were 910,000
(5.0%). Nearly three quarters of the Hungarian Jewish
population came from the neighboring provinces,
mostly from Galicia. In the last decades of the
nineteenth century, Galician Jews increasingly
emigrated to Vienna. The Jewish population of this
city rose from 6,000 in 1857 (1.3% of all residents
of the Danubian capital) to 99,000 in 1890 (12.1%)
and 175,000 in 1910 (8.6%). Vienna became the
second largest Jewish community in Europe (after
Warsaw). In 1910, as many as 47,137 inhabitants of
the city were born in Galicia and Jews formed 40% of
this group. At the same time, 5% of Jewish residents
of Berlin originated from Galicia. In 1846, there were
no Jews in Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia and Carniola.
Less than one thousand Jews lived in Tirol and
Vorarlberg. The first Jewish settler (of the modern
era) came to Graz shortly after 1868. Simultaneously,
small Jewish communities were established in Salzburg
and Innsbruck. The first Jew moved to Klagenfurt in
1883. Initially, the majority of these immigrants
came from Bohemia and Moravia, but Galician Jews
started to dominate in the last years of the
nineteenth century, when the differences among
Austrian provinces - in terms of the Jewish
settlement - were partially leveled.
35
 Table 7 presents
the number of the Jews in the particular provinces of
Cisleithania in 1846-1880.
Assimilation.
The relative increase of the Jewish
population in Galicia was also slowed down by
assimilation, which became more popular, especially
among Jewish elites. The Jewish progressive
intelligentsia, created in the nineteenth century,
represented different streams of assimilation, growing
or waning in a changing political context. Initially,
the so-called German assimilation formed the
strongest trend, especially in Eastern Galicia. Its
supporters admired German culture, the Viennese way
of life and the German Haskalah (Jewish
Enlightenment movement) and dominated Galician
Jewish elites until the 1860s. In the last years of the
eighteenth century and in the first decades of the
nineteenth century, "Germanophiles" were
encouraged and helped by the Austrian
administration, which intended to use them as agents
of Germanization. In 1792, about one hundred
Jewish-German schools, established by the
administration of Emperor Joseph, existed in Galicia.
In 1806, a court decree decided that all officials of

6
the larger Jewish communities must understand
German. According to a decree of 1810, every Jewish
voter in communal elections had to prove that he
could speak and write German. These decrees were
followed by other Germanizing practices, which
officially were to "improve" the Jewish masses. As a
consequence, two opposing coalitions emerged in
Galicia: Poles and orthodox Jewry versus the
Habsburg dynasty and progressive Jews. Some of the
latter preserved their allegiance to Deutschtum until
the First World War. They formed a veritable a cult
of the Habsburg dynasty and believed that it was
Franz Joseph who protected Austrian Jews from
racism and nationalism. German orientation was also
very attractive intellectually, and even at the
beginning of the twentieth century numerous Galician
Jews, who were partly assimilated into the Polish
culture, remained actually bi- or tri-cultural, graduated
from Austrian universities, spoke German perfectly
and were fascinated by the German culture. Initially,
"Germanophiles" were not numerous but they
vigorously aimed at a modernization of the Jewish
life and, in 1846, they scored a symbolic success;
they managed to establish in Lwow a Deutsch
Judisches Bethaus - a reformed synagogue, led by a
rabbi educated in Germany, who preached in German
and organized a modern German-Jewish school. A
society concentrated around the temple propagated
German Enlightenment ideas and emphasized its
loyalty to the emperor. In 1867, a group of Lwow's
German assimilationists gathered around Dr. Emil
Byk founded the first Jewish political organization in
Austria Shomer Israel (Guardian of Israel) and its
periodical Der Israelit. During the first direct election
to the Viennese parliament in 1873, Shomer Israel
allied itself with the Ukrainians against the Poles and
succeeded in electing four Jewish deputies, three of
them from the East Galician districts of Brody,
Kolomyja and Drohobycz. Poles answered with a call
for economic boycott against the Jews, challenging
all Jewish entrepreneurs, regardless of their opinions
and political affiliations.
36
Shomer Israel, centralistic and hostile
towards the Polish national movement, declared with
pride: "We are Austrians." In 1873, representatives
of the organization told the Emperor, that they were
"Austrian patriots" and that it was due to the
Habsburg dynasty that Jews received "freedom and
equality." "Germanophiles" belonged mostly to the
richest Galician Jewish families, kept in touch with
Jewish cultural centers in Germany and sometimes
were related to progressive rabbinical "dynasties" that
originated in that country. Members of Bernstein-
Loewenstein family, for example, were active as
rabbis and merchants in Amsterdam, Hanover,
Prague, Stettin, Lwow and Lubartow.
"Germanophiles" were active on Lwow's city council
and several religious communities' executives until
the end of the Danubian Monarchy. In 1870, some
members of Cracow's kahal demanded that its
protocols should be written in German. Other
community elders protested that motions of this kind
were wrong and provocative towards Polish public
opinion. In the last decades of the nineteenth
century, German assimilation waned. The Deutsch
Israelitisches Bethaus changed its official name into
the Polish translation of Progressive Synagogue.
German service and sermons were replaced with
Polish and even Shomer Israel shifted to Polish
patriotic positions. In 1880, 5.4% of Galician
inhabitants declared themselves German, in 1910
only 1.1%, although the number of ethnic Germans
was small and the Jews made up about 11% of the
entire population throughout the period 1880-
1910.
37
In the second half of the nineteenth century,
especially during its last decades, a Polish orientation
prevailed among the supporters of assimilation,
particularly in Lwow and Cracow. The latter was
formally independent until 1846 and progressive Jews
there tended towards assimilation into the Polish
culture. In 1830, a Polish-Jewish school was
established in Cracow. A group of Jews from that city
participated in the 1830 insurrection in Congress
Poland and in the 1846 Cracow Rising. In 1848,
Cracow's Jews participated in all Polish patriotic
demonstrations and they disassociated themselves
from the Jews of Poznan (Posen), who assumed a
clearly pro-German position during the Polish-
German conflict in the Grand Duchy of Poznan.
After 1848, while the German cultural trend was still
very strong in Galicia, and also in Cracow, where a
majority of Jews did not speak Polish, Jewish-Polish
assimilation started to make progress. "Polonophiles"
replaced Moses Mendelsohn with Adam Mickiewicz
as an object of their admiration. They recalled the
friendly pro-Jewish attitude of the leaders of the
1846 Cracow Rising and harmonious Polish-Jewish
cooperation during the "Springtime of Nations" in
Galicia. A Polish orientation was supported by Berush
Maisels, rabbi of Cracow and Warsaw. A group of
Galician Jews joined the guerrillas in the 1863
Uprising in Congress Poland. Some of those who
survived returned to Galicia advocating Jewish-Polish
assimilation and combatted Shomer Israel. One of
the most active partisans of "Polishness", Simon
Samelsohn, a member of Galician Diet and a president
of Cracow's kahal in the years 1870-1881,
sometimes demonstratively wore a kontusz, the
Polish national dress and a symbol of the gentry.
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, it
was not easy to occupy an important position in a
larger Galician-Jewish community without a good
command of the Polish language. 
38

7
Polish assimilation was additionally
strengthened thanks to economic changes and the
Polonization of Galicia, after it received autonomy in
1867. Jewish elites had to cooperate with the Polish
administration and to learn Polish. A young Jewish
generation used this language at schools and, unlike in
the Polish provinces of Prussia and Russia, Galician
Jews had an opportunity to familiarize themselves
with Polish culture, which proved to be so attractive,
that a part of the Jewish intelligentsia started to
identify itself with Poland. From the early 1880s, the
pro-Polish group grew larger, dominated the Jewish
elites and established new organizations. The best
known group Aguda Akhim (Convenant of Brothers),
was founded in 1882 in Lwow to teach Jews how to be
conscious citizens of their country. Aguda Akhim
organized various educational activities: evening
schools, libraries and clubs, which propagated and
taught Polish language and culture. One such school
existed in Przemysl in the years 1884-1890 and more
than 50 students enrolled in it during the academic
year 1884/85. A Jewish Reichstag caucus, created in
1873, which initially cooperated with Ukrainians and
entered a liberal faction, changed its policy during the
next election, and from that time on Jewish deputies
belonged to the Polish Club. Jewish-Polish
assimilation was accelerated by the "red assimilation":
the socialist movement in Galicia was dominated by
Poles, and numerous Jewish workers learned the
Polish language as members of Polish Social-
Democratic Party. Even the first Zionist periodicals
in Galicia were published in Polish. In the last decades
before the First World War, a group of Jews or Poles
of the Mosaic religion participated in various
organizations working for the resurrection of Poland.
Several hundreds Jews fought in Joseph Pilsudski's
Polish Legions after 1914.
39
Assimilation was also accelerated by a
developing system of public education. More and
more Jews received secular instruction. In 1830, only
408 Jewish children attended public schools in Galicia,
in 1900 the number was 110,269. In 1867 only 556
Jews attended high school (Gymnasium), in 1910/11
about 6,600 (20.5% of all students). The number of
Jewish students in the Realschulen grew from 125 to
735 (21% of all pupils) at that time. In 1867, only
769 Jews studied at all Austrian universities; in 1904
two Galician universities alone (leaving aside Lwow's
"Polytechnic") enrolled 904 Jewish students.
40
A group of Jewish white-collar workers,
mainly civil servants and clerks in private
enterprises, appeared. They, wrote Franciszek Bujak,
"do not fulfill any religious duties and come to
synagogues only during state holidays, in their official
uniforms."
41
 In 1910, Jews constituted 5% of all the
civil servants working in Cracow, 17% of Cracow's
engineers, 24% of all the physicians, 11% of
pharmacists, 52% of lawyers, 8% of journalists and
writers, 8% of actors. It was not identical, however,
with a triumph of the assimilationist movement,
which, according to Wilhelm Feldman (who did not
explain, however, what assimilation meant to him)
consisted of around 10,000 persons by the end of the
nineteenth century. A majority of emancipated Jews
of Galicia combined Polish education and elements of
European culture with Jewish heritage, Jewish
national consciousness and reformed Mosaic religion.
In the years 1897-1902, only 157 Jews left their
community in Lwow (68.1% of them converted to
the Catholicism, 12.7% to the Greek-Catholic
Church, 15.3% to Protestant denominations). At
that time the Mosaic faith was abandoned by 444
individuals in Cracow.
42
Professional profile and economic situation.
Galician Jewry had an easier path to
emancipation than other Jews in Eastern Europe, but
the poverty of the Jews of Galicia made them similar
to their co-religionist in Russia. The Austrian
government was unreceptive to the idea of the
industrialization of Galicia. Vienna came to
conclusion, that it would be unwise to develop
industry in the militarily jeopardized border province.
Consequently, Galicia did not have its own railway
system for a long time; it lagged behind Bohemia in
terms of industrial production and behind Hungary in
terms of agricultural output. On the one hand, Galicia
was separated from the Austrian provinces by
unfavorable railroad rates, on the other hand
advantageous tariffs on the border with Russia made it
cheaper to buy several agricultural products in the
Ukraine.
43
The introduction of Galician autonomy in
1867 improved the situation only slightly. Polish
leaders were more interested in politics than in
economic matters and they did not abandon their
conservative attitude towards the economy for a long
time. The Galician Diet was afraid of any expenses
and maintained an economically detrimental taxation
system. The Polish Club in the Reichsrat supported
the central government and did not fight against its
economic policy, which, in the end, only
handicapped Galicia. The economic crisis, which
started in the early 1870s seriously affected Austrian
industry. The Viennese government introduced
protective tariffs to save it. The move limited
foreign competition but -- at the same time --
facilitated cartelization, which was economically
disadvantageous for the Galician weak industry.
44
Finally, the Galician Diet changed its
consertvative attitude toward the economy, tried to
work out its own economic program and started an
intense development of public education. In 1883,
the Galician Bank (Bank Krajowy) was established, in

