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Located in Pinsk district, Pulsia region, Belorussia. Until World War II in Poland. The city is first mentioned in the 14th century, as belonging to the Principality of Pinsk, and from the second half of the 16th century – to Poland. In 1793, during the Second Partition of Poland, the city was annexed to Russia. Between the two world wars it was again included within the borders of Poland.
Apparently, in the first half of the 16th century, Jews already lived in the city, but the first record of the existence of a Jewish community there, affiliated with the community of Pinsk, is from 1667. 100 years later, according to the censuses, the Jews in David-Horoduk numbered 408 souls, and by 1784 it had decreased Their number is 386.
These censuses were conducted for the purpose of collecting taxes, and it is assumed that many Jews did not function. The censuses from the 19th century are more reliable, according to which there were 1,572 Jews in 1847; and reached 3,087 people (40% of the total population) in 1897.
The First World War and the Russian Revolution caused a decrease in the number of Jews. In 1917, the year the revolution broke out, there were 4,500 Jews in David-Horodok, and then their number went down. The government in the city changed alternately between Polish and communist government, until the final annexation of the city to Poland in 1921. In that year, the Jews numbered 2,832 souls (28.1% of all residents).
The cultural influence on the Jewish community came from Lithuania. The boys studied in the yeshiva of Lithuania, and therefore the majority of the population were dissidents; And yet there were also followers. At the beginning of the 19th century, Rabbi Wolf Ginzburg, who was the rabbi of the community and very popular with his sons, established an independent dynasty of Horodok followers. This dynasty was the smallest branch of Pulsia Hassidism and its last representative was Rabbi Moshe who was murdered in the Holocaust.
There were five synagogues in the community, all centered in Shul Ha’or. One of them is of the followers (followers of Stalin). The other synagogues were the Great Synagogue known as “Di Kalte Shul” (the Cold Synagogue), the Great Midrash, the Governors’ Midrash, the Rabbi’s Midrash.
The Horin River crossed the city, which was built of wooden houses. The many fires led to the founding of a firemen’s association in 1904. The initiators, those responsible and active during all the years of the association’s existence, until World War II, were mostly Jews.
Between the two world wars, and according to the order of the Polish authorities, elections were held twice for the community, but its powers were limited and the election of the rabbis caused internal disputes. In the absence of an orphanage in the city, an “orphans’ committee” was established that took care of keeping the children in private homes, and gave them a profession.
In the absence of information about the livelihood of the first Jews, it is assumed that they were in most of the cities of Lithuania; Trading in salt, customs leases, taverns, inns. They probably also made a living by trading in materials that were in the area, such as wood, potash and tar. In the 19th century there was an improvement in the economy of Pulsia and the development of the wood trade also affected the economy of the city located in an environment of water and forests A class of wood merchants and “water men” developed, who transported wood and other goods to their destinations, to the shores of the Baltic Sea and Ukraine.
Among the Jews were cattle breeders and cattle dealers, owners of flour mills, tenants of estates and tenants of fishing lakes, leather and linen merchants. The cattle trade also contributed to the development of tanneries. Trade relations were established with nearby Pinsk and with distant centers such as Warsaw and Lodz.
The shopkeepers, most of whom barely made a living, provided for the needs of the townspeople and the surrounding villages. The products of the Jewish craftsmen satisfied the needs of the local market and were also marketed to other cities in Poland. Among the craftsmen were tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and carpenters. Many were engaged in construction work; Builders, glaziers, carpenters and more, among the builders were experts in building wooden and brick houses.
Local and intercity transportation was by horses and almost entirely by Jews. When it was necessary to deal with advanced means of transportation, a group of Jewish wagoners invested in the purchase of a steamship in 1898. Another group founded a bus company in 1921.
The separation from Ukraine after World War I damaged the economic base of the city’s Jews. The two organizations of the artisans and the merchants initiated, in the early 1920s, the establishment of two cooperative banks, “The People’s Bank” and “The Merchants’ Bank”. Many of the Jews in the area were members of these banks, the less able received small loans from the “Gamilot Chesedim” fund, which was established at that time by a public committee and received its funds from the joint.
