Metadata: Board of the Jewish Community of Rovno, Volhynia Wojewodship
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of the Rovno Region
- Holding institution (official language):
- Державний архів Рівненської області
- Postal address:
- 26-a Stepan Bandera Str., Rivne, 33014 (building 1); 8 Kavkazka St. Rivne, 33013 (building 2), Ukraine
- Phone number:
- 380 (362) 23-42-61
- Web address:
- http://rv.archives.gov.ua/index.php/in-english.html
- Email:
- archive_rv@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 221
- Title:
- Board of the Jewish Community of Rovno, Volhynia Wojewodship
- Title (official language):
- Управление еврейской вероисповедной общины в г. Ровно Волынского воеводства; Управління єврейської віросповідної громади у м. Рівному Волинського воєводства
- Creator/accumulator:
- Board of the Jewish Community of Rovno, Volhynia Wojewodship
- Date(s):
- 1925/1938
- Language:
- Polish
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 28 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Included are lists of members of the Jewish community of Rovno who had paid membership dues for 1925, 1933, and 1937-39 (and of those who had “concealed” same); and of electors of the first Rovno electoral area for 1928 for elections to the community council; Jewish community members’ applications for inclusion in voter rolls for elections to the community board, and for reduction of membership dues (1934-38); records of salary payments to workers for the ritual slaughter of livestock (1934-35); correspondence with the department of social security on settling the community’s debts; a log registering incoming correspondence (1937); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
After Rovno became part of the Polish state in 1921 pursuant to the Treaty of Riga, the Jewish community council elected there in 1917 was not recognised as an official representative of the Jewish population, which at the time constituted 21,702 people, or 71% of the city’s residents. In 1927, it was disbanded, upon which new elections were held for the community [gmina] council, which were won, as they were a decade earlier, by Zionists. D. Stok was chairman of the council throughout the 1930s. During this time, the Jewish share of the Rovno population steadily declined (in 1937 it was approximately 25,000 out of 58,000 persons; i.e., 43%).
A large part of the community budget was spent on religious matters, as well as to maintain local community and charitable institutions. The legal and social status of Jewish communities (in Polish, gminy, the smallest administrative unit, which derives in turn from the German gemeinde, or commune) in the territory of Volhynia changed along with the legal situation of the Jewish population in the Russian Empire, the Polish Republic, and Soviet Ukraine. In Russia, where from 1844-1917, the kahal (community) arrangement of the Jewish population was not recognised de jure, Jewish communities mostly formed around major synagogues; their elections were of a closed nature; and their primary functions, aside from maintaining synagogues and cemeteries and engaging in charity, were tax collection and the delivery of conscripts. In Poland after the First World War, Jewish communities, defined by a law of 14 October 1927 as “religious associations of citizens of the Mosaic confession,” received quite a broad autonomy. In particular, the gmina council, elected from among members of its board (in whose election, in turn, all local Jews participated on a non-preferential basis), was an influential body of community self-government, its competence including, among other things, issues pertaining to the organisation of the rabbinate and the keeping of vital records; establishment and maintenance of synagogues; taxation; social welfare; organisation of educational institutions and seeing to young people’s religious instruction; preparation for elections; etc. During the Soviet period, the national-territorial communities in the territories added to the Ukrainian SSR in September 1939 ceased, for all intents and purposes, to exist.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes two inventories systematised chronologically.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