8
1887 the Galician Drainage Bureau was organized and
in 1888 the Industrial Committee. Unfortunately, all
these institutions supported mostly small industry,
incapable of competing with Austrian and foreign
mass production. Numerous economists and
politicians protested against this situation and insisted
that the Galician administration should terminate
overtaxation, introduce a liberal economy, protest
against the policy of Vienna, and develop credit and
transportation. Simultaneously, a portion of the
jobless from the overpopulated villages and small
towns emigrated, successful emigrants started to send
or bring back money, which enlivened the economy
and helped peasants to buy land. A slow evolution
started. Credit became available, tax-exemptions were
more frequent, local self-government worked better,
a workers' movement was organized and labor
legislation initiated. Landowners finally understood
that the development of Galician industry could be
favorable to them. Industrial production grew, more
and more labor was transferred from agriculture to
other sectors of economy.
45
The Jews, who owned most Galician
enterprises, participated in this evolution. A
relatively large group of Jews derived its livelihood
from agriculture and food production. In 1890, there
were already six wealthy Jewish capitalists among the
45 richest landowners, who like the Czartoryskis and
the Lubomirskis owned more than 10 000 Joch (one
Austrian Joch = 1.408 acres). In 1897, Jews working
in agriculture were almost three times more numerous
in Galicia than in the Congress Poland. In 1902, Jews
constituted 50% (8,000 persons) of all the citizens of
Galicia, who leased farms or estates. That activity
offered employment to 1200 Jewish clerks.
According to Arthur Ruppin, a Zionist economist and
sociologist, 13.6% of all Jews in Galicia worked in
agriculture before World War I, however other
scholars cite smaller numbers. More than two thirds
of Galician Jewry was involved in trade, handicraft
and small industry. Several branches of production
were almost entirely in Jewish hands. This was the
case with flour-mills, alcohol distilleries, small oil-
refineries, sawmills, tanneries, brick-yards, soda water
factories, and plants producing celluloid and talliths
(Jewish prayer shawls). Jews were especially well
represented in the liquor trade (before 1911) and they
dominated also in trade in cattle, horses, poultry,
feathers and bristles.
46
 
The majority of Jewish enterprises, led by
owners and their families, were economically very
weak. Nevertheless, Jewish commerce had no serious
competitor until the last years of the nineteenth
century, especially in Eastern Galicia. Ukrainians
prevailed there in agriculture and Poles in public
service, from administration officials at the top to
janitors at the bottom.
47
In 1885, a Polish Society of Farmers'
Associations (Towarzystwo Kolek Rolniczych) was
established, and three years later Ukrainians founded
their National Trade Association (Narodna
Tarhowla). Both these institutions organized credit
unions to ease the credit situation of the peasants and
created cooperative shops to eliminate the Jewish
middlemen. Peasant cooperatives remained, however,
mostly weak and usually landed in private hands. The
Galician administration supported the cooperative
movement financially and by enacting laws
unfavorable to Jews in regard to Sunday rest, the salt
monopoly and liquor trade. In 1893, an economic
boycott of the Jews in Galicia was proclaimed during a
Catholic convention in Cracow. The boycott lasted
until the First World War. Galician authorities tried
to create a Polish bourgeoisie  by limiting Jewish
participation in trade and industry. Special licenses
were necessary for peddling, old-clothes trade,
transportation, running an employment agency and
owning pharmacy. Persons selling colonial articles
and spices, oils and paints had to obtain individual
"proof of capability" from the local administration.
A new veterinarian law limited Jewish participation in
the cattle trade. In 1910, Jews were forbidden to sell
alcoholic beverages. By 1900 foreign capital, mostly
German and British, started to create competing
enterprises and big landowners themselves engaged in
trade. The economic crisis of 1912 also weakened
Jewish businesses, mostly in terms of credit, which
was waning during the pre-war international
tension.
48
Jewish enterprises went, therefore, through a
crisis in the years 1900-14. The number of "helping
family members" and overstaffing in commerce was
constantly growing. The Jews were also forced out of
non-commercial branches of industry. In the 1890s,
there were 6,000 Jews among 9,000 workers of the
Boryslaw oil-fields. In the last years before the First
World War, Jewish oilers were replaced by cheaper,
Christian labor. The financial help of the Baron de
Hirsch Foundation, the Hilfsverein der deutschen
Juden and of other organizations could not stop the
replacement of Jewish workers by Polish and
Ukrainian peasants. The occupational structure of
the Jewish community in Galicia (Table 8) was less
oriented towards commerce and handicrafts than in
Russia, but the economic situation of Galician Jewry,
nevertheless, grew worse and worse, descending
towards poverty.
49
The Jews of Galicia lived under very difficult
housing and health conditions. Jewish city districts,
densely built over, were usually dirty and dark. Their
inhabitants, subsisting on an unhealthy diet,
frequently suffered from various diseases. Even in the
capital of Lwow there were only a few paved roads
and streets by the late 1860s. A majority of city

9
streets was covered alternately with drift sand and
sticky mud. People unaccustomed to city life were
choked by the stench from open sewers and gutters.
Cholera epidemics threatened Galician townlets in
1873 and 1894.
50
Religious life.
The every-day routine of the majority of
Galician Jewry was precisely regulated by religious
customs. Their execution was supervised by rabbis,
who solved, according to the Talmud, all questions
and conflicts or administered an oath on the Torah.
Rabbinical courts' verdicts were almost always
binding. Rabbis had, however, a powerful weapon in
extraordinary cases: the act of excommunication. A
Jews, who had been excommunicated, automatically
was excluded from Jewish society, which could mean a
total pauperization or even death. The religious
community was the most influential local institution.
It cared for its members, arranged their lives in ways
different from Christian or secularized society.
Prayers and religious customs fixed daily and weekly
timetables, ways of dressing, eating and all other
activities. Work stopped in shtetls every Friday night
as Jews gathered around Sabbath tables. All stores and
workshops remained closed on Saturdays. Daily life
returned slowly and cautiously to a Jewish district on
Sunday, because officially all work places had to be
closed on Sundays and Christian holidays. Work was
back to normal on Monday. The 1890 law about
Judische Kultusgemeinden (see p. 9) defined
precisely the competencies of a kahal, which was
responsible for the ritual slaughter houses , the ritual
bath, the registration of births, marriages, divorces
and deaths, the main synagogue and the hospital. A
community council controlled the community's
incomes (mainly from taxes), paid wages to the rav
(rabbi), the shames (beadle), the soifer (scribe), the
shoikhet (ritual slaughterer), the chazan (singer) and
bath attendants. Most Galician communities,
including Cracow and Lwow, had constant financial
problems and asked for help from American and
West European Jewish organizations. Almost every
meeting of a community council was devoted to tax
problems, debts and the expenses of a Gemeinde,
which was frequently supported and, consequently,
controlled by a group of rich members. There was
also a long list of less important occupations tied up
with religious life and every shtetl maintained, among
others, musicians, a badchen (jester), who officiated
at Jewish festivities, a shadchen (matchmaker),
batlunim (idlers) who recited psalms or kaddish
(prayer for the dead), gravediggers and a
winkelschreiber, who wrote petitions in Polish or
German.
51
Antisemitism and political and economic
oppression provoked a feeling of solidarity among
Jews and many charitable organizations operated in
every shtetl. The Chevrah Kadisha (Holy Burial
Society) arranged funerals, Chevrah Ner Tamid
(Perpetual Light Society) made sure that there was
always a light burning in the synagogue, Malbish
Arumim (Clothing the Naked) collected used clothing
from the rich and distributed it to the poor, Tomchei
Yesoymim (Help the Orphans) cared for the well-
being of orphans. By 1900, ten chevras worked in
Limanowa, a small town of a few thousand people,
researched by Franciszek Bujak. "All these
organizations," wrote Bujak, "do a lot of good things.
We have to admit that it is much more bearable to be
a poor Jew than a poor Christian in Limanowa."
52
          
Every community maintained several
chederim -- religious schools that began at age three.
A cheder consisted usually of only one room,
employed one melamed and sometimes a belfer
(helper). The chederim also played the role of a
kindergarten, since many parents were too busy to
stay with their children during the day. Chederim got
their students used to learning and since they taught
Torah with commentaries, they provided their pupils
with basic knowledge of Hebrew and some elements
of history and geography. 
53
Galician Jewish communities were not
homogenous. Ethnographic differences and local
antagonisms existed between West and East Galician
Jews, who also spoke different dialects. Cultural
differentiation within Jewish society, unknown until
the middle of the eighteenth century, grew
throughout the next century. Consequently, conflict
between progressive and conservative forces in
Galician communities became sharper. The
Enlightenment schools of Joseph II existed for only
20 years (1787-1806) but they managed to create a
group of maskilim who were Jewish intelligentsia
fascinated with German-Jewish Haskalah. In 1826, a
progressive synagogue was established in Vienna, in
the early 1840s the so called temple was founded in
Tarnopol (Ternopil') and a group of progressives
started to collect money to build a reformed
synagogue in Lwow. In 1842 the Austrian
administration helped the supporters of
modernization to become a majority in Lwow's
community Vorstand (Board of Directors), and in
1845, as mentioned earlier, a progressive Deutsch
Judisches Bethaus was opened in the capital of
Galicia. Lwow, an important center of the Haskalah,
included the largest (until the 1880s) Jewish
community of the Habsburg Empire. Jews organized
around Lwow's temple continued to reform religious
life, sent to the Austrian government several plans
for the Europeization of Galician Jewry and tried to
establish a Gemeindebund, which would unite
progressive community boards. Both Shomer Israel

