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[Page 18] [Pages 44-74 Yiddish]
by Dr. N. M Gelber, Jerusalem
Translated by Sara Mages
Lutsk is one of the most ancient Slavic cities in Wolyn. Here, according to the version of certain researchers, lived in the 7th century the Slavic tribe Duleby also known by the name Luczanya.[a]
According to the city's historian Statzky, and the archeologist Ludwig Zitinski, the city of Lutsk was founded in the year 1000. In his opinion the city's name came from the Luczany tribe but, according to another version, the origin of the name is from the founder of the city Luka, head of the Duleby tribe, and from here its name Lutsk (=Luck).
The Ukrainian historian, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, is at the opinion that the city's earlier name was Lucky Veliki, and the proof is that in the days of Vladimir the Great Lutsk was called by that name.
In the 10th century, the Russians (Rusowie) took over Wolyn. In 1703, the Polish king, Bolesław Schmil, conquered the city temporarily in his campaign to conquest Kiev [Kyiv].
Until 1320, Lutsk was under the rule of the Russian princes and was - next to Włodzimierz (Ludmir) - the second capital of the Russian rulers. The last Prince of Lutsk was Lev son of Ludmir Jerzy. In 1320, during his rule, Wolyn was conquered by Prince Gedeminne. Jerzy was killed in this war.
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Gedeminne gave the rule in Wolyn to his son Lubart. In 1349, Kazimierz the Great conquered Wolyn, taking advantage of the disintegration process of the Principality of Vladimir and Halych, and on the grounds that he is the rightful heir of the Principality of Vladimir and Halych. After negotiation he handed over the city of Lutsk to Lubart by the virtue of feudal law (Lehensrecht), and with the commitment to remain loyal to him. Lubart lived in Lutsk and in place of the wooden palace he built a stone palace[b] and turned the city into a fortress. He was interested in the development of the city as a commercial center and its geographic situation helped him to do so because, as is well known, in the 14-15 centuries the main road, on which merchandise were transported from the shores of the Black Sea through Kiev to the west, passed through Wolyn.
Besides silk, perfumes, skins, furs, carpets, rice and pepper that were transported to the west, salt was transported to the east mainly from the mines in Bochnia.
Already in 1379, in the days of Prince Dmitri Lubart, Lutsk received storage rights. The merchants who passed through Lutsk were exempt from paying customs.
In the second half of the 14th century, and the beginning of the 15th century, Lutsk - near Lwow [Lviv] and Ludmir [Volodymyr] - was one of the main centers in trade with the east. After the death of Lubart (1385) the city passed to his son Fador, but King Jagiełło handed Wolyn, with Lutsk, to Archduke Witold who had done lot to develop the city as a commercial center. He brought Karaites and Tatars from Crimea (in 1408), and granted them rights and privileges that enabled the development of trade and crafts such as: goldsmiths, locksmiths, weapons makers, saddle makers, and painters.
He developed trade relations with the southeastern countries. For this purpose he granted special rights to the townspeople, built a church and a Dominican monastery in the city (1313) and transferred the seat of the Catholic Church from Ludmir to Lutsk. The city grew and expanded with the annexation of several villages[c].
In 1409, for seven weeks, at the initiative of Kaiser Sigismund, a gathering of kings and princes of Europe took place in Lutsk to consult on how to prevent the invasion of the Turks. In fact, Sigismund wanted at this gathering - by promising to crown Witold King of Lithuania - to tempt him to eliminate the Lithuanian-Polish Union - but he did not succeed, because Witold aspired to unite Wolyn with Lithuania into a monarchy under his rule.
After Witold's death (1430) Jagiełło inherited Wolyn. At his time (1432), King Jagiełło granted the city the Magdeburg law and compared it, from an administrative legal point of view, with Krakow and Lwow. In 1444, the city was granted even more extensive rights.
In the years of his reign Lutsk suffered from wars between Poland and Lithuania that lasted for about ten years.
At the end of the 15th century Lutsk suffered greatly and the city was almost destroyed. In 1497, the city regained the Magdeburg law and the Wolyn constitution was abolished. Lutsk's period of economic growth has begun thanks to the privileges granted to the city by King Sigismund Augustus.
The dates of the fairs were set within the rights. Outside of these dates non-local traders were forbidden to buy or sell in the city without the municipality's license. Only the merchants of Vilna [Vilnius] and Trakai were exempted from this prohibition.
The city received the permission to build a brewing house for wax. Only the governor was given the authority to weigh the grain and the wax.
The governor appointed half of the members of the municipal council, while the second half was appointed by the municipality. The municipality was required to build a bathhouse, a butcher shop, shops for bakers and cobblers and a town hall with a tower. The townspeople were obligated to protect the city in case of a war.
After the death of Jagiełło (1452), and until the Polish-Lithuanian Union in Lublin (1569), Wolyn was a special region under the rule of a governor. In 1470, the Polish king, Kazimierz Jagiellończyk, placed at the head of Wolyn not a governor but a marshal. The first was Olizar Schilowitz. At the head of the government in Lutsk stood a Starosta , generally the marshal was also the Starosta[1] of Lutsk.
The noble families and the magnates, such as Ostrogiškiai, Vishnevetsky, Zerabesky, Sanguszko, Shiamiashkov, Tzenish, Stetzky, and especially the Czartoryski family, were associated with Lutsk. After the Union of Lublin[2] (1569) Wolyn became a voivodeship with Lutsk as the capital city, and was annexed to the Crown of Poland (Korona). Lutsk obtained, especially from King Alexander Jagiellończyk, many privileges that laid the foundation for its expansion and establishment as a commercial center. The Union of Lublin made a significant contribution to the development of the city. The city grew rich in its trade, crafts and industry especially in the first years after the union.
Among the craftsmen were tailors, furriers, locksmiths, goldsmiths, painters, gunsmiths, carpenters, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, hatters, sword smiths, salt brewers, fishermen, shoemakers, tar burners, who were organized in professional associations (Cechy).
In 1662, there were associations of tailors and furriers, blacksmiths, butchers, shoemakers, carpenters, fishermen, construction carpenters together with fencers and weavers.
At the beginning of the 17th century (around 1628) there was a printing house in Lutsk. It was owned by Pavel Jaronomach who printed books in the Ruthenian language. We do not know until when this printing house existed.
In 1787 (14 February), the Dominicans received the privilege to establish a printing house and to print books in Latin, Polish and other languages.
Trade and crafts earned them markets in Wolyn and also in Poland. The Sejmik[3] of Wolyn Voivodeship met in the city, and from time to time military recruitments were held outside the city.
In the 16th century, the first craftsmen's associations (Cechy) were founded. The city's craftsmen and merchants faced a tough legal battle with the Starosta and the nobles who restricted the trade in the city.
During this period, there were also clashes between the townspeople and the Jews in which they saw their competitors.
From a religious and political point of view, there was a change in Lutsk that greatly affected the religious division in the entire region, when in 1595 the Orthodox leader Tziril Terlezki joined the union with the Catholic Church. In 1596, he was appointed by Pope Clemens VII to the first Unitarian Cardinal, and in this manner came the split in the Eastern Church. Fifteen deans and six monasteries belonged to the Unitarian Dioceses of Lutsk. The Unitarian Church existed until 1833 and was abolished in the days of Jan Damascen Krasnovsky, the last Unitarian Cardinal in Lutsk.
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In the 17th and 18th centuries there were severe conflicts between the Unitarians and the fans of the Russian Orthodox Church - the deacons. The Polish kings were forced to grant privileges to the deacons, and more than once the deacons took over the church of the Unitarian Cardinal in Lutsk.
The war between the two churches lasted for 70 years. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Unitarian Cardinal took over the situation and strengthened the foundations of his church.
With the approval of Pope Martin V from 1427, Lutsk was the seat of the Catholic Cardinal who also remained there during the city's affiliation to Poland.
The first cardinal in Lutsk was Andrzej Spławski whose official title was cpiscopus lucccoriensis [Bishop of Lucca]. The Catholic Church enjoyed many privileges. To the Dioceses in Lutsk and to its jurisdiction in Poland were the churches in Wolyn Voivodeship, Podolia and Wrocław, in Lithuania the church and the city of Brest, the district of Pinsk and a large part of Belarus - a total of 13 deacons with 185 churches. Lutsk's cardinals had a great political influence. Forty one cardinals served in Lutsk until the Second Partition of Poland. The last in the days of Poland was the well-known Polish historian - Adam Stanisław Naruszewicz.
In 1798, churches from Ukraine were annexed to Lutsk and the Diocese of Lutsk-Zhitomir was established.
The Catholic Church, which brought in 1606 the Jesuit Order to the city as well as the orders of the Bernardine and the Bonaparte, has done a lot in the areas of medical care and help the poor, education, etc. In the years 1608-1611, the Jesuits opened schools and in 1613 a Theological Collage. In 1615, a collage for the study of philosophy was established in the Dominican monastery, and a library rich in manuscripts and priceless books was also established. The monasteries established almshouses for the elderly and the disabled, hospitals and orphanages.
The Jesuits were mainly interested in the education of the youth in the spirit of zeal for the Catholic Church and the acquisition of the Russian Orthodox to the union.
To fulfill these ambitions, they used all means and did not recoil from inciting crowds and students. In (1634) their students in Lutsk together with Catholic craftsmen, broke into the Russian Orthodox Monastery, attacked the monks, teachers and students, beat them and injured them. Then, they destroyed and robbed the homes of the Russian Orthodox, beat their owner and killed several of them. They also broke into the cemetery, took out the dead from their graves and threw them to the dogs.
The first schools were opened with 150 students and at the beginning of the 18th century their number increased to 300. The schools in Lutsk became so famous that the sons of the dioceses, youth from Lwow, Ostroh and also from Kiev studied in them. The education was provided free of charge. In 1752, boarding schools for the children of the nobles were established next to the schools and dances, languages and fencing were also taught there.
In 1614, the Jesuits founded a Ruthenian Elementary School (Slavonicac Linguas) in which the students learned to read and write in Ruthenian and also arithmetic. After the elimination of the Jesuit Order (1773), the schools came under the control of the Board of Education in Warsaw which increased their number and also introduced changes in the curriculum. At the end of the 18th century (1788/9), the number of students increased from 40 to 165. Apart from the elementary schools the education committee also established general schools. In the same years the Catholic Church in Lutsk was shaken by an incident that took place in the secular lyceum. As is well known, in the second half of the 18th century a spiritual-cultural revolution took place in certain circles of the rich, the nobility and military leadership. Under the influence of the French encyclopedia came considerable changes in the cultural, religious and political views of the youth who studied abroad, especially in Paris. The Freemasonry movement spread throughout Poland and Freemasonry lodges, which were affiliated to the main order under the presidency of Ignaz Potocki, was also founded in Wolyn. The first order in Wolyn was founded in Dubno under the name Doskonala Tajemnica [Perfect Secret], and it spread its stronghold over the whole area, including Lutsk. Under the influence of the enlightened educational institutions were removed from the influence of the church and the monasteries, and secular schools were established. Young teachers came out strongly against the superstitions and the strange customs of the Catholic Church. In the years 1784-1787, Josef Obminski a 27 year old professor in Lutsk's schools took an active part in this struggle. In his lessons he preached to the students views against the Catholic Church and the beliefs spread by it. He did not hesitate to spread his views outside the school's walls. His appearances and words stirred up a storm in the church and the Catholic circles in Lutsk, so much so, that they demanded from the church leadership to bring him before the ecclesiastical court. The deputy rector, the priest Brusiowski, sent a report (on 13 March 1787) to the rector of the university in Krakow, in which he accused Obminski of blasphemy and stated that his bad influence on the students would lead to dangerous consequences, and therefore it is desirable to also bring him before a secular court as an apostate and slanderer of the Catholic religion. The university rector, in his reply of 30 March, stated that Obminski's behavior is a crime that contradicts his primary duties as a public teacher. He saw no other way out but this - Obminski must immediately appear before the university to investigate the complaints against him. The school in Lutsk must stop his activity as a teacher. Obminski, in his letter of justification, admitted to many complaints, but denied that he claimed that heaven and hell do not exist in reality and they are nothing but figments of the imagination.
The university, which could not acquit him, dismissed him from his position. However, the whole matter defamed the secular school in Lutsk and a number of teachers, who publicized Obminski's actions, were punished by being transferred to other places. This is how Lutsk got to be a partner in the struggle for freedom of opinion in Poland. The curriculum remained valid even after the annexation of Lutsk to Russia except that it included the study of the Russian language.
In 1825, a gymnasium was also founded in the city. At the end of 1830, 225 students studied in all schools. Under the order of the Russian authorities from 12 January 1831, all schools in Wolyn were added to the framework of the Kharkov School District and on 21 August 1831 all the Polish schools were closed.
On 9 December 1832, a Russian gymnasium was opened in the city. Due to the lack of space, and the increase in the number of students, the gymnasium was moved in 1834 to Klevan and in 1835 to Rivne.
A gymnasium was established in Lutsk in two stages - in 1895 a pro-gymnasium and in 1898 a gymnasium with eight classes. In the year 1912/13, 13, 380 students studied there. At the beginning of the 20th century a gymnasium for girls, named after Kolanko, was established. The number of students in the academic year 1908/9 was 299, and in 1912/13 - 285.
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Lutsk suffered greatly from the first Cossack invasions under the command of Nalewajko, who attacked Sharhorod in 1595 and from there left in the direction of Lutsk. The armies of Hetman[4] Stanisław Żółkiewski managed to drive him away with his Cossacks to the Dnieper River. In the 16th century, Wolyn underwent a unique historical process. In fact, this region was owned by the magnates. Only three cities - Lutsk, Kremenets and Ludmir - were in the hands of the king. The struggle between the Eastern Catholic Christianity and its opponents was the background for the Cossack wars against Poland in the slogan - “Death to the nobles and the Jews.”
During the Cossack campaign of the years1648-1649, companies under Kolodko's command attacked and slaughtered 4,000 residents and about 10,000 residents fled the city. According to the testimony of a person of that time, Lutsk was completely emptied and never returned to its previous state. To this must be added the fire of 1617, and also the epidemics and the Asian cholera in the years 1618, 1638, 1652, 1704-1714 that reduced the population to a tenth.
