ZOLYNIA IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

By the 1900s there were dozens of Jews from Zolynia leaving for America each year. Christian Zoliners were leaving, too, but at a smaller rate. Most of the Jews went to the United States, particularly to New York City, and in October 1901 a "First Zolynia Congregation" was founded on the lower East Side of Manhattan. This hometown association or landsmanshaft (see the "Research" section) would provide religious and social support to those who had left Zolynia and some of the surrounding smaller villages. A number of Gentiles from Zolynia ended up working in mills in upstate New York (some, for example, are known to have moved to the small city of Amsterdam, near Albany) and would weave the cloth that many Zolynia Jews would sew, cut and sell in the garment industry based in New York City.

There was growing economic competition among ethnic groups in impoverished Galicia. At the urging of Poles and Ukrainians, a law was enacted in 1900 which, in effect, restricted many Jews from selling products made from locally-grown agriculture. In 1910, there was a prohibition on the sale of many types of grain alcohol. A large percentage of Galician Jews were engaged directly or indirectly in the alcohol trade. Tens of thousands of Jewish families in the province lost at least some of their income because of these laws.

The desire for more economic opportunities wasn't the only reason for Zoliner Jews to emigrate. Throughout Europe, the 1890s were a time of growing nationalism among ethnic groups, including the Poles and Ukrainians living under Austrian rule. For some who felt trapped in rural poverty, the local Jews who ran the shops on which they depended and bought the agricultural products which they harvested were seen as the cause of their problems. More and more, peasants directed their frustrations toward the Jews in their communities. There was an anti-Jewish boycott proclaimed by the Catholic Church in 1893, and anti-Jewish riots broke out in thirty-three towns and villages in Western Galicia in 1898.

In March 1905, a mentally disabled Christian girl in Zolynia disappeared, and there were accusations that she had been abducted, murdered and her blood used by local Jews in a secret ritual ceremony. This was the "blood libel" that had been aimed at Jews in times of crisis for centuries in communities across Europe. Eventually the girl was found to have drowned in a well, but some Jews had been investigated by police and even taken into court. The incident struck fear in Jewish Zoliners and it is probably no coincidence that it was in that year that the first Zionist groups were organized in the town. Zionism was a philosophy that advocated the creation of a Jewish national state in Palestine as the best way to keep Jews safe and able to prosper.

As the population shrank, Zolynia's economy contracted even further. More and more Jews in Zolynia became dependent on money, clothes and supplies sent from relatives abroad in order to meet their basic needs. Older people, those doing the best financially, and the most religiously observant often chose to stay. It cost approximately thirty American dollars or for a typical steerage class ticket aboard a Hamburg-American Line or North German Lloyd Line steamship to New York. Sometimes, a husband would emigrate, get established in a job and a place to live and then send for others in the family. Many families sent their teenage or young adult children to find marriage or work, planning to eventually send for siblings or parents. War, restrictive immigration laws and other unforseen circumstances often prohibited these planned reunions, and many Zoliners who emigrated never saw the families and loved ones they'd left behind again.