pdf available - Multiple Choices

The story of the rescue of Luboml's Jews from the
hands of the murderous bands of pogromists, the
Balechovtzes, is a tale of the courage of R. Pinchas
Oselka. With the penetration of the Bolshevik
army into our area in 1920, the Balechovtzes, the
dispersed remnants of Petlura's Ukrainian army
Rabbi Pinchas Oselka
ABOUT RABBI OSELKA
By Shmuel Fuks
.
4
175
and their followers, joined the Polish army. The
disgraceful General Balechovitz was their head.
In the course of their assistance to the Polish army
in its war with the Bolsheviks, they engaged in
robbing and murdering the Jews.
From surrounding villages terrible news began
to arrive of murder, rape, robbery,
kidnappings, and the desecration of dead bodies
by the murderous bands and the village bullies
who joined them.
Meanwhile, news spread that part of the
deadly army of Balechovtzes intended to cross
the town to the front. Great fear seized the Jews of
the town. R. Pinchas Oselka, as the new town
rabbi, went to see the Catholic bishop, and with
his fluency in the Polish language he found the
proper words to present himself to the priest;
both of them led a delegation of important Jews of
the town that went to see the regional military
commander of the Polish army, to beg him to stop
the murderous Balechovtzes, who were almost at
the gates of the town. A large sum of money was
needed to accompany the plea, as an offering to
the commandant. With the lightning speed, a
collection was arranged on the spot to appease
the Polish commandant.
For a long time after, the story circulated in
town of how, at the fateful hour, the delegation
walked through the streets of the town, headed by
the Catholic priest, dressed in his black frock, and
the Jewish rabbi, in his kapote [caftan] and
shtrayml [Chasidic round fur hat], as the whole
town followed in fear their efforts to rescue the
town from a pogrom.
Rabbi Oselka, who had come from the Polish
town of Mogelnitsa, was invited in 1919 by some