TULCHIN

TULCHIN, city in Vinnitsa district, Ukraine. A Jewish community is first mentioned in 1648 when Tulchin was conquered by the Cossack forces of chmielnicki , who massacred the Jews of the town and those of the surroundings who had sought refuge in the fortress of Tulchin, as well as the Poles who were there at the time. According to two varying, widely circulated accounts the Poles betrayed the Jews to the Cossacks after fighting them together, but were in turn massacred by their common enemy in Tulchin. The massacre of Tulchin was the subject of a play written by the Jewish-Russian author N. Minski under the title Osada Tulchina ("The Siege of Tulchin," in the monthly Voskhod, 1889). shalom asch in his tale Kiddush ha-Shem (Eng., 1926) and A.S. Friedberg in part III of his Zikhronot le-Veit David also wrote on the massacre of Tulchin. After the rebellion the Jewish settlement of Tulchin was renewed, but in 1743 and 1768 the community was again attacked by the haidamacks . In 1765 there were 452 Jews in Tulchin. At the end of the 18th century the ẓaddik R. Baruch, the grandson of israel b. eliezer Ba'al Shem Tov, lived in Tulchin. The number of Jews in Tulchin increased during the 19th century, and with 10,055 Jews in 1897 formed 62% of the total population. During the civil war in the Ukraine at the end of World War I the Jews of Tulchin were attacked several times; the most severe pogroms took place on July 1, 1919, when about 170 Jews were massacred. In 1926 there were 7,708 Jews in Tulchin (44.3% of the total population). After the German occupation of the Ukraine in World War II, Tulchin was incorporated into the region of transnistria , which had been handed over to Romania. During the autumn of 1941 the 3,000 Jews who remained in Tulchin were transferred to the camp of Peczara. In 1959 there were about 2,500 Jews in Tulchin (21% of the total population). The last synagogue was closed by the authorities in 1959. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Gurland, Le-Korot ha-Gezerot al Yisrael (1887–89); M. Litinski, Tsu der Geshikhte fun Yudn in Podolien (1888), 420–1; A.D. Rosenthal, in: Reshummot, 3 (1923), 399–401; idem, Megillat ha-Tevaḥ, pt. 3 (1931), 57–60; N.N. Hannover, Yeven Meẓulah (1945), 40–43; M. Osherowitch, Shtet un Shtetlekh in Ukraine, 1 (1948), 9–21; Y. Heilperin, in: Zion, 25 (1960), 22–27; PK Romanyah, 1 (1969), 443–4. (Yehuda Slutsky)