History of the Jews in Lithuania

Early history

The origin of the

Duke Vytautas granted privileges to the Jews of Trakai on June 24, 1388.^[2] Later similar privileges were granted to the Jews of Brest (July 1, 1388), Grodno (1389), Lutsk, Vladimir, and other large towns. The charter was modeled upon similar documents granted by Casimir III, and earlier by Boleslaw of Kalisz, to the Jews in Poland in 1264. Therefore, it seems more than likely that influential Polish Jews cooperated with the leading Lithuanian communities in securing the charters from Vytautas.

Under the charter, the Lithuanian Jews formed a class of freemen subject in all criminal cases directly to the jurisdiction of the grand duke and his official representatives, and in petty suits to the jurisdiction of local officials on an equal footing with the lesser nobles (szlachta), boyars, and other free citizens. The official representatives of the Polish king and the grand duke were the voivode (palatine) in Poland and the elder (starosta) in Lithuania, who were known as the "Jewish judges" (judex Judæorum), and their deputies.^[5] The Jewish judge decided all cases between Christians and Jews and all criminal suits in which Jews were concerned; in civil suits, however, he acted only on the application of the interested parties. Either party who failed to obey the judge's summons had to pay him a fine. To him also belonged all fines collected from Jews for minor offenses. His duties included the guardianship of the persons, property, and freedom of worship of the Jews. He had no right to summon any one to his court except upon the complaint of an interested party. In matters of religion the Jews were given extensive autonomy.

Under these equitable laws the Jews of Lithuania reached a degree of prosperity unknown to their Polish and German co-religionists at that time. The communities of Brest, Grodno, Trakai, Lutsk, and

The goodwill and tolerance of Vytautas endeared him to his Jewish subjects, and for a long time traditions concerning his generosity and nobility of character were current among them. His cousin, the king of Poland

Jagiellon rule

In 1569, Poland and Lithuania were united (

Expulsion of the Jews in 1495 and return in 1503

Casimir was succeeded as king of Poland by his son John Albert, and on the Lithuanian throne by his younger son, Alexander Jagiellon. The latter confirmed the charter of privileges granted to the Jews by his predecessors, and even gave them additional rights. His father's Jewish creditors received part of the sums due to them, the rest being withheld under various pretexts. The favorable attitude toward the Jews which had characterized the Lithuanian rulers for generations was unexpectedly and radically changed by a decree promulgated by Alexander in April 1495. By this decree all Jews living in Lithuania proper and the adjacent territories were summarily ordered to leave the country.

The expulsion was evidently not accompanied by the usual cruelties; for there was no popular animosity toward the Lithuanian Jews, and the decree was regarded as an act of mere willfulness on the part of an absolute ruler. Some of the nobility, however, approved Alexander's decree, expecting to profit by the departure of their Jewish creditors, as is indicated by numerous lawsuits on the return of the exiles to Lithuania in 1503. It is known from the Hebrew sources that some of the exiles migrated to

Soon after Alexander's accession to the throne of Poland he permitted the Jewish exiles to return to Lithuania. Beginning in March 1503, as is shown by documents still extant, their houses, lands, synagogues, and cemeteries were returned to them, and permission was granted them to collect their old debts. The new charter of privileges permitted them to live throughout Lithuania as before. The return of the Jews and their attempt to regain their old possessions led to many difficulties and lawsuits. Alexander found it necessary to issue an additional decree (April 1503), directing his vice-regent to enforce the law. In spite of this some of the property was not recovered by the Jews for years.

The Act of 1566

At the same time, the middle of the 16th century witnessed a growing antagonism between the lesser nobility and the Jews. Their relations became strained, and the enmity of the Christians began to disturb the life of the Lithuanian Jews. The anti-Jewish feeling, due at first to economic causes engendered by competition, was fostered by the clergy, who were then engaged in a crusade against

Hence when the favorable moment arrived, the Lithuanian nobility endeavored to secure greater power over the Jews. At the Diet of Vilna in 1551 the nobility urged the imposition of a special poll tax of one ducat per head, and the Volhynian nobles demanded that the Jewish tax-collectors be forbidden to erect tollhouses or place guards at the taverns on their estates.

The opposition to the Jews was finally crystallized and found definite expression in the repressive Lithuanian statute of 1566, when the Lithuanian nobles were first allowed to take part in the national legislation. Paragraph Twelve of this statute contains the following articles:

"The Jews shall not wear costly clothing, nor gold chains, nor shall their wives wear gold or silver ornaments. The Jews shall not have silver mountings on their sabers and daggers; they shall be distinguished by characteristic clothes; they shall wear yellow caps, and their wives kerchiefs of yellow linen, in order that all may be enabled to distinguish Jews from Christians."