After the death of John III Sobieski (1696), a period of internal struggle began in Poland around the selection of his successor. In 1697, Prince Augustus of Saxony was elected King of Poland, but large sections of the aristocracy opposed this choice. In 1705, Stanisław Błeszyński was elected King of Poland with the help of the Swedish King Karl XII. Karl left with his army against Russia. Together with the Cossacks' commander, Ivan Stepanovych Mazepa, he flooded Ukraine and Wolyn and also arrived in Lutsk (1706). The nobles of Wolyn and Lutsk decided to take up arms against the Swedish king. Under the initiative of Stanisław I Leszczyński, Karl advanced in the direction of Lutsk and stopped in the village of Yaroslavychi. In 1709, Tsar Peter the Great passed through Lutsk on his way from Warsaw, and on this occasion ordered to transfer Vladyka Dionysius Zabukshitzki, who joined the Eastern Catholic Church with his entire congregation, to the interior of Russia. In 1724, a fierce fire broke out in the city and destroyed a large part of the houses, churches and monasteries.
In 1733, the Wolyn nobles supported the candidacy of Leszczyński for the royal crown against Augustus III. On 9 December, it was decided to establish a confederation for his benefit together with the nobles of the Sejmik in Chelm and Zhitomir, headed by the Voivode[5] Ignacy Potocki.
The political events, the passage of the armies and the provision of accommodation for the soldiers, the wars and conflicts within Poland, depleted the city economically. The townspeople suffered from the extortions and antics of the governors who limited their rights. In the days of Stanisław August Poniatowski the situation has improved a little, but in 1771 the townspeople suffered from cholera which spread on a large scale. In 1781 a fire broke out in the city, 454 houses and a number of churches were completely burned. In the 1788 census, there were 597 houses in Lutsk and 3,600 residents.
In the survey of 1789, the townspeople complained that they cannot recover due to the authorities' antics and the oppression of the clergy and the aristocracy. On this occasion they also accused the Jews for undermining their existence.
A sever shock passed over the city in 1789. The administrative committee in Lutsk and Dubno received information that the head of the monastery, Melchizedek Jaworsky, was inciting the peasants against the state and the Polish nobility in favor of Russia. He was arrested but managed to escape and continued his acts of incitement. A proclamation, which was published in Torchin near Lutsk in the Polish and Ruthenian languages, was distributed all over Wolyn and called the peasants to revolt against the State of Poland and the aristocracy. The committees in Lutsk and Dubno took measures to suppress any attempt at rebellion. In those days the populations of Lutsk live in fear. The rebellion did not break out as planned. The proclamation from Torchin did not succeed in rousing the masses of peasants in Wolyn, but rather gave a slogan to the Cossacks' outbreak in Ukraine who gathered around Kulish and Gonta.
Lutsk's situation worsened after the fire of 1793 and its annexation to Russia turned it into a tiny town. During the Russian occupation a large army was kept in the city due to its strategic importance given its proximity to the Austrian border.
In the years 1816, 1831, large military parades were held in Lutsk in the presence of Prince Constantine who came to Lutsk every year. In the first half of the 19th century, fires occasionally broke out (in the years 1844, 1845, 1847) and cholera epidemics (in the years 1848, 1856, 1871) that brought the city to a very poor state.
Lutsk did not fully recover from these disasters and remained a provincial city.
In 1862, the municipality budget was 12,956 rubles. There were 118 shops and 36 commercial establishments in the city. There were 282 craftsmen and 8 factories in the city (one brewery[d], 2 tobacco factories, 3 for wax candles, 1 for oil production and 1 for paint). In 1870, three forts were built in Lutsk (Mikhailogorod).
Not much has changed economically in the Lutsk district. There were iron quarries in the district but in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century, they haven't been used yet.
There were few industrial plants. In 1880, 10 distilleries were counted in the entire district with 77 workers and a production value of 158,700 rubles; 5 workshops with 25 workers and a production value of 15,600 rubles; 2 factories for the production of oil; 3 for wax candles; 7 for the production of tar and turpentine with 26 workers and production value of 10,400 rubles; 38 tanneries with a production value of 6,140 rubles; 2 for tobacco with 12 workers with a production value of 12,000 rubles; 37 textile factories with 130 workers and a production value of 380,000 rubles.
Apart from the aforementioned factories, there were also small workshops. In total there were 105 factories and workshops with 332 workers, and the value of the l annual product reached 587,040 rubles.
In 1888 there were 600 houses in the city. In 1913 there were 411 stone houses and 1,324 wooden houses. In 1856 the number of residents in the entire district - including the city of Lutsk - was 107,132 and in 1881 - 159,860.
In 1921, there were 195,931 residents in the Lutsk district. A certain improvement occurred in the development of the city in the years 1897-1909.
In 1897, the number of residents in the city was 12,925 people.
From 1897, the population grew year by year. In 1900, the number of residents rose to 22,480, in 1910 to 27,822, in 1911 to 28,141 and in 1912 to 28,753.
In the first census of the renewed Poland (in 1921) there were 21,157 residents in Lutsk.
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“In the 14th century, Prince Witold, nephew of Prince Liubartas of Lithuania, sat on the governor's throne in Lutsk. At that time, Jews who settled seven kilometers south the city in the village of Zhydychyn - from the word Zyd [Jew], came to Lutsk. They lived in a kind of ghetto because they were not allowed to live in the city and also not allowed to come to the fairs.”
This article was written in the registry of the Great Synagogue by the educated Lutsker, Eliezer Patitz[e], who collected, as a hobby, sources for the history of the community of Lutsk.
According to historical research there were Jews in Lithuania already in the 13th century. However, the existence of a Jewish settlement is known only in the capital city of Wolyn - in Volodymyr (Ludmir). This privilege was given to the Jews of Brisk and was later extended to all the Jews in Lithuania.
Lutsk was included in the communities of Lithuania[f] who received the general regulations that Archduke Witold granted to them in his palace in Lutsk on 2 July 1388 according to the principles of Boleslaw's regulations from the year1244.
This privilege, which was like the privilege of the community of Lwow, was confirmed when Wolyn was annexed to Poland by King Sigismund I in 1507, Sigismund Augustus 1568 and Sigismund III 1588. The existence of the Jews in Lutsk, as in other Jewish settlements in Wolyn in the 14th century, was based on this privilege. The Jews were subject in matters of jurisdiction and taxes to the Lithuanian authorities, that is to say, to the Archduke and his representative, the Starosta. However, over time, and after a certain historical process, the Jewish jurisdiction was also recognized in Lithuania. Already in1410, Lutsk Jews are mentioned in an official document. In a special document from 31October 1432, King Władysław Jagiełła confirmed the rights of the Jews and the Armenians in Lutsk, and compared them, in the matter of rights, with the rest of the Jews and the Armenians in the country - “in our regions Kraków and Lwow.”
During this period the Jews of Lutsk was engaged in trade and customs leasing. Thanks to Lutsk's position on the trade route that passed through Wolyn, they had in their hands, as well as in the hands of the Karaites from Halych, the brokering of the trade between the shores of the Black Sea and the west. The customs station in Lutsk was leased by Jews who brought great profits to the king. The commercial status instilled a sense of security in the Jews of Lutsk.
In the days of Władysław Jagiełła, a Lutsk Jew, Yakov Slomkowicz (Jacobus de Luczko) arranged banking transactions for him. He worked together with the banker Levko in Krakow. Slomkowicz was related to Krakow through a family line. His daughter was married to a Jew, Mordechai of Krakow. In the years 1414-1434, Slomkowicz leased the royal customs office in Lutsk and his son Yitzhak engaged in wholesale trade. They bought and sold houses together with Levko's son - Canaan.
In Slomkowicz hands was the transport of merchandise from the east to Lwow. The city of Lwow often took advantage of his extensive connections and ordered considerable amounts of wax from him. He also made financial transactions for the king and the magnets.
Also Simcha of Lutsk, son of the banker Yosman of Krakow and brother of Shmuel of Krakow, moved after his father's death in 1406 to Lutsk and was one the richest in the city. In those years he was known as a wholesale merchant. He, and other Jews, had commercial ties with Krakow. Jews from Lutsk also transported loads of merchandise in rafts to Danzig and the Crusaders' territories.
Apart from the aforementioned, there were other rich Jews - homeowners, estates owners, lessees of Christian houses, such as the Jew Bateko who leased houses from the Cardinal of Lutsk, and Banko Schanowicz owner of many properties. Lutsk Jews also leased customs stations in other cities - in Brisk [Brest], Drohiczyn, Byelsk [Bielsk Podlaski] and Grodno.
With the deportation decree from Lithuania, which was issued 1495 by Archduke Alexander, who wanted to get rid of his Jewish creditors to whom he owed large sums of money, came an economic destruction to the Jews of Lutsk. He confiscated all the Jews property and they were forced to return all the leased assets to the government.
Archduke Alexander, who obtained in this way Jewish assets and property, gave in 1495 a house in Lutsk to Martin Herptowicz. In 1497, he gave the municipality of Lutsk the Jews' houses and plots of land to use them as they pleased. In 1498, he gave a Jewish estate to the Lithuanian Hetman Constantin Ostrogorski.
In 1501, Alexander was crowned King of Poland-Lithuania. He created a turning point in favor of the Jews when he canceled the deportation and allowed the Jews to return to Lithuania. He returned their assets and property in return for compensation payments to the temporary owners. The return of the property led to severe confrontations between the Jewish owners and the Christians who received Jewish property. In 1503, after the Jews returned to Lithuania they were obliged to provide, at their own expense, one thousand horsemen for the defense of Lithuania, “since until now they haven't gone to wars,” and to pay considerable sums to the local authorities every year. Lutsk Jews had to pay the Starosta in Lutsk, Theodore Yanushevich, 12 Shak groszy (Shak equals 60 Polish groszy). When the Jews of Lutsk complained that it was difficult for them to pay each year from the two synagogues - the Jewish and the Karaite - 12 Shak groszy for the benefit of the Starosta, on 22 December 1506 the King gave the Starosta, Theodore Yanushevich, an explicit order to free them from this levy for ever.
When the customs revenues decreased after the cancellation of the lease to the Jews due to the deportation, the king saw the need to return the lease to the Jews. On 19 March 1507, he announced from Krakow that he had given the customs in Lutsk to the Jews Shamek Danilowicz and Nissan Kusek, for two years at the payment of 1,600 Shak groszy. For the first year they must bring in 300 Hungarian gold coins and 10 turkeys for Christmas. The remaining 800 Shak groszy will be paid according to royal receipts for the officials' payment[g].
Among the Jewish customs lessees in this period are known: Yonatan Ilyich, Shachna Nobkowicz, Elhanan Danilowicz, Yisrael, Yehudah and Ostaska.
In 1507 King Sigismund approved the privilege of Witold from 1388. On 21 March1511, he confirmed the release of the Jews from the obligation to provide one thousand horsemen for the defense of the country in exchange for a fixed financial payment, and compared them, regarding taxes and other levies, with the inhabitants in their places of residence. The Jews were allowed any occupation of their choice as well as exemption from paying a fine to the king, or his representatives, if one
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side in a trial will refuse to accept the evidence of the opposing side. The king promised to leave the Jews all their old rights and privileges.
The privileges, which were given to the Jews of Lutsk before the deportation, protected them from oppressions in the hands of the aristocracy and the townspeople - of course, as long as the king's rule was stable. The events of 1495-1503 did not change the mutual relations. After their return the Jews assumed their positions in the economic life. During this period there were open wars between Jews and the townspeople.
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In 1527, the Jews and the townspeople turned to the king together with a request to release them from taxes due to the damage caused to them by the great fire. On 18 July 1528, the king released the Jews from all obligations for ten years - taxes and service payments, and five years from payments to the Starosta. In exchange for these concessions, which were applied only to those damaged by the fire, the townspeople and the Jews were obliged to build the city wall at the same height as before the fire.
The Starosta, Prince Tsartovsky, and the officials did not want to comply with the king's order, and then the townspeople - with the support of Queen Bona - turned for the second time to the king and on July 1529 he reaffirmed his order from 18 July 1528. However, this time he did not release them from the wax and salt tax (500 Shak groszy) that they had to pay to the king's treasury.
The solidarity between the Jews and the townspeople continued only for several years. In 1539, a struggle broke out between the associations of Christian shoemakers and tailors and the Jewish craftsmen. These associations were founded in 16th century and from the beginning excluded the Jews from belonging to them, noting that according to their privilege from 1609 they were not allowed to accept inferior Jewish tailors (Zydowscy partacze).
The butchers' association also stated in its privilege of 1621 that the Jews interfere with their work.
The associations of Christian craftsmen complained before the king that the Jews entered their associations with the intention of competing with them. The conflict was about the right of the Jewish craftsmen to sell their produce to the peasants in the vicinity of Lutsk. For this reason the Christian craftsmen refused to fulfill the association's obligations to the king's treasury.
The Jewish craftsmen claimed that they did not pay the associations because the royal privilege guaranteed them freedom in choosing a trade. According to the decision of the Royal Court, Jewish tailors and furriers in Lutsk and the surroundings were allowed to sell their products to farmers on market days and fairs, in exchange for their commitment to pay the craftsmen association an annual sum of 5 Shak groszy. The cobblers were forced to agree that the Jews would set up two shops on their lot where they would sell shoes and boots. In 1571, as it will be discussed further, serious conflicts broke out between them.
On 21 January 1529, it was imposed on the Jews of Lithuania, according to the regulation of the king and the Lithuanian Sejm, to pay 1,000 Shak groszy on account of the general tax in Lithuania, an amount that they had to divide between the communities of Trakai, Grodno, Pinsk, Brisk, Kobryn, Keltsk, Ludmir, Novgorod, Lutsk and other settlements where Jews lived.
In 1530, Dachne Vasiljewic was appointed by the king as manager of the farm in Lutsk with the right to judge the Jews of Lutsk.
