The Jewish community in Baranavichy (Belarus) is a bright page in the history of the city, reflecting the diversity of the cultural, economic and social life of the region. Founded at the end of the 19th century as an important railway junction, Baranavichy soon attracted the attention of Jewish families looking for new opportunities for living and earning money. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish community had become one of the key components of city life.
Jews made up a significant part of the population of Baranavichy. According to the 1897 census, about 50% of the city's residents were Jewish. Most of them were engaged in trade, crafts and small businesses. Baranavichy, being at the intersection of important trade routes, has become a favorable place for business development. Jewish shops, workshops and markets were an integral part of the city landscape.
The cultural life of the Jewish community was rich and varied. Numerous schools operated here, including cheders and yeshivos, where the Torah and the Talmud were studied. In the 1920s, when Baranavichy was part of Poland, there were Jewish secular schools in the city, where teaching was conducted in Yiddish and Hebrew. Theater productions, literary circles, and musical ensembles united citizens and contributed to the preservation of Jewish identity.
One of the most famous educational structures in the city was the Yeshiva Ohel Torah, founded in 1921 by Rabbi Shimon Shkop. It quickly gained international fame, attracting students from different countries in Europe and even the USA. Its high educational level strengthened the reputation of Baranavichy as a center of Jewish spirituality. Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986), one of the most famous rabbis of the 20th century, who became the spiritual leader of the Jewish diaspora in the United States, studied there.
Synagogues played an important role in the life of the Jewish community. There were several synagogues in Baranavichy, each of which served certain segments of the population - artisans, merchants, and intellectuals.
The economic activity of the Jewish community was diverse. In addition to trade and crafts, Jews were engaged in banking, insurance, and owned mills, bakeries, hotels and restaurants. Their contribution to the economic development of Baranavichy was so significant that the city was often called “Jewish”. The situation changed dramatically with the outbreak of World War II. In 1939, after the annexation of Western Belarus to the USSR, many Jewish businesses were nationalized, and community members faced repression. However, the real tragedy struck in 1941, when Baranavichy was occupied by Nazi Germany. The city's Jewish population found itself in a ghetto, where people suffered from hunger, disease and mass executions. According to rough estimates, of the more than 12 thousand Jews who lived in Baranavichy before the war, only a few survived.
After the war, the life of the Jewish community in Baranavichy never returned to its previous scale. Most of the survivors emigrated to Israel, the USA and other countries. However, the memory of the city's Jewish community is preserved thanks to the efforts of historians, local historians and descendants of those who lived here. Monuments to Holocaust victims have been erected in Baranavichy, and the Jewish cemetery remains a place of pilgrimage for relatives of the victims.
Modern Baranavichy is a city where different cultures and traditions are intertwined into a single whole. The city has an interdistrict public association “Jewish Culture Club “Shalom”.  This indicates that the Jewish community continues to maintain its cultural presence in the region.