The first Jewish families settled in Rymanow in the second half of the 16th century, however, they were first mentioned in historical documents only in 1562. We know Michał[1.1], by name (the document mentions “Michał, a Jew from Rymanów”) a salt  tradesman. Tax registers from 1567 have already entries concerning seven Jewish families. In 1570 Abram, a Jew from Rymanów, with the permission of king Sigmund Augustus, constructed an iron forge on three lans of grubbed forest (lan was a unit of land measurement used in Poland) next to Odrzechowa village. The farmstead was called Hamry and belonged to the Puławy village. At the beginning, Jews from Rymanów were subject to the Lesko kehilla.

In a census carried on in Lesko in 1573, Aron, a Jew from Rymanów was mentioned, and in the one from1588, Józef, also a Jew from Rymanów, who lived in the Krosno lower suburb, was indicated. It proves that Jews were mobile, and often changed their place of residence in constant search of better living conditions.

Already at the end of the 16th century the Rymanow Jews established their own kehilla, as well as a synagogue and a cemetery. The synagogue, presumably wooden, in 1593 was looted, and that is how we know that it existed back then. Prince Czartoryski’s ordinance for Rymanów from 1696 obliged Jews to serfdom work for two days during the harvest period. It also allowed Jewish butchers to sell their products without any restrictions, excluding trading on Saturdays and Sundays.

In 1594 Waad warned the Jews from Rymanów against excessive use of wine. The possibility of banning Jews from wine trade was even considered, as wine was the main merchandise imported from Hungary. The merchants from Rymanów specialized also in the trade of spices: pepper, ginger, saffron and raisins. In 1700 they were forbidden to reside and trade in Krosno. Members of the city council in Krosno, in their resolution, stated that: stealing from or killing a Jew from Rymanów is not subject to penalty.

In 1772 Jan Krzysztof Szembek, the Bishop of Przemysl, banned Jews from wandering in the market square during the Corpus Christi procession, they were even expected to remain locked in their houses. During the Sabbath they were not allowed to benefit from services provided by the Catholics. They were forbidden to sell vodka on Sundays and on Catholic holidays.

According to the citizen census of 1765, there were six Jewish communities in the Sanok Land, assembling 4,646 Jews. The Rymanów kehilla was third in terms of population, just behind the Lesko and Dynów communities, and just before the Sanok one. It numbered 1,008 Jews-  245 of them lived in the very town,, 338 resided in the eight small remaining towns subject to the Rymanów kehilla, and 525 Jews lived in 84 villages. However, in 1799, the number of Jews living in town increased to 568. Since 1792, their children, apart from learning in cheders, could also attend the Deutsche-jüdische-schule.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries Rymanów became an important Hasidism centre. The following famous Tzadiks lived there: Menachem Mendel, since 1827, Tzvi Hirsch Kohen called “Hirsch the Leader”, since 1846 his son Józef Kohen and since 1913, Izaak Friedman, the descendant in the sixth generation of Dow Ber from Międzyrzecze, that is the Great Magid[1.2], a great grandson of the founder of the Sadogórski dynasty of Tzadics.

In 1824 the Jewish population in town amounted to 543 people, but in the first quarter of the 19th century it gradually diminished. . In 1870 the Jewish kehilla numbered 1,183 members and ruled over two synagogues, three rabbis, a religious school with sixty students, and two active associations. Berisch Preger was the kehilla’s rabbi. In 1886 the town had 3,262 inhabitants, including 1,391 Jews. Oskar Kolberg, who at that time visited the Rymanów estate owners, noted: Every year in Rymanów you meet Jews of the highest authority, with shaved heads and payots, in huge hats or caps with  fur (Israeli’s ladies have definitively given up traditional clothes) and you hear the Jewish language everywhere. In 1884 the Credit Society was established in Rymanów, and it was led by Zacharyasz Berger, and a year later, the Society of Savings and Credits was set up, headed by Jakub Fürst.

In 1900 the Jewish community numbered 2,861 people, with 1,746 of them in the very town, which constituted 46.9% of the population. The kehilla had among others the Health Service and the Poor People’s Care House. In 1918, 70 Jewish boys attended the public boys’ school, whereas the overall number of students was 411, and in the girls’ school there were 20 Jewish gilrs among 405 students. At the verge of gaining independence by the Polish State on the 4th of November, 1918, the town saw riots and turmoil. Rusyns from the following villages: Besko, Sieniawa and Wróblik Szlachecki looted Jewish shops. The town’s self-government authorities strongly opposed this acts of terror.

The general population census of 1921 showed that there were 3,546 inhabitants in town and 1,412 of them were Jewish. In the period between the wars, there were several political parties active there: the Agudas Israel, the Bund and the Hitachdut, youth organizations: the Hechaluc and the Hashomer Hacair, the associations Beis Israel, the Beis Izaak and the Gemilut Chesed, and the I. L. Perec’s Jewish Laborers’ Library. In the city there was the Jewish Craftsmen’s Association Jad Charuzim, and a department of the Central Jewish Artisans’ Union in Poland, the Association of Jewish Merchants, which in 1930 numbered 120 members and the Jewish Cultural Association. Over 80% of the trade businesses belonged to Jews.

The Nazis took over Rymanów on the 9th of September, 1939. One of the soldiers from the 7th Waffen Mountain Division recalled this moment as follows: […] We expelledt all the inhabitants capable to serve in the army to the market square. It is a scene difficult to describe. 90 men are of Jewish origin, by looks, genuine Lebanon merchandise. And here they are:  this gibbering nation,  raising their hands up and begging: “Messrs Germans, let us live, spare our lives, Messrs Germans!” Already in the first weeks of the Nazi occupation Jews were expelled from town and told to move to the Soviet occupation zone on the other side of the San River. Most of the Jewish community members left the town, but some of them came back after several months. The Judenrat was headed by Herman Spira.

The ghetto was organized in the spring of 1942, in the so-called Jewish district (around the synagogue). Jews from Rymanów and nearby villages were transferred there. Some of the Jews coming from Krosno were also displaced there, among others, on 19 November 1941, 100 people were sent to that ghetto. In the peak period 1,600 people lived in the ghetto. The Holocaust of the Rymanów Jews started on the 1st of August, 1942. This day all healthy men, aged between 15 and 35 were taken to the camp in Płaszów. In the morning of the 13th of August, the remaining part of the ghetto’s  inhabitants (the estimations vary: 500 to 800 people) were driven to the market square surrounded by the Gestapo and the Ukrainian police. The initial selection was done there, and  Jews were robbed of precious property. The belongings left in their houses were stored in the synagogue, and the empty houses and flats were sealed.

The people, gathered in the market square, were divided into three groups. About 70 to 100 healthy and strong men stayed in town. They were made to repair roads for several months. The second group consisted of old people, women and children (also about 100), who were taken to Barwinek, shot dead in the forest on the Błudna slope and buried in a mass grave together with the murdered Jews from Dukla. The most numerous group was led to the railway station in Wróblik Szlachecki, and transported to Bełżec. At the railway station, during unloading the wagons, Dr. Emanuel Frankel killed himself with cyanide. At the local Jewish cemetery the Nazis killed about 20 Jews in several executions. Alter Horowitz, the last Rymanów rabbi, descendant of the Sadogórski Tzadiks from his mother’s family side, died in Oświęcim in 1944.