Page 245 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Estonia Latvia & Lithuania

VILNIUS  243

Jewish Vilnius

Until it was eliminated during the Holocaust, Jewish Vilna, or Vilnius, was home to a large,
influential Jewish com munity. About 250,000 Jews lived in Lithuania at the turn of the
19th century, compared to just 4,000 today, and 40 per cent of Vilnius’s population was
Jewish. By the early 19th century, Vilnius had emerged as a major centre of Jewish
learning and bustled with life. The religious customs of the Litvaks, as Lithuanian Jews
are known in Yiddish, were marked by a rigid analysis of the Talmud, the Jewish laws and
traditions. As a result, other Jewish com mu nities in Eastern Europe saw the Vilna Jews as
being old-fashioned and staunch intellectuals. Decimated by World War II and ravaged
further by the Soviets, Jewish Vilna is a ghostly reminder of a vanished world.

Jewish Vilna before World War II had its cobbled lanes
crowded with artisans’ workshops and cafés. A maze of
courtyards and passages that lay around Vokiečių and
Žydų streets, concealed synagogues and prayer houses.

The Great Synagogue, built in 1572,
was restored with an Italian Renaissance Vilnius Choral
interior by Glaubitz. The Soviets Synagogue was the
destroyed the remains of the Jewish only synagogue in the
quarter after World War II, broadening country to survive
Vokiečių Street and bull dozing this awe- World War II. Located on
inspiring building. Pylimo Street 39, it
started functioning in
1903. Although it was
smaller in scale and
simpler in design
than Vilnius’s other
Elijah Ben Solomon synagogues, the Choral
(see p40), known as Vilna Synagogue has an
Gaon, or “genius”, was enchanting interior.
a leading Talmud
scholar who wrote
extensive commen-
taries on ancient
Hebrew books. He
advo cated an
empiri cal study of
religious scriptures
over mysticism.
A map of Vilna Ghetto is shown on the
wall at Rūdininkų 18. The ghetto is where
the Jews of Vilnius were imprisoned during
World War II, and the wall marks the place
where its only gate once stood.

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