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xviii LUBOML
With the outbreak of World war II in September,
1939 Poland was conquered by the Nazi
hordes. Eastern Poland including Luboml fell as
bounty to Soviet Russia. It remained a Soviet
border town until 1941 when Nazi Germany
attacked the Soviet Union. Since the end of World
War II, Luboml has again been a Soviet border
town.
It is difficult to determine the exact time,
when Jewish settlement in Luboml occurred. But
most researchers, including Dr. Philip Friedman,
Prof. Ber Mark, and Dr. Raphael Mahler determined
that by the 11th century there were established
Jewish communities in the Volhynia region
and that Luboml was one of them. It is a fact that
in 1370, a Jewish community already existed in
Luboml, and that official documents of that period
contain the names of Jews from Luboml.
Were it not for the Holocaust, Luboml Jewry
could have celebrated the 600th anniversary of
its existence, as one of the oldest Jewish communities
in Poland.
We have neither records nor details of the
development of the Jewish settlement in Luboml.
However, there is a general consensus that at least
a century passed till an organized Jewish community
was formed. According to the available statistics
of the Jewish census in Poland in 1550,
there were 39 full households in Luboml, consisting
of about 390 people. In towns such as Chelm,
Ludmir and Belz, which were considered at that
time to be major communities, there were less
Jews than in Luboml. The City of Lublin, considered
then among the most important, had only 3
households more than Luboml. It is therefore
clear that the beginning of the second half of the
16th century, marked the beginning of the blossoming
and growth in prosperity of the Luboml
Jewish community. It is not a coincidence that
precisely then the Luboml Jews received the
authority to appoint a rabbi, who according to the
law of the land at that time, had very broad
administrative powers and authority in the field
of religion. From that period on for a period of
several centuries, there were many famous Rab-
bis that reigned in Luboml. Among the gaonim
and Torah giants of that period are Rabbi Shimon
Wolf Orbach, Rabbi Avraham Pollak, Rabbi Moshe
Mess, Rabbi Yoel Sirkis (1620), Rabbi Shmuel Ish
Horowitz, Rabbi Moshe Katzenelbogen and Rabbi
Gedalyahu (Maharam) from Lublin. Some of these
Rabbis also conducted Yeshivoth in Luboml that
were very famous and drew Torah scholars from
near and far. The town suffered very difficult
times during the years of 1648-1649 when the
Chmielnicki hordes and the Cossack murderers
overran the Ukraine like a horrible tempest, wiping
out hundreds upon hundreds of Jewish communities
and settlements. An estimated half a
million Jewish men, women and children were
slaughtered in the most horrifying manner The
historical source books describing these horrible
pogroms and destructions mention among others
Luboml. In one of the books, Tit HaYavan, it is
told that "600 houseowners lived then in this
town, and just about all of them were killed."
After the suppression of the Chmielnicki
revolt in 1652, the Jewish community in Luboml
resumed its growth in spite of the fact that it had
been almost destroyed completely physically and
economically. In the protocols of the "Vaad Arba
Aratzoth" (the Committee of the Four Lands)
from the year 1667 on the subject of head taxes, it
is recorded that for that year the head tax that was
imposed on the Luboml Jewish community was
estimated to be 8,100 guilders, while the tax of
the Posen (Poznan) community was only 1,600
guilders, that of Przemysl 7,810 guilders, and of
Tiktin 1,520 guilders. These figures are evidence
of the relatively rapid rehabilitation and reestablishment
of the Luboml Jewish community after
the "Ta'ch and Ta't" (1648 and 1649) pogroms.
During the latter years of the 16th century, or
during the first half of the 17th century (the exact
date has never been determined), the great old
synagogue was built in Luboml. Since this was
the period of constant wars with the Tartars and
the Cossacks, the architectural style reflected that
of a fortress.
The Luboml synagogue was one of the finest
and most important of the synagogues of this
period. It is always mentioned as such in the
annals of the old East European Synagogues. The