VALEA-LUI-VLAD

VALEA-LUI-VLAD, Jewish agricultural settlement in Bessarabia prior to World War II. It was founded on an area of some 934 acres which had been purchased in 1839 by approximately 350 Jews from Podolia. In 1899 there were 255 families (1,385 persons), including 82 landowners owning an average of 11.4 acres per family. The cultivated area amounted to 791 acres; of these 321 acres were set aside for crops and 430 for pasture. Because of a lack of agricultural implements – there was only one plow in the colony – plowing was hired out. In 1925 the 247 members of the local loan fund included 89 farmers, 56 artisans, and 79 tradesmen. In 1930 there were 1,281 Jews on the settlement (94.5% of the total population). The community was destroyed with the entry of the Germans and Romanians into Bessarabia in July 1941. (Eliyahu Feldman)