I was very moved to translate the following text by Yaakov Zacharavitch (Pages 437-438 “Words at the Memorial Service for the Martyrs of Lubtch and Delatitch”):

“From year to year there remain fewer and fewer of the remnants of our town, and who knows if our children will keep alive the memory of the towns and their families that they never knew, but have only heard about.

There is a prayer in our hearts that this book - the headstone that will be raised in memory of the two communities - will be used as a source for study and learning, about the stories of the Jews of the town, and that our children and grandchildren will remember, through reading it, all our dear ones, who were burned on the stake and died martyrs deaths.”

I hope that this book will be read by as many descendants as possible of the townspeople from Lubtch and Delatitch and that by the translation appearing below, we have indeed kept alive the memory of our towns and families.

Names of the towns:

Throughout the book, names the two towns have been transliterated as Lubtch and Delatitch, as they appear on the original title page in English “Lubtch-Delatitch. In memory of the Jewish community”. However, they are differently transliterated on the title page of the New York Public Library-National Yiddish Book Center Yizkor Book Project on-demand reprint of the book, where the title is “Lyubcha Delyatichi Memorial Book, Lubats u'Delatits”. “Lubtsh un Delatitsh” and “Lubts' ve-Delatits' “ also appear as transliterations, in the list of “Original publication data”.

This work was started by the original coordinator, Ofer Cohen, who had a special interest in Delatitch, and who transliterated the lists of martyrs of Lubtch and Delatitch appearing at the end of the book. He has also painstakingly prepared all the copies of the photos which appear in the book.

Allen Katz originally brought attention to my personal family that many of our ancestors lived in Lubtch and indeed started a success story of tracing a whole group of new relatives. He was instrumental in introducing us to the Yizkor book and also translated the chapter on Page 294.

Following this, my sister Shirley Horwitz translated two articles by and about our relatives (Pages 238, 312), and I translated a third one (Page163).

The project of translating the whole book started when I heard a lecture by Harvey Spitzer z”l about The Origins of Yiddish. I turned to him to ask if he would translate the Yiddish chapters of the book and he willingly and enthusiastically took up the challenge, and translated them all. In addition, I gratefully acknowledge the proficient translations by Harvey of Hebrew chapters concerning Rabbis and religious institutions. At the same time I started to translate all the other Hebrew chapters. All chapters in Hebrew were sent to Harvey for final editing and polishing, and his professional approach has enhanced the quality of the final translations in both languages. Without his devoted and constant help, this Yizkor Book translation could not have been completed.

In these translations, we attempted to keep consistency in spelling of names. If a name ended in the Hebrew letter “ץ' “, it was transliterated as “itch”, whereas if it ended if “ץ” it was transliterated as “itz”. However, we acknowledge that the two endings are interchangeable, and should be treated as such for genealogical research. Indeed the family of Allen Katz in Israel spells and pronounces their name “Yankelevitch” whereas the same family in South Africa spells their name “Jankelowitz”. In honour and respect to the South Africans, who both sponsored the publication of the Yizkor book and also contributed to it, we have used both transliterations according to the geographical addresses of the contributors.

In this context I add some comments about the authors:

The editor writes his name of the editor on the title page is given as K Hilel. However, there are also chapters signed as H.K. or Hilel Kroshnitz. All relate to the same person. The Preface pages 7 and 8 do not have any given author, but Ofer Cohen gave them as K. Hilel, probably from personal knowledge

Several chapters are signed Ch.Y. These relate to the author Chaim Yankelevitch

Several chapters are signed G.Y. These relate to the author Gershon Jankelowitz.

Within the texts, the translators have also included words which are acceptable in their original language, such as Yeshiva, Bet Midrash, Kolel, Melamed etc. The English definitions/translations of these are given in square brackets [ ] in the texts.

“Gabbay” and “Shamash”

The roles of “gabbay” and “shamash” can be interchangeable and have several meanings.

In Judaism, the term “beadle” (in Hebrew: “shamash” or “sexton”) is sometimes used for the gabbai, the caretaker or “man of all work,” in a synagogue.(Wikipedia).

Harvey Spitzer z”l writes re the gabbay:

'The gabbay has several functions. One is as treasurer of the synagogue and collector of dues (Alcalay and Oxford dictionaries) and another is to be in charge of the maintenance of the shul if there is no official “shamash”. They therefore serve as sextons. The Encyclopedia Judaica adds that a gabbai “performs the services of a beadle (sexton) in many congregations where work is plentiful”. They also (and very importantly) distribute the honors of “aliyot” and reading the Haftara, etc. In England, a gabbay is often called a “warden”.'

Pages 440-441: The editor and author K. Hilel (Hilel Kroshnitz) does not appear here, although it seems fairly certain that he was a resident of Lubtch (see e.g. page 25).

Pages 440, 441, 443.

These lists of people living and who have died in Israel, are, naturally, updated only to the date of publication of the Yizkor book (1971).

1.	Note re the table of contents of the Yizkor book of Lubtch and Delatitch: most of the articles – over 60%– are in Hebrew. All the rest are in Yiddish. There are no articles in English.
2.	Regarding the list of Holocaust victims from these two towns:
2.1	The list mentions anonymously and collectively “the Jews from the tiny village Nagnivich and other villages”.
2.2	Many names were unknown to the editors of the list. Hence, they only mentioned the victim as “husband”, “wife”, “child,” and so on. I have followed their convention. The blank entries mean that the original did not have any information-- for instance, because the victim was a widow at the time of the pogrom.
2.3	Some of the names will appear in different transliterated forms. This is because the names in the book may appear in Yiddish or Hebrew spelling, some as nicknames, and some may even have spelling mistakes. In all the cases we have made as accurate a transliteration as possible.
2.4	In few places the names were not separated, so the family relationships could not be understood. In these cases I made the following assumptions:
2.4.1	If the first name is male – this is the husband. If the 2nd name is also of a male – I assumed there was no wife.
2.4.2	If the first name is feminine – this is the female head of household, who was a widow.
2.4.3	The rest of the names were of the children.
2.5	Transliteration rules: I wrote the names as they are pronounced in Yiddish. I followed the text in the book even if is appeared to be incorrect.
2.5.1	The Hebrew letter “Heit” (the 8th letter – as in Khayim) is transliterated here as “kh”.
2.5.2	The Hebrew letter “Kaf” (the 11th letter – as in “Yocheved”) is transliterated here as “ch”.
2.5.3	CH is used also in its English sound, such as in Churchill.
2.5.4	Z is used as a transliteration of the 7th letter.
2.5.5	TZ is being used as in the name “Yitzkhak”.

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