10
and Aguda Akhim were organized in Lwow, where the
whole of public life of Galician Jews was
concentrated.
54
Similar changes occurred in Cracow's smaller
and more conservative community. Since the 1840s
several modern Jewish institutions were created there,
like Klub zur Forderung der geistigen und
materiallen Interessen der Israeliten, established in
1848 and politically pro-Polish in spite of the fact,
that the older generation of its members did not
speak Polish. Both progressive and orthodox Jews
competed in 1848 during the election to the
parliament. In 1862, a larger temple replaced the
small reformed synagogue, founded in the 1840s. In
1865 a group of supporters of modernization acquired
for the first time seats on Cracow's community
board.
55
Galician enthusiasts of Haskalah spread its
principles into Russia. A tsarist ukase of 1803
permitted merchants to store imported goods in
Odessa without paying taxes and tolls. About 300
Jewish merchants from Brody transferred their main
offices to Odessa and established there a big
community of Galician, progressive Jews. In 1841,
they founded in Odessa their Brody Synagogue, the
first in Russia "maintained according to the model of
German temples."
56
The conservative Jews of Galicia were not
able to stop the modernization and growing
influences of the relatively small number of maskilim
for many reasons. Conservative forces were divided:
rabbinical orthodoxy had to fight against Hassidism,
which appeared in Galicia in the last decades of the
eighteenth century. In 1785, misnagdim, the
"opponents" of Hassidism, fiercely attacked Rabbi
Klonymus Kalman Epstein of Cracow, whose son,
Aron, founded the first Galician Hassidic synagogue in
the city. At the same time, important centers of
Hassidism were created by Rabbi Jehiel Michael of
Zloczow (Zolochiv) (died in 1786), Rabbi Elimelekh
of Lezajsk (died in 1786) and Rabbi Meir of Przemysl
(1782-1850). Hassidism spread despite efforts to stop
it on the part of the Austrian government and the
excommunication of Hassidism by the rabbinical
authorities in Cracow. The country was divided
among local tsaddiks: Shalom Rokeah founded the
Belz dynasty in 1816, Haim Halberstam established
the dynasty of Nowy Sacz (Zenz or Sandz in Yiddish)
in 1830. Other dynasties emerged in Brody, Lwow,
Husiatyn, Czortkow (Chortkiv) and Rymanow. The
struggle between Haskalah and Hassidim reached its
peak in the years 1815-1848 and by the middle of
the nineteenth century Hassidim dominated Galicia,
where 6 out of every 7 Jews were adherents.
57
Numerous tsaddikim started to occupy rabbinic posts.
In the 1830s, a new trend appeared among Baal Shem
Tov's admirers; a group of chidushim (innovators)
amalgamated Hassidism with rules of rabbinical
orthodoxy. This unification proved to be very
important in the period of modernization as Hassidim
and orthodox misnagdim were fighting together
against maskilim. In 1882 a conference of orthodox
rabbis and Hassidic tsaddiks excommunicated all the
progressive Jews in Galicia.
58
Political Life.
By the end of the nineteenth century,
advocates of assimilation were challenged by an
additional adversary -- Zionism. Its development was
stimulated by three factors: (1) a religious belief in
messianic Redemption and the Return to Zion; (2)
news about pogroms in Russia; and (3)
disappointment with assimilation. The rabbinical
"Zionist" tradition was very strong in Central
Europe, where rabbis like Jehuda Alkalay, Elijahu
Gutmacher and Hirsch (Zwi) Kalischer formulated
programs of Jewish colonization of Palestine. The
first booklets on these plans were published in Austria
and Germany decades before the Zionist movement
was established. After 1881, when pogroms started in
Russia and the tsarist administration assumed a severe
anti-Jewish position, a wave of Russian-Jewish
emigrants moved west. A part of them went through
or remained in the Habsburg Empire. Numerous
Russian Jews believed that since the emigration was
necessary, the land of Israel would be the most
natural destination for Jewish refugees. This idea was
accepted by numerous Jews living in Austria, where a
new, modern antisemitism was born in the years
1875-1882, causing a deep disappointment among
assimilated Jews. They realized that their attempts to
assimilate into the Austrian, German-speaking
society had failed and they started to look for a new
solution to the Jewish problem. In May 1882, the
first Austrian association for the colonization of
Palestine was established. Named Ahawath Zion
(Love of Zion) it resembled the Russian Hovevei-Zion
(Lovers of Zion) organizations and beside modernized
Jews it also assembled a group of orthodox rabbis. In
1893, several young, non-orthodox members of
Ahawath Zion founded a new organization called
Kadimah (Eastward). It was active among Jewish
students and professionals of the Austrian capital.
59
Most founders of Kadimah came to Vienna
from Galicia. Some of them preserved connections
with their native province. In 1883, a group of
Galician Kadimahner organized in Lwow the first
Jewish-national association Mikra Kodesch (Sacred
Thing). In 1888, it was renamed Zion and became a
center of the Jewish national movement in Galicia. In
the late 1880s, it was represented by local
organizations in most larger Galician towns and it
attracted a group of young people, a generation of

11
"sons", who rebelled politically against their
"fathers", who were tied to assimilation. The first
Galician Zionists, Ozjasz Thon, Marcus Braude, and
Alfred Nossig went back to the traditions of
Haskalah . The adherents of Zionism assumed,
however, a different attitude towards Hebrew culture.
They were fascinated with German culture but they
wanted to modernize Jewish life not in a Polish or
German but in a European way, with references to the
tradition of Judaism.
60
In 1892, Ojczyzna (Homeland), published by
assimilationists, ceased to appear. It was replaced by
Przyszlosc (Future) and, from 1900, by Wschod
(East), the Zionist newspaper in Polish. Editors of
Wschod called Aguda Akhim "a treason against
Judaism." The Syjon society's publishing house issued
the Program of Jewish Youth, advocating a return to
Palestine and declared: "Jews of all countries unite!
Down with an easy disguise of assimilation! Down
with the servile musician Yankel and his admirers!"
61
The program aroused enthusiasm among the
Jewish intelligentsia, which was attested by the
creation of Zionist "circles" in the large cities and
small shtetls. Activists operated in the country
creating libraries, organizing lectures and holding
celebrations. The movement was growing very fast,
but it was divided into two trends. In 1893, Lwow's
members of Zion association founded a "Jewish
National Party in Galicia", which emphasized Jewish
national emancipation within the Habsburg Empire.
Two years earlier, Dr. Abraham Salz, an attorney
from Tarnow and a former Kadimahner, established a
branch of Ahawath Zion in his city. The organization
concentrated on a program of Jewish colonization of
Palestine. In 1892, Dr. Salz bought a piece of land in
Palestine and founded a Galician colony named
Machnayim (Camps, also a name of an ancient city
east of the Jordan). By the year 1895,
representatives of both trends were active in most
larger Galician Jewish communities. The appearance
of Theodor Herzl and his formula of "political"
Zionism caused additional divisions in the Jewish
national movement in Galicia, which eventually was
overcome in the last years of the nineteenth century.
Herzl, who was considered in Galician shtetls to be a
national hero, stimulated the rapid development of
Zionism. As Wilhelm Feldman wrote in 1907:
Masses which did not know about the
existence of Lwow's Diet, become
excited electing delegates to the
Zionist Congress in Basle. People,
who have no idea about the
topography of their homeland, rack
their brains for details of
international diplomacy and colonial
policy.
62
After the Second Zionist Congress of 1898,
which created the basis of the World Zionist
Organization, two and than three districts were
founded in Galicia: around Cracow, Lwow and
Stanislawow. Their representatives belonged to the
most important leaders of Austrian Zionist
Federation and, in 1907, they occupied 3 seats in
Greater Actions Committee, which headed the entire
Zionist movement. Dr Salz was elected a vice-
president of the First Zionist Congress, about 10,000
Galician Jews contributed to the Zionist common
fund, many more sympathizers, too poor to pay the
shekel, also participated in political life. As the
movement grew, Zionist organzations and
newspapers sprang up in almost all of the larger
towns of Galicia.
63
Zionists surpassed other Jewish political
organizations in initiative and mobility. In 1905, a
leader of Ukrainian caucus in the Viennese parliament
proposed the creation a Jewish electoral curia. Jewish
socialists and Zionists supported the idea but the
Polish Club, assimilationists, misnagdim and leaders
of religious communities opposed it, and finally the
Austrian government rejected the plan. In 1905,
Zionists disturbed celebrations of the January
Uprising in Lwow's temple. A few months later, they
arranged a conference in Cracow to establish an
Austrian Federation of Jewish-national parties and
associations. The plan came to nothing, but in 1906
the Zionists gathered in Cracow and at the "Cracow
Conference" they formulated a new platform called
Gegenwartsarbeit ("work of the present time"). In
the same year, a general franchise was introduced in
the Danubian Monarchy. Jewish politicians
intensified their activities. Zionist candidates were
put up in 20 electoral districts during the 1907
Reichsrat election. Thirty thousand Galicians voted
for Zionists, who offered the program of fighting
against assimilation, antisemitism and anti-Jewish
persecutions. Three Zionist delegates from Galicia
entered the parliament and created there, together
with a Zionist from Bukovina, the first Jewish
parliamentary club ever, fighting for the recognition
of Jewish nationality. The Zionist caucus in the
Reichsrat was opposed by three other elected Jewish
deputies from Galicia who were tied traditionally to
the Polish Club. Galician Jews had their
representatives in the Reichsrat during its whole
history. Initially, Jewish deputies belonged to the
Liberal German Verfassungspartei (Constitutional
Party) but then they shifted to the Polish Club.
64
In 1904, the Poale-Zion (Worker of Zion)
party was organized in Austria and Galicia. Poale-
Zion groups grew quickly and district organizations
were soon established in Brody, Rzeszow, Brzezany
(Berezhany), Zolkiew (Zhovkva), Stanislawow and