Other restrictions of a similar nature are contained in the same paragraph. However, the king checked the desire of the nobility to modify essentially the old charters of the Jews.^{[citation needed]}

In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Effect of the Cossacks' Uprising in Lithuania

The fury of this uprising destroyed the organization of the Lithuanian Jewish communities. The survivors who returned to their old homes in the latter half of the 17th century were practically destitute. The wars which raged constantly in the Lithuanian territory brought ruin to the entire country and deprived the Jews of the opportunity to earn more than a bare livelihood. The intensity of their struggle for existence left them no time to reestablish the conditions which had existed up to 1648.

This section is copied from The Jewish Encyclopedia.^[6]

The founding of the

Religious observances owe greatly to

The

.

Lithuanian Jews under the Russian Empire

See also:

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

In 1795 the final

Russian partition

.

By the end of the 19th century, many of Lithuania's Jews fled

United States of America and South Africa.^[8] A small number also emigrated to the Ottoman Empire, to the Palestine region that would become British Mandate of Palestine

.

Republic of Lithuania (1918–1940)

Historical Lithuanian Jewish population

Year	Pop.	±%
1389	6,000	—
1569	120,000	+1900.0%
1764	76,474	−36.3%
1792	250,000	+226.9%
1939	263,000	+5.2%
1959	24,683	−90.6%
1970	23,566	−4.5%
1979	14,703	−37.6%
1989	12,398	−15.7%
2001	4,007	−67.7%
2011	3,050	−23.9%
2021	2,256	−26.0%
Source: [9][10][11][12] The Jewish population data includes Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Bukharan Jews (or Central Asian Jews), Krymchaks (all per the 1959 Soviet census), and Tats. It does not include Karaim, who as of 2021 numbered 192 individuals. [13]

Lithuanian Jews took an active part in

Freedom wars of Lithuania. On December 29, 1918, Lithuania's government called for volunteers to defend the Lithuanian state; of 10,000 volunteers more than 500 Jewish. More than 3,000 Jews served in the Lithuanian army between 1918 and 1923.^[14] Initially, the Jewish community was given a wide amount of autonomy in education and taxation through community councils, or kehillot.^{[citation needed}

]

In 1923, all over Lithuania, inscriptions and signboards in non-Lithuanian languages were smeared with tar and fascist groups posted renunciations on the walls of houses.^[15] Lithuanian Prime Minister Augustinas Voldemaras officially condemned antisemitic acts of coating of signs with tar by stating that "every Lithuanian, passing by these tarred signboards, must lower his eyes in shame".^[15]

By 1934, in a nationalist trend that reflected throughout Europe, the government scaled back much of this autonomy, and cases of antisemitism increased.^{[citation needed]}

Lithuanian President Antanas Smetona was known for his tolerant stance towards Jews and his radical opponents not once nicknamed him as "Jewish King".^[15][17] Under Smetona's rule in Lithuania, not a single anti-Jewish law was passed and high-ranking Lithuanian officials, including ministers, did not publicly say anti-Jewish statements.^[17] Smetona considered Jews not as foreigners, but as Lithuanian citizens of foreign nationality and himself acted against antisemitic acts with his statements which were later followed by actions of governmental institutions (e.g. censorship).^[17] The Lithuanian courts, war commandants, Lithuanian Police Force severely punished the participants of anti-Jewish physical attacks or smashing of Jews windows (the culprits were punished with fines, imprisoned or even sent to hard labor prisons).^[17] Moreover, the Government of Lithuania also did not tolerate anti-Jewish attacks and severely punished their participants, especially activists.^[17] Consequently, Jews wished Smetona a long rule of Lithuania.^[17] However, under Smetona's rule Lithuania was anti-communist and did not tolerate insults of German government but at the same time protected non-offending Jews as in 1934 the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania adopted an order to counties commandants where it was stated to "severely punish all those who insult the German Government in any way, as well as those who deliberately agitate against Lithuanian Jews; to suppress the activity of all those Jewish organizations which appear to be under Communist cover or succumb to Communist influence".^[17] The 1938 Constitution of Lithuania (the last in interwar period) did not change Lithuanian Jews situation and it remained as such until the occupation of Lithuania in 1940.^[17]

