Kamianka is located in Ukraine, which was then part of Russia when my family lived there. Kamianka is a village (selo) in Stryi Raion, Lviv Oblast.
The name of the region Kamianka is in is Kharkivs'ka.
Jews primarily lived in the large cities of Odessa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk
The population of Jews in the area in circa 1648 was 51,325 Jews, in 1959, 840,000 Jews, and in 1989, 487,000 Jews.
The Town's Story
During the Austrian rule, the town grew, and the number of Jews in the town increased considerably by the end of the 19th century. There were 2810 Jews in Kamyanka. Their community had a synagogue, a school (Beth ha-midrash), and a ritual bath (mikvah). The territory of the town Jewish cemetery expanded and another cemetery was opened on the edge of the town.
They engaged in crafts, pottery, cattle trade, and general sales. A lot of them had their own shops, and were employed by the local match-producing and ball-bearing factories.
The first Jews appeared in Kamionka in about 1456 when two houses were owned by Jews. By 1564, Jews started moving there in large numbers. All of the Jewish population in Kamyanka-Strumylova was annihilated during the Nazi occupation
The relations between Jews and non-Jews were pretty decent. In the early 17th century, the Jews obtained a permit from Kamyanka residents to settle in the town.
Famous rabbis and scholars lived and worked in Kamyanka-Strumylova, and were buried in the local Bet Olam. The famous Orensteins family of Lviv comes from Kamyanka. Famous Jewish philosopher and religious scholar Solomon Rozenfeld also came from Kamyanka.