Demographics My family came from Chortkiv, Poland, now Chortkiv, Ukraine. Chortkiv is a town located about 80 km south of Tarnopol. Chortkiv is the largest city in Podolia. The city is a part of the Ternopol Oblast. When my great great grandmother lived there around 1910, the population of Chortkiv was 5,167 and out of that there were 2907 jews. In 1809 the population was 3920 people and out of that 2089 were Jewish. In 1935, the population was 19,089 people and out of that 5,869 were Jewish.
Chortkiv’s Story We don’t know when Jews began to settle in the town but there is evidence from 1616 of a Jewish wine merchant from Chortkiv that was killed during a business trip. The Jewish population ended in Chortkiv in WWII when most of them were killed. Chortkiv was mostly run by Jews and Jews were treated kindly, but when the Soviets took over, Jews started to be treated poorly and lost all respect. Our family was attracted to this town because there were many factories being built. This created many job opportunities. Another reason my family went to Chortkiv was because of the large Jewish population. Most jobs were working in factories and many of those factories were agricultural. The town was mostly Hasidic. My family would always ask religious questions to their local Rabbi. There was only one shul and one Jewish school at the time. The town became famous all over the world because there was a Rabbi from Chortkiv named Rabbi Yosef Friedman that was admired by many. Since the Rabbi was so well known, a great stream of people would come to the town throughout the year especially on the evenings of festivals and holy holidays such as Yom Kippur. The primary language in Chortkiv was Yiddish. Some common foods in the community were stuffed cabbage, bow ties and kasha, kreplach, sweet bread, and tongue. In Chortkiv, Jews would always dress modestly.
Above is a picture of a sugar factory in Chortkiv.