First accounts of Jews in Drohobycz date back to 1404. Only Jews who leased salt mines were allowed to settle in the town; the rest resided in the suburbs. The government initially pretended not to see where the Jews lived. Jews were allowed to settle in the vicinity of the mines but were refused the right to have a separate Jewish cemetery, which for many years rendered it impossible to establish an independent kehilla in Drohobycz.

King Władysław Jagiełło handed over supervision over the salt mines in Drohobycz to a Jew named Wołoczka[1.1]. He was also nominated a quantity surveyor of Drohobycz for the king. Meanwhile, another Jew called Detko or Dziatko, who also leased a salt mine in Drohobycz, was granted permission from the king in 1425 to deliver salt to the royal court and to trade salt with Turkey and Kiev.

In 1500 the town council of Drohobycz was allowed to tax salt mining and production of alcoholic beverages (such as beer or vodka). A taxation and privileges system was established, which served to regulate Jewish entrepreneurship. There must have existed a Jewish kehilla in Drohobycz by then, as it was represented in the Jewish self-government convention in Rzeszów. In 1554 a salt mines leaseholder, Jakub Juditz, was given the right to levy a tax on vodka producers in Drohobycz. Because of that, two Jews from Drohobycz – Samuel Markowicz and Icchak Jakuzow – went to court and appealed to King Zygmunt II August to decide which one was to levy a tax on propination. Eventually the town won the court case.

In 1578, 3,600 Jews resided in Drohobycz. The same year, King Stefan Batory issued the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis, which banned Jews from residing in Drohobycz or its vicinity, and even banned them from trading during town fairs.

In 1618, Drohobycz was ruined by the Tatars. The town deteriorated. That is when two Jews from Lviv, Icchak Nachmanowicz and Icchak ben Mordechai Markowicz, leaseholders of the royal grounds near Drohobycz, made all possible efforts to make the Jewish community return to Drohobycz. In 1635 the Russian provincial governor, Jan Daniłowicz, allocated 30 morgens of royal grounds for a Jewish settlement. The Jewish district in Drohobycz was named Na Łanie (On the Field). Jan Daniłowicz also granted permission to establish a Jewish cemetery. The town was gradually rebuilt. In 1645 the king released the town from paying taxes.

In the 1650s, the Khmelnytsky Uprising broke out in Ukraine, which had a negative impact on the Jewish life in Drohobycz. In 1659, King Władysław IV confirmed the right of Jews to settle On the Field. However, the census of 1663 records merely 15 Jews, owners of houses On the Field (on Żydowska Street). They mostly engaged in trading liquor, beer and vodka. First wooden synagogue was erected in the Jewish district, but it burnt down in 1713. It was only rebuilt during the time of the Austrian partition. It has remained empty until today, following the last fire.

The oldest documents of Drohobycz's kehilla date back to 1664. They refer to relations between the guilds of Drohobycz with Jews, after a 7-year contract about possession of inns and shops within town boundaries, for which they were to pay 200 zlotys in advance. This contract, very important for Jews, was then renewed in 1672 and 1678. In 1683, the renewal cost reached 300 zlotys. Jewish entrepreneurship blossomed during the reign of Jan III Sobieski, mainly in the area of vodka production, beer brewing and innkeeping. Sometimes the town council complained to the king about Jewish leaseholders, which usually resulted in court investigations. That is how Leberman, Jewish leaseholder, lost the right to sell vodka in the vicinity of the church, following the king's decision of 1690.

The first information about a Drohobycz rabbi dates back to 1670. It was Jekutiel Zalmon Siegen, son of a rabbi from Przemyśl. In 1680 his successor, Tzvi Hirsh, arrived from Kołomyja. In 1696 Yehuda ben Yaakov became the rabbi of Drohobycz.

Drohobycz developed mostly as a trade centre of the entire region. In the beginning of the 18^th century almost entire trade market, including export, was managed by Jews. They were also responsible for mining and producing salt, both as leaseholders and as simple craftsmen. Merchants from Lviv and Drohobycz dominated the salt market in this region. With time, representatives of the crafts transformed into Jewish middle class in Drohobycz, which was successfully developing throughout the subsequent two centuries. Cattle export to Silesia, trade in clothes and banking were also blossoming. As Drohobycz was located near the Hungarian border, wealthy Jewish merchants tended to travellers heading south.