12
Przemysl. Favorable conditions for their activities
were created earlier by the Jewish workers'
movement. The first Jewish trade unions were
founded in Galicia in the 1880s. Initially, they were
of religious character, centered around their "own"
synagogues and their members swore by the Torah. In
1892, a trade union of tallith weavers in Kolomyja
organized the first strike of the Jewish workers in
Galicia. Jewish trade unions activists were attracted by
the Polish Social-Democratic Party of Galicia,
founded in 1892. A group of Jews or Poles of Mosaic
faith, notably Hermann Diamand, Hermann
Liebermann or Max Zetterbaum, was among the
Party's leaders, but most of them opposed Jewish
"clericalism" and national separatism. They believed
that class ties were more important than national
consciousness and that the future triumph of the
workers' movement would also solve national
questions. Polish socialists published newspapers in
Yiddish directed at Jews, though, eventually,
membership in the Polish Social Democratic Party
itself was connected with assimilation.
65
Nevertheless, the idea of an independent
Jewish socialist party was introduced during the 1897
congress of the Polish Social Democratic Party in
Przemysl. In the same year, the Bund was created in
Russia, and organizers of Poale-Zion started to be
visible in the shtetls. A formal resolution to create a
Jewish socialist party was moved during the 1904
congress of the Polish Social-Democracy in Cracow.
After a discussion a compromise was reached: Jewish
committees were to be created in the cities, where the
Polish Social-Democracy had its district
organizations. The first Jewish committees were
organized in Lwow and Cracow. Their leaders started
to publish a weekly Yiddishe Arbetertsaytung and
they established a Galician Jewish Council.
66
This palliative did not satisfy the
"separatists", who walked in the footsteps of the
Bund with greater frequency. In 1905, Jewish
socialists, who officially were still members of the
Polish Social-Democracy, organized an independent
May Day celebration, started to publish a Yiddish
paper in Lwow (Der Yiddishe Sotsialdemocrat),
which became the organ of the "separatists", and
finally, in the same year 1905, they established the
separate Jewish Social-Democratic Party of Galicia.
Its supporters claimed that the Jewish socialist
movement was only an addition to the Polish party
and that Polish leaders did not understand the special
needs of Jewish workers. Poles tried to stop the
separatism of the Jewish socialists. Polish Social-
Democracy's leadership founded a Jewish section
within its party and blocked the entry of the Jewish
socialists into the Austrian federation of social
democratic organizations. The Jewish Social
Democratic Party overcame these difficulties and
organized its first convention in Lwow in June 1906.
Eighty delegates represented 20 Galician towns and
4,000 members. The representatives of the Bund
were invited and their program was taken as a model.
The convention rejected the "Palestinian platform"
and announced cultural autonomy as the only
solution to the national question in Austria.
67
Initially, Jewish Social-Democracy competed
with Poale-Zion. During the 1912 economic crisis,
both parties faced serious problems and the idea of
unification emerged as mutually beneficial.
Unification failed, however, partly due to the fact,
that already in 1911 a compromise was achieved with
the Polish Social-Democratic Party, which permitted
its Jewish members to join the Jewish Social-
Democrats. The leaders of the Polish Party owed
their election to the Reichsrat partly to Jewish votes
and were afraid that a growing conflict would
strengthen the Jewish National Party. As a result the
Jewish section of the Polish Social Democratic Party
joined the Jewish Social Democrats shortly before the
war.
68
At the beginning of the twentieth century,
several smaller Jewish political organizations were
active in Galicia. A new cultural trend appeared in
Warsaw at that time. Its supporters referred to it as
neoassimilation and postulated that a complete
external Europeanization and participation in the
political life of a country should be combined with
Jewish culture and reformed religion. Cracow's
adherents of this stream established the academic
association named Unification (Zjednoczenie) and the
Berek Joselewicz Society, comprising "Polish youth
of Mosaic faith" from high schools and the
Jagiellonian University. Simultaneously, a group of
"Independent Jews" existed in Cracow. They rejected
assimilation and all kinds of party ideologies but
demanded the introduction of real democracy and
equal rights for the Jews. Since 1900, these
"independents" published a newspaper called
Tygodnik (Weekly). During the 1900 Reichsrat
election and during the 1901 Sejm election, their
candidate won against the assimilationist president of
Cracow's Jewish community, who was supported by
Polish conservatives.
69
Culture and Language.
Galicia was a major center of traditional
Torah education and Talmudic scholarship
throughout its entire history. At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, the Haskalah began to flower in
Galicia, but the changes of the second half of the
nineteenth century reshaped Jewish culture in a way
uncomparable to any previous transformation. The
liberal arts and literature constituted an arena of
confrontation between the new and the old worlds.

13
Galicia was located far from the political and cultural
capital of Austria but Galician elites followed
Viennese trends and Galician shtetls formed an
important center of Jewish literature.
70
The Hassidic campaign against misnagdim
and maskilim caused an increase in journalism and
political writings, both in Yiddish and in Hebrew. At
the same time, however, Hassidim were creating their
own literature: stories about Baal Shem Tov and his
students, philosophical and religious treaties. Their
authors showed the way for more modern writers,
who followed West European patterns or just adapted
all kinds of literary works from western literature.
Numerous authors of minor significance were active
in Galicia during the first half of the nineteenth
century. They published novels about shtetl life,
letters and satirical works ( Joseph Perl) or poetry
based on folk tradition ( Berl Broder). The Haskalah,
present in Galicia until the end of the nineteenth
century, stimulated studies in Jewish history, focusing
on antiquity, Talmudic and linguistic research of a
serious caliber.
71
The most interesting literary phenomenon of
Galicia was formed, however, by a neo-romantic
stream of authors, writing in Yiddish and called Jung
Galizia. The trend appeared at the very beginning of
the twentieth century under the influence of a
corresponding movement existing in Vienna. Shmuel
Jacob Imber, Jacob Mestel, Melech Ravitsch, Uri Zwi
Grinberg and David Konigsberger worked mostly in
Lwow. Some of them were attached to the Lemberg
Togblat, the first Yiddish daily established in 1904.
They wrote poetry, plays and prose, they followed or
translated into Yiddish Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Knut
Hamsun, Oscar Wilde and Selma Lagerlof. During
World War I they escaped, like a majority of
educated Galician Jews, to Vienna, the city of their
dreams.
72
The development of Yiddish, demeaned by
Western Jews as a disgraceful "jargon", occurred on a
broader scale outside of literature. Jewish political
movements tried to find the common language with
the masses and addressed them in Yiddish, which
became a language of journalism and political life.
Jews started to defend their mother tongue. In August
1908, a conference in Chernovtsy in Bukovina was
devoted to the state and development of Yiddish. It
was recognized as a native tongue of Jews and ideas
for its linguistic development were introduced. In
relation to the census of 1910, Jewish political
organizations demanded that Yiddish should be
recognized as one of the "official" languages of the
Empire. Special committees called upon Jews to
declare Yiddish as their native tongue in the census.
Orthodox leaders opposed this action but more than
half the Jews in Galicia, Vienna and Bukovina wrote
down Yiddish in the census documents. They were
penalized later with fines.
73
Relations with the non-Jewish Population.
Since neither Poles nor Ukrainians
(respectively 45.4% and 42.1% of the entire
population in 1880) created an absolute majority in
Galicia, Jews could hold political balance or even act
as an intermediary between both competing nations.
This proved, however, to be impossible, as more and
more frequently Ukrainians and Poles came out
against Jews. The escalation of anti-Jewish policy in
Russia since the beginning of the 1880s and growing
nationalistic feelings in Europe stimulated
traditionally scornful and disrespectful attitudes
towards the Jews, shared by numerous Poles,
especially those of gentry background. The latter
believed that the Jews were obliged to support the
Polish establishment against Galician Ukrainians, who
visibly accelerated their drive for national and
political emancipation during the last decades of the
nineteenth century. Antisemtic voices appeared in
the Sejm, Jewish girls were kidnapped and hidden in
Galician monasteries. In 1892, Father Stanislaw
Stojalowski founded the Union of the Polish Peasant
Party (Zwiazek Stronnictwa Chlopskiego). Its
populist ideology included antisemitic theories, and
the party issued numerous pamphlets and papers
depicting Jews as fabulously rich capitalists, who were
destroying lower-class morals and finances as
innkeepers, and who were parasites and enemies
ordered by the Talmud to cheat. Party propaganda
raised the spectre that the Jews would one day buy up
all of Galicia. Stojalowski and other populist leaders
based their electoral tactic on antisemitic appeals and
offered an anti-Jewish program as a panacea for all
Galician problems, such as economic disaster,
alcoholism, illiteracy and political conflicts.
Antisemitism was strengthened by antisemitic
booklets imported from Austria proper and translated
into Polish and the economic activities of the
cooperatives, and by the Catholic Church, which, like
Austrian conservatism in general, associated Jews
with Liberalism and proclaimed an anti-Jewish
boycott in 1893. Impoverished and illiterate Galician
peasants directed their frustration against the Jews.
Antisemitism became also a component of the
Ukrainian national movement.
74
In 1896, the Austrian electoral system,
consisting of four curiae, was extended by the
addition of a fifth curia, which gave the vote to adult
males. Even this limited democratization enlivened
political life and propaganda in the country and
politicized Galician peasants. After the 1898 by-
elections, when Father Stojalowski received a
Reichsrat seat, anti-Jewish riots broke out in 33

14
towns of Western Galicia. The riots started in March
in the city of Wieliczka, where a crowd of young men
attacked a synagogue on Friday evening. Similar
events took place later in Kalwaria, Nowy Sacz, Stary
Sacz and the Jaslo region. Tumults became more
frequent and violent in the summer, during the by-
election to the Galician Diet. The majority of
taverns and bars were demolished in the regions of
Sanok and Gorlice. Rioters, arrested by the police,
later claimed that political leaders and the emperor
himself called upon them to rob, that they saw
"official instructions" and heard that Jews killed
Archduke Rudolf and wanted to murder the emperor.
After the riots a state of emergency was introduced in
Galicia and most Polish political parties condemned
anti-Jewish violent acts, but they took place in
several towns once again in 1903. It appears, that
peasant hostility towards Jews was not motivated by
nationalistic feelings but rather by a sense of
economic competition, by religious prejudices and by
political propaganda. Jews, however, did not find
relief in this differentiation.
75
The Last Years before World War I.
By the end of the nineteenth century,
Galician shtetls, until then almost entirely cut off
from the outside world and living with their own
problems, started to participate more frequently in
the dramatic events which disturbed traditional life.
Dangerous news came in from Russia. In 1903,
reports about the Kishiniev pogrom shocked Galician
Jews and in 1904 they followed the course of the
Russian-Japanese war. Every defeat of the hated,
anti-semitic tsarist Russia was met with satisfaction.
In the years 1911-1913, the Beilis ritual murder
affair in Russia agitated Galician Jews like nothing
else since the Dreyfus trial. Jewish public opinion paid
attention also to the Balkan wars, the Austrian
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the
erosion of the Turkish Empire, which could create
favorable changes in Palestine.
76
Assimilated Jews were gradually accepted by
Polish society but at the same time Jewish
emancipation provoked suspicion among Poles. They
demanded that the Jewish electorate vote for Polish
candidates during the 1907 Reichsrat election.
Assimilationists and adherents of orthodoxy, who
traditionally cooperated with the Polish
parliamentary caucus supported these demands.
Jewish national organizations, however, put up their
own candidates. This independent action and its
success caused a rise of antisemitic feelings. In 1905,
a Galician branch of the Polish National Democratic
Party was set up and became the main vehicle of
antisemitism in the province. Under the leadership of
Roman Dmowski, Endecja assumed a strongly anti-
Jewish position from its founding in 1897. During the
1907 elections endeks used antisemitic slogans and
warned that a "third nation" might appear in Galicia.
Eventually, Endecja won a victory in the elections.
Twenty-five of its representatives entered the
Reichsrat and a leader of Galician National
Democrats was elected president of the Polish Club.
77
In 1911, during the next parliamentary
election, Polish politicians tried to exclude
independent Jewish candidates, especially Zionists.
The electoral campaign was tense. The Polish
administration and political establishment wanted to
gain the orthodox leaders' support and withdrew
regulations that stipulated that officially appointed
rabbis were required to graduate from secular high
schools and speak foreign languages. Ten Galician
Jews entered the parliament but there were no
Zionists among them. A new notion appeared in the
Central-European political vocabulary -- Galizische
Wahlen (Galician elections) as a symbol for election
fraud and violence. The political atmosphere in
Galicia in 1912 was influenced by elections in Russia
to the fourth Duma. A National Democratic
candidate in Warsaw was defeated with the help of
Jewish votes. Endecja proclaimed an anti-Jewish
boycott, which had repercussions in Galicia.
78
The First World War.
Assimilated, Habsburgtreu, German-speaking
Jews of Austria, especially in Vienna, welcomed the
outbreak of the war with enthusiasm.
79
 A different
atmosphere prevailed among orthodox Jews,
particularly in the small shtetls of Galicia, where the
Jewish population was politically far less active than
in neighboring countries. They read in newspapers
about the growing conflict with Serbia, but they
consoled themselves, that Franz Joseph needed a war
like a lokh in kop (a hole in his head).
80
  Galician
Jewry was surprised, therefore, with the outbreak of
the war, but it was really smitten by the quick
Austrian defeats in Galicia. Thousands of its Jews,
aware of the Russian army's antisemitism, fled leaving
behind all of their property. The huge exodus of
refugees resembled the panic after the Chmielnicki
pogroms in the seventeenth century. It is hard to
establish how many refugees there were, because part
of them turned back, escaped again or settled in a
different region of the province. Estimates range
from 200,000 to 400,000; the latter number would
mean 50% of the whole Galician Jewry. An official
report by the Austrian Minister of the Interior in the
fall of 1915 gave a total of 340,000 refugees, most
of whom were Jews. 
81
The mass of refugees went to Hungary,
Moravia, Bohemia and to Vienna. Local
administrations were unprepared for such an influx

