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Jews in Murafa, Vinnytsia region, Ukraine

Murafa is a village in Shargorod district of Vinnitsa region of Ukraine. The settlement has been known in sources since the 15th century. Jews, at the invitation of Potocki, the Polish owners of Murafa, settled in the village since the 17th century. The community was first mentioned in 1647. For a long time it was considered a town.

A year later, the border of the Polish-Cossack confrontation passed through the settlement. In the martyrology "Titus Gayaven" ("Impassable Mud»), it is mentioned that 20 Jewish householders left the city. Since the 1670s, Murafa was under Turkish control and it is not known whether Jews lived in the city. After returning to Polish rule in 1699, Potocki again invited the Jews to the city. They made up the majority of the locals.

It is known that the Jews suffered from the actions of the Haidamaks. In 1735, Count Potocki, on his own behalf and on behalf of the Jewish community, filed a complaint with the court of the Bratslav province against the pogrom-peasants. After 30 years, the census showed that there are 90 Jewish houses in Staraya Murafa and 49 Jewish houses in Novaya. In 1871, there were already 256 and 175, respectively.

The historical division into Staraya and Novaya Murafa led to the existence of separate Jewish communities in the 19th century. Both communities of the settlement turned out to be followers of Hasidism. At the beginning of the 19th century, the town had a prayer house and a stone synagogue.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jews owned 60 shops, including 19 manufactory, 10 grocery, 5 grocery and haberdashery, 6 flour, 3 haberdashery and so on.

A military unit was located in the city, so the Jewish population did not suffer from the pogroms of the early 20th century. Moreover, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Jewish population of the town began to decline.

In the first half of the 1920s, about 2 thousand Jews lived in the city. In 1924-1925, Jewish village councils operated in Staraya and Novaya Murafa. The collective farm Evtrud did not exist for long.

During the Second World War, Murafa found itself in the Romanian zone of occupation. About 800 local Jews remained here. The invaders brought about 4 thousand Jews from Romania to them. At the beginning of 1942, a Jewish council and Jewish police were operating in the city. Thanks to Romanian Jews and the receipt of money from Romania, a free kitchen, a hospital and a kindergarten operated in the ghetto. In the fall of 1942, the community opened an orphanage.

Thanks to bribes and connections with the Romanian gendarmes, the Murafa community survived the occupation. In March 1944, the settlement was liberated by a partisan detachment led by Jews.

In the postwar years, Jews left Murafa.