Tag #147311 - Interview #83476 (Motel Meilakhs)

Their house survived, there were no pogroms in the area. The local peasants understood that Jews brought them profit, because the Jewish settlement provided the villagers with craftsmen. In the Ukrainian villages there were no smiths, or coopers, or shoemakers, or tailors. All these services were provided by the settlement. Therefore they understood the advantage of the existence of the Jewish population. And Stolypin [4] reported to the Tsar that in areas of Jewish settlement local peasants lived better than in those places, where there were no Jews. Because, as he explained, Jewish settlements gave them the handicraftsmen, and bought natural products from them. The Jews didn’t keep cows, sheep, or kitchen gardens, they bought all of these. So they provided both the demand for food products and the supply of labor.