ZOLYNIA IN THE 19th CENTURY

Zolynia's Jewish community stopped growing in the early 19th century. Other nearby towns such as Przeworsk and Lancut offered more economic opportunities and Jewish recruitment efforts in Zolynia stalled. Rabbinical records show that in 1830, Jews in Zolynia were unable to pay their rabbi a regular salary, and he was forced to serve without regular pay.

By 1867, all Austrian citizens were granted full civil rights and Jews could now participate in nearly all aspects of public life and the economy. Jews could own land and enterprises on an equal footing with others. Within two decades, some Jews in Zolynia accumulated middle-class wealth and more, though most were were still poor and owned only tiny houses. An 1867 survey found the miasteczko or town of Zolynia (Zolynia Centre today) had 1,616 residents, 63% of whom were Jewish. In 1872, Zolynia Jews made a group contribution to help Jews starving in the Syrian famine.

In the 1880s, Zolynia's Jewish population began to rise again when the hassidic rabbi Avraham Yosef Igra came to the town with his followers. The hassidic movement, founded in the late 18th century and was strong in Galicia, though there were many philosophical and political conflicts between hassidic and old guard orthodox leaders. Hassidism featured strong, charismatic leaders with fiercly devouted followers, and a strong emphasis on prayer and mysticism. Rebbe Avraham Yosef Igra was a tsaddik, or righteous man, a son-in-law to Rebbe Mordecai of the Nadvorna dynasty of rabbis (sometimes called "The Golden Dynasty"). Hundreds of hassidim came to Zolynia to see him, and some settled in the town. After several years he moved on to larger cities, ending up in Krakow (for more information on Zolynia's rabbis and its kahal, see the article on "Religious Leaders" in the Research Section). By this time, Zolynia had a House of Study for Jewish scholars.

In 1880, Zolynia Miasteckzo (Zolynia Centre) had 199 houses and 1,834 residents, 58 percent of whom were Jewish. (there were also 80 Greek Orthodox Ukrainians and five Protestants in the town). In the outlying hamlet area, there were 810 houses and 4,154 inhabitants. In this less built-up portions of Zolynia outside of the town area, 97 percent of the residents were Roman Catholic with only small groups of Jews and Ukrainians. The Jews were concentrated overwhelmingly in the more urbanized township, near the geographic center of the whole of Zolynia, where there was by now a post office, a public schoolhouse, a pharmacy and a community medicine chest. Also near that center was a monastery and a brick stable owned by the Lancut estate that was also the base of 167 cavalry soldiers supported by the squire.

Jewish Zoliners were engaged mainly in small retail businesses and crafts, particularly tailoring. Jewish shops and stalls sold local crops and products from the cities and larger towns, such as pots and cloths. A few Jews became somewhat prosperous through land ownership and the leasing of taverns, beer factories and at least one liquor distillery (the estate issued licenses to those trading in alcohol, as the Count technically owned monopoly rights on alcohol production in the area). The Christian population of the town was overwhelmingly engaged in farming, often as renters or leasers on land with poor soil, and there were also some who were bricklayers, shoemakers and other craft specialists.

But the Galicia economy was still not strong, and during the mid-1880s some Zoliners, Jewish and Christian, began leaving to seek out better opportunities in other cities and countries. Many went to the United States, lured by advertising and local agents of the great shipping lines in Hamburg and Bremen which promised a new and better life in America. By 1900, the population of the town was down almost seven percent, and the Jewish population alone was down almost twelve percent. The economy and growing tensions between the ethnic groups would lead to an even greater exodus in the coming years.