© 2018, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen ISBN Print: 9783847107965 – ISBN E-Book: 9783847007968 Vladyslava Moskalets Changing Perceptions of the Jewish Economic Role: The Case of the Boryslav Oil Industry Abstract During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Galician oil industry became an important part of Austrian economics and the object of rapid change. The industrializa- tion of the region caused different changes in social life, among them, the formation of new Jewish elites who dominated the business in its first stages. The other result was the emergence of Jewish workers. The situation attracted the attention of numerous observers who perceived and used its Jewish character in their own way. Mining inspectors con- demned the Jewish industry as backward but Polish economists, Jewish Western philan- thropists and Viennese Zionists tried to find in the Boryslav example possibilities for overcoming the “unproductiveness” of the Jews. Socialist observers did not share this optimistic approach to the Galician oil industry, but regarded it as a double oppression for the Jewish workers, for both class and ethnic reasons. An analysis of this case will elucidate how the true example of the Jews participating in this new economic branch was influ- encing conceptions and the creation of the image of Galician Jewry. Introduction During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Galician industry, even before reaching its high point, drew much attention from Western observers, Polish economists and Jewish philanthropists. The mixture of an exotic oriental atmosphere and hopes for technical improvements inspired socialists, utopian thinkers, journalists, and fiction writers. One of the most notable features of the oil industry from the 1860s until the end of its first phase around 1900 was its Jewish character. The Boryslav oil and ozokerite industry involved different representatives of the Jewish community – rich capitalists, joined in mighty family clans, numerous technical personnel, such as overseers and controllers, who took control over the workers’ salaries and even the workers themselves. The Boryslav oil industry and, especially, the role of the Jewish participants was frequently viewed through an ideological lens, whether socialist, Polish national or Zionist. Socialists saw the Boryslav industry as an example of class