Jewish craftsmen successfully competed with Christian ones, which enabled the restoration of the synagogue and the Jewish cemetery in 1711. Jews gradually began to settle around the city, thus expanding the size of the Drohobycz kehilla. The census of 1716 listed 3 Jewish tailors, 3 bankers, 2 jewellers, 1 gunsmith, 1 doctor, 1 furrier, 1 bookbinder and 1 tanner.

However, the relations between Jews and Christians were not always that good. In 1718 a body of a murdered child was found in the town. Jews were accused of ritual murder. Adela, a Jewish maidservant, was the main suspect. Church representatives insisted that she was guilty of the crime. Adela was formally accused and put in prison. Supposedly people tried to convert her to Christianity, but she refused and was therefore punished.

In 1720, after many efforts, Jews of Drohobycz were granted allowance to rebuilt the burnt down synagogue, on the condition that it would not be bigger or more decorative than the old one. In order to be granted permission to erect fence around the cemetery, Jews volunteered to help in the church's rebuilding. At that time, Yitshak Hior, famous scholar and cabbalist, opponent of Shabbatai Zvi, resided in Drohobycz; he was buried at the local cemetery.

In 18^th century, the kehilla in Drohobycz developed even more. It comprised seven administrative councils and two courts. It was one of the most important Jewish communities in Ruthenian Province. And yet, in the 1750s, a scandal erupted. Zalman ben Ze'ev (Wolfmanowicz), a very unpopular person who was regarded as dishonest, became one of the heads of the Jewish community in Drohobycz. The community filed a complaint to the Jewish Council of Ruthenian Province in Lviv, but due to his extensive connections, the complaint was not considered. The Jews of Drohobycz and the vicinity organised a meeting in Stryj, trying to get noblemen's support against Zalman. Finally the royal commissioners intervened; Zalman and his family were arrested and convicted. Zalman's property was confiscated. At the very last moment Zalman offered a huge buyout, thanks to which his death penalty was changed to a life sentence. In prison, Zalman converted to Christianity and joined a priory, where he died two years later. Zalman left the Jewish kehilla in Drohobycz in huge debt. In 1770, Avidor Herszkowicz was expelled from the Jewish community for inciting the Jews against the kehilla administration. A so-called herem (an excommunication, exclusion from the community) was imposed on him.

The community was gradually expanding. In 1765, the kehilla of Drohobycz also comprised Jews from nearby villages. The census from that period reported 1,923 community members. Amongst them were: 16 tailors, 4 furriers, 3 tanners, 1 gunsmith, 1 bookbinder, 2 jewellers and numerous musicians. 979 Jews resided in Drohobycz proper; they owned 200 houses in total. In 1769 soldiers quartered in Drohobycz. They lodged mostly in Jewish houses, which was quite overwhelming for the house owners.

At the same period, the first Hasidim appeared in Drohobycz. The first Hasidic Jews in the town were: Rabbi Yitshak Drubyczer, supported by Baal Shem Tov himself, Rabbi Yisorel ben Eliezer, Yosef Drubyczer Ashkenazi and his son Israel Nachman Drubyczer, who later went to Italy, to finally settle in Palestine (supposedly).

In 1772, Drohobycz became part of the Austrian Empire. The Jewish self-government was no longer existent, in contrast to the Polish Commonwealth, but autonomous kehillas remained. Austrians, on their part, did not forget about the town's debt from the Commowealth period amounting to 26,968 zlotys.

In 1776, Empress Maria Teresa legitimised the status of the Galician Jewry, comprising the population of 144,000 people, as an autonomic society. There were 144,000 of them. The kreis (an administrative unit in the Austrian Empire) of Drohobycz and Sambir was to elect a parnasim (elders) council comprising seven members.