In 1545, the Jews and the Karaites complained before the Starosta about Prince Mateusz Chatvortinsky who blocked the road to the Jewish and Karaite cemetery. The Jews showed a letter from King Alexander to the Starosta in Lutsk, Prince Semyon Jurewitz, and in it the order to clear the houses, warehouses and embankments for the Jews - an order that according to them was not carried out. Prince Chatvortinsky claimed that he had signed an agreement with the Jews regarding the fencing of the area but the Jews crossed the border. The commissioners demanded from Chatvortinsky a description of the borders, but when he did not give them the description, they declared that the Jews' claims were correct and admitted that the lake had been arranged in the area to the detriment of the Jews. They forbade Chatvortinsky to occupy the lake, build a swage canal and block the road to the Jewish cemetery.
According to the survey for the registration of the royal estates conducted in 1522, there were 33 Jewish houses (heads of families) in Lutsk. As is customary in Polish historiography, which was determined by the historians Jablonowski, Kurzon and Kilchinsky, at least five people were counted in each house. Therefore, on that year there were at least 160 to 170 Jews in Lutsk. The number of Karaites in that year was 27 houses, meaning 135 people.
On 30 July 1556, King Sigismund Augustus ruled in a special regulation, that the Jews and the Karaites of Lutsk are exempt from paying customs in all of Wolyn, both on land roads and waterways, and free trade at the Lutsk fairs. From the lease of taverns around the city, from participating in the revenues from the courts of the fairs like the Catholic townspeople and the Greek-Catholic because the word Jews was accidentally omitted in the municipal privileges.
On 25 July 1563, the Jews of Lutsk had to pay 400 Shak groszy as their share of the general taxes imposed on the
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communities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, the matter of the addition was not settled and on August 16 1563, the Jews of Lutsk, together with the townspeople, refused to pay the taxes for the benefit of the treasury on the grounds that the Jews of Ludmir demand that they pay the tax within their community. A conflict also broke out with the authorities due to the non-payment of 3,000 Shak groszy that was required in 1569 from all the communities in Wolyn for the needs of the state's defense. They demanded from the community to pay the entire amount imposed on the Wolyn communities, but the community refused to do so. The community leaders claimed that since they had already paid the poll tax (at the amount of 15 groszy per head) the Jews are exempted from paying the rest of the taxes.
The treasury emissary, Semyon Yovanovitch, who came from Nowogrod to collect the money, did not acknowledge the community's claims. He brutally imprisoned its leaders, closed the synagogue and put a seal on its gate and all the Jewish homes. Lutsk Jews immediately turned, with the intercession of Shlomo ben Levi, to the king. On 1 May1569, the king ordered the Starosta, Prince Kadecki, to free the community leaders and to remove the seals from the synagogue and the private houses. The year 1569 brought, from a political-administrative point of view, fundamental changes in the structure of the Polish Kingdom The declaration of the unification of Lithuania with Poland into one kingdom also caused a change in the status of Wolyn.
On 25 May 1569, King Sigismund Augustus announced the annexation of Wolyn to Poland and Lutsk became a royal city. On 23 June, the representatives of Lutsk Jews, who were arrested in May in connection with the payment of taxes and released by the order of the king, Pluzka, Eliya, Moshko, Shaike and Mordechai, and the Karaites representatives: Batko Yehoshua, Missin, Shanko and Wolczko, swore an oath of allegiance to the King of Poland. On that year, the year of Poland-Lithuania unification, conflicts and clashes began between the Jews and the townspeople who did not agree that the Jews would enjoy equal rights. The Christian craftsmen associations started the struggle with complaints against the Jews that they are undermining their economic existence. Against their complaints, the Jews pointed to the regulation from 1544, given by Queen Bona, in which the Jews were allowed to conduct free trade in shoes and leather on fair days in two shacks in the city square.
Apparently, there was a danger that this conflict would turn into serious trouble, and to calm the population the Sejmik in Lublin appointed Commissar Mikoaj Malahovski, the king's secretary and the courtier Stanislaw Karczewski, to settle the matter. They came to Lutsk, investigated and ruled in their report that the Jews are allowed to keep three shops in the city center, and the townspeople are not allowed to take more from the Jews for the needs of the town than is applicable to them and they are not allowed to collect taxes from them for the defense of the city without their consent. The Jews are allowed to purchase real estate and moveable property, to lease the city's revenues, participate in the determination of the municipal budget and the inspection of the city's accounts. To cover the municipal levies it is necessary to include the Jews according to their number. On April 24, 1570, the king issued a document, based on a ruling, in which it was declared that the Jews and Karaites of Lutsk have equal rights with the city's residents.
The document said:
“They showed us the privilege of the Jews of Lutsk, according to which they already enjoyed the same rights as the citizens of Lutsk during the rule of the Duchy of Lithuania, that is, they are exempt from paying customs duties in the Duchy of Lithuania on the grounds that all obligations are imposed on them jointly with the citizens. We keep these rights valid as they were awarded at the last Sejm in Lublin. This freedom is also for the citizens of the Kingdom of Poland. We thought, at the initiative of several gentlemen, that it would also be appropriate to grant it to the Jews of Lutsk who fulfill all the obligations together with the citizens, and in our document we grant the same freedom to the Jews and the Karaites.”
The residents, for their part, pledged not to demand from the Jews more than what is due to them based on the privileges and the documents. The Jews will enjoy all the rights related to the freedom of residence in Lutsk, but they must fulfill all the obligations regarding the city. Taxes and levies will not be imposed on them without their consent, and they were also guaranteed the right to audit the city's expenses.
However, this promise only remained on paper since nothing was done to fulfill it. Although the struggle was stopped for a short time, it broke out again in the 17th century.
With the annexation of Wolyn to Poland also came a change in the area of the Jews jurisdiction which was adapted to the conditions of Poland. On 9 August 1569, the king granted in his document to the Voivode of Wolyn, Alexander Czartoryski, and his successors the jurisdiction on the Jews of Lutsk, Ludmir and Kremenets.
In 1569, a new chapter began in the life of the Jewish settlement in Lutsk which lasted until 1795 - but it was much different from the one during the Lithuanian rule.
1. The economic situation
The annexation of Wolyn to Poland brought the Jews of Lutsk a period of economic stability and constitutionality and with it prosperity - but only for about 80 years, until the holocaust of the Decrees of 5408-5409 [1648-1649].
According to the request of the two communities, the Jewish and the Karaite who complained before King Stefan Batory (1575-1588) that despite the privileges granted to them they were suffering from injustice, hardships and difficulties, by various officials. Stefan Batory found it necessary (on 1 December 1576) to fulfill the Jews request to preserve for them a number of regulations and privileges in the Polish laws that they enjoyed in the Duchy of Lithuania, they, the Jews of the king's cities and the cities of the princes and nobles in Wolyn, and to order all the government officials in charge of the Jews:
According to this privilege, Lutsk Jews were released from the Starosta's rule and placed under the jurisdiction of the Voivode of Wolyn. Matters between the Jews remained under the authority of the Rabbinical Court.
In 1579, Lutsk Jews were allowed to trade in the city like the rest of the population[i]. In 1600, King Sigismund III gave them permission to live in the city without any disturbance in the area of the streets surrounded by the river, and there the Jews neighborhood was established. He gave them the arsenal building that Witold built in 1380 for the establishment of the synagogue. At the time of their first settlement in the village of Zhydychyn, the Jews had a wooden synagogue. The cemetery was shared by the Jews and the Karaites who lived in the village of Krasne.
On May 5, 1626, the king granted them the right to build a new synagogue on the site of the old synagogue. The building had to be built of stone and bricks, at the same size and height as the previous building, providing that on second floor it will be possible to place guns in all four directions for protection against enemies. The Jews also had to purchase, at their own expense, a cannon worthy of its name. In the event of an enemy invasion they must provide as many people as necessary for defense according to the need together with the city's residents. Starosta Yaronim Charlinsky and his successors, as well as the municipality of Lutsk, are ordered not to disturb the Jews and to carry out everything mentioned in the privileges on the condition that the Jews also fulfill everything that is assigned to them.
According to this privilege the Jews approached the building of the fortress synagogue. The construction lasted two years.
A short time before the completion of the building, the Dominicans protested on the grounds that the synagogue was built against the decisions of the council of the Catholic Church and it is too close to the church.
On 5 August 1628, the king issued an order to allow the Jews to finish the building in the spirit of the privilege of 5 May 1626. He rejected the Dominicans claim that the synagogue is too close to the church: “The mentioned synagogue is at such a distance that it does not interfere with the church of the Dominican Fathers, it is needed for the defense of the city (Lutsk) and, therefore, I (the king) allow them (the Jews) to build and finish the Synagogue on the condition that they will fulfill all the obligations of the residence permit of 5 May 1626.” At the end of the document the king orders not to interfere with the Jews of Lutsk in the construction of the synagogue. Despite this order, the municipality filed a lawsuit against the Jews on the claim that they were building the synagogues and their houses on royal lots without a legal foundation and to the detriment of the city. They also argued that the two other wooden synagogues (of the Jews and the Karaites) stand against the law.
The Jews lost the trial. On 22 April 1629, two years after the king ordered not to interfere with the Jews in the completion of the synagogue building, he gave his notary, Banderman, a special privilege as a permanent grant, two wooden synagogues of the Jews and Karaites, houses and two orchards near their cemetery, on the grounds that they built them without the king's permission and did not pay the value of the plots and the tax on them. The Starosta, Yaronim Charlinsky, was tasked with issuing the grant certificate.
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The grant was not implemented because the Jews managed to hold the synagogues without the municipality filing an appeal against it. The synagogue was built in the form of a fortress according to the terms of the privilege from 5 May 1626. It was built in the Italian-Polish Renaissance style. The vault in front of one column is nicely connected. On the flat roof they built a roof with a railing and in it shooting holes. In another wing they built a tower in the shape of a corner post. In days of peace this tower served as the community's prison. The synagogue was inaugurated in 1628.
During the period under discussion, Lutsk Jews played effective roles in the economic life, and showed exceptional agility and initiative among the Jewish merchants transporting goods from the east. They were actually the rulers of the commercial road from Kiev to Belarus. In addition, the customs lessees owned the customs stations in Lutsk and other cities. The lessees: Lavanovich, Danielewic, Avraham Sachanowicz, Nissan Kojets, Moshewic, Michael Jozefowic, David Shmergalewic, Moshko Polakowic and Yitzchak Brodavka - both from Brisk, Mandel Isacowic and Lipman Schmerlowic - concentrated in their hands the arteries of transportation and trade outside the city of Lutsk.
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Several affluent and rich Jews moved from Lutsk to Brody and bought houses there.
In Lutsk they were the lessees of the provinces, taverns, breweries, merchants of wine imported from Hungary, potash and ash incinerators, and also the trade in timber and agricultural products was in their hands. Therefore, it is no wonder that the author, Sebastian Miczynski, wrote in his venomous anti-Semitic bookt Zwierciadło Korony Polskiej [“The Mirror of the Polish Crown”] (Krakow 1618), that in the hands of the Jews, besides the cities of Krakow, Vilna, Mogilev, Slutsk and Brisk de Lita - is also Lutsk.
There was no city in Poland where Jewish merchants from Lutsk were not found at the fairs. They traveled to fairs in Belarus, in central and even western Poland. They brought furs, wax, and also Lithuanian textiles. They were known in Poznan and Lublin where they had been visiting in the years 1530-1531. The Jewish commerce especially grew after the granting of the privilege in 1576, in which the Jews were allowed to conduct trade throughout Poland and retail trade in the royal cities. Also in crafts, especially in tailoring and furriery, there was an increase in the number of Jewish craftsmen who engaged in selling their products at fairs and around the city. This matter caused a rather difficult struggle with the Christian Craftsmen Associations, who objected that the local Jews would also engage in trade and demanded the fulfillment of the privileges in which their rights were guaranteed. With the granting of the freedom of trade and crafts in Bathory's privilege of 1569, conflicts broke out due to the deterioration of mutual relations and the townspeople fear of the Jewish competitors. The townspeople struggle with the Jews already began in 1561 when mayor and his advisers filed a complaint on 28 October on behalf of all the townspeople against the clerks of the Jewish lessee Asko Shlomitz - Peretz Lezerwich and Shimon Plamenik. They claimed that they collect, contrary to the privileges of the city's residents high taxes for the right to sell liquor, a matter, according to the complaint, keeps away the visitors to the fairs and depletes the city's residents. All this created tensions and increased the opposition that even reached the cases of violence. On 17 March 1566, the townspeople attacked the king's estate, seized the Jew Shmuel Gobchitza of Lutsk, dragged him to Lutsk and killed him there.
The tension between the city's residents and the Jews was also highlighted by the commissioners who, in 1569, announced the existence of conflicts between the Jews and the townspeople.
Disputes with lessees were not uncommon in that period. In 1583, the head of the monastery, Perzistan Matpei, complained that the Lutsker lessee, Yeshayahu Mebrest, attacked the monastery and extorted 50 Lithuanian Shak groszy, 100 gold coins and 20 quarts of brandy.
According to the notice of Leib ben Yisrael and Eliyahu ben Avraham, which was recorded in the grad book, the citizen Valerian Laski and his assistant attacked when the funeral of the Jew, Leib ben Yitzchak, approached the suburb and announce that he would not allow them pass to the cemetery until they paid him because the cemetery is his property.
The head of the church, Lempicki, to whom the Jews turned, gave Laski an order to leave the Jews alone, but the latter, at the head of an armed crowd, scattered the Jews and threw the corpse into a pit. Many of the Jews were beaten and wounded, many were robbed and a silver belt was taken from a Jewish woman.
The aforementioned cases are only trivial episodes. The main struggle began in 1637 when the townspeople, and the craftsmen's associations, filed a complaint against the community leader Yakov, son-in-law of Gitel and Yisrael from Krakow, and also on the rest of the Jews and Karaites in Lutsk that a number of Jews produce brandy and refuse to pay the city treasury. They claimed that they are subject to the Starosta's jurisdiction because they built a number of houses on the city's lots, and some released many houses under the municipal jurisdiction. Others built six breweries on the embankments and destroyed the city's defensive walls. They take public revenue on lease, go outside the city towards Jewish brandy merchants and bring the brandy into the city under their names. Many insult the municipality and do not consider the rights of the city. The damage that Jews bring to the city amounts to 10,000 zloty. In addition to these complaints, they also complained about the illegal and excessive levies of the Jewish customs officials and their collectors. They especially complained about the revenue lessee, Lemel son of Yehudah, who collects 8.5 groszy from each wagon that comes to the city to the fair and 20 groszy from every barrel. The Jews are getting rich off the Christians and causing them damages. The municipality also filed a claim for damages in this matter in the amount of 4,000 zloty.
