In the mid-1800s, Schmil Elias (Samuel) Schmatnik and his wife Mina Donenfeld both lived in the Sadagora community north of Czernowitz.

According to the 1869 Czernowitz Census, Schmil (born 1826 in the town of Rohozna and working as a self-employed Master Tailor) & Mina (born 1839 in Sadagora) had at least five children. It’s easy to extrapolate that Schmil’s tailor business took place in his home, as his son Jakob and boarder Israel worked with him. Schmil’s father’s name was David Schmatnik, but I have not yet discovered solid data on this earliest ancestor on the Schmatnik side. Schmil and his immediate family were Tailors, hence the Schmatnik surname.

• Jakob Isak (born 1854 and working as an Assistant Tailor) – a Czernowitz Death Record which may be related: a child named Schulem Schmatnik, father Izig and mother Chaja Ettel (parents born in Sadagora) who lived at House #24 in Sadagora and died October 12, 1888, aged 1 year 2 months, of Enteritis.
• Joel (born 1863) married twice, first to Schlima Apfel (son Mortko) and then to Rosa Gittel Engler (Samuel, Rifka, Sabine, Sigmund, Jenny, Judah, Lotti, Mina, and Adolf). Joel owned a dry goods store on General Zadik #4 in Czernowitz called Galanterie Schmatnik.
• Chinka (born 1865) Czernowitz Marriage Records show a Chinke Schmatnick marrying a Mayer Jakob Czeikel in 1909.
• Jossel or Josef (born 1868) – Josef married Chana Lobel in 1900 in Radautz, where he worked as a carpenter. His children included Regina (12/19/1898), Hilda (1901), Samuel (1902), Leon (1904), Elsa (1907), Minna (1908), and Alfred Hermann (1912). Hilda married a Mortko Gropper in 1924 and had a son, Berthold, in 1926, also in Radautz.
• Another son, Moses David, was born in 1870, when the family lived in House #1358 in Sadagora.

Also in the household was a boarder named Israel Held (an Assistant Tailor), another family with the surname Stroner (Ignatz – working as a clerk, sister Henrika, and son Marian Adam), and servants Anna and Johanna Muller.

Rohozna, a Satellite Community of Sadagora

Sadagora was established in 1770. Jewish traders added to the Jewish population, and in 1774 the town was annexed into Austria. Jewish merchants were invited to settle in town and to build a synagogue. Fortunes were still prone to reversal, as only a few years later, in 1782, 42 Jewish families were expelled, and several years after, in 1789, Austrian authorities demanded that all Jewish residents leave within two years. Ultimately, 34 Jewish families were allowed to remain. In the early 18th century, more Jewish families settled, mostly tradespeople, followed by reversals, yet again. Authorities wished at this point to limit Jews to only farming for a living. However, in 1863, a Jew served as the mayor of Sadagora, and Jewish life in the region became more stable. My 2nd great-grandfather Samuel was from Rohozna, one of the satellite towns of Sadagora near Moldova, which was incorporated into Chernivtsi in 1965 by the Soviets.

From Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Romania,

Among the Jews of Sadagura, there were traders, craftsmen, peddlers, and unskilled laborers, such as water drawers, who brought water to the town from far away. Among them were also estate tenants and even estate owners. The Jewish craftsmen were sometimes found as heads of craft guilds which also had Christian members. There were streets in Sadagura in which certain types of craftsmen were located. For example, there was a barbers’ street and a bath attendants’ street. Wagon owners, blacksmiths, and tinkers were located in a special quarter, close to the mansion of the estate owner, the Baron Mustatza. In these streets, there were also three synagogues. The “Wagon Owners’ Guild” was in the “Poale Zion” [Workers of Zion] building in the aforementioned quarter. This guild assisted its sick and needy members. The quarter also served as a weekly and yearly marketplace for horse trading. The Sadagura traders supplied horses to the Austrian army, to the Viennese aristocrats, and to several Jewish families who dealt in beef export. These professions were passed on from father to son. The Jews also established a number of factories in Sadagura: a beer factory (established in 1791), a vinegar factory, and a match producing factory.

I have often wondered where my Bukovinan ancestors came from before Sadagora – most likely it would be Galicia. In a translation of a paper delivered by researcher Florence Heymann, she writes, “The golden age of Bukovina’s Jews began with the complete emancipation of the Jews of the Habsburg Empire in 1848. Most notably, the authorities encouraged the emigration of the Jewish poor of Galicia to Bukovina.”