15
and initially did not control the situation. Sometimes
there was no help at all, but camps were usually
established, where the refugees received food,
clothing and shelter. Usually, these were wooden huts
without sanitation, where infectious diseases were
frequent and the mortality rate was high. Nobody was
forced to live in the camps and some refugees tried to
find jobs outside of them. During the first months of
the war, the local population helped wholeheartedly
under the impression that the war would be over
soon.
82
A large group of refugees went to Vienna,
where they had relatives and friends. The capital of
Austria was considered in pre-war Galicia to be a
"promised land". The refugees hoped, that it would be
easier to find jobs, better help and a sense of security
in the big city. Vienna, therefore, became the chief
refugee center for Jews. They formed 60% (77,000
individuals) of all the escapees (137,000) in the
capital and settled in all the districts of the city.
Vienna's Jewish community grew by almost 50%.
Nevertheless, relief work went quite well. Soup
kitchens and additional schools were organized, the
refugees received subsidies and a special committee
(Zentralstelle fur judische Kriegsfluchtlinge) was
established to help Jews. 
83
As the months went by, the situation of the
entire Austrian population grew worse. Food
shortages appeared, the previous friendly atmosphere
vanished, new refugees were coming to Vienna and to
the western provinces. Displaced Jews could not find
work and were reduced to roaming the streets in
search of some kind of employment. It created in the
greater population a feeling of the "Judaization" of
Vienna. Antisemites became increasingly active;
beginning in 1916 demands appeared to remove the
refugees from the capital and to isolate them in
special camps in Moravia.
84
Jews, who remained in Galicia under Russian
occupation, faced a worse fate. Their status was
"equalized" with the legal position of Russian Jewry.
Galician Jews were removed from self-government
bodies and the civil service, they could not live in the
countryside nor leave their districts. Their civil rights
were withdrawn and their religious sensibilities
insulted. Frequently, they were accused of spying or
siding with the enemy. Almost every Russian unit
upon entering a city, and later the last units to depart
it harassed and robbed the local Jews. Some of these
events turned into regular pogroms, which lasted
several days and caused the death of many Jews.
Collective responsibility was enforced; Russians took
hostages and executed innocent people to terrorize
the civilian population. The Jews were harassed also
by bandits in "no man's land" between the fighting
armies. The chief of the Galician military
administration, Count George A. Bobrinskiy, lacking
organizational talents and elementary knowledge of
the province, was not able to curb the lawlessness of
the worst chinovniks (Russian minor officials) sent to
Galicia to Russify the country. War operations cut
Galicia off from any help from outside. Several towns
and many villages were completely quarantined by
the Russians to stop epidemics of black smallpox and
spotted fever. Schools and synagogues were closed
and public meetings forbidden. Tsarist military
authorities started the mass deportation of Jews to
Russia, but the Minister of the Interior, Prince N. B.
Shcherbatov, objected. As a consequence, the
commander-in-chief of the Russian army ordered that
"upon the occupation of new localities by our troops
all Jews should be rounded-up and driven out to follow
the enemy troops," because the Russian government
already had major problems with the Jews from
western regions of the Pale of Settlement, who,
crowded in its eastern parts, poured into Russia
proper.
85
In 1915, German and Austrian armies pushed
the Russians back, but only a minority of the refugees
decided to return to Galicia. The region was
devastated during the military operations and it was
not able to accommodate the Jewish refugees.
Frequently, they were not welcomed by the Polish
and Ukrainian people. Jewish property had been
seized and the Jews, who decided to return, were
destined to live out a wretched existence. A
corresponding situation prevailed behind the Russian
front. In 1916, Russians re-conquered a part of
Galicia. This time their Jewish policy was milder.
About 35,000 Jews, who had been deported to Russia,
went back. They were not allowed, however, to
return to their native cities and they landed in
wooden barracks, under bad conditions and without
jobs. Their situation improved in 1917, after the
March Revolution. Political and economic life
enlivened. Galician districts, controlled by Russians,
received help and better administration. In June
1917, a congress of Jewish representatives met in
Tarnopol . A plan of substantial aid for Jews was
prepared. But it came to nothing. After the last
Kerensky offensive the whole of Galicia was occupied
by the Germans. Departing Russian units organized
pogroms in Tarnopol and Kalusz. Several months
later, an open Polish-Ukrainian conflict started and
each side claimed that its enemies were supported by
Jews.
86
By the end of 1918, about 35,000 Jewish
refugees from Galicia still remained in Vienna. A part
of them lived together and formed a ghetto within a
ghetto. The war also brought Hassidim to the
Austrian capital, where there had been none before
1914. During the war many Galician Hassidic courts
were founded there. The Czortkower Rebbe
reestablished Czortkow-in-miniature in the

16
Heinestrasse. The refugees did not want to go back to
their impoverished homeland. They became a burden
on the city and its authorities tried to get rid of them.
It was impossible, however, to force out citizens of
pre-war Austria. There was a war in Poland, and only
after its end in 1920, was it possible to sign an
agreement with Polish Republic in which the latter
promised to accept returnees. Several thousand Jews,
mainly from the poorest districts of Vienna, decided
to return. They went back not to their shtetls but to
the big cities. The net result of the war and
dislocation was that the number of the Jews in Galicia
decreased by 20% between the censuses of 1910 and
1921.
87
During the last months of the war, the
attitude of Polish population of Galicia towards the
Jews grew steadily worse. Many Poles believed that
Jews collaborated with the Austrians and Germans
against Polish interests and opposed the re-
establishment of an independent Polish state. Despite
the extreme poverty of the Jewish masses, many
Poles believed that numerous Jews made financial
fortunes on war contracts and avoided military
service. Wincenty Witos, the future Prime Minister
of Poland and a leader of the Peasant Party, who was
by himself not friendly toward the Jews, wrote simply
about a growing hankering for anti-Jewish revenge.
88
The explosion of hatred came in November 1918,
when Austrian and German power was removed and
the new Polish authorities were not yet in control of
the situation. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in several
towns of Galicia. The biggest pogroms took place in
Lwow, where 72 Jews were killed
89 
, and in
Kolbuszowa, where 8 Jews died.
90
 Isaac Deutscher
recalled: "I lived through three pogroms during the
very first week of reborn Poland. This is how the
dawn of Polish independence greeted us."
91
Conclusions.
Before the Partitions of Poland, its Jewish
population was almost perfectly homogenous in
terms of culture, religion and way of life. Leaving
aside local habits, dialectal differences in Yiddish and
the early, limited consequences of the Hassidic
movement, Jewish communities of Galicia looked like
kahals in Lithuania, Belorussia, Mazovia and other
parts of the Polish Commonwealth. After World War
I, Galicia once again became a part of a Polish state,
but at that time Galician Jews, because of their
experience under Habsburg rule, differed from their
co-religionists living in Polish lands previously
occupied by Russia and Prussia. Numerous
phenomena, described or only mentioned in this
article, reshaped Galician Jewry during the period
1772-1918, when Galicia belonged to the Habsburg
Empire and became a separate, distinct entity on the
map of the Jewish Diaspora.
On the one hand, Galicia's poverty,
backwardness and provincialism determined the
character of its Jewish community and caused its
resemblance to Jewish communities in Eastern
Europe. A majority of Galician Jews remained in
traditional shtetls, separated from the outside world
and controlled by orthodox rabbis or even more
conservative Hassidic tsaddikim. Hassidism was
particularly strong and popular in Galicia, which
beside Bukovina and some regions of Congress
Poland, was probably the most "hassidized" region in
the world. The modernization of Galician Jews was
delayed by their economic situation and by a
geographical and communications separation of the
province. Galicia was closer to Central Poland and
the Ukraine than to Austria proper not only literally
but also in terms of culture, way of life and the social
structure of the Jewish population, concentrated in
the cities and "traditional Jewish" professions. This
similarity between The Jews of Galicia and Russian
Empire decided that both these groups (together with
Slovak, Moravian, Romanian and less typical
Hungarian Jews) were given a common name of
Ostjuden.
On the other hand, the fact that Galicia
belonged to the Habsburg Empire for almost 150
years had numerous positive consequences for
Galician Jews. From the 1860s, they could participate
in political life and all kinds of economic activities. A
relatively large group of Galician Jewish politicians
gained experience in local political organizations, in
Lwow's Diet and in the Reichsrat. Zionist
organizations of Galicia constituted the largest
segment of Austrian Zionism. Jews participated in the
socialist movement and in Polish parties. As a
consequence, Jewish-Galician politicians were very
important on the political scene of inter-war Poland.
During the 1922 parliamentary elections, seventeen
Jewish deputies (fifteen in eastern Galicia alone) were
elected in Galicia out of a total of thirty-five elected
on Jewish lists in the whole country.
92
Galician Jews could also engage in professions,
which were forbidden to their co-religionists in Russia
and Romania. It was easier for the Jews to acquire
land in Galicia than in Ukraine or in Central Poland.
As a consequence a majority of Jewish farmers of the
Second Polish Republic lived in its southern
territories, previously administered by Austria. Here,
unlike in former Russian lands, a relatively large
group of wealthy Jewish farmers dwelled next to
Jewish smallholders.
93
Inter-war Poland also inherited from Polish-
Austrian Galicia a comparatively large group of
Jewish intellectuals, members of the intelligentsia,
professionals and civil servants. The latter were very