The Jews responded to this complaint with a counter-complaint and this struggle that was accompanied by confrontations, quarrels and confiscation of merchandise, continued until 1648.
The fact that the economic situation of the Jews continued to prosper increased the tension and the townspeople's attitude towards them worsened. The incident in 1647 is typical to the anti-Jewish atmosphere that prevailed on the eve of the years 5408-5409 [1648-1649]. The priest, Lemont Ivanovich, preached not to buy meat from the Jews because they want to poison the Christians. The community of Lutsk filed a lawsuit against him and the priest was sentenced to a fine of 30 zloty. Close to the events of the year 5408, 84 Jewish houses (families) with 420 people were counted in Lutsk.
The community expanded and grew in institutions. Several rich Jews settled there[j]. In the 30s of the 17th century, Yakov, son-in-law of the philanthropist Gitel and Yakov of Krakow stood at the head of the community and the hard struggle with the townspeople was imposed on him.
With the growth of the Jewish settlement also grew the number of Jewish craftsmen. At first, they supplied the consumption of the Jewish consumers, especially the tailors, furriers, bakers and butchers, but in the course of time the scope of their operation expanded and they also produced for the non-Jewish consumers. In the 16th century, Lutsker tailors and furriers worked for the nearby towns and also for the inhabitants of the villages.
According to Witold's privilege, the Jews were allowed to engage in all trades, and from this we know that the trade played a significant role in the economic life of the Jews in Lithuania. A hard struggle took place between Jews and Christians against the background of this competition but the Jewish craftsmen came out as winners.
In 1539, the Jewish tailors and furriers in Lutsk reached an agreement with the
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craftsmen's associations (Cechy) which gave them broad rights. However, out of fear that the Jews would enter the Christian associations, they tried and obtained in 1546 a privilege from King Sigismund Augustus, in which it was specifically stipulated that the Jews will not be able to penetrate the Christian craftsmen associations.
In 1629, Jewish craftsmen in Lithuania were freed, according to a royal privilege, from the obligation to be subject to Christian craftsmen associations (Cechy), and this in contrast to the royal privilege held by the Christian associations according to which all the craftsmen were subject to the judgment of the associations and also obliged to pay them payments. This situation forced the Jewish craftsmen to found their own companies and, at the beginning of the 17th century, they founded associations of tailors, furriers and butchers.
The Jewish craftsmen were fully aware of the importance of their occupation, “because a man who enjoys the labor of his hands is more important in God's eyes than a God-fearing man.” Out of the need to protect their interests the Jewish craftsmen established their associations, because “the hand of the nations was against us, that is, under the distress of Cechy” - was clearly stated in the regulations of the Association of Jewish tailors in Lutsk. “And it was hard for us to make a living because of the magnitude of the difficult decrees that they impose on us. Every day they want to destroy us until God poured out His spirit from above into the heart of our honest ministers and we obtained from Him a privilege that brought us out of slavery to freedom - - - and if it was not written, it is worth writing, that anyone who wants to work as a tailor or a worker, must give the value of the aforementioned expenses. And it was agreed that anyone who wants to engage in the aforementioned craft, and will not agree with the association to be one of us, will give the association the amount of four zloty until he agrees with the association to be one of its members.”
Like the Christian craftsmen associations, every Jewish craftsman had to join his association if he wanted to engage in his craft.
The major changes in the economic structure of Poland in general, and of the Jews in particular, which came after the Decrees of 5408-5409 and were highlighted in the founding of private cities in Eastern Poland where the Jews were the merchants and craftsmen - were not left without considerable influence also in the royal cities.
The craftsmen established themselves in their associations, and guarded their interests through the privileges they managed to get from the king. In some privileges, which allowed the founding of craftsmen's associations (Cechy), the Jews will be able to join them with the rest of the craftsmen, and there were also privileges that ordered the Jews to organize their own association. In Lutsk, the Jews tried to be accepted to the Cechy despite the opposition of the association. This is evidenced by the manifest of the association of tailors and furriers which says - by the order of King Sigismund Augustus in 1546 - “The Jews will not break into this association only the Christians alone.”
The tailors and the furriers had the overwhelming majority in the professional structure of the craftsmen in Lutsk. After them came the butchers and the bakers. By the end of the 18th century, there were almost no shoemakers, carpenters, builders, blacksmiths and traders.
From the regulations of the tailors association in Lutsk from 1721, which was probably the organizational framework for the association founded in the 17th century, we learn about the organizational-legal side and the mutual relations among the members of the association.
The tailors association in Lutsk consisted of tailors and furriers[k]. “An individual who wants to be accepted as a member of must come before the seven (seven administrators) and. first of all to give “a small advance.” Against the custom that every craftsman kept more workers than he could afford - a matter that only caused damage - a special arrangement was set up according to which a craftsman with a capital of 150 zloty is allowed to keep two laborers and an apprentice, “and whoever doesn't have the aforementioned amount must not have workers.” It was forbidden to accept work and take it out of the house to another craftsman, “either for a week or for a piece,” but it was allowed to hire a laborer for at least a quarter of a year. The matter of possession was also determined. A member, who moves to another place and wants to keep his right of possession in Lutsk, if he will go back there - he must continue to pay the “membership fee.”The association leased the income for a year. If a lessee is found - everything was arranged according to the monthly leader and the administrators' lists.
All disputes and quarrels came for judgment before the seven, and if one “wanted to bring his trial before the congregation, with the addition of the honorable rabbi, the president of the court - he is allowed to do, so but he has to give four zloty to the association's treasury.
In matters of monetary law, all the members of the association are subject to the judgment of the rabbi and the judges as “the rest of the community members.”
At the head of the association stood seven administrators, of them managed, in turn, the association's business as the monthly manager. The monthly manager was obligated to deliver to the trustees a report of all incomes and expenses. The administrator is forbidden to “make more than one zloty at a time, only with the knowledge of the majority of the seven” (P.S. a mitzvah meal, circumcision or a wedding, not to pay more than one zloty) even if all seven will be there” (section 26).
“The workers who will hire themselves are obliged to come with the homeowner at the time of hiring and write down all the details of the hire in the registry.” The landlord is obligated to pay the hiring fees every quarter of a year and to record the “amount of hiring” in the association's registry. It was forbidden to give rent more than forty zlotys, and whoever violated this prohibition was fined by the seven with a huge fine.
The association warned its members not to waste money on hiring workers and not on additions, because such matters cause of fights and quarrels.
In sections 10-14 and 29, the “order of nominating” was determined, meaning, the election of the association's management. The seven gathered before the ballot box. At the polling place, they collected the remaining weekly fees and advance payment. Instead of money they were allowed to receive a pledge. The election was held every year on the intermediate days of Passover, according to the order of order of the election of the leaders. They made three polling stations: a) for tailors, b) for furriers, c) for the outsiders[l].
At first, they took two ballots from the tailors, one from the furriers' ballot box and also one from outsiders' ballot box. All the ballots from the ballot boxes were thrown into one ballot box, and one ballot was taken from each ballot box and these four are the arbitrators. The four arbitrators gathered in a special room and did not leave until they finished and chose seven, and they, for their part, chose four administrators, three collectors, two trustees and three additional members, and they are allowed to add and one to the head (leader).
The composition of the elected was as such: two administrators from among the tailors, one from the furriers, the fourth they were allowed to appointed from the tailors or from the outsiders who belonged to the association. If the fourth administrator is
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from the outsiders, then they will nominate two collectors from the tailors and one from the furriers. If the fourth administrator is chosen from among the tailors, then one of the outsiders will be chosen as a collector. The condition was that from among the tailors, who were the majority in the association, two administrator s and two collectors, and no more than three collectors should be chosen.
It was forbidden to choose an arbitrator for the position of the seven, but he may be chosen as a trustee or an addition.
One of the association's main goals was to ensure that its members will not violate the shatnez[6] prohibition. For this purpose, a special arrangement was established in the regulations regarding the purchase of hemp threads to prevent the shatnez prohibition. In agreement with the leaders and the rabbi of the community, it was decided that every year - after Rosh Hashanah and Ten Days of Repentance - they would place a certain man “that almost everyone will testify and say that he is a kosher and honest man, who will be in the possession of hemp yarn that he purchased from a Jew who spun it with his own hands.” Every tailor is obliged to buy the hemp threads only from him. Whoever buys from another will be removed from his craft: “To push and shove him until he will be held accountable.” A tailor, who is not a member of the association, will be brought “before the leaders' table with the honorable rabbis” and he must be punished.
Every year, a boycott must be announced at the Great Synagogue so that they would not buy hemp yarn from the man who will lease them. Also the fabric for the lining must be kosher. The director of the association must effectively supervise that all this is carried out in the spirit of the regulations, that its first section is the issue of the shatnez prohibition, a proof that the tailors' association stood for the preservation of religion, its laws and customs.
According to “ancient regulations” each member of the society must contribute on every Sabbath eve one groszy for tzedaka [charity] and two groszy on every eve of Rosh Chodesh [Head of the Month] for the association's services. The administrators must collect in all kinds of compulsions and approaches from those who did not pay off the half before Passover (section 2).
The regulations include severe regulations regarding trespassing and set a huge fine and other punishments for the member of the association who will compete with his fellow member. Apart from that, he must give all the wages he received to the first craftsman. In cases where it is proven that the tailor was forced to go and repair, then he is exempted from fines and has to pay half of his wages to the first craftsman (section 4). Since in this period “new outlaws have recently arrived”- and they are in effect apprentices who engage in their own work and deprive the livelihood of homeowners who pay taxes and property tax. It was ruled that “no craftsman is allowed to engage in the tailors' work or the furriers, unless they come before the seven. The administrators must force them and pursue them until they come before the seven and fulfill what came out of the mouth of the seven…”(section 5).
Members of the tailors and furriers association must pray daily in public, but it was not easy for them and for that reason they waged a hard struggle to get a place in the synagogue, and therefore, “we stood up and demanded to have a special place in our house of prayer, to do and fulfill that everyone in our association is obliged to go to Beit HaMidrash to pray in public in the morning and in the evening and, whoever doesn't go, is obliged to give a ransom”(section 6).
On the Shabbat and holidays, when everyone is free from work and craft, “these days were set for us to hold congregational meetings and to ask and preach in public on current affairs, to know wisdom and morality, and that's why we took on ourselves that each member of our association will go to hear a lesson on the Shabbat and on a holiday, to listen so that His name will live within us and in our souls” (section 7).
On the Shabbat, and on the holidays, they prayed at the Great Synagogue and after the Torah scrolls were taken out they went to the association's small synagogue to “read” the seven portions [of the Torah] on every Shabbat and no more.
The association had its own preacher and he received Shlishi [the third person called to the reading of the Torah].
The well-known rabbis of this period were:
1. The constitutional and the economic situation
In 1648, before the Cossack attacks, 84 Jewish houses (heads of families) were counted in Lutsk, meaning, that the Jewish population before the Decrees of 5408-5409 was 420 people.
When the holocaust of 5408 befell Wolyn, Lutsk suffered no less than the other Jewish settlements. The situation worsened especially after the battles near Konstantin [Konstantynow] where the Polish army, under the command of Hetman Jarmi Vishnevetsky, was forced to retreat and all of Eastern Wolyn fell into the hands of the Cossack gangs. Their companies, under the command of Maksym Kryvonis and Dejagd Bili, raged throughout Wolyn.
Khmelnytsky's gangs attacked Wolyn with great force, and everywhere they set foot they killed and slaughtered the Jews. On 22 August 1648, they entered Lutsk from Olyka, and so tells R' Shmuel Feibush ben R' Nathan Fidel of Vienna in his chronicle, Tit Hayavan [“Place of Suffering”]: “(Khmelnitsky) went to
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the Holy Community of Lutsk, and there two hundred very rich homeowners, and there was a president of the court and his name R' Man (Menachem?) who was great in wisdom, and almost all of them were killed.”
Also, according to the author of Yeven Mezulah[8], 200 Jews were killed in Lutsk and among them R' Menachem.
The Karaites, whom the Cossacks saw as Jews, were murdered with the Jews. Aharon the cantor of the Karaite community in Lutsk wrote in his memoire (the manuscript is in a library in Petersburg) about the killing in Lutsk and Derazhnya:
”And these are the names of the members of our community who were murdered by the cursed gentiles who buried them in the forest in the village of Kutov that we know of… And now I will record the memory of the souls of the members of our community who are buried in the graves of the city of Derazhnya where they lived before, for our many sins they were murdered and the rest were exiled by the cursed wicked Khmelnytsky, no one knows who lies in the aforementioned graves, only bundles of writings from the holy community's memoirs were found and from them I was able to copy them.”
The Catholic priest from Lwow, Tomáš Józefowicz, wrote in his diary from the years 1634-1690 (Kronika Lwowa), that the Cossacks slaughtered all the inhabitants of Lutsk, without distinction.
From the survey conducted 1650 we learn to what extent the Jewish settlement was destroyed. From 84 Jewish families only 29 remained, and only 3 Karaite families.
The wounds of the holocaust had not yet healed, the signs of devastation were still visible everywhere, and the community leaders turned to King Jan Kazimierz with a request to confirm the summary of the privilages of the Jews of Lutsk.
On 6 August 1649, the king signed the certificat comsisting on seven documents in the following chronological order:
Apart from the destruction by Khmelnytsky's gangs, Lutsk Jews also suffered after 1648 from the attacks of Polish and foreign armies that passed through Lutsk. In particular, the commerce and Jewish homes were destroyed due to providing of housing for the soldiers which continued until 1656. In 1653, In connection with this suffering, the Jews complained about the unjust distribution of accommodation to the soldiers by the municipality.
Together with that they asked the Starosta's administrator to allow them - due to their economic depletion and the shortage of shoemakers who died in the epidemic that broke out in those years - to produce shoes in the city and trade in them. The administrator granted their request, but the Christian craftsmen opposed this and demanded that he maintain the privilege of the tailors and furriers association, according to which the local Jews are forbidden to trade to the detriment of the craftsmen. Also the association of butchers and shoemakers claimed that, according to their privileges, the Jews are forbidden to bring in skins and shoes from other cities. They are only allowed to keep two stores and sell shoes in them.
