The Litvak Legacy

The Litvak Legacy
Title The Litvak Legacy PDF eBook
Author Mark N. Ozer
Publisher
Pages 676
Release 2009
Genre History
ISBN 9781436367790

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Between the 1880s and the 1920s a million Litvak' Jews migrated throughout the world from Lita,' their home in the western edge of the Russian Empire. This book is the story of the legacy of that migration. The questions answered are: Where did they come from? How did they get to where they are? What are some of the lasting values they(we) share the world over? In what way do we differ depending on the countries in which various members of my family have lived? One common response in a course based on this material was "I now know why my family was the way it was." The book will enable you to better know why you are the way you are and enable your children and grandchildren to understand their background. It is my thesis that there is a distinctive Litvak cultural heritage that can be traced through the maintenance of that culture through the several generations and the significant impact it has had on the countries in which the immigrants settled. The Jewish inhabitants of Lita were called Litvaks' (Litvakes in Yiddish), to distinguish them from non-Jewish Lithuanians as well as from other Jews. In their home, they formed a distinct culture that differed in its variant of their language of Yiddish as well as the character of their religion. As followers of the Vilna Gaon in the late 18th century, in opposition to the spread of Hassidism,' Litvaks' maintained a unique commitment to rabbinical Judaism and intellectual study. They were also unusual in the degree to which arduous and sharp-witted' Talmudic study was widespread. The religious tradition continued to evolve in Lita. In response to the challenges of both Hassidism and the Haskalah (Enlightenment), the ethically oriented musar' movement became widespread within the Lithuanian yeshivot. Orthodox Judaism' evolved out of traditional Judaism. However, relatively few of the traditionally religious chose to emigrate. In the late 19th century, particularly centered in Vilna, Lita was a major source of the Jewish responses to modernity such as socialism and the recognition of the Yiddish language as well as modern Hebrew and Zionism. Lita was the greenhouse' of secularism. The literary and political responses to the breakdown of the Jewish social structure retained the traditional spirit of intensity and sharp-wittedness.' The quest for bringing about a better world via socialism and Zionism partook of the religious impulse while denying it. The language battles between Yiddish and Hebrew were joined to these ideologies. The characteristic Litvak intellectual strand was expressed in the flowering of secular literary and historical studies that partook of the intensity previously devoted to the sacred writings. As the Russian Empire containing Lita was broken up following World War I, its inhabitants found themselves living either in Latvia, Poland, the Russian and Belorussian Republics of the Soviet Union, or in the newly independent Lithuania. The entire area, now divided, had a common cultural entity e that can be called Litvakia.' When the new boundaries were drawn, many of the inhabitants stayed in place and were subject to the Holocaust. The Great Migration from Lita occurred in the period of the latter third of the 19th century and in the 20th century prior to the First World War, but extended through World War II. Even beyond the Holocaust/Shoah, the few survivors continued to bear witness to its memory. Section One deals with the evolution of the core in Lita from 1840 to its destruction during the Shoah. Focus is on the relationship between the developments following 1880 and the ideas carried by the emigrants to the Diaspora from Lita mainly ending in the 1920s. Section Two deals with those ideas carried to the English speaking world and their subsequent evolution mainly in the United States but also in comparison with the United Kingdom, Canada and South

Bitter Legacy

Bitter Legacy
Title Bitter Legacy PDF eBook
Author Zvi Y. Gitelman
Publisher Indiana University Press
Pages 358
Release 1997-11-22
Genre History
ISBN 9780253333599

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Examines how over a million Jewish civilians were murdered by the Nazis and their local collaborators in the Soviet Union. Topics include Soviet Jewry before the Holocaust; the Holocaust of Ukrainian Jews; Jewish refuges from Poland in the USSR, 1939-1946; Jewish warfare and the participation of Jews in combat in the Soviet Union; Jewish-Lithuanian relations during World War II. Among the documents included are Nazi directives, Nazi actions, eyewitness accounts, and accounts of collaboration and resistance, and rescue. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Lithuanian Jewish Communities

Lithuanian Jewish Communities
Title Lithuanian Jewish Communities PDF eBook
Author Nancy Schoenburg
Publisher Rowman & Littlefield
Pages 516
Release 1996
Genre Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
ISBN 1568219938

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This volume lists, in alphabetical order, the major Jewish communities that existed in Lithuania before World War II. The name of each community is accompanied by information about it: when it was founded, the Jewish population in different years, shops and synagogues, and the names of citizens. An appendix locates each town on a map of Lithuania. Since most of the Jewish communities in Lithuania were destroyed in the Holocaust, this volume will be a valuable tool in recreating a picture of Lithuanian Jewry.

