DUNAYEVTSY

DUNAYEVTSY, town in Khmelnitski district, Ukraine. The Jewish community numbered 1,129 in 1765, but by 1775 was reduced to 484 as a result of the haidamak uprising of 1768. From the beginning of the 19th century many Jews found employment as workers, dyers, and traders in the flourishing textile industry there. Dunayevtsy was the scene of a trial lasting from 1838 to 1840 in which a number of Jews were accused of the murder of two informers. The Jewish population numbered 2,020 in 1847 and approximately 10,000 before the outbreak of World War I (about two-thirds of the total population). Dunayevtsy became known as a center of Hebrew and Zionist literary and educational activity. The scholars and writers Yeḥezkel Kaufmann , Ẓevi Scharfstein , S.L. Blank , and abraham rosen were born and educated there. After the establishment of Soviet rule the town became impoverished. Many Jews immigrated or moved to the cities of the Russian interior. There were 5,186 Jews in Dunayevtsy in 1926 (60.5% of the total), dropping to 4,478 (68.23% of the total) before World War II. The Germans occupied Dunayevtsy on July 11, 1941. They concentrated the Jews into a ghetto. On May 2, 1942, about 3,000 were murdered by the Nazis. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kamenetz-Podolsk u-Sevivatah (1965), 103–52; Z. Scharfstein, Hayah Aviv ba-Areẓ (1953), 11–163. (Yehuda Slutsky)