17
important for reborn Poland. Before World War I, a
large number of administrative positions in the Polish
lands ruled by Russia and Prussia was occupied,
respectively, by Russians and Germans. After 1918,
they were frequently replaced by Jewish civil servants
from former Galicia, who moved north to work for
the new Polish administration.
Galicia was a stronghold not only of
Hassidism but also of the Haskalah movement, which
gave birth to Jewish nationalism and to Jewish
strivings for assimilation into German and Polish
society. Galician Jews were the most polonized of all
Polish Ostjuden. In inter-war Poland, the Jews, who
indicated Polish as their mother tongue and identified
themselves with Polish nationality, were most
numerous in Galicia.
94
Unfortunately, the Jewish-Polish assimilation
was limited after 1918 as a consequence of Polish
governments' policy, unfavourable for national
minorities.
95 Twenty five years later, Jewish Galicia
disappeared, wiped out by the Germans. The last
traces of the Jewish-Galician world survived among
Jewish immigrants and Hassidim in New York,
Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv, in literature and
remembrances, which were sentimental and nostalgic,
and frequently also sad and bitter.
96

18
Table 1
The growth of the Jewish population of autonomous Galicia
YearThe entire populationJews % of Jews within
the entire popul
1869 5,418,016 575,433 10.6
1880 5,958,907 686,596 11.5
1890 6,607,816 768,845 11.6
1900 7,315,939 811,183 11.1
1910 8,025,675 871,895 10.9
Source: Bohdan Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX ( Jewish
Population in Poland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) (Warsaw, 1930), 90
Table 2
The number of Jews in the lands of Austro-Hungary, 1880-1910
:	1880	1890	1900	1910
Lands	Number% of PopNumber% of PopNumber% of PopNumber% of Pop
Galicia	686,596 11.52772,213 11.7811,371 11.09871,895 10.86
Bukowina	67,418 11.7982,717 12.896,159 13.17102,919 12.86
Lower Austria
95,058 4.08128,729 4.4157,278 5.07184,779 5.23
Bohemia	94 449 1.7094 479 1.692 745 1.4685 826 1.27
Moravia	44,175 2.0545,324 2.044,225 1.8241,158 1.57
Silesia	8,580 1.5210,042 1.611,988 1.7613,442 1.78
Kustenland	5,130 0.79 5,268 0.85,534 0.73 6,513 0.73
Cisleithanien (Total):1,005,394 4.541,143,305 4.781,224,899 4.681,313,687 4.60
Hungary	624,826 4.60707,961 4.70831,162 4.90911,227 5.00
Croatia	13,488 0.7017,261 0.8020,216 0.8021,231 0.80
Transleithanien (Total)
638,314 4.10725,222 4.20851,378 4.40932,458 4.50
Source: Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol.3, Die Volker des Reiches, pt. 2, ed. by A.Wandruszka
and P.Urbanitsch (Vienna, 1980), 882-883.

19
Table 3.
The contribution of the Jewish inhabitants to the entire population of five large cities, located in
different parts of Austria.
Cities:	1857	1890	1900
number% of pop. number% of pop.number% of pop.
Vienna 6,217 2.16 118,495 8.69146,140 8.77
Prague 7,706 10.71 17,635 9.67 18,986 9.42
Cracow 12,937 37.82 20,939 28.07 25,670 28.11
Lwow 22,586 40.58 36,130 28.25 44,258 27.68
Cherniovtsy 4,678 21.67 17,359 32.04 21,587 31.93
Source: Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol.3, Die Volker des Reiches, pt. 2, ed. by A. Wandruszka
and P. Urbanitsch (Vienna, 1980), 884-885.

20
 Table 3
Number of Jews in the Districts of Western
Galicia in 1910
District
Number of
Jews
% Jews
% Jews of
Village
Population % Land in
Jewish Hands (1902)
Biala 2,6783.11.4 0.7
Bochnia 6,6335.82.3 0.9
Brzesko 5,8665.63.3 3.0
Chrzanow 11,44210.33.7 3.9
Cracow
(w/o the city)
1,2381.81.8 0.1
Dabrowa 5,6328.13.9 3.4
Gorlice 6,1797.52.8 0.7
Grybow 2,9165.53.7 0.8
Jaslo 5,7436.54.5
Kolbuszowa 6,2518.54.7 3.7
Krosno 6,2537.53.3 0.3
Lancut 7,0327.54.6
Limanowa 3,0463.82.6
Mielec 7,72410.03.8 6.4
Myslenice 1,8192.01.0
Nisko 5,6588.24.4 3.6
Nowy Sacz 12,2409.33.0 1.6
Nowy Targ 3,3274.12.5
Oswiecim 6,55913.11.9
Pilzno 2,9886.13.7 6.1
Podgorze 7,07111.01.6 1.5
Przeworsk 3,9486.92.6 0.1
Ropczyce 6,8378.53.2 3.6
Rzeszow 14,1049.62.1 1.4
Strzyzow 4,1927.25.4 6.4
Tarnobrzeg 8,31110.73.5 8.1
Tarnow 17,53315.12.6 3.1
Wadowice 2,9573.10.7 1.2
Wieliczka 2,8694.22.3
Zywiec 1,9051.61.5
Total 213,2697.92.9 2.3
Source: Wlodzimierz Wakar, Rozwoj terytorialny
narodowosci polskiej ( Territorial Growth of the Polish
Nationality), 3 pts. (Kilece, 1918), 1:93, 95-100.

21
Table 5. The number of Jews in the districts of Eastern Galicia in 1910.
%of the Jews% of the Jews% of land in
number ofwithin the entirewithin the pop.in Jewish
District:	the Jewspopulation of the villageshands in 1902
Bobrka 10,171 11.5 7.4	0.2
Bohorodczany7,479 10.7 8.5	0.1
Borszczow 13,740 12.6 11.9	9.4
Brody 22,596 15.5 6.7	3.6
Brzezany 10,744 10.3 5.4	4.8
Brzozow 5,325 6.5 5.3	1.8
Buczacz 17,481 12.7 5.3	2.8
Cieszanow 10,780 12.5 8.8	2.2
city of Lwow57,387 27.8 -	-
Czortkow 7,945 10.4 5.5	2.8
Dobromil 7,575 10.5 7.7	2.9
Dolina 12,812 11.3 5.8	13.8
Drohobycz 29,566 17.2 5.8	7.7
Grodek Jagiel.6,882 8.6 3.0	1.6
Horodenka 10,114 11.0 7.3	5.6
Husiatyn 11,276 11.7 7.0	3.7
Jaroslaw 14,982 10.0 4.2	1.1
Jaworow 6,353 7.3 4.1	4.3
Kalusz 8,178 8.4 4.3	0.3
Kamionka
Strumilowa
14,662 12.7 7.1	4.0
Kolomyja 23,880 19.1 5.0	5.5
Kosow 9,701 11.3 4.8	.
Lisko 13,884 14.1 9.7	12.5
Lwow 14,038 8.7 7.6	1.6
Mosciska 7,230 8.2 4.5	1.8
Nadworna 11,451 12.6 6.3	3.0
Peczenizyn 4,201 9.0 6.0	.
Podhajce 7,316 7.8 4.3	6.4
Przemysl 22,540 14.1 5.6	2.7
Przemyslany9,548 11.0 5.6	2.5
Rawa Ruska 16,711 14.5 6.7	5.9
Rohatyn 13,548 10.8 5.2	4.1
Rudki 6,392 8.3 2.5 0.6
Sambor 8,829 8.2 3.9	3.1
Sanok 11,149 10.4 5.8	1.4
Skalat 12,621 13.1 4.4	9.2
Skole 5,918 10.7 5.8 in 1902 in Stryj
Sniatyn 10,237 11.6 5.1	1.0
Sokal 16,304 14.9 8.9	3.2
Stanislawow29,754 18.8 11.1	3.0
Stary Sambor6,480 10.7 6.3	5.9
Stryj 12,760 15.9 4.1	8.4

22
Tarnopol 19,722 13.9 3.4	5.2
Tlumacz 9,649 8.3 5.2	2.9
Trembowla 7,278 9.0 5.5	4.0
Turka 11,668 13.6 9.1	3.7
Zaleszczyki9,237 12.0 8.3	7.7
Zbaraz 5,337 7.5 3.3	7.1
Zborow 6,198 10.2 5.3
Zloczow 13,586 11.6 6.1	6.6
Zolkiew 9,520 9.6 3.7	3.2
Zydaczow 6,871 8.2 2.8	1.6
Eastern Galicia659,706 12.4 6.0	4.5
Source: Wlodzimierz Wakar, Rozwoj terytorialny narodowosci polskiej    ( Territorial Growth of the
Polish Nationality), 3 pts. (Kielce, 1918), 1:105-107, 126-127, 129-130.

23
Table 6. The change of the share of the Jews within the population of Galicia, 1869-1910.
Period of TimeThe growth of the entire pop. in %The growth of the Jewish pop. in %
1869-1880	10.0	19.3
1880-1890	10.9	12.3
1890-1900	10.7 5.5
1900-1910	9.7	7.5
Source: Bohdan Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX ( Jewish Population in
Poland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) (Warsaw, 1930), 90
Table 7. The number of Jews in the Lands of Cisleithanien, 1846-1880.
Lands % of the Jews within the whole  pop.% of all Jews living in Cis leithanien
184618571869 19001880 19101846 1857 18691880
Lower Austria0.3 0.4 2.65.14.15.230.91.16.39.4
Galicia 7.19.710.6 11.111.5 10.8673.3 2.3 0.0  8.2
Bohemia 1.6 1.81.7 1.51.71.2715.613.9 10.9 9.4
Moravia 1.9 2.2 2.11.82.11.578.96.7 5.2 4.3
Silesia . 0.71.21.81.5 . 0.5 0.7 0.8
Bukovina . 6.5 9.3 13.211.8 12.86. 4.7 .8 6.7
other . . . . . 1.3o.8 1.11.2
Source: A.G. Rabinach, The Migration of Galician Jews to Vienna, 1857-1880, Austrian History
Yearbook, 11 (1975): 44.
Table 8. Occupational structure of the Jews and Christians within a group of 1,000 persons
working in a given profession in 1900.
professions:	Christians Jews
agriculture, gardening, raising of cattle 990	8
forestry	935	50
fishing	915	85
mining and metallurgy	987	8
stonebreaking	943	51
blacksmithery, locksmiths and foundry	897	85
fabrication of articles of gold, silver, tin and lead676	320
fabrication of machines, tools and instruments 824	146
chemical industry	825 136
building enterprises	926	69
printing enterprises 	822	169
weaving	910	58
leather and paper industries	788	200
timber industry	931	56
food industry	596	396
hotelmen and innkeepers	377	619
fabrication of clothes	743	249
working in industry without a specific profession844	126
trade	186	810
credit and insurance	693	298
transportation	909	81
river transportation	919	81
other trade and transportation enterprises 332	663

24
servants and day laborers	771	229
army officers and soldiers	957	24
clerks	883	113
learned professions	638	351
retired persons and wellfare	893	99
"living in closed institutions"	937	60
without given profession	713	271
servants living in their masters' houses 888	106
Source: Wilhelm Feldman, Stronnictwa i programy polityczne w Galicji, 1846-1906 (Parties and political
programs in Galicia, 1846-1906), 2 vols. (Cracow, 1907), 2:293-294.

