[Columns 13-14 – Yiddish] [Columns 9-12 – Hebrew]

This Pinkes [book of records, community journal] is a collective book compiled by tens of writers, and authors of memoirs of the Jewish city of Ludmir.

The pages of the book contain a historical description of one of the oldest Jewish settlements in the country of Poland, a city of Torah scholars and Talmudic geniuses, whose light shone for hundreds of years in all communities of Eastern Europe; among them were great Torah scholars, rabbis, and heads of yeshivos, who spread Torah in Ludmir and in other communities, as well as society's traditions, and acted as pillars of the central body of Jewish autonomy in Poland – the Vaad Arba Ha'artzos [Council of Four Lands].

Special mention should be made of the “TAZ,” author of Turei Zahav [“Rows of Gold”; commentary on Jewish law], the great authority in the Talmudic world and the well-known posek [legal scholar] who was born and received his education in the community of Ludmir, and whose name is forever recorded in history of Polish Jewry.

There is hardly a Jew who does not know the name of Reb Yom Tov Lipman Heller. The author of “Tosfas Yom Tov,” the Torah genius and great fighter for Jewish spiritual autonomy in Poland, whose many years of elevated rule and unyielding struggle are tied to and connected with Ludmir, where he was the Rav and head of the Beis Din [rabbinical court].

For hundreds of years, generation after generation, the Torah scholars were active in the Ludmir communities.

In this book, we have tried to evoke from the past the memory of their images, and to describe the magnitude of their deeds.

In the beginning years of Ludmir, when it would go from one governance to another, and when it was snatched into chaos and thievery by the hands of armies; Ludmir, that was under the yoke of the Tatars; Ludmir, in the days of the Chmielnicki slaughterers; Ludmir, in the days of the Vaad Arba Ha'artzos; Ludmir, in the period when Poland was divided; Ludmir, under Czarist rule – and then, Ludmir, during the times of World War One, and during both World Wars – when it became a city that breathed with national Jewish life; Ludmir, during the days of destruction under Nazi rule; Ludmir and its sons, the Jewish partisans – these are the primary chapters of this collective book.

A very special place in this book is dedicated to the period of the ghetto and the memorial chapters about the horrific destructions and the history of pain,

[Columns 15-16]

written by witnesses of the tragedies; these are the chapters that tell about the heroic martyrdom of our parents and family members, about the slaughters that were carried out by the Germans, and about the many collaborators with the murderers, the Ukrainians and the Poles.

In these memorial pages an image is presented of the spiritual life of the Ludmir Jews on the brink of death, and also of the powerful struggles of the Jewish youth against the murderers of our people – both as individual seekers of revenge and as partisans – and even as such, they suffered a great deal for being Jews.

A special place in the book is devoted to the struggle of the Ludmir community for its existence in the period between the two world wars. In addition, its institutions and organizations of all paths and movements are described, as far as they have remained in the memory of those left behind. A wide space was given to the Zionist and pioneering movement, according to all their groups, as well as the figures of dreamers and fighters in our city.

In this Pinkes, various sections are printed about broadly unfortunate works describing special unforgettable periods in the life of the Ludmir community, and also short lists of Ludmir's remaining ones who brought out their longing for their parents' home that was destroyed and to the community that perished.

This book is a summary of about 600 years of the establishment of the Jewish community in Ludmir. We have tried to give a description of Ludmir as one of the Jewish communities in the entire fabric of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, in Poland, striving at the same time to show the unique figure of Ludmir's community in this overall picture.

This book has some chapters written in Hebrew and some in Yiddish, and we hope that it will be understood by both the older generation and also the new generation in Israel.

May this book deepen in us the love for generations of Jews who fought for their existence and carried the light of Jewishness in the darkness of the exile in Poland. May this Pinkes plant love into the hearts of the children for the empty hearts of their parents.

May the holy memory of the community of Ludmir be enshrined in eternal life of the Jewish people.

Map of Ludmir in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries (Columns 11-12 Hebrew)

Seated (right to left): Zalman Waser, Chaim Hazenold, Meir Schatz, Shmuel Ampere, Zev Weiner, Elkana Ben-Hur (Yentis) Standing (right to left): Moshe Babyuda, Moshe Margalit, Avraham Perl, Isar Koris, Yafa Ben-Tzvi (Atlas), Boni Birman, Yosef Hirschfeld, Yissachar Stern, Moshe Visgarten, Avraham Vaynboym z”l Without a picture: Meir Keren-Tzvi (Hirshhorn)

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