In the 1780s, as a result of the de non tolerandis Judaeis privilege issued for Jews of Drohobycz, Jewish houses were confiscated, refurbished and sold to Christians. The Austrian administration also assumed control over the salt mines, which were the main source of income for the Jewish community. Moreover, an enormous taxation was imposed on the Jews engaged in beer production and distribution. The accumulated funds were supposed to cover the aforementioned debt toward the Commonwealth. The Jewish community persevered. During the reign of Joseph II the parnasim council was dissolved. The community was managed by three elders who were held responsible for their management directly by the district administration. They had to represent the community, look after the poor, register deaths, weddings and births. The legal and tax autonomy was abolished. Since then, Jews constituted merely a separate religious community within the Austrian society.

The census of 1788 reported 1,812 Jewish families in Drohobycz, Sambor, Turka and Komarno, 8,690 people in total. At that period Herz Homberg, inspector of Jewish schools in Galicia, established a Jewish school (Judische Normalschule) in the town. Initially, the initiative did not succeed; Galician Jews submitted a petition to the emperor to abolish compulsory secular education for Jews. Another census was conducted in 1789. All Jews were given Germanised names, which were supposed to be inherited. All documents were to be written exclusively in German. In 1793 Moshe Tzekendorf, teacher from the Judische Normalschule, and an avid proponent of the Haskalah, sent a petition to Vienna to improve spiritual and intellectual condition of Galician Jews. He requested that the Austrian government require the Jews to change traditional garb into German-style garments, banned teenage engagements and trade in vodka, as well as supported Jewish settlement in the villages and Jewish assimilation.

The majority of the Jews who lived In the Field fund it hard to make ends meet, living off trading beer, vodka and peddling. These wandering tradesmen were called “handeles.” There were, however, some attempts made at modernisation. Leib Yosefberg obtained permission to open a shoe factory in Drohobycz, which was managed by his family until 1939. Attempts to teach Jews basics of farming were rather unfortunate. 25 families from Drohobycz were transferred to the countryside. The experiment failed because of poverty, which made it impossible for the Jews to pay the so-called “tolerance tax.”

In the years 1810-1817 Josef Hecker, a Jewish geologist from Prague, pioneered extraction and distillation of Drohobycz petroleum. Within a short period of time Hecker and Johann Mitis discovered further petroleum reserves near Truskawiec. By 1835 they opened over 20 petroleum mines in Borysław. Simultaneous experiments with crude oil distillation were conducted by Abraham Schreiner, a Jew from Borysław.

In the 1820s the issue of Jewish houses in Drohobycz confiscated in order to settle the debt was solved. Houses were returned to their previous owners for a small fee; the confiscated inns, however, were not returned. In the 1830s emperor Franz II imposed high taxes on kosher meat and Shabbat candles, which was met with outrage. Candles for Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and for weddings and funerals were made even more expensive.

The years 1822-1848 were a period of peace and reconciliation in the religious life of Drohobycz. It was due to Rabbi Eliahu Horshovsky, who knew how to settle disputes between Orthodox Jews, Hasidim and the proponents of the Haskalah. In 1840 the local maskilim (proponents of the Haskalah) set a foundation stone for the Great Synagogue, known as Groyse Shil.

In 1848 the revolutionary “Spring of Nations” swept across entire Europe. In Austria, in response to the revolutionary spirit, emperor Ferdinand I liquidated the ghettoes, dropped taxes on candles and kosher meat, abolished limit on Jewish trade, crafts and free professions. Jews were granted full right to own property and to vote. Jewish social life changed too, various progressive movements were gradually appearing.  In 1849 Jewish funeral association Khevra Kadisha purchased a catafalque, which raised indignation amongst traditionalists. In Brody mass protests took place. On the other hand, in 1849 Rabbi Eliezer Nissan Teitlboim, member of the famous Hasidic family from Hungary, arrived in Drohobycz. His presence in town contributed to the development of the Hasidic movement amongst local Jews. He was succeeded by Eliahu Horszowski, who became a chief rabbi of Drohobycz for 27 years. Horszowski tried to find a balance between the Orthodox Jews and the maskilim. The number of maskilim kept growing due to the arrival of merchants and industrialists – owners of petroleum mines – in the town.