Despite the difficult struggle with the townspeople and the craftsmen, the Jews held a position in the economic life. The Jewish craftsmen acquired customers from among the Christian population, and Christian apprentices preferred to work for the Jewish craftsmen. This is the reason why the Sejmik in Wolyn decided on 3 December1680, in its seat in Lutsk, to quadruple the poll tax to prevent the apprentices - men and women - from willingly going to work for the Jews since they pay a higher wage. This caused a shortage of apprentices for the townspeople.
The struggle with the townspeople also did not stop in other areas. They put the entire burden of the city's expenses on the Jews and directed the armies passing through Lutsk precisely to the Jewish quarter - a matter that led to the oppression of the Jews.
On this background a conflict broke out in 1656. At the request of the leaders of the Jews and the Karaites, the Starosta's emissaries in Lutsk, Szczesny, Zbozny, Laszczewski, Jerzy, Godlewski, issued on 20 June an order to Lutsk's governor not to allow the oppression of the Jews. The leaders the Jewish and Karaite communities also filed a complaint about the violation of royal privileges by the municipality which demands from the Jews and Karaites - in contrast to those privileges - the payment of half of all taxes and the levies. Due to this complaint, the administrator, Zdzisław Pamoyski, in the absence of the Starosta, Dmitri Jerzy Korybut, issued a ruling that Jews and Kararites must pay not half, but a third of all the taxes, levies and the city expenses, since they are only a third of the population[n].
On 14, September 1656, King Jan Kazimierz approved the document regarding the permit to trade in leather and shoes, as well as tax relief. In the survey of the years 1660-1663, there were only 40 Jewish and Karaite families. The number of the Jewish and Karaite population reached 200. In the city the Jews rented 19 shops from the municipality for which they paid close to 15 zloty. The Jews submitted all their privileges to the reviewers and received the approval. On this occasion, they submitted their complaints about the municipality regarding the accommodation of soldiers, the audit of the city's accounts and the right of ownership of three shops in the city center. The reviewers acknowledged their claims and ruled:
a) The Jews only have to pay one third of the municipal levies; b) they were allowed to see and audit the city's accounts; c) they are allowed to have three stores in the city center; d) to reimburse them for the expenses of keeping 60 Cossacks' horses in 1661 that the municipality refused to pay them.
The economic situation of the Jews has not improved yet, as can be learned from the decision of the Sejmik on 30 January 30 1662, according to which no taxes should be collected from the Jews, except for the beverage tax.
The Jewish population did not reach its size before 1648. The growth process in the second half of the 17th century progressed slowly, and in the years 1677-1679 there was a change in this situation. The number of Jews was 193 and the number of Karaites - 16. There were 6 Jews and Karaites in Derazhnya.
The difficulties and struggle among the townspeople, and especially with the craftsmen associations, did not prevent the Jews of Lutsk from grasping their positions in the economy. Each one on both sides - the townspeople and the Jews- came with complains
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before the palace. We find that on 15 May 1676, the community representatives: Yehudah Novakovic, Avraham Yudovich, Lamel Yusovitch, Lazer Yudovich, Melch Yekutiel Yudovich, Shmuel Gelikovitsch, Yosef Moskowitz, and Mark Jakubowitz filed a strong complaint against the townspeople[o].
Except for the customs lease and kingdom's revenues, almost all trade in agricultural products, cattle and horses, was in their hands. They also sold the products of the Christian craftsmen, tailors, shoemakers, tailors, weavers, furriers, and hatters that Lutsk's merchants brought to fairs.
A considerable number of Jews engaged in crafts. During this period there were in Lutsk, apart from the association of tailors and furriers, also associations of other Jewish craftsmen and they are: weavers, butchers, craftsmen who also engaged in the trade of their products, and here is the main cause of conflicts with the Christian craftsmen associations.
Already before the Decrees of 5408-5409, the State of Wolyn “was always blessed with Torah, wisdom and generosity like all other countries in the State of Poland. And the four main communities, Ludmir Ostroh and Kremenets were well known. Lutsk has always been a home for great yeshiva scholars and world geniuses who served there in the rabbinate from the first to the last time. They also had a private meeting place, independent like in the rest of the countries of Poland, and it was called by the name, the Council of Leaders of the Communities of the Wolyn District[p].”
Even though there was no Chief Rabbi in Wolyn like the rabbis of Krakow, Poznan, and Lwow - and the rabbis from the four main communities in Wolyn were not subordinate to each other. Nevertheless, Ludmir was always considered to be the main community in the aforementioned four main communities, as we are told by R' Yom Tov Lipmann Heller in the book Megilat Eivah [“Scroll of Hostility”]. Later, Ostroh became the main community in the Wolyn region.
In contrast to the autonomous organization in other regions of Poland, which consisted of a community, the Region Committee (the state), and the Council of Four Lands[9]. The organization in Wolyn was formed in four institutions - a community, small communities that were not included in the Regional Committee but were directly subordinated to large communities, the Region Committee, was represented by large communities and they are Ostroh, Ludmir, Kremenets and Lutsk, the Council of Four Lands. In the course of time, there were changes in the subordination of the small communities to the large ones. Some were released from their dependence, declared as independent communities and registered in a special sheet for the poll tax.
During the 17th century the large communities maintained, together with the communities subordinate to them, their own Regional Committees.
Next to these communities was Lutsk which had the privilege of occupying an important place in the Wolyn State Council. Unlike the other communities, which established their own committees together with the communities affiliated to them, Lutsk remained, even though several communities were also affiliated to it, within the State of Wolyn and maintained its stability.
Of the gatherings of the Wolyn State Council, to which commissars were sent on the behalf of the king, the gathering in Horokhiv in 1700 is particularly well known. In this gathering, the conflicts between the large and small communities were discussed and settled, in 1703 in Olyka and later, in 1720, in Berestechko and Kozin, in 1758 in Rakhmanov in the matter of the expenses for the trustees of the Wolyn region in the matters of the Jews in Ostroh and Lutsk, and the settlement of region's debts in 1758 in Korets.
In 1703, Lutsk, together with the rest of the communities in Wolyn, complained about the chief scribe and the leaders of the Council of Four Lands that they don't convene the State Council in Olyka. The communities of Olyka, Lutsk, Ludmir, Kremenets and Ostroh, who also established “the Wolyn State Council, have in their hands the privilege granted by the kings of Poland according to which the State Council was founded in Olyka with an order to convene there, every three years, the leaders of all the communities for consultation on public affairs.”
In 1687, R' Tzvi Hirsch of Lutsk participated, together with the representatives of Wolyn, in the distribution of taxes that took place at the gathering of the Council of Four Lands.
Even though the communities in the State Council did not allow sending the delegates or the rabbis of Lutsk to the sessions of the Council of Four Lands, in the years 1751-1640 Lutsk's leaders participated in a number of the council's sessions. Lutsk's leaders participated in the gathering of the main communities in the Wolyn region, which was summoned by HaGaon R' Yom Tov Lipmann Heller in the matter of buying appointments for rabbis and community leaders. The war on the practice of buying an appointment for a rabbi, which spread during this period to almost all the communities, and against the exploitation of the connections with the authorities to appoint rabbis and leaders was submitted by HaGaon R' Yom Tov Lipmann Heller, who served in 1634-1637 as a rabbi in Ludmir, to the Wolyn State Council and the Council of Four Lands: “On 18 Iyar, the leaders of the four community in the Wolyn region, Ludmir, Ostroh, Kremenets and Lutsk, gathered in the Holy Community of Vishnevets in the Lutsk region. Also there we, the heads of the yeshivot in the four communities, met with the representatives of the heads of states and renewed regulations before the Council of Four Lands, the communities and the audience in the meeting, may God protect and preserve them.”
This gathering was caused by the appointment-by-purchase of the rich man, R' Yuzel, as head of a yeshiva and president of the court in Lokachi, a town which was affiliated to the community of Ludmir. R' Yom Tov Lipmann Heller started an open war against this appointment. A boycott was declared at the gathering of the Council of Four Lands in Lublin at the Kremenets fair, and later in all the communities, and the leaders of Lokachi were required to fire R' Yuzel. As a result of this war the people of R' Yuzel decided to influence the region's communities in his favor. Under their influence, the communities of Kremenets, Ostroh, and Lutsk turned in the month of Av1640, each separately, in a hate letter to the community of Ludmir in the matter of R' Yuzel and the opposition of R' Heller. In their letters, they emphasized that R' Yuzel claims that R' Heller treats him with hatred and therefore he cannot discuss his case.
The opinion of the Lutsk community was that R' Yuzel should not be fired immediately, but he should be allow to serve in the rabbinate for another six months in order to silence the quarrel. The leaders of the communities, Lutsk included, agreed - contrary to the decision of the region committee - “to complete R' Yuzel rabbinate period to half a year.” R' Heller answered this letter harshly and with great contentment informed, that in 6 Kislev 5401 (20 November 1640), twenty people gathered in the Holy Community of Lokachi and appointed another rabbi, and he is R' Shlomo ben R' Nathan Nata Spira of Krakow president of the court of Sandomierz.
In 1700, at the gathering in Horokhiv the distribution of poll tax to Lutsk, and the communities affiliated to it, was set to the amount of 4,405 zloty. In 1717, the community of Lutsk, together with
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settlements affiliated to it, paid poll tax at the amount of 3,533 zloty. In 1719 the sum of 865 zloty and 20 groszy was imposed on the community of Lutsk and its branches, except for the amount of 865 and 20 groszy for Klevan, and 180 zloty for the Karaites in Lutsk. It was signed by the leaders of Lutsk: Shmael (Shmerel?) ben Baruch, David ben Yosef Kapil, David ben Yitzchak, Zvil Hirsch ben Shlomo, Gershon, and Moshe “the representative from our community and the region.”
In the distribution of 1722, which was set on 24 Menachem Av 5481[17 August 1721] , a sum of 3,041 zloty was imposed on Lutsk and the region, of which 412 zloty to the community of Lutsk and 80 zloty to the Karaites. The poll tax list was signed by the leaders of the Holy Community of Lutsk: Yosef ben Moshe, David ben Yosef Kapil and David ben Yitzchak.
In 1723, Lutsk with the branches paid 1,067 zloty and 23 groszy, and in 1724 - 3,757 zloty. This distribution was signed by David ben Yosef Kapil who also signed in 1719 and 1722, and Yosef HaCohen Rapaport.
In 1728, all of Wolyn had to pay 27,219 zloty, and of that Lutsk and its branches paid 4,244 zloty. In 1730, the sum of 31,860 zloty for1732 was set for all of Wolyn, of which 3,587 zloty for Lutsk and its branches. Avraham Heshni of Krakow signed the tax distribution sheet. The division for the year 1733 was signed by David ben Yitzchak, who was known to us from the divisions of 1719 and 1722, and Yosef ben Shlomo Kilchinsky. In 1735, the division was set at the gathering held in Torhovytsia on 8 Elul 5495 [26 August 1735], and it was signed by the representatives: Chaim ben Moshe, Yakov ben Moshe and Yokel ben Moshe (both signed in Polish - Chaim Moszkowicz, Jukiel Moszkowicz).
The distribution for the year 1737 was signed by Shemaiah ben Baruch and Moshe ben Akivah (both signed in Polish - Moszko Burychowicz, Moszko Kiwowicz). For the 1738, a total of 4,546 zloty was assigned to Lutsk with the branches, and the Karaites in Lutsk - 240 zloty.
However, in the document, signed by Chaim ben Moshe and Yokel ben Moshe, who were known from the gathering in Torhovytsia in 1735, Shimon ben Nissan (Nisinowicz) Neta(?) son of Chaim (Chaimowicz) - the sum of 4,104 zloty was imposed on Lutsk and its branches, and to the Karaites - 130 zloty.
In regards to the distribution of the poll tax for the years 1762/63 and 1763/64, a dispute broke out in the matter of the expense account submitted by the leader of the Council of Four Lands, R' Meir ben Yoel of Dubno. This matter was brought up for discussion before “the twenty four elected members of the court of the great enlightened rabbis and famous dignitaries” in the gathering in Brody on 21 Iyar 5526 (30 April1766).
After bringing the claims of all sides - including the claim of the leaders of the communities of Ostroh and Lutsk, that they pay the highest sums of the total amount of taxes in the State of Wolyn, and they did not even sign the distribution - a verdict was given that the six communities in Wolyn must pay the sum of 710 zloty that are missing in the total of 10,000 zloty, “to settle the account of the two distributions in the Wolyn region “ (1763, 1764) as follows: Ostroh and the region - 200 zloty, Kremenets and the region 105 zloty, Kovel and the region 100 zloty, Dubno and the region 100 zloty, Ludmir and the region - 105 zloty, Lutsk and the region - 100 zloty.
Apart from that, the communities had to cover the legal expenses at the amount of 280 zloty. Lutsk's share in this amount was 46 zloty and 20 groszy.
In the distribution for the year 1762/1763, a total of 250 zloty, was assigned to Lutsk, and for the year 1763 - 4,764 - zloty. R' Avraham and R' Neta of Lutsk signed in the name of the community of Lutsk.
The taxes, levies and the multiple financial obligations, which have piled on all the communities, forced them to take loans at a high interest rate (5%). For the most part, they receive loans for long periods of time from the churches, monasteries, the priests and the aristocracy. After the elimination of the Council of Four Lands, a special committee was established on behalf of the Polish government (the liquidation committee), and its duty was to pay off the debts of the Jewish autonomous institutions and individual communities.
All of Wolyn communities were burdened with debt. For many years, the community of Lutsk alone owed 121,400 zloty to monasteries and churches and also to the Dominicans in Lutsk. To the priest Yamowitz, the town of Turgowitz Monastir, the Brigades and the Carmelites,to the Basilian vicar, to the leadership of the Unitarian Church in Lutsk, the Bernardine in Lutsk, to the Catholic Churches in Dubno, Klevan, the village of Skorgy, Olyka and the estate owner Zagorski. The community was not able to pay the aforementioned amount and not even the interest.
