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18 LUBOML
nis-IN '71 ',,I*V1U,'
"zpri 7.1 - r=11 '71
( 1764 - 1667 )
Map ofJewish communities in the Four Lands. Luboml
is located between Kovel and Chelm.
Luboml, once referred to as a large city, was
reduced in the second half of the 19th century to
the point where great rabbis and learned men had
not even heard of it.
The growth of Luboml's Jewish population in
the 18th century was very slow.
In 1847, there were 2,130 Jews in Luboml. In
1881, a fire broke out and many of the town's 450
houses were destroyed.
Luboml did not suffer from the pogroms of
the 1880s, as most of Volhynia was untouched by
them. From a list of pogroms in those years we see
that while there were five in all of Volhynia, the
Kiev district had 63, Poltava 22, and Kherson
52."
In addition, Volhynia was spared for the most
part from the 1905 pogroms, as can be seen from
another table: While there were 700 victims of
pogroms in Volhynia, in Podolia there were
19,000, in Kiev 32,000, in Poltava 14,000, and so
on."
The 1897 census shows the number ofJews in
town as 3,297 out of a total population of 4,470.0
Though the heyday was long gone, Jewish life
in Luboml was intense. Of central importance
was the study of Torah. In 1897 there were not
fewer than 17 cheders teaching 370 children.
In 1898, a Talmud Torah was established
with 60 students.
We learn from Luboml resident D.
Finkelshteyn, in a report to the Hebrew newspaper
HaMelitz in 1897, that, with the permission of
the government, a Talmud Torah was established.
He tells how money was collected for the cause
and the institution established.'
A year later, the same correspondent writes
to the same newspaper that the school is doing
well. This time he tells how the Talmud Torah
was set up through the intervention of Moyshe
Afeldman, a wealthy man of Luboml who also
saw to it that children had clothes and shoes.
The same letter reveals that the town's official
government rabbi at that time was Hillel
Boguslovksy and that in the Talmud Torah he
taught "language and literature," meaning Russian
and other studies."
Luboml, like most towns in Volhynia, was
Chasidic through and through. Chasidic shtiblach
[small houses of worship] dominated Jewish life.
The winds of Enlightenment were almost nonexistent
until the First World War.
If anyone in town was a bit of a maskil
[enlightened person], he had to hide from the
light of day. If he wanted to read a Hebrew
newspaper, he had to hide it. It was not even
evident that nearby, in Kremenitz, the "rebbe"
and guiding light of the enlightenment in Russia,
Yitshak Ber Levinson, lived and disseminated
his teachings. The Stepenyer, Kotsker, and
Rizhiner (Chasidim) completely obscured his
light.
This may be why Luboml is hardly mentioned
in the Hebrew press, which began activity
in the 1850s.
We have located only five reports from
Lubomlfour in HaMelitz and one in HaTsefirah.
Two from HaMelitz already have been mentioned.
Two other entries were from H.