MOGILEV-PODOLSKI

MOGILEV-PODOLSKI, city in Vinnitsa district, Ukraine; in Poland until 1795; under czarist rule it was a district town of Podolia. Mogilev-Podolski was an important station on the commercial route between Moldavia and Ukraine. Jews are first mentioned in the town in 1713. In 1765 there were 957 Jews in Mogilev and the vicinity. The number had grown to 5,411 in 1847, and by 1897 there were 12,344 (55.3% of the total population) Jews in the town itself. In 1808 H.Z. Stein and his father, David, transferred their Hebrew press from Slopkovicz to Mogilev and operated there until 1819, producing 24 books. Jews traded in farm products and lumber, exporting them through the Dniester river to the Odessa port. In October 1905 and in December 1919 the community suffered in the wave of pogroms. With the establishment of the Soviet regime, the Jewish communal organization and its institutions were liquidated. In 1926 the Jewish population had fallen to 9,622 (41.8% of the total) and to 8,703 (40% of the total population) by 1939. There were two Yiddish primary schools, and Jewish sections in the local law courts. Two Jewish kolkhozes operated near the city. The Germans occupied Mogilev-Podolski on July 19, 1941. They murdered about 1,000 Jews until the city was included in Romanian Transnistria, The Romanians created a ghetto, a Judenrat, and a Jewish police. In December the ghetto numbered 3,700 locals and 15,000 expelled from Bessarabia and Bucovina. By June 1942 some 1,200 had died of typhoid; to control the epidemic, the Romanians expelled thousands to other towns, but most perished. In 1946 there were 3,000 Jews in the town. According to the 1959 census, there were about 4,700 Jews in Mogilev (22.5% of the population). The last synagogue was closed down by the authorities in the mid-1960s. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Berman, in: Reshumot, 1 (1925), 411–3; Ya'ari, in: KS, 23 (1946/47), 309–27; Die Judenpogrome in Russland, 2 (1909), 443–6; M. Carp, Cartea neagrǎ, 3 vols. (1946–48), index; PK Romanyah (1969), 461–73. (Yehuda Slutsky / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)