First mention of Jews in Kamyanka goes back to the early XVII century.

The oldest mention of the royal settlement of Kamyanka goes back to 1441. In 1448 the keeper (user of the royal property) of Kamyanka Yuriy Strumylo of Dymoshyn, an ensign from Lviv and, therefore, the royal servant and steward of Kamyanka, fortified the settlement. In a document dated 1469 Kamyanka is called a town. In 1471 Yu. Strumylo procured for the newly founded town the Magdeburg rights, that is, the right to self-regulation. After his death (U1485) the town was named Kamyanka-Strumylova. Its fortifications were impaled ramparts and moats; there were two gates to the town: Tadaniv from the south and Belz from the north gates.

In 1509, following destruction of the town by the Tatars in the late XV – early XVI centuries the King Zigmund I the Old confirmed the privilege to have the Magdeburg rights and granted the permit to hold two fairs a year and daily trading. In 1539 the King handed down annual taxes from the sale of alcoholic beverages for the repair of the town fortifications and roads, and the following year the town residents were exempt from the payment of duty on the sale of salt and grain. The road from Kyiv to Poland and from Volynia to Lviv went through Kamyanka. That was the source of wealth for the local nobility that had procured from the King the right to deposit goods, according to which the travelling merchants had to stay in the town for three days. In 1578 the town received the right for depositing salt from Drohobych. In 1588 the wealthy town residents procuredexemption from payment of all duties.

On the privilege granted by the King Zigmund III the town had 13 guilds – of furriers, blacksmiths, coopers, locksmiths, cabinetmakers, weavers, turners, haberdashers, furnace burden mixers (preparing mixtures for ore furnaces) fishermen,net weavers, tailors, sword-makers.

In the early XVII century the Jews obtained the permit from Kamyanka residents to settle in the town. Soon afterwards their community was formed that procured the permit to build a synagogue and start a cemetery, called graveyard or Beth Olam. In 1627 the Roman-Catholic archbishop Jan Pruchnitski confirmed the privilege granted by his predecessors. Probably soon afterwards the Jewish cemetery was started and the first wooden synagogue was erected. The Jewish quarter was located in the southern part of the downtown, behind the quarter near the market place. The old graveyard was started by the Jews nearby, but outside the southern belt of the town fortifications.

A number of times Kamyanka-Strumylova was destroyed together with its holy places, with the greatest destruction during the Swedish war of 1655-1657, by the so-called "flood”, following which the lustrator noted in 1662 that "previously there were 500 houses in the town, and now only 90 remain, 16 of them Jewish”. The town came back to life with hardships. According to the report of 1826 of the county departments on the number of the existing synagogues and Jewish houses of worship a wooden synagogue was built in Kamyanka in 1747 with the permit granted in 1741 – evidently on the site of the older destroyed synagogue. In 1765 the kahal of Kamyanka numbered 522 Jews, and together with the nearby villages – 617 Jews (Derniv, Novy Stav, Chystyn, Pechykhvosty, Kolodno, Batytychi, Hiravets, Zeldets, Yastrybets, Kupychvolya, Ruda, Stremin, Tadani, Spas, Streptiv). Jews of Kamyanka were engaged in commerce selling cattle, salt, crops, timber and fish. The lustration (description of state estates for the purpose of calculating income) of 1766 notes: "Jews keep 29 coaching inns in the market and 57 regular households behind the market”. In the end of the XVIII century the synagogue built in 1747 was destroyed, probably, by a fire, and the new synagogue was erected in its place.

During the Austrian rule the Magdeburg rights were revoked, the town grew, and the town defense fortifications were leveled to the ground. The old Jewish cemetery occupied a small L-shaped area under topographic numbers 3036 and 3037 (cadastre map of 1845). The number of Jews in the town increased considerably by the end of the XIX century: out of total number of residents – 6107 people in 1880 – there were 2810 Jews in Kamyanka. Their community had a synagogue, a school (Beth haMidrash) and the ritual bath (mikvah). The territory of the town Jewish cemetery expanded: plots of land under topographic numbers 3039, 3040, 3041, 3044(cadastre map of the late XIX century) were added to the cemetery (topographic numbers 3036 and 3037). One more cemeterywas opened on the edge of the town.

