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In 1902, in the former Petersburg, there appeared a collection-book under the editorship of Leon Rabinovitsh, the well-known “Man of the Jews”, the editor of “Ha'meyasef” [an early Hebrew periodical]. A historical article, under the title “Ir v'am b'Yisroel” described the old, glorious Jewish Lublin; and in that article the author, Yosef Kahan-Tsedek, polemicized with the Lubliner Shleyme Borekh Nisenboym.

Who of us who stem from that region, do not think of that noble Jew whom all of Lublin used to respectfully call Reb [Mister] Shleyme Borekh, the book-seller of Lewertow Street, the rare Hebraist (and president of the Lublin “Lovers of Sparks from the Past”), the brilliant historian of his city, to whom such researchers as Aleksander Harkavy, Dovid Koyfman and Shleyme Buber were drawn with great attention (that latter, like Nisenboym in Lublin, was the well-known historian of Lemberg [Lwow].

In 1899, more than fifty years ago, there appeared in Lublin on poor paper, in a very bad, strange form, his richly-documented book On the History the Jews of Lublin, which in those days made a very great impression. The Jewish press (even in other countries) dedicated many articles to him. This was a well thought-out and deeply researched historical monograph on the city, which over the course of generations occupied such a central place in Polish Jewry, and had an influence even far beyond its borders. His book was genuinely astounding, because the bibliographical part of the work was complete. One could not have any complaints against the author. He had exhausted all documents and materials.

Nisenboym reprinted almost the entire old record book of the Lublin Jewish Community, and that gave his book a folksy character. The Burial Society's record book became a source which reflected the character of this significant Jewish settlement, and one was informed about not only its material needs but also its social wants. And Shleyme Borekh Nisenboym provided a characteristic of the Lublin “greats of their generation” for the sixteenth century. He introduces us to – in chronological order – the famous rabbis, intelligentsia, doctors and regular well-known personalities. His On the History the Jews of Lublin presents a picture of a town that had its traditions, and which was unassuming in its greatness. He later gifted us with his “reserves”, a kind of addition to the main work, as an exhortation to honor of the Lublin Burial Society, dated from 1694: a list (an extraordinary bibliographical project) of all the holy books that were printed in Lublin in the year 1552.

The Polish King Zygmunt-August had already given, in 1550, permission for a printery to two Lublin Jews, Elieyzer and Yosef; and King Stefan gave a similar permission in 1576 to the Jew Kalman bar Mordkhe, and even the right to sell their books in the whole of the Polish land. The shop existed for decades under the name “The Printery of Kalman ben Mordkhe Yofe”. It was first given over to Kalman's son and later to his grandson. So, the printers Kalman, Avrom and Leyvi in Lublin, around the year 1630, provided holy books for all the Jewish cities and towns from the Bug River to as far as the Spree River.

I will also remark here that Shleyme Borekh Nisenboym published in French, in the famous “Review of Jewish Studies”, a large and very interesting work of history about Jewish Lublin.

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When did Jews arrive in Lublin? There are varying dates about that, which very often contradict themselves. Shleyme Borekh Nisenboym maintains that the settlement began in 1396. Jews established themselves thanks to Lublin's invitation from the great Kazimir, the Polish king who gave them the suburb “Piaski”, where they began to live, trade and build their homes. Over a period of barely seventy years the Jews were not entirely comfortable. But in 1568 a royal act was promulgated in which their rights and privileges were specified. Around that time the Jews were already playing a very important role in Lublin. Their influence became large, in the intellectual sense, on all of Polish Jewry. In Lublin at that time, the well-known elected members of the Jewish community already administered the “Council of the Four Lands”, the heads of state, the judges of the land.

As is known, large events took place around the “Lublin Fair”. Many respected proprietors, merchants and religious officials gathered at the big fairs. The well-known and important rabbis came to those assemblies and enacted amendments which later became not just customs but even laws. We find something similar in France, for example, around the year 1160: The well-known convention of the rabbis (for example in Troyes, in the time of Rov [rabbi] Yankev Tam) issued amendments that Jews used to take as decrees, even beyond the borders of France. From the 16^th to the 18^th century the “Council of the Four Lands” – whose principal seat was in Lublin – symbolized the Jewish autonomy of Poland (Great and Little Poland), of Lite'^[1] and of the regions of Podolia, Volyn and Galicia. The conferences at the Lublin fairs were transformed into true Jewish “parliaments”, just like those in France, the “synods”. In old Polish documents they are called in Latin ”Jewish Congresses” and there were some who even allowed the term “Sejm” [Polish: parliament]. Rov Nosn of Hanover (in his Yoven Metsule) [“deep mud”] wrote: “The assemblies of the “parnasim” [elected officials] of the “Four Lands” took place two times a year: at the Lublin Fair between Purim and Passover, and in Jaroslav in Galicia in the months Av and Elul. It was a true Sanhedrin, as in the sages' assembly hall in the old Temple in Jerusalem. They were the Judges of all Polish Judentum. Their emendations were universal.”