25
                   
1
George J. Lerski and Halina T. Lerski in Jewish-Polish Coexistence, 1772-1939. A Topical Bibliography (New York, 1986)
list about 100 titles on Galicia out of a total of 2778. Most of these works were published before World War I. Encyclopaedia
Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem, 1971) gives only 4 titles on Galicia issued after World War II. Although  scholarly interest in the
Jews of the Habsburg Empire has increased recently and numerous books and articles on this subject have been published,
most of them are devoted to partly assimilated German-speaking Jews.
2
Graphic examples are  the two most recent biographies of Karl Radek, who was born and raised in Galicia: Warren Lerner,
Karl Radek. The Last Internationalist ( Stanford, 1970) and Jim Tuck,  Engine of Mischief. An Analytical Biography of Karl
Radek(New York, 1988). Both authors claim that the Sobelsohn family  admired German culture and thought Radek " to regard
Polish culture as alien and unworthy of study" (Lerner, p.3). Lerner and Tuck fail to explain why the boy was called "Lolek"
and his mother - according to Tuck's spelling (p.3) - "Panna Zashia."  Both books are full of mistakes on Galician history and
geography.
3
Austrian History Yearbook , 13 (1992): 160-180.
4
In 1890, only 9% of the Galician population worked in industry, 77.3% remained in agriculture. Life expectancy was 28
years, and the illiteracy rate (among people older than 6 years) was 67% (in 1870 - 77%). Galicia embraced 26.9% of the
entire population of Austria and 26.1% of her territory (in 1880) but only 9.2% of all industrial enterprises and 4% of the
whole of Austrian industrial production. In 1875, the Galician share of state revenue amounted to 10.7%, its share of state
expenses 16.3%. The data are from: Historia Polski, ed. by Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii, 4 vols. (Warsaw, 1970),
3:311, 314, 318, 319, 337.
5
Norman Davies, God's Playground. A History of Poland, 2 vols. (New York , 1984), 2:139; Piotr S. Wandycz, "The Poles in
the Habsburg Monarchy", Austrian History Yearbook,  3, pt 2 (1967): 263.
6
Davies,  God's Playground, 142; Wandycz, "The Poles", 265-266.

26
                                   
7
Konstanty Grzybowski, Galicja 1848-1914. Historia ustroju politycznego na tle historii ustroju Austrii  (Galicia 1848-
1914. A History of its political system in the context of the Austrian Empire's political system) (Cracow, 1959), 33-34;
Wandycz, "The Poles", 273-278.
8
Henryk Wereszycki, Historia polityczna Polski 1864-1914 (Paris, 1979), 37, 154; Historia Polski, 296-302; Wandycz, "The
Poles", 278; Jozef Buszko, Zum Wandel der Gesellschaftsstruktur in Galizien und Bukowina (Vienna, 1978), 6-7.
9
William O. McCagg Jr.,  A History of Habsburg Jews, 1670-1918 (Bloomington, Indiana, 1989), 26-28.
10
Ibid. 11-12; William O. McCagg, Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary (Boulder, 1972), 53.
11
Derek Beales, Joseph II, 2 vols. (New York, 1987), 2:465-479.
12
Majer Balaban, Dzieje Zydow w Galicji i Rzeczpospolitej Krakowskiej 1772-1868  (A History of the Jews in Galicia and in
the Republic of Cracow) (Lwow, 1914), 22-25; Majer Balaban, Historia i kultura zydowska, 3 vols. (Warsaw , 1925),  3:409-
410; The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols. (New York, 1907), 4:325; Stanislaw Grodziski, W Krolestwie Galicji i Lodomerii (In
the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria) (Cracow, 1976), 112; Ignacy Schiper, Dzieje handlu zydowskiego na ziemiach
polskich  (A History of the Jewish Trade in the Lands of Poland) (Warsaw, 1937), 333.
13
Artur Eisenbach, The Emancipation of the Jews in Poland 1780-1870 (Oxford, 1991), 55; McCagg, A History of Habsburg
Jews, 29.
14
Raphael Mahler, A History of Modern Jewry, 1780-1815 (London, 1971), 330-332; Majer Balaban, Historia Zydow w
Krakowie i na Kazimierzu, 1304-1868, (A History of the Jews in Cracow and Kazimierz), 2 vols. (Cracow, 1936), 2:565-569.

27
                                   
15
Since Polish was an official language of Galician administration, all the geographical names in the article are in Polish, as
cited in official documents of the period discussed. I add, however, Ukrainian names in braces, when I mention  a city or a
town located in Eastern Galicia for the first time. A table, containing mayor Galician place names in four languages, appears
in Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism. Essays on Austrian Galicia (Cambridge, Mass.,1982), 323-324.
16
Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 334; Balaban, Dzieje Zydow, 73-83.
17
Simon Dubnow, History of the Jews, 5 vols. (New York, 1973), 5:115-121; Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 334-341.
18
Grzybowski, Galicja, 33; Balaban, Dzieje Zydow, 143-175; Eisenbach,  The Emancipation, 330-331, 343-346; Dubnow,
History, 124, 286.
19
Balaban, Dzieje Zydow, 175-179; Eisenbach, The Emancipation, 380-383.
20
Eisenbach, The Emancipation, 404-406; Balaban, Dzieje Zydow, 192; Dubnow, History, 302; Encyclopaedia Judaica, 10
vols. (Berlin, 1931), 7:64.
21
Ignacy Schiper, Arieh Tartakower, Aleksander Haftka, eds., Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej (The Jews in the Reborn Poland), 2
vols. (Warsaw, 1932-1933), 1:392.
22
Ibid. and Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16:1330.
23
Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848-1918, vol.3, Die Volker des Reiches, pt. 2, ed. by Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch
(Vienna, 1980), 894-899; Naftali Schiper, Dzieje Zydow w Polsce (A History of the Jews in Poland),  2 vols. (Lwow, 1927),
2:98; Kurt Stillschweig, "Nationalism and Autonomy among Eastern European Jewry. Origin and Historical Development up
to 1939", Historia Judaica, 6 (1944): 35-36.
24
Die Habsburgermonarchie, 3, pt 2.: 881-903; Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 337; Bohdan Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska w Polsce
w wiekach XIX i XX (The Jewish Population in Poland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries) (Warsaw, 1930), 90;

28
                                   
Buszko, Zum Wandel, 29; Jozef Polcwiartek, "Skupiska zydowskie w Galicji u schylku XVIII wieku" (Jewish Communities in
Galicia by the end of the Eighteenth Century), in: Zydzi w Malopolsce. Studia z dziejow osadnictwa i zycia spolecznego (The
Jews in Malopolska. Studies in the History of Settlement and Social Life), ed. by Feliks Kiryk (Przemysl , 1991), 150.
25
Eisenbach, The Emancipation, 203; Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 436.
26
P. G. J. Pultzer, "The Austrian Liberals and the Jewish Question 1867-1914", Journal of Central European Affairs, 23 (1963-
64): 133.
27
Die Habsburgermonarchie, 3, pt. 2:885.
28
Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska, 91.
29
Wlodzimierz Wakar, Rozwoj narodowosci polskiej (The Growth of the Polish Nationality) 3 vols. (Kielce, 1918), 1:96-97;
Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska, 92.
30
Wakar, Rozwoj, 102; Wasiutynski, Ludnosc zydowska, 92.
31
Zydzi w Polsce, 377-378; A. G. Rabinbach, "The Migration of Galician Jews to Vienna, 1857-1880", Austrian History
Yearbook, 11 (1975): 43.
32
Arieh Tartakower, "Jewish Migratory Movements in Austria in Recent Generations", in The Jews of Austria, ed. by J.
Fraenkel (London, 1970), 287; Raphael Mahler, "The Economic Background of Jewish Emigration from Galicia to the United
States", in East European Jews in Two Worlds: Studies from YIVO Annual, ed. by Deborah Dash Moore (Evanston, Illinois,
1990), 288; Zydzi w Polsce, 378.
33
Tartakower, "Jewish Migratory Movements", 288; Zydzi w Polsce, 378.

29
                                   
34
Saul Miller, Dobromil. Life in a Galician Shtetl, 1890-1907, (New York,1980), 1-2.
35
Rabinbach, "The Migration of Galician Jews", 44; Marsha Rozenblit, "A note on Galician Jewish Migration to Vienna,"
Austrian History Book, 19-20, pt 1 (1983/84): 143; Die Habsburgermonarchie, vol.3, pt. 2: 888-889; Marsha Rozenblit, The
Jews of Vienna, 1867-1914: Assimilation and Identity (Albany,  1983), 17, 27; Robert S. Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna in the
Age of Franz Joseph (London, 1989), 64-67; Jacob Katz, "The Identity of Post-Emancipatory Hungarian Jewry", in A Social
and Economic History of Central European Jewry, ed. by Yehuda Don and Victor Karady (New Brunswick and London,
1990), 16.
36
Ezra Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation in Lvov: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman", Slavic Review, 28 (1969): 578; Ezra
Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation to Zionism in Lvov: The Case of Alfred Nossig," The Slavonic and East European Review, 44
(1966): 521; Raphael Mahler, "The Austrian Government and the Hassidim during the Period of Reaction (1814-1848)," Jewish
Social Studies, 1 (1939): 196-197; Karl Emil Franzos, "Mein Erstlingswerk: "Die Juden von Barnow", in Die Geschichte des
Erstlingswerks, ed. by Karl Emil Franzos (Leipzig, 1894), 220; Yehuda Don, George Magos, "The Demographic Development
of Hungarian Jewry", Jewish Social Studies, 45, no 3-4 (Fall 1983): 208; Jerzy Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation der Juden
in Galizien in 19. und 20. Jahrhundert", Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteutropas,  37 (1989): 218, 223.
37
Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation", 579; Wilhelm Feldman, Stronnictwa i programy polityczne w Galicji 1846-1906 (Parties
and Political Programs in Galicia 1846-1906), 2 vols. (Cracow , 1907), 2:274-275; Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation", 217,
224; Archives of Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, Warsaw , Protocols of Cracow's Jewish Community (Protokoly z
posiedzen zboru izraelickiego w Krakowie), no 552, entry of February 6, 1870; Joseph S. Bloch, My Reminiscences (New
York, 1973), 78.
38
Mendelsohn, "Jewish Assimilation", 580; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 269; Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation", 219-220;
Balaban, Historia Zydow w Krakowie, 681-682.

