A Traditional Jewish Space

A Traditional Jewish Space

One of the most significant features of Lviv quarters situated to the north of the central part is the fact that a Jewish ghetto was located there for centuries. It was the Jews who created the local color of this place's life due to their social, cultural, and domestic practices. It is their representation that formed the basis of the perception of the northern suburb on the part of the rest of Lviv residents. The actual ghetto, a territory where the suburban Jewish community lived densely, traditionally occupied an area not too large: on the east-west axis, it was limited roughly by the Poltva river channel (now Chornovola prospect) and the slope of the Vysokyi Zamok (High Castle) Hill, while on the south-north axis it was limited by the city walls (now vul. Torhova and vul. Ivana Honty) and Pl. Sv. Teodora (St. Theodore Square). However, with the development of the Jewish community and the liberalization of the city norms and customs after the Austrian rule was established, the Jews settled around the traditional ghetto on a mass scale too, mixing with Polish and Ukrainian population and playing an important role there as well. Thus, in the nineteenth century, the Jews occupied an important segment of the local area in both "closer" and "further" Pidzamche.

     The massive influx of the Jews to the city started in the first decades of the fifteenth century. The rich and powerful (but not everyone who wished) could expect a place in the ghetto within the city walls, while others settled in the northern neighborhoods outside the walls. The so-called "starosta's jurydyka" (a jurydyka was a settlement right outside or, less commonly, an enclave within a royal city, that was independent from the municipal laws and rulers but instead remained under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastic or secular lord who owned it) functioned on the area between the Vysokyi Zamok Hill and the Poltva river, so these territories were subjects to the starosta (senior) of the castle. The management on behalf of the starosta was carried out by a burgrave; that is why the land under the castle jurisdiction was also called a burgraviate. As Majer Bałaban, a well-known researcher of the Lviv Jews, observed, "for the Jews, the starosta rule was more advantageous than that of the city as it did not impede buying and building houses as well as engaging in trade, handicrafts and so on. This liberty of buying and selling houses was determined by an old royal privilege, approved by Zygmunt August on 1 October 1568, and by the Lviv starostas' privileges. (...) Unlike the conditions in the city, there was full freedom of settlement in the suburbs at that time. The Jews had to pay duties only "to the castle", but always "on an equal basis with others" (Bałaban, 1909, 88-89).

     Bałaban saw reasons for special "free settlement" in "closer" Pidzamche in the fact that this district was also home to many antisocial and dangerous men like robbers, thieves, horse thieves and so on. Today, it is difficult to verify the truthfullness of these conclusions. Perhaps, it would be more correct to assume that life "outside the walls" was exhausting and dangerous and urged local residents to resort to dubious ways of earning their living. These conclusions allow us to understand how the "city" residents treated those who lived in the northern neighborhoods. Outsiders saw this territory as a dangerous, uncivilized place where formidable criminals could find shelter. Bałaban mentioned the names of the most famous Jewish robbers: Dawid Konfederat, Awraam Dankowicz, Heszel Juszko. Pidzamche fell into disrepute for a long time, and the ill fame even came, in a modified form, till our time, becoming an important element of symbolic and imaginary typification of the Pidzamche space.

     Lviv residents saw Pidzamche as a problem as early as in seventeenth century. What worried the city residents most of all was the use of suburban buildings by enemy troops during city sieges (enemies usually attacked on an open plain between the Vysokyi Zamok and Kortumova hills which was a weak spot in Lviv's vicinities) and frequent fires in the suburban wooden housing, which often went over to the city. Finally, the city council decided to regulate the northern neighborhoods according to their vision. Fortunately for Pidzamche residents, the members of the Lviv city council failed to implement all their plans since the burgraviate of Pidzamche was outside their jurisdiction. The only area that they had the right to control were plots directly adjacent to the city walls. In 1624 a contract was concluded between the city and the suburb, according to which the residents were forbidden to erect buildings closer than "four hundred cubits from the walls" (Schnür-Pepłowski, 1896, 11), while they were provided with more distant plots free of charge. Consequently, the ghetto area shifted slightly to the north, leaving a free space between the buildings and the city walls. The residents of the northern neighborhoods were also given permission to build a new synagogue on the place of the so-called "court of Poznan" and a new street between the Poltva and the Benedictine monastery (Bałaban, 1909, 93).

     So the Jewish quarter got the spatial layout which can be seen today. The Krakowska square was formed between the walls and the ghetto, and housing extended farther, with the Great Suburban Synagogue ("Vorstater Schul"), built at the same time, in 1624-1630, in about the center. Whole vul. Sianska (former Bozhnycha), occupied by synagogues and prayer houses, became a center of religious life later. Among the sacral buildings, the main ones were the Small Suburban Synagogue "Beth Midrash" (House of Wisdom), the "Hasidim Schul" or "Beth Hasidim" synagogue (the first of the known Hasidic temples, the so-called "kloyz"), the Great Beit Midrash of the suburb. All of them were built in the late eighteenth century. Unfortunately, however, they did not survive the German occupation. An important place of Jewish life in the ghetto was also a ritual bathhouse "mikvah," located on vul. Lazneva, 5 (the building does not exist today). In "further" Pidzamche, the oldest synagogue is considered the "Korite Schul," built in 1854; it belonged to the "Gomel Hesed" society (vul. Khmelnytskoho, 109) and was destroyed in 1941 too.

     An important place of Jewish Pidzamche was the Krakivskyi (Krakowski) market, which owes its name to the proximity to the Krakivska gate. For several centuries of its existence, the market grew so much that in the first half of the twentieth century it covered almost all of the "old" Jewish ghetto. Jewish residents usually engaged in trade and small handicraft businesses, so it was the Krakivskyi market or "Krakidały," as it was popularly called, that most of Pidzamche residents profited from.