OVRUCH (OVRUTCH):
District town in Volhynia. In 1629 only three houses there were owned by Jews; but a fairly large Jewish community must have existed, for in that year a synagogue was built ("Arkhiv Yugo-Zapadnoi Rossii," VII., ii. 413). In 1883 in the whole district of Ovruch there were, besides Jewish settlements in towns, seven rural settlements and forty-two Jewish farmers. In 1896 the Jews of Ovruch numbered 4,177 in a total population of 9,845, and they possessed three houses of prayer and one poorhouse. In the same year there were in the whole district, in a total population of 194,976, about 20,750 Jews, possessing two synagogues and twenty-one houses of prayer. Petty trades, especially in the smaller towns, were almost entirely in the hands of the Jews.
- Regesty, No. 783;
- Entziklopedicheski Slovar, xxi. 673.
