Podolia:

By: Herman Rosenthal , S. Hurwitz , Vasili Rosenthal

Government in southwestern Russia, on the Austrian frontier (Galicia). It is a center of many important events in the history of the Russian Jews. Polish and Russian documents of 1550 mention Jewish communities in Podolia, but from tombstones discovered in some towns of the government it is evident that Jews had lived there much earlier. (For the earlier history see Lithuania and Russia ; for the sufferings of the Jews in the middle of the seventeenth century see Cossacks' Uprising ; for the revolt of the Ukrainians against the Jews of Podolia in the eighteenth century see Haidamacks. ) Ruined by persecutions lasting for centuries, Podolia became the breeding-place of superstition and religious intolerance, which flourished there more than in any other place within the Pale. Owing to the extremely impoverished condition of its Jews, ShabbethaiẒebi, the Frankists, and the Ḥasidim found in Podolia a most fertile soil for the spread of their doctrines ( see Ba'al Shem-Ṭob ; Frank, Jacob ; Ḥasidim ). Podolia was annexed to Russia at the end of the eighteenth century. The Jewish population of Podolia in 1887 was 325,907—about 12 per cent of the general population; the Jews still live mostly in small towns and villages. The capital of Podolia is Kamenetz-podolsk .