30
                                   
39
Zydzi w Polsce, 394; Samuel Almog, "Alfred Nossig: A Reapprisal", Studies in Zionism,  7 (Spring 1983): 1; Mendelsohn,
"Jewish Assimilation," 581; Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation," 521-523; Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation," 224-225;
Waclaw Wierzbianiec, "Zycie kulturalno-oswiatowe Zydow przemyskich w okresie autonomii Galicji" (Cultural and
Educational Activities of the Jews of Przemysl during the Period of Galician Autonomy), in Zydzi w Malopolsce, 210.
40
Eisenbach, The Emancipation, 245-246; Manes Sperber, God's Water Carriers (New York and London, 1987), 62.
41
Franciszek Bujak, Limanowa (Cracow, 1902), 184.
42
Die Habsburgermonarchie, 3, pt. 2: 908-909; Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation", 223-224; Szyja Bronsztejn, Ludnosc
zydowska w Polsce w okresie miedzywojennym. Studium statystyczne (The Jewish Population of Poland during the Interwar
Period. A Statistical Study) (Wroclaw, 1963), 48, 53.
43
Wojciech Saryusz-Zaleski, Dzieje przemyslu w b. Galicji 1804-1914 ( A History of Industry in the former Galicia) (Cracow,
1930), 126.
44
Ibid. 127-129.
45
Franciszek Bujak, Rozwoj gospodarczy Galicji, 1772-1914  (Economic Development of Galicia, 1772-1914) (Lwow, 1917),
34-39.
46
Bujak, Rozwoj gospodarczy, 39-47; Saryusz-Zaleski, Dzieje przemyslu, 130-136; Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 442-449;
Bronsztejn, Ludnosc zydowska, 54, 74.
47
Joachim Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires. Jewish Life in Galicia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in the Reborn Poland
1898-1939 (Hoboken, New Jersey, 1985), 6; Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 449.

31
                                   
48
Schiper, Dzieje handlu, 449-450.
49
 Ibid. 450-455.
50
Kazimierz Chledowski, Pamietniki (Memoires). 2 vols. (Wroclaw,  1951), 2:229, 233; Horacy Safrin, Ucieszne i osobliwe
historie mojego zycia (Funny and Peculiar Stories from my Life) (Lodz, 1970), 27; Jan Lam, Wybor kronik (Chronicles)
(Warsaw, 1954),38,57; Franciszek Bujak, Galicja, 2 vols. (Lwow,  1908), 1:182.
51
Bujak, Limanowa, 184, 200; Schoenfeld, Stetl Memoires, 16-27; Karl E. Franzos, The Jews of Barnow (New York, 1883), 30;
Miller, Dobromil, 8; Archives of Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, Warsaw, Protocols, no 552, the entries of Jan.12,1879,
Feb.17 and 24, 1870, and others.
52
Bujak, Limanowa, 195-197; Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 19.
53
Bujak, Limanowa, 185; Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 46; Mark Zborowski, Elizabeth Herzog, Life is with People. The
Culture of the Shtetl (New York,  1973), 93-97.
54
Natan M. Gelber, Aus zwei Jahrhunderten. Beitrage zur neueren Geschichte der Juden (Vienna and Leipzig, 1924), 105;
Majer Balaban, Historia lwowskiej synagogi postepowej  (A History of the Progressive Synagogue of Lwow)  (Lwow, 1937),
22-28; Judisches Lexikon, 3 vols.(Berlin, 1928), 2:877.
55
Archives of Jewish Historical Institite in Poland, Warsaw, Protocols, no 552, the entry of April 3, 1870; Balaban, Historia
Zydow w Krakowie, 709-719.

32
                                   
56
Archives of Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, Warsaw, Protocols, no 552, the entry of April 3, 1870; Balaban, Historia
Zydow w Krakowie, 709-719.
57
Mahler, A History of Modern Jewry, 498-525.
58
Feldman, Stronnictwa, 267-275; Schoenfeld, Stetl Memoires, 75-80; Rabbi J. Heshel, "The History of Hassidism in Austria,"
in Josef Fraenkel (ed.) The Jews of Austria (London, 1970), 348-252; Mahler, "The Austrian Government", 198-204;  Bloch, My
Reminiscences, 18-20.
59
Adolf Gaisbauer, Davidstern und Doppeladler. Zionismus und judischer Nationalismus in Oesterreich 1882-1918 (Viena
and Cologne, 1988), 19-41; Wistrich, The Jews of Vienna, 348.
60
Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation", 521-530; Zydzi w Polsce, 396; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 285; Gaisbauer, Davidstern, 39-47.
61
Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation", 521-530; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 286; Zydzi w Polsce, 396.
62
 Feldman, Stronnictwa, 289.
63
Feldman, Stronnictwa, 287-289; Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 122.
64
Galician Jews had one deputy in the Reichsrat in the years 1867-73, five in 1873-79, four in 1879-91, five in 1891-97, six in
1897-1906, five in 1907-11 and ten after 1911; Zydzi w Polsce, 397; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 287.
65
Leila P. Everett, "The Rise of Jewish National Politics in Galicia, 1905-1907," in Nationbuilding and  the Politics of
Nationalism., 160; Robert S. Wistrich,  Socialism and the Jews. The Dillemas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-
Hungary (London, 1982), 312.

33
                                   
66
Henryk Piasecki, Sekcja Zydowska Polskiej Partii Socjal-Demokratycznej (The Jewish Section of the Polish Social-
Democratic Party) (Warsaw, 1982), passim; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 132-137.
67
Feldman, Stronnictwa, 291-294; Wistrich, Socialism, 318-321.
68
Zydzi w Polsce, 400-401.
69
Schiper, Dzieje Zydow, 112; Feldman, Stronnictwa, 309.
70
Max Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature, 1880-1935, 4 vols. (New York, 1960), 4, pt. 2:633; E. Silberschlag, From
Renaissance to Renaissance. Hebrew Literature from 1492-1970, 2 pts. (New York, 1973), 1:109
71
Sol Liptzin, A History of Yiddish Literature (Middle Village, New York, 1972), 25-32; Silberschlag, From Renaissance, 126-
133.
72
M. H. Gelber, "The jungjudische Bewegung. An Unexplored Chapter in German-Jewish Literary and Cultural History," Leo
Baeck Institute Year Book, 31 (1986): 108-114; Liptzin,  A History of Yiddish Literature, 237-241.
73
Max Weinreich, A History of Yiddish Language, (Chicago , 1973), 292.
74
Frank Golczewski, Polnisch-judische Beziehungen, 1881-1922 (Wiesbaden,  1981), 60; Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political
Antisemitism in Germany and Austria (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 122-133; Frank Golczewski, "Rural antisemitism in Galicia
before World War I", in The Jews of Poland, ed. Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk, Anthony Polonsky (Oxford, 1986), 97-
102; John Paul Himka, "Ukrainian-Jewish Antagonism in the Galician Countryside during the Late Nineteenth Century," in
Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective, ed. by Peter J. Potichnyj and Howard Aster (Edmonton, 1988), 111-149.
75
Franciszek Bujak, Zmiaca. Wies powiatu limanowskiego (Zmiaca. A Village in the District of Limanowa) (Cracow, 1903),
105; Golczewski, Polnisch-judische Beziehungen, 64-84; Golczewski, "Rural Antisemitism", 104.

34
                                   
76
Sperber, God's Water, 72; Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 114-117.
77
Dubnow, History, 757-760.
78
Zydzi w Polsce, 398; Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 126.
79
D. A. Prater, European of Yesterday. A biography of Stefan Zweig (Oxford,  1972), 68; McCagg, A History of Habsburg
Jews, 219; M. Grunwald, Vienna. (Philadelphia, 1936), 459-461.
80
Schoenfeld, Shtetl Memoires, 129; McCagg, A History of Habsburg Jews, 206.
81
Archives of Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, Warsaw, Memoir of Baruch Milch, copybook 1; Tartakower, "Jewish
Migratory Movement", 289; Zydzi w Polsce, 413.
82
Sperber, God's Water, 74; Zydzi w Polsce, 413;
83
Tartakower, "Jewish Migratory Movement", 290; Rabinach, "The Migration", 54.
84
Tartakower, "Jewish Migratory Movement", 291.
85
The citation from: Wiktor Sukiennicki, East Central Europe during World War I: From Foreign Domination to National
Independence, 2 vols. (New York, 1984), 1:116; D. M. Graf, "Military Rule Behind the Russian Front 1914-1917: The Political
Ramification,"  Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 22 (1974): 397; Archives of Jewish Historical Institute in Poland,
Warsaw, Memoir of Baruch Milch; Aleksiei A. Brusilow, A Soldier's Note-Book 1914-1918 (Westport, 1971), 71, 109; Hans
Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley, L. A., 1986), 100.
86
Zydzi w Polsce, 416; Tartakower, "Jewish Migratory Movement", 292.
87
Heshel, "The History of Hassidim", 352-359; Sperber, God's Water, 146; McCagg, A History of Habsburg Jews, 203.

35
                                   
88
Wincenty Witos, Moje wspomnienia (My Reminiscences), 2 vols. (Paris,  1964), 2:184.
89
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16: 1331; Henry Morgenthau, All in a Life-time (Garden City, New York, 1923), 410; Jerzy
Tomaszewski, "Lwow, 22 listopada 1918", Przeglad Historyczny  75 (1984):279-285.
90
Morgenthau, All in Life-time, 413.
91
Isaac Deutscher, The non-Jewish Jew and other essays (Boston, 1982), 11.
92
Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939 (Berlin, New York, Amsterdam, 1983), 263.
93
Ibid. 51; Shimshon Tapauh, "Agrikultur bay Yidn in Poyln tsvishen bayde velt-milkhomes,"in Studies on Polish Jewry 1919-
1939. The Interplay of Social, Economic and Political Factors in the Struggle of a Minority for its Existence, ed. Joshua A.
Fishman (New York, 1974), 377-378, 419.
94
Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars (Bloomington, Indiana , 1983), 18, 30;
Bronsztejn, Ludnosc zydowska, 31.
95
Holzer, "Zur Frage der Akkulturation", 226.
96
 see, for example, a poem by Aba Shtoltsenberg "Galician Winter" written while he was living in New York: Ruth Wise, et.
al., eds., The Penguin Book of Modern Yiddish Verse (New York, 1987), 598-600.