Besides emendations, there were also “haskames”, that is “permissions”. Thus, the assembly of the Council of the Four Lands gave permission in 1559 to begin printing the Babylonian Talmud in Lublin.

In those times in Lublin and in the entire Polish territory, great influence was held by Rov Sholem Shakhna (R' Sholem Shakhna, R' Shakhna ben Yosef), who was born in Lublin in 1510 and who died very young – a total of forty years old – in 1550. He was a pupil of R' Yankev Poliak, the creator of the so-called “Polish pilpul” [see description in text below]. This special method of R' Yankev Poliak had a great influence on the development of Talmud in Poland. R' Yankev Poliak lived in Lublin and died there in 1541. Great disputes took place around R' Yankev Poliak's decisions, and there were arguments in which more than a hundred rabbis participated. R' Yankev Poliak made a journey to Erets Yisroel in those days and came back to dedicate himself to Lublin. Among his pupils besides R' Shakhne, were R' Zakharya of Lublin, as well as well-known rabbis from Italy and from the Czech lands. He created a special analytic theory of pilpul in which the text was not just a dry skeleton, but also had a spiritually-rich soul. R' Shakhne continued his work, but he was forbidden from publishing his written books. As head of a yeshive, he also left a Pleiad of well-known pupils. The famous RaM”A – R' Meyshe ben Yisroel Iserlis – and R' Shleyme Luria, the MaHaRShA”L [Our teacher and master Rov Shleyme Luria] also studied in his yeshive.

It is interesting that the Polish government officially called the yeshive by the name “gimnazie” [high-school] and the Head of the yeshive had the title “Rector”. The famous Bershadski who published his well-known historic documents about Poland and Polish Jewry maintained that the yeshive in Lublin was opened in the year 1567. The Rov Yitskhak May (who in the official Polish documents called him “Doctor

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Yitskhak May), received the permit and the yeshive was built on the site that was May's own place in the Jewish Street. The “Rector” who was elected by the Lublin rabbis also became the head of the Jewish Court at the same time.

The RaM”A was born and died in Krakow. But he received his entire student education in Lublin, and he was also Rov Shakhne's son-in-law. No one knows where the MaHaRShA”L was born. Some say in Brisk. He came to the Rabbinic Seat in Lublin from Ostrog where, some 300 years later, the Krakower Shleyme Rubin lived for a long time; he was the popularizer of Spinoza's philosophy in Hebrew. Everyone knew the MaHaRShA”L's school in Lublin, around which many Jewish legends hover, among them that he himself built it with the goal that three-thousand Jews could come there to pray. He had to put up with a lot of persecution in Lublin (from R' Shakhne's pupils, because they thought that his explanations to his pupils were too free); and he died in Lublin the 12^th of Kislev 1573.

Part of the old Jewish Quarter in Lublin. In the background is the “castle”.

There was another shul in Lublin for Rov Tsvi Hirsh bar Meyshe Doctor, and thanks to a decree from King Wladyslaw the Fourth, the synagogue was completely autonomous, and the Jewish Council had no power over it. Rov Shaul Val, the legendary “Polish Kaiser”, also had a shul in Lublin that carried his name and which people in our time called the “Messengers' Shul”. And every year on Simkhes Torah [holiday celebrating the gift of the Torah] they honored R' Shaul bar Yehuda with the first circuit around the shul.

Lublin also had its famous doctors. In that sense it was the only Polish-Jewish city that reminds us of the French Avignon with its doctors. The doctor Meyshe ben Eliyahu lived there in 1637. His name alone already tells us that he stemmed from the Marranos and of Portugal; he turned up in Lublin because the Montaltos stemmed from Castelo-Branco in Portugal, and one of them,

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the Doctor Eliyahu Montalto, died in 1616 in the French town Tours, where had gone with Louis the Thirteenth. Also living and working in Lublin was a famous Jewish doctor Mikhal Feliks Vital. In the epoch of Zygmunt the Third there was a Jewish doctor Ahern. In the Lublin cemetery there are many gravestones of Jewish doctors from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. A Jewish doctor named Mayer Ginsburg died in Lublin in 1680. All told according to Sh. B. Ginzburg, added to the several gravestones in the Lublin cemetery from the year 1541 – and some 400 hundred years later – was the Hitlerists' addition of the last gravestone, but that was for the entire community.

