Lithuanian Jewish Communities Collection

This collection concerns the Jewish communities which were within the borders of the Republic of Lithuania during the years 1923-1939. The history of Jews in the region was long entwined with the surrounding regions of (modern day) Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Russia, and former Prussia. In the Medieval era the Grand Duchy of Lithuania extended far beyond the lands of ethnic Lithuania throughout modern day Belarus and into Ukraine, parts of Poland and Russia. Beginning in 1386 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were linked by the Jagiellonian dynasty, and in 1569 were united into a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The late 18th century partitions of Poland brought most of the Lithuanian territory into the Russian Empire, supplemented in 1815 with the creation of Congress Poland. The region remained under imperial rule until World War I, when the Russian retreat in 1915 allowed the most ethnically Lithuanian governorates to come under German control. Lithuanian nationalists seized the opportunity, declaring independence on 16 February 1918. The nascent state lost Vilna (Vilnius) and the surrounding region to Poland in 1920, achieving its fixed interwar borders with the addition of the Klaipeda region in 1923.

Grand Duchy of Lithuania

The territory of interwar Lithuania roughly corresponds to the 13th century duchies of Lithuania and Samogitia (Zamut). There is little evidence of Jewish settlement in the region in the late 14th century, when Duke Vytautas the Great granted charters to the Jews of Brest and Grodno and the Karaites of Trakai. The communities that subsequently developed in the 15th and 16th centuries in Kedainiai, Alytus, Merkine, Utena, Vilkaviškis, Pakruojis, Palanga, Šeduva, Žagarė and Kaunas-Slobodka and other towns benefited from the judicial rights and religious autonomy those charters granted. Despite hostility from burghers that resulted in occasional blood libels or expulsions, Lithuanian Jews encountered far less religious persecution and economic competition than their Polish brethren. In this era Jews in the region operated primarily as traders, leaseholders, and tax-collectors. Following the union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569 they turned in addition towards managing noble estate, money-lending, and running rural taverns, as well as expanding into crafts and other occupations.

The highest form of Jewish centralized self-government in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth was the Vaad Arba Aratzot (Council of Four Lands). Formed in the mid-16th century as an extension of the ad hoc meetings of rabbinical courts, merchants, and community leaders, its initial primary purpose was tax administration. By 1623 the communities within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which maintained a separate treasury, had broken off to form the Vaad Medinat Lita (Council of the Land of Lithuania). The council was controlled exclusively by the principal communities, at that time consisting of Brest, Grodno, and Pinsk. Smaller communities were grouped into districts subordinate to one of the principals. Vilna achieved the status of principal community of the Vaad Medinat Lite in 1664.

The area corresponding to modern-day Lithuania (henceforth Lithuania) contained only a small fraction of the Grand Duchy’s Jewish population, but the communities there were enlarged by refugees fleeing massacres by the Cossack forces of the Chmielnicki uprising in 1648 and the Russian army in 1655. Relative stability later in the 17th century and especially in the 18th century brought growth and the formation of about 100 new communities in Lithuania between 1650 and 1795. Jews were drawn to remote villages to fill the roles of artisans, lessees, middlemen, shopkeepers and merchants. By 1720 Zamut had been divided into three administrative districts by the Vaad Medinat Lite (Kėdainiai, Birzai, and Vyzuonos) and was responsible for 13 percent of the Jewish tax burden in the Grand Duchy. The census of 1765 indicates a total Jewish population in Lithuania of approximately 66,500. The largest Jewish communities were in Vilnius, Jurbarkas, Kalvarija, Birzai, and Kaunas.

Russian Empire

World War I and aftermath

Lithuanian Independence

The German occupation government permitted a Vilnius Conference to convene between September 18 and September 22, 1917, with the demand that Lithuanians declare loyalty to Germany and agree to an annexation. The Conference elected a 20-member Council of Lithuania (Taryba) and empowered it to act as the executive authority of the Lithuanian people. On February 16, 1918, the Council adopted the Act of Independence of Lithuania, proclaiming the restoration of an independent Republic of Lithuania, governed by democratic principles, with Vilnius as its capital. However, Germany hindered from forming an administration. Only after Germany officially lost the war and signed the Armistice of Compiègne on 11 November 1918, could Lithuania form their first government, adopt a provisional constitution, and start organizing basic administrative structures.

The Provisional Government of Lithuania included 3 Jewish representatives, delegated by the Zionist conference which took place in Vilna in December 1918. They were: Simon Rosenbaum ( Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs), Nahman Rachmilewitz (Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry), and Jacob Wigodski (Minister for Jewish Affairs). By the end of December 1918, the Red Army advance in the wake of German withdrawal reached Lithuanian borders, forcing the Lithuanian government to flee to Kaunas. Jacob Wigodski remained in Vilna. Hundreds of Jewish men joined the Lithuanian army to defend Lithuania against the Soviet forces. Fighting between Lithuania and the Soviet Union largely ceased by late summer 1919, but conflict with Poland over the Vilnius and Suwałki regions continued into late 1920, with the regions ultimately remaining under Polish control. As a result, neither region participated in Lithuanian Jewish national autonomy.

Jews in Lithuanian national politics

The Constituent Assembly of Lithuania (lit. Steigiamasis Seimas) was elected in 1920 to draft and adopt the 1922 constitution of Lithuania. 6 of the 112 representatives were Jewish: Ozer Finkelstein, Naftali Friedman (replaced by Samuel Landau after Friedman’s death in 1921), Abraham Popel, Nahman Rachmilewitz, Simon Rosenbaum, and Max Soloveichik. 3 Jews (Julius Brutzkus, Leyb Gorfinkel, and Josef Berger) were elected to the First Seimas, the parliament that would replace the Constituent Assembly. However, the Prime Minister was unable to form a majority coalition and the Seimas was dissolved in March 1923. Elections for the Second Seimas were held in May. 7 out of 78 seats went to Jews: Isaac Brudny (later Joseph Roginsky), Simon Rosenbaum (later B. Berger), Jacob Robinson, Leib Garfunkel, Meshulem Volf (later Isaac Holzberg), Yosef Kahaneman (later H. Abramovich), and Ozer Finkelstein. The Second Seimas was the only interwar Seimas to complete a three-year term. The elections of the Third Seimas took place in May 1926, resulting in 3 Jewish deputies: Ozer Finkelstein, Leib Garfunkel, and Jacob Robinson. Following a military coup d'état in December 1926, the Third Seimas was dissolved on April 12, 1927 and new elections were not called until 1936.

Jewish National Autonomy

In June 1919, Max Soloveichik was chosen to replace Wigodski as Minister of Jewish Affairs and a provisional law was passed defining the scope and establishing a budget for the Ministry of Jewish Affairs, the first formal institution of Jewish autonomy in the Republic of Lithuania. Provisional regulations for community council (Vaad Hakahal) elections quickly followed, and the first Vaadei Hakehilot were elected in July, though only 13 communities participated.

On 5 August 1919 the Lithuanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference presented to the Committee of Jewish Representatives “The Declaration on the Rights of the Jews in Lithuania.” The declaration promised equal rights and proportional representation; the right to use Jewish languages in public life and government; state support for Jewish schools; a cabinet-level department to handle Jewish concerns, autonomy in internal affairs; internally elected bodies to administer autonomy in the form of local communities and a communal union, and the rights for those bodies to issue laws, tax their members, and receive subsidies from the state.

Political parties, education, and culture

Decline of Jewish autonomy

Post-autonomy