Galician Jew
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| Jewish population in Galicia | |
|---|---|
| 1772 | 150,000–200,000, or 5–6.5% of the total population |
| 1857 | 449,000, or 9.6% of the total population of the region. |
Galician Jews or Galitzianers are a subdivision of the Ashkenazim geographically originating from Galicia, from western Ukraine (current Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions) and from the south-eastern corner of Poland (Podkarpackie and Lesser Poland voivodeships). Galicia proper, which was inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews, was a royal province within the Austro-Hungarian empire. Galician Jews primarily spoke Yiddish.
In the modern period, Jews were the third most numerous ethnic group in Galicia, after Poles and Ukrainians. At the time that Galicia was annexed by Austria (i.e. the Habsburg Monarchy), in 1772, there were approximately 150,000 to 200,000 Jews residing there, comprising 5–6.5% of the total population; by 1857 the Jewish population had risen to 449,000, or 9.6% of the total population. In 1910, the 872,000 Jews living in Galicia comprised 10.9% of the total population, compared to approximately 45.4% Poles, 42.9% Ukrainians, and 0.8% Germans.
Most of Galician Jewry lived poorly, largely working in small workshops and enterprises, and as craftsmen—including tailors, carpenters, hat makers, jewelers and opticians. Almost 80 percent of all tailors in Galicia were Jewish. The main occupation of Jews in towns and villages was trade: wholesale, stationery and retail. However, the Jewish inclination towards education was overcoming barriers. The number of Jewish intellectual workers proportionally was much higher than that of Ukrainian or Polish ones in Galicia. Of 1,700 physicians in Galicia, 1,150 were Jewish; 41 percent of workers in culture, theaters and cinema, over 65 percent of barbers, 43 percent of dentists, 45 percent of senior nurses in Galicia were Jewish, and 2,200 Jews were lawyers. For comparison, there were only 450 Ukrainian lawyers. Galician Jewry produced four Nobel prize winners: Isidor Isaac Rabi (physics), Roald Hoffman (chemistry), Georges Charpak (physics) and S.Y. Agnon (literature). Henry Roth, who wrote Call It Sleep, was a Galician Jew whose family emigrated to the U.S. in the first decade of the 20th century.
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