Irena Veisaitė

Irena Veisaitė
Title Irena Veisaitė PDF eBook
Author Yves Plasseraud
Publisher BRILL
Pages 229
Release 2015-09-01
Genre History
ISBN 9004298916

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Irena Veisaitė is held in deep esteem throughout her country. This volume is an attempt to relate the difficult journey of her remarkable life against the backdrop of the complex history of Lithuania and its Litvaks (Lithuanian Jews). After being rescued by Christian Lithuanian families and having survived the Holocaust Irena Veisaitė devoted herself to study and creative work. She was a memorable lecturer, respected theatre critic, associate film director, and also founder and chairman of the Open Society Fund (Soros Foundation) which made an invaluable contribution to the process of democratisation in Lithuania. Irena Veisaitė made it her life’s work to speak up for dialogue and mutual understanding and believes that even in the most difficult circumstances it is possible to preserve one’s humanity. Having lived through some of the major atrocities of the twentieth century, her insistence on the need for tolerance has inspired many.

The Genius

The Genius
Title The Genius PDF eBook
Author Eliyahu Stern
Publisher Yale University Press
Pages 380
Release 2013-01-08
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 0300183224

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DIV Elijah ben Solomon, the "Genius of Vilna,” was perhaps the best-known and most understudied figure in modern Jewish history. This book offers a new narrative of Jewish modernity based on Elijah's life and influence. While the experience of Jews in modernity has often been described as a process of Western European secularization—with Jews becoming citizens of Western nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and assimilated members of society—Stern uses Elijah’s story to highlight a different theory of modernization for European life. Religious movements such as Hasidism and anti-secular institutions such as the yeshiva emerged from the same democratization of knowledge and privatization of religion that gave rise to secular and universal movements and institutions. Claimed by traditionalists, enlighteners, Zionists, and the Orthodox, Elijah’s genius and its afterlife capture an all-embracing interpretation of the modern Jewish experience. Through the story of the “Vilna Gaon,” Stern presents a new model for understanding modern Jewish history and more generally the place of traditionalism and religious radicalism in modern Western life and thought. /div

An East End Legacy

An East End Legacy
Title An East End Legacy PDF eBook
Author Colin Holmes
Publisher Routledge
Pages 263
Release 2017-08-15
Genre Political Science
ISBN 1317301145

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An East End Legacy is a memorial volume for William J Fishman, whose seminal works on the East End of London in the late nineteenth century have served as a vital starting point for much of the later work on the various complex web of relations in that quarter of the capital. A variety of leading scholars utilise the insight of Fishman’s work to present a wide range of insights into the historical characters and events of the East End. The book’s themes include local politics; anti-alienism, anti-Semitism and war; and culture and society. In pursuing these topics, the volume examines in great depth the social, political, religious and cultural changes that have taken place in the area over the past 120 years, many of which remain both significant and relevant. In addition, it illustrates East London’s links with other parts of the world including Europe and America and those territories "beyond the oceans." This book will prove valuable reading for researchers and readers interested in Victorian and twentieth century British history, politics and culture.

The Litvaks

The Litvaks
Title The Litvaks PDF eBook
Author Dov Levin
Publisher Berghahn Books
Pages 304
Release 2000
Genre History
ISBN 9789653080843

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Lithuania was home to the great yeshivot of Jewish learning, as well as nationalistic movements such as Hovevei Zion, the Bund, and the Mizrachi. The 20th century saw the establishment of a modern Hebrew Zionist educational system in the period between the two world wars.This volume includes special features such as a bibliography in seven languages, a lexicon of place names in both official modern transcription and the traditional spelling used by Jewish residents; statistical tables; facsimiles of documents, and unique photographs many of which appear in print for the first time.