After the

Soviet occupation in June 1940, some Jewish communists assumed significant roles in the NKVD and local communist nomenklatura (e.g. Nachman Dushanski).^[18][19] Other Jews, particularly religious Jews and Zionists, were treated harshly by the Soviet-imposed communist government in Lithuania prior to the German invasion.^{[citation needed}

]

World War II and the Holocaust

Main article: The Holocaust in Lithuania

The

better source needed

The only European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust was the

Following the expulsion of Nazi German forces in 1944, The Soviets reannexed Lithuania as a Soviet republic, and prosecuted a number of Lithuanians for collaborating with the Nazis. Sites of wartime massacres, such as the Ninth Fort near Kaunas became monuments. To avoid nationalist themes, the memorials were declared in the name of all victims, though the clear majority of them were Jewish. Most survivors never returned, moving to Israel instead. Throughout Soviet rule, there was tension between the Jewish community and the authorities over the right to emigrate to Israel, and how to properly commemorate the Holocaust. The majority of Jews in Soviet Lithuania arrived after the war, with Russian and Yiddish as their primary language.

Despite of lack of any intent to support the project, Jewish community was allowed to open the Jewish Museum in 1944 which was located in the apartment of its first director, Shmerl Kaczerginski.^[21] The institution served as a community center which received hundreds of inquiries from all across the world about the fate of individual Jews in Lithuania.^[21] In 1945 the museum was relocated to the former ghetto library and jail buildings in Vilnius.^[21] The first exhibition at the museum was titled "The Brutal Destruction of the Jews during the German Occupation".^[21] In 1949, the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic de facto closed down the museum when it ordered its reorganized into the Vilnius Local History Museum.^[21] The Vilnius Jewish School was closed in 1946, and the one in Kaunas 1950.^[21] Jewish cemetery in Vilnius was paved over, the Old Vilnius Synagogue was razed while Jewish grave-stones were used to construct the stairs at the Tauras Hill, as well as those at the Evangelical Reformed Church.^[21] While institutionalized Jewish memory was abolished, a few memorials were allowed to continue with at least forty-five out of 231 Holocaust memorials in Lithuania being constructed before 1991.^[21] The death of Stalin brought some improvement in the status of Lithuanian Jews, with new Jewish communities moving to the country from less developed parts of the USSR and some development of the Holocaust narrative over the years.^[21] The book Mass Murders in Lithuania was published in 1965 and 1973 as the first publication directly addressing the topic of Holokaust.^[21] The Art of Lithuania's Jews exhibition was opened in Kaunas and Vilnius in 1988 as the first public display of Jewish culture anywhere in the Soviet Union.^[21] Lithuanian Jewish Cultural Association was established in 1988 and it was renamed into the Lithuanian Jewish Community in 1991.^[21]

Jews in modern Lithuania

The Jewish population of Lithuania continues a slow decline. In the 2001 census, there were 4,007 Jews by ethnicity. This declined by 2011 to 3,050 and 2,256 by 2021. The Jews also had the oldest age profiles; 41% of Jews were in the 60+ age demographic and only 13.2% were under the age of 20. There were also 192 Karaims by ethnicity for a total of 2,448; this was a significant decrease from the number of 423 in 2011. Karaims have historically defined themselves as ethnically distinct from Jews in Lithuania. In both the 2001 and 2011 census, Jews were Lithuania's fifth biggest ethnic minority, behind Poles, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians, and just ahead of Germans.^[22][23]

Interest among descendants of Lithuanian Jews has spurred tourism and a renewal in research and preservation of the community's historic resources and possessions. Increasing numbers of Lithuanian Jews are interested in learning and practising the use of Yiddish.^[24] In 2000, the Jewish population of the country was 3,600.^[25]

The beginning of the 21st century was marked by conflicts between members of Chabad-Lubavitch and secular leaders. In 2005, Chief Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky was physically removed from the Synagogue by two men hired by the community's secular leader Mr. Alperovich, who then declared a new

Public debate has ensued over memorials to Nazi collaborators. In 2019, a memorial plaque in central Vilnius was smashed with a sledgehammer by Jewish Lithuanian politician Stanislovas Tomas.^[27][28] Lithuanian authorities also removed several memorials of other collaborators. The removal of these memorials sparked antisemitic backlash, leading to threats against the Choral Synagogue, Vilnius's only remaining synagogue, along with the Jewish community headquarters, both of which were temporarily shuttered due to the threats.^[29]

See also

• Timeline of Jewish history in Lithuania and Belarus
• History of Lithuania
• List of Lithuanian Jews
• Wooden synagogue

References