Brody - The Jews in Brody

The Jews in Brody

A crossroads and a Jewish trade center in the 19th century, the city is considered to be one of the shtetls. It was particularly famous for the Brodersänger or Broder singers, who were among the first to publicly perform Yiddish songs outside of Purim plays and wedding parties.

The promulgation of the May Laws, and the massive exodus of Russian Jews which was its result, took the leaders of Western Jewry completely by surprise. Throughout 1881, hundreds of immigrants kept arriving in Brody daily. Their arrival placed Austrian and German co-religionists in a quandary. The comfortable middle-class Jewish community of Central and Western Europe looked instinctively to the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the world's largest and most respected Jewish philanthropic agency, to bring order out of chaos, to cope with the huge influx of newcomers.

Jews in Brody
Year total pop. Jews Share
1869 18,700 15,138 80.9%
1880 20,000 15,316 76.3%
1890 n. a. n. a. n. a.
1900 16,400 11,854 72.1%
1910 18,000 12,150 67.5%


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