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Kamenetz-Podolsk

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Russian city; capital of the government of Podolia. In 1900 it contained a population of 34,483, about half being Jews. Among its public edifices, the numerous Jewish institutions for charity and learning are conspicuous. During the Cossack uprising (1648-58) the Jewish community there suffered much from Chmielnicki's Cossacks on the one hand, and from the attacks of the Crimean Tatars (their main object being the extortion of ransoms) on the other. Kamenetz-Podolsk witnessed, also, the execution of Chmielnicki's son Yuri for his atrocious murder of a rich Jewess, because her husband, relying upon the influence of his friends, had refused to pay a tax imposed by him upon the Jews. The husband effected the seizure of Yuri and took him before the Turkish pasha then governing; Yuri confessed, and was executed.

About the middle of the eighteenth century Kamenetz-Podolsk became celebrated as the center of the furious conflict then raging between the Talmudic Jews and the Frankists; the city was the residence of Bishop Dembowski, who sided with the Frankists and ordered the public burning of the Talmud, which sentence was carried into effect in the public streets (1757).

Kamenetz-Podolsk was also the residence of the wealthy Joseph Yozel Günzburg. During the latter half of the nineteenth century many Jews emigrated from that city to the United States, especially to New York, where they organized a number of societies; among these are the Kamenetz Ḥebra Kaddisha and the Kamenetz-Podolsk and Kamenetz-Podolia Krankenverein.