The History of Jews in Lithuania: From the Middle Ages to the 1990s (On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics, 44)

This book aims to create an integral picture of the social, economic and cultural history of the Jews in Lithuania during the course of more than six hundred years - from the Middle Ages to the 1990s. It is a translation of the study "Lietuvos žydai. Istorinė studija" (Engl. "Lithuanian Jews. Historical study"), published in Lithuanian in 2012. The Book was written by an interna-tional group of scholars from Lithuania, Israel, the United States of America and Germany. The world of Lithuanian Jewry is reconstructed through different aspects of the development of community and society: demography, social and economic activity, self-government institutions of the community, cultural and religious movements, literature and the press, education, discriminative policy of the authorities and relations with the dominant church, segregation, assimilation and changes of identity, anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. The History of Jews in Lithuania: From the Middle Ages to the 1990s Copyright Contents Preface Part 1: Jews in The Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Establishment of the Community and the Beginning of the Regulation of the Legal Status of the Jews The Status of the Jews: Social Segregation and Attempts at Integration Jewish Self-Government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: Institutions and their Mode of Operation Jewish Economic Activity Relations between the Burghers and the Jews: Competition and the Search for Coexistence How Jews were Seen by the Society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Background for the Emergence of a Central Eastern European Jewish Spiritual Centre Part 2: Under the Rule of Tsars Social, Economic, Demographic and Geographical Characteristics of Lithuanian Jewry The Jewish Question in the Nineteenth Century The Relations between the Haskalah and Traditional Jewish Communities Jewish Literature and the Jewish Press in Lithuania in the Nineteenth and the First Half of the Twentieth Century Traditional Education and the Appearance of New Types of Schools before the First World War From Shtadlanut to Mass Parties: Jewish Political Movements in Lithuania Episodes in Lithuanian-Jewish Political Cooperation in the Early Twentieth Century Antisemitism in Lithuania in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Part 3: Jews in the Republic of Lithuania (1918-1940) Government Policy Towards the Jews Jewish National Autonomy Jews in the Economic Structure of Lithuania Cultural Transformations of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Ideological Differentiation between Jewish Schools The Network of Jewish Schools: Quantitative Changes Lithuanian and Jewish Communication in the Public Sphere: The Search for Mutual Awareness Outbreaks of Antisemitism Jewish Cultural Life in Interwar Vilnius The Jews of the Klaipeda Region in the Interwar Period Part 4: The Second World War and the Holocaust Jews in Soviet Lithuania 1940-1941 The Holocaust in Lithuania 1941-1944 The Jewish Anti-Nazi Resistance Part 5: Life after the Holocaust Jews in Soviet Lithuania. The Revival after the Holocaust Perestroika, Sajudis, 11 March 1990, and the Lithuanian Jews Concluding Remarks: Jews in Lithuania or Lithuanian Jews? List of Figures Bibliography Lithuanian Place Names in Yiddish Index of Names Index of Places This book aims to create an integral picture of the social, economic and cultural history of the Jews in Lithuania during the course of more than six hundred years - from the Middle Ages to the 1990s. It is a translation of the study "Lietuvos zydai. Istorine studija" (Engl. "Lithuanian Jews. Historical study"), published in Lithuanian in 2012. The Book was written by an international group of scholars from Lithuania, Israel, the United States of America and Germany. The world of Lithuanian Jewry is reconstructed through different aspects of the development of community and demography, social and economic activity, self-government institutions of the community, cultural and religious movements, literature and the press, education, discriminative policy of the authorities and relations with the dominant church, segregation, assimilation and changes of identity, anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. This book presents a research of Lithuanian Jewish history and culture till the beginning of the twenty-first century. This study is an attempt by an international group of scholars from Lithuania, Israel, the United States of America and Germany to link different approaches towards the history of the Jews in East-Central Europe which in so far did not have many points of contact. It also aims to create an integral picture of the social, economic and cultural history of the Jews in Lithuania during the course of more than six hundred years. The main focus of this study is the relationships between the Lithuanian Jews, or Jews in Lithuania, and the dominant (Non-Jewish) majority, and the shifts in the collective identification of the Jews.