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4 LUBOML
evolved into a community with all the requisite
characteristics clearly took a number of decades,
especially as the tempo of life was much slower
then than it is today, and Jewish life slower yet.
We have no chronological data to give us a
picture of the gradual development of Luboml's
Jewish community. However, we can establish
that at least 100 years passed before it came into
being and began to take its place on Volhynia's
Jewish map.
The growth of the Luboml community was
helped by two processes characteristic of Polish
Jewry in the 16th century, and on which historian
Mahler takes the following positions: (1) there
was continuous movement of Polish Jews from
the big cities to the small towns; (2) even more
characteristic was the migration of many Jews
from western Poland toward the southeastern
provinces.'
Here we can add that Jewish emigration
tended to go from areas of greater economic
development to those of lesser development,
where Jews hoped for support from the ruling
classes, who were generally willing to encourage
pioneering enterprises.
At that time vast territories in Volhynia and
the Ukraine lay empty, or only sparsely populated,
and it was to those areas that Jews moved in
the 16th and 17th centuries. From that migration
a series of settlements sprang up in Volhynia, both
small and large, and Luboml was most likely one
of them.
In the late 16th century and early 17th, the
Jews of Luboml began establishing their community.
Nearby towns began to view Luboml as an
important community.
This is evident from a royal decree in 1520
regarding tax collection from Jews of the Chelm-
Belz district. It mentions the Jews appointed to
collect Jewish taxes in those places: Yoske
Zussmanovitch from Belz, Yisroel of Bosk, Asher
of Luboml, and Yudka from Chelm.' It is obvious
that in this case people were chosen not from
distant or unimportant places but rather from
communities important because of their position
or number of inhabitantsand Luboml was at
that time one of the significant communities in
the district.
In that period Luboml was most likely under
the jurisdiction of Rabbi Yehuda Aron, the
Chelmer Ray, who in 1522 was appointed by
Zygmunt 1(1506-1548) to be grand rabbi of the
then-unified districts of Lublin, Chelm, and Belz.
In 1520 he was appointed by the same king to
collect taxes from the Jews of those three districts,
which included Luboml.
In 1541, after the death of R. Yehuda Aron,
Zygmunt I appointed grand rabbis for Lesser
Poland and for Belorussia and Podoliathe esteemed
rabbi of Lublin, R. Shalom Shachne, the
father-in-law and teacher of the Rema and an
outstanding student of R. Yakov Pollack, and the
rabbi of Cracow, R. Moyshe Fishel.
Since Chelm fell under the jurisdiction of R.
Shalom Shachne, Luboml also found itself under
his judicial jurisdiction.
The administrative-legal jurisdiction of these
two grand rabbis was actually very broad, and the
outlying communities were greatly dependent
upon them. This can be seen from the three major
functions with which they were entrusted: (1) the
right to punish or excommunicate anyone who
transgressed religious law or disobeyed the community;
(2) confirmation in office of newly appointed
rabbis and others; and (3) the right to live
anywhere within the territory under their jurisdiction."
That Luboml was an important Jewish town
not only in the northwestern section of Volhynia
and region (for several years within the territory
of the "nine communities") but also in a section
of the Lubliner district, is seen from a statistic of
1550.
That was the year of the first census of
Poland's Jews. In the census there numbered 39
households in Luboml (about 390 souls)» To
understand the importance of this figure in those
times, we must compare it to other local Jewish
communities. Clearly, communities that later
outgrew Luboml were originally much smaller.
Chelm, Ludmir, and Belz, which during the period
of the Council of the Four Lands became
major cities, had fewer Jews in 1550 than Luboml.
Jewish Belz had 22 householdsabout one half
the number in Luboml; Ludmir, 30 households;
and even Chelm had less than 39 households.