In 1822, the community denied the debts. In 1830, the Russian Ministry of Finance ordered the municipality of Lutsk to find the original certificates that according to each it would be possible to prove the legal validity of fixing the interest payments and the fund. The matter continued, and in 1858, a government committee in Russia engaged in settling the debts that were paid by the communities from the meat tax (korkova).
In the middle of the 17th century the leader of the community of Lutsk, R' David ben Yehiel, who was also the leader of the entire Wolyn region, appeared in the gathering of the Council of Four Lands. In 1656, he appeared, together with the leaders of the communities in Poland, before the Chamber of the Kingdom to register a deed of commitment in the royal registry books that they received from Kazimir Bubalkowski.
At the gathering of the Council of Four Lands in 1673, R' Avraham ben Yehudah Leib of Lutsk, who was one of the leaders of all the Jews in the four countries of the Kingdom of Poland, signed the commitment to pay the debt due to Georg Molten von Miltenberg, a consent for the printing of the Bible in Yiddish and on the resolution in the matter of the conflict Tiktin-Grodno. He also participated in the gathering of the Council of Four Lands in 1680. R' Yisrael ben Shmuel of Ternopol participated in the same gathering. He is signed on the consent for the composition of the preacher Yehudah Leib ben Yosef of Pinsk. In 5438 (1678), he signed the deed of commitment to Georg Molten von Miltenberg, in Breslau in his full title “I Yisrael ben Shmuel of Ternopol the Chief Inspector of all the Jews in general and in all Kingdom of Poland in particular, and a leader of the general committee that took place in Lublin.” In 1671, when he was the president of the court in Ludmir, the Jews of Ludmir owe him 1,200 zloty.
In 1683, he also participated in the gathering and signed a consent for the book “A Wedding in the Holy Community of Lutsk” by Yoel, grandson of the author of Turei Zahav [R' David HaLevi Segal]. In 5447 (1687) he participated in the gathering of the Council of Four Lands in which the distribution of taxes between the various regions was discussed, and the representatives of the Wolyn region were appointed: R' Tzvi Hirsch of Lutsk, R' Wolf ben R' Avraham of Ludmir, R' Shmelke of Ostroh, R' Yitzchak ben Ozer of Kremenets, “These four are the leaders of the Wolyn region.”
In the years 1689-1691, R' Yoel ben Yitzchak Isaac Halperin participated in the gathering of the Council of Four Lands and signed a consent for the book, Beit Halevi, by Hillel Naftali Hirtz who was the president of the court in Zhovkva, and the book Ketonet Passim by the preacher R' Yosef ben Moshe, and also in the matter of the dispute between the communities of Tykocin and Mielnik.
Yeshaya ben Moshe participated in 1697, and R' Mordechai of Lutsk in 1699.
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Until 1728, we do not find the people of Lutsk in the sessions of the Council of Four Lands. Only in 1728, R' Yehudah Leib ben Noah of Lutsk signed an authorization document for the poll tax.
In 1751, the Rabbi of Lutsk, R' Yakov ben R' Arye Leib, author of Kochav Ya'akov, signed the proclamation in which it was required “not to slander HaGaon Yhonatan Eybeschutz,” and also in 1755 in the matter of the heirs of the printer Shlomo Proops Katz. However, in 1764, after the elimination of the Council of Four Lands and the States Council, the community of Lutsk captured the main place in Wolyn. Through it all the communities in Wolyn paid their residents poll tax according to the treasury announcement of 2 February 1766. Despite their elimination the regional committees did not stop their activities until the partition of Poland.
At the beginning of the 18th century the community of Lutsk was well founded. It owned charitable institutions, Betei Midrash and a large yeshiva that was established in the second half of the 17th century. High level deans taught there and the yeshiva attracted students from all over Wolyn and also outside it. The Jewish settlement continued to grow numerically.
The strained relations, which existed between the city's residents and the Jews since the 17th century, tightened in the 18th century due to the growth of the Jewish community and its hold on trade, crafts and transportation. In the first half of the 18th century, there were well-known cart owners with whom the treasury authorities sent securities from Warsaw to Wolyn and fully trusted them.
The townspeople complained about the violation of their privileges by the Jews. They claimed that they were in the business of leasing taverns, breweries and distilleries, and sell various goods at fairs that are under the authority of the craft associations. In their complaints they emphasized, at every opportunity, before investigative committee that full branches of commerce are concentrated in the hands of the Jews. They do not give the townspeople a foothold in these areas, especially in the trade of lumber, hay, food, cattle, horses and various types of agricultural products.
In one of their complaints before the investigative committee in 1787, it was said:
“The Jews are three times as many as the Catholics. They spread throughout the city and hold in their hands all types of trade and taverns. They engage in all crafts and are not subject to the Cechy's payments. They occupied the entire city center (rynek) and built other houses, took hold of the slaughterhouse, took brandy, wine and English beer on a lease and demand all kinds of payments for them. They buy wholesale and retail lumber, hay, and all kinds of food. They do not give the townspeople the right to own taverns and do not provide housing to passing army and to the guards from the permanent army.”
Against this background the townspeople flooded the authorities, and also the Sjem with memorandums, and at the end of the 18th century joined other Polish cities for actions against the Jews. In contrast to the Jews in private cities, who from time to time found protection, support and help from the city owners against the townspeople, the Jews of Lutsk, as a royal city, stood without any protection of their interests.
At the beginning of the 18th century, fear fell again on the residents of Wolyn due to the outbreak of the Cossack rebellion under the command of Semens and Pley, who incited the peasants against the Polish rule, its noble officials and the Jews. Troops from west of the Dnieper began to move to Podolia and Wolyn.
In 1702, their gangs invaded the surroundings of Kremenets and severely damaged Jewish settlements in the Kremenets district. The Polish population in Wolyn prepared for defensive operations. In November 1702, the Sejmik decided to recruit guardsmen in the voivodeship against the Cossacks, and also imposed on the Jews and Karaites in the royal cities, and the clergy, to provide one horseman out of every 30 houses. This decision also applied to the Jews of Lutsk. In 1706, Wolyn suffered from the invasion of the armies of Sweden, Poland, and Russia, who imposed contributions and demanded money and food.
In 1724, a fire broke out that destroyed many houses also in the Jewish Quarter.
In the years 1750-1764, a wave of incitements and plots passed over the Jews of Wolyn, including Lutsk[q]. In these years Cardinal Kowalski served in the Diocese of Wolyn. He was known for his hatred of Jews, his missionary activity and his attempts to convert Jews to Christianity. For that, he held debates with the representatives of the Jews in the cities subject to the government. In his regulations, he created malicious suits for the Jews to such an extent that the representatives of the Jews wrote to the Pope about it.
Rome instructed the representative of the Holy See in Warsaw to investigate what was happening in its domination in Lutsk.
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In the Nuncio letter to Cardinal Kowalski it is said that the Pope “agrees to the Jews request and sent to (the Nuncio) their request, that together with it was submitted before me a complaint by the messenger of this committee. The spiteful proceeding and persecutions that found themselves a special place in the hegemony of his lordship (Lutsk) arouses great wonder,” Cardinal Kowalski is required if someone from the clergy “has wronged the Jews, to punish him immediately and put
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him on trial, “so that the priests will not learn from that to allow acts of arbitrariness and hatred on the part of the people to this wretched nation (Jews).”
There was also fear in Lutsk from the influence of the Frankism[10], and like the communities of Lwow, Brody and Dubno, in1756, a ban was also announced in Lutsk according to the version of the aforementioned communities. In fact, this concern was justified. In the letter of the emissary of R' Shabbatai, Yitchak be Aharom Teomim of Horodenka from 1767, Yehezker ben Shalom Zamushts of Lutsk in mentioned as the head of the sect in “the Wolyn area.”
At the end of the 18th century, there were several cases in Lutsk of Jewish women who converted to Christianity and married to Christians, and also assimilated Jews who married Christian women, but these intermarriages were not successful. From notices published in 1778-1791in Gazeta Warszawaka and Dziennik Handlowy in which women were searching for their husbands, or husbands their wives, we learn that after only a short time the assimilated Jewish women left their Christian husbands and vice versa. In Lutsk, the assimilated Jewish women disappeared among the masses of while the men, who left their Christian wives, fled to Germany.
According to the comments in the newspapers, the source of this “tragedy” was in the difference of lifestyle. In1790 there was an incident with an assimilated man in Lutsk. The Jew Hershko, who wanted to convert to Christianity, broke together with Peter, the monastery carpenter, to the Trinitarian Church and stole various objects. He was caught, but considering his “noble ambitions” (his desire to convert to Christianity) he was punished with only 150 lashes in the city center and his property, at the value of 600 zloty, was confiscated.
Another assimilated man in Lutsk, who was caught stealing, was one named Markovskyi.
In 1764, the Jews of Lutsk suffered from a severe plot. According to the stories that circulated in the community someone threw a stone during a church procession. The city governor suspected that a Jew threw the stone and demanded from the community to find the thrower and turn him in. He threatened them that if they don't follow his order, he would give an order to destroy the entire Jewish settlement.
The community explanations did not help. The governor did not give up and demanded the extradition of the thrower who, in his opinion, was a Jew.
Then, R 'Yehudah Zev Wolf ben Tuvia voluntarily stood up and declared that he had thrown the stone.
According to another story R 'Yehudah Zev Wolf was handsome man and the daughter of a Polish noble fell in love with him. However, he refused to abandon Judaism and marry her and she refused to convert to Judaism.
Distraught, she committed suicide. Her father decided to take revenge and killed Zev Wolf.
Against the two stories, there is a third story, saying that on the Eve of Yom Kippur, before Kol Nidrei, Jewish children were playing in front of the synagogue and suddenly they started throwing stones at them. The Jewish children also responded, one of the stones hit the son of an estate owner in his temple and he died. The city governor demanded to turn in the stone thrower, and then R 'Yehudah Zev Wolf stood before the governor and informed him that he is the stone thrower, they immediately took him, tied him to two horses and he was killed.
It is difficult to know which version is closer to the historical truth but, the fact is, that R' Yehudah Zev Wolf was killed on the sanctification of God's name on the Sabbath, 25 Tamuz 5524 (1764), although the cause is unknown people spread various legends about his death.
In connection with the liquidation of the Jewish autonomous institutions, and the decision of the Sejm to collect poll tax (2 zloty per head), directly from each community according to the number of its residents, it was decided to conduct a general census of the Jews of Poland. This census was held at the end of 1764 and the beginning of 1765 in the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. Since every Jew from the age of one year had to pay poll tax, infants under the age of one were not included in the census.
In each census it was customary that several Jews escaped, or hid, so that they wouldn't be counted - which was against the Torah. From the authorities' reports it is known that the Christians informed them about the escape of Jews during the censuses. Jewish informers notified the State Treasury Committee that the communities collected the poll tax from all the Jews, but submitted a smaller numbers and ordered some of the Jews to hide.
In 1765, 1,012 Jews over a year old and 71 infants, a total of - 1,083, and 104 Karaites were counted in the city of Lutsk. Twenty two Karaites who worked for Jewish tavern owners lived in three houses belonging to the community. Therefore, the number of Karaites was 126, and together there were 1,209 Jews and Karaites in Lutsk.
In the same year there were 178 Jewish houses; 19 houses were owned by the Karaites. There were 1719 Jews in the city of Lutsk and the nearby villages.
It is interesting that during the next ten years the number of Jews in Lutsk considerably decreased. In 1775, there were only 616 Jews in Lutsk. The reason for this great decrease in the Jewish population (approximately 50%) is unknown.
A totally different picture is given by the census list of 1784, which was prepared by the census committee - Niedzielski, Rabbi Simcha and the community's shamash.
In the city of Lutsk were 209 Jewish houses and 25 Karaite houses in the suburbs. The number of Jews was 678, 26 who hid and were found by the census enumerators, and together 704. There were 105 Karaites and together with them 809 people in the city. In 75 settlements (villages) affiliated to the community of Lutsk were 370 Jews, apart from the 22 who were found, together 392.
According to the census list from 1787, there were 208 houses in Lutsk, the number of people 701, apart from the 107 who were found, together 808.
In 85 villages were 385 Jews apart from the 38 that were found, together 423 Jews. The total number of the Jews in Lutsk, with the affiliated settlements, was 1231. In the same census the Karaites had 33 houses in the city and 131 people. In three villages were 10 Karaites, together- 141 Karaites, and together with the Jewish people (1231) - 1372.
In the survey of 1789, 446 houses were counted in the city of Lutsk, of them 68 Jewish and 25 Karaite houses in the Jewish Street (Zydowszczyzna).
In 1787, the problem of the poor Jews, who were wandering from place to place, came on the agenda. On 7 May1787, a royal document was issued in which the Jewish communities were warned not to hide suspicious people, especially vagrants begging for money. The communities, according to custom, were forbidden to transfer the poor to other cities. On the contrary, according to the aforementioned decree, they had to be kept in the community and used for public works needed by the state.
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Contrary to this document the Administrative Committee in Lutsk ordered the community to provide an accurate list of the local poor and the vagrants, to expel them from the city and hand them over to work in factories. However, the community did not respond to this demand and did not provide the list, and for not fulfilling this order it was fined in the amount of 50 zloty.
In 1775, the Sejm decided to impose on the Jews a stamp fee for every Hebrew book and to only use sealed paper for writing contracts - each sheet cost 1 groszy up to 10 gold coins (18 Polish zloty). In accordance with the law, the treasury committee decided to conduct a census of the books in the hands of the Jews throughout Poland and stamp each book. The treasury officials came to the city and every Jews was obliged to bring his books. The book lists were signed by the rabbi and two community leaders.
In Lutsk one person was appointed to stamp the Karaites' books: Yitzhak the cantor, and two Karaites - Zalka and Shmuel Moskowitz. It is clear, that the matter of the books' census, and their delivery for stamping, caused the delivery of incriminating information about individual Jews and especially about printers and booksellers.
At the customs stations every book was carefully checked. And so, for example, in 1792, books worth 129 zloty were confiscated from Mordechai Rostovitch.
