IZBICA LUBELSKA

IZBICA LUBELSKA, town in Lublin province, Poland. In 1856 the Jewish population together with that of Tarnogora numbered 1,594 (62.8% of the total population). In Izbica proper the number of Jews was 3,019 (95%) in 1897 and 2,862 (92.7%) in 1921. At that time the Polish authorities opposed the establishment of a municipal council so as to prevent its being in Jewish hands. The town was known in the ḥasidic world through the ẓaddik Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica, a disciple of mendel of kotsk . Mordecai Joseph, founder of the ḥasidic dynasty of Izbica, was followed by his son Jacob, author of Beit Ya'akov and father of the ẓaddik Gershon henikh leiner of Radzyn. At the outbreak of World War II there were some 4,000 Jews in Izbica Lubelska. In December 1939 about 2,500 Jews from Lodz and Kolo were forced to settle there, and during March and April 1942 an additional 1,000, mostly from Czechoslovakia, were deported to the town. On March 24, 1942, about 2,200 Jews were deported from Izbica Lubelska to belzec death camp. By the end of that year the entire Jewish population of the town, including the deportees, had been exterminated in the Belzec and sobibor death camps or shot. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Wasiutyńsski, Ludność żdowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX I XX (1930), S.V.; Poland, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, Skorowidz miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, 4 (1924), S.V.; T. Brustin-Bernstein, in: Bleter far Geshikhte, 3:1–2 (1950), 51–78. (Stefan Krakowski)