In 1854 large deposits of earthwax were found in Borysław, a town nearby Drohobycz. In 1856, the petroleum business finally brought significant profits. Entrepreneurs started moving to Drohobycz. They bought off plots of land from local farmers for the so-called peanuts, and began to mine petroleum and earthwax and subsequently to process it. In 1859 a mine in nearby Tustanowice was opened. Up until 1860 the number of Jews in Borysław – belonging to the kehilla of Drohobycz – significantly increased. It reached 1,000 people, the majority were impoverished people seeking jobs. Because of that, the first kupat cholim was founded there.

In the 1860s maskilim opened the first private Jewish middle school in Drohobycz. Twelve pupils attended the school; they learnt Hebrew, German, Polish, maths and Talmud. Hasidim initially founded their own school but then, after some hesitation, accepted the middle school and sent their religion teachers there. Contacts with Jews from other towns and with non-Jews rendered the Jewish world of Drohobycz modern. It applied mostly to wealthy families of merchants and industrialists from Drohobycz, who aspired to join the elites of Galicia and of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.

As late as 1864 there were only four Jews in Drohobycz who held privileges of a full citizenship of the town. Jakub Segel, owner of large warehouses, filed a complaint about that, which resulted in the intervention of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Vienna. In the years 1867-1868, the political restrictions were ultimately lifted.

In 1862, the earthwax business exploded. There were over 1,500 earthwax mines in Borysław and Wolanka, with several thousand employees colloquially referred to as lebaks. They settled in entire districts of the towns located in the vicinity of Drohobycz.

In 1863 the Groyse Shil, or Great Synagogue, was finally completed and now there were two synagogues in Drohobycz. There were also 24 private batei-midrash and a hospital, founded at the time by the charity organisation called Osei Chesed. Asher Zelig Lauterbach, a wealthy entrepreneur, eminent scholar, maskil, expert in Hebrew tradition and scientific achievements, who published in Hebrew, played a very important role within the Jewish community at that period. He funded a hospital, library, reading-room and a division of Israelitische Allianz, which provided help for victims of pogroms in Russia. Amongst other influential maskilim there were: Shmuel Abraham Apfel, head of the executive board of Gartenberg-Lauterbach-Goldhammer plant; Alexander Schor, merchant; and Leon Sternbach, graduate in linguistics in Vienna and Lipsk, since 1892 professor at the Jagiellonian University. Brothers Maurycy and Leopold Gottlieb, distinguished painters.

Until the end of the 19^th century, the progressive community dominated the kehilla in Drohobycz. The process of Jewish assimilation, in which Germanisation replaced Polonisation, continued. At the beginning of the 20^th century, the community's assimilation accelerated[1.2].

In 1869, 4,000 Poles, 5,000 Ukrainians, and 8,000Jews resided in Drohobycz. It was the third largest town in Galicia, after Lviv and Kraków. In 1874, 8 Poles, 12 Ukrainians, and 17 Jews were elected for the town council. Since then – and until WWII – the deputy mayor of Drohobycz was always Jewish. Poles also supported the Jewish candidate for Galician Sejm, in exchange for Jewish votes from the surrounding villages supporting Polish candidate. In the second half of the 19^th century Jakub Feuerstein was the deputy mayor of Drohobycz. One of the streets in the town was named after him, as he was an avid supporter of Galician autonomy who aptly represented interests of various ethnic and social groups. In 1914 Feuerstein left for Vienna; he died in Karlove Vary (Karlsbad) in 1927.

First proponents of Zionism appeared in Drohobycz in the last quarter of the 19^th century. In the 1880s they opened the so-called Volkshalle (community reading room), which effectively became a Jewish culture club. A Zionist group named Einigkeit was established, later joined by the “Ha-Ivri” Association. In 1883, Zionist Aharon Hirsh Zupnik began publishing the Drohobitzer Zeitung newspaper. At the turn of the 20^th century, Dr. Leon Reich exerted a strong influence on the development of the Jewish school system in Drohobycz. A graduate of Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, he was a well-known writer and lecturer, as well as leader of the Zionist movement in Galicia. Reich initiated the first Jewish students' union and ran for the Austrian parliament in 1911 election. The Zionist activity was not in line with the dominating assimilationists. There was civil commotion during the aforementioned 1911 election, suppressed by a bloody intervention of the Austrian Army (26 victims!).

