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Jews of Troitsk, Russia

The city of Troitsk in the South Ural was founded in 1743. Jews appeared in the city in the 19th century. Troitsk was not part of the Pale of Settlement, so the Jews appeared here in several ways.

  • First, as exiles. So, in 1806, a group of Jews was expelled from St. Petersburg to the South Ural, who were distributed among the fortresses of the borderline. One of the fortresses was Troitskaya.
  • Secondly, as military cantonists. From 1827 conscription was extended to Jews. Boys from the age of 12 were sent to cantonist schools, where they were trained until they came of age. By 1839, there were 1.4 thousand Jews-cantonists in the Orenburg province. Of these, 274 were assigned to the Troitsk half-battalion. Among these 274, there were 111 apostates and 163 Jews.
  • Third, as illegal migrants. So, in 1838, Nicholas I ordered the police to expel from the Orenburg province all Jews who lived there illegally. As a result of the aktion, it turned out that a significant part of the evicted Jews were assigned to the Belarusian provinces.

In 1859, restrictions on the residence of Jews in Troitsk were lifted. Most of the local Jews served the Troitsk Fair, so the city community was rich. Since the mid-19th century, the authorities have allocated land for the Jewish cemetery. The size of the site exceeded the needs of the community, so burials in the cemetery were carried out until 1985.

The Jewish community officially appeared at the end of the 19th century. It was headed by Miney Zalmanovich Strebloserd.

The influence of the community is also evidenced by the fact that local authorities did not comply with the provisions of the 1887 law restricting access to education for Jews. As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, only 13% of the Jews in Troitsk were illiterate.

In the first years of the new twentieth century, about 200 Jews lived in the city, and about 30 more in the district. In 1902, a stone synagogue with its own rabbi appeared in the city. By 1913, the number of Troitsk Jews had grown to 592. Two peaks of the increase in the Jewish population in the city are associated with the Civil and Second World Wars, when refugees and evacuees arrived in Troitsk.

After the establishment of Soviet power in 1920, the authorities nationalized the synagogue building. However, in 1922, at the request of the head of the community, it was returned, and the synagogue functioned until 1930. Then the building was turned into a club.

In 1939, there were 206 Jews in Troitsk. In the postwar period, the population declined. If in 1970 there were 279 Jews living here, then by the end of the decade there were 210 of them.

The Jewish religious community of Troitsk was registered again in 2001.