Rov Shmuel Elieyzer ben Yehuda Ideles – the MaHaRSh”A [Our teacher and master Rov Shmuel Elieyzer] who was not born in Lublin – his first rabbinic post (over a period of ten years) was in Chelm – can be reckoned among rabeyim who had a big influence in Lublin, where he had his own study-house. He came to Lublin from Chelm. His book of prayers Kaboles Shabes [Greeting the Sabbath] was printed in Lublin in 1620.

The hasidic movement and its famous “Seer of Lublin”, the “Peshiskher” was his pupil, and he was the first to begin to spread talismans around Poland. The “Iron Head”, Rov Ezriel was his bitter opponent. And both bore the same family name of Gurevitsh. He died in a tragic accident: On the day of Simkhes Torah he fell from the second story and was killed. His death made a horrible impression in Lublin.

Paris also knew a “Lublin Jew” in almost the same epoch. That is what people called him and so he remained in the literature: “the Jew from Lublin”. Zalkind Hurvits was his name. He was born in Lublin in 1740. Hurvits was the popular Jew among the Jews in Paris in the 18^th century. He was the author of the French book The Jewish Apologia and “The Royal Society for Science and Art” in Metz crowned the book with a first prize. Everyone read about the book and about Zalkind Hurvits.

For those times it was an unusual event: the contemporary “Journal of Paris”, the “French Mercury” and the “Paris Chronicle” published long articles dedicated to Hurvits' book; the great tribune Mirabeau wrote it this way: “The Polish Jew is the only one who expresses himself like a proper philosopher.”

One of his biographers – and their number is large – wrote “In general we know very little about the life of Zalkind Hurvits. And yet they say that he was the most original figure from the end of his century, despite the fact that it was an epoch that produced very interesting personalities. He belonged to the part of Polish Jewry that did not stop for any difficulty, whom no kind of poverty halted his will to develop further. Conversely, one finds in the troubles a new courage and fresh energy, in order to beat through to a specific goal. And finally, he possessed a sharp mind that did not stop gathering large knowledge, both literary and scientific, and his memory of them is so strong that nothing goes lost.”

But everywhere there was one reproach: his outward appearance did not have enough luster. He was, alas, not very elegant. Zalkind Hurvits was not of the Jewish scholars for whom everything is “little but good”. And he did not stand for all the “foolishness” regarding clothing or a white collar. Even the Larus Encyclopedia did not forget that and emphasized it in the few lines dedicated to our Lublin Jew. Another of his French biographers did not neglect to add that his disinterest in dressing was a well-known characteristic of the Polish Jews. The French Jews themselves distanced themselves in 1806 from the famous “Assembly of the Jewish Notables” because his appearance alone was in dissonance with the fat Jewish Community officers who were dressed according to the mode of the time. And of course his deep knowledge forced them to turn

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to him; and the Commission that had established the specifics and resolutions for the “Sanhedrin”, had reckoned with Zalkind Hurvits' thoughts and suggestions.

But Zalkind Hurvits despite all his flaws – God help us –had other qualities that were known characteristics of Polish Jews: that is, his great thirst for study. He only wanted to study, to bury himself in libraries, swallow up books. When he left Lublin he went to Berlin. The Prussian capitol had a power of attraction for him because the great philosopher Moses Mendelson lived there. And in those times people idolized the philosopher from Dessau everywhere that Jews had begun to teach themselves and develop. One must add that Moses Mendelson acknowledged that Zalkind Hurvits was a talented person, and he immediately took him under his wing. But he left Berlin and met him later in Metz, in Strasburg, and in Nancee. Everywhere he was taken in with great sympathy, disregarding his countenance which was not meant for this world.

He finally arrived in Paris and began learning French. His situation then was very, very difficult. He became a peddler, carrying boxes of books, combs and buttons on his shoulders. He knocked on doors and laid out his “merchandise”. He later dealt in old clothes and in the end Zalkind Hurvits, the unfortunate “peddler” from Lublin, was appointed as Conservator of Oriental Manuscripts in the Royal Library (today the National Library). Such was the itinerary of our Lubliner Jew!

