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Home > Virtual Museum > CHGS Exhibitions > Remembering Luboml : Introduction by Dr. Feinstein

Introduction by Dr. Feinstein

Why Remember Luboml?

Recently, the Minnesota Jewish Historical Society had a wonderful event remembering the Old North Side of Minneapolis. More than one thousand people came to the JCC to exchange memories, be interviewed, and to see an exhibition about a place which is nearby, but no longer the same and it was forty or more years ago. However, this was a subject and place with which I found hard to identify, for I am not a native Minneapolitan.

The North Side, however, nostalgia, is not "my place." "My place," where my memories are, is West Philadelphia, which suffered a similar fate to the North Side, as the Jewish community moved because of a mixture of social mobility and racial problems. As I have lived in the Twin Cities for thirty years, I recognized some of the names that I saw; but it was clear it was not my history.

Luboml is not our history, for the most part, either. However, at the same time, it is part of the history of every Jew who can trace roots to Eastern Europe. For Luboml represents one of the many towns in Poland that had an active history both within a Jewish and Polish context, a lively structure of Jewish organizations, all of which were wiped away during the Holocaust. Luboml, unlike North Minneapolis or other American models, did not have the luxury of changing slowly with its population voluntarily moving a relatively short distance away and still playing a vital role in the greater community.

Therefore, in looking at Luboml, its history and people, its social and religious life, we see a small mirror of ourselves. We are also challenged to remember that one-third of the Jewish people were destroyed during the Holocaust, and that many things beside the people will not be seen again. One aspect that was victimized was language: the decline of Yiddish was accelerated by the decimation of Polish Jewry. The recurring news stories about memorials, assets, reparations, and contemporary anti-Semitism are reminders that issues from this time are not yet resolved.

Thus, in recalling Luboml's past, I think it is implicit that we are asking the question about the fate of our own community in 50 or 100 years. Will there be a visible social community, lively institutions and synagogues, a historical society and history and art museum, or will we too disappear like many other Jewish communities that have passed from the scene?

Stephen Feinstein is Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota.