TYSMENITSA

TYSMENITSA (Pol. Tyśmienica), town in Ivano-Frankovsk oblast, Ukraine; within Poland until 1772 when it passed to Austria, reverting to Poland between the two world wars. An organized Jewish community existed in Tysmenitsa from the early 18th century, under the jurisdiction of the council of the "province of Russia" (see councils of the lands ). In the mid-18th century Jews from Tysmenitsa attended the breslau fairs . In the 1760s, during the rabbinate of meshullam b. samson igra , a new stone synagogue was erected to replace the old wooden one which had burned down in 1754. In 1765 there were 856 Jews paying the poll tax in the town. The Ḥasidim in Tysmenitsa were persecuted in the early 19th century. The Jewish population numbered 2,529 (36% of the total) in 1880, 2,049 (26%) in 1900, and 2,305 (23%) in 1910. They mainly engaged in trade of agricultural products and timber, shopkeeping, furriery, and carpentry. In the 1850s Menahem Mendel of Tysmenitsa, author of Elef Alfin (1876), was rabbi of the community. He was followed by Saul b. Meshullam Issachar ha-Levi Horovitz, author of responsa (Besamim Rosh he-Ḥadash). Before World War I there was a Jewish school financed by the baron de hirsch fund . Between 1914 and 1920 many Jews moved to stanislav , lvov , and stry . Between 1919 and 1939 when Tysmenitsa was within Poland, the Zionist movement was active. The community had   a library. The Jewish population numbered 1,090 (16%) in 1921. The community was destroyed in the Holocaust. There were 56 survivors, some 30 of whom immigrated to Israel. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Mahler, Yidn in Amolikn Poyln in Likht fun Tsifern (1958), index; Dov of Bolehov, Zikhronot, ed. by M. Wischnitzer (1922), 62; B. Wasiutyński, Ludność źdowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX (1930), 124; I. Schiper, Dzieje handlu hydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (1937), index; I. Lewin, Przeczynki do dziejł i historji literatury żydow Polsce (1935), 9, 15. (Shimshon Leib Kirshenboim)