The last decade of the 18th century passed over Poland in an internal political entanglement. Therefore, it is no wonder that rumors circulated in Wolyn and in Lutsk that attacks by the Cossacks and Russian Orthodox peasants and the murder of Poles and Jews, were to come. In Lutsk the Jews set up armed guards, but everything passed peacefully. It is interesting, that in Lutsk no attempts were made to transfer Jews to productive professions, as was done the years 1780-1790 under the influence of the slogans that infiltrated Poland from abroad. Those emphasized the need for a change in economic policy in the spirit of mercantilists by private city owners such as Prince Jozef Czartoryski in Korets where Jews were recruited to work in factories.
Also in the last decade of the 18th century the city's residents did not stop their fight against the Jews. They did not stop filing complaints that the Jews are undermining their economic existence through unfair competition and taking over all branches of trade and crafts. In their claims against the Jews they praised - in contrast to the 17th century - the Karaites as honest and hardworking people.
According to Karaite tradition - which is supported by their historians who built their words on legends - in the 14th century Witold set one hundred Karaite families in Lutsk. The Karaite claim, that in 1388 they received privileges from Witold, but all this is not based on certificates.
The Karaite community in Lutsk is mentioned for the first time in 1506, in a document issued by King Sigismund I, in which he frees the Rabbinite and the Karaite communities from paying taxes at the amount of 12 Shak groszy.
During this period they were active in protecting their privileges and acquiring tax breaks in partnership with the Jewish community. The Karaites were not allowed to live in Lutsk only in Omelyanyk three kilometer from Lutsk. Only at the end of the 16th century the Karaites received permission to live in the city and to build their own synagogue not far from the Jewish Synagogue.
In 1647 - a short time before the Decrees of 5408-5409 [1648-1649] - an emissary from the Karaite community in Jerusalem, David ben Yehoshua Hazan, the first known emissary on behalf of the Karaite, visited the Karaite community in Lutsk. The first time he was sent in 1646 to Kushta [Constantinople] and the second time, in 1647, to Poland and Russia. The rabbis in Jerusalem also recommended his mission and their written recommendation is only to the Karaite communities. As mentioned, he also visited Lutsk at the beginning of 5408 (1648) and died there on Shabbat Shuva[12]. The cantors of the Karaite community in Lutsk, Shalom ben Avraham, Zarakh ben Nathan of Trakai, Yashai ben Yehudah of Trakai, and Yosef ben Shmuel the cantor of the Karaites in of Derazhnia, mourned him.
The year 5408 also brought a holocaust on the Karaites. A vast majority of them were murdered by the Cossacks. According to the census of 1650, only three Karaite families remained in Lutsk, meaning about 15-20 people.
As opposed to the Jewish community, the Karaite community degenerated and never recovered from the disasters of 5408. In 1677-1679 there were 16 Karaites and 193 Jews in Lutsk. A few Karaites (their number is unknown) also lived in Derazhnia and Olyka.
In the second half of the 17th century, the sage David Shalom ben Avraham, who was known as a scholar, stood as the head of the Karaite community in Lutsk. During his tenure Jacob Trigland, a Christian scholar and a professor of theology at the University of Leiden who was interested in the history of the Karaites, turned to him in a letter written in Hebrew (from 29 Nisan, 1698), and asked him for details about the polemic writing of the Karaite Menachem. He also asked him if the Karaites are identical in their views to the Sadducees, and if there are changes in the reading and writing in the Karaites' Chumash. When the letter arrived to elderly and wise David ben Shalom, who was ill, R' Mordechai ben Nissan was visiting Lutsk, and he asked him to reply to the Christian professor letter. The sage passed away shortly after.
Over the years, in the 18th century, the number of Karaites increased but not in comparison to the number of Jews. In 1765, there were 19 Karaite families in the city and the number of people, together with those in the villages, was 126. In the survey of that year it was said:
“The number of Karaites is small and they behave in their special silence. It is interesting to note that not one Karaite has been punished with the death penalty from the earliest times. In their work they excel in their diligence. They engage in carting and retail trade. In all their actions they are more honest than the Jews. Thanks to their work and efforts, some of them are in exceptional condition. If their number was greater they would not be harmful to the whole city.”
In 1784, their number reached 105, in 1787 to 131 people who lived in 33 houses in the city except for10 who lived in the villages, a total of 141. The number of Jews on that year was 1,331.
As opposed to the Jews, the townspeople did not see them as competitors in the economic field. The Karaites mostly engaged in carting and a few in agricultural works. On the contrary, in the 18th century the Karaites stood by the townspeople in their struggle against the Jews.
In 1788-1792, when the Jewish problem and the need to find a solution for it came up on the agenda in the Polish Sejm, the Karaites in Lutsk saw the opportunity to use the situation to their advantage and prove the Poles that there is no connection between them and the Jews. In 1790, in a printed memorandum submitted by their community leaders, Shmuel Yosilowicz and Marko Itzkowicz, to the Committee for Jewish Affairs in the Sejm, they tried to prove that they arrived in Lutsk during Witold's time and received the privilege from him in 1388. Their activities for the benefit of Poland are described in bold lines in this memorandum.
At the beginning of the memorandum the Karaites emphasize that they are different from the Jews starting from the destruction of the second temple (as we know the Karaite sect was in the 8th century), they do not visit the Jews synagogues and they have their own rabbis and cemeteries. They are dressed like the Poles, work in factories in Halych and Kukizów, engage in agriculture and speak Turkish among themselves.
They also stated that they have nothing to do with the Jews and pay the poll tax separately (they deliberately obscured the fact that in the years 1580-1764, the Karaite communities paid the poll tax and the liquor tax through the autonomous institutions of the Polish Jews).
They ask to place them under the jurisdiction of the nobles and to grant them all the liberties of the inhabitants of Lutsk.
If a special tax is applied for the payment of the Jewish communities debts - they ask not be imposed this tax on them because their community has no debts. During all the periods of their stay in Poland they lived from the labor of their hands. They did not commit frauds, thefts or other crimes. They were always loyal to the Polish people. Their hope is that in return for their loyalty the Sejm would not want
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to do something to their detriment. In any union with the Jews they will only see punishment, and such a thing will force them to leave Poland and immigrate to Turkey from which their forefathers were invited to come to Poland.
Their fear was for nothing. The Sejm did not decide to include them in the Jewish community and they remained an independent community.
At the beginning of the 19th century, a migration movement began among the Karaites in Poland and Lithuania to Yevpatorya and Feodosiya in Crimea.
In 1816, there were seventy men in Lutsk. The Karaites paid taxes at the amount of 10 rubles and 78 kopecks. The Bishop of Lutsk, Kasper Kolunba Cieciszowski, especially supported them.
From Lutsk came the Karaite sage, Simcha Yitzchak ben Moshe Lutzki. He settled in Chufut-Kale [Crimean] and published poems and interpretations to Etz Chaim, Or Chaim Orach Tzadikim [1839], the “History of the Karaites,” and the first bibliography of the Karaite literature (Vienna 1830). In Lutsk he was in contact with the Catholic clergy, especially with the Triniterians. In 1764, he was asked by the Karaites in Trakai for a letter of recommendation from the Triniterians in Lutsk to the Triniterians in Vilna. He passed away in 1766.
A circle of scholars and writers gathered around Simcha Yitzchak ben Moshe Lutzki. From the Karaite sages in Lutsk, in the second half of the 18th century, are known: (1) the cantor Mordechai ben Shmuel, author of the book Avkat Rochel. (2) Yosef ben Moshe, author of the book Kvutzat Kesef. (3) Simcha ben Chananel. (4) Yosef ben Shmuel and his sons. (5) Shmuel ben Yosef. (6) Moshe ben Yosef who mainly engaged in copying ancient manuscripts of Karaite sages. (7) The brother of Shmuel ben Moshe Lutzki and the son of Simcha ben Yitzchak Lutzki. (8) Yitzchak ben Simcha. - belonged to the circle of Lutsk's Sages.
Daniel ben David Yerushalmi, who came from Eretz Yisrael and settled in Lutsk in the 1740s of the 18th century, had a great influence on the development of the community. He copied manuscripts of Karaite sages. His student, Yosef ben Moshe Lutzki, called him an “an exceptional sage.”
Another Karaite sage, Yosef Shlomo Lutzki, lived in Yevpatorya in the years 1820-1840. He wrote the book Tehua'at Yisrael about the Karaite delegation to Petersburg for the release their youth from the conscription.
To the group of immigrants from Lutsk also belonged Mordechai Sultansky. He was born in Lutsk in 1785. His father, Yosef, was the community's sage. In 1812, he moved to Kele in Crimea and was a teacher and a cantor there. At the end of his life he settled in Kherson where he passed away in 1862. He published the Hebrew grammar book Petah Tikvah (1857), the book Tetiv Da'at (1859) on religion and morality, and also Or HaGanoz and Sefer Hatam. He also wrote the book Zekher Ẓaddikim about the history of the Karaites. He passed away in Kherson in 1878.
A native of Lutsk was also the well known Karaite scholar, Avraham ben Shmuel Firkovich (Aben ReSheF 1785-1875). In 1818, he was elected cantor in Lutsk. Later he immigrated to the Crimea. He is known for his falsifications of the history of the Karaites, in order to prove that the Karaite sect was in Russia before the birth of Jesus and therefore it isn't connected to his crucifixion. According to him, the Karaites are the same as the Sadducees. His books and his archaeological investigations, so to speak, caused a stir in the world of general and Jewish science. In the scientific polemic, Dr. Steinschneider, Reggio, Shir [Shlomo Yehudah Rapoport], Dr. A. Harkavi, the Christian scholar Prof. Strak and Prof. Chwolson, proved his forgeries, but thanks to these forgeries the Karaites in Russia received equal rights.
In 1926 there were 50 Karaites in Lutsk.
In the second partition of Poland (1793) Lutsk was annexed with Wolyn to the Kingdom of Russia, and the Wolyn region lost its economic hinterland. However, in the course of time a change came for the better due to the commercial ties with Brody, a free trade city near the new border and, as a result, the economic situation in the Russian cities near the Galician border was improved. Lutsk became the main city in the Lutsk district.
In 1799, only 50 houses belonging to the townspeople were registered in Lutsk. All the other houses belonged to the Jews and a very small number to the Karaites.
In the hands of the Jews were almost all branches of wholesale and retail trade. In the entire district of Lutsk 1,941 Jews inhabitants were registered as merchants compared with 1,267 Christian inhabitants, and 28 merchants compared to 3 Christians.
In 1802, 1,975 Jews and 1,269 Christians were counted in the city of Lutsk. The ties with Brody opened new economic avenues and all kinds of smugglings. The Russian authorities did not look favorably on the smuggling business. In 1812, the Governor of Wolyn, Komburlej, proposed to remove the Jews from the border area because of their smuggling business, even though the Christians residents, and especially the farmers in the villages near the Austrian-Russian border (as we know from the Austrian authorities reports) - they smuggled merchandise in larger quantities than the Jews. His proposal was approved by the central authorities, but the verdict was not implemented due to the negligence of the local authorities.
In 1816, Senator Sievers visited the border towns and determined that the Jews living near the border keep taverns and manage comprehensive trading businesses. On the basis of his reports and similar decisions from 1821, the order to deport the Jews from the border received legal validity on 10 July 1825. The Jews were allowed to live in an area of 50 verst[13] close the border, and only in their properties or inside settlements with a community. However, also this decision did not give positive results. The Russian bureaucracy did not rush to implement the law, on the grounds that its implementation would destroy industry and commerce in the Wolyn region. Apart from that was the difficult problem - to where to move the Jews.
Apart from these concerns, the central government also hesitated, especially in the days of Alexander I, to implement changes in the Polish territories. Only after the rebellion of the year 1830/31, in which the Poles also participated in Wolyn, administrative changes and the adapting Wolyn to the conditions that prevailed in the administration in the territories of all Russia, were implemented.
The matter continued for more years, and on 20 April 201843, it was decided to evict all the Jews living in the area of 50 verst along the Prussian and Austrian border.
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Lutsk was also included in this area. Thanks to efforts the matter continued until 1856. The Jews asked to extend the deadline and to allow them to liquidate their property. In 1850, the brandy's customs lessees in Lutsk, Kremenets and Ludmir appealed before the Senate on the prohibition imposed on Jews, residents of the border areas, to engage in the sales of brandy. The appeal was not accepted, but the sale of brandy was allowed in homes belonging to Jews. Finally, the Senate in Petersburg decided that it is necessary to deport individual Jews known for the smuggling business. The deportation decree was actually repealed, but only regarding the Jews who in the past were listed in the listings of the communities in the border area, or had real estate in this area.
Despite these concessions, the Jews did not stop their efforts to remove the city of Lutsk from the border area, claiming that Lutsk is at a distant of more than 50 versts from the border. The efforts continued until the 80s - but without positive results. The importance of the problem was eliminated with the abolition of the border areas.
In the first half of the 19th century, the majority of the masses lived in poverty and hardship, and suffered quite a bit from the community's tough leaders in connection with taxes and the abduction of sons for the army.
When the Hebrew author Ribal [Isaac Baer Levinsohn], who returned in 1821 from Galicia to his native city of Kremenets, saw the plight of the masses of Jews he wrote about their situation to one of his friends: “ Every day I hear the cry of the poor who are being robbed by the rulers of the people, our leader and our soldiers.”
This description certainly fits the situation of the Jewish mass in Lutsk.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Jews often suffered from fires that spread quickly because the houses were built of wood. In the great fire of 1810 the synagogue and most of the city's houses burned down. Through the efforts of the residents the building was renovated, but in the fires of 1845 and 1869 all the holy utensils in the synagogue were burned and the building itself was damaged inside. In 1878, the community leaders collected alms to renovate the building from the inside. In 1886, the building was also renovated from the outside with the help of the gabbai Shlomo Baruch Kristalsky and the community's benefactors, led by wealthy woman Miriam Saroka who donated the money needed for the repair the building. In 1883, an almshouse, which was also a hospital, was added in the city.
From an economic point of view there were no changes in the Jews' occupations. The vast majority barely made a living from retail trade.
In the 70s, the Christians complained to Governor Trentil during his visit to the city, that the Jews built shops on the churches grounds near the small churches. The governor gave an order to immediately destroy the shops in his presence and to expel the Jewish shop owners from the city. This matter caused destruction to dozens of Jewish families.
