YALTA

YALTA, city and port in the Crimea, Russia. The winter palace of the czar's family, Livadiya, was situated near the town and as a result Jewish residence was restricted. From 1837 to 1860 Jews were forbidden to live there at all. Between 1860 and 1893 the prohibition was lifted, but from 1893 only those Jews who were registered as inhabitants or those with rights to reside anywhere in Russia were authorized to remain there. The others, including sick persons who had been sent there for convalescence, were expelled. In 1897 there were 1,025 Jews (approximately 8% of the total population) in Yalta. By 1926 their numbers had increased to 2,353 (6.2%). With the German occupation of Crimea at the end of 1941, the Jews who had remained in the town were concentrated in a ghetto and on Dec. 16–17, 1941, about 1,500 people were murdered. By 2005, Yalta had a Jewish community center and a charity center called Hesed Naftul. In 2004, for the first time in 80 years, a Sefer Torah was brought to the town by a group of rabbinical students. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Merder fun Felker (1945). (Yehuda Slutsky)