In 1900 the Jewish population of Kamyanka numbered 3549 people (over a half of the total number of residents), in 1935 – 3706 persons. One more (the third in town) Jewish cemetery was opened in Kamyanka during the First World war.

Famous rabbis and scholars lived and worked in Kamyanka-Strumylova, who were buried in the local Bet Olam. By the way, the famous Orensteins’ family of Lviv comes from Kamyanka. On the eastern wall of the synagogue in Kamyanka, on the right side of thearon kodesh("holy ark”, where theTorahScrolls are kept) there was an inscription saying about demise of the rabbi of Kamyanka Markus Wolf (the forefather of the Orensteins’ family). Brothers Chaim (the rabbi of Kamyanka) and Osias (the rabbi of Lviv) Reizes wereburnt at stake in Lviv. Famous Jewish philosopher and religious scholar Solomon Rozenfeld also came from Kamyanka.

All Jewish population Kamyanka-Strumylova was annihilated during the Nazi occupation, the cemetery was destroyed. A ghetto was organized in the town in November of 1941, where about 5 thousand Jews were rounded up and forced to work for the company of Otto Gell. All were massacred in 1943 across the Bug river.In the Soviet times Kamyanka-Strumylova was named Kamyanka-Buzka.

Fundamental studies (using photogrammetric and geodetic methods) of the territory of former Jewish cemetery were conducted in 2000-2010 by the organization "Representation of the American Union of Councils for the Jews in the former Soviet Union” in Ukraine. Preliminary archeological studies were also conducted there partially, during which the tomb structure on the grave of rabbi Solomon Rozenfeld was cleared up.

References:

1. Report on the work on the cleansing of the tombstone of the uninventory burial of Rabin Solomon Rosenfeld at the Jewish cemetery on the street. Independence St., town Kamianka-Buzka, Lviv oblast;
2. State Archive of Lviv Region, f-186, Cadastral map of Kamenka Strumilova, 1845;
   
3. State Archive of Lviv Region, Reporting district departments on the number of existing synagogues and Jewish houses of prayer in their districts for 1826;
   
4. Military German Aerial Photograph of 1944 Kamenka Strumilova, National Archives And Records Administration 1985: Cartographic Section;
   
5. Cadastral map of 1922 (Received from the National Archive of the United States of America);
   
6. Archive of South-West Russia. Ch. V, 2. - Ι-II;
   
7. Boyko O. Lost monuments of sacred architecture of Lviv region. Synagogues // Sights of Ukraine. History and culture. - Kyiv, 2004. - Part 1. - P. 75;
   
8. Sources on the history of Ukraine-Russia. - T. III. - P. 303-304;
   
9. Kovba J., Kohgorodsky Y. Jews of Ukraine during the Second World War: Holocaust and resistance / Essays on the history and culture of Jews of Ukraine. - K .: Spirit and Letter, 2005. - P. 190;
   
10. Naiman O. History of Jews in Ukraine. - Kyiv, 2003. Yargina Z. Wooden Synagogues. - Moscow, 1993;
    
11. Yargina Z. Wooden Synagogues. - Moscow, 1993;
    
12. Bostel F. Żydzi ziemi Lwowskiej i powiatu Żydaczowskiego w r. 1765. – Krakόw, 1891;
    
13. Czołowski A. I Janusz B. Bożnice murowane i drewniane / Przeszіość i zabytki województwa Tarnopolskiego. – Tarnopol, 1926. – S. 177-179;
    
14. Falinski B. Powiat Kamionka Strumillowa. Staraniem Kola Towarzystwa Rozwoju Ziem Wschodnich. – Kamionka Strumillowa, 1935;
    
15. Treasures Of Jewish Galicia. Judaica From The Museum Of Ethnography And Crafts In Lvov, Ukraine. Crafts In Lvov, Ukraine. Beth Hatefutsoth, The Nahum Goldmann Museum Of The Jewish Diaspora. Edited By Sarah Harel Hoshen. – Held At Beth Hatefutsoth, Tel Aviv, July 1994 – January 1995;
    
16. Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich. Pod red. F. Sulimierskiego. – T. III. – Warszawa, 1883. – S. 783-784.