History of the Jewish community of Ulyanovsk

Dear friends, this article about the history of the Jewish community of the Simbirsk province was written by the Ulyanovsk ethnographer and archivist Ivan Sevoplyas almost 20 years ago at my request.
Ulyanovsk Jews at that time knew practically nothing about their history. This is the most detailed description of the life of Simbirsk Jewry in those distant times. Then our well-known local historian Sergey Petrov and others wrote a lot about the history of the Jews of our region. We received very interesting information when we tried to find closed synagogues in order to try to return them to the community. Among them, for example, is the history of the building on Krasnogvordeyskaya Street: the Jews of Simbirsk waited a long time for permission to open the newly built synagogue and did not wait for it. And this house is still alive. Local historian Martynov has well described the synagogue at the corner of Goncharova and Mira streets. It is curious that a public rabbi, a former military doctor Halpern, who was awarded for his participation in the hostilities, lived in a neighboring house. So we have our own history and a significant contribution to the life of our region.
The biographies of some modern Jewish residents of Ulyanovsk were described in her research by Tanya Igoshina, who now lives in Israel, so we know and remember the history of the Ulyanovsk Jewish community at the beginning of the 19th century quite well.

Chairman of the Ulyanovsk Jewish Community
I.A. Dabakarov.