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Lezajsk
[Yiddish: Lizansk, Lezansk] - A town in the
Podkarpackie Voivodship that was granted its town charter in
the late
fourteenth century. Jews are first noted in historical
records in 1521.
In the tax list of 1538, seven Jewish families are named; in
1563, there
were twenty. It is known from historical sources that a
Jewish street
and synagogue existed in the early seventeenth century. The
Jews of
Lezajsk were engaged in crafts, trade and money-lending
activities.
Sources from the mid-seventeenth century mention artisans
from 51
different professions, including butchers, carpenters, and
even doctors.
In 1635, King Wladyslaw IV gave them the right to brew and
sell beer
and mead. In addition to local trade, they also sold cattle,
hides and
fish at markets and fairs that were farther afield. They
collected
customs duties and tolls. According to the census of 1765,
there were
909 Jews living in Leżajsk and the nearby villages. In the
late
eighteenth century, one of the founders and propagators of
Chasidism,
Rabbi Elimelech, settled here; the city became one of the
movement's
main centers.
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In 1800, there were approximately 2,000 Jews
living in Lezajsk (38% of its total residents). After 1815,
the town
fell within in the Kingdom of Poland. During the entire
nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, it was quite provincial; the large
brewery was the
most important element of its economy. In 1921, the Jewish
population
was just above 1,500 (31% of the town's population); in
1939, this
number was about 3,000. After the German army entered, in
October 1939,
some of the Jewish population was deported to the Soviet
zone of
occupation. Those who remained were crowded into the ghetto,
and then
killed in death camps in 1942. Of those deported to the
Soviet Union,
several hundred Jews survived. The unusual gravestone of
Rabbi
Elimelech, dating back to 1776, is the only historic example
of Jewish
sacral art that has survived; it is still an object of
Chasidic
pilgrimage. The Germans destroyed the Jewish cemetery at its
original
location, as well as the wooden synagogue, and used the
matsevot
(headstones) to pave streets. H.W.
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