Jews constituted the majority of shareholders of the mining fields Drohobycz-Borysław-Tustanowice. In 1880 Goldhammer, Maurer, and Schreirer opened a brewery in Drohobycz. Not everybody, however, was so successful. Impoverished Jews often chose emigration, mainly to the USA. There were 34,700 residents of Drohobycz in 1910. 15,300 – nearly a half – were Jews. The Jewish community constituted the majority in Borysław.

In 1914 the First World War broke out. In July 1915, the Russian army entered Drohobycz, and anti-Jewish riots ensued, instigated primarily by Don Cossacks. In July 1916 Russians were driven out of Drohobycz and life slowly returned to its usual pace, despite the fact that many houses had been destroyed.

Drohobycz became part of independent Poland in 1919. There were approximately 12,000 Jews residing in Drohobycz in the interwar period (44% of the total population). Political life flourished (various Zionist organizations, youth associations, WIZO). The popularity of Zionism was enhanced by the fact that Chaim Yechkiel Shapira, head of the rabbinate court stemming from the widely respected Ruzhin-Sadagora dynasty, was a supporter of Zionism. Religious schools were in operation in town, based on the Talmud-Torah system. 120 girls attended the Beit-Yaakov school. Cultural life was thriving, its symbol being Bruno Schulz (1892-1942), a brilliant Polish writer and graphic artist of Jewish origin, albeit not widely known during his lifetime[1.3]. There were, however, sporadic anti-Jewish incidents, including attacks on Jewish merchants by local Ukrainians[1.4].

Following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Drohobycz was initially occupied by the German army. The short period of German occupation was marked by various violent anti-Semitic acts by German soldiers and Ukrainian peasants[1.1.4]. On 22 September 1939, Drohobycz was captured by the Soviets. The new occupying force introduced immediate nationalisation of the local industry and commerce, thus depriving the Jewish community of the means for living. Many Jews were deported eastwards, along with numerous refugees from central Poland.

Following the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, on 30 June 1941, Drohobycz was recaptured by Germany. A brutal pogrom ensued, as a result of which over 400 people perished. In July 1941, Germans established the Judenrat. On 30 November 1941, 300 Jews were shot dead in the Bronicki Forest. Hundreds of people died of cold and starvation in the winter of 1941/42. Judenrat was making efforts to solve the situation by organising workshops which allowed people to benefit from participating in the production process. 1,300 Jews were employed in the petroleum industry. Despite that, 2,000 Jews were deported to the extermination camp in Bełżec in March 1942. On 8 August 1942, Germans, together with Ukrainian police, murdered 600 Jews, sending further 2,500 to Bełżec. At that point a decision to create a ghetto for the remaining 9,000 people was made. On 23/24 October 1942 another transport of 2,300 Jews left for Bełżec; 200 patients of the local hospital were murdered. Deportations continued in November 1942; on 15 February 1943, 450 people, including 300 women, were murdered in the Bronicki Forest. Only people working under the forced labour camp regime were spared by Germans. In March 1943 800 of those perished in the Bronicki Forest. As a result of subsequent murders and deportations, the remnants of the ghetto ultimately ceased to exist in April 1944.

The Jewish community of Drohobycz ,amounting to 400 souls, appeared in the town shortly after it had been recaptured by the Red Army in August 1944. Almost everyone emigrated within a short period of time.

Bibliography

• Drohobycz, [in] The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, eds. S. Spector, G. Wigoder, vol. I, New York 2001, pp. 333–334.
• Sefer zikaron le-Drohobycz, Boryslaw ve-ha-seviva, ed. N. M. Gelber, Tel Aviv 1959.
• Wozniak T., Sztetły Hałyczyny, Lviv 2010.