PEREMYSHLYANY

PEREMYSHLYANY (Pol. Przemyslany ), town in Lvov district, Ukraine. Peremyshlyany was part of Poland until the partition of 1772 when it was annexed by Austria. Regained by independent Poland in 1919, it belonged to the province of Tarnopol. In 1945 it was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine. The Jewish community was already active during the period of the *Council of the Four Lands and became particularly famous during the 18^th and 19^th centuries because of its dynasty of ḥasidic leaders. These included R. Aaron Leib of Peremyshlyany (d. in Ereẓ Israel, 1773) who was the son of R. Meir of Peremyshlyany, known as "the First" or "the Great"; both were disciples of *Israel b. Eliezer Ba'al Shem Tov. The son of R. Aaron Leib was R. Meir of *Peremyshlyany, one of the most outstanding personalities among the ẓaddikim of Galicia. The town expanded during the 19^th century. In 1865 the combined population was about 2,200 and by 1921 there were 4,093 inhabitants, including 2,051 Jews. In the 1933 elections to the Jewish community council a Zionist delegate was elected president. The interest-free loan fund and the orphanage were among the most active welfare institutions. As a result of antisemitic agitation, a bomb was thrown into the bet ha-midrash in 1935.

[Shimshon Leib Kirshenboim]

Holocaust Period

The number of Jews had grown to nearly 6,000 in 1941 with the influx of refugees from the vicinity and from western Poland. The German forces arrived on July 1, 1941. Three days later they burned down the main synagogue and pushed a number of Jews into the flames. In the fall of 1941 kidnappings for labor camps in Kurowice and Jaktorow began. About 500 Jewish men were taken on Oct. 5, 1941, to Brzezina forest and murdered. In May 1942 a Gestapo official removed the inmates of the Jewish hospital and killed them. Other acts of terror continued at the end of July and in September until the end of 1942. Most of the victims were sent to *Belzec extermination camp. In August 1942 a ghetto was set up, to include Jews from *Glinyany and Swirz as well. On May 23, 1943, the ghetto was wiped out and the city declared *judenrein.

After the war the Jewish community was not renewed in Peremyshlyany. A number of Jews who came out of the forests or from hiding, along with a number of returnees from the Soviet Union, came to their native town, but most emigrated either to Israel via Poland or to other countries abroad. In the late 1960s there were about five Jewish families in the town.

[Aharon Weiss]