After the annexation to Poland, the policies of the Polish government burdened the Jews and impoverished them. Poles came to the city to compete with the Jewish shopkeepers. And despite the help of the joint, migration began overseas.
During the 1905 revolution, members of the “Bond” and the socialist territorialist movement were active in a Jewish self-defense organization.
The influence of Zionism, like that of the Enlightenment, also came from Lithuania. Zionism has been strong since the “love of Zion” days. The youth studied and spoke Hebrew, the “corrected room” was founded where Hebrew was taught in Hebrew.
At weddings, they sold Keren Kemayet stamps. During the time of the tsar there was a secret Zionist activity, which after the revolution was intermittently stopped by the communist government and intensified after the stabilization of the Polish government. An “Existing Fund Battalion” was established which gathered all the Zionist activists around it.
The main parties were the General Zionists and the Youth of Zion, which from 1924 were the “Workers of Zion” and in their ranks were mainly active workers and the youth. In 1927, the “League for the Working AI” was established which included the Poalei Zion, the association of youth movements. Other Zionist parties were ” HaMizrachi”, which began its activity in 1925 and “HaPoel HaMizrachi”.
In 1924 the “Pioneer” was established and in 1926 the youth movement of Poalei Zion “Freiheit” (Freedom), which dealt with the education of the youth and their immigration to the Land of Israel.
Among the youth movements were also “The Zionist Worker”, “Hashomer Hatzair”, Beitar and the Zionist Youth. Training kibbutzim were held on a nearby agricultural farm in preparation for aliyah.
The first sports team “Craft” (Kah) was founded in 1928. Two years later “Maccabi” was established and in 1935 ten of its members participated in the second Maccabiah in the Land of Israel and remained there.
In 1925 a library of Poalei Zion was established, and on the eve of World War II it was the only one in the city. After the revolution in 1917, a Hebrew school “Tarbut” was established for the first time, which did not last because of the circumstances. The school was re-established in 1924, housed in a new building, and a few years later a kindergarten was also opened. The upper classes, out of a total of seven classes of an elementary school, were also attended by children from the surrounding settlements. At the initiative of the school principal, a “Bnei Yehuda” and “Gori Bnei Yehuda” battalion was organized among the students, which also included the kindergarten children, and through them Hebrew became a spoken language at home and on the street.
After ten years of existence, the school had 400 students. It also had carpentry and sewing classes for male and female graduates. In 1927, a Hebrew religious school was also founded in Yavne.
In the municipal elections of 1928, eight Jews were elected to the city council, which consisted of 24 members. Of the Jewish elected representatives, three were representatives of Poalei Zion.
On the eve of World War II, 4,300 Jews lived in the city.
After the outbreak of the Second World War and according to an agreement between the Soviet Union and Germany, the territories of Eastern Poland, including David-Horoduk, were annexed to the Soviet Union. Refugees who came from the Polish territories occupied by the Germans doubled the number of Jews in the city.
The communist regime caused many changes in Jewish life, community institutions were dismantled, Hebrew was replaced by Yiddish in the “Tarbut” school. In the summer of 1940 the leaders of the Zionist parties were banned and in February 1941 the leaders of the community were also banned. In April the young men were drafted into the army.
In June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and the Germans entered the city on July 5. The hatred of the local population towards the Jews was immediately expressed in the request for permission for a delegation on their behalf to attack the Jews. The Germans complied and all Jewish men over the age of 14 were ordered to report to the Catholic Church. From there they were taken a distance of seven kilometers to the village, where they were all shot in a line of prepared pits. Only two boys managed to escape and reach a partisan company. The women were ordered to leave the city within an hour, and the locals took shelter in the Jewish houses. After two weeks of wandering, the women and their children returned to the city, they were put into the ghetto, and within a year half of them died. The rest were murdered in the summer of 1942 in the same place where the men were murdered, and that was the end of the Jewish settlement in David-Horoduk.
The city was liberated by the Red Army in 1944.
Of the rest of the refugees, who survived being in the Soviet Union, the majority immigrated to Israel.