The story of how he became a librarian is very interesting. The Jew Mordkhe Vantura who had occupied the office, died. The steward of the library decided not to fill the post anymore. But on the 14^th of March 1789 he received a letter from the minister in which was written, “I maintain that such posts must not remain unfilled and especially when it deals with the Hebrew language!” The “Lubliner Jew” sent out his candidacy. He had two competitors: one a Jew, Ons-heym, who was recommended as having great knowledge of all languages, and the “syndic of the Portuguese-speaking Jews”, Dovid Silvero. But Zalkind Hurvits won. He sent the minister his book Apologia and wrote to him “I hope that the book will please you, when you know that it was written by a person who has suffered poverty his whole life.” And he added: “There are many books in the Royal Library, on one side in Hebrew and on the other side in Latin. You can cover the Latin translations, and I will easily translate the Hebrew texts into French.” This made a huge impression on the minister. And the great historian Graetz pronounced, “Zalkind Hurvits was a very highly-educated Jew and thus was also a great and deep thinker”.

The French Revolution made a big impression on Zalkind Hurvits. One could say that the person changed entirely. And I will cite another one of his biographers, who wrote, “ The fire of the Revolution, one can say, captured him entirely; as a person who himself had gone through great struggle and who had sought new paths, he could not remain a coldblooded observer of such huge historic events”. He threw himself with great energy into the fight for a new world. His articles appearing in five important Paris newspapers received much interest from the readers. He attacked all the until-now accepted “truths” in a brilliant form, he called for the reevaluation of all values. He found the appropriate phrases that touched the heart directly.

Someone later wrote about him that he was an extraordinary human being. That was quite correct. He was a meek person, he demanded a lot from himself and his approach to the poor and fallen was that of a real “saint”. He died in 1812. In that moment when Napolean the First was on his way to

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“conquer” Moskve and occupied his hometown Lublin, Zalkind Hurvits died in Paris. We know that all Paris Jews attended his funeral. And the president of the Central Consistory Lazar gave the elegy and said, “A great light has gone out”.

When we approach today's time, we must mention the Lubliner Jew Emile Meyerson, who was a well-known French philosopher who was very famous in France right after the First World War. He belonged to the old “intellectual immigration” of foreign Jews into France. At the beginning of this century he was director of Baron Hirsh ‘s society “YIKO” [ Jewish Cultural Organization] which received “for the Jewish people” (according to the Baron's will) ten million golden pounds sterling as an inheritance. That made Meyerson very popular among Jews. [Menakhem] Usishkin, who knew Meyerson as a “lover of Zion”, strongly supported his candidacy as director of YIKO. But upon accepting the office Meyerson simply declared war on Zionism. He did not want to deal with colonialist problems in Erets Yisroel. The press of the times criticized hm harshly. “YIKO” sent millions to “KhaBaD” [Khokhmey bina v'das: wisdom, intelligence and faith] projects (the history of the million gold rubles that the latter received is well-known) in order to open small banks in all the Jewish towns in former Russia and Poland – institutions for temporary help – which collapsed with the declaration of the First World War in 1914, and the vast sums disappeared, absorbed into the local currencies.

Emile Meyerson was born in Lublin in 1859. I myself knew his father, who died at a deep old age and was considered a fervent Pole of the Meyshe Rubins school. Old Lubliners still recall how the old Meyerson used to site on the terrace of the Café Zhemianski with the attorney Varman and the bank-director Kipman, all three interesting Polish-Jewish types, proper Lubliners, who represented the epoch of “Isrealita”, the epoch of assimilation, while around them on the sidewalks and in all the streets thousands of Jews strolled with beards, side-locks and tales-kotns [small ritual undergarments with tassels].

Emile Meyerson studied in Berlin and around 1882 we find him in Paris where he rose very fast in the contemporary society. It is enough to state that by 1889 (and over many years) he was director of foreign politics at the “Havas Agency”.

Emile Meyerson's mother, Malvina, was already a well-known writer and in 1866 published the story “Dovid” in Polish about Polish-Jewish life. She later wrote and printed novels in Isrealita. Her daughter Frantsishka Arnshteyn, Emile's sister, was one of the most well-known poetesses. She was also born in Poland (1865). Everything that she wrote was permeated with a great Polish patriotism. She presented herself as the type of hundred-percent assimilated Jew in Poland. The poetess and the poems of Frantsishka Arnshteyn were printed in the biggest Polish journals and she was very popular.

Emile Meyerson's home in Paris was a center for the Poles who had fought for a “new Poland” which was indeed created right after the rise of that Poland which, from 1918 until 1939, was a land of discrimination where the Meyersons and the Arnshteyns were persecuted and oppressed.

1. Lite' refers to medieval “Lithuania”, which stretched from the Baltic all the way to the Black Sea. In Yiddish this can still apply to that territory. Return

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