Staryi Maidan

Staryi Maidan, by 1938 — Starozakrevsky Maidan ("Old Zakrevsky Field (or Square)") Ukrainian: Старий Майдан, Старозакревський Майдан, located between Derazhnia and Volkovintzi, near Kalnaya in the Podolia region of Ukraine was a Jewish agricultural colony established in 1844. Today, Stary Meidan is the village mostly populated by ethnic Ukrainians.

History

It was the largest and most prosperous agricultural colony near Derazhnia, at one point in the late 19th century it had a population of over 700. The colony continued until it was turned into a kolkhoz Stary Maidan Ukrainian: Старий Майдан by the Soviets in 1928. It was nicknamed "Yiddish Maidan" by its residents, primarily to distinguish it from the nearby village of Novyi Maidan ("New Maidan").

Due to periodic pogroms and to impoverished conditions in the first two decades of the 20th century, many residents emigrated to the United States (and some to Israel). Those who settled in America formed a burial society, Yiddish Meidan Verein, purchased a plot in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York, where many of the early immigrants are buried. In 1941, the remaining residents of Starozakrevsky Maidan were moved to the Derazhnia ghetto and eventually shot to death by the Nazis.

Bibliography

• Chapin, David A. and Weinstock, Ben, The Road from Letichev: The history and culture of a forgotten Jewish community in Eastern Europe, Volume 1. ISBN 0-595-00666-3 iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2000. (Chapter 9 "The Jewish Farmers of Podolia" provides a very detailed history of the colony.)
• Chapin, David A. and Weinstock, Ben, The Road from Letichev: The history and culture of a forgotten Jewish community in Eastern Europe, Volume 2. ISBN 0-595-00667-1 iUniverse, Lincoln, NE, 2000.