In the 1830s, the most famous merchant of Stanislavov was Yoel Halpern.
His son Avraham Halpern during the "Spring of Nations" - the revolution of 1848-1849 - was the organizer of the Jewish unit of the National Guard in Stanislavov. Subsequently, he became one of the influential political figures in Galicia, and was elected in 1848 from Stanislavov as a deputy to the Austrian parliament.
Representatives of the Halpern family - Anselm, Hersh and Karol - at one time headed the board/kagal of the Jewish religious community in Stanislaviv.
Dr. Karol Halpern, the son of the head of the community Hersh Halpern, was not only a landowner and owned land in the village. Vovchynets (now a village within the Ivano-Frankivsk Territorial Community), and had the academic title of Doctor of Law and Agronomy.
During the time of ZUNR, Dr. Halpern Karol was elected chairman of the Jewish National Council in Stanislaviv. It should be noted that in 1919 "the Ukrainian government recognized the ENRad of Eastern Galicia (location of the central office - Stanislav) as the highest body of Jewish representation in the region." Cooperation between the ENRada and the ZUNR government was aimed at organizing Jewish national and cultural autonomy and ensuring representation in state governing bodies. As the head of the ENRada in Stanislavov, Karol Halpern in January 1919 met on these issues with the Prime Minister of the ZUNR Levko Bachynskyi and others. According to Dr. Maxim Ghon, the ZUNR proposed the most liberal project for solving the Jewish question in Europe, which included "the introduction of the institution of extraterritorial autonomy".
Karol Halpern remained one of the most influential figures in Stanislavov and Galicia in the interwar period. He was the leader of the Jewish community, as well as the founder, leader and trustee of many Jewish societies and organizations in Stanislavov, in particular charitable and guardian ones.
The board of the Jewish community/Kagal Orthodox was headed by Karol Halpern in 1919–1925.
One of the most influential Jewish guardian societies – the Jewish Council for the Guardianship of Orphans – was also chaired by Karol Halpern. According to the police, the number of members of this council in the 1930s was about 4,000 people.
A representative of the Halpern family - entrepreneur Khan Lyanda Horowitz was a co-founder of the charity society "Ahavat Hesed Gmilat Hasadim" (one of the most numerous and popular in the city, 1,500 members), which was also headed by Karol Halpern in the 1930s.
Together with other representatives of Stanislavov's Jewish elite - B. Lieberman, L. Arnold, F. Blaunshtein, N. Epshtein and others. - Karol Halpern was the founder of the "Union for the Promotion of Professional Education among Jews" ("Vuzet"). In separate documents, Karol Halpern is listed as the sole founder of Vuzet, so he can be considered one of its main founders. In the 1930s, the "Vuzet" society had more than 155 members, and politically it belonged to the Zionist camp. The "Union for the Promotion of Vocational Education among Jews" lived up to its name, as it founded and maintained vocational schools in the city: a craft school, both for boys and for girls, in which they studied tailoring and sewing, embroidery, as well as languages (Hebrew, English, Polish). , history, geography and other subjects.
Halpern Karol headed the Ahdut ("Unity") Jewish lodge founded in 1928 in the city. The main tasks of the "Ahdut" (Unity) lodge, founded on February 14, 1928 under number #1094 in Stanislaviv, were the unification of people of the same faith, charitable, humanitarian, educational activities, etc. The lodge was a member of the "Union of Humanitarian Societies of Bnei Brit Poland". In its activities, it was guided by the charter of the "Bnei Brith" (Sons of the Covenant) order, founded in 1843 in New York. Numerically small (34 at the beginning, 49 members in the 1930s) humanitarian society "Ahdut", the so-called philanthropic lodge, was one of the most influential in the city, this was also recognized by the police authorities.
It is interesting that the Orthodox Dr. Karol Halpern was the founder and trustee of the Menorah Zionist-Revisionist scout organization in Stanislavov.
The sports society "Hakoah", created in 1905, whose head was also K. Halpern, was under the influence of the organization "Union of military Jews named after V. Zhabotinsky" (the so-called revisionist Zionists).
The history of the building itself was studied at the time by local historians Ivan Bondarev and Mykhailo Holovaty, and the results of their studies were presented in an article in the magazine "Reporter" - "In the footsteps of old Stanislavov. Kamianitsa Halperna".
