Yambol Jewish Section

Tradition holds that the first Jews settled in Yambol around the 9th century. Romaniote Jews definitely lived here prior to the Ottoman conquest in 1453, as indicated by the name of the "Yanbol" synagogue in Istanbul, founded by those deported there from Yambol at that time. Later some Sephardi Jews arrived in the city. The Jews were mostly traders in furs, cheese, and meat, or manual laborers. In the mid-15th century, Rabbi Shmuel Parnes of Vidin, author of Sefer Ha-zikaron, served as rabbi of the Romaniote congregation in Yambol. In 1835 refugees from Edirne arrived in Yambol after a great fire there. The Jews and the Muslims lived on one side of the river, the Christians on the other. According to the 1880 Bulgarian census, 606 Jews lived in Yambol. In 1900 Yambol was registered among the 34 Jewish communities of Bulgaria. The synagogue building (1896) survives from this period and is now used as an art gallery. Community institutions also included a cemetery, a Chevra Kadisha, and a Bikur Cholim association. In 1881 an Alliance Israélite Universelle school was opened, with 117 pupils, and a curriculum that included general studies, Bulgarian, and Hebrew. In 1899 Yambol was the site of a blood libel, and in 1903 it was the site of violence against Jewish residents. About 1,600 Jews lived in Yambol during the Balkan War and World War I, out of a total population of approximately 15,750. 167 Jews were recruited into the Bulgarian army. In the same period an additional Jewish school was established. A B'nai B'rith lodge opened in the city in 1914. In the 1930s–1940s the rabbi of Yambol was Moshe Pinto. Solomon Sidi was chairman of the joint-stock savings company Ikonomia, founded on January 14, 1910, in which the merchants Bohor Mefano and Lazar Yulzari also took part. Mois Arav was chairman of the savings cooperative society Mizrach, founded in 1929. And when 11 merchants and industrialists founded the Jewish Cooperative Bank Geula on May 19, 1932, its head was Nissim Ilel, the director of the Yambol textile factory. The Jews of Yambol were not deported during World War II. Most of them emigrated to Israel in 1948–1949. Only about 90 Jews lived in the city at the beginning of the 21st century. The Old Jewish cemetery of Yambol was located on an island in the Tundzha River. It was demolished in the 1930s, and its site is now used as a public park. As of the 2010s, two Jewish gravestones could still be seen here. The new Jewish cemetery is part of the municipal one. It contains 17 gravestones, mostly from the 20th century.