A large number of Jews made a living from handicrafts, mainly from tailoring and furriery.
From the beginning in the 20s of the 19th century, wealthy Jews founded a number of medium and small factories in Wolyn and also in Lutsk and its surroundings.
In 1828, the Jew Bernstein owned 17 textile mills in Wolyn. He was one of the largest suppliers to the army. Every year, he alone supplied 36% of the fabrics needed for the army. The Jews also owned a number of tobacco factories. These factories employed Jews as agents, supervisors, clerks, and even gave their products to Jewish merchants for sale.
The part of Wolyn's Jews in the development of industrial plants increased in the second half of the 19th century.
In 1864, there were 279 factories in Wolyn, of them 129 (46.9%) were owned by Jews.
Of 39 textile factories 8 owned by Jews (20.5%) 7 paper factories 2 (28.5%) 5 copper casting factories 1 (20%) 19 glass foundries 3 (15.8%) 2 dyer's shops 2 (100%) 17 Tabasco factories 17 (100%) 11 rope factories 3 (27%) 12 candle factories 8 (66.6%) 8 wax and soap factories 6 (75%) 90 tanneries 65 (72.3%) 5 lime kilns 1 (20%) 44 roofing tile factories 8 (18%) 20 breweries 6 (30%)
In the years 1897-1899, Wolyn Jews owned 409 factories (45.9%). The value of their produce was 7,315,800 rubles (30.7% of all the products) and employed 6,544 Jewish workers, 44.3% of the total number of workers in the factories.
Except for the export of grains, which was completely in the hands of the Jews of Lutsk, their share was considerable in the agricultural industry.
In 1897, the percentage of Jews in these factories in Wolyn region was as follows:
Percentage of
Jews in all
factoriesPercentage of
product in
Jewish factoriesPercentage of
Jewish
workersFlour mills 23.5 21. 9 35.4 Brandy production 1.1 1.3 0.9 Beer production 32.5 18.9 - Tanneries 45.1 - - Oil production 91.7 74.8 - Soap 100 - - Wood sawmills 61.5 47.2 54.4 Brick kilns 25.9 15.2 22.6 Tobacco factories 75 - 16.4
At the beginning of the 20th century all five steam mills were owned by Jews in Lutsk. Their production reached two million pounds of wheat flour, and 100,000 pounds of buckwheat. From two breweries - a production of half a million beer barrels from one. From two brick kilns - one, from two iron factories - one, one oil factory for produced 50,000 pounds, one factory for wax, one for candles, and two for soap. Of the three houses for drying hops two were in the hands of Jews. There were four factories for soda water and three printing houses.
Out of three pharmacies, two were in Jewish hands and out of ten medication warehouses - three were owned by Jews.
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In the days of the Russian rule, the community did not exist as an autonomous public body. The meat tax (korokova) was used to cover the community's needs. The Community House was built from this money. In the years 1868-1878, a hospital was built with 20 beds and a home for the aged named Hekdesh[r].
The spiritual life did not deviate from the framework of Jewish tradition.
From its beginning the Hassidut found many supporters in Lutsk. R' Shlomo Lutsker was one of the thirty-nine famous students of the Mezeritcher Maggid [Dov Ber of Mezeritch]. Together with his friends, R' Shlomo was deeply attached to his rabbi and teacher with all his heart and soul. The words of the maggid [preacher] were sacred to him. Later, he was a rabbi in Korets and, from an unknown reason, a dispute broke out between him and the righteous rabbi, R' Pinchas of Korets, who settled in this city and gathered many students around him. Due to this dispute, R' Pinchas was forced to leave the city and to move to Ostroh.
The author of Seder Hadorot HaHadash [“The Book of New Generations”] by the student of Baal Shem Tov writes about him:
“HaRav R' Shlomo Lutsker z”l a real genius, a supreme saint, the Maggid of Sokal, author of the book Dibrat Shlomo on the Torah, was a faithful follower of the Maggid of Mezeritch z”l because he was loyal to his holy rabbi and wrote an introduction to the book Maggid Devarle Yaakov a collections of the sayings of our R' Dov z”l.”
He was persecuted in such an extent that his friend, R' Moshe Leib of Sasov [Sasiv], asked in a letter to the rabbis (Heshvan 5557, 1795) for mercy for R' Shlomo and begs to stop the dispute. Over time, the number of Hasidim in Lutsk grew, and Batei Midrash were founded for the various Hasidic factions.
The Haskalah Movement[14] did not leave its mark in the life of the Jewish settlement. The Haskalah slogans spread not far from Lutsk - from Kremenets. Tadeusz Czaccki, the founder of the Polish lyceum, planned to establish, within the framework of his institution, a teachers seminary for Jewish teachers by the Ribal (R' Yitzchak Baer Levinsohn 1788-1860), and the circle of scholars around him - Baruch Czatzkess,[s] the Landsberg brothers (Leib, Mendel - owner of a large library - Shlomo, Isaiah, Isaac - later the principal of the Jewish School in Odessa).
In the 30s and 40s, Yitzhak Landa and Ber Rosenblum stood at the head of the community. They always turned to the Rbal when the community needed intercession before the authorities.
In the educational area, at the beginning of the 20th century, in addition to the cheders of the old type there was also Cheder Metukan [Improved cheder] and a general Jewish school founded by Petitz.
From the money left over from the candle tax fund, which was collected in Lutsk in the second half of the 19th century for the purpose of maintaining the seminaries for rabbis in Vilna and Zhitomir at the amount of 40,000 rubles - the governor allowed to build a Jewish educational institution.
According to the agreement with the ultra-Orthodox, it was decided to establish from this money a joint home for Talmud Torah, yeshiva and the general Jewish school. The building was established and the community's office was also housed there.
In 1912, Avraham Glicklich suggested to establish a vocational school for youth on the grounds of the old cemetery. Because of the fierce opposition of the ultra-Orthodox his proposal was rejected.
At the beginning of the 20th century the following synagogues were in Lutsk:
Already at the end of the 19th century, Rav M'taam[15] named Mann was appointed in Lutsk. He served until 1905. After his passing a controversy broke out in regards to the election of a new Rav M'taam. In the end, Moshe Glicklich was chosen and he served in his duty until 1917.
With the awakening of Hibbat Zion movement only a few joined it. The preacher and Zionist writer, R' Zalman Ashkenazi of Dubno (he passed away in Dubno in 5669), influenced the public's direction and with his efforts the number of Hibbat Zion members grew in Lutsk. However, with the establishment of the Zionist Organization, the first Zionist Association, Agudat Achim, was founded in Lutsk.
Dr. Yehoshua Buchmil visited the city after the first Zionist Congress. Shmuel Blumenkranz, the manager of the first bank in Lutsk, a branch of Bank Luria in Pinsk, visited Eretz Yisrael in the 90s. He was active for dozens of years and under the influence the Zionist movement gained strength within the youth and also among the Jewish population.
The development of the Jewish settlement in Lutsk is demonstrated in the following table:
The year The city The district 1765 1,012 1784 809 1787 808 1892 1,975 1847 5,010 12,417 1864 3,423 1897 9,468 35,819 1913 24,880 1921 14,860 25,812 1931 20,000
1
At the outbreak of the war, the character of the city was changed. The main street was noisy with the convoys and the Russian infantry marching in the direction of Galicia.
The first to suffer were the Jews, because the commanders of the Russian army ordered to burn the bridges in the suburb of Nidev to prevent a sudden invasion of the Austrians. The residents were not allowed to save their property, and many Jewish homes were burned. The Russians' advance in Galicia brought peace for the Jews that lasted until May 1915. The expulsion of the Jews from Lutsk began with the fall of the Russians
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on the Galician fronts and their retreat. In August, the Austrian army began to advance towards Lutsk and the Russian authorities left the city. The refugees from Chelm who were in the city, sick Russian soldiers and Russian residents started to destroy the shops and to loot merchandise. The young Jews organized themselves into groups and formed a civil militia that fought the robbers. The fight between the militia and the robber gangs lasted for a few days. On 31August 1915, the first Austrian patrols entered the city followed by the army. The Austrians established a municipality, but on 26 September the Austrians retreated and the Russians returned to the city.
The Austrians fortified themselves in the village of Malianik near Lutsk, and from where they bombed the city. Three days later the Austrians returned and occupied the city.
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When they advanced in the direction of the line Dubno- Klevan-Olyka, Lutsk was the seat of the Fourth Army headquarters under the command of Archduke Franz Ferdigand.
Immediately after their entry into the city they arrested the members of the city council on the charge that the townspeople had fired on the retreating Austrians, but later released them. On1 December 1915, they established a new city council and in it twelve Christians, twelve Jews, and next to it six committees - for matters of education, health, taxes, hospitals, commerce, industry and inspection. A civilian guard (militia) of forty five men was also established under the command of the Pole Kawczynski. The official language was the Polish language.
After the Russians' retreat, 22,000 Jews and 2,000 Poles remained in the city.
Food became more expensive - half a kilo of bread cost 50 kopecks and a kilo of meat 3 rubles. Hunger prevailed in the city, a typhoid epidemic broke out and only with the help of the doctors and severe sanitary measures they were able to control the epidemics.
Over time, the economic situation improved and the attitude towards the Jews changed for the better. Their representatives were involved in the administration of the city and in all public actions for the benefit of the city's population.
This situation lasted until June 1916. On 5 June 1916, the Austrian army's retreat began. On the night, from of June 5 to June 6, the artillery fire on the front increased, and on the evening of June 6 the city was captured by the Russian army under the command of General Brusilov.
On March 1917 the revolution broke out in Russia. In April demonstrations took place in the city. The mayor, Melvtsiv, who served during the Tsarist reign, was forced to resign. On 22April 22, the municipality meeting convened under the chairmanship of his deputy Stefanzik, and the Jew, Avraham Warkowecki, was elected mayor. He fulfilled his role until 17 November when a Socialist Council was elected and Warkowecki was elected deputy mayor. A democratic community was established on the basis of the law of the Jewish National Council in Kiev. Avraham Lander, who was the head of the Zionist movement, was elected as chairman of the community. He was active and represented the Lutsk Zionists at the Wolyn Zionist Conference that convened in the winter of 1919 in Lutsk. At this conference he demanded Zionist activity in the communities. Meanwhile, there was a turning point in Russia. On December 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power.
After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the soldiers began to leave the trenches of the front. On 7 February 1918, the Germans captured the city and appointed the Ukrainian authorities. Lutsk was annexed to the Ukrainian Republic headed by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi.
On 22 December1918 the city was captured by Petliura's men.
During the disintegration of Petliura's government, and its retreat from northern and western Ukraine, the wave of disturbances by the Ukrainian army gangs began to approach the vicinity of Lutsk. The Jews received the news about the rampage of Hetman Ostilak and his helper, Pułkownik [Colonel] Shapola, head of the military intelligence and commander of the “Death Battalion” of Pułkownik Palinkow in Rivne. The Jews of Rivne, Lutsk and the surrounding area suffered from their cruelty in torture chambers in train cars. In Lutsk, the Ukrainian soldiers roamed the streets drunk and shot passers-by with machine guns. Thanks to the immediate intercession of the community leaders with the commander and head of the military government in the city, Hatman Abaza, the rampage of the soldiers was stopped.
The Jewish leaders immediately recognized the expected dangers for the Jewish population and decided to organize self-defense.
The volunteer Fire Brigade was the center of the organization headed by a headquarters made up of Laybchik, Bander on behalf of the fire department, Yitzhak Golob on behalf of Poalei Zion, Yegolob in the name of the Zionist Youth and the left circles (communists etc.), the students Yuzik Ranc and Shika (Yehoshua) Kraun. Besides the youth and the students, merchants and artisans also mobilized for the defense. A total of 400 volunteers mobilized. First and foremost, a Strike Company was established and its task was to disarm the headquarters of the Gray Division of the Ukrainian army and imprison its officers, because it was clear that the city was in danger of riots due to the onslaught of the Red Army. The officers and the commander did not resist and they were imprisoned in the “Balbio” hotel. Karamanov, an elderly retired general was appointed a temporary district governor, so that the Christians would not think that the Jews aspire to seize power.
The Chief of Police Meissner, of Czech origin, offered cooperation with the defense. The city, and the Jews were in a tense situation, not knowing who would capture the city first - the Bolsheviks from the east or the Poles who advanced from Galicia.
Little by little the supply situation worsened and food products ran out.
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When the Polish army approached the city, it was flooded with Ukrainian soldiers who retreated in disorder and began looting Jewish homes .Special guards were stationed at the entrance to the city to disarm the Ukrainian soldiers. When the Polish army was already at the entrances of the city, they sent two military cars with officers who contacted the defense headquarters and said that they knew about the existence of an armed local force, and therefore they request, for the benefit of the population, to avoid any collision during the entry of the Polish army.
The officer of the defense headquarters explained that they are not claiming the power over the city, and their role is only to protect the lives of the residents and their property.
The Polish officer, General Listowski, agreed to leave the defense companies as militias until a police force is organized in the city, and until that date the defense would be responsible for the security of the city.
Both parties signed this agreement. The defense surrendered the Ukrainian prisoners with Hetman Abaza and his headquarters.
However, the Jewish defense was betrayed by the Poles.
When the first companies of General Jozef Haller arrived they began looting Jewish homes. A number of Jews - five of the defense personnel - were killed and wounded. With the entry of the main forces, led by the commander-in-chief, who were received on 16 May1919 by the Christian mayor and Jewish and Christian's dignitaries - peace prevailed in the city - but not for long.
Jews were brutally kidnapped and shot inside the ancient Lubart's Castle.
The community council protested before of the headquarters, but without results.
Members of the Jewish defense headquarters were arrested, the commanders went underground.
The Polish general, Listowski, known for his antics in Pinsk where he executed thirty young Jews, signed the agreement with the defense. He behaved brutally, threatened the community council, and tortured the detainees who were brought before a military court on charges of organizing armed gangs and attacking the Polish army. The detainees were sentenced to death and only thanks to the persuasion of the French General Bernard, who served as a military adviser to the Polish army the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment in the Brest Fortress.
The antics of General Listowski against the Jews continued until the appointment of the civil government. A new chapter in the history of the Jewish community in Lutsk begins with the occupation of the city by the Poles.
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