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Jews in Dnipro, Ukraine

Dnipro is the fourth most populous and the second largest city in Ukraine. Until 1926, it was called Yekaterinoslav, until 2016 - Dnepropetrovsk.

The settlement emerged in the 1770s. Jews began to settle in it almost from the moment the city appeared on the map. In 1791, the Russian Empress Catherine I issued a decree authorizing the legal stay of persons of the Jewish faith in the city. At the beginning of the 19th century, Yekaterinoslav officially entered the Pale of Settlement. At the same time the first synagogue made of wood appeared in the city. In 1833 a stone synagogue appeared in the city.

Jews began building stone in the city. Thus, the Jew Gersh Lutsky built the first stone structure in the city. In 1843, Abram Lutsky erected the first stone theater in Yekaterinoslav.

In the 19th century, the Jewish community grew exponentially. If in 1805 there were just over 300 Jews in the city, by 1897 there were already 41.2 thousand of them and they accounted for more than 36% of the population of Yekaterinoslav. In the same period, there were more than 350 karaites in the city, who had their own male gymnasium for 23 students.

The first Jewish pogrom in the city took place in the summer of 1883. By 1905, Jewish self-defense was operating in Yekaterinoslav, which was able to stop the pogromists.

In the 1890s, a Jewish theater appeared in the city, and in 1912, a theater group staged plays in Hebrew.

In 1913, there were 38 synagogues in the city, a Karaite Kenesa, three Talmud Torahs, a Karaite school, a Jewish women's gymnasium and a Jewish hospital. According to official statistics, more than 70 thousand Jews lived in the city in 1926.

Until the 1930s, a Chabad yeshiva operated in the city. By the early 1930s, all Jewish educational institutions were liquidated.

By the beginning of World War II, 85.5 thousand Jews lived in the city. Most of them managed to evacuate with the start of the German invasion. In August 1941, the Nazis captured the city. During the Holocaust, from 10 to 12 thousand Jews died.

In the 1950s, 53,400 Jews remained in the city. By the 1970s, their number had dropped to 50 thousand. Until the 1970s, a synagogue operated in the city.

Since the 1990s, Dnipro has become the center of the revival of Jewish life in Ukraine. A Jewish school, a garden, a women's pedagogical school, and a yeshiva appeared here. Since the late 1990s, the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute for the Holocaust Studies began to operate.

The city has built Europe's largest community Jewish complex called "Menorah", which occupies 50 thousand square meters. It houses one of the largest museums in the world dedicated to the Holocaust.