Polska / podkarpackie
|Synagogues, prayer houses and others||Cemeteries||Sites of martyrdom||Judaica in museums||Andere|
|Province:||podkarpackie / lwowskie (before 1939)|
|County:||leski / (before 1939)|
|Community:||Lesko / (before 1939)|
Lesko – a city in southeastern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Province, a county capital. It lies 91 km southeast of Rzeszów and 390 km southeast of Warsaw.
In the population records book, the word, Iudeus, (a Jew) is mentioned. Other references were mentioned in later records: in 1547 – Mateusz and from in– Moszko. Between 1562–1583, 23 Jewish families came to Lesko, among them Lazarus from Krakow and Salomon from Halicz (1564), Jakub from Gogieczyn, Abram from Dynow and Aron from Komarn (1565), Aron from Bełz (1567), Aron from Rymanow (1574), Lazarus from Moravia, Simon from Pilzno (1574) and Rachwal from Bircz (1575). In 1563, there were 20 Jewish families living in Lesko. As early as in 1548 they already possessed their own synagogue and cemetery.
Between 1562–1570, thirteen Jews were to the municipal community. In 1580, the Jewish community had its own school. In the same year, eighteen Jewish families lived in the town of Lesko, approximately 100 persons. In 1608 there was a synagogue and a hospital for the poor and in 1614, a school. In 1613 and then later in 1868, the cemetery was expanded. A record from 1676 mentions 137 Christians and 83 Jews as heads of families. The community gradually grew, especially in the second half of the 17th century, despite the fact that the town endured several, presumably cholera, plagues. In 1705 during such a plague 303 Jews died.
Some Lesko Jews were money lenders, giving out loans at exorbitant interest rates of 42% to 44%. Others traded in leather, crops, woolen cloth, wine, oxen, rams and lead. Whilst still others worked as butchers, brewers, tailors, clothiers, glaziers and goldsmiths.
There were those who owned inns and rest-houses and others who worked as hawkers, wandering as far as the remote villages situated in the Bieszczady Mountains. Some even took long merchant journeys to Krakow (1593), Lwow (1654) and Zamosc (1608).
Constant pursue of the profit resulted in numerous conflicts with the Christian population. The Jewish merchants’ business practices resulted in numerous conflicts with their Christian co-residents.This led Stanislaw Stadnicki, the owner of the town, to pass a law in 1602 which restricted certain practices of the local Jews.
On Sundays and on other holidays, Jews are forbidden to engage in selling for the entire time, otherwise they will risk losing their stall (art.8). * On Sundays and on other holidays Jews must not dare to sell vodka prior to the holy mass (art.
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